Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

4:1
4
THE THRONE ABOVE THE SEA
The Pattern for Worship (4:1-11)
1 After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing
open in heaven, and the first Voice which I had heard,
like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said: Come
up here, and I will show you what must take place after
these things.
2 Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a Throne
was standing in heaven, and One sitting
3 like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there
was a rainbow around the Throne, like an emerald in
appearance.
4 And around the Throne were twenty-four thrones; and
upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed
in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads.
5 And from the ‘Throne proceed flashes of lightning and
voices and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps
of fire burning before His Throne, which are the seven
Spirits of God;
6 and before the Throne there was, as it were, a sea of glass
like crystal; and in the middle of the Throne and around
it were four living creatures full of eyes in front and
behind.
7 And the first creature was like a Lion, and the second
creature was like a Bull, and the third creature had a face
like that of a Man, and the fourth creature was like a
flying Eagle.
8 And the four living creatures, each one of them having
six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and they
have no rest day and night, saying: Holy, holy, holy, is the
Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is
to come.
9 And when the living creatures give glory and honor and
thanks to Him who sits on the Throne, to Him who lives
forever and ever,
10 the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits
on the Throne, and will worship Him who lives forever
and ever, and will cast their crowns before the Throne,
saying:
11 Worthy art Thou, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to
receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create
all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were
created.
1 This verse is used by advocates of Dispensationalism
to support their “Rapture Theory,” the notion that the
Church will be snatched away from this world before a
coming Tribulation; indeed, this verse seems to be the
main proof-text for a pre-Tribulation rapture. St. John’s
“rapture” into heaven is regarded as a sign that the
whole Church will disappear before the plagues
recorded in the following chapters are poured out. Part
of the rationale for this understanding is that the Voice
John heard was like the sound of a trumpet, and St.
Paul says that a trumpet will sound at the “rapture” (1
Thess. 4:16). Some advocates of this position seem
oblivious to the fact that God uses a trumpet on
numerous occasions. In fact, as we have seen in the first
chapter, the connection between God’s Voice and the
sound of a trumpet occurs throughout Scripture,
beginning with the judgment in the Garden of Eden.
For that matter, St. John heard the voice like a trumpet
in the first vision (Rev. 1:10). (Does this indicate a
possible “double rapture”?) 1
The Dispensationalist school of interpretation also
appeals to the fact that, after the Voice has said Come
up here, “The word ‘church’ does not again occur in
the Revelation till all is fulfilled.” 2 This singular
observation is set forth as abundant proof that the Book
of Revelation does not speak of the “Church” 3 from
this point until the Second Coming (generally placed
in 19:11), which in turn proves that the Church has
been raptured and is absent, in heaven, away from all
the excitement – all because the word “Church” is
missing! On the basis of such a curious principle of
interpretation we could say with assurance that
Revelation doesn’t tell us anything about Jesus either
until chapter 12, because the name “Jesus” does not
occur until then (thus “the Lion of the tribe of Judah”
and “the Lamb that was slam” [5: 5-6] must be terms for
someone else). 4 Of course, this method of interpretation
involves even more problems for the Dispensationalist:
for the word “Church” never again appears in the
entire Book of Revelation at all! This interpretation of the
words Come up here does not, therefore, support the
pretribulation rapture of the Church; it possibly even
teaches the pretribulation annihilation of the Church.
After the last verse in Revelation 3, the Church simply
disappears, and is never heard from again.
Obviously, this is not true. The Church is known by
1. But wait! Chapters 8-11 record the soundings of no less than seven more
trumpets – could there be nine raptures?
2. The Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, [1909]
1945), note on Rev. 4:1; cf. Hal Lindsey, There’s a New World Coming: A
Prophetic Odyssey (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1973), pp. 74ff.
3. The Dispensationalist use of the word Church is very different from its use in
historical, orthodox theology. See O. T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church
(Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1945, 1947), PP. 54-110; L. Berkhof,
Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
fourth revised cd., 1949), pp. 562-78; and Roderick Campbell, Israel and the
New Covenant (Tyler, TX: Geneva Ministries, [1954] 1983).
4. This principle can be fruitfully applied elsewhere in Scripture as well. For
example, the word love does not appear anywhere in the Book of Ruth; thus
her story turns out not to be, after all, one of the greatest romances in the
Bible, for Boaz and Ruth did not love each other. Again, the word God does
not appear in the book of Esther; on these principles, He must not have been
involved with those events, and the book must not tell us anything about
Him. In addition, the first fifteen chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans
doesn’t concern the Church, for the word Church doesn’t appear there either!
5. Paul Minear lists ninety-six of them in the New Testament alone: Images of
the Church in the New Testament (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1960), pp. 222ff. , 268f.
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