Dennis Tuuri

Chapters 4 and 5. Book of Revelation, chapters 4 and 5. 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. And immediately I was in the spirit, and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. 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. And round about the throne were four and 20 seats. And upon the seats I saw four and 20 elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings, and thunderings and voices, and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God.

And before the throne, there was a sea of glass like unto crystal. And in the midst of the throne, round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within.

And they rest not day and night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come.” And when those beasts give all glory and honor and thanks to him that sat in the throne, who liveth forever and ever, the four and 20 elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

And I saw the right hand of him that sat on the throne, a book written within, and on the backside sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?” And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.

And one of the elders saith unto me, weep not. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne, and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb, as it has been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth.

And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and 20 elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors rather, which are the prayers of saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, for thou was slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and has made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them heard I saying, “Blessing and honor, and glory and power be unto him that sitth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.” And the four beasts said, “Amen,” and the four and 20 elders fell down and worshiped him that liveth forever and ever.

Let’s pray. Almighty and gracious Father, for as much as our whole salvation depends upon our true understanding of thy holy word, grant to all of us that our hearts being freed from worldly affairs, may hear and apprehend thy holy word with all diligence and faith, that we may rightly understand thy gracious will, cherish it and live by it with all earnestness to thy praise and honor through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We’ve been discussing the Old Testament offices in an attempt to understand the New Testament offices of Elder and Deacon and how God’s government is to affect the entire earth and of course also this church. In our series, which we started some time ago now, four or five weeks ago, we began with a list of the qualifications for elders. And hopefully you still have those lists. If you don’t have lists, make sure I get you another copy.

Those are extremely important because all men in this church should aspire unto those qualifications. Several weeks ago, I had a show of hands of those who had been reading that list and had spent some time thinking on them and studying through them. And I probably will do that again next week. I do that to evaluate how properly people in the church are responding to the teaching of God’s word and obedience.

It’s important that we understand these things. It’s important that we spend time aiming for the mark that God has set for us. And that list of qualifications is the mark we’re to be aiming for as men of God. Having spent some time talking about the qualifications for eldership, we then began to talk about the Old Testament structure, which was the family structure. And some little mnemonic devices for you is Joshua 7.

In Joshua 7, we have the attempt to find a man who had sinned and brought disgrace upon the covenant community and defeat. And in that structure in Joshua 7, we see the three-fold nature or the three tiers of government as it were, the family structure of the covenant people in the wilderness. That was the tribe, the clan, and the house of the father or family. Remember the tribe, the word for tribe is the word for rod or scepter.

The word for the leaders of the clans are leaders of the thousands. And so you remember that the rod is the whole group of the tribe gathered together. The next division down are clans, which are thousands as it were of people or men or heads of households. And the final division down is the house of the father or the family. And we tried to stress that’s not the nuclear family. That’s the extended family.

Based upon that, we also looked at Joshua 23 then to get our outline for the next four weeks of talks. In Joshua 23, Israel is represented by elders, heads of the people, judges, and officers. And from there, he went to a discussion of the officers the following week, which were the sharim. We’ve talked about those people. When we talked about the sharim, we looked at Deuteronomy 1. We said that Deuteronomy in the first chapter where Moses talks about the organization of the people in the wilderness under God and through God’s instruction ministered to him through Jethro.

He takes Exodus 18 and Numbers 11 and combines them into one account in Deuteronomy 1. So you can think of it as like a mathematical formula. Numbers 11 plus Exodus 18 equals Deuteronomy 1. Numbers 11 is the establishment of the 70 elders who were had one of their qualifications that they were sharim or officers. We talked about their point. Their function was to help the administrative function of the church. Exodus 18 we spoke about two weeks ago.

