NAMES AND TITLES OF CHRIST
THE LION OF JUDAH
DR. JIM DIXON
REVELATION 5:1-8
JULY 27, 1997
In the year 1920, there was a massive earthquake in central China in the Kansu Province, an earthquake that measured 8.4 on the Richter Scale, an earthquake that took 200,000 lives. It was called the greatest disaster in the history of China.
Now, the word disaster comes from the Latin word “astrum” or “aster” which means “star.” This is because a long time ago, people believed that the stars influenced events on the earth, that the stars brought calamity, that people could be smitten by the stars. For instance, when a person was physically ill and they had a fever and aches and chills, they were said to have influenza because the ancients believed that the stars were influencing that person’s physical health. When a person was mentally ill, they were said to be a lunatic because it was believed by the ancients that that person’s mental health was being influenced by the moon, that that person was subject to lunar influences.
For this reason, the ancient people used to chart the heavens and survey the stars. They would map their horoscopes in order to live their lives in accordance with the alleged influence with the stars, in order that they might not be smitten and might not experience calamity.
Today, as we approach the dawning of the 21st century, scientists understand that earthquakes are actually caused by the shifting of continental plates along fault or rupture lines. Scientists understand that the flu is caused by viral infection. Scientists understand that when people are mentally ill, it has nothing to do with the moon or with lunar influences. And yet incredibly millions of people in this nation and hundreds of millions of people around the world still read their horoscopes. Hopefully that is not true of you. Hopefully as a Christian, as a believer in Jesus Christ, you know that the stars cannot smite you. The stars do not bring calamity.
But how about God? Can God smite you? Does God ever bring calamity? The Bible’s answer is clear. In Ezekiel, chapter 7, verse 9, God is called Jehovah Makkeh, “the Lord who smites.” Throughout history, we have seen the judgement of God and we see that God did not forbear forever the inequity of Noah’s day, but He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. God did not forbear forever the depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah, but he reduced those cities to ashes and to this day they remain buried beneath the Dead Sea.
God did not forbear forever Korah and his rebellion and the 250 people who followed him but God opened up the earth and they died in the belly of the earth. God did not forbear forever the ten thousand people who heard and heeded Korah but brought upon them a deadly plague. God did not forbear forever the treachery of Jezebel but in accordance with prophetic utterance, the flesh of her body was literally ripped from the bone by a pack of wild dogs. All of these things are described in the Old Testament.
Well, perhaps you are saying, “Well, that’s the Old Testament portrait of God and in the New Testament we have a different image of God.” But, you see, we should understand that the biblical portrayal of God is not schizophrenic. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. When we come to the New Testament, we see this difficult title given to the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, “The Lion of Judah.”
Now, the Palestinian lion became extinct 700 years ago, around the year 1250 AD. But in the time of Christ, there were many lions throughout Israel. In the time of David, lions were abundant. From Dan to Beersheba, from the headwaters of the Jordan to the deserts of the Negev. Lions always symbolized, in that culture and throughout the ancient world, royal wrath.
Judah was the tribe of the kings. From Judah came King David and King Solomon and from Judah came Jesus Christ Himself. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah, it was a title that describes royal rage and divine judgement. There is not a Bible scholar who denies this. It is uniformly agreed. This title, The Lion of Judah, is a title of divine judgement. As we examine this difficult title this morning, I want us to explore two subjects. The first subject is the subject of anger.
We all have a capacity for anger. When we say that Christ is The Lion of Judah, we are acknowledging that Christ has the capacity for anger. We are created in the image and likeness of God so this should not surprise us. Now, our capacity for anger is tested by various circumstances in life. We all have circumstances in life that tend to trigger anger within us. For me, I have a particular problem in automobiles, in cars, when I’m driving. In fact, recently, and I was telling the men’s group this Wednesday morning, there was an article in Newsweek a few weeks ago on road rage. Apparently, this is a problem all over the country. A lot of people are angry when they’re driving. I sometimes, I confess, get angry when I drive. I think I’m doing a little better than I used to do but I do get angry. I get angry when I’m in a left turn lane and I’ve waited. The green arrow comes on and the car at the front of the line just sits there through the green arrow. That makes me a little angry. I wonder how a person could be so unconscious.
