For the last week Josh and I were in Puerto Rico with ministry friends on a much-needed vacation. During our stay we visited Old San Juan, the second-oldest city in the United States. As we sauntered the blue cobblestones between Don Ruiz coffee shop and our car – parked somewhere along the narrow, colorful streets – we ascended a sunlit plaza with two large statues flanking the steps. They were two lambs, one standing, one lying down, each bearing a Cross. The victorious lamb.
This icon of Spanish Catholicism has earlier roots. However co-opted it has been by colonists and Crusaders, the original victorious Lamb finds itself in the pages of Revelation. And a warring lamb seems like an oxymoron. How can a lamb go to war? How can it survive? A lamb is the most innocent and vulnerable of creatures. But this Lamb… is also a Lion.
The Bible describes Jesus many ways. He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5). He is the Author and Finisher of our Faith (Heb. 12:2). He is our consolation (Luke 2:21). And He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:19).
This final image of Christ, described by John, re-emerges in Revelation. Here the innocent lamb, sacrificed to take away our sins, rises up in pure, holy, just and righteous strength, making right the wrongs of the world. The victorious Lamb wages war and overcomes, just as His death and resurrection promised.
There is no room for a victorious Christ in a fear-based eschatology. This end-times theology depends on perpetual anxiety. It keeps you in a cycle, measuring world events by biblical accounts, attempting to figure out “the day and the hour” when Jesus Himself said we could not know (Matt. 24:36). If the central figure of your end times view is the anti-Christ, not the true Christ, it is not a biblical eschatology.
There are people with the victorious Lamb. He is not alone. They fight beside Him for a righteous cause. They fight FOR and WITH Him, not out of fear or duty – but out of love. They are called. They are chosen. They are faithful. And they are not afraid, because the Lamb will win.
This is the mentality of Revelation, and this is the mentality of a Christian who serves the King of Kings. No more YouTube prophets. No more reading patterns into the news. No more fear. Just overcoming peace.
