There are four ‘zoo-a’, living beings (‘creatures’). These should not to be confused with the beasts to be found in chapters 13 and 17, where the Greek word is ‘thèrion’, used for a wild, untamed beast. The four ‘zoo-a’ represent God’s properties in relation to His Creation and they also represent Creation to God. Cherubim were woven into the innermost layer of the cover of the Tabernacle, so that the priests saw the cherubim when they looked up or to the side.1 They were also woven into the veil—the curtain hung before the Holy of Holies.
Four is the number of creation. Numbers have meanings in the Book of Revelation. One, for example, is the source and father of all numbers. This is why it stands for God, in the absolute mystery of His unique being. He is One and there is no other than He.2 One also expresses origin, beginning. God is the commencement and the continuation of all things. “In Him we live and move and have our being.”3 One is also exclusive, individual, separate from all others, apart, unique. And yet God is three-in-one and one-in-three, and Christ is the second Person of the Trinity. This is why two stands for Christ, and it expresses something that is incomplete, which is lacking something. He is the First, originating, generated from the One and fully dependant on the One. Together with the One He is complete. The Spirit emanates from the Father and the Son. Man and woman are a double-one, two in one— but multiplication is needed to form a family. Genesis 1:27 “So God created man(kind) in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” Man and woman complement each other. Together they are one complete human being. Genesis 2:24 “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
Three is the number of individual completeness. It is composed of three numbers, each of which is One, and each of which still remains One when multiplied. The Trinity is represented in this way, each ‘persona’ being God separately and still remaining One God when multiplied by each other.4 The One God revealed Himself in three ‘personae’: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The equilateral triangle in mathematics forms the simplest composite figure, which remains the same, however it is rotated, reflected or shifted. These numerical principles permeate in God’s entire Creation. Man is body, soul and spirit.5 The family is man, woman and child. An object consists of length, breadth and height.
Four is the number of creation. It originates from three and encloses three. And because ‘three’ represents the Trinity, four emanates from it: Creation and the Universe. Whereas the ‘Three’ sustains everything in it.6 The world consists of four elements according to some of the ancient philosophers: water, earth, air and fire. There are four seasons and four directions of the wind.7 There are four living beings (creatures) under and around God’s throne, with four wheels and four wings and four faces, according to Ezekiel. There were four rivers in Paradise, the Garden of Eden, which originated from one.8 The fourth commandment (‘“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in Heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.’9) and the fourth prayer (‘Your will be done on earth’) in the Lord’s Prayer10 concern the earth. The four living creatures will bring threefold praise to the Father, the Son and the sevenfold Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle Paul says that Creation is groaning11 and subjected to bondage to decay— but in hope, however! Do the four living creatures bring Creation’s need before God’s countenance—Creation, which is groaning under the consequences of man’s sin? Is this why they, the cherubim, are standing at the entrance of the Garden of Eden?12 Is that why it is written that Cain went out from the Lord’s presence13? Do the ‘teraphim’14 constitute a corruption or a representation of the cherubim, and are we encountering a reminder when we look at the winged beings of the Assyrians: a man with an eagle’s, lion’s or an ox with a man’s head? A pagan counterfeit of these celestial beings? Who can tell? God speaks from among the cherubim, however.15 One day the whole of Creation, represented in the four living creatures, will worship Him, because Creation will have achieved the goal to which God destined it: His eternal Kingdom. That is what the four living creatures are already seeing happen in the far future here! And they praise Him!
• A lamassu, sometimes called a lamassus is an Assyrian protective ‘deity’, often depicted as having a human head, the body of a bull or a lion, and bird wings. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art. In some writings, it is portrayed to represent a ‘female deity’. They also appear on cylinder seals.
• Notable examples include those at the Gate of All Nations at Persepolis in Iran, the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the University of Chicago Oriental Institute. Several examples left in situ in Northern Iraq were destroyed in the 2010’s by Islamic State.
• Some people establish a link between the Asian bull-man ‘lamassu’ and the Greek bull-man Minotaur, although the first one has a man’s head and a bull’s body, and the Minotaur has a man’s body and a bull’s head. These are pagan ‘deities’ to lead astray from the true reality of the true Heavenly beings that we find in the Bible, in the book of Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation.
Bible References:
1. Exodus 26:31; 36:35 2. Marcus 12:32 3. Acts 17:28 4. 1 John 5:2–8 5. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 6. Hebrews 1:3 7. Ezekiel 1:4–21 8. Genesis 2:10–14 9. Exodus 20:8–11 10. Matthew 6:11 11. Romans 8:18–23 12. Genesis 3:24 13. Genesis 4:16 14. Genesis 31:19, 34–35; Judges 17:5, 18:14; Ezekiel 21:21; Hosea 3:4; Zechariah 10:2 15. Numbers 7:89
