Have you ever wondered what it would be like standing before the throne of God?
Recently I was chatting with a friend about what it might be like to stand if front of God sitting on His throne.
Now just so you know, we were thinking of this as a metaphor.
But if you google “throne of God” you’ll find all kinds of images of what people think of when they hear that phrase, “throne of God.”
But Jesus makes is very clear:
God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. John 4:24 NLT
God is Spirit. He doesn’t have a physical body with which He sits on a physical throne. The Bible uses the imagery of God’s throne to convey His supreme power and authority, His justice, His mercy and majesty, His holiness and purity, and so much more.
This is what my friend and I were chatting about. What would it be like to stand in the presence of all God’s glory?
When will you stand before the throne of God?
Most folks I talk to think this will only happen when we get to heaven after death. But Jesus promised us that heaven is not just way off in the future.
…the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 4:17 KJV
Since the kingdom of heaven is at hand, God’s throne is at hand as well. It’s not something you can see or touch with your eyes or hands. But it is totally present spiritually.
I’m going to come back to this idea of standing before the throne of God in just a few minutes, but first I want to talk about just a couple of the ways the Bible mentions God’s throne.
A throne represents the seat of authority for a king or ruler. It represents power, authority, and justice.
I love this all-encompassing perspective of God’s supreme authority in two verses from Psalms.
The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD is on his heavenly throne. He observes everyone on earth; his eyes examine them. Psalm 11:4 NIV
God is all-seeing, and all-knowing. He doesn’t miss anything.
God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne. Psalm 47:8 NIV
God is sitting on His throne
So, God is Spirit, as Jesus tells us. What does the metaphor of God sitting on a throne really mean?
Well, first of all, only the one in authority is supposed to sit on the throne. It is God’s throne and He alone is entitled to and capable of “sitting” there. The more I think about it, sitting on a throne represents taking an active role in governing.
God’s throne is not empty. He has not abandoned His role as the Supreme and Sovereign Ruler of all Creation. For God to “sit” on His throne means He is actively engaged at this very moment in ruling His kingdom. He has not gone on vacation. He has not given His throne, His authority, to anyone else. God is on His throne. God is in control.
What does standing before the throne of God mean?
So let’s come back to this idea of standing before the throne of God, face to face with God. How would you feel?
There are times I have thought I would just stand there looking at God, so to speak, eye to eye with love and gratitude. Other times, I have felt like I would crawl up to God on hands and knees, not daring to look at Him because of feelings of unworthiness.
To stand before the throne of God ultimately means seeing, acknowledging, and submitting to God’s power and authority.
To stand before God is having all pretensions and facades stripped away. He sees everything. It means having your known and unknown sins exposed. This can be frightening, but it can also be incredibly rewarding because it means God is going to remove these things from you.
Isaiah’s vision of standing before the throne of God
The prophet Isaiah experienced this very thing. He had a vision where he sees the throne of God.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” Isaiah 6:1-8 NIV
How does Isaiah respond to being in God’s presence?
There’s a lot going in this vision. Isaiah sees God seated on a throne and the train of his robe fills the temple. This is a metaphor for the immensity of God’s glory and majesty.
The temple is where we worship God. So, everywhere we go, God is present. In fact, the seraphim announce that that God’s glory fills not just the temple but the whole earth. I used to wonder how can that be possible. When you look at the world then or now, there is so much going on that doesn’t look like God’s glory.
And so it is when we only look at the world through the lens of our own perspective. The material senses cannot discern the fully glory of God anywhere, let alone everywhere.
How does Isaiah respond to this magnificent vision of God’s glory? He feels totally unworthy. He becomes very conscious of his sins and the sins of the people around him.
Can you identify with Isaiah here? It’s not so hard to see the sins of others, but sometimes we are either unaware of our own shortcomings, or we are aware of them and don’t want to face them, or do much to rectify them.
When Isaiah is confronted with the pure holiness and majesty of God, his sins become so obvious to him.
What happens when you are standing before the throne of God?
If you’re wearing a gray shirt, it might not be so easy to see a piece of black thread that’s on your shirt. But if you have on a white shirt and a black thread got on it, it would be so much more obvious.
This is just a tiny metaphor of what happens when you find yourself consciously in God’s presence. You may be quite a fine person and doing a lot to follow Christ and obey God’s commandments, helping others and ministering to their needs.
But when you become aware of being in the immediate presence of God, the spiritual light of God’s nature uncovers any and every thought unlike God.
This is what happened to Isaiah and it made him cry out: “Woe to me!…I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips,”
A purifying process
Isaiah thought he was ruined, because all his sins were suddenly so obvious. But actually this whole experience was a cleansing process. God had not ruined him. God was blessing him, purifying him, and preparing him for his calling.
It’s at that point the seraphim touched Isaiah’s lips with a live coal from the altar—again all this is a metaphorical vision—and Isaiah’s sins and guilt were taken away.
When you stand before the throne of God and all your sins, large and small, known and unknown, fly up in your face, you may be tempted to cry out with Isaiah, “Woe to me!…I am ruined!”
But this is simply God’s purifying presence that removes these sins from you because they’re not part of your original spiritual identity as a child of God, made in God’s image and likeness.
It wasn’t just Isaiah’s sins that were removed, but the guilt as well. When God forgives your sins, there is never any reason to hold onto any associated guilt. God’s purification process is complete.
