This was talk six of a sermon series preached at City South Presbyterian Church in 2024. You can listen to this on our podcast, or watch the video.
Last chapter we saw this picture of the throne room of God — and of God himself — as raw fiery power (Ezekiel 1:27). Yahweh — the God of Israel — is the ruler over all the other gods in heaven; holding court, rendering judgment (Psalm 82:1).
This is a common picture of the throne room — that it is the place where God acts as judge; where the God whose fiery power melts mountains will turn that power against evil in order to destroy it.
There is a Psalm — Psalm 11 — that brings together a few of our images. It is a Psalm of David, and he starts by saying he takes refuge in God like a bird fleeing to its mountain.
He is fleeing because injustice seems to be winning; the wicked are flinging arrows at him, shooting from the dark at the upright in heart. Where else can the good go but the heavenly throne; where God is — enthroned in his heavenly temple. These are images we have been bringing together — the mountain, the throne, the temple.
David is confident that God is, from his throne, examining the righteous — and the wicked. Those who love violence — he is judging them. He hates this violence with a passion, and he will rain fire: fiery coals and burning sulfur — there are those coals again. There will be a scorching wind as his power moves against the wicked in judgment; a sort of purifying fire. David is confident God is just; that he loves justice — and the upright will see God (Psalm 11:1-7).
The throne room as a courtroom is a picture we also see right at the end of the Bible’s story. Again these thrones in heaven are occupied by these authorities, but around the throne there is a cloud of witnesses — these martyred Christians, people beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus — people crying out for justice (Revelation 20:4).
This crew is first described back in chapter 6 of Revelation — the faithful testifiers who have been killed — who are at the throne asking, “How long, O Lord, until you judge and avenge…” until you bring justice for our deaths.
And they are told, “Wait… wait a little longer…” not because God is sitting on his hands, or because he is waiting for the world to turn to him. He says, “Wait until the full number of witnesses have been killed” (Revelation 6:9-11).
That is hard. It is hard when we have our own suffering and identify with those crying out. It is an awful reason to wait — if our suffering is ultimate; and often it feels like it is.
But in the vision of Revelation, God’s justice comes — these martyrs are raised up to reign on the throne with Jesus (Revelation 20:4). We are not going down the thousand year rabbit hole today.
Our eyes are drawn to a great white throne of the God whose power overwhelms the heavens and the earth.
And God is judging all the dead according to their actions — every human ever to have lived and died will come before the throne and be judged:
“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”
— Revelation 20:11-12
Ultimately death itself, and the place of the dead, and all those whose names are not written in the book of life — and especially those who have been opposed to God’s kingdom and his faithful witnesses who do not repent — these people will experience the fiery judgment of God. The power of God we saw last week is turned on them in what Revelation calls the second death (Revelation 20:14-15).
And this picture might make us uncomfortable — partly at the idea of the books being opened and our lives being exposed — but also for reasons on two poles. Some of us find it hard to believe an all-powerful, loving God could be violent like this; could judge — especially if he might judge us, or people we love. On the other hand — some of us who have suffered evil might be like the martyrs crying out for justice; wondering why God has not stepped in — if he is absent, powerless, or even if he is good.
Navigating this tension is one of the hardest parts of belief in Jesus. It is where the problem of evil and suffering leads people on either end of this spectrum away from God’s throne. I wonder what happens if we take these problems directly to God’s throne.
We can try to rationalise our way through these tensions, but I wonder if rightly imagining the throne room of heaven and encountering the God enthroned helps us resolve these tensions better than just knowing facts. If we add our voices to the witnesses around the throne, and see him as the one who can answer our cries — calling out for justice while experiencing mercy — this might help us with another tension.
See — we have been pondering how entering the throne room of heaven, as those raised and seated with Jesus, is meant to shape our lives on earth. So what do we do with this picture of God’s raw power falling with such violence in the name of justice?
Coming before God as the one who can answer these cries; adding our voices to those testifying in heaven; calling for justice while experiencing mercy teaches us that our job is not to enact God’s job for him, and to leave justice in his hands, or in the hands of those who wield the sword.
