In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!"
Worthy is the lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. Perhaps the image isn't striking immediately until you start to think about what a lamb looks like after being slaughtered (graphic link, click at own risk). Verse 6 describes this Lamb as "looking as if it had been slain" and since Revelation is a book of symbols, this lamb is none other than Christ. It is this mutilated and twisted Lamb who is worthy to receive power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and praise.
But this lamb to us was worthy of only death. This is our God depicted in the most humble and gruesome of ways. This is our God who was nailed to a cross and was silent as a lamb before the slaughter is silent. (Isaiah 53:7). What blessed backwardsness is this? Why is man judging God instead of the other way around?
But the truth is, God did judge us by sending Jesus Christ not to condemn the world but to save it. (John 3:17) He sentenced us not to death, but to life and life abundant so that all who remain in Christ die to sin as Christ did but are born again into new and everlasting life. We esteemed him not, but God deemed him worthy to receive power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and praise.
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