Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

5:8-10
Greek word Heste – kos does not mean ‘continual,’ but
only ‘standing’ in the literal sense; but it might be a
rough equivalent like Christos (smeared), which stands
for Messiah. Arnion Heste – kos might thus be ‘baboo’
Greek for Lamb of the Sacrifice.
“The word Arnion has also aroused discussion. Our Lord
is called Lamb of God in the fourth gospel (1:29), just
as he is here called Lamb of the Tamid; but the two
words are different, Arnion here and Amnos in the
gospel. It is possible that while Amnos is the more
common and natural word for Lamb, Arnion Heste – kos
might be a technical term of the Jewish Temple. . . .” 9
St. John continues the symbolic imagery: Christ the
Lamb has seven horns. The horn in Scripture is an
understandable symbol for strength and power (cf. Ps.
75:10); more than this, however, the thinking of the
Biblically literate reader would have been jogged into
recalling the seven rams’ horns that were used to herald
the judgment of God on His enemies and the victory
and salvation of the covenant people in the historic
battle of Jericho (Josh. 6:2-5). In the same way, the
great Sacrificial Lamb, to whom all other sacrifices
pointed, now provides power and strength and victory
for His people in their war for dominion over the earth.
It is the definitive victory of Christ that guarantees the
Church’s progressive victories and ultimate dominion
of all the territory assigned to her – which, in this age,
is not merely Palestine but the entire world (Matt.
28:18-20).
The Lamb also has seven eyes, which are the seven
Spirits of God sent out into all the earth (cf. Zech.
6:5). In order to understand this, we have to go back to
Genesis 1, where we find the first mention of the Spirit:
hovering over the earth, brooding over it, forming and
filling it, calling forth life. As the creation progresses,
the Spirit performs seven acts of seeing – the seven-fold
Spirit’s eyes, if you will. Seven times we are told that
“God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21,
25, 31). As God was creating His world, He was also
judging it, assessing and approving it, until the final,
climactic judgment was made as the prelude to the
beginning of the seventh day. 10 Here in Revelation
Christ is presented as the Center of history, the
Overcomer who receives the New Covenant for men;
and, as such, He is seen to be both Creator and Judge,
with fullness of knowledge through His immeasurable
possession of the seeing and discerning Spirit (Jn.
3:34). Even in the beginning, when the Spirit went
forth to fashion the earth and to assess it, He
“proceeded from the Father and the Son.” Christ’s
understanding of creation and history originates not
from history itself but from the fact that He is both the
Creator and Redeemer of the world. Thus, on the basis
of His Person, His work, and His exalted position as
Savior and World-Ruler, Jesus Christ ascended to
heaven, stepped forward to the Throne of His Father,
and took the Book out of the right hand of Him who
sat upon the Throne. This is how the prophet Daniel
described it:
I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a Son of Man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.
And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a Kingdom,
That all the peoples, nations, and men of every language
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His Kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed. (Dan. 7:13-14)
The central message of the Bible is salvation through
Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant. Apart
from His work, through which He acquired and
eternally possesses the Covenant, there is no hope for
mankind. He has overwhelmingly conquered so as to
open the Treaty of the Great King; and through Him
we too are more than conquerors.
8-10 At this, the company of saints and angels in
heaven burst forth into praise: The four living
creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before
the Lamb, prostrating themselves in adoration as they
prepare to worship Him in song, having each one a
harp. Another important aspect of the scene involves
the golden bowls full of incense, which are (i.e.,
which represent, or set forth symbolically) the prayers
of the saints (cf. Ps. 141:2; Luke 1:10). Geerhardus Vos
explained: “The symbolism lies partly in that the smoke
is, as it were, the refined quintessence of the offering,
partly in the ascending manner of the same. That the
altar of incense has its place nearest to the curtain
before the ‘holy of holies’ signifies the religious
specificness of prayer as coming nearest to the heart of
God. The offering was of a perpetual character. The
notion of the grateful smell of the burning incense in
the nostrils of Jehovah is somewhat removed from our
own taste of religious imagery, but should not on that
account be overlooked, since it is not in the slightest
degree felt to be inappropriate by the Hebrew sense of
religion.” 11
The living creatures and the elders then sing a New
Song, and again a choral section is used to explain the
symbols. Indeed, our interpretation is confirmed by the
expression St. John uses here. The New Song is
mentioned seven times in the Old Testament (Ps. 33:3;
40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1; Isa. 42:10), always in
reference to God’s redemptive/creative acts in history.
The New Song celebrates the making of the Covenant
and foretells the coming of Christ to bring salvation to
the nations and universal victory to the godly:
O sing to the LORD a New Song,
For He has done wonderful things,
His right hand and His holy arm
9. Philip Carrington, The Meaning of The Revelation (London: SPCK, 1931), pp.
l19f.
10. See Meredith G. Kline, Images of the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,
1980), pp. 107ff.
11. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1948), p. 168.
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