I recently saw a short maxim that seems relevant to our traverse through Revelation: “Born once die twice, born twice die once.”

This statement is fitting for the New Testament: those who are born again do not need to fear the judgment—the second death.

Physical death is merely a passing from the physical realm to another realm of reality in the presence of God.

For Revelation though, born once die twice applies to all, but differently.

For the believer in Jesus, the second birth is metaphorically a “death”—SALVATION.

Death to the world in Christ means that the second death holds no fear—it is merely physical leading to eternal life.

Only those not saved, who do not repent, will be harmed by “the second death” of judgment.

The order is flipped: physical death then spiritual death at the judgment.

The believer only experiences physical death, not this second one, because they have already died with Christ (Galatians 2:19–20).

I say this as we trudge forward to the fifth trumpet and then the sixth in another post, which are brimming with purported images of violence and judgment, but like so much before, are saying the opposite through metaphor.

I’ve already posed some questions about the fifth trumpet, but getting into the actual details brings those questions into greater focus. Here is the entire passage:

And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet and I saw a star from the heaven having fallen to the earth, and there was given to it the key of the well of the abyss, and it opened the well of the abyss and smoke came up from the well like smoke from a large furnace, and the sun and the air was darkened from the smoke of the well, and from the smoke came out locusts to the earth, and power was given to them like the scorpions of the earth have power and it was spoken to them that they should not harm the grass of the earth nor everything green nor all trees, but the humans who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads, and there was given to them that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months, and their torment like torment of a scorpion when it stings a human. And in those days the humans will seek death and will not find it at all, and they will desire to die, but death will flee from them. And the likeness of the locusts was like horses prepared for war and on their heads as crowns like gold and their faces like the faces of humans and they had hair like hair of a woman and their teeth were as of lions and they had thoraxes like thoraxes of iron and the sound of their wings like the sound of many horse-drawn chariots running to war and they have tails like scorpions and a stinger and their power was in their tails to harm the humans for five months. They have over them as a king the messenger of the abyss, his name in Hebrew Abaddon and in Greek he has a name Apollyon. Woe number one has passed. Behold two woes are coming after these things. Revelation 9:1–12.

Before I start my interpretation of this trumpet vision, I want to reiterate that every interpretation starts with a preconception of the interpretive frame, thus the familiar broad categories—all combine the symbolic and literal at the same time, though often claiming otherwise.

In the previous post I described those options.

I refuse them all. I maintain that the metaphorical frame that uses images to illustrate the Gospel of the Exalted Jesus set out in Revelation 1 fits best.

If there is anything literal, it is the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, the Exalted Jesus and his saints with the gospel, and the ultimate return of the the Lord Jesus.

All of Revelation, in this viewpoint, must be interpreted in light of this prologue that includes John’s initial vision of Jesus.

If Jesus can be described with a robe girded with a gold belt, snow white hair, flaming eyes, burnished bronze feet, a voice of many waters, seven stars in his right hand, a two edged sword coming from his mouth, a face like the sun shining in full power—all functionally symbolic of Jesus’s divine state, then the description of the “locusts” can similarly be composed of symbols pointing to the state and function of the referent.

This is true of all the visions.

But here in the fifth trumpet the fluidity of the description presents a most difficult case to interpret.

Just track with me.

A star, fallen to earth, has a key that unlocks the opening to a well without a bottom from which smoke arises and “locusts” come out which are not really locusts but like scorpions, then like war horses wearing gold crowns, with human faces, long hair, lion’s teeth, iron plated thoraxes, and wings rumbling like horse-drawn chariots, and a scorpion’s tale that stings unsealed humans for five months but doesn’t kill them.

Any notion of literal ends with “star.”

Star itself is a symbol.

And so is everything else: well, pit, locusts, stings, etc.

They all “stand” for or mean something else, and maybe not in individual parts.

So instead of seeking external referents (Jewish War, Roman history, future events, or recurring history—all of which are arbitrary), why don’t we begin with what Revelation gives us, then the wider New Testament, then the Old Testament, to understand the symbols and their (logical) metaphorical significance?

(continued)

Key posts on metaphor (and metonym)

Revelation as Metaphor
SALVATION is DEATH: A Key Metaphor for Revelation
The First Four Trumpets: Metaphor and Metonym Explained
The First Four Trumpets: The Logic of Metaphor
The First Four Trumpets: The Metaphor GOSPEL is PLAGUE

In Plain Sight is a subscriber supported publication. If you appreciate the content and insights of this Substack, please consider a paid subscription. Subscribers receive additional material at the end of most posts with more subscriber only material to come.

Symbols and metaphors in the fifth trumpet

Star and key

Let’s start with “star (Greek astēr).”

There is one definitively identified star in Revelation: Jesus.

Revelation 22:16 says, “I am the root and lineage of David, the bright morning star.”

This star was already referred to in Revelation 2:26, 28: “To the one who conquers … I will give to him the morning star.”

Based on these I have already identified the star of the third trumpet in 8:10–11 with Jesus.

But the wider New Testament supports this: a star was associated with the birth of Jesus (Matthew 2:2, 7, 8, 10).

And a major Old Testament prophetic text.

In Numbers 24:17, the (unwilling) prophetic utterance of Balaam predicts “a star comes from Jacob, a scepter arises from Israel.” This text originally pointed to David, but in the centuries just prior to Jesus, Jewish groups and writings saw the star as the coming Messiah—hence the identification of star by the Magi as pointing to the coming King of the Jews.

When the star is coupled with the key that unlocks the well of the abyss, Jesus is unmistakable: in Revelation 1:18, he has “the keys of death and of Hades” (and the “key of David” in Revelation 3:7, reprising the Messianic text in Isaiah 22:22). Later in 20:1 an angel from heaven has that key, but has God’s blessing to lock up Satan.

Satan never had the key.

Despite this evidence, another view argues that John referred to the fall of Satan due to the resemblances with Isaiah 14:12–20. There the king of Babylon was prophesied to fall into Sheol, into a pit (no “abyss” in Greek). In 24:12, Isaiah asks “how did you come to fall from the heavens shining one, son of dawn.” The line goes that this is the fallen star who fell to the abyss.

But that is the problem.

The Star in Revelation 9:1 has the key to the well of the abyss. He does not go to the abyss. Instead the Star in Revelation 9:1 unlocks the well of the abyss! Later in Revelation an angel from heaven was handed this key and locked Satan in the abyss for a thousand years.

Satan never had the key.

As for “the well of the abyss,” it is easily a symbolic (metonymic) reference to Hades, since smoke arises and earlier Jesus had the “key to Hades.”

Locusts

Next, the locusts.

Locusts appear in the Bible about 50 times and other Jewish literature another 50 times or so, but they are always actual locusts.

Only here in the vision of Revelation 9 are the locusts not locusts but combination creatures with various types of armor and weaponry. Not that the description doesn’t owe something to Joel, who describes an actual locust swarm with terms like horses, chariots, and lions teeth that devours every edible thing in their path.

The issue is that Joel’s locusts were still just plain locusts.

But the Revelation 9 “locusts” don’t appear on earth to devour, but they arise from the abyss to torment those who are unsealed.

In fact they explicitly don’t harm the grass, or green plants or trees—the very thing normal locusts do eat.

Wow.

Only symbol and metaphor can account for this.

With no warrant, another interpreter calls them “demon-locusts” and argues that God allows them as punishment for sinful humanity. His line is that God uses demonic evil to punish evil.

The problem here is that nothing in the text says they are demons—that is sheer implication because they come from the smoke rising from the abyss.

The other question is whether “torment” is judgment or even punishment.

When the metaphor GOSPEL IS PLAGUE is understood, then the opposite is the case.

So, as you who have followed all along expect, I have a very different take.

Here is my thesis:

The vision of the fifth trumpet is of Jesus unlocking Hades for the freeing of the saints who come to spread the gospel to the unrepentant world.

I begin with a passage from the Gospel of Matthew 27:45–54 (here in the KJV).

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.

Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

There is certainly no one to one correspondence with Revelation 9 in this passage, but several elements evoke curious similarities:

1. Darkness.

2. Earthquake and rocks rent.

3. Bodies of the saints came out of the graves and appeared to many.

4. Those watching were afraid.

The vision of Revelation 9 has the fallen Star (the incarnate Jesus) with a key (the cross) opening the well of the abyss (rocks rent) with smoke darkening the sun (darkness over the land) and locusts coming from the smoke (the saints coming from the graves) and “tormenting” humans (appeared to many who feared greatly).

I am not suggesting that the vision came from Matthew.

John saw the vision and simply recorded it.

But the narrative description of Matthew and the symbol-laden vision of John cohere in a way that helps explain the symbols of the vision.

Taking a gospel-centered approach to the imagery gives logical coherence to the vision.

Even if these observations are accepted as possible, difficult to explain elements remain: the description of the locusts, the scorpion tails that sting but do not kill, the king of the abyss and his name.

The interaction of the metaphors ARGUMENT IS WAR and GOSPEL IS PLAGUE unlock these elements.

The description.

“And the likeness of the locusts was like horses prepared for war and on their heads as crowns like gold and their faces like the faces of humans and they had hairs like the hairs of a woman and their teeth were as of lions and they had thoraxes like thoraxes of iron and the sound of their wings like the sound of many horse-drawn chariots running to war and they have tails like scorpions and a stinger and their power was in their tails to harm the humans for five months.”

How could this description possibly refer to the resurrected saints?

I suggest that the locusts described have the “full armor of God,” that Paul described in Ephesians 6:13–17 (and also referred to in 1 Thessalonians 5:8).

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

These locusts are prepared for battle (against principalities etc), have a golden crown (helmet of salvation), thoraxes of iron (breastplate of righteousness), and scorpion tails that sting (the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God).

Of course, I have already argued that the sword from Jesus’s mouth is the gospel, that the arrows from the bow of seal one were the gospel, that the sword of seal two was the gospel.

Now, the scorpion tail that stings is the gospel (GOSPEL IS PLAGUE).

The locusts are the dead in Christ (SALVATION IS DEATH) now raised to do battle (ARGUMENT IS WAR) against humanity through fighting with the weapons of the gospel (GOSPEL IS PLAGUE).

We thus have a logical explanation for why those sealed are not “tormented.” The “torment” is the proclamation of the gospel, something those sealed already have—they are already dead (that is saved: SALVATION IS DEATH)!

Those confronted by the “torment” of the gospel (GOSPEL IS PLAGUE), want to die but they cannot.

This seems strange: why don’t they die if “they desire to die”? Why does “death flee from them”?

The answer comes in the sixth seal: they refuse to repent (of course I’ll have much more on that down the way). Yet a third of humanity does “die” in the sixth seal—SALVATION IS DEATH.

(cont.)

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Destroyer

The final difficult image to interpret is the king over the locusts, named Abaddon/Apollyon.

I intentionally translated Greek angelos as “messenger” of the abyss, not “angel.”

The term is functional here, the one sent to the abyss (with a key).

With the metaphors and clues from before, this sent King is Jesus (King of kings and Lord of lords!!) who has destroyed the power of death and Hades and now raises the saints to new life.

Given the metaphorical logic of the entire passage, this identification is easily made.

For the sake of “evidence” though, here is a list of New Testament references that make Jesus as Abbadon/Apollyon rather easy.

Matthew 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Luke 4:34 “Ah! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

Luke 13:3 I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

Luke 20:16 He will come and destroy those tenants, and give the vineyard to others.

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.”

1 Corinthians 10:9 We must not put the Lord to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents; 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.

James 4:12 There is one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.

Jude 5 Now I desire to remind you, though you were once for all fully informed, that Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

Ascribing the name “Destroyer” to Jesus fits perfectly.

And from the earliest confessions—almost universal in the early church—Jesus descended into Hades where he defeated the powers of darkness and freed the saints. This doctrine is still robust in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions, but curiously has been all but abandoned in evangelical Protestant theology.

Jesus as “destroyer” came not to destroy humanity, but to destroy Satan and evil.

In so doing he released the army of saints to bring the gospel to the world.

The Star Jesus, the destroyer of death, opened the abyss of Hades, released the Locust saints to preach the gospel.

The sixth seal continues straight on from the fifth and I’ll hopefully have the post on it way sooner than this one.

Lynn and I had a fantastic two week trip to Turkey and Greece, including all seven sites of the churches in Revelation 2–3 (not Patmos, though)—I expect many of you read my reports. I don’t think the experience changed the way I am interpreting Revelation, at least not yet, but breathing the air and seeing the places was a long awaited desire and totally worth the travel.

Now back to Revelation itself!

We have finally brought the interpretation of the first four trumpets to a close, at least enough to see the metaphorical patterns as they have developed.

Between the first four trumpets (which encompassed only seven verses!) and the last three (which encompass all of chapters 9, 10 and 11!), there is a short interlude in Revelation 8:13.

I’ll get to that verse in just a minute.

This is a good time for another interlude of sorts. With the completion of the first four trumpets, we now have data to compare with the first four seals, data which I think is at least interesting, and confirming of our metaphors.

The Four Trumpets and the Four Seals

If we set the first four trumpets of Revelation 8:6–12 and first four seals of Revelation 6–8:1 side by side, we can observe some interesting common features:

Seals | Trumpets

Lamb given scroll with seven seals | 7 angels given seven trumpets

4+3 pattern | 4+3 pattern

Four Creatures announce “come” | Four angels blow trumpets

Rider on horse brings “violence” | Plagues come from heaven

Death happens | Death happens

Length of first four: 8 verses | Length of first four: 7 verses

Length of last 3: 27 verses | Length of last 3: 51 verses

Observations:

1. After the Lamb opened first four seals, the four living creatures initiated the action with “Come.”

2. With the trumpets, the trumpets were “given” to the seven angels before God (8:2). Who gave them? Likely the Lamb of 8:1. In 8:6, the angels prepare to blow, then begin one by one starting in 8:7.

3. The four creatures and angels are metonymic in function—their purpose was to call forth or announce the action to come. They are not exactly the same, but they are all in the presence of God and serve to announce the next element in the vision.

4. In my interpretation of the four horses, I argued that Christ was the rider on each horse and that the bow, the sword, and the scales were implementations of the gospel, with death and Hades on the green horse representative of Christ’s death and resurrection. I did not introduce GOSPEL IS PLAGUE at the time, but the metaphor is clear to see, as well as SALVATION IS DEATH, which I did introduce.

5. In the first four trumpets the elements from heaven also represent the gospel, though more broadly: something fiery cast from heaven that represented Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

6. The four + three pattern of the seals gets repeated with the trumpets. Once again they are not the same but the flow suggests that they can be compared.

7. The final three seals and final three trumpets are vastly different from the first four of each, not least the length.

I am not totally sure what to make of these similarities. Interpreters see one of two basic ideas, a progression of some sort that moves to successive events in history of the past or future, or, second, a recapitulation using slightly different terms (typically the idealist position, though some ancient interpreters argued that too). I am closer to the second position, but the referent is the gospel not violence!

(continued)

Key posts on metaphor (and metonym)

Revelation as Metaphor
SALVATION is DEATH: A Key Metaphor for Revelation
The First Four Trumpets: Metaphor and Metonym Explained
The First Four Trumpets: The Logic of Metaphor
The First Four Trumpets: The Metaphor GOSPEL is PLAGUE

In Plain Sight is a subscriber supported publication. If you appreciate the content and insights of this Substack, please consider a paid subscription. Subscribers receive additional material at the end of most posts with more subscriber only material to come.

A Transition Verse

So let’s now look at the verse that divides the first four trumpets from the last three:

And I saw and heard an eagle flying in mid-sky saying with a great voice, Woe, Woe, Woe to the inhabitants of the earth from the remaining sounds of the trumpets from the three angels about to blow! (Revelation 8:13)

John’s account of his vision in this verse served as not just a vivid picture, but as a way to set off the last three trumpets.

In this case he saw an eagle, and it could be another manifestation of the fourth living creature of Revelation 4:7 and 6:7.

Eagles in the ancient world were considered messengers, sometimes of good news and sometimes of bad.

The message of the eagle was “Ouai, ouai, ouai to the dwellers on the earth …”

One of the professors at Southern Baptist Seminary back in the mid 1980s, Dr. Jim Blevins, suggested to his students that the Greek word here, ouai, is actually onomatopoeia: try crying “ooweh” in a high pitched voice—it sounds just like the eagle’s cry, but is also the Greek term for “Woe.” [I demonstrate in the audio version.]

What we will see is that each of the last three trumpets will be connected respectively to each of the three “woes.”

If the metaphor GOSPEL IS PLAGUE was evident in the first four trumpets, we might expect more of the same with the “woes,” but with some very surprising twists.

Issues to deal with in the 5th and 6th trumpets

As with everything so far in Revelation, the attempts to turn the next two trumpets into literal disaster and war ends up fraught with difficulties.

But the same can be said for the metaphorical approach I am offering.

The bizarre imagery makes the interpretation of this part of John’s vision difficult, even tentative.

But as I have constantly pressed, the logic of the parts and of the whole in John’s vision is paramount in understanding what the vision was conveying.

There are multiple issues to deal with.

First the traditional: in any of the approaches, the falling star in Trumpet Five is either Satan or some human personage (Muhammad, the Romans, the Pope, the Anti-christ, even Martin Luther(!)) who unlocks hell-bound demons (spiritual or literal) or human armies or even malicious doctrines in order to plague humans with torment—some die and others can’t.

All the views incorporate combinations of symbolism and literalism.

The array of interpretations is dizzying—so too the ancient interpreters—but all seem to be intent on mapping the images to history in some way (idealists to recurring patterns in history).

By now, if you have been reading along, I am dispensing with this mapping and going with another mapping: the gospel via metaphor.

(cont.)

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Questions

But to do that, we need to identify some particularly thorny spots—actually a lot of questions to be asked of the fifth and sixth trumpets:

1. What or who does the “star having fallen from heaven to earth” symbolize?

2. What is “the key to the well of the abyss”?

3. What is “the abyss”?

4. What are the “locusts”?

5. What do their powers represent (“like the scorpions on the earth”)?

6. Why can they not touch those with the seal of God?

7. Why torment but not kill for five months?

8. Why can’t the tormented ones die?

9. What does the description of the locusts in verses 7–11 symbolize?

10. Whose voice is from the four horns of the heavenly altar?

11. Who are the four angels bound at the Euphrates?

12. What does “the hour and day and month and year to kill the third of humankind” mean?

13. What is the cavalry in verses 16–19 that actually kills the third of humans?

14. Why are those who do not repent not killed?

Ok, that is enough questions, though there are many others that could be asked in the details.

The key, I think, is to isolate the most important of the questions, because the answers will go a long way in helping to understand the others.

And the most important ones boil down to two: why do “the third of humanity” die, and why do so many others not die—specifically those who do not repent?

If these two trumpet scenes are about the judgment of the wicked (even though “judgment” is never mentioned), then the second question is fully illogical.

Judgment (at least as put forth by the prevailing views) ends in death.

But in this case, the wicked don’t die; indeed they cannot.

But “the third of humanity” does.

As I will argue in the next post, simply applying the metaphors SALVATION IS DEATH and GOSPEL IS PLAGUE becomes the crucial step for bringing out the logic of the trumpet visions.

We will also add a sub-metaphor that fits within GOSPEL IS PLAGUE.

That metaphor, as I have mentioned before, is ARGUMENT IS WAR.

ARGUMENT IS WAR explains that war imagery in Revelation is actually the proclamation of the gospel (or opposition to the gospel later on).

The metaphor flows from the image of the two-edged sword coming from the mouth of Jesus.

The result is that a portion of people die (that is, are saved) but those that do not respond to the message with repentance do not die.

OK, I hope that is enough to whet your appetite. I’ll address the fifth trumpet in the next post.

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

Revelation 8:13
Καὶ εἶδον, καὶ ἤκουσα ἑνὸς ⸀ἀετοῦ πετομένου ἐν μεσουρανήματι
And I looked and heard an eagle flying in mid-sky

Read more

Finally, we are ready to hone in on the first four trumpets themselves as we continue to interpret Revelation as the Gospel of the Exalted Jesus.

Armed with the two metaphors GOSPEL is PLAGUE and SALVATION is DEATH as lenses for the symbolism in Revelation, the imagery in the trumpets takes on an entirely different significance than the attempts that more or less revert to literalism—and end up all over the map.

If you’ve not read or listened to the previous parts yet (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), I encourage you to do so, otherwise some of this post may seem out of the blue (as I expect some would say anyway!).

Trumpet #1

And the first [angel] sounded the trumpet and there was hail and fire mixed in blood and it was cast to the earth, and the third of the earth was incinerated and the third of the trees were incinerated and all the green grass was incinerated. Revelaton 8:7

Most (all?) of the commentaries out there judge that “hail and fire” allude to the Egyptian plagues, though they diverge from that identification into their various interpretive modes.

After much consideration, I agree. There is an allusion to those plagues—but not as judgment.

In Exodus the Egyptian plagues were primarily an indication of God’s power and presence rather than “judgment,” though they are referred to as “judgments (Hebrew mishpatim)” twice.

The plagues showed to Pharaoh that Yahweh was infinitely more powerful than the gods and magicians of Egypt.

But in keeping with what I have already explained, PLAGUE as depicted in Revelation is the vehicle in the metaphor GOSPEL is PLAGUE.

Plague is not judgment but a stand-in for the Gospel as God’s redemptive plan for the world.

What makes this phrase very different in Revelation is that the hail and fire were “mixed in blood.”

Any physical plague thought of or alluded to is now transformed into another sort of plague: a plague imbued with the salvific effects of Christ’s blood!

And whereas the Egyptian plagues led to the physical deliverance of Israel, these plagues lead to the salvation of the world (or at least a third at this point!)

The metaphor GOSPEL is PLAGUE transforms the seeming impossibility of hail, fire, and blood to incinerate anything literally, into an easily possible theological truth.

What gets incinerated? The third of the earth, the third of the trees, and all the green grass.

Though I am going to be light on holding to the absolute correspondences, earth, trees, and green grass all stand in for people.

In the Bible the earth or the land can stand for people (like we say “the whole world” for the people in it). Many early commenters saw the earth as the land of Israel—and preterists usually do.

As for trees, plenty of places in the Bible compare people, often rulers, to trees.

