Revelation 11:16-17: And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.

John first saw the 24 Elders from the seven churches of Asia as disembodied spirits in the celestial paradise of God in Revelation 4:4.¹ John repeatedly mentions these 24 Elders, who represent all exaltation-worthy saints since the time of Christ's resurrection. Their number continues to increase until the Second Coming.² By the time of the Second Coming, their symbolic image will include the disembodied spirits of all deceased saints in celestial paradise³ who qualify to be resurrected as members of the Church of the Firstborn.⁴ Revelation chapter 7 describes these exaltation-worthy saints as 144,000 Servants who have the seal of the living God in their forehead.⁵ All these will stand with Christ on mount Zion with resurrected or translated bodies⁶ at the Second Coming.⁷ They will then descend with him in glory.⁸ Exaltation-worthy saints still living at the end of the Second Woe and Start of the Third Woe will also stand on mount Zion after they are first quickened.⁹ This means their physical bodies will be temporarily transfigured or translated to a higher spiritual condition¹⁰ or they will be permanently changed to an exalted state when they are resurrected in the twinkling of an eye.¹¹

In Revelation chapter 4, the 24 Elders worshiped God and Christ as the creators,¹² and in Revelation chapter 5 they worshiped the Lamb of God as the Redeemer.¹³ This was the form of worship John saw in heaven as of 96 AD when he had his vision on Patmos island.¹⁴ At the end of the Second Woe and start of the Third Woe, which corresponds closely in time with the Second Coming, the expanded group of 24 Elders‒who now include the 144,000 Servants‒will worship Christ¹⁵ as the Lord God¹⁶ Almighty,¹⁷ who reigns as the King.¹⁸ From their seats before the throne of God,¹⁹ the 24 Elders fell on their faces, which means the exaltation-worthy saints prostrated themselves before Christ as a symbol of profound adoration, joy, and gratitude.²⁰

The 24 Elders will also worship Christ with a doxology of praise at the Second Coming.²¹ They praise Christ as the one which art, and wast, and art to come.²² These words express Christ's eternal nature.²³ However, the phrase art to come does not appear in the original Greek manuscripts.²⁴ That makes perfect sense because Christ will come during the Third Woe when this doxology is spoken. This means that the future tense art to come no longer applies. By the Third Woe, it will be said that Christ has come.

Christ's victory at the Second Coming is so certain to occur that the 24 Elders give thanks²⁵ as though it had already occurred using the prophetic past tense.²⁶ For this reason, the words in Revelation 11:17 say that Christ hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.²⁷