Threes and Fours

The created things that are added to the choir in Revelation 5:13 are divided into four zones: Heaven, earth, under the earth, and sea: Angelic beings and sky creatures, the sun, moon, and stars; all humans and earth-creatures; all dead beings that have been inserted into the earth; and the sea as well. That also implies that both Jews of the land and Gentiles of the sea join in praise.

The Bible sometimes speaks in terms of a three-decker universe: heaven above, earth beneath, and waters under the earth. Here that turns into a four-decker universe, with the dead “under the earth” or “under the land” added. That extension is characteristic of Revelation. The first four trumpets bring judgments on earth, then on the sea, then on the springs of waters and rivers (fresh water), and then on the sun, moon, and stars (8:6-12). Judgment falls on earth, water, sky, but the water has been divided in two, into sea and fresh water. The same thing happens with the first four bowls: Earth, sea, fresh water, and sky (16:2-9). The triple decker universe spreads out to a fourfold universe. Three turns into four; the vertical threeness of the universe is no longer set over against the fourfold horizontal extension of the universe. Instead, vertical and horizontal match. Each is a four. Even within Revelation 5, there has been a development: Search is made in three zones of creation in 5:3; but there are four zones in 5:13.

In Revelation the earth is four high and four wide. Why?

Here’s a tentative suggestion: CE Douglas discusses the configuration of the throne and the creation in his book on Revelation. For the ancients, the heart of the universe was the heavenly throne of the gods, set up in a square. The central square is occupied by the three primary gods in paganism, or the three persons of the Trinity in Christian theology. This is 1 + 2 = 3. This is typically envisioned as a point at the far north of a celestial sphere, as we’ll discuss in a moment. Around this central square is a square turned at a right angle to the original square, which has four triangles pointed in the four directions of the compass. This is 2 x 2 = 4. These are four throne-guardians, watching in every direction. And these link to the four living creatures of Revelation who support the throne of the Triune God. Astronomically, these correspond to the four constellations that mark the change of seasons. Together, the 3fold God and the 4fold creation make a 7; multiplied, a 12.

This is the same geometric form that Greeks later used to describe the four elements. The top/north was fire, the bottom/south was water; the right/east was earth, and the left/west was air. The four qualities that combine to make up these elements are the binaries hot/cold and wet/dry. On the diagram, these are at the corners of the inner square. Starting at the top left and moving clockwise, the qualities are hot, dry, cold, wet. Thus the combination hot-dry yields fire; the combination dry-cold is earth; water is wet-cold, and air wet-hot. Thus at least some ancient scientific models saw an analogy between the structure of matter and the structure of the cosmos as a whole. Blake’s “the world in a grain of sand” expresses an ancient conception of reality. For some ancient intellectuals, this was a very specific correspondence.

Now, with this in mind, we can get a sense of what’s going on in Revelation. Why would the “vertical” dimension of the universe take on another “layer” to correspond with the “horizontal”? The triple-decker universe corresponds to the Threefold God who sits enthroned at the center, surrounded by the square of the four living creatures, who match the four points of the compass. If the triple decking of the vertical universe has become a quadrigal decking, that is meant to imply that the threefold God on the throne becomes a four. Another “God” is added to the throne, the God who is the Lamb. Less poetically, the change in the cosmology means that in the Son humanity has taken the throne beside the Father as a junior created “God.”

Alternatively, we might note that the Lamb Himself takes the place of the fourfold living creatures, becoming the throne of the Father. There is a “fourfold God” on the throne, the Lamb who incorporates all the four living creatures into Himself.

And then we might say: God created the world to fill it with His glory. Earth is to conform to God. But the incarnation disturbs, complicates, glorifies this reality. Earth conforms to God, but in order for that to be fulfilled God the Son conformed to earth. Heaven becomes more like earth when the earthly Lamb ascends there. Earth is to be heavenized; but its heavenization depends on the earthened of heaven. God makes us like Himself by making Himself like us.

Support, if not confirmation, comes from the canticle in Revelation 5:13. To the Enthroned One, the living creatures sing in threes: Triple sanctus, Lord/God/Pantocrator, the Past/Present/Future one (4:8). Once they add the Lamb to their praise, their praise is a four: Blessing, honor, glory, dominion to the Lamb and the one who sits on the throne.