Revelation 4:1-11 – To Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever
Revelation can be a frightening and confusing book. But it also a powerful document that offers hope for the future and insight into the present. From the votes that are coming in from the congregation for my next sermon series, it looks like we’ll be exploring these themes more fully after Christmas. For now, we’ll focus on this particular passage, and the description it offers us about prayer.
Revelation is a book that the apostle John wrote after God granted him a visionary experience that took him to the very limits of human experience. In fact, we call it “Revelation” because it revealed aspects of the cosmos that are beyond our perceptions and experiences. (The word “apocalypse,” by the way, comes from a Greek word that means the same thing: revealing or unveiling.) In order to capture our imagination, John draws upon a wealth of images to evoke other passages of Scripture. In fact, this is a hallmark of Revelation. You really can’t read this book with any sort of understanding until you’ve first become familiar with the rest of the Bible. Revelation is at the back of the book for a reason.
Chapter 4 is John’s description of the throne of heaven. As a good Jew, John was rather reticent about describing God himself upon the throne of heaven. After all, no one can look upon God and live. And the Second Commandment forbids us to try to represent God with any kind of an image. So John reverently provides us only with hints about God’s appearance by describing the brilliance of precious gems. One of the blessings we will enjoy in heaven will be the privilege to gaze upon the glory of God face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). And we’ll be able to do so without being utterly undone by the power and majesty of the Lord, which no mortal human can handle. John tells us that the throne is surrounded with a rainbow. This is presumably a reminder of the covenant which God shared with Noah after the flood, that he would never again destroy humanity; the rainbow was the sign of his covenant of grace.
God’s throne is surrounded by two groups of creatures. John describes one set first, but then tells that the other is “in the center.” So it’s a good guess that the creatures described second are actually the ones closest to the throne, with the others farther out. This could make sense if we think about John’s perspective, beyond both sets. The best way to understand them is like two concentric circles surrounding the throne.
Closest to God’s throne, John saw four “living creatures.” The fact that they are covered with eyes symbolizes their insight and wisdom, and their wings reflect their mobility. In Revelation, the number four is used to describe all of creation (as in the four corners of the earth), so these creatures represent all that God has made, and John’s descriptions indicate the chief qualities of the created order. The lion represents nobility, the ox represents strength, the human represents wisdom, and the eagle represents swiftness. By the way, these are also the creatures that Ezekiel saw in his vision, and the four gospels of the New Testament are frequently symbolized by them.
Next are the twenty-four elders. Their white robes indicate their purity, and their golden crowns highlight their honor. According to one theory, these elders represent the twenty-four divisions of priests who served in Solomon’s temple. According to this theory, John saw the reality for which the Solomonic temple was just a reflection. Another way to understand them is to think of the twelve patriarchs of the tribes of Israel, and the twelve apostles which Jesus appointed. According to this theory, the elders are the leaders of the full number of God’s people: the Old Testament nation of Israel and the New Testament church. To be honest, I like this second theory better. But the nice thing about symbols is that they can mean more than one thing, and often do. So we don’t have to pick between the two.
Now that we’ve met the “cast,” it’s time to look at what they’re doing. You’d expect creatures that represent all of creation, and elders who are the leaders of God’s people to be doing something impressive. They’re sort of like God’s Cabinet, or his inner circle of advisors. When the President meets with his Cabinet, or goes to the Situation Room to meet with military, intelligence, and diplomatic leaders, they gather to deal with very important matters. So here, in God’s throne room, we’d expect the same thing. God is meeting with his chief deputies, to assign duties to them or to listen to their counsel, right? Wrong! The main thing that they do – in fact, the only thing that they do – is to praise God. That may be surprising. These are very important and prestigious creatures and people. So that’s all they do: praise God? Shouldn’t they be doing something more important?
In fact, what they are doing is the most important thing of all. We frequently lose sight of this truth. Worship seems like a waste of time. Even among people of faith, we describe a church by its programs and the stuff that it does. Mission statements talk about things like education and evangelism and mission and justice and fellowship. All very good things, but not the most important thing. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That’s what we were made for: to worship. Sure, we can do other things, just like you can use a screwdriver as a pry bar or a shoe as a hammer. If the four living creatures and the twenty four elders who surround God’s throne have nothing better to do than to praise and glorify him, why should we think that we are somehow more important, that the world needs our actions to keep going?
