the Lamb, the Shepherd, the Bridegroom, the Judge, the King of kings. Here only outside the Fourth Gospel does Christ receive the deeply significant title of 'the Word of God' (IQi^), and the idea of pre-existence which the name carries with it also lies behind the declaration • twice repeated, ' I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end' (P'^ 216). g^t tj,g commonest and the most characteristic title of Christ in this book is ' the Lamb ' — a title which is used by the writer with great freedom, as though it had come to have for him almost the force of a proper name (cf. 219- -3- -'■ 223). The use of the name is, however, rooted in the conviction of the redemptive eflicacy of Christ's sacrifice ; it suggests the aspect of His work which is most prominent to the mind of ' John.' It should be noted that the word itself is not identical with that applied to Jesus in John's Gospel (l-'9-36) . it is a diminutive and a neuter; but the meaning is the same, and the sacrificial reference is indubitable. The Lamb stands ' as though it had been slain ' (5**) ; He is hailed as One who has 'redeemed us to God by his blood' (5^) ; the adoring saints in heaven are those ' who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb' (T^*, cf. 1^). These latter passages emphasize the ethical consequences of the Atonement, and trace them to the ' blood ' of Christ in the same way as the First Epistle of John. The spiritual principle of the Atonement is suggested by the figure of the Lamb itself, in which are combined the attributes of lamb-like character — meekness, gentleness, and purity — and the sacrificial function historically associated with a lamb. At the same time, 'the Lamb,' originally a figure for Christ in the sacrificial aspect of His work, takes on, besides, attributes which belong to Him in other of His functions, and so we read of ' the wrath of the Lamb ' (61^), of ' the Lamb's book of life ' (212"), of kings making war with the Lamb and being overcome by Him (ITi*), of ' the marriage of the Lamb ' (19"), and, finally, of the Lamb as ruler of the heavenly city (22^), as at once the temple of it and ' the light thereof ' (2123- 24). Thus, while every aspect of the wrk of Christ, whether in earth or heaven, finds adoring record here, there is a subtle recognition of the fact that all the forms of His relation to men spring out of the fundamental function of redemption.
The writer of the Apocalypse, therefore, holding firmly to the humanity of the Jesus whom probably he had known in the flesh, yet ascribing to Him as the Lamb functions of redemption, government, and judgment, offers to Him throughout his book the homage which is due only to ' God manifest in the flesh.' This is seen alike in the titles, the functions, and the attributes assigned to Him. Every detail of description serves only to enhance the dignity and the glory of His Person. *> He is 'the Lord of lords and King of kings' (17i* 19i«). To Him is attributed all the honour and authority pertaining to the Messiah and more. Angels who refuse worship offered to themselves (19i° 22^) unite with all creation to worship God and the Lamb (511-13). jjjg existence reaches back before the beginning of things created. Himself the principle from which all creation issues (3i*; cf. Col li^, Pr 822), fig is thg absolutely Living One from whose lips are heard words which can be spoken by God alone : ' I am the first and the last, and the Living One ' (1", cf. 18). He holds the keys of Death and of Hades (l^^) — keys which, according to the later Jewish tradition, were held by the hand of the Almighty alone. In the vision of the Son of Man which introduces the Letters to the Seven Churches, the writer takes one after another of those phrases which had been consecrated from old times to the description of the Most High God, those attributes
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in -wliich He had been apparelled by prophets and psalmists, and lays them simply upon Christ as upon One whose riglit to bear them was beyond question. The description of ' the Ancient of Days' (Dn 7^) is transferred to Him, as well as the power to ' search the he.art and the reins,' which is the peculiar attribute of Jehovah (2-^, cf. Ps 7'). It is not strange, therefore, tiiat to this Divine Figure is committed the unfolding of the Book of human Destiny (5*), the waging of the final conflict with evil, and the holding of the Divine assize.
This complete and unhesitating attribution of Divine rank and authority to Jesus Christ is the more remarkable when we give due weight to the intense Hebraism of the writer. A Jew of the Jews, his mind saturated with Hebrew thought, a true son of the race to which monotheism had become a passion, and the ascription of Divine honour to any otlier than God a horror and a blasphemy, the author nevertheless sets Jesus side by side with the Almighty. One meaning of the phenomenon is plain. It ofi'ers the most striking- proof of the impression made by Jesus upon His disciples, one which had been sufficient to revolu- tionize their most cherished religious belief ; for them He had the value of God. And the special aspect of His Person and work which is emphasized, as we have seen, in the Apocalypse, gives the clue to the explanation of this exalted Christology. The kernel of experience from which the process starts is indicated in the declaration : ' He hath loosed (v.l. 'washed') us from our sins.' John and those in whose name he wrote had found the sin-barrier between them and God removed, and the sin-dominion over them broken ; and this experience they traced to Jesus, to what He had done for them in dying, and in them as living again. And if, along with this their indubitable experience of forgiveness of, and deliverance from, sin, we take the universal conviction of their time, expressed in the question of the Pharisees, ' Who can forgive sins save God only ? ' we have little difficulty in perceiving the avenue along which the gaze of the Apocalyptist travelled till it beheld the throne of God as a throne which was shared also by ' the Lamb.'