The Lion

RV81-01

God in His Throne Room

Seven Flaming Torches

Four Living Creatures

Lucifer

Cherubs

Covered with Eyes

To the extent that you and I follow in that pattern, through the intake of doctrine into our souls, we also develop this discernment. We get eyes on the front, and we get eyes in the back. We can see the past, and we can relate it to the future. These living creature angels are simply absolutely immersed in complete total immersion of the concepts of the Word of God. They understand divine viewpoint truth, so they have perfect understanding.

The great thing to realize is that, someday, we too are going to be just like these living creatures in that respect, because we too will, one day, be authorities around the throne of God. That is part of what we are destined to be as rulers with Jesus Christ. The time will come when we will have that kind of maximum discernment concerning the will of God and the purposes of God.

Just to review, for a moment, the picture that we had, looking down at the throne of God from a top view: We saw that the living angels were positioned with one on each side of the throne of God, so the description was that they were around the throne of God, and they were in the midst of the throne of God. It's important to keep that arrangement in mind. We'll look at that in just a moment.

So, beginning now in verse 7, we have a further description of these four living creature cherub angels. Verse 7 said, "The first living creature was like a lion. The word "like" is the Greek word "homoios." The word "homoios" is an adjective, and it means "resembling." It refers to the appearance of the face of each of these living creature angelic beings. They were not actually these animals that are described. But when you looked at the face, it had the face like this particular animal.

A Lion

Royalty

An Ox

Again, the ox, in the animal world, is the chief representative of domesticated animals. He is the prime example of domesticated animals. The ox figure connotes the concept of laborious service. We have this illustrated in 1 Corinthians 9:9: "For it is written in the Law of Moses, 'Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads out the grain.' Does God take care for oxen?" The whole point here is that the Scriptures recognize that the ox is a servant animal. It's an animal that labors, and because of its labor, it has a right to eat of some of the grain which it itself is grinding out in the mill.

A Man

Originally, man was made a little lower than the angels. But when we get to 1 Corinthians 6:3, the apostle Paul talks to us about going to a court of law when Christians have a disagreement between them. And he calls our attention to the fact that we ought to resolve these factors between ourselves. And the reason for this, Paul says, is: "Don't you know that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life?" So, for a little period of time, we are now underneath angels, because angels have capacities that we don't have. We are time-space limited creatures. Angels are not. But when it's all over, man will be the highest example of God's rational creatures, and we will be superior to angels.

In dealing with the figure of man, the figure connotes the humanitarian qualities that are involved here around the throne of God. This is indicated to us in Ezra 9:6, where Ezra says, "And said, O my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to you, my God, for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespasses grown up unto heavens." Ezra says, "I, as a human being (my face); I'm ashamed to lift it up to look you in the eye, God, because of our sins; because of our evil; and, because of how we have violated those which are Your rules." So, there is this humanitarian quality – this concern for human shortcomings.

A Flying Eagle

In the case of the flying eagle, we go to Job 39:27 to get some indication of how the Scripture looks at the eagle: "The eagle mounts up at Your command, and makes her nest on high. She dwells and abides on the crag of the rock and the strong place. From there, she seeks the prey, and her eyes behold afar off. Her young ones also suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is she." So, the eagle, with his capacity to fly into the highest heavenly areas, connotes a heavenly majesty. That's the significance of this king of this particular realm of God's creatures – the king of the bird realm. And this creature is associated with heavenly activity.

The Tabernacle

This is indicated to us in Hebrews 8:1-5. The writer says, "Now the things which we have spoken, this is the sum. We have such a High Priest who is seated on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Wherefore, it is of necessity that this Man have somewhat also to offer. For if He were on earth, He should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the Law, who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. As Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle. 'For see,' He said, 'that you make all things according to the pattern shown you in the mount.'"

Moses was reminded that he was to have the tabernacle built precisely according to the plan that God had given. They were not to play architect on their own, and redesign the thing, and rearrange it, and say, "This would be a more efficient way of laying this thing out. God was saying to Moses, "I have given you a plan that specifically reflects what is in My throne room, and specifically what takes place in My throne room."

So, the pattern of the earthly tabernacle was the heavenly tabernacle. Also, Hebrews 9:23-24: "It was, therefore, necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves, with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the true (which are the pattern of the true), but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."

