In the opening 3 chapters of Revelation, John received a vision of seven words from King Jesus himself to the seven churches that he is writing this letter to. And now he says, “After this,” I saw another set of visions of God’s heavenly throne room.
And this tends to confuse people because we read “after this” and we assume that what he means is, okay, so after all this stuff has happened, then this other stuff is going to happen, right? We assume, okay, after all this stuff with the seven churches happens, then there’s going to be this weird heavenly throne room thing, there’s going to be these seals, there’s going to be these trumpets, there’s going to be these bowls, there’s going to be a beast, there’s going to be a great prostitute.
That’s all stuff that happens after the time of the seven churches. So, there’s the seven churches stuff in Revelation 1 through 3, and that’s all about the first century. But then there’s a bunch of other stuff starting in chapter 4 going through the end of the book, and that’s all about some way distant future time. Maybe our time today is when all that takes place, or maybe it’s sometime in the future.
But we tend to divide the book of Revelation up into the first three chapters taking place in the past and then the rest of the 19 chapters that follow after it taking place in the distant future.
But that’s actually not what this is saying.
“After This” Does Not Mean “After These Events”
When John says “after this,” grammatically what he’s saying is not, “After these events, then here’s some other events.”
What he’s saying is, “After that first vision, I had another vision.”
He’s saying my first vision was of these words from King Jesus to Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and Laodicea and so on and so forth. But my next vision was this vision of the throne room.
That actually tells us absolutely nothing about when it takes place chronologically. That tells us nothing about whether the throne room vision that he’s having here is about something that takes place in the past or the present or the future. This throne room vision could be the past for John. It could be the present for John. It could be the future for John. Or it could be something else entirely.
But the point is, he is writing the same way almost all apocalyptic literature is written. And this is really important for us to understand if we want to understand Revelation.
Apocalyptic literature just flat out is not chronological. Apocalyptic literature does not read in a linear way from start to finish. It does not read in a chronological way from start to finish.
And the book of Revelation is no different from any other apocalyptic literature in that sense. Just because chapter 4 comes after chapter 3 does not mean that the events chapter 4 is describing take place after the events of chapter 3. Just because chapter 8 takes place after chapter 6 does not mean that the events of chapter 8 are taking place after the events of chapter 6, and so on and so forth.
We’re going to see that especially when we get into the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the seven bowls. When you really look at the book of Revelation, take a step back and look at the big picture, the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls are probably all taking place at exactly the same time.
Revelation 12 probably spans that same period of time as Revelation 6 and 7 with the seals, and then with the trumpets coming after that and the beasts and stuff like that. And so there’s a bunch of different angles that we get on this same series of events.
The same thing is at work here in Revelation 4 and 5. This throne room vision is not meant to be something that is far in the future after the events that are taking place in the lives of the seven churches.
This is the next vision. But that does not mean it is the next thing in the sequence of chronological historical events.
A Heavenward View of the Seven Churches’ World
What’s happening in this throne room vision is not that he’s telling us about some future event that’s going to take place. What’s happening in the throne room vision is that we are getting a look under the hood of the car. We’re getting a look behind the curtain to see God’s perspective on all of these things that the seven churches are going through.
And so Revelation 4 and 5 is describing the same situation, the same problems that Jesus describes through the mouth of John in Revelation 2 and 3 in the letters to the seven churches. But now he’s describing them from kind of a heavenward view rather than a street-level view.
He is describing God in his throne room as the seven churches in Asia Minor are going through all of these things.
He says a door in heaven opens. John is being kind of invited into the council room of God, the way that all the prophets of the Old Testament were when they were given their prophetic oracles, when they were shown God’s perspective on the events of ancient Israel, the Old Testament story, and so on and so forth.
He’s being called through that door in the heavens the same way that Ezekiel was in Ezekiel chapter 1, right? Heaven was opened up for Ezekiel so that the Lord could then give him the visions and the sight that he needed to be able to give God’s word to God’s people.
Same thing in Isaiah chapter 6, right after King Uzziah dies. Everyone is in despair. The prophet is whisked up in some sense to God’s throne. He’s given a vision of the throne room of God so that the Lord can give him the visions, give him the prophetic oracles, the eyes to see, so that he can declare God’s words to God’s people.
It’s the same thing we see in 1 Kings 22. Micaiah sees the heavenly council. It’s as if the heavens are opened up so that he’s able to lay eyes in some sense on the inner workings of the heavenly places.
He’s being shown the spiritual reality behind the physical, earthly, kind of mundane experiences that the seven churches are having day after day after day after day.
Jasper, Ruby, and the Emerald Rainbow
And as it describes the throne room of God, the throne of God, as it describes everything surrounding the Lord in his heavenly council chamber, his heavenly throne room, it describes a bunch of gemstones.
It uses the imagery of these precious gemstones to describe all of what’s going on in the heavenly chambers. God’s own appearance, right? God himself is kind of described. He compares him to jasper.
Now jasper in the ancient Near East was associated with purity or the brilliance of a precious metal. It was one of the most precious things that you could get your hands on.
Today, I think I’ve used this example already, but it’s like we associate fresh white linen sheets with cleanness, right? Fresh brown linen sheets are just as clean as fresh white linen sheets, but we don’t associate fresh brown linen sheets with cleanliness. We associate fresh white linen sheets with cleanliness.
It’s totally arbitrary, but it just kind of holds meaning for us.
And in the same way, jasper, there’s nothing about jasper that’s actually especially pure or anything like that, but they associated it with purity and brilliance, glory. And so when he describes God’s appearance as being like jasper, he’s saying God is glorious the way that jasper is glorious. And he radiates this absolute purity the same way that jasper radiates this absolute purity.
