Jesus, Our Treasure
One of the reasons that we love Christmas is its paradoxes.
At Christmas in particular, we see realities come together that our human instincts do not expect to be together, and then we see, with surprise and delight, that they do indeed fit together, contrary to our assumptions — and it makes us happy.
The paradoxes of Christmas expose our false and weak and small expectations. They remind us that we did not design this world. We do not run this world. And we did not design God’s rescue of us. And we cannot save ourselves, but God can, and does, in the Word made flesh.
Some of our most beloved Christmas songs capture the great paradox of the high and holy God becoming human in a lowly baby born in Bethlehem:
Word of the Father now in flesh appearing (“O Come, All Ye Faithful”)
Hail, Hail the Word made flesh (“What Child Is This?”)
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with men to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel (“Hark”) And of course, the hymnwriters didn’t make it up but found the beautiful paradox in Scripture:
In the words of the angel in Luke 2:11: “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
In the words of the apostle Paul in Colossians 2:9: “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”
I love this great paradox of Christmas, that God became man, and its countless accompanying paradoxes, as in the words of the great Augustine, who said,
Man’s maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.
As the late J.I. Packer wrote,
The Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the Incarnation.
Lord, Savior, Treasure
Two weeks ago, to begin this Advent series, we considered “Jesus, Our Lord.” Jesus is fully God. He is the towering, all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful God of Isaiah 45. As God, he formed and made all things, and every knee will bow, and every tongue confess, that Jesus is Yahweh — the sacred name of God revealed in Exodus. Jesus is creator, sustainer, supreme Lord of heaven and earth, almighty in power, infinite in majesty, our Lord and our God.
Then last Sunday, we turned to “Jesus, Our Savior.” Without ceasing to be God, Jesus took our full humanity, flesh and blood, human body and reasoning soul, with human mind and emotions and will, and with all our lowliness and ordinariness. Jesus had a normal name: Yeshua. Joshua. In the incarnation, he added to his eternal divine person a full and complete human nature, and came among us, as one of us, to save us.
Now, this morning, we consider “Jesus, Our Treasure,” and to do so, we will linger in the great Christmas paradox of Revelation 5. But before we do, let’s not miss the Advent-like moment in Revelation 5, before we see the great paradox.
Season of Waiting
Kids, what kind of season is Advent? (Advent is a season of waiting.) Where are we waiting? (In a land of deep darkness.) What are we waiting for? (For the Light to shine on us.) Advent is a season of waiting, of anticipating, of aching, of longing, of minor keys (like “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”).
In verse 1, the apostle John looks and sees — in the hand of God, the one seated on heaven’s throne — “a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals.” These are the purposes of God to be unfolded in history, the judgments against his enemies and salvation for his people in Revelation 6–22. Some speculate that this might be the scroll in Daniel 12:4, where God said, “shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end.”
John wants to know what it is that God has to say, and he hears “a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break it seals?’”
At this point, it can be tempting to run right through verses 3 and 4, and not feel the weight of this moment in heaven. This what we do during Advent: we feel the weight of waiting. Instead of racing ahead to Christmas, we prepare our hearts by pausing to feel some of the longing and ache of what God’s people felt for centuries as they waited for the promised Messiah. Advent helps us see and enjoy Jesus as the supreme Treasure he is.
So the angel asks, Who is worthy to open the book? And verse 3 says, “no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it.” No one in heaven. None of the four great creatures around the throne in chapter 4. None of the elders in heaven who lead in worship. None of the angels, in all the heavenly host. Not Gabriel. Not Michael. And not even the one sitting on the throne opens the scroll. Not the Father. Not the Spirit. So heaven waits. How long did they wait?
And if no one in heaven, then of course, no one on the earth or under the earth. Kings of earth, beware. None is worthy to open God’s scroll. Mere humans like us are not worthy to open the scroll. Satan, be warned, demons, beware, with whatever power you wield for now, you are not able to open the scroll. And so heaven waits. “No one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it.”
John begins to weep. And not just weep, but loudly. Perhaps he even wonders, What about Jesus? Verse 4: “I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.” John doesn’t tell us how long he wept, but it must not have been long. He says, “He began to weep.” Mercifully, the announcement soon came.
