The last place you would expect to find honey is inside a dead lion, and yet that is exactly where Samson found it, inside a lion he had killed himself with his bare hands. Judges 14:5‑9  How ironic to find something so sweet and pure inside the corpse of a ferocious beast! Eating honey from a lion is so incongruous, it would be like finding a candy store in the middle of a graveyard!  

Whenever I come across an unusual scene like this in the Bible, I always like to pause and take a closer look, because you can often find a fresh revelation of Jesus hidden away in the striking imagery. After all, the whole purpose of Scripture is to show us God's son in all his many forms. John 5:39  With that in mind, I took a closer look at this honey‑filled lion, and here is what I saw:

Samson was attacked by the lion as he was sinning, heading down to a Philistine city to seek a pagan wife in defiance of God's commands, and in the same way, the race of Adam was attacked by the "lion of death" when we went down into sin through our ancestor's fall. Romans 5:12

Although the lion came to kill Samson, the tables were turned, and the lion itself was killed! In the same way, God later sent Jesus to kill the lion of Death that stalks the entire human race, causing this story of Samson's barehanded defeat of that lion to be a prophetic foresight of this great prophecy, "Death has been swallowed up in victory." 1 Corinthians 15:54 & 2 Timothy 1:10 

Although Samson used his bare hands to slay the lion, it was the Spirit of God that actually gave him the power to kill it. Judges 14:6  In the same way, although human hands killed Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Revelation 5:5   it was actually God's own Spirit that gave humans the ability to crucify Christ. John 10:17,18   Man did not kill Jesus, but rather, he gave his life as a willing sacrifice, that we might live forever and escape eternal death.

When Samson killed his lion it was no gentle death, for he tore it to pieces. Judges 14:6  In the same way Jesus' death was extremely brutal, for Isaiah tells us that Jesus was beaten and whipped so severely, his face was disfigured and his body was "marred beyond human likeness."  Isaiah 52:14 & Mark 15:15‑20 

The inside of that dead lion was filled with a swarm of bees. In the same way, Jesus absorbed into his broken body on the cross the "sting of death," 1 Corinthians 15:54‑57  whereby he tasted the agonies of death for all of us, Hebrews 2:9 & Acts 2:24  and at the same time released to fallen mankind the gift of honey:

The honey of Grace. Romans 5:17  

The honey of eternal life. Romans 6:23 

The honey of forgiveness. Ephesians 1:7 

The honey of Heaven. Revelation 21:1‑5 

The honey of riches. Romans 8:16‑18  

The honey of God's awesome love.  John 3:16

The lion of Timnah died that Samson might live, and Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah died that you and I might live. That lion died while Samson was headed down the road of sin, and "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8   

Pause for a moment before this corpse of Samson's torn and broken lion, now filled with hostile bees and sweet honey, and superimpose over it the battered and bloodied body of Jesus, hanging dead on a cross. Marvel that inside his crushed, beaten, torn and bloodied body the "bees of justice" and the "honey of mercy" have come together, and "kissed each other,"  Psalm 85:10  & Ephesians 2:13-28  that you and I might be saved!  

Come now and be like Samson, and reach out your hand into the broken body of Jesus at the cross who died for you, and scoop out the honey of eternal life. Eat from his ruined body, and live.

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