There is a theologian named Miroslav Volf who has been helpful for me in navigating these tensions. He is a Croatian who grew up in the Republic of Yugoslavia. His most famous book is called Exclusion and Embrace; his reflections on the genocide that took place as the Republic dissolved. Volf’s life is marked by injustice. His father — a pastor — had been held in a concentration camp. Volf himself was completing his PhD overseas when Serbian soldiers were conducting an ethnic cleansing of his homeland, targeting his neighbours and family. His PhD supervisor asked him if, given his commitment to non-violence, he would be able to embrace one of these soldiers. These are some of his reflections as we navigate our discomfort with God acting in judgment.
For Volf, a God not grieved — angry even — at injustice, who does not act to end violence, would not be worthy of worship. He argues that the belief that God will not, with some sort of violence, end injustice actually creates the conditions for human-on-human violence — there is no fear of God to restrain human evil. To commit to human nonviolence requires the belief God will bring justice; vengeance even — where we have withheld it.
For Volf — some of the discomfort we westerners feel about judgment and justice from God is a product of western privilege — a “quiet suburban home in a peaceful country.” This sort of judgment can feel unnecessary for us. Whereas in a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, where people are crying out for justice — it dies quickly.
Here is an extended set of his words:
“If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make the final end to violence God would not be worthy of our worship… violence thrives, secretly nourished by belief in a God who refuses to wield the sword… the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance… It takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge… In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die.”
We will come back to Volf — but let us grant that this might be true — as we imagine coming face-to-face with the holy God who will bring judgment and justice. Our readings from Isaiah are a picture of doing this — of this heavenly court.
Isaiah approaches this holy God — recognising he deserves judgment — and is not destroyed, but is made holy; which, through Jesus, becomes our story too.
We read about Isaiah’s encounter with God in his throne room — which, like with Ezekiel last week, is part of his commissioning to carry a message from the throne to earth. And his message is one of judgment.
We read this in chapter one — Isaiah is carrying God’s declaration that his children have rebelled against him (Isaiah 1:2). Zion will be delivered with justice — there will be some faithful ones left, but rebels and sinners will be broken and those who forsake God will perish (Isaiah 1:27-28).
This Zion that is delivered — it is the mountain of the Lord’s temple. This is imagery we have seen of the heavenly throne room coming to earth. When this happens the nations will stream up the mountain, to the temple; before the throne. They will be saying, “He is going to teach us to walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from this temple mountain; the word of God from Jerusalem. And he will judge from his throne and settle disputes (Isaiah 2:2-4).
And just in case we think the task of those meeting God in this throne room — the God who is going to enact justice — should lead to violence in the name of bringing heaven on earth by eradicating evil ourselves — that is the opposite of the picture Isaiah paints. People meeting God in this throne room will forgo violence; they will beat their swords — their weapons — into tools to create food and peace and prosperity. Nations will not go to war against one another or train for war (Isaiah 2:4).
Now, this is a vision of the new creation — and while it would be amazing if all the combatants in modern wars were confronted with this picture of the heavenly throne room, or any violent individual laid down their weapons or their desire to hurt others — this is not necessarily a call to total pacifism now. God appoints people to wield the sword and to enact justice — and that has to be part of our picture when we experience evil and injustice.
But this is not the role of his heaven-on-earth people; the church; those called to walk in the light of the Lord (Isaiah 2:5). We can only do this — we can only choose non-violence as a “just” heaven-on-earth way of life if we truly believe God will act to bring this ultimate justice and use his power to make all things new.
I wonder how often our desire to seize control, and the small ways we choose violence, or wield power over others in various ways — with our words, or the way we position ourselves to exclude others, or the ways we seek revenge with whatever tools we have — shows that we do not always believe God will act this way. Perhaps part of this is because we are not in the habit of asking him to do so.
In chapter 6, Isaiah has his heavenly encounter where he is commissioned to take this message of judgment to his people and the world. He sees the Lord — Yahweh — high and exalted — seated on the throne. This is in a sort of heavenly temple — or a heaven-on-earth temple — because he sees God’s robe filling the temple; cascading down off the throne (Isaiah 6:1).
