It is Easter Sunday! What better place to be than in the throne room of heaven. The grandeur and majesty of being where the resurrection life of Jesus Christ is displayed as ruler and owner of earth and all universes!
Here in the throne room is we see divine might and purpose in both love and righteous justice. We see the lamb slain for the redemption of His body while at the same time the dramatic judgment and condemnation of sin and sinners. The magnificence here is greater than our own salvation. Here is the essence of God Himself.
Our salvation reaches beyond the power of sin. The blood of Christ is everlasting and so is His redemptive righteousness. Salvation delivers us directly into the presence of almighty God. The Body of Christ is represented by the 24 elders throned in heaven with the risen Lamb who is about to reign.
Our focus on ourselves as the object of redemption is on point. We need to understand ourselves in the context of our sin but we also need to understand ourselves in terms of our ultimate purpose and eternal state. Revelation gives us that ultimate sense of destiny within the context of God’s own essence.
We need to visit this throne room often to refresh our idea of who God is. Our idea of God seems to erode too easily. Our faith becomes dull and weak. Our faith reflects the reality of God in our experience. We speak of God’s qualities and attributes but they are mere words on a page. To know Him is to understand His power, His unchangeable character, His holy righteous purity which manifests itself in both justice and love. But these things mean little unless we are engaged at God’s own eternal level. For us to describe His attributes is to dismantle His person into component parts at a level our feeble minds can digest of the sovereign, unchangeable, self-existing, all-knowing transcendent Lord who is also our personal savior.
In the throne room we are reminded who our God is. We are reminded of His magnificence but more fundamental to the point is the fact we have access and a presence! Sinners saved by grace in the throne room of heaven! Yet, the Lord, our Savior, has seated us with crowns of victory for overcoming sin through the provision of His life in our flesh. Doesn’t this measures God’s grace through Jesus to us? We deserve His judgment but receive His righteousness.
This is the Easter effect! His resurrected life manifested in those who accept His love, His holiness and make it practical alternative to self-adulation. The promise He makes to those born again is to be like Him and to reign with Him. Here in the throne room we have our evidence of His prophetic promise to be in His presence.
God is one. To even describe Him in assignable descriptions defaces the wholeness of His holy being. This is why there are substitute Hebrew words for God like Adonai, Elohim and Jehovah. To say His name is to impair it. He is the great I AM. For us to be like Him is itself one of the greatest miracles and would taint him were but for the resurrection power joining us to Him.
Paul was lifted up into the third heaven but was not permitted to share what he saw. John, on the other hand, is instructed to introduce us.
After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” -Revelation 4:1
“After this” refers to the existing churches on earth. The seven letters written in the previous two chapters to the churches concludes the church age in Revelation. Many expositors agree the 24 elders in this chapter represent the church now in heaven. The number 24 relates to the organization of priests in the Old Testament. In order for them to serve in an orderly rotation they were dived into 24 groups. John sees them dressed in white garments which is also used to describes saints in heaven. Elders are described in scripture as men so this eliminates an interpretation for the elders being angels. They are also wearing golden stephanos (στεφανοs) crowns which were given to winners in Greek games. It is not a crown of authority or imperial dignity. These are saints in heaven who have endured on earth through the life of their resurrected savior. This is the church in heaven before the tribulation.
John sees a door standing open in heaven and the same voice he heard earlier (1:10) speaking to him like a trumpet invites him in.
In the Spirit John ascended and sees someone on the throne but not as a human, rather a person characterized by the appearance of diamond (Jasper) and ruby (carnelian) surrounded by an emerald rainbow.
We are so accustomed seeing things in time and space, it is difficult to visualize life not confined to restrictions we experience. But we must remember our triune God is Spirit and not a material substance like us. He became man for us but He was and is Spirit. His insertion into our created space is that much more remarkable because the creator took on the form of His own creation. What John sees in heaven are things are not defined by our material laws and physical limitations.
In Revelation 1:8 we find this,
“I am the Alpha and Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
The picture of God on the throne is to John like the brilliance of colored gems. The two stones mentioned, however, are symbolic of the twelve covenant tribes of Israel. Let me quote from Walvoord’s commentary on Revelation: “The significance, however, goes far beyond the color. Though the clear jasper might refer to the purity of God and carnelian to His redemptive purpose, according to the Old Testament these stones had a relationship to the tribe of Israel. Each tribe of Israel had a designated stone, and the high priest had these twelve stones on the breastplate of his garments when he stood before the alter. This symbolized the fact that he as the high priest was representing all twelve tribes before the throne of God. Significantly, the jasper and the carnelian are the first and last of these twelve stones (cf. EX. 28:17-21). The jasper represented Reuben, the firstborn of Jacob. The carnelian represented Benjamin, the youngest of Jacob’s twelve sons.”
The symbolic language in revelation is able to convey majestic meaning because it pulls us out of our accustomed dimensions and references. It is an amalgam of known things characterized in new mediums beyond our sensory experience.
“From the throne came flashes of lightening, 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. “ –Revelation 4:5-6.
John is given a preview of God’s judgment in the tribulation. We see a similar description in Revelation 8:5. MacArthur describes the seven touches as the Holy Spirit in war mode against sinful, rebellious humanity. There is little agreement on the sea of glass other than its brilliance contributing to the heavenly ambiance.
The four “living ones” (they are not created animals) can be compared to the ones described in Ezekiel’s vision in Ezekiel 1. In the Revelation account we see the attributes of God depicted in the eyes all around and within. The caricature of the lion, ox, human and eagle are depictions of the created world representing the strength of the wild beasts (lion), the service of domestic animals (ox), the reason and intelligence of man, and the soaring eagle as supreme and sovereign.
These six winged cherubim use their two top wings and two lower wings for worship. And so they initiate praise with the three fold repetition of Holy, Holy, Holy which is also found in Isaiah 6:3. The praise song to God is for His creation and His sovereign right to rule and judge.
The 24 Elders join in the song of praise to God who has not only the sovereign right to rule but through His grace has provided a redemption reaching into creation providing life as it was intended to be for those whom he created.
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”