Revelation 4:2

ἐπὶ τὸν θρόνον. With אAB2; Text. Rec[145] reads ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου with P 1.

[145] Rec. Textus Receptus as printed by Scrivener.

2. ἐγενόμην ἐν πνεύματι. As Revelation 1:10 q.v. Up till now, though seeing a supernatural sight, and hearing a supernatural voice, he had not felt himself brought into a supernatural state.

ἔκειτο, i.e. was there already—not that he saw it put in its place. There is a description of the Throne of God in the apocryphal Book of Enoch xiv. 17–23, very like this: probably St John had read it (cf. Jude 1:15), and his language shews quotations of it, as well as of the canonical passages in Ezekiel 1 and Daniel 7.

ἐπὶ τὸν θρόνον καθήμενος. God the Father, not the Trinity: the manifestation of the other Persons being otherwise indicated, Revelation 4:5; Revelation 5:6. It is intimated, though with an intentional vagueness, that the Divine Presence was symbolised by a human Form, as in Isaiah 6:1; Isaiah 6:5; Ezekiel 1:26 sq.; Daniel 7:9 : contrast Deuteronomy 4:12, but compare Exodus 24:10-11; Exodus 33:23. Apparently God revealed Himself by such symbols to men whom He had educated to such a point that they should not imagine them to be more than symbols. Therefore perhaps to attempt to include representations of the Father in the range of Christian art is rather of dangerous boldness than ipso facto illegitimate: see on this question Ruskin’s Modern Painters, Part III. Sec. ii. Chap. v. § 7.