{"id":3496,"date":"2012-03-13T21:02:45","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T01:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=3496"},"modified":"2015-08-18T09:04:20","modified_gmt":"2015-08-18T13:04:20","slug":"worship-and-revelation-4-5-part-9-song-of-the-lamb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/worship-and-revelation-4-5-part-9-song-of-the-lamb\/","title":{"rendered":"Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 9 – Song of the Lamb"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"When discussing Revelation 4-5 earlier in this series<\/a>, I looked backwards and forwards through the book, to get a\u00a0comprehensive\u00a0view of this author’s theology and christology.<\/p>\n

But I overlooked something<\/strong>, namely this interesting little tidbit, in another throne room scene, in an interlude between some smiting.<\/p>\n

And I saw\u00a0what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire\u2014and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and\u00a0the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass\u00a0with harps of God in their hands.\u00a0And they sing\u00a0the song of Moses,\u00a0the servant\u00a0of God, and the song of the Lamb<\/strong>, saying\u00a0\u201cGreat and amazing are your deeds,\u00a0O Lord God the Almighty!\u00a0Just and true are your ways,\u00a0O King of the nations!\u00a0Who will not fear, O Lord,\u00a0and glorify your name?\u00a0For you alone are\u00a0holy.\u00a0All nations will come\u00a0and worship you,\u00a0for your righteous acts have been revealed.\u201d (Rev 15: 2-4, ESV, emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

Song of the Lamb?<\/strong> Why is that there?\u00a0Elements of the quoted hymn echo famous Old Testament passages in which Moses praises God for his deliverance. It could be that the first part is supposed to be Moses’s song, the second part the Lamb’s song. Or maybe it is one song which belongs to both.<\/p>\n

In any case, even though in a previous scene Jesus received worship alongside God, here, although he’s not directly in view, he seems to be on the side of the worshipers<\/strong>. This song, or part of it, is his<\/em> song, his song sung in praise of Yahweh, the Almighty<\/strong> (a term never used of Jesus, by the way).<\/p>\n

Most commenters skate right past this detail. It was drawn to my attention by G.W. Burnap:<\/p>\n

Now, if the Lamb were a Person of the Trinity, would he not rather be placed as a person worshipped, instead of a person worshipping? Is not his being left out of Deity, and associated with Moses, sufficient evidence that the writer did not consider him as God in any sense? (Expository Lectures on the Principal Passages of the Scriptures which relate to the Doctrine of the Trinity<\/a><\/em>, p. 138)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This last part is going too far, I would say, and putting too much weight<\/strong> on a little detail. But it is interesting that Jesus is assumed here to be worshiper of the one true God, which of course he was, and is. \u00a0Burnap does have the big picture right:<\/p>\n

Christ is represented [in Revelation] \u00a0as reigning, but it is only under God, as the supreme Sovereign, and by his power and appointment. (p. 138)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Could it be the Lamb’s song<\/strong>, say, given the the saints to sing, but not one which the Lamb sung<\/em>? It is possible. \u00a0But the parallel with Moses suggests otherwise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When discussing Revelation 4-5 earlier in this series, I looked backwards and forwards through the book, to get a\u00a0comprehensive\u00a0view of this author’s theology and christology. But I overlooked something, namely this interesting little tidbit, in another throne room scene, in an interlude between some smiting. And I saw\u00a0what appeared to be a sea of glass… Read More »Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 9 – Song of the Lamb<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,15,38,43,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-christology","category-monotheism","category-unitarianism","category-worship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36103,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3496\/revisions\/36103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}