×

Revelation (Part 10)

Revelation 6:1–6

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the End Times from Revelation 6:1–6


Now I know that some of you good brothers and sisters in Christ who have tortured yourself by sitting in earlier courses of mine know that every once in a while there are these things called quizzes, and you’ve just been dying to have your first. I’m sure of it. So after we pray, here it is.

It is a wonderful thing to think how you, who inhabit eternity, should condescend to disclose yourself in the words of finite, sinful human beings. Image-bearers though we are, we have been so rebellious, we have sunk so far into ourselves, we have loved anarchy so much, and yet you have pursued us with an everlasting love and have secured our salvation by the death of your dear Son. Grant this evening, Lord God, that we may see increasingly in this book the contrast between the people of God and the people untouched by redeeming grace. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

If you would be so kind as to take a piece of paper and put your name in the top right-hand corner and answer the following 20 questions. This will only take a couple of minutes.

  1. The book of Revelation opens with the words, “The revelation of [blank].”
  2. “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because [blank].” I don’t care if you have the exact words as long as you have the thought. Why is it blessed to read this book and to take these words to heart?
  3. The seven churches are in the Roman province of [blank]. Hint: not Quebec.
  4. In chapter 1, Christ has made us to be [blank] to serve his God and Father.
  5. The Lord God declares, “I am the Alpha and [blank].”
  6. In the inaugural vision, Jesus’ eyes are like [blank]. Not saucers.
  7. When John saw the exalted Christ, what did he do? That’ll take a clause.
  8. For what is the church in Ephesus indicted?
  9. The two churches in Asia that receive no criticism from Jesus are Smyrna and [blank]. Hint: not Pittsburgh, but close. If you don’t get it now …
  10. In what town does Satan have his throne?
  11. In the letter to the church at [blank] Jezebel is mentioned.
  12. In the letter to the churches at Smyrna and [blank] the synagogue of Satan is mentioned. I’ll give you a hint: Smyrna and another church that is paired with Smyrna in several respects.
  13. The Christians in [blank] are criticized for being neither hot nor cold.
  14. In the beginning of the vision of Revelation 4, John hears the voice that first heard him speak like a [blank].
  15. Immediately, John was in [blank].
  16. The first living creature around the throne was like a [blank].
  17. What is the ground for worship at the end of Revelation 4? “You are worthy because [blank].” It will take a clause. You don’t have to put everything in so long as you get the drift.
  18. In Revelation 5, Jesus Christ is the lion of the tribe of [blank].
  19. He is the root of [blank].
  20. “You are worthy to take the scroll and open the seals because [blank].” It’ll take a clause as well.

Now if you’re feeling discouraged about this.… There are three of these during the 10 weeks. Some people who have never had to endure one of these before find the first one a bit embarrassing. If your mark on the first one is significantly lower than the mark on the other two, I ignore the first mark and just average out the higher two. If they’re all about the same level, that’s your problem. So that’s an incentive for even closer attention to text in weeks to come. Now if you’d like to pass them all this way.… I will go through the answers as soon as I have them in, just so that you have them.

  1. Revelation of [Jesus Christ].
  2. “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because [the time is near].”
  3. The seven churches are in the Roman province of [Asia]. If you put “Asia Minor,” blessed are you.
  4. In chapter 1, Christ has made us to be [a kingdom and priests] to serve his God and Father.
  5. The Lord God declares, “I am the Alpha and [the Omega].”
  6. In the inaugural vision, Jesus’ eyes are like [blazing fire].
  7. When John saw the exalted Christ, what did he do? Fell at his feet as dead.
  8. For what is the church in Ephesus indicted? Losing its first love.
  9. The two churches in Asia that received no criticism from Jesus are Smyrna and [Philadelphia].
  10. In what town does Satan have his throne? Pergamum.
  11. In the letter to the church at [Thyatira] Jezebel is mentioned.
  12. In letters to the churches at Smyrna and [Philadelphia] the synagogue of Satan is mentioned.
  13. The Christians in [Laodicea] are criticized for being neither hot nor cold.
  14. In the beginning of the vision of Revelation 4, John hears the voice that first heard him speak like a [trumpet].
  15. At once John was in [the Spirit].
  16. The first living creature around the throne was like a [lion].
  17. What is the ground for worship at the end of Revelation 4? “You are worthy because [you created all things].”
  18. In Revelation 5, Jesus is the lion of the tribe of [Judah].
  19. He is the root of [David].
  20. “You are worthy to take the scroll and open the seals because [you were slain] and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tongue …”

