Introduction
Brief Overview of Previous Articles
Revelation 5 describes a book in heaven that is sealed up with seven seals, and none of the beings in heaven is able to open it (Rev 5:1, 3). The book has been interpreted as the Book of Life, identifying the people God elected to eternal life. (Read Article) That article also shows that this sealed book symbolizes the same crisis as the War in Heaven (Rev 12:7-17). In that war, Satan accuses the people God elected to eternal life (Rev 12:10). Therefore, the seven seals with which the book is sealed are Satan’s accusations against God’s people. His brilliant accusations have created doubt about the fairness of God’s judgments, and nobody is able to refute Satan entirely.
But then, Jesus Christ overcame so as to open the book and break its seals (Rev 5:5-6). He has overcome sin. He came to this world to be tested. Although Satan tested Him to the maximum with every possible temptation, Jesus never sinned. The hours of His death were His most severe temptation, but He never used His powers contrary to God’s will. Like a lamb led to the slaughter, He allowed evil men to nail Him to the Cross because that was the will of His Father. (Read Article)
In Revelation 5, Jesus takes the scroll from the One sitting on the throne (Rev 5:7). Since He appears as a slain lamb (Rev 5:6), He received the book after He had ascended to heaven. (Read Article) His victory on earth brought great joy to the beings in heaven (cf. Rev 5:9).
Purpose
To break the seals means to provide evidence to refute Satan’s accusations. (Read Article) In Revelation 6, the Lamb breaks the seals one by one in heaven, causing catastrophes on Earth. The current article discusses the meaning of the first seal.
6:1-2
| 6:1 Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” 2 I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. |
Then I saw – This phrase introduces major sections of the Book of Revelation. [Show More]
The Lamb broke one of the seven seals. – Jesus Christ directs these events. [Show More]
Interpretations
Over history, the first horse has been interpreted in three main ways:
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- The Parthian military conquests of the first century;
- The Gospel, and
- The Antichrist.
The Parthians
In the preterist interpretation of critical scholarship, Revelation 6 is a fairly literal description of military conquests during the first century of the Christian era. Specifically, the white horse is understood as the Parthians of ancient Persia, today’s Iran, who rode on white horses and who were a significant threat to the Roman Empire. However, such a reading does not fit:
Firstly, the seals are not limited to the first century but portray events leading all the way up to the second coming (cf. Rev 6:12-14 – see The Sixth Seal).
Secondly, the seals should be taken symbolically. No one suggests that the “Lion” and “Lamb” (Rev 5:5-6) or the four horses of the first four seals should be taken literally. Why would the events associated with the seals be literal? [Show More]
Thirdly, this horse “went out conquering and to conquer.” This implies that it will never stop conquering. It cannot be limited to the beginning of the church age, as the Parthian interpretation does.
The Gospel
A second main interpretation of the white horse is that its rider is Christ, and the white horse represents the gospel. This position is supported by the following:
1) The horse is white.
The color of the horse is white, and, in Revelation, the color white always refers to the things of Christ, never for evil (e.g., Rev 1:14; 2:17; 3:4-5; 6:11). [Show More]
2) The Rider has a stephanos.
This rider receives a crown. A diadem crown symbolizes a ruler’s authority (e.g., Rev 19:12), but this rider receives a stephanos crown, which is always associated with Christ and His people (e.g., Phil 4:1; 1 Thess 2:19; 2 Tim 4:8; Rev 12:1). [Show More]
3) The rider conquers.
This horse and rider “went out conquering and to conquer.” In the seals, the Greek words for conquering, which are also translated as “overcome,” refer to Christ and his people (Rev 3:21 and 5:5). [Show More]
4) The rider never stops conquering.
In the Greek, “conquering and in order that he might conquer” is the most continuous expression possible, meaning that the white horse will never stop conquering. Such an expression fits the gospel because God’s people will suffer but never stop (cf. Rev 2:10; 12:11). In contrast, the Antichrist is utterly defeated when it is destroyed in the lake of fire (Rev 19:20). This also means that it cannot be limited to the first century.
5) The Synoptic Apocalypse includes the gospel.
In the Synoptic Apocalypse (Matthew 24), Jesus predicted that the Church Age would be a period of (a) gospel preaching, (b) war, (c) famine, (d) pestilence, and (e) persecution of His people. We see the same things in the seals, implying that the seals also describe the Church Age. But if the rider on the white horse is not the gospel, the gospel would be missing in the seals.
6) The white horse of Revelation 19 symbolizes Christ.
There is another rider on a white horse in the Book of Revelation, and that is explicitly Jesus Christ (Rev 19:12). In Revelation 6, we see the Rider on the white horse at the beginning of the Church Age; Revelation 19 shows Him at the end of that journey. [Show More]
7) Habakkuk 3:8-9
Hab 3:8-9 is very similar to the first seal. Both texts concern horses, victory, and the rider employing a bow. But the rider in Habakkuk is Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, not an evil power.
The Antichrist
In the view of probably most interpreters today, the rider on the white horse is the Antichrist, appearing as an angel of light, a counterfeit of Christ and of the gospel. This view is based on considerations such as the following:
a) The other seals bring affliction.
Since the other horses all bring affliction and disaster, the military conquest mentioned in the first seal could also be understood as a disaster. However, the first seal does not mention any affliction or disaster, implying it is different. [Show More]
b) The rider has a bow.
In the Old Testament, the bow can be used as a symbol of enemy nations, such as Gog and Babylon. However, the bow is also used as a weapon of God. [Show More]
c) Beasts conquer God’s people.
In Revelation, there are beasts that “conquer” God’s people (Rev 11 & 13), using the same word for conquest as the first seal (cf. Rev 13:7). However, in the seals, as discussed, only Christ and His people “overcome.”
d) Counterfeit is a regular theme.