Where Ezekiel saw those heavenly cherubim, Isaiah sees seraphim (Isaiah 6:2). Their name comes from the word for “burning ones” — they are bright shiny creatures — sometimes pictured as winged serpents in nations around Israel. I guess you could call them fire-breathing dragons. They have six wings, and they are flying above the throne, singing:
“Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh Most High — the Lord God Almighty — the earth is filled with his glory.” (Isaiah 6:3)
This is a song that emphasises some of the qualities of the one on the throne; especially his holiness — his absolute perfection; his inability to abide impure things, and the idea this light will consume everything.
The whole cosmic temple shakes and there is smoke (Isaiah 6:4). It is like when God settles on the temple in 1 Kings — and a bit like when tongues of fire settle on God’s living temple in Acts to mark us as holy.
Isaiah is overwhelmed; he is thinking back to Moses on Sinai and the threat of death that accompanies being in the presence of God’s holy power. He cries, “Woe to me! I am ruined — destroyed…” It is because he is not holy — he is a man of unclean lips. He falls short of God’s perfection. He is meant to be a prophet whose lips will speak God’s words to a people whose lips should speak for God. He falls short of God’s holiness and has entered the most holy place. Now his eyes have seen the King — the Lord Almighty — enthroned in heaven, and this should be the end for him (Isaiah 6:5).
Only — rather than the fiery power of God obliterating him — he experiences mercy. One of the burning ones, who serves the burning powerful God with his burning throne, flies over to Isaiah with a live coal in his hand from the altar (Isaiah 6:6). This is fire from heaven. There are rules in the Old Testament law about the fire on the altar in the holy place never going out (Leviticus 6:13), because it was lit by God when his glory appeared when the tabernacle was completed (Leviticus 9:23-24).
As this burning one approaches, Isaiah must imagine he is about to be burned up, but the seraph uses this heavenly fire to purify his unclean lips. This heavenly fire becomes a gift; his guilt is burned away; his sin atoned for (Isaiah 6:7).
When God asks, “Who will I send to speak for me?” Isaiah says, “Pick me” (Isaiah 6:8). It is not an easy message either. He is carrying the message from the start of the book — an announcement of God’s fiery judgment (Isaiah 1:2). His job is not to cleanse the lips of these rebellious people, but to show how their commitment to dead idols has deadened their hearts. Isaiah’s words are going to confirm this judgment; their hearts will become calloused in response; their eyes blind; their ears deaf. They will hear this message and will not turn back and be healed. Anyone who has been crying out for justice will see it, while those who oppose God’s plan for a heaven-on-earth renewal will experience it (Isaiah 6:10).
This is where Isaiah asks, “How long, Lord?” — “How long do I have to carry this message of judgment and despair?” And God says: until the stuff that gets in the way is cleared; until the land is empty and a blank slate for re-creation (Isaiah 6:11). That is an interesting parallel to the martyrs at the throne in Revelation — God’s people asking, “How long?” “When will you act?” (Isaiah 6:11; Revelation 6:10).
The delay between the announcement and the judgment creates this period where people hearing can respond; but their response will often be to confirm that judgment is deserved as they turn on God’s witnesses (Isaiah 6:11; Revelation 6:11). That can feel hard when we are part of those witnesses — or when we are experiencing the violence of the wicked and seeking refuge in God’s throne room. That wait is only bearable if God will act justly; if he will actually make amends and heal and restore.
The end of the book of Isaiah depicts God speaking in judgment:
“Heaven is my throne, the earth my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will I rest?”
But nobody is building this house; his nation has chosen their own ways, not his — delighting in abominations, rejecting God — so he will remove them. When he called, nobody answered; they were too busy doing evil (Isaiah 66:1-4). So Yahweh promises he will come with fire; fiery chariots like his throne from Ezekiel — bringing his anger and rebuke and flames of fury; coming with fire and his sword and executing judgment on all people (Isaiah 66:15-16).
Why? How can a God who is good and loving do this?
