Fr. Stephen De Young: We’ll go ahead and get started. We’re going to be picking up in the book of Revelation, the Apocalypse of St. John, chapter four, verse one. And we can do kind of a quick catch-up this time, because basically we’ve gone over the introduction and then we had the letters to the seven churches, so we were at a very good break point, so we don’t have to do a lot of catch-up.

But now here in chapter four, we’re going to be beginning the book proper, which is really the beginning of the vision proper that St. John received and that he’s writing down and that the cover letters that we just read were sort of attached to at the beginning. It kind of begins with a segue into the vision proper, so I really don’t have to do a lot more introduction than that. We’ll start with book of Revelation, chapter four, verse one.

“After these things, I looked, and behold: a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying: Come up here and I will show you things which must take place after this.” This is sort of our entrée into the vision proper. When it says that there’s— I don’t know what people are picturing, like the beginning of The Twilight Zone, with the door and space or whatever, but this is literally talking about sort of a door open in the sky. This is using common imagery the way Bible usually depicts the world, and this is symbolic and poetic description, just to make clear. It is not saying this is literally what the world is life. Sorry, flat earther friends. [Laughter] But it is that the earth is sort of a disc that’s supported by pillars in water. What are the borders of the water? Doesn’t say. What are the pillars standing on?

Q1: Turtle.

Q2: Turtle. [Laughter]

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, turtles all the way down. No. Right. But this is a depiction. So the abyss is beneath the pillars, down there at the bottom, and then over the top there is a dome of the sky, and above that is where God, the angelic beings, those sort of things are. That’s why the same sort of word is used for heaven, the place where God is, and the sky, because they’re seen as related. So the idea here is that there’s like a hatch or a door in that dome that is open for St. John to pass up through so that he will be able to see things from that perspective.

This is something that we find in pretty much all apocalyptic literature. You find this kind of thing in Daniel, you find it in Zephaniah in the Old Testament; you find it in extra-biblical stuff like the book of Enoch: the idea that someone is taken into the heavenly places. And the understanding that’s at work here is that time, for example, is a function of the movement of the stars and the planets. That it’s not just how people measure time, but that’s what produces time. And so if you go up above that to where God is, you’re sort of outside of time and space as we usually think about it. You’re outside of history as we normally think about it. And so, from that perspective, you can then see the past, the present, the future. You can see different parts of the world. You can kind of get a bird’s eye view. In our life, we’re always seeing, moment to moment, what’s going on in one place at one time. We can’t see the big picture. You go up there, you see the big picture, of history and of all these things that are unfolding.

So the idea of apocalyptic literature—any apocalyptic literature, but including the book of Revelation—is that someone is given that kind of vision and then conveys it to the rest of us through the text. When it says, “things that will come to pass after this,” again, it’s not saying, “I’m going to show you the stuff that’s going to happen way, way in the future,” because we already saw, several times, how this is stuff that’s relevant right now, but it includes the future and the past and the present, because the idea is it’s supposed to help give us, at whatever point in time and space we are and whatever’s going on and whatever we’re facing—give us this larger perspective from God’s perspective.

We have to reiterate that over and over again because we’ve all been culturally drilled to read the book of Revelation as if, like, “These are a series of events that are going to happen in the future or that have happened in history, proceeding into the future,” and that’s not necessarily what we’re looking at at all. What this is is all of history, human existence, not just human existence but angelic and demonic powers and all of these things, being described from another perspective that we normally are not privy to, in order to inform our current perspective. So that’s what St. John, in this case, who’s receiving the vision, is being sort of invited into.

Verse two: “Immediately I was in the Spirit.” We talked before about how that’s a reference to worship. So he’s saying he’s coming into a worship setting, and we’re going to see that play out here.

Immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold: a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And he who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald. Around the throne were 24 thrones, and on the thrones I saw 24 elders sitting, clothed in white robes, and they had crowns of gold on their heads. And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God.

So he enters into sort of the divine throne room; there’s worship going on there. So there’s the throne of God; there’s One sitting on the throne. These stones that are being referred to are direct references back to appearances of God, bodily, in the Old Testament. So if you go into Exodus when the elders go halfway up Mount Sinai, they see Yahweh the God of Israel and eat a meal with him, and he’s described with these same stones when they describe his legs and his feet and his body. You see the same stones being used in Daniel. So St. John is describing the same being and connecting these things.

God is seated on his throne. We’ve got a—

Q1: Are we only seeing his feet and legs?

Fr. Stephen: Well, it doesn’t say here.

Q1: I know, but I was thinking about what you said about the jasper.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, it specifically says in Exodus; it specifically talks about his feet and legs. Here it is much more vague. And so the rainbow shows up here, a reminder about the rainbow in the story of Noah. We usually think of rainbow like bow on a package: it’s pretty, it’s colorful, it’s nice. The word “bow” that’s used in Genesis 9 after the flood—it’s a bow like a bow and arrow. So after the flood, God sets down his bow as a sign that he’s not going to use it any more; he’s no longer going to go to war with humanity. That’s why it’s still sitting there. When you look and you see it’s still sitting there, he hasn’t picked it up again. That’s a sign that he’s not going to destroy the earth again with a flood.

