Revelation 6

Today’s Passage: Revelation 6

You have just come from the throne room, where every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth fell down and sang that the Lamb who was slain is worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals. Keep that singing in your ears, because now the seals begin to break, and what comes out from under them is hard. Six of the seven are opened in this chapter. The first four bring riders on horses, each summoned by a living creature with a single word, and each granted a specific and limited authority: a rider with a bow who goes out to conquer, a rider on a bright red horse who takes peace from the earth, a rider on a black horse holding scales while a voice calls out the price of bread, and a rider named Death with Hades following behind him. Then the pattern breaks. The fifth seal opens on no horse at all but on an altar, and under the altar are the souls of those who were killed for the word of God, and they are praying. Their prayer is a question, and it is the oldest question the suffering church knows how to ask. The sixth seal shakes the sky itself, and the mighty of the earth, who have never in their lives had anything to fear, run for the caves and beg the rocks to bury them. The chapter closes on a question that nobody in it can answer. Read it slowly. And whatever else you do, keep your eye fixed on whose hand is doing the opening.

As you read, hold this: Every seal is opened by the Lamb Himself, so that not one rider of ruin moves without His word, and the ancient cry of how long is answered not with a date but with a white robe and the promise that God is keeping count.

Revelation 6:1–6 (BSB)

¹ Then I watched as the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” ² So I looked and saw a white horse, and its rider held a bow. And he was given a crown, and he rode out to overcome and conquer. ³ And when the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” ⁴ Then another horse went forth. It was bright red, and its rider was granted permission to take away peace from the earth and to make men slay one another. And he was given a great sword. ⁵ And when the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” Then I looked and saw a black horse, and its rider held in his hand a pair of scales. ⁶ And I heard what sounded like a voice from among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine.”

Before you look at a single horse, look at the hand on the scroll. The Lamb opened. That is the first thing John says, and he will say it again at the second seal and the third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth, patiently, like a man tapping his finger on a table so that you will not miss it. Every one of these riders comes out from under a seal that the Lamb Himself has broken. Nothing here has slipped its leash. Nothing here is loose in the world, running wild while heaven wrings its hands. The world often looks to us like a place where conquest and war and hunger and death do as they please, and there are seasons when a believer will feel that in his bones. But the vision John was given puts a slain and risen Lamb at the center of the throne with the scroll in His hands, and it is His hand, and no other, that opens what opens. That does not make any of this less terrible. It makes it not meaningless. Hold the two together, because the whole chapter depends on it.

Then hear the summons. One of the four living creatures, those great worshiping beings around the throne, says in a voice like thunder, “Come!” The riders are called. They do not gate-crash heaven’s scroll; they are summoned out of it. And notice the string of little passive verbs that runs through the four seals like a stitch: the first rider was given a crown, the second was granted permission, the second was given a great sword, the fourth pair were given authority over a fourth of the earth. Given by whom? The text does not say, and it does not need to. In the Bible that quiet passive is a way of speaking about God without speaking His name into an ugly sentence. Every scrap of authority these riders hold is on loan, measured out, and revocable. This is the deepest comfort in a frightening chapter, and it is not a small one.

Now the riders, and here I must be careful with you, because this is exactly the place where readers reach for a chart. The first rider has been read in three main ways by Christians who love this book. Some see Christ Himself or the gospel going out in conquest, since white is heaven’s color in Revelation and a rider on a white horse appears again at the end of the book. Others see plain human conquest, the war of ambition, standing at the head of a list that runs on into war, famine and death. Others see a counterfeit, a deceiving power that imitates Christ closely enough to ride a white horse and wear a crown that was handed to it. Careful, prayerful believers hold each of these. Scripture does not settle it here, and this study will not settle it for you, and I would ask you not to settle it against your brother. What the text does say is plain enough to preach: he holds a bow, he is given a crown, and he rides out to conquer. Conquest opens the sequence, because conquest is where so much human misery begins.

The second and third follow as they always follow. Peace is taken away from the earth and men slay one another, which is a bleak and honest description of what our race does when restraint is lifted. Then the black horse, and the scales, and a voice from among the living creatures fixing the price of bread. It is worth noticing that even here a voice from the throne is setting the terms. The famine is not unlimited. And that strange word of restraint at the end, “do not harm the oil and wine,” is a limit as well, however bitter its edge. Judgment in this book is never total and never final until God says it is. There is always a boundary drawn around it, and the boundary is drawn from the throne.

Revelation 6:7–11 (BSB)

⁷ And when the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” ⁸ Then I looked and saw a pale green horse. Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed close behind. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by sword, by famine, by plague, and by the beasts of the earth. ⁹ And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld. ¹⁰ And they cried out in a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge those who dwell upon the earth and avenge our blood?” ¹¹ Then each of them was given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers, were killed, just as they had been killed.

