If you’re like me, you may
have interpreted the events of the fifth seal (martyrs under the altar) as
describing the Christian martyrs during in the days of the early church 2,000
years ago.
But when we come to the
events of the sixth seal in Revelation 6 – sun darkened, moon turned to blood, falling stars,
major earthquakes, mountains and hills moving around, everyone trying to hide
themselves—we tend to say to ourselves, “Well, that hasn’t happened yet, so I
guess we’re somewhere at the end of the fifth seal.”
Recently I’ve been doing a
lot of thinking about the events of the sixth seal and I recently came to the
conclusion that we aren’t looking at the whole story. The problem is the chapter break that starts Revelation 7. Revelation 7 has things that are part
of the sixth seal, but because the tone is so much more positive, we don’t
realize that belongs in the picture too.
So, just for the sake of
this particular post, I’m going to pretend that everything in Revelation 7 has
been tacked onto Revelation 6 with extra verses. (Revelation 6 only has 17 verses, so everything after that
is actually Revelation 7.)
12 And
I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great
earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became
as blood;
13 And
the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her
untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
14 And
the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain
and island were moved out of their places.
15 And
the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief
captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid
themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
16 And
said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him
that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
17 For
the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
18 And
after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth,
holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the
earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
19 And I
saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God:
and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt
the earth and the sea,
20 Saying,
Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the
servants of our God in their foreheads.
21 And I
heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred
and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.
22 Of the
tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed
twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.
23 Of the
tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were
sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand.
24 Of the
tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed
twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.
25 Of the
tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were
sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.
26 After
this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all
nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and
before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
27 And cried
with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne,
and unto the Lamb.
28 And
all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four
beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
29 Saying,
Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power,
and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
30 And
one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in
white robes? and whence came they?
31 And I
said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came
out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb.
32 Therefore
are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple:
and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
33 They
shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on
them, nor any heat.
34 For
the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead
them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes.
Do you see how this helps
us? The sixth seal doesn’t just have scary stuff in it. It has wonderful stuff too.
If anything, we suddenly see
there is a major contrast set up between two different groups of people. The first group is “kings
of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and
the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man,” (v15) which you’d think covers just about
everybody. But then the second
group is “them which were sealed . . . an hundred
and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel” (v21)
and “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and
kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the
Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands” (v26). And we realize that these are the
redeemed.
Let’s explore the differences between
these two groups to see what we can learn.
The first group hides in the dens and
are desperate to be hid from the face of God on the throne. They question whether anyone can stand
in the day of God’s wrath. It is
easy to see they are full of fear. The second group, rather than hide from the
throne, stand before it, clothed in white robes, and all seem to be celebrating
the salvation of God and ascribing blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving,
honor, and power to God.
The first group is scared of the wrath
they anticipate is coming. The
second group is described as having come “out of great tribulation” (v31), but
they don’t seem to dwell on exactly what they had to go through. But they’ve
already come out of it and they look forward to salvation to come. It seems their tribulation has been
redemptive because of their faith on Christ, so they have washed their robes
white in the blood of the Lamb.
The first group has a lot of focus on
their earthly status levels – kings, great men, rich men, chief captains,
mighty men, free men, bondmen. In
the second group there is no mention of status. We only know they were part of all nations, kindreds, and
tongues. This gives me a sense
that there is much greater equality among the second group.
Yet another contrast between these
groups is their expectations of what will happen. The first group says fearfully, “The great day of his wrath
is come,” yet if you notice, they turn out to be wrong because the angels hold back the winds to prevent hurt to the
earth, sea, and trees. There’s a
delay instead. The second group
cries, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb,”
which is their anticipation of salvation to come.
Do we see those two groups today? I’d say we do. Can we tell which one we
belong to? I’d admit sometimes I see what’s happening and I just fear what more
could be coming. That suggests to me that as much as I’d like to be part of the
redeemed, I haven’t yet developed the faith in Christ that I need to stand
unshaken. We can ask ourselves,
“Am I afraid of meeting God, or can I stand in His presence with confidence?”
Now, let’s look at some other
interesting things.
You recall that the fifth seal has the
martyrdom of Christians in it, and the sixth seal has 144,000 of Israel sealed
in their foreheads. So now we come
to a very important question—where does the Restoration occur in all of
this? Where do we locate it? If 144,000 of Israel are being sealed,
then that means that they have the full gospel and it has already been
restored. So where is that?
