Revelation 4The Throne Room

“After these things” (the literal Greek; the NIV has “After this”) is used again in 7:9, 15:5 and 18:1. See also 7:1, 19:1, 20:3, John 3:1, 6:1 and 7:1. The visions are separate in content: earth, then heaven.

Chapters 1–3 may be one vision and chapter 4 a second; that’s possible. If there’s no time lapse, that doesn’t matter, to be honest. But there’s definitely a distinction being made between the visions.

“I looked and behold” (again from the Greek; the NIV has “I looked, and there before me”) is a phrase of the prophets: Ezekiel 10:1, 44:4 and Daniel 10:5. It’s basically “I looked and, ta-da!”

“A door standing open in heaven.” Open heavens are a big deal in the Bible: a common sign of God coming near to humans, through His presence, His power or His revelation of truth. You see all three here.

“Come up here” echoes God’s call to Moses to come up Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:24, 24:12, 34:2). God called him away from the people and up onto the mountain. Some see this as a veiled reference to the rapture of the church. That’s a harder sell from an author’s-intent standpoint, but it would follow in some ways, because the next time we see the church, it’s in heaven.

“I looked … At once I was in the Spirit.” John is demonstrating the difference between two kinds of encounters with God: looking into the Spirit versus being in the Spirit.

We see this difference in many other parts of Scripture, including Acts 10 and 11, which we’re studying on Sunday mornings. There Peter and Luke give the two encounters names. Looking into the Spirit is a vision: you’re seeing into the spiritual realm, but not necessarily interacting with what’s happening in it. Being in the Spirit, being in the vision, is a trance. So John went from a vision into what Peter and Luke would call a trance. Aren’t encounters with God fun?! They’re not boring; there’s always more to see and learn!

The word “throne” is used 44 times in Revelation, all over the book, and 11 times in this little chapter alone! The throne of heaven demonstrates God’s ultimate sovereignty over His domain, His heavenly kingdom, the place where God’s perfect will is done. It also shows His sovereignty over the unfolding action in the book, over every creature in existence and over the entirety of history itself. We come back to the throne room over and over again, because He is causing and ruling the action in the vision.

Chapters 1–3 were grounded on earth. Jesus Himself was walking among the churches, the lampstands, and His words pointed the churches on earth to heavenly realities, but the starting point was earth. Now the action shifts into heaven itself. Right now God’s perfect will is only done in heaven; by chapter 22 it will be done everywhere. The rest of the book shows how God exerts His will, authority and control over the earth, as stated in 11:15. This perfect rule of God must be extended to the earth. What is true in heaven, demonstrated in chapters 4–5, must become true on earth: hence the drama of chapters 7–20, ending in chapters 21–22 with God’s perfect will being done everywhere. So what will change when God’s perfect will is done everywhere?

The Old Testament throne-room parallels are Isaiah 6, the Lord “high and exalted,” the train of His robe filling the temple, and Ezekiel 1, God enthroned in brilliant light above the four living creatures. Also see Exodus 24:9–11, 1 Kings 22:19 and Daniel 7:9–10. Chapter 4 could have been written by an Old Testament prophet; you could put it in an Old Testament book and not know the difference. Chapter 5 is where it gets distinctly Christian: that’s where we see Jesus show up.

“Jasper and ruby.” Jasper was a crystal-clear stone; ruby, or carnelian, was typically red. These two stones are the first and last stones on the breastplate of the high priest (Exodus 28:17–20), so there’s a completion to that. The “rainbow that shone like an emerald” could have been many shades of green, or teal, or even blue, or it could be many colors.

The “flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder” are echoes of Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:16–19). God is bringing the two covenants, Old and New, together. The same scene is repeated at the opening of the seventh seal (8:5), the sounding of the seventh trumpet (11:19) and the pouring out of the seventh bowl (16:18–21). So there’s something complete in the drama of the lightning and thunder.

“Twenty-four elders.” These are likely the elders of the 12 tribes plus the 12 apostles, since 21:12–14 describes the names of the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles of the Lamb written on the new Jerusalem. There’s no way to be 100% sure, because John doesn’t make that connection himself, but it’s probable these 24 elders at the very least represent them, if they aren’t them.

Their worship is also echoed in 1 Chronicles 24:3–19, where David divided the priests into 24 groups to worship and minister. These elders are important. They’re definitely humans, but they’re often described doing tasks that angels in heaven do. Super cool!

These guys have been upgraded somehow! So, hypothetically: what tasks of angels would you like to do when you go to heaven? Not fat babies sitting on clouds: the warrior, messenger, strengthener kind of angels.

“Dressed in white … crowns of gold.” Romans and Jews buried their dead in white, and worshipers in this period, in Roman, Greek and Jewish settings, are also depicted dressed in white. A gold crown was a sign of royalty and political-executive power. “Surrounding the throne”: Greek choruses would sing or dance in circles, and the Jewish Sanhedrin sat in a circle to make judgments. You can see the importance of these elders: they’re worshiping, and they have executive power, which becomes clearer in verse 10.

Seven lamps = “the seven spirits of God.” This is understood as the sevenfold Spirit of God described in Isaiah 11; we’ve seen this already in chapter 1 (1:4).

