Revelation 4

My Father’s throne. Here are two thrones mentioned. My throne, saith Christ; this is the condition of glorified saints who sit with Christ in his throne; but my Father’s (i. e., God’s) throne is the power of divine majesty; herein none may sit but God, and the God-man Jesus Christ. To be installed in God’s throne, to sit at God’s right hand, is to have a godlike royalty, such as his Father hath, a royalty altogether incommunicable, whereof no creature is capable. Mede.

1. AFTER this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

He sees a throne in heaven and one sitting on it, bright and pure as richest precious stone; and round his throne a rainbow like an emerald, the sign to us of hope and faithfulness, mercy and truth, which he himself appointed after the flood to comfort the fearful hearts of men. Around him are angels crowned; men like ourselves, but men who have fought the good fight, and conquered, and are now at rest; pure, as their white garments tell us; and victorious, as their crowns tell us. And from the throne came thunderings, and lightnings, and voices, as they did when he spoke to the Jews of old—signs of his terrible power as judge, and lawgiver, and avenger of all the wrong which is done on earth. And there are there, too, seven burning lamps—the seven spirits of God which give light and life to all created things, and most of all to righteous hearts. And before the throne is a sea of glass, the same sea which John saw in another vision, with us human beings standing on it; the sea of time, and space, and mortal life, on which we all have our little day. It seems to us to be a great thing now—time, and space, and the world; and yet it looked small enough to John as it lies in heaven before the throne of Christ, and he passes it by in a few words. For what are all suns and stars, and what are all ages and generations, and millions and millions of years, compared with eternity, with God’s eternal heaven, and God whom not even heaven can contain? C. K.

THE series of seven seals is here introduced by a glorious vision. The divine throne is seen in heaven, surrounded by twenty-four thrones for the presbyters who represent the redeemed Church, and by four composite cherubic figures, instinct with life, symbols of the vital powers of creation in harmony with redemption. These all praise the Lord; but the creation, symbolized by the Zoa [unhappily translated beasts], only speaks of the Lord, while the Church, represented by the presbyters, speaks to him, saying, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power.” D. F.

The purpose of this chapter and the following is to authenticate the connection of the Jewish and the Christian dispensations. The Deity, the God of Israel, as he appeared to Isaiah (ch. 6) and Ezekiel (ch. 1), is seen combined with the Christian Saviour and the Holy Spirit in the development of the seals, a course of Providence, relative to the Christian Church. His splendor is imaged by precious stones, the usual emblem of all that is most magnificent and luminous. The “rainbow” is probably expressive of the divine mercy exercised in the act of covenant and probation. The “living creatures” resemble the cherubim and seraphim of Isaiah and Ezekiel; and under the shapes of the lion, the bull, the man, and the eagle, are emblematic of the supremacy, strength, wisdom, and rapidity of Providence. The “glassy sea” (v. 6), a natural and usual image of tranquillity, signifies the perfect peace of the Church when it shall stand in the presence of God. Croly.

It is from the earlier visions of the Apocalypse, from the openings of the door, the sights of the throne, and the four-and-twenty seats, and the angels, and the elders, and the living creatures, and the white-robed, palm-bearing host, and the harpers with their lofty hymns of praise, that many persons’ notions of heaven are chiefly borrowed. Nor are they wrong in taking up the representations given in these visions of the position and services of the redeemed as faithful types and patterns of the destiny in reserve for those who at death do immediately pass into glory—of the adoration and praises which throughout eternity shall be ascending from their lips encompassing the throne. But it should ever be remembered that the pictures given in these visions of the place and circumstances and outward condition of the redeemed contain but a description of the state of disembodied spirits during that intermediate period which intervenes between death and the resurrection. They tell us nothing of that state which is to follow upon the resurrection, when, invested once again with a material framework, the spirit shall be fitted to renew its intercourse with material things. It is not its materialism which unfits this world, even as it now is, from becoming the eternal home of the redeemed. What we want in order to turn earth into heaven, is not to have brighter skies above us, or lovelier landscapes around us; the skies are bright enough, the landscapes lovely enough, for beings a thousand times holier and a thousand times happier than we. Nor would any outward change whatever bring the unforgiven, the unaccepted, the unredeemed sinners of our race a step nearer to the true heaven. That heaven we desire ever to remember is a condition rather than a place, an inner state of the soul rather than an outward habitation for the body. Nevertheless, a correspondence shall exist between the sinless, purified, exalted estate of the redeemed hereafter and that material habitation which shall be prepared for them. W. H.

1. It was at once a most sublime and a most practical feature in the prophetic vision vouchsafed to John that so large a part of its scenes was laid in heaven rather than on earth. “A door was opened in heaven,” i. e., a door opening into heaven; the very door of entrance to the heavenly world. This door into the world above was set open to lift their thought above the murderous edicts of tyrants, and their souls above all fear of prison, torture, and death; to inspire them with the Christian heroism of faith and love and hope of a blessed immortality. H. C.