At the same time, they associated ruby with judgment. And so when he describes God’s appearance as being like ruby, he’s saying God radiates the sort of aura of fiery judgment, good righteous judgment, good holy judgment.
And in the ancient Near East, they associated rainbow with mercy, especially in Israel. But this is actually not just an Israelite thing. They associated the rainbow, like after it rained, with God’s mercy, with God’s patience, with God’s kindness, his graciousness.
And so he says that God looked kind of like an emerald rainbow. He’s saying that amidst the righteous fiery judgment that just radiates out from him, the ruby, amidst the absolute purity that cannot tolerate impurity or wickedness, the glory that cannot tolerate unrighteousness, dishonorableness, still, there’s this emerald rainbow.
There is this mercy even amidst the righteous judgment. He radiates mercy. He radiates graciousness. He radiates kindness.
When you stand in the presence of this glorious God in his throne room, you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the gentleness that is just flowing out of him.
The God of Sinai Seated on His Throne
In exactly the same way, he says that in this throne room vision, there was thunder and lightning. There were earthquakes, there was this booming voice like a trumpet, and so on and so forth.
He’s taking the imagery from Exodus 19. In Exodus 19, when the Lord reveals himself on Mount Sinai, there is lightning, thunder, earthquakes, and this voice that is indescribable.
He’s saying the God on the throne in this vision presents exactly the same way as the Lord presents himself on Sinai.
This is the God of Israel seated on his heavenly throne. This is the lawgiver seated on his heavenly throne. This is the covenant king seated on his heavenly throne.
And as the God of Mount Sinai, the God of the covenant, the God of the law, the God of all creation, is seated on his throne, surrounded by thunder and lightning, presenting as emerald, rainbow, ruby, jasper, and so on and so forth, all around him, everyone gathered is singing, “Holy, holy, holy.”
It’s a kind of threefold formula.
They say, “Holy, holy, holy is the one who was, who is, who is to come.”
So holy, who was; holy, who is; holy, who is to come. There’s this threefoldness that actually does matter. That’s actually significant. They’re not just being repetitive.
Although they absolutely are being repetitive.
You notice all throughout the Old and New Testaments, every time you see worship music, like the Psalms or the songs in Revelation, they are insanely repetitive. They just say the same thing over and over and over again. So again, stop complaining about modern worship music being too repetitive. The hymns that were not repetitive, that was a new thing. When God himself writes worship music, it’s crazy repetitive. So chill out about Hillsong.
But when they declare that he is holy, holy, holy, the point is he is not just holy. He is not just doubly holy. He is thrice holy.
That was something they just kind of associated with completeness. It’s interesting. They associated the number seven with completeness. And in another way, they kind of associated the number three with completeness.
God is using the language. He’s using the imagery. He is using the cultural markers that would have made sense to them at that time.
So, are there literally a bunch of people singing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty who was and is and is to come” in heaven right now?
Probably not. No.
This is imagery that’s meant to be understandable to the ancient Near Easterners who were steeped in apocalyptic literature and had these specific cultural things, these specific images, these specific pieces of language and idioms and stuff like that.
But this is getting at something that is eternal. And that is that God is absolutely holy, completely holy, gloriously holy.
He is wholly set apart from everything that is impure. Everything that is not perfect, everything that is less than glorious.
His glory is overwhelming, and it always has been and it always will be. His holy, holy holiness was, is, and is to come.
So into eternity past he has been radically, gloriously holy, and into eternity future he will be radically, gloriously holy.
Casting Crowns Before the True King
And because that is true, the people surrounding his throne cast down their crowns as an act of worship.
We’re going to get into who they are, right? The elders. But we’re going to get into what that means in just a second. But first things first, all the elders, all the ones surrounding the throne, they cast down their crowns.
Now, this is actually another very important image because this is specifically a reference to the ancient Roman imperial worship ceremonies.
In the imperial cult, remember, as a person living in the Roman Empire, you were required, not just expected, but required to worship the emperor of Rome. You were required to worship Caesar and you were required to worship the Roman Empire.
You were required not only to worship the pagan gods of Rome, but you were required to worship Rome itself as an empire. And you were required to worship the man who governed Rome.
And because that was true, what we’ll see very, very soon as we get further into Revelation is that both a lot of ancient Jews and early Christians referred to both the Roman Empire and the Roman emperor as a very specific term.
They called both the emperor of Rome and the empire of Rome the beast.
That was not a new term. That was a term they took from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament times, the ancient Israelites referred to the Babylonian Empire as the beast. They referred to the Persian Empire as the beast. They referred to the Greek Empire as the beast. And then they referred to the empire that came after the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, as the beast.
In the same way, they referred to the Roman Empire as Babylon, just like they referred to Persia as Babylon, just like they referred to Babylon itself as Babylon.
They used these terms as images of the serpent king working through wicked human governments, wicked human rulers, wicked human power players who oppose the Lord and either try to destroy his people or deceive his people.
And they would use those terms, the beast or Babylon or the man of lawlessness or a whole lot of other ones, not just to refer to nations, not just to refer to kings or rulers, but sometimes they would refer to other rabbis as the man of lawlessness or the beast. Sometimes the Pharisees and Sadducees referred to each other as the man of lawlessness or the beast, and so on and so forth. They refer to each other as kind of expressions of Babylon and so on and so forth.
But all that is to say, in the imperial cult you had to worship the Roman emperor and you had to worship the Roman Empire alongside the gods of Rome. And if you didn’t, you were viciously persecuted.
But in the ceremonies, the worship rituals that Rome required people to be a part of, the courtiers would take off their crowns and they would cast them before the emperor of Rome in submission to him as their king and as a god, in recognition of the supremacy of the emperor and the empire over them as both a ruler and a god.
Their loyalty to Caesar.
