This was talk eight in a series preached at City South Presbyterian Church in 2024. You can listen to this sermon on the podcast, or watch it here.
We are getting to the pointy end of our series — we have worked our way from the beginning of the Bible’s depictions of heavenly space to the end. We have not just moved from light to mountains to gardens to temples to the heavenly throne room appearing in the prophets to Jesus the walking, talking heavenly throne room — we have moved from Genesis, through Exodus, into the promised land, through exile and the incarnation of Jesus as the end of our exile and our invitation back into heavenly space — and now we are at the book at the end of the Bible; a climax — and the book where images of the throne room of heaven come thick and fast. It is almost like the whole reveal in Revelation is about seeing this reality at the heart of all reality, and having it shape the lives of followers of Jesus on earth.
This is a book written for followers of Jesus struggling because there is an evil empire using violence to create its own vision of heaven. Revelation will picture it as beastly power, and this beastly power — the Roman Empire — is at the beginning of a period of persecution of Christians that will culminate in the emperor setting Christians on fire as candles in garden parties. Somehow this vision John offers is meant to be a comfort. It is meant to shape a life of faithfully committing to a different empire, a different king — and a different way of life pursuing a different picture of heaven. Not a life of violence and destruction, but of faithful witness to the reality of Jesus and the picture of heaven on earth we see at the end of the story — which we will spend more time in next chapter.
It is a vision that comes with a posture and a script — not just a way of life, but a way of worship. While we have been looking at these visions of heaven together thinking about how they might shape our prayers — this chapter— and I would not want to make too big a distinction between these two categories anyway — this chapter we are thinking about how these visions of heaven are the goal of and the setting for our worship. This particular sort of worship is meant to drive our way of life in the world as we serve the God we meet in heaven.
If you have been around for a bit you will have heard me say there are multiple words in Greek that get translated as “worship” in English. One is the word latreo — it is the word for service, what a priest or priestly community does mediating heaven on earth, serving God with our bodies. The other is the word proskuneo — it is a word built on the idea of a physical posture one would adopt before a king or a god — or really, at a throne. It is the idea of falling before this power in reverence. We can tease out the relationship between the two under the umbrella of worship — it is when we see the power and goodness of the one on the throne, and give our lives to that power — falling before it, giving up our own claims — that is what motivates worshipful service as priests.
It is interesting that in the Gospel, the disciples twice offer this sort of proskuneo worship when they encounter the resurrected Jesus. In Matthew 28 they fall at his feet and worship him the first time they see him (Matthew 28:9). And then, when they are up the mountain about to be sent out into the world as the priestly people who have encountered the one with all the authority of heaven on a mountain top, they worship him, and it is this word again (Matthew 28:16-17).
We are going to see — in this vision of the heavenly throne room — a whole bunch of worship. A bunch of images that accompany that worship — pictures of the whole creation worshipping the creator in posture and with words that come with that posture. This is stuff that will shape a priestly people; the sort of people who will represent the throne of heaven on earth. And I think the point here is that these pictures provide a motivation and a model for our worship — first in the sense of encountering the one on the throne, and then as those sent out into the world as priestly people.
Just as these images of the throne in the Bible are maybe meant to shape our imaginations as we pray — and encounter God that way — I think they are meant to form our imaginations and our hearts as we encounter God, as we praise God, and as we worship him. Whether that is when we gather for corporate worship — proskuneo style — or we are doing that alone or in smaller groups, this act — both in posture and imagination — is meant to drive how we serve God with our bodies in the world.
Does this make sense?
Just to orient ourselves before we take a look at these visions — and to set up why we are going to approach them the way we are — remember we are tackling this series through the lens that the Bible gives us as it says those of us who have put our trust in Jesus and received God’s Spirit — we have been relocated in some real way so that we are before the throne of God. We are in the heavenly throne, not just as bystanders but as people seated with Jesus, as those who have access to God (Ephesians 2:6).
And we have been doing this thing of pairing fact statements the Bible makes about this sort of thing with images — pictures the Bible gives us in passages like we are going to look at, or in stories, to help us imagine this reality. To move it from the facts part of our brain into the picture part of our brain and have those working together to shape how we approach reality.
So I thought I would start with this propositional idea. It comes from the bit in Philippians where Paul talks about Jesus — the one who is in very nature God — making himself nothing, less than nothing, being crucified. God’s response to this obedience and love is that God exalts Jesus to the highest place — in the Bible there is no higher place than the throne of heaven — and gives him the name above every name so that at his name every knee — every being — will bow. That is a worship posture.