Thus the establishment of a graded system of courts of judges. And so Numbers 11 with the sharim officers, Exodus 18 with the establishment of heads of tens, 50s, hundreds and thousands in the judicial arena. You put those together and you have Deuteronomy 1 which is a synopsis of those two accounts. So we talked then about the sharim and the importance of understanding the godly administration that’s required in a group of people in a household in a government in a church and we said that administration is an important task bureaucrats as such administrative agents in Numbers 11 are seen as receiving the spirit that was upon Moses the spirit of God for the performance of their function and so it’s extremely important not to downgrade the function of the administrative helps as it were to the community and we said that there’s some correlation between the office of sharim and the New Testament office of Deacon and so we don’t want to necessarily see deacons as being somehow a second-class order of citizens below the elders and beyond that everybody else.

That’s not how scripture sees it. There’s different functions but filled with the same spirit enabled for the same task and therefore requiring essentially the same qualifications. We then spent some time two weeks ago talking about judges from Exodus 18. We talked about their qualifications, their method of appointment and then their function. We said their function was to settle disputes and also in one sense to be the deliverer of the people of Israel.

And Moses of course was sort of his office of being the judge or the chief judge of Israel was sort of assigned to those people in Egypt still when he struck an Egyptian he killed an Egyptian who was oppressing the people of God at the other hand he also came the next day and attempted to settle a dispute between two warring Israelites and so you have there the two-fold nature of judges seen that’s seen throughout other passages of scripture as well but that’s a good illustration to keep in mind to remember the two-fold function of judges now those two offices sharim or officers and judges.

Those are rather specialized tasks, administration and judicial affairs. We look today to the generalized office of elders and it’s a little different. And next week we’ll be talking I think about the nobles, the heads of the families, which is the fourth group in Joshua 23 and 24. And again, those two offices, the elders and then the heads of the people are more ill-defined if you want to look at it that way than were the judges and the sharim or the officers.

We had some very specific instructions by God as to what they did and what particular qualifications he needed. We also mentioned by the way in terms of qualification Isaiah 11 the first few verses of Isaiah 11 that is the mark of a spirit-filled man and you see there the spirit of God being a spirit of wisdom and understanding and of counsel and all these other things which are of course talked about in the context of the Messiah to come Jesus Christ who has those qualifications of the spirit but it’s important to recognize that all these qualifications for officers we’re talking about have their root in being spirit-filled men manifesting the gifts of the spirit in Isaiah 11.

And so we see some difference in terms of specific functions. For instance, judges had to be impartial because their function was to judge. And so there’s an added qualification for them. But in general, you have this requirement of being spirit-filled men who were wise being identified as being wise according to the fear of God being the beginning of that wisdom and then applying God’s law to situations.

So there’s shared qualifications amongst all these officers. But anyway, today we’re going to talk about elders and you might wonder that while we’re still talking about Old Testament offices, why did we read a passage of scripture from Revelation in the last chapter in the last book of the scriptures? Well, the reason for that is number one that Revelation is the capstone of all the rest of scripture.

It helps to understand the rest of scripture if we understand Revelation. And additionally, we can’t understand the book of Revelation without an understanding of all the rest of the references to the symbols that are used in it. And the 24 elders are a common theme throughout the book of Revelation and the two chapters we read specifically this morning. I think that once we go through a survey as it were of Old Testament references to the eldership and New Testament references and then look again at Revelation 4 and 5, we’ll cap off as it were understanding of the office of elder and reinforce what we learn throughout the rest of the scriptures and show some other things about it perhaps as well that aren’t immediately obvious as we go through a very detailed study of the Old Testament.

So, we’ll return to Revelation 4 and 5 in a couple of minutes, but we’re going to start first with look doing a hopefully a fairly quick Old Testament survey of all the most of the references to the elders in the old covenant. Now there are some 200 references to elders throughout the scriptures and we won’t touch on all of them. We will touch on a number of them. I’ll be moving very fast. I you know I was thinking as I was preparing for this that I have to go through these references fairly quickly and I was thinking that I know I speak rather fast and it’s been commented upon by a lot of people.

On the other hand, you know, I remember hearing many times in school that people can listen a lot faster than a person can talk. And so most speakers tend to bore their audience because they talk so slow people’s minds start wandering off on other things. I suppose you could cut either way. But anyway, you’re going to have to realize here I’m going to go fairly quick through these Old Testament references.

