In the scroll that only Jesus was worthy to open we see God’s plan to offer salvation through the Cross. That New Covenant will enable those who love and worship Him to live as overcomers in His Kingdom even in this present, evil time. John had tipped his hand in Revelation 1:5-6 when he wrote of,
“the one who loves us and has set us free from our sins at the cost of his own blood and has appointed us as a kingdom, as priests serving his God and Father.”
This plan culminates in the “day of the Lord,” the Final Judgment, followed by the unveiling of the New Heaven and New Earth.[1] Now, John will unpack this.
We are going to read today about the opening of the 7 seals (the first in a series of visions of 7 seals, 7 trumpets, and 7 bowls). There are three main ways people views the seals, trumpets, and bowls unfolding.
Where you land in terms of timelines will impact how you interpret Revelation as literature/history/ chronology of future events, but as Julie likes to say, “It’s about finish lines rather than timelines.” I agree. I have some opinions about timelines,[2] but I am for more interested in faithfulness until the finish line. What we do know about when things happen is this from Revelation 1: these “must happen soon,” and “what is and what will be.” That didn’t help, right? J Let’s move on.
The Seven Seals
6 I looked on when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a thunderous voice, “Come!”[3]
2 So I looked, and here came a white horse! The one who rode it had a bow, and he was given a crown, and as a conqueror he rode out to conquer.
3 Then when the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come!” 4 And another horse, fiery red, came out, and the one who rode it was granted permission to take peace from the earth, so that people would slay one another, and he was given a huge sword.
5 Then when the Lamb opened the third seal I heard the third living creature saying, “Come!” So I looked, and here came a black horse! The one who rode it had a balance scale in his hand. 6 Then I heard something like a voice from among the four living creatures saying, “A quart [a daily ration] of wheat will cost a day’s pay, and three quarts of barley will cost a day’s pay. But do not damage the olive oil and the wine!”
7 Then when the Lamb opened the fourth seal I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come!” 8 So I looked and here came a pale green horse! The name of the one who rode it was Death, and Hades followed right behind.[4] They were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill its population with the sword, famine, and disease, and by the wild animals of the earth.
9 Now when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been violently slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony they had given. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Master, holy and true, before you judge those who live on the earth and avenge/dispense justice for our blood?” 11 Each of them was given a long white robe and they were told to rest for a little longer, until the full number was reached of both their fellow servants and their brothers who were going to be killed just as they had been.
12 Then I looked when the Lamb opened the sixth seal, and a huge earthquake took place; the sun became as black as sackcloth made of black hair, and the full moon became blood red; 13 and the stars in the sky fell to the earth like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs[5] when shaken by a fierce wind. 14 The sky was split apart like a scroll being rolled up[6], and every mountain and island was moved from its place.
15 Then the kings of the earth, the very important people, the generals, the rich, the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 because the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand?[7]
[I am going to cover the Chapter 7 interlude next week.]
8:1 Now when the Lamb opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.[8]
That’s…a lot to take in – and confusing, after all the excitement about opening the scroll! Woo hoo! Wait…what? This seems like a rough start to bringing about the kingdom of salvation. This, so far, has not been good at all. So, let’s talk.
Christians alive in the 90’s A.D had experienced some bad things. This was “what is” to John’s audience.
· Nero’s persecution of Christians
· Two major earthquakes in A.D. 17 and 60
· The fall of Jerusalem in AD 70
· The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79
· A great famine in A.D. 92
· Domitian’s ongoing persecution
Jesus said the birth pains of the end times would happen in the generation of his audience[9], and the glorified saints in Revelation 6:9–11 appear to have suffered under all four trials portrayed in the seals. John didn't have to make stuff up to unveil the template for patterns in history. Life is hard. Everyone suffers; Christians will suffer for being Christians. Be ready.[10] So, yes, it’s grim, but this was always assumed to be the precursor of the final kingdom of God.[11] There are birth pains before there is birth.[12]
This brings us to the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The players who were waiting in the wings for the New Covenant Church to start have entered the world stage. There time has come, because the church has begun. Enter stage left.