We would have to believe the evildoers are actually doing evil — and humans doing evil should not be hard for us to imagine. As a thought experiment: imagine that God is good and has held off as long as he could, but has to balance the reality that inaction fosters evil — and weigh this evil against his holiness and his desire for renewal; a world free of evil. How can God claim to be just if the violent and wicked truly prosper?
This is so the vision of Isaiah 2 can happen — people from all nations coming to the mountain throne, becoming priests of God. In a new heavens and new earth the opposition to this plan has to be removed so those who dwell in God’s presence can endure forever and live lives of peace (Isaiah 66:20-22).
Isaiah’s throne room encounter is a picture of this; of a human coming into God’s presence to be made holy; to be purified; to become a witness to God’s kingdom as he receives forgiveness of sins — atonement — so that he can not just be in God’s presence in heaven without being destroyed, but carry God’s word into the world.
This is a confronting picture, is it not? When we imagine God as holy and just, turning heavenly power against evil — even the evil that lurks on our lips and in our hearts. Are you prepared to expose yourself to God for this to happen — knowing it might involve some pain, but that to refuse to come before the throne of the judge means being brought before the judge on his terms?
Isaiah is a picture of this, but not the final picture. His encounter points to God’s redemption of humanity — his invitation into his throne room through Jesus. To come before his throne still involves being transformed — being made holy — by heavenly fire, but this happens because Jesus absorbs the fiery judgment of God to remove our guilt, atoning for us as the Lamb of God, so that the fiery power of God — the Spirit — might dwell in us without destroying us.
John — who (I think, though this is debated) wrote Revelation — says a bunch of things about Jesus that we will look at next week, but there are a couple of things in chapter 1 of his Gospel that are crucial as we imagine coming before the throne of the judge. John talks about Jesus, the Word of God, coming into the world — his own — and being rejected (John 1:11). Crucified. This is the ultimate expression of violent human rebellion. When he describes Jesus “tabernacling” with us, he says that in Jesus we are beholding God’s glory; there is not a God in heaven who is not revealed in the life of Jesus (John 1:14). Then he calls Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) — a lamb did that in the Old Testament by being a sacrifice in the place of God’s people; whose blood would lead God’s judgment to pass over his people.
In one of his letters, John also talks about Jesus being our advocate in heaven; standing for us in the throne room like a lawyer when those books are opened — saying, “This one is mine” — and the atoning sacrifice for our sins; the one who absorbs the blow, like a sacrificial lamb, so that we might enter the throne room and not be consumed — and not just us. His offer is to the whole world (1 John 2:1-2). Jesus is God’s offer of merciful embrace to the world; an invitation to be included in his life. He changes our picture of heaven — when John describes his vision of heaven in Revelation he sees a slain Lamb on the throne (Revelation 5:6).
When we imagine heaven and this throne, we are not just picturing the raw, fiery power of a vengeful God, but a just God with his beloved God-King enthroned with him — a slain Lamb bearing the scars of encountering human violence and evil; scarred on our behalf so he might advocate for us, bringing us before the throne, testifying on behalf of those who testify to him, and sharing his throne with us in his kingdom — sins forgiven, scars healed, raised to life with him forever, while justice is served.
Miroslav Volf — who observed the horrors of human violence up close — says this image helps resolve our concerns about God’s judgment. While Revelation pictures Jesus riding a white horse, violently destroying those who have harmed his faithful witnesses, Volf says:
“The violence of the Rider on the white horse, I suggest, is the symbolic portrayal of the final exclusion of everything that refuses to be redeemed by God’s suffering love.”
Revelation wrestles with the tension of the timing of this judgment, but it has to come because, for God not to act — not because he is eager to pull the trigger, but because every day he is patient and holds back — violence (the same sort of violence turned on the Lamb) multiplies.
Volf again:
“The day of reckoning must come, not because God is too eager to pull the trigger, but because every day of patience in a world of violence means more violence. God’s patience is costly, not simply for God, but for the innocent.”