They would declare, “You are our Lord and God.” They would say, “You are of divine origin.” They would say, “You are the ruler of the cosmic order.” They would say, “You are the bringer of peace, the bringer of stability.”
They would cast down their crowns. It was an act of worship.
And now in this vision that the Lord has given John, the exact same thing is happening in the throne room of heaven.
But it’s not happening for Caesar, the false god-king. It’s happening to the Lord himself, the true God-King.
The only Lord and God there is is the God of the universe, Yahweh. The only Savior there is is Yahweh. The only bringer of peace is Yahweh.
And because that is true, the angels heap this once again imperial language onto God in his throne room. They are using once again the same language that the imperial cult ceremonies used for worshiping Caesar.
The angels say, “Power is yours, O God. Wealth is yours, O God. Wisdom is yours, O God. Strength, honor, glory, praise are yours, O God.”
These are the exact same terms that the imperial cult required Romans to pour out on the false god, King Caesar.
There are all kinds of old things that have been dug up by archaeologists with inscriptions that say, “Power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, praise, and so forth be yours, O Caesar, Lord and God, Savior, bringer of peace.”
You were required to sing what they called imperial hymns as a person living in the Roman Empire. You had to sing hymns to Caesar that said, “Power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and praise are yours, O Caesar, Lord and God, Savior, bringer of peace.”
And you had to make civic oaths by Caesar. You’d say, “I swear by our Lord and God, our Savior, our bringer of peace, Caesar, that I am telling the truth,” and so on and so forth.
Now, these seven churches, they lived in Asia Minor, and that was the capital. That was the center of the imperial cult. They lived in cities that were decorated with this imperial propaganda that declared that Caesar was Lord and God, Savior and bringer of peace, to whom power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and praise was due.
And so they would have had to chant these things over and over and over again, day after day, week after week, year after year, or else be relentlessly persecuted.
In this vision in the throne room, that exact same language is being applied now not to the false god, King Caesar, but to the true King, Yahweh.
This throne room vision is saying all of these things, they belong to the Lamb, not the beast. They belong to King Jesus, not the false king Caesar.
They say Caesar, you know, he has these armies. He has all this wealth. He has all this pomp and circumstance. He has all this status. He has these temples in his honor.
But the Lamb, the true King, he holds the universe in his hand.
The Seven Lamps and the Fullness of the Spirit
And within this throne room vision, John sees seven lamps.
This is a reference to Isaiah chapter 11. Isaiah 11 casts this image of this sevenfold Spirit of God. It’s a reference to Zechariah 4. There’s this sevenfold lampstand. It’s a kind of an image Zechariah uses to describe the way that God’s Spirit empowers his people for the work that he has given to them.
The point is not that there are seven literal spirits. The point is the Holy Spirit in his fullness permeates this throne room.
He says, “I can feel the weight of the Spirit all over this throne room.”
The Sea of Glass
And as God in his overwhelming glory sits on his throne, he says, “There is a sea of glass beneath his throne.”
Once again, this is a very important image that would have made perfect sense to them. It was not a puzzle. It was not something they were supposed to figure out. It was not a code they were supposed to crack.
They would immediately have said, “Oh, yeah. Okay, cool. Sea of glass. I get it.”
In ancient Near Eastern cosmology, in the way that they kind of described the universe, they saw the sea as sort of an image, a symbol, a metaphor. They didn’t literally think this, but they saw the sea as kind of an image of chaos.
The sea for them, it just sort of represented disorder. They associated the sea with evil.
So, if you look at a lot of old Canaanite myths, the sea was actually represented by a chaos monster that was then defeated by whichever of the gods they worshiped.
All their stories kind of run the same way. They just all say, “No, actually it was this god who did it. Actually, no, it was this god. Actually, no, it was this god. Actually, no, it was this god.”
They all agree that the sea is kind of representative of chaos, evil, disorder, death, decay, and destruction. They just disagree about which god is the one who defeated the sea, who defeated the chaos monster that the sea represents.
But in Genesis chapter 1, the stories that ancient Israel told to kind of help us understand the God of the universe, they took that same image and yet they use it in a very different way.
In Genesis chapter 1, you see God subduing these chaotic waters. Now, once again, that does not mean that the sea is literally evil or disorder or chaos. That does not mean that there was literally a sea god or something like that.
The point is, the sea for the ancient Near Easterners, it was just an image of the chaos, disorder, evil, the brokenness of the world.
But in Genesis 1, you see God says he was hovering over the waters. And what he does is he brings order to it.
The chaos of this world is ultimately still under the rulership of the God of the universe, and he can and will ultimately bring that chaos, that brokenness, to an end.
And we see that exact same image here in John’s throne room vision.
What’s happening is that there is the sea, which they associated with chaos, disorder, and evil. And yet the sea is like glass.
The vision does not say that the sea is literally glass. It says it’s like glass. It is so calm. It’s like the flat crystal glass is made out of.
God’s rule is so absolute that the chaos itself is beholden to him.
If he says stop, the chaos must stop. If he says be done, the disorder must be done.
The chaos is frozen beneath him like glass.
And one day, the chaos of this world that the sea just represents will become like glass when his redemptive work to restore all things is done.
And because that is true, he is gloriously worthy of worship.
The Twenty-Four Elders
And so around his throne in this vision, it says there are 24 elders.
Now, the language that John is using here in this vision of the 24 elders is actually really specific and really important. The 24 elders are something that confuses a lot of people.
They say, “Oh, who do the 24 elders represent?”
Some people say they represent the 12 tribes of Israel, and they represent the apostles. Others say they represent the 24 different priestly divisions in 1 Chronicles. Others say they represent the unified people of God, and so on and so forth.
There’s merit in all those things. There’s value in all of those things.
But the important thing that we need to recognize is that the language that is used to describe them describes, one, priests, and two, kings.
That’s extremely important.