WHITE HORSE
This is Conquest or Triumph which is (in my opinion) primarily though not exclusively spiritual. Some think this is Jesus (see Revelation 18); some think it’s a Roman emperor because conquerors rode white horses. I favor a third view. The Bible describes Satan as an angel of light, a counterfeit who looks good but is bad. This rider is the same thing. He makes a great presentation, but chaos follows him.The white horse is a counterfeit of the Rider On The White Horse we will see later,[13] the antichrist figures John wrote about in 1,2, and 3 John, arising from within the church. The churches in Pergamum and Thyatira were being conquered: Ephesus resisted it.
RED HORSE
6:3-4 The second rider represents violent bloodshed and death. It’s the removal of peace from the earth. When the second horse causes men to “slay” one another, the word - when it's used in Revelation - only refers to the death of the followers of Jesus or of Jesus.[14] Once again, this can be spiritual warfare, persecution, or general violence in the earth. The White Horse conquered some of God’s people through deception; the Red Horse brings violence. The churches in Pergamum, Smyrna (and Philadelphia and Ephesus to a lesser degree) experienced this.
BLACK HORSE
This horse appears to represent poverty, famine and economic exploitation.[15] A quart of wheat would supply an average worker with one day's sustenance for his family. Barley was used by the poor to mix with the wheat. Basically, the poor were living hand-to-mouth if they were lucky. Sometimes it was much worse.[16] For Christians who could not participate in good conscience in the Trade Guilds, life was economically hard already. This kind of scenario could be disastrous. We read about this with the church in Smyrna.
GREEN HORSE
Literally, “pestilence,” the fourth horseman represents widespread human death, with the ashen, pale-green color meant to mimic the pallor of death. The church in Thyatira experienced this (and Sardis was wasting away spiritually; Philadelphia had ‘little strength’).[17]
Eusubius wrote that at the heights of the persecution, when Maximinus was Roman Emperor, both famine and pestilence along with other things fell upon them “so that such an innumerable multitude perished that they could not be buried. When the Armenians resisted the Romans, so that many were killed that the bodies of the dead were eaten by dogs. Finally, those left alive began to kill the dogs, fearing that they themselves might die and that the living would become their tombs.” [18]
No wonder the 7 letters constantly admonished Christians to endure and be faithful in the midst of all they endured. Ever been to a movie theater where the audience was interactive? I can envision the early readers nodding and crying; somebody says, “Truth. Say it, say it.” This has been life.[19]
THE MARTYRS
The martyrs[20] cry out, “How long?” I can almost hear the amens murmured in that 1st century house church. Those 4 horsemen have been wreaking havoc on followers of Jesus.
6th Seal
“Until I do this,” says the Lamb. The phenomena listed in the 6th seal were common images for God’s judgment in “the day of the Lord.”
· “The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light” (Isaiah 13:10; Joel 2:10–11).
· God would turn “the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Joel 2:31).[21]
· “Men will flee to caves in the rocks and to holes in the ground from dread of the Lord” (Isaiah 2).
· Jesus said that the inhabitants of Jerusalem would cry out “Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ (Luke 23:30).
· Jesus told his disciples that "in those days, following that distress, `the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken'" (Mark 13:24-25;Matthew 24:29; Luke 21:25-26).[22]
· Premature darkness and an earthquake accompanied Jesus’ crucifixion (27:45, 51).[23]
Adam Clarke thinks this is a cultural broadside on political, spiritual and religious powers corrupting the world.
· A great earthquake - Momentous change in civil and religious constitution
· The sun (pagan government) is darkened, degraded and humbled.
· The moon (pagan worship) was destroyed
· The stars of heaven - The gods and goddesses became as useless as the figs shaken from a tree.[24]
· The heaven departed as a scroll — The whole system of pagan and idolatrous worship was shriveled up like a scroll thrown in a fire.
· Every mountain — All the props of the empire (allies, tributary kings, colonies, mercenary troops) remove their worship, support, and maintenance (as we will see happen with Babylon later).
· Islands — Heathen temples
Okay, that last one is a stretch. This is a way to read it, not the way. Revelation has layers that work together, not in opposition. I wonder if the 6th seal’s imagery is just a way of saying, “Everything thought by the world to be strong, trustworthy and even worthy of worship will come crashing down.”
The reality is that, while God in the Old Testament or actively judged pagan nations characterized by excessive violence (Ninevah)[25] God also punishes people and nations by “giving them over to themselves” (Romans 1). We’ll see this later when the nations mourn that Babylon the Great has fallen even while they are the one tearing her apart. And here’s where this time of judgment ties in to the 4 Horsemen.
