The Book of Revelation: Revelation 4: 1-11 Part Two

Speaker: Dustin Scott

Passage: Revelation 4:1-11

As we embark again into Revelation 4, have you noticed that several of the songs we sing in worship involve the Book of Revelation? We sing about the Lamb. We sing this translation of a Hebrew word, which is Hallelujah. And you know the verse, “All the angels cry out ‘Worthy is the Lord'”? Well, that’s not the way English sentences are rendered. You don’t say, “Man, good is this burrito.” No, that comes from the Greek syntax of the New Testament; more evidence is that some of the songs we sing are taken directly from the book of Revelation.

Last week, as we embarked into chapter 4, I gave four themes to guide us through this dense and multifaceted passage. We’re going to do a little review this morning.

The first thing I want us to pay attention to is the perspective of heaven. How is St. John’s perspective being adjusted within this passage?

Next, we’re going to talk about access to heaven. How is St. John, as a human being, given this en route to God’s divine throne room? How is that possible?

Today, we’re going to get to the ordering of heaven. How is the throne room of Heaven structured, and how is that intended to inform the structure of our lives?

And last, what I’m really excited about is worship in heaven. What does worship in heaven look like? How is that intended to inform our worship as believers in the here and now?

REVELATION 4:1-11

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let’s go over our Scripture passage for today. We’re going to read the whole chapter, verses 1 through 11, from the New Revised Standard Version.

“After this I looked, and there in Heaven a door stood open! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’ At once I was in the Spirit, and there in Heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! And the one seated there looks like Jasper and Carnelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald. Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the twenty-four thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads. Coming from the throne are flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder, and in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God, and in front of the throne there is something like a sea of glass, like crystal. Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and back: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing, ‘Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come’. And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the one who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing, ‘You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they existed and were created.'”

Let’s pray.

Holy Spirit, as we embark into chapter four, as we continue our journey in this passage, would You lead and would You guide us, Lord? At the beginning of this book, You say there are things to be read, heard, and obeyed. So, would You teach us how we are to walk in Your Kingdom through this passage? Holy Spirit, I’m going to pray this through the whole book of Revelation: would You not allow us to add or take away from Your Word this morning? Would You guide us, and would You instruct us? We ask this in Your name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

REVIEW OF THE HEAVENLY PERSPECTIVE

I want to begin by reviewing the heavenly perspective.

Last week, we emphasized the truth that the Lord is still communicating to the seven churches of Asia Minor, even in chapter 4 and onward. If we’re going to go back to our foundations, if we go to Revelation 1:11, it says, “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches.” Why is that important? It’s going to bring us back to our foundational principle in interpreting this book.

While the book of Revelation was written for us— the capital “C” Church, the 21st-century church, even for Vintage City Church—we must remember that Revelation was not written to us. It was written to the seven churches of Asia Minor, and the ensuing chapters are going to continue to speak to the seven churches and their lived circumstances, their struggles, and their lives.

Next, if we go back to Revelation 1:3, it says that there’s blessing given to anyone who reads the words of this prophecy, who hears the words of this prophecy, and who obeys the words of this prophecy. Why does that make me excited? While much of the world sees Revelation 4 and onward as this abstract, esoteric, off-the-wall eschatology, what Revelation 1:3 shows me is that the whole of Revelation is intended to be practical. It’s meant to teach the people of God how to walk in His Kingdom, and that makes me really excited.

Next, I want to go back and look at how precisely the Lord was shifting St. John’s perspective. We found this phrase, which in English is rendered “after these things.” In Greek, it’s meta tauta. Then we asked the question: How is St. John being transitioned here? Where is his focus being taken? We went back to Revelation chapter 1:19 and found a moment when the writer already used this phrase meta tauta to transition St. John’s focus away from a vision of the glorified Jesus, who has hair as white as wool and eyes like flames of fire, and to Jesus’s specific addresses to the seven churches.

So, what precisely is being transitioned here at the beginning of chapter 4? Well, Jesus gives us the answer. In verse 1, He says, “Come up here”. This isn’t a shift forward. This is a shift upward. St. John isn’t being transported to some future moment in time or church history. This isn’t St. John’s rendition of Back to the Future. No, this is his situation being translated upward in perspective.

