The Lamb on the throne
Revelation 5:8-14
Lion and the Lamb on the Throne!
Revelation 5:8-14, And I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. 2 Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look at it. 4 So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. 5 But one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.” 6 And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 Then He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. 8 Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are
the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 10 And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth.” 11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honour and glory and blessing!” 13 And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: “Blessing and honour and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!” 14 Then the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped Him who lives forever and ever.
This is the second vision. The first one was a vision of Christ in chapter 1. Letters to the churches in chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 4, the scene changes. We go from earth to heaven and the throne of God. The theme in chapter 4 and 5 is worship in heaven.
For us to understand the essence of worship. This is about heavenly worship which is perfected worship around the throne of God. We don’t always understand the essence of worship. Worship in heaven goes from Revelation 4:8-5:14.
The vision that John has in chapters 4 and 5 is really a vision of God beginning to crank up the wheels of His wrath. Incredible look at worship in heaven and the worship of God for His creation in chapter 4. For His redemption, in chapter 5.
Are we living in the last days? We could be living in the last days. The Bible describes the time of the end with some very general descriptions that certainly fit our time. Apostasy is rampant. The nation Israel is back in the land.
The stage is certainly set politically, economically, and militarily for a great world leader to arise to bring peace in the Middle East. Seducing spirits and doctrines of demons seem to have reached an apex in terms of their proliferation and influence.
False prophets abound.
Immorality has brought the world to at least the same point it was at when the Lord drowned the whole of humanity in the time of the flood of Genesis. All those things tell us that we could well be standing on the brink of divine wrath. But no man knows the day or the hour of the coming of the Son of Man, and so we cannot speculate.
God knows, we don’t know. We do not know the time. We can discern the scene around us and perhaps have a greater sense of anticipation than generations past have had. But the reality is that only God knows. The unfolding of the wrath of God in the end of human history and the establishing of the kingdom of Christ is described for us in amazing detail in the book of Revelation.
- There are some indications of it given in Ezekiel.
- There are some indications of it given in Daniel.
- There are other indications of it given particularly in the book of Zechariah.
- There are some references to it in Matthew and Luke.
But the great portion of Scripture that focuses on the events of the end of human history is the book of Revelation. The unfolding of the final scene is recorded from chapter 6.
The song of the Worthy One. V 8, Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
24 elders fell down in worship. This is the moment for which all of heaven and redeemed earth has been waiting. 24 Elders represent the church. Symbolically they are the raptured church. So here you have these representatives of the redeemed and raptured church, each having a harp.
1 Chronicles 25:1, Moreover David and the captains of the army separated for the service some of the sons of Asaph, of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, stringed instruments, and cymbals. And the number of the skilled men
performing their service was
1 Chronicles 25:6-7, All these were under the direction of their father for the music in the house of the Lord, with cymbals, stringed instruments, and harps, for the service of the house of God. Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman were under the authority of the king. 7 So the number of them, with their brethren who were
instructed in the songs of the Lord, all who were skilful, was two hundred and eighty-eight. They had a rather massive choir. They had instrumentalists accompanying them on harps, lyres, and cymbals. We read in Psalm 33, Psalm 71, Psalm 92, Psalm 98, Psalm 147, 149, and Psalm 150, about harps as a part of worship.
They indeed even show up in the book of Revelation.
Revelation 14:2, And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder. And I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps.
Revelation 15:2-4, And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. 3 They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: “Great and marvellous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! 4 Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested.”
There you have harpists. They are believers.
They are people who have been redeemed, and they are playing the harp and singing the song of deliverance. This oratorio of escalating praise began back in chapter 4.
- There were two movements of praise in chapter 4.
- There are three in chapter 5.
But we see here, added to what has already been going on, the quartet of cherubim in their praise, the twenty-four elders making a total of twenty-eight. Now we find added to the twenty-eight instruments, harps. This gives insight into why they are used and into what they mean. Symbolism here is very important.
The twenty-four elders have harps.
What is the intent of that? The harp or the lyre, another kind of stringed instrument, is regularly in Scripture associated with prophesying. It is regularly associated with prophesying.
1 Samuel 10:5-6, After that you shall come to the hill of
God where the Philistine garrison is. And it will happen, when you have come there to the city, that you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with a stringed instrument, a tambourine, a flute, and a harp before them; and
they will be prophesying. 6 Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. The prophets will come, and they will come with harps, and harps are then associated with their prophecy.
The spirit of prophecy was not upon Elisha.
