A Holy Throne Room

Revelation 4:1–11 ESV

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! 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 behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, 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.”

Scripture: Revelation 4:1-11

Sermon Title: A Holy Throne Room

           Last time we began our Advent/Christmas sermon series looking at Revelation chapter 1, and we heard described for us the beginning of John’s vision, given to him by God, that he was to pass on to the churches. Today, the setting changes from among the lampstands, and we move to a throne room. This is one artist’s interpretation and rendition of what we’ll read. I’m not saying it’s perfect or near accurate to what John literally saw, but as I said last time, John was told to share what he saw. It may be beneficial to picture this. We’re going to hear about the one on the main throne, about the seven lamps, about 24 elders on thrones around the main throne, and we’ll hear about 4 very interesting living creatures, who have in their appearance a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle, and all of them have wings and lots of eyes.  

           As with many things in Revelation, there’s confusion and differences of opinion about what appears in the vision. I can’t guarantee that any or all these interpretations are correct, but I’ll share a bit of respected people wrote in some of the commentaries I’m using. Verse 4 is where we’ll read of the “twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders.” Most compelling to me is the argument that 24 is the sum of the 12 tribes of the Israel and the twelve apostles of Jesus, and so there’s unity of the old and new in Christ. Others propose these “represent the church raptured prior to this time and rewarded in heaven” or they correlate with Israel’s priests and temple singers which were each divided into twenty-four shifts in 1 Chronicles 24 and 25.

What about the four living creatures? This isn’t the first time we find this description in the Bible. If we look at Ezekiel 1, it’s not a perfect match, but we read in verses 5-11 of “what looked like four living creatures, each with four faces, which are the same as the four we find in Revelation 4. There are other similarities in the setting of that chapter to our passage.

What might this be about? Some say they represent the four gospels, and draw connections between things that distinguish each gospel from each other with certain characteristics or personalities of these creatures. I’m drawn to a different interpretation from several commentaries. Australian scholar Leon Morris wrote, “There is a rabbinic saying in its present form dating from [circa] AD 300, but possibly much older: ‘The mightiest among the birds is the eagle, the mightiest among the domestic animals is the bull, the mightiest among the wild beasts is the lion, and the mightiest among all is man’…As Henry Swete puts it: ‘The four forms suggest whatever is noblest, strongest, wisest, and swiftest in animate Nature…is represented before the Throne, taking its part in the fulfillment of the Divine Will, and the worship of the Divine Majesty.’” So these four living creatures are representative of all creation, who find their place before their God.

           Brothers and sisters in Christ, try and think of a time when you went somewhere or saw something that overloaded your senses when you arrived. Maybe this morning coming into the sanctuary for the first time since some of our ladies beautifully decorated it for this season is one of those times. Christie and I were driving around town looking at Christmas lights with the kids on Thursday, and someone in the subdivision south of the Legion has such bright LED lights that I literally felt blinded when I looked at them. I had to get my sight back to continue driving. Maybe for you it’s another light display that surrounds you or going up on a mountain peak or a cliff edge or even out to the end of a dock and that feeling of the beauty of nature on all sides of you. It fills you with awe and wonder, it stirs up something inside of us as believers, urging us to give glory to God the Creator, but it can also make you a bit weak or shaky in your legs.

           All these are earthly things, either part of God’s creation or they’ve been designed by human beings. I think especially when it comes to lights, they don’t run forever or run on their own. They require a power source, and wiring for the power to go to them through some kind of connector to cause the illumination that is enjoyed. On its own though, most people would say there’s nothing beautiful about the wires. There’s nothing all that attractive about the light bulbs when the power is removed. We’re overwhelmed, though, when things are seen as they’ve been made to be seen. When everything is plugged in, turned on, and lighting the way.  

           When John, in the Spirit, was brought up and through the door in heaven, he experienced the greatest of these moments. He experienced something few others have ever experienced and been able to share about. He saw things that don’t fit nicely into words: a person or being having “the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald,” these living creatures, this sea of crystal. All these are things that we have some understanding of, we can some make sense of them. But really it seems to have overloaded his senses, and in turn, as he writes about them, it can do so for us as well. This vision goes beyond what can adequately be captured.

We’re not just talking about the setting, though, about the throne room. We’re talking about God Almighty. Our first point this morning is God should be overwhelming to us. What I mean by that is there is so much about him and his character and his majesty that he is more than any person can fully grasp or try to handle. Here are a couple comments on the big picture of what we see in this chapter. Rev. Dr. Paul Gardner writes, “Here is the most wonderful picture of the sovereign judging Lord surrounded by the very symbol of his own covenant faithfulness to his people.” He’s talking about the rainbow. “Even while God sits on the judgment throne, he is surrounded by his own covenant promises.” Rev. Dr. Richard Phillips simplifies it even more, “Revelation 4 should be considered one of the Bible’s greatest chapters. My reasoning is that it presents what is perhaps the most informative vision of the glory of God as he reigns in heaven.”

