Is It...Alive?

We're dying to know

We’ve said so much about Revelation, exploring the very real and pressing life situations it addressed for its first readers as well as what the text itself says about the purpose of the book.

But how do the visions in this book contribute to this overall purpose?

Believe me, I’m with you. If we’re going to say that Revelation is more about God’s powerful invasion into reality as we know it than it is a speculative window into the future, the images and the symbols it contains had better point in that same direction.

So the first direction I want to go is through.

Specifically, I’m referring to the first real vision John has in Revelation, starting in chapter 4. In verse 1, we read that some kind of door opened in heaven. In other words, John was invited to look beyond the reality of the world he lived in, and to see the world as it is supposed to be. Today, I want to follow him through that door and see what was behind it.

The first thing John sees is a throne. There is, of course, someone sitting on the throne. To us, as readers with years of experience in the Church, the temptation is to immediately fill in the blank: the “one seated on the throne” is obviously the Christian God!

Actually, it’s not so obvious. The first readers of Revelation had to reckon with the fact that God had made them many promises that weren’t coming true. Meanwhile, the rulers of the world they lived in had made extraordinary claims about themselves, sometimes even calling themselves gods. And what happened? They were the ones getting their way.

And I will argue that your experience is probably similar. You have probably prayed for healing for a loved one, or perhaps for a friend, or even a child who wants nothing to do with their Savior. You’ve probably turned to God’s promises and waited patiently for them. And I’m willing to bet that many of those prayers did not get answered the way you thought they should have been. I’m willing to bet that many of God’s promises almost seem like a joke, a slap in the face as life continues to spiral.

Sometimes, our experience tells us anything but “God is on the throne,” and instead it often feels like life’s circumstances are in control.

And interestingly enough, John doesn’t pretend that there’s an obvious answer either. His vision, or at least the way he explains it to us, seems almost intentionally vague. Even if we assume that the one seated on the throne is God, there is nothing distinctly Christian about that idea. Many different faiths could say the same. The more important question is “Who is the God on the throne? What is His name?”

But what is really striking is the fact that John doesn’t tell us anything of that sort. The name of Jesus is nowhere to be found. In fact, John doesn’t immediately confirm that it is God at all. To simply label whoever this person is as “the one seated” is almost meaningless.

The suspense is starting to build as the believers anxiously await an answer. Who really gets to sit there?

As we will see later, this throne is a big deal. It’s not just the throne of someone who rules; it’s the seat of someone who judges. If it was just about who rules, maybe we could get away with thinking that Revelation is disinterested or detached from our lives. But if the one on the throne is also judge, the story becomes deeply personal. It starts to raise more questions that demand our attention: will the good people, the people who are faithfully walking through suffering, be vindicated and rewarded?

Well, we're told who isn’t sitting there. If we read further, we see that there are also twenty-four “elders,” seven spirits, and four very strange looking creatures. Who are they?

If you’re a math nerd like me, maybe that number twenty-four jumps out to you right away. There were twelve tribes of Israel before Jesus came, and then Jesus chose another twelve disciples to follow him. Of course, two sets of twelve makes twenty-four, and this is probably the right way to think about it. There are twenty-four of these elders before the throne, and together they serve as representatives for all of God’s people across time. Whoever it is that sits on the throne clearly has something to say to God’s people.

So listen closely. God is about to take decisive action in your life.

Then there’s the seven spirits. Actually, these characters have appeared before, and you’ll see them again if you keep reading. However, you’ll have to pay close attention because they go by different names: sometimes they are called the “seven angels,” and other times they are called the “seven stars,” or even the “seven eyes.” Even here in chapter 4, we’re told that they are also called the “seven lamps.” In the ancient world, eyes, stars, and lamps were all symbols for “spirit.” Very strange, I know. But remember that we are stepping into a foreign culture from thousands of years ago. It’s just the language they used; think of each of these as almost like synonyms.

What does this mean? In the Jewish mind, the number seven carries the idea of "completeness." So whoever sits on the throne has complete spiritual power. If he is on your side, you have everything you need to endure the path ahead of you.

And finally, there's these four creatures. They have shown up before in the Old Testament, but the interesting thing about them is that they never look quite the same. That’s right. Each time a prophet sees them, he describes them differently. Why is that?

I actually don't know. Somethings are just downright strange.

I think this is where we have to remember that we are hearing about a vision that someone else had. This isn’t stale information for us to intellectually agree with. It is powerful imagery designed to stir our imagination, to get us to see that God’s truth is more real than the messages this world would have us believe.

A vision is a truly authentic experience of God, and all such experiences resist being narrowly confined to simple descriptions. Think about your own experiences of walking with the Lord. Don’t you have some moments that you look back on and think, “If you only knew…it would sound crazy if I told you how my God came through for me, but I know it because I lived it.” God doesn’t want us to just hear abstract ideas about Him; He wants us to have our own unique and authentic experience of knowing who He is for us.

And in Revelation, you are invited to share in that kind of experience, to participate in the drama orchestrated by the “one who sits on the throne.”

By now, we’re starving for John to give us a name…just tell us who it is already!

We can read through to the end of chapter 4, but we still aren't given any names. All we are told is that the seven spirits belong to God, and that the elders and the creatures worship the one on the throne.

It isn’t until chapter 5 that we are given more information about this mysterious figure. As the anticipation continues to build, we’re told that a strange document, a scroll of some kind, is in his hands. And to make matters even more tense, apparently there is nobody who can open it for us to know what it says.

Nobody but a lamb.

But not just any lamb. A lamb that looked "as if it had been slaughtered" (5:6).

How can a dead lamb open a scroll? Unless it’s…alive?

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