by
Jerry Huerta
Copyright
2022
The four horsemen
of the apocalypse have evoked a great deal of interest and angst in Western
society for thousands of years. Today, many believe they have already ridden
forth, like the preterists, or have yet to appear, like the futurists. However,
the proper interpretation of the horsemen lies in knowing what they represent,
the period they manifest, and where they rise by using the scriptures as the
expositor. Using the Bible as the expositor, the historicist’s model correctly
places the four horse riders in time and space.
As stated in
previous works, the epistle to the Hebrews affirms that the active judgments
portrayed in the Revelation, starting with the seven churches, are confined to
the mediation of Christ under the New Covenant, affirmed by the symbolism in
the book. In Revelation 1:13, Christ is “clothed with a garment down to the
foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle,” representing Christ’s
mediation, typified by the Aaronic mediation in Leviticus 8:7. This attire
affirms Christ’s mediation in the Revelation. The seven candlesticks also
typified Christ’s mediation.[1] In truth, the scriptural
evidence that the Revelation represents Christ’s mediation undermines the
preterist model, as the kingdom to come in Matthew 6:10 is the age to come. In
this age, we struggle against the tares; the Revelation affirms this.
But that which ye have already hold fast till I come.
And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give
power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the
vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my
Father. (Revelation 2:25-27)
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in
my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his
throne. (Revelation 3:21)
The point being is
that the preterist’s presupposition that this present age represents Christ’s
reign defies that Christ’s reign actively subjects “all things” under him,
according to 1 Corinthians 15:25-28. Subjecting all things under Christ
emphasizes a “pacification” of his enemies, ending the acceptance of the tares
alongside the good seed. The tares cannot be allowed to grow and maintain that
Christ makes his enemies his footstool simultaneously. The destruction of the
tares must commence Christ’s reign. “All things” are not “pacified” by Christ
until he returns.
But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and
all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: and
before him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall separate them one
from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats; and he shall
set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. (Matthew 25:31-33)
The fate of the
goats is everlasting fire while the earth is pacified, all things on earth are
brought under Christ in the age to come; that is Premillennialism.
In the fifth seal,
the phenomenon of the four-horse riders is why the souls cry out for God to
avenge them by judging their tormentors.
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the
altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the
testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long,
O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that
dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it
was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their
fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were,
should be fulfilled. (Revelation 6:9-10)
The fifth seal is a
witness of Christ’s mediation. The Aaronic mediation could not provide for the vindication
of those upholding the word of God after Christ’s crucifixion. Preterism fails
to grasp that the Aaronic mediation ended with the ascension of Christ to the
right hand of the Father.
For such an high priest became us, who is holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for
his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered
up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the
word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated
for evermore. (Hebrews 7:26-28)
The oath in verse
28 was prophesied in Psalms 110 and fulfilled at Christ’s ascension.
The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. (Psalm 110:1-4)
The preterists
fallaciously maintain the overlapping of the two mediations. However, scripture
affirms the change of the priesthood accompanied a change in the law, ending
the old to establish the new.
For the priesthood being changed, there is made of
necessity a change also of the law… For there is verily a disannulling of the
commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.
(Hebrews 7:12, 18)
Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith,
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In
burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I,
Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O
God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and
offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are
offered by the law; Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh
away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all… Now
where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having
therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil,
that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God.
(Hebrews 10:5-10, 18-21)
Christ offered his
blood for the remission of our sins at his ascension ending the sacrifices for
sin done under the Aaronic mediation, bringing that mediation and priesthood to
an end. Therefore, the judgment portrayed by the fifth seal is Christ’s
meditation as the Revelation cannot be viewed as the temple’s destruction in
A.D. 70 but concerns the cleansing of the house of God before his return.
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;
and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin
unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:28}
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and
he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth
judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many
crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was
clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in
fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that
with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron:
and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
(Revelation 19:11-15)
The judgment adjured
by the saints of the fifth seal falls upon those “that obey not the gospel,”
which follows the judgment upon the saints according to scripture.
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the
house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that
obey not the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17)
This judgment is
not a determination like the one that ended Babylon (Daniel 5:26-28) but the
one that determines the fate of the beast and the false prophet when Christ
returns.
