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8. Creation’s Praise of God in the Book of Revelation That all creation worships God is a biblical theme that has not been given the attention it deserves, at least in the modern period, and despite the burgeoning interest in ecological aspects of the Bible.1 But it has a distinctive significance for delineating a biblical perspective on the non-human creation.2 To recognize that all creatures praise God is to enter an appreciative vision of creation in which a purely instrumental view of nature has to be left aside. It is to see that all creation exists for God’s glory, not for human use. All creatures have their own value for God and praise God simply by being what he has made them to be and doing what he has made them to do. To recognize that all creatures praise God is also to recognize ourselves as fellow-creatures with others. A living sense of participation with other creatures in the worship that all creatures owe and give to God is the strongest antidote to Christian anthropocentrism. When humans join their fellow -creatures in giving glory to their common Creator there is no hierarchy or anthropocentricity. In this respect all creatures, ourselves included, are simply fellow-creatures expressing the theocentricity of the world, each in their own created way, differently but in complementarity . The theme of all creation’s praise of God is prominent most especially in the Psalms (65:12–13; 69:34; 96:11–12; 98:7–8; 103:22; 148; 150:6; 1 Exceptions include: Fretheim, ‘Nature’s Praise’, pp. 16–30; Howard N. Wallace, ‘Jubilate Deo omnis terra: God and Earth in Psalm 65’, in The Earth Story in the Psalms and the Prophets (ed. Norman C. Habel; The Earth Bible 4; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press/Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2001), pp. 51–64; John Eaton, The Circle of Creation: Animals in the Light of the Bible (London: SCM Press, 1995), pp. 94–103. 2 See Chapter 7 in this volume. cf. Isa. 42:10). If the theme as such has been neglected, this is even more true of its occurrence in the book of Revelation. All commentators recognize it in 5:13 but they are not inclined to dwell on it. For some, the main issue seems to be whether the worship of all creatures implies the voluntary acknowledgment of God by all or includes the forced submission of God’s opponents.3 That this is the main issue suggests that such commentators are really interested only in humans or in humans and angels.4 But for an adequate appreciation of the theme of all creation ’s worship in Revelation, we need to attend not only to the praise of God sung by the whole cosmos in 5:13, but also to the worship unceasingly given to God by the four living creatures around the throne (4:6b–8). That this is related to the worship of all creation is more controversial and we shall have to discuss the matter in considerable detail. The Four Living Creatures in Revelation 4 In the first part of the prophet John’s vision of the heavenly throneroom (Rev. 4) he sees the divine sovereignty as it is in heaven, where God’s rule is perfectly accomplished. On earth, on the other hand, as the rest of the book makes clear, it is contested and must be established in the eschatological future. What is true in heaven must become true on earth. In this vision of heaven John sees the sovereignty of the God who created all things, depicted not so much directly, through a sight of the Enthroned One himself, but through what happens around his throne: the worship of those who surround the throne and sing his praises unceasingly. These figures are the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures, the former making an outer circle, the latter an inner circle, around the divine throne. One key to understanding this vision is to recognize that the imagery involves both political and cultic elements. The setting is the Living with Other Creatures 164 3 George B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine (BNTC; London; A&C Black, 1966), pp. 77; Mathias Rissi, The Future of the World (SBT 2/23; London: SCM Press, 1972), p. 81; Gregory C. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999), p. 365; Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther, Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and...

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