What is his current perspective? Well, he’s looking at the crises and the sufferings of the seven churches. And what is the Lord doing? He’s saying, Come up here and find a new heavenly perspective. It’s not all that different from when St. Paul says, “Live in the Spirit, not the flesh.” Or when he tells the Ephesians in chapter 2, “Do you not realize that already in Christ you’re seated in Him in the Heavenly places?” This is a transition upward.

REVIEW OF HEAVENLY ACCESS

Next, I want to review heavenly access. When Dr. Ian Paul was here, he said theologians and New Testament scholars, regardless of the tradition they’re operating in, will emphasize one image as the central image of the book of Revelation: the throne of God. Revelation has more to say about the sovereignty of God than any other book in the Scriptures. I think that there are 404 verses in the book of Revelation and 676 Old Testament quotations and references. That’s pretty packed, right?

Within Revelation 4, we find this image of the Father seated upon the throne, but quite interestingly, very little is said about the Father on the throne. We learned that he’s sitting, which is a position of authority, and we learned that He looks like Jasper and Sardius, which means He looks like a consuming fire. But outside of that, the Father, in this instance, is holy and transcendent.

We don’t get the feeling, based on Chapter 4, that the Father can be known, approached, or related to without a mediator. I’ll show you how I got to that conclusion. If we look at the images within Revelation 4, we see a trumpet blast, we see flashes of lightning, and we see peals of thunder—all images that are drawn from Yahweh’s terrifying descent on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19.

I want to highlight those two passages for us so we can see how interconnected they are. Revelation 4:1 will say, “…the first voice I heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, ‘Come up here!'” There’s the trumpet and the invitation.

If we look at Exodus 19:11-13, it says, “…prepare for the third day, because on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all people. You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Be careful not to go up the mountain, or to even touch the edge of it. Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch them, but they shall be stoned or shot with arrows; whether animal or human being, they shall not live’. When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain”.

There’s the overlap. Revelation 4 is describing the same holy, unapproachable, utterly transcendent God the Israelites encountered in Exodus 19. But St. John is invited, Hey, come up here. How? Well, in Revelation 4:1 it tells us how. It says, “In Heaven a door stood open”. We already learned in the addresses to the seven churches that Jesus opens the door for us. “I’ve opened a door that no one can shut.”

Look at the images; Jesus is opening the door. Exodus 19 talks about the third day. In Revelation chapter 5, we find the slain Lamb appearing. In Revelation 4:5, we find the Holy Spirit emerging out of the throne. All over this passage, we see that the Lamb and the Holy Spirit are our only access to the Father. Only they can take us into the holy throne room.

Without the Son and without the Spirit, God’s holy presence executes judgment, terror, and destruction on sinful human beings, which is a theme that is going to become quite stark in the chapters which are to come. But for us as believers in the Lamb and the Spirit, only through these two figures is humanity given intimate access to God the Father. That’s the good news of the Gospel, sitting right at the center of Revelation. Because we are in Jesus and He is in us as the Holy Spirit.

For this reason, Scripture will say that we as believers are literally taken up to Heaven and now dwell in the eternal relationship that exists between the Father and His eternal Son. Don’t believe me? Go to John 17, where Jesus prays, “Father, teach them to know that the same love You have for Me, You have also for them, and I am them. Isn’t that good news?

If we go to the book of Hebrews, we encounter the same intimidating throne, which is surrounded by thunder, lightning, and all these stark images. Hebrews 4 will say of believers, “Let us therefore now approach the throne of grace, being guaranteed a glad welcome.

Unapproachable in sin, completely approachable in Jesus: that’s the Gospel sitting right at the center of Revelation. That’s the good news, that God is unapproachable in our sin, yet through the Lamb and through the Spirit, we can walk right into Heaven’s throne room as a son or daughter of God.

All right, that’s our review. Are we ready to get into the next sections?

THE ORDERING OF HEAVEN’S THRONE ROOM

This is what I’m excited for because now we’re in new territory. If we go to verses 3, 4, and 6, we’ll find the way Heaven’s throne room is structured and ordered. We’ll find a recurring phrase, which is “around the throne”. All of these realities are circulating around the throne. Where is God’s throne? It’s at the center of everything. It’s the penultimate reality.

