What is heaven? As we thought [last time] about that question “Does it exist?” I really spoke to you about life after the grave. We said that there is life after death. There is something awaiting us which we call heaven or which we also call hell. But what is that place like? Is it a place? Is it just an idea? Is it just a metaphor for us to think about? Is it a way for us to cope? Is it an opium for the masses?

A study was done a few years ago (the study which I referred to last sermon) in 2003 about heaven, about life after death. We said that about 90 percent of Americans believe in some way or another that there is something beyond the grave—whether they call it heaven or nirvana or annihilation or whatever. There is something else to experience. Of those who believe in heaven (roughly 90 percent), about half described heaven as a state of eternal existence in God's presence. Only 30 percent, though, said it is an actual place of rest and reward where souls go after death. Others said it is nirvana; it is an eternal unconscious existence. Others would say (and we are learning more and more) that there is a place called Paradise, and awaiting all the faithful are seventy virgins who are perpetually virgins for all of eternity. That is why it is called Paradise (at least, if you are a man and if you follow that religion). Others would say there is an annihilation—we cease to exist and that is it. “Eat, drink, and be merry,” Paul would say, “for tomorrow we die.”

So what is heaven like, then? We know that eternity exists and there is something else. We will continue to live in some stage or another. And all of our culture, roughly speaking, agrees with us. Your neighbours believe this. Like we said, as God has placed eternity into the hearts of man, everyone knows this, although they all turn in different ways. Your neighbour who spends his waking hours after work cleaning his toys, so that he might go on a vacation every weekend to get away—he evidences eternity. He wants something else besides the toil and the struggle of this life. Notice from Revelation 4: Heaven does exist, heaven is a place, and it is a wonderful place. What is it?

A Place of God’s Creation⤒🔗

In the first place, we see from Revelation that heaven is a place of God's creation. Heaven has not always existed. God made the heavens and the earth. “All things,” as we say in the Nicene Creed, “visible and invisible.” He created this realm/state/ place that we call heaven. He created angels. He created it to be a place of his habitation.

Revelation assumes it exists. Notice our text, as John writes this wonderful image and this wonderful vision: “a door standing open in heaven!” And this one who spoke to him like a trumpet, saying, “‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’… Behold, a throne stood in heaven” (Revelation 4:1, 2). He assumes its existence! And all throughout Scripture we read about God who has created the heavens and the earth.

And much more than just the heavens that we can see, but as you read throughout the Old Testament there is a thing called the “heaven of heavens,” or the “highest of heavens.” Solomon prayed to the Lord who inhabited that place. Turn with me to 1 Kings 8:27. After the temple [was made] in all of its glory, as it reflected the very heaven of heavens (it reflected God's dwelling place and his people dwelling with him), Solomon then prayed what we call his prayer of dedication of the temple. There were sacrifices and praises and psalms and prayers and priests and the whole congregation gathered, and he said this in his prayer: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth?” Heaven is his dwelling place. “Behold, heaven” (that is the realm that we can see—the sky, the stars, the universe, the known world) “and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”

There are many more testimonies about this place called heaven—the heaven of heavens, the place that God exists and lives within. He made it; he created it; he formed it; he fashioned it. We might say, “Why?” Well, in one sense we can speak about heaven simply as the presence of God, and of course, that place has always been, because wherever God is (we might say in one respect), there is heaven. God's existence; his presence (and we will see that in just a moment). But in speaking about the place, as Revelation 4 speaks of, (“Come up here”; “a door standing open in heaven”; “behold, a throne stood in heaven”), that place God made! He created. God did not take things that already were existing for eternity and form them into the heavens and the earth; he made everything, including the things we cannot see.

