Revelation 4:5: And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.

Lightnings and thunderings and voices proceed from the throne of God in this verse¹ as they did when Jehovah was present on mount Sinai.² These phenomena collectively express the majesty of God.³ John saw the lightnings,⁴ thunderings⁵ and voices⁶ as signs⁷ of forthcoming judgments.⁸ The signs were manifest in heaven,⁹ but they symbolize temporal and spiritual storms on earth that were already overtaking Christ's ancient church¹⁰ in the form of the First Beast in Revelation 13:1 specifically¹¹ and the Great Apostasy more generally.¹²

In Revelation 1:4, John's letters to the seven churches in Asia were addressed to the seven Spirits of God that are also identified in Revelation 4:5.¹³ The Joseph Smith Translation modifies Revelation 1:4 to say that these seven spirits were seven servants or leaders of the seven churches of Asia.¹⁴ Revelation 4:5 identifies the same seven church leaders as seven lamps of fire burning before the throne.¹⁵ These collective verses mean that in Revelation 1:4 the seven leaders were alive and on earth to receive John's letters, but then John looked through a door into heaven and saw things which must be hereafter in Revelation 4:1.¹⁶ Thus, in Revelation 4:5, John's vision of the near future revealed that the disembodied spirits of the seven church leaders were then in the celestial paradise after their death.¹⁷ In the paradise of Revelation chapter 4,¹⁸ the seven servants are the glorified spirits of just men made perfect.¹⁹ The image of seven lamps symbolically describes the seven servants as lamps whose glory burns before the throne of God in paradise before their resurrection.²⁰

Many Biblical scholars interpret the seven lamps of fire as a manifestation of the Holy Ghost because they misinterpret the seven spirits from Revelation 1:4 as manifestations of the Holy Ghost.²¹ However, the Joseph Smith Translation of Revelation 1:4 and 4:5 confirms that the seven servants and seven lamps are not manifestations of the Holy Ghost.²² They are the spirits of righteous men, who had the Holy Ghost with them when they led the seven churches of Asia in mortality and have the Holy Ghost with them in paradise after their deaths.²³