They sang a new song with these words: (Revelation 5:9)
I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne . . . (Revelation 5:11)
And they sang in a mighty chorus: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered—to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing.” (Revelation 5:12)
With this Gem I am hoping to bring the Gems on Revelation 5 to an end, having dealt with all your reader questions. I did not imagine I would end up writing 17 Gems on Chapter 5. This Gem will be the 18th on Revelation Chapter Five. I have gone through all your readers’ questions from Gem 2236 and 2237 to make sure I have covered all queries. There is one more added question I have been asked. Here are the remaining questions I have not fully addressed as yet, plus the new one.
- Why is it called a new song when we have been singing those songs for a while now?
- Why does the Lamb receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory and praise?
- Is there any significance to the order of these seven attributes?
- How can Jesus have more of any of these seven attributes when he already has all of them?
Plus:
“What meaning lies behind “thousands and millions of angels”? Why is it put like that? It just makes me think there must be something more hidden there.”
How is it a New Song?
There are a number of ways it could be considered a ‘new’ song, despite the fact church congregations may still have been singing variations of it for months or years. I can remember back to the days of Scripture in Song with David and Dale Garratt. There were some songs of theirs which focused on songs of Scripture from the Book of Revelation. Then followed the Continental Singers, Integrity Music, JPCC Music and now Elevation Worship. The lyrics may be similar or even exactly the same because they are taken from Scripture, ah but which translation? The song can be new because it has a new tune. What did the songs sound like to John as he listened in heaven? There is no musical accompaniment, neither is the musical score recorded. It is most likely that it was sung acapela, so no orchestral backing, not even a guitar. But if that is the case I am sure it was on a par with David Pawson’s experience of the sounds of heaven I offered to readers in Gem 2237. A few took up the offer, however it will illustrate the point of heavenly music here in this Gem.
“I want to tell you about a little experience I had. I heard an ordinary working man who obviously had no voice for singing. I once heard him singing in the Spirit, and I have never heard anything so beautiful in my life. An instrument would have ruined the music. A minister friend and I sat and listened to this, and it was like a bell ringing out over the fields on a clear, frosty morning. The music consisted of about five notes, just up and down, beautiful singing. My minister friend gripped my arm and said, ‘Listen, that is perfect Hebrew.’ I did not know a lot of Hebrew then, so I asked, ‘Will you translate it for me?’ He said, ‘It is about the peace of God flooding into our souls.’ I listened to that singing of this man who was not a singer, in which words and music were being given directly by the Spirit, and music to sing together in perfect harmony, with no practice needed, just pouring out our praise, and I knew what was happening here.” [Clipped from A Commentary on the Book of Revelation page 113-14] David Pawson
The lyrics of these songs in Revelation 5 are new because the focus of them is different. These songs are to be sung by all of creation: the four representative living beings, the twenty-four elders, hordes and hordes of angels and every voice in creation. These are big audience songs! But more than that, these songs are new in that they are sung to Jesus in the flesh, directly by the whole of creation. These songs represent the crowning moment I shared in the last Gem with the words from Romans 8:20-23. These songs are sung directly to Jesus by every voice in creation. Not only that but this is the first time the songs are applied to both the One on the Throne, God the Father and Jesus Christ, the Only Unique Son of God. Look at the words of the last Revelation 5 song.
“Blessing and honour and glory and power belong to the One sitting on the Throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.”
Revelation 5:13
I will expand on this thought when I address the matter of the seven attributes applied to Jesus in answer to the trio of questions above. But there is one more sense in which these are new songs. I think you could say they will be never ending, top of the charts for a few millennia.
“Thousands and Millions of Angels”
I think there is nothing deeper meant by this combo other than a number bigger than we can imagine. There is no number to use to specify the size of this congregation. We don’t have numbers large enough. Oh, the mathematicians do, but we can’t get our head around those numbers. I remember when I was presenting God’s Awesome Book seminars around the world and talking of the estimates for the Probability of Sixteen Messianic Prophecies Being Fulfilled By One Person. I would ask mathematicians in the audience to tell me how to say 1:1059 as a number.
They would come out of the crowd later and tell me, “We say one to 10 to the power of 59.”
“Yes, I know that. ‘Or ten to the fifty ninth’. But I want to be able to say ‘One to a gazillion-quinunexpected-expialidocious-fantasmagoricillion’. What is the word we have for that number?”
“We don’t have a word for a number that large. We just use the integer “to the power of. . .”.
“Or the number 1:10100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000“.
I have told you before in these Gems on Revelation of the Binamarien who numbered only 110. Their numbering system couldn’t handle large numbers. To express a really large, specific number they simply said a number like ‘one complete man, two hands and one foot’ = 35.
“Thousands and millions of angels” simply means ‘an innumerable, uncountable number of angels’.
The Significance of the Seven Attributes
- Why does the Lamb receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory and praise?
- Is there any significance to the order of these seven attributes?
- How can Jesus have more of any of these seven attributes when he already has all of them?
