The (Apocalyptic) Visions Begin
John's Journey to Heaven in Revelation 4
Audio Version!
It’s been a few weeks since my last post and and what a few weeks! Between my last post and now we’ve had an election—some might term it momentous, others an apocalypse—but the world is still turning, the “birth pangs” that Jesus spoke of are still happening (especially human caused wars), as of yet the doomsday scenarios of the end-times pundits have not occurred, evil still exists, and God is still on his throne.
We may watch history unfold with interest or trepidation, but for those with trust in God, our earthly troubles are but a side-show in light of our task to worship God alone along with all the saints who have preceded us.
To all followers of Jesus who would see the election as triumph or on the other as the accession of evil—two diametrically opposed views by those claiming Scripture as their warrant—John would say (I think) “Stop it!”
I say this not to ignore the world around, but because Revelation leads to an entirely different perspective on the world.
And now is the time that we move into the heart of Revelation and its viewpoint on all that happens in our world.
With Revelation 4, a distinct change occurs with what has happened before.
John introduced the book and his vision of Jesus in chapter one, wrote down the oracles of Jesus to the churches in chapters two and three, and now—finally—gets into the part of Revelation that most people think of when Revelation is mentioned.
Yes there are visions and disasters and judgments—but not so fast.
My (our) task for In Plain Sight is not to blindly follow what people say or think about Revelation, but to look at what is actually there.
How did John begin his visions and why?
What did the first readers think he was doing?
Did they discern what he was saying?
Understanding what John actually wrote will give us a vastly different picture than the popular view—and hopefully increase our trust in God’s ways in these uncertain times.
Ultimately with regard to us who do trust, it is our prayers—the prayers of the saints—that matter most, not our kicking of the political goads.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
(continued)
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The apocalyptic genre
After these things I saw—and look! An open door in the heaven, and the first voice which I had heard like a trumpet speaking with me saying, “Come up here and I will show you what must happen after these things.” Immediately I was in spirit, and look! A throne was there in the heaven, and upon the throne seated, and the one sitting on the throne appeared like jasper and carnelian, and a rainbow encircled the throne with an appearance like emerald. Revelation 4:1–3.
What a way to start!
John began the main part of the visions, not with a disaster, but with a vision of God.
But let’s back up.
As soon as the oracles from Jesus ended (Revelation 2–3), John continued his book by moving into full visionary mode.
He was still on Patmos, he was still in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and now he began to record the rest of what he saw and heard—at least as he was able to organize the mass of things that he saw.
How do you even record a vision?
My dreams are all jumbled and I remember only snippets.
But for John, though the visions were vivid enough to remember, putting them down on paper (or as in some traditions dictating to a scribe who wrote them), meant not only recalling the vast amount of information, but then selecting the words to convey what he saw and heard.
Many scholars have wondered at some of the Greek grammar in John, but I say, it’s no wonder!
I’ve spoken about Revelation as three genres—letter, prophecy, and apocalyptic. The first three chapters were almost exclusively letter and prophecy except for the vision of Jesus in chapter 1.
Now in chapter 4, apocalyptic takes over from here to the end.
From now on, prophetic admonition only crops up occasionally, almost spontaneously, in a few places.
Remember that prophecy is communication of “the word of the Lord” or in Revelation, words directly from Jesus.
But apocalyptic is a literary form of visions and auditions: what John saw and heard that he put down on papyrus.
Apocalyptic books like Daniel and parts of Ezekiel and Zechariah—and Revelation— relied on images; they were akin to graphic novels, but without the drawings. Instead the illustrations were described.
Poetry uses images also, but poems utilize stanzas and verses, whereas apocalyptic is a type of narrative, almost a story.
The word fantasy comes to mind because the images described are not the physical reality we experience every day.
But fantasy usually conjures up “not real.”
To the contrary, in Revelation John was describing the “unseen real”—true reality that our five senses cannot access.
What John saw and heard in his visions was reality behind and beyond our sensed reality.
That unseen reality is what we “see” in Revelation through described images put down in words (that are then meant to be read aloud).
Apocalyptic imagery in Revelation
First John described in writing what he saw: the heavenly throne room, the angels, the four living creatures, the elders, the vast sea of humanity, and Jesus in different ways (the priest of chapter 1, the Lamb of chapter 5, the rider on the white horse of chapter 19). In addition a variety of angels, the four horses with riders, the dragon, the beast, the locust army, the great prostitute riding on the beast, and so much more!
John also described what he heard: thunder, earthquakes, peals of lightning, the massive acclamation of countless saints, the roaring voice of the angel, the “woes” of the eagle.
In all of this strangeness, it is helpful to realize that John’s first readers were not surprised at all that John left the images in Revelation unexplained instead of simply clarifying their symbolism.
There were other books similar to Revelation (not just Daniel) that many of his readers/hearers were likely aware of.
