Note 7 — VI THE SELF-OFFERING OF THE MESSIAH. THE SUPPER

The fifth chapter of Revelation describes the lamb in its quality of heavenly victim of expiation. No one can open the book with the seven seals, which God holds in his right hand, in which the fate of the world appears to be written, but the lamb alone succeeds in so doing—“In the midst of the four-and-twenty elders who, clad in white garments and with crowns on their heads, sit around the divine throne, and in the midst of the four beasts who sit around it, the lamb, suddenly and without anything happening, stands as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth. And when he had taken the book the four living creatures and the four-and-twenty elders fell down before the lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sing a new song saying, Worthy art thou to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests; and they reign upon the earth.”7