The fourth horse is the color of a corpse, and for the first time the rider is named. Death rides, and Hades, the realm of the dead, comes on close behind him like a cart behind a horse, gathering what falls. It is the grimmest picture in the chapter, and John does not decorate it. Their weapons are the four old judgments the prophets knew by heart, and Ezekiel names them in the same order that John’s vision uses:

"For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?" Ezekiel 14:21 (BSB)

But do not miss the measurement. Authority over a fourth of the earth. Not the whole. Even Death, riding at the head of the four, rides on a short chain. He is not sovereign, he is not unlimited, and he is not the last word in this book, because the One holding the scroll has already been dead and is alive forever and holds the keys of Death and Hades in His own hand. Say that out loud to yourself when this chapter presses on you.

And then the fifth seal opens, and everything changes. No horse. No rider. No thunder. John looks and sees an altar, and under the altar, in the place where the blood of the sacrifices was poured out, are the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony (μαρτυρία) martyria, pronounced mar-tyr-EE-ah. Strong's G3141, testimony, witness, evidence given. The word is martyria, and it is the ordinary Greek word for the evidence a witness gives in court. It meant the sworn statement of someone who had seen a thing with his own eyes and would say so under oath, whatever it cost him. John uses this word and its family more than any other writer in the New Testament, and Revelation is soaked in it: John bears witness, Jesus is called the faithful witness, Antipas is called God’s faithful witness, and here the souls under the altar are those who held on to the testimony. Then history did something to this word. Because so many of the people who gave that testimony were killed for giving it, the Greek word for a witness quietly became our English word martyr, and it now means one who dies for what he believes. That shift is not a change of meaning so much as a record of what happened. Understand what it asks of you. Being a witness is not primarily about dying; it is about telling the truth you have seen about Jesus Christ, plainly, in a world that would rather you did not. Most of us will never be asked for our blood. All of us are asked for our testimony. The word is the same word. they had upheld. Take that in. The people who were killed are in heaven, conscious, awake, speaking, and their place is beneath the altar of God, which is to say their deaths are counted by heaven as an offering poured out to Him. The world saw a wasted life and an ugly end. Heaven sees a sacrifice at the altar. Nothing that any believer has ever suffered for the sake of Christ has been mislaid or misfiled. It is all at the altar, and God knows where it is.

Now listen to what they say, because this is the pastoral heart of the chapter and it deserves to be handled gently. “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge those who dwell upon the earth and avenge our blood?” That is not a complaint against God. It is a prayer addressed to Him by name and by character, calling Him holy and true, which is to say: You are righteous and You keep Your word, so how can this go on? It is the oldest prayer of the suffering church and it did not begin at that altar. The psalms are full of it, and God saw fit to put those prayers in His own book so that His people would know they are allowed to pray them.

"For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I wrestle in my soul, with sorrow in my heart each day? How long will my enemy dominate me?" Psalm 13:1–2 (BSB)

If you have ever prayed that prayer, over a sickness that will not lift, over a wrong nobody ever answered for, over a church under pressure in a country you will never visit, then you have prayed with the saints under the altar. And now see how heaven answers, because the answer is remarkable for what it does not contain. There is no date. There is no timetable. There is no chart. There are two things: a robe and a word. “Then each of them was given a white robe and told to rest (ἀναπαύω) anapauō, pronounced ah-nah-POW-oh. Strong's G373, to give rest, to refresh, to let one catch his breath. Anapauō is a warm and homely word. It is what you do when the load comes off your shoulders and you sit down: to refresh, to give rest, to let someone catch his breath. Jesus used it in the sentence that has probably carried more weary people than any other He spoke, when He said, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Paul uses it of friends who refreshed his spirit when he was worn thin. It is not the word for sleeping through something; it is the word for the deep ease of someone whose work is finished and who is safe. That is what heaven says to the martyrs. Not hurry, not hold on a little longer and see if you make it, but rest. Their fighting is over. Their case is not lost and not forgotten; it is filed with the Judge of all the earth, and while it waits they are clothed in white and at rest in His presence. There is enormous comfort here for anyone still waiting for an answer God has not yet given. The waiting is not idleness and it is not abandonment. He gives His people rest inside the wait, and He is under no obligation to give us the date. a little while longer.” God does not hand His waiting people a schedule. He hands them a garment of vindication and tells them to be at peace.

Then comes the reason for the delay, and it is a sentence that will bruise you if you read it honestly: they are to rest “until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers, were killed, just as they had been killed.” God is keeping count. There is a number known to Him, and He is not indifferent to it, and He will not be one short. That means the delay is not neglect and it is not weakness. It is patience, and patience with a purpose, because every day that judgment holds off is another day in which people who are presently far from God are still being called home.

