What does it mean that God is the one who was and is and is to come (Revelation 4:8)?

— The dread and sacred Name Jehovah signifies underived existence, the Self-Existing One. To Israel the Name was explained as “I AM THAT I AM” (Ex. 3:14); to Gentiles as “Him which is, and which was, and which is to come” (Rev. 1:4; 4:8). It is a Name of ineffable grandeur, and one which Israel was made fully acquainted with from the commencement of her history (Ex. 6:3). It is God’s memorial Name, even to generations yet unborn. “Which is” implies independent, unchangeable existence. “Which was” intimates Jehovah’s relation to the past. “Which is to come” shows His connection with the future. God’s relation to the universe in its vastness and greatness, as also in its minuteness, is a grand and invigorating truth.

In Revelation 4:8 the order of the sentences is reversed; “which was” precedes “which is.” Chapter 4 contemplates the government of the whole earth, and not that of Israel only, hence the living creatures first say “which was.” It is a question of time; whereas in Revelation 1 the eternity of Jehovah’s Being is first presented in the words “which is.” Thus, too, it is intimated in the change of the sentence “which was ” that Jehovah’s past deeds of power are an earnest and pledge that eternal existence and omnipotent might are not quiescent attributes in the divine Being, but are exercised through all ages and under all circumstances.

Here is the usual salutation, "Grace be unto you, and peace;" but not, as in Paul's epistles, "from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." On the contrary, God is here named the One "which is, and which was, and which is to come." This is the New Testament equivalent for Jehovah. He is the "I am," the self-existent One, and therefore the expression "which is" stands first. But as the "I am" He was from eternity, and will be to eternity; so it is added, "And which was, and which is to come." This phrase, "is to come," does not refer to His future coming in judgment, but to His eternal existence as the One who always is, always was, and always will be. This is not the way in which God elsewhere reveals Himself in the New Testament; it is a return to the character in which He shows Himself when declaring His ways concerning the world in the Old Testament. It harmonizes therefore with the general scope and object of the book, which unfolds God's actings in government towards the world, and towards the Church, as a professing system in the world.

Who is the Lord God? Jehovah Elohim, the God of men and of Israel, Who has been pleased to put Himself into moral relationship with both, speaks once again from Heaven. What a calm to the soul amidst the rush of life! Here the voice of the Eternal, and at once the murmur within and the din without are stilled. In the explanatory words which follow, “Which is, and which was, and which is to come,” the essential and ever-abiding nature of His Being as Jehovah is stated. The three clauses form the interpretation of the Name Jehovah. The third member of the text, “which is to come,” would at first sight seem to indicate an actual coming, but it is not so. The force of the whole is to present an eternal Is, yet not simply eternal existence, but a positive relation to the past and future.

How fitting that this truly weighty introduction should close with the title of God as the “Almighty,” a title which has been a rock of strength to His afflicted people in all ages. “The Almighty” is not simply the witness of omnipotent power, but signifies Almighty in “sustaining resources,” and it will be found in the course of this book that the circumstances of God’s people make many a demand on this strong Name; hence its frequency in the Apocalypse, found only once elsewhere in the New Testament (2 Cor. 6:18), and then as a quotation from Isaiah. “Almighty” used singly, or in conjunction with other names, occurs about sixty times, half of these instances in the ancient book of Job. Almighty God is a title full of strength and consolation. He is Almighty in sustaining His people, yet equally Almighty in judgment on His enemies.

All the more, if possible, not less, there comes to those addressed this greeting of grace and peace from the whole glorious Godhead. It is what we need first to realize before we enter upon communications of such a nature as we have here: — grace in which we stand, unconditioned grace which can never fail, therefore, in its fulness of blessing for the people of God, whatever their circumstances; and peace, that we may be able to contemplate the sorrows and the evils that are before us — waves which, the higher they are, will only the more cast us upon the Rock of refuge. Always, under all circumstances, broken to pieces as the general Church may be, confusion everywhere, the world and Church mixed up beyond hope of disentanglement, — amid discordant voices, each with a different rendering of "the things that are," contradicting each other with warnings and with promises in the face of all the unity which the Church as the temple of God, indwelt by the Spirit of God, implies, — yet unfailingly is there "grace and peace" for every one who is invited of God to listen to what His voice shall utter, after all so easy to be distinguished, one would say, from every contradictory voice of man that can be. Grace and peace are what this whole communication from Him means.