And there is this strange bit here that pictures reality with three tiers — it is not just every knee on earth, but in heaven, on earth, and in the underworld. It is a picture of Jesus winning a victory that sees him worshipped — honoured — by heavenly and earthly creatures as well as the dark powers who the Bible depicts behind the violence and death, the stuff that infects the earth.
And not only will all these knees bow — an embodied posture of worship — every tongue will acknowledge that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:6-11).
If that is a statement of a thing that is true — that this is where reality is — Jesus being exalted — and where it is heading — every creature recognising that in worship — Revelation’s pictures of the throne room give us imagery to fuel our imaginations as we figure out how to live so this reality shapes our lives. Our posture of worship and our praise will flow out of this sort of vision, this sort of encounter with the Jesus who is exalted to the highest place — which is the picture John, who writes Revelation, opens with.
Now — we are going to skim through these descriptions from a few points in this book of Revelation — not just the bits we read. The idea is to fuel our imaginations with the imagery we get here, to start building out a picture of heaven from these readings. We will look at the postures and words modelled by the worshippers we meet there, and these might be things that flow into how we think about worship, and our bodies, and our words as people located in this place.
John hears this voice and he turns and looks. He sees the voice comes from this figure of someone like a son of man (Revelation 1:12-13). We are seeing imagery from Daniel chapter 7 here (Daniel 7:13). As we wander around the throne room as John depicts it, we are going to see his vision, his words, his way of understanding this heavenly experience aligning with earlier pictures from the Old Testament. This consistency makes me think these pictures are something we are meant to contemplate as some sort of biblical truth that is of value for us now. Only, John is doing something new. He is blending the images of God from the Old Testament with the image of God we see in Jesus.
So his description of the hair and clothing of this son of man lines up with the description of the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9, Revelation 1:14). That includes the fiery legs or feet and the voice that sounds like rushing waters, which Ezekiel says is the sound of the voice of the Almighty (Ezekiel 1:24, 27, Revelation 1:15). And the son’s face is shining like the sun in all of its brilliance (Revelation 1:16).
This is not the first time we have met Jesus described this way. Last chapter we touched on the heaven on earth moment of the transfiguration in Luke’s Gospel. When Matthew records the same event, Jesus is revealed with bright shining clothes and a face shining like the sun (Matthew 17:2, Revelation 1:16).
When John sees this vision of the resurrected Jesus, he does what the disciples did when they saw the resurrected Jesus — he falls at his feet, lying on the ground in front of him (Revelation 1:17). And in case we are wondering if this is the Ancient of Days or the son of man — the figure speaks, calling himself the living one who was dead and is now alive (Revelation 1:18).
This is John encountering Jesus — experiencing this reality of the heavenly realm and modelling a response: worship. As this vision becomes our vision John is modelling a response for us.
But as the book unpacks more visions of the throne room we are going to see John is just joining the posture displayed by other creatures and people we find there.
First though, John sets the scene for us — and he keeps drawing on scenes we have looked at together. I wonder if you can let this imagery of the throne permeate your imagination — if you can picture things in your mind, and if you find it helpful maybe just close your eyes; maybe you can try sketching this out or painting it later.
John sees this throne room of heaven and the one sitting on it. The one on the throne has the appearance of jasper and ruby — precious gems — and around the throne there is a sort of river of light, a rainbow, which you can maybe imagine making the jasper and ruby sparkle. The rainbow itself is sparkling like a jewel, like an emerald (Revelation 4:2-3).
This is imagery from Ezekiel — we are picturing brightness and colour and light (Ezekiel 1:28, Revelation 4:3). If we are in John’s shoes, we are standing there and this is washing over us.
And as we turn around there are these creatures — 24 other thrones where 24 elders are seated. These elders are dressed in white, wearing gold crowns, and there is lots of debate about who these elders are (Revelation 4:4). I am not convinced they are human. I think we are seeing a meeting of that divine council, this Old Testament image we have seen in the Psalms (Psalm 82:1), or something like 1 Kings where there is a heavenly multitude surrounding the throne (1 Kings 22:19). John is looking at some of these — we will see more. In Daniel’s vision there are multiple thrones and thousands of these heavenly creatures around multiple thrones (Daniel 7:9-10). Seeing these thrones in the mix is especially helpful for John’s audience.
Anyway — back to John’s vision, and now we have to move into imagining not just imagery — lightning — but sound, peals of thunder.
