Revelation 4:4 - Forerunner Commentary

Revelation 4:4

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Who Are the Twenty-four Elders (Revelation 4:4)?
Revelation 4 and 5 describe the throne room of God in heaven and its activities. Prominent among them are the twenty-four elders:

Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I say twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes; and they had crowns of gold on their heads. . . . [T]he twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created" (Revelation 4:4, 10-11).

Some falsely teach that the twenty-four elders are taken from among saved mortals. This assumption is primarily based on a mistranslation of Revelation 5:8-10 in many versions, even the respected King James version. According to the Greek text, the last half of verse 9 and all of verse 10 should read:

For You were slain, and have redeemed them [the saints, not us] to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation; and have made them [not us] kings and priests to our God; and they [not we] shall reign on the earth.

Notice the translation of these verses in the English Standard Version:

. . . for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.

From this correct text, we see that these "elders" are not changed mortals but powerful spirit beings who assist God at His throne in heaven. Verse 10 explicitly says that the resurrected saints will reign on earth! See Revelation 20:4 where this idea is repeated and expanded.

We know that the twenty-four elders are not redeemed human beings because no man except Jesus Christ (John 3:13) has ascended to heaven where God's throne is. All saved human beings—those who are Christ's true servants—will be given immortality at Christ's coming—when He returns to the earth to rule and reign (I Corinthians 15:22-23).

The twenty-four elders, then, are a part of the created heavenly host, that is, angels of high rank and honor. They are created spirit beings and have been given positions of responsibility in the government of God, through which He rules the universe. Revelation 5:8 says the elders each have a harp and golden bowls full of incense, symbolic of the prayers of the saints. From these symbols we can perhaps see a little of their function before God.

The harp is a musical instrument, and biblically, it was used a great deal in accompanying the Psalms and in the worship of God (see II Samuel 6:5; I Chronicles 15:16; 25:1, 3, 6; II Chronicles 5:11-14; Nehemiah 12:27; Psalm 33:2; 98:5; etc.). Similarly, the twenty-four elders are responsible for praising God in song, possibly in conducting vast choirs of angels (see Revelation 5:11-12).

The golden bowls full of incense representing the prayers of God's people hint at a second responsibility: that of carrying out God's answers to prayer. Perhaps, once God determines how a situation should be handled, He leaves its accomplishment in the hands of these trusted servants, who, Paul says, are "ministering spirits sent forth to minister for [serve for the sake of (ESV)] those who will inherit salvation" (Hebrews 1:14). Though this function is speculative, it is not inconsistent with the function of angels elsewhere in the Bible (see Daniel 9:20-23; 10:10-21).

Additional Reading:
The Ministry of Angels
Worthy to Take the Scroll
Silence in Heaven (Part One)
The Spirit World
God's Throne

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 4:4:

Matthew 6:9

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