Revelation 5:9

ᾠδὴν κ. followed (14) by ἀμήν, as in the worship of the church on earth (Colossians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 14:15-16). ᾄδουσιν (historic present) no longer to God as creator (Revelation 4:11) but to the Lamb as redeemer, for the cost and scope and issue of his redemption. This unique and remarkable passage in early Christian literature marks the growing sense and value attaching to Jesus as being far more than a mere national messiah, in fact as the one assurance of God possessed by men, as their pledge of bliss and privilege and pardon. And this is due to his redeeming function, upon which the relationship of men to God depends. It is a further stage of the Christian development when, as in Asc. Isa. ix. 27 32, the vision and praise of Jesus is followed by that of the Holy Spirit (ver 35, 36) and of God himself (ver 37 42). The prophet John's “theology” is less advanced. Universal allegiance and homage paid not, as in the contemporary sense of the οἰκουμένη, to a Cæsar's proud pretensions, but to the sacrifice of a Christ (see G. A. Smith, Hist. Geogr. 478, 479) is a new thing in the world. An undivided church, gathered from the divisions of humanity, is also a new and unexpected development, to which a foil is presented by the exclusiveness voiced at the annual Jewish paschal rite, and in the daily Shema-prayer (“For Thou hast chosen us from amongst all nations and tongues.… Blessed be the Lord that chose in love his people Israel”). For ἀγοράζειν (cf. note on Revelation 1:5) = the buying of slaves, cf. Dittenberger's Orientis Gr. Inscript. Selectae, 338 23.