Counterfeit is a main theme in the Book of Revelation. However, Revelation does not leave us in doubt when something is a counterfeit. For example, the Land Beast has two horns like a Lamb but speaks like a dragon (Rev 13:11), meaning that this beast has a Christian face but is a deception. But there is no indication of evil in the first seal. [Show More]
Conclusion
The white horse represents the proclamation of the gospel, beginning with the enthronement of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary (see Revelation 5) and continuing until He returns. The gospel must go out to the whole world as a witness to all nations before the end comes (Matt 24:14).
Understood this way, the other three horsemen do not portray obscure apocalyptic disasters but symbolize the consequences of preaching the gospel. The seals also show that the conquest would not be easy or quick but through suffering. War, famine, pestilence, and death would fill the intervening years. Revelation here prepares God’s people to endure in the face of hardship, knowing that victory, in the end, is assured.
Other Articles
The Seven Seals
Other
- I recommend Jon Paulien’s commentary on Revelation for further reading. For general theological discussions, I recommend Graham Maxwell, who you will find on the Pineknoll website.
You touched on an interesting point that I would agree on, namely the harmony between Revelation and the Olivet discourse. The first six Seals of Revelation harmonize with both the events and the sequence of Mathew 24:4-7.
4Jesus answered, “See to it that no one deceives you. 5For many will come in My name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. These things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are the beginning of birth pains.
I would agree that they match, however, this means that the first White Horse seal correlates with the false decievers coming in “Jesus’s name” in verse 5. The rest of the sequence outlines wars, and famine. Death is covered in verse 9 onward culminating in verses 29-30 which parallels with the sixth seal which is the point when Christ returns and the sun and moon are darkened etc.
I believe that Mathew 24:5 is a reference to false teachers who are claiming to represent Christ (come in my/his name), but deceive many with their false Gospel, paving the way for the acceptance of the false Christ. Indeed they are victorious in this endeavour as they evidently manage to fool all the masses except for the Saints. I don’t subscribe to the popular interpretation that verse 5 is referring to the Antichrist or to a spate of Jesus impersonators kicking off the end time events. I don’t see the rider of the White horse being a particular individual as none of the other riders are.
Religious deception is a constant theme in Mathew and Revelation and this is certainly evident today in the teachings of, most of What passes for Christianity in the world today.
Christ is the Destroyer of the darkness of this world, for sure, as we can see in Rev. 19, which you mentioned. Destroyer is one of His sovereign functions. He is both creator, preserver and destroyer, in Hinduism represented by the trimurti, Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, but in Christ that is all one. If He was defined by one of these functions to the exclusion of others, He would not be the Supreme Lord, but an Angel.
So if the angel of the abyss was identical with Christ, he wouldn’t have been described as an ‘angel’. The question is whether this angel is one of God’s angels, willingly and knowingly serving Christ as an instrument in His function of Destroyer, or a fallen angel, which can only serve God’s purpose indirectly and against its will, without meaning to. It is not clearly identified as a fallen angel, only as an angel. It is a strange enigma, this part of the Revelation. Well, there is this, from the beginning of ch.9: “And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit.” A “star fallen from heaven to the earth” must mean a fallen angel, I guess. (Or otherwise it would have been described as “descending” or something, not “fallen”, right?) But is it the same as “Apollyon”? This is not crystal clear to me. Perhaps, but I’m not sure.
There are many mysteries in the Book of the Apocalypse that can only be unlocked by much prayer and meditation.
By the way, sir: Where in the times of the Apocalypse do you think we are presently finding ourselves? We’ve just had the strange ‘totalitarian’ (one is almost tempted to say) Covid Era, now we’re seeing an overhanging threat of a new great war between East and West, and at the same time, some kind of UFO/Alien Disclosure seems to be imminent, when we look at recent admissions from Pentagon etc. The latter could well prove to be a part of the Great Deception of the end-times.
Good points. Do you think it is possible that the angel of the abyss is not a literal angel but a symbol of something? Do you think there are literally 24 elders in God’s throne room? Or four literal angels holding back the four winds (7:1)? Or three literal angels flying high in heaven with the everlasting gospel (14:6, 8, 9)?
Good analysis. Thanks. While I agree with your interpretation that the first rider on the white horse most likely represents Christian forces, I have a question about the following part quoted”
“The only possible exception is in the fifth trumpet (Rev 9:7). Some regard the agent in this trumpet to be an evil power. But, in this commentary, the agent in the trumpets is the two witnesses, who “strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire” (Rev 11:6). In other words, even in Revelation 9:7, the stephanos is used for Christ and His people.”
Interesting theory. But if the agent(s) of Rev 9:7… were of Christ’s kingdom, why does it say, “and they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon”? Doesn’t this suggest that they are of Satan?
Excellent question. I have done my interpretation of the trumpets many years ago and I must still review it and put it on this website. I propose that we must allow the interruption between the sixth and seventh trumpets to dictate our interpretation of the trumpets. And, in that interruption, we read above the little open book coming from heaven, the instruction to “prophecy again,” and the two witnesses who strike the earth with every plague as often as they want. But then your question remains. Who is Apollyon (meaning destroyer); the angel of the abyss? In Revelation 20:1-3, an angel locks Satan up in the abyss with a huge chain. Is that “the angel of the abyss” (9:11)? At times, both the pure woman and the harlot are in the abyss (12:14; 17:3). The abyss, as I understand it, is not a specific place but a symbol for suffering and woe. In the end, Christ will “destroy those who destroy the earth” (11:18) and kill the rest with the sword which came from His mouth (19:21). Is Christ the Destroyer?