John 1:29 · Doctrine · Featured Study
The Lamb
Scripture names the lamb in Genesis, in the law of Israel, in Isaiah, at the Jordan and on the throne of Revelation.
On the road to Moriah the son asked the question the rest of Scripture answers: “The fire and the wood are here,” said Isaac, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
- First taught
- Genesis 22:8 “…God Himself will provide the lamb for the…”
- Fullest statement
- John 1:29 “…him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God,…”
Dieric Bouts, Ecce Agnus Dei, 1462 to 1464. Public domain.
Summary
Abraham told Isaac that God would provide the lamb, and the Christian tradition reads that promise as paid at the cross and shown on the throne.
- On Moriah God provided a ram in Isaac's place, and the promise of a lamb stayed open.
- Israel kept a lamb in every house at the Passover, and two a day at the altar.
- Isaiah made the lamb a person who says nothing, and Philip names that person as Jesus.
- John the Baptist calls Jesus the Lamb of God, and Paul and Peter give Christ the lamb's name.
- Revelation gives Christ the name more often than any other book, and once gives it to a beast.
Where Is the Lamb?
The first lamb in the Bible is one asked for and promised, and not yet seen.
Then Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” “Here I am, my son,” he replied. “The fire and the wood are here,” said Isaac, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”The son asks, at the first use of the Hebrew word seh in Scripture.
Abraham answered, “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two walked on together.Abraham names God as the provider of the lamb.
Abraham's word in verse 8, “will provide the lamb”, is seh (H7716), one head of a flock. The animal Genesis 22:13 provides, caught by its horns in a thicket, is ayil (H352), a ram, and the two words name two animals.
Wesley on the God who providesJohn Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Genesis 22:8
John Wesley reads the answer as a statement about who finds the sacrifice of atonement.
“Christ the great sacrifice of atonement was of God's providing: when none in heaven or earth could have found a lamb for that burnt-offering, God himself found the ransom. All our sacrifices of acknowledgement are of God's providing too; 'tis he that prepares the heart. The broken and contrite spirit is a sacrifice of God, of his providing.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Genesis 22:8Evangelical
What God provided on MoriahGenesis 22:13 to 14, and the reading that takes the ram as the answer
Then Abraham looked up and saw behind him a ram in a thicket, caught by its horns. So he went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.Verse 13 shows what God gave that day, before the mountain is named.
And Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. So to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”Abraham names the mountain for the provision.
Strong's number H352 files more than one Hebrew word, among them a ram, a doorpost and a chief, and the ram is the sense in verse 13.
Read with verse 14, the ram and the mountain's name answer Isaac on that day, in that thicket. Augustine reads the ram itself as a sign of Christ, so on his reading Moriah answers the question in the animal it produced.
Origen hears Abraham's answer in the future tense and finds it kept in Christ, and the New Testament gives the lamb a name in another place.
On that reading God pays the promise away from Moriah. A lamb keeps returning for the next fifteen hundred years, until John the Baptist points to a man by the Jordan and calls him the Lamb of God.
Wesley on the question Isaac asksJohn Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Genesis 22:7
John Wesley calls the question a trying one for Abraham, who had to think of Isaac as the lamb. He also hears it put to every reader: before we worship God we should consider whether we have everything ready, and above all the lamb for the burnt offering.
Origen on the tense of Abraham's answerOrigen, Homilies on Genesis 8.6
Origen notes that Abraham answers a question about the present with a promise about the future.
“Abraham's response, sufficiently accurate and cautious, moves me. I do not know what he saw in his spirit, for he does not speak about the present but about the future: ‘God himself will provide himself a sheep.’ He responded to his son's inquiry about present things with future things. For ‘the Lord himself will provide himself a sheep’ in Christ, because also, ‘Wisdom herself has built herself a house,’ and ‘He himself humbled himself unto death.’”
Origen of Alexandria · Homilies on Genesis 8.6 · on Genesis 22:8Patristic
Augustine on the ram as a signAugustine of Hippo, Sermon 19.3
Augustine reads Isaac and the ram together as signs of Christ, and the lamb of John 1:29 as the same Christ. He says the signs have changed and the thing signified has not, so the ram, the lamb, the calf and the goat are all Christ.
Isaac carrying the wood is Christ carrying His cross, and the ram held by its horns in the thicket is Christ as well.
