Today we start the second part of our journey through the
book of Revelation, leading into Christmas we worked our way through the seven
letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor, chapters 1 to 3. Which constituted
the first vision that John had. It was important for us to focus on them
because one of the things it does is ground this most difficult of New
Testament writings to a definite time and place. Revelation is a letter, like
most of the other new testament books, written to those seven churches in Asia
Minor, modern day Turkey, as they face difficult times and increased opposition
and persecution from outside the faith. John calls it a prophecy and while we
may think of as being about foretelling
what is to come, at the heart of the biblical understanding of prophecy is that
it is God’s specific word for a specific time and place. We need to understand
what it meant and said to its original audience so we can interpret it and
apply to our own. What makes it more difficult is that John calls it a revelation
or an apocalypse which is a literary style or genre, where the message is
presented through vivid visions, with symbols and images, weird and wonderful
beasts, numbers with meaning, where history is painted out on a cosmic stage
and scale, not as a linear chain of events. A genre that is foreign to us, but
to its first century readers may have been more common and understandable. This book has been a playground for idle
speculation, fear mongering and end of day’s countdowning… but also a great source
of encouragement and comfort to the church down through the ages as they and we
have faced difficult times similar to the ones faced by its first readers.
Today we look at chapter 4, which Gordon Fee says is
possibly the greatest chapter in scripture to preach on, as it gives us this
amazing picture of the heavenly worship, Fee says it is only bettered by
chapter 5 where we meet the Lamb of God, and Lorne has the honour of preaching
on that one.
It’s the start of a new vision for John. In apocalyptic
writing words like I then saw, then it was shown to me are ways of moving from
one thing to another. A bit like scene changes in movies. John starts here in
verse 1 by saying after this refereeing us back to his previous vision. A
vision that starts in chapter one of the risen Jesus standing amidst the
lampstands that represent the seven churches. AS Jesus speaks to each of the
churches, we have a sense of his presence and his being with them, the focus is
on the immanence of God, Immanuel God with us. Jesus sees and knows their
deeds, he is able to reward them for their perseverance, even Laodicea where it
seems Jesus has been forgotten, he stands at the door of the city and knocks,
wanting to come in and dine with his people. In the midst of all that the
church is facing from within and outside, encouragement comes from the fact
that the risen Jesus is with them, close and moving amongst them. It is the
same for us as we deal with the issues from within and without the church,
false teaching, unlove, persecution, finding ourselves being lulled to sleep,
that Jesus is with us by the Holy Spirit, he sees he cares he knows, he speaks
and he longs for us to repent and to persevere, and will reward us.
Then John speaks of what he now sees. There is a door before
him which leads to heaven, and he is called up into the heavenly throne room.
We may think that heaven is a long way away, out there off beyond the physical
galaxy, but here we see that it is right close by. In Isaiah 6 the prophet
Isaiah is in the temple and suddenly like the curtains being opened at a
theatre he finds himself in the very throne room of God. For Jews of his day
that would seem natural as the temple was the place that God dwelt with his
people. Ezekiel an exile on the banks of the river kebar suddenly finds the
heavens opened and he sees a vision of God’s throne moving from Jerusalem to be
with the exiles in Babylon. Our celtic forbears used to talk of thin places,
usually associated with worship, where the veil between the physical and the
heavenly is thin. The cross is that thinnest of places. Here we see that heaven
is close by, and what is even more encouraging is that such a thin place was
even the island of Patmos where John was imprisoned, even the time of Isaiah as
Jerusalem faced siege and military
threat, even with the exiles in Babylon, even with us here and now, in our joys
and sorrows. Heaven is near. We do not serve a distant disinterested deity.
John is invited by Christ, the one with the voice like a
trumpet in his initial vision, to come into the throne room and he will be
shown what is to come. Before we get to that John gives us a vivid description
of what he sees in heaven. Maybe our
eyes would be drawn to the central figure on the throne, and John struggles to
describe what he sees when he looks there except that it is like precious
jewels shining in the light. The three stones mentioned may have meaning or
more likely they represent every precious stone. In Ezekiel 28:13 the king of
tyre is said to be covered in all the precious stones and that is represented
by these three stones. The key image is of God as Paul describes him in 1
timothy 6:16 God dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or
can see”.
In front of the throne are twenty-four lesser thrones, on
them sit twenty four elders, clothed in white with crowns upon their head. The
description of cloths and crowns bring us back to the promises of the letters
to the seven churches where those who overcome are seen as receiving a crown, a
wreath, and being clothed in white. Twenty-four is seen as representing the
totality of God’s people, his Old Testament people Israel represented by the
twelve tribes and his new testament people by the apostles.
John continues describing what he sees, he sees a lampstand
with seven lamps which we are told represent the seven spirits of God. There is
much debate over what the seven Spirits of God mean. In Isaiah 11 in a prophesy
about the Branch of Jesse it talks of the Spirit being on this messianic figure
in seven different ways, likewise in Romans Paul speaks of the seven different ways
that the Spirit ministers to God’s people. In the vision of the seven churches
we see the spirit being shown by the lampstand to be with the seven churches,
and seven of course if God’s number representing perfection. What we are
supposed to realize is God’s Spirit is present before the throne.