We won’t stop to look at any of them, but I will give you the book of the Bible and the chapter. I won’t give you verses. We’ll look at some of those references. At the end of looking through those references, we’ll look at a number of statements, seven particular statements about the office of elders throughout the scriptures. And then we’ll look at Revelation 4 and 5 to cap off our understanding of who the elders are and what their purpose in the scriptures are.

Okay. The first thing we found out about elders is that they were actually in existence in the land of Egypt before. They weren’t necessarily—in other words that I’m trying to say here is they were not a wilderness-initiated office. Elders were functioning in Egypt. In fact, Pharaoh himself had elders of his court. Now, the term elders of course comes from the word that means old or eldest or oldest. And you’ll see that used in the scriptures as well the same word where it talks about the oldest son or the elder son as it were.

There’s also some people who believe that there is—and I mentioned this before—that the word for elder has its roots in the word for beard and so it’d be all men who had beards and whether or not that’s specifically true it reinforces the idea that the person would have to be an older person a child would not be an elder man would have to be bearded and respecting the command duty him as an older person of the faith.

Any event, so Pharaoh had elders in his state also and they were represented various things to him and they were important in his government as well. The children of Israel though also had elders. In fact, in Exodus 3 and 4, we’re told that Moses was specifically told by God when he went to deliver his people to go to the elders of Israel. Okay? So, they were already a functioning office in Israel and Moses was to go to them as the representative of the people to tell them that God had appointed him to deliver his people and he did that and the elders then were to accompany Moses when he went to Pharaoh the first time and they did that.

So the elders were already a functioning office under in the Israelite community in Egypt. Additionally, we’re told in the book of Exodus that when the Passover is initiated by Moses while they’re still in Egypt now prior to their deliverance, it’s going to be the night before their deliverance that he calls together the elders to administer that Passover. And he tells the elders to make sure that the lamb is slain for by their families as it were.

And the word there for family is the word for clan, the larger group, not the beth of the clan. So there’s some reason to believe there that the elders that he called together to tell them to administer the Passover amongst the people, which was kind of a sacramental function, of course, that these men were elders who administered that in the families. That’s important because it tells us that each at least clan had elders for that clan.

And I think that if you think through the ramifications of how they had to take a lamb, how they had to kill the lamb and apply the blood to the doorposts of the house, you’ll see that there were also elders undoubtedly underneath the heads of the elders of the clans. There were also elders of the individual extended families themselves. And so elders are seen as a pervasive unit of government in the land of Egypt and as an already existing office that was functioning in the wilderness.

Then in Exodus 17, we see more another reference to the elders. When Moses is going to get water out of the rock at Horeb to strike the rock and get water out of it, he does this in the presence of the elders. God tells us specifically to get the elders together and to get the water from God as it were miraculously. And he does this before the elders representing the people. In Exodus 18, when Jethro, which we talked about last week, when Jethro comes to the nation assembled in the wilderness, it said that when Jethro comes, he has a meal with Moses, Aaron, and the elders of Israel.

Again, they all have a meal together with God as it were, a communion meal. And again, the elders represent the people in that communion meal. In Exodus 19, the elders hear the word of God and they declare the obedience of the people to the words of God. Again, representing the people. In Exodus 24, there are 70 elders who receive the law and the covenant from God himself. So, they receive the law from God.

The elders do. Leviticus 4, the elders lay hands upon or instructed to lay hands upon the bulls for the sins of omission committed by the people of Israel. So again, they represent the people of Israel in this sacerdotal function as well by putting their hands upon the bull and recognizing the sin of the people. In Leviticus 9, the elders are called to Moses and to Aaron when Aaron is to perform the first sacrifice after Aaron’s been consecrated for his duties and he’s now going to provide sacrifice for the people.

The elders are specifically told to gather together with Moses and Aaron for that function. And so again, the elders throughout these things are playing a very important function. In Numbers 11, we see the elders talked about in association with the sharim. We’ve talked about that several weeks ago. Now that’s important by the way because in Numbers 11 if the elders simply referred to the heads of clans which were there 58 and the heads of tribes of which there were 12, they couldn’t have selected out from all the group of elders 70 of them because there would have only been 70 of them.

