Four Living Creatures

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

What are the “four living beings” in the Bible?

The four living creatures I believe you’re referring to show up in the book of Revelation. Their first appearance is surrounding God’s throne in Revelation 4:6. The apostle John describes them as having eyes all over their bodies. The eyes all over their body may be a reference to God’s ability to see everything, his omniscience.

God makes strange creatures. We have no idea what all he has made in creation. I think we’re still discovering even just on earth the kinds of things that God has made. This just shows his creativity in his creation.

Each of the four living creatures has a part throughout the book of Revelation. Each of the creatures has six wings (Revelation 4:8). They spend all of their days and nights worshiping God and glorifying him.

Each creature has a different appearance (Revelation 4:7). The first resembles a lion. The second resembles an ox. The third has a man’s face and the fourth is like an eagle. I don’t know if you can find any symbolism in the different looks of the creatures.

They lead the twenty-four elders around the throne and worship of God as well (Revelation 4:9-10). Each of the four living creatures also call on one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse to come out and play their part (Revelation 6:1-8).

Although we don’t understand exactly who they are, we know that they worship God like everything else in creation. As unusual as they are, they only remind us that God’s creative. He makes amazing creatures that we cannot understand this side of heaven.

Jonathan Srock

Rev. Jonathan Srock is an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God since 2010. He received two Bachelor’s degrees in Biblical Languages and Pastoral Ministries, as well as a Masters of Divinity from Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. Jonathan was privileged to be the Lead Pastor of New Life Assembly in Shillington, PA for five years before suffering sudden paralysis in 2013. Jonathan has been a Christian since 1988.

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