From Moriah to the Throne
Eleven texts in nine books carry the lamb from Isaac's question to the throne, and four of them name Jesus or Christ beside the lamb.
The promise of Genesis 22:8 becomes a law, a daily offering, a person, a name and a throne, each step with its verse.
- Text
- Genesis 22:8
- What the lamb becomes
- A future tense: God will provide, and no lamb appears that day
- Jesus or Christ named
- No
- Text
- Exodus 12:3 to 5
- What the lamb becomes
- One animal for each house, taken on the tenth day and kept until the fourteenth
- Jesus or Christ named
- No
- Text
- Exodus 12:46
- What the lamb becomes
- The animal is eaten without breaking one of its bones
- Jesus or Christ named
- No
- Text
- Exodus 29:38 to 39
- What the lamb becomes
- Two a day, morning and evening, as long as the altar stands
- Jesus or Christ named
- No
- Text
- Leviticus 23:12
- What the lamb becomes
- The festival year carries the animal, counted in keves, the altar's word
- Jesus or Christ named
- No
- Text
- Isaiah 53:7
- What the lamb becomes
- The first place the lamb is a person
- Jesus or Christ named
- No
- Text
- John 1:29
- What the lamb becomes
- The Baptist gives the title to a man, and the two words Lamb of God stand together for the first time
- Jesus or Christ named
- Yes
- Text
- Acts 8:32 to 35
- What the lamb becomes
- A man reads Isaiah 53 aloud, and Philip answers by preaching Jesus
- Jesus or Christ named
- Yes
- Text
- 1 Corinthians 5:7
- What the lamb becomes
- Paul rests an appeal about discipline on the name Passover lamb
- Jesus or Christ named
- Yes
- Text
- 1 Peter 1:19
- What the lamb becomes
- The selection rule of Exodus 12:5 becomes the price of redemption
- Jesus or Christ named
- Yes
- Text
- Revelation 5:6
- What the lamb becomes
- The title reaches the throne, and Revelation keeps it to the end
- Jesus or Christ named
- No
A chain of eleven texts from Genesis 22 to Revelation 5, each with what the lamb becomes there and whether the text names Jesus or Christ beside the lamb.
The Jordan, The chariot, The church's discipline, The price, The throne
Revelation names Christ the Lamb from the sealed scroll to the lamp of the city, and each act runs back to the slaughter.
| Where | What He does there | The verse |
|---|---|---|
| The new song | He buys people for God | Revelation 5:9 |
| The sixth seal | He judges the earth | Revelation 6:16 |
| The great multitude | He shepherds the rescued | Revelation 7:17 |
| The war of the ten kings | He overcomes ten kings | Revelation 17:14 |
| The wedding invitation | He marries His bride | Revelation 19:7 to 9 |
| The city with no sun | He lights the city | Revelation 21:23 |
Eight more places in Revelation give Christ the name of the Lamb, from heaven's praise to the river of life.
| Where | What the verse says | The verse |
|---|---|---|
| Heaven's sevenfold praise | Worthy is the Lamb who was slain | Revelation 5:12 |
| The robes | Robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb | Revelation 7:14 |
| The accuser | The saints conquer him by the blood of the Lamb | Revelation 12:11 |
| Mount Zion | The Lamb stands with the 144,000 | Revelation 14:1 |
| The bride | The bride, the wife of the Lamb | Revelation 21:9 |
| The foundations | The twelve apostles of the Lamb | Revelation 21:14 |
| The book of life | Only those written in the Lamb's book of life enter | Revelation 21:27 |
| The river | The water of life flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb | Revelation 22:1 |
The book of life, The river
The altar's word keves stands more than twice as often as the flock word seh, and the Greek arnion of Revelation far outnumbers amnos.
The four counts as a table
| Word | Uses in the Bible | Where it stands | Verse |
|---|---|---|---|
| keves (H3532) | 107 | the daily and festival offerings | Exodus 29:38 |
| seh (H7716) | 47 | Isaac's question and the Passover animal | Genesis 22:7 |
| arnion (G721) | 30 | Christ on the throne in Revelation | Revelation 5:6 |
| amnos (G286) | 4 | the Baptist's title and Isaiah's sheep | John 1:29 |
Four words for a lamb, each counted across the Bible, with one verse where it stands.
From the House to the Jordan
The promise becomes a law of Israel, then a person in Isaiah, then a title Jesus is given by the Jordan.
Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man must select a lamb for his family, one per household.The promise becomes an ordinance, and every family kills its own animal.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!The title lands on a man walking toward the Baptist.
The Baptist gives the title to Jesus twice in eight verses, at John 1:29 and John 1:36. His word is amnos, the ordinary word for a sacrificial lamb. Revelation uses a second Greek word for a lamb, arnion, as its name for Christ.
The rule for choosing the animalExodus 12:5; Jerome, Homily 91; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown on Exodus 12:3
Your lamb must be an unblemished year-old male, and you may take it from the sheep or the goats.The law sets the animal's age and sex, and widens the flock to the goats.
Jerome takes the rule one step further.
Jerome, in Homily 91, says that anyone unable to sacrifice a lamb may offer a kid.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the rule the same way. In the haste of the departure the people were to give their whole attention to an act of worship.
They read the service as one kept in each home, because the evil threatened every house in Egypt.
The daily lambExodus 29:38 to 39
This is what you are to offer regularly on the altar, each day: two lambs that are a year old. Offer one lamb in the morning and the other at twilight.Once the altar stands, the lamb marks the hours of every day.
The daily lamb runs as a clock rather than one night a year, and it runs until the temple falls. Hebrews 9 and 10 argue that one sacrifice ended it.
Isaiah's silent sheep, and the reader in the chariotIsaiah 53:7; Acts 8:34 to 35; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown on Acts 8:35
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.The lamb becomes a person who does not open his mouth.
Isaiah leaves his sufferer nameless and reaches past the altar's word for the ordinary flock word seh, the one Isaac used. Jeremiah says the same of himself at Jeremiah 11:19, “like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter”.
“Tell me,” said the eunuch, “who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with this very Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.A reader asks who the prophet means, and Philip names Jesus.
The reader in Acts 8 is a eunuch, a court official. He keeps the treasury of the queen of the Ethiopians and is reading Isaiah aloud when Philip catches up with his chariot.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read Philip's sermon as an exposition of the passage in front of him. He took the same Scripture as his text and showed Jesus to be the one the prophecy describes, in the light of the facts of His life.
Christ our Passover, and the price of redemption1 Corinthians 5:7; 1 Peter 1:19; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown on 1 Peter 1:19
Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.Paul names Christ the Passover lamb, already sacrificed.
but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot.Peter prices redemption by the rule for choosing the animal.
Both apostles write as though their readers already granted the point. The Blood follows what that price purchased.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set the two redemptions side by side. Israel's release from Egypt required the blood of the Passover lamb, and redemption from sin required the blood of Christ.
They read Christ as foreordained from eternity, as the Passover lamb was set apart on the tenth day of the month.
Two Kinds of Claim
Some links between the lamb and Christ Scripture states, and others readers have heard in it.
It must be eaten inside one house. You are not to take any of the meat outside the house, and you may not break any of the bones.John's report at the cross may echo this table rule.
Now these things happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of His bones will be broken.”John calls the unbroken bones a fulfilment of Scripture.
Paul states the link outright at 1 Corinthians 5:7, where Christ is the Passover lamb. John names no text, and both Exodus 12:46 and Psalm 34:20, where God protects all the bones of the righteous man, fit his words.
The promise of Genesis 22:8, paid at the crossOrigen, Augustine and John Wesley · a reading the church heard
Abraham's “will provide the lamb” stands unquoted in the New Testament. Origen, Augustine and Wesley all read it as paid at the cross, and that reading is theirs and no verse states it.
The Passover lamb as an offering for sinJamieson, Fausset and Brown on 1 Peter 1:19 · a reading the church heard
In Exodus 12 the blood is a sign on the houses and the rescue is from the destroyer. Scripture joins the lamb to sin later, in John 1:29, “who takes away the sin of the world”, and in 1 Peter 1:19, “a lamb without blemish or spot”.
The Day of Atonement's own animalsLeviticus 16
Leviticus 16 sets out a bull, two goats and two rams for the Day of Atonement, each named by its own word. No verse of the chapter calls any of them by seh.
Seh, Keves, Amnos and Arnion
Two Hebrew nouns carry the chain from Isaac to Isaiah, and two Greek nouns carry it from the Jordan to the throne.
The chain runs on the ordinary Hebrew noun. Seh names one head of a flock of any age, and it is the word of the Passover law and of Isaiah's sufferer. Keves is a young male lamb in its first year, counted in the daily and festival offerings.
