Keys to Understanding the Book of Revelation
As I mentioned in the first part of this study; this is one revelation: *the* final and complete revelation of Jesus the Christ, showing irrevocably that Jesus was the Son of God, and in fact, God himself, exactly who He claimed to be! Entering upon a discussion of the vision ( s ) that John saw; I want to quote first a related passage from the Old Covenant Scriptures, in II Kings 6:16 & 17:
So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, and said, “LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
My reason for quoting this passage first of all, is to remind my readers that the heavenly realm is a present reality; it's all around us, we just can't see it until our 'eyes' are opened, our understanding enlightened.
After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, “Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.”
John's eyes were opened and he was allowed to see into the realm of Heaven, to understand the 'end of all things' ( I Peter 4:7 ); 'things which must take place after this'. We might recall yet another passage from the Old Covenant Scriptures, from Exodus 19:19 & 20, when God revealed His law through Moses:
And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice. Then the LORD came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.
When Balaam was hired by the Moabite king Balak, in Numbers 24:14-24, after Balaam had seen that God had anointed him to bless, and not curse, Israel; he prophesied to Balak of what would happen in 'the latter days' of his kingdom ( Moab ), which in itself was typical and prophetic of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, saying 'Come, I will advise you what this people will do to your people in the latter days.' When Moses was ready to pass from this life; he warned the children of Israel, God's typical Old Covenant people, 'I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you. And evil will befall you in the latter days, because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands.' ( Deuteronomy 31:29 ) In Genesis 49:1; Jacobs begins his final speech to his sons, the progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, what would happen to them in their 'last days'; 'The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people. Binding his donkey to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.' ( verses 10 & 11 ) My point here is that the phrases 'the last days' ( Hebrews 1:2 ( Genesis 3:15 ), 'the latter days' ( Daniel 10:14 ( Deuteronomy 4:30 ) even 'the end of all things', as in I Peter 4:7, refer, depending upon the context, not to what we traditionally have viewed as the last days of planet earth, as we know it, or even of the end of time, but to the final days of a given era, or 'age'.
Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was [a] like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald.
Ezekiel 37 has most likely been compared before with John's vision of the Revelation; but I'd like to bring several facts to the attention of my readers: first, of course, is the fact that Ezekiel records that 'The hand of the LORD came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones.' The second fact is ( although some might disagree with me here ) that Ezekiel 37 and the book of Revelation are very closely correlated, not only because the book of Revelation relies most heavily upon such Old Testament prophecies ( Isaiah 2 ( Isaiah 21 ), Daniel 9, Joel 2, Amos 5, Zephaniah 1, Zechariah 14, etc. ), but also because both passages, Revelation 20, 21, and 22 in particular deal with the spiritual reality of the resurrection, as Ezekiel 37 gives us a prior picture, or type.
The apostle Paul wrote, in Galatians 3:3, asking the church there in Galatia, 'Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?' Earlier, he had written, similar to what Jesus, through John later wrote to the church of Ephesus, 'Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?' Like Jesus, who told the church in Ephesus, 'you have left your first love', Paul warns the Galatians that they had seemingly forgotten by Whose power they had learned, indeed, were enabled to obey, to love the Law of Christ, by the power of His own Holy Spirit! Paul wrote earlier, in II Corinthians 12:2, 'I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven.' ( Notice the similarities to John's statement above. ) However you interpret John's statement, then; it must be understood that John saw the Revelation of Jesus Christ as you might say, through an 'out of body experience', somewhat similar maybe, to Peter's vision in Acts 10:9-16. What John now sees sounds like more of what he had seen 'in the beginning' when he first 'saw' the Son of Man, the Son of God in all reality, Jesus the Christ. Something that we might note here though, is that the Majority Text, upon which our English bibles are largely based, gives the impression that rather than giving a description of the One who sat on the throne, John is describing the throne itself as 'like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance'. This is not without precedence in the Old Testament Scriptures: remember, in Exodus 24, when the elders of Israel went to commune with God Himself? Verse 10 records that 'there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone'. In the first chapter of Ezekiel, verse 26; we see another scene much like what John records here in the Revelation. 'And above the firmament over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it.' One might also recall God's words to the errant king of Tyre, in Ezekiel 28:14; 'You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.' Daniel 7:9 also uses words like to those in both the book of Revelation, and to Ezekiel's visions. 'I watched till thrones were put in place, and the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, its wheels a burning fire'. The rainbow, of course, makes one think immediately of God's promise to Noah, in Genesis 9:11-16, 'Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth', which promise was a harbinger, and a picture, in type, of the promise of the Revelation of Jesus the Christ, and salvation in His Name.
Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes; and they had crowns [b] of gold on their heads.
When the disciples of Christ, in Matthew 19:27-28 ( Luke 22:30 ), questioned Jesus about their reward; He told them that 'in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' Here, admittedly, John records, not 12, but twenty-four thrones, which are indicative, not only of the twelve apostles of our Lord, as we'll see later on in the Revelation, plus the original twelve 'children of Israel', as Jesus promised His disciples, but also the double indicator which God often uses in Scripture, to show that these things are certain and sure ( Genesis 41:25-32 ) and 'soon to come to pass' ( Ezekiel 7:1-12, Daniel 9:24-27, Matthew 16:27 & 28, Acts 24:15 ( YLT ).
And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices.c]">[c]
Again; these words should immediately bring to mind such passages as Exodus 19:9-16 and 20:18-20, in which God made His presence felt to His children. When God spoke these words from Heaven to His beloved Son, 'I have both glorified it and will glorify it again', in John 12:28 & 29, those that heard it 'said that it had thundered', remembering, no doubt, their history, as seen in the passages above. In Job 37:2,4 & 5, Elihu likens the voice of God to thunder, saying that 'He does great things which we cannot comprehend', and 'At this also my heart trembles, and leaps from its place.' David, in his Psalms, often compare the voice of God to the power of thunder, lightning, and even fiery hailstones ( think of Genesis , and Sodom and Gomorrah ), writing, in Psalm 18:13, 'The LORD thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire.[a]' In Psalm 77:16-18, using very covenantal language David praised God for His deliverance: 'The voice of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; the lightnings lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook.' Isaiah wrote, prophesying of the coming destruction of Jerusalem, in Isaiah 29:6, using language very near to John's, in this Revelation, ' You will be punished by the LORD of hosts with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire.' ( also see Jesus' words in Matthew 22:7 ) We see, in Ezekiel 3:12 & 13, that the prophet uses language very like John's, from which it almost seems that John borrowed for his book; 'Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a great thunderous voice: “Blessed is the glory of the LORD from His place!' I'll try to comment further on this later, but when John reported hearing 'seven thunders' sounding, in Revelation 10:4, he was told 'Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered, and do not write them.' I immediately think of Daniel 12:4a, 'But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end'. Daniel was told again, in verse 9, that his vision was of the 'time of the end', that 'end' being the end of the Jewish, or Old Covenant economy. Again, in Revelation 11:9, John uses language straight from the Old Testament prophets ( Genesis 19:24, I Samuel 7:10, Psalm 11:6, Ezekiel 13:13, ( 38:19 ), when he writes 'Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant[h] was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.' The throne, of course, and the Son of God showing His power through 'lightnings, thunderings, and voices', is indicative of judgment, through the chastisement and salvation of His beloved Bride, the Israel of God, the Church, and the destruction of the adversaries of His people, the enemies of His Church, Old Covenant Israel, a type of the true people of God!
Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the [d] seven Spirits of God.
As we have see throughout Scripture, and which I have noted numerous times in my studies; the numeral 'seven' is very often, even when applied in a very literal, physical sense, used in reference to a 'completeness', a 'perfection': I believe that this is the case here. If my readers will remember Jesus' words in the first chapter of His Revelation; He told John that 'the seven lampstands which you saw[j] are the seven churches'. This, in itself, should tell us that Christ's Body, His Church, is not only on earth, carrying out His will 'on earth as it is in heaven', but that His Church, represented by the 'seven churches of Asia', is also 'present' in Heaven, before the very throne of God!
Before the throne there was[e] a sea of glass, like crystal. And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.
