In the Throne Room - Revelation 4:1

In the Throne Room

Revelation 4:1

After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, “Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this” (4:1).

After these things – Marks the beginning of a new vision, and follows immediately after John’s vision of the risen, glorified Christ (Revelation 1:9-20) and the letters to the 7 churches (Revelation 2:1-3:22). The scene shifts from matters concerning the church on earth to a dramatic scene in heaven. The church is nowhere mentioned in chapters 4-19. The church will be raptured before the time of Tribulation.

A door standing open in heaven – This door admitted John into the third heaven, into the very throne room of God. The Bible records 2 accounts of people who were taken there in visions: 

1. In 2 Corinthians 12:1-5, Paul wrote of being transported to the third heaven. 

2. In this chapter John also writes of being transported to heaven. 

Christ ascended to heaven after His resurrection where He has been seated at the right hand of God (John 14:2-3; Acts 1:9-11). The Bible refers to heaven more than 500 times.

Come up here – John was transported spiritually into the reality of heaven. Some see in this command a reference to the rapture of the church. The invitation accompanying the trumpet was to come up. The door was in heaven and John was on earth, but Jesus had preceded him into heaven, and now he was to go up to meet Him there. John illustrates what will happen to God’s people when the Church Age has run its course. Heaven will open; there will be a voice and the sound of a trumpet; and the saints will be caught up to heaven (1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18). In Matthew 17:1-9, the transfiguration scene is a type of the Second Coming of Christ; Moses being a type of the “Resurrected saints” and Elijah of the “Translated saints.”

Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible, © 1979, 1980, 1982, 1990, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

©2013 Kenute P. Curry. All rights reserved.