And though rarer, so is grass. As to green grass, this is living, not dead, grass.

In one of the earliest Revelation commentaries, Tyconius specifically identified the earth, trees, and grass as people.

Taken together, the incineration of the earth, trees, and grass represents a partial advance of the gospel: people who die are converted—SALVATION is DEATH.

But wait, there is more.

Key posts on metaphor (and metonym)

Revelation as Metaphor
SALVATION is DEATH: A Key Metaphor for Revelation
The First Four Trumpets: Metaphor and Metonym Explained
The First Four Trumpets: The Logic of Metaphor
The First Four Trumpets: The Metaphor GOSPEL is PLAGUE

“The” third is very important. Not just any third, but a specific third.

The KJV and other old translations specify the definite article “the third part” while all recent translations have the indefinite “a third” or “one-third.”

The KJV is correct!

The Greek text is unanimous in the inclusion of the article (“the,” Greek to) and there is no reason to make it generic. The article indicates a specific third, not an arbitrary one, as is seen throughout the Bible. The ⅓ scope of the plagues in the trumpets were specifically indicated suggesting targeted intention rather than happenstance to any one of three sectors or an amorphous third.

As often in Revelation, another part of Scripture helps to illuminate something obscure.

In this case Zechariah 13:7–9 does the job:

O sword, rise up against my shepherd,
and against the man with me,”
declares Yahweh of hosts.
“Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered;
and I will turn my hand against the little ones.
And it shall be in all the land, declares Yahweh,
two parts shall be cut off and perish,
and the third shall be left alive.
And I will put the third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
and they will say, ‘Yahweh is my God.’”

In Zechariah 13, “the third” (and the Hebrew text specifically adds the article) indicated the remnant saved by God.

“The third” in the trumpets indicates the same via the metaphor SALVATION is DEATH!!!

(continued)

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Trumpet #2

And the second angel sounded the trumpet and (something) like a large mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea, and the third of the sea became blood and the third of the creatures in the sea having souls died and the third of the ships were destroyed.
Revelation 8:8–9

A pattern is now established: something burning is cast down and destroys “the third,” though the details expand the scope of the first trumpet.

What is “something like a large mountain burning with fire?”

John’s description of the vision is beyond the bounds of his precision.

Interestingly, only the staunchest of literal futurists try to shoehorn this image into a physical fireball coming down from the sky to earth (nuclear bomb anyone?)

Instead, the “like” gives interpreters permission to allegorize this image in some way with respect to judgment: the Vandals coming down on Rome (historicists), the Romans defeating the Jews (a burning Mount Zion—preterists), general apocalyptic disaster (most futurists), or Babylon falling (idealists)—and one argues the fall of Satan (as did Andrew of Caesarea in the 7^th century).

Some see the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 as the image.

In all cases, judgment is the theme of these approaches, even though judgment does not appear in the text in any way.

Instead, this visionary “like a great burning mountain” is another element of the heavenly altar fire cast from heaven to earth in parallel to “hail and fire mixed in blood” and “a star like a torch” in the third trumpet.

Is there symbolic meaning to this mountain?

Yes, but not judgment.

Just in earthly terms, “mountain” refers so many times in Scripture to Sinai or to Zion as the place of God’s revelation or home.

But for this image in Revelation, Daniel’s interpretation of Nebechadnezzar’s statue dream in Daniel 2 points us in the right direction.

In the dream, as Daniel told it, a stone smashed the statue of gold/silver/bronze/iron/clay, then “became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”

Here is Daniel’s ending:

And in the days of those kings, the God of
heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall
the kingdom be left to another people.
It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end,
and it shall stand forever,
just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand,
and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold
(Daniel 2:44–45).

In Daniel the mountain symbolized God’s eternal kingdom that will obliterate all earthly ones.

Where was the mountain from? Heaven.

And so is this one.

The mountain of the second trumpet also has the characteristic of fire—a burning mountain: God is a consuming fire, and in the vision of the exalted Jesus, his eyes were like fire, the Holy Spirit is fire.

But this mountain did not burn anything—you would expect what happened in the first trumpet.

Instead, it was cast into the sea.

Rather than the sea extinguishing the mountain, the mountain turns “the third of the sea” to “blood.”

Just in this image, we see the transformative power of metaphor.

The standard interpretations must take this as symbolic for some literal happening.

But with metaphor, the images retain their symbolic potency.

The burning mountain from God redeems the third of the sea—it has turned to the blood of Christ.

The other two images follow: the third of the creatures in the sea having souls died and the third of the ships were destroyed.

The creatures “having souls” were humans (some translations have “living creatures” but that is redundant—see Observations on the Greek Text for more on this topic).

And the ships had humans.

SALVATION is DEATH.

Once again, this is a vision, yet the intent is not some literal correspondence to what we perceive as reality, but the the salvific effect of the gospel.

Put in analogy form— GOSPEL is to SALVATION as PLAGUE (mountain turning sea to blood) is to DEATH (souls died/ships destroyed).

No literal event needed except the cross of Christ.

No illogical absurdities of literal correspondences which are impossible to map and arbitrary at best.

Trumpet #3

And the third angel sounded the trumpet and a great star burning like a torch fell from the heaven and it fell upon the third of the rivers and upon the springs of water. And the name of the star is called Apsinth and the third of the waters turned into apsinth and many of the people died from the waters because they were embittered. Revelation 8:10–11

Now that the pattern has been set, the third trumpet easily follows suit.

The big burning star is parallel to hail/fire mixed in blood and the big burning mountain.

The rivers and springs parallel the earth/trees/grass/sea.

And people die (even though they shouldn’t).

What is the great burning star?

Jesus.

We have already encountered clues in Revelation: “His face was like the sun shining in its power” (1:16), “I will give him the morning star,” (2:28). Then in Revelation 22:16 Jesus says plainly “I am … the bright morning star.” There is even a play on words: “torch” in 8:10 is Greek lampas and bright in 22:16 is lampros.

How does a star fall upon the third of the rivers and on the springs?

Impossible in any literal sense, but in the vision the star gets transformed with a name—Apsinth.

Yes, all of the English translations from Wycliffe to now have Wormwood, the English name of the plant, but the early translations—Syriac and Coptic—retain Apsinth, and Latin has Absinth.

Apsinth is a particular species of the plant genus Artemisia prevalent in the eastern Mediterranean that is very bitter (you may have heard of the bitter liqueur Absinthe which uses Wormwood, fennel and anise).

Apsinth was/is not poisonous at all, but was useful as a vermicide—it killed stomach worms, thus “wormwood”—and was discussed for its healing properties in ancient medical treatises and known even in ancient Egypt.

So while Apsinth can definitely make water bitter it cannot kill anyone.

This disparity leads straight to the metaphor.

Apsinth is the star, the star is Jesus—GOSPEL is PLAGUE (embitterment of the water).

But the bitter healing agent Apsinth instead kills people—SALVATION is DEATH.

The bitterness of Jesus’s death brings healing to those who believe (that is die to the world).

Once again, the metaphorical reading brings logic to the vision.

(cont.)

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Trumpet #4

And the fourth angel sounded the trumpet and the third of the sun was struck and the third of the moon and the third of the stars, so that their third was darkened, and the day—its third did not appear and the night likewise.

The fourth trumpet appears to break the pattern of plague then death, though a closer look shows it remains, though not fully.

In this trumpet, the counterparts to the natural elements in the first three are the cosmic elements of sun, moon and stars.

Whereas something burning was cast down in those three, there is only the verb “was struck (Greek eplēgē).”

The death part? Its effects are that the third of day and night disappear.

The entire image is bizarre.

I guess you can have partial eclipses of sun and moon, but not stars, and the day and night piece simply does not compute.

What is going on here?

Let’s discuss the one-third again. It is a very round fraction like a third of a cup—more than a quarter and less than a half.

In the fourth seal, the fraction one-quarter occurred and here was my interpretation: “Here in Revelation 6:8, that remnant—“some survivors”— was represented by “the fourth of the earth” (as the Zechariah passage above applies to “the third”).

And here in the first four trumpets, the thirds refer to the further advance (one-fourth to one-third) of God’s purposes—GOSPEL.

With the addition of the cosmic images of sun, moon, stars, day and night, the purpose grows immensely large—redemption not only of the earth and its inhabitants, but of the entire cosmos.

We see movement toward the end goal depicted in Revelation 21–22: the new heavens and the new earth in their entirety.

Paul envisioned this very movement in Romans 8—the place where he takes the implications of the gospel to its cosmic goal:

I consider that the current sufferings are not worthy to be compared
with the about to be revealed glory for us.
For the eager expectation of creation waits for the revelation of the sons of God.
For the creation is subject to futility,
not willingly but in accordance with the one who subjects it,
in hope that creation itself will be freed
from the slavery of corruption
for the freedom of the glory of the children of God
(Romans 8:18-21).

“The third” is not only salvation of humans, but of creation.

Here in the first four trumpets we see in metaphorical language the progress of redemption among humanity (those who die) and creation, extending even to the cosmos that is partially “destroyed” as the first step in the new creation.

Jesus put it this way: “Truly, truly I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).

The first four trumpets use the images of plague and death as the metaphorical signifiers of God’s redemptive purposes.

And these images are perfectly in line with the passion and death of Jesus, which we identify with in baptism.

At this point in the vision the redemptive results are only partial (“the thirds”).

But the thirds anticipate the consummation of redemption at the end of the vision.

This understanding of the first four trumpets is highly encouraging to us who believe in the midst of a chaotic world, seemingly on the brink of disaster at every turn.

While the world does its thing, God has already accomplished his purposes in the cross and resurrection and the advance of the gospel in the world, though to our senses it only appears in part.

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

Here is a very literal interlinear translation of the second, third, and fourth trumpets (see last post for the first).

Rev 8:8 Καὶ ὁ δεύτερος ἄγγελος ἐσάλπισεν·

And the second angel sounded the trumpet

καὶ ὡς ὄρος μέγα πυρὶ καιόμενον

and (something) like a great mountain burning with fire

ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν,

was cast into the sea

καὶ ἐγένετο τὸ τρίτον τῆς θαλάσσης αἷμα

and became the third of the sea blood

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Though written 1700 years after Revelation, the metaphorical words of this hymn by English poet and hymn-writer William Cowper offer a major clue to the interpretation of the first four trumpets.

In this hymn a metaphorical fountain flows with Christ’s blood.

The blood becomes a flood plunging over sinners, causing forgiveness of their sins.

If William Cowper had Revelation in mind when he penned the words to this hymn, it was likely from one of these verses:

Revelation 1:5 “To him who loves us and released us from our sins in his blood.”

Revelation 5:9 “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slaughtered and you purchased for God in your blood from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”

Revelation 7:14 “They washed their robes and whitened them in the blood of the Lamb.”

For our purposes, these three verses open up the metaphorical flood of the first four trumpets.

Key posts on metaphor (and metonym)

Revelation as Metaphor
SALVATION is DEATH: A Key Metaphor for Revelation
The First Four Trumpets: Metaphor and Metonym Explained
The First Four Trumpets: The Logic of Metaphor

The crucial words are “in blood.”

These two words—almost universally ignored in the commentaries—are the linchpin of the first four trumpets because they alert us to the theological metaphors to come.

What blood?

The blood of Jesus of course: Revelation 1:5 “In his blood;” 5:9 “in your blood;” 7:14 “in the blood of the Lamb.”

In Revelation 8:7 we read, “Hail and fire mixed in blood.”

Haima (blood) occurs 19 times in Revelation, but these are the only four occurrences of the Greek words en and haima together.

Coincidence?

Hardly.

Whatever the symbolic intent of hail and fire, they are mixed “in blood”—the blood of Christ.

Some who know Greek might protest and ask, “Can’t the preposition en mean “with” also?” The answer can be yes, but not here.

Throughout Revelation, John either used the dative case by itself for “with” or most commonly he used the preposition meta.

He never used en for “with” as accompaniment.

Instead, John used en to indicate where (location) or how (instrumentality).

I’ll go into more detail in the Observations on the Greek Text section.

One other thing: “mixed” (Greek mignymi) is used four times in the NT and twice is followed by meta “with” (Matthew 27:34 and Luke 13:1). The other use in Revelation is followed by the dative case, also “with.” Other Greek texts follow this pattern (once again, see Observations).

But here John described what he saw as “hail and fire mixed in blood.”

This is a very different idea than “with.”

I envision that the hail and fire are coated with blood.

And what blood is that?

The blood of the Messiah on the heavenly altar.

In the first trumpet the combination of hail and fire mixed in blood is cast from the fire of the altar in the heavenly censor to the earth (as with the second and third trumpets).

The result of this metaphorical plague is the incineration of earth, trees and grass—also metaphorical.

So let’s track the logic to get to the metaphor:

To detect that logic—how everything fits together—we must go back up to the previous scene:

And the angel took the censor and filled it from the fire of the altar and threw it to the earth and there came thunders and sounds, and lightnings and an earthquake (Revelation 8:5).

I spent an entire post on The Heavenly Temple as depicted in Revelation 8:3–5.

I will simply say this in addition: the context gives no indication that the altar fire, the thunder and sounds and lightning and earthquake were instances of judgment.

There is certainly no indication that judgment was intended.

Instead we see incense and prayer mingled that go up to God, then the action of throwing fire to the earth.

As already noted, most interpreters of every persuasion see the fire as a metonym for judgment.

Each of the first three trumpets would follow this metonymic pattern: some sort of fire leading to disaster.

If fire is a metonym for judgment, then every interpreter runs their own way in explaining the specifics of the judgment (preterist, futurist, etc.) in some sort of literal correspondence.

But we have a concept (judgment) that must then be explained in the other images to come, which make no literal sense—the mind must bend to turn what is thrown into its outcome, multiple thirds of earthly and cosmic images.

The logic is not there, though so many try.

“Partial judgment” makes no sense for the images.

The trumpets afterwards become even more confusing.

But if fire and the complex of metonyms in the first three trumpets are metaphorical, then we are dealing with an entirely different meaning.

The key is in tracking the phrases and the images very carefully and following the chain of reasoning for the images (as opposed to the illogical chain of so many interpretations, many of which simply ignore or gloss over key information).

(continued)

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Fire

Let’s just start with fire.

Is there another approach to this basic image?

There is.

Rather than judgment, fire has a long tenure in the Bible for representing the presence of God.

Old Testament

—Genesis 15:17 Yahweh appears to Abraham as a smoking firepot and burning torch.

—Exodus 3:2 The angel of Yahweh appeared to Moses in a burning bush

—Exodus 13:21 Yahweh led the children of Israel with a pillar of fire at night, later the fire descended on the Tabernacle, Numbers 19:15–16.

—Exodus 19:16-19 “On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled. 17 Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the LORD had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. 19 As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder.” Also Deuteronomy 5:22–26.

In this instance there was fire and smoke and thunder and lightning and shaking—all occur in Revelation 8:4–5!

—Judges 6:21 The angel of Yahweh appeared to Gideon with fire.

—1 Kings 18:24, 38 Yahweh revealed himself with fire, burning up the altar and sacrifices on Mt. Carmel. This was not judgment but revelation.

—Elijah ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire and fiery horses.

—Elisha saw an army of flaming chariots.

—Isaiah 6:6–7 In his vision of the throne of God in the temple, a seraph took a live coal from the altar and touched Isaiah’s lips representing God’s forgiveness.

I am in no way suggesting that fire was not used to express the wrath of God like Sodom and Gomorrah, or the rebellion of Korah in Numbers, and fire is regularly an image of judgment in the prophets.

Yet for Revelation the presence of God is most important.

New Testament

For me the most telling passage of illustration and meaning is in Acts 2.

First Acts 2:1–4:

When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all together in the same place. 2 And suddenly there came from the sky a sound like a violent wind bears, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them divided tongues like fire and rested on each one of them. 4 And everyone was filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave utterance to them.

Then Peter’s interpretation in Acts 2:16–21:

16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
17 And in the last days it shall be, God declares
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
20 the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Peter’s citation of Joel 2:28–32 is consistent with the preaching of John the Baptist: “I baptize with water but one is coming … who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11).

And of Jesus: “I came to cast fire to the earth and I wish it were already lit” (Luke 12:49). These words of Jesus “cast fire to the earth” are remarkably similar to Revelation 8:5.

Is fire used for judgment in the teachings of Jesus?

You bet.

But the particulars of this language point to another type of fire—the metaphorical fire of God’s presence, especially in the sending of the Holy Spirit.

GOSPEL is PLAGUE

This short foray into the building of symbolism in Revelation serves to introduce the large metaphor GOSPEL is PLAGUE—the message of the gospel is the means for God to bring his kingdom, the renewed heavens and earth, and the plagues in Revelation are the metaphorical images of the gospel. In the last post I used GOD’S MISSION is PLAGUE, but I’ve decided that GOSPEL is PLAGUE gets the idea across betters.

This metaphor in combination with the metaphor SALVATION is DEATH gives us a frame in which the images in the Trumpets can be explained logically.

The first four trumpets exemplify this metaphor, and the details—most of which are general metonyms of one another—feed into the metaphors.

The fundamental idea is that when the gospel is cast to the earth as “plague,” salvation accrues as “death.”

Let’s take a closer look.

Here is the passage again, translated extremely literally (very similar to but even more so than the NASB):

And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared them to sound.

And the first sounded (the trumpet) and there was hail and fire mixed in blood and it was cast to the earth, and the third of the earth was incinerated and the third of the trees were incinerated and all the green grass was incinerated.

And the second angel sounded (the trumpet) and like a large mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea, and the third of the sea became blood and the third of the creatures in the sea having souls died and the third of the ships were destroyed.

And the third angel sounded (the trumpet) and a great star burning like a torch fell from the heaven and it fell upon the third of the rivers and upon the springs of water. And the name of the star is called Absinth and the third of the waters turned into absinth and many of the people died from the waters because they were embittered.

And the fourth angel sounded (the trumpet) and the third of the sun was struck and the third of the moon and the third of the stars, so that their third was darkened, and the day—its third did not appear and the night likewise.

Potential Metonyms within the first four trumpets

The first three trumpets are full of metonyms—terms that rename previous similar terms:

1. Hail and fire, mountain, and star are similar as phenomena that descend from heaven to earth, thus are metonymic at least in action—all three have fire or burning or a torch. They name the same thing—PLAGUE

2. All four trumpets have thirds, thus are likely metonymic—they name the same thing.

3. Earth, trees, sea, rivers, and springs are related terms as part of the natural world—they name the same thing. They are all affected in some way by the plague: burned, turned to blood, and embittered—all instances of DEATH.

4. Two outliers that appear metonymic, but distinct, are the green grass with “all” and “the springs of water” which does not have “the third” with it—they may be metonyms of one another. They are both “living.”

5. What about “blood”? Blood appears twice, first from heaven, then a third of the sea turns to blood. Is the blood the same blood? We’ll wait on this one for the moment.

So here is the lesson: the groups of metonyms (see #1–3 above) can together be metaphors for something different .

The seemingly evident picture of these trumpets is of PLAGUE leading to DEATH.

Each trumpet depicts some event that results in “disastrous” outcomes on the earth—DEATH—initiated in heaven. PLAGUE and DEATH are the vehicles for whatever meaning is intended.

Here is an analogy to put this picture together:

GOSPEL is to SALVATION as PLAGUE is to DEATH.

In classic analogy form,

GOSPEL:SALVATION::PLAGUE:DEATH.

Plague and death are the visual counterparts to gospel and salvation, respectively.

The meaning is gospel and salvation, the visual vehicle is plague and death.

(cont.)

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Jesus’s Parables as the Model for Revelation

In seeking the symbolism in the Trumpets, I am going to reiterate that Jesus had already used the same tactic with his parables.

Jesus used this same procedure in his parables: the spiritual meaning was conveyed by an earthly picture.

Jesus’s parables, as I wrote in the previous post, all relied on metaphors.

And all can be put into the form of analogy.

Sometimes he made the metaphors explicit, most commonly with the general spiritual metaphor, “the Kingdom of Heaven (or God) is like …” At other times, he left it to the reader to figure out the metaphors (for example, The King//Father//Judge//Sower, etc. is God). Some parables were relatively easy, some were not.

Yet the specific words of Jesus or the gospel context usually indicated clues for these metaphors (notice I am not speaking of metonyms—they are there also but usually with parables in parallel).

If Jesus used metaphor and analogy in his parables, he could certainly do so in the visions of Revelation.

The metaphors in Revelation work the same way as Jesus’s parables, and given the symbolic correspondences already specifically stated in Revelation, there is no barrier to the pursuit of the metaphorical intent of all of Revelation.

John saw and wrote down the visions; the interpreter (like those who listened to Jesus) have the responsibility of thinking about them and coming to an understanding.

Just like the SALVATION is DEATH metaphor relied on the idea of the believers dying to the world—a notion developed in the rest of the New Testament—other metaphors, in this case GOSPEL is PLAGUE rely on contextual clues either with Revelation itself or in the biblical witness.

This post is long enough (and long overdue), we’ll get into the specifics of the metaphorical imagery of the Trumpets in the next post.

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

I am just going to comment on the Greek of Revelation 8:7 since I dealt with it most extensively above.

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The Logic of Metaphor and the (Il)logic of Literalism

The more I consider the various interpretive threads (broadly Preterist, Historicist, Futurist, and Idealist), the more it is clear to me that all of them work with a form of literalism.

Each of these approaches attempts to map the visions of Revelation to earthly events, even the recurring approach of the idealists.

All of them take the language of violence and plague and map it to earthly violence and plague—all as an indication of God’s judgment on evil as vengeance for the martyred saints.

All of these approaches accept symbolism to one degree or another, whether admitted or not, but as mapped to something literal, be it the Jewish War, history of the church/empires, or the future tribulation.

And all ignore details that do not fit their scenario.

Some acknowledge this and others don’t.

Though I am speaking in broad strokes, I challenge you to pick up any modern commentary on Revelation from any perspective and find an exception.

I don’t think you can.

Here is the outcome: if details must be explained away or ignored, then the interpretation is by definition il-logical.

If all the pieces of a physical puzzle do not fit, or some pieces are missing, then the puzzle is not complete.