I get angry when I’m at an intersection and there’s two lanes going the direction I’m going but in the other side of the intersection it becomes one lane, so a car comes up on the right of me and as soon as the light changes zooms out to get ahead of me and then barely moves when we get into the one lane. I understand that they want to drive slow but apparently they want to drive slowly while they’re in the lead. I get a little angry when you’re driving along and there’s two lanes going your direction and there’s two cars ahead of you, one in each lane, and they’re going the same speed side-by-side, seemingly forever, and no one can get by. I’m thinking “Well, why doesn’t this person in the fast lane just get into the other lanes since they’re going the same speed anyway.
I have to say that Barb really is not put together like I am. She really doesn’t get angry when she drives. She has a whole different attitude. Things just don’t seem to bother her. She can be in the fast lane, and somebody just cut into that lane going 20 miles an hour slower and it’s not even a personal thing to her. I mean it doesn’t feel personal to her at all. She just thinks “Oh, this person’s going slower. I need to slow down.” Maybe she goes around them, but it might as well be a rock in the road. I mean it’s not personal. For me it’s very personal. This person just cut me off! I’m wanting to know where they got their lobotomy. That’s how I’m thinking. I really struggle with this but I’m doing a lot better because I used to get out of my car (this was 20 years ago). I don’t shake my fist anymore. I don’t say anything. But inwardly I still struggle with some anger. I don’t like traffic. It always seems like the shortest distance between two points is under construction. You know, driving frustrates me.
You see, we all have a capacity for anger. The Lord’s at work within us trying to sanctify us and help us deal with that anger. We need to understand Jesus Christ is the Lion of Judah and he, too, has a capacity for anger. The Bible tells us He was angry at unbelief. He pronounced judgement upon cities where there was great unbelief. He pronounced judgement on the city of Bethsaida Julius, and He pronounced judgement upon the city of Corazon and judgement upon the city of Capernaum because of their unbelief. He said that those cities would fall into ruin and never be built again. And so, it was. They fell into ruin and to this day they have never been rebuilt. He pronounced judgement upon the city of Jerusalem for its unbelief because it did not know the time of its visitation. He said that the people inside the city, the walls would come crumbling down, and their children would die within the city. Even the stones of the temple would fall and so it was in 70 AD when Titus and his Roman legions swept over the holy city of Jerusalem.
Jesus was angry when He went in the temple, and He saw the moneychangers. He was enraged. They had made the house of God into a place of business, and they were selling sacrificial animals there. They were requiring that you had to use one of their animals even if you had a lamb without spot of blemish, you couldn’t use your animal. You had to buy one of theirs. In order to buy one of theirs, you had to convert to their currency. They used a special currency. Then they charged you money to convert to their currency. Then on top of all that, they charged outrageous prices, so they had not only converted the house of God into a place of business but into a place of corrupt business and He was enraged. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and He drove them out physically. He was angry.
He was angry at the tomb of Lazarus. Of course, He wept because He was moved with compassion, but the Bible is clear that deep within Him there was also anger and rage. The Greek word “embrimaomai” denotes or connotes inward rage. Perhaps He was angry at their unbelief. Perhaps He was angry at death itself, the enemy He had come to destroy. But He was angry.
He was angry at the barrenness of the people of Israel. God had blessed them for more than a thousand or almost two thousand years and yet they were barren. On the roadway between Jerusalem and Bethany, He cursed a fig tree, a barren fig tree and it withered to the ground, representing the barrenness of Israel.
He was angry at the Pharisees. He called them a brood of vipers and hypocrites and whitewashed sepulchers. He said that they were children of the devil bound for hell.
Christ has a capacity for anger. He is the Lion of Judah, but we should not confuse our anger with His anger because, you see, God’s anger is righteousness. God’s anger is righteous indignation. This is not always true of us. When someone is angry, it means something somewhere is wrong. Anger in and of itself is not a sin. The Bible says “Be angry and sin not” so anger in and of itself is not a sin. It’s a red light that means something is wrong either within us or within our surroundings or perhaps there’s a mixture of the two. Whenever we get angry, we always need to stop and take an inward look because so often what is wrong is within us. But, you see, the anger of God is always righteousness. The anger of the Son of God is always holy. Righteous indignation. And when He is angry, what is wrong is not within Him.