· Countries have never just persecuted Christians. The heart that gives them permission to do that gives them permission to do that to everybody.
· Countries have never just exploited Christians. The heart that lets them do that lets them do that to everybody.
· Countries that have allowed or even encouraged disease, death, and exploitation to hit Christians hard are going to be willing to let that happen to any group of people they don’t like.
We can’t compartmentalize ourselves as individuals or nations.
· What we are good with happening ‘there’, we will eventually be good with happening ‘over there’ and then ‘over there.’
· What we want to see happen to ‘that person’ becomes what we want to see happen to ‘that person’ and then ‘all those people.’
· Then eventually we are the people ‘over there’; we are ‘that person’ to someone else because we created and allowed that kind of system to happen.
Sometimes we get what we want - and it’s a terrible thing. We may sow the wind, but who can stand the whirlwind?[26] This is why we never fight our battles with the enemy’s weapons. The means we use will make us who we are in the end.
There is Final Judgment when God wraps up human history, bringing everyone into celestial court where, as the Judge, he will render justice. This will become clear as we move through the imagery of the bowls and trumpets. Meanwhile, God has not left us in the dark about the consequences of sin. Justice must be served.
THE INTERLUDE[27] and then SILENCE IN HEAVEN (7th Seal)”[28] wrap up this section. We are going to talk more about these next week, partly because we don’t have time today and partly because I need more time to prepare :)
Meanwhile, it’s grim, this plan in the scroll that everyone was so excited to see opened. How long? Well, God doesn’t say. How much? God doesn’t say. We just see in the 6th seal that it will end, and the judge will render righteous judgment. However, there’s more (and this is from the interlude).
“The ones who have come out of the great tribulation, who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb… are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple, and the one seated on the throne will shelter them.
They will never go hungry or be thirsty again, and the sun will not beat down on them, nor any burning heat, because the Lamb in the middle of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
The promise recalls Peter’s words to other first-century believers:
“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?
You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and eagerly hasten toward its coming…But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. (2Peter 3:8–15)”
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[1] Expositor’s Bible Commentary
[2] I tend to think they are examples of recapitulation, retelling (overall) same thing story with different and increasing focus and intensity, with the final version (the bowls) leading into the Final Judgment.
[3] The Four Horsemen in the first 4 were foreshadowed in Leviticus 26, Ezekiel 14, Jeremiah 14:12, Zechariah 1:7-11 and 6:1-8, and by Jesus (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21). They are probably meant to be understood as happening simultaneously, or side-by-side. I say this for three reasons. And I say this as an opinion that is not of primary importance, and I won’t fight you over it J It’s just my framework, and I might be wrong.
· First, it was typical for a will with 7 seals to have everything revealed after the 7th seal, not progressively.
· Second, the Chapter 7 interlude (after the first six seals were opened) includes the following: “Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, who had the seal of the living God. He shouted out with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given permission to damage the earth and the sea: 3 “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees until we have put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”
· In Zechariah 6:1-8, the horses are in chariot teams
[4] Personified Death and Hades appear together in some Biblical poetry (Psalm 49:14; 116:3; Isaiah 28:15; Hosea 13:14; Habakkuk 2:5), as well as in Revelation 1.
[5] The language evokes Isaiah 34:4; the stars would fall “like shriveled figs from the fig tree.”
[6] Revelation continues to draw on Isaiah 34:4, where “the heavens rolled up like a scroll.” One would normally unroll a scroll with the right hand while with the left hand rolling up what one had just finished reading.
[7] The question adapts Joel 2:11: “The day of the Lord is great … Who can endure it?” Also Malachi 3:2: “who can endure the day of his coming?”
[8] Don’t get hung up on the ‘half an hour.’ It’s just a short time of silence.
[9] Matthew 24:34
[10] This was not new information to John’s audience. The OT prophets said judgments would precede the day of the Lord (Isaiah 13, 34; Jeremiah 4–7; Ezekiel 7, 25; Amos 5:18–27; Zephaniah 1–3). Judgment was not unexpected. God is a holy God, after all. There must be an account for sin. The division of 7 seals/trumpets/bowls reminded 1st century Jewish readers of a warning repeated four times in Leviticus 26: ‘I will punish you for your sins seven times over’ (18, 21, 24, 28). When Jesus talks of the end times in the gospels (Matthew 24; Mark 13, Luke 21) he mentions the seven judgments found in Revelation 6.
