NOTES for Rev 6:1-17
1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. |
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. |
3 And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. |
4 And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. |
5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. |
6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. |
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. |
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. |
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: |
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? |
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. |
12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; |
13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. |
14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. |
15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; |
16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: |
17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? |
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In the context of the symbolism connected with the scroll and the seals, it becomes clear that the breaking of the seals means nothing other than the revelation of the Kingdom as it opens itself to the untransformed world. The "horsemen" mentioned in the text of the book testify to the same thing: already in early prophetic visions, the heavenly rider was connected with an instruction or revelation received directly from God. In the Book of Revelation as well, the appearance of the horsemen implies a revelation or proclamation. But here, as is clear, the matter is not one proclamation, but at least four. The first of the riders, the white one, apparently symbolizes the good news of the Kingdom, which is unthinkable without witness to the victory of the Risen One over death and to the coming triumph of the Victor over those who oppose Him in our world, which is being transformed but has not yet been transformed completely (vv. 1-2).
And the world sets its own message against this good news, testifying, of course, not to the Kingdom but to what it can set against it. First of all, this means force, the physical or military force that, at first glance, holds undivided sway in the untransformed world. This is apparently symbolized by the rider with the sword, who takes peace from the earth (vv. 3-4). But the force of the sword is not the only thing the untransformed world can set against the Kingdom. It has another force, one that subordinates the force of the sword to itself: the force of the economic and financial system, the power of money, symbolized by the third rider (vv. 5-6). And if the fiery red color of the second rider recalls war, the black color of the third rider seems to contrast with the white rider who proclaims the Kingdom: it is precisely the black rider, apparently, who personifies the force that stands opposed to the Kingdom first of all in the untransformed world, opposing it daily and hourly throughout all human history. But even this is not everything the untransformed world can set against the Kingdom. Its final argument is death itself, relentless and inevitable, whose power extends only over a quarter of the world, and not the whole world, only because it is limited from above. It is symbolized by the "pale" horse (in the sense of the corresponding Greek word, whitish or colorless, like a shadow that has come out of the realm of the dead), which brings with it Hades, called Sheol in the Hebrew books of the Bible, the kingdom of death, the world of shadows from which there is no return (vv. 7-8). The force of the sword, the force of money, and the final triumph of death over life - this is how the world answers the proclamation of the Kingdom. And the confrontation between them continues throughout all Christian history, not quieting with time but, on the contrary, only growing sharper and more intense.
It is no accident that after the fifth seal is opened the apostle sees those witnesses who paid with their own blood for faithfulness to Christ and the Kingdom: the whole history of the Kingdom, opening itself in a world that opposes it, inevitably becomes precisely the history of confession and martyrdom, and the heavenly Church consists mainly of confessors and martyrs (though there have, of course, been exceptions) (vv. 9-11). In fact, the history of holiness, out of which the Church grows, is the true history of the Christian era, whose spiritual dynamic is so clearly expressed by the appearance of the four horsemen.
And only then, when the history of holiness has been completed and the confrontation between the Kingdom and those who oppose it reaches its peak, the day of Judgment comes, revealed to the world as Isaiah of Jerusalem described it (vv. 12-17; see Isa. 2:12-22). This is not the natural completion of history; it is its rupture, occurring as a result of God's direct intervention in the course of things, a course that must be changed, and changed radically.
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