"The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9 (BSB)

Sit with that a moment. The very slowness that makes the martyrs cry out is the same slowness that saved most of us. If God had answered that prayer on the day it was first prayed, where would you and I be?

Revelation 6:12–17 (BSB)

¹² And I watched as the Lamb opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red, ¹³ and the stars of the sky fell to the earth like unripe figs dropping from a tree shaken by a great wind. ¹⁴ The sky receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place. ¹⁵ Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the commanders, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. ¹⁶ And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. ¹⁷ For the great day of Their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?”

The sixth seal takes hold of the things people assume can never move. The ground under your feet, the sun in the sky, the moon, the stars, the horizon itself, the mountains that have stood since before your grandfather’s grandfather: all of them shift. The sun goes black like the coarse dark cloth of a mourner’s sackcloth. The moon turns the color of blood. The stars come down the way a fig tree drops its small green unripe fruit when a hard wind gets into the branches, which is a homely picture and all the more unsettling for it. The sky itself rolls back like a scroll being wound up and put away. This is the settled language of the prophets for the day of the LORD, and John’s readers would have heard Joel and Isaiah in every line of it.

"The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD." Joel 2:31 (BSB)

I want to keep this sober, because this is precisely the sort of passage that gets used to thrill people, and John is not thrilling anybody. He is describing the day when the created order gets out of the way so that the Creator can be seen. Everything a human being uses to steady himself is taken out of his hands at once. And that is exactly what verse fifteen goes on to show.

Look at the list of the people. Kings. Nobles. Commanders of armies. The rich. The mighty. And then, at the end, “every slave and free man.” John names seven ranks, from the very top of the ladder to the very bottom, which is his way of saying every last one, with nobody left out. The whole social order of the ancient world, the thing men schemed and flattered and murdered to climb, is flattened in half a sentence. On that day a crown will not help a man and neither will a fortune, and the poorest slave stands on precisely the same ground as the emperor. And what do they all do? They run for the caves. Isaiah saw them run.

"Men will flee to caves in the rocks and holes in the ground, away from the terror of the LORD and from the splendor of His majesty, when He rises to shake the earth." Isaiah 2:19 (BSB)

And then they say the most desperate thing in the chapter. They ask the mountains to fall on them. Understand what that means. They would rather be crushed under a mountain than be looked at by God. They are not asking to be spared; they are asking to be hidden, and they choose annihilation over the face of the One seated on the throne. That is what sin does to a soul left to itself. It does not make a man want to be destroyed, exactly. It makes him want, above all things, not to be seen. And notice that they name Him correctly. They know whose face it is. There is no atheism in that verse. What they lack is not information, and this is worth thinking about slowly, because a great deal of unbelief in this world is not really a shortage of evidence at all.

Then the phrase that stops you: “the wrath (ὀργή) orgē, pronounced or-GAY. Strong's G3709, settled anger, wrath, deliberate opposition to evil. Orgē is not a flash of temper. Greek had another word for the sudden blaze that flares and dies; orgē is the settled, deliberate disposition of a will set against something. Used of men it usually needs curbing, because our anger is tangled up with pride and impatience and wounded vanity, which is why James says the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Used of God it is something else entirely. It is holiness with its eyes open, the steady and unhurried opposition of a perfectly good God to everything that ruins what He has made. Take it away and you have not made God kinder; you have made Him indifferent, and a God who could look at cruelty and the blood of the innocent and feel nothing would not be worth worshiping. The wonder of the gospel is not that God’s wrath is small. It is that the Lamb whose wrath this is went to a cross and drank it down to the bottom on behalf of everyone who would trust Him, so that this same orgē, this settled opposition of God to evil, fell on Him instead of on us. That is why the same book can show you the wrath of the Lamb and the blood of the Lamb, and mean both with all its heart. of the Lamb.” Put those two words side by side and let them sit there. The Lamb is the gentlest picture in Scripture, and in this very book He is the slain one, the one who was killed and did not fight back, whose blood purchased people for God from every tribe and tongue. And it is His wrath they are hiding from. Then look at the next verse and see who is on that throne: “the great day of Their wrath.” Their. The One seated on the throne and the Lamb, together, one wrath between them. There is no higher statement of who Jesus Christ is than that, and this book makes it without blinking.

And the chapter ends on a question. “For the great day of Their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?” John does not answer it. He lets it hang there in the silence, asked by terrified men in a cave, and then he closes the scene. I am not going to hurry you past it either, because the question is meant to be felt before it is answered. Who is able to stand? Not the kings, and not the commanders, and not the rich, and not one of us on our own account. Let the question stand where John left it standing, and carry it with you into the next chapter, because heaven has an answer and it is not the one those men in the caves would have guessed.