Copyright © 2024 Michael A. Brown
Reading:
Revelation 6:1 – 8:5
When the Lord Jesus, the ascended
and exalted Lamb-Lion who is seated upon the throne in heaven, receives the
sealed scroll of God’s will and purpose for creation, he begins to open the seven
seals one by one. These are described
below. The descriptions of the first
four seals have similarities with one another, and therefore these four can be
grouped together, and the fifth seal can be associated with their
outworking. The sixth seal has a
different nature to the previous five, and the meaning of both this and the
seventh seal are also examined below.
However, the actual contents of the scroll itself cannot be revealed
until all seven seals are opened.
The
opening of the first five seals
As I said above, these first five
seals split up naturally into a group of the first four, followed by the
fifth. Table 16.1 on the following pages
gives an outline of the basic descriptions of the events associated with the
opening of these five seals.
|
The first four seals |
|||
|
First
seal |
White
horse (6:1-2) |
The
gospel |
The
rider holds a bow, he is given a crown, and he rides out to conquer. |
|
Second
seal |
Red
horse (6:3-4) |
Removal
of peace from humankind |
The rider has power to take peace from the earth and to make people slay one another. He has a large sword. People rise up against one another. Instability,
revolutions, terrorism. |
|
Third
seal |
Black
horse (6:5-6) |
Economic
injustice / hardship / famine |
Economic misery for many, while the rich protect their own interests (oil and wine). Widespread
hardship and famine. |
|
Fourth
seal |
Pale
horse (6:7-8) |
War /
death |
The rider is called Death and he is followed by Hades. A quarter of the earth is killed by sword, famine and plague, and by wild beasts. These are God’s four dreadful judgements (Ezek. 6:11-12, 7:15, 14:21). Hence,
the destruction of war and its consequences. |
|
The fifth seal |
|||
|
Fifth
seal |
Persecution
/ martyrdom (6:9-11) |
Martyred souls under the altar in heaven, crying out. They
are given white robes and told to wait until their full number is made up. |
|
Table 16.1 The first five seals and
what they represent
1.
The state of the empire
The imagery of riders on horses
which is used in the opening of the first four seals – often referred to as
“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” – alludes to the passages in Zechariah
1:8-11 and 6:1-8 in the Old Testament.[1] These passages are based on the practice in
ancient times of how an emperor would send decrees and letters out from his
palace to the different parts of his empire via emissaries riding on horseback. King Xerxes provided a good example of this
when he sent riders throughout the Persian Empire with decrees (Est. 3:12-15,
8:8-14). Then, on their return journey,
these riders would bring news back to the emperor from the different parts of
the empire and letters from provincial governors. Through these communications, the emperor
would stay abreast of the state of his empire and any new developments (cf.
Zech. 1:10-11).
Based
on this underlying meaning of the horse-rider imagery, these seals would
therefore seem to be describing in very broad brushstrokes four major
historical macro-factors which affect and determine the state of human life and
experience in this world, which is presently under the dominion of
darkness. They are not simply
messengers. The number 4 in Scripture
represents the created world with its four compass points, so these
macro-factors therefore affect the life of the whole of humankind. Much of what the second, third and fourth
seals describe are issues in human life which are the result of human sin and
of Satan’s access to human beings to ‘kill, steal and destroy.’
After
his ascension and exaltation, the world became Christ’s empire, the domain over
which he now rules as sovereign prince of the kings of the earth (Rev.
1:5). He is seated on his Father’s
throne in heaven. He has been appointed
as the heir of all things and has been given all authority in heaven and on
earth (Matt. 28:18, Heb. ch.1). He knows
what is happening in his empire, and the affairs of the nations are ultimately
under his Father’s control. He is
working out his redemptive purpose in this world.
Because
these seals do not constitute the contents of the scroll, but are merely the
seals of it, they cannot refer to the final outworking of God’s purposes. Therefore, they are macro-factors in human
life which lead up to the final salvation and judgement which are described in
the scroll itself,[2]
when the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his
Christ (cf. Rev. 11:15).
So the overarching theme of the
book of Revelation is therefore the outworking of God’s will and purpose to
bring the world back under the caring authority of God’s kingdom through the
redemption and present reign of Christ, overcoming and bringing to an end once
and for all the evil dominion of sin and Satan over people’s lives.
2.
Who or what is the rider
on the white horse?
There are two main views on who or
what the rider of the white horse represents in the first seal. According to the first of these views, he
represents the expansion of the gospel (and therefore of the kingdom of God) in
the world after the ascension of Christ.
The word ‘conquest’ in verse 6:2 would then obviously refer to the
gospel conquering people’s hearts, rather than any sort of physical or
geographical conquest. This image of a
rider on a white horse wearing a crown and using a bow, alludes to the image of
Christ the Messiah in Psalm 45:2-5, in which he is riding on a horse with a
sword and going out to conquer people’s hearts with the arrows of his message
(cf. Isa. 49:2-3, Heb. 4:12). The
allusion is clear. This image also
brings to mind Christ the returning king in Revelation 19:11f where he is
riding on a white horse. The fact that
the second, third and fourth seals each represent evil of one form or another,
does not necessarily imply that the first seal must also represent evil.