So there’s clear indication that there were more elders than just the 70 representing the clans and the tribes. The elders were over the individual death. The elders consisted over individual family units and remember there the scriptural uses of the term family as means the house of the father the extended family. So each extended family had their own elder as well. Numbers 16. The elders accompany Moses when he when he goes to Dathan and Korah to their tents to declare God’s judgment upon them.

So they’re involved here now in judging people as well at least witnessing the judgment of God upon people that sin. In Deuteronomy 5, the elders are mentioned in connection with the heads of tribes. And in several of these references we’ll go through, you’ll see the elders in correlation with other offices. That’s very important. So, we’ve already seen the elders in relationship to Moses, to the priestly cast of Aaron, to the sharim, and now the heads of tribes as well in Deuteronomy 5.

And by the way, in Deuteronomy 5, in that particular context, again, the elders then and the heads of tribes declare their attestation to obey all the law of God. And there are some people who say that the people of Israel never should have done that. That was a big mistake. But right in Deuteronomy 5, it says that God says that they have done well in all that they have said and spoken. So God himself gives us the evaluation of their actions.

He said they did well. In case anybody ever talks to you about that, Deuteronomy 19, 21, 22, and 25 record four specific cases where the elders are involved in judicial decisions. Now we know that this is separate from the judges for various passages where they’re mentioned in in the same context as judges. So we know that the elders are not necessarily equated with the judges. And yet there are specific civil cases that occur in Deuteronomy 19, 21, 22, and 25 where the elders have a part.

Now it’s interesting to look at those four occurrences. In Deuteronomy 19 the elders of the city are the ones who are to deliver up a man who has been guilty of murdering another person to the blood avenger. Okay? And in Deuteronomy 21, the elders, the judges, and the priests in the case of an unknown murder go out, measure where the body has been found, how far it is from the closest city.

And the elders of that city investigate the matter. If they can’t find the murderer, they kill a cow. There’s a ceremony that’s performed there and they say, “We’ve tried to cleanse the land of this blood and by doing this since we can’t find the murder, the land is cleansed.” But any event, they’re involved in that decision as well. In Deuteronomy 22, the case involves specifically the case of a virgin who was accused of unfaithfulness.

And whenever that happens in the land of Israel, the people that were to judge that decision are the elders. And if the elders find that the man has falsely accused the virgin, then he is then the elders are the ones who are said to chastise him and to fine him. In Deuteronomy 25, the elders are involved in the administration of the levirate law where a relative was supposed to take the wife if the man died and have children with her.

The elders are responsible for administering that. And later on in the book of Ruth, of course, Boaz when he wants to marry Ruth, he has to go first to the person that was supposed to perform that function to the family and acknowledge the fact and in public witness that man would not perform his function of marrying the wife, marrying the woman who now was childless and without a husband. Then once the man rejects his claim on her as it were and his responsibility, then somebody else can marry her.

So, Boaz does that and he picks 10 elders out of the gate there to perform this function to witness the rejection of the responsibility of the levirate so that he then can marry Ruth. Now it’s interesting that these four cases are cases that involve familial actions and the elders are specifically given judicial functions in relationship to families. Okay, that’s one of the one of the distinctive things about the judicial decisions the elders are to involve themselves in.

They’re not the same as judges. They only get involved in particular cases that God’s law tells them to be involved with. And those cases, as I said, focus on the family. And so the elders, and we would expect that, of course, because the elders come out of the families. They represent the families. They have concerns for the families. They’re provide protection to the families. They’re to ensure that the blood avenger performs his duty in executing a murderer.

And so it’s not particularly surprising here that God gives them specific judicial decisions to make in relationship to families and to cities. In Deuteronomy 27, Moses and the elders command the people to obey them after they’ve gotten the law and after the covenant’s been cut and everything. It’s Moses along with the elders who give charge to the people to walk in obedience to the law. They’ve received the law.

