We’re back in our study of Revelation called The KING is Coming, where we’re taking a verse-by-verse approach to see what the book truly reveals—Jesus Christ Himself. As always, I’m joined by Jamie Harrison, and I’m thankful for the opportunity to walk through this study together. Today, we’ll be moving out of the letters from Jesus to the churches and into the rest of the Revelation of Jesus Christ with Revelation 4:
4 After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. 4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, 6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”
9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”[1]
Keith Harris:
Greetings, sojourners. We have a lot to dive into today, and frankly I am excited. I’m beside myself — and also beside Jamie. Jamie, talk to us about Revelation 4. Yes, yes — threw you off with that.
Jamie Harrison:
Yes, yes you did. So we have here — just to get started — to remind you the timeline of Revelation from this point forward. So we finished the seven letters to the churches, and from here on out we have to understand that the timeline is what John saw next. So does this mean historically this is what did happen or will happen, or whatever is happening right now? No. It’s just what John saw next.
Keith:
So does it mean it’s not?
Jamie:
No — it’s just what John saw next.
And so it starts by[2], “After this I looked, and there in heaven was an open door.” And we learned just a couple of weeks back that Jesus is the one who opens doors. So Jesus opens this door, and the first voice that I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet — now we know that that first voice he heard was Jesus way back in chapter 1, verse 10 — and he speaks to him again in a voice sounding like a trumpet. And he says, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”
And so again, what John saw next — this is what’s going to take place after this. After what? We don’t know. We have no idea. But what we do know is what’s going to take place next — right, at some point.
And so just to hit real quick on the trumpet deal — because of what’s coming up in Revelation — the idea of a trumpet in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, would have been something that was used to signal a warning. Like a warning that maybe there was an enemy approaching and a war was about to happen. Sometimes they would blow a trumpet to signify that the Lord had delivered a message, and then they would deliver the message.
Keith:
And so I know those are both really negative sounds, and this isn’t necessarily one of those, but it kind of makes me think about in today’s time like a tornado siren or the sound your phone makes when an emergency alert comes through. And again, I’m not saying that it’s exactly that — those are very negative in our minds — but they get your attention.
You know, when you hear those, stop what you’re doing. Listen.
Jamie:
That’s right. And so that’s the idea here. And again, in every single letter that we read — all seven letters — it was “For those who have ears to hear, listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.”
And so here again Jesus is saying — voice like a trumpet — you better listen. I’m trying to tell you.
And so immediately John is in the Spirit, and there’s a throne in heaven and someone was seated on it. So he is taken to the throne room, which is pretty awesome — somewhere that I look forward to seeing one day, whatever that’s going to look like. Jesus will be there. I’ll be there. It’s going to be pretty awesome.
And so what we do know is that from here on out the focal point of the book of Revelation is the throne room. Every time something happens we’re going to be taken back to the throne room. Something will happen — we’ll be taken back to the throne room.
Fourteen times in chapters 4 or 5 — fourteen times in just chapters 4 and 5 — the throne room is talked about. In the rest of the book of Revelation, forty-six times the throne room is mentioned, with God the Father of course being the one sitting on the throne.
And so again, just to help you understand that: what is the setting of the rest of this book of Revelation? It’s the throne room. It’s centered around the Godhead.
Keith:
And one thing, just as you were describing that — you know a lot of times in literature or movies, if you’ve got a king and a battle is going to be waged, the throne room is kind of like that last resort, like a place of safety. But we also know the throne room is at risk.
None of those times in the book of Revelation is the Godhead in the throne room hiding. Nothing’s — there’s no catapult of hell, so to speak, in danger of reaching them. God is so high and lifted up and unapproachable.
And so God — this is a place of safety and security beyond our greatest fears. God’s in no danger whatsoever. And so in that case, even despite worldly danger, that tells us the things in here that frighten us — we’re safe in the arms of Christ.
Jamie:
And so John goes into a description of what he sees. And again, so many times in Revelation we get descriptions of things, and it’s just the best John could do to describe what he saw. I think some of these things he probably didn’t have words for, and so this is the best thing he could compare it to.
And so he tells us that the one seated on the throne — verse 3 — had the appearance of jasper and carnelian stone, and a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald surrounded the throne.
