D&C 77: Questions and Answers on the Book of Revelation

I have a set of plans for a rocking chair that I have been meaning to build for about three years. The plans are detailed. Every joint labeled, every measurement written in the margin, every piece of wood accounted for. But the plans are not the chair. They are a map of the chair. They tell you how the parts fit together, what the finished thing is supposed to look like, and what order to do the work in. Without the plans, the finished chair is just a shape you are guessing at. With them, you can see the whole thing before you cut the first piece.

D&C 77 is like that. The Book of Revelation is the finished piece, complex and strange and hard to read. D&C 77 is the set of plans. It breaks down the symbols, explains the measurements, and shows you how the parts fit into a timeline you can actually follow.

The Reservoir at Dawn

The first question in the section is about the sea of glass, like unto crystal, that John saw before the throne of God. The answer is one of those quiet revelations that changes how you read everything else.

Q. What is the sea of glass spoken of by John, fourth chapter, and sixth verse of the Revelation?
A. It is the earth, in its sanctified, immortal, and eternal state. (D&C 77:1)

The earth itself becomes that sea of glass. Not a literal ocean. The planet we are standing on, after it has been refined and glorified. I think about that when I am out in the canyon before sunrise, when the reservoir is flat and still and the light has not hit it yet. That stillness is a hint of what the whole earth will become.

The Pattern in the Physical World

The four beasts have puzzled readers for centuries. John saw them full of eyes before and behind, and they said holy, holy, holy. D&C 77 explains them as figurative expressions of the happiness of man and animals in the paradise of God.

There is a principle here that I keep coming back to. Verse 2 says the spiritual is in the likeness of the temporal. The spirit of a creature is a reflection of its physical form. That means the physical world is not just a shadow of something else. It is a pattern. The thing you can see tells you something about the thing you cannot see.

The eyes on the beasts represent light and knowledge. The wings represent power to move and to act. I like that. Knowledge without the power to act on it is just information. Power without knowledge is just motion. You need both.

Seven Thousand Years

The seven seals in Revelation are explained as seven thousand years of the earth's temporal existence. Each seal is a thousand-year period. The book that John saw contains the revealed will and works of God for each of those thousand-year periods.

That is a long time. I have been building furniture for about twenty years, and I can see how much I did not know when I started. Seven thousand years is the kind of timeline that makes you realize God is not in a hurry. He is working on something that takes longer than a human life to complete.

The four angels in verse 8 have power over the four parts of the earth, to save or to destroy. They are tasked with committing the everlasting gospel to every nation. The angel from the east is identified as Elias, the figure who gathers the tribes of Israel and restores all things. This is the same pattern you see in the renewed covenant in Exodus 34 (God keeps making a way for His people to come back).

From Every Nation

The 144,000 are explained as high priests, ordained from every nation, to administer the everlasting gospel and bring souls into the church of the Firstborn. They are not a symbolic number. They are real people called to a real work, much like the priesthood described in D&C 84.

I think about what it means to be ordained from every nation. Not from one nation, not from one language or culture. From every nation. The gospel is not an American project or a Utah project. It is a project for the whole earth, and the people who do the work will come from everywhere.

The two witnesses in verse 15 are two prophets raised up to the Jewish nation after they have gathered and rebuilt Jerusalem. That is a specific detail. It tells you something about the order of events. The gathering comes first, then the rebuilding, then the witnesses.

The Trumpets Are Not Alarms

The seven seals are the backbone of the section. Each seal contains the things of God for a thousand years. The first seal is the beginning. The seventh seal is the preparing and finishing of His work, specifically the preparing of the way for the Second Coming.

The trumpets in verse 12 signal the work of the seventh thousand years. They are not warnings. They are signals that the work is being prepared and finished. That is a different way to read the trumpets of Revelation. They are announcements that something is being built, not alarms.

The little book that John eats in Revelation 10 is explained as a mission and an ordinance to gather the tribes of Israel. Elias does that, the 144,000 do that, and the two witnesses do that. The whole section is about gathering. Bringing people back. Restoring what was lost.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the sea of glass mentioned in D&C 77

The sea of glass represents the earth in its sanctified, immortal, and eternal state. This is a vision of the world after it has been perfected and glorified. It is not a literal ocean. It is the planet itself, refined and made clear.

How does D&C 77 explain the four beasts in Revelation

The four beasts are figurative expressions representing the happiness of man and animals in the paradise of God. They teach that the spiritual is in the likeness of the temporal. The eyes represent knowledge and the wings represent power.

What is the significance of the seven seals in this section

The seven seals represent seven thousand years of the earth's temporal existence. Each seal contains the revealed will and works of God for a specific thousand-year period of human history. The seventh seal covers the preparing and finishing of His work.

Who are the two witnesses described in verse 15

The two witnesses are two prophets who will be raised up to the Jewish nation in the last days. They will prophesy to the Jews after they have gathered and rebuilt the city of Jerusalem.

Closing

I still have not built that rocking chair. The plans are in a drawer in the shop, and I look at them every few months and think about the cuts I will make when I finally start. The plans are not the chair. But they are the thing that turns a vague idea into something you can actually build.

D&C 77 does the same thing for the Book of Revelation. It turns a vision you cannot quite make sense of into a timeline you can follow. The earth has seven thousand years, the gospel goes to every nation, and the work gets finished. And at the end, the earth becomes that sea of glass, clear and still and eternal.

— D.