Revelation 5:1-10; 7:1-4, 9-11
Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the centre of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”
After [the first six seals were opened] I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honour and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”
John is standing in the throne room, listening to the praise of the four living creatures and the twenty four elders dressed in white, when he sees a scroll in the right hand of the one on the throne. Assuming this is the same as the little scroll that John is given to eat in chapter ten, it follows the same trajectory as the revelation itself, being passed from God to Jesus to an angel to John and finally to the churches. This is just one of many parallels and repetitions we find in the Book of Revelation, which suggests that what we are being introduced to are patterns rather than specific events. John’s vision is not telling us what has happened like a news report, or what will happen like a weather forecast, but what is happening all the time like a...well I'm not sure I can think of a parallel for that, but if you have any suggestions then let me know. In this instance, I believe it is telling us that God is ever speaking to us, and that means we need to be ever listening.
The scroll has seven seals, but no one can open them and so John begins to weep, but then he hears a voice declare that the Lion of Judah has won the victory and is worthy to open the scroll, and he turns to see a lamb that looks like it has been slain. I said two weeks ago that it is important to pay attention to what is heard and what is seen in Revelation, but we also need to pay attention to the difference between the two. John hears of a mighty lion but sees a wounded lamb. Things are not only as they seem, and this dissonance is not a mistake or an accident but the essence of Christ. Jesus has the might of a lion, but comes with the vulnerability of a lamb. He could tear his enemies to shreds, but submits to violence to break the cycle. And yet the lamb is not weak or foolish, even in its vulnerability and its submission, for it has seven horns and seven eyes. It's another peculiar image, but horns were a symbol of strength and eyes a symbol of knowing, and seven was significant as the number of perfection or completion, so what we have here is a declaration that the lamb has all power and wisdom. Things are not only as they seem, and it is not the roaring and fighting of the lion but the gentleness and humility of the lamb that is the true authority. That must have been both a political and a pastoral message to a church facing an empire based on the belief that might makes right, and I think it has lost little of its power, even if the church has in places become the empire, and must learn the lesson from the other side.
The living creatures and the elders again raise their voices in worship, but this time in praise of the lamb, and they are joined by a chorus of thousands of millions of angels, and then by every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. All of creation worships the lamb, with the same blessing and honour and glory and power as the one who is upon the throne. I want us to hold onto that image because I think it is important that we are given it before the chaos that follows. Because chaos soon follows with the opening of seals. Preterist and historicist views see the seals as real events which occurred over a given period of time, although different proponents of those views have different ideas as to what that period was and what events the seals relate to. The futuristic view sees the seals as not yet opened, but believes they describe actual events which are to come. And the idealist view sees the seals as symbolic, metaphors rather than exact descriptors or predictors. Lining up seals and events is one of the rabbit holes I would rather avoid, in part because it is hard to keep everything straight, and in part because it easily veers into conspiracy theory territory which is rife with antisemitism and Islamophobia, so if you want to explore the different theories for yourself, I advise that you do so with caution and discernment. At any rate, you may already have worked out that I err towards an idealist interpretation. It is not that I think these things haven't happened or won't happen, but rather that I think they happen all the time, in one form or another. These seals reveal deep truths not about particular events but about the way the world is.
The breaking of the first four seals releases the figures who have become known as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. First “a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest”. Then “another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other”. Next “a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand” and a voice declared that a day's wages would only buy a kilo of flour. And finally “a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth”. Some scholars suggest that the first rider is Jesus, as a figure that is definitely Christ appears riding on a white horse later, but the four horses do seem to read as a group, so I'm not convinced of that reading. I think instead that the first rider's similarity to the later appearance of Christ may suggest a false prophet, a figure who appears good and promises victory but brings only destruction. It is certainly true that the four horsemen together bring a picture of conquest which is followed by bloodshed and famine and ultimately brings death. It could be a picture of any one of the thousand wars that have been fought and are being fought and are still yet to be fought.
