The
Court of Heaven Rev. 4:5-8
Revelation chapters four and five should be understood as one unit. It
is an extremely dramatic scene in heaven, a future scene. John is being
transported not only to heaven but he is going to be given a vision of future
things. He is going to see what will take place during the future time known as
the day of Jacob’s wrath/trouble in the Old Testament, or Daniel’s seventieth
week, or what is more commonly referred to as the great Tribulation. The first
scene as we go through this section of the book of Revelation deals with what
is going on in heaven. It is a heavenly court room scene, the scene before the
throne of God. Chapter four gives us an introduction to the scene, we learn who
all of these major characters are but the action really doesn’t begin until the
last couple of verses when the heavenly chorus of the four living creatures
begins to sing and worship God. But the main action takes place in the fifth
chapter. Chapter five sets up what is going to happen in the rest of the book
of Revelation.
The first person that we are introduced to is the person sitting upon
the throne, God the Father. The second group that is present in this heavenly
scene is identified as the twenty-four elders, the raptured and rewarded church
age believers who are in this scene sitting on thrones around the throne of God
in heaven. We have yet to identify the seven lamps and the seven spirits of God
before the throne, the four living creatures, the Lamb who will come forward to
take the scroll, and the seven seals on the scroll. These are foundational to
understanding the events that transpire during the rest of the Tribulation period.
We now come to the second part of verse 5, “…And {there were} seven
lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.”
The text itself interprets the symbol for us. The word that is used in the
Greek for lamps here is actually the word from which we derive our English word
lamp, which is the word LAMAPADES [lampadej]. It is actually a
word that should be translated a torch, it is not a word for a typical oil lamp
that would have been used, for example, to illuminate a house or building, it
was more of a torch. These seven torches are identified within the context as
referring to the seven spirits of God. This is an interpretation that is
somewhat puzzling to many people. There are those who suggest that the root for
understanding this is found back in Isaiah 11:2. “The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The
spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.” This is a passage that is a
prophecy related to the Messiah (v. 1). The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon
the Messiah, and then the rest of the verse describes the various aspects or
attributes of the Spirit of the Lord: 1) wisdom and understanding; 2) the
spirit of counsel and strength; 3) the spirit of knowledge and fear of the
Lord. There are not seven there, only six. Many apparently have taken the
initial reference “the Spirit of the Lord” as an independent reference, but
that is identifying the personage, the next six are identifying the attributes.
So Isaiah 11:2 cannot be the Old Testament reference for understanding this
particular image of the Holy Spirit as the seven lamps.
We see this representation several times in the book of Revelation. For
example, in 1:4 in which he gives a Trinitarian reference and then, secondly,
“from the seven Spirits who are before his throne.” Then third, “from Jesus
Christ the faithful witness…” So it is a reference to the Trinity. There is the
Father who is referred to as the one who is, and who was, and who is to come.”
When it comes to that third statement, “and who is to come,” a lot of people
have balked at that and said that the one who is coming is the second person of
the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ. But if we look in Revelation 21 what we
discover is that in the future God the Father will come, and it is said there
that he will make His abode with us. So at the end of the book of Revelation
the one who is coming to make His abode with us is God the Father. So He is
referred to several times in the book of Revelation clearly as the one who is
and was and is to come, as the one who is sitting upon the throne. In a number
of passages we also have in that same scene not only the one on the throne, the
one who was, who is, and is to come, but you also have the Lamb. The Lamb is
the second person of the Trinity, so these must be understood as two distinct
personages, the first person of the Trinity and the second person of the
Trinity. And before His throne we have the Holy Spirit, the third person of the
Trinity, identified as the seven spirits.
There has to be an interpretation given for this that we can go to in
the Old Testament. You don’t come to the book of Revelation and just see these
symbols and images and then sort of contemplate your navel and wonder what this
could be, or just think that seven is some sort of number and has some sort of
biblical numerology. This is the sort of thing that historicists have done that
leads to a lot of confusion when they try to understand what is going on in the
book of Revelation. But as we have seen many times in our study these symbols,
these images that we discover in the book of Revelation are derived from the
Old Testament. Indeed, this particular reference to the Holy Spirit as the
seven lamps has its origin in Zechariah chapter four. Zechariah is a
post-exilic prophet. He is one of three prophets who came to
Zechariah 4:1, 2 NASB “Zech 4:1 Then the angel who was
speaking with me returned and roused me, as a man who is awakened from his
sleep.
Zechariah 4:4-6 NASB “Then I said to the angel who was
speaking with me saying, “What are these, my lord?”
