1. After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and
the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with
me; which said. Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must
be hereafter.

2. And immediately I was in the Spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in
heaven, and one sat on the throne.

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.

Verses 1-3.--"After these things," contained in the three preceding
chapters, the glorious vision of the mediatorial person, and the writing
and sending of the seven epistles; there seems to have intervened a
pause. While John was in expectation of farther discoveries of "things
which were to be thereafter," "behold, a door was opened in heaven," the
place of Jehovah's special residence. But as this "heaven" is sometimes
the theatre of _war_, (ch. xii. 7,) of course it is not to be taken
literally. As a symbol it generally signifies organized society, over
which the Most High presides. The "door opened" afforded the means to
John of seeing the objects within. The "voice as of a trumpet," which
arrested his attention, was that of Christ,--the "voice of the Lord,
full of majesty." (Ps. xxix. 4; ch. i. 10, 11.) John was in his own
apprehension, like Paul, "caught up into the third heaven," that he
might behold in glorious succession "things which must be hereafter."
Why _must_ they be? Simply because such was the "purpose of Him who
worketh all things after the counsel of his own will; who is wonderful
in counsel and excellent in working; whose counsel stands, and who doeth