The Excellency of Christ

Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda …and I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne …stood a Lamb as it had been slain. REVELATION 5:5–6

One of Edwards’s most beautiful sermons takes its text from the scene in heaven where the sealed book is opened. John is told to behold a Lion. He turns, and sees a Lamb. Edwards seized on that. In one Person, in one moment, in one verse: the fiercest of creatures and the gentlest, the conqueror and the sacrifice. And he built from it the theme he called an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Christ Jesus.

Qualities that do not normally combine

His argument depends on an observation about human beings that we all recognise from experience. In creatures, excellencies tend to exclude one another. A man of towering authority is rarely gentle; a gentle man is rarely commanding. Strict justice and abundant mercy pull against each other in every human judge who has ever tried to hold both. Great dignity does not sit easily with genuine lowliness. We admire people who manage a partial balance, and we notice how rare it is. In Christ, Edwards said, qualities that in anyone else would be incompatible are found together at their highest degree, and without the least strain. Infinite majesty, and the humility of a servant. He is Lord of glory, and He washed feet. Perfect justice, and boundless mercy. He does not relax the law in order to forgive; He satisfies it, and forgives. Absolute sovereignty, and complete submission. He upholds all things by the word of His power, and He said not my will, but thine, be done. Supreme worthiness of all honour, and patience under the worst dishonour ever offered.

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant …and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. PHILIPPIANS 2:6–8

Edwards’s point is not that Christ alternates between these — majestic on Sunday, meek on Monday. It is that they meet in Him simultaneously, and that their meeting is what makes Him unspeakably attractive.

Where the conjunction is clearest

If you want to see it, he said, look at the cross. At Calvary, Christ’s obedience is at its highest and His suffering is at its deepest. His love for sinners and His hatred of sin appear in the same act. His divine glory is most hidden and most displayed at once. The Lion is never more a Lion than when He submits as a Lamb, because it is by dying that He conquers.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief …he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. ISAIAH 53:3, 5

This is why Edwards regarded the gospel not merely as true but as beautiful. A salvation in which God simply overlooked sin would be less lovely, because justice would have been sacrificed. A salvation in which God merely punished would be less lovely, because mercy would have been absent. What actually happened is more glorious than either, and no one would have invented it.

What this does for the sinner

The pastoral use of the doctrine is direct, and Edwards pressed it hard. The conjunction of excellencies means there is no state a sinner can be in which does not find its answer in Christ. Are you afraid of Him? Look at the Lamb. Do you doubt He can help you? Look at the Lion. Do you fear your sin is too great for mercy? His mercy is infinite. Do you fear that mercy means God does not take your sin seriously? Look at what it cost Him.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart. MATTHEW 11:28–29

Edwards observed that the One with the most right to be unapproachable is the most approachable Person who has ever existed — and that this combination, once seen, does more to draw a sinner than any amount of argument.

There is a lesson here about how to commend Christ to others. We often try to make the gospel attractive by minimising its harder aspects — softening the holiness, muting the judgment. Edwards’s approach is the opposite, and far more powerful. Show both. Show the Lion and the Lamb. The beauty is in the conjunction, and a Christ trimmed to be inoffensive is not more attractive. He is merely smaller.

The Lamb remains a Lamb

There is a detail in the vision that Edwards did not let pass, and it has consequences. When John turns to see the Lion, what he sees is a Lamb as it had been slain — bearing, in glory, the marks of having been killed. This is not a memory of the cross. It is the risen and reigning Christ, and He still carries the wounds.

And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood. REVELATION 5:9

The worship of heaven, in other words, is organised around the crucifixion. The song is not about power in the abstract; it is about a slain Lamb who purchased people at a price. Whatever else eternity contains, the centre of it is the death of Christ for sinners, contemplated for ever by those it saved. Edwards drew two things from this. The first is that the condescension of Christ is not a temporary phase now concluded. We might imagine the humility of the incarnation as a season He passed through and left behind on returning to glory. The vision says otherwise. The Lamb is on the throne. The lowliness has been taken up into the glory permanently, which is why the conjunction of excellencies is not an episode but His abiding character. The second is pastoral, and it goes to the heart of Christian assurance. The One who will judge the world is the One who was judged in the sinner’s place, and He appears in the judgment scene still bearing the evidence.

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. HEBREWS 4:15

Edwards pressed the encouragement hard. A believer approaching God is not approaching a stranger to his condition. He comes to One who has been hungry, exhausted, betrayed, misunderstood by His family, abandoned by His friends and executed by the state — and who has not put any of that down.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. HEBREWS 4:16

Boldly, to a throne. The two words do not naturally belong together anywhere else in the universe.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Revelation 5 slowly and stop at the moment John turns. Ask what it means that the Lion is a Lamb. 2. Take the pair of qualities in Christ you find hardest to hold together — perhaps His severity and His tenderness — and meditate on the cross, where both appear at once. 3. Notice whether you have quietly trimmed Christ to make Him easier to commend. Restore what you removed. 4. Bring to Him the specific fear that makes you hesitant to approach, and answer it from His character rather than from your performance. 5. Tell someone this week something about Christ that you find beautiful, not merely something you believe is true.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You are the Lion and the Lamb, and I have rarely held both in view at once.

I have made You gentle and forgotten Your majesty, or made You awful and forgotten Your meekness. Forgive me for the smaller Christ I have carried in my mind.

Show me the excellencies that meet in You — justice and mercy, glory and lowliness, sovereignty and obedience — and let the sight of them draw me as no argument ever could.

You are worthy. Let me behold You, and be changed. Amen.