They are described as having white garments, which they would have associated with victory. They would have associated it with victory and with holiness, absolute set-apartness, absolute purity.
They’ve been victorious in some way over something. And they’ve been holy in some way in the face of temptation otherwise, right?
So they’ve got white garments that have not been soiled like the soiled garments in Sardis.
At the same time, it says they have crowns. They are participating in some way in divine rule.
But they’ve got crowns on their head even in the throne room of God. So they’re in God’s throne room. There is one true King over all creation.
And so if you were in the throne room of the one true King and you were some kind of earthly king, you don’t want to have your crown on your head, right? Your crown does not belong on your head because your rule is done, right?
Well, not with them.
Why is that?
It’s because they’re not kings from the Old Testament or kings from the earth or something like that. They are kings in heaven. They are kings in the throne room of God.
They have crowns that were given to them by God. And it says they have thrones that were given to them by God.
So they were given crowns by the one who wears the true crown. They were given thrones by the one who sits on the true throne. And they have white garments.
So they are absolutely holy and they have been given the victory.
What is this pointing us to?
It’s pointing us toward the priestly imagery and it’s pointing us towards the kingly imagery.
The point is they are priest-kings like God called his people to be when he brought them out of Egypt and said, “You will be my kingdom of priests.”
When God created his people, he created his people to be a kingdom of priests, a priestly kingdom, a kingdom of priest-kings.
That’s the same thing he created humanity to do in the beginning in Genesis chapter 1. The language God uses in Genesis chapter 1 to describe Adam and Eve is priestly language and it is royal language.
They are his royal images, his royal statues, and they are working and keeping the garden. That’s the language that the book of Leviticus uses to describe the priestly work that the Levitical priests do.
So Adam and Eve were priest-kings. So Adam was a priest and a king. Eve was a priest and a king.
We’re not using the term king in a gender-specific way here. We’re just using it in the sense of a ruler.
They were there to rule with the Lord in the garden. They were there to do the priestly work of the Lord in the garden.
And in the same way, when God rescued his people from Egypt, he rescued them and said, “If you will listen to my voice, if you will follow after me, I will make you my priest-kings just like Adam and Eve before the fall.”
And so what’s happening here is that these 24 elders, they are representative not of 24 remarkable dudes.
They are representative of all of redeemed humanity.
All of redeemed humanity has been restored to its role as God’s priest-kings.
And so this is every person who has ever been redeemed, gathered around the throne, restored to their role as his priestly and kingly people.
And so they are participating in his divine rule in some way. They are sharing his royal authority in some way because they have been made holy and given the victory.
So just to be totally clear, the 24 elders represent literally every human in heaven. So the 24 elders represent everybody that you have lost who was a follower of Jesus. If you die tomorrow, the 24 elders will represent you.
The Four Living Creatures
He says, “Not only redeemed humanity, but all the rest of creation.”
He says, “There were four living creatures surrounding God’s throne.”
This is an image that he took from Ezekiel chapter 1. In Ezekiel chapter 10, they describe these kind of hybrid beings with a whole bunch of different faces, a whole bunch of different eyes covering all over their bodies. They’re right there by God’s chariot, right there by God’s throne.
That same imagery is taken and repurposed here in Revelation, and it describes them almost identically.
He says that they have body parts that look like a lion, look like an ox, look like a human, look like an eagle.
The point is not that there’s weird deformed monsters in heaven.
The point is these four living creatures, they’ve specifically got pieces that represent every different type of created being.
Part of them looks like a lion. So there are wild animals surrounding God’s throne, lifting him up in worship, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.”
There are oxen, which are kind of representative, you know, like domestic animals, the sort of animals you would use for farming and stuff like that. They are surrounding God’s throne saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the one who was and is and is to come.”
There are parts of them that look human, which is representative of humanity, which we’ve already talked about, right? And there are parts of these creatures that look like birds, like eagles.
And so there are birds gathered around God’s throne singing out, “Holy is the one who has redeemed and restored us, who created us and now has made us new,” and so on and so forth.
This is essentially shorthand. This is essentially symbolic for all of creation responding to God’s throne room glory by surrounding his throne and pouring out its worship.
And more important than any of that even is that the four living creatures, it says they have eyes everywhere.
Just like in Ezekiel, that was another very common ancient Near Eastern image. When you described something as having eyes everywhere, you were essentially saying that it had a kind of divine perception.
You were saying it had a kind of cosmic awareness. You were saying in some sense it sees with the eyes of the Lord and it sees things truly, sees things clearly, sees things as they are.
Why do they see things truly, clearly, as they are? Why do they have a divine perception, a cosmic awareness?
It’s because they are in the presence of God.
All of creation redeemed and restored is fully enraptured by the glory of the God sitting on the throne in the presence of God in his throne room.
And so while these seven churches are going through extreme persecution and temptation on earth, all of redeemed creation, past, present, and future, is watching it play out from God’s throne room.
So this is actually two totally different times. They are watching from eternity future in some sense.
This is breaking the bounds of time as we are able to perceive it. Eternity future is watching the present, and the beings in eternity future are praying for us in the present in some sense.
So there’s a weird sense in which you could maybe even say that future you, gathered around God’s throne with the rest of redeemed creation, is praying for current you.
The Scroll at the Center of Revelation
But in the middle of all of this, they pull out the scroll.
And this is kind of the central image of the entire book of Revelation. This is unbelievably important.
They pull out this scroll. And there’s a lot of debate over exactly what the scroll is meant to represent, but it actually doesn’t really matter because all of the major theories add up to the same thing.
There are some people who argue that the scroll is what’s called a covenant lawsuit.
In the Old Testament prophets, the Lord would speak through the prophets and he would deliver something called a covenant lawsuit. Essentially, a covenant lawsuit was God’s judgment either against the nations or against his unfaithful people.
