He Who Sits on the Throne: Unveiling God’s Sovereignty (Revelation 4)

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Don Carson: Perspective is an aspect of sight or of perception generally, that very largely governs what we think the world is like. It was G, K Chesterton in the Father Brown character for which he is so famous that says it is far more important to live in a valley than on the mountain top. When you’re on the mountain top, everything looks small, and you are very big and important. But when you’re in the valley, you look up and see the mountains, and you are very small, and so you are reminded of God. He is talking, of course, about perspective. Of course, perspective can change even with changing metaphors. In the Old Testament Valley mountain, language reverses things. Most of Israel’s enemies had chariots and the like, which managed to circumnavigate the valleys quite nicely, but the mountain tops were something they couldn’t handle. And so Israel, therefore thought of its mountain tops, its mountain top, villages and towns and cities as relatively safe places, and the valleys were the dangerous places, a difference in perspective. In fact, some of that kind of metaphor is reflected in some of our hymns. Down in the valley with my savior, I would go that is even down there I would go with him. Of course, perspective governs how we view an awful lot of things. The corporate manager of millions in the city is inclined to judge a lot of things in society rather differently from the chap who’s been out of work in the northeast of the country for six years despite his best efforts. They have different perspectives, different frameworks from which they look at things, but the same is true also in our perception of spiritual realities, the vantage point from which we look at things will determine, to some extent, how we view prayer or evangelism or personal relationships, or the relative weight of various things, if, for example, we view prayer primarily from the perspective of our needs, our wish list, then our prayers will be inclined to move in the direction of of spiritual shopping lists you run through the list that you have finished praying. If instead you you think first and long about God and His glory. And look at things from his vantage point, you will be inclined to spend more time in worship and adoration. You may think it more important to align your will with his than to try to bend his to yours. In evangelism, if you look at people simply as lost people, needy people, and that’s all. You may think it entirely justified to attempt to to browbeat men and women into the kingdom, just as for example, you would be justified if a house were burning down and and some person approaching the early stages of civility, refuse to leave. You might feel justified to go in there and tear the person out. But if you look at evangelism from a slightly different perspective, God’s perspective, his promises, his means of grace, the power of the gospel, you may, in fact, be inclined then to spend more time on your knees and less time in brow beating individuals, since ultimately, it is God who must regenerate men and women. The same is true with things that we value. If certain things seem important to us, certain relationships rather cherish in our life and framework at the moment, we might see them in a different light. If we ask in what perspective they will appear 50 billion years into eternity. For the Christian, nothing is more important than to try to see things from God’s perspective. This does not mean that we claim we can see as God sees. It is not a backdoor attempt to be God. It means rather that God’s perspective, since it is full, since it is all wise and all good, since it encompasses perfect knowledge about every detail is always the truest and best perspective, and so far as we can bring our perspective in line with his, we are not only conforming our minds to the mind of God, we are also seeing things most truly as they are, but. Now that, of course, is part of what the study of Scripture is all about. It is an attempt, in fact, to think God’s thoughts, given this record, that we may know his mind and be conformed to the image of His Son. But in particular, in order to do that, we must know something of God Himself. God must not be for us a mere abstraction. To look at things from God’s perspective is first and foremost, to look at God, to know Him, and of all the chapters in Scripture that contribute to that end, Revelation four and five are amongst the most telling and powerful in this respect. These two chapters constitute a single vision, and by breaking it up the way I am, half this week and half next week in part, I am in danger of distorting the vision by giving you only half, but as the two parts come together next week, I think you will see how the two, in fact, coalesce to form one large vision of God. But we must begin somewhere, and this week, we focused on Revelation four. John, writes that after this, that is after the visions that generate the letters of chapters two and three. After this, he says, I looked and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. Now it transpires that this door does not enable John to have a peep inside. It’s not as if he’s standing around the corner and training his neck to get a little look. Rather, this is the door through which, in some trance or vision, he is himself actually caught up into heaven. We are reminded of the language of Paul in his vision recorded in two Corinthians, chapter 12, whether it was in the body or out of the body, Paul doesn’t know, but he was caught up into the third heaven, into paradise, into the very presence of God. So also here, John says the voice he first heard speaking to him like a trumpet. Said, Come up here. And John goes. Now the voice that he had first heard is identified for us in chapter one. Chapter one, verse 10, says, on the Lord’s day, I John was in the spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet. There it is, which said, Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, Myrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. I turned round to see the voice that was speaking to me, and when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And among the lampstands was someone like a son of man. And then, as you pursue that vision through the next few verses down to verse 16, you discover that this is a vision of the exalted Christ. Christ resurrected, ascended in glory at the Father’s right hand. John has had a vision of the exalted Christ. And now he says, The Voice who had spoken with him at the first, like the voice of a trumpet, speaks now again, and says, come up here and I will show you what must take place after this. So John, he said, was immediately in the Spirit. He had already said in chapter one, verse 10, that he was in the spirit on the Lord’s day when he perceived this vision, presumably in some state of spirit, given exaltation, a trance in order to be able to perceive what was going on now, whether he had come out of that and is now being called back into it, or whether he is being called into some higher state of exaltation in order to perceive what is going on in the heavens. We cannot be clear, but John is here being called into a high and privileged position to glimpse, as it were, what goes on in the very courtroom of heaven. At once. He says, I was in the spirit. What then does John see? First? He sees the centrality and ineffable majesty of the Almighty there before me, he says, was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it, and the one who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and carnelian, a rainbow resembling an emerald encircled the throne John will not let his readers, some of whom are facing persecution, and many of whom face at least the possibility the threat of persecution, he will not let them forget that above thrones, there are thrones and. Are other thrones until there is the throne.

