Unending Praise

 June 27, 2022

How would you describe the automobile to a Stone Age native islander who had never seen such a thing? How do you translate into his understanding something which for him has nothing with which to compare it? He has never seen a wheel, has no conception of the internal combustion engine, doesn’t even have basic metal tools. There is nothing in his experience that even remotely correlates with a car.

This is the basic Biblical problem, particularly when we deal with the books of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation. In Revelation 4, John uses the best language at his disposal to describe something unlike anything in his experience. It’s no wonder scholars have difficulty interpreting this book! We are limited to our experience in time and space; God is not.

In this chapter, four strange-looking living creatures continually worship God saying, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” (v.8). Whenever these creatures “give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne” (God), the twenty-four elders representing the twelve tribes of Israel and the “spiritual” Israel of the New Testament, bow down in worship, casting their crowns before the throne (v.10). Here is where the imagery is so limited: if the creatures are continually worshipping, and when they do, the elders cast their crowns before the throne, those crowns never actually sit upon their heads as it says in verse 4. If this is all taken literally, it’s an impossibility.

John is pulling back the curtain to a different, spiritual reality, describing the continual worship he sees in this other dimension. Instead of a small, powerless band of believers who are left to struggle on their own against the might of Rome (or any other oppressive political entity), John shows them that they are part of a cosmic display of God’s glory. They may be cast in prison, denied the opportunity to worship together, but their earthly reality is not all there is to the story.

I particularly like what it says of these four creatures: “They do not rest day or night…” Even God Almighty rested after the Creation, but his glory is so great, there is no resting, no pause in the praise. I cannot conceive how all this can be, but I am humbled to be a part of this great divine drama, knowing that one day, “every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:10-11).