11 Jun 2013
Revelation 4:3
Revelation 4:3: “And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.”
Here John describes the glory that surrounds the throne – and the glory of the One who is on it. My guess is that the one that sat upon the throne is God the Father, not God the Son. I think this because in chapter 5 the Lamb approaches the throne and takes a book out of the right hand of the Person on the throne. It seems unlikely that Jesus is both the Lamb in front of the throne and the Person sitting on the throne.
According to the dictionary, jasper is “a compact, opaque, cryptocrystalline variety of quartz, usually colored red:”. Sardine stones are also red.
Aside from saying that God looked “like a jasper and a sardine stone”, the verse doesn’t offer any other description. It is glorious and yet vague at the same time. It’s also interesting to note that when you read books written by people who supposedly had personal tours of Heaven, no one ever describes it like this. You would expect people to bring back reports that correspond to Biblical descriptions, but that doesn’t seem to happen – which is more evidence that the accounts are false.