They have responsibilities in the law and they also have the responsibility of encouraging the people and commanding them to faithfulness to the law as well. In Deuteronomy 29, the elders are mentioned with the officers and chiefs of tribes. In Deuteronomy 31, the law is given to the priests and the elders. So there the elders are seen in conjunction with the priests. In Deuteronomy 32, the officers and the elders are gathered for the song of witness.

In Joshua 7, Joshua and the elders seek God’s counsel, as it were, and repent before God for the sin committed that resulted in the defeat at Ai. So there we see the elders again playing an important role now in connection to the chief magistrate which is Joshua in Joshua 8 where we have the repetition of the curses and blessings of God’s covenant pronounced in front of the people. Remember we have Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal and we have then the separation of groups of people to stand and declare the blessings and the cursings from God and to remind them of those things.

In the middle are the Levites either side are representatives from the elders, the officers, and the judges. So again, the elders here form an important task, and it’s clearly delineated in Joshua 8 that they’re separate from the officers and the judges. Now, remember, officers and judges are we’re told in Deuteronomy 16:18 that they’re to appoint officers and judges in each of the towns. There’s no such commandment to appoint elders, but it is assumed that the people of Israel will always have elders of families, heads of families were a familiar office that has specific functions in God’s economy.

In Joshua 20, the entrance to the cities of refuge are administered by the elders of the town. Again, Joshua 23 and 24, we have the passage of scripture we talked about beginning of this series of Old Testament offices where the elders are spoken of also distinctly from the judges, the officers, and the heads of tribes or families. In Judges 11, it’s the elders who meet to select in their deliberation Jephthah to be the next judge of Israel, deliverer of them.

So the elders have a position there in actually selecting the chief magistrate as well. In Joshua 24 and Judges 2, we have a very important scripture that tells us that after Joshua’s death, as long as the elders continued who are contemporaneous to Joshua, as long as they were still in the midst of the people, the people walked faithfully to God. And so we see in Joshua 24 and Judges 2, where God tells us that the obedience of the people here was in relationship to men, godly elders who had lived with Joshua, who had seen the mighty works of God and his acts of delivering the people.

As long as they had godly elders in place, the people stayed in faithfulness to God. Very important. In 1 Samuel 8, it’s the elders now who make the tremendous error or sin of asking for a king. But it’s significant that when this was entered into and the people of Israel wanted a king, they asked for that king through the elders of the land. And so elders are seen as kingmakers as it were, first establishing the office itself and later as we see in 2 Samuel 3 and 5 and 1 Chronicles 11.

After consultation with Abner, the elders then select David or David then as the new king enters into covenant with the elders of the land. And so David’s kingship is confirmed as it were by the elders. And so again the elders have a tremendous function in terms of kingmaking or establishing the chief magistrate over them. Elders had a tremendous position of respect in the land.

In 1 Samuel 15 after Saul is his kingdom is taken away from him through the administration of Samuel, Saul then wants to be honored before the elders and he doesn’t when he comes back into the presence of the elders. He wants to have Samuel with him and he wants to be honored in their sight because they have that much it’s that important to walk in circumspectly before the elders. They have that much authority and respect due to them.

Saul recognized his sin and yet he also didn’t want to be disgraced in front of the elders. In 2 Chronicles 10 and in 1 Kings 12, we have the account of Rehoboam. Rehoboam rejects the counsel of the elders and turns instead for his counsel to some young friends who are contemporaneous with him. Rather than turning to the gray heads as it were, the people that were in a position of eldership in the land.

He rejects their counsel, turns to young men instead, gets bad counsel from them and as a result loses his rule and authority. Elders were important then as counselors also to magistrates and to chief magistrates in this case and their counsel should be respected and adhered to. That also tells us something of course about their function because elders are seen throughout many of these passages as being a counseling function to the nation of Israel to the individual families to the various heads of tribes and also to the chief magistrates.

In 1 Kings 21 bad elders are used as the device of Jezebel to secure Naboth’s vineyard. They’re called to give false testimony against him. And so elders can be very disastrous to a people as well when they make bad decisions. In 2 Kings 6, Elisha is seen as sitting with the elders in his prophetic ministry. In 2 Kings 10, Jehu after his triumph an attempt to produce some peace in the land sends letters out to elders that were present at the time of Ahab, the bad king.