Zechariah
Revelation 4:6 NASB “and before the throne {there was
something} like a sea of glass, like crystal; and in the center and around the
throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind.” It is not a
crystal sea, and idea that is heard in some hymns, it is a sea of glass that
looks like crystal, a sea that is glass-like. It is a glassy sea, flat. What is
the significance of this particular sea? In the Old Testament, for example in 1
Kings 7:23 the laver that was out in front of the temple where the priest would
have to wash his hands and his feet was called the sea, the bronze sea. It is a
picture of the fact that there is something that separates man from God and
there has to be cleansing before man can come into the presence of God. So the
best explanation of this is that between God and His creatures there is this
sea, this expanse, a separation between creatures and the creator. God is completely
distinct; He is unique. That is bound up in our idea of holiness that
Christians use a lot and are not really sure what it means. It loses its value
over time because it is repeated so much. The idea of holiness comes out of the
Old Testament and the root word there is based on the word qodesh which has to do with being completely set apart to the
service of God. When God is the focus of this verbiage based on qodesh he is the one who is totally
distinct, totally unique, there is none like Him, He is completely holy. This
begins to set us up for the focus of the doxology, the praise that is sung by
the four living creatures in verse 8” “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY {is} THE LORD GOD, THE
ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME.” Then we are told, “and in the
center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and
behind.” Again we have this same imagery of eyes. These living creatures are
then described in verse 7.
Revelation 4:7 NASB “The first creature {was} like a lion,
and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like
that of a man, and the fourth creature {was} like a flying eagle.” There is a
distinction made here between how these four living creatures were described
and the cherubim in Ezekiel chapters one and two. In Ezekiel the cherubs each
had these four faces, but here these four living creatures each has a different
face, so they are not the same as the cherubim in Ezekiel. What is interesting
here is that these four living creatures as well as the faces on the cherubs in
Ezekiel preceded the creation of the animal kingdom. The angels were created
first, then as God was creating in Genesis chapter one He created the animals,
and He culminated with the creation of man. But what preceded all of them was
the existence of the cherubs and the living creatures. So obviously some sort
of pattern existed in the mind of God where He created the living creatures and
the cherubs with these features, and then He duplicated those features in
various members of the animal kingdom. We have to identify who these four
living creatures.
Revelation 4:8 NASB “And the four living creatures, each one
of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night
they do not cease to say, “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY {is} THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO
WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME.” The imagery of the eyes indicates knowledge. The
function of the four living creatures is to sing praises to God in heaven.
There is obviously no day or night in heaven but John is simply expressing in
his own frame of reference that there is no cessation to their worship.
Incidentally, this term “Lord God, the Almighty” is one that is used
consistently throughout the book of Revelation.
Revelation 4:9-11 NASB “And when the living creatures give
glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives
forever and ever, the twenty-four elders [church age believers] will fall down
before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and
ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
The
doctrine of angels, an introductory summation
1) Both the Greek word
AGGELOS [a)ggeloj] and the Hebrew
word malak, translated “angel,” are
terms that mean simply messenger. The English word that we have for angel is
simply a transliteration of the Greek word. It is a word that means messenger
and obviously this is a functional term that tells us something about their
role and purpose to serve as heavenly emissaries.
2) The term describes
a class of rational immaterial spirit beings created by God to fulfil a variety
of functions. They are mediators of divine revelation (Galatians 3:19); they
are messengers of God (Daniel 10:11); they are witnesses of God’s justice, and
this is their role throughout the book of Revelation; they are attendant to the
divine throne (Ezekiel 1:5; Isaiah 6:2-6; Revelation 4 & 5); they are
overseers of the outworking of divine judgment. Again, this is seen throughout
the book of Revelation. They were originally created higher than man but man in
the resurrection will be over the angels. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 that we
will judge the angels.
3) Angels can appear
in human form. They can apparently transform their immaterial bodies into
material bodies that take on all of the attributes of flesh and blood (Genesis
18). Throughout the Scriptures they always appear as males. There are different
categories of angels, so this indicates perhaps a ranking among the angels.
Several angels are described as flying (Daniel
4) Scripture reveals
several classifications of angels. Cherubim are the highest class of angels.
Lucifer, the pre-fall name we use to identify Satan, was of this class. He was
the highest of the cherubs. Cherubs are identified in Scripture in association
with the glory, the holiness, and the majesty of God. They are described in
Ezekiel 1:5-14, and even though the name cherub is not used in chapter one, in
Ezekiel