The Fifth and Sixth Seals

⁹ When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. ¹⁰ They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” ¹¹ Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

¹² When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, ¹³ and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. ¹⁴ The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. ¹⁵ Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave [5] and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, ¹⁶ calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, ¹⁷ for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Revelation 6:9-17, ESV)

The previous post looked at the first four broken seals in Revelation 6. We now will look at the next two seals. Albrecht Dürer illustrates these two seal being broken in the woodcut illustration above (from Pasquale Iannetti Art Gallery). Click on either the link or the picture to see the full size image.

The pattern is changed in the fifth seal from the previous four. No longer do the living creatures that surround the throne say come. Neither is the focus on earth, but our attention is drawn back into heaven. Underneath the alter are the souls of those who had been slain. These appear to be believers from the New Testament and beyond, because they were slain for the witness they bore, and the implication is their witness was their faithfulness to Christ, who is the faithful witness in chapter 1. In fact, this seal carries on what was developed in the first three chapters of Revelation. These souls are the ones who overcame in chapters 2-3, and are given white robes. These souls can in fact stand for all Christians who remained faithful and overcame and enter into heaven. “Slain” in this sense is a metaphor to stand for all saints who suffer for the sake of their faith. This suffering primarily refers to believers who conquer temptations, sin, and the pressure to compromise and suffer as a result but are faithful to the end (“The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” – Revelation 2:26-29, ESV). Furthermore, all who have united themselves with Christ become identified with the suffering Lamb that was slain; the slain Lamb becomes the symbol that identifies them and they are identified as being slain.

The slain souls are underneath the alter. The words “slain” and “alter” identify a sacrificial nature of the soul’s suffering. There are at least a couple of different kinds of alters. This alter seems to refer to the golden alter of incense which was near the holy of holies. Revelation 8:3-5; 9:13 identifies this as the golden alter. The sacrificial blood of the Day of Atonement was poured out on this alter. Incense was burned on this alter. The slain are underneath the alter. This is because the alter in the Temple is viewed as the throne of God. The saints being under the alter means they are under the protection of God even though they were slain because of persecution. But, the persecution and death come as a result of the first four seals, which is ultimately under God’s responsibility. For the saints, God sends persecution to test and to purify the faith of the believers. Those who persevere to the end sacrifice themselves on the heavenly alter, in a similar fashion as Christ sacrificed himself on the cross.

The saints cry out, “how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” This is not a cry for personal revenge, but they call for God to uphold his character. They prefix their cry with, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true.” God is asked to demonstrate his sovereignty, his holiness, and the standard of truth by fulfilling his promises to punish the wicked. The phrase, “those who dwell on the earth” is used to describe unbelievers (see Revelation 3:10 and 6:17). The cry of the saints to, “avenge our blood” is not a cry for personal revenge, but that God would demonstrate to the whole world they are right and the evildoers are wrong. This is demonstrated in heavenly court where God overturns the wrong verdict of the earthly courts when God judges the ones who persecuted the ones where were slain.

God answers their request in two ways. First God gives the saints white robes. The white robes do not represent glorified bodies. The saints will get that at the final resurrection on Christ’s return. The white robes represent purity from their faith in Christ, which results in perseverance and their faith being purified in tribulation. The saints did not earn their white robes from their faithfulness. Rather, the white robes are the result of the not-guilty verdict of God through the death of his Son on the cross. In this, God is also announcing that the guilty verdict rendered by the “earth dwellers” is overturned. The robe then is an assurance to the saints that God will openly declare the earth dwellers as guilty and punish them for persecuting the saints.

The second way that God answers their cry is that he tells them “to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete….” Implicitly, God is saying that the judgment will come. The time is not ready yet, God has determined the number of saints to be added to the number under the alter. The final judgment will begin when all that God has decreed to suffer will finally fulfill their destiny. The word “killed” in verse 11 is to be taken figuratively to all believers who persevere. There is an irony to the overcomers. The ones who overcome are ironically the ones, in the view of the earth dwellers, to have been defeated, just as Christ appeared to be defeated on the cross. Instead, the defeat of the saints is tuned into victory in which they overcome in heaven. God’s implicit promise to judge gives the basis for the saints to rest. They rest on the assurance of God’s promise.

The fifth seal, as with seals one through four, occur throughout the inter-advent age. Ever since Christ’s first advent, believers have been suffering for Christ even to the point of martyrdom. These five seals go throughout history from Christ’s first advent to his second in parallel. Christ’s gospel and kingdom will advance. As a result, suffering and persecution arises from the gospel. Believers suffer, persevere, and overcome in heaven and receive their white robes. All of this occurs throughout the age between the two advents.The answer to the slain ones’ cry from under the alter comes in verses 12-17. Most people, when they initially come to this passage, see this as the final judgment. Only some kinds of “futurist dispensational” commentators don’t see this as the final judgment. But the final judgment is clear from the standard Old Testament imagery for the description of the dissolution of the universe.

One of the clearest Old Testament parallels is Isaiah 34:4, which Revelation 6:13-14a closely resembles:

Isaiah 34:4		Revelation 6:13-14a
All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.		and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

The heavens are split like a scroll is split and the two halves are rolled up. Taken with other Old Testament passages this appears to be the final, universal judgment. This can be seen in Isaiah 24. The language may be metaphoric, but the intent of the passage is the last judgment for the following reasons:

(1) The words, “for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” implies a legal pronouncement. The similarities to Revelation 20:11-15 are very striking and point to the same event. In both places the skies vanished like a scroll or fled away.

(2) The sixth seal answers the cry of the slain ones under the alter in the fifth seal. This makes sense that it’s the final judgment where the saints are vindicated.

(3) The words of Revelation 6:17 parallels with the other final judgment scenes in Revelation.

(4) The language of this section shows totality of the judgment. All the stars fall (verses a third in Revelation 8:12, or one or a few stars falling from heaven to earth in 8:10; 9:1, and 12:4).

The language is universal. It is not limited to a region, such as the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, nor to some activity to a then future Israel in the “tribulation”. This is the final judgment.

But wait – we’re only at chapter 6 of the book of Revelation and we’re at the final judgment! What is going on? How can that be? The answer is answering the question of how we are to view the structure of the book. Is Revelation a continual temporal sequence of events in future history? That is one possibility. Another possibility is that God is giving John several cyclic snapshots of history. Each of these snapshots presents a particular view or emphasis of the history between the advents of Christ. The technical name for these cyclic snapshots is recapitulation. I personally think that recapitulation best fits the literary structure of Revelation. The recapitulation view has been the dominant view of Revelation throughout church history until rather recently.

The reaction of the “earth dwellers” to the final judgment is extreme, showing how desperate their situation is. Of the ways to die, being buried alive is not one of the ways I’d choose for my exit. It is a terrible way to die – but that is more endurable to the earth dwellers than the wrath of the Lamb. That is an image, the wrath of the Lamb. We usually think of lambs being gentle and meek, the contrast with this image is very different.

The contrast of the earth dwellers, who cannot stand before God, is very different for the slain ones, the elders, and others in heaven who wear the white robes. They stand before God in purity and righteousness that they won from the Lamb who was slain on their behalf.