Revelation 6, The Book Is Open

ANALYSIS OF THE CHAPTER

The sixth chapter of Revelation contains an account of the opening of six of the seven seals. It need not be said to anyone who is at all familiar with the numerous--not to say numberless--expositions or interpretation of the Apocalypse that it is at this point that interpreters begin to differ. Here the interpretations commence the divergence towards those various, discordant, and many of them wild and fantastic theories, which have emerged in the exposition of this wonderful book.  What makes the different interpretations stand out is they all proclaim to carry the Seal of God. 

Up to this point, though there may be unimportant diversities in the exposition of words and phrases, there is no material difference of opinion as to the general meaning of the writer. In the epistles to the seven churches, and in the introductory scenes to the main visions, there can be no doubt, in the main, as to what the writer had in view, and what he meant to describe.  He addressed churches then existing, (Chapter 1:-3:) and set before them their sins and their duties.  He described scenes passing before his eyes as then present, which was merely designed to impress his own mind with the importance of what was to be disclosed, and to bring the great actors on the stage, and in reference to which there could be little ground for diversity in the interpretation.

Here, however, the scene changes and opens into the future, a future comprehending all the unknown period until there shall be a final triumph of Christianity, and all its foes shall be prostrate. The actors are the Son of God, angels, men, Satan, storms, tempests, earthquakes, the pestilence, and fire; the scene is in heaven, earth, hell.  Strangely, at this point of John's elucidation, there is no mention of the church as one of the great actors.  There is no certain designation of places.  There is no mention of names--as there is in Isaiah (Isa 45:1) of Cyrus, or as there is in Daniel (Da 8:21; 10:20; 11:2) of the "king of Grecia ".   There is no designation of time that is necessarily unambiguous, and there are no characteristics of the symbols used that make it antecedently certain that they could be applied only to one class of events. 

In essence, the time and place of the events depicted in Revelation are often left to the imagination of the interpreter.   However, we cannot discard the facts that the interpreter needs the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order for the interpretation to be factual.  This being said, it is easy to concoct theories and scenarios that fit a particular scheme or agenda as with the interpretation of the scripture to support many different and conflicting gospels.  In the study that follows, we will not advance any theory as pertaining to date, person or time.  We only seek to provide you with the incentive to as Paul said, "think on these things."

In the boundless future that was to succeed the times of John, there would be, of necessity, many events to which these symbols could apply.  The result has shown that it has required but a moderate share of pious ingenuity to apply them, by different expositors, to events differing widely from each other in their character, and in the times when they would occur. It would be too long to glance even at the various theories that have been proposed and maintained as gospel about the interpretation of the subsequent portions of the Apocalypse, and wholly impossible to attempt to examine those theories.  Time, in its developments, has already exploded many of them; and time, in its future developments, will doubtless explode many more, and each one must stand or fall as in the disclosures of the future it shall be found to be true or false. It would be folly to add another to those numerous theories, even if I had any such theory, and perhaps equal folly to pronounce with certainty on any one of those that have been advanced.

This seems to be an appropriate place to state what principles we intend to pursue in the interpretation of the remainder of the book.

(1.) It may be assumed that large portions of the book relate to the future; that is, to that which was future when John wrote. In this, all expositors are agreed, and this is manifest indeed on the very face of the representation. It would be impossible to attempt an interpretation on any other supposition, and somewhere in that vast future, the events are to be found to which the symbols here used had a reference. This is assumed, indeed, on the supposition that the book is inspired: a fact which is assumed all along in this exposition, and which should be allowed to control our interpretation.

However, assuming that the book relates to the future, though that supposition will do something to determine the true method of interpretation, yet it leaves many questions still unsolved.  Whether it refers to the past destruction of Jerusalem, on the supposition that the work was written before that event took place, or to the history of the church subsequent to that.  Whether it is designed to describe events minutely, or only in the most general manner can be grounds for discussion.  Whether it is intended to furnish a syllables of civil and ecclesiastical history, or only a very general outline of future events; whether the times are so designated that we can fix them with entire certainty; or whether it was intended to furnish any certain indication of the periods of the world when these things should occur;--all these are still open questions, and it need not be said that on these the opinions of expositors have been greatly divided.