Secondly,
the alternative view is that the rider on the white horse represents the rise
of Antichrist in the tribulation period and the spread of spiritual deception
that he will cause. This is the view of
the Extreme Futurist interpretation, as we saw above. So, in spiritual terms, this is actually the
polar opposite of the first view.
My own conviction in this matter is
that the white horse represents gospel expansion in the world after the
ascension of Christ.
The macro-factors of gospel expansion, social unrest and instability /
wars, economic injustice / famines, and war (with all of its concomitants in
terms of human suffering), and the persecution and martyrdom of Christians (the
fifth seal), have all been consistently true of human life and experience since
the time of the ascension of Christ. Each
of these things has always been present. However, it is also true that spiritual
deception and the working of the antichrist power of lawlessness has also been
working in the world since Christ’s ascension (as I made clear in chapter 5). Both gospel expansion and the growth of
spiritual deception have been true of the entire Church Age.
3.
The parallelism between
the first five seals and Matthew 24:4-9 / Luke 21:8-16
Many commentators have noted the
apparent parallelism between these first five seals and the passage about the
beginning of birth pains in Matthew 24:4-9 / Luke 21:8-16. And certainly, at first sight, these passages
might seem to be referring to the same thing.
This parallelism is shown in Table 16.2 below:
|
Parallelism between the first
five seals and Matthew 24:4-9 / Luke 21:8-16 |
|||
|
Revelation 6:1-11 |
Matthew 24:4-9 /
Luke 21:8-16 |
||
|
First seal |
White horse |
Conquest |
Spiritual deception |
|
Second seal |
Red horse |
Peace taken away from the earth. People kill each other. |
Wars and
instability |
|
Third seal |
Black horse |
Economic injustice / hardship / famine |
Famines |
|
Fourth seal |
Pale horse |
Death by sword, famine, plague and wild beasts, so war |
Pestilences |
|
Fifth Seal |
|
Martyrdom |
Persecution / martyrdom |
Table
16.2 Parallelism between the first five seals and Matthew 24:4-9 / Luke 21:8-16
When we compare the last two
columns on the right in this table, we can note the following similarities:
1.
‘Lack
of peace and killing’ and ‘wars and instability’ seem to match up in the second
seal.
2.
So
too do ‘famine’ and ‘famines’ in the third seal.
However, there are also some
significant differences, as we can see below:
1.
The
third seal might well be referring to the more general issue of economic
hardship and injustice, rather than simply to famine.
2.
The
fourth seal would seem to be referring to war (in which death might occur by
any manner of means), rather than simply to pestilences. In fact, death through plague is only one of
four causes of death mentioned in the fourth seal. These four causes of death allude to Ezekiel
5:17 and 14:21 where they are described as God’s four dreadful judgements. This would therefore seem to indicate that
they are judicial acts of judgement by God in response to human sin.
3.
There
is also the question of how we interpret the first seal.
These differences would indicate
that there is not such a simple and clear parallel between Revelation 6:1-11
and Matthew 24:4-9 / Luke 21:8-16 as some commentators would suggest.
The
Extreme Futurist interpretation prefers to see a literal parallel
between these passages in Revelation 6:4-11 and Matthew 24:4-9 / Luke
21:8-16. This is because it believes
that the opening of the seals happens after the rapture at the beginning of the
seven-year tribulation (as we saw above).
The passage in Matthew 24:4-9 / Luke 21:8-16, referring to the beginning
of birth-pains, certainly does refer to the beginning of the tribulation (as we
saw in chapters 8 and 14). So this
viewpoint interprets the first five seals simply as ‘spiritual deception and
the rise of Antichrist’ / ‘wars and instability’ / ‘famines’ / ‘pestilences’ /
and ‘persecution/martyrdom.’
However,
because the events associated with these first five seals represent ‘the state
of Christ’s empire’ (so including the persecution and martyrdom of believers),
then our understanding is more whole and developed if we interpret these seals
as major macro-factors which have influenced, affected and determined the state
of human life and experience in this world since the time of Christ’s
ascension.
These macro-factors will continue
to affect human life into the end-times until the final consummation of God’s
purposes. Gospel preaching will continue
worldwide, as will the persecution of believers and the growth of spiritual
deception, together with wars, instability, economic injustice, famines and
pestilences. It is easy to think of
examples of events in our own day which could be associated with the red, black
and pale horses. In fact, there
will be a marked increase worldwide in lack of peace, economic problems,
famines, pestilences and wars the nearer we approach the time of the rapture,
perhaps affecting even as much as a quarter of the world’s population as the
pale horse seems to indicate. As we saw
in chapter 14, some of these would be ‘Braxton-Hicks contractions,’ signs of
the times which will occur from time to time until the rapture takes place,
after which the real birth pains will then kick in as the tribulation period
ensues (Matt. 24:8). And from then
onwards, these birth pains and the macro-factors of spiritual deception, wars
and instability, economic injustice, famines and pestilences will certainly
continue through the time of tribulation (Matt. 24:4-8). During that time, the specific judgements
described in the seven trumpets and the seven bowls of wrath also take place,
after which Christ then returns at his Second Advent.
So, in conclusion, it is my belief
that these five seals describe the state of human life and experience in
Christ’s worldwide empire, from the time of his ascension onwards and down
through the Church Age, until his complete victory over the powers of evil in
this world is finally brought about.
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