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#SYMBOLS OF THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD FOR FREE#

The song of every creature ascribes four attributes to the Lamb: praise, honor, glory and power. It’s represented in the heavenly throne vision by four living creatures, and it’s also described as having four parts: heaven, earth, under-earth, and sea.

3 represents God, who’s often described in three-part phrases (“who was, and is, and is to come”) and ascribed triple attributes (“holy, holy, holy” “glory and honor and power.”).

As for some of the other numbers in the book, as I write in my Daniel-Revelation study guide: (I have a separate post about this, “ Who are the 144,000 in the book of Revelation?“)Įxamples like these show us what an intentional part numbers play in the book of Revelation’s symbolism, echoing the First Testament background. The number 144,000, for its part, comes from 12 x 12 x 10 x 10 x 10, representing the fullness of the community of believers throughout time and space from the first and new covenants. There are 24 elders in the heavenly throne vision to depict the continuity of the first and new covenant communities.

Twelve can also be used in multiples and in combination with other numbers. (See the Daniel-Revelation study guide, p. See how many times it’s used in the depiction of the New Jerusalem, for example. In Revelation the number 12 is used throughout the book to represent the community. Through this number he was declaring that a new kind of covenant community was coming into existence through his life and ministry. In the New Testament, Jesus himself appealed to this symbol when he chose 12 apostles.

To give another example, since there were twelve tribes of Israel, the number 12 represents the covenant community in the First Testament. The image and the number with its significance are echoed in John’s description of the dragon in Revelation. The last one, representing a supreme empire, has ten horns. But the number means “You’ve reproached me as many times as a human can bear.” Ten meaning what is complete or ultimate in human experience is also seen in Daniel’s vision of the four beasts. The number is also used in this sense when Job says to his friends, “Ten times now you have reproached me.” This is not a literal count, because the friends have only spoken five times to that point in the book. That’s why God gave an epitome of the law in the Ten Commandments. This stock includes some commonly-used numerical symbols that would have been meaningful to John’s readers.įor example, in the First Testament, 10 represents completeness in the human dimension, since people usually have ten figures and ten toes. Throughout the book of Revelation, John is drawing on a stock of recognizable symbols from the First Testament.

#SYMBOLS OF THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD FOR FREE#

(The Revelation study guide can be read online or downloaded for free from this link.) Did John really write with all of this in mind? 3 means God, 4 means creation, 7 means perfection, 10 means completeness, and so forth. In your Revelation study guide you say that there’s a symbolic meaning for the numbers in the book.