Worship and Revelation 4-5 by Dale Tuggy

What does Revelation imply about God, Jesus, and worship?

In Revelation chapter 4, the author is granted a heavenly vision:

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. (ESV, emphases throughout are added)

Awesome. Who could this be? There follows a description of the setting and the heavenly court. Featured are some weird heavenly beings singing,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

Right – this is Yahweh. All of this is very reminiscent of the vision in Isaiah chapter 6:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

“LORD” here is the proper name Yahweh. So this is who Isaiah saw. And this, the author of Revelation is telling us, who he now sees in his vision. Much in the vision is similar to the visions in Ezekiel 1 and 10. There too, the prophet sees God himself.

If the point wasn’t clear enough in Revelation 4, some worship this one on the throne, saying,

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

This recalls well-known passages later in Isaiah, were Yahweh asserts that he’s the only true God, and the only creator.

Note finally that the author here nowhere says the one on the throne is a man, although one imagines the character as humanoid – I mean, appearing to be similar to a man – he does sit enthroned here, and in the next chapter he’s got a scroll in his right hand. Of course, he’s assumed to be a self here too. He has a will, he performs intentional actions like creating, and he can be addressed and worshiped.

He’s a glorious and powerful being here, but the author demurs from directly describing him. I think that’s why a good portrayal of this scene has a sort of non-descript person on the throne, e.g. with no articulated face, as in the picture here  

So our author (“John” – Rev. 1:1) was granted a vision of God in heaven, receiving worship in his throne room.

In chapter 5, God – the one on the throne – is holding a sealed up scroll – a scroll which we later find out (ch. 6-9) contains his future plans. This is what the author was promised at the start of chapter 4 – that he’d be shown the future (4:1), again, something we know from Isaiah is the prerogative of God alone.

No one is found worthy to open it, and John is bummed. Someone tells him,

“Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

Lamb. Who? We’ve met him before – it is Jesus, the one through whom God has given this vision to John (1:1), described in chapter 1 as the one who “made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father”. (1:6) So, not God himself – this one, like us, has a god, and in contrast, there is no god over God. And Jesus’ god, “God,” is our god.

John brings this whole message from Jesus, but also from the seven spirits around God’s throne, and from God himself. (1:4-5) Again, the assumption is that Jesus is someone other than God.

So it is all the more striking that here he is (chapter 5) in the very throne room of God, daring to take and open the scroll. They sing to him,

““Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals…”

Whew! So he won’t be struck dead for his daring act. Now, why is he worthy? Because he’s God himself? Can’t be that; he’s portrayed here as a second self in addition to God. Because he’s “ontologically equal to God”? Because he “shares the divine nature”?
The author only gives a simpler reason:

“…for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

This expands on what’s already been said as to his worthiness to take and open the scroll – it is because he has “triumphed” – v. 5. So he’s worthy to do this because of what he accomplished as the obedient Messiah, indeed, the willing sacrificial Lamb. This is part of his reward. But there is more!

The above was sung by the “twenty four elders” attending God’s throne. But now a chorus of uncountably many angels chimes, or rather, roars in: Rev. 5.12

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

Presumably God, Creator of the cosmos and so owner of it all, needs neither power, nor wealth, nor wisdom, nor might. (I’m not clear on the difference between “power” and “might” here; need to look more into the Greek terms.)  But the Lamb does need those things, and this whole scene seems to be about his exaltation to the right hand of God.
(Psalm 110) Now, astoundingly, the two receive worship together, jointly, receiving the last three things just mentioned, which neither needs, but both deserve.

The chorus now includes every creature: Rev. 5.13

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

This climax sort of ends the scene.  (The Lamb goes on in ch 6-9 to open each of the seven seals on the scroll.) But what just happened? Two beings were addressed, two beings were worshiped. One of them was God. The other was the man Jesus, called the “Lamb” and recently exalted to a God-like position. We know he’s a man because he’s in the line of David, and of the tribe of Judah. (Rev. 5.5)  God, we know from the Hebrew Bible, is not a man (e.g. Num 23:19), although he is somehow like a man, since both men and women are made in his image. (Gen 1)

Note that there’s no theory in the explication here; we’ve stuck entirely to the assumptions of an intelligent, first century, biblically literate reader, and explicated how he or she would look at this episode.

