Chapters 4-5: Heavenly Worship, Part 1
We now find the Spirit giving John a glimpse of heavenly worship. The “things that are,” which he sees, include many worship scenes. John sees the throne room, depicting a reality that is both present and eternal. He sees an array of heavenly beings (angels) and saints worshiping the Lord and the Lamb. Chapter 4 praises the Father as the creator of all; chapter 5 praises the Son as the savior of all. And so we see in Revelation chapters 4 and 5 the first two parts of the Creed, where we confess God the Father as creator and His Son as our redeemer.
Even more, in John’s revelation, we see how Jesus fulfills the prophecies in the Old Testament, especially Daniel’s prophecy about the Son of Man (remember the Old Testament readings assigned as homework?). Below is a chart showing some of the parallels between Daniel 7 and Revelation 4-5.
These parallels are not simply good-to-know information. They show Jesus as the One who fulfills Daniel’s prophecy, receiving a kingdom and giving it to the saints. Yet, other Old Testament prophets also foreshadow John’s visions. Isaiah and Ezekiel also saw a vision of God’s throne in heaven (Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1-2). What is worth noting is that both Isaiah and Ezekiel saw God’s glory when He commissioned them to prophesy about the coming destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 586 BC.
God allowed those Old Testament prophets to see His glory in heaven, so they would know that the true Temple is in the heavenly city above (Hebrews 12:22-24). God assured Ezekiel that the heavenly sanctuary was real and would still exist even after the first earthly temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. John’s vision is also meant to reveal this to us, as well. It even make more sense if we see Revelation being written in the late 60’s, before the Jerusalem Temple’s destruction, where God finally closed, in a climactic way, His Old Covenant.
Read Revelation 4:1-3
The Throne of God
– All three verses are separated into groups of three. Remembering the significance of the number three in Scripture, what is John doing through such repetition?
Psalm 47:8: God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.
– What is the significance of God sitting on a throne?
John see God’s throne similarly to how Ezekiel had seen it in his day (Ezekiel 1:26-28). The stones of jasper and carnelian (or sardius stone) were found in the Garden of Eden, the original earthly sanctuary (Ezekiel 28:13). The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, tells us that the High Priest wore those stones as part of his vestments when he served in the sanctuary (Exodus 28:17-20, LXX).
The rainbow surrounding His throne shows that God will not judge us as He did in the flood (Genesis 9:12-17).
Read Revelation 4:4
– What do the 24 elders represent?
Exodus 19:6: And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
1 Peter 2:9: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
– What do the white garments represent? What about the crowns?
Read Revelation 4:5
Exodus 19:16: On the third day [when the Lord was leading the Israelites in the desert], when morning came, there was thunder and lightning, a thick cloud on the mountain, and a loud trumpet sound, so that all the people in the camp shuddered.
– Who is the One from whom proceeds lightning, thunder, and voices (also note thee grouping of three)?
Read Revelation 4:6-9
Exodus 24:10: and they saw the God of Israel. Beneath His feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire stone, as clear as the sky itself.
We cannot say for certain what the “sea of glass like crystal” represents. However, Moses and the 70 elders saw something similar when they were given a vision of God on Mt. Sinai. St. Andrew of Caesarea (563 – 637) said it represented the “undisturbability of the future life.”
The Four Winged Creatures
The four creatures that John sees bear many similarities to what Ezekiel saw (Ezekiel 1:4-28). Ezekiel saw four living creatures, each of which had four faces: a man, lion, ox, and an eagle. John sees four creatures, but each one only had one face. Ezekiel’s creatures had four wings; John’s had six. So, with the six wings, John’s vision is more similar to Isaiah’s vision of the seraphim (Isaiah 6:2).
Ezekiel would later identify the four living creatures he saw as cherubim (Ezekiel 10:20). So, from both Isaiah and Ezekiel, we can safely say the four, winged creatures that John see are angelic, heavenly beings. Their many eyes represent the angels’ awareness of what is happening throughout creation. The four faces represent creation: the eagle representing the birds; the lion, the wild beasts, the ox, domesticated animals; and the other, mankind. (Remember, four is the number for creation.)
The Sanctus
Isaiah heard the seraphim sing the Sanctus (the “Holy, Holy, Holy”) in the 8th century BC (Isaiah 6:1-3). Later, in the 1st century AD, the Apostle John saw four living creatures seated around the heavenly throne who never rested and sang, “Holy, holy, holy.” The only seeming explanation for the similar reports is that the seraphim had been singing the hymn without interruption over the intervening 800 years! In other words, the angels show us heavenly reality, which is the lived out and voiced in a way that brings praise and glory to God.
If the angels praise God without end, then what they do is not something to be replaced but will be the fulfillment toward which all our worship leads. And so when we sing the Sanctus in our Lord’s Supper liturgy, they are words on loan from the heavenly choirs, and symbolize what will occupy us throughout eternity. Our lives in eternity will testify to the holiness and righteousness of God. But now, those words allow us to begin to understand the intimate link between the worship we offer and the liturgical reality of our life in eternity.
Our worship today is an apprenticeship for what is to come. That’s why our faces are turned toward God, not toward creation (which is why we face the front toward the altar, including the choir, and not each other, when we sing in worship). For worship is not to edify us but to ponder and thank the Triune God and what the Son came down to do “for us men and for our salvation” (Revelation chapter 5 goes in that direction).
The Sanctus has God written all over it. It has three descriptions within three phrases about God. If John were only giving us information, one holy would be enough. Yet, this is poetry–and so we have three holies, highlighting the holiness of God through repetition. Yet, God is not simply holy but also eternal.
He is holy = Lord = The One-Who-Was
He is holy = God = The One-Who-Is
He is holy = Almighty = The One-Who-Will Be
– What are the angels praising God for?
Read Revelation 4:10-11
The 24 elders “fall down” before God. The Greek word is pipto, which carries the idea of collapsing. They “worship” Him, shown by the Greek word proskenueo, which also means to fall down before God in worship.
– What does this say about how our bodies, even the whole person, are involved in the worship of God?
– What does the casting of their crowns toward God represent?
– How does the praise from the 24 elders differ from that of the angels?
In the end, all Christian thanksgiving leads to adoration of God (2 Corinthians 4:15). When we stand before God and discover what He is like, because of what He did and does for us, we cannot but adore Him. That’s what the angels do as they surround him and serve him in heaven (Revelation 5:12, 7:11-12). They sing: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8). As they stand before Him and see the glory of His Son, they sing: “Glory” (Psalm 29:9; Revelation 5:13).
Since our Lord’s incarnation, the angels invite us to stand with them before God the Father in the divine service and join with them in giving glory to him (Luke 2:13). So then, our adoration of God gives us a foretaste of heaven. As we adore the triune God, we begin to do on earth what we will do forever in heaven. We begin to enjoy our God who is so good and great that we never come to the end of our enjoyment of Him.
We will see more of this next week.
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