Only interpretations of Revelation that take into account all of the data in a logical way can be deemed plausible.

This is why the metaphorical approach is so fruitful. It largely views Revelation as theological/spiritual rather than literal.

This symbolic approach interprets the visionary images as either metonyms among like features or metaphors between unlike (and often unnamed) concepts.

If those images can be explained and linked in a large frame that makes logical sense—theological almost by definition—then the metaphorical interpretation holds the greatest degree of likelihood.

All of the puzzle pieces fit together.

I am in no way claiming that I have things figured out.

I am wresting with the text as I go (as the time between my posts attests!).

What I can say is I am attempting to take every word of the Greek text at face value—to value it as it was intended.

(continued)

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Metaphor As Divine Speech

Once again, if Jesus spoke in metaphor, and the OT prophets before him, and even Paul, then Revelation can speak in metaphor.

A unified reading of Revelation, taking every detail into account, is impossible apart from a metaphorical reading—and that is the divine intention.

Admittedly, I have not attended to every detail so far for length’s sake, but I have also not explained away details.

And I won’t.

Origen

Despite some interesting theological stances in his writings, his attention to every detail of Scripture is what I appreciate most about the early theological giant Origen.

His insistence on the divine inspiration of all Scripture led to his so-called allegorical approach.

For him, all Scripture had a logic, and if the literal(istic) made no sense, then the metaphorical was demanded. So he used Scripture to interpret Scripture.

Others like Augustine and Jerome followed suit.

They were only tracking with what the Bible had already done.

Metaphor in the Bible

I did a biblical scan in my mind—on a walk with my dogs—thinking over all of the visions and dreams in the Old Testament that I could remember. Almost all had metaphor involved:

Yahweh’s appearance to Abraham as “a smoking furnace and a burning torch” that went between the halves of sacrificial animals in Genesis 15:7 was a metaphor for God’s covenant with him.

Just verses before in Genesis 15:1, Yahweh used the metaphor of a shield in his promise to Abram: “Do no be afraid, Abram, I am your shield and I shall give you a very great reward.”

Joseph’s dreams of sheaves bowing to his sheave and the sun, moon, and stars bowing to his star were a prophetic metaphor of what would occur many years later.

Joseph’s interpretation of the dreams of the butler, baker, and Pharaoh were all metaphorical interpretations.

Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue dream was all metaphor.

Visions in the prophets and even actions they were called to perform were metaphorical for some theological or prophetic lesson.

In Isaiah 5, Israel is a vineyard—a beautiful metaphor.

Hosea’s command to marry the harlot Gomer—a metaphor of unfaithful Israel.

Zechariah’s visions are obviously metaphorical too, though the interpretation is not always clear.

The prophets are full of metaphors and so are the Psalms.

And what about the Song of Solomon—a huge metaphor of love made up of a long series of metaphors.

My question is why would the visions of Revelation be any different.

They would not and are not.

Discovery of the logic of the metaphorical images in Revelation is the key to understanding Revelation.

(cont.)

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Back to the First Four Trumpets

So we are back to the trumpets and the meticulous task of accounting for the combination of diverse individual elements together that no literal approach can explain.

Let’s summarize the first four trumpets again with some details highlighted:

Intro: Seven angels with seven trumpets. Another angel with censor, incense mixed with prayers of saints with smoke before the throne. Angel filled censor with fire from the altar and cast it to the earth (with thunder etc.)

Trumpet 1. Hail and fire mixed in blood cast to the earth. Third of earth and trees and all green grass burned.

Trumpet 2. Great burning mountain cast to the sea. Third of sea became blood, third of sea creatures having souls died, third of ships destroyed.

Trumpet 3. Great burning star like a torch fell from heaven into third of rivers and springs. Name of star was “Absinth” and embittered the waters; many humans die from bitter waters.

Trumpet 4. Third of sun, moon, and stars were struck and darkened. Third of day and night disappear.

If you’ve not read the previous post on metaphor and metonym, please do. The rest of this post depends on the definitions in that one.

Altar Fire

The first thing to notice is that these events are a result of the altar angel casting fire from the altar to the earth.

And the angel took the censor and filled it from the fire of the altar and threw [the fire? the censor?] onto the earth and there happened thunders and sounds and lightnings and a shaking (Revelation 8:5).

No matter the interpretation, this altar fire (which David Aune identifies as burning coals—fine) is interpreted as judgment.

But is judgment what the heavenly altar represents (or the altar in the earthly tabernacle/temple—see Leviticus 16:11–14)?

No.

What happened on the heavenly altar was the sacrifice of Christ and the forgiveness of sins.

The incense was of Christ, and mingled with the joyous prayers of the saints in thanksgiving for the merciful work of Christ.

The fire cast to the earth was not of judgment but of grace.

The metonym of fire~judgment is instead something totally different, a metaphor—X is Y.

Y could be FIRE, though I am not sure that term is big enough to encompass the metaphorical image (DEATH is big enough in SALVATION is DEATH). Fire is more likely one of many metonyms that together form Y.

I am going to propose PLAGUE for Y, though I reserve the possibility of something similar.

Instead of seeking parallels to judgment in the OT—like the Egyptian plagues, for Revelation we need to seek parallels for the work of Christ in Revelation itself and in the New Testament in line with The Gospel of the Exalted Jesus, and perhaps aligned language in the Old Testament. (By the way, looked at another way, the Egyptian plagues were not judgment, but the means of Israel’s deliverance).

In Revelation, God is creating a new heavens and a new earth through the work of Christ.

X then might be termed GOD’S MISSION, a phrase inclusive of the gospel.

So here is another large metaphor I am proposing for Revelation: GOD’S MISSION is PLAGUE.

The first four trumpets and the bowls to come will fit under this broad metaphorical umbrella.

As we will see, the fifth and sixth trumpets and the two witnesses and much else will fall under the metaphor ARGUMENT is WAR, which I mentioned in the last post.

Though I will go into much more detail later, ARGUMENT from God’s side is largely proclamation of the gospel (we’ve already seen this idea in the first four seals). Satan has a counter-argument in this metaphor.

The language of war is used metaphorically for argument.

Taken together, language that is ordinarily categorized as violence, disaster, and judgment, is metaphorically the work of God to bring about the transformation of creation to a new heavens and new earth.

But as they say (metaphorically), “the devil is in the details.”

We’ll look at the details of the first trumpets in the next post.

Confession: The trumpets have been an order of magnitude more difficult for me to come to terms with.

I thought I had wrestled hard (a metaphor!) with the seals, but I have out and out battled (another metaphor!) with the trumpets.

Each of the first four seals had a rider, but the first four trumpets have different main images and the final three trumpets are extremely complex.

The visionary aspect means that we are dealing with non-literal language of symbolism.

Symbolism is not simple though.

Not only must we do the hard work of interpreting the symbols, but also we need to understand what kind of symbols we are dealing with.

One type of symbol is metaphor.

I have talked a lot about metaphor: the use of one concept to get to another.

Metaphor is the comparison of two different things.

With our primary metaphor (so far), SALVATION IS DEATH, the spiritual reality of salvation is compared to the far different physical reality of death.

Jesus used metaphor all the time in his parables.

Virtually every parable in the Gospels used an earthly story metaphorically for the Kingdom of God (there are many good resources that explain this idea), and many individual elements in the parables were also metaphors.

My contention is that Revelation is one massive parable that explains the gospel.

So far the metaphor SALVATION IS DEATH has served well to explain much of the difficult language of Revelation in the seals.

But the symbolism is more complex than one or more metaphors.

We also have another type of symbol, the metonym.

Yes, a new term—metonym.

Though I don’t want to introduce a new concept, if we don’t understand a metonym and its differences from a metaphor, we won’t understand Revelation.

So here goes.

(continued)

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Defining metonym

With the trumpets, metaphor is definitely present, including SALVATION IS DEATH, but also others.

Yet there is basic to the trumpets the use of another type of symbol, the metonym.

Unlike metaphor which compares different things or concepts, a metonym replaces one thing related to another thing in some way (or a smaller or larger part).

One example of a metonym is the use of “glove” for “baseball player” as in “the Yankees have a great glove at third base.” Literally, a glove does not lie on third base; instead a player plays the position.

“Glove” replaces “player.”

Or we could say “the third baseman has a great glove,” meaning “the third baseman catches really well” (or “the right fielder has a great arm”).

One element replaces a related element.

The two Greek roots of the term metonym (Greek: metōnymia) imply this: met’ (change) onym (name). One similar or part of thing is replaced with another.

Another example: If I say for a lion: “that cat is a killer,” I have used a metonym.

A lion is a type of cat.

“Oval office” and “White House” are metonymic stand-ins for the President and/or Executive branch of government (“The White House said today …”). They are of the same kind because they each relate to the executive authority of the US.

But if I say, “that football player is a lion,” I am using metaphor.

A football player is a person, a lion is an animal (thus Jesus as lamb and lion are two metaphors).

And if I say “the Yankees pitcher is a star,” I am employing a metaphor because the word “star” is of a different kind entirely and points to the fame or otherwise of the baseball player, not to any inherent characteristic or part of an actual star in the sky with respect to the person (as opposed to glove or arm).

The metaphor works because an actual star shines for all to see, and a human “star” is famous or well-known for something, usually with a positive sense.

Interestingly if a person says, “I have a star on Hollywood Boulevard,” that “star” is a literal piece of rock inserted in the sidewalk representing a visual star with rays, but implying that the person associated with this physical representation of a star is a metaphorical star!

I could go on for days listing all of the metaphors and metonyms that we constantly use.

And if you read any of the poetry in the Old Testament, the currency (a metaphor) is largely metaphor and metonym.

Here is a dare:

List all of the instances during a single day of metaphors and metonyms you use and put them in the comments.

(cont.)

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Metaphor and metonym in Revelation

The visions that John witnessed in Revelation can only be interpreted by understanding both metaphor and metonym.

The sights and sounds that John experienced—then put into language—referred to something, but not the sight or sound itself in a literal sense: instead, the sights and sounds were metaphorical or metonymical symbols.

The visionary “thing” was being compared to a different reality (metaphor) or stood in for something similar (metonym).

But here is the difficulty.

Even if we do take Revelation as largely made of symbols, if we mistake a metaphor for a metonym (or vice versa), we totally misunderstand the divine intent of the visions!

This is the fatal mistake of most interpretations of Revelation: either virtually everything is metonym (preterists, historicists and futurists), or metaphor and metonymy get confused (many idealist interpretations), or with all of them, the categories of comparison are totally misconstrued, whether metaphor or metonym.

A prime example is death.

Death as a metonym for judgment is vastly different than death as a metaphor for salvation.

And regarding the trumpets and bowls, are the “plagues” a metonym for judgment, or metaphorical for something entirely different?

My contention is that to understand the unity of Revelation as an expression of the gospel, the metaphorical and metonymical intent of the visions need to be clearly understood.

THAT is what I am, by the grace of God, attempting to accomplish in this Substack in a way that you can understand.

The First Four Trumpets—Initial thoughts

So let’s start with some basic observations.

The first four trumpets show a lot of similarities with one another, just like the first four seals do.

In the first four seals, I sought to demonstrate that the rider on every horse was Jesus and that each seal had to do with some aspect of the gospel.

Each of the first four seals were respective metonyms of each other in whole and in their parts, yet metaphors of Jesus and the gospel.

Though the metonyms were present, I did not need to develop that understanding at the time.

Now I do.

For the first four trumpets I detect something of the same.

Metaphor: The hail, the mountain, and the star of the first three all metaphorically refer to the giving of the Spirit, the “plagues” metaphorically refer to the gospel message, and death (as I have continually argued) refers to salvation. In the seals, we encountered the metaphor GOSPEL IS WEAPON, and in the trumpets we have GOSPEL IS PLAGUE. In the fifth and sixth seals, we will encounter the metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR.

Metonym: But from trumpet to trumpet we see metonyms in parallel with the other trumpets.

In the next post I will make these plain to see.

Here is one example:

Metaphor is front and center in these correspondences, but metonymy is present in the descriptions: the hail, mountain and star are all metonyms of each other—they stand in for the same thing with respect to the metaphor.

Both metaphor and metonym are forms of symbolism, but must be distinguished to prevent misinterpretation.

Literalism v symbolism again

But an issue to deal with before any interpretation is to address once again the bogeyman of literalism.

Futurists tend to be literalists, and sure enough some argue for actual (i.e. physical) hail mixed with fire and blood, then an actual fiery mountain, then an actual star named Absinth (Wormwood in the English translations). The more adventurous futurists bring in nuclear weapons to the mix as a literal correspondence—though that is metonym too! But even the preterist, historicists and idealists see some sort of one-to-one connections with either specific events or recurring events, though the hail/mountain/star are symbolic of the events—symbolic metonyms.

All point to disasters.

And all of them have a problem with “thirds.”

What can this mean?

There is not much way to literalize or even symbolize the “thirds” as actual disasters, especially today with our global perspective.

Symbolism, metaphor and metonym are almost demanded.

For instance, what about a third of earth and trees and the sea and the rivers and springs in trumpets one to three, BUT all of the grass?

From John’s visionary heavenly perspective this is possible as symbol, but a translation to literal is impossible.

Taken as a whole, the earth, trees, etc. are only metaphors of something different, but individually they are metonyms of one another.

And if so, then let’s think outside the box of disaster described with metonyms, and instead (like Jesus’s parables) understand the metaphors as referring to the Gospel of the Exalted Jesus.

This metaphorical interpretation (in my understanding!) brings more unity and sense than the others approaches.

I’ll give it a go with a dedicated interpretation of the first four trumpets in the next post.

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope this week has been filled with joy because of the love of God shown to us in the Messiah. Thank you Lord!

I am now over two years into this adventure in Revelation.

Thank you to all of you who have followed this blog, and especially to you who have supported it with a paid subscription. All is a labor of love and I trust you are at least seeing Revelation in a different light.

As I have been mulling (and praying) over the Seven Trumpets and doing some cursory reading in a few commentaries, something has dawned on me.

The main approaches to Revelation, broadly termed preterist, historicist, futurist, and idealist, have one huge element in common: no matter when the events took/take place, interpreters see those events implied in the seals, trumpets, and bowls as God’s wrathful judgment on the world in response to calls for vengeance by Christians.

If this is truly the case, then Revelation is at extreme odds with the teachings of Jesus and with every other book in the New Testament, including those of John.

Never in the New Testament do Christians pray for God’s wrath on others, even in Romans 1, or 2 Thessalonians where Paul detects God’s wrath on evil.

As I have said before, when Paul said God “handed them over,” he suggests that God’s wrath is allowing humans to destroy themselves via their own agency and rebellion.

God, on the contrary, “commended his love in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The New Testament throughout calls for mercy and forgiveness on enemies, just as God in Christ has done for us … except for Revelation if all these interpretations are right on this one thing.

But that one thing is massive.

If Revelation is replete with vengeance, then it is more an Old Testament book than a New Testament one.

I say Old Testament because there are places in the Psalms where the psalmist prayed for vengeance on enemies.

As far as I can tell, this approach to revenge is a separator between Jews and Christians even today.

Jesus said pray for your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Full stop.

Jesus said forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Full stop.

But most interpretations of Revelation? Get ‘em God. Destroy our enemies!!

Instead, what if Revelation is consistent with the rest of the New Testament?

What if the metaphorical language of Revelation supports Jesus’s teaching and the rest of the New Testament?

I’ve already attempted to show this reality in the Seven Seals, but the Seven Trumpets seem to up the ante, as do the bowls later on.

This is where the overarching metaphor SALVATION IS DEATH comes into play.

Not only does interpreting with this metaphorical lens bring Revelation in line with the rest of the New Testament, but so many problems in the text itself fall away—I list a few of those problems below.

So here goes. For this post I’ll simply introduce the issues, then hit the specifics in the ones to come.

(continued)

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Overview of the Seven Trumpets

The third series of seven in Revelation comes in Revelation 8 through 11.

Not that sevens are not all over the place, but the Seven Trumpets are the third series.

The first series was the Oracles to the Seven Churches in chapters 2 and 3, and the second was the Seven Seals in chapters 6 and 7, ending with 8:1.

This third series spans four chapters from 8 through 11 (though technically chapters 12-14 could also be included!).

Finally a series of seven bowls comes later.

I begin with a brief outline of the trumpets:

Trumpet 1. Hail and fire with blood cast to the earth. Third of earth and trees and all grass burned.

Trumpet 2. Great burning mountain cast to the sea. Third of sea became blood, third of sea creatures having souls died, third of ships destroyed.

Trumpet 3. Great burning star like a torch fell from heaven into third of rivers and springs. Name of star was “Absinth” and embittered the waters; many humans die from bitter waters.

Trumpet 4. Third of sun, moon, and stars darkened. Third of day and night disappear.

Announcement of last three trumpets as three “woes.”

Trumpet 5. Star fell from heaven to the earth; given key to the bottomless pit; smoke comes up, then locusts, later described, that torment unsealed people five months; unsealed people cannot die.

Trumpet 6. Voice from the golden altar before God tells angel to release the angels holding back the Euphrates River. River released “those prepared” ( 200,000 horsemen with armored “horses”) to kill a third of humans, which they did, but the remaining people did not repent from evil.

Then John was commissioned to prophecy, measure the temple, and tell of the two witnesses.

Trumpet 7. The heavens declared the victory of “our Lord and his Messiah,” followed by worship, a thanksgiving hymn, and the revealing of the Ark of the Covenant in heaven.

Questions

I haven’t yet fully decided how to address the trumpets, but I have plenty of issues that lead me to question the “seven trumpet judgments” or “seven trumpet plagues” perspective.

From each of their perspectives, the preterist, historicist, futurist, and idealist views all see the trumpets, like the seals and later the bowls, as judgments from God on evil and as a response to the martyr’s call for vengeance.

I have no doubt that God will judge (and is currently judging) evil, but not in the seven seals or trumpets.

One interesting twist is in the commentary of Sigve Tonstad, professor at Loma Linda University. He interpreted the first four trumpets as Satan cast from heaven to wreak havoc on earth and trumpets five and six as Satan leading armies to wreak havoc. Nonetheless this was the allowance of God for Satan. His commentary perspective led to this view and he did argue it well, though I don’t see it that way either.

Here are some observations/questions I have about the trumpets that I am still pondering.

1. The first four trumpets are very similar. Do they intend the same thing?

2. What is the role of the fractions—thirds in this case?

3. The fifth and sixth likewise have similarities; the locusts and horses almost sound the same.

4. Though the seals have been compared to the Egyptian plagues, as far as I see it, only a little is similar between them.

5. In Revelation 8:5, the angel “cast” fire from the golden altar to earth. The first, second, third, and fifth trumpet have images of fire or stars being “cast” or falling. Are they related to the altar fire?

6. In the fifth trumpet the unsealed people are “tormented” but do not/cannot die. In the sixth seal, a third of humans die, but the rest did not repent of their wickedness. Why don’t the wicked die?

7. Like chapter 7 as the extension of the Sixth Seal, chapters 10 and 11 prolong the seven trumpets. Is the material in 10 to 11:14 all part of the Sixth Trumpet?

8. Is there “judgment” in the Seven Trumpets?

I have more questions, but these are the major ones.

(cont.)

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Metaphor once again

My intuition is that the metaphor SALVATION IS DEATH is at play and the gospel message (the Gospel of the Exalted Jesus).

And not only this main metaphor but many others are present like blood and later armor.

John conveyed his vision as he saw it and even participated in it in 10 and 11.

But he gave almost nothing to help us interpret—only in a few places does he do this besides the occasional explicit statements of symbolism.

But we must discern the interpretation, an interpretation at the least consistent with, and more likely consonant with, the rest of the New Testament.

Personally, I am convinced that almost nothing of the vision is literal, but metaphorical.

The triune God who invited John through visions of the heavenly realms used sights and sounds to convey meaning that burst the bounds of human literality.

We need to and can discern the metaphors with understanding that the visions are consistent with and never contrary to the gospel.

In this case I question that Revelation is about vengeance, but instead salvation.

I’ll end with one teaser: the hail and fire with blood, the burning mountain, the great star falling as a lamp, and the star named Absinth all refer to the same thing: Jesus’s incarnation and its results.

Metaphor indeed.

Merry Christmas.

And I saw the seven angels who stood before God and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar holding a gold censor. And much incense was given to him so that he might offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints went up from the hand of the angel before God. And the angel took the censor and filled it from the fire of the altar and threw it to the earth and there came thunders and sounds, and lightnings and an earthquake. Revelation 8:2–5

After the “what seemed like” a half hour of silence of Revelation 8:1, silence disappeared.

Sounds, voices, sights, and smells took over.

In his visionary journey, John remained in the heavens in proximity to the throne of God.

From there he beheld the next cycle of visionary events, the seven trumpets.

The trumpets themselves will have to wait (they are almost universally referred to as “the trumpet judgments,” but I will take issue with that assessment).

What intrigues me about this introduction to the trumpets is the vision itself and the theology of prayer that almost explodes from these words.

It is not that John did not witness a similar image earlier in Revelation 5:8: “and when He took the scroll the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell before the Lamb, each having harp and golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the saints.”

The golden bowls full of incense he saw were the prayers of the saints (a visual metaphor!).

But here in Revelation 8:3–4 the prayers take on a more prominent and important role: they affected things.

Angels

But let’s back up and consider the whole four verses:

In Revelation 8:2 John wrote,“And I saw the seven angels who stood before God and seven trumpets were given to them.”

Who were “the seven angels”? Some argue they are the same as “the seven spirits” of Revelation 1:4; 4:5; and 5:6, though many see the “seven spirits” as the Holy Spirit. I lean toward the latter, but remain unconvinced either way.

What is clear is that “the” seven angels in this verse were important angels at the top of the hierarchy of angelic beings. Were they “archangels” like Michael?

Revelation is not clear.

Nonetheless these angels in John’s vision were fixtures before the throne of God. The verb form for “stood” (perfect active intransitive) has the idea of “stood guard” as a state.

The further we get into Revelation, the more defined our picture of the throne-room of God becomes.

These angels were given seven trumpets, but not yet to sound.

Another Angel

Instead “another angel” appeared.

This angel was unidentified.