Going out from that, the first reality which encircles God’s throne is an emerald rainbow. If you see a rainstorm and you see the sun beginning to come out of the clouds, you’ll realize that rainbows aren’t actually emerald. They’re not just green. They’re multicolored. They have various hues. So this is a paradoxical image; it’s a mystical image because rainbows aren’t green.

Some commentators are going to connect this gemstone to the first row of stones upon a Levitical priest’s breastplate, as it’s described in Exodus 28. So, based on that interpretation, this could speak to the holiness of God. Other commentators are going to go back to the story of Noah and say, Hey, the rainbow represents God’s mercy, His promise to never flood the world like this again, and it even speaks to God’s continued promise to carry believers through the storms and the chaos of life.

While those are all good theories, I want to say with all humility that I think they’re wrong. If we go to Ezekiel chapter 1, where so much of Revelation 4’s imagery is imported from, we find these four living creatures. We find Yahweh’s chariot throne in Heaven. In verse 28, as Ezekiel is looking up to Heaven’s throne room, it says he sees a rainbow there, a rainbow bowed and curved around the throne of God, and he gives us the definition. He says it’s the glory of God. So the first reality which encircles God’s throne is His unfathomable glory.

Now, if we look at the second reality, which spins around the throne, it’s four living creatures. These angelic beings mirror and fuse together imagery from Ezekiel chapter 1 and from the six-winged seraphim of Isaiah 6. There are a lot of rabbit trails we could go down, and I would have a lot of fun, but it would derail us, so I want to keep us centered on the essentials. If we go to Ezekiel 1:12, it speaks of these angels. It says, “…each moved straight ahead, and wherever the Spirit would go, they went without turning as they went”. These angels are perfectly obedient to God’s Spirit. Most interestingly for us, it says that these angels are actually the worship leaders of Heaven. Heaven responds to their declarations and their adoration of the King.

That takes us to the third reality that encircles God’s throne, which are the 24 Elders. I want us to notice that these 24 Elders bear Jesus’s promised awards to the churches of Smyrna, Sardis, and Laodicea. They have golden crowns, they’re wearing white robes, and they’ve been given authority by God. Isn’t that interesting evidence that God is still speaking to the seven churches here? So, let’s explore.

INTERPRETING THE 24 ELDERS

Are you ready to go on a nerdy journey with me? I hope you are. Let’s explore the figure of an elder and the number 24 within the Hebrew scriptures and see what we find. In Exodus 24 and Numbers 11, we find that Moses is instructed by his father-in-law Jethro to appoint 70 Elders over the nation of Israel. Have any of you ever tried to run a nation alone? Well, Moses tried it, and it didn’t work out very well. So Jethro said, Let’s get some Elders on your team that can help you facilitate the people. This actually became the structure of the later Jewish Sanhedrin.

Some commentators are going to interpret that these 24 Elders represent the 12 patriarchs of Israel and the 12 apostles. And who do they represent? Well, the patriarchs represent the Jews, they represent Israel, and the apostles represent the Gentiles. While that’s a fine theory, there’s a problem. All of the patriarchs and all of the apostles were either Israelite or Jewish, so how do they represent the Gentiles? That doesn’t make any sense to me.

And if we go further, we’re going to find even more problems. While the number 24 describes the Levitical priesthood, and we found all these interesting passages that speak to eldership, priests, and elders are not in the same office within the nation of Israel. These are different offices. If we go to Revelation 1:6, it gets even more confusing because St. John is going to tell us that all believers in Christ are already a priesthood. So if everyone is a priest, why are there randomly 24 priests here?

It gets even more confusing than that because some have speculated that maybe these 24 Elders are angels. They even use Jewish apocalyptic literature like 2nd Enoch to try to prove that. But within the Old and New Testaments, eldership is only a human office. So we know these guys, and perhaps ladies, we don’t know, have to be human, but we have no idea who they are.

I’m going to give you what I think is the most probable interpretation, and if you can prove me wrong, awesome! I want to learn that. The 24 Elders, in my view, represent the eschatological rewards and promises that are given to God’s people in eternity. The attributes of these elders are drawn not from Jewish culture but from Roman culture.

If we go to Roman history and consult Roman historians like Cassius Dio or Appian, they’ll tell us that there were 24 Imperial attendants, called lictors, who would accompany the Emperor everywhere he went. These human magistrates would even throw their crowns, their garlands of authority, at the feet of the Emperor, and they would make the statement axios which is Greek for “worthy”. We actually find the biblical writer of Revelation ascribing this term to the Lord when he says, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.” Why is that so interesting? Because axios isn’t a Biblical word, it’s a Roman word.