Happily, we get a little hint from
Joseph Smith in his revelation in D&C 77:
8 Q. What
are we to understand by the four angels, spoken of in the 7th chapter and 1st
verse of Revelation? A. We are to understand that they are four angels sent
forth from God, to whom is given power over the four parts of the earth, to
save life and to destroy; these are they
who have the everlasting gospel to commit to every nation, kindred, tongue,
and people; having power to shut up the heavens, to seal up unto life, or to
cast down to the regions of darkness.
9 Q. What
are we to understand by the angel ascending from the east, Revelation 7th
chapter and 2nd verse? A. We are to understand that the angel ascending from
the east is he to whom is given the seal of the living God over the twelve
tribes of Israel; wherefore, he crieth unto the four angels having the
everlasting gospel, saying: Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees,
till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And, if you will
receive it, this is Elias which was to
come to gather together the tribes of Israel and restore all things.
(D&C 77:8-9, emphasis added)
There’s the Restoration—the
ascending of the angel in the east having the seal of God. Now, I don’t know about you, but
something about that imagery suddenly strikes me as particularly fitting for
representing the Restoration. An
angel ascends in the east, gradually, almost as if he were the sun rising. Being an angel, he probably shines very
brightly. That sounds very much
like Joseph Smith’s rise as prophet.
And he has command over other angels who have the gospel to commit to
every nation. He sent out missionaries.
So now, we know where the
restoration is, but what about all that scary stuff--earthquakes and sun going
dark, and moon turned to blood, and stars falling, and mountains and islands
moving all over the place? When
did they happen? Because verse 18
says that the Restoration happens “after these things,” meaning after the scary
stuff. Did they happen and we
missed it all?
I’m going to go out on a
limb here and suggest that maybe the scary stuff is meant to be symbolic. (I’m not going to say that I know this
for sure, and I’m not going to say that the literal disasters won’t happen,
because it could, but I want to see what we can learn if we consider a
figurative interpretation.) So
let’s look more carefully at the scary stuff and see if we can figure out what
major events they might be trying to communicate without being literal. Also,
there is Joseph Smith Translation stuff in there, so let’s look at that too.
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KJV Revelation 6:12-17
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JST
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12 And
I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal,
and,
lo, there was a great earthquake;
and
the sun became black as sackcloth of hair,
and
the moon became as blood;
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13 And
the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her
untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
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14 And
the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together;
and
every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
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And the heavens opened as a scroll is opened when it is rolled together; and
every mountain, and island, was moved out of its place.
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15 And
the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief
captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man,
hid
themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
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16 And said to the mountains and
rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the
throne,
and from the wrath of the Lamb:
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17 For the great day of his
wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
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I think we have to start
asking ourselves questions here about what kinds of spiritual truths might the
Lord want to communicate to us about what is happening in the world. If this is very symbolic, then what
might earthquakes, a darkened sun, a bloody moon, falling stars, an opening
heaven, and displaced mountains and islands be representing about what has
happened between the time of Christian martyrs and the Restoration?
A great earthquake – major instability. Everything becomes really shaky and you can’t
really depend on things. So this could communicate everything from economic to
social to governmental to international instability.
The sun becomes black as sackcloth of hair – When the brightest light in the heavens is
darkened, that’s really serious.
Might the darkening of the brightest celestial light represent the
apostasy?
The moon became blood – Consider that the moon reflects the light of the
sun. So if the sun is darkened, then the moon is darkened as well. If the celestial light is quenched,
then it would stand to reason that terrestrial people have problems too. Perhaps this tells us that
terrestrial-level people become violent.
the
stars of heaven fell unto the earth – This is a
little ambiguous. If we continue with the pattern of lowered levels of light,
stars could represent telestial people falling.
An alternate idea is to consider that
elsewhere in Revelation stars are used to represent particularly righteous
servants of God. So here when we are told of stars falling to the earth, it may
be communicating how even righteous leaders are falling to temptation. This fits well with our knowledge of
the apostasy. Comparing these
falling stars to figs falling from a tree that is shaken with a mighty wind
supports this idea of apostasy.
Likewise, leaders who are not able to endure separate themselves from
the main church and fall.
