The First Seal: White Horse, Crown, Conquerer
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it
were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw,
and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto
him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
The First Seal
Revelation 6.1f
The Symbols found in the First Seal of the Apocalypse naturally integrate with God's use of the Number 1
as seen thoughout Scripture. I am not concerned at this point with the many possible eschatological
interpretations of who or what might fulfill the role of the Four Horsemen in future history.
It is not at all clear that they are
meant to represent individuals who will play central roles in the endtimes. There are numerous possibilities;
they could represent nations, political systems, religious systems, or
even the course of the history of the Church. As always, my primary purpose in this article
is to explore the integration of the symbols and
numbers with the rest of the body of Scripture. It is a structural analysis intended to
help us apprehend what God has done in His Word. The hermeneutical interpretation is another
matter which I leave primarily in the hands of the reader.
The White Horse
As with any symbol, the color White acquires its meaning from its context and interaction with
other symbols. It is frequently used to represent purity, as in Lamentations 4.7:
Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy
in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
In this case, the color Red acquires a very positive meaning as a symbol of health. Exactly the
opposite is seen in the Isaiah 1.18:
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Here we see the negative aspect of Red implying the Blood of Christ necessary to attone for our sin, that
we may be made "white as snow." The same imagry is used in the Fifth Seal:
But white can also be a sign of false purity that covers underlying corruption, as when Jesus castigated
the religious leaders saying:"
And in Leviticus, it appears repeatedly as a sign of leprousy, the great symbol of our fallen, corrupt,
sinful condition.
| 
Home
Printer Friendly Version