And so elders are important again in establishing matters of state. In 2 Kings 23, in the reformation of Josiah, the great times that we’ve talked about before, the reformation and reconstruction that occurred in the land of Josiah, one of the things that Josiah did was to gather to himself elders of Judah and to use them. In 1 Chronicles 15, we’re told that David along with the elders and heads of thousands brought the ark up from where it had been into the place that it was proper resting place.

And that’s significant also because it tells us that elders are not equated with heads of thousands. As we said before, heads of clans. They’re a separate office. And there’s probably many more of them there were than there were heads of thousands. In 2 Chronicles 5, we see elders mentioned in relationship to the Levites because Levites, the elders, and Solomon then are seen as delivering up the ark. In Ezra 10, elders and leaders decide about the exclusion of certain exiles who were not zealous to rebuild the land.

So again, elders there are very playing a very important function in relationship to another magistrate which was the leaders in Psalm 119 we have a very important reference to elders. We just read it this morning in the responsive reading and the word there that said “ancient” is the same word for elder. And in that verse, we’re told that the writer of the psalm says, “Understanding more than the elders because I’ve observed thy precepts.”

And so, while elders are supposed to be a familial position, and they’re supposed to be the older people in the context of their leadership in the family, yet we know that isn’t enough. They also have to have wisdom and counsel from the precepts of God. And when David could say that he has more understanding than the ancients because he observed God’s precepts, that’s a model also to the elders in their observance of their function. So we see there that it’s not simply a matter of physical age that determines who would occupy the office of elder. Rather, one was supposed to have the qualifications of wisdom and of fearing God.

In Isaiah 37, there’s another very important reference to the elders of the priests. That’s the phrase that’s used there—the elders of the priests are addressed. That’s important because we see then that the priestly tribe like all the other tribes had its representative elders as well. So the elders here were seen in relationship to the priestly tribe itself. There were elders of that tribe as well. So we see that the elders are not necessarily a civil function as opposed to a religious function because they permeate all these different offices.

We’ve been talking about heads of thousands. They permeate those people. They permeate the civil magistrate positions. They permeate the tribe of the Levites. And the sacerdotal functions that they perform are also performed in connection with the elders of the tribes or elders of the priests rather in that particular tribe of Levi. In Ezekiel 7, we’re told that the reason for the judgments of God upon the land are that the law has been lost from the prophets and counsel from the elders.

And again, that’s a very important passage because it tells us that the elders’ function in society is counsel and wisdom and general direction in addition to the specific functions they had in terms of specific civil matters their overall function was one of counsel and advice both in determining who would be the rulers of the people in terms of the chief magistrates and the judges also counsel and advice in them as to how they’d perform their function and counsel and advice to the individual families as well when they had matters of dispute it’s the understanding of scripture and I think that this is clearly understood from the various passages that talk about the establishment of judges that when a matter was taken to a judge.

It was a matter that couldn’t be settled. The dispute couldn’t be settled below that level of taking it to the judge. It’s probable that the elders then performed a mediatorial function also in the families and it would help to smooth out some of these conflicts. If the elder through his advice and counsel couldn’t bring the situation to right, then of course they’d have to go to the judge and we’d have a binding decision as it were by the civil magistrate.

The elder again is seen as mostly in a counseling sort of function although with a great deal of authority in the family. In Ezekiel 8, Ezekiel is seen to be sitting with sinful elders and God tells him again that one of the reasons for the judgment to come upon the land is that the elders are in deep sin and idolatry. And as a result in Ezekiel 9, the slaughter starts with them. That’s important. Also, when the slaughter starts with a particular group of people, it’s because that people have more of a responsibility to perform the functions that are required of them.

And when they fail, judgment starts with them. Judgment begins with the house of God. And the scriptures are clear that in the house of God, judgment begins with the elders. And that tells us something very important. It doesn’t start with the high priest. Doesn’t start with necessarily the judges. It starts with the elders, the representatives of the families in all these different areas.

