Getting Revelation -Part 7- A Peek Into Heaven

Chapter 4 of Revelation is where John is taken into heaven and sees the Lord, seated on his throne, with his heavenly attendants around him worshipping him. I will not go into the significance of the numbers and symbols here for the sake of time, but let it suffice the reader to understand that the angels with six wings singing "Holy holy holy" is a reference to Isaiah chapter 6 when Isaiah is given a peek into heaven, and the living creatures with 4 faces is a reference to Ezekiel 1 when the prophet Ezekiel is given a peek into heaven. The borrowing of these symbols from the ancient Jewish prophets would have been obvious to the original audience of Revelation, who were predominantly Jewish Christians, having memorized or studied the prophets from their youth up. In an earlier study we found borrowed passages from Daniel as well.

All of this imagery originally found in the prophetic books (which deal with the nation of Israel) being utilized here tells us at least a few key things:
1. John the revelator and his vision are in the same class with, and share a parallel ministry with the prophets throughout Israel's history.
2. His book deals with the same subject that the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel do: That of the awful judgment upon disobedient Israel, and the final institution of the everlasting kingdom of God at the end of the age. They saw it afar off -- he's saying it would be fulfilled within a few short years of when he penned it.
3. This book was meant to be read and understood by a Jewish audience. Why chalk a book so full of imagery that only the ancient Jews would recognize and understand, unless the message of the book was to them -- that it was foretelling events that the ancient Jews would see fulfilled with their own eyes, and which would directly impact their own first-century nation?

After John sees the Lord on his throne with the angels and elders surrounding him in worship, his attention is directed to a scroll, sealed with seven seals, whom no one in heaven or earth, except the lamb of God (the crucified Christ) is worthy of opening. The four creatures and the 24 elders, symbolizing the international church of Jesus Christ (vs 8-10), fall down before the lamb of God and worship him for purchasing them with his own blood on the cross out of every nation, tribe and language of the earth.

As we will study further in chapter 6, as the lamb looses the seals of the scroll, terrible judgments are unleashed upon the land, and in particular the Jews (more on that in the next installment). It would seem then that this imagery with the scroll and the lamb is signifying that not only did Jesus' sacrificial death give salvation to those who would believe, but also gave him the right to unleash these judgments. Could it be that this scroll is symbolic of the "bill of divorce" which God made out to his idolatrous and adulterous wife, the twelve tribes of Israel (Jer 3 and elsewhere) hundreds of years earlier? The price of adultery under the mosaic law was death by stoning. Israel had committed adultery against her groom, with whom she had entered into a covenant of marriage. However, God could not justly proceed with their "stoning" (all the curses of breaking the Mosaic law found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy) until their Messiah (and judge), the Son of man, had come and had given ample time for all those who would repent and believe on His Son to do so and be saved from the coming wrath. Now, nearly 40 years (one generation) after Christ's ministry, it was time for God to finally cast his adulterous wife away and take his new bride, the everlasting international church of Jesus Christ (out of every tribe, tongue and nation) to himself.

As Jesus foretold, His crucifixion at their hands would be the last straw. In his parables against them, he illustrated this... "Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.' So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers? They said to Him, "He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons." (Mat. 21:37-41)

Only Christ's death opened the door for God to unleash His final wrath on the twelve tribes of Israel, bringing in the end of the age of the old covenant.

In the next installment we will begin following the unleashing of these judgments as the seals on the scroll are broken one by one in chapter 6!