The part of Revelation we begin to look at now, which runs from 6:1 to 8:1, is the seven seals. Of course, the seven seals follow on immediately from chapters 4–5, in which vision we have Jesus, the Lamb, the lion of the tribe of Judah, alone proving worthy to approach God, because he does come from the very throne itself, to take the scroll that lies in the right hand of him who sits on the throne and to open the seals.

So now, “I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seals.” This runs all the way through to 8:1. Now it doesn’t run straightforwardly. There’s a list of four, and then more slowly a fifth and a sixth, and then an interlude, and then the seventh. In due course we’ll move to the trumpets, and there’s that sort of breakdown again of four and three, but an interlude before the sixth one again.

In both of those cases, the seals or the trumpets are related in some way to judgments (in what precise way we’ll see), and the interlude, by contrast, gives us some sort of alternative perspective, a perspective on what is going on with the saints or with the people who are God’s people suffering.

It is disputed amongst commentators whether the scroll is actually being opened in 6:1 or isn’t really opened until all of the seals are opened, so it’s not really opened until 8:1. In the logic of the situation, you would think that if you have one piece of papyrus wrapped around it with seven seals down it, then strictly speaking, you can’t actually unroll the seal and, thus, effect whatever legal enactments are there until you’ve slit all of the seals.

As a result, many people interpret six and seven to be preliminary judgments, as it were, before the actual judgments of the scroll itself. “When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” (Chapter 8, verse 1) People take that silence to be impressive and solemn because the scroll is now beginning to be unfolded. It’s possible. However, strictly speaking, chapter 8, verse 1, does not say, “And at last it was possible to open the scroll,” or something like that. There’s no hint along those lines.

Others have suggested that maybe this was an extraordinary scroll, and somehow there was sort of a wax seal at different levels, so you wrap up so much of it and then seal it and wrap up some more, so as you break the seals, you’re unraveling some of it, and you see some of it, and you don’t see the whole thing until you get the seven seals. Well, it’s almost impossible to imagine how that could have been done, and nobody in the ancient world would have thought of it that way, so that’s highly unlikely.

It sounds like somebody trying to solve the problem rather than actually looking at things the way you would in the ancient world. In my view, of those two opinions the first one is more likely, but there is an even more likely one; namely, that we’re not to make the metaphor walk on all fours.

In other words, just as it is the slitting of the seal that brings about the enactment, so we’re to say this is now opening up the scroll. To be very pedantic and say, “Yes, yes, yes. Strictly speaking you can’t open up the scroll until all of the seals are open,” it seems to me rather misses the point. It is making the metaphor walk on all fours. In fact, it doesn’t make a lot of difference in terms of the interpretation of the book.

Either one says that the judgments bound up with the seals are preliminary to the judgments bound up after the seals or they’re still relating in some preliminary way, once the book is being opened, to the judgments that actually come about once you get to the trumpets. It doesn’t make a lot of difference as to how you see those judgments related to each other.

Now we come to the first four seals, which are, in fact, none other than the almost proverbial four horsemen of the apocalypse. Anybody who has read English literature knows there is this recurring category in English literature, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, referring to various desperate forms of suffering.

Military destruction, civil disorder and bloodshed, social breakdown (famine), and death, sometimes just summarized, although it’s a bit of a caricature, as war, bloodshed, famine, and death. In fact, I think it’s a little more focused than that. It’s military destruction, civil bloodshed, social breakdown that results in famine, and death.

1. The first seal: the white horse.

“I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, ‘Come!’ ” Notice it is the Lamb himself who opens the seals. In each of these next seals, one of the four living creatures successively calls out, “Come!” In other words, the Lamb opens the seal, and in consequence, one of the four living creatures cries, “Come!”