(2.) It may be assumed that there is meaning in these symbols and that they were not used without an intention to convey some important ideas to the mind of John and to the minds of his readers-- to the church then, and to the church in future times. The book is indeed surpassingly sublime. It abounds with the highest flights of poetic language. It is Oriental in its character and exhibits everywhere the proofs of a most glowing imagination in the writer. However, it is also to be borne in mind that it is an inspired book, and this fact is to determine the character of the exposition. If inspired, it is to be assumed that there is a meaning in these symbols; an idea in each one of them and in all combined, of importance to the church and the world.  Whether we can ascertain the meaning is another question, but it is never to be doubted by an expositor of the Bible that there is a meaning in the words and images employed, and that to find out that meaning is worthy of earnest study and prayer.

(3.) Predictions respecting the future are often necessarily obscure to man. It cannot be doubted, indeed, that God could have foretold future events in the clearest and unambiguous language, he who knows all that is to come as intimately as he does all the past, could have caused a record to have been made, disclosing names, and dates, and places, so that the most minute statements of what is to occur might have been in the possession of man as clearly as the records of the past now are. But there were obvious reasons why this should not occur, and in the prophecies, it is rare that there is any such specification. To do this might have been to defeat the very end in view; for it would have given to man, a free agent, the power of embarrassing or frustrating the Divine plans. However, if this course is not adopted, then prophecy must, from the nature of the case, be obscure. The knowledge of any one particular fact in the future is so connected with many other facts, and often implies so much knowledge of other things, that without that other knowledge it could not be understood. Suppose that it had been predicted, in the time of John, that at some future period some contrivance should be found out by which what was doing in one part of the world could be instantaneously known in another remote part of the world, and spread abroad by thousands of copies in an hour to be read by a nation. Suppose, for instance, that there had been some symbol, or emblem representing what actually occurs now, when in a morning newspaper we read what occurred last evening at St. Louis, Dubuque, Galena, Chicago, Cincinnati, Charleston, New Orleans. It is clear that at a time when the magnetic telegraph and the printing-press were unknown, any symbol or language describing it that could be employed must be obscure, and the impression must have been that this could be accomplished only by miracle--and it would not be difficult for one who was disposed to skepticism to make out an argument to prove that this could not occur. It would be impossible to explain any symbol that could be employed to represent this until these wonderful descriptions should become reality, and in the meantime the book in which the symbols were found might be regarded as made up of mere riddles and enigmas; but when these inventions should be actually found out, however much ridicule or contempt had been poured on the book before, it might be perfectly evident that the symbol was the most appropriate that could be used, and no one could doubt that it was a Divine communication of what was to be in the future. Something of the same kind may have occurred in the symbols used by the writer of the book before us.

(4.) It is not necessary to suppose that a prophecy will be understood in all its details until the prediction is accomplished. In the case just referred to, though the fact of the rapid spread of intelligence might be clear, yet nothing would convey any idea of the mode or of the actual meaning of the symbols used, unless the inventions were themselves anticipated by a direct revelation. The trial of faith in the ease would be the belief that the fact would occur, but would not relate the mode in which it was to be accomplished, or the language employed to describe it. There might be great obscurity in regard to the symbols and language, and yet the knowledge of the fact be perfectly plain. When, however, the fact should occur as predicted, all would be clear. So it is in respect to prophecy. Many recorded predictions that are now clear as noonday, were once as ambiguous and uncertain in respect to their meaning as in the supposed case of the press and the telegraph. Time has made them plain; for the event to which they referred has so entirely corresponded with the symbol as to leave no doubt in regard to the meaning. Thus many of the prophecies relating to the Messiah were obscure at the time when they were uttered; were apparently so contradictory that they could not be reconciled; were so unlike anything that then existed, that the fulfillment seemed to be impossible; and were so enigmatical in the symbols employed, that it seemed in vain to attempt to disclose their meaning. The advent of the long-promised Messiah, however, removed the obscurity, now they are read with no uncertainty as to their meaning, and with no doubt that, those predictions, once so obscure, had a Divine origin.