Who Is Worthy?

In the throne room of heaven, the One seated on the throne holds a scroll in His right hand, sealed with seven seals. What is written in that scroll is the unfolding of everything, the completion of history, justice done, the ending that turns out well. But the scroll is shut. A mighty angel cries out with a loud voice a question that rings through the cosmos: who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals? A silence falls that goes through marrow and bone. In this hall a threefold "holy" sounds day and night (Rev 4:8), and before that holiness no creature is worthy. No one. No one in heaven, no one on earth, no one under the earth can open the scroll or even look into it. The whole of creation is searched, from the highest angel to the deepest depth, and the answer is an emptiness. John, who sees it, bursts into tears. He wept loudly, he writes, because no one was found worthy. For if no one can open the scroll, history does not come right; then justice remains undone, evil unpunished, the promise unfulfilled. An old man on a prison island weeps over the void where the answer should have sounded.

Then one of the elders lays a hand on his shoulder. Do not weep, he says; look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He can open the scroll. The Lion. At last. John turns, expecting to see a lion, kingly, with teeth and claws, the strongest one in the room, who has won by sheer force. He sees a Lamb. A Lamb, standing as if slain. The wounds of death are visible, and yet it stands upright; it has been killed and it lives. The Lion turns out to be a Lamb, and the victory a sacrifice. This is the Worthy One the cosmos searched for in vain: the slain One, who let Himself be slaughtered. The Lamb steps forward and takes the scroll from the hand of Him who sits on the throne. At that moment heaven breaks out into a new song, the last of all the new songs that have sounded through Scripture: You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and with Your blood You purchased for God people from every tribe and language and people and nation. The song swells, from the elders to thousands upon thousands of angels, and at last every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth joins in. The circle that just stood empty is the same circle that now sings: worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and praise.

So the question of the throne room finds its answer. This God conquers as no one else conquers, as a Lamb, slain and standing, who purchased with His own blood what no sword could win. John already knew what drives that Lamb when he wrote the vision down. Right at the beginning of his book, before a single seal is broken, he bursts into praise: "To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood" (Rev 1:5). The freeing stands in the past tense; it happened, once and for all, on a hill outside Jerusalem. The loving stands in the present tense. He has not only loved, He loves, now, as He stands with the wounds still visible. The man who wept on Patmos because no one was worthy wrote it down as someone who had seen it: the wounds have remained, and so has the love. Who is worthy? No one, and the Lamb who loves us today.

*A note on the source text. The sealed scroll and "who is worthy?": Revelation 5:1–4; the threefold "holy" in the throne room: 4:8; John's tears: 5:4; the Lion who turns out to be a Lamb: 5:5–6; the new song "You are worthy [...] for You were slain": 5:9–10; the angels and all creatures: 5:11–13; "worthy is the Lamb": 5:12. "To Him who loves us (agapōnti) and has freed us (lysanti)": 1:5. The new song in the psalms: Psalm 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; Isaiah 42:10. The divine Name as YHWH.*