While we say, “Oh, pretty! Rainbow around the throne!” this is actually more like the gun-rack, or like one of those things with the swords and stuff mounted and stuff in the throne room. [Laughter] This is a theme, actually, all through the Old Testament when it talks about God coming to establish justice and it talks about his weapons, his weapons are sort of the elements of nature. It will talk about God’s weapons being the hail and the thunder and the wind. So this is fitting with that theme, too.

Then it’s not just—just like in the Old Testament, it’s not just God. God isn’t sort of sitting in heaven all by himself on a throne, but there’s more thrones. There’s thrones plural. There’s 24 of them, with elders sitting in white robes, and they have crowns of gold on their head. This is a point that’s a little different, and we should notice it, and we’re going to come back to this later, because these elders are going to pop up again and again. We’re going to see, when we get into chapter twelve, why there’s 24 of them.

The 24 elders are humans; that’s the key element. So when Isaiah, for example, gets called to be a prophet, and he’s taken up into heaven and he sees the throne of God, he doesn’t see any humans up there. He sees cherubim, sees other angels. So God’s not alone; he’s not all by himself. He’s got sort of his council members there, these divine beings there, but they’re angels; they’re not humans. Same thing’s true in the other with Ezekiel when he sees the throne of God. It’s always angelic beings. Here now we’ve got these 24 elders.

And notice what they’re wearing. We can’t totally ignore the letters; I didn’t mean to give that impression. I know we weren’t all big fans of the letters, but remember, for example, one of the things that Christ promised to those who overcame: white robes, crowns. So these are some of those humans who have now overcome. So there’s been a shift having to do with Christ, that now there are humans seated on thrones in the heavenly places.

Now, who are these 24? Traditionally, these would be the twelve patriarchs of Israel and the twelve apostles. Remember that they’re promised— The twelve apostles, Christ promises them— They say, “Well, what about us who have left behind wives and children and— We left everything behind to follow you.” He says, “You will sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel.” Now this creates an interesting question that nobody’s raised yet. Isn’t St. John one of the twelve apostles? [Laughter]

Q1: Right?

Q4: [Inaudible] So it doesn’t matter.

Fr. Stephen: Yes, exactly. So one of them is him.

Q4: Whoa.

Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] One of them is him, whom he’s seeing. So now humanity is there. And if you have a question: “Well, why wouldn’t the twelve patriarchs of Israel have already been there, like when Isaiah—?” Well, this is part of the theme that’s running—yeah, it’s there; you just have to look closely—of the harrowing of Hades in the New Testament, that, as Hebrews said, it’s only with us in Christ that they get made perfect. So they’re also there because of Christ now [who] has opened the way to bring our humanity into the heavenly places. We’ll get into more of why they’re sitting on thrones, too. Notice how they’re not there on a cloud, strumming a harp, singing. [Laughter] They’re doing something; they have a role there.

And then: “From the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices.” That’s a reference back to the book of Exodus. That’s what they hear; that’s what the Israelites hear coming from the top of the mountain when God is there, is thundering and lightning. So that’s connected back to there. This is the idea that this is— This sort of God’s throne room was there on top of Mount Sinai. That’s what, as we talked about in Hebrews—that’s where Moses went when he went up Mt. Sinai to meet with God. This is— It’s very clear. It should be very clear already that for St. John, he’s presenting here the Old Testament God. This is not a different God. This is the same God whom we’ve encountered all the way through the Old Testament. There are these different things, like there being humans there in heaven with God.

And there’s the seven lamps of fire. Remember we talked about the seven spirits of God, the seven archangels, and how some people tried to make that into the Holy Spirit. Notice it’s still capitalized here, the word “spirits,” because they’re still trying to do that. There’s seven lamps before the throne of God. The Holy Spirit is God. He would be on the— Anyway. [Laughter] So these are the seven archangels “who stand before the throne of God,” that phrase being a quote from St. Raphael in the book of Tobit.

Now continuing in verse six:

Before the throne, there was a sea of glass like crystal, and in the midst of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures, full of eyes in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature was like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.

We’ll pause there. First we have this sea, like a pool—think like a reflecting pool—that’s out in front of the throne. And it says that it’s like glass, like crystal. What’s the significance of that? Remember, the water, the sea, is chaos, all through the Old Testament. But before the throne of God, it’s the opposite of chaos. There’s not, like, a wave, there’s not a ripple, there’s not a— It is completely clear, completely flat, completely stable.

And then we have the four living creatures who are making a return appearance from Ezekiel, when Ezekiel saw the throne of God surrounded by the same four living creatures. Now, “living creature” is kind of a deceptive translation, because it’s basically… Everybody knows the Greek word there is being used to translate cheruvim, aka “cherubim” in Hebrew, but for some reason they don’t translate it that way. They just translate the Greek and say “living creatures.” But so these are the four cheruvim. When we hear “cherub,” we think of chubby little babies with little wings, like on toilet paper rolls and in Renaissance art. That’s not what a… That’s more like what a cupid is. The cheruvim are… For example, if you’ve seen any Babylonian art, the big things that look sort of like sphinxes, but they have the ringlet beards, like the Babylonian ringlet beards, the hats, the llama-suit.