2 Kings 3:15-17, But now bring me a musician.” Then it happened, when the musician played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him. 16 And he said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Make this valley full of [b]ditches.’ 17 For thus says the Lord: ‘You shall not see wind, nor shall you see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, so that you, your cattle, and your animals may drink.’ Elisha did not have the spirit of prophecy until someone came and began to pluck the harp. Then the spirit of prophecy came upon him, the Spirit of the Lord, and he began to speak. Somehow God ordained that in the sounding of those notes and in the plucking of those strings and in the making of melody, His Spirit would move.
1 Chronicles 25:1, “David separated unto the service Asaph and Hemanand Jeduthun, who would prophesy with harps.”
Psalm 49:4, I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will disclose my dark saying on the harp.
It is safe to say that the harp not only was used for accompaniment in worship, but it was used for the accompaniment of prophecy. The harp then somehow tied into prophecy. Here we see the harp.
What is it there for? Not only to accompany worship, but to symbolize all of prophecy and all the revelation that God had given. Promising and describing the great events about to take place. All the Scripture that had ever been given regarding the end.
All the prophecies that had ever been made regarding the end. The future, the final return of Messiah, the building of the kingdom, the judgment of the ungodly, all that Scripture had ever said about the end is symbolized with the harps.
Harps become the symbols not only of praise, but of prophecy. There are the twenty-four elders plucking their harps in a symbolic indication that all that the prophets had ever said was about to come to pass.
In addition to the harps, the twenty-four elders were also holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. Bowls, more like a saucer with a wide mouth, maybe more like what we would know as a cereal bowl, wide, made of gold.
These kinds of utensils were found in the tabernacle.
Zechariah 14:20, In that day “HOLINESS TO THE LORD” shall be engraved on the bells of the horses. The pots in the Lord’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar.
These bowls were used at the altar. We conclude that these golden bowls symbolized the priestly work of intercession for the people. They were symbols of the priestly function. They were full of incense. Incense was burned to send a fragrance upward.
The Old Testament priests burned incense because it symbolized prayer rising to God fragrantly. As the incense went up and the smoke carried the fragrance up, it symbolized the offering of fragrant prayers to God. Normally the priests would stand before the inner veil in the Holy Place before the Holy of Holies, and they would offer incense before the presence of God.
So that it would be came into the Holy of Holies, and there to be swept into the very nostrils of God as a symbol of prayer rising for the people.
Psalm 141:2, Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. In Luke we get another good indication of this.
Luke 1:8-10, So it was, that while he was serving as priest before
God in the order of his division, 9 according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. 10 And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.
Whenever the priest went in to burn incense, the people prayed, and the incense symbolized the prayers of the people. We see twenty-four elders holding golden bowls like the priest did, full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
Just as the harps represented the prophecies and the revelations and the Scriptures that predicted the coming of the end. The bowls and the incense represent the prayers of all the saints through all the ages, that the promised redemption might come.
We have anticipation on the part of the redeemed and raptured elders. As they pluck their harps, they are saying all that prophecy has ever indicated would come to pass is about to happen. As they hold the bowls and the incense rises, which is the prayers of the saints, they are saying all that the saints have ever prayed for in terms of the ultimate and final redemption is about to come to pass.
Both the prophetic promise of God and the prayers of the saints are indicated in the harps and the bowls. There was a tremendous eagerness on the part of the saints in the past, and there is today and there will be in the future, that the kingdom will come.
Jesus taught us to pray.
Matthew 6:9-10, In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
There is a contemporary and immediate fulfillment to that kind of prayer in the spiritual sense, there is also an eschatological sense in which we are praying for the end and the final redemption and glory of God.
The prayers of the saints become a major theme through the book of Revelation. We come across the prayers of the saints.
Revelation 11:18.
Revelation 13:7, 9& 10.
Revelation 14:12,
Revelation 16:7,
Revelation 18:20&24,
Revelation 20:9,
We are going to see a lot about the prayers of the saints. But the saints prayed for this moment. Revelation 6, Here are some saints who have been slain. They have been martyred.
What are they doing?
Revelation 6:10, And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Lord, how long are the wicked going to prosper and the saints be martyred?
When are You going to come? When are You going to punish the wicked and exalt the righteous?
Revelation 8:3-5, Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. 5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake.
The prayers are really being answered. He takes the incense of prayer, turns it and throws it back into the holocaust of judgment on the earth. The symbolism and imagery are magnificent and vivid. So here are the redeemed.