Don Carson
From the vantage point of John’s readers, the local magistrates were a terror, the provincial governors were awesome, and then above them was either the Senate or the Roman Emperor himself. But John wants these readers to remember that above all such thrones, there is the throne standing in the heavens. That is the vantage point, the perspective that they must adopt. Part of the problem in understanding this vision is that the ancients did not employ our terminology in their classification of precious stones. But most likely, the Jasper here referred to is white, an opal or a diamond, what the King James Version calls the sardine, is not a fish, but a sardius or a carnelian, a scarlet red gem. The Emerald, like ours, is green. The rainbow. The word for Rainbow could either mean the roughly vertical thing that we perceive in the heavens, multi colored and in its best, entrancing or horizontal, from which have come all the medieval pictures of halos. Whether it’s horizontal or vertical, I don’t know, doesn’t much matter. The point is that the image all together, is intended to portray entrancing beauty. The best parallel I can think of is in the Tower of London. If you have ever gone through the Tower of London to see the crown jewels, you are aware of the procedure. You pay your money and then you enter this long queue which winds through circuitous passages in a rather dark set of chambers, until you get into these larger rooms where brilliant flood lights shine down on glass covered gems these glass covered gems are all touched off with magnificent alarm systems, and there are guards situated everywhere who are telling you, keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving as you pass around the path controlled by the ropes. Now, when you look at these stones, you you are amazed at the sheer glory beauty that is there crowns that weigh an immense amount, with diamonds and rubies and emeralds studded in them in perfect displays, and the light refracting through these stones in all directions, casting up a perfect kaleidoscope of color. And so you disobey the guard, and you stop for a minute, and you look at this magnificent pattern. And then you move your head a millimeter. Then it all changes again. And there’s another pattern. Then you move your head the other way, and it all changes again in glorious, fiery display, the guard says, Move on. Move on. And you see these swords that are absolutely useless as swords, but they have the most amazing handles you have ever seen in your life, and stones that are as big as your fist, nestled in velvet, black velvet, with the light shining off them in indescribable ways. When you come out finally, at the end, you do not think, Boy, there’s a lot of money in there. You think instead, watch indescribable glory and beauty. Words fail me. Now that is what John describes here. In fact, if you try to draw a picture of what he describes, he couldn’t do it because he hasn’t given you enough information. It’s not that kind of image. This is apocalyptic literature where part of a point is to use metaphors, even mixed metaphors, even jumbled up metaphors, to form a kind of image, a kind of array that you can’t draw, but that strikes you, that is powerful, that captivates you. In fact, how do you describe a God who is whiter and purer than driven snow, who is more magnificent than the most stunning sunset over the Alps, who is more entrancing than a million twinkling stars, more facets to his personality, who is more nourishing than the best of foods, who is more loving and compassionate than the ideal parent, who is more awesome than all the Unleashed fury of nature at its worst. How can you describe a God like that?