Angels were actually referred to sixty-seven times in Revelation—almost as many times as the gospels and Acts combined (75).

Some of the angels mentioned had characteristics of Jesus from the vision in chapter one. Others were the angels of the churches, or simply servants who did the bidding of the one on the throne or the Lamb like the trumpets or bowls, or carried out their temple duties as here.

This angel acted like a priest—a spiritual counterpart to the earthly temple.

Earthly priests simply carried out their duties in imitation of the angels (see the vision of Isaiah 6).

While the incense with coals from the altar in the earthly temple imparted the smoke and smells that created a sense of God’s presence, the heavenly scene was much greater and more meaningful.

This priestly angel stood at a spiritual altar with spiritual coals of fire with spiritual incense mixed with the prayers of the saints.

This angel was associated with the heavenly “golden altar before the throne.” Temple images abounded: a golden censer, incense, the golden altar, and fire.

(continued)

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The Heavenly Temple

What John saw was the heavenly original for the inner sanctuary in the tabernacle/temple of the Old Testament: the holy place and the holy of holies.

Two physical altars were part of the physical earthly temple.

1. The altar of sacrifice was outside of the tent/temple. It was of acacia wood and covered with bronze and used for burning animal sacrifices and thank offerings.

2. The other altar was the golden altar of incense in the holy place (with the show bread and menorah) in front of the curtain that separated the holy of holies with the ark of the covenant covered by golden cherubim. As the name implies, priests burned incense there.

This was the incense altar where the angel appeared to Zechariah in the temple announcing John the Baptist.

Yet the earthly holy place and holy of holies was only a replica of the throne-room of God.

The heavenly counterpart golden altar of incense was the one John saw.

This golden altar stood “before the throne.”

John glimpsed the real temple in his vision (the letter of Hebrews describes the heavenly temple too).

One element was missing.

There was no curtain that separated the golden altar of incense from the throne—the holy place and the holy of holies were one (reminder: when Jesus died, the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom).

With all of this explicit imagery, what can we say about reality?

To reiterate, John saw all of this in a vision given to him.

Nothing in any of the vision was physical, at least as we count physical.

What we must determine is what type of relationship the vision had to reality—symbolic, spiritual, or potentially physical.

Once again, the only physical realities assumed in Revelation were the event of the cross and resurrection, John’s situation on Patmos, the physical locations and some details of the seven churches, and the future return of Jesus.

All else was vision, and thus open to symbolic interpretation, but symbols that represented true reality beyond our senses—the visions were spiritual reality that pull us into that spiritual realm, rather than us trying to pull that reality into our physical realm.

The moment we try to “physicalize” the visions, we are off course.

John, in conveying the visions to us, invited us join him in the true spiritual world.

So back to the temple scene: the temple that John saw in his visions was the real temple, not the physical temple, which was only an approximation.

Instead, the physical temple was the symbol—symbolic of spiritual reality, the real temple!

When the Babylonians destroyed Solomon’s temple, the heavenly temple was not destroyed.

When the Romans destroyed Herod’s temple, the heavenly temple was not destroyed.

The temple that Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6 was the heavenly temple.

What does Malachi 3:1 say? The Lord shall suddenly come into his temple. Not the earthly one but the heavenly one.

And Ezekiel recounted his vision of the throne—and later of a new temple.

In his martyrdom speech, Stephen said, “the tent of witness was with our fathers in the desert just as the one speaking to Moses commanded to construct it according to the type which he saw.”

The type which Moses saw was the heavenly temple!

This visionary scene in Revelation revealed true reality—the unseen reality that is there whether we perceive it with our eyes or not.

And in that heavenly temple there was no separation between God and all the others, living creatures, elders, angels, or John.

Why? The Lamb standing as though slain had redeemed all of creation.

(cont.)

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The Prayers of the Saints

So now let’s consider the “prayers of the saints.”

In this case the prayers mixed with incense that went up before the throne.

As far as I can tell, the commentaries in general—there are exceptions—suggest that the prayers are prayers for judgment on the world and that the burning coals cast on the earth were the fire of judgment.

I don’t see things that way and here’s the reason: this call for vengeance and retribution in prayer on the part of the saints goes against the entire grain of the New Testament witness.

There are no prayers for vengeance in the New Testament.

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Jesus.

“Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Jesus.

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” Paul.

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.” Paul.

In my post on the Fifth Seal, I argued that the martyrs under the altar were not praying for future vengeance on their enemies, but instead asking God when He would stop saving people!

The combination of incense and prayer here in Revelation 8:2–6 only supports that view.

What is the incense?

The sweet odor of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

As Paul put it in Ephesians 5:2, “And walk in love, just as the Messiah loved us and gave himself for us as an offering and sacrifice as a smell of sweetness.”

The beautiful incense of the Lamb standing as slain and the prayers of the saints for all, including their enemies, were mixed together with the coals of the altar (another image of Christ’s sacrifice) to produce that act of the angel and the trumpets to come.

And the angel took the censor and filled it from the fire of the altar and threw it to the earth and there came thunders and sounds, and lightnings and an earthquake.

Are these coals coals of judgment?

No indeed.

They are coals of purification for Christians and conviction for those who are not.

In Isaiah 6, a visionary scene in the heavenly temple, an angel touches Isaiah’s lips with coals from the altar: “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.’”

In Romans 12, Paul quoted from Proverbs 27: 21-22, “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.”

If anything the coals thrown to the earth were for salvation, not judgment.

And the seven trumpets to come will support exactly this view.

Do we as Christians pray for justice? Yes. Do we pray “thy will be done on earth as in the heavens”? Yes. Do we pray “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us? Yes. Do we pray to be delivered from temptation and evil? Yes.

All of these prayers flow from Jesus and his work on the cross (the slain Lamb).

Will God judge evil? Yes, but that is in his hands not from our prayers for vengeance.

When we pray for vengeance, we are no different than our enemies.

And when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in the heavens what seemed like half an hour. Revelation 8:1

The seventh and last seal seems almost anti-climactic.

It consisted of silence.

Pure quiet.

Pure stillness.

Again, John was conveying his vision, but a vision full of significance.

And the significance of this seal cannot be overstated: the seventh seal is equivalent to a seventh day.

It was a sabbath.

A period of rest after the opening of the first six seals.

A period of rest before the visions to follow.

Have you ever simply stopped for half an hour in pure silence?

Or what seemed like half an hour?

Unless you have a timer going or a clock to see, that length of time with no external indicators is almost impossible to sense, at least with any exactitude.

So John used the Greek word hōs “like”: “like half an hour” or as I put it “what seemed like half an hour”—the CJB, Phillips, and TLB are similar.

From Revelation 1:9 up to this point, the visions were composed of constant activity—a vision of Jesus, the oracles to the churches, the vision of the heavenly throne room and of the Lamb, then each of the six seals.

The march to this point was relentless and the activity in the visions that follow will seem the same.

But for one verse, and an imprecise but finite indicator of time, that march of activity came to a complete halt.

I see this seal as a time to reflect.

Not necessarily to summarize what has happened to to this point (which I will do) but to halt, to catch a breath before the breathless activity to come.

Some of you may be asking “What? Is Revelation 8:1 the entirety of the seventh seal?”

Many interpreters of every persuasion—most even—would at least add in Revelation 8:2–5 and maybe even verse 6.

Some even see the whole of the seven trumpets as the seventh seal. Kind of a series in a series.

But no, John describes the entirety of the seventh seal in one verse.

At least one early interpreter got it—Tyconius in the 4^th century: “In the silence of a half hour he shows the beginning of eternal rest.” A few others follow suit.

This rest was not the final rest—eternity—but a preview.

The time designation was limited not indefinite, so a respite before the next series of visions.

If you’ve not done so, or done so in a while, I invite you along with John to experience silence for (at least) a half hour.

Allow the grace of God to flood in and fill you up.

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A huge outstanding issue from the last post on Revelation 7 is the phrase “the great tribulation.”

In Revelation 7:14, an elder told John that “these people are the ones coming from the great tribulation.”

“The great tribulation” is arguably one of the most debated phrases not only in the Bible, but maybe in history.

And making sense of this phrase in a convincing way is nye near impossible, though I promised to try.

I’ll give my best shot.

The interpretive difficulty is that this is the only place in the Bible that mentions this phrase in its exact form: “the” plus “great” plus “tribulation.”

When we look at the data from the Bible the picture never becomes clear.

“Tribulation” occurs by itself, as well as “the tribulation” and “great tribulation,” but not “the great tribulation.”

At the end of the day, the interpreter must make some sort of exegetical decision about the phrase and go from there.

The Interpretive Landscape

The basic views of the phrase’s meaning are the Jewish War (preterist view which has much to commend), the Roman persecutions (historicist view), general life tribulations (idealist/symbolic view—I fall in this category), and finally a period of tribulation at the end of history before the return of Jesus (futurist view).

The futurist view has a number of mutations, the most well-known being the dispensational post-rapture view of the seven year reign of the Anti-christ (and those preaching this probably don’t know what to do with the ups and downs of current world events!). For Dispensationalists, those in this chapter are converted after the rapture, and no current Christians will go through the tribulation. The chapter 7 Jews and Gentiles were all left behind, then came to Jesus.

In this post, I will examine the evidence of the Old Testament and New Testament and then attempt to give as clear view of this phrase from the vision as I can muster.

Here we have another opportunity to practice “hermeneutics,” the art of making interpretive decisions by examining the biblical materials carefully.

Caution: though I try to make these posts accessible, this one may seem dense. It is an “in the weeds” post you may need to take very slowly. And of course, you may disagree with me—that is okay, just know why and even let me know!

(continued)

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Tribulation in the Bible

One of the conundrums at the outset is whether the Greek term for “tribulation,” thlipsis, is an isolated term or has related terms such as those translated as persecution, violence, troubles, revilement, and others.

Thlipsis is certainly related, but appears to maintain a certain distinct general nuance that encompasses all those related terms: thlipsis can be any or all of those terms.

Old Testament

Thlipsis occurs 88 times in the Greek Old Testament as the translation of the Hebrew words tsar or tsarah (there are other Hebrew words it translates to, but this is the one for our purposes). Trouble, distress, and tribulation are all used in English translations. “Great tribulation” actually occurs in Nehemiah 9:37. From a broader perspective, the children of Israel and the later kingdoms of Israel and Judah were often in tribulation—and the prophets predicted this (just read Zephaniah, for instance).

Many interpreters highlight and make a fairly big deal about the single use of thlipsis in Daniel—and by the way, conclusions from a single use should put up a hermeneutical “red flag.”

Daniel 12:1 reads, “and at that time Michael the great prince shall stand, standing over the sons of your people, and there will be a time of tribulation (Heb. tsarah, Greek thlipsis) that has not been from the days of the nation until that time, and in that time your people will be delivered, everyone found written in the book” (my translation). The next verse is about death and resurrection of the righteous and the wicked.

Futurists transpose this passage in Daniel to the “end times” and equate it to “the great tribulation” of Revelation 7. But there are several problems. The three chapters, Daniel 10-12 (actually much of Daniel 7–12), appear to focus on the 6^th– 2^nd centuries BC. Second, the focus of the passage is the Jewish nation (“your people,” “the nation”). Further, the dispensational view gives little attention to Jesus’s first coming!

There are references to “the end” throughout in Daniel, but what that means is ambiguous. The prophetic passages in Daniel remain a conundrum, but the references to the Son of Man, to the forgiveness of sin, to the purified saints, to the resurrection of the dead all point toward Jesus. And many see the seventy weeks of Daniel 9:24 (symbolizing 490 years) as referring to the coming of the Messiah.

But dispensationalists take the first 69 weeks or 483 years as literal ending with Jesus’s first coming, then take the 70^th week, culminating in the (future) tribulation and return of Jesus, as symbolic of the church age—two thousand years and counting!

That’s a long week, and with no definite end.

Literal and symbolic together with no rationale.

Of course they say we are now in the end times.

The future is now.

I am no Daniel scholar, but what I detect in this passage from a whole scripture perspective is a particular prophetic view of near history (Persians and Greeks in 6^th–2^nd centuries) that becomes paradigmatic (symbolic) for the future from that point culminating in the first coming of Jesus—then perhaps as paradigmatic for the period afterwards leading to the Second Coming.

“Tribulation” is a constant part of the travails along the way.

New Testament

The New Testament is no different in this regard.

In the New Testament, thlipsis appears forty-five times. Just over half are generic—not a particular “tribulation” but any instance of trials: Matthew 13:21; Mark 4:17; John 16:21, 33; Acts 7:10; 11:19; 14:22; 20:23; Romans 2:9; 5:3 (twice); 8:35; 12:12; 1 Corinthians 7:8; 2 Corinthians 1:4 (twice); 2:4; 4:17; 6:4; 7:4; 8:13; Philippians 1:17; 1 Thessalonians 3:7; Hebrews 10:33; James 1:27.

Ten more are specific instances of struggle termed thlipsis but missing the words “the” or “great”: 2 Corinthians 1:8; 2:4; 8:2; Ephesians 3:13; Philippians 4:4; Colossians 1:24; 1 Thessalonians 1:6; 3:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:4, 6.

So 35 of 45 uses appear irrelevant for discerning what “the great tribulation” is, though I hold this statement lightly.

Notice that Paul used thlipsis 21 times but did not mention “the great tribulation,” even in 2 Thessalonians where he mentioned the “man of lawlessness”/“son of destruction” prior to the return of Jesus. Paul did use thlipsis in 2 Thessalonians, but to refer to the tribulations the Thessalonians were currently undergoing and the just payment of tribulation to those persecuting them and Paul.

This leaves another ten to consider, Matthew 24:9, 24, 29; Mark 13:19 and 24; and those in Revelation 1:9; 2:9–10, 22, and our verse 7:14.

So now I will simply quote those ten:

Matthew 24:9 “Then they will hand you over to tribulation and they will kill you, and you will be hated by all of the nations because of my name.”

Matthew 24:21 “For then there will be great tribulation such as has not happened from the beginning of the world until now, neither should ever happen.”

Matthew 24:29–31 “Now immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers from the heavens will be shaken and then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven and then all the tribes of the earth shall weep and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory and he will send his angels with a great trumpet and they shall gather his elect from the four winds from a corner of the heaven to their corners.”

Mark 13:19 “For those days will be a tribulation such has not happened this way from the beginning of creation which God created unto now and never will be.”

Mark 13:24 “But in those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from the sky and the powers in the heavens will be shaken and then you will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory and then he will send the angels and he will gather his elect ones from the four winds from a corner of earth until a corner of heaven.”

Revelation 1:9 “I John your brother and fellow-sharer in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance in Jesus was on the island of Patmos because of the Word of God and the witness of Jesus.”

Revelation 2:9–10 “I [Jesus is speaking] know your tribulation [literally “the tribulation of you”] and poverty (but you are rich) and the blasphemy of those calling themselves Jews, but [they are] a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer—look, the Devil is about to throw some of you into prison so you might be tested and have tribulation ten days. Be faithful to death and I shall grant you the crown of life.

Revelation 2:22 “I [Jesus is speaking] am about to throw her [Jezebel] into a bed and those committing adultery with her into great tribulation if they do not repent from her works.”

Revelation 7:14 “And I said to him [an elder], My lord, you know, and he said to me, these are the ones coming from the great tribulation and they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

What do we do with these verses?

In the parallel passages of Matthew 21 and Mark 13, Jesus did predict some sort of tribulation. Matthew 24:21 actually recorded “great tribulation” but without “the.”

But the context and meaning of the tribulation in those chapters has some ambiguity at best (to get at least some context, read all of Matthew 24 and all of Mark 13).

In those chapters, Jesus used similar language to Daniel, but in a much more general way.

In Matthew 24:9, the disciples (“you”) were the subject of tribulation, hate, and being killed. This could include us today, but was specifically spoken to Jesus’s actual disciples. Later in Matthew 24:34, Jesus made the statement, “this generation will not pass away until all of these things take place” (and the same in Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32).

“These things” almost certainly referred to the Jewish War in AD 66–70 which ended with the destruction of the temple.

But “those days” and “that tribulation” in the Matthew and Mark passages (and not anywhere else!) are ambiguous at best—to give specificity to them is pure speculation.

Jesus used phrases like “beginning of birth pangs” to express the indefiniteness of a period of tribulation. He even claimed he did not know the time of his return, but “only the Father.” Instead he admonished the disciples (and us!) to remain watchful.

My Interpretation

If you dare read Josephus’s account of the Jewish War and the destruction of Jerusalem, especially Jewish War Books 4–6, there is nothing that has been more horrific, though the countless atrocities in history, especially the world wars of the twentieth century, are equal in horror, not to mention the many attempts to wipe out entire peoples such as Jews and Armenians and Cambodians and Rwandans and others. Likewise the period envisioned in Daniel was terrible.

So a question I ask myself is this: if the great tribulation is in the future, what do we make of the past?

Those who suffered and those who died did experience “great tribulation.”

In the Revelation verses, John himself was a sharer in “the tribulation” as well as the church at Smyrna. And Jesus would use tribulation to bring repentance for the Thyatirans.

Specifically looking at 7:14, though, the elder tells John “these are the ones coming from the great tribulation and they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

“From (Greek ek)” gives the idea that the multitude (from a heavenly point of view) had left that tribulation in some way—what I see as the great tribulation of human existence and experience.

What set these saints apart was that “they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Many have suggested they were all martyrs—that is put to death—for the gospel.

Those in the vision certainly included martyrs, but I see them all as Christians—us included—who have identified with Christ in his death and received white robes of eternal life.

And here I will reiterate the basic contrast between the anguished response of those in Revelation 6:15–17 who feared God’s wrath, and the overwhelming response of praise and gratitude of the redeemed in Revelation 7.

What is the one difference?

Both groups experienced “the great tribulation” but the latter group in Revelation 7 experienced it and “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

No matter what they went through, the grace of God through Christ made all the suffering irrelevant in light of eternity

.

(cont.)

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Tribulation as the prelude to hope

Paul put it this way in Romans 8:17, “For I consider that the sufferings of the now time are not worthy [to be compared] with the glory about to be revealed to us.”

Earlier Paul wrote, “Not only this, but we glory in the tribulations, knowing that the tribulation produces endurance and endurance [produces] tested character and tested character [produces] hope” Romans 5:3–4.

Peter’s entire first letter was about enduring tribulation because of the hope we have in Jesus.

Paul’s prayer for the Colossians set the contrast between the world and those in Christ this way: God “has rescued us from the powers of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).

Revelation 7 described all those who have been transferred to his kingdom.

They cry “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!”

Finally, I finish with Jesus’s words at the conclusion of his farewell to the disciples in John 14–16.

He spent time after the last supper preparing them for what would come, then closed with these words: “In the world you have tribulation, but be of good courage, I have conquered the world” (John 14:33).

The disciples went out as apostles to the world, were abused, tortured, blasphemed, and martyred, yet because they had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, they persevered and took their place in the throng of heavenly saints in Revelation 7 giving eternal adoration to God and the Lamb.

The eternal promise in Revelation 7 is this:

Because of this they are before the throne of God and they serve him as priests day and night in his temple and the One sitting on the throne will dwell over them; they will no longer hunger nor thirst, neither shall fall upon them the sun or any burning heat, because the Lamb in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and will guide them to living springs of water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Revelation 7:15–17.

I pray the same for all of us.

The end of Revelation 6 was a fearful sight.

Seemingly the entire human population from kings to slaves was recoiling in panic in anticipation of wrath from God.

That expected wrath was never consummated—in fact the opposite had happened, the people just could not perceive it.

The heavenly and earthly portents were not of wrath but of salvation: the upheaval caused by the cross.

The entire world was changed.

The heavens and earth responded, the stars fell, the disparity between heaven and earth was obliterated, but the people could not see it.

The truth of God’s love was there for all to see, but humanity could only project their own lie onto God: they falsely believed that God was out to destroy them—the deception of Satan was alive and well.

Yet all was not lost.

In the Fifth Seal, the saints under the altar were told to wait for the full number who would be killed just as they (the metaphor for salvation—SALVATION is DEATH).

Now in Revelation 7, John saw the fulfillment of that promise in all of its glory.

And after this I saw four angels standing upon the four corners of the land holding the four winds of the land so a wind might not blow upon the land nor upon the sea nor upon any tree. And I saw an angel arising from the east of the sun having the seal of the living God and he cried out with a great voice to the four angels whom it was given to them to harm the land and the sea saying “Do not harm the land nor the sea nor the trees until we seal the slaves of our God upon their foreheads.

And I heard the number of those sealed—144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:

From the tribe of Judah 12,000

From the tribe of Reuben 12,000

From the tribe of Gad 12,000

From the tribe of Asher 12,000

From the tribe of Naphtali 12,000

From the tribe of Manasseh 12,000

From the tribe of Simeon 12,000

From the tribe of Levi 12,000

From the tribe of Issachar 12,000

From the tribe of Zebulon 12,000

From the tribe of Joseph 12,000

From the tribe of Benjamin 12,000

After these things I saw and behold! a huge crowd that no one was able to count from all the nations and tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb wearing white robes and palm branches in their hands and they are crying out with a great voice saying “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb,” and all the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures and they fell before the throne upon their faces and they worshipped God, saying “Amen! The blessing and the glory and the wisdom and the thanksgiving and the honor and the power and the strength is to our God forever and ever amen.

And one of the elders responded saying to me, “These people clothed in white robes, who are they and from where did they come?” And I said to him, “My lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These people are the ones coming from the great tribulation, and they washed their robes and bleached them in the blood of the Lamb—because of this they are before the throne of God and serve (as priests) to Him day and night in his temple. And the one who sits on the throne will dwell over them. They shall never hunger, nor shall they ever thirst, nor shall the sun or any burning heat fall upon them, because the Lamb in the middle of the throne shall tend them and guide them by springs of living water and God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Revelation 7:1–17

An Overview and some questions

In some respects, Revelation 7 is all the believer in Jesus needs to know: despite the tribulations of this life, God has sealed us, he has brought us into his kingdom, and has promised no more hunger, thirst, discomfort or tears, but instead a steady stream of living water.

Just meditate on those truths for a moment. Wow.

In the flow of John’s vision, and the Sixth Seal in particular, Revelation 7 is the other side of Revelation 6:15–17.

