Worthy Is the Lamb

Most people come to the last book of the Bible the way they would approach a locked door in a strange house — cautiously, half expecting something to jump out. Yet Revelation is the only book in all of Scripture that opens by pronouncing a blessing on the person who reads it: “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear” (1:3). It was given not to frighten the church but to bless her, and whatever we find inside, the intended effect is comfort, courage, and endurance — not dread.

Worthy Is the Lamb is a free, full-length commentary written to be read straight through, like a book, rather than decoded like a puzzle. It reads Revelation as seven parallel visions of the whole church age — the amillennial, recapitulation approach — with the slain-yet-standing Lamb and the theology of the cross at its center, and the comfort of the gospel as its aim. The commentary runs from the Christ who walks among the lampstands to the New Jerusalem coming down from God.

It closes with six excursuses on the questions readers most often bring to this book: the thousand years, the 144,000 and the great multitude, the mark of the beast and 666, the rapture, Babylon and the New Jerusalem, and Revelation and the Divine Service. It is free for congregational use — download, print, and share. If it serves you, Ordinary Means is where new material is announced first.

New to the end-times debates this book raises? The free Dispensationalism field guide lays out the confessional Lutheran reading of the rapture, the millennium, and Israel and the church.