So, what the writer of Hebrews is saying is that the tabernacle on earth, in which all this religious exercise was carried on, was symbolic of what the priest, Jesus Christ, our High Priest, had to do someday in heaven in making the ultimate provision for human sin. Remember, that there is only one ultimate provision for human sin, and that was the death, and the shedding of the blood through that death, of a person who Himself was absolutely sinless. That's why you had to have the God-man, Jesus Christ, to fulfill that. The provision of salvation was Christ performing, in heaven, the sacrifice of Himself, as was symbolically performed here on earth in the earthly tabernacle.

So, the requirement for eternal life thus has to be something that God does entirely, apart from any human element introduced. That was the thing that He's stressing in Hebrews. He said, "These men on earth went through a certain ritual. They did it. And because they could do it, it was human doing, but it did not amount to anything – no matter how much they did anything." And, of course, all these ceremonies were prescribed. All these rituals were prescribed. No matter how much they did them, they could not bring peace with God. They could not bring a person to the position of eternal life. They could not secure absolute righteousness.

A system of securing absolute righteousness had to be devised in which man had no part. In other words, the ritual had to be all thrown out. Until the ritual was thrown out, there was no hope for a person to have eternal life. That's why a lot of people are going to die; who are church members; and, who believe that God is going to accept them, and they're going to find themselves in hell in the lake of fire. That is because they have attached human ritual to the absolute gift of God, which the tabernacle pictured in the wilderness was a losing game. No matter how much they did, even though God told them to do it, it could never make it for them with God. It required something that God ultimately did on this pattern, but did it on His own, apart from their association. So, this tabernacle was significant in its symbolic relationship to this very throne in heaven. It represented the throne room itself.

In the wilderness, these tribes were arranged three on each side. In each of these divisions, there was one chief tribe. On the east side, the chief tribe was Judah. On the south side, the chief tribe was Reuben. On the west side, the chief tribe was Ephraim. On the north side, the chief tribe was Dan. As these segments gathered themselves around this symbol of God's heavenly throne room, they also gathered themselves, interestingly enough, the Bible tells us, under the banner of these chief representative tribes.

For example, in Numbers 2:3, we have this particular arrangement laid out for us: "On the east side, toward for the rising of the sun, shall they of the standard of the camp of Judah encamp." On the east side, they were to gather under the standard (under the flag) of the camp of Judah. Numbers 2:10 tells us that: "On the south side shall be the standard of the camp of Reuben. Then Numbers 2:18 tells us that on the west side shall be the standard of the camp of Ephraim. And then Numbers 2:25 tells us that the standard of the camp of Dan shall be on the north side.

The Hebrew rabbis were responsible for keeping the details of the tradition relative to the Jewish people from their earliest history. They were very careful in keeping details of their tradition. They were very careful about everything that had to do with their associations with God, and with the Scriptures. That's why we have such an excellent preservation of the Old Testament Hebrew text. It is better, in many respects, than we have of the Greek New Testament text. The reason for this was that they so esteemed the Word of God, that they went through all kinds of techniques to ensure that there were no mistakes in copying the Word of God from the original writers of those Scriptures.

It was very impressive, a few years ago, when a shepherd boy near the Dead Sea was climbing around, in that terribly hot desert, in those multiple caves that are there, and amusing himself by pitching rocks into the caves. He pitched a rock in a cave, and suddenly heard something that sounded like it broke. He pitched another one in, and it sounded like something broke again. So, he climbed up, because it is some height from below. It's not an easy thing. When I was there two summers ago, I asked our tour guide if I could climb up there, and he told me I would hurt myself, so he didn't let us climb up there. Anyhow, it was way up there, and it was kind of interesting to know that you are right on that spot.

Well, the kid walks in there, and lo and behold, he finds a bunch of clay pots. They take the pots, and they find that what's in them are scrolls. Thus, they were given the name of the Dead Sea Scrolls, because it was adjacent to the Dead Sea. And on those scrolls was a copy of the Old Testament Hebrew text that was 1,000 years earlier than any Hebrew text that we had at that time. Now, isn't this going to be interesting, when the scholars get hold of that; unroll these things; and, lay them out? Of course, that was quite a job in itself, because they were so old. And then they would see what's on those scrolls as the Hebrew text, and then match it up to our Hebrew Bible today. It was 1,000 years earlier than the earliest manuscript we had from which we got the Hebrew Bible at that time. Lo and behold, there was no contradiction. It had the same text, 1,000 years earlier, that we had in the Masoretic text today, in all practical effects. So, this was an enormous testimony to the care of the Jews, and their concern for the Word of God, and for the preserving of their tradition.

