Thoughts on a new song! Lion & Lamb: Written by Ruth Robinson

Lion and the Lamb

 Our God is a Lion The Lion of Judah

He's roaring with power And fighting our battles And every knee will bow before him

Our God is a Lamb The Lamb that was slain

For the sins of the world His blood breaks the chains

And every knee will bow before the Lion and the Lamb

Every knee will bow before him.     Leeland Mooring, Brenton Brown, Brian Johnson

This is the chorus from a song we learnt at Catalyst and hopefully we will soon begin to learn it at church and worship through it. It's an amazing song, full of truth, drawn from the Bible. I like songs like that! It's also good to understand what we sing about so I'm going to try and explain where these ideas come from by asking (and answering) a few questions.

1) First off...Why on earth are we talking about Lions and Lambs?

The Bible is full of pictures and images to describe God and Jesus, the Messiah[1]. When we talk about lions and lambs, we aren't talking about them in a literal sense but as images to show us something of who Jesus is.

2) Where does the imagery of the Lion and the Lamb come from?

These two images are found throughout the Bible but they come together in Revelation 5 where one of the elders tells John that the conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah is worthy to open the scroll[2]. In the next verse (v7), it is 'a Lamb standing as though it had been slain', who comes and takes the scroll. Everyone then starts to worship the Lamb and say that He is worthy to take the scroll and open it.

3) Hang on... I thought you said the Lion of Judah was the one who could open the scroll. Why does the Lamb take it?

This is the really good bit! The Lion and the Lamb aren't images for two different people – they are both images of Jesus.

4) Why couldn't they just say that then? What does the imagery of the Lion and Lamb actually mean?

In Jewish understanding, the Lion of Judah is how the Messiah (Jesus) was thought of. Way back in Genesis 49, Jacob blesses his sons and compares Judah to a lion. Lions have royal status in the wild. I think they're called king of beasts and this is definitely the understanding the Jews had of their Messiah – that he would come as a conquering King who would lead his people to victory over their oppressors. The blessing of Jacob over Judah foretells of David's reign and ultimately the reign of Christ, the Messiah, Jesus.

However, Jesus did not fit in with this idea. Firstly, as a man, he was a very ordinary carpenter's son, turned travelling preacher, followed by a motley crew of fishermen and other disreputable people. Secondly, he died on a cross, mocked and abused, the most humiliating form of punishment and torture in the Roman world. He didn't look much like a conquering King.

This is where the imagery of the Lamb who was slain comes in. Lambs were used as sacrifices by the Israelites in the Old Testament. The idea was that their sins would be transferred onto the lamb, the lamb would be sacrificed and they would be cleansed from their sin (until the next time they sinned and then the process would have to be repeated).

Jesus is called the perfect Lamb because it was his humiliating death that meant that we could be forever free from the effect of sin. He took our sin upon himself and defeated oppression, death and the devil forever through his death and subsequent resurrection.

Maybe this wasn't the victory that the Jews were looking for but it was a greater victory than they could ever have dreamt of. It wasn't the freedom from their earthly oppressors they had been expecting but it was (and is) freedom from powers that could do us much greater harm than men ever could.

5) To conclude...

So the slain lamb is also the conquering lion – the seemingly weak, dependent, fragile lamb that is easily killed is also the fierce, powerful, majestic lion that wins the victory.

This is why the Lion of Judah is worthy to open the scroll and why the Lamb takes it – they are images of one and the same person, Jesus!

This is why we can both sing about our God being a powerful, roaring lion who fights our battles and a slain lamb whose blood breaks chains.

Jesus' victory over sin means that he is the conquering King who has paid the price to set us free.

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[1]Messiah – An anointed one who would lead, teach and save God's people.

[2] The Bible doesn't explicitly say what the scroll contains. People think that broadly speaking it contains God's purpose for history, including his covenant with mankind.