Same view of heaven - 13 centuries later !

It's probably happened to you, too. Somebody is so familiar with a piece of equipment or a recipe that they can walk you through it over the phone - it's almost like you're both right there, seeing it together.

Our new furnace was acting up a couple months ago. The on-call technician offered to help me trouble shoot it over the phone. He told me which panel screws to remove and where to look for an indicator light. The blinking light would give us an indication of the malfunction. At first, I didn't see any light and told him so. "Try looking a little lower on the panel," he suggested, "you have to look under the blower motor." Sure enough, just as he anticipated over the phone, I bent a knee and immediately saw the light - like we were both there.

Pretty slick use of technology for two people using the phone at the same time. But what if two people were to similarly describe the same scene, separated by centuries of time - about a place no other people had seen, where supernatural beings dwell. Now that would be...transcendent!

That's what our faith group came upon at bible study some weeks back. 

The prophet Isaiah described his revelation from God around the year 700 B.C. In part, Isaiah wrote to warn the people of Judah to expect exile to Babylon. The exile indeed came to pass 100 years later. In one of his prophetic visions, Isaiah said, Isaiah 6: 1-3

"I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;

the whole earth is full of his glory.” 

The Bible is filled with prophetic visions from God. It's easy - and tempting - for me to sometimes gloss over these mysterious words and read on to more easily understood "reality."

But another person from our faith group caught a gem of detail I'd missed (this is why we need to study with the community of believers, we learn so much more together!). 

Looking ahead to the end of the first century, 800 years after Isaiah... the Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation. My wife and I visited the Island of Patmos (photo) where John experienced and documented the revelation he received from God. It's a real place, right there in the Aegean Sea, not all that far from Ephesus, Turkey. John had been in the company of Jesus Christ during his ministry. In Revelation 4:2-8, John recalls:

"Im­me­di­ately I was in the Spirit; and be­hold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne....Be­fore the throne there was a sea of glass, like crys­tal. And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, were four liv­ing crea­tures full of eyes in front and in back. 

The first liv­ing crea­ture was like a lion, the sec­ond liv­ing crea­ture like a calf, the third liv­ing crea­ture had a face like a man, and the fourth liv­ing crea­ture was like a fly­ing eagle. 

The four liv­ing crea­tures, each hav­ing six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, say­ing:

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,

Who was and is and is to come!”

Both prophets saw the sovereign Lord on his throne, and both saw the company of special angels, the Seraphim; with six distinctive wings and both heard continuous streams of praise,

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!

As my study friend astutely noted..It's as though both prophets were given a window to the same scene, the very dwelling of God himself. And within the limitations of human description, they both clearly discerned that the Lord was exalted and praised. This wasn't abstract art or flowery prose, they both saw what God revealed to them in real time. More like FaceTime or Zoom, then a mere telephone call with your repair technician, like....they were both there.

It's easy to wave this off as a parlor trick or purely symbolic in a way common to apocalyptic literature. And who's to say that John didn't copycat the idea from Isaiah? And why/how did John offer so much more detail about the scene than Isaiah? 

But prophets did not, and could not lie or misrepresent their intent. The penalty for that was death (Deuteronomy 18:20). Like anything in the Bible, I approach it with the faith it is due - a reliable historic and Holy Spirit-inspired account of God's intent. 

God's purpose isn't to confuse or complicate matters for us. I go with Isaiah and John on this one. I believe they glimpsed the real deal. What an amazing - and eternal - time of joyful worship is still before us.

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Who was, and is, and is to come.

What do you believe?