And in front of the throne there is a sea of glass (Revelation 4:5-6), which I reckon, as we have seen it in Exodus and Ezekiel, is that barrier — the vault between the heavens and the earth — maybe represented by that giant bowl of water, the sea, in the Temple.
John also sees four other heavenly creatures around the throne covered in eyes and with wings (Revelation 4:6, 8). John’s vision is combining a couple of Old Testament images we have looked at together. These creatures have six wings. We met the eye-covered cherubim in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 10:12), and the six-winged seraphim in Isaiah (Isaiah 6:2). These are the powerful attenders of God’s throne, the ones who carry God’s chariot throne around.
And John sees these creatures saying — though I think we are meant to think singing because of where we are going — “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come” (Revelation 4:8). This is the song of heaven, this is heavenly worship. These are the words the seraphim were calling out to one another in Isaiah — words we echo in our own worship as we join the chorus.
And in John’s vision whenever these four creatures lead the choir of heaven — giving glory, honour and thanks to God — those other heavenly powers with their thrones fall down before God. They proskuneo (Revelation 4:9-10). They worship in their posture. They lay down their crowns and say — or sing — words we too often echo as we worship God in song, words proclaiming God’s worthiness to be worshipped, to receive glory and honour as the Most High God because he created all things (Revelation 4:10-11).
As people raised and seated with Jesus, when we pray and worship God — when we enter this throne room in our imaginations, or with our bodies and words here on earth, conscious of this reality — we are encountering the God who is worthy, who is powerful, who creates and gives being to all things by his will.
As John’s vision continues after that bit with the scroll he sees the figure from chapter 1 — the one who was dead but now is alive, the human ruler who he imagines as a lamb. This is John whose Gospel opens with John the Baptist declaring that Jesus is the Lamb of God. This lamb who has been slain is standing at the centre of the throne, surrounded, like the Ancient of Days, the God Most High, by all these other powers, these heavenly figures (Revelation 5:6).
And these heavenly creatures and rulers — all of them — the four strange creatures and the elders — now they fall down before the lamb. It is the same posture of worship (Revelation 5:8). And they sing — specifically — a new song, not just the Old Testament song, but a song reflecting on the worthiness of Jesus who was slain and who purchased God’s humans through his blood out from under all sorts of other foreign power, foreign gods, making a people from every tribe and language and people and nation.
He has made them what Israel were called to be at the mountain in Exodus — a kingdom of priests, people from all over the earth who will rule on earth as God’s representatives (Revelation 5:9-10). Those who dwell in his presence so they can reflect it on the earth. This is the idea of heaven on earth people we have seen.
John zooms out and sees the whole heavenly host we hinted at — the thousands upon thousands — all in expanding circles out from the throne. They are joining their voices to the chorus: “Worthy is the lamb who was slain.” We literally sing these words, do we not? “Worthy is the king who conquered the grave.” Through his death and resurrection the lamb is worthy of receiving all the honour and glory and praise his father has.
Then John sees every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth joining the chorus: “To him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be praise and honour and glory and power for ever and ever…” Again — words we sing. When we sing this we are joining our voices to this heavenly choir as those already located here. Imagine that. Meditate on this imagery. Put yourself here as we sing.
When these words are sung, the heavenly creatures fall down and worship (Revelation 5:11-14).
This scene is a dramatic enactment of Philippians 2. God has exalted Jesus to the highest place and now knees are bowing and tongues are confessing. When we approach God’s throne in worship, when we fall on our knees in praise as we pray — if we do that — we are joining in to this vision. This is where we are even now, as those raised and seated with Jesus.
Let us just break out of the vision for a second, because this stuff is weird, and I just want to try to ground it for us all. We are probably sceptical or cynical about these sorts of powers, these creatures we cannot see. But I reckon if we can just stretch ourselves we might be able to understand how when humans worship things, when we put things on the throne in our life and bow before them and serve them in the world, when we have a view of heaven — it can motivate us to do things that are real and observable.
If you are a first century Christian living while Rome, and worshippers of Roman gods including the emperor, are making a real difference in your world — lighting your friends up as candles, arresting you or your family and forcing you to choose between bowing to Jesus or bowing to the emperor — these pictures do not need explaining. You know there are powers, and you suspect there might be some sinister “bigger than human” power behind these realities dripping in spiritual imagery and postures and words.
