WEDNESDAY
Remember, this week we are looking at the three sets of seven judgments. These imply that God will fully, completely, perfectly judge and eradicate evil from his creation. All three sets of seven are interrupted by interludes. These serve to give us a brief reprieve from all of the judgment and tell us some important details. But for the sake of keeping each week’s topics on a theme, we will cover all three of them this week. The interludes we will address in the next couple of weeks.
The pattern of these is 4-2-1. The first four are linked. The next two are linked and the final one stands alone.
Revelation 6 (ESV)
The Seven Seals
1 Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” 2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.
Notice that it is the Lamb who opens the seals. He is the one who has unlocked God’s plan of redemption. This plan comes with salvation for the people of God and judgment of evil. Also note the command comes from one of the living creatures around the throne. God is sovereign over all of this and the one who brings about judgment.
Some take this first horse as a reference to Jesus and his conquering evil through the gospel. He will ride a white horse in chapter 19 and everywhere else in Revelation white is positive. This is possible, but I think in the immediate context it is better to take this as a negative, as the other three horses are negative too. This is likely a general description of empirical conquest.
3 When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
This horse represents strife and war. It could be distinguished from the first as general strife amongst people within a community. Murder instead of war could be the view, here, but it’s most likely both. Jesus references wars and rumors of wars as common in the end times era.
5 When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. 6 And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!”
This third horse symbolizes famine. The scales and the expenses point to the high cost of food. The amounts of wheat and barley are minimal amounts of food bought with a day’s wage (denarius). These are inflated to 5 to 8 times their normal price. “Do not harm the oil and wine” could emphasize the priority given to those who could afford luxuries at the expense of the poor. They were also staples of the Roman diet, so it more likely adds to the notion of famine. Jesus mentions famine as a sign of the times in Matthew 24, as well.
7 When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” 8 And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.
This pale horse likely symbolizes pestilence—pale, or pale green, being the color of someone being sick and near death. These four were given authority by God to bring sword, famine, pestilence, and wild beasts upon the earth.
The 5th seal takes a bit of turn.
9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.
The martyrs are said to be under the altar. This gives the image of sacrifice in the temple. the verb translated “slain” (slaughtered) gives this impression too. The martyrs are crying out for justice, wondering how long the Sovereign Lord will wait to judge the world and avenge them. This is the cry of the oppressed as we said on Monday. They are not taking vengence into their own hands but waiting for the Lord to avenge them (Rom. 12:19).
They are given a white robe, symbolizing their righteousness in Christ. Then they are told to wait a little while longer. God will judge, but not yet. This would certainly feel appropriate to the Christians John was originally writing to, as well as persecuted Christians throughout the centuries since.
12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
The sixth seal is the answer to the prayers of the martyrs. God’s judgment is revealed. Verses 12-14 are full of Old Testament references to the day of the Lord, when his judgment would come upon the earth. These are clearly symbolic images, yet the day is a terrifying picture. Only those who are in Christ will escape this judgment. Everyone, regardless of wealth, status, and power will face the wrath of God. This judgment is inescapable. When the wrath of the Father and the Lamb (note the plural in v. 17) is unleashed in judgment, it will be to eliminate evil from his creation.
It’s important to note that God’s wrath is not like an angry immature tantrum. His wrath is a measured response to the evil in his creation.
Verse 17 and the question of “who can stand?” launches John into another interlude which answers that question—the church, followers of the lamb.
Revelation 8:1–5 (ESV)
The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer
1 When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. 2 Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, 4 and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. 5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.
At the opening of the seventh seal there is silence in heaven. This is likely an awe-inspired silence at the judgment of God—the silence before the storm. This silence is also linked to the prayers of the saints in the following verses. Again, God’s judgment is a response to the evil in creation and the prayers of God’s suffering people is before his throne.
This seventh seal opens up to the next sequence of seven trumpets. Here we see our telescoping concept to properly interpret these.
The fact that God will judge evil one day is what gives Christians the ability to live like a lamb in the midst of a world of savage beasts. Perhaps you were thinking in response to last week’s topic that living like a lamb is naive and impossible in this violent world. We will be chewed up and spit out by the world if we live like that. You’re not wrong. We may be killed like Jesus was. However, we can lay our lives down and respond with love, even to persecution, in the hope that one day God will enact his divine justice and punish evil.