Revelation 4:1 After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”
The Book of Revelation now takes a turn from the seven letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor to a new vision of God’s throne. The rest of Revelation serves to add support to the seven letters. The following chapters give motivation for obedience and warning about disobedience or laziness. The following chapters are full of symbolic language. At points it becomes difficult to determine how to interpret these symbols. What should be taken literally and what is figurative?
After John sees and reads the seven letters, he sees a new vision of heaven. What John sees in this vision are events of the future. Interpreters have debated for centuries of when these events will happen. Some have interpreted this to mean during John’s day. Some of the descriptions could be taken this way, but others do not fit this paradigm. Revelation may fit the idea of prophecy having two levels: a time in the present (John’s day) and a time in the future (end times). What happened in John’s day serves as a pattern or type for what will happen some day in the future. Some of the Old Testament prophecy fits this pattern.
It is important to remember God’s sovereignty as we begin to look at the following chapters. Chapters 4-5 serve to show the sovereignty of God the Father and God the Son. This gives assurance to the reader that what follows can be believed and lived by. God is not bound by time but has a plan for the closure of the age. We will be wise to read these chapters with an open mind and willing heart.
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