Revelation 4:1, God Through A Window

After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

//So begins the story of John’s Apocalypse … the book of Revelation. Many in John’s time imagined the world to be covered by a sky dome, and that God or the gods lived above the dome. John sees a window or a door in the dome, open and inviting him to enter heaven.

We know, now, that there’s no window in the dome over the earth. It’s safe to say the ancients did not have a full, complete grasp of God. Yet, today, Christians (and adherents of other belief systems) remain just as convinced as folks did 2,000 years ago that God has been found.

I don’t think I’ve ever contradicted anyone’s experience with God, and probably never will. I won’t be telling you that you haven’t found God or experienced him. But I do often voice my opinion that another’s explanation, or description, of God may be incomplete … as was John’s understanding 2,000 years ago.

John saw through a window, and saw a part of God. Those who experience God today likewise see through their own window to their own limited part of God. As Paul would say, we see through a glass darkly.