In the New Covenant, we also see many references to elders. And it’s real interesting there that obviously we have a situation in the New Covenant where the people had fallen away from the faith. And we as a result of that, we have very bad elders. There’s only one positive reference to the elders of Israel that I could find and that’s in Luke 7 where the centurion is the slave that’s about to die wants to implore Jesus to say his slave. He does so through the elders, some of the elders of the land.

So access to Jesus is mediated through the elders. But primarily the elders at the time of Jesus of course rejected him. In Matthew 15, we’re told that the elders had replaced God’s law with their traditions. When the scriptures denounce the tradition of men, it uses frequently the phrase “the tradition of the elders.” The elders have an important function in counseling from the word of God from stressing the importance of the law of God in all matters.

And in this case, the elders had severely sinned because they’d replaced God’s law with their own tradition. When you hear about the traditions of the Pharisees, remember it’s the traditions of the elders. Again, the elders are an important function in the land, either positively or negatively. In Mark 8, the elders reject Christ. In Mark 11, the elders challenge Christ’s authority. And these are the same terms for elder used later in the scriptures to talk about the elders of churches.

In Luke 22, the elders treat Jesus like a thief when they turn him over in the garden. His people turn him over in the garden to be arrested. Jesus said they treated him like they treated a thief. In Luke 26, the elders actually seek false witnesses so that they can put Christ to death. And of course, the Old Testament payment for that crime would have been that they would have been put to death.

The scriptures are clear that when a person gives false testimony against a person, whatever he was trying to get that person to have suffered at the hands of the judge, he should suffer himself. So if the elders were trying to unjustly kill a person, they had false witnesses to that end. They had the resulting death penalty upon their heads which was exercised by God if they followed Jerusalem in AD 70.

In any event, the elders go on then to we see that in Luke 27 that the elders receive back the 30 pieces of silver that have been handed over for the betrayal of Jesus. So the elders themselves were involved in the payment to the betrayer of our Lord. In Mark 15, the elders bind Christ, take him to Pilate, the accused Christ, and then they persuade the multitude to destroy Christ. This is all done at the hands of the elders, not of the Pharisees necessarily.

Not saying that they’re two distinct offices there. Some of the Pharisees were elders, of course, but specifically the scriptures tell us it’s the elders who are doing all these things. In Mark 15, the elders mock Christ. In Matthew 28, they bribe a guard after Christ has died and been resurrected. In Matthew 28, it’s the elders who turn to the guards to bribe them to tell an untrue story about where the body of Jesus went.

In Acts 6, the elders are still up to persecuting Christ through his church now. And the in Acts 6, the elders seek false witnesses against Stephen. So we have in the New Covenant now after the Old Covenant establishes the pervasiveness of the office of elder, the importance of the office of elder and proper functioning under God. What we see in the New Covenant in the gospel accounts of the acts of the elders at the time of our Lord we see an eldership that have turned away from God have actually turned to destroying God and his presence in their land.

So we see very wicked elders. Now it’s interesting then that after we go through these series of references to the elders that we just went through in the scriptures and it goes through that like that chronologically as you go through the gospels in Acts 14 then we have the next occurrence of the word “elder” and here the occurrence is that the early first century church, the new church was to ordain elders in every church.

Now, here we have, you got to keep now remember the context of this. We have a church that knows that it’s the elders of the land who have put their Lord to death, mocked him, substituted their law for his law, and after that lied about his resurrection, and after that persecuted other members of the early first century church, brought false witnesses against them. These are all at the hands of the elders.

But what do the people of God do? They as soon as they establish institutional churches, they appoint elders of the churches. That’s really significant, isn’t it? They didn’t give up on the office because it had been perverted by men. They didn’t blame the sin as it were upon the office. They acknowledged the sinfulness of the men who held the office, but they acknowledged the fact that they were in covenant continuity as it were with the Old Covenant.

And as a result, they had to have elders in the church as well. We see continuity throughout the scriptures in the use of the elders of the church. Now, on the basis of this, I’d like to make seven points very quickly and then move to Revelation 4.

