Cherubic Furniture

Further reflections drawn from/inspired by Jordan’s essay on orientation in Revelation.

Jordan matches the faces of the cherubim with the furnishings of the sanctuary, and particularly of the heavenly sanctuary. John enters heaven through an eastern door, looking west (we infer this from the fact that he sees the eastern cherub face, the lion face, first, and we draw the orientation of the cherub faces from Ezekiel 1). He sees three items in the heavenly sanctuary: the throne, the lamp, and the sea. The throne is furthest away to the west, then the lamp in the center, and then the sea closest to John. There is no altar, either bronze or gold, and no table for showbread.

According to the pattern in Ezekiel, the lion face is to the east, the bull face to the west. But these faces indicate the trajectory of the beasts, not their stationary position. In the temple, the bull is associated with the sea, not the throne, since there are twelve bulls holding up the sea. Thus, what John sees as the westward bull cherub is the bull at the endpoint of his progression from the sea to the throne. This is highly significant in the book of Revelation: Later we are going to see another beast emerging from the sea and moving to a throne (Revelation 13), but the first is the sacrificial bull. Enthronement in heaven comes by sacrifice; one emerges through the sea of the firmament to the throne by self-offering, not by brutal persecution of rivals.

On the other hand, the face of the lion is to the east, and this again does not indicate a static position but the direction of the lion’s progression. The lion is a royal beast (“lion of the tribe of Judah”), a throne-beast. But John sees the lion face to the east, and that means that the lion is moving from his throne toward the sea. That is, the lion is moving from the throne toward the Gentiles.

East-west is also, of course, the direction of the sun, and we can think about the day as a progression from altar and sea to throne. The sun begins as a bull in the east, and sets as a lion in the west. We begin each day as a bull, offering ourselves on the altar of the world, living sacrifices acceptable to God. We move toward rest and enthronement at the end of the day. The week follows a similar movement: We begin in sacrifice and move toward enthronement. As first day, the Lord’s day is sacrificial; as seventh day, it is enthronement. As first day, the Lord’s day is bullish, as seventh it is leonine. Lives moves in the same pattern: We begin in the fire as bulls, and our trajectory in life is toward enthronement as royal lions, lions of winter.