And so the jasper and carnelian stone of course were in the breastplate of the high priest back in Exodus 28 — you can see that. Jasper being a crystal-clear gem, diamond-looking, reflects all — refracts all — the colors of the spectrum in wonder. It’s brilliant.
So just think about that for a second — refracting all of these colors of the spectrum in this brilliance is what it looks like to him.
Keith:
So more shiny and shining than the shiniest, brightest thing we can come up with.
Jamie:
That’s right. And carnelian stone — or sardius stone — which is a fiery, bright ruby-looking red stone. So you put all that together, and so far that’s the description we have of what he sees when he looks at God.
And then you get this rainbow that has the appearance of an emerald — of course an emerald being like this cool green hue — dominates the rainbow that he sees that is surrounding the throne.
And remember that a rainbow back in Genesis is the sign of God’s faithfulness to keep His word and His promise that He gave to us then. And so I want to just kind of stop there for a minute and point out that what he’s seeing here is God’s glory. He is seeing the glory of God and describing it the best way that he possibly can.
But you have this rainbow that surrounds the throne. It’s not a half rainbow like we see — this is the full rainbow. This is the complete promise of God. This is the complete fulfillment. This is His mercy even in judgment. This is all of these things completed around Him.
And I’ve got Keith who’s going to read this cool deal from the Jesus Storybook Bible. And if you want to kind of talk about it and then read it.
Keith:
Yeah. The Jesus Storybook Bible is not a translation of the Bible, but it’s where Sally Lloyd-Jones has tried to communicate through all the parts of the Bible to children who God is in Christ. And so this is from the chapter on the flood.
“The first thing Noah did was to thank God for rescuing them, just as He had promised.
“And the first thing God did was to make another promise. ‘I won’t ever destroy the world again.’ And like a warrior who puts away his bow at the end of a great battle. God said, ‘See, I have hung up my bow in the clouds.’
“And there, in the clouds – just where the storm meets the sun – was a beautiful bow made of light.
“It was a new beginning in God’s world.
“It wasn’t long before everything went wrong again, but God wasn’t surprised; He knew this would happen. That’s why, before the beginning of time, He had another plan – a better plan. A plan not to destroy the world but to rescue it – a plan to one day send His own Son, the Rescuer. “God’s strong anger against hate and sadness and death would come down once more – but not on His people, or His world. No, God’s war bow was not pointing down at His people.
“It was pointing up, into the heart of Heaven.”[3]
Jamie:
So again, that rainbow signifying that promise — Jesus took the wrath for us so that we could be saved. And this is what we are seeing in the throne room — His complete promise, His glory.
So again, that rainbow signifying that promise — Jesus took the wrath for us so that we could be saved. And this is what we are seeing in the throne room: His complete promise, His glory.
And I want to read a little excerpt from a book by Paul David Tripp called Do You Believe? This is from pages 69 and 70. I think that covers us on copyright stuff. Is that accurate?
Keith:
Yes. And then write this stuff — we’re quoting it.
Jamie:
This is quotation marks.
“Glory is not a thing like a shoe, a steak, a candle, or a cottage. Those are particular physical things that can be carefully described by words so that you would immediately have an accurate picture in your mind of what is being talked about. One could draw a picture or take a photograph of a shoe, and you could see it and know what it was, but glory is not like that. No single picture could ever capture glory. Glory simply cannot be photographed. Glory is not so much a thing as it is a description of a thing. Glory is not a part of God; it is all that God is. Every aspect of who God is and every part of what God does is glorious. But that’s not even enough of a description of God’s glory. Not only is He glorious in every way, but His glory is glorious.
“Scripture does, however, put the hugeness of the glory of God into the smallness of human language so that we can at least get some sense of what it’s like. For example, the prophet Isaiah, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 40, stretches human language in order to give us a little glimpse of God’s glory. ‘Who has measured the water in the hollow of his hand?’ Imagine how much water you could hold in the palm of your hand, then consider that God could hold all of the liquid in the universe in His hand and not spill a drop! ‘Who has…weighed the mountains in scales? … Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket [to God]. … He spreads [the heavens] like a tent to dwell in’ (Isa. 40:12, 15, 22). Isaiah is employing incalculably huge word pictures to help us to have even a twinge of understanding of how glorious God is. Yet even these very picturesque and helpful descriptions fall miserably short of capturing the awesome glory of God.