And so there are some scholars who argue that the scroll is a covenant lawsuit and that once the scroll is opened up and read aloud, then God’s judgment on the nations and his unfaithful people will begin.
Others have argued that the scroll is meant to represent the title deed to creation, like the inheritance document, that essentially once the scroll is opened up and read, whoever has opened and read it will inherit all of creation, will inherit legal ownership of all of creation.
And therefore, if Jesus opens the scroll, that means that he has inherited creation so he can begin enacting God’s plan to reclaim the world.
In very much the same way, if it’s a covenant lawsuit, if Jesus reads off the covenant lawsuit, then that means that he’s rolling out God’s good, righteous judgments in history, which means that he is enacting God’s plan to reclaim the world.
Or number three, some scholars have argued that it’s kind of the mystery of God’s plan for history. Essentially, the scroll contains God’s redemptive plan to redeem humanity and restore our world, that it contains his plan to judge evil and to rescue the fallen and broken world, to bring the kingdom in full.
And so if Jesus opens it up and reads it, then he is beginning that process where evil is judged and his people are rescued and the kingdom is ushered into this world.
Any of those three could be true.
There are good reasons to hold to any of those, but I’m going to argue it really does not matter which of those you pick because all of them add up to exactly the same thing.
No matter which of those options you pick, it ultimately means that the scroll is essentially kind of representative of God’s plan to set the world right, to judge evil, to rescue his people, and to bring his kingdom to completion, to take the throne of this world back for himself fully and finally, once and for all.
So literally, whichever of those three options seemed the best to you, go for it. Whichever one you find the most convincing as you read, go for it.
Because all of them ultimately have zero effect on how we interpret the book.
We’re not meant to get stuck on trying to figure out exactly what the scroll represents. The scroll is a big-picture image. It’s a general image. Remember, it’s not a puzzle to be decoded.
It is a kind of big 10,000-foot-view image that is in some sense meant to represent God’s plan to redeem humanity and restore our world.
So if the scroll gets opened, then humanity will be redeemed and our world will be restored.
If it doesn’t get opened, then nothing will ever change. Evil will march on. The world will be fallen and broken forever.
Which is a problem.
The Scroll Is Sealed
Because when they pull out the scroll, what they find is that it’s locked.
John says that the scroll is pulled out. It’s in the right hand of God, which in the ancient Near East, your right hand represented authority and power.
The right hand of the king. It’s like if you were at the king’s right hand, you bore the king’s authority. You wielded the king’s power. For all intents and purposes, if you were at the king’s right hand, you were the king.
And so the scroll is in his right hand. His authority and power is vested in this scroll.
He says on the scroll, he can see there was writing on both sides. In other words, nothing was left out, right? This is the fullness.
In Ezekiel chapters 2 and 3, Ezekiel is given a scroll and it’s written on both sides. Nothing was left out. It was comprehensive.
And so the fullness of God’s purpose of redeeming humanity and restoring our world is found in this scroll, is vested in this scroll with his power.
All we need is for the scroll to be opened.
But you can’t.
Because it is sealed with seven seals.
Remember, seven is a kind of a representative number. It kind of represented completeness, perfection.
It was completely secured. It was perfectly secured. It was totally unbreakable.
No one could access that scroll unless they had the authority to open that scroll.
And yet they can’t find anyone with the authority to open the scroll.
And so John starts weeping.
John starts crying a bunch of manly tears.
This is one of those funny things where in the ancient Near East, they did not see crying as something that was feminine or even childish. The heroes of the stories of old in the ancient Near East, you know, a dude would cry these crocodile tears while embracing his best friend because they’re going to be separated from each other for a long time, and they would just cry and hug and snuggle and then they would both go fight a bear and kill the bear and then take its head and turn it into a helmet or something like that.
So John’s weeping these manly tears.
Why is he crying?
It’s because no one is found who can open the scroll.
And what happens if no one opens the scroll?
Evil continues unchecked. Injustice keeps winning out.
Wicked empires like Rome, like Greece, like Persia, like Babylon, like Assyria continue crushing not only God’s people, but everybody. They continue grinding everyone smaller and weaker than them into a powder.
Poverty continues, sickness continues, death continues, grief continues.
Nothing will ever change until that scroll is opened.
The promises God made to Abraham cannot be fulfilled unless that scroll is opened. The promises God made to David cannot be fulfilled unless that scroll is opened. The promises God made to the prophets cannot be fulfilled until that scroll is opened.
And the hopes of the seven churches cannot be met until that scroll is opened.
Why?
Their question is, is there anyone who can do something about Rome? Is there anyone who can save us from the fists of Rome? Is there anyone who can save us from the attacks of the devil? Is there anyone who can save us from the persecutions we’ve been through? Is there anyone who can save us from the beast who has been devouring us all our lives?
So long as that scroll is not opened, the answer is no.
But then John hears something and then sees something.
He hears and then sees one who can open the scroll.
The Lion Who Is a Slain Lamb
This is once again one of the core images for the entire book of Revelation.
If you don’t grasp this, you will not grasp Revelation.
It says John hears a lion, and then he turns and looks and he sees a sacrificial lamb.
One of the elders announces, “The Lion of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed.”
That is again very specific language.
Lion of Judah. That is language that comes from Genesis 49. As Jacob is on his deathbed, he prophesies. He sees a vision of the future that someone called the Lion of Judah is going to come who is going to fulfill God’s promise from Genesis 3 to redeem humanity and restore our world.
The elder says that one that was promised by Jacob in Genesis 49 is right there, and he’s going to open the scroll.
The Root of David, that is an image from Isaiah 11. That’s the image of a Messiah who’s going to conquer the darkness, who’s going to destroy the forces of darkness that plague our world, is going to undo the fall, unbreak the world, put everything right again, and he’s going to be from the line of the imperfect, but, you know, pretty good as far as they go, King David.