Maybe our issue is we just do not see spiritual powers behind our worship of money, or our ideas that violence is required to bring peace, or that we should take what we want or need with a certain amount of force in competition with others. Maybe we do not see dark spiritual powers at work in racism, or sexism, or wars in places like Ukraine or Gaza. But if we did — and if we had this vision of God actually being in control when it feels like we are losing, and that he is actually going to step in to deliver us, that the lamb slain by Roman power is actually risen and ruling — that is going to change how we see those powers in our world, who we fall before, and how we use our bodies.
I increasingly believe these images represent a real spiritual reality that has power in what we see in the world, having previously been sceptical. But even if you cannot get there, these images of the throne room and these powers and principalities bowing the knee to Jesus are images that, if they shape your imagination, change the way you live and use your bodies in the world.
Let us finish by jumping back into more of John’s heavenly vision from chapter 7. First, as we do this, you might be here checking out church, trying to figure out what Christians believe, not sure about all this weird stuff and just waiting to duck out as soon as it does not seem rude. This is a picture that I reckon captures the hearts of so many of the people you are sitting here with. This is a picture of the world’s most multi-ethnic, multi-age, trans-cultural, inclusive group living connected to each other and to the God we do not just believe made the world but, through Jesus — a real human from history who claimed to be God’s son — invites us to live with him forever, and deals with the barriers between us and God: our destructive worship of all sorts of other powers, our captivity or addiction to dark things that harm others and the world, and even death feeling like the end of our story. By dying and rising and saying “we can do that too with him.” It is a big jump. We get it. But a jump that has life-changing results not just now, but forever.
For those of us who do believe this stuff — some of us will be struggling to figure out the significance of all this, and I am hoping there are some really simple things we can pull out of these big pictures and ideas as we notice the postures and images and words. I wonder if we might consider how we are pretty great at engaging with the words — we are word people — we literally sing these words. And we are pretty okay at thinking about how some of this imagery should translate into our desires for earthly gatherings. Most of us would say we want the church to be a multi-ethnic community of people worshipping God.
I am not sure we are always mindful of “where we stand” in terms of imagining ourselves singing together and meeting together in the name of Jesus meaning we are coming before God’s throne and entering this reality, or even that we have access to this reality every moment of our lives. But I am very sure that most of us do not think about the postures described here. We might stand when we sing, but we do not come from a tradition of falling on our knees to pray. We do not do it as we gather, though millions of Christians meet in church buildings where the seats are equipped with kneeling bars for exactly this reason. And I imagine most of us do not do it in daily life. It is not a necessary thing, but I wonder if it might be a good thing as it connects us to this story.
John looks and he sees a great multitude. This, we will see, is those faithfully living before the throne from across generations and nations, throughout time and space — past, present, and future — standing before the throne, where we belong, dressed in white robes, like heavenly creatures, holding palm branches and singing out together in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb” (Revelation 7:9-10).
More singing. More words of worship — not just for the Ancient of Days, but also for the lamb. They cry out “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the lamb.” These are people from many nations with powers, with visions of heaven, with methods of worship and service and loyalty, proclaiming their ultimate loyalty and belonging belongs in the hands of the God of heaven and his king.
And everyone in the throne room falls down before the throne — like John does in chapter 1 — worshipping, proskuneo-ing God, saying: “Yes. Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honour and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 7:11-12).
This heavenly chorus features all those who have suffered and been persecuted, who have faced life in this world — especially for the first readers, life persecuted by the Romans. This is everyone who has been washed and made clean, made heavenly by the blood of the lamb, by the death and resurrection of Jesus. This crowd of witnesses — particularly those who have been martyred, faithful witnesses — their place, and ours, forever is this throne room, sheltered in the presence of the worthy God on his throne in his heavenly temple. This is our security, our shelter through and beyond the storms of life. If those dwelling there are as worthy as the songs we sing say, then this is a beautiful and comforting picture.
Where these people — including us — will not hunger or thirst, will not lack, will not be exposed to the brutality of the elements. Instead the lamb on the throne will shepherd us, leading his people to springs of living water, and God will wipe away all the tears from our eyes (Revelation 7:14-17).
This picture of a heavenly present and a heavenly future — that we will look at more next chapter from the end of the book — living in this reality, this grandeur, this hope, is meant to prompt our worship, us falling before the good king and offering our lives to him as he offers this life to us, and the way we serve him on this earth as other powers call for our loyalty and try to rule us while leading us to destruction.
Will you enter this reality — the throne room — and fall before this king in worship now in prayer, and as you next sing God’s praises with his people; so that we might be those who live as his priestly people ‘in heaven’ in order to carry his offer of life and shelter into the world?
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