Heaven’s Splendor vs. The World’s Allure, Pt. 3 (Rev 5:1-4)

September 28, 2020 at 10:30 am (Church, Revelation, Worship)

Posted by R. Fowler White

We know the plot of Rev 1–4 pretty well. Our King Jesus dictated seven messages to prepare His church for the battlefield of this world. We’re to follow Him into battle with the mission to bring God’s chosen captives out of Satan’s kingdom into His kingdom until He returns. In His seven messages, Christ tells us time and again that He knows the state of every congregation in His church. He tells us that for most of His congregations, the chief problem is that we prefer the majority culture to the church’s historic faith and practice, and so we jeopardize our Christian identity. If that is King Jesus’s diagnosis of our problem, what’s His remedy? We’ve seen the first part of His prescription in Rev 4. As we keep reading, we realize that the scene in ch. 4 continues uninterrupted into ch. 5. The Lord our God, who is worshiped in 4:8-11, is before us again in ch. 5, but this time the vision adds even more depth and breadth to our understanding of Christ’s remedy for His church.^[i]

John’s vision in ch. 5 opens with him seeing a scroll in the right hand of the Lord God Almighty. As for the scroll’s appearance, it’s written within and on the back. It’s a double-sided document like the scroll handed to Ezekiel (2:10). In addition, similar to the sealed scrolls of Isaiah and Daniel, it’s a sealed document, signaling that it’s not just important but also authentic, unchanged, and unchangeable. The scroll has seven seals, suggesting that it’s filled up, complete, and comprehensive. As for the scroll’s content, it reveals God’s plan, His predetermined agenda, for the ages, covering the development of all of sacred history. The scroll’s content, though partially revealed and documented in the OT, focuses in Revelation especially on sacred history from the cross to the new creation.^[ii] In other words, the scroll covers God’s plan for the rest of this age and the age to come. But we can say more: from the worship described in ch. 5, we also learn that the scroll is a last will and testament of inheritance for the heirs of God. This scroll, then, contains God’s plan for the destiny of this world and of all who are in it.

John’s vision of the scroll of inheritance notwithstanding, the scene in ch. 5 takes an unexpected turn. A powerful angel from God’s palace in heaven addresses anyone who has ears with a loud voice: Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals? In other words, who is qualified, who has the ability and the authority to execute God’s plan of salvation and judgment?^[iii] As John looks on, not one created being in heaven or on earth steps forward. Those creatures know what the scroll represents: they know no creature has either the autonomy to direct history to its proper conclusion or the capacity to carry out God’s plan of inheritance.^[iv] Seeing that no creature qualified to open the scroll, John breaks into tears, weeps loudly, greatly, intensely. Can we even imagine such a thing: crying in heaven? He aches for God’s plan to be accomplished, yet he knows that human beings can’t depend on mere creatures, human or angelic, earthly or heavenly, to carry out God’s plan for the destiny of this world—and that knowledge moves him to sob.

How does this scene in Rev 5 move us? If it were not for the vision that John sees next, it should make us weep as John did. Why? Because the drama in God’s heavenly palace in Rev 5:1-4 reminds John and his readers that no creature can rescue them from the dangers on the battlefield of this world. No creature, even among those in heaven, is empowered to fulfill God’s purposes in salvation or judgment. There is no creature, not even one from heaven, who is qualified to secure the future of Christ’s church. Put this together with Christ’s seven messages, and it hits us how vulnerable the congregations in Asia Minor were to the world’s allure. In fact, so are ours. This world is a threatening place for Christians and congregations with our many liabilities. So where does all this leave us? Out of fear or trust of the world, some would negotiate (i.e., compromise) to ensure rights and privileges and to avoid penalties and punishments. Following John’s example and his words, however, there is a better choice: learn the lessons of the scene that comes next in Rev 5:5-7. It turned John’s sorrow into joy, his weeping into worship—and it ought to have the same impact on us.

^[i] G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (1999), 337.
^[ii] Beale, 341.
^[iii] Beale, 348.
^[iv] Beale, 338.