In those verses, what appears to be the entire human population cowered in the face of God and the Lamb, terrified of their perception of the wrath of God.

But in Revelation 7, there is an entirely different view of the same event!

The sun had still darkened, the moon was still like blood, the stars had still fallen, the islands and mountains had still moved, the heavens had still disappeared—in my understanding all signs of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

Yet in Revelation 7 another group of people are listed: the enumerated tribes of Israel (kind of, at least) and a vast number of people from every nation, tongue, tribe, and people.

They were not fearful of God’s wrath, but joyfully exuberant over his act of salvation in Jesus the Lamb.

What John saw in Revelation 6:15-17 turned out to be only a small slice of humanity.

The view from Revelation 7 showed that scene to be small compared to the redeemed throngs in the presence of God.

But this basic overview does not treat the many questions that come up about this chapter.

Like, who and what and why are the four angels holding the wind and not harming the earth?

What exactly does the 144,000 from the tribes of Israel mean?

Why is the list of tribes so different from other lists?

How are the 144,000 and the throngs from “all the nations and tribes and peoples and tongues” related?

What is the “great tribulation?”

What I am not going to do is write a post for each question!

What I am going to do is simply give you a basic explanation from the symbolic approach, “the Gospel of the Exalted Jesus,” and the basic metaphor SALVATION is DEATH.

(continued)

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My thesis:

At the same time Jesus died on the cross (with its literal and symbolic signs—Revelation 6:12-14), a great sealing took place—encompassing past, present, and future—of those putting their trust in Jesus. These multitudes, inclusive of the (symbolic) 144,000 and the vast numbers following, are the very ones about whom the promise was given to those under the altar in the Fifth Seal.

The beginning of Revelation 7 reads, And after this I saw four angels standing upon the four corners of the land holding the four winds of the land so a wind might not blow upon the land nor upon the sea nor upon any tree. And I saw an angel arising from the east of the sun having the seal of the living God and he cried out with a great voice to the four angels whom it was given to them to harm the land and the sea saying “Do not harm the land nor the sea nor the trees until we seal the slaves of our God upon their foreheads.

Read the commentaries both ancient and modern and the interpretation of these three verses are all over the place, from the angels protecting Christians in the Jewish War, to the holding back of barbarian hordes in the Roman period, to a fairly wide variety of idealist opinions, to futurist literalism of the sealing of 144,000 Jews along with Gentiles who have been “left behind” after the rapture of the saints.

I will continue with a cross-centered interpretation: the “catastrophes” in Revelation 6:12–14 (darkened sun, blood moon, fallen , the moved islands and mountains, disappeared heavens) which represented the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus (The Sixth Seal, Part 1) and led to a dreaded response from so many (The Sixth Seal, Part 2), are then redescribed in Revelation 7:1–3.

The rest of Revelation 7 lists those sealed, and describes them in two ways: as the remnant of Israel and as the multitude from every people on earth.

Connections to the Fifth Seal

To understand my thesis more clearly, we need to go back to the Fifth Seal (for more details see my posts on that seal).

The souls under the altar, slain because of the Word of God and the witness which they had, were told to rest “until the slaves of God and their brothers who were about to be killed as they should be completed.”

Many commentators put this completion way later in Revelation, but there is no need to.

Revelation 7 is the fulfillment of that promise.

“After these things I saw …” in 7:1 is simply the progression of the vision, not of time. This was still the sixth seal but from a different perspective.

The angels listed (four holding the winds, four given ability to harm—these could be the same four—and the angel with a mighty voice) are in the vision, but hold no symbolic substance in themselves. This is the case for most of the angelic figures in Revelation: they are the messengers, not the message.

Rather, the basic idea present in this peace-filled space (as opposed to the fear-filled space in 6:15–17) is a pause to seal the saints—as the full number of those mentioned in the Fifth Seal.

There are some notable connections between the Fifth Seal and these verses that are not direct but suggestive of what John understood.

In the Fifth Seal, the souls under the altar had been “slaughtered”—from Greek sphagizo. Then they were told to rest until their “fellow slaves” would be killed as they.

Here in 7:3, “the slaves of our God” were to be “sealed”—from Greek sphragizo.

I have long suspected that John intentionally used the words sphagizo “to slaughter” and sphragizo “to seal” for their close spelling and sound: “slaying” and “sealing” are connected.

And in fact other recent interpreters I respect—David Aune, Gregory Beale, and Richard Bauckham—have highlighted this connection.

Further, the fact that “slaves of God” are sealed in 7:3 suggests they are the same as the “fellow slaves” in the Fifth Seal.

The sealing is equivalent to death—but death to the world and salvation to God. And who is doing the slaying/sealing?—it is God!!

The weapons of the First and Second Seals were the spiritual weapons of the gospel!

In Pauls words, “I am crucified with Christ”—not physical death, but death to the world and life to God through Jesus the Slain Lamb.

The saints under the altar—who were likely all of the saints prior to Jesus and those of Acts up to the visions of John—now awaited the sealing/deaths of all those to come.

Now in Revelation 7, all of the saints—faithful Israel past, the believing Jews, and the believing Gentiles are enumerated as the fulfillment of the Fifth Seal.

From the perspective of the vision, this was a one time event as a result of the crucifixion/resurrection of Jesus, but an event that encompassed all who have trusted throughout history.

The Seal

What was the seal on the forehead?

It could be the sign of the cross.

Some have suggested baptism.

I prefer the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote that we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; 4:30). Across history, that seal—the Holy Spirit—is what sets Christians apart from every one else.

It is the seal of the new birth in Christ.

(cont.)

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The 144,000

Revelation 7:4–8 specifies “144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel” then goes on to make a list of twelve tribes of 12,000 each.

Once again interpretations are all over the place and I won’t list them all.

All involve the Jews or Israel, either separate from the Gentiles or including Gentiles (as the tribes other than Judah, Benjamin and Levi).

The 144,000 is taken literally by some (especially dispensationalists, but also Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others), but usually explained as symbolic of Israel and the Church together (12 tribes +12 apostles) as we see in the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21:12–14.

This list itself is different in content and order from other tribal lists, biblical or not: Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulon, Joseph, Benjamin.

Most of the tribal lists in the Bible (and the few available non-biblical lists) have Reuben first (Numbers 1:5–15; 13:4–15; 26:5–51; Deuteronomy 33:1–29; 1 Chronicles 27:16–22).

Numbers 2:3–31 and 7:1–89; and 1 Chronicles 12:24–37 do have Judah first.

Some lists do not have Levi (and replace with two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh).

All the lists have Dan, though in 1 Chronicles 4–8 Dan’s descendants are not included.

This list in Revelation is like no other.

1. It begins with Judah.

2. Manasseh is listed, but Joseph replaces Ephraim.

3. Levi is present.

4. Dan is missing.

Theories abound, but I take the list as referring to the Church inclusive of Jews (in the first century those of Judah/Simeon/Benjamin/Levi) and the Gentiles (the other tribes of Israel scattered among the nations).

Paul did not say “all Jews will be saved,” but “all Israel will be saved.”

Judah as first reflects Judah as the tribe of David from whom the Messiah would come. That Jesus is called the “Lion of Judah,” in Revelation 5 is not surprising.

Dan’s absence is a big question mark (Manasseh is probably the replacement in the list). It could be representative of Dan’s idolatrous actions in Judges 18. Some later Christian traditions said the Antichrist would come from Dan, even though the tribe of Dan was no longer around.

What is the symbolism of 144,000?

Twelve tribes x twelve apostles x 1000: a large round number suggesting the numbering of the saints by God.

The 144,000 represented all Christians through the ages.

The key to this statement is how John himself wrote his experience:

First John heard the number 144,000 with the list of tribes.

But after that he saw something vastly more numerous!

The “huge crowd that no one was able to count from all the nations and tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb” were the 144,000.

The symbol was 12x12x1000, but the reality was vastly larger!

As the elder told John a few verses later, all of these people had washed their robes and bleached them in the blood of the Lamb—because of this they are before the throne of God and serve (as priests) to Him day and night in his temple.

The theology of this verse is virtually identical to John’s description of the saints in Revelation 1:5—“and from Jesus Christ … who loved us and washed us from our sins in his blood and made us a kingdom, priests for God and his Father.”

When John wrote the introduction to Revelation, he had this vision in Revelation 7 seared in his memory.

Whatever the suffering he and others were going through, John heard and saw the glorious end!

And speaking of suffering I’ve not taken up the last question I listed in the introduction, The Great Tribulation.

But this post is now too long already, so I will take it up in a separate post hopefully in the next few days. I will include the Observations on the Greek text in that post.

The notion that “history rhymes” resonates with me as I have not only studied the Bible, but considered Revelation with a symbolic approach. Events around us, even now, are not necessarily predicted, but seem to parallel what is in Revelation over and over throughout history. I think this is in large measure because humanity has been attempting to undo the cross for the last two thousand years. But the cross cannot be undone and cannot be papered over. The slain Lamb standing—the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ—is forever offering mercy, but being rejected over and again. The verses for this post imbed this idea in a stark way.

In the Sixth Seal Part 1, I argued that the heavenly and earthly phenomena—earthquake, black sun, blood-colored moon, falling stars, disappearing heaven, moving mountains and islands—were symbolic of the cross and resurrection of Jesus (and the falling stars of Satan’s demise with his angels).

The remainder of the seal—Revelation 6:15–17 (this post), then all of Revelation 7 (Part 3 and maybe 4)—does the same, but with an entirely different focus: the responses to the crucifixion and resurrection, the unredeemed response first, followed by the redeemed.

And the kings of the earth and the noblemen and the generals and the rich people and the powerful people and every slave and free person hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains and they keep saying to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one sitting on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of his wrath came and who is able to stand.” Revelation 6:15–17

These verses are a continuation of one sentence beginning at 6:12—“… and the kings …”

But a change is obvious, from earthly and heavenly phenomena to humans as the topic.

(continued)

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Who

The designation of people in this list is comprehensive, from the “top” to the “bottom” of humanity.

All were included, with a special emphasis on those who by appearances should not fear anything: kings, noblemen, generals, the rich and the powerful.

“Every slave and free person” encompassed the rest, the vast majority of humanity.

In this list everyone is equal.

And equally afraid.

They were all scared to death no matter their earthly status.

But intriguingly they don’t die.

As with most everything in Revelation, it is helpful to close your eyes and simply try to imagine what John saw in this part of the vision.

This vast majority of humanity fled to the hills, then begged the very rocks to fall on them.

This was fear to the extreme.

This fear was existential—an internal fear from the greatest person to the least that went so far as to want death to be freed from the fear.

But at least here death did not come, or at least John did not say so.

What could invoke that level of fear?

Was it fear of the future?

Not in this vision.

The fear came from what was in the vision.

What wrath?

The people listed understood the significance of the heavenly and earthly phenomena itemized in the previous verses—the signs indicated the very appearance of God and “the wrath” of the Lamb: “hide us from the face of the one sitting on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of his wrath came and who is able to stand.”

One question here is what wrath is being referred to (as I already mentioned in part 1, some suggest the Jewish War or fall of Rome, or the beginning of “the great tribulation,” or the Last Judgment).

As I suggested in part one, we must take the past tense in earnest to understand these words.

John cast all of the seals in the past tense, as here.

The people “hid” in the caves and the rocks.

Further, in their speech to the mountains and rocks they say “because the great day of his wrath came and who is able to stand.”

Not “has come” or “comes” or “will come,” but “came.”

The question I addressed previously is whether these events/people were actually past, or viewed as past from the future?

The issue is where John is situated in time with respect to the past tenses, whether at the present looking back (thus potentially the preterist view, or the crucifixion) or from the future looking back (historicist and futurist views).

I continue with the perspective that from John’s actual situation in time he saw the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus here and its results.

So what are these people afraid of?

Why are they begging the mountains and rocks to fall on them?

First, they want to be hidden from “the face of the one sitting on the throne.”

In the last post I interpreted “the heavens disappeared rolled up like a scroll” as the obliteration of the barrier between God and humans at the cross.

For those who are enmeshed in the way of the world—what I termed “the world’s game” in my series on the Sermon on the Mount—to come face to face with God is an utterly terrifying thing.

There is no place to hide, then or now.

We are right back to the Garden of Eden when God called to Adam, “Where are you?”

Or to Cain, “Where is your brother?”

In John’s day they had murdered God’s only Son and the temple veil was rent in two.

That death rolled back the heavens.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.

Everyone could now see God.

For those without faith/trust, that was a terrifying thing.

“They hid themselves” just like Adam and Eve.

They would rather die than face God—a God merciful and loving, but they couldn’t see that.

Just fear of judgment in their construct of a vengeful god.

But in John’s vision they don’t die.

So many interpreters point to some sort of divine judgment in view in this text—and I don’t disagree.

But the judgment is not future.

Instead it is past—the cross.

Here, a turn to the Gospel of John is helpful.

John 3:18–21 reads “The one who trusts in him [i.e. Jesus] is not judged, but the one not trusting is already judged because he has not trusted in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come to the world and humans loved the darkness rather than the Light, so their works might not be exposed.”

These verses perfectly explain Revelation 6:15–17.

Humanity was/is terrified that their evil works are now open to exposure.

Jesus’s death on the cross—and the confirmation of his status by God’s raising him from the dead—laid bare the evil of all people, who to cover over their deeds sent the innocent Lamb of God as a blamed scapegoat to the cross.

They actually heaped all blame for their ills on him, but were only covering up their own depravity.

The cross exposed evil for what it was and is—human rebellion against their creator and repeated attempts throughout history to cover up corruption through scapegoating.

When Jesus died, they thought they had won again.

The exposer was eliminated.

But now the Exposer was exalted as the Slain Lamb Standing.

(cont.)

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Projected wrath

What was their expectation from God?

Revenge.

Wrath.

But, in fact, their words were a projection of themselves—their own anger, their own wrath.

If someone had done to them what they had done to Jesus, they would respond with vengeance.

So to them, the presence of God and the Lamb instilled their fear of exposure: “Who is able to stand?”

Just like in the Garden.

They were right that no one can stand, but they missed the very point.

The “wrath” that they projected on the Lamb was the very wrath that they poured onto Him and that he had absorbed in his death on the cross.

This was the very love of God for them.

God’s presence through the Slain Lamb was one of invitation, of forgiveness, of mercy.

But their own evil defined it as wrath—their words, not those of the Lamb.

Yet there is no indication in this vision that they died, though they desired death.

Why?

The text does not say, but I think they don’t die because of the mercy and forbearance of God that humanity would come to their senses and change their mind (repent!).

Even at the very end of Revelation, the gates of the New Jerusalem remain open.

The ultimate judgment is not from God but their own unbelief.

They themselves chose not to enter into God’s grace. God only affirms that choice.

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

Literal (interlinear) Translation of Revelation 6:15–17:

Read more

It’s been a few weeks since I posted on the fifth seal. Redding heat, work, Greek tutoring, vacations, visitors, peaches (my largest ever), and so much more have conspired to keep me from getting the sixth seal out.

And in the meantime I heard an intriguing thought that I resonate with: Sometimes to find the answer, we must sit in the question (what movie is it from?).

That has definitely been the case with me and Revelation—so many questions that just need to be sat with, hopefully to hear the still small voice of God in the quiet.

So here goes:

The Length of the Sixth Seal

The first four seals are fairly short—they are all only two verses long.

Seal five is only slightly longer at three verses.

The sixth seal, however, is significantly longer.

If, like most interpreters assert, this seal is limited to the rest of Revelation 6, then it is double the fifth seal at six verses.

If, as I will argue, the seal also encompasses all of Revelation 7, then the length burgeons to twenty-three verses!

What is going on?

First of all, there are two options for the length of the seal.

Most maintain that the seal should be limited to Revelation 6:12–17, and that all of Revelation 7 is an interlude. They argue that the phrase “and after these things I saw” in 7:1 indicates a new section.

But that is the only phrase which would indicate a break.

But if the “things” of that phrase are the first part of seal six, then what comes “after” is the second part of the seal.

At this point I see the first part of the sixth seal, 6:12–17, as one long sentence in two parts focused first on the cross, then on unredeemed humanity, then all of ch. 7 is focused on redeemed humanity.

The definitive confirmation for me is 8:1, “And when he opened the seventh seal.”

Nothing indicates that the whole of 6:12–7:17 is not part of the sixth seal.

(continued)

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Sixth Seal Part 1: Earthly and Heavenly Phenomena

In this post we will look at the first part 6:12–14.

And I saw when he opened the sixth seal a great shaking happened, and the sun became black like a sack of hair, and the entire moon became like blood, and the stars of the heaven fell to the earth like a fig tree—shaking from a great wind—casts its late figs, and the heaven disappeared like a rolled up scroll, and every mountain and island were moved from their place.

What we have here is one sentence that speaks of one visionary event comprising six elements.

The main question of interpreters is what does this visionary event refer to in historical terms.

Most argue for some earthly event from their respective theories of Revelation.

The preterists see the culmination of the first Jewish War.

Most of the historicists see the fall of the Roman Empire.

The futurists (e.g. dispensationalists) see the beginning of the last days and may take the earthquakes, sun, moon, stars, etc. literally as material earthly phenomena—for example, the smoke from earthquakes and volcanoes obscures the sun and moon, or maybe a nuclear explosion (one person sees the stars as “Russian bombs”).

Finally, idealists normally see (symbolic) calamities culminating in the Second Coming.

Except for dispensationalists who take everything literally in a material sense, interpreters explain the heavenly phenomena (sun, moon, stars, heaven) as symbolical prodigies or portents of a major upheaval, whether past or future.

They often cite the Old Testament in support of various views—texts such as Isaiah 13:10, 34:4, 50:3; Jeremiah 10:22; Ezekiel 26:15, 32:7, 38:19; and Joel 2:10, 3:4, and 4:15—passages themselves that are poetic, not literal.

There is one close biblical text in the New Testament: the “apocalyptic” passage in Mark 13:24–25 (also in Matthew 24) where Jesus said “but in those days after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from the heavens and the powers in the heavens will shake.” Just after those words Jesus described his second coming (hence the idealists’ view, which is a strong option).

No matter what, most modern interpretations call John’s description in Revelation 6:12–14 “stereotypical apocalyptic imagery” as one commentary puts it, then generally apply one of the ways mentioned above.

Once again, though, interpreters often treat this passage as though John made it up from his imagination using other biblical texts.

But if he is recounting his actual vision, we need to take what he says as meaningful, not “stereotypical.” The images are symbolic of some reality, not just in the whole but in the parts. And the vision must somehow develop the logic already in place in the previous seals (and of “The Gospel of the exalted Jesus”).

What time is it?

The problem of interpreting this part of the sixth seal leads me to an issue that is rarely addressed:

How is John’s recounting of the vision reported with respect to time?

In all six seals, John uses the past tense almost exclusively for the main verbs (45 past, 2 present)—the same is true for the rest of Revelation.

From the point of view of John as he wrote Revelation, the visions were a past event, and most of the elements in the visions are set in past tense (overwhelmingly aorist tense—the normal past tense).

There are definitely future elements when John used the future tense, especially from chapter 10 onward, but those futures only emphasize the past tenses.

And some of the visions are of things absolutely in the past, for example, most of Revelation 12. The woman, the child, the dragon, the heavenly war and fall of the dragon and angels—all are past being retold in symbolic language, with the touchstone in the Incarnation (see my post, “A Cosmic Christmas”).

Contrast this with what Jesus said in Mark 13: “the sun will be darkened,” “the moon will not give its light,” “the stars will be falling,” “the powers in the heavens will shake.” From Jesus’s point of view, what he said was in the future.

But here in Revelation 6:12–13, “I looked … and there was a great shaking, and the sun was black … and the entire moon was as blood … and the stars of heaven fell … and the heavens disappeared … and the mountains and islands were moved.”

The same is the case for the first five seals.

Not that the pastness of the vision means that any event must also be past.

Events put in the past could actually be future with certain conditions.

If the past tenses do indicate the future (as the futurists and the historicists also claim—and even the preterists if they maintain John wrote Revelation before the Jewish War), then John must have been transported to the future in his vision to see past events from beyond them.

Yet he never says he was transported to the future; he was only “in the spirit on the Lord’s Day.”

And the fact that there actually are future tenses later in Revelation makes the point even stronger—if John was in the future looking back, then there was no need for future tenses!

So no one can say with any assurance that the seals predict the future, because the vision is told in the past tense.

If there is any correlation to literal earthly events, they could as easily be explained as already past as they could be future.

Maybe even more.

The upshot is that the visionary elements placed in the past from John’s perspective of recording them can be explained as past or as future conceived as past, though the actual future tenses in Revelation mitigate that possibility.

We will continue to address this issue in the trumpets and beyond.

(cont.)

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The Past Event in the Sixth Seal

What I see in this part of the sixth seal, then, is a symbolically framed reference to the primary event of the previous five seals—a past event!

The description of heavenly and earthly phenomena that John saw in the first part of the sixth seal represents the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, as well as attendant spiritual realities.

(As I mused with a fellow church member last Sunday, this view is pre-preterist!)

And in fact the Gospels document actual phenomena that attended the crucifixion and resurrection:

Mark 15:33—“And in the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour” (also Matthew 27:45 and Luke 23:44).

Matthew 27:51–54—“And behold the veil of the temple was split from top to bottom in two and the land was shaken and the rocks were split …”

Matthew 28:1–2—“After the Sabbath, at the dawning of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb, and behold there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord, after descending from heaven and approaching, rolled away the stone.”

All well and good.

These phenomena may help us to correlate what John saw with the crucifixion and resurrection.

One other passage seems to be definitive though for the language John used to describe the vision:

In Acts 2:17–21, Peter—at Pentecost—quotes from Joel:

And it shall be in the last days says the Lord I will pour out from my Spirit on all flesh and your sons and your daughters will prophesy and your youth will see visions and your old men will dream dreams and even upon your male slaves and female slaves in those days I will pour out from my Spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will give wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun will be changed to darkness and the moon into blood before the great and visible day of the Lord comes. And it shall be: everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

In this passage, Joel prophesied of heavenly signs and earthly signs, the sun to darkness and the moon to blood.

