The Lion or the Lamb
Authority According to Jesus
For many, we believe authority is a lion.
In my youth, I was convinced of this. Authority belonged to the capable and strong. Leadership was about giftedness, impact was about effectiveness, and success was about having the right strategy combined with power and position to carry it out. I watched countless Christian leaders exercise authority according to this model—employing the perfect amalgamation of talent, gifts, and knowledge to take charge, exert influence, and direct others—all in the name of advancing God’s Kingdom in the earth.
After all, Jesus is King. And as his emissaries, are we not called to appropriate his kingly authority, borrow his scepter and signet, and do a bit of ruling on his behalf?
Even now, this doesn’t sound that far-fetched. If earthly authority is about power, and the right to exercise that power to change the world, what does authority look like for those who are following Christ? Surely spiritual authority is a sanctified version of the same, simply exercised for a greater good—position, confidence, and strength leveraged to accomplish Jesus’s purposes in Jesus’s name.
Unless, it’s nothing like that at all.
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“The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!””
When we look to Jesus, we discover authority is a lamb.
My ideas about authority have changed over the years, as I’ve spent time with Jesus and witnessed how he exercised authority in the scriptures.
Clearly Jesus had spiritual authority. When Jesus commissioned his disciples, he stated emphatically, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” And the gospels are full of examples of Jesus exercising this authority to accomplish the miraculous—healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind, and raising the dead back to life. Even when Jesus was simply speaking, his words were imbued with such supernatural power that he drew the attention and awe of all who listened.
But something was radically different about the way Jesus wielded his authority. There was both fierce compassion and unexpected gentleness behind it, and he exercised it almost exclusively in the service of others. Jesus leveraged what power he had to defend and bless those who had none. His authority seemed other-worldly not merely because he was God, but because he was human. Never before in human history had anyone exercised power with such humility, self-sacrifice, and love.
Finally Jesus’s model of spiritual authority culminated in an unthinkable act of sacrificial love—he surrendered. He poured himself out for his enemies. He subverted the power of those who arrested him, falsely accused him, and ultimately flogged and crucified him—not by resisting them, but by willingly submitting to them. He received within himself the consequences of their evil acts and proclaimed forgiveness over them, even as he died.
Jesus led with love. He conquered through sacrifice. He leveraged his power to pour himself out for others.
Jesus exercised his authority by giving it away.
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But can’t spiritual authority be both?
After all, isn’t Jesus the Lion and the Lamb?
This is often how Jesus is portrayed: a Lord and Savior who is half suffering servant and half conquering king. We are told Jesus embodies a dualistic nature—equal parts sacrificial lamb and authoritative lion—sometimes humble, lowly, and loving while at other times dominating, dangerous, and forceful. (And if Jesus will one day lead this way, maybe we can do the same!?)
Often this dualism is extended even further to correspond with the passing of time. Jesus was the Lamb that was slain. Jesus is the Lion of Judah, coming soon to reign as king. This view splits Jesus’s personality across eras and epochs—the implication being that his gentle, sacrificial side is behind us, and now we look ahead to welcome a stronger, more dominant version of our Savior King.
But a schizophrenic picture of Christ is simply not found in scripture. It’s a false dichotomy that distorts the true nature of his authority and rule.
In fact, only once in all of scripture is Jesus referred to as a lion. In Revelation 5, John writes:
“And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals””
It’s helpful to note that the phrase ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah’ as used here is something akin to an ancient Hebrew nickname not intended to describe the character or nature of Christ, but simply to identify his ancestral line. And not surprisingly in the very next verse, when John looks to see who exactly the elder is referring to, he doesn’t see a lion. He sees a lamb!
“And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.”
Throughout the rest of John’s vision, Jesus appears as the Lamb more than 20 times.
Here are just a few examples:
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!””
“And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.”
This insistently subversive imagery of a lamb—who rules and reigns through sacrificial love, who conquers by the shedding of his own blood—is interwoven from Genesis (Gen 22:8) to Revelation. John shows us the end of the story, and through his eyes we see the very same Jesus enthroned before the River of Life that we read walked beside the Sea of Galilee.
All authority belongs to this Jesus. He alone is King. He is the Lamb that was slain. He is the Lamb that will reign.
And in this Lamb we discover what true spiritual authority is like—forgiveness instead of force, service instead of strength, mercy instead of might. God has graciously given us a vision of Christ’s Kingdom that will one day come in fullness, and instead of a lion, there is a Lamb seated on the throne.