Although it’s beyond the scope of this particular passage, by the end of Chapter 5 John looked beyond the immediate vicinity of the throne and saw ever-expanding circles of creatures engaged in praise to God, starting with the thousands and tens of thousands of angels and extending all the way to every creature in heaven and earth and sea and underground. That, by the way, is what we do when we are worshiping. Whether together as a church on a Sunday morning, or individually in our personal praise to God, we are taking our place in the giant circle around God’s throne, singing his praise.
As we’ve been looking at the various things that Scripture teaches us about prayer, it’s fitting to end with this passage. Of all the different kinds of prayers that we can lift up, it’s prayers of praise and glory to God that are the most significant. They are the ones that fill heaven, and they are the ones that will fill our lips for eternity. Does your prayer life reflect the value of praise?
Some people have said that heaven must be pretty boring, if all we do is stand around and sing our praises to God. It would be boring, perhaps, if God was boring. Because of who God is, his surprising, amazing, literally limitless glory and majesty, there will always be something new to inspire, amaze, and thrill us. Think of it this way: do fans at a football game get bored? Perhaps, if they don’t really care who wins, or if one teams starts to run away with the score. But if it’s a close game with lots of great plays, and if you’re a die-hard fan, you’ll scream yourself silly for three hours straight. And when the game’s over, it’s all your going to want to talk about. If we can get that excited about 22 guys fighting over a piece of pigskin, surely the glorious majesty of God will keep us excited! And we don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to grasp this. God’s glory is all around us. Sure, it’s not as obvious as it will be when we’re in heaven. And sometimes we lose sight of it. But that’s our role for now: to watch for God’s glory as we see it around us now, in order to take our place in the circle of praise.
Just a few final thoughts about the praises that the living creatures and the elders lift up. The song of the living creatures declares God’s glory throughout time: past, present, and future. Compare that with the song of praise of the seraphim that Isaiah heard during his call: very similar, except that the seraphim declared his glory throughout all the earth. God’s praise covers all times and all places.
The elders’ song is a bit different, declaring that God deserves our praise because he has made us. Remember those crowns that they were wearing, to symbolize their honor. They take off their crowns and lay them before God. Whatever honor we receive, we like the elders can offer to God. By the way, this passage is the inspiration for that line in the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy:” casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea (see verse 6).
And we haven’t even gotten to the rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning, which were echoed on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19, before Moses received the Ten Commandments. In Revelation 8:3-5, it is the prayers of the faithful which bring this tremendous power of God to earth itself. But that passage deserves its own sermon about prayer.
Revelation is a book that the apostle John wrote after God granted him a visionary experience that took him to the very limits of human experience. In fact, we call it “Revelation” because it revealed aspects of the cosmos that are beyond our perceptions and experiences. (The word “apocalypse,” by the way, comes from a Greek word that means the same thing: revealing or unveiling.) In order to capture our imagination, John draws upon a wealth of images to evoke other passages of Scripture. In fact, this is a hallmark of Revelation. You really can’t read this book with any sort of understanding until you’ve first become familiar with the rest of the Bible. Revelation is at the back of the book for a reason.
Chapter 4 is John’s description of the throne of heaven. As a good Jew, John was rather reticent about describing God himself upon the throne of heaven. After all, no one can look upon God and live. And the Second Commandment forbids us to try to represent God with any kind of an image. So John reverently provides us only with hints about God’s appearance by describing the brilliance of precious gems. One of the blessings we will enjoy in heaven will be the privilege to gaze upon the glory of God face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). And we’ll be able to do so without being utterly undone by the power and majesty of the Lord, which no mortal human can handle. John tells us that the throne is surrounded with a rainbow. This is presumably a reminder of the covenant which God shared with Noah after the flood, that he would never again destroy humanity; the rainbow was the sign of his covenant of grace.
God’s throne is surrounded by two groups of creatures. John describes one set first, but then tells that the other is “in the center.” So it’s a good guess that the creatures described second are actually the ones closest to the throne, with the others farther out. This could make sense if we think about John’s perspective, beyond both sets. The best way to understand them is like two concentric circles surrounding the throne.
Closest to God’s throne, John saw four “living creatures.” The fact that they are covered with eyes symbolizes their insight and wisdom, and their wings reflect their mobility. In Revelation, the number four is used to describe all of creation (as in the four corners of the earth), so these creatures represent all that God has made, and John’s descriptions indicate the chief qualities of the created order. The lion represents nobility, the ox represents strength, the human represents wisdom, and the eagle represents swiftness. By the way, these are also the creatures that Ezekiel saw in his vision, and the four gospels of the New Testament are frequently symbolized by them.