John also talks of a Crystal sea. It may be a reference to
the sea or large bowl of water that was in the temple, part of the temple furniture
and described in 1 Kings 7 beside the altar. Isaiah does not mention it in his
vision of the heavenly throne room but it maybe for him that it was simply
furnishing he would expect. Others wonder if this does not represent the sea
which in Jewish thinking was a force of chaos. In Ezekiel it is out of the
ocean that the terrifying beasts arrive but here in the throne room of God,
even this murky chaotic force lies still and crystal clear before the throne of
God almighty. As a created thing it serves the creator.
The last thing John sees before the action in heaven is
described are four living creatures, with eyes and wings, with different faces
one of an ox one of a lion, another of a man and the last of an eagle. Much of
the symbols and things we see in Revelation are described and mentioned in the
Old Testament, for John’s Jewish readers steeped in the scriptures they would
have grasped their significance. Similar living creatures appear in Ezekiel’s
vision of the heavenly throne, they each have the four faces and a different
number of wings. Celtic Christians have used these creatures as symbols for the
gospels, depicted in the wonderful illuminated book of kells. Commentators see
them representing all living things before the throne. The ox are the domesticated
animals, the lion is king of the wild beasts, the man reminds us that we too
are creatures, and that is quite humbling, and the eagle represents the birds.
For the biologists amongst us we may say, hey what about fish and insects, but
it is very much a reflection of the Jewish world view at the time. Here
creation is before the throne of God actively involved in worship.
That leads us from a description of what is around the
throne to the worship that happens around the throne. The living creatures
constantly worship God. Saying Holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was
and is and is to come”. The focus is on the transcendence of God. Holy, God is
totally other, separate and pure light. Spirit to be worshipped in spirit and
truth as Jesus says in John 4. All
powerful. The vision we are looking at will go on to look at the rise and fall
of the kingdoms and powers of this word, the actions of spiritual beings, but
it starts first and foremost with the assertion that God is almighty. The eternal
nature of God is also at the centre of their praise, we are so used to this
idea of God who was, who is and will ever be’ that we forget its amazing power
and wonder. God has always been, but is not stuffy and old fashioned but is
now, present and reigning today, and as we face the future we can do so with
the assurance that God will continue to rule and to reign.
Whenever the living creatures worship, it tells us the
elders fall to the ground, casting their crowns before him, and worship as
well. You think we do a lot of standing and sitting in our services… they say ‘You
are worthy to receive glory, honour and power, for you created all things, and
by your will they were created and have their being”. NT Wright reflects on the
difference between he worship of the living beings and the representatives of
the people of God is the word ‘because’, the psalms tell us we join with all
creation, all creation worships its creator, but the 24 elders, the people of
God are the ones who worship with knowledge and reason, they see the power of
God, his worthiness, that he has created all things, that he sustains all thing
by his prevenient grace.
That’s the vision, what we see and the action that is
described to us… But What does it say to us.
Well, it points us to
the sovereignty of God, as we start a vision of what is to come, we are drawn
into the presence of God. God on the throne. You’d think that as John
contemplated what is to come that we may have started with the roman emperor on
the throne, what is going to happen to God’s people in Asia Minor is going to
be dictated to by Rome, however here we see that the real power, the real
control, the one whose purposes and plans and kingdom will reign is our
heavenly father.
The repeated name for God in this chapter is the one who
lives for ever and ever. It is in the worship of the living creatures it’s
repeated twice, in v 9 and 10. It is what gives us encouragement and hope,
kingdoms may rise and fall, and they do and will continue to But God’s rule and
reign, God’s kingdom is eternal. It invites us to look up from what we see
around us to grasp a bigger picture, an eternal perspective. As the book of
revelation goes on we will see that we live in this time between Christ’s
coming and his return and that will be a time of difficulty and strife, But God
is the one who is in control, god is the one who is able to keep us and bring
about his purposes and plans. We are living in the longest reign of an English
monarch, but it too will come to end, but God is still on the throne. Psalm 2 encapsulates this by talking of the
nation’s raging against God, but God is simply amused, he will establish his
King and his kingdom. We live in the
time between the all ready. In Jesus God’s
Kingdom has draw near, and the not yet, awaiting its final consummation. But we
live with the hope and assurance that God is on the throne and is working out
his plans and purposes.
As I came back to work this year, I came back with a sense
of dread almost of just another COVID year. This season we find ourselves in my
scripture reading for that first week, which I shared in the pastoral letter
was Psalm 62, and as the Psalmist turns to encourage his readers to have the
trust and hope in God that he has even as he has faced difficult times, he says
he knows these two things about God. He has heard God say that Power belongs to
Him and that with God is constant love. In
the first two visions in
revelation as God’s people are to be encouraged by both those things, God is
close and with us, in Christ, in what we face as individuals and a community of
faith and as we see the movement of wider history, we know God is eternal. All
powerful and sovereign.
As we move on and
look at all the weird and wonderful and frightening things in Revelation, we
need to hold on to that truth. We do not fear what is to come. As we live out
our lives in the midst of pain and suffering, uncertainty, change of today ,
we do so without fear, Christ is with us, god is sovereign, let us
join with all creation and all heaven in worship…
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