Mark of the lamb
"Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the
foreheads of the servants of our God" (Rev 7:3).
"Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and
with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their
foreheads" (Rev 14:1).
Those who bear in their foreheads the name of the Lamb and of his Father have
the "mark" of the Lamb. They are deliberately contrasted with the people who
bear, on the right arm or the forehead, the "mark of the beast" (Rev 13:16-18).
The Lamb is of course Christ. In an especially poignant scene
of the Apocalypse, he is pictured as "a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain"
(5:6; cp 5:12; 13:8). The "Lamb" Jesus is the Passover Lamb, slain for the sins
of the world (John 1:29; 1Co 5:7), bearing ever after in his body the marks of
his sacrifice (John 20:25-28).
The original Passover lamb was slain in Egypt, and its blood
used to mark the lintels and doorposts of the houses of the believing
Israelites. Succeeding generations of Israel would readily recognize such a mark
as approximating the Hebrew letter "He", which almost by itself spells the name
of God: Yod He, or YAH. It is no great stretch of the imagination, therefore, to
see that every faithful house in Egypt had the name of the Father marked over
its doorway, written in the blood of the Lamb! And the name of the Father,
"Yah", is -- of course -- the name of the Lamb too: "Yah-shua", or
Jesus!
Now, in the Book of Revelation, there are marked out, not
houses, but individual men and women, each sealed, not upon the door, but in the
forehead (the "door" of the mind) with the "mark" of the Lamb. These are the
individuals who have opened their minds to the message of God, who have directed
their thoughts into the ways of His Laws. These are they who have been touched
by the blood of Christ, who have been baptized into his name and the name of his
Father. These are they who, wherever they are -- even in the grave itself --
will be protected in the Last Days from the "Angel of Death" and will be
delivered from the "Egypt" of slavery and sin. Listen to what the Lord and King
Jesus promised to those who keep his word and do not deny his name:
"Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from
the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who
live on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one
will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my
God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and
the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem... and I will also write on
him my new name" (Rev 3:10-12).
Such is the "mark" of the Lamb! Wear it thankfully, and never
seek to erase it, or hide it. It will mean your life in the age to
come.
