Great selection of one of my favorite chapters and scenes in the Bible. I’m glad to see Pat Marvenko Smith’s artwork here.
Great question about how close these depictions come to reality. My thoughts: 1) Far vaster than we can imagine. Picture the Grand Canyon filled with angels and plated with gold and adorned with jewels. 2) Far greater power emanating from God’s throne than we can imagine. The angels around God are the most powerful God created. They cower and quake before God. Lightning comes from the throne. My electrical engineer son pointed out, “Of course there’s lightning. Electricity goes from a greater source to a lesser source. So it comes from God to anywhere else.
Hugh Ross has observed that once God has finally conquered evil, not only will He dispense with this earth but also he will no longer employ our current laws of physics:
* electromagnetism evidently will be unnecessary, because our light will emanate from the Godhead
* gravity, too, will no longer function, as evidenced by the New Jerusalem: under the current law of gravity, no object that large can be cubic, because gravity would have rounded its corners