The other Hebrew words, and Strong's glosseskar, taleh and immar; Strong's glosses
Hebrew keeps other words for a lamb besides. Kar is a fattened lamb, and taleh is a sucking lamb. The Aramaic immar is the lamb of Ezra's offerings.
Strong's entries of 1890 gloss seh as “a member of a flock, i.e. a sheep or goat” and keves as “a ram (just old enough to butt)”.
They gloss amnos as “a lamb”.
The Greek Old Testament Philip's reader heldIsaiah 53:7 and Acts 8:32
Amnos is the Greek word for a lamb. In the Greek Old Testament's offering laws it renders keves, and in Isaiah's fourth Servant song it renders the ewe of the second line.
The eunuch is reading the Greek Old Testament. There the translator rendered Isaiah's flock word by the ordinary word for a sheep, and the ewe of the second line by amnos. So in the one place amnos stands in a New Testament quotation of the Old, it renders the word for a ewe.
The one use of arnion outside RevelationJohn 21:15
Arnion is the name of Christ in Revelation, and it stands thirty times in the Greek New Testament. Twenty-nine stand in Revelation, in twenty-seven verses, because two verses use the word twice.
When they had finished eating, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love Me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he answered, “You know I love You.” Jesus replied, “Feed My lambs.”Jesus gives Peter His flock to feed, and the word for the flock is arnion.
How the four words are countedThe word pages for H7716, H3532, G286 and G721
Each word's page lists every verse where it stands, so each count can be checked verse by verse. Seh stands forty-seven times, thirteen of them in Exodus, more than in any other book.
Keves stands a hundred and seven times under its own Strong's number, and none of them is in Isaiah 53. The same word spelled kesev is filed under a second number.
What the Text Leaves Unsaid
Five questions about the lamb Scripture leaves open.
Genesis 22 never says when or where the promised lamb will be provided.
Exodus 12:5 gives no reason for allowing a goat.
Isaiah 53 never uses the word Messiah and never names its subject. Acts 8:34 records a reader asking for that reason, and Acts 8:35 is where the name is supplied.
Revelation gives no reason for its change from the Gospels' amnos to its own arnion. The change is real, and every account of why is inference.
Revelation 5:6 says the Lamb appeared to have been slain, and it says no more of how.
The Lion and the Lamb
John is told of a lion, turns, and sees a Lamb who appeared to have been slain.
Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed to open the scroll and its seven seals.”The elder announces a lion, and the next verse shows what John saw.
Then I saw a Lamb who appeared to have been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which represent the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.The conqueror the elder announced is the Lamb.
Jacob's lion at Genesis 49:9 to 10 and Jesse's root at Isaiah 11:1 and 11:10 are the two promises the elder puts into one sentence. He speaks to a weeping man in a room where no one has been found worthy to open the scroll.
Everything Revelation goes on to say about power, thrones, horsemen and armies is read through that slain animal standing, and the scroll opens because the Lamb was slain.
What each act of the Lamb saysRevelation 5:9 to 21:23
The new song of Revelation 5:9 names what qualifies the Lamb to open the scroll: He was slain, and by His blood He purchased people for God.
At Revelation 6:16 kings, captains and slaves call on the rocks to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. The gentle one who went to the slaughter is the one who judges the world.
At Revelation 7:17 the sheep has become the Shepherd, and the picture of Psalm 23 stands in the throne room, every tear wiped away.
At Revelation 17:14 the battle of chapter 19 is already decided, and the victor is still called by the name of the sacrifice.
Revelation 19:7 announces that the marriage of the Lamb has come, and the blessing of Revelation 19:9 falls on the guests invited to its supper.
At Revelation 21:23 the city has no sun or moon, because the glory of God lights it and the Lamb is its lamp. Revelation 21:25 adds that there will be no night there.
Read in order, the six acts run from the blood of Revelation 5:9 to the lamp of Revelation 21:23. The book moves further into the sacrifice as it goes on, and the last thing the Lamb does in Scripture is give light.
How the Lamb overcomes, and His people with HimThe verb nikao (G3528) in Revelation 5:5, 12:11 and 2:7
The Lamb overcomes by being slain, and the scroll opens because blood was spent. The saints overcome by the same means, the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, at Revelation 12:11. Each of the seven letters ends with a promise to the one who overcomes, from Revelation 2:7 to 3:21.