The Seven Attributes
Greek | Transliteration | Revelation 5:12 | Synonyms / Description |
---|---|---|---|
δύναμις | dunamis | power | might, miracles, strength |
πλοῦτος | ploutos | riches | wealth, abundance, money, possessions |
σοφία | sophia | wisdom | knowledge, ability, enlightenment, faculties |
ἰσχὺς | ischus | strength | might, power, energy, abilities |
τιμὴ | timē | honour | value, worth, regard |
δόξα | doxa | glory | honour, weight, value, splendour, praise, worship, radiance |
εὐλογία | eulogia | blessing | praise, celebration, eulogy, invocation of good |
All Lists in Revelation
Rev 4:9 (to God) | Rev 4:11 (to God) | Rev 5:12 (to Lamb) | Rev 5:13 (to God & Lamb) | Rev 7:12 (to God) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Glory | Glory | Power | Blessing | Blessing |
Honour | Honour | Riches | Honour | Glory |
Thanks | Power | Wisdom | Glory | Wisdom |
Strength | Power | Thanks | ||
Honour | Honour | |||
Glory | Power | |||
Blessing | Strength |
To answer the question: Is there any significance to the order of these attributes? No. Although, the big three appear to be Glory, Honour and Power. Do you notice that ‘Thanks‘ or ‘Thanksgiving‘, the expression of ‘gratitude’ has substituted for ‘Riches’ in the list in Revelation 7:12? Which is in agreement with the Gospels as an appropriate response for all God, in Christ, has done for us. (Luke 17:11-19) There is one noteworthy aspect in Revelation 7:12 that the angels ascribe ‘thanks’ to God. Why, when they have not been redeemed and didn’t have to repent in order to be forgiven?
Now to address the questions related to these seven attributes being given to Jesus. I am sure you noticed in Revelation 5:13 that those four characteristics are applied to both God and the Lamb of God, Jesus. Don’t miss John’s high Christology which can be seen in both his Gospel and in Revelation. Also included are the references which hint at the Lamb sharing the throne with God. Some call this dual enthronement, a bi-regnum. That is both God and Christ are ruling, seated on the same throne. Is there a place for the Holy Spirit as well? Some commentators think the sevenfold Spirit of God lends credence to that conclusion. The direction of flow of these seven fold attributes or blessings are from the angels, living beings and elders to the Lamb. Numbers of my readers, have questioned this direction of flow. In what way can we give Christ more power, more wisdom, more strength, more honour and more glory? I think such a concept can be conceived as us eulogising, literally speaking good or nice words, heaping praise and acclaim on Jesus Christ for the power, wisdom, strength, honour and glory He already has and demonstrates.
But I have to admit giving Christ riches and blessings strikes me as being somewhat incongruous. Did you notice that I left these two terms (riches and blessing) out in what I wrote in the previous paragraph? How do we bestow blessing on the one who blesses us? The principle is stated clearly and concisely in Hebrews 7.
It is beyond dispute that the less important person is blessed by the more important person.
Hebrews 7:7
That said, how is it that the angels, living beings and elders are able to pronounce blessing on the Lamb of God? If you think of it in the context of ‘eulogia’, perhaps we can grasp the idea of them eulogising the blessings He pours upon us, His creation, in such a way as we praise Him for all seven attributes that He pours out. There is still one difficulty however and that involves ‘riches’. Especially if those riches are worldly, physical riches in terms of wealth, money, possessions in abundance. Really is that what is being said here? Christ certainly has no need of earthly riches; our Heavenly Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10). No, I don’t think the concept is us wishing God and the Lamb have more possessions or wealth in a physical or earthly sense. Perhaps the sense is that God’s people provide more of the treasures of earth to enable the expansion of the Kingdom of God. Really, at the end of the Age? I am still pondering that one.
Which leads us to one more question which came in while I have been writing this Gem. When does the Kingdom of God come? Isn’t it confusing with verses like those below:
When Jesus saw that he answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
Mark 12:34
“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Mark 1:15
Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is! ‘ or ‘There! ‘ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
Luke 17:20-21
The kingdom of God is then not far, near, here, not yet and within you. how do we make sense of that?
Cast your mind back to Gem 2245 in which I talked about Kingdoms. When does the Kingdom come? Surely, it is when the King is ruling. Let’s take a page out of King Charles III’s Kingdom, when a certain percentage of his subjects were shouting, “Not my king!” Isn’t that the point? The Kingdom comes when the subjects bow in submission to the king. To the extent or percentage of subjects bowing to king, the kingdom can be said to have come. The Kingdom of God operates like that too. The subjects must willingly bow. Depending on the number of subjects submitting to the King’s rule determines the degree to which the Kingdom has come. When the King comes in all His Glory, every knee will bow. All of creation will worship, even the whales with their whale songs (Gem 1938)
But don’t leave it until you are forced to confess Jesus Christ is LORD and the Lamb of God. Do it willingly and submit yourself to the Lamb of God and your name will be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Ian
A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. Sing because you have a song, then sing it again, LOUDER.
Ian
Next time you’re in church put yourself into the lyrics of each song, considering them your own personal statement to God the Father. See what a difference it makes.
Ian
Are you a true worshipper, an observer or one who stands at a distance?
Ian
When it comes to treasures surely we are His treasures. The more souls that proclaim Christ Saviour the more treasure for Him in Heaven?
True, that’s one way of looking at it.
As a child I always loved animals and I still do. When we read all creation will worship can we consider animals and trees as we see in Psalms?
Yes you certainly can think in that way. Have look at Gem 1938.
Here’s the link.
https://www.bereaninsights.org/bible-gem-1938-all-knees-bowing-just-imagine-it-phil-210/