Then in verse 5 — I love this moment — one of the elders of heaven, one of the leaders in heavenly worship, turns to John and says, “Weep no more; behold” — do you know what a Christmas word “behold” is? “behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus” (Luke 1:31) “behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem” (Matt 2:1) “behold, the star . . . came to rest over the place where the child was” (Matt 2:9) “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10) “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many” (Luke 2:34)
And here, in Revelation 5, the elder says, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
So, now through the lens of verses 5–6, let’s look together now at three aspects of the Advent longing fulfilled in “Jesus, Our Treasure.”
- We long for majesty and might.
We long to see and admire and benefit from greatness. And the elder says in verse 5, “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered.”
“Lion of Judah” signifies that this is the long-promised king of Israel, the Messiah. In Genesis 49, as the patriarch Jacob neared death, he prophesied over each of his twelve sons, and said to Judah that his tribe would be heir to the throne and produce the kings of the nation:
Judah, your brothers shall praise you . . . . Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion . . . . The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. (Genesis 49:8–10)
Like a lion, Judah’s offspring will rule. Lionlike he will be king, with majesty and might. (And just so we don’t get the wrong impression of this rule, Judah received this honor not because of raw strength but self-sacrifice. He stepped forward to be the pledge of safety to redeem Benjamin from prison.).
“Root of David” is much the same, prophesied centuries later, in Isaiah 11:1, which we often read during Advent: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse [David’s father], and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.”
So, Jesus is first shown to be majestic and mighty. He is king, ruler, judge. He is sovereign, and fulfills our longings for greatness, for a ruler strong and mighty, to impress us and win our trust and protect us and provide for us and give us life.
But we not only long for a great human king. We long for God himself. And as we saw two weeks ago, the Lion of Judah is not just Messiah, a human king. He is God himself.
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) famously spoke of an “infinite abyss” in each of us we try to fill it with all the wonders and the worst this world has to offer. But that ache in us, that restlessness, that infinite abyss in us, can only be filled by the infinite God himself. As Augustine famously said, God made us for himself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him.
Have you found your soul’s rest in God, in his eternal, divine excellencies? Are you still searching? Or have you found the place, the Person, in which your soul, in all the ups and downs of life, will be satisfied forever? Or did you learn it in the past but you now desperately need to come back to it? Behold the Lion of Judah.
God wired your soul for him. Hard as you may try, you will not be truly, deeply, enduringly happy without him.
We long for majesty and might, and Jesus is the Lion.
- We long for meekness and nearness.
Look at verse 6. Having just heard the announcement in verse 5 about the worthiness of the Lion, John turns, and what does he see?
. . . between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain . . .
In verse 5, the elder said Lion, but in verse 6, John sees Lamb. And this is no disappointment. This is not a loss. This is gain. This is an addition. Jesus is the Lion of Judah, and no less, but he is also the slain Lamb. The Lion became Lamb, and gave himself to slaughter, that he might rescue his people. His lamb-ness doesn’t take away from his lion-ness; it adds to it.
Jesus is not only majestic and mighty. He is meek and near, lowly, among us, as one of us. We not only want to see greatness from afar; we want to know greatness personally. We not only want a hero to admire. We want a brother to be at our side, a companion, a friend. And Jesus, as Lamb, is Emmanuel, God with us. With us to be one of us. With us to sacrifice himself for us. With us to shed his own blood that we might be forgiven. With us to befriend us.
God designed our souls not only for his greatness, but also his nearness, and his meekness.
You might ask, If Jesus is already God, and has been from eternity, what does his humanity have to add to his being our treasure? His divine excellencies are infinite. Yet we are human, and his becoming human exposes to our view glories we otherwise would not see. This is why we love Christmas and its paradoxes. The paradoxes don’t take away from his glory; they add to it.
In 1734, Jonathan Edwards preached a famous sermon on “The Excellency of Christ.” In it, he says,
Christ has no more excellency in his person, since his incarnation, than he had before; for divine excellency is infinite, and cannot be added to. Yet his human excellencies are additional manifestations of his glory and excellency to us, and are additional recommendations of him to our esteem and love [to be our treasure!], who are of finite comprehension. . . . The glory of Christ in . . . his human nature, appears to us in excellencies that are of our own [human] kind, and are exercised in our own way and manner, and so, in some respect, are peculiarly fitted to invite our acquaintance and draw our affection [our treasuring him]. . . . (emphasis added)
So, the Lion, in becoming Lamb — the eternal Son in becoming man — while not enhancing his divine worth became even more a Treasure to us, who long for meekness and nearness, for companions and friends.
