What are the seven seals of Revelation?

He takes the book and opens the seals one after the other. What a revelation it is, beginning with the sixth chapter. At the opening of the first four seals each of the living creatures calls, "Come." It seems to suggest that as Christ was rejected, He now sends the appropriate judgment. The first seal gives us the white horse, the cloud, and the bow, which signifies universal conquest on the part of some mighty hero in the last days. They would not have the Lamb, the true King, and they get one who suggests the beast, of the thirteenth chapter. The second is another, a red horse, signifying the carnage and bloodshed. As they would not have the peaceful ox, Christ as in Mark, now peace is taken from the earth. In the third, you have famine, the man on the black horse holding the balances. They refused the Man who would have fed them from the Father's house of plenty, as in Luke. Finally, in the fourth seal, you have that awful death and hades on the livid horse. They refused the eternal life, as in John, and now life is taken from those who dwell upon the earth.

In the seven seals of Revelation we have, The emblem of the false Christ having great power and success. War — peace taken from the earth. Famine. Death, and hell following. Souls under the altar crying for vengeance, for being killed for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. The sun black, the moon red, stars falling, and the heavens departing. Silence in heaven, voices, lightnings, and an earthquake, connected, as I believe, with our Lord's personal return to the earth with His mighty angels, in flaming fire.

The first four seals reveal one who goes forth "conquering, and to conquer," followed by general war, peace taken from the earth, and great slaughter, resulting in terrible famine, and still later in widespread destruction and desolation, figured by the power given to Death and Hades "over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." The fifth seal shows the souls of those who have been persecuted to death "for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held." The sixth is followed by an earthquake, in which "the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casts her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind; and the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together," and kings and people hide themselves "in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains," that they may escape "from the face of Him that sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of His wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?"(Rev. 6.)

Next we come to the opening of the Seals. Revelation 6 has a character of completeness about it, with this only exception, that the seventh Seal is the introduction to the Trumpets in the beginning of Rev. 8. This does not call for many words. The Seals open to us God's preparatory steps, but in this fixed order, and springing from natural causes. They were secret, and they needed to be opened. "And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as a voice of thunder, Come. And I saw; and, behold, a white horse, and he that sat upon it having a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he came forth conquering and that he might conquer. And when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, Come. And another, a red horse, came forth; and to him that sat upon it, to him it was given to take peace from the earth, and that they should slay one another; and there was given to him a great sword. And when he opened the third seal, I heard the living creature saying, Come. And I saw, and, behold, a black horse, and he that sat upon it having a balance in his hand. And I heard as a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, A choenix of wheat for a denary, and three choenixes of barley for a denary; and the oil and the wine injure not. And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the fourth living creature saying, Come. And I saw, and, behold, a pale horse, and he that sat upon it, his name death, and hades followed with him; and authority was given to them over the fourth of the earth to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and by the beasts of the earth."

Surely it is plain enough that we ought not to have here, and after the other three horses, the words "And see." They are wanting in the best text* for all these passages. In every one of the cases the sentence ought only to be "Come." The difference comes to this, that "Come and see" would be addressed to John; whereas according to the better MSS. "Come" is addressed by the living creature to the rider upon the horse. Clearly this makes all possible difference. It is not the elders here; but one of the living creatures steps forward when the first Seal is opened, and says, Come; and at once comes forth a rider upon a white horse, etc. An elder explains as to Christ, or those that are His if liable to be misunderstood; a living creature acts from God for events in His providence. Let us inquire into the force of each Seal severally; but before we do, may we not notice the strange fancy that one of the living creatures saying "as a voice of thunder" could be a cry to the Lord Jesus to come? Not only would it be wholly incongruous with these cherubs, but quite out of harmony with the context.

The first seal (6:1-2) 2. The second seal (6:3-4) 3. The third seal (6:5-6) 4. The fourth seal (6:7-8) 5. The fifth seal (6:9-11) 6. The sixth seal (6:12-17) 7. Parenthesis: The remnant of Israel (7:1-8) 8. The saved multitude (7:9-17) 9. The seventh seal (8:1-5)

As usual in the septenaries of the Revelation, the first four have a common bond, which the remaining three do not share, though they too are connected, each following in due order as the Seals were broken successively. When the Lamb opened the fifth Seal, the prophet saw, not another horse and its rider, but the souls of martyrs for God's word and their testimony "underneath the altar," i.e. as if offered in sacrifice for the truth; approved of God now, but awaiting, for the time of public vindication, the completion of a further band of brethren who should be killed as they were.

The providential history of God's dealings in the Western Roman earth is given. Then the martyrs are seen, and cry for judgment; and there is a universal subversion of the subsisting powers, so that men are alarmed as if the day of the Lord were come (chap. 6).

The first four seals usher in judgments, which, however severe, are not out of the ordinary course of human events — conquest, bloody wars, famine, and widespread devastation and disease. The fifth shows persecution to be raging, and a prayer for judgment rises up from the souls of the martyred saints, which clearly indicates that the day of grace is over and the day of retribution begun. On the opening of the sixth seal there is, us if in answer to this prayer, a general shaking of the powers of the earth, and universal consternation at the prospect of the wrath which is thought to be immediately impending. All this corresponds with the famines and wars, persecutions and pestilences, foretold in our Lord's discourse as "the beginning of sorrows.

All the activities indicated in these verses are oppressive and destructive: human activities, and yet called forth as retributive judgment under Divine control. They remind us of what the Lord Himself called, "the beginnings of sorrows" (Mark 13:8). Then the next verse in Mark 13 speaks of the persecution of those who will be witnesses for God in those days; and similarly, the fifth seal follows here. It is opened by the Lamb as before, but no "Come" is uttered, for it only revealed to John the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God. The movements under the four seals, which meant oppression and misery for men generally, had meant persecution and death for these, and their souls cried out for vengeance. They had to wait, however. They had fallen under these beginnings of sorrows and other martyrs were to follow. Vengeance on their adversaries and the full vindication of themselves would not take place until the end of God's ways was reached. But meanwhile they were given a more secret token of approval, symbolized by the white robes.

It has been generally recognised that these first four judgments correspond to those which the Lord speaks of as "the beginning of sorrows." When telling His disciples of the future judgments coming upon the prophetic earth, He speaks first of "wars and rumours of wars," then of internecine warfare — "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;" thirdly, the Lord foretells famines, and finally pestilence (Matt. 24:6-8).