innocent, it has been universally used as a figure to designate all that is harmless and void of guile. Our Lord himself is called the "Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." He is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." The saints in heaven "have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." The blessed in heaven are said to "praise God and the Lamb;" and John beheld "in the midst of the throne a Lamb, as if it had been slain;" while "from the throne of God and the Lamb flowed the river of the water of life."
Now, there must be some special reason for the introduction into Scripture of this interesting animal. By the Lamb, as applied to the Lord, is meant His Divine Humanity, and He is so called on account of perfect innocence: and by God is denoted the essence of the Godhead, which dwells within His humanity, according to the declaration of the apostle: "In Jesus Christ dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." And "the river of the water of life," said to proceed from the throne of the Lord, signifies the Divine Truth which flows into the minds of those who love and obey the Word; and this is called living or running water, to imply that truth is genuine when it is kept in the activity of use by the living impulse of love.
There is one very striking peculiarity in the correspondence of the Lamb, and that is, that throughout the whole of the sacred Scriptures it has no evil application; it is universally used to signify the good of innocence, which consists in dutiful obedience to, and entire dependence upon, the Lord; and our Lord himself, while in the tabernacle of the body, evidenced this entire dependence upon the Father, or the Divine
