Reflection on Revelation 7: The Lion and the Lamb

In Revelation 7, the image of the Messiah holds a startling tension: the Lion and the Lamb. The lion is the picture of power, victory, and dominance, an image many long for in a Saviour. It speaks of strength that can crush enemies and secure victory by force. This is the kind of Messiah people expected, one who would overthrow empires with the roar of a kingly lion.

But the vision turns everything on its head. The conquering Lion is revealed to be the slain Lamb. Power is redefined, not as the capacity to destroy, but as the willingness to lay down one’s life in sacrificial love. God’s Kingdom does not come through the sword; it comes through the cross. The victory of God is not secured by violence but by the enduring, redeeming love that absorbs violence without returning it.

This is a sobering reminder in our own world. We are surrounded by calls to fight fire with fire, to secure peace through power, to answer hatred with more hatred. Yet the Lamb tells us the truth: God’s Word will not take root through coercion, fear, or bloodshed. The Kingdom comes quietly but persistently through mercy, compassion, and justice, through the kind of love that refuses to mirror the violence around it.

And so God is looking for people, ordinary, flawed, human people, to embody this Lamb-shaped way of living. People who, in the midst of a violent world, will dare to build peace. People who will resist the easy satisfaction of retribution and instead work for reconciliation. People who will confront injustice, not with the crushing paw of the lion, but with the steady, unyielding love of the Lamb.

It is not the roar of power that will transform the world, it is the quiet, persistent heartbeat of love. The Lion has conquered by becoming the Lamb. And if we follow Him, so will we.