The twenty-four elders holding harps and golden bowls perhaps the angels do as well. The symbolism is that all that the church has ever promised through the Scriptures is now about to come to pass. All the anticipation of holy writ, all that believing, hoping prayer, all that believers have cried for to deliver them from sin, disease, Satan, flesh, demons, and the cursed universe.
All that prayer that has gone up for centuries for God to act, for Christ to come is now in a consummate way lifted in one final plea for the action to start. All that the prophets have ever said about this moment is strummed in a final effort to play the tune that will lead to the end.
The harps and the bowls fit the context, because verse 9 is the response to the promises and the prayers. V 9, And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, They knew it was going to happen.
They knew it like they had never known it before. There was a brand-new song, anticipation as the twenty-four elders bring before God what represents the desire of the saints. Their hope is based on promises and their prayers.
They sang a new song.
Who is it? Possibly include the four living creatures, but it also could be restricted to the twenty-four elders.
The four living creatures involved in this oratorio. The four living creatures Revelation 4:8, not ceasing to say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty who was and who is and who is to come.” They started it all off.
Many angels and many angels joining the oratorio in verse 12. Then in verse 14 there you have the four living cherubim beings who keep saying, “Amen.” The angels are there. The cherubim are in the oratorio. They are in the song of redemption.
The only use of the word “sing” in chapter 4 or 5. Every time it talks about the four living creatures, or the rest of the angels, it uses the word “say,” not the word “sing.” Somebody suggested that only the twenty-four elders sing, and the angels are into rap. If they are, it will be a whole lot different than what we hear today.
Every time the angels are spoken of as engaging in this oratorio of praise, it refers to them as “saying to sing” An ōdē, means “a song.”
All the angels enjoying this song of redemption. But specifically, to speak of angels singing you would have to include them then in the “they” of verse 9. Angels sing. We know that ‘Hark, the herald angels sing.’”
Where is that verse? It is not a verse of the Bible but a song, a hymn. There is nothing in the Bible that says the angels sing.
Job 38:7, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
The angels might have sung at creation. But never again does Scripture say angels sing. Some have suggested that maybe they did sing before creation. Once fall came they didn’t sing anymore. Maybe they should be included here in verse 9, because now that the fall is about to be reversed, they are ready to sing again.
Luke 2:13, And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude
of the heavenly host praising God and saying
Always the redeemed sing.
We can’t say for sure that at creation when the morning stars sang together that it did mean the angels were singing, or that their song was a song like our song. We can’t say specifically here that this excludes the angels. It’s possible now that they have gotten their song back, because they can see the reverse of the curse.
But those would be the only two allusions in all holy Scripture about angels singing. If they sing, then it is before the fall and in anticipation of the reverse of the fall, and not in the middle. The redeemed sing, God’s blood-washed children sing but angels don’t sing in Scripture.
Music is made up of major chords and minor chords. The minor chords speak of the wretchedness, death, and sorrow of the fallen creation. Most of the sounds of nature are in a minor key. It reflects the wretchedness, the despair, the hurt, the agony, the travail of the fallen creation. But an angel knows nothing about that.
An angel knows nothing of wretchedness, nothing of despair, nothing of the fall of the lost race.
God has taken us out of the miry clay, He has taken us out of the horrible pit, He has set our feet upon the rock. God has put a new song in our souls, and new praises on our lips. But an angel knows nothing of this. An angel has never been redeemed.
An angel has never been saved. An angel has never fallen and been brought back to God. That’s the only reason that I find as to why angels never sing, it is God’s people who sing. This is why the redeemed sing, and the angels just speak about it. They see it, they watch it, but they know nothing about it personally.
It takes a lost and fallen man who has been brought back to God, who has been forgiven of his sin, who has been redeemed. It takes a saved soul to sing. The Bible is filled with indications that the redeemed sing, and no indications specifically that the angels sing.
The twenty-four elders most likely sing this new song. It’s a new day, and a song of redemption. It’s a song that they know personally, because they have been redeemed. They are joined by the four living creatures.
Whatever way angels express themselves by saying, or if they at this time learn how to sing as they once did. In either case, they join them for this glorious, final thrust of music that finds its way all the way down to the end of the chapter.
A new song. They sang a new song. The book of Psalms talks about new songs, more places than new life, new creation, new song because redemption brings a song. Psalm 33, Psalm 40, Psalm 96, Psalm 91, Psalm 144, Psalm 149, and elsewhere.