Don Carson
The best you can do is to use metaphor and simile an image. Especially dealing with people like us, whose eyes are darkened, whose mind is dim. How do we deal with a God like that? Indeed, the most important thing about this description is that God is not really described. There is no possibility of image making from this description. Indeed, this is very much like the language of Ezekiel, chapter one in another vision where a prophet is caught up to see something of the very stature and nature and glory of God. Many of the symbols used here are drawn from Ezekiel one, or Isaiah six. And at the end of that vision, Ezekiel declares as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain that is magnificent, beautiful, colorful, ethereal, not something you can trap as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so is the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. You see, it’s so removed from us, the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. The question we must ask ourselves constantly is whether the God to whom we worship is too small, simply a subset of the true God, the God who has revealed himself in Scripture and supremely in the person of Jesus Christ. He must never be reduced more or less to our standards so that he is an extrapolation on us. This is the God who is transcendent, glorious, wonderful past telling in the second place, John sees the Divine Throne enhanced by spectacular heavenly beings. Verse four surrounding the throne were 24 other thrones, and seated on them were 24 elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. Who are these elders and what do they represent? What are they there for? There are many who have argued that these 24 elders represent the believers from the Old Covenant and the new after all, this is apocalyptic literature. An apocalyptic literature uses numbers symbolically. Most numbers in the Bible are not meant to be taken that way, but in apocalyptic literature, they usually are. 24 is 12 plus 12, the 12 Tribes of the Old Testament, the 12 Apostles of the New Covenant, representing, in some sense, the the culmination of the old and new covenants joined together, gathered in worship around the throne. And after all, they are dressed in white, which is sometimes a symbol for God’s people now purified or the light. Moreover, some translations render chapter five, verse nine, this way. There, there is a new song sung, and Christ is addressed in these terms, you are worthy because you were slain, and with your blood, you purchased us for God. And it’s the elders who are saying it. Now, if that were the correct translation that would tell the matter, that is, the elders would represent the redeemed of God. But in fact, the NIV has it right. The elders say you were slain, and with your blood, you purchased men for God. We shall look at that next week. In fact, there are very good reasons for thinking that these elders are some high order of angelic being. Let me list at least a few reasons rather briefly. I can’t take you through them all. Note that they joined the four living creatures, the highest order of angels, as we shall see in worship in chapter five, verse eight. More important, they offer the prayers of God, saying to God in chapter five, verse eight, clearly an angelic function in chapter eight, verse three, more important yet in chapter seven, verses 13 and 14, John addresses one of them as my Lord. That is not normally the way Christians greeted one another in the first century. More important yet, in 14 three Christians, believers appear to be singing a new song that even the elders cannot learn. That is there is a distinction introduced between believers and the elders. White clothing is, in any case, often associated with angels. Years, but more important yet is the stunning vision of chapter seven, verses nine to 11. There, the throne is pictured again in concentric rings, as it were. In the outside ring, you have the great multitude of the redeemed, and then inside you have, in concentric circles, myriads of angels, and then the elders, and then the four living creatures. In other words, the elders are between the angels and the shadow being the highest order of angels that is the framework in which they live and serve in in in heaven. The same ordering occurs in chapter 19, verses one and following, indeed at this time, it was quite common for angels to be associated with each tribe, and that is probably what is associated here in John’s mind, that is to say, these angels, these this company of angels, if you like, serve as a kind of heavenly counterpart to the people of God and the Old Covenant and the people of God and the new just as in the book of Daniel, you have an angel associated with each country who God sends out and commands to do this bidding or that. But what is their function here? Their function is twofold. First, they join in praise to God. Thus they enhance the throne. We’ll come back to that point in a moment. But second, they are part of the sustained and repeated image in the book of Revelation which distances God from us. Supposing you came to see me in my rented house on Lexington. Close you ring the doorbell. Now, assuming anyone is home, and assuming my daughter doesn’t get there first or my wife, then I will doubtless answer the door and recognizing your handsome or beautiful visit, as the case may be, I will say, Come in. Come in. Now, supposing you are invited to Buckingham Palace, a personal invitation from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, when you arrive, you will not find a doorbell. But if you did and you pressed it, you would not find Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, coming out to the gates and saying, Come in. Come in. I’ve been expecting you rather you would have to go through serried ranks of security checks and footmen and a butler or two and a private secretary until finally, you have an audience with the queen. In other words, the more exalted the personage, the more distant from the normal run of folk. What you discover in these images of God throughout this book is that God is always, in certain respects, removed. Now there is a counterpoint to that that we’ll see in the second part of the vision, next Sunday morning. But in this part of the vision, that is the driving note, God is separated from his created universe. He is separated from us. He is transcendent and different. And you don’t get there too quickly. Then in the third place, you see in three rapid metaphors, the holy separateness of the Almighty verses five and the first part of six. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven Spirits of God. Also before the throne, there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal, three images, first, lightning and thunder. When I was growing up as a little boy, I lived in a tributary of what was the St Lawrence Valley system. Those of you are familiar with North American geography and meteorology know that the weather patterns of North America tend to funnel out through the northeastern states and and especially through the St Lawrence system. So as a result, you get some spectacular Sunday thunderstorms. I’ve lived in Cambridge the last decade and a half for six or seven years of that decade and a half, and I’ve seen the odd thunderstorm here. But with all due respect, they’re not much. They wouldn’t scare anybody but a person inclined to fear at the age of three, perhaps.