One of the things that the rabbis preserved that, in this case, is of some interest to us, is that they had preserved what was on the flag of each of these leading tribes under whose banner this segment of the people of Israel gathered when they were in their encampment around the symbol of God's throne room. Interestingly enough, guess what's on the emblem of the tribe of Judah? The flag had the picture of a lion. And on the emblem of Reuben was the picture of a human being. On the flag of Ephraim, the rabbis preserved that the emblem was that of an ox. And on the flag of Dan, was an eagle. Isn't that fascinating? Under each of these emblems was the very picture of the animal that is on the face of the living creature cherub angels that surround the throne of God in heaven.

The wilderness banners surrounding the earthly throne room were there to symbolize the nature of God's government on the earth over the people of Israel. When you thought about God in His dealings with the people of Israel, these banners, under which they gathered, symbolized the nature of God's government. He governed as the Lion King. He governed in terms of His sensitivity to humanitarian needs. He governed as the one who served His people – the faithful serving ox. He governed as the one who was Himself God of Gods, and Lord of Lords, and thus soared in the heavenlies as does the eagle. So, these banners under which they gathered carried great significance to the people of Israel. These were the banners under which Israel was led by God, from slavery in Egypt into the joy and the rest of the Promised Land.

And, lo and behold, John gets into the throne room of heaven, of which all this was a symbol here in the wilderness, and he looks, and there he sees the same banners under which our Lord is going to lead us into the joy and the rest of the heavenly Promised Land. John undoubtedly, in his mind, immediately connected back with this picture in the wilderness, and realized the significance of what he was seeing in these living creature angels surrounding the throne of God, and what they could notice concerning God's judicial authority – His ruling government, that which characterized His ways.

These four living creatures symbolized the nature of God's government in the earth. They are symbolizing qualities which come into operation when God acts as judge over His universe. The cherub of angels, as we've already seen, are closely associated with God's governing authority. The first reference we have in the Bible to cherub angels is, of course, in Genesis 3:24, where the cherub angels are put at the gate of the Garden of Eden to protect the way (the access) to the tree of life. Of course, the reason they are there is because they are acting in behalf of the holiness of God, and preventing a man, who has now fallen into sin, to be able to violate that holiness, which says, "You do not have access to the tree of life while you are in the condition of less than absolute righteousness."

The last reference to cherubs is in Hebrews 9:5, where we read, "And over it, the cherubim of glorying shadowing the mercy seat, of which we cannot speak, particularly now." There he is referring to the lid on the Ark of the Covenant, which was here in the holy of holies, and which had on top of it these two angels which were facing one another.

The Number "4"

The character of God's government, as symbolized by the four living creatures, is a government over human beings. This government is pictured by the Lord Jesus Christ. The government of Jesus Christ in the millennium is going to be characterized by the symbols of the lion; the human; the ox; and, the eagle. The very qualities of the Lord Jesus Christ, that characterize Him supremely, were these qualities as symbolized by these animals. The roles that He has played are symbolized by these animals: as the King; as the one who is 100% human being; as the One who came as the serving One, the servant of Jehovah; and, as the eagle representing His deity, the one who is 100% divine.

The Four Gospels

In Revelation 5:5, we read, "And one of the elders said unto him, 'Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll, and to loose its seven seals.'" When we come to the scroll with the seven seals on it, there is concern as to who is going to be able to break these seven? Who's qualified to do it? They're told, "Have no fear. The one who is of the root of David, the Lion of the tribe of Judah (which, of course, is Jesus Christ) is here and qualified to do that – to break the seals."

Matthew

What the Scripture is saying here in its original language is: "Baptizing them, incidentally, as you go," because it is very clear in the Greek language that the baptizing is not the primary thing. The primary thing is in verse 20: "Teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you," and in the process of which, you will also be performing a ritual with all of its significance. But the whole point is that the rules (the teaching – the commandments) of Jesus Christ are the things that bear supreme authority, because He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is the king.

So, He sends his followers, in fact, on such a mission. The whole book of Matthew stresses the fact that he is King. In Matthew 1:1, the book opens with the declaration: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." And it ends with this declaration in Matthew 28:18 that: "All authority is given to Him in heaven and in earth." That is the way you describe a king. He begins by being identified as in the royal line, and he ends by making it very clear that no one has superior power in the universe over Him.

