The
Elders and the Rapture. Rev. 5:6-10
1) Man was created as
God’s vicegerent to rule the planet. Everything is under man, he was the king
of the earth. God is viewed as the landowner but man is the chief steward who
administers the planet in God’s name. The purpose and the destiny of the human
race, therefore, is to rule the planet.
2) However, when Adam
disobeyed God in the garden and followed Satan the title of the king of the
earth is lost, usurped by Satan who became the illegitimate ruler of the
planet. He is referred to as the god of this age, the prince of the power of
the air in the New Testament.
3) As a result Satan
had to be defeated. Satan’s defeat was secured at the cross but his final
destruction awaits the return of the true King.
4) Christ also redeems
the planet in order to restore the kingdom to man. He does this as the Son of
Man and the son of David. He fulfils the Old Testament covenants, and we have
two pictures of this in the Old Testament. The first is in Daniel chapter
seven, the story of the successive kingdoms of man and how they will be
destroyed by Jesus Christ when He returns to establish His kingdom. This also
fulfils the Davidic covenant where David was promised that his house [dynasty]
and his kingdom would be established forever and his throne would be
established forever.
The scene in Revelation chapter five shows us the final enactment as the
rightful ruler as the Lion of the tribe of
The action develops in Revelation 5:7 NASB “And He came and
took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.” The Lamb has
appeared, and He comes and moves forward to the throne. He is the only one who
is qualified to approach the throne.
Revelation 5:8 NASB “When He had taken the book, the four
living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one
holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the
saints.” His action generates a response by the creatures who are before the
throne. They fall down and worship the Lamb now, another indication that Jesus
Christ is full deity. In Scripture it is prohibited for man to worship any
creature. The word that is translated “harp” is the Greek word KITHARA [kiqara] which means a
harp or a lyre. The harp is mentioned in 5:8; 14:2; 15:2. The bowl is the Greek
word PHIALE [fialh] from which we get
our English word vial. It refers to a bowl or a basin, a vial with a wide
mouth. It was used in many types of religious settings, so it is a bowl or a
libation dish that is used in religious ceremonies. This word appears twelve
times in Revelation and in most of the others it has to do with the pouring out
of judgment, but here it refers to an incense bowl and the smoke going up in
the incense represents the prayers of the saints. It could be that some have
harps and some have bowls but the term “each” there indicates that each person
involved there has both of these because they involve different kinds of
worship. So they are not falling down trying to hold on to everything, they are
just present with each one so that they have what they need during different
kinds of worship in heaven.
Revelation 5:9 NASB “And they sang a new song, saying,
‘Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain,
and purchased for God with Your blood {men} from every tribe and tongue and
people and nation. You have made them {to be} a kingdom and priests to our God;
and they will reign upon the earth.’” There is a textual problem here. The
issue is who is really talking here. It is complicated because there are
differences in Bibles, and that is because there were some differences in some
of the Greek MSS on which these translations were based. The most common interpretation
among of this passage across the board is that these 24 elders are angels. In
some Bibles the word “men” is inserted in italics because it doesn’t appear in
the original. If angels are singing then that would not be singing because
angels are not redeemed by the death of Christ on the cross. If we are reading
the NASB or the NIV we are going to be
led to the conclusion that it is the angels singing, and so the 24 elders would
be angels, and if you are reading a KJV or NKJV we would say it must not be angels, it must be
human beings that are singing this. So we have to understand what is behind
this. However, a majority of dispensationalists believe that the 24 elders are
representatives of the church.
The different in interpretation here isn’t based on theological
assumptions, it is based on the problem of textual criticism. That is, when
there are differences in the various MSS and so there must be a decision as to the what
the original text said. This is not a guessing game, it is a very scientific
procedure which compares the various MSS to determine which was the original. That is
the process of textual criticism. In some versions the pronoun “us” is added
here, and this is seen in just a few versions, the Vulgate and Iranaeus, one of
the church fathers. On other MSS, instead of having “you have redeemed us to God,” it
is reversed and it has, “you have redeemed God us.” So the “us” is still there.
That would be in Codex Sinaiticus, and various papyri, the Majority Text and
certain Latin versions.