First of all, the eldership is a family-oriented office. As I said, that should be clear to us as we went through all those references. The fact that they’re related to the family, the origin of the word, as I said before, the eldest member of the family is normally the elder of that family and would hold that office.

Secondly, the elders had a tremendous responsibility in the land. That should be clear as well. Judgment began with them in Ezekiel 8 and 9 because they had a tremendous responsibility for the growth of the covenant community in obedience to God. As I said, the elders are responsible for the establishment of kings. They’re responsible for selecting out Jephthah. They’re responsible for establishing covenant with David when he became king.

They had a tremendous position of responsibility both in those obvious civil actions of treaty and of covenants with kings and this kind of thing but also in terms of their permeation of the society by their teachings and their councils. And so they had a tremendous responsibility for judgment. Now in the New Testament they had a responsibility to obey God. They forsook that responsibility and as a result their actions brought about great judgment from God upon the covenant people.

Third thing I want to stress here is that the elders’ strength lied not in their office as much as it did in their counsel. And again we said in 2 Chronicles 10, Psalm 119 and Ezekiel 7, the elders’ primary mark of eldership was godly counsel. It was not necessarily the exercise of an institutional office. It was counsel from the word of God and overall direction for the people.

The fourth thing I want to point out is that there is basically no government throughout the scriptures apart from the office of elder. You saw all those occurrences of the Old Testament where the elders are linked to various offices always linked. And we saw when the selection of the sharim to reign, they had to be elders of the people. We can assume the same thing with the selection of judges. He took the existing elders that were there settling disputes already and made some of them civil magistrates. The tribe of Levite, the priestly tribe had elders in their tribe as well.

There’s no exercise of government in the scriptures from a godly perspective apart from the involvement of elders. Somehow they pervade every other office that we’re going to talk about, have talked about, and will talk about in the future. No government apart from them. The elders represent government in all the phases of church, family, and state. The elders certainly were involved in the family. That’s obvious from their origins.

The elders are involved in the institutional church, and we saw that there were elders of the tribe of Levite, and they were also elders involved in various functions, ceremonial functions, administration of the Passover and communion and all these other things. The elders were also representative governors in the state as well. And we saw that with their correlation to the king and other civil magistrates.

That’s a very important point. There’s no government in the scriptures without the involvement of elders and men who had attained elder status in their families. Fifth point I want to make is that in the scriptures and particularly the Old Covenant all these references to the eldership, there is not an emphasis upon an institutional basis or office. As a result of that, there’s not an emphasis then on an institutional scapegoat as it were for sin.

As I said in the New Covenant when the elders perform their function very poorly, God causes to recognize as did the early church that sin does not lie in institutions. Sin lies in the heart of men. The God-given institution that he had given to them that had evolved naturally as it were through the family and into the civil magistrate into the affairs of church and into the affairs of the family as well.

It wasn’t that office that had sin in it. It was the men occupying the office. They didn’t shuck the whole office off. They kept the office with godly men. Now sixth, since the office and the function of the elders are stressed there is not a stress placed upon the method of appointment. Now there are descriptions of the method of appointment in the New Covenant specifically. There are no descriptions of that sort of method of appointment in the Old Covenant.

And so the method of appointment while important is not as important as the men who occupy the office and the function of the office itself. Seventh, and this should be rather obvious again, but the fact is that God’s law was central to the exercise of the office of elder wisdom and counsel which were to mark the elders of the families of the church and of the state. Wisdom comes from a fear of God and application of his law to everything that’s done.

Okay. Now the basis of that then let’s now go to Revelation 4 and 5 and see how it confirms these things to us. First of all we have to understand the context of Revelation 4 and 5. It follows obviously Revelation 2 and 3 which are an account of the historical church. Revelation 4 and 5 it is agreed by most commentators and from a just a passive reading of the text describes to us that God is the supreme controller of all history.

The scroll that’s to be opened in Revelation 4, then is finally opened in Revelation 5, is the scroll of what will occur. And God is seen as the one who declares those judgments, who opens the scroll. They’re his judgments coming forth upon people in history. Revelation 4 and 5 tells us that history is governed and controlled by God.