Don Carson
But in Drummondville in the Montreal area, you got storms that counted for something. As a little boy, I lived in an old frame house with a veranda on the front, and as a storm began building up, I would sometimes go out on the veranda and and watch the storms. Always came from the West, the Southwest, and you would watch the blackness build up in huge, mountainous i. A banks in the sky so dark, in fact, while the East was still light, that already the horizon was being hidden from view. And then the winds began to rise, and the poplars around the place began swaying back and forth in the breeze. And then eventually the sky was sufficiently dark and that everyone had lights on, if they were still driving around, and large slots of rain came down, it’s not like this little fine mist. You can go around, and it’s about a bucket at a time, you see. And this rain begins to splat down and bounce up. And by now it is so dark, it is so dark, you would think that it was rather late at night. It is almost nightfall, but still, you can discern the blackness, the blackness that is still encroaching from the west. And then you see a kind of lightning of the horizon, a brightening of things temporarily. And you start to count, 12345, you know that sounds. Takes about five seconds to travel a mile. And you get to 2627 28 five to six. Well, then the winds begin to come up a little more, and the trees are swaying back and forth. Now you can only get to 17 or 18 before you you hear the sound, and it is no longer faint rumble in the horizon. It is now hungry, shakes the building itself and it still miles away. And then gradually you see not the brightening of the horizon, but fork lightning in all directions, 1234, you maybe get to 1415, and the heavens burst open and the rain is coming down. I’ve seen a poplar two feet in diameter, ripped out by those winds. The storm finally comes overhead and you get to get to two or three, or in a really good storm, only maybe to half a second, and you see a lightning fork come down, and you shove your ears, and the whole world explodes. And if you’re a bright little boy, you go inside the house.

Don Carson
Before the nuclear age, what was the greatest power or force that human beings ever saw? Simply nature unleashed. That’s all nature in its most violent storms, and this, in this image is what encircles the throne of God. Nobody is stupid enough to go through that storm, and God is made distant from us again. Indeed, that kind of imagery is already used at the giving of the Old Covenant. You recall how God comes down on Sinai. There we are told. And it came to pass on the third day in the morning that there were thunders and lightnings and thick cloud upon the mount, so that all the people in the camp trembled. That is the framework in which the people say this God is too terrible for us. Moses, you go for us. You be God to us, you represent us to God. We cannot approach this god. Exactly the same image is now used for the very throne room of deity. Then the seven lamps already identified as the seven spirits of God in chapter one, probably a reflection of the seven fold spirit of Isaiah. That is the spirit manifesting Himself in various perfections, the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of power and so on that come on the Messiah. The function here of these seven lampstands reflecting the spirit is, I think, simply this, that God is mediated to us only by the Spirit, but in such a way that God Himself is still removed. And the third part of the vision, the sea of glass, is probably the same thing. All kinds of metaphors have been thought up here. Most glass in the ancient world was cloudy. It wasn’t transparent, it wasn’t clear. So some have thought that maybe, maybe this transparent glass means that God could look down and see everything, quite nicely, a kind of image of his omniscience. But the standard apocalyptic image of omniscience is eyes, which are everywhere, as we shall see. God sees and knows everything. Some have seen in this this glass, some have seen some reference to the the surging waters that often are part of the nature metaphor in Old Testament, Hebrew poetry, the surging waters of the deep, with its various monsters, part of a chaos, the creation that has run amok, that is in defiance against God. But this is a calm sea. Fear, the rage is in the storm. It’s not in the sea. No, no. What this is, again, is simply one more way of distancing God. How is John, who is watching all of this going to get there? He sees the sea of glass, and then to get to this God? There is the seven fold spirit who mediates whatever there is of God to us. He. Then a blinding storm that separates God, and then concentric ranks of angels, and then one who is described only in metaphor and simile,

Don Carson
brothers and sisters in Christ, I am persuaded that we are not ready to understand God’s personality, His love, His compassion, his incarnation in the person of Jesus, until we grasp His transcendence, until we know how big he is, we cannot measure his condescension.