The verb nikao (G3528) stands in all three places, so the Lamb, the saints and the seven churches overcome by one verb. The same verb lets Revelation speak to churches facing loss, because the Lamb overcame by dying.
The word Revelation uses of Antipas at Revelation 2:13 is the ordinary word for a witness. The sense in which English says martyr is later than the book, and the church took it from passages like this one. Antipas is dead and named faithful, the souls under the altar are told to rest a little longer, and the way of the whole book is the Lamb's own way, handed to His people.
The counterfeit lamb of Revelation 13Revelation 13:11; Hippolytus, On Christ and Antichrist 6
Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. This beast had two horns like a lamb, but spoke like a dragon.The beast wears the lamb's horns and speaks with the dragon's voice.
John dresses the beast in Christ's own word, arnion, this once in the whole book, and the disguise fails when it speaks. Conquest, throne and judgment all run through a sacrifice in Revelation, so a false authority has to look like a sacrifice too, down to borrowing the name.
Hippolytus reads the beast as an imitation of Christ in every part. Christ appeared as a lamb, and the deceiver will appear as a lamb too, though within he is a wolf.
How the Lamb Has Been Taught
Teachers from the fourth century to the nineteenth on the doorpost blood, the Baptist's title and the sin it takes away.
died 325 · Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius
The Divine Institutes Book 4
The quotation1 quotation, 1 paragraph
Lactantius reads the blood on the doorposts as a figure of the cross, an image of things to come.
“And the Jews even now exhibit a figure of this transaction when they mark their thresholds with the blood of a lamb. For when God was about to smite the Egyptians, to secure the Hebrews from that infliction He had enjoined them to slay a white lamb without spot, and to place on their thresholds a mark from its blood. And thus, when the first-born of the Egyptians had perished in one night, the Hebrews alone were saved by the sign of the blood: not that the blood of a sheep had such efficacy in itself as to be the safety of men, but it was an image of things to come. For Christ was the white lamb without spot; that is, He was innocent, and just, and holy, who, being slain by the same Jews, is the salvation of all who have written on their foreheads the sign of blood-that is, of the cross, on which He shed His blood.”
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius · The Divine Institutes Book 4 · on 1 Peter 1:19Patristic
died 604 · Gregory the Dialogist
Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Takes away the sin of the world: four readings
The quotation1 quotation, 4 paragraphs
John Wesley reads the clause at its full extent: the sin is all the sins, the world is all mankind, and sin and the world are of equal extent.
The Glossa Ordinaria, the standard medieval gloss on the verse, reads the sin of the world as original sin. Theophylact presses the tense: the Baptist says who takes away, as if Christ were always doing it.
Gregory the Dialogist presses the other end, and places the full removal of sin at the resurrection.
“But then only will sin be entirely taken away from the human race, when our corruption has been turned to a glorious incorruption. We cannot be free from sin, so long as we are held in the death of the body.”
Gregory the Dialogist · Catena Aurea by Aquinas · on John 1:29Patristic
The last three stand together in the Catena Aurea on John 1:29. How far the atonement reaches is argued on Justification by Faith.
Jamieson, Fausset and BrownCommentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, on John 1:29
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hear in the Baptist's title an offer to anyone who carries too much. Any sinner in the world sinking under a burden too heavy to bear will find in this Lamb of God a shoulder equal to the weight.
Readings of the Lamb
Readers differ on which lamb the Baptist meant, on the force of arnion, and on what Revelation 13:8 dates from the foundation of the world.
The Baptist meant the Passover lambLactantius, The Divine Institutes 4 · Early church
The Passover lamb of Exodus 12 is the commonest answer, and 1 Corinthians 5:7 and John 19:36 stand behind it.
The objection is that the Baptist did not say which lamb he meant.
The Baptist meant the daily offeringOrigen, Commentary on the Gospel of John 6 · Early church
Origen argued for the daily burnt offering: of the animals on the altar, the lamb is the one offered continually, morning and evening, by Exodus 29:38 to 44.
The objection is that the Baptist's word is amnos, and the New Testament's own links run to the Passover and to Isaiah.
The Baptist meant Isaiah's sheepCyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John 2; Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel 1.10 · Early church
Cyril and Eusebius join the Baptist's title to Isaiah 53:7, the lamb led to the slaughter. Scripture itself makes that identification of Isaiah's sufferer at Acts 8:35, though what the Baptist meant is not recorded.
