Purpose
Previous articles discussed God’s throne room (Rev 4:1-8) and the 24 elders (Rev 4:4). The current article continues the discussion of chapter 4, namely, the worship in God’s throne room (Rev 4:8-11).
4:8
| And day and night they do not cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.” |
Holy
To be holy means to be separate. Things are holy when consecrated to God. People are holy when God assigns specific tasks to them. God is essentially holy because He is the Uncreated Source of all things. He is that which exists. All else exists because He exists. He created all things, and because of His will, they exist (Rev 4:11).
Day and Night
“Day and night” means continually. To continually say “holy, holy, holy” may seem boring, but the four living creatures have been created with the ability to understand something about God’s immeasurable holiness. Therefore, their intense emotions explode into these words of exaltation. It is not their duty; it is their joy!
But it is not aimless exaltation. Both the four living creatures and Satan talk “day and night” about God. While the four living creatures praise God, Satan, by accusing the people whom God has chosen for eternal life (Rev 12:10), effectively accuses God of unfair judgment. Therefore, the four living creatures seem to oppose Satan “day and night.” [Show More]
Almighty
The four living creatures describe the “One sitting on the throne” as “the Almighty” (Rev 4:2, 8). This refers only to the Father. Jesus does not appear in Revelation 4. Of the 10 instances of the phrase “Almighty” in the New Testament, 9 are in Revelation. The Bible never refers to Jesus as “the Almighty.” On the contrary, Jesus is explicitly distinct from “the Almighty“ (Rev 21:22; Rev 19:15). See – Is Jesus the Almighty?
Who was and is and is to come
The four living creatures also describe the Almighty as the One “Who was and Who is and Who is to come” (Rev 4:8). [Show More]
In Revelation, only the Father:
-
- Is called God (cf. Rev 1:2);
- Is Almighty (e.g., Rev 21:22),
- Sits on the throne (e.g., Rev 12:5; 3:21; 4:2),
- Lives forever (e.g., Rev 4:9),
- Willed and created all things (Rev 4:11) and
- Was and is and is to come (e.g., Rev 1:4-5).
4:9
| 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, |
When the living creatures
Whenever the four living creatures offer their triple praise to God (Rev 4:9), the twenty-elders fall down and worship God (Rev 4:10). This implies repetitive action. This confirms that this fourth chapter does not describe one specific event but the general condition in God’s presence.
Give glory and honor and thanks to Him
Worship is not about us, our feelings, or our duties. Worship is not a recital of what we need to do; it praises God for what He is and what He has done. To give thanks is the foundation of true worship. Understanding and practicing this truth will unleash God’s power in a local church. If worship often seems powerless, it is because it is rarely centered on God. In Bible times, when people rehearsed what God had done for them in the past, the power of God’s original act was unleashed in the worshiper’s present (2 Chron 20:5-22; Dan 9:15). Worship focuses attention away from us and toward God. Our weakness takes hold of His strength. [Show More]
Lives Forever and Ever
Jesus is “alive forevermore” (Rev 1:18) and “will reign forever” (Rev 11:15), but only the Father “lives forever” (Rev 4:9-10; 15:7). The Father “alone possesses immortality” (1 Tim 6:16). As the only begotten Son of God, Jesus derived His eternal nature from the Father, but the Father is the Unbegotten Source of all things. He, alone, has inherent (essential) immortality.
4:10
| 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, |
Worship explodes outward.
Whenever (Rev 4:9) the four living creatures, in the inner circle around the throne (Rev 4:6), with their astounding perceptive abilities (Rev 4:6), become full of the wonder of God’s holiness (Rev 4:8), and burst into praise, that worship overflows to the next circle around the throne – the 24 elders (Rev 4:9-10), then to the billions of angels around the 24 elders (Rev 5:11-12), and, finally, to “every created thing” (Rev 5:13).
Fall Down … Worship
This verse translates the two words pesountai and proskunêsousin as “fall down” and “worship.” (Biblehub) Both words mean to prostrate oneself in obeisance toward God, a god, or an exalted person such as a king (Biblehub). Where somebody proskuneó another person, it is translated as bow down or fall down, but as worship where somebody proskuneó God or a god. See Dictionary or Read Article.
