Today we launch out on a further series exploring the strange and wonderful book of Revelation – beginning with as strange yet wonderful a chapter as the Bible as to offer! I remember in the early days of IFES’ Russian pioneering, turning exhausted, yet longingly, to Revelation. And this chapter is a real, life-giving revelation of the glory of God!
Revelation 4 and 5 take us to heaven. We need that. Paul presents our ‘hope’ of heaven as a spiritual ‘helmet’ that protects our thinking (1 Thess 5:8). Peter likewise presents a direct alternative between being dominated by unclean desires and being gripped by longing for the eternal world of heaven (1 Peter 1:13-14). Well: in these chapters we’re given a vision of heaven for ourselves. And of course they are strange. They ought to be. Of course they strain our understanding to its limit. That’s what we should expect! But where understanding fails, worship and love continue. Read them and let the wonder and the glory sweep past you and into you…
We can leave aside what is (as yet) out of our reach, and worship God now for what is plain. Here are just four such things.
The first thing we see: there is a throne at the heart of heaven (4:2, and repeated throughout the following chapters); one Lord, one loving King, Almighty (v8), who has set His glory in eternity, exalted above the universe! Roger Forster suggests that a major purpose of this whole book is to equip us (and this is relevant to every era) with what will enable us to be ‘overcomers’, in pressure, even in persecution. Certainly this is an emphasis at the start of the book, climaxing each of the letters in chapters 2-3; and at its close in 21:7. ‘He who stands firm to the end will be saved’ (Matthew 24:13, cf Revelation 2:26) – because ‘standing firm’ demonstrates that we are ‘born of God’ and have within us that true faith by which we are saved, as John himself says elsewhere: ‘This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God’ (1 John 5:4-5, NIV as usual).
So then: the enormously relevant fuel for ‘overcoming’ right here is this certainty, that at the universe’s summit there is a throne where Almighty God reigns over all! I love and praise You, Lord! ‘On the plane of history the church appears unable to resist the might of hostile worldly powers; but the course of history is not determined by political power but by God enthroned and active… The great throne-room vision … serves to remind believers… that an omnipotent and omniscient God is still in control’! (Robert Mounce’s commentary on Revelation).
Then secondly: this chapter shows us what the rule from this throne is like. It is expressed through a rainbow (v3) – and we recall God gave us the rainbow as a sign of His mercy (Genesis 9:12-16). Thank You Lord that, even in this book of judgment, Your reign is expressed primarily through loving mercy! And there are created beings there; elders dressed in white. (Someone in my church commented: Imagine if these were black robes!) We don’t know much about these beings, but thank God that He has a place for created individuals right by His throne! And He honours them – He gives them thrones too (v4). Again, this says a lot about the reign of heaven, marked as it is by the love that Christ embodied. (Let’s remember that this is the same throne as in 3:21, where Christ says to the weakest of the seven churches, ‘To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne!’) The only possible response to God so honouring them must be v10 and 5:14, the natural inflow/outflow of love and worship: they deliberately `cast their crowns` – their most prized possession – before Him – though God (as ever!) has provided the offering! (I worship You, Lord!) (Having said that – this passage also helps us understand that it is because God is the kind of Ruler who genuinely delegates freedom and authority, even to unbelievers, that suffering and persecution happen.)
We also learn something really important about the throne from the presence of seven lamps before the throne, ‘the sevenfold Spirit of God’ (v5). (I choose this translation (from NIV margin) over ‘the seven spirits of God’, partly because 1:4-5 seem to present the ‘sevenfold Spirit’ as part of the Trinity, and partly because of the integral connection between the ‘sevenfold Spirit’ and the Son in 5:6. We may not understand in what sense God’s Spirit might be ‘sevenfold’, but nor should we necessarily expect to. However: does Isaiah 11:2 give us some clues?) God is light (1 John 1:5), and light reveals; God reigns by light and revelation, not (like many human rulers or bosses) by darkness and secrecy. Presumably the lamps of the Spirit reveal the universe to the throne, and the throne to the universe. We recall that in John 16:8-10 likewise the Spirit reveals human sin for what it is, and divine righteousness for what that is. And it is by that same Spirit that we too are involved in the ongoing revelation of that reign (Acts 1:8).
Wow. And lastly, there are beings described as ‘living creatures’ here too, utterly preoccupied with the divine holiness, furnished with innumerable eyes to feast endlessly on that glory (vv6-8). They give `glory, honour and thanks` to God, although that need not at all mean that they are sinners – how much more there is to thank God for! Every created being surely has multiple, even unimaginable reasons to thank the Lord (v11 just to start with!) – and these especially do when their joyous privilege is to be so near the throne, and created so able to feast on God! But they’re described as ‘living creatures’: life is what marks them out, and they cry out continually `Holy, holy, holy` (like in Isaiah 6:2-3) in praise to the God who ‘lives for ever and ever’ (emphasis mine); life and holiness go together. We’ve heard that denied; we’ve heard it said that holiness goes with a life-denying asceticism. Not so at all! Sin goes with decay; holiness goes with abundant, overwhelming life. (Again, I glorify You, Lord!) Even if God had never revealed Himself through the cross, still that endlessly life-giving holiness would be eternally worthy of our praise!
Then let’s do it! Because as William Kelly wrote long ago, `The first thought suggested to one by this chapter is, that the only true place from which to look at the things coming to pass [in Revelation’s subsequent chapters]… is heaven. It is not upon and from the earth that we can rightly judge of these events. It is from above that we must learn and look…` And worship is the only rational response!
PS I want to express my particular gratitude to John Lennox for numerous insights into this section.