None of them made it to the Bible (for good reason), but we still can read them today.
Like Revelation, images were the currency of those books (I’ll list several in the paid subscriber section).
If the Gospels and Acts wrote history, and the letters of the New Testament communicated primarily theology and practical living to early Christians, Revelation revealed its message through word pictures which are symbolic of reality—these word pictures gave a distinct and deeper view into unseen reality.
Revelation pulled back (and unveils for us) the curtain of reality: the majesty of God, the work of Jesus, the reality of evil and its end, and the glorious future for the saints.
I expect the average person would not describe reality this way!
(cont.)
“After these things”: sequence, not chronology
There are a few things to notice in these opening verses of Revelation 4.
First, the phrase “after these things” occurs twice—not as chronology but as the sequencing of his visions.
Understanding how John organized the visions helps us to keep in mind that Revelation is not about the chronological unfolding of history, but about the way things are all of the time until Jesus returns.
History always repeats itself and Revelation uncovered the Satanic underpinnings of that repetition, all the while affirming that the God of the universe knows all things, will judge all things, and in the sending of Jesus provided for all who trust in him to escape the way things are.
In my last post, What is the wrath of God?, I suggested that human freedom to self-destruct is the wrath of God.
Revelation contains multiple pictures of that self-destruction egged on by Satan and his emissaries.
But before the images of destruction, John began with two fundamental chapters:
—Revelation four is the vision of the throne of God
—Revelation five is the disclosure of the Lamb at the throne who has the authority to break the seals of an unopened scroll.
This sequence makes all the difference to the book.
Evil was not given the prime spot; God and the Lamb were.
No matter what unfolds in the visions, one thing is secure.
God is sitting on his throne.
In my next two posts, I will address these chapters as the preeminent and dominant truth which we are called to cling to as our reality and hope.
“Come up here”
These words come from the first angel with trumpet voice who spoke to John in Revelation 1:10.
The premillennial-dispensational approach interprets this summons to John as the “rapture.”
In that view, the churches of Revelation 2–3 were periods in history up to the present “church of Laodicea,” but in chapter 4 when John was told to “Come up here” through the open door in heaven, the words represented the rapture of the church and the rest of Revelation is the account of the seven year period before the return of Christ.
I do not see any of that here.
What I see is John telling us what he saw in his vision.
And when the angel said “Come up here,” John was transported “in spirit” to the throne room of God that he then described.
No more and no less, and no rapture needed.
“And I will show you what must be after these things”
Back in Revelation 1:1, John wrote, “the revelation of Jesus Messiah which God gave to him to show his slaves what must be soon and signified it by sending through his angel to his slave John.” Later in 1:19, Jesus spoke to John: Write what you saw, and what is and what is about to be after these things.
Now we see the angel almost repeating these words.
The term for “happen (Greek: genesthai)” suggests events or the way things were/are/will be.
The rest of Revelation was this demonstration of “what must be.”
And John organizes these visions with a particular strategy.
At its most basic, Revelation is a picture with two levels.
The level above is heaven where God dwells and where all the redeemed worship Him.
The level below is the world where evil still exists, but that Jesus has conquered through his blood.
John’s visions go back and forth between these two levels.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but only to insist that John depicted God’s power, might, and sovereignty as unaffected and unassailed by the goings on on earth aside from one aspect—the prayers of the saints.
“Immediately I was in spirit and look! a throne …”
What John beheld in this vision was a throne with a Being sitting upon it that dazzled like precious stones.
John made no attempt to describe the Being, only the setting of the emerald colored rainbow, and the beings around, and the crystal sea, and the throngs worshipping.
What John witnessed in his vision was similar to scenes in the Old Testament such as Isaiah 6 or Ezekiel 1 or Daniel 7—in fact if you read the Ezekiel and Daniel passages, this one has similarities, not to mention Paul’s experience described in 2 Corinthians 12:2–6.
The Being is obviously God, but John does not or cannot describe his appearance. In fact, nowhere in Revelation does John describe God besides “the one on the throne” and the acknowledgment that he is Lord, God, and Almighty. Instead, the setting and the worship are what creates the awe of the picture; the almighty God is beyond description.
With one exception:
John described the exalted Jesus over and again, in Revelation 1, 5, and 19, then referred to as the Lamb in multiple other places.
For John, when we behold the exalted Jesus, we are also beholding God. John illustrated in Revelation what he wrote in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God. The Only-Begotten-God who is in the bosom of the Father has made him known.”
In this case, John masterfully used the literary tool of delay. He described the heavenly scene, but postponed the appearance of the Lamb to chapter 5, though the Lamb was there the whole time.
Chapter 4 presents us with the magnificent majesty of heaven as the throne-room of God with all of its attendants, but does not present the whole picture until chapter five.
We will look at both of these chapters in the next several posts, so stay tuned.
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