Cast their crowns before the throne
The 24 elders (Rev 4:10) have victory crowns (Greek: stephanos); not royal crowns (Greek: diadêma). By casting their crowns before the throne (Rev 4:10), they acknowledge that they owe their victory completely to Him. In a sense, they feel unworthy to wear their crowns in the presence of the One who gave them their victory.
4:11
| “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.” |
Worthy are You
In Revelation 5, Jesus Christ is declared “worthy” because He was slain and purchased people for God with His blood (Rev 5:9). But here, the One sitting on the throne is declared “worthy,” namely, because He created all things.
Our Lord
The one seated on the throne is addressed as “our Lord” (Rev 4:11). The Greek word translated as “Lord” is kurios. The L is capitalized, not because of the word itself, but because of the context, namely, because it refers here to God. In other contexts, the word is also translated as “master” or “owner” or “lord” (e.g., Matt 10:24; 20:8; Mark 13:35; Acts 25:26).
And our God
The One seated on the throne is also addressed as “our God.” The word “God” translates from the Greek word theos. However, the meanings of the title “God” and theos are very different:
“God” functions like the name of one specific being, which dictionaries describe as the Supreme or Ultimate Reality.
On the other hand, theos means “god.” The ancient Greeks used it for their many gods (the Greek pantheon). [Show More]
Therefore, theos is translated here as “God,” not because of the word itself but because it refers to the Father. (Read Article) [Show More]
You created all things.
“All things” means the entire universe (Rom 11:36; 1 Cor 8:6; Eph 1:10; 3:9; Heb 1:3; 2:10), the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them.
Jesus Christ is declared “worthy” because He was slain and purchased people for God with His blood (Rev 5:9), but the One seated on the throne is “worthy” because He created all things (Rev 4:11).
Elsewhere in the New Testament, we read that God created all things through His Son (John 1:3; Col 1:15; 1 Cor 8:6; Heb 1:2), but here, the Father alone is identified as the Creator. Read Article.
The Father and the Son
Some claim that the Son is worshiped.
There are five songs of praise in Revelation 4 and 5. The first two (Rev 4:8, 11) are sung in honor of the One on the throne (Rev 4:11). The next two (Rev 5:9-10, 12) praise the Lamb (Jesus). The final one, as the climax of the series, is sung to both “Him who sits on the throne” and “the Lamb” (Rev 5:13). Therefore, some claim that this means that both are worshiped.
The Son is not worshiped.
The last verse of Revelation 5 adds, “And the elders fell down and worshiped” (Rev 5:14). Many translations do not say who they worship, but many others, such as the KJV and the Literal Standard, say that the One who lives forever is worshiped, which, in Revelation, always refers to the Father (Rev 4:10; 15:7). Furthermore:
Elsewhere in Revelation, the elders always worship the Father alone (Rev 4:10; 19:4), even where Jesus is present (Rev 7:10-11; 11:15-16). Read Article
Philippians 2:6-11 describes the same event as in Revelation 5, namely, what happens in heaven when Jesus arrives after His ascension, and explains that Jesus is worshiped:
(1) Because “God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name” (Phil 2:9) and that
(2) He is worshiped “to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:11).
See the article on Philippians 2. [Show More]
The Call to Worship God
Amid the end-time crisis, God’s people are called to “fear God and worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters” (Rev 14:7). This is a call to worship the Father for, in Revelation, only the Father is called God, and only the Father is the Creator. Related articles:
The Christology of this Website
This website defends the view of God and Christ maintained by the church during the first three centuries. They believed that, since the Son was the means through whom God created all things, He existed at all times, but He always was and always will be subordinate to and dependent on the Father. Read Article.
Revelation 1 describes Jesus in great detail (Rev 1:13-18), but there is a vagueness in this description of God. Other throne visions are more specific. 
Since the “lightning and sounds and peals of thunder” happen in the air, and since they come out of the throne, they probably represent God’s decisions and utterances. The “earthquake” and “great hail,” on the other hand, are things that happen on earth and, therefore, probably represent the earthly consequences of God’s decisions.
The concept of “seven lamps of fire” recalls the Hebrew sanctuary, where seven lamps of fire were constantly burning (Exodus 25:37).