And so, hearing the Lion of Judah, the Root of David, is here and he’s going to open the scroll, you are going to be expecting a mighty warrior.
You’re going to be expecting to turn around and see someone crushing his enemy, just straight up sniping demons or something like that.
You’re going to be expecting a messianic kind of general here violently conquering.
But he turns, and instead of seeing a mighty warrior, he sees a Lamb looking as if it had been slain.
So there’s a massive difference between what John hears and then what he sees.
And yet it’s not two different people.
It’s one person.
This vision of the lion that he hears and the Lamb that he sees, they’re interpreting each other.
The Lamb is the conqueror.
The way that the Lion of Judah conquers the devil and the forces of darkness is by being a slain Lamb.
So the lion is his identity. He is the kingly, royal, conquering Messiah who will crush the head of the devil.
But the Lamb is the way that he claims his victory.
It’s through his sacrificial death and resurrection.
The point being, God will claim victory over the devil and the forces of darkness. He will claim victory over the beastly powers that the devil uses to crush the people of God.
He will claim victory over the wicked empires and wicked rulers who destroy and derail and deceive God’s people at the behest of the false usurper serpent king.
But the way that he is going to do that, the way that he conquers, is through his self-giving love, his sacrificial love, his faithful-to-death love as the Lamb who was slain on the cross.
Seven Horns, Seven Eyes, and Seven Spirits
And because that is true, in John’s vision, he says that the Lamb had seven horns, seven eyes, seven spirits.
This is another one that just confuses the ever-living heck out of people because they say, “Why would he have horns? Horns are for the devil.”
No, they are not.
Horns are not satanic.
Horns in the ancient Near East represented power. They represented authority. The king had horns. If you had horns, it was a sign that you were a royal figure, a powerful figure.
This was the horn of your power.
And so the Lamb has seven horns. He has complete power. He has perfect power. He has unmitigated power.
The Lamb has all authority.
So to be clear, the Lamb has the authority that the false king Caesar just pretends to have.
And at the same time, he has seven eyes. So he has the completeness of eyes, I guess. He has perfect knowledge, perfect perception.
He is all-knowing. He has all insight.
Rome claimed that it had the ability to see all, that there was nothing you could do that wouldn’t be caught under the all-seeing eye of Rome.
And yet Rome missed so much.
The one who truly sees all is the Lamb.
Jesus is what Rome pretends to be. Jesus is what Caesar pretends to be.
And just like before, it says the Lamb had the seven spirits of God. He has the Holy Spirit in his fullness, and he sends the Spirit into all the earth so that his people can carry out his mission by the power of his presence.
But he says that this Lamb who was slain, who has seven horns, seven eyes, and seven spirits, is at the center of the throne.
The Lamb Shares God’s Identity
This Lamb shares God’s authority, but more than that, this Lamb shares God’s identity.
This Lamb is not just a servant of God.
This Lamb is God himself.
The divine throne of heaven is occupied by the Lamb.
And so there’s this once again funny symmetry because the false kingdom Rome rules with violence, propaganda, fear, a reign of terror.
And really all empires are like that. All of the beastly empires through the ages, the beastly empire of Assyria, the beastly empire of Persia, the beastly empire of Greece, Rome, and so on and so forth.
They all embody that wicked, violent, fear-driven, propagandistic form of rule.
And yet, the God of the universe, the God who has the right to be violent, rules like a Lamb.
The one with the right to absolute power rules with gentleness.
The Lamb of God is God.
And so he is worshiped with God and he is worshiped as God.
I love verse 13:
“To him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb be the blessing, the honor, the glory, and the dominion, forever and ever!” — Revelation 5:13, WEB
The same praise that belongs to God belongs to the Lamb. The same honor that belongs to God belongs to the Lamb. The same glory and power that belongs to God belongs to the Lamb.
And it’s not that once upon a time the Lamb was just a guy, but then he was so good he became like God.
No, it says forever and ever.
In eternity past, the Lamb was the God of praise, honor, glory, and power. And in eternity future, the Lamb will be the God of praise, honor, glory, and power.
There are not two gods. One who looks like God, another who looks like a Lamb.
It is one throne for one God. It is one.
This is called a doxology, a kind of worship song for one God.
And so all of creation worships not only the Father on the throne, not only the seven spirits of God, the fullness of the Holy Spirit who permeates the throne room, but also the Lamb.
We have the Trinity right here in Revelation 4 and 5.
All Creation Worships the Lamb
All of creation worships the Lamb.
Not just the 24 elders, not just the living creatures, not just all the angels, but every single creature in heaven, every creature on earth, every creature under the earth, every creature in the sea join in that worship.
This is a universal cosmic worship service where everything that exists, absolutely everything that is not currently under condemnation, is summoned around the throne to pour out their worship gladly and freely and joyfully.
This is what Paul is talking about in Philippians chapter 2 when he says every knee will one day bow to Jesus.
In Psalm 148, the psalmist describes all of creation praising God. That’s a foretaste of this throne room image.
In Romans chapter 8, Paul talks about how all of creation will be liberated from the bondage to the fall, the brokenness of the world, and will pour out its worship.
It is eagerly anticipating, eagerly waiting for the day when it can pour out its worship in its fullness around the Father, the Lamb, and the Spirit in his fullness.
And all of the judgments that are going to be poured out throughout the rest of the book of Revelation are ultimately aimed at this.
They’re aimed at bringing all of creation to this.
They are aimed at bringing all of the rebellious humanity that continued to reject and oppose and rebel against the Lamb to give up that rebellion and instead gather around the throne and joyfully pour out their worship on him.
Why the Lamb Is Worthy
And yet John says another thing that is unbelievably shocking. This is just unbelievably bizarre.