I could not find much on this 'sea' of glass; so I'll not comment a lot on it here, except to remind my readers again that in the Old Covenant, and particularly the prophetic, Scriptures, the word 'sea' often referred to the nations, or the Gentiles. My readers who have read the book of Revelation might recall that John wrote, in Revelation 21:1, that 'there was no more sea'. Paul wrote earlier, prophesying of this event, in Galatians 3:28, that 'There is neither Jew nor Greek', and in Colossians 3:11, that 'there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.' The prophet Isaiah wrote, concerning the blessings of the New Covenant in Christ, 'Then you shall see and become radiant, and your heart shall swell with joy; because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the Gentiles shall come to you.' ( Isaiah 60:5 ) Giving yet another good example of 'biblical parallelism', God proclaimed through the prophet Ezekiel ( 26:3 ), 'Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes its waves to come up'. There are many other examples, some harder, some fairly easy to discern, which show us that 'sea', particularly in what are known as the Major and Minor Prophets, is often indicative, mostly of the nations ( Gentiles ), but also of the strength of any given nation, as in Jeremiah 51:36, 'Behold, I will plead your case and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry', and in Hosea 4:3, 'Therefore the land will mourn; and everyone who dwells there will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea will be taken away'. The important thing that we should notice here, is that, given that 'sea' here indicates the ( Gentile ) nations that have received 'the knowledge of the glory of the Lord' ( Habakkuk 2:14 ) are perpetually in the presence of God, as a part of His Body, the Church!
As we search the Scriptures for other references to things 'full of eyes'; one might be drawn back immediately to Ezekiel's vision in the first chapter of his prophecy. 'As for their rims, they were so high they were awesome; and their rims were full of eyes, all around the four of them.' Granted, according to a strictly literal reading of Ezekiel's vision; these words are spoken in reference to the wheels that were 'beside each living creature', but I would venture to say that the creatures and the wheels were one being: as this was a vision, I would also say that this would be a fairly safe assumption to make. To further clarify, I believe; Ezekiel describes more fully these 'living creatures', or cherubim, in chapter 10, verse 12, 'And their whole body, with their back, their hands, their wings, and the wheels that the four had, were full of eyes all around'. The living creatures being 'in the midst of the throne, and around the throne', tells us that not only were these 'cherubim', protectors of God's glory, doing their job, guarding the Holiness, the throne of God, but as His creation, in the 'midst' ( Greek μέσος ), of His very throne, ostensibly ruling with Him, as the Israel of God!
The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.
This passage immediately takes us back to the prophecy of Ezekiel, and again to his visions in chapters one and ten, concerning the 'living creatures'. In chapter one, verse ten, we read 'As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle', and in chapter ten, verse 14, lending credence to the fact that the 'wheels' and the cherubim were one and the same, Ezekiel described these 'wheels' as having 'four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, the second face the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.' In Daniel 7, we have an account of Daniel's vision concerning the four beasts which were indicative of four separate kingdoms which would have successive up until the 'last days'. Verse 4 gives us a description of the first beast which almost sounds akin to John's 'living creatures': 'The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings'. Although the other three beasts that Daniel describes are quite different, 'on the face of it', so to speak; I found Daniel's description quite interesting: he seems to integrate the first and last 'living creatures', putting the 'wings' of the fourth 'living creature' on the first. As Daniel describes these 'beasts', particularly in the context of his vision, I think that we can safely surmise that Daniel wrote of the singular strength of these kings. David's words in II Samuel 1:23 seem to bear this out; 'Saul and Jonathan were beloved and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided; they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions'. When God had brought out His people from the 'iron furnace' ( ) of Egypt by His great strength, He later reminded His children, 'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself' ( Exodus 19:4 ) In Deuteronomy 28:49 & 50, after the giving of the Law; Moses told those same children that if they did not keep this typical Law, 'The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young', and in fulfillment of this woe, the prophet Hosea cried out 'Set the trumpet[a] to your mouth! He shall come like an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed My covenant, and rebelled against My law' ( 8:1 ) Toward the end of His 'Olivet Discourse'' in Matthew 24:28; Jesus warned His disciples of these 'last days', saying, 'For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together'. Jeremiah prophesied, in chapter 4, verse 13 of his book, concerning the typical forerunner of this event, 'Behold, he shall come up like clouds, and his chariots like a whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are plundered!' Last, but by far, not least; we have our Lord's famous promise in Isaiah 40:31, ' But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint'. ( Psalm 103:5 ) As we shall see in the next few verses, and in the chapters to come, these cherubim served another purpose here, not just as protectors of the glory of God, but as proclaimers of said glory!
The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying: “ Holy, holy, holy,[f]Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!"