“The moon to blood” is unique in the Old Testament, and only in Acts 2 and Revelation 6 in the New Testament.

Then in the verses directly after in Acts 2:22–24, Peter decisively connected this passage to the event of Jesus’s death, resurrection, and the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost.

John’s use of the phrase “the whole moon was as blood” is not a direct quotation, but the image is the same.

Oecumenius in the sixth century intuitively saw the same:

“The vision clearly describes for us the miracles which took place at the cross—the earthquake and the turbulence of the earth, the darkness of the sun, and the changing of the full moon into blood. Quite accurately, he added the word full to the moon; for the moon was filled with light even though it was not quite a full moon on the day of crucifixion, and in its fullness it beheld the passion. This is what usually happens in the illuminated part during lunar eclipses. The prophet Joel, too, predicted that this would come about, saying, ‘The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the coming of the great and wonderful day of the Lord’” (trans. Suggit).

What stands out is that John described his vision in a unique way with no interpretation, only the images plus descriptive similes.

Taken together the cross is the arguable event.

But what about the details of its six elements: the sun “black as a sack of hair,” the entire moon like “blood,” the stars falling “like a fig tree shaken by a great wind shedding autumn figs,” the heaven disappeared “like a rolled up scroll,” the mountains and islands “moved from their place.”

The comparisons suggests symbolism, but when interpreters do look at the details—as many ancient writers did, but few modern ones who just cite Old Testament parallels and move on—those results are all over the place. For instance, Tyconius in the fourth century related each element to the church. How, I don’t know. It seems totally arbitrary.

I admit that maybe my attempt will be too, but at the least I see each of the six elements as somehow related to the cross, resurrection, and its effects, in other words, theological symbolism grounded in the cross.

Here it is:

1. A shaking. This shaking or earthquake is the key feature connecting it to the cross as seen in the Gospels. The earth shook symbolically too as the cross unleashed the power of God for salvation on the world—and at the resurrection/

2. Sun black as a sack of hair. The emphasized feature is black—total darkness. The light of God was blackened because of human sin. The sin of the world placed on Jesus obliterated all light. Darkness was all around.

3. The whole moon as blood. Could there have been a lunar eclipse of the full moon the day of the crucifixion? Possible but not likely, especially if Jesus died in AD 30 (there was actually a lunar eclipse late in the day of Nissan 14/15 in AD 33, the alternate possibility for the crucifixion date). More likely, the moon as blood is symbolic of Jesus’s blood, shed on the cross, that overcomes the blackness of sin.

4. The stars of heaven fell like figs cast from a fig tree. In Revelation 12, Satan and a “third of the stars” were “cast” (same verb!) from heaven in battle with Michael. The falling stars here are symbolic of the defeat of Satan and his angels at the cross.

5. The heaven disappeared like a rolled up scroll. In the Gospels the ripping of the curtain in the temple from top to bottom at the crucifixion represented the obliteration of the barrier between humans and God. In John’s vision, the heavens disappearing and rolling up like a scroll represents the same. Because of the cross, there is no barrier between heaven and earth, God and man.

6. The mountains and islands moved. The outcome of the cross was a reordering of earthly reality represented symbolically by the mountains and islands. There may be symbolism of the resurrection here in the moving of the stone. There may even be Pentecost imagery. The world has never been the same.

So there you have it.

Would I stake my life on these details?

No.

But am I satisfied that it makes as much or more sense than other attempts.

Yes, indeed.

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

Literal (interlinear) Translation of Revelation 6:12–14:

Καὶ εἶδον ὅτε ἤνοιξεν τὴν σφραγῖδα τὴν ἕκτην,

And I saw when he opened the sixth seal

καὶ σεισμὸς μέγας ἐγένετο

and a great shaking happened

καὶ ὁ ἥλιος ἐγένετο μέλας ὡς σάκκος τρίχινος

and the sun was black as a sack of hair

καὶ ἡ σελήνη ὅλη ἐγένετο ὡς αἷμα

and the whole moon was as blood

καὶ οἱ ἀστέρες τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἔπεσαν εἰς τὴν γῆν,

and the stars of heaven fell to the earth

ὡς συκῆ βάλλει τοὺς ὀλύνθους αὐτῆς ὑπὸ ⸉ἀνέμου μεγάλου⸊ σειομένη,

like a fig tree casts its late figs by a great wind shaking

καὶ ὁ οὐρανὸς ἀπεχωρίσθη ὡς βιβλίον ἑλισσόμενον

and heaven disappeared like a rolled up scroll

καὶ πᾶν ὄρος καὶ νῆσος ἐκ τῶν τόπων αὐτῶν ἐκινήθησαν.

and every mountain and island from their place were moved.

Comments:

1. These three verses have no significant variants.

2. Four times John used ὡς for the comparison “like.”

3. As I mentioned in the main post, all of the primary verbs are aorist: εἶδον, ἤνοιξεν, ἐγένετο (three times), ἔπεσαν, ἀπεχωρίσθη, and ἐκινήθησαν.

4. The only place ὀλύνθος (late or autumn fig) occurs in the Bible besides here is the LXX of the Song of Solomon 2:13.

I should be relieved.

We’ve made it through the first four seals.

I knew from the time I began this Revelation series in September 2023 that this chapter would be a watershed for me.

But at the time, I had no idea where my intuitions would lead, I only knew that Revelation was the Gospel of the Exalted Jesus conveyed in a vision to John.

I knew that studying Revelation with that foundational idea in mind and with minute attention to what John actually wrote (in Greek, not dependent on translations) would diverge from a great deal of current thought on Revelation.

And sure enough what has appeared in this Substack has trodden a very different path than the current approaches—though surprisingly connected with a handful of interpreters throughout the last 1500 years.

And I am confident with the results—like Jacob I wrestled with God through so much of it, and like Jacob was humbled so many times, but I see clearer that I did before.

With that said and the groundwork laid in the first four seals, I hoped the last three seals would be easier to navigate.

I hoped that many difficulties with other interpretations would melt away when viewed with the fundamental metaphor SALVATION is DEATH.

Unfortunately, the reality remains that for every section of Revelation nothing is easy—each word and phrase and verse take careful study to make sense of the sense.

One issue is the translations, because too many—including the KJV and its revisions—make some confusing decisions that need reconsideration.

To keep this post shorter, I’ve put most of the material on translations in the observations section for paid subscribers, so if you are interested this would be a good time to accept the free token to unlock it.

A summary of the first Four Seals

But before tackling the fifth seal, let’s recap the first four.

1. The Lamb opened all four seals.

2. Successive living creatures called for the Lamb himself to come. The lion, ox, human, and eagle, represented various aspects of the Lamb: incarnate Messianic conquerer, sacrifice, the human face of God, and divine omnipotence.

3. And the Lamb did come, successively on four different horses—Jesus was the rider on each horse!

4. In the first seal, Jesus came as victorious Messiah on a white horse with the bow (and arrows) of the gospel which would defeat those who were pierced (with salvation). This is the preeminent image that will return in Revelation 19.

5. On the red horse representing sacrifice (the Second Seal), Jesus took worldly peace away, and brought the peace of the gospel through the great sword of God’s word.

6. On the black horse, representing death (the Third Seal), Jesus himself took the scales of justice and paid the price for the sins of all.

7. Finally, on the green horse of resurrection life (the Fourth Seal), Jesus, taking the name death, stormed Hades and “killed” i.e. brought salvation, through the sword of the gospel, hunger for God, death (aka conversion to Christ from the world), and by the “beasts” of the world as the goads of Christian perseverance.

8. The four horses represented the full expression of God’s plan to bring the restoration of humanity through the sending of Jesus.

9. The images of “violence” were the turning of worldly (physical) violence on its head: Jesus brought the weapons of the gospel of the Kingdom of God to conquer with salvation and the peace of God, all in line with the SALVATION is DEATH metaphor.

What remains is the full implementation of that plan.

In the next two seals, we will see the partial implementation of the plan—a great number are saved, but many more reject the gospel.

(continued)

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The Fifth Seal

When the Lamb opened the fifth seal, what was revealed was distinctly different than in the first four.

There was no living creature saying “Come,” and there was no horse and rider.

Instead, John saw a scene in the heavenly temple.

Here is my translation:

And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw beneath the altar the souls of those slain by the word of God and by the witness [of the Lamb] which they had. And they cried out with a great voice saying, Until when, O Master, holy and true, are you not judging and avenging our blood from the inhabitants of the earth? And a white robe was given to each of them, and it was spoken to them that they should rest a little while longer until both their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed the same as they, were completed. Revelation 6:9–11.

Throughout the history of Revelation interpretation, this seal has been problematic for translators and interpreters—what’s new?

Christians only. Despite all of the supposed violence of the first four seals from war, bloodshed, famine and death, the people highlighted in the fifth seal appear to be the Christian dead, the martyrs who have died for their faith—and more would follow.

Nothing is said about others dying.

Who were these martyrs according to the commentaries?

The preterists point to the martyrs under Nero; historicists think they are martyrs in the later Roman persecutions, or maybe to the persecutions in the Reformation; Dispensationalists see these martyrs as those converted after the (future) rapture and some explain that these are not fully Christian; idealists explain them as Christian martyrs throughout history who have suffered for their faith. One ancient interpreter, Tyconius in the fourth century, said the souls were in heaven, but the blood remained on earth and that is what cried, like that of Abel.

Curiously, there is little or no mention of the first four seals as a type of judgment on humanity as so many argue: why have only Christians died??

My conclusion: The “quarter of the earth” in the Fourth Seal are Christians, perhaps including those people of faith through the ages who looked forward to God’s Messiah.

Vengeance? Another interpretive difficulty in this fifth seal is that the Christian martyrs appear in almost every translation to cry out for God to avenge their blood on those who killed them—when are you going to get them back, God?

Wow.

Interpreters face the harsh fact that only Christians have died and they cried to God for vengeance on their behalf—retributive justice as punishment—and that God would keep allowing the killing of Christians for the time being!

Most interpreters are very uncomfortable with this request for punishment, though they set the sentiment as consistent with the imprecatory Psalms in the Old Testament.

If I follow most translations, I am uncomfortable too!

What about forgiveness?

This call to punish seems to be absolutely counter to the rest of the New Testament: “Do not return evil for evil,” “Do unto others …,” “Love your neighbor …” etc.

You may not be surprised that I have a very different view on this verse (and the one before and after)!

And one based on a literal translation of the Greek text.

I go into the details in the Observations section, but here are the two main translation issues:

1. “Judge” and “avenge” are present tense in the Greek text, but most translations have the future tense—and most leave out the word “not.”

2. The preposition before “inhabitants of the earth” is ek “out of” or “from” not “on.” “On” is simply not in the lexical range of ek.

Thus I translated the second half of 6:10 as Until when, Master holy and true, are you not judging and avenging our blood from the inhabitants of the earth.

Compare this with the NRSV (and so many others): “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?”

The future tense without “not,” and “on” instead of “from” totally change the meaning of this verse.

(cont.)

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Slain by the Gospel

With the metaphor SALVATION is DEATH in mind, though, a literal translation makes sense:

1. Those under the altar were “slain” by the word of God and by the witness of Jesus on the cross which they had.

Those under the altar comprised all who had entered salvation to that point—they were slain by the great sword of the gospel.

They were “the quarter of the earth.”

If they were physically dead, they were saved; if they were still physically alive they were saved: SALVATION is DEATH.

Of course those under the altar were fully alive too!

After dying with Christ, they had been raised with Christ to newness of life.

That is all of us who have put our faith in Christ.

2. The question that those under the altar asked was NOT at what point God would punish the wicked, but how long would he keep saving people!

“Until when are you NOT judging and avenging our blood”—how long will you keep saving people?—“from the inhabitants of the earth.”

The verb ekdikeō is tricky to translate. It can indicate “take vengeance (avenge),” “punish,” “defend,” “vindicate,” “grant justice”—and looked at from different angles could mean any of these.

As I indicate in the Observations section, the translations treat “judge” and “avenge” as future tenses, not the present tenses of the Greek text.

But the verbs are present tense, so the fact of the passage is that God is currently judging and avenging the blood of the saints by “killing” them. The end of verse 11 confirms this: “Told to rest … until both their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed the same as they, were completed.

3. The response from God was a white robe—the sign of justification before God—and a request for patience until everyone into the future who would submit to faith would be saved (i.e. “killed as also they were”).

It is that simple.

The language of slaying, killing, justice, and vengeance are all part of the metaphor SALVATION is DEATH.

The death of Jesus on the cross flipped the language of violence on its head.

Metaphorically, death is life, as so much of the New Testament already says.

Why?

The cross.

Jesus took all the violence of the world (the wrath of God) upon himself!

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself!

God himself created the metaphor.

Now the visions of Revelation illustrate the metaphor for humanity.

“I am crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me”—on the cross.

I am dead, I am under the altar, I have a white robe, I pray for my fellow-slaves and brothers to join me, I am told to be patient.

If you have put your faith in Jesus—the slain Lamb—all of these apply to you too!

It’s as simple as that.

The fifth seal is the visible result of the salvific plan of God illustrated in the first four seals: the quarter of the earth in the Fourth Seal were the first Christians to “die with Christ” along with those of faith before.

All of the wrath of God—human violence against one another—was absorbed onto Jesus Christ on the cross.

Now Jesus—murdered by humans, raised by God—took upon himself the task of “killing” humans with the gospel, i.e. death to the world, salvation to God.

Jesus never “kills” those who do not want to be “killed” (“Behold, I stand at the door and knock …”), but those who submit to death are given a white robe and told to wait for the entire population of the redeemed to be completed.

God is patient, and we should be too.

Human violence

In writing this post, I do not want to minimize the reality of tragic human violence that continues, seemingly unchecked, in our world—whether domestic, community, political, and war-caused.

Many people have died and are dying in our world from human perpetrated causes, obviously both Christian and non-Christian.

God sees and knows all of it—and as I’ve already said in an earlier post, human violence is the outworking of the wrath of God because of our own sinful, prideful rebellion against God.

We are reaping the natural results of rebellion, and those results are full of anguish and pain.

The gospel, though, gives those of us “slain” by it the courage to not only persevere in this violent world, even to physical death, but also to flourish in the grace of God no matter our circumstances.

Christians who die from human violence have already died with Christ!

I am reminded of Jesus’s encouragement to the disciples at the conclusion of John 14–16 . He said, “I have told you these things so you might have peace in me. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good courage, I have overcome the world” John 16:33.

Take these words to heart!

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

Literal (interlinear) Translation of Revelation 6:9-11:

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And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard a sound from the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” And I looked, and behold, a horse—a green one—and the one sitting, above him was a name for him: Death, and Hades was following with him, and it was granted to him authority upon the fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with death and by the beasts of the earth. Revelation 6:7–8

The Fourth Seal Part One was the easy part.

The meaning of the second half has been much more difficult to unravel—I’ve spent hours upon hours, a few sleepless nights, and a few hikes mulling every word over and again.

But I will say that every moment spent contemplating the Word of God is a moment full of delight, of communion with the living God, and ultimately of found treasure in the words being puzzled and ruminated over.

And when that treasure is seen and rummaged through and ultimately understood, the tears of joy are irreplaceable.

I specifically refer to the end of verse 8: it was granted to him authority upon the fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with death and by the beasts of the earth.

This is a good literal translation of the standard Greek texts, but with one difference. All but four of the English translations have “to them,” but I translate with the well attested “to him.” I state my reasons later in the Observations on the Greek Text for paid subscribers, but all of you will get why.

In The Fourth Seal, Part One, I argued that Jesus was the rider on the green horse, that Jesus took on the name Death/death, and that as the rider he stormed Hades/Sheol and returned in the resurrection represented by the Green Horse and brought Hades/Sheol with him.

The next phrase in the verse is parallel with the first two seals: “it was given to him.”

And what follows those words is also somewhat parallel.

Let’s compare:

6:2 There was given to him a bow and he went out conquering and to conquer.

6:4 There was given to him to take peace from the earth, namely that they slay one another, and there was given to him a great sword.

6:8 There was given to him authority upon the fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with hunger and with death and by the beasts of the earth.

If you’ve followed what I’ve said about the seals so far, you know that Jesus was the rider on each horse and that the “violence” was actually the salvific work of Jesus in the incarnation and by his death on the cross (see SALVATION is DEATH).

This insight is the key to understanding the final part of 6:8.

Here is my thesis:

“To kill with sword and with hunger and with death and by the beasts of the earth” was Jesus’s reversal of the curses for disobedience in the Old Testament for the remnant of those who placed their faith in Jesus.

[A spoiler alert: the saints under the altar in the fifth seal are “the fourth of the earth” impacted by the fourth seal.]

(continued)

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The Standard Line

As usual, most interpreters see this phrase as a partial judgment on the world being implemented by a personified, almost deified, Death, either in the Jewish War, sometime in the Roman Empire, in the future tribulation, or as a general condition of humanity.

This view is consistent with the identification of the riders as the Anti-Christ or Satan—and in the case of the Fourth Seal, Death.

In this account, God/Jesus allowed the Beast or Satan or Death to carry out violent judgment on the earth in preparation for Jesus’s triumphant return (as one commentator put it “God willed the other side to show its colors”).

If you have followed In Plain Sight, you know I have taken a very different approach: Jesus who opened the seals was the rider on all four horses, and the visions of each seal interpret one or more aspects of Jesus’s saving actions in the world.

In the phrase we are looking at, the standard approach is much easier—the violence of sword, famine, death and beasts seems impossible to square with the gracious actions of Jesus.

Sword, hunger, death, and beasts in the Old Testament

To prove their perspective, commentators often cite the litany of Old Testament passages that contain three or all four of the terms sword, hunger, death and beasts of the earth.

For them, these are judgments against the wicked and indicate the Great Tribulation (past, present or future depending on who the interpreter is).

Here is the list of passages containing three or all four of these terms:

Deuteronomy 32:23–25; Jeremiah 14:12; 15:3; 21:9; 24:10; 27:8, 13; 29:17–18; 32:24, 36; 38:2; 42:17, 22; 43:11; 44:13; Ezekiel 5:16-17; 6:11; 12:16; 14:21.

Many translations have “pestilence” (Hebrew deber) for “death” in these passages. The Greek Old Testament regularly translates it as thanatos, “death.”

While many commentators point out the parallel, what they don’t ask is who perpetrated these disastrous actions in the Old Testament.

The answer: Yahweh.

In every single passage, Yahweh was either the direct instigator of these disasters or directed another entity (like Babylon) to implement them against his own people!!

In Deuteronomy 32:23–25, Yahweh promised this curse if the people disobeyed:

“And I will heap disasters upon them;

I will spend my arrows on them;

they shall be wasted with hunger,

and devoured by plague

and poisonous pestilence;

I will send the teeth of beasts against them,

with the venom of things that crawl in the dust.

Outdoors the sword shall bereave,

and indoors terror,

for young man and woman alike,

the nursing child with the man of gray hairs.”

Then Yahweh reiterated these curses upon Judah for their disobedience through the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel as seen in the passages listed.

But most interpreters of the Fourth Seal put Death in the place of Yahweh as the instigator of these curses. Personified Death in essence becomes a type of god—and in Greek and Roman mythology Death and Hades were gods. Death itself replaced God—or God authorized Death as a divine power.

But that is not how John saw it.

At the most, John saw Death in the same way as Paul.

Death was an impersonal power that held sway over humanity as a result of sin. Remove sin, remove death.

Paul in his chapter on the resurrection said this: “Death is swallowed in victory, O Death, where is your victory, O Death where is your sting” 1 Corinthians 15:55.

The Fourth Seal with the image of the rider on the green horse with a name death above and Hades following (and in parallel with the conquering rider on the white horse) is the visionary version of Paul’s poetic obituary to Death.

(cont.)

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Reversal of the curse

But how could the quartet of sword, famine, death and beasts of the earth be construed as anything but negative?

It starts of all places in one of the passages listed above. In Ezekiel 14:21–22, not only are all four elements listed, but the reversal of the curse is envisioned:

For thus says the Lord GOD: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it.

Here in Revelation 6:8, that remnant—“some survivors”— was represented by “the fourth of the earth.”

As I set out in the post SALVATION is DEATH, we see Jesus given the authority to kill (aka: deliver or “save”) those who die with Christ—those who die to the world of sin and death.

Or as I put it in that post: “Just as Jesus was physically slain on the cross (by the hand of men but in the purpose and foreknowledge of God), the gospel spiritually “slays” us, and our death is followed by resurrection to eternal life.”

As the One who has conquered Death, and now bears the name Death, Jesus “kills” the remnant (the fourth of the earth) with “sword and hunger and death and the beasts of the earth” as spiritual counterparts that reversed the physical curses that Yahweh promised the disobedient in the Old Testament.

Once again metaphor comes into play.

Each of the four elements represent a metaphorical reversal of the curses for disobedience:

1. We have already encountered the sword multiple times—from the mouth of the exalted Jesus and the sword given to the rider of the red horse (and later Jesus on the white horse of Revelation 19). As I argued in those places, the sword is the gospel that pierces hearts, just like the arrows from the bow in the First Seal.

In this case Christ the rider of the Green Horse, kills with the sword of the gospel.

2. Famine or hunger is the spiritual result of the sword. Those pierced realize their poverty (Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God) and long for the deliverance of the gospel (Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied).

3. Death is Salvation. The third element represents the conversion of those pierced with the gospel and who recognize their need. By faith, they die to the world and are raised with Christ. SALVATION is DEATH!!

4. The beasts of the earth are the counterpart of Christian perseverance. Those who have died with Christ have nothing to fear from anything the world brings at them, whether from humans, from beasts, from war, or from disaster. None of this matters because the believer is already dead in Christ!

“By”(Greek hypo) the beasts of the earth is different from the “with” (Greek en) of the first three. “By” suggests the allowance of God for us to continue encountering the pain of the world while we are still in it, but we now have everything we need to carry on in victory. Or again as the Beatitudes state: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.”

These four elements are not mutually exclusive, but form a train and likely a progression: with sword and with hunger and with death and by the beasts of the earth. “Or” would present four alternative ways of killing, but the “ands” join them together in one process or progression.

The entire process of salvation is envisioned in these metaphors!