When God saves somebody, it brings a new song. Even a new, new song, as they anticipate the final, full, glorious redemption.
Revelation 14:3, They sang as it were a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures, and the elders; and no one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who were redeemed from the earth.
There is another new song from another new redeemed group.
There was a new song for those redeemed in the Old Testament. There is a new song here for those redeemed in the church age. There is a new song for those redeemed out of the tribulation who are led by the one hundred and forty-four thousand.
They are just new songs of redemption popping up through redemptive history. The song of the redeemed represented by the elders, but it’s joined by the angels.
Isaiah 42:9-13, Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.” 10 Sing to the Lord a new song, And His praise from the ends of the earth, You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, You coastlands and you inhabitants of them! 11 Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice, The villages that Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing, Let them shout from the top of the mountains. 12 Let them give glory to the Lord, And declare His praise in the coastlands. 13 The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies.
This seems to be at the very time when Messiah comes in judgment.
Maybe even a part of this song, the apocalyptic coming of the Lord to take over and to conquer, to redeem the universe, and the final redemption of man. For the kingdom becomes the theme of the new song. The song says this, and I know you know these words: “Worthy art Thou to take the book” – or the scroll – “and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”
V 9, And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, Who is worthy?
The Lamb, who is the Lion, who is the Root of David, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. You have the right. You have the inherent right, because You are God. You have the earned right, because You have overcome the enemy. You have the power.
You are God’s heir. You are God’s right arm. You have the worthiness to take the scroll and break its seals.
To enact what is written in it by way of judgment to take back the universe. As if the world is captive to Satan, and Christ reveals step by step by breaking the seals the battle plan by which He conquers the universe and banishes Satan.
Why is He worthy? V 9, For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, Whoever was going to be the king of the earth, the monarch of the universe, the heir of God had to be slain.
The law required the slaying of a perfect, blameless, spotless lamb and it was Him. V 6, He was the Lamb standing, who had been slaughtered. It was the sacrificial substitutionary death of Jesus Christ as a lamb on the cross of Calvary that made Him worthy to take the scroll.
Why? Because in that death He redeemed sinners. You have a right to redeem Your own, You bought them. You have a right to redeem the universe, You made it. You purchased for God with Your blood.
You paid the full price. The background of this imagery is the buying of slaves from the marketplace and setting them free. Someone who is philanthropic would go into the marketplace and spend a fortune buying slaves that were there, and then just turning them free.
At the cross, the Lord Jesus paid the price to buy the slaves of sin with His own blood from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and set them free. He bought them from the slavery of sin and redeemed them to become saints to God for His service and for His worship.
He redeemed them from sin, death, hell, Satan, and demons to make them saints to God who share God’s glory. The price; His life. The song of the redeemed. The new song of redemption are the elders.
What is the extent of redemption? V 9, “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” You have redeemed us out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
Jesus Christ shed His blood for the whole world. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.” If God loved the world and gave His Son, He gave His Son for the world He loved, which means the sacrifice of Christ was sufficient for the whole world.
He provided a universal redemption, but only some enjoy its reality, These four terms, “every tribe and tongue and people and nation,” occur five times in Revelation. They always refer to all of humanity. Out from all of humanity God, through Christ, has redeemed souls.
“Tribe” indicates the same descent. “Tongue” indicates the same language. “People” indicates the same race. “Nation” indicates the same culture. So, people from every descent and every language and every race and every culture have been redeemed.
From out of every lineage and out of every language and out of every race and out of every culture the Lord has redeemed us.
John is on the Isle of Patmos. The church is a little over fifty years old. The church has been battered and abused and slaughtered. His friends, the apostles, have died as martyrs. John might well conclude that things were disastrous. He has just received seven letters, five of which indicated the churches that were the primary churches in the development and expansion of Christianity had defected from the faith.
The way things are going, by the time we get to the end there won’t be any redeemed people. Pentecost when three thousand were saved and five thousand were added, and the church exploded and filled Jerusalem with its doctrine. There were those wonderful days of the apostle Paul planting churches.
Then there was the end of the life of Paul, and near the end he said, “Everyone in Asia has turned away from me.” Churches had lost their first love, and compromised with the world, and tolerated sin, and become dead and nauseating.
Can you imagine the wonderful, thrilling exhilaration of John as he hears the twenty-four elders saying through this new song in melody and word that there will be a gathering together of redeemed people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation on the globe?
At this time, Christianity is just in a little place. What hope, what thrill, what joy must have entered his heart. V 10, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth.” The word “them” is interesting to note.