Now we come to v14, which
the KJV says “the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together” and
the JST says “the heavens opened as a scroll is opened when it is rolled
together.” To tell you the truth,
both these confuse me because the language almost makes it seem contradictory
with a scroll opening as each of the roll-y thingies rolling together. I envision them rolling toward each
other, which is certainly not opening.
But I suppose a better rendering would be “as a scroll is opened when it
is rolled in synchronization.”
I think the important thing
we are supposed to get is that the heavens open
instead of departing. And this is
very odd because we automatically think “revelation happens” along with this
image, but in this particular place there is nothing said of any angels or
Christ being there or anything. No
appearance of any heavenly beings. It is like the heavens open and they are strangely
empty.
You know what? That sounds a lot like revelation of
scientific advances being given.
Telescopes. Secrets of heaven and sciences given as revelation, but no
heavenly beings seen in that picture.
That has certainly happened, hasn’t it?
and
every mountain and island were moved out of their places
– What might the mountains and islands represent here if all that movement is
symbolic? I suspect that they may
represent countries and nations.
If countries and nations are moved out of their places, then that gives
us a sense of nations’ status fluctuating over time, border wars and invasions,
major displacement of peoples, refugees, immigrations, colonization, wars of
independence, changes of government, etc. How much of that has there been since the Christian
martyrdom? If you’re acquainted
with history, a huge amount. Lots of flux.
Okay, let’s look closely at what the
scared people say and do.
15 And
the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief
captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid
themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
16 And
said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him
that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
17 For
the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
There are some really odd things in
these verses to notice. The first
thing is the range of people who are involved. The fear seems to affect all levels of society, from kings
down to bondmen. Having ruling power doesn’t mitigate the fear, nor does having
riches, nor does having authority in the military or being extra strong.
The second thing to notice is that all
these people hide themselves in dens and rocks in the mountains. This makes me
think of bunkers and emergency shelters.
That action of taking refuge indicates a desire to survive. But in the very next verse, these same
people are crying to the mountains and rocks, asking them to fall on them (and
presumably kill them). Do you see
how weird this is? They have these
refuges prepared to help them survive, and they try to survive, but they don’t want to survive. Their question “who shall be able to
stand?” suggests that there is major concern that nobody will be able to live
through it all. It indicates a
concern that quality of life in the great day of the Lord’s wrath will be
lessened to such an extent that there won’t be much left to enjoy or that the
struggle for survival will become all-consuming.
Do we see and hear people worried about
social anarchy and chaos in a coming apocalypse to the extent that they build
bunkers and stockpile food and weapons?
They are out there. I think it is very interesting that while the church
has taught us to build a year’s supply of food storage they haven’t said
anything about bunkers and weapons. They encourage 72-hour kits and emergency
preparedness and saving and getting out of debt, but they do not go to
extremes.
A second odd thing that I notice is
that while these people want the rocks and mountains to call on them (and
presumably kill them), they want to be hid from the face of the Lord and His
wrath. But does dying really
protect a person from the Lord’s wrath?
No, of course not. So these people don’t really understand the Lord,
even if they invoke His name. But..
they think dying will save them somehow.
That suggests that the thing they are referring to as the Lord’s face
and wrath, something they fear is going to judge them, has its source on earth
in mortality. I bet that what they
are really worried about is the wrath of masses of angry people. They fear a social firestorm and
angry judgment and they bunker down in anticipation. But are mobs God?
No. But how many times throughout history have uprisings been feared? From what I've read, a lot.
And again, it is worth noting that the
four angels hold back the winds that would hurt the earth, sea, and trees, so
the anticipated destruction does not materialize as predicted by the fearful
people.
Also, with a symbolic interpretation,
these events don’t necessarily have to be discrete one-time-only events. They may continue today.
At this point I have to mention that
one of the reasons why I have a problem with a lot of interpretations of
last-days prophecy is that it tends to focus on all the scary signs,
particularly the natural disasters with a sort of hand-wringing attitude of
fear and worry. Yet somehow I
don’t think that is the attitude that the Lord wants us to have. I can’t imagine the Lord revealing
stuff just to scare us. If we’re
told about natural disasters, we know what we should do—be prepared for
emergencies. If we’re told about
spiritual disasters, we know what we should do—follow the prophet and keep the
commandments. When Babylon
experiences tremors of instability, we know we should build a firm foundation
on Christ. When there are
anticipatory worries, we know what we should do—look to Christ and anticipate
His salvation.
For that reason, I don’t think the
Saints have anything to worry about in the sixth seal.
