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Floyd O. Parker, «‘Our Lord and God’ in Rev 4,11: Evidence for the Late Date of Revelation?», Vol. 82 (2001) 207-231
This article challenges a commonly-held belief that the title ‘our Lord and God’ (Rev 4,11) served as a Christian counter-blast to the claim of the emperor Domitian to be dominus et deus noster. Despite the claims of several scholars that the title ‘our Lord and God’ does not appear in the OT, the data collected favors the view that the title in Rev 4,11 does indeed have its origin in the divine title ‘Lord and God’ found in the LXX and other Jewish sources. Consequently, the title is of no use in helping to determine the date of the book of Revelation.
5. Imperial Context of Chapter 4
Some scholars have suggested that symbolism and language of the throne-room vision in Rev 4–5 was partially influenced by the ceremony of the Roman imperial court93. Most of these scholars give due attention to both Roman imperial and Jewish imagery,but tend to place the title ‘our Lord and God’ into the former category.
The most important of these studies to date is that of D. Aune. His article challenged the widely held view that the heavenly liturgy portrayed in the throne-room was a projection of Christian worship in Asia Minor during the first century. He proposed instead that the liturgy was based primarily on Roman imperial court ceremonial. Pate makes an excellent summary of Aune’s article:
As David Aune has shown, Revelation 5–6 also draws on the imperial ceremonial court. The following points of contact with that milieu emerge in the symbolism of chapters 4–5. (a) Greco-Roman kings were considered to be divine, their courtrooms often artistically expressed in terms of being cosmic, which itself was portrayed in concentric circles. (b) Their attendants were often associated with astrology (seven planetary spheres [cf. Rev. 4:5], twenty-four [the doubling of the twelve signs of the Zodiac] devotees [cf. 4:4, 10; 5:6-10]). (c) These attendants sang hymns of worship to the divine king (cf. 4:8-11; 5:9-14). (d) The king dispensed justice over his empire, symbolized by a scroll (cf. 5:1-8). These considerations, along with the competing claims for the respective deities throughout Revelation between John and the imperial cult of the first century (god, son of god, lord’s day, savior of the world) suggest that the two cultures clash in the imagery employed in Revelation 4–594.
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