{"id":3316,"date":"2012-03-02T08:15:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-02T13:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=3316"},"modified":"2013-12-17T23:01:09","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T04:01:09","slug":"worship-and-revelation-4-5-part-2-revelation-4-dale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/worship-and-revelation-4-5-part-2-revelation-4-dale\/","title":{"rendered":"Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 2 – Revelation 4"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
(click for image credit)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What does Revelation imply about God, Jesus, and worship<\/a>?<\/p>\n

In Revelation chapter 4<\/strong>, the author is granted a heavenly vision:<\/p>\n

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, \u201cCome up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.\u201d At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne<\/strong>. (ESV,\u00a0emphases\u00a0throughout are added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Awesome. Who could this be? There follows a description of the setting and the heavenly court. Featured are some wierd heavenly beings singing,<\/p>\n

\u201cHoly, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty<\/strong>,\u00a0who was and is and is to come!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right – this is Yahweh. All of this is very reminiscient of the vision in Isaiah chapter 6:<\/p>\n

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne<\/strong>, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. \u00a0Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:<\/p>\n

\u201cHoly, holy, holy is the LORD<\/strong> of hosts;\u00a0the whole earth is full of his glory!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“LORD” here is the proper name Yahweh. So this is who Isaiah saw. And this, the author of Revelation is telling us, who he now sees in his<\/em> vision. Much in the vision is similar to the visions in Ezekiel 1 and 10. There too, the prophet sees God himself.<\/p>\n

If the point wasn’t clear enough in Revelation 4, some worship this one on the throne, saying,<\/p>\n

\u201cWorthy are you, our Lord and God<\/strong>,\u00a0to receive glory and honor and power,\u00a0for you created all things<\/strong>,\u00a0and by your will they existed and were created.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This recalls well-known passages later in Isaiah, were Yahweh asserts that he’s the only true God, and the only creator.<\/p>\n

Note finally that the author here nowhere says the one on the throne is a man, although one imagines the character as humanoid – I mean, appearing to be similar to a man – he does sit enthtroned here, and in the next chapter he’s got a scroll in his right hand. Of course, he’s assumed to be a self here too. He has a will, he performs intentional actions like creating, and he can be\u00a0addressed\u00a0and worshiped.<\/p>\n

He’s a glorious and powerful being here, but the author demurs from directly describing<\/strong> him. I think that’s why a good portrayal of this scene has a sort of non-descript person on the throne, e.g. with no articulated face, as in the picture here (which is really of Revelation 5, subject of my next post).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does Revelation imply about God, Jesus, and worship? In Revelation chapter 4, the author is granted a heavenly vision: After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, \u201cCome up here, and I will show you… Read More »Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 2 – Revelation 4<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,11,21,10,3,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-art","category-bible","category-logic","category-theories","category-worship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5648,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3316\/revisions\/5648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}