It is just as in Daniel and elsewhere, where God takes action, sends an angel, and the angel then performs something. It’s as if God is mediating his work through one of these beings. God’s throne rests on these beings, and they cry, “Come!” This “Come” is not directed to John. It is not, “Come and see,” as in some older versions. It is not, “Come here, John. I’ll show you what must take place next.”

You can tell, not only because the best reading is “Come,” but because there’s a “Come” you see again in verse 3 and again in verse 5 and again in verse 7. In each case it’s “Come.” Then what happens is the horse and the rider comes. So the seal is opened, one of the four living creatures, one in turn, cries, “Come!” and out comes a horse and rider. That’s what’s going on in terms of the breakdown of the symbolism here.

Before I come to the particular horse and what it might symbolize, it’s worth remembering other passages in Scripture where there is somewhat similar symbolism, because this is not a once-off. You might want to turn for a moment to Zechariah. In the Old Testament, the two books most flavored by apocalyptic influences are Daniel and Zechariah, with parts of Isaiah and Ezekiel partaking as well, but Daniel and Zechariah in particular.

Zechariah, chapter 1, verses 8 and following: “During the night I had a vision—and there before me was a man riding a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown and white horses. I asked, ‘What are these, my lord?’ The angel who was talking with me answered, ‘I will show you what they are.’ Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, ‘They are the ones the Lord has sent to go throughout the earth.’

And they reported to the angel of the Lord, who was standing among the myrtle trees, ‘We have gone throughout the earth and found the whole world at rest and in peace.’ Then the angel of the Lord said, ‘Lord Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years?’ ”

Or again, a little farther on in the book. Chapter 6, verses 1 and following: “I looked up again—and there before me were four chariots coming out from between two mountains—mountains of bronze! The first chariot had red horses, the second black, the third white, and the fourth dappled—all of them powerful. I asked the angel who was speaking to me, ‘What are these, my lord?’ ” Notice it is an angel who’s doing the interpreting of what’s going on. Typical of this kind of thing.

“The angel answered me, ‘These are the four spirits of heaven, going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world. The one with the black horses is going toward the north country, the one with the white horses toward the west,’ ” and so on. Quite clearly, there is no direct dependence. The colors don’t quite line up, and the function of the riders and the horses don’t quite line up.

What you do have is a demonstration that this kind of symbolism was operating in this kind of literature, but it was flexible enough that it wasn’t standard, so every time you had a black horse it automatically meant X. It wasn’t standard. But obviously, they’re not going to talk about Chevrolets and Cadillacs. They’re using the literature and the categories of the day. When you accept it in those terms, then I think they become pretty self-explanatory for both Zechariah and for Revelation.

In Zechariah, the colors are red, sorrel, white, black, dapple, and gray, and the patrols, as it turns out, are sent out to patrol the earth to sort of find out how things are and bring back a message. “This is how things are.” So then the ball is in God’s court, as it were. What is God going to do next, granted that this is the report of how things are? That’s the way the thing works in Zechariah.

Here, there are different colors (at least there’s some overlap), but the colors are related to the function of each horse rider: white, red, black, and pale. White, as we shall see, is bound up with conquest. It’s bound up with conquest because the fuller description suggests it. The arrow for war and the crown. He wins. Red for bloodshed, as we’ll see in due course; black for scarcity and famine; and pale for death. We’ll come to that in due course.

Although the thorn is thus tied to another apocalyptic writing, namely Zechariah, the content here, once you don’t worry about the form, is much more closely tied to what is sometimes called the eschatological discourse or the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24–25 and parallels. There do you not find passages that describe what will take place on the last day? Before Messiah comes, there will be terrible suffering of one sort or another.

You could look at Matthew, Mark, or Luke. The reports are all a little bit different, but not much. You take Mark, chapter 13, verses 7 and following, for example. “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These things are the beginning of birth pains.”

There was, in Jewish thought, already the expression birth pains of the Messiah. That is, just as a woman is in travail before the birth of the baby, so before the Messiah comes there are birth pains, the birth pains of the Messiah. So before the Messiah comes again there are birth pangs of the Messiah to be undergone again. That’s the whole matrix out of which this sort of thing comes. All of these signs are depicted as taking place on the earth except number five, for reasons we’ll see in a moment. There is no heavenly counterpart. Now let’s take the first four.

