Revelation 5:12 to Isaiah 53:7

NT Text: Revelation 5:12

OT Source(s):

• Isaiah 53:7 ("He was led like a lamb to the slaughter"); cf. 53:12 ("He poured out His life unto death")

Source: Beale & Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (2007); Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Reference Type: Echo

Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment

Anchor Text: Isa 52:13-53:12 — The Suffering Servant

Significance: The heavenly acclamation "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing!" hymns the worthiness of the slain Lamb — the same slaughtered-Lamb Christology John established in 5:6 ("a Lamb who appeared to have been slain"), which the vault already ties to Isaiah 53:7. Where 53:7 portrays the Servant "led like a lamb to the slaughter," Revelation 5 portrays that slaughtered Lamb now standing at the center of the throne and receiving the sevenfold doxology owed to God alone. The verse displays the Servant Song's exaltation-humiliation inclusio (52:13 exalted / 53:7-12 slaughtered) brought to its consummation: the ground of the Lamb's supreme worthiness is precisely that he was slain (5:9, "because You were slain"). The telos is worship: the redeemed do not admire the Lamb's slaughter as a tragic past but adore it as the everlasting reason for his glory, so that the marks of the slaughter become the object of unending praise — Christ crucified seen as Christ most worthy, infinitely desirable to all heaven.