           As we go throughout this annual Advent/Christmas season—as well as the rest of the year, how are we, how are you thinking of God? If we go back to creation, we think of God doing the truly unfathomable work of creating the universe and everything in it out of nothing, but then we find him almost like another person in the Garden of Eden, just walking along to have a chat. We get the powerful imagery of God judging humanity with the flood in the days of Noah and of him appearing in lightning and thunder, fire and smoke on Mt. Sinai to Moses, Joshua, and the Israelites. If we jump to the birth of Jesus, though, God in our human flesh, maybe we can’t help but think of him maybe as this cute, cuddly baby boy that you just want to look at and smile at and never let go. He’s so fragile. Jesus in his ministry—he was so kind. He’s like the perfect dad or best friend or mentor. Maybe we find ourselves going back and forth between these, feeling like we have to pick either one or the other.

           Yet the whole picture of Christ and of the fullness of God encapsulates all these images and events, including what’s here in Revelation 4. God, who in physical appearance can only be vaguely described, God, who is being bowed down to and worshiped repeatedly in his presence, God, who receives not just a handshake or high five or a statement of congratulations, applause or even a standing ovation, but truly and wholly worshiped—he is bowed down to and has truths spoken over him that are exclusive to him. The ones doing the worshiping are those who have been created by him and exist only because of him.

This is the weight God ought to have for us because he is holy. To be holy, Gardner says, “describes both his perfection and lack of any sin, but also his separation from all that may be tainted with sin…This worship is ceaseless. Here before the throne of God we have the reminder that the whole of life is to be about bringing glory and honour and praise to God.” He deserves this from every created being because of who he is. He’s beyond understanding; he’s overwhelming.

As we think about this passage this morning and we’re drawn into salvation story that God had planned and foretold through the prophets and we think of the angels’ proclamation at Jesus’ birth, maybe we find it easy to give glory to God for who he is, what he’s done, and for his holiness. Yet the reality of today is people are often underwhelmed with God. That’s our second point: humanity is often underwhelmed with God.

           In 1994, Dr. David Wells wrote a book entitled, “God in the Wasteland.” In it, he wrote, “It is one of the defining marks of Our Time that God is now weightless…that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the world so inconsequentially as not to be noticeable. He has lost his saliency for human life. Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in God’s existence may nonetheless consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their appetites for affluence and influence, his judgment no more awe-inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers’ sweet fog of flattery and lies. This is weightlessness. It is a condition we have assigned him after having nudged him out to the periphery of our secularized life…The doctrine [of God] is believed, defended, affirmed liturgically, and in every other way held to be inviolable—but it no longer has the power to shape and to summon that it has had in previous ages.”

           As we look at the world, at culture and life and status and people around us, some 25 years later I think we can affirm that has in large part happened. God doesn’t hold the weightiness among people claiming to be believers or people in general anymore. Most people don’t feel a burden about how their thoughts and actions would appear before an Almighty and all-knowing God. I think we’ve even gone past what Wells describes, though. Not only has God been pushed to the margins, but less and less people uphold the doctrine of God that he speaks of. They don’t believe he’s real, or even if they do believe he might be real, they don’t care about him. They don’t want him in their lives. They don’t actually care about violating him.

           In order to talk about sin, about right and wrong, about just and unjust, it’s not enough just to talk about what we should do or shouldn’t do. We have to lead people to an understanding of God as real, of God as holy, of God as both authoritative and redemptive. We need the Holy Spirit to use his people to show others the full picture of him. If God is not authoritative, people don’t feel the need or urgency to care. If he’s not loving and redeeming, though, then people feel hopeless, and rightfully so. The gospel is that the King of the universe left his throne, became one of us, suffered for us, died for us, and yet was not left to rot in a tomb. He rose and reigns and he invites us into his kingdom—to live for his glory both in the life to come and now. To truly recognize and believe all of that should not, must not leave us underwhelmed with God.

When we look at the person of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Redeemer, our God, the one who has been so gracious and kind to forgive our sins, to save us from damnation, we find that God has welcomed us into the duty of worship. The way we live our lives, the way we come before him in song and prayer, in thought and word, in times of confession and humility, on our own and with others should regularly, even ceaselessly bring our focus to the whole character of God.

Going back to Revelation, it’s not only the powerful, overwhelming image of the one who sits on the throne. There’s the one who says, “‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place…’” There are the proclamations from these four living creatures, who “never stop saying, ‘Holy, holy holy…’” The elders aren’t glued their thrones, all focused on their authority and self-exaltation; no, they “fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him…They lay their crowns before the throne…”

The primary focus of the Christian’s life, of the God-fearer’s life, of the redeemed of the Lord’s life, ought to be worship to God. The greatest thing we can be about is to love the Lord our God with our whole heart, mind, strength, and soul. That isn’t just something that happens, that gets acted out in our minds or only happens in our church building or is something that we just assume is happening because we’ve claimed our faith and salvation. No, worship to God is an intentional duty that we are to live out in our entire lives.

Worship is shown, it’s lived out in the priority that we give to God above everything else. It’s in the submission of our will to his will—our belief of what’s acceptable is given up, is surrendered, to his ways. More and more we find enjoyment in praising God, in not being worried about what other people might think of our faith and worship and devotion. We don’t pray or give or serve to be seen by others, but if they do see us, we aren’t ashamed. We even invite them to join in, and to turn their hearts to our great God.

So, I invite you this week, whether it’s on the Tuesday Sunday School At-Home prayer day or another day, to spend some time in silent prayer, filled with awe before God, or praising him for his holiness, for his nature, his essence, his reign which cannot be compared to anything—our God who is greater and more abundant than anything we can fathom. Let’s prioritize not asking him for more blessings, but worship God for who he is, what he’s done, and what he promises to do and to always be. Amen.