The Place of God’s Presence←⤒🔗

In the second place, heaven is a not only a place of God's creation, it is a place of God's presence. Notice verse 2:

At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Revelation 4:2-3, ESV

“He”; “the One”—John speaks of him as an ineffable (that is, an unspeakable) God. The One who simply exists and who dwells there. He is in that place that he himself has made. And here is a wonderful picture of God's care for us. If this temple, as Solomon said, cannot contain the Lord, if the earth cannot contain him, if the sky contain him, in fact the very heaven of heavens—this thing we call heaven—cannot contain him, why has he made it?

God has made this realm of heaven, this place that John sees and he enters into, for our benefit! Here is a masterful way in which Scripture reveals to us that God has accommodated himself to us. We cannot know God apart from his self-revelation. We cannot experience God unless he himself first comes to us. And if the heaven of heavens cannot contain this ineffable, unspeakable, infinite, immense God, how are we ever going to know him? And thus, he creates the realm of the unseen, the invisible world. He creates heaven so that there is, in a sense, a place where God dwells. We know he dwells outside of it. He is immense; he fills all things. He is infinite and nothing created can contain his infinity. He is eternal. Nothing created, time bound, can contain it. But he does it for our benefit.

That way, as John is taken up and as those who die in the Lord are taken to go to be with the Lord, there is a place where they can go. Not float upon clouds, not enter some unconscious state of existence, not some nebulous place where we enter beyond the pearly gates and get our pair of wings and we kind of float around for eternity. There is a place where God dwells, in which his presence is known! Just like in the temple! That was the localized presence of God. And more than just the whole temple; there was a little room, and in that room was a little box, and upon that little box were two angels with wings, and in that very localized place of God's presence he dwelt, in between the wings of the cherubim. And his glory shined forth.

So he made heaven for the experience of his people, to have fellowship with them for all of eternity. Because we are creatures! We only relate to God in a creaturely way. So we must come to know him somehow.

Notice what Psalm 16 says about the presence of God. John simply speaks of it as a place that exists and in that place is the One who sits upon a throne. In Psalm 16 David prays ultimately about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But then notice this in verse 11: he speaks about heaven, but he uses the terms of the presence of God.

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11, ESV

Again, in one sense we could say his presence is everywhere. His right hand is His power; therefore, it is everywhere. There is a sense in which that is true, but yet there is a sense in which it is not true. He is speaking here using terms that we [understand]. “In your presence”: the very face of God. That is the term for “presence”—the face of God. “At your right hand”: that would connote to the ancient reader (and it should to us) a place of privilege and authority and power and might. In the presence of God, before his face, is the “fullness of joy”; at his right hand “pleasures forevermore.” That presence and that “right hand” are heaven, where God exists. Where the One who sits upon a throne is worshipped and adored forever and ever.

And then notice also this about heaven. He speaks about it as a created place. He speaks about it as the place of God's presence—God is there upon his throne. Notice how he describes that throne and how he describes what is happening in the midst of that throne.

From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God.Revelation 4:5, ESV

There are seven torches burning in brilliance before the throne, and John interprets that image for us to say, “These are the seven spirits of God.” I thought we believed in one Holy Spirit? Not three Holy Spirits, the Athanasian Creed says. One God and Father. One Lord Jesus Christ. Not three. What is the business with seven spirits? Here is an Old Testament image about the Holy Spirit. For example, in Isaiah 11, that the Lord would anoint his Messiah with the sevenfold spirit. [It is] the imagery of the fullness of the Holy Spirit—the number seven. There is one Holy Spirit, but yet he can be described as the sevenfold Spirit in all of his brilliance and all of his infinity contained, as it were, in those seven torches. The presence of God, the Spirit of God, enthroning God the Father upon his throne.

Here is the cloud of Isaiah. Here is the cloud upon Mount Sinai. Here is the cloud that takes up Jesus after his resurrection. Here is that cloud that followed them in the wilderness, “hovered over them” the psalmist says. Here is the power of God, the presence of God, who is conveyed by the power of the Holy Spirit in his sevenfold power and his sevenfold energy.

A Place of God’s Rule←⤒🔗

Heaven is a place. It exists. God made it. God is there and he is enthroned. That is why our third point is that it is a place of God's rule. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We pray that God would rule over us as his church by his Word and Spirit. And he rules over us from this place of heaven.

“Behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated…” (Revelation 4:2b). It is the royal imagery of a mighty king. And his throne is surrounded by a rainbow. It is surrounded by other lesser thrones with elders upon those thrones. It is surrounded by the burning of the Holy Spirit and fire and thunder and lightning. It is surrounded by a sea of glass. And all creation falls down before him! John gives us some way of grasping what heaven is like. God is there as a king, as a ruler, majestic and high and exalted. And he is seated. He has no need to get up. He has no need to arise and to go forth into war. He has done the work. He has won the victory. He simply speaks and all things come into existence. He needs not to get up. He is and he rules.

John uses imagery and metaphor and simile to somehow give us a sense of what it looks like in heaven. God is surrounded by various stones—the most precious of stones—the most beautiful of colour surrounding his throne. Here we are told he had the appearance of jasper and carnelian (colours such as green and colours such as red and blue). The sardius, or carneilian stone, is a deep red. There is all this imagery and the colours of the tabernacle and the temple and all of creation. He sees a rainbow with the colour of emerald (transparent bright green). All of this is to show us his glory and his majesty. That there is no one to be compared to our Lord. “Who is like the LORD our God, who dwells on high, who looks down upon the things in heaven and in earth?” (Psalm 113:5-6).

The earth is his footstool, beloved! The heavens are his throne! Here he is, exalted in all of his brilliance, and John got to see it! John was enabled to write about it. We read this text and we get a picture and a glimpse of Almighty God! Behold, the glory of the Lord: a King who rules, a King who is surrounded, a King whose throne is at the very centre of heaven itself. Did you notice that? There is the throne, and around the throne are other lesser thrones. Surrounding the throne is a rainbow. Around the throne and before it are the burning lampstands of the Holy Spirit. Before it and all around it is a sea of glass like crystal. And the angels and the Church and these living creatures and all creation fall down before him, surrounding him and adoring him. His rule and his sovereignty and his majesty is at the very centre of heaven.

And it is from that central throne in heaven (we read in Revelation 6ff.) that goes forth his decree for all of time and all of history. From that place the seven seals are broken and from that place goes forth all of his plans and executions.

The Place of God’s Peace←⤒🔗

But more than that, it is also a place of his peace. It is a place of his rule and a place of his might and his kingship, his majesty, and his exaltedness. He is high and lifted up. The train of his robe fills the temple—that is how amazing our God is. But it is also a place of peace. John says that surrounding this throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. And then he goes on to say this: “Before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass” (verse 6). This is stretching the human language. Simile does not even get it. He is saying, “Something like this…I cannot explain it to you. I cannot fully grasp it. I cannot even write it on paper, but it was something like a sea of glass.”

What does that look like? “Like crystal,” he says. A sea of glass. Have you ever seen a sea of glass? If we see the horizon as far as it can go, you can still see some of the waves and the ripples. When you fly overhead in an airplane, you do not see a sea of glass; you see all the waves and you see how the wind rustles the ocean. We see the swells and we see it constantly moving. John sees before the throne of God in heaven a sea of glass like crystal.

The sea is an Old Testament image of chaos. In Genesis, God made all things, and “darkness was over the face of the deep.” The Spirit hovered “over the face of the waters.” Chaos, turmoil, tumult, and the crashing of the waves. How it destroys what is in its wake. It is applied in the Old Testament to the nations and to the enemies of God. God's enemies are like the waves of the sea. They are in an uproar; they never cease to stop; they are incessant in their attacks upon the Church. Don't we experience that? “Against the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

But yet, John says before the throne in heaven there is something like a sea of glass like crystal. Completely smooth. No waves. Not even a ripple. Nothing. Not even one little drop which makes that water move. John writes in this way to express to us that there is peace in heaven. There is no uproar; there is no sin; there is no curse; there are no enemies of God; there are no revolts; there are no uprisings. It is like crystal. A sea of glass. Smooth; no waves. No enemies.