The Textus Receptus derives from a Greek New Testament which was put
together by a very famous scholar just prior to the Reformation by the name of
Erasmus (1466-1536). He had seven Greek MSS available to him of the New
Testament, none of which were complete, and all of them were considered
inferior. Nevertheless, he relied mostly on two of the seven. He was under
pressure from his publisher to put this out in seven months and he had to do it
all by hand. He made a host of errors. In fact, this Greek New Testament went
through several revisions over the next 30-40 years before it was finalized.
The printer didn’t accept all of Erasmus’s corrections and, in fact inserted some
of his own. As a result several errors entered into the text, some verses
entered into the text that weren’t there in the original at all, and other
times words that were not contained in any other Greek MSS. So it is on the basis of
these seven MSS, primarily two of them, that Textus Receptus is based. This
became the basis for the KJV of 1611. So when we think about the King James Bible
it is based on the TR which relies primarily on two MSS with a little help from some others. In fact,
the last six verses weren’t in any of these MSS that Erasmus had, so he had
to back-translate it into Greek from the Latin. There were some other verses
that were inserted that weren’t in any other MSS so there are some basic
problems with the TR.
Over subsequent centuries a number of other MSS have been discovered, and in
the 19th century there was a lot of discovery made. Four MSS specifically were
discovered which all came out of
Some things to note:
1) There is no English
translation based on the Majority Text.
2) The Majority Text
is very close to the TR but there are over 1800 differences between the
Majority Text and the TR.
3) In the book of
Revelation the Majority Text usually agrees with the Critical Text instead of
the TR. It is a superior
reading.
4) Notice in verse 9
when it gets down to the word “men,” the NASB, the Critical Text, inserts
the word “men,” and that is based on only one MS. The difference is that in
one MS, Codex A, it omits the word
“us” completely. But “us” either follows “to God” or comes before “to God” in
every other MS. But it is omitted from one and the scholars come along and put
so much weight on that one that, despite the fact that every other MS that we
have has the word “us” in it, they take it out. And this isn’t even a debate
between the Majority Text and the Critical text.
In some ways this is influenced by theology, because if these are men
that are singing this praise to God, “You have redeemed us,” they couldn’t
figure out how they got there. What are all these human beings doing in heaven
at the beginning of the Tribulation? Because they got raptured. If you don’t
have a doctrine of a pre-Tribulation Rapture you can’t figure out why these
human beings are in heaven at this stage, and why they are wearing crowns, why
they have resurrection bodies. So the Majority Text reads: “You have redeemed
us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”
That agrees with the KJV, the NKJV and Textus Receptus. But in verse 10 the Majority
Text agrees with the Critical text. It seems like it goes on to say, “And you
have made them to be a kingdom of priests to our God.” It says, “You have made
us to be kings and priests to our God” in the NKJV. What is going on here? This
has led to a lot of confusion.
The best way to understand this is to ask what is going on in verses 9
& 10 when it talks about “they sang a new song.” Sometimes you have parts
to songs, and so when we sing a particular hymn and there is a ladies’ part and
there is a man’s part we would still refer to the whole congregation singing
even though one group may be singing one thing and one group singing something
else. In the ancient world, especially in the
There are some questions that are often raised
which we will try to answer.
1) First of all, we
have to understand that even though the 24 elders are always grouped with the
four creatures who are angels before the throne of God that doesn’t mean they
have to be classified as angels. In many of the scenes in Revelation the Lamb
is present also, but the Lamb obviously is not an angel either.
2) The elders offer
bowls of incense which represent prayer, as do the angels, but the angels are
not the only ones who are involved in intercessory prayer.
Another thing we need to observe is that in Daniel chapter seven is
another verse, v. 9, where Daniel observes: “I kept looking Until thrones were
set up, And the Ancient of Days took {His} seat; His vesture {was} like white
snow And the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne {was} ablaze with
flames, Its wheels {were} a burning fire.” There is no one sitting on those thrones.
No one is seated on those thrones around the throne of God until those 24
elders show up in Revelation 4:4. These 24 elders wear white garments which
depict the white garments that are given to the overcomers. Finally, the 24
elders wear STEPHANOS crowns, victors crowns. The crowns that are promised to believers are STEPHANOS crowns, not DIADEMOS crowns, the crowns
of ruling authority, the crown a king would wear. So the picture here is that
these 24 elders are redeemed men singing praise to God for having redeemed
them.