He says that the Lamb is worshiped not because of his raw power, but because of the cross.
He says that all of creation pours out their worship on the Lamb not because he’s the biggest, baddest dude on the playground.
They don’t worship the Lamb for the same reasons they were supposed to worship Rome.
They worship the Lamb because he gave himself on the cross.
The song that they sing is actually really remarkable. They sing this song. They say, “Worthy is the Lamb.”
And then they sing, “Why?”
Notice what they say and notice what they don’t say.
They do not say, “Worthy is the Lamb because you crushed your enemies violently.”
They do not say, “Worthy is the Lamb because the Lamb is stronger than Rome.”
They say:
“You are worthy to take the book, and to open its seals: for you were killed, and bought us for God with your blood, out of every tribe, language, people, and nation.” — Revelation 5:9, WEB
That’s really important.
They say you purchased people for yourself.
That’s slave-market language.
They say worthy is the Lamb because the Lamb came to the slave auction and he bought every single one of the slaves off the dock and then he set them free.
They said, “Worthy is the Lamb,” because he redeemed humanity from its imprisonment, redeemed humanity from its death penalty, redeemed humanity from its slavery, redeemed humanity from its debt.
But at the same time, this is substitutionary language. This is sacrificial language.
They say, “Worthy is the Lamb because he gave himself to be sacrificed in the place of humanity. Worthy is the Lamb because he allowed his blood to be poured out instead of their blood. He traded himself for them, his life for theirs.”
And they say worthy is the Lamb because he has gathered all of the nations.
There’s a kind of multiethnic scope here. There’s a multinational scope here.
It says he redeemed people from every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every people group, every clan, every family.
There’s no ethnic element to this.
He says, “The Lamb is worthy of our worship because he poured out his own blood to spring us out of slavery.”
And he did this not only for one group of us, but for every single one of us.
He is gloriously worthy.
And he is gloriously entitled to take the scroll.
The Lamb Takes the Scroll
And so the Lamb steps up to the throne and he grabs that scroll and he starts to read the scroll off.
Remember, however you interpret the scroll, the fundamental point is the scroll is representative of God’s plan and purpose to redeem humanity and restore our world.
So if the scroll does not get read, humanity does not get redeemed and our world does not get restored.
If the scroll does get read, then humanity is redeemed and our world will be restored.
The Lamb steps up and he takes the scroll.
Which means what?
It means the Lamb has God’s authority and the Lamb is carrying out God’s plan.
God reigns through the crucified Messiah and God reigns as the crucified Messiah.
Every last judgment we see in the book of Revelation is God reigning in good judgment through and as the crucified Lamb.
Every seal, every trumpet, every bowl is the Lamb enacting the good justice of God.
These are not random horror movie images that are meant to scare children into walking down the aisle during the altar call and then, you know, being good little Christian boys and girls for the rest of their life.
This is the outworking of the cross, the outworking of the resurrection, the outworking of the work of the Lamb in history.
The Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls as Severe Mercy
As strange as it sounds, the seals that are opened and the judgments that come through them, the trumpets that are sounded and the judgments that come through them, the bowls that are poured out and the judgment that comes through them, these are God restoring the world.
These are not what God does instead of restoring the world.
These are God restoring the world in a way that goes beyond our understanding.
But the seals are mercy.
The trumpets are mercy.
The bowls are mercy.
This is God drawing the world to repentance as an act of severe mercy.
These are not God destroying the world.
These are God reaching out to a world in rebellion.
These are God putting the screws to a world that will end in destruction if it does not repent and turn to him.
And so as the seals are being opened and then the trumpets are being sounded and the bowls are being poured out, there is another thing that is happening.
And that is that he has sent his priest-kings to carry out his work on earth, to proclaim the message of grace to a world that is being stripped of its rebellion by the seals, the trumpets, the bowls.
A Kingdom of Priests Who Will Reign on Earth
He says:
“You made them kings and priests to our God, and they will reign on the earth.” — Revelation 5:10, WEB
The Lamb has made us kings and priests to our God by his blood.
He has made us into a new humanity.
He has made us into a kingdom of priests who will reign on earth.
He’s referencing Exodus 19.
God created his people to be a kingdom of priests.
Genesis 1, God created humanity to be a priestly and kingly people.
We lost our ability to be his priests when we rebelled against him in the garden. We lost our ability to be his kingly images, his kingly regents, when we rebelled in the garden.
But that has been restored through the cross.
You have been made his priest-king again by the cross.
And now he reigns on earth through you in a sense.
He carries out his priestly and kingly work of redeeming and restoring the lost and the hurting and the broken and the struggling through you.
He carries out his kingdom work, his priestly mission in the world, by sending you out to draw people to him.
What This Means for the Faithful and Persecuted Churches
And that means that if you’re one of these seven churches that he’s writing to, your experience has been fundamentally different than you’d expect it to be.
Because if you’re one of the seven churches that’s been persecuted for its faithfulness like Smyrna, you look powerless. You look poor. You look marginal.
But in the throne room of heaven, they are singing about you.
They’re saying you reign with the Lamb.
They are saying the Lamb is actually reigning through you.
While you are being persecuted for your faithfulness to Jesus, your faithfulness is the work of Jesus in the world.
Your persecution is the work of Jesus in the world.
Jesus is actually reaching out to your world through your experience of persecution.
And he says because you are the priestly, kingly people of God, everything you do matters for God’s kingdom.
Matters for God’s purpose.
Matters for God’s mission.
The Golden Bowls of Incense
He says, “Your prayers affect the future of God’s kingdom, of the world’s judgment, of God’s priestly mission.”
He uses this image of the golden bowls of incense.
Now, in the ancient Near East, they associated incense with prayers. Essentially, they associated incense with communicating with the god or with your tribal gods or whatever.