"Grace," then, "and peace" are "from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come." That is a very different title of God from that which we find in the epistles in the same connection. It is not "from our God and Father," though of course He is this, but from the unchangeable One, the ever-present, ever the same. This is but the translation of "Jehovah," as we see at once; and "Jehovah" is the covenant-God and at the same time God in government. It is not our relationship to Him of which we are reminded, but of His necessary relationship to time, and all things therefore that are in time. The One who was before all, who abides through all, is the One upon whom all created things are necessarily dependent. "Who is" is put first. That He is, is the one great fact for all of us; but then, He "who is," was. There has been no beginning for Him, and there has been no change. He "who is," "was," and He "who is" and "was" is He also "who is to come." There will still be no change, as there will be no successor to Him. Grace and peace from such a One as this, how much it means for us, perfectly revealed as He is now also in the Man Christ Jesus, known in the depths of His love by the redemption which He has accomplished for us! This is not what is spoken of here, but it is what is necessary that grace and peace should be to us from Him. Then it is "from the seven spirits which are before His throne." We see at once the style of Revelation in this. The seven spirits are but the sevenfold energy of the One, the Holy Spirit, acting in accordance with the mind of Him who is upon the throne, and in the energy implied by that throne itself. Revelation is the book of the throne; and that is what gives character to all that we have here. The seven spirits carry us on to where they are pictured as "seven lamps of fire before the throne," light-giving necessarily as God's acts are, for God's ways show forth His nature — Himself, whose ways they are. These seven spirits carry us back to the eleventh of Isaiah, where we find them in connection with the King of Israel, the Rod out of the stem of Jesse, of whom it is said, "And the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." Here we have the arrangement of the lamps in connection with the candlestick of the sanctuary, which, as we know, were in three pairs, with a central stem. This central and uniting stem bears witness that the Spirit is the Spirit of Jehovah, the covenant-God. The branches give us the character displayed; the pairs, their character as witness, three pairs bringing in the number of divine fulness and of manifestation; the whole seven, the complete display of God in these ways of His. In Isaiah the seven spirits are in connection with Christ as Man. They make Him "of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, so that He does not judge after the sight of His eyes, nor reprove after the hearing of His ears, but judges with righteousness the poor, and reproves with equity for the meek of the earth."

Having given a description of the living creatures the Seer next describes their worship. In this blessed and happy exercise there is no relaxation: “They cease not day and night.” There is no imperfection in their service;‎ neither lassitude nor weakness characterise their worship.‎ Unceasingly they worship, saying, “Holy, holy, holy,‎ Lord God Almighty, Who was, Who is, and Who is to come.” We may here remark that in two respects the‎ living creatures resemble the seraphim; in the number of wings and in the threefold ascription of worship (compare with Isa. 6). The works of God praise Him, but deeper still His attributes declare His holy, holy, holy nature,‎ i.e., what He is in Himself. The titles of the Deity here grouped and the respective truths connected with each are ceaselessly celebrated. The very powers which execute the righteous behests of the throne (Rev. 6) here glorify Him in His divine Being. The living creatures symbolically represent the several attributes named, and ‎“give glory and honour and thanksgiving to Him that sits upon the throne.”‎

The divine titles are LORD, or Jehovah, the self-existing One; God in relation to creation; the Almighty in grace,‎ power, and in “sustaining resources.” In addition to these the divine Being is also celebrated as the God of the ages,‎ Who was, is, and is to come. For this latter, i.e., what God is in His own proper Being and nature, see Revelation 1:4. Here ‎“Who was” precedes the term of independent and eternal existence “Who is” — this latter is first stated in the earlier reference. Thus the four living creatures worship God.‎