So what on earth is going on in this passage? Well, put yourself in the position of the early church. You’re a member of one of the seven churches. You’re looking out into pagan society, and there’s wealth, there’s privilege, there’s power, and there’s affluence. What do you lack because you follow Jesus? You’re poor, you have no power, and you seemingly have no influence.

HEAVEN AS THE CENTRAL REALITY IN OUR LIVES

What is the writer of Revelation doing? In my view, he’s saying to the church, Hey, while things look grim down here, that’s not actually what the reality of what Heaven looks like. Even when you’re poor down here, you’re rich up there. Even when you feel powerless here, you’re powerful up there. Even when it feels like your life has no purpose and no influence, if you saw Heaven’s perspective you would know the real truth because only the Lamb can provide provision, peace, and prosperity—not the Emperor.

Isn’t that good news?

If we go back to the helicopter view of Revelation 4, did you notice that humanity is actually the furthest circle from the center of the throne room? I was joking with my wife that it’s almost like humanity is in the general admission seating of Heaven. But if we remember that everything in this book has been written for reading, for hearing, and for instruction, perhaps the Lord is making this statement to us: In Heaven I am the central reality, not you.

If we pray on earth as it is in Heaven, doesn’t that speak to our lives in all the places where we try to make ourselves the central authority instead of Him? How often do we fix authority and our own wills, our own plans, our own desires, our own frustrations, rather than going, I’m a follower of Him. He is my central authority, not me.

If we look at Heaven’s throne room, the first circle is God’s glory, the second circle is the angels, and in the last circle is humanity. So, if we applied the structure of Heaven’s throne room to our present lifestyles, how would it alter our misconstrued priorities? I would ask you, and I’ve been asking myself, to evaluate your life. Search your mind, search your heart, search your lifestyle with the Lord, and ask Him, Who is at the center of this? Is it me, or is it You?

THE PURPOSE OF WORSHIP IN HEAVEN

This is where I get really excited, because we’re going to talk about worship in Heaven. If we go to verse 9, we find these four living beings giving glory and honor and thanksgiving to God. As we conclude with heavenly worship, I would invite us to consider how the culture of Heaven’s worship should inform our own.

If we go to verse 8, it says, “Day and night without ceasing they sing.” Why is that so interesting? Well, if we look at the phrase day and night, in Revelation 22:5 we’ll learn that in the new creation and eternity there is no night. Why? 1st John will tell us God is light, and in Him is no darkness, no darkness at all. What does the night in this passage speak of? It speaks to the suffering, to the sin, and to the chaos of the present world. Night speaks to the kingdom of evil, and day speaks to the Kingdom of light.

So what is that telling us as believers? The worship culture of Heaven isn’t governed by circumstantial realities, and it isn’t derailed by the kingdom of darkness. Neither poverty nor riches, sickness nor health, and grief nor gladness can detract from Heaven’s elevation of its King. If we are a heavenly people who have our citizenship in Heaven, I would ask us: are we steadfast in worship? Are we allowing Him to be our direction? Or are we letting circumstantial realities derail us? Because if we are, we aren’t worshiping like Heaven.

Next, we find that the heavenly beings worship without ceasing. I find this interesting because, within Heaven, worship isn’t an activity. It isn’t an event on a Sunday morning. It’s a ceaseless reality and obligation before the King. It is Heaven itself, not just something that Heaven does.

Then, if we go to verses 9-10, it says whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanksgiving to the One seated upon the throne, the 24 Elders fall down, and they worship. Within Heaven, the human elders are paying attention to the declarations in the worship of the angelic realm, which means they’re seeking Heaven’s direction in the way that they worship.

The liturgy of Heaven isn’t governed by plans or preparation or orders of service. While all of those things are good things, and they’re important in the life of the church, what we find out about these living creatures in Ezekiel 1 is that they’re governed by one thing: the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Next, if we look at these Elders, we see that they’re human, they’ve suffered, and they have the rewards of the seven churches, yet they aren’t looking outward and downward at the things they suffered. Instead, they’re looking forward to the eternal realities of Heaven. Are we looking forward to the eternal realities of Heaven, or are we looking to the side?