Q1: The big gold creatures?

Fr. Stephen: Yeah. That’s a cherub; that’s a cheruv. That’s what was on the ark of the covenant. Those are the kinds of creatures we’re talking about, with the different heads here. That’s what he sees.

And these weren’t—in Ezekiel or here, these aren’t random animals. God’s throne, remember, is up here, like on top of the heavens, the stars, the planets, and everything. So those happen to be the four cardinal constellations, the constellations that are in the four compass-points in the Babylonian zodiac.

Q1: Wow.

Fr. Stephen: So when Ezekiel saw them, Ezekiel was in Babylon, so he was making the point that astrology, very big in Babyon—he’s making the point that God’s throne is up above that, above that. And so you have the same idea here.

It’s important that you know that because otherwise… St. Irenaeus will take these four creatures and do some interesting stuff with them. It looks like he’s just doing weird allegory games if you don’t know about the Babylonian zodiac connection, because he’ll say—St. Irenaeus says, “Well, look. There’s four gospels, and that’s appropriate, because there’s these four creatures, and there’s four winds, and there’s four compass directions, and four corners of the earth,” and you’re kind of going, “Well… Okay… There’s four of things. There’s also three of things and seven of things…” But he’s making the point that with these four constellations— Stars and angels are always kind of interchangeable, and we’ve already seen that in Revelation; we’re going to see that going forward, where angels are referred to as stars. Remember, there were the stars in his hand that were the angels of the seven churches, the seven stars. So constellations kind of work the same way.

These four constellations, this represents the whole of the sky. You can plot— If you’re on a ship or you’re traveling through the desert and you have those four constellations, you can find any direction you want, you can orient yourself. Same thing with the four winds, the four corners— This is all having to do with orientation and getting a picture of where you are. So that’s what St. Irenaeus is saying about the four gospels. He’s saying we have these four different perspectives on Christ, and, having the four, we can orient our self to the whole thing.

Q1: When did they get matched up with individual gospels? Usually that’s…

Fr. Stephen: Several Church— St. Irenaeus does it, but several Church Fathers do it, and they don’t all match. [Laughter]

Q1: Oh, okay.

Fr. Stephen: Pretty much everyone has St. John being the eagle, but then the other ones kind of get moved around depending on the author. They’re usually trying to make some point, and the point isn’t that “no, there is this one truth about which one represents which gospel.” They’re not really arguing with each other. They’re trying to make some point about the gospel, like they’re trying to say, “Oh, in St. Matthew’s gospel, we really see Jesus’ humanity,” or “In St. Mark’s gospel, we really see Jesus’ humanity.” [Laughter] And the points they’re making are not invalid points or really at odds with each other; it’s just that we tend to— We want to plug everything into a spreadsheet as modern people and be like: What represents what? So we can work it all out. “Okay, now I get it. Now I know how it works.” And the Bible won’t play nice with us when we want to do that, and this is yet another area.

All this talk about constellations: a brief note. Judaism did not have a problem with astrology, Second Temple Judaism included. Early Christianity actually started having a problem with astrology, and that was because of the pagans coming into the Christian Church. There was an entirely different Jewish form of astrology where, if you read Philo, for example, Philo of Alexandria, who was a Jewish author in the first century BC, he says, “Well, look. There’s these stars.” He even calls them gods, with the small-g. But he says, “These are gods that the God—“he uses “the God,” because they don’t really have capitals, but we would say God with a capital-G—“created. The true God created them.” And rather than them— And he says that the pagans, the heathens, out there, they think that these stars, like gods, govern their destinies and control them and have power. He says, “They don’t have power. The God is the only one who has power, but he can communicate to us through them.”

So Jewish astrology—we talked about this a little in Romans, because St. Paul actually appeals to it at one point. In Jewish astrology they saw the stars and the movements of the constellations as a way that God could communicate things to humans, sort of through nature. That’s why, for them, in a Jewish context, the Magi following a star to find Jesus as an infant was not weird. Like: “Oh, yeah, there would be. I mean, if the Messiah was going to be born, there would be a sign in the heavens.” St. Ignatius still talked about that. St. Ignatius could talk that way.

But once you get into the second and third century, I think because of problems with pagan converts holding onto astrology the way they used to practice it, early Christianity kind of decided to make a cleaner break with astrology. There were some relatively high-profile—for the second century AD—people who reverted back to Judaism. They left Christianity and went back to Judaism because they wanted to continue to practice astrology when that happened.

But so, yeah, we kind of— There will probably be people who, when they hear this recording, as soon as I start talking about astrology will be like: [Horrified gasp] Freak out. I’m not saying you should read your horoscope. But there was this sort of view of a kind of astrology within Judaism at the time, that God could communicate through. And you find some of that in Revelation. This isn’t the last example of this theme in Revelation, where those kind of things were used.