I want us to examine a second and more difficult subject this morning and it is the subject of wrath. When we say that Jesus Christ is the Lion of Judah, we are saying that He will usher in the coming wrath. He will bring the wrath of God. In the Bible, the word for anger is the word “orge” and the word for wrath is the word “thumos.” Sometimes these words are used interchangeably but theologically wrath is very different than anger. Theologically wrath is the expression of anger in judgement. Wrath is the expression of anger in vengeance. The Bible tells us that at the consummation, the holy wrath of God will come, and Jesus Christ will be the instrument of that wrath. And so, we have that incredible scene in Revelation, chapter 19, and I know this is a difficult image, but we have that incredible scene where Jesus Christ is portrayed as coming again. We are told that He will tread the winepress of the· wrath of the fury of the Lord God Almighty. You see, when He came the first time, He came humbly. He came in peace. When He came to Bethlehem, He came for salvation. And now is the time of salvation, but when He comes again, He will come for judgement, and He will come in wrath.
His wrath will be poured first of all upon the nations. In Revelation, chapter 6, we are told that in that day, the nations will cry out, “Hide us from Him who sits upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the time of their wrath has come.”
We saw last week that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God and we saw that sometimes this refers to the Passover Lamb, that Christ gives us victory over death, and sometimes is referred to the Temple Lamb, the sacrificial lambs of the temple, that Jesus Christ has given us victory over sin. But there were also times when this title, The Lamb of God, referred to the Warring Lamb, the horned ram who conquered. This is generally the image even of the lamb in the book of Revelation because the lamb is the lion, and it is the conquering lamb who is the Lion of Judah, and His wrath will be poured out upon the nations.
In Revelation, chapter 11, it is said “The nations raged but His wrath shall come.” The Bible says, “Behold, He is coming with the clouds. Every eye will see Him. Everyone who pierced Him and a 11 the nations of the earth will cry out on account of Him. He will judge the nations and He will judge this nation.
We all agree that there is much good about the United States of America. I think most of us are very grateful to live here but I think as Christians we must acknowledge there is much that is wrong. As we approach the consummation, many things are growing worse. Pornography is a multibillion-dollar business in the United States of America. Pornography is being exported from this nation to almost every other nation on the earth. We are corrupting the nations. Illegal drug trafficking is a multibillion-dollar business in this nation and the drug cartels of other nations are primarily funded by American dollars. More than a million American marriages end in divorce every single year. It has been that way for 25 years now. More than a million American babies are aborted every single year and it’s been that way for 24 years now since the passing of Roe v. Wade. Many of you know, and I’ve said before, that 98% of these abortions have nothing to do with danger to the life of the mother or rape or incest or even gross fetal deformity. The overwhelming majority of these abortions are simply belated efforts at birth control in an increasingly promiscuous society.
We live in a time and in a nation where the gay lifestyle and the practice of homosexuality is not only tolerated but it’s increasingly endorsed. It’s reached the point where if someone speaks against the gay lifestyle, they are accused of being a hatemongering bigot. I know that God loves all people. I know God loves gay people and straight people, but God doesn’t want us to take what He has told us is wrong and declare it right. God wants us to call sin, sin, and to be faithful unto death.
We live in a nation where sexual fidelity has been replaced with safe sex so-called. I think the biggest problem in America is that so many people are living for the wrong things and motivated by the wrong things. Most of us are motivated by materialism and hedonism and self and ego and ascensionism. The judgement of God will come, and the wrath of God will be poured out by the Lion of Judah.
It says in Romans 1 that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. It’s one thing to disregard the truth or disobey the truth but to suppress the truth, this enrages Him. We live in a nation where there are many platforms of power suppressing the truth. Judeo-Christian values have been cast down in our time, but the wrath of God is coming. That wrath will not only be poured out upon the nations but upon the unbelieving. I know this is difficult and I would not be faithful as a pastor if I did not proclaim to you what God has said. What I think means nothing, but what He has said means everything. I promise you on the authority of the word of God, His wrath will come to the unbelieving.
We’re told in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 1, the Apostle states that “our Lord Jesus Christ will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer eternal ruin and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His might when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at by all who have believed because our testimony to you was believed.” You see it is the unbelieving who will experience His wrath.