... Jesus is worshiped, and plainly, this is held forth as appropriate. The author is aware that this may be shocking, so he specifically relates why Jesus is worthy of honor. (5:12)

Given that we accept that Jesus ought to be worshiped, we must choose between Only God should be worshiped and Jesus isn’t God because we can’t consistently accept both of these, in addition to the claim that Jesus ought to be worshiped.

Let us ask which of these John would agree with?

Would John agree that only God should be worshiped?

Plainly not. 

• Jesus is presented throughout as someone else. In these chapters, he comes into God’s throne room, receives the scroll of God’s secret plans from God, and is then honored alongside God.

• God, the one on the throne, silently approves of all this. He lets Jesus take the scroll. It is his mission that Jesus accomplished, because of which Jesus is worthy to now be exalted. And he stands by while people worship both him and Jesus. And he does not thunder “You lousy idolaters” – worship only me!” And he, he tacitly approves of this exaltation of Jesus.

• Smartly, the people present agree. (Rev. 5.14) No one calls out God for his wrongful advocacy of worshiping someone other than himself. Because he can do that – he can exalt his only Son in that way. And since he does, John is saying, you should fall on your face before the two of them, just like “the elders” present here do. Phooey on your scruples, if you object that you can’t worship the Lamb, because he isn’t God himself. God himself has so raised him over you. To not worship Jesus is to defy God.

• As we saw, Jesus is asserted to be a man, a human being, and given the background assumptions of Judaism, the reader infers that he’s not God. This is consonant with John throughout the whole book seeming to pointedly distinguish the two. From the very first verse (1:1) he assumes that Jesus, the immediate source of this series of revelations, is other than God himself, who is the ultimate source of them. This being one among many ways Jesus serves his God. (1:6)

• Nor is the reader supposed to think that the Lamb is worthy because he is numerically one with God, that is, just is God himself. To the contrary! He’s God’s agent, who has accomplished amazing things on God’s behalf, according to God’s will. You can’t act on someone’s behalf if you are that very someone. Here, God doesn’t have blood, and so can’t shed it. But this Lamb, being a man does, and did. God didn’t ever need to be exalted, but this Lamb did, and was. God already had a throne; Jesus now comes to share what was someone else’s throne.

Would John agree that Jesus isn’t God?

• John doesn’t say this anywhere, for the simple reason that it doesn’t need saying. We all assume that a thing can’t at one time differ from itself. And Jesus and God differ in many ways here. e.g. on the throne, not on it; holding scroll vs. taking the scroll; sending vs. not being sent; vs. being a servant of God vs. not.
• Again, that the Messiah is not God himself is an assumption of ancient Judaism.
• Nor do the characters, as it were, ever merge. We never find out that John has been calling one being by two names.
• Because of their theoretical commitments, some will read all of this in ch. 4-5 as a big series of elaborate hints that Jesus just is God and vice-versa. But the climax passes (end of ch. 5) and the worshipers are worshiping two beings, addressing each one individually, seemingly oblivious to any deeper truth that the one just is the other. And the author goes right on talking of them as if he thought they are two. After more heavenly scenes and other actions, there is a resurrection of people to be “be priests of God and of Christ” (20:6) – yes, servants of the both of them. And in ch. 22, in the vision of heavenly New Jerusalem, we’re told of “the throne of God and of the Lamb”. (22:3; cf. 21:22-3)
• Is that the crucial hint that they’re really one being, at long last – that they have a single throne? No – there’s just one throne of the one God, and Jesus was raised up to share it with him.
• Or maybe near the very end? Jesus there says  “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (22:13) Aha! Smoking gun! For God himself said he was the Alpha and Omega back at the start. (1:8) In light of the above, what to make of this? Well, why can’t both be correctly called “Alpha and Omega”. Where is it written that only one can be truly so described? [Sound of crickets chirping.]
  What does this mean, here in ch 22? That he’s the First and Last, it says, the Beginning and the End. Of what? I would say, of the new creation. He the first born (1:5) of a new, better human race. Yes, this is a divine title now being extended to Christ. That doesn’t mean he’s divine. (There’s only one divine being.) Rather, it means that he has been put in a God-like position in this new order. He bears other divine titles as well,
  e.g. 19:16. But he’s still God's message and pre-eminent messenger, the “faithful witness” (1:5).

