The Throne · The Symbolism of Scripture
The Throne
A throne is not a chair and not a crown. It is the place a decision is actually made — and Scripture keeps showing it to men in the years their own world was coming apart. The last time it appears, there is a river coming out of it.
What It Stands For
— the place a decision is actually madeThrones in the ancient world were working furniture. A king sat in the gate to hear cases; the seat was where petitions arrived, verdicts were given and appointments were made. Scripture uses the word that way — the Hebrew כִּסֵּא kisse (H3678) covers an ordinary seat as well as a royal one — and never treats the throne as decoration.
Which is why the visions are given when they are given. A man whose king has just died, or whose nation has just been deported, is not asking whether God is impressive. He is asking whether anything is still being decided, and the answer he is shown is a seat with someone in it.
- Micaiah1 Kings 22:19On the day two kings had agreed to a war that would kill one of them.The LORD sitting on His throne, with all the host of heaven standing by.
- IsaiahIsaiah 6:1In the year that King Uzziah died — the end of a fifty-two-year reign.The Lord high and lifted up, and His train filling the temple.
- EzekielEzekiel 1:26By a canal in Babylon, a deported priest five years into exile.A sapphire throne, and on it the likeness as the appearance of a man.
- DanielDaniel 7:9Under a foreign empire, having just watched four beasts come out of the sea.Thrones set, the Ancient of Days seated, and the court sitting in judgment.
- JohnRevelation 4:2On Patmos, exiled, writing to seven churches under pressure.A throne set in heaven, and One sitting on it.
Its Presentation Through Scripture
— thirteen stops, in canon order — and Scripture's own links markedMicaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left.
The first throne room a prophet describes. Two kings are sitting on their own thrones in the gate of Samaria while he says it — the scene is deliberately staged against theirs.
The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD is on His heavenly throne. His eyes are watching closely; they examine the sons of men.
The throne is in heaven, and what the verse says about it is not that it is high but that His eyes are open. A throne, in Scripture, is a place from which things are seen.
God reigns over the nations; God is seated on His holy throne.
God reigns over the nations and sits on the throne of His holiness — the psalm's word for the seat is holiness, not power.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted; and the train of His robe filled the temple.
In the year that a long-reigning king died, a prophet sees the Lord on a throne, and the robe alone fills the building.
Above the expanse over their heads was the likeness of a throne with the appearance of sapphire, and on the throne high above was a figure like that of a man.
The most careful sentence in the Bible about what is on the throne, and it is stacked with hedges — the likeness of a throne, and upon it the likeness as the appearance of a man.
As I continued to watch, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took His seat. His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze.
Thrones plural are set, and the Ancient of Days sits. Four beasts have just come out of the sea, and the answer to them is a court convening.
When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne.
Jesus puts Himself on it, in His own teaching, and the scene He describes next is a shepherd separating a mixed flock.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
And He sat down. The whole argument of Hebrews turns on a posture — a priest who is seated has finished.
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
The New Testament's one instruction about the throne is not to fear it or admire it. It is to walk up to it, and the adverb is boldly.
To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
An offer nobody would have dared invent: to sit with Him on His throne, as He sat down with His Father on His.
At once I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne standing in heaven, with someone seated on it.
The first thing John sees through the open door is not a place or a light. It is a throne, and someone on it — and the word 'throne' occurs in this one chapter more than a dozen times.
Then I saw a great white throne and the One seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them.
A great white throne, and earth and heaven flee from the face of the One on it. The judgment itself has its own study.
Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
The last mention of the throne in the Bible has a river coming out of it. The seat of power turns out to be the source of the water supply.
Above the expanse over their heads was the likeness of a throne with the appearance of sapphire, and on the throne high above was a figure like that of a man.Count the hedges. Ezekiel will not say he saw a throne, or a man — only the likeness of each.
A sapphire - The pure oriental sapphire, a large well cut specimen of which is now before me, is one of the most beautiful and resplendent blues that can be conceived. I have sometimes seen the heavens assume this illustrious hue. The human form above this canopy is supposed to represent Him who, in the fullness of time, was manifested in the flesh.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Ezekiel 1:26
The azure sapphire answers to the color of the sky. As others are called "sons of God," but He "the Son of God," so others are called "sons of man" (Eze 2:1, 3), but He "the Son of man" (Mt 16:13), being the embodied representative of humanity and the whole human race
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Ezekiel 1:26
Both commentators say “is supposed to” or reason by analogy, and that hedging is right: Ezekiel is describing what he saw and refusing to identify it. The observation that stands without argument is simply this — the shape on the throne of God, in the Bible’s most careful vision, is described as like a man, six centuries before the incarnation.