Don Carson
The modern world seems to find it very easy to believe in the love of God. That’s not the perspective of the biblical writers who find it rather easy instead to think of his transcendence and greatness. And in that framework, his love becomes marvelous, a surprise. Modern hymns do not reflect this transcendence of God very, very well, but in various periods of the church’s history, the theme was well captured. Take this one, written in the Middle Ages, translated almost four centuries ago. So the English is a bit rough. But listen anyway, thou wast O God, and thou wast blessed before the world began. Of thine eternity possessed before times hourglass ran. Thou needest None thy praise to sing as if thy Joy could fade. That is, he didn’t need somebody constantly worshiping Him, or else he’d be disappointed he didn’t need that. Couldst thou have needed anything thou couldst have nothing made in the sort of inferior being that needed to be fond over, that needed to be praised, he wouldn’t have been big enough to make things in the first place. Great and good God. It pleased of thee thy godhood to declare it simply pleased him to show himself and what thy goodness did, decree, thy greatness did, prepare thou states and Heaven and Earth appeared and answered to thy call as if their Maker’s voice they heard, which is the creature’s all to whom Lord Should I sing but thee, the maker of my tongue, Lord, other lords would seize on me. But I to thee belong as waters, hark unto the sea and earth into its Earth. So let my soul return to thee from whence it had its birth. This is the God with which, with whom we have to do in the fourth place, John describes the four living creatures. It quickly follows that they are the highest angelic beings, and what they do is orchestrate the praise of the Almighty and reflect something of the transcendent administration of the Almighty. We read in the center Around the throne were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man. The fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Now in many models of ancient thrones. The throne itself was sometimes put on the backs of gold covered or stone animals you have sometimes lions heads coming out from the four sides of the throne. Solomon’s throne had a lion’s head coming out of each side. Occasionally there were three steried lines sticking out each way. And it might, might be that that is the kind of image that is here presented. That is these creatures are in the center and emerging from the throne. But however you see the geography, the coordinates, these creatures have certain characteristics that reflect all testament patterns, images of angels set a beam with their six wings in Isaiah, six and cherubim, that is the highest order of angels in Ezekiel chapter one. And later on, we shall see that it is these who never stop crying day and night. Holy. Holy. Holy is the Lord. God Almighty. And as they do that, the elders and then others join in. In other words, they orchestrate the praise of Heaven. The closer you get to the throne, the more praise there is. But not only So, these strange beings clearly reflect another set of symbolic values, notice what they look like. One has the head of a lion, another, the head of an ox. A third, the head of a man, and the fourth, a flying eagle. The lion, Then, as now, was a symbol of royalty. The Bullock, or the ox, was the strongest domestic animal that people knew unless they lived in India, and John didn’t. And so in that framework, therefore, some ancient cultures used the ox as a symbol. In ancient Egypt, for example, APIs, a bullet, was worshiped as God. This is the way of saying, in other words, not that God is a bullet, but that whatever of strength you might ascribe to APIs, it is found in its perfection in this God, the intelligent face of the human being reflects intelligence in God’s administration. And the flying eagle either speed to execute God’s commands, which is a common symbol in apocalyptic or possibly it’s picking up the language of Exodus 19, where God is likened to through a flying eagle who who bears up his young on his wings. Now the point is this, not only do these beings, this highest order of angels, enhance the throne and orchestrate the praise of Him who sits on the throne. They are a way of saying that that God’s throne, as it were, rests on Royal Decree, strength, intelligence, speed, you do not gainsay this god. Moreover, although most of the symbols are drawn from Ezekiel 28 suddenly the six wings of Isaiah, six come into play, introduced to us by Dr Clements last week, with two wings, we are told they covered their face, indicating a certain reverence and humility. With two wings, they covered the lower parts of their body and their feet a certain modesty, and with two wings, they flew, speeding and executing God’s commands. Of course, we are not again necessarily to think that angels could actually be drawn and work like this. The whole thing is an apocalyptic image, but the resulting pattern is of God enthroned distant from us in perfect righteousness, royalty, strength and wisdom and receiving the praise of the most exalted beings in the universe. And then finally, John records for us, something of what he sees of the worship and praise of heaven, day and night. He says these four living creatures never stop saying, holy, holy. Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come, holiness. Is not first and foremost a description of moral purity, nor is it first and foremost simply otherness or separateness. In the first instance, it is almost an adjective for God. To say that God is holy is very close to saying that God is God. It is a confession of the godhood of God. And then other usages are derivative, because God is God, he is necessarily separate from us. And if we are to be holy, we must then be associated with him. This is the Lord, God Almighty, who always has been who now is and is to come. And we are told in in this vision, that the four living creatures never stop this perpetual acknowledgement day and night. They try this. And then John says, Whenever the living creatures give glory, and we’ve just been told that it’s forever, day and night, whenever they do it, then immediately the elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and they worship Him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, which is the way of saying that, that they acknowledge that all of their bliss, all of their glory, all of their power, all of their rank, all of their status, is derivative. They have got it from him who sits on the throne. So they cast their crowns before him in acknowledgement, and they too join in worship. And they cry, you are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. He is worthy. That is, there is such worthiness in him that to ascribe these things to him is but to assign him his due worship. Does not give something to God that He does not otherwise have. It is the recognition rather of what he is in

