NOTES for Rev 6:1-17
The Lamb of God opens the seals of the book mentioned in the preceding chapter, and before us appear images of the catastrophes awaiting the world before its temporal history comes to an end. The first horseman is empire, whose rise has always been accompanied by difficult times for the Church. The second horseman is civil war and bloodshed. The third horseman is famine and drunkenness. And finally comes death, which in Holy Scripture is not physical death, but the death that comes when a person renounces the Source of life and rejects God. The blood of those killed for their faith and fidelity to God cries out for judgment and justice. This is not a thirst for revenge, but a thirst for the Light that is itself judgment, as the Apostle John writes in his epistle. Nature itself begins to shudder at what human beings do. Natural disasters overtake everyone; no one can hide from floods, earthquakes, or the created world’s response to lawlessness and sin.