The hands of Jesus – imagine them. What a precious picture this should be for us. See the nail-scarred hands of the Son and see all things as being in those hands.
This is the whole point of what we read about in Revelation 5 and 6.
The Lamb of God took hold of the scroll with its seals. He can do so because He knows the world we live in. He came as the Son of Man to experience what depravity had done to His Creation on earth.
In Genesis 6, the Lord became grief-stricken. That’s the only way to look at how the ways of men on earth affected Him who made them.
Man was made free. Blessed, he was, with a mind and a heart and the ability to reason, to compare, and to choose. The world fashioned for him was full of diversity. The Garden he was to dress and keep was populated with a variety of trees – including the one of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Over the course of time the imaginations of man grew to be more and more given to vanity; they were only evil continually. And so the Lord chose the course of the Flood. A total cleansing with water wiped away all that breathed upon earth. Only those on the Ark, a vessel built in obedience by Noah and his family, survived the waves of judgment.
Jesus came and faced a world that still lived under the power of wicked one and hell’s activities. He submitted to the reign of men in the Temple, representing religion, and before the chair of Roman justice, representing human government. Their imaginations and actions were only evil continually – these combined forces sent the innocent Christ to the Cross.
At Calvary, a flood of different kind spilled forth. The pouring out of the Son’s precious Blood answered the dominion of sin. This efficacious flow cleanses those who choose to come under it making them whiter than snow.
Triumphing over the evil machinations of mankind in His incarnation, the Lamb who was slain now stood ready to reveal the last words on evil. He was about to unwrap the progression of history.
The Progression of Conflict
Each seal opened introduces an element of how conflict operates in our spheres of life. This was set in motion when the fruit of the Tree was taken, that original moment when men believed the mouth that spoke accusation. The charge leveled against the Lord was that He was keeping people from real happiness.
They bought it; they received the accusation and ate from the forbidden tree. The serpent won this battle, but the man and the woman did not join forces with him. Instead, they became like the eater of the dust, destined for a ground-level existence of independent detachment from their Maker. They brought themselves low and began to live for themselves and not for God.
The serpent had nothing left to say to them. He was silent as the man and woman wrestled with feelings of shame. They were tortured at the sight of their nakedness. The coldness of sin was evident to them at once. They hid. They covered up.
The Voice of Heaven still walked onto humanity’s first crime scene. He came not to conduct an investigation. He knew what had happened. He knew and yet He would not keep Himself away.
God came after Adam and Eve. His cry, “Where are you?” was a cry of anguish. He understood what their choice meant regarding their capability for fellowship in His Presence. He knew He would be ushering them out of the Garden and setting cherubim with swords to guard its gates.
Does it bother you to think that the Lord feels the sting of death as much as we do? This, I think, could be the main reason why people have such a distorted opinion of God.
There is a gross misunderstanding of how the Lord made us for relationship with Him. The pleasure of this relationship He would have to redeem. His prized creatures had made themselves slaves to their desires. The lust of the flesh, first stimulated through an offer to the intellect, flamed forth and left them burned.
The celebration we read about in Revelation 5 marks the moment when Heaven realizes the Day of the Lord is closer than ever. The elders, the angels, and all creatures, aware and in tune with God, cannot help themselves. They are so excited for what comes next.
Jesus begins to unseal the stories that lead to the big finish. The pages we turn will bring us to the marriage supper of the Lamb, to the coming of the New Jerusalem.
What of wickedness? The Lord lets us in on its destiny.
Horses and Riders
The first seals – four of them – introduce us to four horses. This animal represents warfare. Since the Fall in the Garden, a battle has raged. Constant conflict has plagued the face of the earth and the faces of men.
Seal 1 shows the white horse carrying the ultimate Conqueror. This horse and He who sits upon it is Christ. First things must be communicated first. The Son is crowned. With His bow, He fires the arrows of the Almighty, as David wrote of in Psalm 45:5 — “Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; the peoples fall under you.”
Some see this white horse picture of one depicting the antichrist with his fiery darts. I cannot buy that interpretation given the contexts shown in the previous chapters with Christ in His sovereignty.
The next three seals show us more horses – one red, one black, and one pale green. These beasts stand for the things that bring the most death and destruction to earth.
Red is for the war horse. Note the text: the rider possessed a great sword representing power to “take peace from the earth” and usher in a season of mass killing.
The black horse and its rider indicate the ravages of famine to come. The fruitfulness of the earth withered and wasted, the sounds of starving voices pleading for meager rations of wheat and barley. Luxuries will still exist in the form of oil and wine, but basic necessities to make bread for sustenance are absent.
The pale green horse points to the sicknesses unto death. We’ve witnessed this on a small scale. COVID-19 was the most recent example of a worldwide pandemic. We saw how this panicked people on every level of society. Life was shut down. Strange and unreasonable laws were instituted. Science was proclaimed as the rule for life.
Hell and Death, when set loose, are voracious in their appetites for destruction. A fourth of the earth perishes during the marching of these horses.
Judgment in Motion
Heaven knows what’s going on. The fifth seal brings us back to the throne room and to a vision of the martyrs and their prayers. Their testimony for Christ and His Word made them enemies of the world system. These were slain for their faith and are joined together with the elders I believe. They are robed and they are heard: “They cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ (Revelation 6:10).
Rest for a little season, the Lord tells them. More are coming – fellow servants, brothers and sisters yet to lose their lives for the testimony of faith in the Son.
Seal No. 6 unveils for John the way of the wrath of the Lamb. That statement is difficult to fathom. Lambs have no claws, no sharp teeth. How does the Lamb express wrath?
See these words: “And the Heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled up” (Revelation 6:14). Truth has been proclaimed and rejected. The consequences of the curse of death must proceed.
There is only one Name under Heaven by which men might be saved – the Name of Christ (see Acts 4:12). To refuse that Name is to remain subject to the wrath decreed in the Word that never fails.
Heaven draws down the shade and releases the hold of mercy. Earthquakes and darkness prevail. The sky appears to fall as demonic forces are driven down. Those in charge, the rulers among men, scramble for places of safety. And yet these ones will still refuse to honor the One who made them.
The great judgment day of the Holy and True One shall come. “And who shall be able to stand?”
We stand because we have put our faith in Him. We anticipate the hope of His glory. A free, clean, holy eternal age will be ours to enjoy. Like Job, we declare this: “…I know that my redeemer lives, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth” (Job 19:25).