This is a pretty much universal thing. All throughout the ancient Near East, just about every ancient Near Eastern culture, religion, tribe, whatever, they all associated incense with communicating with divine heavenly beings.
That was true of Israel, just like it was Canaan and so on and so forth.
And yet Israel, they associated incense with praying to the one true God, not with praying to the whole kind of pantheon of false gods.
And so, in a sense, you could say the golden bowls of incense, it’s like the prayers of God’s people.
And God doesn’t ignore the groans of his people.
God does not ignore the cries of his people in Asia Minor being persecuted because they won’t worship the Roman emperor or the Roman Empire.
They’re being persecuted because they won’t just declare their fealty to a false god-king.
When the scroll is opened, it’s opened because the cries of the suffering people of God in Asia Minor and all throughout the world have risen up to his throne.
And he’s heard them.
When the Christians in Smyrna cry out, “How long, O Lord?” after another one of their homes has been destroyed, another one of their people has been arrested, another one of their children has been murdered in front of them, he hears that cry, and he responds to that cry by intervening.
The point is, God has providentially planned to work through our prayers.
Part of God’s providential plan is to compel you to pray and ask him to intervene in this way, so then he can respond by intervening in that way.
Part of his providential plan is to move you to cry out to him and implore him to carry out his will in this way, so then he can respond by carrying out his will in this way.
God providentially moves and compels you to pray for his purposes, and then he is pleased to grant that prayer.
And so if you are one of the seven churches, what this means is that you are not just a spectator as Rome persecutes you and false teachers try to deceive you.
No, your prayers actually affect history.
Your prayers are echoing in the throne room right this minute in eternity future.
All of redeemed creation is hearing your prayers, echoing your prayers, saying amen to your prayers.
And the Lord is saying good.
And he is stepping up to intervene on your behalf to turn all of these things you are going through for your good.
I think the book of Revelation will supercharge your prayer life if you really listen to it.
Joining the Heavenly Worship Service
But so the big picture for the seven churches is that we participate in the heavenly worship service every time we pray.
We participate in the heavenly worship service around God’s throne.
Every time we talk to God, every time we pour out our praises, every time we bring our laments, every time we confess our sin, every time we bring him our needs, every time we just throw ourselves at the foot of his throne, every time we sing to him, we are joining that heavenly worship service.
And God is responding by coming to our aid.
And so for a poor and persecuted church like Smyrna or a weak and faithful church like Philadelphia, what Revelation 4 and 5, these throne room visions, have to say is that the Lamb was slain for you.
And now he’s standing at the center of the throne, and your suffering is like his suffering.
He redeemed the world by suffering for you.
And now as you suffer, your suffering is kind of joining with his.
And as you cry out to him, your prayers are literally filling up the bowls of incense in heaven.
The defeat that it feels like you’re experiencing at the hand of this wicked empire is actually setting the stage for a cosmic victory that you will share in over the devil and the forces of darkness and the wicked empires like Rome that they work through.
It says the Lamb has already secured your place in his kingdom that absolutely no one can ever take away.
And the fact that you have no strength to overcome these persecutors today and these sufferings today is okay because his authority will one day put an end to your suffering.
His Spirit will one day carry you through and out of your suffering.
When he opens the scroll, the days of your suffering are limited.
What This Means for the Compromising Churches
And at the same time, to the unfaithful and the compromising churches that have given in and have joined in the idolatry, the wickedness, the injustice of Rome, churches like Pergamum, like Thyatira, like Laodicea, like Sardis, and so on and so forth, this says, listen, the Lamb purchased his people from every nation.
He purchased you.
And that means you belong to him, not to the idols of Rome.
You belong to him, not to the guilds that try to pressure you into serving Rome.
You belong to him, not to this empire that claims ownership over you.
When you compromise with the idolatry of Rome, you are giving Rome your allegiance that truly belongs to the Lamb.
You are giving the beast your allegiance that only belongs to the Lamb.
It says the true power and wealth and wisdom and strength that you think you want come not from compromising with Rome so that you can access its economy and so on and so forth.
It comes from the Lamb.
What makes you rich is not getting the crumbs from Rome’s table.
What makes you truly rich is sharing in the riches of God’s glory.
You don’t need Rome’s money and power.
You need the blood of the Lamb.
What This Means for Ephesus
At the same time, to churches like Ephesus that have withstood the false teachers, that have withstood the persecution, that have not fallen into false teaching, but in the process have totally lost their love for one another, that have become paranoid, that have become so rigid, so hardened, so battle-hardened that they now look at everybody with suspicion, that they now are automatically on edge every time anyone is talking about the Lord, they’re so afraid of false teaching that they have literally lost their ability to just enjoy the Lord, enjoy the truth, bask in his goodness, and enjoy each other.
Revelation 4 and 5, the throne room vision, says, “The Lamb conquers the darkness by his love, not by his rigidness.”
The Lamb conquers the darkness by sacrificial love.
He conquers the darkness by self-giving love.
He conquers the darkness by giving love.
You can’t conquer the darkness by becoming suspicious of everybody else.
You can’t conquer the darkness by becoming paranoid about everybody else.
You can’t conquer the darkness by constantly just waiting for everybody else to mess up, waiting for them to turn out to be a false teacher, waiting for them to turn out to be fake.
No.
You can only conquer by love.
He says, “As good as it is that you’ve resisted false teachers and that you’ve withstood persecution, giving up love is betraying the Lamb in a totally different way.”
He says, “This rigid, loveless fundamentalism is just as bad as that jellyfish, unfaithful, compromising liberalism that you see in Sardis and Pergamum and so forth.”
Real victory does not just come from being doctrinally correct.
It comes from love that is like the generous, giving, self-sacrificial love of the Lamb who was slain.
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