“I looked, and there before me …” That is, called out by one of the four living creatures. “… was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.” Historically, there have been two interpretations of this passage. First, the rider on the white horse is Jesus Christ, so that what you have here, conquering and to conquer, is a picture of the victorious advance of the gospel.

The primary reason to support that interpretation is because of Revelation 19. In Revelation 19, verse 11, we read, “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse …” There’s a white horse again. “… whose rider is called Faithful and True.” So you’re not now talking about judgment and hellish things. Then you read on a little farther. “With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire …” That reminds me of chapter 1. You think this is Jesus?

Then you read in verse 13, “He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.” Then farther on, “He rules with an iron scepter.” Clearly, the rider on the white horse in chapter 19 is Jesus. There just can’t be any dispute about that. So if the rider on the white horse in Revelation 19 is Jesus, shouldn’t we think that the rider on the white horse in chapter 6 is Jesus? Is it not true that often apocalyptic introduces some sort of symbolism and then explains it a little farther on? You’ll find enough examples of that taking place.

With all respect, I don’t think that’s correct. When you actually compare Revelation 19 and Revelation 6 as whole chapters, their themes are very different. They’re extremely different. In chapter 6, all of the rest of the symbols have to do with suffering, persecution, death, bloodshed, and slaughter. In chapter 19, verses 11–12, it’s righteous retribution. When you bracket this first white horse, as he really must be bracketed, with the other three horses here, it can’t be Christ.

Moreover, the language is really quite important. In the Greek, there was given him the right to do such-and-such. In John’s gospel, this language, “There was given him power to do such-and-such,” is regularly used when there is divine permission to grant evil the power to do something or other. That kind of phrase is not given with respect to Christ, as if Christ is granted permission to do something. Here he does it.

No, what this is is military conquest. The arrow to show offensive attack here, and the crown and the wreath to show that it’s victorious. The language is drawn again from the Old Testament, Hosea 1:5 and Jeremiah 51:56. What we have now is, “Come!” You have a white horse symbolizing war, conquering empires that bear down with all that means … dislocation, slaughter, death, defeat, and ignominious shame.

2. The second seal: the second horse and rider.

Verses 3–4. Again, one of the living creatures, this time the second one, says, “Come!” “Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power …” There you have it again. “It was given to him.” He was given power “to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.” To slay each other. The word is a brutal one. To slaughter one another.

The authority he’s given, the permission he’s granted, is to take peace from the earth. The idea is that if there is peace on this wicked earth, it is because there is some kind of imposition of restraint. Now you take it away, and what happens is people kill each other. There have been some commentators (in my view, wrongly), such as Hendriksen, who say that the word for sword here, machaira in Greek, is really sacrificial knife, and from this they infer that this particular kind of slaughter is the slaughter of religious persecution.

One of the reasons they want to say that is because if you already have war for the first horse, then don’t you really have more war for the second horse? So maybe it’s not war. Maybe it’s religious persecution. But it won’t work. It won’t work linguistically, in the first place, because machaira just does not mean sacrificial knife. When you look at its instances in the New Testament, it’s not only not its dominant meaning; it’s disputed whether it ever means that anywhere in the Hellenistic world.

No, if there is a contrast between the first and the second, I suspect, the first is war in terms of military conquest, going out conquering and to conquer … the crown, the wreath of victory … whereas the second is restraint is taken away so people slaughter one another. Now you sound much more like the Balkans and Rwanda, sometimes Northern Ireland and Lebanon. Not some sort of external force coming in conquering and to conquer but civil war.

You take away the superficial, civilized restraints that are imposed either militarily or by tradition or something or other, and there are many, many, many parts of the world that can blow up in your face. That reminds us of another passage, 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 6 and following. The restrainer is taken away. Compare Zechariah 14:13 and Isaiah 19:2.

Now in John’s day, granted that this is written somewhere toward the end of the first century, I don’t think there would be any difficulty understanding this, not in the first instance. By this point, the Roman Empire was sufficiently decadent that you had emperors slaughtering each other pretty promptly. Occasionally you’d have a good strong man who would hold things together for a while, but between 68 and 70 there were no fewer than four emperors, each slaughtering the one before.

