Caught up to Heaven

Look Ye Saints the Sight is Glorious

Before, at the reception of Revelation 1-3, John was on the island of Patmos both hearing and seeing the things revealed. Moving into Revelation 4, however, it was written: “After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in Heaven” (Rev. 4:1). Literally, a door was open above John’s head that, evidently, was a door into Heaven itself! Surely, an incomprehensible rush of awe and wonder came upon him as he peered into the High and Lofty Habitation of Eternity (Isa. 57:15)! Oh, my reader! Consider the experience from the standpoint of John’s humbled soul on the outcast island of Patmos: at having spent so many hours and days longing to be with the Lord in glory, what a moment of exhilaration this must have been! And, while missing his fellow apostles who had a quicker entrance into Heaven through martyrdom, what a doorway this must have been to John!

“Thy dead men shall live, together with My dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” – Isa. 26:19

John would have remembered, and likely often mused upon it, how Jesus ascended into Heaven in the sight of the apostles according to Acts 1:9-11 – a place rarely beheld by prophets and hardly declared but by dark sayings! Nevertheless, the word of an angel came as the sounding of a Trumpet, saying, “Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter” (Rev. 4:1)! Oh, how John’s soul welcomed such a command! The place, normally forbidden to man, is now opened to John! Instantly (“immediately”), at the word of the angel, “Come up!” (Rev. 4:1), John was “caught up into Paradise” (2 Cor. 12:4): and, being caught up, he was conducted through many sequences of back-to-back prophetic revelations while in company with angels in the realms of eternity!

“Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.” - Ps. 72:18

My reader, John’s ascent into Heaven is a turning point in the Book of Revelation. In other words, this is not a normal experience of prophets. From this vantage point – Heaven – all the sights and sounds of the Book of Revelation are revealed to John from here on out. All of it is one ongoing experience! My reader, this is what is meant by the saying, “I will shew thee things which must be hereafter” (Rev. 4:1). The whole sequence of prophetic revelation from this point forward is one ongoing foresight aimed to reveal the things “hereafter”, the angel said. Every Chapter hereafter begins with the word, “And…”, as a testimony of the singularity of the manifold visions being revealed in Revelation 4-22. The manifold revelations are altogether one revelation that serves an ultimate and singular purpose, to reveal the things of the future. However, to do so effectively: the 1st century Christians need closure to the past and clarity of the present, for only then can they understand the future! Masterfully, Revelation 4-6 provides closure to the past while clarifying the present. Then, in a clear pivot from the past to the future, Revelation 7-22 further clarifies the present while comprehensively declaring the mysterious fulfillment of all prophecy in the future. Oh, that the reader might glory in the divine genius of the design!