For this reason, the Lord sends His followers on the royal mission to teach Bible doctrine to all mankind. That's the point of the Great Commission. You must be very careful that you don't miss the point of the Great Commission. The point of the Great Commission is to teach Bible doctrine to all mankind. The first point of Bible doctrine that you teach is the doctrine of salvation. Then you keep going through the full counsel of the Word of God. In 1 Peter 2:9, you and I, therefore, are given the title of royalty: "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation of people of His own." We are a royal priesthood because we are members of God's royalty.

The book of Matthew spoke primarily, therefore, to the Jews, to show that Jesus Christ was the promised King. When God led Matthew to write his biography of Jesus Christ, he also guided him through the Spirit of God to select the things from the life of Jesus that were going to establish Him under the banner of the tribe of Judah; under the lion banner; and, under the fact that He was king, and that His rule in the millennium would be characterized by the authority of a supreme king, which is the significance of the living creature in heaven by the throne of God with the face of the lion.

Therefore, the book of Matthew answers many questions which the Jews would want to know about Jesus Christ. They would, of course, be very interested in His family descent, because that would establish His right to the throne of David. They would be very interested in his relationship to the Old Testament Mosaic Law. They would be very concerned as to what His understanding was concerning the kingdom of heaven on this earth. The Jews were not mistaken in envisioning a kingdom on this earth. Only amillennialists are mistaken about that. But the Jews knew full well.

His mother, Mary, knew absolutely what the angel meant when she said, "He will rule from His father David's throne." She never envisioned some kind of symbolic throne in heaven. She knew exactly what he was talking about – that this was an earthly throne in the line of King David. She knew what her own genealogy was. So, she knew that her little baby boy was fully qualified to fulfill that role. But the Jewish people would want to know what His relationship was to all these Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah: about where He was born; about His character; and, about what He'd be able to do. The Old Testament told a lot of things that marked who the Messiah would be – His healing miracles and His miracle-producing qualities.

All of these were His credentials. So Matthew sits down and says, "I'm going to write a gospel (a biography) which answers those questions." He deals with matters in the life of Jesus which are pertinent to His ruling authority as King of the Jews, the Lion.

King of the Jews

Son of David

Prophecy

Messiah

Jewish Customs

The Law

The Kingdom of Heaven

Old Testament Prophets

So, the gospel of Matthew is the historic link between the Old and the New Testament. It shows how the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament record. In the early decades of Christianity, therefore, the gospel of Matthew, about the Lion, was the most highly revered and read of all the four gospels. The grand theme of Matthew is that Jesus of Nazareth is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, in the line of David, and is the Royal King and Messiah – the Savior of Israel.

Christ's Family Tree

The reason Matthew stops at Abraham is because Abraham was the original one with whom God made His covenant of everlasting blessing upon the Jewish people. It was to Abraham that God said, "You will be My people forever." "The Jews will be My special people forever, and you will, in time, have a king through which you will rule over all nations." So, Matthew, because he is speaking primarily to the Jews, shows that Jesus Christ is tied back to this great promise to Abraham. He answers these questions because the line of connection is very important to the Jews. Matthew is writing of Jesus as the King of the Jews, so it goes only back to Abraham.

Jesus Christ is not of the bloodline of Joseph. That's also important. Joseph and Mary are his parents. Normally, a child would be born with these two bloodlines brought together. But again, Matthew is very careful to say something that gives us an important bit of information. Matthew 1:16: "And Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ." Here is where the beautiful Greek testament comes in to answer an important question. What does "of whom" mean? To whom does "of whom" refer back to? You can't tell that from the English, because the English language does not distinguish whether it's talking about a male or a female, but the Greek language does. This expression "of whom" in the Greek Bible is feminine. So, we know that it is not referring back to the male Joseph, but it is referring back to the female Mary. Matthew makes it very clear that the genealogy line of Jesus comes like this: nothing from Joseph; only from Mary, His mother.

