Canter Bridge

It matters very much whom we worship.

The otherwise diverse biblical witness finds unanimity around this point. We may wish for some wiggle room, some space for our personal preferences to be registered. Alas, Scripture allows none.

The 19th chapter of the Book of Revelation creaks and wobbles almost to the collapsing point with its slightly crazed visions of beings loyal to YHWH over against a motley collection of those who have long since rebelled again heaven’s benign Tyrant.

And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne, saying, ‘Amen. Hallelujah!’ And from the throne came a voice saying, ‘Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.’ (Revelation 19:4–5 ESV)

Similar visions scattered across the Scriptural landscape place immense and fearsome creatures near the throne. Here, the colloquy that gathers about the throne is identified as ‘the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures’.

One might fairly have expected some kind of co-regency alongside of YHWH or at least a token nod at the dignity of such heavenly rulers, if that is what they are. We find nothing of the sort.

Instead, they fall down and worship God. That is all.

The anonymous voice proceeding from the throne names this falling down of great and, we soon learn, of small:

Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.

The throne-shadowed elders and the living creatures who join them are, it appears, simply servants in the presence of this enthroned God. The text finds it more natural to group them with the human readers of John’s Revelation that it would have been to associate them with God on heaven’s side of the cosmos. We observe this small and very great detail of classification in two ways. First, the summons to doxology comes to ‘all you his servants … small and great.’ This presumably includes the grandest of heavenly worshippers and the smallest earthly ones.

Second, he is ‘our God’, a descriptor that once again links the large and the small in the company of his servants and worshippers. The big dudes, heaven’s movers and shakers, are on our side. Not his.

As though it were not enough simply to name this remarkable ordering of doxology and service, John’s experience drives it home via a kind of visionary case study.

And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are the true words of God.’ Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.’ (Revelation 19:9–10 ESV)

Overawed by the majesty of his heavenly interlocutor, John makes the mistake of slipping for a moment from awe into worship. The error is quickly corrected, for we don’t do things like that around here.

Today we would find a path to empathy for confused John as he tries to keep track of all manner of unspeakable things in the noisy white heat of heaven.

The text, in contrast, has no patience with slippery spirituality. John’s error is not excusable, the seer learns by way of his angel guide’s stern rebuke.

Even the greatest creatures worship only God as they serve within the bounds of their respective commissions. Creation, we surmise, if full of things that might make an awestruck body fall down before them and begin that transfer of loyalty that we call worship.

Shockingly, only One merits such obeisance. All the rest are—merely—fellow servants.