God’s patience comes at a cost for those harmed by evil — and some of us feel that cost and bear those scars. But it is the slain Lamb who offers comfort to those of us who are scarred; who cry out, “How long?” Those of us wounded and suffering have a wounded and suffering King who knows our pain; and it is the slain Lamb who reminds us of God’s love and mercy — that he is good and just; that he has suffered evil; that at the heart of God’s heavenly rule and his justice is the cross. “At the center of the throne, we find the sacrificed Lamb… At the very heart of ‘the One who sits on the throne’ is the cross,” Volf writes. The one who rules — who we approach in prayer; who we might picture as we picture the glory of heaven — took human and cosmic rebellious violence upon himself while taking on God’s fiery power, to make the unholy holy, to conquer enmity and embrace the enemy. “The world to come is ruled by the one who on the cross took violence upon himself in order to conquer the enmity and embrace the enemy. The Lamb’s rule is legitimized not by the ‘sword’ but by the ‘wounds’; the goal of its rule is not to subject but to make people ‘reign for ever and ever.’”
So how do our lives on earth reflect this reality in heaven — where God the Father and God the slain Lamb exercise judgment from the throne, and the Lamb advocates for us? What do we do with this picture?
First, if judgment is a reality, we — like Isaiah — can find refuge by approaching God’s throne in confession and repentance, knowing our sinful hearts and bodies and mouths should be destroyed by this fire; but coming all the more willingly because we know that our sin and its punishment have been dealt with not by fiery coals from the altar, but by God in the violent death of the Lamb, so that we can be forgiven and atoned for — and made holy as we receive the Spirit as our own fire from heaven.
Second, if we have found refuge here — as forgiven sinners — and if we have been transformed, there is an obligation to testify to this Lamb who testifies on our behalf; not just proclaiming the fiery God who will judge evil, but the slain Lamb who offers embrace. We can name the evil in our own lives and bring it to God’s throne to be transformed, and be sent into the world. And part of lives that testify to this reality is not to embrace violence in pursuit of justice, but to embrace the non-violence pictured in Isaiah (Isaiah 2:4), trusting that God will judge and be just; and that while our cries might feel unheard, he hears and will act.
Third, as those with access to this throne room — who have the slain Lamb as not just our King but our advocate — those of us whose hearts are captured by this vision of God’s nature are able to cry out for justice; naming the way our own wounds and scars are products of the evil of others — and even knowing we will be resurrected and enthroned — we are able to call out, “How long, O Lord?” and to expect an answer, and to know that we do not just have permission to call out to God this way, but an advocate and a God who delivers justice, not just at the end of the world, but as its ruler.
A few weeks ago, when we pictured heaven as a mountain, we looked at how the Psalms of Ascent might become part of what shapes our language and imagination as we approach God’s throne. As we think about crying out for justice there are a couple of types of psalm we might use to shape our prayers. We might be moved to lament — to carry our anger and grief to God, knowing that he cares and will bring justice — and that our own healing and transformation happens through encountering him, not running from him. But we might also be moved to call down judgment from heaven — there are psalms called imprecatory or curse psalms. Some of them are full of graphic imagery as God’s people cry out for justice; for judgment; for the destruction of the wicked. It is fair to say Christians have not been sure how to pray these psalms — and that we should be careful not to position ourselves as judge, or to refuse the idea of mercy, or that God might embrace those who have hurt us in a way that brings them to transformation and repentance. Yet in our experience of injustice these psalms might give us some words to say to God, where — even if our limits and perspective are wrong — they bring us towards God, rather than away from him, in our suffering. About one in ten psalms include the psalmist crying out for justice.
One of the more famous — and more graphic — is Psalm 58. It says “even from birth the wicked go astray.” It says they are like snakes; spawn of the evil one; their poison is destructive (Psalm 58:3-4). This is another psalm of David, and he prays that God would break the teeth in the mouths of these evil humans — these powers — that their evil might fail, and that they might be destroyed and disappear (Psalm 58:6-7).
It is not ungodly to come before the throne of the just judge to pray for the destruction of evil; for those who have harmed or are harming us; to ask him to act. We would have to have a wrong picture of heaven if we never did this.
