The Throne of God (Rev. 4)
The book of Revelation is written originally by Jesus through John to 7 churches located in Asia Minor. In this message, we do a flyover of chapters 2 and 3 and discover what Jesus tells them then and us today about Satan's tactics in opposition to the church.
Transcript
I love movies. And there are some scenes in movies that are just iconic.
The Avengers has that shot of the heroes assembled for the first time, about to take on the Chitauri.
Titanic has this famous scene. Did you know that cruise boats had to start roping off their bows because people kept doing this? This scene just won’t die. Unlike Jack.
The Matrix had this famous scene. It just blew our collective minds.
And, of course…. the fight scene in Anchorman. Because it’s comedy gold. That’s just fact.
These scenes stay in our heads. They’re the ones we watch on YouTube over and over again because we love them so much or we laugh so hard. Sometimes, they even become the moments by which we judge the rest of the scenes and even the sequels. They become the defining moments for every other scene.
In Revelation, we’ve hit that scene. Chapters 4 and 5, this week and next week—this is a pivotal moment in the book. At this point, the story shifts from the kind of text that’s fairly easy to understand—a pastoral-prophetic narrative—to the kind of text that may confuse, scare, or even worry us.
Thrones, rainbows, weird animal/angel things, big oceans. Artists have tried to capture what you just read for centuries. There are classical paintings, contemporary digital art, and even modern mixed media
Well, however you picture it, this scene is essential to The Revelation. In fact, this is the central and centering image of the whole book. This vision informs and defines every other vision. It is the lens, the anchor, the code-breaking cipher through which the rest of the book is understood. It is the central and centering image.
Everything else we read, except for the last chapter, is a distant second place to what we’re going to look at this week and next. And that’s one of the challenges with interpreting this book. People pay so much attention to other parts—heaven/hell, rapture, tribulation, millennium—and forget that book is all about Jesus. It is first a Christocentric book and second, an end-of-the-world book.
NOT UNUSUAL
Before we dive into the details, it’s important to remember one of the five characteristics of the book of Revelation—it relies heavily on Old Testament imagery. And this chapter is no exception.
When you and I read this chapter, it sounds bizarre and completely foreign to us. But it wouldn’t have to the first-century Christians. This scene is straight out of the Old Testament. It is the combination of nearly every theophany, or appearance of God, to the Israelite people. In fact, it might even surprise you to realize that there’s very little that is original in this scene.
Look at this list. All these images came from people’s encounters with God in the Old Testament: Moses, Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. Now, it’s all combined into one incredible symphony of imagery. This isn’t new. This is how God had revealed himself for the last 2,000 years.
EXPLANATION
So, let’s dive in. This chapter is divided into three parts:
The person on the throne
His entourage
Their response to him
Let’s start with the person on the throne.
Verses 2 & 3: At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne.
We aren’t told much about the PERSON ON THE THRONE. But chapter 5, which is a continuation of this chapter, tells us more. Spoiler alert: it’s God. (More on that next week.)
Thrones represent rule and majesty. People with absolute power and authority sit on thrones—emperors, kings, and Ares Targarian. People with crowns sit on thrones. And generally, those people are feared because they often are not good people.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. For example, when my wife Pang Foua and I were newly married, she took a personality test and was classified as a benevolent dictator—she rules others, but we love her because she’s so good.
So, there can be a benevolent person sitting on a throne. How about a beautiful person? Have you ever wondered why jewels—jasper, rubies, emeralds—are used so often in descriptions of God? Quite simply because they’re the most beautiful things most people back then would have even seen.
Then we have the rainbow, a reminder from the time of Noah of God’s faithful promise after the flood.
A king of power, beauty, and faithfulness. That’s who’s sitting on the throne.
Now, let’s look at his ENTOURAGE.
24 elders on 24 thrones – wearing white robes and gold crows
4 living creatures – like a lion, ox, man, and eagle, but having 6 wings, covered in eyes.
Then, for added effect, 7 burning lamps; a sea of glass; thunder & lightning
These elders. It’s widely agreed that they represent the people of God—the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 disciples. But are they people or angels? There’s a lot of debate and little consensus about this.
I land on the side that they are redeemed people, for three reasons:
The Greek word for “elder” is always used for people throughout the New Testament
These elders reign with Christ. Nowhere in Scripture do angels ever rule or sit on thrones. But Scripture does talk about humans reigning with Christ.
Angels don’t wear crowns. But people are promised a “crown of life.”
Then there are these crazy “living creatures”—animals with 6 wings and covered in eyes. There’s also a lot of disagreement about what these represent. I believe that these are heavenly creatures that represent both all of creation—animals and humans—and God’s attributes—the eyes are all-knowing and the wings are all-powerful. But I’m not sure about that. Thankfully, that’s not what’s important about them.
More important than the identity and appearance of the creatures or elders, however, is their activity: ceaseless praise and worship.
The Four Living Creatures (4:8) – Day and night, they never stop saying: “‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.”
This is quoting Isaiah 6:3. Their song focuses on God as the eternal one, repeating from chapter 1—"God who was, and is, and is to come.” The eternal one, the great I AM.
The 24 Elders (4:9-11) – They fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will, they were created and have their being.”
They throw their crowns down, acknowledging that all power and authority and majesty belong to God. Then they worship God as Creator. I love this one because it anticipates the outcome of the book, where God’s purposes culminate in a new, redeemed creation.
Let’s summarize this vision:
God is firmly seated on his throne as the sovereign Ruler of the universe.
God alone is worthy of worship as the holy, powerful, eternal Creator.
The chief activity of heaven is worship
So, a vision of worship for John becomes a call to worship for us. And it gives us two glorious truths about worship so that we can check our hearts
1. God is the holy, sovereign, eternal Creator who alone is worthy of worship.
Only God is worthy to receive what other people or things may want or demand: our total devotion, our praise, our crowns. This passage reminds us that idols aren’t worthy of our devotion. They cannot provide life, give truth, sustain us through hardship, or deliver us from evil.
I like the way that theologian Richard Bauckham describes it, “False worship … is false precisely because its object is not the eternal God, but only the deification of something finite.” Revelation 4 calls us to reexamine the object of our worship.
2. True worship is God-centered.
It’s easy to turn worship into something that is ultimately self-serving—an activity meant to satisfy your needs and desires. If you’ve ever said to yourself, “I didn’t get much out of worship today”, good. It was for you anyway.
My view of worship was transformed after reading The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren. Instead of asking “What did I get out of worship today?”, I started asking myself, “Did my worship please God today?”
Revelation 4 challenges us to reorient our worship in a Godward direction. Worship is always vertical, then we are transformed, and we apply it horizontally. But when worship loses its God-centeredness, it loses its power to transform.
Our deepest needs are met when we adjust our life to God, not the other way around.
True worship is always God-centered.
Response
I’m going to give you two opportunities to reorient your worship up to God, to worship like the elders and the living creatures.
First, we have a meditation video on Isaiah 6:3, the “holy, holy, holy” passage. Let that just flood your soul.
Second, the worship team will come up, and we’ll sing together “We Fall Down,” taken directly from Revelation 4. And here’s your chance, RiverLife, to lay your crowns before Jesus.