As for so much in Revelation thus far and so much to come, the Old Testament plays a huge role in unlocking the symbolism in these visions. In this case, the gospel of the New Testament is the antidote to the curse of the Law (Galatians 3!).

The metaphorical imagery (yet spiritually literal!) demands that we search not just the surface but dive into the depths of John’s visionary perceptions.

Looking forward

The way is now paved to understand the final three seals. For the most part, interpreters have totally divorced the fifth, sixth and seventh seals from the first four. There seems to be no connection. How come the fifth seal moves from disastrous judgment (as the standard interpretations say) to the martyrs under the altar who have died? Why do people in the first sixth seal not die, but those in chapter 7 in the presence of God have died?

These questions are difficult to answer with the standard interpretation.

But not if SALVATION is DEATH.

Stay tuned!

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

Literal (interlinear) Translation:

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And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard a sound from the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” And I looked, and behold, a horse—a green one—and the one sitting, above him was a name for him: Death, and Hades was following with him, and it was granted to them authority over the quarter of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with death and by the beasts of the earth. Revelation 6:7–8

Logic is an interesting word and from it we get the well-used word logical. There are many types of logic, but all depend on a mental framework. When I lived in the Philippines years ago, I witnessed a cultural logic that made sense to Filipinos, but not to me. If I had been raised there, I’m sure that much more would have made sense, and my American logic would not have.

With the Bible, there is a logic also—a divine logic that threads though its words from beginning to end. To impose an outside secular logic to the Bible is to misunderstand it from the outset—the words of Scripture need to be spiritually discerned. Besides a secular logic, imposing a theological system can also distort the message of the Bible. With Dispensationalism, the Bible gets shoehorned into a logical framework, but one that depends on a particular construction of divine history. The same can be said for other theological systems.

With Revelation, I have (prayerfully) attempted to follow the given logic that John introduced in the first chapter with a focus on the gospel message and symbols/metaphors that were introduced in John’s vision of Jesus—what I call the Gospel of the Exalted Jesus.

So far, as I have followed this gospel logic, the questions and difficulties have melted away verse by verse. I trust this will continue to happen!

I do not want to impose a system, but to allow the logic of Revelation itself to unfold.

I say this because the fourth seal may seem impossible to square with my (logical) approach—Death and Hades, and killing with swords, famine, death, and wild beasts appear farfetched with respect to Jesus as the rider on this horse (as I have argued for the other three).

It’s not that I must see Jesus—almost no one else does.

But I do think that to see Jesus is right.

Oecumenius was close but still did not do this—for him the rider, maybe Jesus but not specified, was at war with the demons and spiritual evil.

The closest previous interpreter as far as I can tell was the early 17^th century Spanish Jesuit, Father Luis de Alcazar, in his Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi, a massive 1000+ page Latin commentary that used the symbolic approach to Revelation.

Alcazar saw right though the haze to the heart of the gospel in these two verses.

He intuitively detected metaphors and tied the images to the rest of Scripture.

He definitely went against the grain.

Almost all interpreters have seen this seal and the horse as the endpoint of the progression of war (red horse) and famine (black horse)—now death and a pale horse, whether during the Jewish War, later in the Roman Empire, in the future “Great Tribulation,” or generally through history in war-time.

But Alcazar saw Death as connected to salvation!

Or as I put it, SALVATION is DEATH.

Those who die in this seal are Christians.

In Part 1 of this post, I’ll discuss Revelation 6:7 and the first half of 6:8.

(continued)

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And when he opened the fourth seal I heard a sound from the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” Revelation 6:7

This verse is virtually identical with 6:1, 6:3, and 6:5 except for a small detail.

In verse 1, John heard “like a sound of thunder,” and in vv. 3 and 5, he heard the creatures directly, but in this verse he heard “a sound from the fourth living creature”—the eagle—“saying ‘Come.’”

Not thunder, not direct speech, but the call of an eagle.

Later in Revelation, an eagle cried with a great sound, “Woe, woe, woe” which sounds like the eagle’s cry (Greek ouai, ouai, ouai).

Oecumenius interpreted “Come” as a call for the wrath of God on evil, and that is a perceptive option—in certain circumstances the eagle was perceived as a harbinger of disaster.

Yet overall, the eagle was a very positive symbol in the Mediterranean world of divine omnipotence.

The early church connected the eagle with the Gospel of John.

So I am going to stick with the notion (as with the other three calls to come) that the eagle called for Jesus to come once again.

This time Jesus came on a green horse.

And I looked, and behold, a horse—a green one …

But wait, wasn’t this a pale horse?

Most of the popular translations follow the KJV in translating the Greek term chlōros as “pale,” which followed the Coverdale, Great Bible, and Bishop’s Bible, which followed the Latin Vulgate translation pallidus “pale.”

In fact 25 English translations do so.

Another 13 translate clōros as “pale green,” and several include the word “sickly,” “ashen” or “grey.”

Only two modern translations, the Jubilee Bible 2000 and the New Matthew Bible, translate clōros as “green” (we get the terms “chlorophyll” and “chlorine” from this word).

The New Matthew Bible, though, is an update of the 1537 Matthew Bible, a combined effort of William Tyndale, Miles Coverdale, and John Rogers.

Here is that 1537 translation:

“And I loked, and beholde a grene horse, and his name that sate on him was Death, and Hell folowed after him, and power was geuen vnto him ouer the fourth parte of the erth, to kyll with swerde, and with honger, and with pestilence, and with wylde beastes of the erth.”

They definitely used the Greek text and not the Latin Vulgate.

Can chlōros mean “pale”? In certain contexts yes.

I expect Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, took the rider, named Death, and surmised that chlōros could not mean green-green, but the color of a sick person, which in some medical texts used chlōros.

But nowhere else in the Bible did Jerome ever translate chlōros as pallidus, OT or NT, but as viridis—green!

Oecumenius saw it as the green of bile, though bile is not pale, but actually green.

John himself used chlōros for green in the other two instances in Revelation: the green grass of 8:7 and every green thing of 9:4. The one use in Mark means green, and so are all fifteen uses in the Greek Old Testament (and other Jewish and early Christian writings).

This would be the only time “pale” is used in early translations for chlōros.

What would the original hearers hear?

Green!

It remains to determine the significance of this difference.

—and the one sitting, above him was a name for him: Death

For the first three horses (Revelation 6:2, 4, 5), the one sitting “on it” was the same—Greek ep’ auton (ep’ is the abbreviated form of epi).

6:2 And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and the one sitting on it …

6:4 And out came another horse, a red one, and the one sitting on it …

6:5 And I looked, and behold, a black horse, and the one sitting on it …

But for some reason, in the fourth seal, John changed “on it” to “above” (Greek epanō) or “above him” (Greek epanō auton).*

All of the translations treat epanō as though it were ep’ “upon” not epanō “above.”

And in an ordinary situation this would be a perfectly normal way to translate it.

But not here because John made an intentional change to indicate something different!!

Ep’ and epanō can be synonyms, but not normally, and this situation highlights them as distinct, not the same.

Ep’ is normally “on” and epanō is normally “above.”

Most of the translations have something like “the rider’s name was Death.”

But the way John has put it, the name Death is applied to, but separate from the rider, kind of like the placard above Jesus’s head on the cross, King of the Jews.

and the one sitting, above him was his name: death

In this case, the rider, Jesus (sitting on a green horse), was called death.

This picture is the same as the Lamb standing as slain.

Here is the logic I see: Life (represented by green) and death are joined together. Jesus who died rode the green horse of life (BTW, I am answering the significance of the color green).

But there was way more going on.

(cont.)

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… and Hades was following with him.

The KJV and many others translate Hades as “hell,” but in doing so the translations bring up a host of negative associations that need to be set aside.

Greek Hades was the equivalent of Hebrew Sheol (the term “hell” actually comes from German and Norse mythology).

Hades was not a place of fiery punishment, but the place of the dead, a place of shadowy existence beyond this life.

Neither was it the lake of fire.

So now we have Death and Hades in this verse.

Where have we seen this combination before?

Oh yeah, in Revelation 1.

What did Jesus say to John in Revelation 1:17b–18?

“Do not fear, I am the first and the last and the one who lives and was dead and behold I am alive forever and ever and I hold the keys of Death and of Hades.”

The interpretation of the fourth horse flows from what Jesus had already told John!

Jesus became dead and joined the dead in Hades, and in the resurrection of Jesus—the one who overcame death—he provided release for those imprisoned there.

Death was the name given to Jesus as a result of the cross, but it did not stay that way!

Understanding this imagery will be the key to unlocking the second half of verse 8.

So to summarize thus far:

• Jesus rode the white horse of the Incarnation and proclamation of the Kingdom of God.

• Jesus rode the red horse of sacrifice in which he replaced the world’s “peace” with the peace of God.

• Jesus rode the black horse of death and paid the price for our salvation.

• Jesus rode the green horse of resurrection, defeated death and unlocked Hades.

In part 2 of the Fourth Seal we’ll take up the equally difficult second half of verse 8. Stay tuned.

*The Greek manuscripts are divided on the presence or absence of auton.

And when he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.” And I looked, and behold, a black horse, and the one sitting on it having a balancing scale in his hand. And I heard as a voice in the middle of the four living creatures, “a measure of wheat for a denarius and three measures of barley for a denarius and the olive oil and the wine do not harm.”

As a kid going to church every Sunday (and Sunday night and Wednesday) I heard all the (G-Rated) Bible stories over and again in Sunday School and other places. About sixth grade I began reading the Bible for myself—the actual R-rated stories—and my eyes have since grown wider and wider (Judges especially).

One of the greatest books of story telling is Daniel, and sure enough I was fascinated by Daniel, his three friends, and the various pickles they were involved in.

One of them that came to mind while studying the third seal was “the handwriting on the wall.”

Daniel interpreted those mysterious words MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN to Belshazzar, the Babylonian prince, as the prediction of his demise.

The second term, TEKEL—a shekel weight— Daniel interpreted as “you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.”

What balance?

That of God.

Scales and the Standards of God

Scales and balances don’t appear often in the Old Testament, but enough to know that honesty in business dealing was important: “Do not steal;” “Do not bear false witness.”

Obviously in our world of greed and desire, nothing has changed with respect to the warped world that constantly rebels against the standards of the Ten Commandments.

In the third seal of Revelation 6:5–6, those standards appear in the image of scales (aka balances), but take an interesting turn in the light of God’s grace.

Once again, in my view the rider on the white horse and the red horse was Jesus, and now I argue the same for the black horse.

As with the red horse, modern commentaries and most of the ancient ones see the black horse as sinister and the scales, wheat, barley, oil and wine as signs of famine brought on by the war of the second seal. The main differences between them are when the famine took/takes/will take place, whether during the Jewish War, later in the Roman Empire, in the future “Great Tribulation,” or generally through history in war-time.

But one commentator, David Aune, sees a stunning anomaly: “However, since balance scales are useful only for determining weight, and the focus in v 6 is the exorbitant cost of grain by volume, there appears to be a basic inconsistency present … the presence of the scales is not illuminated by what follows.”

That anomaly suggests there is something else going on!

Once again I am going to assess this seal as Jesus revealing something about himself—and I think that anomaly will solve itself.

The Third Seal and the Human-faced Creature

And when he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.”

In this vision, the Lamb opened the third seal, like the rest of them, and again John heard a creature say, “Come.”

This was the human-faced creature.

Unlike the (victorious) Lion of the first seal and the (sacrificial) ox of the second seal, which both relate fairly easily to the horse and rider of each, the human-faced creature is a bit more difficult to interpret.

My gut is to link this creature to the humanity of Jesus.

Jesus as Incarnate God was the true specimen of humanity, the second Adam unmarred by the fall.

As such Jesus was the perfect standard by which we all are compared—and by which we all fail apart from the grace of God.

(continued)

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Weights

And I looked, and behold, a black horse, and the one sitting on it having a balancing scale in his hand.

The balancing scale (Greek zygos—the same word as yoke) was used in commerce to correctly ascertain the weight of a product, just like our scales today, though ours are electronic and rely on someone to certify their validity.

Ancient scales relied on certified standard weights. Volumes were determined by standard sized containers like today.

Ezekiel 45:10-12 exemplified this principle:

“You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath. The ephah and the bath shall be of the same measure, the bath containing one tenth of a homer, and the ephah one tenth of a homer; the homer shall be the standard measure. The shekel shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels shall be your mina” (ESV).ᵀ

The rider on the black horse epitomized the weighing of humanity in the cosmic scales of God, whose justice was perfect.*

Throughout the Bible, there is a thread of “no preference.”

God does not see a face, He only sees the heart of a person.

There is no color or status with God, only the living soul that He created and must stand before Him to account for his or her thoughts and actions in this life.

The objective standard is found in the Torah, specifically the Ten Commandments (prohibitions), the Shema (You shall love the Lord your God …) and the command to love your neighbor (positive commands).

The balance in the hand of the rider represented the weighing of thoughts and deeds against the cosmic principles God revealed in those commandments—they were already laws or principles of life and death before Moses, but God’s words to Moses made them explicit (see Romans 5/Galatians 3–4).

The entire Old Testament is “testament” to the inability of humans in their fallen state to do any truly good work apart from self-interest—even the heroes of faith Abraham, Moses, David failed miserably.

Only faith in God could bring about that possibility of living within the framework for life that God imbedded into his creation, and those heroes did just that because they looked to God even in their weakness.

Enter Jesus.

He who held the balance on the black horse held the perfect weight on one side (the Law) and was the perfect weight on the other side.

Jesus’s life was the full expression of perfect, faithful humanity and his death equalized the scale for the rest of humanity—and effective for all those of faith who accepted the price he paid.

The black horse symbolized that death (as the red horse symbolized Jesus’s sacrifice).

And measures

And I heard as a voice in the middle of the four living creatures, “a measure of wheat for a denarius and three measures of barley for a denarius …

The voice in the middle of the four creatures—as Oecumenius plainly saw—came from the One on the throne, God.

The words of God were simply an expression of the gospel: Jesus paid our debt and went beyond to bring healing to our lives and into fellowship with God and one another.

Once again, we need not leave the Bible to understand this verse!

Appeals to famine may make sense from the outside perspective of disaster, politics and war—the price listed for wheat and barley was extraordinarily inflated—but internally to the Bible there is gospel symbolism of the work of Christ on the cross.

The words from the throne were eternal words, not fleeting ones.

Wheat and barley and olive oil and wine were staples of everyday existence and they were used for the Jewish temple rituals and in Jewish festivals. Grain and oil and wine were mentioned together 64 times in the Old Testament (and even more with wheat, barley and bread)! They were promised blessings from God (Deuteronomy 7:13; Jeremiah 31:12; Joel 2:19), and curses in their absence. They were to be tithed. The Promised Land was “a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey” (Deuteronomy 8:8).

But in Jesus’s parables, wheat, or generically grain, referred to people (the harvest of the seed on good soil, the wheat among the weeds that was harvested and separated—even the fruit of the vine in John 15). Jesus told his disciples “the fields are white unto harvest” which would have included wheat and barley but referred to people (John 4:31-34). In his telling of the feeding of the 5000, John remarked that the five loaves were of barley and that Jesus gathered up 12 baskets of remains from the barley loaves “so that nothing would be lost” (John 6:12–13)—symbolic of people.

In John 12, Jesus told his disciples when some Gentiles arrived, “Unless a grain of wheat falling to the ground dies, it remains alone [i.e. a single grain seed], but if it dies it will bear much fruit [i.e. heads of grain].”

In this vision, the price of barley and wheat in Revelation 6:6 are highly inflated—precious commodities costing way more than normal.

If this grain is symbolic of people, who is it that pays the price?

Jesus.

We have something of the same going on in the Parable of the Good Samaritan—the Samaritan paid the innkeeper two denarii for his care. That Good Samaritan—Jesus—paid the price for the battered man’s salvation. Here in Revelation 6 he paid the necessary price for a harvest of souls (two denarii!).

The fourth century writer Tyconius wrote in this vein on 6:5:

“But also he teaches that the price of the wheat and barley is one [and the same]. For if there are small and great people, although one surpasses another in sanctity through merit, both have been redeemed by one perfect price. Although gifts of grace differ, nevertheless the price is at the same level as the merit; whether great and small, or bishops and people, he shows that the body is one.”

Later in Revelation 14:14-15, the Son of Man reaped that same harvest of souls in another picture of salvation.

We are those both bought and reaped.

(cont.)

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… and the oil and the wine do not harm.”

Once again the prevailing view is that in times of famine, oil and wine were so precious as to not even be for sale (except perhaps for the rich). Some see olive oil and wine as stand-ins (aka metonymies) for olive groves and vineyards, but I don’t see how with other perfectly acceptable terms for each (ἐλαιών and ἀμπελών).

But the Old and New Testaments have plenty of olive oil and wine to process with respect to this phrase. Oil—Hebrew shemen, used 196 times—was used for cooking, for light, for cosmetics, for lubrication. In the temple, oil was everywhere: it lit the lamps and was used to make the bread of the Presence; it was mixed with flour for grain offerings; it was used to anoint the tabernacle, priests (along with blood) and kings (and as an everyday anointing for feet and hair).

In Zechariah 4, two olive trees provided a continuous flow of oil to the bowl that supplied the menorah lamps. In 1 Maccabees a miraculous flow of oil kept the menorah lit, celebrated during Hanukkah. (Also remember Elisha and the widow).

In Jesus’s parable of the ten virgins, olive oil was the fuel to light the entrance lamp to the wedding feast. Oil was mentioned over and over in the New Testament for anointing as a healing agent.

The Good Samaritan used oil and wine to dress the half-dead man’s wounds.

Wine is all over the place in the Old Testament as normal drink, but also in the Temple rituals as a drink offering.

In the New Testament, wine is associated with Jesus—certainly his first miracle, but primarily at the last supper: this fruit of the vine is the new covenant in my blood.

The blood Jesus shed was symbolized by wine pressed from grapes.

Oil and wine were mentioned together numerous times in the Old Testament (Genesis 28:18; 35:14; Exodus 29:40, etc). In Psalm 23 David sings, “you anoint my head with oil, my cup runneth over.” Wine and oil (often with grain) represent abundance, and their absence disaster.

So our question is what does the voice from the throne mean by “the oil and the wine do not harm”?

Once again grammar makes a difference.

Unlike wheat and barley just mentioned (or a bow, or a crown, or a great sword—and sword, famine, and death in the fourth seal) which are unspecified in Greek, oil and wine both have an article: the oil and the wine.

This oil and wine is specified—particular oil and particular wine set apart for a particular purpose.

Another way of putting the phrase is “Nothing is to happen to this oil and this wine because it is meant for something.”

This visionary oil and wine once again is metaphorical—the image points beyond to something else.

I detect several possibilities, though I am still not fully confident.

First, the oil and wine could pick up on the healing balm of oil and wine in the Good Samaritan and connect with the price paid to the innkeeper and repeated here. Jesus heals (oil), sacrifices (wine as blood), and purchases us (the denarii).**

But once again I ask, why the specificity?

Another possibility is to see the oil and wine as set aside for the marriage supper of the Lamb.

A great feast is ahead for those bought by the Lamb.

The oil and the wine could be set aside for that purpose—but never mentioned again.

Finally, and related to the salvific vein of all three seals so far (and this is the one I am most drawn to) the oil and the wine might just relate to the Eucharist—the Last Supper.

The grain may refer to people, but also can refer to flour, which mixed with oil and baked creates bread—the body of Christ.

The wine is self-explanatory as the blood of Christ.***

Both were metaphors at the last supper, and they function the same way here.

Jesus Christ was the perfect fulfillment of God’s desire for humanity and he willingly paid the price via his body and blood poured out on the cross for us.

The scales were balanced and we are the beneficiaries and celebrate together as his body.

Altogether this Third Seal is once again about gospel. Every seal bring a different viewpoint to the gospel message, but together show us that the life and death of Jesus were “good news.”

ᵀEphah: Roughly 22 liter dry measure; Bath: 22 liter liquid measure; Homer 220 liters dry or liquid; Shekel: 11-12 grams of metal; Gerah 1/20 shekel weight; Minah: weight of 60 shekels

*Oecumenius comes close to this idea: “The balance therefore is the symbol of the righteous judgment of the Lord on our behalf, so that we may also say boldly to him, “You effected judgment and justice for me,” so that we gentiles may know that we are human beings, and that we may not be like beasts dragged along “with bit and bridle”? and led astray by the destructive tyrants.”

**Andrew of Caesarea: “The command do not harm wine and oil means not to disregard the healing through returning to Christ, which healed the one who has “fallen among robbers,” in order that those who through longsuffering were about to renew the fight would not be carried off by death.”

***Tyconius: “In the wine and oil he spoke of the unction and blood of the Lord.”

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

I only have one observation, which I mentioned in the main post and will continue to be of importance.

John is very intentional with the article (“the” Greek ho) throughout Revelation in its absence or presence.

When present it either specifies—as the oil and the wine—or it points back to a previously mentioned person or concept (the third seal; the third living creature). There are other uses also, but never as indefinite.

And out came another horse, a red one, and the one sitting on it—there was given to him to take peace from the earth (namely that they slay one another), and there was given to him a great sword. Revelation 6:4

One of the great questions of history is why and how Christianity overtook paganism in the Roman Empire.

Many a historian, sociologist, or anthropologist has attempted an answer—I am not qualified to make the attempt in any of these areas, maybe marginally in history.

Yet as a student of the Bible, I can at least discern some potential reasons drawn from the pivotal event of the cross and the literature it spawned—the New Testament and centuries of theological reflection and formulation about the relation of Jesus to God.

The cross changed everything.

Not just in the personal lives of billions since whose very existence has been transformed by hope.

But at a macro level.

The cross of the crucified Jesus became the symbol that undid the power structures holding ancient societies together—and ultimately destroyed their foundations.

The question is how.

How did the cross function to change the world?

As you can likely discern, I see in the second seal of Revelation 6 some answer to this question, “How?”

Let’s take it phrase by phrase.

“To the one sitting on it, there was given to him to take peace from the earth.”

To reiterate from the last post, this task was a commission from God to Jesus.

The only giving and taking thus far in the visions has been between God (the One on the throne) and the Lamb—and so it is here.