[11] NET Bible Commentary
[12] Matthew 24:8
[13] “What of the rider’s bow? In Greek mythology, Apollo was the god who inspired prophecy, and he is often depicted carrying a bow. The bow probably represents false prophecy, whose effect has already been felt in the Asian churches. If he represents false prophets and false prophecy, the vision confirms John's view that false prophets like the Nicolaitans at Pergamum and "Jezebel" at Thyatira, urging compromise with the values of the Roman Empire, are responsible for all the other troubles to come.” - IVP New Testament Commentary
[14] NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible
[15] The balance held by the third rider symbolizes divine judgment. Daniel declared to King Belshazzar, “You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting” (Dan. 5:27). Leviticus 26:26 describes the distribution of bread during times of famine: “They will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied” (cf. Ezek. 4:16)
[16] “In A.D. 51, the emperor Claudius barely escaped a hostile crowd during a grain shortage and resulting famine that left Rome with only a fifteen-day supply of grain. During their revolt, the Jews in Jerusalem experienced great famine. Thousands died as relatives fought over the smallest morsel of food. The most horrific example involved a young mother named Mary of Bethezuba who, because of her hunger, tore her baby from her breast and roasted it, devouring half the corpse. This abomination of infant cannibalism horrified both the Jewish rebels and the Romans.” - How To Read The Bible Book By Book
[17] “During the summer of 65 when Nero was persecuting the church, a plague broke out in Rome killing 30,000 residents. Pestilence also broke out in Jerusalem due to overcrowding during the Roman siege in A.D. 70.” N.T. Wright, Revelation For Everyone
[18] N.T. Wright, Revelation For Everyone
[19] There is remarkable overlap in this seal with what Jesus told one of his audiences (Luke 21: 5-38) that they would see come to pass in their lifetime.
[20] Beale is of the opinion that “It is possible that only literal martyrs are in mind, but more likely those who are “slain” are metaphorical and represent the broader category of all saints who have suffered through the trials for the sake of their faith and died (so Rev. 13:15–18 and perhaps 18:24; 20:4).”
[21] “Such an eclipse occurred on October 18, 69. ‘The moon itself was turned to blood. Its eclipse, which entered its maximum phase of near totality at 9.50 p.m., four hours after dusk, gives it a sinister copper-coloured appearance as the light of the sun, drained of its blue component, was refracted round the earth by the latter’s atmosphere, and fell dimly upon the almost full orb of the moon. This must surely be a portent of disaster and death.’ Seven days later Vitellius’ army was completely routed at the second Battle of Cremona, ensuring the accession of Vespasian as emperor.” - Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary Of The New Testament
[22] The sun turns black and the moon blood red, the stars fall, and the sky is rolled back as a scroll — all common elements in Old Testament accounts of the end (Isa. 13:9–11; 24:1–6; 19–23; 34:4; Ezek. 32:6–8; 38:19–23; Joel 2:10, 30–31; 3:15–16; Zech. 14:5).
[23] Josephus mentioned numerous signs around Jerusalem before its fall: a star resembling a sword hung over the city; a comet lasted a year.
[24] Michael Heisser favors a reading that sees the “stars of heaven” as similar beings as well. At least one of the stars in the trumpet judgments is a being.
[25] “The judgment of the world originates in its failure to believe and be faithful to this God. When it creates its own deities, it suffers the natural consequences of deifying the non-divine. In this sense, judgment proceeds from the throne of God and from the Lamb (6:16–17) because the rejection of the divine gift of life carries with it inherent deadly consequences… when humans reject Lamb power they experience it as imperial disaster—disordered desire, death, and destruction.” Michael Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly
[26] Hosea 8:7
[27] “The vision of the souls of the martyrs under the altar seems to come from the OT practice of pouring the blood (the physical manifestation of the life of the soul) of sin offerings at the base of the altar of burnt offering.” Orthodox Study Bible
[28] Silence was a precursor to judgment (Isaiah 41:1; Amos 8:3; Zechariah 2:13). Silence could come from awe or fear (Job 40:4; Habakkuk 2:20).[28] Silence, trumpets, and offering of incense were also features of the Jewish temple liturgy. Since the offering of incense and sacrifices were made in silence, the silence may be in honor or the sacrifice of God’s people who were slain.