It is strongly encouraged that you read these two chapters before reading this post. Shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes.
In Revelation chapter 4, we find “the One sitting on the throne.” This is the Father, as is made clear throughout these two chapters. He sits on the throne in heaven, alone. No son, no Holy Spirit, no triune God. Just the Father alone sits on this throne, and the creatures and the elders are singing praises and worship to him. The praises they sing are:
“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, the One having been, and the One being, and the One coming.”
“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will, they existed and were created.”
He is declared as “Lord and God” and is praised “because you created all things.”
In Revelation chapter 5, we now see that the one seated on the throne has a scroll with seven seals. A seal on a scroll is like a special stamp that keeps it closed, and only someone of a certain rank can open a seal of equal or lesser rank. It’s similar to modern mail. While anyone with a letter opener can open a letter, the only one worthy to open it is the one whose name it is addressed to. The seals on this scroll are of such great rank that no one can open it. Not even the highest ranking angels, no one on earth, no one under the earth (meaning those dead and buried, returned to dust). John (of Patmos, the writer of Revelation) begins to weep when an angel comforts him, telling him there is someone worthy to open and read the scroll. Notice how this one is described.
Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has overcome to open the scroll and its seven seals. a Lamb standing as having been slain… He came and took it out of the right hand of the One sitting on the throne.
This is clearly the resurrected man, Jesus Christ. Once he opens the scroll, the same living creatures and elders being a “new” song, which says:
“Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, because You were slain, and You purchased to God by Your blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”
“Worthy is the Lamb having been slain, to receive the power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing!”
“To the One sitting on the throne, and to the Lamb, blessing and honor and glory and might to the ages of the ages.”
What do we learn from these passages, and what do they have to do with the Trinity?
1. We note that before the Lamb was slain and raised up to the throne, there was only the Father there. This disproves the notion that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally shared the throne in eternity past. We never see the Holy Spirit sitting on the throne in the book of Revelation, which implies that either he does not sit on it, or that the Holy Spirit is not a 3rd person at all. This shows that there was no prehuman Son sitting or standing next to the throne before the ascension from the resurrection.
2. We see no incarnation here. We do not see the son descending from the throne, to take his place as a lamb, and ascending to heaven where he once was. The Father alone was in heaven on the throne by himself.
3. We find that it was not “God, the second person of the Trinity” who was worthy to open the scroll “because he was fully divine.” We find the text specifically stating that it is because the Lamb had been slain that made him worthy of opening the scroll. “Worth are you to open the scroll, because you have been slain. You purchased to God with your blood…” It was not a God-man or a divine person who was worthy, nor was it a person who had a fully divine nature, it was a dead and slain lamb that was worthy to open the scroll. Is it Christ’s death that made him glorious in the Trinitarian mind? Or is his glory the nature he eternally shares with the Father? Why would this fully divine person need to be killed to be worthy? This creates a very interesting problem for the Trinitarian.
4. If the Holy Spirit is omnipotent and omniscient, would he not be powerful enough and worthy to open the scroll? Why only Jesus? And would he not already know what is in the scroll if he knows all? Would this not make him worthy, if he is 3rd person of the Trinity? If Jesus is God, then why is his omnipotence not what makes him worthy of opening the scroll? If the Trinitarian wishes to say that the Holy Spirit is subordinate in rank to the son, because the son is the second person of the economic Trinity while the Spirit is the 3rd, then they need to be reminded that the human Jesus, which this is necessarily speaking about (see point 6) is not superior to the Holy Spirit in rank, and therefore, this counter argument will not stand.
5. Notice that the worship song changes between that which is given to God and that which is given to Christ. God is praised for being the creator of all things (Revelation 4:11) and for being God (Revelation 4:8b). But when Jesus is being praised, his songs are for being slain, and purchasing to God, and making a kingdom of priests to God (Revelation 5:9-10). He is neither called God, nor praised for being the creator. Even when God and the Lamb are praised together, they are never praised for a joint act of creation in Genesis, or being the one God.
6. Notice that this is a man who is worthy to open the scroll specifically. “The Lion of the tribe of Judah,” and, “the root of David.” This is “a lamb who was slain.” Was God born of the tribe of Judah or David or slain as a sacrificial lamb? No. A man was. Even the Trinitarian must necessarily admit that this is a man being described here with no hint of divinity or dual natures. It’s so strange that when you ask a Trinitarian how Jesus could die for our sins, they always respond with “because he’s God, no mere man could die for our sins.” Yet, nobody in the entire book of Revelation ever makes this declaration. In the three praise songs of this chapter, none of them mention his supposed divinity, or say that it’s the reason why he’s worthy to open the Scrolls, or even be a sacrifice. This idea is foreign to the text.
These passages show that the idea of the Trinity was completely absent from the mind of John who recorded this, the angel who revealed it, and by extension, Christ who revealed it to the angel, and God who revealed it to Christ. Sorry, there’s no triune God sitting on the throne for eternity. There’s no person of the Spirit sitting on the throne. There’s no indication that Jesus being God had anything to do with what made him worthy to be praised, or open the Scrolls.