Then you had a good run until you got to Domitian. The dynasty was changing constantly. They all took the name of Caesar, but originally Caesar was a family name. Eventually it became a title like king, but, in fact, the Caesar dynasty was long gone. It had been displaced as emperor slaughtered emperor. Usually the strongest general took over. That’s really what it boiled down to.

Do you remember the old poem? “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” I suggest to you that that thing recurs again and again. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to imagine a breakdown eventually of law and order in parts of this country until there’s lots and lots of bloodshed. I mean, more than we have. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination.

3. The third seal: the third horse and rider.

Verses 5–6. Again, it’s the third living creature who calls out now, “Come!” “I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, ‘A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!’ ”

What’s going on here? The pair of scales, or the balance, was the way you started weighing out food in equivalent value once money was debased. What happens when a whole culture breaks down, of course, is that money is worthless and you return to the barter system. So you weigh out money. Not paper money … it won’t do anymore … but gold. A denarius is the term here, a day’s wages, but it’s a silver coin.

You weigh it out against a certain amount, a certain volume, a quart of wheat, or if you buy the cheaper stuff, the less nutritious stuff, the less prized stuff.… If you buy cheap bread, then you might get three quarts. In the ancient world, a quart of wheat would be a day’s food for one man, but a denarius, the amount of money here, is a day’s wage, which means that if the man has a family, he can’t support the family.

If you compare the known costs in the first century of a quart of wheat or thereabouts (you find this information in Cicero, for example, and other orators), these prices are inflated 10 to 12 times the normal value. So what you have now is the threat of famine. Don’t forget, too, in an agricultural society like that one, a relatively poor one for most people, you’re not that far off famine in any case.

Nowadays, if we have drought or a flood or a skirmish somewhere, what happens to our food? The prices go up. If it frosts in Florida, you bring in your oranges from California. If there’s a flood in California, you fly them in from Spain. You don’t like that? Fly them in from China. China has some nice oranges. Put the price up a little. No big deal.

But in those sorts of days, without that kind of mass transportation that could bring things in from long distances.… Read through the Old Testament war accounts. People are starving. What happens? The prices are outrageous. This is a balance, then, to warn you just how poor things could become, how desperate they are, how people are starving today. It reminds you of what the prophet Ezekiel says.

Ezekiel, chapter 4, verse 16: “Then he said to me: ‘Son of man, I will cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem.’ ” This is to do with the fall of Jerusalem before the exile. “The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their sin.” That’s what God says.

What is meant by the further expression, “Do not damage the oil and the wine” is somewhat disputed. I will tell you what I think. Both the olive tree and the vines have relatively good root systems, but when some marauding hordes attacked, if they really wanted to do damage to a country, as opposed to a quick marauding raid where they raped a few people and took a few people captive and robbed a few banks, as it were …

If they really wanted to destroy a society, what they’d do is go in there with not simply machetes and cut things down; they’d go in with shovels and dig out the roots. They’d kill these plants at the roots. Then even if they left, you’re looking at years before you get the thing going again. So what does this mean? “Do not damage the oil and the wine.” It means, “Don’t damage the oil tree and the vines.”

Now why not? Why is it cast this way? Well, that’s where the dispute in the interpretation comes. Some think this refers to the social inequities of the day. It would be the relatively well-to-do landowners who would be spared complete oblivion, because they would have this kind of resource. The plants would still keep producing. You’d sell the oil and sell the wine. You’d get by. I don’t think that makes sense at all.

The lamb described in chapter 5 is not the kind of being who’s particularly impressed by the wealthy so they get a cushy ride over things. I don’t think that makes sense. Others suggest that what is going on here is a way of saying, “Yes, there is war, there is strife, there is starvation, there is famine, but it’s not as bad as it could be yet. There are worse judgments still coming. Just hang onto your seat. The chapters get bloodier yet.” That’s possible.

In other words, the voice is saying, in effect, “Yes, there is famine; yes, there is strife, but don’t do as much destruction as you could do.” It’s as if God is still restraining the amount of judgment in these sorts of things. Yes, that’s possible, but it’s also possible, in my judgment marginally more likely, that this is a profoundly ironic remark.