My question is concerning Revelation chapter 4 verses 2 and 3.
Rev 4:2 And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.
Rev 4:3 And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.
Who is the one who sits upon the throne? Is this Jesus? If it is, how does it fit with these verses in chapter 5?
Rev 5:6 And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
Rev 5:7 And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.
If the one on the throne is Jesus, and we know that the lamb is Jesus, how does Jesus take the scroll from Himself? If the one on the throne is not Jesus, is it God the Father? If so, how is John able to look upon Him? Any help you could give to this matter would be most appreciated.
The Bible is clear in saying that Jesus is God in the flesh. He told Phillip, “If you’ve seen Me you’ve seen the Father.” (John 14:9) Paul wrote that it pleased the Father to have all His fullness dwell in the Son (Col. 1:19). The writer of Hebrews called Jesus the exact representation of God’s being (Hebr. 1:3)
But that doesn’t mean that God ceased to exist in any other form when Jesus became man. God still exists as our Father and still occupies His throne. That’s who John saw in Rev. 4. Remember he said that he was taken in the Spirit to the Throne of God. To me that means it was an out of body experience where his spirit was transported through time to the end of the age so he could witness the things he wrote about. This can be likened to our spirit going to be with God when our body dies.
Jesus still exists as a man and that’s why John described Him as a “Lamb as it had been slain” in Rev. 5:6. It means Jesus was in the same form as when He was crucified, the form of a man. As such He was a separate being and could take the scroll from His Father.
One of the things that’s so hard to understand is that in order to save mankind from our sins, the eternal Son of God chose to confine Himself forever in the body of a man. He is an exalted man to be sure, but He can never go back to being that which He was before. But although the Son has limited Himself, the Father has not. John, being there in Spirit, was able to see through spiritual eyes the Father and the Son as separate entities.