And the beast was taken, and with him the false
prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had
received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both
were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. (Revelation 19:20)
In the fifth seal,
the saints must rest for a little season until their fellow servants should be
killed as they were, should be fulfilled. This little season supports an
approaching finality to the judgment on the house of God and anticipates the
impending judgment upon those who obey not the gospel. As established above,
the fifth seal is indicative of Christ’s mediation. Therefore, the little
season cannot be determined as the sum between the two advents as the
traditionalist historicists have wrought but must represent only part of the
judgment on the house of God, specifically the last part (Hebrews 9:28). As
conveyed above, 1 Peter 4:17 expresses the thought here, which is expertly
interpreted by a professor at Wheaton College, Karen H. Jobes,
Peter is saying that eschatological judgment,
understood as the sorting out of humanity, begins with God’s house, defined in
2:4–5 as those who come to Christ and are built as living stones into a
spiritual house. The contrast in 4:17b is between “those who reject the gospel
of God” and “us,” a group in which Peter probably includes himself and all whom
he considers to be genuine Christians. Those who profess Christ are the first
ones to be tested in God’s judging action, and it occurs during their lives and
throughout history. The Great Tribulation of the final days immediately
preceding the return of Christ is the most severe form of this testing. The
testing that persecution because of Christ presents, wherever it occurs, is of
one piece with the final eschatological judgment, because persecution sorts out
those who are truly Christ’s from those who are not.[2]
Prominent in the
four horse riders, the fifth seal and the judgment of the harlot Babylon in the
Revelation is the convergence of God's judgments upon His people by their
enemies, their obtaining mercy, and the punishment of their enemies.
Hengstenberg noted the same convergence concerning the book of Joel and Amos.
The whole announcement of punishment and judgment upon
the heathen nations has sense and meaning, only when, in the preceding context,
there has been mention made of the crime which they committed against the Lord
and His people. In that case, we have before us the three main subjects of
prophecy,—God's judgments upon His people by heathen enemies, their obtaining
mercy, and the punishment of the enemies. At the very beginning of chap. iv.
(iii.) the sufferings of Israel, described in chap. i. and ii., and the
judgment upon the heathen, are brought into the closest connection. According
to chap. iv.1, 2, the gathering of the Gentiles is to take place at a time when
the Lord will return to the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, i.e., according
to the constant usus loquendi (compare my Commentary on Psalm 14:7), when He
will grant them, mercy, and deliver them from their misery.[1] But that this
misery can be none other than that described in chap. i. and ii. appears simply
from the fact, that this has been declared to be the close of all the judgments
of God.[3]
Said convergence
and the consequence of the “little season” further substantiates that the four
horse riders and the harlot Babylon represent God’s closing judgments upon the
Church for her apostasies, prophesied in the New Testament (Matthew 5:13,
24:12; Romans 14:10; 2 Corinthians 5:10; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12; 1 Timothy
4:1–3). As related in the prior work, The Influence of Hengstenberg on the True
Structuring of the Revelation,[4] this association with
apostasy is also supported in the warnings to the final church eras. The fifth
church era, Sardis, conveys a major falling away brought on by the
denunciation: “thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Revelation
3:1). And the admonitions to the sixth church, Philadelphia, also convey an
impending judgment in which all the world is involved.
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write…
behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou
hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name…
Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the
hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell
upon the earth. (Revelation 3:7, 8, 10)
Contemporary
historicists Frank W. Hardy, Ph.D., of Historicism.org, comments on the
connection between the open door in Revelation 3:8 and 4:1 and judgment,
The last of the churches is Laodicea, which means
"a people judged." The idea of judging is meaningless without a
corresponding judgment. For more than 150 years we have taught (a) that we are
the church of Laodicea and (b) that the judgment is taking place now. What I
propose here is bringing the two claims together and supporting them from Rev
4-5. There is no new doctrine here, but only a new way of defending two
established doctrines in a unified manner.
If the throne scene occurs in the timeframe to which the letters have brought us, then even though the material is presented in successive chapters, the throne scene does not follow the message to Laodicea in time but occurs simultaneously with it. Laodicea is judged during the time of the judgment. The judgment occurs during the time of Laodicea. These things are happening now…
Notice that the church of Philadelphia does not go
through the door but that it stands "before" them. Going through it
represents the transition from Philadelphia to Laodicea, when so many were
disappointed and turned away. "I have placed before you an open door"
(Rev 3:8). "After this I looked and saw a door standing open in heaven
(Rev 4:1). We must learn to see the connection between these two passages. The
door that John sees "standing open" at the beginning of chap. 4 is
the same one mentioned in the letter to Philadelphia during the time leading up
to 1844. What John sees in Rev 4-5 would occur not in the timeframe of
Philadelphia, but later, in the timeframe of Laodicea – the church associated
with judgment.[5]
Hardy’s work
agrees with the timing of Sardis and its association with the Reformation and
the rise of Protestantism. The impact of the Enlightenment on Protestantism is
hardly deniable. Protestantism devolved into denominationalism and its corrupt
influence of secularism upon the kings and princes in Christendom (circa 16th
to 17th century). This impact led to the Second Great Awakening, circa the
nineteenth century, which agrees with Hardy’s era for the church of
Philadelphia. No doubt, that revival was brief in the broader sense as liberal
Protestantism ultimately accommodated the enlightenment and secularism,
becoming the Laodicean church in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, Hardy’s
thesis agrees with the consequence that the “little season” in the fifth seal
substantiates that the four horse riders and the harlot Babylon represent God’s
closing judgments upon the Church for her apostasies.
