Visions of God
Revelation 1:12: “I saw”. Also see Revelation 1:11-20. Exodus 13:21-2; 14:19, 24; 33:9-10; 24:10; Psalm 78:14; 105:39; Isaiah 6:1-5; Ezekiel 1; 8; Daniel 7:9-10; 1 Cor. 10:1.
Seeing requires light. Light, in the Scriptures, is of a threefold nature: First, the literal light which gives sight to the eyes, revealing natural things; secondly, the light of understanding; thirdly, the light of spiritual revelation. By the light of the eyes man is oriented to his natural surroundings; by the light of understanding he may know abstractions such as truth and beauty; by the light of spiritual revelation, he may know God.
Literal light requires natural eyesight; the light of understanding requires access to the means of illumination usually by the aid of a teacher; spiritual light requires the mediation of the Holy Ghost Who will “lead you into all truth.” Literal meaning may be received by any capable of reading; understanding and perception of truth may be received by those capable of translating symbols; but spiritual revelation comes only through a peculiar and particular relationship and orientation between God and Man.
Mankind ever complains as did Job that God is hidden, but it is not because God chooses to be hidden. It is rather that Man has strayed from his appointed place and therefore cannot see, for the manifestation of God’s light requires a peculiar orientation just as the appearance of the rainbow or the northern lights require certain conditions of orientation between the elements of the phenomena and the viewer. The revelation of the glory of God, the Light Most Precious, is the supreme experience of Beauty.
The book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ describes the manifestation of the Light Most Precious. He is manifest in Light as God is also ever manifest in Light. Jesus is The Light of the World, and we, His people, are the bearers of His Light, the most awesome self-concept possible.
The symbols of the book must therefore be understood as symbols of Light, and not, as has often been supposed, grotesque caricatures of creatures. The symbols are those of the natural lights of the starry heavens: the sun, moon, stars, planets and constellations. Every earthly symbol is too poor to reveal Christ in His glory, and even the symbols of the starry heavens cannot fully reveal Him, for they, too, are at best only symbols, the penultimate but not the ultimate, for
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered the heart of Man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. (1 Cor. 2:9)
We must now see Christ in symbols for we are under the veil, which is our flesh.
For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face: now, I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Cor. 13:12)
Even as the flesh is a veil to us, so also is the heavens a veil in the sense of being the clothing of God: “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain.” (Psalm 104:2). God is clothed with light and the heavens are His garment, or curtain. On this view, then, the most logical way to “unveil” Christ is through this “curtain” and the unveiling is the display of that dazzling heavenly Light, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Although in the symbol the lights are those of the veil, in the reality of the Spirit the veil is removed.
IMAGES
In receiving the Vision, or Revelation, we must be cautioned against concrete images of God for these were forbidden by the second commandment. There was ever, in the writings of the Old Testament, a care taken not to give the manifestation of God a form which could be taken for an idol. The fact cannot be overemphasized that God is a Spirit and therefore cannot be confined to any form. When God revealed Himself in a visible form, according to the Scriptures, He revealed Himself in mediums of Light which, while visible, could never be taken as an idol-form neither could it be made by the works of men’s hands. We may safely say that God is always revealed in some form of light and there is no other visible form in which He has revealed Himself.
Those revelations of light included color, reflections, and luminous displays such as that of fire, smoke, or shaped light such as the rainbow or the shining of precious jewels or the glow of precious metals. This manifestation of light in which God shewed Himself was His visible “glory.” (His glory, however, was also manifest in other than visible forms, for example, the audible Voice.)
Before sin brought about the necessity of the veil, God walked with Adam in an open way, but afterwards He only revealed His Light, or His “glory,” which might also be interpreted His garment. Repeatedly we are told that no man hath seen God. Moses prayed: “I beseech thee, shew me thy glory,” (Exod. 34:18), for he was afraid to ‘see God’ for it meant certain death. How marvelous it is when God breaks through the veil of our doubting flesh to shew us His glory. This Christ did in the Revelation, for He is “the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person.” (Hebrews 1:3)
Appearances of God in Light:
When God appeared to the seventy elders of Israel along with Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, they “saw the God of heaven” but amazingly, He is not described! Rather, the surrounding light is described: “There was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.” (Exod. 24:10
Again, when Isaiah saw his wonderful vision, he, too, hesitates to describe the Lord Himself. He says:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory…for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. (Isaiah 6:1-3, 5d)
We marvel that the prophet evades the central subject of the vision and describes the surrounding scene instead!
Ezekiel also says: “As I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, …the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.” (Ezek. 1:1) He gives a lengthy description of the scene but when he describes the central figure it is in terms of light:
And above the firmament over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire, and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness as it were of a human form. And upward from what had the appearance of his loins I saw as it were gleaming bronze, like the appearance of fire enclosed round about; and downward from what had the appearance of his loins I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness round about him. Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking. (Ezek. 1:26-28, RSV)
In Ezekiel 8 he again describes the vision of God:
A likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire: from the appearance of his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber.”
Then in chapter 40 he simply states that: “Behold, there was a Man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass.”
When Daniel saw the Ancient of Days, he could but describe the light and colour:
Whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: (Daniel 7:9-10)
Here the only thing not described as pure light is that his hair was like the pure wool. Although we might visualize the texture of the wool or its warmth, the writer here, in this context, no doubt had the whiteness of wool in mind, the colour or glow.
We should point out that these visions of the “glory” or Light of God were from heaven; they were high and lifted up. In Ezekiel‘s vision, for example, he gives a full description of the cherubim, the chariots, wheels, and turning fire, giving a feeling of swift and powerful motion. These “living creatures” are rather “moving things,” i.e. the constellations of the stars and their movements in the starry heavens. The wheel itself is the great turning sky, and the wheel-in-the-middle-of-the-wheel is the Lord Jesus Christ, symbolized by the polar circle upon which the apparent movement of the whole universe is turned.
In all these visions, we see that the highest symbols possible to be used in describing God are the symbols of the starry heavens. It is these same symbols which are used in the book of Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Other Manifestations of God in Light:
In two other glorious manifestations of Light, God revealed Himself in the Old Testament to Israel: namely, the Shekinah glory and that mysterious oracle called Urim ve Thummim.
The Shekinah:
At Sinai when Moses had gone up into the Mount to receive the Law, the people departed from the will of God by creating for themselves a visual image to worship to which they attributed the miracle of their deliverance from Egypt. God was so displeased with their idolatrous act that He proposed to Moses that He should destroy them and make Moses and his seed the heirs of the promises. But Moses interceded for the people and begged forgiveness. In granting this forgiveness, God gave them a visible manifestation of Himself to go with them. This was not a concrete image such as an idol could have; not the works of men’s hands, but an image of light, the pillar of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. This manifestation was called the “Shekinah” and offered tangible proof of God’s presence while providing physical guidance for the nation. But this presence was necessarily also a spiritual presence, for when Israel strayed from God morally, His visible presence would remove from their midst until they were again so oriented as to behold the revelation of His glory.
In the time of Christ the faithful in Israel had longed for the return of the Shekinah which had been missing since the days of the destruction of the first temple. The literal interpretation of Shekinah is “He dwells with us.” When Christ became manifest in Light, the event represents the return of the Shekinah glory. The message to the faithful is: “Behold Him! The Shekinah glory” thereby reversing the curse of “Ichabod” which literally means “the glory is departed.” Christ as “Immanuel” is God-with-us; the glory has returned.