Don Carson
and in this first great song of praise, it is grounded on God’s creative power. You are worthy for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being. This is not then some kind of God who is on a spectrum with us, at one end of the spectrum, just like us, only improved somewhat. This is a God who is transcendent. He doesn’t need us. All. Glory is His, but he is to be praised precisely because we are derivative. We are His creatures. He made us. And that brings me, then to three practical applications for us today. First, we have all met men and women who ask, sometimes belligerently. Why should this God of yours

Unknown Speaker
force himself upon me? Why doesn’t he just go about his business, let me go

Don Carson
about mine and leave me alone? I’m a free moral agent, and I want to do with my life what I choose. But the first biblical answer to that is the doctrine of creation, our human responsibility is grounded in the first instance, in the fact that we did not mate ourselves, nor are we part of some endless cycle, whirling on forever until we drift off and become Gods ourselves. In the first instance, we are creatures made by God, and therefore we are his, whether we like it or not and not to acknowledge it is the very essence of rebellion that is why these creatures offer praise forever. You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. For You created all things and by your will. They were created by your will. They have their being. That means that God, whose very sovereignty is now mediated through the word of the exalted Christ, as we shall see next week, so controls all things that if we live and breathe, it is because God suspends us, and he is but to let us go, and we are done.

Speaker 1
We were made by Him. We were made for him. We are upheld by him, and

Don Carson
not to acknowledge those basics, not to recognize that our responsibility is grounded in who we are. In reference to this transcendent creator, God is already anarchy is already sin. Is already lostness and fallenness.

Don Carson
Therefore, those of us who have been touched by God’s grace and have been purchased by the death of his son know what it means to see sins forgiven. We confess we are his twice by creation and redemption. Secondly, we must return to this question of perspective, of perspective, if we are to worship God aright, if we are to think clearly about our aims and goals as individuals, if we are to pray for our families intelligently, if we are to think correctly about evangelism, if We are to think wisely about our future, our vocations, our goals. We must begin from God’s perspective. We must begin with the doctrine of God. We must know him. Everything flies apart if the center is lost, we must first. Know that He is God. He will have the last say. Everyone will give an account to him. He is worthy of all our praise. And when we come to know Him, not merely to know an abstract collection of propositions about him, as I have outlined them, but when we come to know him and lose ourself in worship and adoration and praise, then even the most abysmal problems and pains and turmoils and uncertainties configure themselves rather differently as we confess our ignorance and our guilt and are hurt, but entrust ourselves to Him. There is nothing more necessary for the healing of the church than the knowledge of God. There is nothing more necessary for evangelism than the knowledge of God. There is nothing more necessary for stable marriages than the knowledge of God. There is nothing more necessary for integrity in the marketplace than knowledge of God. If we have genuine knowledge of God, we have everything. If we do not have it, we have not

Don Carson
and that brings me to the last point, and this is in anticipation of the rest of the vision that we shall look at next week. We cannot truly begin to form a proper assessment of the redemptive work of Christ or of the love of God in Christ, Jesus, or of the personality of God until we first grasp His greatness and transcendence. If God is for us simply an extrapolation of us who somehow loves us, it is not only sentimental and markish, it is pathetic. It’s not much. But if this God chooses to set his love upon us, it is everything you that is why the church joins the chorus of those who sing around the throne. Holy, holy, holy. Lord, God, almighty.