Day 244, Revelation 6
Were you ready for some glorious answers after the symphony of worship at the end of chapter 5? Well, sometimes things must get worse before they can get better. To build a strong house you must dig down and establish firm foundations. Remember the evil and hardships John and his contemporaries are facing. Exile and persecution are their daily lot, and the first four seals on God’s plan uncover a great deal of darkness and evil. The four horsemen represent the four basic evils on earth: conquering, violence, economic hardship, and death. Like verses of a song, or scenes of a play, they introduce themes and are not necessarily sequential. That is too tidy for poetry, and too tidy to rightly represent the challenges faced by God’s plan in our twisted world. Don’t read these seals as a rigid sequence, not assume that seals precede trumpets (chapters 8-11) and trumpets lead to bowls of wrath (chapter 16). Instead, these are like paintings in a gallery or movements of a symphony. Each has something to communicate, and it is the whole that reveals Jesus.
Even our guides for this journey (Eugene Peterson in “Reversed Thunder” and N.T. Wright in “Revelation for Everyone” differ in details of the interpretation of the four horsemen. That doesn’t matter as much as the overall message: God’s plan includes uncovering evil as part of the unveiling of Jesus. When the light shines, the roaches are exposed.
So we move to the fifth seal, and we see those who have been martyred because they were true to God’s Word and would not renounce Jesus the Lamb as their savior. This group was a large, and well-known cohort when John received this vision and wrote it for the churches to read aloud and experience together. In the vision, John sees that hose who have already died have to wait, because more martyrs will join them. This is the case even today in countries where it is forbidden to believe. It is interesting that John sees where these souls are waiting - under the altar. We will see later that the throne room where John is seeing his vision is also the heavenly temple, and these martyrs are clearly aware of the unhealed world, ripe for judgment.
Now the sixth seal ushers in natural catastrophes, the events which cause many to question or reject God. And in the response of the powerful to these disasters, we see acknowledgement of God. Not the “acts of God” clause which allows our insurance to evade responsibility when natural tragedies strike. Remember, this whole revelation is an unveiling of Jesus. Now, the natural disasters bring awareness of God’s justice, and that is bad news to those whose lives have been predicated on twisting justice to their own benefit.
So, we have six seals opened on God’s plan, and great evil has been uncovered. The chapter ends with a valid question: who is able to stand?
We shall wait for chapter seven for the answer.
Have a great day!
Mark.