“We cannot gain a full understanding of the glory of God from a few passages, because the reason glory is glory is because it lives above and beyond that kind of description and definition. You can say for sure that God is glorious, because your Bible declares He is, but you cannot accurately and fully describe in words the glory that Scripture declares. Perhaps the only workable path 9into some understanding of the grandeur of the glory of God is to read the entire Word of God again and again, looking for divine glory. Why? Because the glory of God isn’t hidden in His Word; no, His glory is so grand that it splashes across every page of His book.”[4]
Keith:
One thing’s for sure — there’s awe in everything John writes. Like, this is John, good friend to Jesus on earth. And he’s not saying, “Hey, that’s my buddy.” That’s my God. That’s the throne. That’s — it’s amazing, glorious.
And again, there’s nothing we can say that’s going to do it justice.
Jamie:
That’s right. And you can go to Revelation 21:9–27 and look at New Jerusalem. That’s what heaven will be — what it will look like. And it talks about God’s glory and how glorious it is.
But again, it’s something that is indescribable — or undescribable? Is that the — it’s both of them.
Keith:
It’s both of them.
Jamie:
Yes, it is. I wasn’t sure if that was even a word until just then. So John moves on and he says in verse 4:
“Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones sat twenty-four elders dressed in white clothes with golden crowns on their heads.”
And these twenty-four elders throw a lot of people off. You know — who are they? What are they? What do they represent? Are they really twenty-four people?
And the answer is: we don’t know. Because it doesn’t tell us.
You know, I can tell you that in Revelation 21:12–14 the Bible talks about the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles. And it could be that these twenty-four elders are literally those people. It could be that they’re representation of those people. It could be that they represent the fact that every human being — despite race, despite ethnicity, despite whatever you want to fill in the blank with — will be in heaven if they have a relationship with Christ.
It could represent that — so to speak — the complete church.
Keith:
It could be representatives from the twelve tribes and the twelve apostles.
Jamie:
That’s right.
Keith:
If you’ve got that many “could be’s,” then we need to look at what can we know for sure.
Jamie:
That’s right.
Keith:
That’s the big deal with the study of Revelation — or any sort of prophetic book like this. We want to find our favorite preacher guys or writers to tell us definitively, because we get comfort from it.
I get comfort from having a God who’s so big that He doesn’t need me to know everything. That kind of tells me in some cases — if you’ve got something that’s completely explainable by the mind of man, some dude made it up, right?
And this is so otherworldly that, like Jamie said, John’s doing the best he can.
Jamie:
The absolute best he can.
And now on that thought, we do know in Daniel chapter 7 and verse 9 where God sits down on His throne, and you look around — there’s other empty thrones around Him in Daniel. And now when John sees them, there are twenty-four people sitting on them.
Keith:
So what was empty is, at this point, going to be full.
Jamie:
That’s right.
Keith:
Now full with who?
Jamie:
Again, we don’t know. And I think that’s okay.
Keith:
Well — and well, I know that’s okay.
When you look at this, the point of them — just like when you see angels in Scripture — they’re very quick to say, “Hey, don’t worship me. I worship the One worthy of worship.”
Their whole everything is to say, “Look — look to the throne. Look to Jesus.” They’re not in any sense saying, “Hey, we’ve arrived. Look at how good we are.” They lay their crowns down. They are continually in worship of the One.
So who the twenty-four are — they would say very clearly, “We point to Him.”
Jamie:
That’s right.
Keith:
And so I think that’s enough for me.
Jamie:
And when we see them, we see that they lay their crowns down before the throne.
Keith:
That’s exactly right — which the only reason we know they have crowns is because it tells us they have them.
Jamie:
That’s right.
Keith:
And then it tells us they lay them down.
Jamie:
That’s right.
And so it goes on from there in verse 5: flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder came from the throne.
And this reminds me of Exodus 19 and Exodus 20 where God speaks through the thunder right before He gives the laws and punishments. So kind of another idea of God speaking here.
Flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder come from the throne. And then if you look further in Revelation — Revelation 8:5, 11:19, and 16:18 — that lightning and thunder is a sign of the fury of the judgment to come.
So it’s kind of like God is about to speak, or God is speaking through this to help us understand, to get ready for the fact that His judgment is coming. His judgment is going to be complete, and it is going to be furious.