THE GLORY, HONOR, AND THANKSGIVING OF WORSHIP

Finally, if we look at the glory, the honor, and the thanksgiving that these beings rendered to the King, I think it shows us that worship in Heaven is holistic; it’s complete. It has three sacred ingredients. The first one is glory, which is an ascribing of awe and majesty to the beauty, power, and eternity of God. The second is honor, which is a dispensing of reverence, respect, and obedience to the authority of God. The third is thanksgiving, which is an expression of gratitude or debt to the infinite kindness and generosity of God.

As we look at this picture of perfect, complete worship, I go back to seasons within my own life where I was giving God only partial worship. Maybe you’ve been in this place before, where you’re really good at giving glory to God. You show up on Sunday, you sing of His eternal attributes, maybe your eyes are awash in tears before Him; yet once Monday morning starts, your response is, Hey, Monday through Friday belongs to me. The weekends belong to you, Lord. You can’t touch this. What good is giving glory to God if you’re not giving Him honor in the way you live?

Or maybe, and I’ve walked through this journey before, so I say it with repentance, you’re like the older brother in the prodigal son story. You’re really good at obeying God, you follow His statutes, you’re about His order, and you stay away from sin. But when the younger brother returns, when he comes back to the Father, your response to God, just like the older brother’s response to his father, is this: You never gave me anything for obeying you. You are not generous, you’re not kind. What is so great about honor if you’re not also giving thanks to the One who’s eternally generous? 

What I find in this picture is that Heaven demands complete worship. Partial worship isn’t worship; you either are giving yourself to Him or you’re not. So let’s give Him glory, let’s give Him honor, and let’s give Him thanksgiving.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

As we conclude, I would invite us to consider where we must reground ourselves in the perspective, the order, and the worship of heaven. As we embark forward into the book of Revelation, I would exhort us to remember the prayer of Jesus in the Gospel of John 17. I’m still convinced that the same writer who wrote Revelation also wrote the Gospel of John, though there’s people who battle me on that. If we go to this prayer, what we find is Jesus saying to the Father, I am not asking You to take them, My disciples, out of the world. But instead, I ask that You would protect them from the evil one. As you have sent Me into the world, so I send them into the world.

As we move forward, we’re going to find that Revelation is not a book about how God’s people were somehow removed from the world. But instead, we’re going to find out that it’s a book about how the world is removed from God’s people. Revelation is concerned with the sending of the church into realms of chaos and rampant evil to carry the rule and victory of Heaven through their faith-filled obedience and, as we’ll find, even they’re suffering unto death.

The book of Revelation is concerned with one thing and one thing alone, and this is where I think many of the interpretations I heard when I was young went astray. If you go to Revelation 1:1, it says in Greek, Apokalupsis Iesou Christou. What does that say? “A revelation of Jesus Christ”. The book of Revelation is about how Jesus is revealed to the world through His people.

As we read, as we hear, and as we’re summoned to obey Jesus’ command to St. John to come up here, I would ask us to consider: where have our focus, our priorities, and our lifestyles become stuck in the idolatry, fear and sinful preoccupations of the Earth rather than in the glory of Heaven? Where is the Lord drawing us upward in repentance? Where have we been trying to push forward instead of taking our spirits upward towards Him? What must we surrender in order to embrace His perspective, His order, and His worship?

As we journey upward with John and with the seven churches, I would exhort us to stop reveling in the world and start revealing Jesus to the world through your perspective, through your order, and through your worship.

Lord Jesus, I just think of that statement at the end of this book where the Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” Lord, would You make us a people who, through our perspectives, through the order of our lives, and through our worship, say to the world, “Come see the Redeemer; come see the Lamb. Come see the One who takes us to the Father”. Lord, would You give us new bravery and new courage in sharing Your Gospel with the world around us? And Lord, most importantly, would you control our character and, when necessary, shut our mouths so that we reveal You rather than just revealing the ugliness that lives in us?

Lord, as we’ve read, as we’ve heard, as we’ve studied, I pray that You would dispense blessing on everyone in this room. Would You allow the grace, the glory, the honor, and the life of Heaven to carry them through their week as they relate to their families, their workplaces, and their communities? Lord, we ask You to make Fort Collins a city which is marked by Your glory, by Your honor, and by Your worship. We ask this in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.