THE FIRST SEAL

Revelation Chapter 6

VERSE 1 and 2 “Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, “Come and see. And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.”

The traditional view held by the majority in the nominal or professing church is that the seven seals and the seven trumpets picture events that are going to take place at the end of the age. With this in mind they believe that the four horsemen pictured in the first four seals will play a part in the final battle of Armageddon.

We however do not hold with that conclusion, but find that similar to the seven churches, the vision of the seven seals is intended to show the course of history that started during the early church, and then reached to the end of the Gospel age. We see that the churches, seals, and trumpets all run simultaneously one with another, viz., the first church, first seal, and first trumpet, present the first stage or history of the church, then follows the second church, second seal and second trumpet representing the history of the second stage of the church, and so on and so forth with the other five until we reach the end of the age. As such they are all giving us different prophetic views of the history of the Gospel age.

As we stated earlier in this study Bible Students somewhat differ on their interpretation of the first seal, with some believing it is a picture of the first stage of the church with our Lord and the Church riding the white horse, which pictures the purity of the doctrine at that time, while others (including myself) admit that while the white horse represent the first stage and the pure doctrine at that time, we question whether or not it’s our Lord riding the horse at this time or someone else.

“As we look at the history of the seven periods of the churches, we see a steady decline away from the Lord and the truth. Which is described elsewhere in the bible, as the great falling away that was to come.

“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition.” (2 Thess 2:3)

The decline started very early, because even by the end of the first church they were being told that they had left their first love, (Rev 2:5). Many in the church were already beginning to lose the simplicity and the beauty of the truth even during the time of the Apostles. After the Apostles fell asleep the situation became much worse, very quickly, since they weren’t there to keep the decline from happening. By the time of the fourth church, we see that the iniquity had reached its greatest height. As we will see later the Lord stepped in after the fourth church, and began to gradually wear the power of the false church system down, preparing for the harvest at the end of the age.”

“The opening of the first four seals, are introduced by each of the four living creatures, in turn. Each one of the four creatures reveals a different horseman, and what each one was doing. All of the problems caused by the first three horsemen are summed up by the fourth, which has all of the previous problems still in his church! Between the sixth and the seventh seals, as well as in the trumpets, more information is inserted in a parenthesis, to give us more detail on what has been happening during the gospel age.”

The fourth rider is obviously bad, as we see death and Hades following him, as well as the fact that he is given the power to kill 1/4 of the earth. The interpretation of the fourth seal helps us to see the correct application of the first three seals, since the fourth had all of the same problems the first three riders had, such as killing with the sword, famine, pestilence. That he was killing with the wild beasts, as well as the other items, and that he had authority over the earth, pointed us right back to the first seal and the rider riding out to conquer! The second had the sword and in the fourth we see it being misused. In the third we find a description that makes us think of famine and again the fourth horseman is killing with this famine and pestilence. Since the fourth was obviously bad, we could then conclude, without a doubt that the first three seals were also bad.

So that this point is not missed, we are again going to repeat it.

The fourth horse sums up and continues the destructive work of the other three i.e., killing by (1) sword, (2) famine, (3) death and Hades and by (4) the wild beasts of the earth. The misuse of power in the time of the fourth church is what we see represented by the beasts of the earth (civil powers), that Papacy was controlling by the time of the fourth church!

This bad situation did not occur over night, but it came about gradually over the course of the history of the previous three churches. The rider had ridden out to conquer and had eventually taken control over 1/4 of the earth. The ones who were called Nicolaitans in the first church, had by the time of the fourth, taken complete control of the church and the known Roman world, through the misuse of civil and ecclesiastical power.” (Revelation Notes Southern Wisconsin, edited)

We will continue with our look at the first seal in our next post.