When we began Chapter 4 yesterday, John said he saw an open door in heaven and he heard a voice calling him to, "Come up here!" Immediately, in his vision, he found himself no longer on the earth but in heaven. We talked about how this symbolizes the removal of the church from the earth before the Great Tribulation, for from this point on we won't see the church mentioned in relation to the earth again until she returns from heaven to reign with Christ.
When John found himself in heaven in his vision, he said he saw a throne with someone sitting on it. In today's passage he will try to describe for us what no man can really describe---the glory of the One who is in control of all things.
"And the One who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby." (Revelation 4:3a) John can't clearly see the features of the One seated on the throne, so he describes the radiance that surrounds Him. Later on in the book of Revelation we will learn that the jasper to which John refers is a clear stone, not the earth-toned jasper we're familiar with. If the jasper John sees is clear, then it may sparkle and reflect light like a diamond. The other stone John mentions here is the ruby, and we are all familiar with its blood red shade. These two stones may have a connection to the breastplate the high priest of Israel wore. The breastplate had twelve stones on it, with each stone representing a tribe of Israel. The first stone on the breastplate was a jasper, and the last stone on it was a ruby. When John sees the One seated on the throne, he sees the first and the last stones on the breastplate, which may symbolize the Lord Jesus Christ who, when He appeared to John in Revelation 1, used for Himself the titles of "Alpha and Omega" and "the first and the last".
The late Dr. Harry Ironside, theologian and author and pastor of the Moody Church of Chicago for many years, felt that additional information is conveyed by the order of the stones on the breastplate. The first stone, the jasper, represented the tribe of Reuben. Reuben's name meant "behold a son". The last stone, the ruby, represented the tribe of Benjamin, whose name meant "son of my right hand". This lends further credence to the idea that the personality and character which comes across most forcefully when John views the One seated on the throne is the personality and character of Christ, the Son of God, whom we have been told is seated at the right hand of God. (Christ being at God's right hand is mentioned multiple times in the book of Acts. We also find it in Romans 8:34, Ephesians 1:20, Colossians 3:1, multiple times in the book of Hebrews, and 1 Peter 3:22.) In ancient times, when a king placed someone at his right hand on the raised dais upon which his throne sat, he was making the statement that this person was equal in authority to him. This place of honor was usually reserved for the firstborn son and heir. Although John sees only one throne, the throne is evidently large enough to accommodate the three persons of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But it is the personality of Christ that strikes John the most.
We tend to think only of God the Father as the One seated on the throne. He is of course seated on it. But Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind book series which is based on the book of Revelation, offers the opinion that the Greek word John uses to say "someone" is on the throne can be either singular or plural. If it is intended to be plural, then it may be that John sees the three persons of the Holy Trinity enthroned together. But since Christ is the only Person of the Trinity who has been seen by man, John is only able to see and describe the aspects of the Trinity that relate to Christ.
John tells us what he saw directly surrounding the throne. "A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne." (Revelation 4:3b) We are dealing not only with a God who always has and always will be enthroned and in control of all things, but we are also dealing with a God who keeps His promises. In Genesis we find Him using the rainbow as a sign of His promise that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood. Did God owe us any promises? No. But He made us a promise and kept it anyway. The promise symbolized by the rainbow was a promise that did not depend on anything we did or didn't do. Most of the promised blessings of Scripture depend our obedience and faithfulness, but some of the promises depend only on God's grace. One of these promises was that He would send a Savior to redeem us from our sins. He kept that promise, in spite of all the wicked things we did and in spite of all the good things we failed to do. That promise depended on the faithfulness of God alone. The title of Promise Keeper is a title God earned and deserves, so a rainbow encircles the throne to forever represent His faithfulness.
John saw things so amazing that he couldn't really describe them to us. We won't know exactly what he saw until we see these things for ourselves. But one thing we need to take away from our study today is this: Almighty God is still seated on the throne. Some days it feels like this world is descending into madness. Sometimes it feels like everything around us is out of control. But nothing could be further from the truth. The God who spoke the universe into existence is still in charge, still holding all things together. It's fitting that God would remind John (and by extension, us) of His sovereign control at this point in the book of Revelation, because He is about to show John "what must take place after this". (Revelation 4:1) The things that are about to take place could easily cause John or anyone else to fear that everything on the earth is spinning out of control. But nothing that we are about to see on the pages of Revelation is outside of the control of God. In fact, these things are all part of His carefully orchestrated plan. At every turn, we are going to see Him at the helm of heaven, directing every event that takes place on earth in an orderly and logical fashion. So no matter what's going on in your world, and no matter how out of control things may feel, just remember that God is on the throne. Nothing happens outside of His will. Nothing will ever spin out of control as long as He is at the helm of heaven---and that is where He will always be.
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