Now we have got to include more than just the twenty-four elders who are the saints of the church age, raptured and redeemed. We have got to include all the Old Testament saints, all the tribulation saints. They will all be kings and priests to our God, and reign upon the earth.
He uses the third person, because of the vastness of the final comprehensive redemption. What is the goal and the outcome of this redemption? We have been made a kingdom and priests to our God, a kingdom and priests to our God.
Revelation 1:6,and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Revelation 20:6, Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they
shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. We are a kingdom and priest.
What is a kingdom? A community of saints under sovereign rule. He is our King. We are not part of a kingdom, but we are a kingdom. We are royalty under the great King. We share His blood. We share His royalty. We are joint heirs.
He is a King, and we are all kings, and we all reign with Him.
1 Corinthians 4:8, You are already full! You are already rich! You have reigned as kings without us—and indeed I could wish you did reign, that we also might reign with you! Paul had probably told them that the day’s coming when we are going to be kings. They thought they had already arrived. He sarcastically reminds them they hadn’t. But they would.
Revelation 3:21, To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
We will be a kingdom of kings, and we will reign over the earth. We will be royalty forever, reigning with our ruling Christ on the earth, and reigning throughout eternity in the new heaven and the new earth. “And priests to our God.”
We will be priests as well. That signifies complete access to God’s presence. The priests had complete access to God’s presence, for worship, for praise, for service. We will be royalty, and we will be priesthood.
1 Peter 2:5-9, tells us we are priests unto God. Anticipatory of our future priesthood, when we have total access, perfect communion with God. So, we are redeemed, and the twenty-four elders are singing a new song. For the fourth time in the chapter, John says he saw something. V 11, Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands,
Now the thing is beginning to crescendo to the voices of the four living creatures saying what they were saying, are added the twenty-four elders, are added the harps. Now an innumerable number of angels surround the throne where God and the Lamb are present.
“Myriads of myriads.” Murion in the Greek. Murion times murion. It basically means ten thousand times ten thousand. Ten thousand was the largest Greek number that had a word for it. They didn’t have words for millions and so forth.
Because they didn’t count anything that went that high. All they had was ten thousand words in their vocabulary. So, when they wanted to talk about an innumerable number, they said ten thousand times ten thousand. Murion in Luke 12:1 and in Hebrews 12:22 is translated “innumerable.” They were uncountable millions of them.
V 12, saying with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honour and glory and blessing!” They can only echo the song of redemption. They can’t initiate it, it’s not their song.
In chapter 4 they can say, “Holy, holy, holy.” They can say, “Worthy are You, our Lord, to receive glory and honour.” They can glorify God. But they can’t sing the song of redemption. They can only echo it.
Psalm 33:3, Sing to Him a new song; Play skilfully with a shout of joy.
Psalm 98:4, Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; Break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises.
The emphasis is on His death as a perfect redemption, and so He must be given worship and praise and adoration. This is one of those things that’s such an unbelievable doxology, it almost defies exposition. But for men and angels, He is worthy to receive all this praise.
He is worthy to receive recognition because of His power, His omnipotence. ✓ He is worthy of receiving recognition because of His riches, His spiritual wealth, His material wealth, He owns everything.
✓ He is worthy to receive praise because of His wisdom. He is omniscient. ✓ He made wisdom. He is worthy of receiving recognition and praise because of His might or His strength, His reserve of power. ✓ He is worthy to receive honor because of His holy character.
✓ He is worthy to receive glory or a recognition of His divine majesty and heavenly radiance. ✓ He is worthy of receiving blessing because of His absolute perfection. We have an innumerable number of angels, plus the living ones, the twenty-four elders.
V 13, And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: “Blessing and honour and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!”
The whole creation joins.
What does that include?
It includes every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them. Every being, the whole creation has been groaning, Romans 8 says, and now it explodes in praise. The whole created universe is now on the brink of its anticipated glory.
Endless blessing, endless honour, endless praise, endless glory, endless worship to God, to Christ. The whole universe chimes in. What a moment. The curse is reversed. The kingdom comes, and God will reign. Those four cherubim constitute the amen corner.
V 14, Then the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped Him who lives forever and ever. “Amen” is a solemn confirmation. It means “let it be, make it happen.” They say it repeatedly.
The twenty-four elders make a fresh prostration in worship of God and the Lamb.
Very soon, this great assembly will march out of heaven to execute judgment, to gather the elect, to return with Christ and set up His kingdom. The stage is set.