Revelation 4:2 - Forerunner Commentary

Revelation 4:2

Commentaries:

No entry exists in Forerunner Commentary for Revelation 4:2.

Revelation 4:1-11
Excerpted from: God's Throne

So the whole chapter, whole two chapters going into chapter 5, are constructed to impress on John, and now on us reading it, just how powerful and holy and glorious and worthy of worship God the Father is. He is called in verse 8, "Lord God Almighty." How strong He is! He is called "holy, holy, holy." That is the superlative of holiness, the Holiest of all. And in verse 11, He is called the Creator of all things. And we are told that He is not only the One who created us, but He is the One who now sustains us. What power is there! And we cannot imagine it.

Unlike the description of Solomon's throne, there is actually not very much about God's throne here. Although the throne is mentioned about 40 times in Revelation, and it always has some form of a meaning in terms of sovereignty—that God is sovereign, God is Lord, God rules—and we need to have that in mind, and He repeats it throughout the book of Revelation. So we keep getting these little inputs of, stay on the right side, God is on His throne, God is in power, God cannot lose this fight. Just stay firm, endure, hold fast—because of the throne and because who sits on the throne.

Now, the vision focuses on the Father's glorious presence and the high ranking angelic beings serving and praising and worshipping Him incessantly. In the spirit world, gold, ivory, carved stones, or whatever, do not mean a whole lot so we do not get very much of that kind of description. We are told that things are like jasper, like sardius. They have gold crowns, so there is some physicality to some of these things. But more important than these things that we think are so precious, God concentrates on the glorious and powerful spirit servants who prostrate themselves before God. That is much more awesome! That these creatures that He has made to be so glorious are bowing to Him and throwing their crowns before Him say a whole lot more than just the fact that His throne was made of ivory and overlaid gold. So that is why the concentration is on the beings that are there.

And this activity is all happening against the backdrop of stars and galaxies, and it happens on a magnificent crystalline sea, a lake, a vast body of water. It is a huge transparent surface, that when you look in it, it appears like the stillest, clearest body of water. One that is so pure you can see all the way down to the bottom, if it were here on earth. It gives you a feeling of heightened otherness and fabulous superiority, that is, God's fabulous superiority and preeminence that He lives in an environment like this that is so awesome. It is so awesome that it is entirely beyond human imagination. We have to make material comparisons to figure it out. It is like this. It appears like this, it seems like this. But it is more than this.

What about an emerald green rainbow arcing over the throne? This is the word iris in Greek, like an iris of our eye or an iris of a camera. It can mean halo, and I think this is probably where the medieval painters just started putting halos above angels and saints and Christ. Iris just means a circular or semi-circular band of light. It could be a ring or a bow. We do not know. But it arches around the throne. Some people have thought that that rainbow, reminiscent of Genesis 9 and the rainbow that God put up for man's benefit after the Flood, that they may be related here, a sign of God's covenant. The one after the Flood was a sign of God's covenant that He would not do this terrible worldwide flood again, so it was a covenant of grace and mercy, and maybe we are seeing that again here.

And then we go on to the Father. "He who sat there was like a jasper and sardius stone in appearance." He is not described very clearly. He is described appearing like two types of quartz. Jasper is a translucent stone, perhaps of indeterminate color. If you go to chapter 21, verse 11 it is more like a diamond. And sardius or carnelian is a translucent red. It is hard to know what … . . .

Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Revelation 4:2:

Matthew 6:9

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