“And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Zion and with Him an Hundred and forty and four thousand, having His Father’s name written in their foreheads…,” Rev. 14:1-5.

“Why is the Lord standing?

Listen to this; When a royal figure stands up, it’s either out of anger or that of honor; e.g., in Isa. 3:8-15, God arose to judge the wickedness of Israel.

Out Of Honor – The Assyrian king humbled himself when Jonah made proclamation on Nineveh, the Assyrian kingdom. In Jonah 3:4-10, “He arose from his throne.” In 2Kings 23:1-3, the people stood out of honor when Josiah ordered the law be read to the people.

And so in Acts 7:57-60, Jesus’ standing up can be alluded to His anger against the people, the Jews, stoning Stephen to death; as He was displeased. Whereas in Acts 7:1-53, Jesus stood as an honor of respect for the martyr, Stephen, the first Christian to be killed.

Besides, in Mark 14:56-59, the proper posture for a witness was that of standing in court as seen at Jesus’ trial.

Therefore, Jesus was here in Acts standing as an advocate to the Father on behalf of Stephen. Stephen was confessing Jesus before men and Jesus was in turn confessing Stephen before God, fulfilling His words in Matt. 10:32-33.

Therefore, here again in Rev. 14 He is standing in honor of the redeemed in the midst of those who have received the mark of the Father and His name in their forehead. Just like He was standing in the midst of the seven candlesticks in Rev. 1.

His standing, therefore, was because He first was slain or laid down, as a result of the influence of the beastly system of Rev. 13.

Look at it; “And all that dwell upon the earth (that is those who mind earthly things, whose God is their belly (Phil. 3:18-19), shall worship him (the beast that rose out of the sea (v. 1) which is actually all governments and system of religious power that Satan-in-man have used, is using and will continue to use to persecute God’s people whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

But now He is regaining dominion in our lives and taking His place once again instead of being controlled by the beastly systems of men. For “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God…When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory,” Col. 3:3-4.

So from the above passage we can see that the Lamb, who is Jesus, was slain from the foundation of the world. Now two words need definition here. The first one is SLAIN which in the Greek is Shazo – to butcher (especially an animal for food or ill sacrifice) or generally to slaughter, or (spec.) to maim (violently) kill, slay, wound.

The second word is FOUNDATION, which is katabole – a deposition; i.e. founding, from the root; to throw down, cast down, descend, fall. Putting the whole together we can see that Jesus, as a sheep taken to the slaughter for sacrifice, was actually the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

Now the word founding is the same as sinking. It is like when a ship got grounded; that is what it means to found. In other words, the world got grounded (founded) along the line of her development, which as a matter of fact is the effect of sin. Now this sin which is the sin of the world (John. 1:29) was introduced when Adam fell a victim to the suggestion of the beastly communication in Gen. 3:1+.

When Adam and Eve listened to the words of the serpent, their entire perception of life changed, realizing that words have power, so they received a wrong seed into their lives through the words of the serpent. And since Adam and Eve are the progenitors of the human race, they passed on this wrong seed into their blood stream and thereby destroyed the life of Christ that was supposed to be standing in man. God’s true life was slain.

So man was totally given to the cravings and desires of the flesh which in effect is enumerated for us in Gal. 5:19-21. See it;

“But when you follow your own wrong inclinations, (i.e., living your life at the expense of the Holy Spirit) your lives will produce these evil results; impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, spiritism (that is, encouraging the activity of demons) hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort to get the best for yourself, complaints and criticisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group – and there will be wrong doctrine, envy, murder, drunkenness, wild parties, and all that sort of thing…”

Now you must understand that all these sins, so to say, are the product of one particular factor inherent in man which can be termed the ‘inbred sin,’ which is actually the seed of the serpent. Note that every seed can grow to become a tree with leaves and fruits. So the list above is just the product of the power of sin within every man – sin.

This is why David said; Ps. 51:5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Here he didn’t mean to say that the mother was a harlot but rather that the inbred sin in every human being as carried by the mother was passed on to him from her.

So when John talked about the Lamb taking away ‘the SIN of the world,’ it is the factor responsible for the sins of mankind, the old sinful nature that is to be dealt with, with the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, which the ‘Lamb of men'(Old Covenant Goats and Lambs) could not do.

No matter the number of sacrifices that men will want to offer; no matter the philosophical concept they want to imbibe or even the religion they want to practice, it is rather a suppression of the factor of sin in man. Any slightest opportunity, the old man will reveal your true nature to you, for no man can claim to have overcome that which has not been tested.

Leave a lump sum of money with a man who loves money and is extravagant and come to take your record in a week’s time, though he claims to be a Christian, and see whether the account will balance. Step on the toes of a man who claims to be a gentle man and watch for his reaction. You will know whether his claims are true or not.

So when Paul saw the predicament of man, he said, “So you see how it is. My (man’s) new life tells me to do right, but the old nature (the sin factor) that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord; He has set me free,” Rom. 8:24-25 TLB.

(Though this speaks more of the power of the law that he once practiced.) Therefore, “I (Paul) can do all things (that are now right) through Christ which strengtheneth me,” Phil. 4:13.

So you see, through the Spirit, man is returning back to his original state where he could manifest the life of God again. And so we read, “It is the spirit that quickeneth (i.e., gives life) the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life,” John 6:63.

It took words that contained poison to kill man and to reverse the process; it is taking the words again in the spirit of Christ to do so.

Next will be “Why is the Lamb Standing continued?”

To be continued…