In chapters 1-3, we were shown how Christ rules His church. In chapters 4-11 we are shown how Christ rules the world. In both sections, John begins with a vision of Him who rules before he goes on to show how He rules, and in both sections, elements in his exposition refer back to its opening vision.
v. 1 "I looked, and lo, in heaven an open door"
Heaven is God's dwelling place, as the earth is man's. Between the two there is an open door. God has not shut the door on His world. Nor has He shut out its cry. Nor is this world ever safe from His intrusion. There is traffic - both ways!
"And I heard a voice say, 'Come up here and I will show you how the future must unfold.'"
John will now be shown our life on earth as it appears from the standpoint of heaven. The life of this world takes on a vastly different appearance when viewed from that vantage point.
The voice that summoned him, he tells us, was a voice like a trumpet. It did not speak of our life on earth with an uncertain sound, but with clear ringing authority.
That is the voice we are bidden to hear - and it is the voice of Christ: "the first voice," John calls it; that is the voice he first referred to in ch. 1, the voice of Him Who said, "I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of death and Hades."
v. 2 At once I was in the Spirit
... John goes on - in the realm where God has His dwelling, that is (the flesh is the realm where man has his dwelling), "and lo! a Throne stood in Heaven, with One seated on the Throne."
There is a Ruler over all things - and He rules. It is not an empty throne. God has not vacated it. He has not quit on His world.
This world is not a product of blind chance, hurtling along a path out of primeval chaos past into final chaos future. Ours is a divinely governed world.
v. 3 Now John tells us Who has the reigns of government in His hand
What is He like? What is His nature?
That is the question that is answered in chapters 4 and 5. John describes Him Who rules as the Creator God in ch. 4, and the Redeemer Son in ch. 5.
Take note of that. God the Father and Christ the Son are seen as co-equal in their sovereignty. It is Christ Who rules the world from His Father's throne, now in this 20th century and until the end of time. And John reiterates this conviction when at the climax of these two chapters, the worship offered by the whole creation is offer to "Him Who sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb." (5:13) Christ is co-equal with God in the worship He receives. There is nowhere a man can go ... there is nowhere the nations can go ... to escape Christ's sovereignty over their life. God the Father has committed all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father. (John 5:22)
In v. 3, John begins to recount his vision of God the Creator.
"But," you will say, "no one has seen God at any time." That is true. God, Who created all things seen, cannot Himself be seen, as though He were Himself a bit of what He had made - a thing seen. God is not to be confused with His creation, or with anything in it. "You shall not make any likeness ..."
John therefore cannot describe God's presence except as a radiance - a radiance as of jewels, say. Jasper, in 21:11, is said to be clear as crystal - like a diamond. The carnelian, or sardius stone, was red like a ruby. Like the diamond, God's whole being is transparent and clean in the purity of His holiness. Like the ruby, God's whole being is coloured by the blood of love's sacrifice.
Diamond and ruby - clear and red: God is Light, God is Love. Righteousness and mercy are the whole truth of Him.
v. 3 Round His Throne was a rainbow that looked like an emerald
The rainbow of promise overarches all the exercise of God's rule ... like the rainbow Noah beheld when he emerged from the ark, and knew as he gazed that it was a sign of God's pledge that He would never abandon His world, that no matter what judgments God was obliged to pour out on His world, nor how severe, always out of the devastation, a new world would rise.
The rainbow is formed out of the very elements of the storm just past, when the light breaks through them. So the light of God's renewing mercy will, again and again until the end of time, transform the elements of judgment into the stuff of promise and of hope. And this John indicates by his statement that the rainbow looked an emerald - green, the colour of serenity; for always the purpose of God's judgments and His mercies is the establishment of peace.
The sign of God's covenant of mercy stood like a canopy above His throne, for all His judgments are "under the mercy."
v. 4 Around the throne, twenty-four other thrones were set
... suggesting the twelve patriarchs of the Old Covenant, and the twelve apostles of the New. Together they represent the whole people of God throughout all time. These have been witnesses to God's activity from the beginning, and as they behold with open eyes the works of Him Who commands the life of His whole creation in every age they are moved to wonder and adore.
