In Revelation chapter 4, a new vision begins with a view of God's throne in heaven.¹ The word heaven can have several different meanings depending on the context.² For example, heaven sometimes refers to the visible sky.³ Heaven also describes the celestial kingdom on this earth as the final dwelling place of resurrected saints after the millennium.⁴ Paul and others also describe the celestial kingdom as the third heaven.⁵ Finally, there are three heavens or degrees of glory within the celestial kingdom.⁶ In the most precise sense of the word, heaven means the highest degree of glory within the celestial kingdom.⁷

The celestial kingdom will be located on this earth after the millennium, and after earth dies and is resurrected to glory.⁸ John's letter to the saints in Ephesus describes this post-millennial celestial kingdom⁹ as the paradise of God in Revelation 2:7.¹⁰ This phrase tends to blur the line between the post-resurrection celestial kingdom of saints with perfected bodies and the pre-resurrection celestial paradise of saints with only disembodied spirits. John separately identifies the post-resurrection celestial kingdom by the name of new heaven and new earth in Revelation 21:1,¹¹ and by the name of holy Jerusalem in Revelation 21:10.¹² The blurred line between the celestial paradise of disembodied spirits and the celestial kingdom of resurrected saints is wholly appropriate because the conditions in one largely reflect the conditions in the other.

In Revelation chapters 4 and 5, John consistently uses the word heaven to describe celestial paradise¹³ as one part of the postmortal spirit world for disembodied spirits.¹⁴ Celestial paradise is the resting place for disembodied spirits of the just¹⁵ as they await their resurrection to celestial glory.¹⁶ As noted above, the glorious conditions in celestial paradise before the resurrection¹⁷ are typical of the glorious conditions in the celestial kingdom after the resurrection.¹⁸ Unfortunately, these similarities sometimes lead people to misinterpret the symbols in John's vision and they mistake John's description of conditions in celestial paradise for a description of the post-resurrection celestial kingdom.

For example, in Revelation 4:4, John saw 24 Elders with crowns seated on thrones. The crowns and thrones suggest that the 24 Elders must be in the celestial kingdom after their resurrection.¹⁹ However, the details of John's vision indicate that they are in celestial paradise as disembodied spirits before their resurrection.²⁰ John's expanded vision in Revelation chapter 5 confirms this conclusion. There, John's vision of heaven (celestial paradise) expands to include hundreds of millions of disembodied spirits located in spirit prison (hell), which is part of the same postmortal spirit world.²¹ Such a condition will not exist as part of the post-resurrection celestial kingdom. In other words, people in the lesser kingdoms of terrestrial glory, telestial glory, and outer darkness of no glory do not inhabit, nor are they any part of, the same world as the celestial kingdom. This simple illustration demonstrates that John's expanded vision of heaven in Revelation chapter 5 as a single dwelling place for all heavenly people cannot be a symbolic representation of the post-resurrection celestial kingdom.

When the door in heaven opened in Revelation 4:1, John saw "things which must be hereafter."²² Revelation 1:1 defines the word hereafter to be "things which must shortly come to pass."²³ Since Revelation chapter 4 describes things which must shortly come to pass, John cannot be looking at the celestial kingdom as it will exist after the millennium and the end of the earth. Instead, John saw celestial paradise in the postmortal spirit world as it existed when he had his vision on Patmos island in about 96 AD.²⁴

In Revelation chapter 7, John had another vision of the same celestial paradise, but in this later chapter he saw paradise at the approach of the Second Coming. This is consistent with the view that John's visions are chronological. Thus, in Revelation 7, John saw many more celestial-worthy spirits in paradise. He described them as a great multitude, which no man could number.²⁵ John saw many more celestial-worthy spirits in paradise at the approach of the Second Coming than he saw in his vision of the same place in 96 AD. This is due largely because the latter-day work of salvation for both the living and the dead occurs in temples of the restored church. These latter-day works of salvation qualify vast numbers of people to enter celestial paradise as disembodied spirits when their mortal bodies die. In many cases, disembodied spirits enter celestial paradise long after the death of their mortal body as they await temple ordinances to be performed vicariously for them because they did not have the opportunity to receive gospel ordinances during their mortal lives.

Many of the symbols used by John in Revelation chapters 4 and 5 illustrate why the word heaven means the celestial paradise for disembodied spirits as of 96 AD, and not the celestial kingdom on earth after the millennium at end of the earth, as follows:

In Revelation 4:2, God the Father is seated on the throne.²⁶ This puts the vision of heaven in Revelation chapter 4 before the Second Coming because Christ will be seated on the throne with the Father after the Second Coming.²⁷

In Revelation 4:4, the 24 Elders around the throne of God represent faithful saints from the seven churches in Asia.²⁸ Doctrine and Covenants Section 77:5 states that at the time of John's vision their spirits were in the paradise of God awaiting their resurrection until the Second Coming.²⁹ The spirits of other righteous martyrs from the seven churches continued to enter paradise after John's vision in 96 AD,³⁰ and they too must wait until the Second Coming to be resurrected.³¹ Since the 24 Elders were not resurrected in John's vision of heaven in Revelation chapter 4, the vision predates the Second Coming.

John mentions the 24 Elders for the first time in Revelation 4:4, and he mentions them again on eleven other occasions thereafter.³² Significantly, Revelation 11:16 mentions them in connection with the Third Woe immediately before the Second Coming.³³ This demonstrates that the disembodied spirits of the 24 Elders will still be in paradise just before the Second Coming as they were when John saw them for the first time in celestial paradise as of 96 AD.³⁴

In Revelation 4:5, John saw "the seven Spirits of God," which the Joseph Smith Translation identifies as the seven servants or leaders from the seven churches in Asia.³⁵ They were not resurrected in John's vision of heaven in 96 AD because he specifically calls them spirits. Additionally, these seven spirits are in the company of the 24 Elders, which means they were all disembodied spirits in the paradise of God.³⁶

In Revelation 4:6, John saw a "sea of glass like unto crystal [that was] before the throne." This imagery separates and distinguishes the sea of glass (celestial paradise) from God's throne. If this image was intended to depict the celestial kingdom after the millennium, then God's throne would be combined with‒and stand in the midst of‒the sea of glass. That is, the throne of God does not stand before and/or apart from the celestial kingdom.³⁷ John saw the same sea of glass in Revelation 15:2, at the start of the Third Woe before the Second Coming.³⁸ After the millennium, the earth will die and resurrect to become a great Urim and Thummim like a sea of glass.³⁹ Until that time, celestial paradise in the postmortal spirit world will remain distinct from the celestial kingdom on this resurrected earth, although the conditions will be mirror-like.⁴⁰

In Revelation 4:8, four beasts worship the "Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come."⁴¹ John saw their worship in celestial paradise of the postmortal spirit world in his day, and this occurred long before the Second Coming. This is necessarily true because even now the Second Coming of the Lord God Almighty⁴² is still something that is to come in the future.⁴³ Since the four beasts worship Christ who is to come, their worship predates the Second Coming rather than their worship of him in the post-resurrection celestial kingdom after Christ has already come‒past tense.