The line of Joseph was under a curse. This is a cursed line. And that's one reason that the royal line of the Messiah King could not come through Joseph. Matthew has to make it very clear to the people to whom he is writing (who are Jews), who knew all this, that Jesus had absolutely no bloodline relationship to Joseph, because when they traced Joseph's line of the family line back, they found that, back in Joseph's line, was a man named (well, let's call him) Jeconiah. Sometimes the name "Coniah" is used for this same man. Jeconiah and Coniah are the same person. The Jews knew that, in Jeremiah 22:24, Jeconiah was spoken of. Jeconiah was of the royal line of Israel. He was the king:

"'As I live,' says the Lord, 'though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet I would pluck you from there. And I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. And I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born. There you shall die. But to the land to which they desire to return, there they shall not return. Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? Is he a vessel in which is no pleasure? Why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they don't know?' O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, 'Write (that is, record in the genealogies) this man as childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days, for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.'"

This does not mean that Coniah (Jeconiah) did not have descendants (children). He did. The Bible names them for us, but they are recorded in the genealogies as if he was childless, because God said, "Because of what this man has done, I now place a curse upon him, and nobody in his line will ever rule from David's throne." And Joseph is born in that line. If the Lord Jesus had been born with Joseph as a human father, it would have violated the Scripture, and He could not have been called the Lion of the tribe of Judah – the King of the Jews. He could not fulfilled the role that that living creature represented with the lion's face.

Matthew 1:12 gives us this man: "And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Salathiel," and so on. So, Jeconiah is included here in Joseph's line in Matthew 1:12. So, the names "King Jehoiachin," "Coniah," and "Jeconiah" are all the same man. He has been removed as having any line of descendants in the royal line. Matthew carefully declares that Jesus was not born of Joseph's line. We are told in Matthew 1:20 that the Lord Jesus, instead, was born by a supernatural pregnancy without a human father. Thus, having no human father, He escaped the genetic problem of the old sin nature. It is through the genes of the father that the old sin nature is transmitted to the child. Thus, with a supernatural birth through Mary only, the mother does not pass the old sin nature to the children. Jesus Christ was right back to where Adam started. Again, on the face of the earth, there was an absolutely perfect sinless human being who was not born with the stain of Adam's guilt, which has been imputed to the rest of us, because we are born from Adam's line, and we have had that guilt passed on to us through our fathers.

Instead, Jesus was born entirely free of the old sin nature. Matthew 1:20 says, "But while he (that is, Joseph) thought on these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, you son of David, don't fear to take unto you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit." It was a special divine pregnancy.

The living creature with the lion's face, standing by the Father's throne in heaven, declares the rule of the Father through His Son Jesus Christ as Sovereign King of mankind. You and I of the church are going to share that royal authority with the Lord in the Millennium. People today treat God's word with indifference; with contempt; and, with rebellion. But in time, God the Father is going to exercise His judicial authority as represented by this cherub angel with the lion face. He is going to exercise terrible judgment through His Son on those who are disobedient.

You are a very foolish person if you think that you can read the Word of God; ignore it; dismiss it; reject it; and, treat it with indifference, and not pay an enormous price. You are a very foolish Christian if you think you can go very far in your day-by-day life without the intake of doctrine into your soul on a daily basis. For God has a totally different point of view. Psalm 138:2: "I will worship toward Your holy temple and praise Your name, for Your loving kindness and for Your truth. For You have magnified Your Word above all Your name." That's an impressive statement: "You have magnified Your Word (the Bible) above Your name." The Bible is magnified above all that God stands for that is represented by His name.

In Mark 13:31, we read, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Words shall not pass away."

In Matthew 4:4, we read, "That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God."

In Hebrews 4:12, we were told, "The Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and contents of the heart."

Then, in John 10:35 is the clincher of God and His word, where the Lord Jesus declares: "The Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken."

So, when we deal with the Word of God, the book of Matthew is a little example of how exact, and how supernatural, is the product of this biography of Jesus Christ. With God, there is nothing more important than you becoming acquainted with the knowledge of His Word of God, because this is where you have your confidence. If you have any confidence in the person of Jesus Christ today, as being the king of the Jews; the Messiah of Israel; and, all that He claims, and if you can speak confidently to any Jew who rejects this Savior, it is because of what you have learned in the Word of God. It is because of all the care that Matthew demonstrated in the very genealogy of Jesus Christ, so that His family line, and everything else about Him, qualified Him to be the Messiah Savior.

The living creature with the lion's face tells what is ahead for the world when Christ, as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, comes to rule the millennial earth. And wonder of wonders, those of us who are born again by grace, apart from human doings, on the basis of the death of Christ, are going to be co-rulers with Him over that world.

If you look closely at one another, you can see the beginning features of a lion's face on each of you, in your mind's eye. It's there. You're going to exercise that image completely.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1982

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