Revelation 4:11

An implicit refutation of the dualistic idea, developed by Cerinthus, the traditional opponent of John in Asia Minor, that creation was the work of some angel or power separate from God (Iren. i. 26, iv. 32, Hippol. Haer. vii. 33, x. 1). The enthusiastic assent of the πρεσβύτεροι to the adoration of the Creator is expressed in word as well as in action. σύ emphatic = the usual apocalyptic (R.J., 295, 296) emphasis on creation as a proof of God's power in providence and claims on mankind (e.g.4Ezr 3 4, “thou didst fashion the earth, and that thyself alone”). That God the redeemer is God the creator, forms one of the O.T. ideas which acquire special weight in the Apocalypse. Despite the contradictions of experience and the apparent triumph of Satan, the apocalypses of the age never gave way to dualism. Their firm hope was that the world, ideally God's, would become actually his when messiah's work was done; hence, as here, the assertion of his complete power over nature and nations. “Because thou didst will it (σύ, σου, emphatic) they existed and were created” (act and process of creation). As an answer to polytheism this cardinal belief in God the creator came presently to the front in the second century creeds and apologies. But the idea here is different alike from contemporary Jewish and from subsequent Christian speculation, the former holding that creation was for the sake of Israel (cf. 4 Esd. 6:55, 7:11, 9:13, Apoc. Bar. xiv. 18, 19, xv. 7, Ass. Mos. i. 12, etc., a favourite rabbinic belief), the latter convinced that it was for the sake of the Christian church (cf. Herm. Vis. ii. 4). Nor is there any evident trace of the finer idea (En. iii v., Clem. Rom. xx., etc.) which contrasted the irregularities and impiety of men with the order and obedience of the universe. The conception of the holy ones rendering ceaseless praise in heaven would be familiar to early Christians in touch with Hellenic ideas and associations; e.g., Hekataeus of Abdera, in his sketch of the ideal pious folk, compares them to the priests of Apollo, διὰ τὸ τὸν θεὸν τοῦτον καθʼ ἡμέραν ὑπʼ αὐτῶν ὑμνεῖσθαι μετʼ ᾠδῆς συνεχῶς (Dieterich 36 f., cf. Apoc. Pet. 19 20). Test. Leviticus 3; Leviticus 3 ἐν δὲ τῷ μετʼ αὐτόν εἰσι θρόνοι κ. ἐξουσίαι ἐν ᾧ ὕμνοι ἀεὶ τῷ θεῷ προσφέρονται.