And we’ll get there in a few chapters. But it is — it’s intense, I think may be the best word I can think of.
And it goes on — same verse, verse 5 — seven fiery torches were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. And we know that to be the Holy Spirit, as we’ve talked about before.
Something like a sea of glass, similar to crystal, was also before the throne.
And notice he says “something like a sea of glass.” So is it a sea of glass? No, it’s not. It’s something like that — meaning that it’s some type of crystal-clear pavement that’s around God’s throne that looks like some kind of glistening sea.
A lot of the commentaries that you read say that this is a symbol of God’s holiness. And I’m — you know — I’ll go with those guys. They’re a lot smarter than me.
But we do know that Revelation 15:2 and 21:1 say there’s no sea in heaven. So it’s not a literal sea, but it is some type of idea of His holiness and that it’s around His throne.
But again, I think it just goes to the fact that there are these things that are indescribable that John’s doing the best he can to describe.
Keith:
Well, and employing language that we use — and again this is an English translation of the Greek — but that’s the language we use when we don’t know how to describe something. We use similes.
And he says, “as it were a sea of glass like crystal.” He’s literally trying to describe this.
But again he keeps making a beeline back to the throne, back to God, back to the praises — because a lot of the stuff that we very easily get caught up on are trappings, wall hangings, adornments, decorations. Jesus is the main thing.
Jamie:
That’s exactly right. And so he goes on again in verse 6 to talk about four living creatures covered with eyes in front and in back, and they’re around the throne on each side. And that’s kind of a freaky—
Keith:
Yeah.
Jamie:
—I wouldn’t think about these as Precious Moments cherubim. And then he describes the four living creatures. And now remember, before we go into this, that we’ve already got the rainbow surrounding the throne, which is going to be your Noahic covenant.
And now here we go. The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature was like an ox, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.
Now if you’ve got your Bible with us, turn to Genesis 9 — going almost all the way back to the beginning here — Genesis chapter 9. And we look at verses 8 through 11 and it says:
8 Then God said to Noah and his sons with him, 9 “Understand that I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you—birds, livestock, and all wildlife of the earth that are with you—all the animals of the earth that came out of the ark. 11 I establish my covenant with you that never again will every creature be wiped out by floodwaters; there will never again be a flood to destroy the earth.”
And you notice every single thing that is listed here is exactly who these four living creatures appear to be in Revelation. So it tells us in Revelation that one looked like a lion, and this covenant is with the beast of the earth — or the wildlife of the earth. In Revelation it says one looks like a calf. Well here you have that — it tells us livestock or cattle. And in Revelation it says the face of a man. Well it tells us that with you, Noah, and your descendants after you — that’s man. And then you have like a flying eagle, and it tells us with the birds or the fowl.
And so it appears as though these four living creatures would be representative of this Noahic covenant. In other words, His promises that He is not going to flood the earth again. In fact, He’s going to send His Son to die on a cross, to be raised again three days later so that we could be saved.
And so all of this again going back to Jesus — every bit of it. Did you have something you wanted to add there?
Keith:
No, just a thought — or take away. I thought of a phrase from Scripture. I don’t have the address right off the top of my head, but it says, “The whole earth is full of His glory.” He’s not going to flood in wrath anymore, but instead with His glory.
And we’ve already said that it’s incalculable, indescribable. But at this point we just see Him better. Again, if you can look in Revelation 4 and go back and see ties to Genesis, there’s a reason God does that — and it’s to show us He’s got this.
He knows what He’s doing. He’s not saying stuff by accident. He’s got a definite plan that has already been fulfilled and victorious while we’re waiting for it to pan out. He’s 100% sure on it. He sat down, right?
If we’re looking at creation — seventh day is a day of rest. We’re reading about Revelation wondering what’s going to happen this day, that day, this year, that year. God’s already said it and sat down.It’s finished.
Jamie:
And I think on that note it’s cool to point out — which I feel like this is related here — but in the temple, the Holy of Holies, all of these things that they built in the Old Testament and performed sacrifices in… what’s the one piece of furniture that wasn’t there?
Keith:
Nothing to sit on — except for the mercy seat.
Jamie:
That’s right. There’s no chair for the priest — the high priest — because those sacrifices were never ending. They continued on and on and on. But once Jesus raises again three days later, what does He do?
Keith:
Sits down.
