The Lamb: Slain From the Foundation of the World

As you know from this post (and this one), I have been struggling to understand concepts of atonement. I have since learned that there are many others making the same inquiry this Holy Week. I thought that this reflection, by Father Stephen, an Anglican priest turned Orthodox priest, on Revelations chapter 13 was especially interesting:

It was granted to him [the beast] to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If anyone has an ear, let him hear.

These are strange verses from the Revelation of St. John (chapter 13), but like many things in Scripture they reveal an understanding that we do not immediately consider. When discussing questions such as the Atonement, everything focuses on Good Friday (at least) and theories of sacrifice abound. At their worst the theories become quite literal and fixed and nearly mechanical in their forensic certainty.

But here we have just the sort of verse that throws everything into a new light. Here, the Lamb is slain “from the foundation of the world.” The death of Christ is placed in a cosmic (literally the word used here is “kosmos”) context. History has not yet begun, and yet the Lamb is already slain. So much for literalism.

But, for me, the greater meditation is that Pascha is itself not simply an event of 2,000 years ago, but is and always was at the very center of things. Pascha is not only God’s rescue of His people, it is also revelatory of Who God Is. Before ever the world was, there is Pascha.


Of course, it is possible to minimize this and say it is merely God’s Providence, His provision for what He knew would be required by the foreknown fall of man. But I think this is just that - a minimalization. The God Who has Made Himself Known to Us is not known by us as anyone other than the God Who Is Known in Pascha. We do not know Him apart from Pascha. And if the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, we never could have known Him otherwise.



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