Lamb & Flag

The Lamb and Flag public House in Leeds has a less unusual name than many imagine. The strange union is also employed to symbolise the City of Preston, and its North End football club. The name bespeaks a medieval origin, the Lamb symbolising Christ, whose sacrificial death paid for our sin, while the flag is a symbol of battle, and proclaims His victory over evil and death. The motif probably originated with the Knights Hospitaller or other monastic military orders, which combined piety with violence.

Lambs are gentle and vulnerable, more at home on a dinner plate than a battle ground. Yet Christ comes twice: first as sacrificial victim, and secondly, as conquering warrior. Those who apply to Him for sin’s forgiveness need have no fear of His apocalyptic wrath.

And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Revelation 5:6, NKJV

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