Key Verse: Revelation 5:9 “And they sang a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because You were slain and with Your blood You purchased men for God from every trice and language and people and nation.”
John now sees a “scroll” in “the right hand of Him who sat on the throne” (v.1). It has writing on both sides and is sealed with seven seals. The value of its message is so great that o one “in heaven or on earth” can break the seals and read it (v.3). John laments, but then hears one of the elders say, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals” (v.5).
But, rather than a Lion, John sees a Lamb, “looking as if it had bee slain, standing in the centre of the throne” (v.6). The multi-dimensional factor is very evident here, in that “the one who sat on the throne” (v.1, 7b) is still sitting there even while the Lamb is at the “centre of the throne”. His “seven horns ad seven eyes” represent “the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth” (v.6). The “seven spirits” were previously described as seven lamps, but in this instance there may be a reflection of the of the seven eyes of God in Zechariah 4:10, “which range throughout the earth”.
The seven horns speak of power — omnipotence. The seven eyes speak of knowledge — omniscience. The Lamb of God is all-knowing and all-powerful. He is, in every way very God. He is the only one “worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals” (v.9). He and the one “who sits on the throne” are one. The hosts of heaven sing, “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, forever an ever!” (v.13). The Lamb is worthy.