2. The words in the original rather signify that “a throne was lying in heaven, and there was one sitting upon the throne.” The throne had been lying in heaven, and its occupant had been sitting upon it long before the apostle’s eyes were opened to discern it—yea, long before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made—even from everlasting. The beloved disciple, “becoming in the Spirit” at a certain moment, perceived what had been enacted from eternity, and shall never pass away, “a throne set in heaven and one sitting thereupon.”

3. “He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and sardine stone,” an appearance of the divine majesty in the person of God the Father, exactly harmonizing with that which the prophet Ezekiel had seen of old. “Upon the likeness of the throne,” says he, recording his vision, “was the likeness, as the appearance of a man above upon it, and I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire.” That is to say, the form which both prophet and apostle saw seated on the heavenly throne, was of a clear, brilliant flame-color, partly red like the sardine, or, to use a modern term, the carnelian, and partly of the lighter hue of yellow amber. E. M. G.

4. “In the midst,” etc.; or, according to a Greek idiom, between it and the throne, in the interval between the sea and the throne. “Four beasts”: four living creatures. As the four-and-twenty elders are the representatives of the Church, so the four living beings are representatives of creation. The number four is characteristic of the earth, with its four quarters, four courses, and four winds. The figure, originally taken from the cherubim in the tabernacle, was applied in the visions of the prophet Ezekiel, in a manner from which the description before us is transferred. V.

7,8. The cherubim here have six wings, like the seraphim in Isa. 6, whereas the cherubim in Ezek. 1:6 had four wings each. They are called by the same name, “living creatures.” But, whereas in Ezekiel each living creature has all four faces, here the four belong severally one to each. The four living creatures answer by contrast to the four world-powers represented by four beasts. Fausset.—Adoration at the throne, activity in the temple—the worship of the heart, the worship of the voice, and the worship of the hands—the whole being consecrated and devoted to God—those are the service of the upper sanctuary. Here the flesh is often wearied with an hour of worship; there “they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.” And it matters not though sometimes the celestial citizens are represented as always singing, and sometimes as always flying; sometimes as always working, and sometimes as always resting; for there the work is rest, and every movement song; and the “many mansions” make one temple, and the whole being of its worshipers one tune—one mighty anthem, long as eternity, and large as its burden, the praise of the great Three-One—the self-renewing and ever-sounding hymn, in which the flight of every seraph and the harp of every saint and the smile of every raptured spirit is a several note, and repeats ever over again, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.” Hamilton.

11. Thou hast created all things. To make anything but God his own end were to set something above God. When as yet there was no creation, and no providence, God contained in himself all the reasons of what was afterward to be; and these reasons still remain. To create was in a manner to reveal himself—the earliest revelation; not by words, but acts, and every creature, with all that proceeds from it, is a part of this display. The addition of spiritual and intellectual agencies, men and angels, afforded indeed spectators of this glory, and judges of this skill. But all creature minds, however spiritual and however free, are infinitely inferior to Jehovah, and infinitely too small to afford the real motive of the universe, which must have been eternal, which must have been God. All the boundless combinations and interchanges of matter and mind (the latter being far the more complicated and wonderful), all the play of wheel in wheel, of cause in cause, of thought in thought, of passion in passion, conspire to work out one and the same result—the glory of God. J. W. A.

For thy pleasure they are. God delights in his law, as the transcript of his nature; he delights in his Son, as the express image of his person; in the whole plan of salvation, as unfolding the riches of his goodness and wisdom; in the holiness of his intelligent universe, as reflecting his own moral character; in their happiness, as the effect of his power, his grace, and his mercy. For the same reason he delights in all his purposes and all his works—in his providential government—in the God-exalting truths of his word—in the enlargement, purity, and final perfection of his Church, and the fulfillment of all the designs of infinite love and mercy. As God thus delights in the manifestation of himself—that is, in his own glory—so all his acts, guided by his infinite wisdom and performed by his almighty power, are directed to this end. N. W. T.

We may fearlessly say that we men are of too noble a make and too lofty a mien to give the strength of our thoughts and hearts to any beneath the throne of him who made us. No mortal man, no angel, no creature however noble and eminent, may claim in its own name and for itself the homage of a soul which, living once, lives for ever. Our end in thought, and affection, and effort must be none other than the end for which the best of men, for which the angel, for which our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, for which the almighty God himself lives, and thinks, and loves, and works. For whom does God live? For himself; that he may contemplate, and love, and glorify himself. And such is the high honor that he has put on us men, that the end of our being is none other than that of his own; nor can we refuse to love and to serve him without forfeiting our true patent of nobility among the creatures of his hand. H. P. L.