God’s call to Isaiah
This cleansing process was not just to make Isaiah feel good about himself so he can get on with his own little life. Once his sins were removed, Isaiah is ready to respond to what God has in store for him, to prophesy unto the people.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” Isaiah 6:8 NIV
If Isaiah had still been burdened with his sins and guilt, he wouldn’t be ready to accept God’s call to be a prophet. And he probably wouldn’t have even heard the call in the first place.
How does this apply to you and me today?
I’ve heard people imagine what it would be like once they’ve died and gone to heaven, seeing God face to face and being absolutely joyful about it. But I’ve heard others talk about this same scenario with terror in their hearts.
Standing before the throne of God today
What would happen if we could really accept Jesus’s declaration that the kingdom of God is at hand and within us, and not just way off in the future after we die?
What if we could be conscious here and now, every day in fact, that we are standing before the throne of God?
When all our mistakes, our sins, our insecurities, our limiting beliefs are brought to the surface and it seems unbearable, hopefully we’ll see quickly that God is purifying us to prepare us for what He wants us to do, just as he did with Isaiah.
Don’t avoid standing before the throne of God. Don’t be afraid of this spiritual baptism. Every time you stand before God’s throne, every time you acknowledge God is in complete control, it becomes a moment of spiritual discovery of your relationship to God and a clearer understanding of who you are and your purpose as God’s child.
You don’t have to wait
Now, you may be thinking: Hey James, this all sounds great, but how do I get a better sense of God’s throne being here and now and me standing before this throne all the time? I just can’t quite fathom that.
This is a great question. And the answer may not come all at once. But later in the book of Isaiah there’s a clue that helps us tie together what Jesus says about the kingdom of heaven being at hand with the throne of God.
This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Isaiah 66:1 NIV
Okay, since the kingdom of heaven is God’s throne, and the kingdom of heaven is at hand, then the throne of God is at hand as well. But we just can’t see it with the material way of seeing and thinking.
Paul says it’s God who reveals all this to us.
However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” [Isaiah 64:4]—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:9, 10 NIV
Standing before the throne of God brings healing
God is revealing His kingdom and His throne to you right this very minute. Even though you may not be aware of it, you are standing before the throne of God, not just because you want to be there, but because God has called you there. He is revealing to you His full glory and this washes away your sins and any thought unpleasing to Him.
Take some time to ponder the deep spiritual implications of what this means.
There have been times in my life when I have consciously felt being in the presence of God’s supremacy and glory, His throne, and it has healed me. There have been many times I have felt God was talking to me, but one time in particular I was trying to imagine what it would be like to look at God face to face. Not in a literal sense, but in sincerity being in God’s presence and recognizing God for who He is and Him recognizing me for who I am.
I heard these words from God: I see you. I know you. I recognize you. I value you. I support you. I love you. I am here for you.
When I heard this, I bawled liked a baby. For a moment I felt unworthy, just as Isaiah did, but soon I felt nothing but God’s overpowering presence, glory, and love. I was healed of a longstanding sense of not being good enough. It was such a liberation. And I felt a new sense of God’s purpose for me and that I was worthy to fulfill it.
Standing before the throne of God brings justice
Experiencing God’s presence has also brought justice on many occasions. Once during a legal procedure, which was supposed to be a closing formality to an already agreed on outcome, one of the participants flared up with demands that were not part of the contract.
I prayed simply to see that God was in control of the situation, in other words that God was on His throne delivering justice. Now, I wasn’t actually praying with the throne metaphor at the time, but looking back on that situation I can see now that’s pretty much how I appealed to God.
In an instant this person withdrew their demands and was quiet the rest of the time. And everything went as it should have. I found out later two other people in the room were praying about it as well.
When you’re praying for yourself, someone else, or maybe something larger on a global level, go stand before the throne of God and take your case to Him.
No fear or shame
There is no need to be ashamed or afraid, even if you feel unworthy. This verse from Hebrews gives us permission to do just this.
So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrews 4:16 NLT
Now you may be tempted to think some of the problems in the world are just too big to be healed in this way, but I encourage you never to believe the power of God sitting on His throne could ever be limited.
The Book of Revelation talks about the final victory over all evil and materialism and we don’t have to wait for some future date to start seeing the present truth of this.
Most Bible students I know are very aware of the description in Revelation, Chapter 21, of the new heaven and new earth appearing. But what happened to the first heaven and the first earth?
The answer is in the previous chapter.
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. Revelation 20:11 NIV
In the presence of God’s absolute supremacy, glory, majesty, love, and grace, the material concepts of heaven and earth can only flee away and have no place in God’s kingdom.
Standing before the throne of God today
Whatever you’re struggling with, on a personal level, or a global level, accept God’s invitation to be in His presence, to stand before His throne. Let His presence wash away anything in your life that is unlike Him.
Then you will hear the still small voice ask: “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And you will say, “Here am I. Send me!”
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, podcaster, and church mentor. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.
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Bible References
John 4:24 NLT
24 God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.
Matthew 4:17 KJV
17 …the kingdom of heaven is at hand
Psalm 11:4 NIV
4 The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD is on his heavenly throne. He observes everyone on earth; his eyes examine them.
Psalm 47:8 NIV
8 God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne.
Isaiah 6:1-8 NIV
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.
3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Isaiah 6:8 NIV
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Isaiah 66:1 NIV
1 This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.
1 Corinthians 2:9, 10 NIV
9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” [Isaiah 64:4]— the things God has prepared for those who love him—
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
Hebrews 4:16 NLT
16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
Revelation 20:11 NIV
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.