Next are the twenty-four elders. Their white robes indicate their purity, and their golden crowns highlight their honor. According to one theory, these elders represent the twenty-four divisions of priests who served in Solomon’s temple. According to this theory, John saw the reality for which the Solomonic temple was just a reflection. Another way to understand them is to think of the twelve patriarchs of the tribes of Israel, and the twelve apostles which Jesus appointed. According to this theory, the elders are the leaders of the full number of God’s people: the Old Testament nation of Israel and the New Testament church. To be honest, I like this second theory better. But the nice thing about symbols is that they can mean more than one thing, and often do. So we don’t have to pick between the two.
Now that we’ve met the “cast,” it’s time to look at what they’re doing. You’d expect creatures that represent all of creation, and elders who are the leaders of God’s people to be doing something impressive. They’re sort of like God’s Cabinet, or his inner circle of advisors. When the President meets with his Cabinet, or goes to the Situation Room to meet with military, intelligence, and diplomatic leaders, they gather to deal with very important matters. So here, in God’s throne room, we’d expect the same thing. God is meeting with his chief deputies, to assign duties to them or to listen to their counsel, right? Wrong! The main thing that they do – in fact, the only thing that they do – is to praise God. That may be surprising. These are very important and prestigious creatures and people. So that’s all they do: praise God? Shouldn’t they be doing something more important?
In fact, what they are doing is the most important thing of all. We frequently lose sight of this truth. Worship seems like a waste of time. Even among people of faith, we describe a church by its programs and the stuff that it does. Mission statements talk about things like education and evangelism and mission and justice and fellowship. All very good things, but not the most important thing. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That’s what we were made for: to worship. Sure, we can do other things, just like you can use a screwdriver as a pry bar or a shoe as a hammer. If the four living creatures and the twenty four elders who surround God’s throne have nothing better to do than to praise and glorify him, why should we think that we are somehow more important, that the world needs our actions to keep going?
Although it’s beyond the scope of this particular passage, by the end of Chapter 5 John looked beyond the immediate vicinity of the throne and saw ever-expanding circles of creatures engaged in praise to God, starting with the thousands and tens of thousands of angels and extending all the way to every creature in heaven and earth and sea and underground. That, by the way, is what we do when we are worshiping. Whether together as a church on a Sunday morning, or individually in our personal praise to God, we are taking our place in the giant circle around God’s throne, singing his praise.
As we’ve been looking at the various things that Scripture teaches us about prayer, it’s fitting to end with this passage. Of all the different kinds of prayers that we can lift up, it’s prayers of praise and glory to God that are the most significant. They are the ones that fill heaven, and they are the ones that will fill our lips for eternity. Does your prayer life reflect the value of praise?
Some people have said that heaven must be pretty boring, if all we do is stand around and sing our praises to God. It would be boring, perhaps, if God was boring. Because of who God is, his surprising, amazing, literally limitless glory and majesty, there will always be something new to inspire, amaze, and thrill us. Think of it this way: do fans at a football game get bored? Perhaps, if they don’t really care who wins, or if one teams starts to run away with the score. But if it’s a close game with lots of great plays, and if you’re a die-hard fan, you’ll scream yourself silly for three hours straight. And when the game’s over, it’s all your going to want to talk about. If we can get that excited about 22 guys fighting over a piece of pigskin, surely the glorious majesty of God will keep us excited! And we don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to grasp this. God’s glory is all around us. Sure, it’s not as obvious as it will be when we’re in heaven. And sometimes we lose sight of it. But that’s our role for now: to watch for God’s glory as we see it around us now, in order to take our place in the circle of praise.
Just a few final thoughts about the praises that the living creatures and the elders lift up. The song of the living creatures declares God’s glory throughout time: past, present, and future. Compare that with the song of praise of the seraphim that Isaiah heard during his call: very similar, except that the seraphim declared his glory throughout all the earth. God’s praise covers all times and all places.
The elders’ song is a bit different, declaring that God deserves our praise because he has made us. Remember those crowns that they were wearing, to symbolize their honor. They take off their crowns and lay them before God. Whatever honor we receive, we like the elders can offer to God. By the way, this passage is the inspiration for that line in the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy:” casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea (see verse 6).
And we haven’t even gotten to the rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning, which were echoed on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19, before Moses received the Ten Commandments. In Revelation 8:3-5, it is the prayers of the faithful which bring this tremendous power of God to earth itself. But that passage deserves its own sermon about prayer.
posted by Rev. Peter de Vries, Old Union Presbyterian Church @ 4:08 PM
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