As to the futurist interpretation of
the Revelation, they view the seals as in the future. The Church is raptured
before the phenomenon of the seven seals. However, such a view cannot maintain
that the Revelation is Christ’s mediation, for they see its subject matter
pertain only to the literal descendants of Israel after the Church is raptured.
Nevertheless, that would be a regression to the Old Covenant that only
pertained to the literal descendants, with few exceptions. The evidence that
the Revelation pertains to Christ’s mediation for the Church thwarts the futurist
interpretation.
The four horse
riders or seals are a judgment upon the house of God, not unlike the Babylonian
captivity done under the Old Covenant. In Jeremiah, “horsemen and bowmen”
represented God’s agent Babylon in the judgment of Judah because “as a cage is
full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore, they are become
great, and waxen rich.”
Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet in the land: cry, gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities. Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction… The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein. And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life. For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers. (Jeremiah 4:5-6, 29-31)
For among my people are found wicked men: they lay
wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is
full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become
great, and waxen rich. They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the
deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet
they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. Shall I not visit
for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation
as this? (Jeremiah 26-29)
The imagery of
God’s people and their antagonists in Jeremiah is one of the keys in
interpreting the four horse riders and the harlot Babylon in the Revelation;
the harlot Babylon is given the same imagery.
So he carried me away in the spirit into the
wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names
of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in
purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls,
having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her
fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE
GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman
drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of
Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. (Revelation
17:3-6)
The same metaphors
of harlotry and being decked in crimson, gold, and precious stones are used in
Jeremiah to describe God’s fallen people and the imagery of horse riders and
bowmen to describe the people sent against them for their apostasy. Returning
to The Influence of Hengstenberg on the True Structuring of the Revelation,[6] the Church is not a nation
with borders and dominion as was ancient Israel, which precludes God from
sending a heathen nation against the Church in agreement with the Old Covenant.
Under Christ’s mediation, the enemies or foes of the Church are of their own
house, comprised of the tares: “Let both grow together until the harvest”
(Matthew 13:30).
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I
came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance
against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in
law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own
household. (Matthew 10:34-36)
In Jeremiah,
ancient Babylon did not represent God’s fallen people, depicted as a harlot
decked out in crimson, gold, and precious stones. It was God’s people depicted
so and reveals the harlot in the Revelation as the fallen church, or the apostates
growing alongside and overpowering the good seed in later times. God uses the
apostates in the Church, those within their own house, to judge his people,
illustrated as the harlot Babylon and the four horse riders. As Hardy held,
this commenced with the twentieth century. This is why God’s people are called
to come out of Babylon.
And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. (Revelation 18:1-5)
At the realization
that a good deal of the Church has fallen and the remnant’s enemies are within
their gates, they come out of Babylon before she receives the plagues in the
last days.
The petitions of
the saints in the fifth seal are answered in the sanctuary scene in Revelation
8; the seven trumpets are the solutions. The judgments in trumpets are not in
the past, as traditional historicists have interpreted them, but in our future.
The antitypical judgments of the trumpets represent Yom Kippur (Leviticus
25:9-10), noting that the sealing precedes the seven trumpets, ending the fiery
trial at the hands of the four horsemen upon the sealed ones (Revelation 9:4).
The locust army exemplifies this trial in Joel and Amos 7, rendered as Yom
Teruah by astute scholars. At the sealing of the saints, the separation of
those who are Christ’s from apostates occurs. The judgment of the wicked, which
would include the little horn, cannot commence until the fate of the saints is
sealed, conveyed by the fifth seal. The judgment in the Revelation is
for covenant violations, especially in light of 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 2 Timothy
3:1-7, Luke 8:11–13, 1 Timothy 4:1–4, Hebrews 3:12–14, and especially
concerning the Laodicean church era. God’s response to covenant violations in
the OT was discipline, and Babylon was the definitive choice of his instrument
for discipline. This is the object of mystery Babylon in the Revelation, as she is drunk “with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of
the martyrs” (Revelation 17:2, 6).