- In Jesus, we have it all in one person.
It is one thing to see and enjoy the divine excellencies of unmatched strength and knowledge. And other to see and enjoy the human excellencies of humility and friendship. And then, greatest of all, to see and enjoy divine and human excellencies in one person. Because when majesty and meekness come together in one person they accent each other. As Edwards says, they “set off and recommend each other.”
See it first in verse 6: John says he “saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes.” This Lamb is not dead. He is not slumped over. He is not kneeling. He is standing, alive and ready. And he has seven horns — signifying the fullness of his strength. And seven eyes, meaning he sees and rules all. That he is Lamb makes his lionlike work, from Revelation 6, through the rest of the book, all the more glorious.
For the rest of Revelation, Lamb will be the main title for Jesus, as he displays his power and strength again and again: We’re told it is the Lamb who has conquered to open the scroll and seals, 5:5; 6:1; 8:1 The lowly Lamb ransomed people for God from every tribe, 5:9 The humble Lamb is declared Worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing, 5:12–13 The four living creatures and the elders of heaven fall down and worship the Lamb, 5:8, 14 Unbelievers tremble before the wrath of the Lamb, 6:16 The robes of the saints are made white in his blood; he has the power to forgive, 7:14 His blood conquers the accuser of the brothers, 12:11 With this lowly Lamb are 144,000 strong, who followed him wherever he goes, 14:1, 4 The Lamb conquers those who make war on him, 17:14 And the Lamb, in all his meekness, is not only with the one on the throne (7:9, 10) but in the midst of the throne, 22:1, 3
And of course, we not only admire the Lamb for his lionlike strength and power, but also the Lion for his lamblike gentleness and lowlines, that he gives his own neck for our rescue. “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench” (Matthew 12:20; Isaiah 42:3). As Revelation 1:4–5 says, Jesus is not only the lionlike “rule of kings on earth”; lamblike, he is also “him who loves us and has freed us from our sin by his blood.”
We admire his greatness all the more in his nearness to us, as one of us. And we enjoy his nearness all the more because of his greatness. Because he is the Lamb, and has drawn near to save us, we can enjoy his lionlike majesty and holiness, without shaking in terror. And because he is the Lion, and wields the very power of God almighty, we can enjoy his lamblike humility and meekness and obedience, as man, to his Father, without worrying that he’s powerless to help his friends.
God designed our souls for Jesus. Not just a divine Father, and not just a human friend, but God himself in human flesh. God himself, in the person of his Son, becoming one of us — God with us, as fully God and fully man, in one spectacular person.
We not only marvel at his eternal divine excellencies that fill the infinite abyss of our souls, but also his human excellencies add to (for our human eyes and hearts) his glory and our joy, and finally his divine and human excellencies “set off and recommend each other to us.”
He is not only our Lord. And not only our Savior. He is our Treasure. He is the Pearl of Greatest Price. He is the one of surpassing value, for whom we consider all else loss. He is the Treasure hidden in the field worthy selling all to have. Eternal life is to know him — not only the one true God but Jesus Christ whom he has sent (John 17:3).
You were not only made for God, but for the God-man, who loved us and gave himself up for us, and rose again to be our living, knowable, enjoyable King. Which brings us to the Table
Nails, Spear at Advent
Critical to Jesus being our Treasure is that he not only came to live among us but — another paradox of Christmas — he was born to die for us. John not only saw a Lamb in verse 6 but the Lamb who “had been slain.” He came lamblike to lay down his life for us, then to rise, ascend, and rule the nations as both Lion and Lamb. He is our Treasure not only because of how he came but also how he saved us.
As we pass the elements, we’ll sing “What Child Is This?” with its line about his being that slain that might seem out of place during Advent — but it is filled with glory:
Nails, spear shall pierce him through. The cross be born for me, for you.
Do we really need nails and spear in Advent? Yes, we do. See the glory of our Treasure: God himself, and Lion of Judah, and Lamb who was slain for us.