Revelation 5:6

And I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth.

A Lamb standing ... Beyond all controversy, the Lamb is Jesus Christ the Son of God, and significantly he is in the midst of the throne, sharing eternal and omnipotent authority with the Father himself. This is the grand truth of this chapter and of the whole book. Everything depends upon this. Some young students may be aware that unbelieving critics have tried to eliminate this passage; but as Beckwith said:

The Lamb once slain forms the very heart of the whole scene. The attempt of Vischer and his followers to expunge the idea destroys the entire paragraph; it is criticism run riot.[21]

"Only in the Johannine writings is Jesus called `The Lamb.'"[22] This, of course, affords strong evidence of the same author for all of them, the expression being used "twenty-eight times in Revelation."[23]

As though it had been slain ... Scholars point out that this actually means, "as though it had been newly slain."[24] or that the Lamb was standing in heaven "with its throat cut."[25] Thus, the vision proves that the death of Christ was a historical fact, as was also his resurrection from the dead.

Having seven horns, and seven eyes ... Horns were familiar symbols of honor, power, authority, and glory in the Biblical and other Hebrew literature. Caird said of the horns, "By this symbol, John undoubtedly invests Christ with the attributes of deity."[26] But not merely this symbol does so; they all do. A Lamb standing in heaven with its throat cut undoubtedly does the same thing! In such symbols the character of the vision is evident. Things accounted to be totally impossible in reality are present everywhere in Revelation.

The presentation of Jesus Christ as the Lamb, while being stressed particularly in John's writings, is nevertheless a thoroughly Biblical representation. There was the entire institution of the Passover built around the sacrifice of the lamb; there was the identification of Jesus as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world" by John the Baptist. Paul's reference to "Christ our passover," and the great Suffering Passage of Isaiah 53, wherein Jesus was compared to the "lamb dumb before its shearers," - all of these references show the Biblical foundation of the words here.

Some scholars have made quite a point of a different word for "lamb" in this passage; but Lenski discounted this as having no significance at all. "It is merely a linguistic matter in the Greek."[27]

Seven eyes ... These are interpreted for us as "the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth," another symbol of the omniscience and divinity of the Son of God. There is nothing in this whole passage that does not proclaim this same essential fact. For example, who but God could be in "the midst of the throne" and "in the midst of' the elders and the living creatures also? It is childish to draw diagrams and propose to locate any of these symbols as unalterably in one place or another. By Christ's having "the seven spirits of God," the quibbles of Jeremias and Windisch, etc., to the effect that in part of the New Testament it is God who sends the Holy Spirit and that in others it is Christ who does so, are refuted. What is done in this respect is done by either or by both.

[21] Isbon T. Beckwith, op. cit., p. 510.

[22] Robert H. Mounce, op. cit., p. 145.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Watchman Nee, op. cit., p. 67.

[25] G. R. Beasley-Murray, op. cit., p. 125.

[26] G. B. Caird, op. cit., p. 75.

[27] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 198.