What Is the Wrath of the Lamb?
We hear the words wrath, anger, rage and visualize human forms. But Revelation first plays on our assumptions then reveals what God's wrath is.
N.T. Wright’s eleventh and twelfth questions about Jesus’s wrath struck me: Hadn’t John, later on in Revelation, described the lamb’s wrath? Are we, as readers, supposed to ponder this conundrum while reading chapter six, verses 9 to 17, until he later reveals it? Does contemplative time help us grasp “on earth as it is in heaven” or understand Jesus’s character?
I wrote last time on these verses but didn’t focus on the lamb’s wrath.
Note: I’m following N.T. Wright’s Revelation: 22 Studies for Individuals and Groups and his newest book 20th Anniversary Edition with Study Guide, Revelation for Everyone. See my post Prepare for Revelation for suggested materials.
Is Angry Lamb an Oxymoron?
Revelation’s later revelation on what wrath is in God’s mind impacted me with its unexpectedness. I hadn’t contemplated “God’s wrath” during my first reading of chapter six. The two words seemed like an oxymoron; for how can love rage?
But is an angry lamb an oxymoron?
Don’t babies shriek in rage?
And lambs baaa mercilessly until they get what they want?
Lambs are baby sheep. But Jesus as the lamb is an adult, fully grown in both humanity and divine. And so, I guess, we must first ponder what the writer means when he describes Jesus as a lamb. We genuflect to the cute image of an innocent. But Jesus is no innocent. How can he be when he experiences all the emotions and thoughts that flow through us like an endless river? When Jesus lives in relationship with God and the Holy Spirit, he knows what they know. They know every aspect, every thought, every grumpy angry raging disgusting despicable utterance, action, and thought.
Can an Angry Lamb Forgive?
Think about it: how could he agree to being lead to the cross and asking God to forgive the attending humans (and all humanity by extension) if he hadn’t known the full depth, breadth, and height of every human alive then, through the ages, and now?
You can’t forgive what you don’t know.
Even if you say, “I forgive,” you don’t actually know what you’re forgiving if you don’t know the entire story. Your words become a lie.
Jesus wasn’t a liar. He lived in blunt honesty and reality.
You can’t forgive nor judge when you don’t know the entire story.
So back to the anger of the lamb.
Lambs are beautiful. They attract us to themselves. On the surface, they’re cuddly and affectionate. But they bite and gambol and let you know who’s in charge…when the sheepdog isn’t nearby. Lambs don’t sacrifice themselves.
But they are vulnerable.
Easy prey.
They require protection by dog and sheepherder.
Jesus had described himself as the shepherd. Both vulnerable and protector. John, in Revelation, describing Jesus as the lion, elicits the same idea: both protector and vulnerable, predator and prey.
How would such a one express wrath?
Contemplating the Human Assumption About Anger
I assumed similar to what Jesus showed in the temple when he flipped the tables and roared at the money changers.
Rereading Revelation gives me a heads up from myself. My original assumption had been human; very wrong.
A better question: how would someone with the character of Jesus who empathized with the poor, ill, disabled, outcast, women, children, and, yes, the rich, express anger?
“…under the altar the souls of those who had been killed because of the word of God and because of the witness which they had borne. They shouted…‘How much longer are you going to put off giving judgment, and avenging our blood on the earth-dwellers?’” Rev 6: 9, 10.
The souls cry out for judgement when the lamb opens the fifth seal.
“The kings of the earth, the leading courtiers, the generals, the rich, the power brokers, and everyone, slave and free, all hid themselves…‘Fall upon us!’ they were saying to the mountains and the rocks. ‘Hide us from the face of the One who sits on the throne, and from the anger of the lamb!’” Rev 6: 15, 16.
The ones to be judged cry out to be hidden from the anger of the lamb who’d opened the sixth seal.
“Who can stand upright?” the judged cry out. They know that however God and Jesus’s wrath expresses itself, it’ll flatten them.
Can unconditional love for all thirst for revenge, desire killing the “bad guy”?
According to Paul in 1 Corinthians, his letter to Timothy, love is:
Patient
Kind
Not envious
Not boastful
Not proud
Does not delight in evil
Rejoices in truth
Never fails
The Greek word for love is agápē, which according to Strong’s means affection, good will, love, benevolence, brotherly love. Dictionary.com and Wikipedia translate it to willingness to do anything for another, willing to sacrifice themself for another without expecting anything in return.
Love transcends and persists through all circumstances.
Love contains true unconditionality.
Since God is love—and Jesus expressed agápē—then the wrath of the lamb would reflect unconditional love.
Wouldn’t that rule out punishment, revenge, thirst for vengeance?
Paul explicitly writes that agápē does not delight in evil.
I know, I know, how often have we heard the good guy or the good parent say that they don’t want to do “x evil thing,” that it’s for the person’s own good, and it’ll hurt the good parent worse than the bad child?
But we hear the disingenuous in that rationalization. Paul says love delights in the truth.
And so an honest, loving person would recognize the lie in their own words if they do something evil “for the judged’s own good.”
Using Anger to Teach
Jesus was also a teacher. He’d want to express wrath in a way that taught the judged what they’d failed to learn while wreaking their self-centred ways on others during their material life.
Near-death travellers recall life reviews in their accounts. They experience events from the point of view of everyone involved. Not only do they relive their thoughts and emotions, but they also experience the thoughts, emotions, actions, motivations, etc. from everyone else’s POV. That’s quite something! Imagine trying to stay angry or judgemental when you can feel the other person’s despair or anger yourself?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expressed an understanding that the best way to heal wounds is for the predator to go to the prey person who holds something against them and ask for mercy. The New Testament talks about God healing wounds in the Resurrection.
Putting all that together, anger in the one who lives as both predator and prey, who feels the emotions of both judged and judger, who teaches agápē and lived it, who seeks the lost sheep, who is both unimaginably strong as well as singularly vulnerable, and who taught anger wounds—is unlikely to express wounding anger but anger that leads to healing.
The most effective healing comes from those who were in the wrong recognizing it, expressing remorse, and speaking and acting repentance.
How?
By experiencing themselves what they’d inflicted on others.
Soul Swapping Teaches Not to Judge
I’ve become a fan of Asian dramas because they explore spiritual myths that reveal something about us. Soul swapping is one legend I’ve learned about through anime and dramas (with a side of comedy). In every one of them, the two who’d judged and hated each other, one of whom would be the “bad guy,” the other, the “good,” come to learn and like each other through swapping their souls and living each other’s lives and experiencing each other’s bodies. Oh yeah, they’re usually male and female—comedy moments as each experiences unique characteristics of the other or react to bathing for the first time. But I digress.
During the swapping, one of them discovers being the recipient of neglect and abuse is not so much fun and regrets it. The other discovers the abuser/evil/selfish one’s entire story. The swapped souls don’t sweep the evil under the carpet but redeem it.
Isn’t that Christianity in a nutshell?
What Is Better for the Wicked? Mortal Life or Immortal Soul?
I’m listening to Threshold: Terminal Lucidity and the Border of Life and Death, an audiobook I picked out at random from the library.
Alexander Batthyány quotes Socrates:
“For if death were an escape from everything, it would be a boon to the wicked. For when they die, they would be freed from the body and from their wickedness together with their souls. But now, since the soul is seen to be immortal, they cannot escape from evil or be saved in any other way but by becoming as good and wise as possible. For the soul takes with it to the other world nothing but its education and nurture. And these are said to benefit or injure the departed greatly from the very beginning of its journey thither.”
Howard Storm, a selfish compassionless man, in his audiobook My Descent Into Death relates a horrifying entrance to the other world.