Chapter Five’s “Diamond” -- “There’s a Wideness to God’s mercy like the Wideness of the Sea” (Hymn by Frederick Faber).
In chapter five we meet “the Lamb who was slaughtered,” a graphic Old Testament picture of Jesus on the Cross -- “He was oppressed and afflicted like a lamb led to slaughter .. . the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all . . . by his stripes are we healed” (Isaiah 53:4-7). This Lamb spoke to John of Patmos(JP) . . .
“Sometimes, John,” Jesus said, “you get so caught up in the problems of one church or another over there in Asia, you don’t see the forest for the trees. So, this next dream will stretch out your heart.
“I died to give new life to all creation. My blood shed on that Cross washes over ‘men and women from every tribe and tongue and people and nation’ (Rev. 5:9). My ‘peace that passes understanding’ is not restricted to those who have made their commitment to me as ‘their personal Lord and Savior’. ! If anyone has made a commitment to me, it’s because I first made my commitment to them!
“As the Country and Western hymn puts it, ‘I’m not hanging on to Jesus; he’s hanging on to me’!
“When I pleaded, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’ (Luke 23:34). I forgave the people who murdered Antipas in Pergamum even before they killed him.
“Don’t put God’s mercy into a corral -- not even a Christian corral! God’s kingdom of compassion, forgiveness and steadfast love cannot be boxed in to any church, religion or way of believing. His love is for “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea” (Rev. 5:13).
“That’s why every woman, man and child, every teen-ager, every red-winged blackbird, snail and lion -- even the stones of the field (Job 5:23) sing out, “to the one seated on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever, Amen” (Rev. 5: 13-24).