God granted the rider—Jesus—the ability or authority “to take peace from the earth.”

If nothing else is clear in Revelation, God’s sovereignty is without question!

Nothing happens apart from either the knowledge, direct action, or allowance of God.

Though God self-limits to allow for human freedom (and Satan’s influence as a consequence), his loving purposes directly intervened through the promises of the OT culminating in the incarnation.

In this second seal (to actively state it) God gave Jesus the task to take peace from the earth.

This task seems counterintuitive, though, even contradictory to Scripture.

Most of the time peace in the New Testament (Greek eirēnē) referred to God’s peace. In Luke 2, the angels proclaimed “Glory to God in the highest, and peace upon the earth among people of good will.” Jesus wished peace upon the disciples in John. In Romans 5, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” and in Ephesians and Colossians Paul encourages his readers to “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” Paul normally included peace in his letter openings.

But Jesus said he did not bring peace, but a sword, and here He is commissioned “to take peace from the earth.”

What peace was Jesus talking about; what peace was he to take?

In short, forced peace built on violence.

This was earthly “peace”—not the peace of God (the terms for peace are the same, Hebrew shalom and Greek eirēnē).

Just a cursory look at the 230+ times peace was used in the Old Testament shows the distinction between human peace and God’s peace.

Earthly peace always implied the (temporary) absence of hostility whereas the peace of God implied the presence of wholeness and prosperity.

Earthly peace may be the temporary lack of conflict, but it never lasts.

Earthly peace was never stable and was built on provisional alliances, often at the expense of a third party.

Prior to Jesus, sacrificial systems and mythic reenactments in polytheistic societies promoted societal order through the simulated off-loading of violence to maintain “peace.”

Internally, sacrificial systems likely developed out of human sacrifices—scapegoats blamed for plagues, societal unrest, and other calamities—to keep the “peace.”

Animal sacrifice and rituals were ultimately substituted in many cultures to preserve peace (though those like the Aztecs continued the practice of human sacrifice).

Externally war itself against an enemy produced societal cohesion (the sacrifice of one’s own warriors and of the enemy).

“Peace” has often been “achieved” between certain groups because they have a common enemy—the enemy functions as a scapegoat for the furtherance of the mutual interests and “peace” of the allies.

So the interim periods of “peace” that followed were dependent on violence.

But during the periods of peace, internal rivalry and conflict then produced the need for either an internal scapegoat—individual or group (think the Jews in 1930s Germany)—or external war to unify the people and prevent self-destruction leading to war again (the same Germany is still a good example—and allied with Italy and Japan).

The so-called “Pax Romana” from 27 BC to roughly AD 200 saw plenty of violence to maintain that “peace.” (The so-called Pax Americana since WW2 is of the same character).

This “peace” built on death was the peace Jesus was commissioned to take.

Now back to the question at hand, “how did/does Jesus take peace from the earth?”

This earthly peace was (and is) a false peace bred by Satan that became the inbred Lie of all humanity—the Lie was that violence was necessary for peace.

Jesus’s task was to expose that lie, so we could discern the truth of God’s Peace.

He did that on the cross—the cross functioned as the great sword of Truth.

That this false peace was intended in this verse is explained by the next phrase.

(continued)

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“(Namely, that they slay one another).”

On a surface reading, this phrase is almost incomprehensible grammatically and theologically—and especially if Jesus is the rider.

I cannot count the time I’ve spent agonizing over its sense.

Just to illustrate, the fifty or so translations at Bible Gateway have about twenty different translations of this phrase! Many are similar, but each has its own nuance. I encourage you to read them at the link I gave.

Now add one more to the list.

I have finally come to a translation that brings together the grammar, the relation of this phrase to the previous and following phrases, (dare I say) the sociology/anthropology of the phrase, and its theology.

That’s a lot and this post is going to be a bit long because of it, but I don’t want a part 4!

Here it is: “(namely that they slay one another)”

1. Grammar (warning: weeds ahead! I’ll have more in Observations section).

The grammar of the Greek phrase kai hina allēlous sphaksōsin (that I translate “namely, that they slay one another”) has caused translators massive headaches (and those who copied the manuscripts too).

There is nothing quite like this phrase in the entire New Testament.

It starts with kai, usually translated “and,” but does not join anything, so other uses of kai must be considered.

Hina often indicated purpose, but “in order that they should kill one another” makes no sense with “they” rather than the rider as the subject.

Another sense for hina, one that John used regularly in his Gospel and letters was to define a concept previously stated.

This use is called an explanatory hina.

A good example is John 6:29 “This is the work of God that (hina) you believe in the one whom he sent.” The phrase after hina defined the concept “work of God.” Other examples: John 6:39; 15:13; 17:3; 1J 3:11, 23; 4:21; 5:3; 2 John 6; 3 John 4.

That is exactly what John did here:

“That they slay one another” is the definition of “peace”!

John used kai as an adverb “indeed” or “namely” to signal his intent (it can’t be “and” because it does not join two equal clauses).

So the two phrases together are “there was given to him to take peace from the earth, (namely that they slay one another).”

2. Anthropology/sociology. These are not technical terms for me, but practical. I basically dealt with this above: humans create peace through violence. “Peace … namely that they slay one another” is the unveiling of this process (as the Bible does throughout).

Another sixth century commenter on Revelation, Andrew of Caesarea said as much:

“While the remainder of the gospel message was spreading [i.e. the white horse], the peace of the world was abolished, <human> nature having been divided against itself according to that which had been said by Christ, “I did not come to bring peace to the earth but a sword” (trans. Constantinou).

This phrase served to specify the type of peace Jesus was commissioned to take: peace built on violence.

3. The embedded theology is that Jesus, the bloody rider/slain Lamb, came to expose the lie of “peace” through violence.

He did this through his own blood, not the blood of others.

His death at the hands of others was intended to bring “peace,” as Caiaphas said before the Sanhedrin: “It is better you that (hina!) one man die for the people than the whole nation be destroyed” (John 11:50).

They killed Jesus to maintain peace.

But in the resurrection, the truth of Jesus’s innocence was affirmed by God and the world has not been the same since.

Peace through violence was exposed—Jesus took peace from the world on the cross!

Ever since peace through violence has still been attempted—and regularly argued as “a good thing,” but it is not true peace.

God is the only one who brings that peace.

4. One other realization is that this phrase, “namely that they slay one another” is not actually part of the vision, but John’s explanation of what he saw!

He knew what “take peace from the earth” meant, but added an explanation so his readers would understand.

I have indicated this insight by putting the phrase in parentheses.

(cont.)

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“And there was given to him a great sword.”

Weapons in Revelation are visionary metaphors, and so it is here.

We already have an inkling of what the sword points to from the vision of Jesus in Revelation 1.

There a sword was coming from Jesus’s mouth!

It was repeated in 2:12 and 16, and later in Revelation 19:15 and 21 that sword from his mouth was still there.

The sword coming from Jesus’s mouth is the Word of God; the words Jesus speaks act as a sharp sword of truth.

Paul named it in Ephesians 6 (“the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God”) and Hebrews described it (“the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword …”).

Here the rider on the red horse was given a great sword.

Is it the same sword? What was it used for?

This sword (Greek machaira) was a long sword used in battle, whereas the sword from Jesus’s mouth was a romphaia, a short sword. I am not sure there is any difference for the metaphor.

This machaira is the same as Matthew 10:34, Ephesians 6:17, and Hebrews 4:12.

If Jesus’s commission was to take earthly peace away to establish God’s peace, this was his weapon.

With this weapon he took the fight of the gospel to the world, just as he did with the bow in the first seal. If the arrows of the bow of the white horse brought about death—that is salvation—this sword does the same.

The sword sliced through the lies of the world, the world system, and defeated Satan and all of his minions. Like the bow, it was a weapon of conquering, but conquering via the cross—this was the rider on the red horse.

The sword functioned just like the cross.

Here is the whole of Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing unto the division of soul and spirit, both joints and marrow and a judge of the desires and intents of the heart.”

The sword wielded by Jesus did/does exactly that.

The truth of the innocent death of Jesus (affirmed in the resurrection) exposed the lie that violence against a blamed scapegoat was justified.

No one person is liable for natural disasters or the collective sins of society—though we still try!!

Jesus however freely went to the cross as a willing scapegoat to take the sin of the world upon himself in order to unleash God’s peace on the world among those who saw the truth.

Jesus, the rider on the red horse, took away earthly peace, and replaced it with the peace of God.

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

ἐδόθη αὐτῷ λαβεῖν τὴν εἰρήνην ἐκ τῆς γῆς

there was given to him to take the peace from the earth

καὶ ἵνα ἀλλήλους σφάξωσιν

(namely that one another they slay)

καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ μάχαιρα μεγάλη

and there was given to him a sword great.

Read more

And when He opened the second seal I heard the second living creature saying, Come. And out came another horse, a red one, and the one sitting on it—there was given to him to take peace from the earth, and so they slay one another, and there was given to him a large sword.

In part 1, I added a bit more evidence that Jesus was the topic of all the seals, and that he was the rider on each horse, not just the white horse.

In this post, we directly face the identification for the red horse.

Throughout the history of interpretation of this second horse, the (vast) majority of commenters have turned to other options: Satan, the Antichrist, or “War”/“Violence” as a personification of the rider (like they do with “Death” in the fourth seal). Preterists and historicists try to identify a political actor who has meted out extreme violence, especially the Romans. Some see the slaughter as including Christian martyrs.

And in fact this basic approach is a a fairly easy thing to argue.

The color red is associated with war and violence, peace is taken from the earth, people slay one other, and a great sword appears.

How can any of this have to do with Jesus?

Most answer, “nothing.”

It’s not even conceived as a possibility.

Perhaps one response would that if the violence implied here comes directly from divine fiat (God), then our whole conception of the gospel is upended.

Surely neither God nor the Lamb is like this!

Yet many do see God as the One who allows this violence in his larger purposes, but the perpetrator of the violence could not possibly be the Lamb. It must be an evil actor consistent with Satan, or the Antichrist of the first horse, as they argue.

The reality is way more complicated.

Of course, I have the rare view that Jesus was the rider on each horse: Jesus opened each seal and he is the main focus of each seal.

Only a handful or less of interpreters have offered the alternative of Jesus as rider, one the sixth century Christian Oecumenius, whose commentary was discovered in the late 1800s, another a Benedictine monk in the 800s Berengaudus, and a third a 17^th century Jesuit priest Luis del Alcázar, and perhaps a few others.

Count me among these few!

For the second seal, once again an application of logic, metaphor, and Scripture work toward this identification of Jesus as rider on the red horse.

But beyond that basic identification, discerning the meaning of the final part of 6:4 is even more difficult and perhaps more significant.

So let’s go slowly.

(continued)

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Blood in Revelation

And out came another horse, a red one.

Though only used once in Revelation, the color red is the prevailing image in these verses.

As the earliest interpreters understood (and interpreters since of every kind), this red is the color of blood.*

The horse is blood colored, slaying one another produces blood, and great swords are used for killing.

Lots of blood, and even more.

Revelation is a bloody book.

Just the term “blood (Greek haima)” occurs nineteen times, not to mention slaughter and weaponry that causes bloodshed.

But …

The Lamb who opened this seal was “standing as slaughtered.”

He was bloodied.

And the second living creature?

The ox—an animal regularly used in sacrifices.

As I have suggested before, the rider on the red horse is Jesus—and red because of Jesus.

And the primary references to blood in Revelation refer to—you guessed it—Jesus.

The blood of Jesus is the first mention of blood in Revelation (1:5: “To him who loves us and washed us from our sins by his blood.)

And again in 5:9 and 7:14 and 12:11 (all the blood of the Lamb).

There is also a bloody moon (6:12), bloody hail (8:7); bloody water (8:8; 11:6; 16:3, 4; blood from a winepress flowing almost 200 miles and five feet high (14:20); the blood of prophets and saints (16:6; 17:6; 18:24; 19:2). We’ll take up those in time.

The final mention of blood is also Jesus. In Revelation 19:13, John sees the rider on the white horse “clothed with a robe dipped in blood.”

As you might imagine, the varied uses of blood throughout Revelation are ripe for interpretation as metaphors, but somehow related to the reality of the bloody cross.

The Rider

So I believe, with good reason, that the rider on the red horse, like the white horse, was Jesus.

The creature who introduced the white horse was lion-faced, and called out the victorious Lion of Judah whose incarnation proclaimed the Kingdom of God.

The same Jesus, this time as the sacrificial Lamb, was on a red horse, indicative of his (bloody) sacrifice—and also indicated by the ox-faced creature (see part 1).

Thus far, easy.

What comes after is the difficult part.

(cont.)

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Peace from the earth

There was given him to take peace from the earth … and there was given to him a great sword.

This phrase and the following one have caused interpreters throughout the ages to see the rider as Satan or his deputy and the horse as war and conflict.

As I said above, there seems to be an aversion to connecting the seemingly violent picture with God or (especially) Jesus.

But both are definitely involved if Jesus is the rider.

This sentence almost looks like permission, but is actually a commission.

The agent is God and Jesus is the recipient of that commission: “there was given [by God] to him [Jesus] to take peace from the earth …”

How could this be?

It could be because Jesus already said this during his earthly ministry!

Or maybe Jesus said it during his ministry because of this commission.

Jesus directly stated this commission during his earthly ministry: “Don’t think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I came not to bring peace, but a sword” Matthew 10:34.

Luke 12:51 has virtually the same: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but division.”

Just this crystal clear connection to Jesus’s teachings makes the identification of the rider with Jesus fairly easy.

It may be the most troubling statement of all he said, but he certainly did say it, and the vision of the second horse is very consistent.

Of course, there is a lot of theology to be unpacked in this statement, but that will come. Another post is ahead!

“So they might slay one another”

This short phrase tucked between only makes the identification of Jesus easier.

In the same passages in Matthew and Luke quoted above we read the following:

“For I came to divide a man against his father, and daughter against her mother, and bride against her mother-in-law, and the enemies of a man are his own household” Matthew 10:35–36.

“From now on five will be divided in a household three against two and two against three, father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her [son’s] bride, and bride against mother-in-law” Luke 12:52–53.

Because of Jesus, “peaceful” households become war-torn.

Whether physically or figuratively, “slay one another” is a good summation of Jesus’s words.

But there is actually much more substance behind these words that relate to the cross of Jesus. Once again I’ll take this up in the next post.

Peace and swords

When I wrote my very first post on Substack two years ago—Peace and Swords—I had no idea that I would be here today writing on Revelation 6:4 and referring back to it. Yet everything I said there holds true and I encourage you to go back and read it.

The second seal, though, brings the images of peace, slaughter, and sword to a completely different plane of vivid illustration.

But it also brings a more intense need for theological interpretation with deeply practical insight for our world, then and now.

In part three on the Second Seal, I will attempt an understandable interpretation of 6:4. Stay tuned.

*Oecumenius was direct: “The red horse is a figure of blood,” ὁ πυρρὸς ἵππος αἵματος αἴνιγμα τυγχάνει. I have a translation of Oecumenius’s commentary on this section in the paid area.

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation (and commentary of Oecumenius)

Καὶ ὅτε ἤνοιξεν τὴν σφραγῖδα τὴν δευτέραν,

And when he opened the seal the second,

ἤκουσα τοῦ δευτέρου ζῴου λέγοντος· ἔρχου.

I heard the second living creature saying, come.

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And when He opened the second seal I heard the second living creature saying, Come. And out came another horse, a red one, and the one sitting on it—there was given to him to take peace from the earth, and so they might slay one another, and there was given to him a great sword.

I began this multipart post on second seal on Good Friday 2025.

One thousand nine hundred ninety five years ago, Jesus was condemned to death and put on a Roman cross where he bled and suffered between two criminals, and with the single word, tetelestai—it is finished—he gave up his spirit and bowed his head in death.

We call it Good Friday because a good God gave his good Son for the good of humanity, that we might be delivered from a never ending cycle of violence and sin for a new existence in the peace-filled Kingdom of God.

Good Friday indeed.

I started with this reflection because its reality is directly tied to the subject of this post: the second seal with the red horse and rider of Revelation 6:3-4.

The interpretation of these two verses is one I have wrestled with for years, and the last several months has almost continually been in the back or forefront of my mind.

So as I put my thoughts down in writing I do so with trepidation, yet with a confidence that the Gospel of the Exalted Jesus will be clear to see.

In this first post I address verse 3 and expand a bit more on the first seal.

And when He opened the second seal I heard the second living creature saying, Come. Revelation 6:3

This verse is almost a replica of 6:1 (And I saw when the Lamb opened the first seal, I heard one of the living creature saying with a thundrous voice, “Come”), but for several changes:

1. The Lamb becomes “he”—the pronoun is actually included in the verb ēnoiksen, “he opened”—and the seal is numbered “second.”

2. “One of the four living creatures”in 6:1 becomes “the second living creature” in 6:3.

So much for the differences.

What about the similarities?

(continued)

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As additional preparation for the second seal, I carried out a personal exercise in logic with respect to the seals that I think will be helpful. Here it is.

The Seals as the Revelation of Jesus

The first seal begins with “and I saw when the Lamb opened the first seal” and each successive scroll begins with “and when he opened the xth seal.” The introductory phrases indicate that the Lamb was the revealer of the content of each seal.

But as Revelation 1:1 implies, the revelation by Jesus is the revelation of Jesus. He, as the one who was given the scroll and who took the scroll in Revelation 5 from the One Sitting on the throne (and given unrelenting adoration along with God), now unveils in the seals who He is and what He has done.

In this logic, unless there is evidence to the contrary, the content of the open seals is also about the Lamb.

A Single Theme: Jesus

The seven seals of the singular scroll are a revelation of something unified.

A logical inference of a singular scroll is that all seven seals are connected or bound together with a common theme rather than separate ones.

Often the seals are treated separately, especially the grouping of four and three (because “four horses”), or even interpreted singly, but a common theme is more reasonable.

What is this common theme?

The Lamb, the one who opens the seals.

Revelation 5 has offered one key piece of evidence: “You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals because you were slain and you bought us for God by your blood.”

Perhaps the seals reveal why the Lamb was worthy by expanding on the “new song” of 5:9.

Perhaps the seals are all about the Lamb who was slain.

Perhaps the seven seals are about the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus back to the throne-room of heaven.

This logic flies in the face of most interpretations, but I propose it for a distinct reason.

God and the Lamb are the named subjects thus far in the visions.

To introduce Satan or the Antichrist or other entity here causes literary and theological whiplash.

Stories don’t work if the characters are unknown; only confusion results.

But in this story—and John is telling the story of his visions—the characters are known: John himself, The One Sitting on the Throne, the four creatures, the elders, and most prominently the Lamb Standing as Slain (aka the Lion of Judah, the root of Jesse, who has conquered).

No others!

The passive verb in the seals, “it was given”(five times), implies a known agent!! (Hint: God).

So too the riders, though anonymous, invite identification with a known character. (Hint: Jesus).

All interpreters attempt to identify the rider(s), but instead of a known character, most look later in Revelation 12 and following to pull Satan or the antichrist or the like back into this text with no logical literary warrant.

Jesus is the closest known character and thus most logical as the rider of the horses.

Oecumenius made the astute observation that the white horse represents the incarnation of Jesus—Jesus’s task was to come and conquer the world for the Kingdom of God! He then went on to identify the other seals with other aspects of Jesus’s life. His comments were very short, but I think he was on to something—he had followed this logic.

“Come” (again)

The four-fold entreaty, “Come,” as I have already suggested from the comment of Darrell Johnson, is an appeal for Jesus to appear.

And that is what happens with each horse, not just the white horse.

At the call to come, Jesus came as the rider of each horse.

Of course, Oecumenius and a few others over the centuries proposed this very thing.

(cont.)

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The Creatures as Characteristics of Jesus

Each of the first four seals named in numeric order one of the living creatures: lion, ox, human, and eagle, respectively.

In an earlier post I suggested the possible symbolism of wild animals (lion), domesticated animals (ox), humans (human), and birds (eagle) as representatives of creation.

But the placement of each with a seal suggests an additional connection of each creature with its respective seal, so I rethought other possibilities.

And I am not alone—with respect to Jesus, several early Christians saw a connection of each creature with each of the Gospels and a characteristic of Jesus.

Irenaeus and later Jerome did this, as well as others. A contemporary of Oecumenius, Andrew of Caesarea, saw the clear connection of each creature to the first four seals, and to Jesus. Here is Andrew of Caesarea’s take on the four creatures with respect to Jesus:

Perhaps through these the Incarnation of Christ is also indicated, through the lion as a king, through the calf as a priest, perhaps also a sacrifice, through the man as being made man for our sake, and through the eagle as the provider of the Life-giving Spirit, which came upon us from above.

I want to give some more exegetical attention to each creature as connected to Jesus and a seal.

The Lion

Backing up to the first seal, the lion-faced creature of the first seal suggests the Lion of Judah image of Revelation 5.

Both there (Revelation 5:5) and in the first seal the term “conquer” is applied to the subject.

The rider on the white horse is the embodiment of the conquering Lion.

It remains to determine the significance of the ox, human, and eagle, but I have my ideas, all flowing from already known material from Revelation itself and the New and Old Testaments (and taking into account the observations of early Christians).

The Ox

First up is the ox (I’ll take up human and eagle in their respective seals).

If the lion-faced creature connected to the Lion of Judah who conquered, the ox (Greek moschos) was connected to “the Lamb standing as slaughtered” and afterwards the slain Lamb (5:9, 13:8). By the way, “calf” is also a translation of moschos, like “fattened calf” in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Yes the ox does represent domesticated animals, but more specifically the ox was an animal used in the Jewish sacrificial system.

The Greek term moschos is the equivalent of Hebrew shur, an ox or bull, and regularly mentioned in the OT along with sheep as sacrificial animals (for example Exodus 20:24; 29:10, 14; Leviticus 1:5; 4:3; and many others).

Sacrifice involved blood, and the second seal is full of it—the ox as sacrificial animal called for Jesus, the Slain Lamb, to come. And He did riding on a red horse—the topic of the next post.

As always, if you have comments or question feel free to post in the comments section.

Pertinent quotations from Oecumenius and Andrew of Caesarea:

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