In John, chapter 3, verse 18 and 19, we read these words. “He who believes in God is not condemned but He who does not believe is condemned already for He has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the testimony. Light has come into the world and mankind has loved darkness rather than the light.” And then in John 3, verse 36, it says “He who believes in the Son of God has eternal life. He who rejects the Son of God has not life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.” John 3:36. “The wrath of God remains upon him.” And so, the wrath of God will be poured out on the unbelieving.
Today, in Pensacola, Florida, at the Brownsville Assembly of God Church, there is a kind of revival happening, very controversial. In the midst of this revival… In my opinion there are many mistakes… It’s not unlike the situation, the alleged revival that took place in Toronto… But on the other hand, there is also some good and I must admit, amazing things are happening at this Brownsville Assembly of God Church.
The USA Today has printed a major headline story on it. Every Wednesday night, 3,000 people show up at that church. Every Thursday night, 3,000 people. Every Friday night, 3,000 people. Every Saturday night, 3,000 people. It’s been going on for two years now and they’ve had 1,500,000 people come to those evening meetings. The message centers on the wrath of God. This is not gentle Jesus, meek and mild. This is more like Christ the Terminator kicking sin and damning souls but saving those who repent. Hundreds of thousands of people have come down front and they’ve fallen on their knees, their face to the ground, prostrate before God. Many Christians have come in repentance with new pledges to holiness. Although there are many problems in what has happened down there, who can deny the appropriateness of a proclamation of coming wrath to the unbeliever. It is simply part of the gospel.
Sometimes people criticize that movement simply because there is such an emphasis upon wrath and certainly it probably is not a balanced situation theologically. I would not deny that. But is it not true that in many pulpits all across this country, we never mention the wrath of God. We’ve got a toothless lion. We just never mention the wrath of God.
And, you know, God is love. God is love. God is also just, and God is holy. And, you know, you can’t love the truth without hating lies. You can’t really love holiness unless you hate sin. Justice is coming. You know you wouldn’t want a God who wasn’t just. You wouldn’t want a God who was without wrath because there would be no moral culpability and there would be no ultimate accountability. What you want is to be right with God. What I want is to be right with God.
I‘ll tell you one problem I do have with the Brownsville Assembly of God Church in Pensacola, Florida. In these services, they tend to preach wrath not only to the unbelieving, but they tend to preach wrath to the believing. That just isn’t biblical because it says in I Thessalonians, chapter 5, “We are not destined for wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might always be with Him.” I do not preach wrath to the believing here and I never will. But to the unbelieving, yes. Beware, the judgement of a righteous God is coming.
Even for the believing, there is a warning. I mean God calls His people to holiness and there will be consequences for sin both in this life and in the life to come and there are warnings in scripture. You’re probably familiar with Ezekiel, chapter 9, kind of a scary passage where the prophet has a vision of God’s judgement of Jerusalem and He sees an angel sent by God from Jerusalem, told to place a mark on every person in Jerusalem who weeps at the sin that surrounds them. Then God summons six other angels, sends them into the city of Jerusalem and tells them to destroy everyone who has not the mark, everyone who does not weep at sin, everyone who does not grieve at the inequity that surrounds them. And God says, “Begin with My house, begin with My sanctuary.”
Now, that was the other side of Calvary, the other side of the cross. That was before the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it remains true. He calls His people to holiness. He calls His churches to holiness, and He wants you to take sin seriously this morning because He is the Lamb of God, and we will see Him face-to-face.
I want to conclude this morning by sharing a passage from 1 Corinthians, chapter 10. It is a difficult passage as well and it’s from the Apostle Paul. Paul says “I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that our fathers were all under the cloud and they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses, in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same supernatural food and they a 11 drank the same supernatural drink for they drank from the rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, and they were overthrown in the wilderness. And all of these things are warnings to us not to desire evil as they did. We must not practice idolatry as some of them did for it is written the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to dance. We must not indulge in immorality as some of them did and 23,000 fell in a single day, nor put the Lord to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, all of these things happened to them as a warning, but they are written down for our instruction upon whom the end of the age has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands, take heed lest he fall.”
You see, He is the Lion of Judah, and He has a capacity for anger, righteous holy indignation. At the consummation, His wrath will come, and He will judge the nations and He will judge the unbelieving. Even for us who believe, there will be at the Bema Seat purifying fire, 1 Corinthians, chapter 3. He says, “You shall be holy for I am holy.” Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.