Here is some music depicting this scene: Worthy is the Lamb & Amen (Messiah) - Handel

If we stick with objections arising from the text of Revelation itself, perhaps the most obvious one is that raised in a comment on previous post by my friend James Anderson. Reformulated by me, it goes:

The text itself (Rev 19:10, 22:9) asserts that we should worship only God. And yes, Revelation plainly implies that Jesus should be worshiped. And so it plainly implies that Jesus is God. 

One might look to one of my favorite translations, the New Living Translation, which has these two verses saying, in part: “Worship only God”.

When you look at the Greek, though, you see that it simply says “Worship God.”Not the same thing! And most translations get this right.
(Even The Message and the Good News Bible get it right.)

Where does the “only” come from? From the theological agenda of the translators; they want the text to be making the argument above.
So in the ESV Study Bible, which translates these phrases correctly (“Worship God.”) they feel the theological need to add this footnote:

Human beings must not worship even the angels… God alone must be worshiped. Since the Lamb is rightly worshiped (5:8-14), he is God. (p. 2497)

Interestingly, these evangelical commenters agree with those in the recent Jewish Annotated New Testament that Revelation asserts that only God should  be worshiped. In their comment on 19:7-10, they assert that

It is God, not the Lamb/Jesus, who is to be worshiped. (p. 493)

And bizarrely, in their notes on chapter 5, they ignore the obvious fact that Jesus is being worshiped together with God, although they correctly note that

The heavenly song makes a clear distinction between the enthroned one and the sacrificial lamb. (p. 474)

I’m reading between the lines here, and the commenters in this book are understandably very circumspect, but I think their assumption is that surely, no first century Jew would worship anyone but God himself. To that, I say that this very book is a counterexample. Their theological agenda is blinding them to the obvious. But the same is so with the conservative evangelical commenters of the ESV Study Bible.

When you look at the texts on their own terms, they are not at all making the argument I started this post with.  The excellent Craig S. Keener nails what is really going on in both of these texts:

19:10 Revelation seems to encourage the view that Christians on earth worship with the angels, in communion with the worship of heaven (a common Jewish view); but the book simultaneously rejects the views of those who prayed to and praised angels (amulets and incantations attest that some Jews invoked angels).
… (The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, p. 811, emphasis added)

22:8-9 Ephesians and Colossians suggest that some Jewish Christians in Asia Minor had been assigning too prominent a role to angels; if that error is at all in view here, this passage refutes it (cf. also Rev 19:10). (p. 820)

Right – in both passages, John has started to give into a temptation to worship the angel speaking to him. Worshiping Jesus is not at issue, and is not in view in Rev 19. In Rev 22 the angel (v. 1, 6) is speaking to John, and he speaks first in the prophetic first person for Jesus in v. 7 (“I am coming soon…” – this resumes in v. 12)  But there is a break or transition in v. 8. In any case, it seems that John is just repeating his earlier error. In either case, the angel might just as well have said, “Worship God and his Son.” This would have made his point too.

The angel in both cases tells John why John must not worship him. And it is not because the angel isn’t God himself (although of course, he isn’t). Rather,

I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. (19:10)

I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. (22:9)

In both cases this immediately precedes his command to “Worship God.” He grabs John’s head, as it were, and points it to the one on the throne – who has just been worshiped (19:1-9 – this time, without Jesus also being directly worshiped). This does not imply that John should not also worship Jesus. The angel emphasizes that he’s on a level with human prophets; but not so with Jesus, now that he’s been exalted to bear God’s right hand, as we’ve seen. He no longer has the status of being a “fellow servant” with us; he is God’s agent, yes, but is now “the ruler of kings on earth.” (1:5) So the grounds the angel gives for it being wrong to worship himself pointedly do not rule out worshiping the exalted man Jesus.

