20:11And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them.

And I saw

  1. a GREAT WHITE THRONE and

    The use of 'GREAT' here is in the sense of 'the ultimate' THRONE. It is not used in the sense of the 'elder's throne' (Revelation 4:4 and Revelation 11:16) or like a 'focal point throne' (Revelation 4:2, Revelation 4:10, Revelation 7:11 and such). The GREAT WHITE THRONE denotes the ultimate center of GOOD as opposed to EVIL as in the Tree of the Knowledge of GOOD and EVIL. It's the ultimate center of RIGHTEOUSNESS (WHITE) (Revelation 19:8) and of AUTHORITY (the THRONE itself). Thus the ultimate GREAT WHITE THRONE is final JUDGMENT. It is the process of completing that which was written in the scroll (Revelation 5:1). In the previous verse, we found the devil permanently removed to the lake of fire and brimstone; the GREAT WHITE THRONE will permanently remove evil from the non-believers, from death and even Hades itself (verse 14).

    This is not a new kind of judgment for even in Old Testament times, the THRONE was understood to be the place of righteousness and justice (Psalm 89:11-14-18).

  2. HIM who sat upon it, from whose presence EARTH and HEAVEN FLED AWAY, and no place was found for them.

    There is no need to say who "HIM" is. There is only one "HIM" qualified to sit on that THRONE. Look how Paul in his exhortation to Timothy describes "HIM" (1 Timothy 6:13-15-16). It is the same "HIM" here on the GREAT WHITE THRONE.

    So pure, so GOOD, so righteous is "HE" on the GREAT WHITE THRONE that EARTH and HEAVEN FLED AWAY from HIS presence. That is John's way of saying that the physical earth and associated heaven (Genesis 1:6-8) are dissolved. This is confirmed in Revelation 21:1. From experience, we all understand the evil the sin curse placed on this earth. So we can understand why there is 'no place found for them' when something is dirtied with so much EVIL as the EARTH has been. What is harder to understand is why HEAVEN is destroyed. But then recall that the devil and his cohorts have been running around heaven too (Revelation 12:7-12). And wherever they went they had to leave the scent of EVIL. We see the Creator of the Earth doing the ultimate reclaim of that which was taken over by EVIL (the devil and company) (see discussion in Revelation 5:1).

    Science has known for some time now that the universe is physically expanding. So it shouldn't stretch our imagination too much that the EARTH and HEAVEN are moving away from the GREAT WHITE THRONE. The expansion is theorized as the result of a "big bang" or in other words, the conversion of a lot of energy into matter. This fits with Einstein's assertion that the ratio of Energy to Matter (mass) is a constant. A constant that is the square of the speed of light, and that is a very large number. In a spiritual sense, we see from this verse a parallel ratio of GOOD to EVIL, and if the symmetry holds, this ratio must be a constant (the ultimate "HIM"). So taking the thought one step further, if EVIL is totally removed (the denominator of our ratio goes to zero, no EVIL), then all GOOD is ultimately the infinite GOD. PRAISE HIS HOLY NAME!