Sermon Tone Analysis

Revelation 6

Summary

Revelation 6 introduces the reader to the unsealing of the scroll of Revelation 5.

The first such act unleashes the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

A variety of Old Testament passages and images are involved in the ensuing description of the terrible events that follow.

In this episode, we look again at John’s use of the Old Testament to describe God’s eschatological judgment on the world.

Introduction

Okay.

And the good news, we should add, is that we’re actually going to get through Revelation 6 in one episode!

So there’s no two, three, four, ad infinitum parts to this.

And I judge these things by, “Okay, since the series is about John’s Use of the Old Testament in Revelation, how much Old Testament stuff’s going on the passage?

Can I get through that in one pass or not?”

So that’s how we judge these things.

And in this case, yeah, we can.

Some of these things are going to be familiar from chapter 5.

But the new stuff put in here we’re going to be able to do it.

So I’m going to read to start off here the first eight verses (Revelation 6:1-8), and that’ll get us into what we need to do, at least as far as our beginning point, just to refresh everybody’s memory.

So that’s the first eight verses.

Obviously, there are some familiar things here.

We’ve got the Lamb.

We’ve got the living creatures (these cherubim sort of figures from earlier in Revelation 4 and 5).

We’ve got the reference to Death and Hades (again, this is back in Revelation 1 and Revelation 3).

So there are a few familiar things here, but there’s going to be at least one case where we’re going to note kind of a bit of a twist in what John is getting us to think about.

The Lamb Opened One of the Seals

But let’s just start with the obvious: “the Lamb opened one of the seals” in the first verse.

Now Aune in his commentary observes something kind of obvious at the beginning here.

He says:

Since it is obviously very difficult to imagine a lamb opening a sealed scroll [ like how would he do that without fingers and thumbs?],

It is possible that the figure of the Lamb has subsequently been superimposed on an originally anthropomorphic figure… The group of four visions in 6:1–8 is structured by using the four cherubim, each of whom summons one of the four horsemen, which afflict the world with a variety of plagues.

Now this raises an interesting (but to be honest with you, it’s not terribly important) point, about when John describes the Lamb, is he actually looking at a lamb?

Or is he using the word “lamb” to describe Jesus?

Like “I looked… and a Lamb that was slain, and he’s standing before God.”

This is Revelation 5 language.

I mean, it is possible (I would agree with Aune) that what John’s actually looking at is Jesus.

But he uses the language of “the Lamb” because John does that elsewhere.

If we have the same author here as in Gospel (and we sort of presume that), we have references to Jesus as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

When John says that in John 1 at the Jordan there while he’s baptizing, “Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world,” okay, obviously he’s referencing to Jesus.

And it’s equally as obvious it’s not a vision.

I mean, that’s a real-time, boots-on-the-ground event.

But it does create this question, especially when the “Lamb” is doing things that in this case require fingers and thumbs, at least you would think that that’s what’s going on here.

How else do you open a sealed scroll?

Maybe the Lamb just looked at it?

Who knows?

We’re not told.

But it at least opens the door, and commentators have gone back and forth, like, “Okay, what’s John actually looking at?”

And as I just read in the Aune quote, maybe the figure of the Lamb has been subsequently superimposed on an originally anthropomorphic figure.

The ultimate answer is “who knows?”

Because all we do have is the verbiage (the vocabulary).

We have things that seem incongruent with the vocabulary.

But hey, it’s an apocalyptic vision.

Kind of like the way dreams don’t need to really conform to reality as we experience it.

Alright.

So an apocalyptic vision may not need these sort of niceties either.

But I thought I’d mention it because it is part of the discussion.

Again, I don't think it’s terribly important either way.

But just… We run into it right away.

Now Beale, when he opens his discussion of the chapter, he writes this.

It’s similar, but a few differences here:

Rev. 6:1–8 is intended to show that Christ rules over such an apparently chaotic world and that suffering does not occur indiscriminately or by chance.

That’s actually going to be a fairly important thought.

Because who holds the keys to Death and Hades?

That would be Jesus.

That would be the risen Christ.

Again, we’ve had that in a previous episode.

So keep that in the back of your mind, and we’ll get back to it.

Beale writes:

This section reveals, in fact, that destructive events are brought about by Christ for both redemptive and judicial purposes… The command for each of the four destructive horses and riders originates from the throne room, where Christ

i.e., the Lamb] opens each seal.

The cherubim around the throne issue commands to the horseman in response to the opening of each seal.

Only then do the horsemen wreak their havoc.

So what Beale is doing here is he’s linking the release of the apocalypse to the command (by virtue of the opening of the seals) of the Lamb.

Jesus is the one that launches the war here.

That’s the bottom line.

Okay?

We don’t often think of Jesus this way.

We don’t think of the Lamb like this, frankly.

And if you remember back in chapter 5 when we talked about the Lamb, the imagery works two ways.

We think of a lamb as being cute and harmless and skipping around in the field.

We think of the ewe lamb from the parable with Nathan and David, and how pathetic that is, and so on and so forth.

And the lamb was a sacrificial victim in Old Testament (Jewish) culture.

But lamb imagery was also used of the gods and of rule, and of power, and of might.

So there are two sides to the metaphor.

And here very obviously we’re not seeing the passive victim side.

We’re seeing the other side.

Now other scholars have noted as they proceed through this that the most obvious Old Testament source for these first eight verses is Zechariah 6:1–8.

So I’m going to read that.

Because once I read through it, you’ll see that this is where the obvious points of connect are.

Not the only ones, but this is the most obvious.

So this is a bit more obscure (if I can use that word).

I mean, how can anything be more obscure than the book of Revelation?

Well, let’s try Zechariah on for size.

We’ve seen John repurpose passages in Zechariah already, and here he is again.

Virtually all Old Testament scholars acknowledge some relationship between the four horses of Zechariah 6 (or the four chariots—teams of horses)… So they’re going to look at those four chariot teams and they’re going to link them back to the teams of horses in Zechariah 1.

Thinking Steps

So the steps go this way: “I’m reading Revelation 6.

That takes my mind back to Zechariah 6.

And the precedent for Zechariah 6 was Zechariah 1, because there are also chariot teams of horses there.”

The problem is, well, all Old Testament scholars are going to notice these things.

And again, New Testament scholars are going to notice these things too, because the references at least on the surface are pretty obvious.

The question is, “What’s the nature of the relationship between Revelation 6, Zechariah 6, and of course, looping in Zechariah 1?”