When the fifth seal is opened, the souls of the martyrs cry out for justice and are given white robes as they are told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants has been killed. When the sixth seal is opened, we are told “There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?’” The use of these kinds of cosmic convulsions to describe social and political upheaval is well established in biblical prophecy, and we find it in later literature too, such as Lennox's talk of “dire combustion and confused events” the night Duncan is killed by Macbeth. Following on from the four horsemen, we might see these cataclysms as a comment on the totality of war, which if unchecked will destroy the whole earth and leave no one unharmed.
But what does all of this mean? Why are the horsemen given authority to wreak such havoc? Why must more martyrs be killed? Why do those hiding in caves speak of the wrath of God? Is this really the divine plan? I cannot square that thought with what I understand of God from elsewhere in scripture and from my own experience, so I find this passage really difficult. I think the difficulty of reconciling these scenes of violence with the Lord who is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love” is why so many of us avoid Revelation as much as we can. But let's lean into the difficulty and discomfort and see if we can push through them into something else. I don’t have answers, only suggestions, but I wonder if what we are meant to find in these chapters is a reassurance that the lamb has already won the victory, so we can be sure that all of this death and disaster is only a passing thing. It seems that it is authorised by God, but maybe what we are to understand is that it does not undermine the authority of God, or threaten the image of worship in the throne room that we are still holding onto from chapter five.
And I think there is another way we can approach this, because there is something about the breaking of these seals and the unleashing of these horrors that feels a lot like judgement, but we might ask if they are punishments or consequences. The four horsemen feel like very human figures, certainly when compared to some of the creatures we meet elsewhere in Revelation. The colours of some of the horses are a bit off, but there's no mention of extra eyes or horns, and they are given recognisable tools like a bow and a set of scales. And most of what happens following the breaking of the sixth seal can be explained as a natural disaster, perhaps exacerbated by human action. Darrell Johnson suggests that what we see in this sixth chapter is that “God simply takes his hands off and the cosmos collapses in on itself...this is what the wrath of God is...finally letting us have our own way”. It is not God that gives authority to the riders or decides the martyrs must be killed or destroys the earth but us, and what this vision shows us is the ultimate consequence of our decisions. We are being shown the truth of what we have done to the world. It is a sobering thought.
The first six seals have been opened and now we have a kind of interlude. It's a bit like opening another door or pulling back another curtain or going down another level to reveal another reality. John hears that 144000 are marked with the seal of God, 12000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. There are some who take this number literally, but it is important to understand that numbers in Revelation are symbolic. Twelve had special meaning because it was the number of the tribes of Israel, while one thousand seems to be shorthand for ‘lots’, and so I think we are to understand the 144000 simply as a big number that represents the people of God. And I say ‘the people of God' rather than Israel because when John lists the twelve tribes, it is not the list we are used to from elsewhere in the scriptures. He puts Judah first instead of Reuben, and replaces Dan with Manasseh, which suggests that what is being described is not the historic Israel, although neither does that mean Israel is rejected. What I think is implied here is that the traditional understanding of the people of God is shifting and widening.
And that continues through this chapter, as again we have to pay attention to the difference between what is heard and what is seen. John hears that the 144000 are sealed but he sees a great multitude that none can count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, all worshipping God. John is told that they have come out of the great tribulation, and that “never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst...God will wipe away every tear from their eyes”. The people of God has expanded even further, so far that we might even see here a hint towards some form of universalism. So why the distinction between what is seen and what is heard? Why not go straight to the multitude? Perhaps the 144000 are the church who must be marked by God in order to witness to the multitude. Or perhaps the intention is to make us think again about what we think we know, about who is in and who is out.
We're drawing to a close now, as chapter eight begins with the opening of the seventh and final seal. We may expect more chaos, but instead there is half an hour of silence in heaven. Perhaps this is simply the hush before the next storm, but an angel takes a great quantity of incense and mixes it “with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne [so that] the smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand”. The prayers of the people ascend, so are we to think that this silence is because all of heaven stops to listen? Maybe. I am not going to suggest half an hour of silence now, but I do want to offer just a few moments of quiet in which our thoughts might settle and our own prayers ascend.
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