Revelation 5:4

And I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the book, or to look thereon:

Many scholars accept the interpretation of the apostle's weeping as being due to his disappointment over not getting to see the visions he expected.

Barclay's comment is typical:

The voice had made the promise to him, "I will show these things which must be hereafter." It now looked as if the promise could not be kept, and as if he had been frustrated. The seer weeps because the promised vision, as he thinks, is not to be.[14]

This interpretation is rejected here, because frustration is a totally inadequate grounds for such overwhelming grief as that manifested by the apostle in this verse. Excessive weeping for such a reason would hardly appear commendable in such a character as John. No! Something far more important is in view. Newell caught a glimpse of it thus:

It was as if sin and Satan were to go on forever in the usurped control of affairs in this world. It was as if it still must be written:

Right forever on the scaffold,

Wrong forever on the throne.

The apostle was broken-hearted about this. The Greek word is the same as that for Christ weeping over Jerusalem.[15]

This clarifies the retrospective throw-back in the vision to a period before redemption was achieved by Christ. But John's grief was quickly assuaged. God has already progressed far beyond the hopeless condition apparent at first. Indeed, the victory had already been won, and the victorious Lamb of God was already seated on the throne. The time was then far later than the heart-breaking glimpse of the past had indicated.

[14] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 212.

[15] William R. Newell, op. cit., p. 98.