No doubt,
Protestantism led to the secularization of society. However, few note the
pernicious, harmful ramifications of the paradigm shift in Protestantism today.
Our work (Thy Kingdom Come: Re-evaluating the Historicist’s Interpretation
of the Revelation) documents numerous sources supporting our thesis. In
addition to our sources, Dr. Steve Turley comments on the pernicious effects of
secularism in his book,
Scholars have long recognized that secularization is
rooted in the notion of modernity. Modernity is comprised of the philosophical
commitment to scientific rationalism as the sole objective mechanism for
political, economic, and cultural management. Rooted in such rationalism,
modernity sees all pre-modern societies, particularly those governed by
religious commitments, as inherently irrational, and thus asserts itself as the
one true political, economic, and cultural meaning system for all nations and
peoples. In the twentieth-century, the West has proclaimed liberal democracy as
the ultimate political system, the Soviet East proclaimed communism as the
ultimate economic system, and Italy and Germany declared fascism as the
ultimate cultural meaning system.[7]
Here we have
support for our thesis that secularization fostered a form of liberal
authoritarianism in the West and such oppressive regimes as communism and
fascism.
In The Quarterly
Journal of Economics, November 2018, under the article by Davide Cantoni,
Jeremiah Dittmar, and Noam Yuchtman, we read,
Using novel microdata, we document an important,
unintended consequence of the Protestant Reformation: a reallocation of
resources from religious to secular purposes. To understand this process, we
propose a conceptual framework in which the introduction of religious
competition shifts political markets where religious authorities provide
legitimacy to rulers in exchange for control over resources.[8]
The authors’
thesis conveys that the Protestants consorted with the kings of the earth to
favor secular projects instead of religious ones. In essence, they had intercourse
with the kings of the earth to take away the church’s influence in society. By
any rational account, this fulfills what John states about mystery Babylon,
Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the
great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth
have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made
drunk with the wine of her fornication. (Revelation 17:1-2)
The article
continues,
Graduates of Protestant universities increasingly took
secular, especially administrative, occupations. Protestant university students
increasingly studied secular subjects, especially degrees that prepared
students for public sector jobs, rather than church sector specific theology.
Second, it affected the sectoral composition of fixed investment.[9]
In other words,
the dissident Protestants sifted society away from the church sector to public
sector occupations. This shift enhanced the state’s ability to develop
nationality, to increase its wealth, and expand its markets, which inevitably
led to the illustration of the rider of the white horse that “went forth
conquering and to conquer.” This shift took peace from the earth as the
Protestant nations fought over the world’s resources in their colonization of
other dominions, as depicted by the rider of the red horse. Their machinations in the prices
of goods and services led to surpluses and famines, as illustrated by the rider
of the black horse. Their economic upheaves in distant colonies
led to great hardships for the indigenous, represented by the pale horse rider.
[1] Jerry
Huerta, Christ’s Mediation Affirms the True Structuring of the
Revelation, 2022, https://www.academia.edu/74171440/Christ_s_Mediation_Affirms_the_True_Structuring_of_the_Revelation
[2] Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter,
(Baker Academic, 2005), 291.
[3] Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Christology
of the Old Testament, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1871) 320.
[4] Jerry Huerta, The Influence of
Hengstenberg on the True Structuring of the Revelation,
https://www.academia.edu/79099711/The_Influence_of_Hengstenberg_on_the_True_Structuring_of_the_Revelation_by
[5] Frank W. Hardy, Ph.D.,
“Historicism and the Judgment A Study of Revelation 4-5 and 19a,”
Historicism.org, (August 8, 2006, Modified April 15, 2010), 2, 3. http://www.historicism.org/Documents/Lecture1Rev4-5.pdf
[6] Huerta, The Influence of
Hengstenberg on the True Structuring of the Revelation
[7] Stephen R. Turley, President
Trump and Our Post-Secular Future: How the 2016 Election Signals the Dawning of
a Conservative Nationalist Age, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
(December 16, 2017) 9.
[8] Davide Cantoni, Jeremiah Dittmar,
and Noam Yuchtman, Religious Competition and Reallocation: The Political
Economy of Secularization in the Protestant Reformation, The Quarterly
Journal of Economics (2018), 2037–2096. doi:10.1093/qje/qjy011. Advance Access
publication on June 6, 2018.
