REVELATION 6 & 7

REVELATION 6

These vivid images of chaos and destruction have gripped the imaginations of readers down all the generations, and have continued to shape contemporary culture. This is in part due to the nature of the language John uses, with its direct and powerful metaphors, but it is also because he is describing things which have relevance in every generation.

Although there is no hint of literary dependence, there are significant parallels between the things related in the opening of the seals and those related in Jesus’ discourse in Matthew 24:4-35, Mark 13:5-31, Luke 21:8-23. But Jesus makes clear that these are the things the disciples should expect within their lifetimes: ‘Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened’ (Matt.24:34). In other words, these kinds of events are to mark the ‘end times’ period between Jesus’ ascension and his return.

For John’s first readers, these verses describe a world they know and live in – a world marked by periodic famine and shortage, one of chronic disease and early death (especially in the overcrowded cities of the empire), a world in which earthquakes bring sudden destruction and devastation. John is not yet disclosing to them an unknown future, but revealing the reality about the present. The imperial myth of peace and prosperity is exposed as just that – a myth. There is only one who is sovereign – the one by whose permission the horsemen are released to allow humanity to reap what it has sown – and this one is not the emperor. And it is he alone, not the emperor, who can offer answers to the crisis that faces humanity; he alone who can usher in the true age of peace and prosperity.

If the opening of the first four seals reveals what the world is really like – not one of imperial peace and prosperity but one of experienced chaos and suffering – then the opening of the next two seals reveals where the world is heading and the consequences of living in it. In the brief sketch we are offered here – which is filled out in more detail as the book unfolds – we see that it is also a world of injustice, where dissenting voices of those who are loyal to a different sovereign are not tolerated. But such injustice will not have the last word; we are offered here the first glimpse of an alternative narrative which is set in motion by the lamb who was slain but now stands before the throne: that those who are themselves slain because of their faithful testimony will also stand before God.

And it is a world which, without the redemption that God offers, is hurtling toward destruction. It is vital that we read this chapter, not as a complete account of the world and God’s will for it, but in its place within Revelation’s narrative. This is the world that God made, sees and loves; the question of his ultimate will for it has not yet been answered, since all seven seals have not yet been opened, and we cannot know his will until they have. This is not a description of God’s will for the world, but a description of the world about which God has a will. We see the first insights into this will in the interlude, prior to the seventh seal, which follows in Revelation 7.

REVELATION 7

John’s vision here offers three pictures of the people of God which are interrelated. The first is of a people looking like an army ready for spiritual warfare as they endure the intermediate time between their release from slavery and their entry into the Promised Land, recast by John to refer to the period from Jesus’ death, resurrection and exaltation to his return and the renewal of all things. The second is of the people Israel now drawn from all the nations of the earth rather than being a nation set apart by ethnic and national boundaries. They are a people caught up in the praise of the one on the throne and of the lamb. The third portrait is of this people having come through intense suffering – not the suffering brought about by God’s wrath and judgment, but the tribulation that comes from staying faithful to the testimony of the lamb who was slain in the face of relentless opposition. They are protected from divine judgment, but nevertheless endure suffering at the hands of human power.

Together, these portraits give us a picture of a people in receipt of God’s grace and responding to it. In contrast to those who, in desperation cry to the rocks and mountains for protection, the servants of God wait for the gift of protection that comes from God’s sealing of them. They stand in white before the throne because of the gift of the blood of the lamb by which they have been purchased as a kingdom of priests for God. And their response to this gift is to remain faithful, just as Jesus did, and to be ready to lead disciplined lives of obedience. The holy warfare for which they are prepared is their non-violent witness to Jesus, even to the point of death.

(Ian Paul, REVELATION, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries)

CONCLUSION OF REVELATION 6 & 7

History is a long sequence of battles – the forces of good and evil in pitched conflict. The battle rages within the soul; it is fought out in family circles; it is contested between nations. War is the human condition. To be human is to be at war. The question every person of faith must face is Do God’s love and redemption work in this history in which we live? Are war and famine and sickness the supreme realities? Or are peace and bounty and health at the heart of things? The only way to understand history is to begin with Christ. Christ is the first word. Biblical Christians do not sentimentalize Christ. There is fierceness and militancy here. The world is in conflict; our Christ is the first on the field of battle. Christ moves from the place of worship into the arena of history where lions and gladiators defy and deny God. The world as we observe it is shot through with evil. The evil is summarized in the three horsemen of war (red horse), famine (black horse), and sickness unto death (pale horse). War is social evil; famine is ecological evil; sickness is biological evil.

There is more. There is both the narrower and a wider dimension of evil to take into account. The narrower dimension is the evil of religious persecution, shown in the fifth unsealing; the wider is the evil of natural catastrophe shown in the sixth. The believing imagination has now been provided with images that account for every aspect of evil. Nothing that we experience as evil in unnoticed or unacknowledged.. Christians, for the most part, are the very persons in our society who can be counted on to have no illusions about the depth of depravity in themselves and the world at large.

Who can stand in this world of evil? The angels and Christians can stand. The multitude of believers can be sealed by the Holy Spirit. It is in the midst of experienced historical evil that we are protected (sealed). We are protected from the God-separating effects of evil even as we experience the suffering caused by evil. People who live by faith in Jesus Christ are protectively sealed against evil by the Spirit. This definite total of 144,000 (12 square, then multiplied) known to God is a numberless multitude beyond calculation from any human point of view. Similarly, these people are all Israel, that is God’s people from his standpoint; from our standpoint, they come from ‘every nation under heaven.’ They are not only secure from evil, they are exuberant as they sing. How they sing! The most frightening representations of evil (Rev.6) are set alongside extravagant praise (Rev.7). The songs of the vision are the response to the statistics of evil. Any evil, no matter how fearsome, is exposed as weak and pedantic before such songs.

One more detail: in any enumeration of a series, the first and last numbers are most important. In the seven seals which, as a whole, show the evil that is experienced in history, the first seal is a revelation of Christ triumphant over evil, and the seventh is a revelation of the attentive silence in heaven in which the prayers of every believer are carefully heard and answered (Rev.8:1-4). All evil takes place between that beginning and ending. Evil is contained.. Evil is not minimized, but it is put in its place, bracketed between Christ and prayer. Evil is not explained but surrounded. The Revelation summarizes the context: admit evil and do not fear it.

(Eugene H. Peterson, REVERSED THUNDER: The Revelation of John & the Praying Imagination.)