These seven lamps are different from the lampstands we saw in the earthly vision in chapter 1. The lampstands were the churches. These lamps are in front of the throne, on the ground it would seem, or maybe on the sea of glass.

“Sea of glass, clear as crystal.” Normally a sea in Scripture, especially in the Psalms, Job and the poetic books, is wild and untamed. But here in the throne room even the sea is tamed, perfectly still, completely peaceful. Powerful imagery! There’s an Old Testament echo in Solomon’s temple, where the great basin for washing was called the Sea (1 Kings 7:23–25; 2 Chronicles 4:2, 4:6).

“Four living creatures.” They are very much like the creatures in Ezekiel 1, and even somewhat like the seraphs in Isaiah 6:2. “Covered with eyes all around” means you can’t sneak up on these guys! There’s a sense of being all-seeing for these beings. “Like a” lion, “like an” ox: not exactly. They were completely otherworldly, and John is just giving us a frame of reference for what he saw. Though artists have done an amazing job, they’re still best seen in our imaginations.

The creatures cover a lot of ground: a wild animal, a tamed animal, four-legged, two-legged, then a flying animal. They could be seen as representing all earthly creatures. They each have six wings; they’re flying creatures for sure.

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” Lord: ruler, worthy of respect. God. And Almighty: powerful. This echoes Isaiah 6:3, in the same kind of scene, but the phrase ends differently. Isaiah’s ends with “the whole earth is full of his glory,” but here the worship is concerned only with the heavenly reality: “who was, and is, and is to come.” That’s purposeful: Isaiah’s ending is grounded in earth, like chapter 1 was; this one is grounded in heaven and describes the eternal realities of our God. We are altogether fixated on heaven here.

“Him who sits on the throne” is one of the most important names for God in Revelation. It occurs 7 times (4:9; 5:1, 5:7, 5:13; 6:16; 7:15; 21:5), and variations are used 5 other times (4:2, 4:3; 7:10; 19:4; 20:11).

It’s veiled language. John describes the throne room of God, but he respects God enough not to describe the physical characteristics of God Himself. There was a sense of awe and reverence that kept him from doing that.

“Whenever the living creatures give glory …” There are cascading levels of worship around the throne of God. Everyone is responding almost rhythmically to each other, a call and response. The creatures give “glory, honor and thanks.” Glory shows God’s inherent magnificence. Honor shows God’s worthiness. Thanks acknowledges what God has done. Interestingly, the elders’ praise uses the same pattern but ends with power instead of thanks. The human worshipers are giving God back the power that was usurped from Him on the earth, handing back the power that is rightfully God’s.

These are the closest people and the closest creatures to God in the universe, and all they can do is worship. When you really know God, you only want to worship!

They “fall down”: prostrate, completely on their face. This posture is used throughout the Bible in worship of God. It’s (1) dramatic, (2) humble, (3) reverential, and (4) reserved only for God Himself.

Any time someone did that before an angel, or before another human who knew what was going on, they’d tell them to get up and not do that. Falling prostrate, face down before the Lord, is an act of humility reserved for Him alone.

They worship before they even use words. That means worship is bigger than words and songs. Worship is about (1) the respect of these people, (2) the attitude of their heart, (3) their body posture, (4) their position before God and (5) their utter submission to God. That is worship too. And it’s also their words. What are some postures you like to use to worship and pray to God? How do you think they help?

Their continual worship is at the center of all existence. Even in heaven their worship is central, and all other worship surrounds them in concentric circles: God Himself, then the creatures, then the elders, then the angels, then the rest of humanity. These aspects of worship are central to all worship.

“Worthy” is used all over the Bible to describe value.

The political-executive-power function of the throne room is seen in the 24 elders: people who enforce God’s will. The crowns on the elders show that executive power. But what do they do? They “lay their crowns before the throne,” because they know all their authority is derived from God Himself. Which shows us that all authority comes from God Himself!

All political power in the ancient world also had a worship aspect to it, with the Romans, the Greeks and the Jews alike. Executive-political power tied to religious power made these empires feel all-powerful. These images show that “him who sits on the throne” is actually the all-powerful One. This will play out later in the universal worship of the beast, but the coming of God’s kingdom will usurp that and replace it with the universal worship of God. The issue of true and false worship is fundamental to John’s prophetic insight in this book, going back even to the letters to the churches.

John’s peek into heaven shows the perfect fulfillment of the first three requests of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–10): (1) your name be hallowed (literally, from the Greek), (2) your kingdom come, (3) your will be done. This was happening perfectly in heaven. They were declaring God holy, God’s kingdom rule and power were established, and God’s perfect will was done. That’s unlike what was happening, for the most part, on the earth at that time, and to this day.

All of the judgments to come in Revelation are issued from the throne room. So the throne room will be central to the action from here on, just as the themes of the seven letters are central to the whole book’s themes.

The praise ends with God as Creator, echoing Genesis 1 and so many other Scriptures in the Psalms, the prophets and throughout the Bible. I love this phrase: “by your will they were created and have their being.” God created life because He wanted to, because He felt like it. He wanted and willed life into existence. And not just that: we continue to have our being simply at the will of God, at the pleasure of our King.