Thrones plural, and who the Ancient of Days isHippolytus and Matthew Henry on Daniel 7:9
Hippolytus of Rome, in the earliest surviving commentary on Daniel: “And so he does not speak of another Ancient of Days, but indeed the Lord and God and Master of all, the Father of even Christ himself, who is the Ancient of Days, he who does not grow old under time or days”
Matthew Henry, on the verse’s older English rendering: till the thrones were cast down, not only the thrones of these beasts, but all rule, authority, power, that are set up in opposition to the kingdom of God among men
Daniel 7 is a chapter with its own studies and its own live questions of interpretation; what belongs on this page is only the furniture. Beasts rise out of a sea, and the response is not an army — it is thrones being set and a court sitting down.
Where It Points
— a seated priest, and an open invitationLet us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.Three words carry the letter's whole argument: and sat down.
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.The instruction, and the manner. Not 'gaze at' — approach.
No priest in the tabernacle ever sat down; there were no chairs in it, because the work never finished. Hebrews puts its whole case on a posture — and then draws the consequence that turns the throne from something to be feared into somewhere to go.
come--rather as Greek, "approach," "draw near." boldly--Greek, "with confidence," or "freedom of speech" (Eph 6:19). the throne of grace--God's throne is become to us a throne of grace through the mediation of our High Priest at God's right hand (Heb 8:1; Pleading our High Priest Jesus' meritorious death, we shall always find God on a throne of grace.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Hebrews 4:16
Since, he says, we have a sinless High Priest Who conquered the world, Who said: "Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world" (John 16:33), we ought to approach with boldness, that is, not with a burdensome conscience, without wavering
Theophylact of Ohrid· Commentary on Hebrews, 1107Eastern Orthodox
Hebrews 4:16
JFB name the mechanism exactly: the throne becamea throne of grace, and it became one through a mediator. The same seat that made Isaiah say “woe is me” is the seat Hebrews tells its readers to walk up to — and the difference between those two sentences is a Person, not a change of mood.
Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the LambThe last thing the Bible says about the throne is where the water comes from.
And since the mind of the faithful is opened by the Holy Spirit, and that is manifested to them which was also foretold to the fathers, he distinctly says:- "And, behold, a throne was set in heaven." The throne set: what is it but the throne of judgment and of the King?
Victorinus of Pettau· Commentary on the Apocalypse, 304Earliest Latin commentator
Revelation 4:2
And rising in the Spirit, since the ascent was neither physical nor perceptible by the senses. I see, it says, a throne, and God upon it.
Oecumenius· Commentary on Revelation, 550Greek commentator
Revelation 4:2
What Scripture says outright
- Hebrews 4:16
Scripture names the throne itself — the throne of grace — and gives the instruction attached to it.
- Matthew 25:31
Jesus places Himself on the throne of His glory, in His own teaching, without qualification.
- Revelation 3:21
The overcomer is offered a seat on it — the boldest sentence about the throne anywhere in Scripture, and it is His.
What readers have heard in it
Readings named as readings.
- Ezekiel 1:26
That the human likeness on the sapphire throne is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. Clarke and others take it so, and Ezekiel’s own hedging is the reason this page names it as a reading. What the text says is: the likeness as the appearance of a man.
- Daniel 7:9
That the plural “thrones” are for the saints who judge (1 Corinthians 6:2), or for the twenty-four elders, or for the court itself. Daniel does not say who sits in them, and the readings are all inferences from elsewhere.
The Voices
— named, with the work to go and readTwo of the three earliest commentators on Revelation are here — Victorinus of Pettau, who died in the persecution of 304 and whose commentary is the oldest that survives, and Oecumenius — and both stop at the same phrase in Revelation 4:2, which is worth noticing: the vision begins with a seat, and everything in the book is arranged around it. Hippolytus does the same work in Daniel three centuries earlier. On the New Testament side JFB and Theophylact both press the word “boldly” and refuse to soften it, and Clarke — of all people, holding a sapphire up to the light while he writes — is the one who makes Ezekiel’s colour real.
Where Marcus Lands
A prophet in the year his king died; a deported priest by a foreign canal; an exile on a rock — each shown the same seat, still occupied. And a letter telling ordinary people to walk up to it.
Where to Go Next
— grouped, because a pile of titles is not a hand-offThe throne, and the studies around it
Where a throne room is the whole scene
Where the seat means something
Where the picture goes on
Its neighbours in the index
The Symbolism of Scripture gathers every picture the Bible thinks in. This one sits with: