The fourth chapter of the book of John’s Revelation paints a picture of God’s throne room, albeit with an uncertain brush. John grasps at any descriptor he can find to portray the scene. I counted 9 similes in the first 7 verses. At one point, John’s eyes, which are trying desperately to take in the scene without popping out of his head, roam across what he describes as, “four living creatures.” I can just imagine him trying to put pen to paper to convey what he saw. The original mauscript may have looked something like this:
” In the center, around the throne, were four people /four things/ four animals/four uhhhh…. four living creatures…”
He didn’t know what to call the creatures. Or how to describe the throne. Or the one sitting on it. But somehow, the scene made some kind of internal sense to John when he took it in. In fact, the scene not only made some sort of sense, but John actually became emotionally involved in what was happening before him. We know this because he says, “I wept and wept,” when no one was found who was worthy to open the seals on the scroll that appears at the beginning of the next chapter.
The scene was foreign to John, but made sense when he observed it. I imagine that everything was somehow familiar to him, judging by the fact that he had comparisons to draw from. Foreign but familiar? That’s an appropriate reaction to a place that, even though he’d never been there, was even then Home to John. And I imagine that we as Christians would have similar reactions to a place we’ve never been, but a place that’s more of a home than we’ll ever find this side of Heaven.