When we are given eyes to see at last what God has wrought through all the appearance of things that confuses us now, we shall have nothing in our hearts but praise and swelling adoration.
They sit on thrones, these four and twenty elders, for in every age God has made His people a royal household to share the rule with Him. How the people of God do that we shall be shown later. But notice now that they cast their crowns before the throne, in acknowledgment of the fact that whatever rule is given to them is subject to His. They are clad in the white garments of salvation, and crowned with the golden crowns of conquest, for by their Faith they have overcome the world.
v. 10 The elders are moved to worship
... says John, whenever they see the activity of the four living creatures that are on each of the four sides of the throne.
There is a systematic symbolism of numbers in the Book of Revelation. It is part of the code (see Appendices). The number '4' is a symbol for anything that concerns the earth (the four corners of the earth are descriptive of its whole compass). These four living creatures, therefore, are symbolic of the powers God has built into His creation and serve His will and His glory. (This will be seen more clearly in ch. 6).
v. 7 Of what character, of what sort, is the power God wields in His creation?
John describes it under the symbols of a lion an ox, an eagle and a man.
Between them "they combine the majesty and strength (as of a lion), the patience and labour (as of an ox), the speed and flight (as of an eagle), the wisdom and compassion (as of a man) of the persistent operations of God." (D. T. Niles, 'As Seeing the Invisible', S.C.M., p. 55)
And these creatures are full of eyes, bespeaking the vision and insight, the intelligence and total understanding of all things and all men which informs God in all the exercise of His powers in the earth.
Each of the creatures has six wings, for the power of God in the world is swift and tireless, reaching undiminished into the farthest corners of His universe, even to its highest heights and lowest depths.
v. 5 Reminiscent of God's revelation of Himself to His people on Mt. Sinai, are the flashes of lightning that issue from His Throne
... for He is a God of revelation, who does not hide Himself in obscurity from His creatures, but flashes the light of understanding upon them; and the voices, for God speaks to men in many and various ways; and peals of thunder, for He is awesome, and mighty and to be feared.
And before the throne burn seven torches of fire which are the seven spirits of God. John is not telling us that suddenly there are seven Holy Spirits, where we always thought there was only one. Seven is the number for perfection - for completeness in integration, like the seven colours of the rainbow that make up white light. He means the Holy Spirit of God in all the diversity of His operations. (Isa. 11:2) He is fittingly symbolised in the Pentecostal flame - the seven torches that illuminate everything before the Throne of God.
Before the throne there is as it were a Sea of glass, like crystal. It is reminiscent of the pavement "like the very heaven for clearness" which Moses and Aaron and the seventy elders of Israel saw under God's feet in the vision of Him they were given on Mt. Sinai. It speaks of the distance that separates sinful men from a Holy God.
It is reminiscent also of the molten sea that stood in Solomon's Temple between the Altar of Sacrifice and the Holy Place, for no man may come near to God save as he crosses that sea; and to cross it, one must be cleansed of sin and guilt at Calvary's altar of sacrifice, where the Lamb of God was slain to take away the sin of the world.
This is Creation's God - utterly righteous, Who in all His judgments remembers mercy - and utterly loving, Who for love of His rebel creatures has pledged Himself to their redemption.
This is the God Who, understanding all things and all men, exerts His power in the world with majesty and strength, with patience and labour, with speed and flight, with wisdom and love ... Who reveals Himself to men, cleansing and ennobling them, bringing them across the sea of infinite remoteness that separates them from Him, close to His beating heart of love, restoring them to the rule over His creation for which He made them.
This is the God before whom we can cast down our crowns, and cry aloud, "Worthy art Thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for Thou didst create all things, and by Thy will they exist and were created."
And it is good - good beyond all singing of it - that it is so. It is good that God is the Lord. It is good that every rule should bow before Him.
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