He rules from that place, and in that place there is perfect peace: the peace that passes all understanding; the peace which God intended for his creation. To enter his rest, to stop the turmoil, to stop all the uprisings and to take pleasure with God in his presence.

A Place of Worship←⤒🔗

And because of all of this (that God has made this realm for his people to experience him in a creaturely way, God himself is there in the midst of that place, his throne of rule and justice and judgment is there, his peace surpassing all understanding is in the midst of that place, as a sea of glass like crystal), everything that has breath falls down before him. It is a place of God's people's worship. [John] sees it opened. He sees the throne. He sees the sea of glass. He sees the rainbow (again, an imagery of peace—the covenant God made with Noah and all creation). He sees all that God is doing. He hears the thunder. He sees the lightning. He sees the burning torches.

And then he sees this, an image which is beyond expression and explanation: around the throne (completely surrounding him, in a full circle, no less), on each side of the throne, these strange four living creatures representing all creation. The lion, the ox, humanity, the eagle: all creation.

And the four living creatures….full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” Revelation 4:8, ESV

Night and day, never ceasing. Here we are for a moment; the Lord's Day comes and it goes. It is so transitory that the service is almost ended before we even get into it. It comes and it goes. And we work and we toil and we struggle. But yet they surround him day and night, incessantly praising his name! We try to hit the tune. We try to catch it. We try to pray the prayer as our children are grabbing us and distracting us. We try to engage with our minds, our hearts, our souls and our strength. But yet we are so distracted. We try to pray with the pastor with our eyes closed, and we think about a million other things! We start reading the Bible with the intent to read through the entire thing for this year, and we are in the middle of January and we already missed, and we stop. We try to pray as a family; we try to pray as individuals; we devote ourselves to this new spiritual discipline, but yet we fail. We try to get up, we try to be excited and we try to come eager to church, but yet we are exhausted. In that place, though, all creation does nothing else than worship day and night, never ceasing.

And when all creation gives glory and honour and thanks to that One who sits upon the throne who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders (a symbol of the Church, representatives of all the people of God) fall down before him who sits there. They worship him. They cast down their crowns. Remember, they were upon those lesser thrones surrounding the Lord. The Church at the right hand of Jesus Christ, exalted and raised with him to sit with him in the heavenly places, given a crown of glory! “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Yet they get out of their seats when they hear the cry of creation, which is forever and never ceasing. They fall before him, prostrating themselves, taking their crowns which Christ has given to them, and they cast them back down before Christ and the Lord who sits upon the throne.

And they cry out. It was no work of their own. They cry out, having received a crown but yet giving it back. They cry out, having received salvation but yet giving it to the Lord, because he completely, from beginning to end, has given it to them.

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. Revelation 4:11, ESV

It is a place of worship. Our whole life is to be unto the glory of God. Our chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

We cannot do that now. We are fallen. We are creatures. We are sinful. We are bound by time. We are finite people. All the cares of the world are upon our shoulders. But yet, Revelation 14 says so wonderfully the promise of God to those of us who have experienced death and all of us who will ultimately experience death:

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” Revelation 14:13, ESV

We only have, as our catechism teaches us, a beginning of the everlasting Sabbath day. When we die (when we “fall asleep,” as Paul would say) and when we go to be with the Lord, we shall be blessed. We shall cease from our labours and we shall enter completely that rest, clothed in white robes of Christ's righteousness, crowned with glory and honour—crowns which we will never wear, but we will give back to him for ever and ever, crying out to him, “Holy, holy, holy! Worthy are you, our Lord and our God!”

So what is that place like? John cannot even fully describe it. I cannot even tell you. As Paul says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). This is just one faint glimpse. This is just one crayon drawing. This is just a reflection, an analogy to us. Something for us to grasp our hope upon. But how much greater will it be than even this when we shall see the Lord face-to-face?