So here now the last trumpet sounds, "the world-kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ" is announced, and forthwith the twenty-four elders are on their faces, giving God thanks, because He had taken to Him His great power and had reigned. It is true that it must be through much sorrow for guilty men. For the sword of judgment has to clear the way, that the sceptre of righteousness may have free course. "The nations were angry, and thy wrath is come," etc. But they knew well that, though man must come down with a crash, he will be exalted in the only true and enduring way in the kingdom of our Lord and of His Anointed. And so they give thanks to the Lord God Almighty, "that art, and wast [and art to come]" (verse 17). I beg leave to omit the last clause, "and art to come" — not as a conjecture (for conjecture on scripture is presumption), but because of what the best witnesses for the word of God really maintain. The clause, "and art to come," was put in to make it square with other passages which contain a similar phrase.

In the first chapter you may remember that the salutation was, "Grace unto you, and peace, from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come." All these three clauses are from God. They assert that He is Jehovah, the One that is, and was, and is to come; they are almost a translation into the Greek of the name Jehovah — One who is always the same. A similar phrase appears in Revelation 1:8, only there it is not John's salutation to the churches, but the direct word of God Himself: "I am Alpha and Omega, saith the Lord God, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty," evidently pointing to the unchanging continuity of His being. In Rev. 4 there is a little departure from the order given in the previous passages, and quite rightly: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come;" not "which is, and was," etc., but here, "which was and is." It may seem a slight change, but it is not without meaning. The emphasis in Rev. 1 is thrown upon the words, "which is," because God is presenting Himself as the ever-existing One. "Which was" is put first in Revelation 4, possibly because the living creatures (who had been the instruments of God's judgments in past dispensations, as they will be in the future) may look back upon the past, and therefore do not lay stress upon "which is," but begin with what God had been all through the past. Certainly they had been seen first at the garden of Eden as Cherubim (Gen. 3); next they formed a sort of representation of the judicial power of God in the tabernacle and in the temple (Ex. 25; 1 Kings 6); and then finally they were active when Jerusalem was swept away, and judgment came upon Israel. In Rev. 4, Ezek. 1, Ezek. 11 these living creatures, which had been the witnesses of God's ways all through, begin with what God was, the perfection of His being as, if one may so say, it had been historically unfolding. In Rev. 11 there is the omission of the words, "and art to come," perhaps because the arrival of the world-kingdom of the Lord is here celebrated, so that there was no need to add anything. Before He came in His kingdom it was appropriate; but it would be hardly suitable here. As I find that the best authorities reject the words, it is surely legitimate to try to show how the better reading harmonizes with the truth of God in the passage itself.

Here too remark, it is not, as in the first chapter, the God who is, though embracing past and future, God in Himself; but the God of ages, "who was, and is, and is to come." Still He has all Old Testament names: Jehovah, Elohim, Shaddai. His attributes now celebrate His full name, as the Holy One who lives for ever and ever — has no passing power or being, like man at his best estate, vanity. And the saints here fall down before the throne, bow themselves before His place in glory, and worship Him in His endless being, and lay down their given glory before His supreme and proper glory, ascribing all glory to Him alone, as alone worthy of it; but here, according to the nature of the celebration of it, the Creator for whom all things are. In all changes these remained true.

Such are the living creatures; and their occupation, as given here, is that of incessant praise — praising God according to the revelation of Himself in the Old Testament — namely, as Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come; the eternal God, who ever is — and embraces all the past, and all the future in His ever-present and blessed existence. It is to Him the living creatures unceasingly cry, Holy, holy, holy. They celebrate what He is in Himself.

Such are the living creatures; and their occupation, as given here, is that of incessant praise — praising God according to the revelation of Himself in the Old Testament — namely, as Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come; the eternal God, who ever is — and embraces all the past, and all the future in His ever-present and blessed existence. It is to Him the living creatures unceasingly cry, Holy, holy, holy. They celebrate what He is in Himself.

Verse 8. We have here still all the names of God, save the one in which the church is concerned - that of Father. He is Lord God Almighty, Eternal. These are the names by which God has revealed Himself in every dispensation. With the redeemed now He takes the name of Father. We have all that God has been on the earth with His people, and nothing else. These living creatures acknowledge God as the Holy One in all He does on earth, and they give Him glory.