Traditionally, I believe, at least among some groups, the Revelation of Jesus Christ is known, not so much for revealing 'the time of the end', or even, among others, a prophecy of the destruction of the Old Covenant temple and the Jewish economy, and the final defeat, in reality, of the enemies of God's New Covenant people; but more importantly, a picture of a true worship service, that in 'Heaven', or, 'in spirit and in truth' ( John 4:23 & 24 )! According to Isaiah 6:2; the 'living creatures' that Isaiah saw in his vision of the glory of God were 'seraphim', not cherubim! Quoting from the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Aereopagite; 'The name seraphim clearly indicates their ceaseless and eternal revolution about Divine Principles, their heat and keenness, the exuberance of their intense, perpetual, tireless activity, and their elevative and energetic assimilation of those below, kindling them and firing them to their own heat, and wholly purifying them by a burning and all-consuming flame; and by the unhidden, unquenchable, changeless, radiant and enlightening power, dispelling and destroying the shadows of darkness'. As we can see; there is not much difference between this, and definitions that we have previously seen for 'cherubim', ( here is what a Jewish rabbi, better known as Maimonides, wrote about them, 'For all forces are angels! How blind, how perniciously blind are the naive?! If you told someone who purports to be a sage of Israel that the Deity sends an angel who enters a woman's womb and there forms an embryo, he would think this a miracle and accept it as a mark of the majesty and power of the Deity - despite the fact that he believes an angel to be a body of fire one third the size of the entire world. All this, he thinks, is possible for God. But if you tell him that God placed in the sperm the power of forming and demarcating these organs, and that this is the angel, or that all forms are produced by the Active Intellect - that here is the angel, the "vice-regent of the world" constantly mentioned by the sages - then he will recoil. For he {the naive person} does not understand that the true majesty and power are in the bringing into being of forces which are active in a thing although they cannot be perceived by the senses....Thus the Sages reveal to the aware that the imaginative faculty is also called an angel; and the mind is called a cherub. How beautiful this will appear to the sophisticated mind - and how disturbing to the primitive') and nothing to prove the these beings were anything but ordinary men of God, albeit described fantastically. I'm sure that my readers will have noted the similarities between what the seraphim were proclaiming in Isaiah's vision, and what the 'living creatures' did, in John's. Were these two different sorts of angelic beings, or were they simply those of the nations, the Israel of God, both Jews and Gentiles, proclaiming the praises of Him who had led them out of darkness and into His eternal, everlasting light ( Isaiah 42:7, I Peter 2:9 )?
Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: “ You are worthy, O Lord, [g]to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist [h] and were created.
The 'living creatures', whether they were angelic ( remember that, in the Greek, 'angel' simply means 'messenger' ) beings, or whether they were 'the spirits of just men made perfect' ( Hebrews 12:23 ), these beings were praising God with all their 'heart..mind........and strength' ( Mark 12:30, Deuteronomy 6:4 & 5 ), lauding Him as 'the beginning of creation' ( Revelation 3:14 ), and ascribing worth to Him because He had done it all! David, in Psalm 103:4, blessed the Lord for his salvation; writing of Him, 'Who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies'. They were not only throwing their accomplishments before the feet of Christ, counting them 'as rubbish' ( Philippians 3:8 ), but returning His 'lovingkindness and tender mercies' to Him, through showing these attributes toward His Body, the Church!
While this book was a kind of 'glimpse' into the near future, for those, I believe, of Jesus' own generation ( those living at the same time ); this chapter, and the next, are very worshipful, and indeed, throughout the book, we see examples of worship intertwined, interestingly enough, with the judgment that God has pronounced upon the 'adversaries of His people. In the Psalms we see many examples of this ( Psalm 5:7, 22:27, 76, 95, 96:9, 149 ), and even in the so-called Major and Minor Prophets. ( Isaiah 4, 5:16, 24, 27:13, 33:10, 41:1 (4 ), 49:7, 63:7-14, 66:1-12, Jeremiah 7, 9:24, 23, 33:14-16, Ezekiel 7, 33:12-20, 38:23, 39:21-29, Daniel 3, 7:9-13, Joel 2 & 3, Habakkuk 1:12 & 13, Zechariah 2:11, 14:16 ) As we can see, from these and other scriptures; God's holiness and righteousness is magnified when He righteously judges those who set themselves in opposition to Him and His people and Purpose! I had thought to cover each 'separate' vision, but, for the sake of time, space, and brevity, I will end here for now, and come back to this in the next study.
May God bless you through this study,
Charles Shank
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