I conclude that this objection is a total miss; the objector can get no grip on the texts here. She only has her theory to fall back on, a theory which is at odds with Revelation.

We are implicitly and clearly told to worship Jesus, and it is assumed throughout that Jesus is not God, but rather the human Son of God, now exalted to an everlasting position of honor at God’s right hand. The book stands dead against a theological assumption that many consider obvious, that we should only worship God himself. But theological theory must bow to textual fact, given the authority of the text.

19th c. American minister Charles Morgridge makes an apt comment about Revelation 4-5:

There is not in the Bible a clearer distinction between the only true God, and his only Son our Saviour, than is here expressed. GOD sat on the throne; the Son stood amidst the elders. GOD had in his right hand a book; the Son came and took the book out of his hand. GOD was worshiped as the Being who created all things; and who liveth forever and ever. The Son was honored as the Lamb that was slain, and redeemed us unto God by his blood. And as
[in 1 Chronicles 29:20] the whole congregation of Israel bowed down their heads, and worshiped the LORD and the king, who was but a type of this Lamb; so, in verse 13, the whole universe is represented as ascribing Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, unto HIM that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever.
(The True Believer’s Defence, p. 58, bold added)

A couple of other gems:

• The word worship is now generally used to express the religious homage due to God. But this is not the only sense in which the word is used in the Bible. [Then illustrates this with numerous cases.] (p. 52, bold added) … 
• If honor is due to the Son because the Father hath commissioned and sent him, it must be received by the Son with higher reference to the glory of God the Father. (p. 56) …
• For GOD made him both Lord and Christ; exalted him to be a Prince and Saviour; and ordained him Prophet, Priest, and King. Therefore all men honor the Son, even as they honor the Father, when they render to him that homage only which comports with his moral character and relations. Consequently it cannot be supreme worship; that being due to the FATHER, the fountain of all that love, and mercy, and grace in the Son, for which we are required to honor him.
  Yet we are required to worship the Son, as the Son… as the first begotten… the brightness of the FATHER’s glory, and the express image of his person – as the Christ of God, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead – as the Lamb that was slain for us – as the resurrection and the life – as the author and finisher of our faith – and our intercessor at the right hand of God. (p. 57)

In another throne room scene, in interlude ...

And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Rev 15: 2-4, ESV, emphasis added)

Song of the Lamb? Why is that there? Elements of the quoted hymn echo famous Old Testament passages in which Moses praises God for his deliverance. It could be that the first part is supposed to be Moses’s song, the second part the Lamb’s song. Or maybe it is one song which belongs to both.

In any case, even though in a previous scene Jesus received worship alongside God, here, although he’s not directly in view, he seems to be on the side of the worshipers. This song, or part of it, is his song, his song sung in praise of Yahweh, the Almighty (a term never used of Jesus, by the way).

Most commenters skate right past this detail. It was drawn to my attention by G.W. Burnap:

Now, if the Lamb were a Person of the Trinity, would he not rather be placed as a person worshipped, instead of a person worshipping? ...
(Expository Lectures on the Principal Passages of the Scriptures which relate to the Doctrine of the Trinity, p. 138)

It is interesting that Jesus is assumed here to be worshiper of the one true God, which of course he was, and is.  Burnap does have the big picture right:

Christ is represented [in Revelation]  as reigning, but it is only under God, as the supreme Sovereign, and by his power and appointment. (p. 138)

Could it be the Lamb’s song, say, given to the saints to sing, but not one which the Lamb sung? It is possible.  But the parallel with Moses suggests otherwise.


The above was taken from
Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 of Dale Tuggy's series on Worship and Revelation 4-5
Some editing has been done.