Jamie:
Sits down.
Keith:
Well, I know this doesn’t directly tie, but thinking about who’s sitting on those twenty-four thrones — we ain’t got to worry about it. We don’t need to be looking for a place to sit down. It’s occupied.
Jamie:
That’s accurate. And so what are these four living creatures doing while they’re in heaven? Verse 8 says each of the four living creatures has six wings. They’re covered with eyes around and inside. Day and night they never stop saying:
Each of the four living creatures had six wings; they were covered with eyes around and inside. Day and night they never stop, saying,
Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God, the Almighty,
who was, who is, and who is to come.
Keith:
And that’s the address I was looking for earlier — Isaiah 6. That’s what the angels there are saying in the throne room.
And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
Jamie:
And to what Keith spoke about earlier, the next couple of verses say that whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the One seated on the throne — the One who lives forever and ever — which we know is day and night, they never stop saying it.
It says the twenty-four elders fall down before the One seated on the throne and worship the One who lives forever and ever. And they cast their crowns before the throne and say:
10 …the twenty-four elders fall down before the one seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne and say,
11 Our Lord and God,
you are worthy to receive
glory and honor and power,
because you have created all things,
and by your will
they exist and were created.
And so I think it’s just awesome to think about heaven for a second, right? This throne room — you’ve got these four living creatures constantly crying out to the Lord. You’ve got these twenty-four elders constantly crying out to the Lord and worshiping the Lord and praising the Lord. And His glory and His brilliance is there, and this rainbow is there. Just how awesome it’s going to be if we have a relationship with Him.
Keith:
And again that’s the kicker. When we look at these things, a lot of time is spent in the world today — more “Christian” books written on the end times than any other particular subject — because people want to know what Jesus says cannot be known. He doesn’t know the day or the hour. And if Jesus isn’t read in on it, there’s not a soul on the earth who’s going to be like, “You know…”
Because here’s the thing: what we can know is Jesus is worthy. Jesus is God. And when we see these descriptions we should be moved, at the very least, to be like Isaiah in his vision of the throne room:
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
When we look at these we need to be moved to worship. It should drive us to our faces. It should drive us toward His throne. It should drive us — for all the things that we think we have that are of worth, which is nothing comparable to a crown of an elder with a throne around His throne — to focus on the worthiness of Him.
When we move forward in Revelation that is a consistent theme: the glory of God on full display. Him being God, being all powerful, not being in danger. War being made against Him and Him being able to fell all the forces of evil with a word. It’s not going to be a battle. It’s not going to be a fight. We’ve got a toothless lion seeking to devour and destroy. But as we’ll see next week, seated on the throne—
Jamie:
—Is the Lion.
And I want to just say this before we close out, kind of to piggyback on what Keith said. I think it’s important to note that these elders and these living creatures aren’t worshiping God because of what He did for them. They’re not worshiping Him because of what He can offer. They’re not worshiping Him because He filled their bank accounts up or He did this or did that or whatever. A lot of times as believers — I’m not going to say a lot of times — sometimes we get caught up in that. “Well, God blessed me with this,” or “God’s given me that.” But we worship Him because He is who He is.
Keith:
And the Bible does describe being thankful and grateful in our worship to Him for what He’s done — yes. But if He had done nothing for us, He’s still worthy.
Earlier we mentioned Philippians 2 — that because Jesus is who He is and He’s done what He’s done, God has bestowed on Him the name that is above every name.
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
These are people who didn’t want Jesus, don’t want to fool with Him, aren’t bowing in worship — they’re bowing in submission and subjection because He is the King. And when it’s time to bow, you bow.
So whether it be like the elders casting their crowns before the throne, or those under the earth bowing in subjection — Jesus is Lord. Jesus is God. He lives forever and ever. He is worthy to receive glory, honor, and power. He created everything. It’s by His will they exist. It’s by His will that we were created. By the word of His power that it’s all held together.
And He is thrice holy. Holy, holy, holy.
How will you stand — or kneel — in response to the King?
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2025), Re 4:1–11.
[2] When Jamie cites Scripture, it’s from the CSB – The Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017).
[3] Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name, illus. Jago (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 46–47.
[4] Paul David Tripp, Do You Believe?: 12 Historic Doctrines to Change Your Everyday Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 69–70.
Just Keith Harris 