The objection is that Isaiah 53 does not name its sufferer a lamb of God, and Acts 8 names Jesus without quoting the Baptist.
The Baptist meant the lamb of MoriahAugustine of Hippo, Sermon 19.3 · Early church
The objection is that Augustine's link rests on the ram of Genesis 22:13, a different animal from the lamb Abraham promised. The New Testament afterwards uses each of these four lambs, and the Baptist's words leave the choice to the reader.
Arnion keeps its force as a little lambStrong's entry G721 · Lexicon
The ending of arnion is formally a diminutive, and Strong's key files it as “a lambkin”. On this reading the small word is the one on the throne, and the reversal of Revelation 5:6 is in the noun itself.
The objection is that many Greek nouns ending in -ion had lost their diminutive force by the first century, and Revelation 13:11 uses the same word of the beast's two horns.
The contrast with the Lion carries the reversalH. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St John, on Revelation 5:6 · Protestant commentary
Swete says the diminutive must not be pressed, and that the contrast of the Lamb with the Lion is striking in any case. Revelation itself calls the beast therion, formally a diminutive, and means a wild beast by it.
The objection is the form itself, which is a diminutive. The reversal at the throne stands either way, because a slain animal standing in the middle of the throne is the reversal.
Revelation 13:8 dates the slaying from the foundation of the worldThe King James Version and the American Standard Version · English versions
The King James and American Standard versions attach the phrase to the slaying: the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Peter speaks of the Lamb as known before the foundation of the world, at 1 Peter 1:19 to 20.
The objection is Swete's: a parallel later in the book uses the same phrase of names in the book of life.
Revelation 13:8 dates the writing of the namesThe Berean Standard Bible; H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St John, on Revelation 13:8 · Protestant commentary
And all who dwell on the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life belonging to the Lamb who was slain.The Berean text attaches the phrase to the writing of the names.
Swete holds the close parallel at Revelation 17:8 decisive for the writing.
The objection is the Greek word order, which sets the phrase next to the slaying. One reading says when the Lamb was slain in God's purpose, the other when the names were written, and Scripture does not settle it here.
Books to Read Next
Two works on the Lamb in Revelation and in John, each free to read online.
The Apocalypse of St John: the Greek text with introduction, notes and indices
Henry Barclay Swete · 1911
Swete reads Revelation's Greek verse by verse, with notes on arnion at Revelation 5:6 and on the foundation of the world at Revelation 13:8.
Read at the Internet ArchiveCommentary on the Gospel of John
Origen · third century
Origen reads the opening of John's Gospel phrase by phrase, and Book 6 reaches the Baptist at the Jordan.
Read at New AdventThe Question Answered
Genesis leaves Isaac's question open. As the Christian tradition reads it, John the Baptist answered it by the Jordan, and Revelation sets the same Lamb on the throne.
Peter asks the reader to live in reverent fear, as people redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, and the Baptist's word stands for every reader: look, the Lamb of God.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Strong's lexicon entries, with their occurrence counts.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Genesis 22:7 and 22:8.
- Origen, Homilies on Genesis 8.6, on Genesis 22:8.
- Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 19.3.
- Jerome, Homily 91, on Exodus 12:3.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Exodus 12:3.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Acts 8:35.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on 1 Peter 1:19.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on John 1:29.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755, on John 1:29.
- The Glossa Ordinaria, in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, on John 1:29.
- Theophylact of Ohrid, in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, on John 1:29.
- Gregory the Dialogist, in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, on John 1:29.
- Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, Book 4.
- Hippolytus of Rome, On Christ and Antichrist 6.
- Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 6.
- Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, Book 2, on John 1:29.
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Proof of the Gospel, Book 1, chapter 10.
- Henry Barclay Swete, The Apocalypse of St John: the Greek text with introduction, notes and indices (Macmillan), notes on Revelation 5:6 and 13:8.
Keep Studying
Read it7
Studies14
People and groups5
Places2
Symbols10
Words5
Doctrines30
- Passover
- The Sacrificial System
- The Suffering Servant
- The Hebrew Feasts
- The Blood
- Once for All, the Finished Sacrifice
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- The Ransom
- The Day of Atonement
- The Good Shepherd
- The Lord's Supper
- The Marriage Supper of the Lamb
- Types of Christ
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Values1