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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 6

II -- SEVEN SEALED SCROLL


 
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1. FIRST GENERAL DIVISION OF THE SCROLL

 

The First Four and Sixth Seals, representative of the judicial manner of "taking out of the way" the PAGAN CONSTITUTION of the "Dreadful and Terrible Fourth Beast, which withheld the revelation of "the LAWLESS ONE" (Dan. vii. 7; Apoc. vi; 2 Thess. ii. 3-9; Apoc. xii. 1-5,7-13) and the consequent manifestation of the CATHOLIC MYSTERY OF INIQUITY, or Man-of-Sin Power, in the heaven of said beast, or "Great Red Dragon."

TIME OF EVENTS

From A.D. 107 to A.D. 324

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CHAPTER VI

 

The opening of the first six seals in order, the cumulative effect of which is the abolition of the heaven which hindered the manifestation of the Lawless Power.

TRANSLATION

1. And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard from one of the Four Living Ones, saying, as a voice of thunder, Come and see!

2. And I saw, and behold a White Horse, and one sitting upon him having a bow; and there was given to him a coronal wreath, and he went forth conquering, and that he might conquer.

3. And when he opened the second seal, I heard from the second living one, saying, Come and see! 4. And there went forth another, a Fiery Red Horse; and to him sitting upon him, to him it was given to take the peace from the earth, and that they might slay one another; and there was given to him a great dagger.

5. And when he opened the third seal, I heard from the third living one, saying, Come and see! And I saw, and behold a Black Horse, and he who sits upon him holding a balance in his hand. 6. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living ones, saying, "A choinix of wheat a denarius; and three choinices of barley a denarius; but the oil and the wine thou mayest not act unjustly by!"

7. And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living one, saying, Come and see!

8. And I saw, and behold a Pale Horse, and he who sits upon him, the name for him is Death; and Hades followed with him: and there was given to them authority to kill upon the fourth of the earth with sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

9. And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the Altar the souls of them who had been slain on account of the word of the Deity, and on account of the testimony which they held. 10. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, Until when, O thou who art the Despot, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood upon those who dwell upon the earth? 11. And to them each were given white robes, and it was answered to them that they should repose yet a short time, while their fellow-servants and their brethren should be filled up, who are about to be killed even as they.

12. And I saw when he opened the sixth seal; and behold a great earthquake occurred, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood. 13. And the stars of the heaven fell to the earth, as a fig-tree casts its unripe figs, being shaken by a mighty wind. 14. And heaven departed as a scroll rolled up; and every mountain and island were removed out of their places. 15. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich, and the military chieftains, and the mighty ones, and every bondman and every freeman, concealed themselves in the caverns and among the rocks of the mountains; 16. And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for that great day of his wrath has come, and who could have been caused to stand."

 

1. Introduction

 

This sixth chapter of the prophecy constitutes the rehearsal of the first six acts of the tragical conflict between the Lamb and his adherents of the one part, and the constituted authorities of Greek and Latin Paganism in Church and State of the other. The translation given is of the text amended by Griesbach, and compared with that of Tregelles, and others, whose rendering, however, has had but little influence with the author. Indeed, I have been greatly disappointed in the fruit of the labor of the wise and prudent biblical critics of the original text of the Apocalypse. Their grapes are wild and bitter; and not less so those of the Tregelles vine, which has increased the bewilderment of the learned author of the "Horae."

The Rev. S. P. Tregelles, a dissenting minister of Plymouth, England, is learned in the languages of the East, a clear writer, and not without authority in the wisdom of the world-religious. He has published a translation of the apocalypse "from the Greek text according to the ancient authorities," not more modern than twelve hundred years, and the far greater part fourteen hundred years ago. He has published this translation by itself, and introduced it by a very interesting preface. On reading this, I supposed that an enlightened critic had appeared among the divines of the apostasy, who had risen above the bias of his religious metaphysics, and would therefore give us a reliable version of the book. But, alas, how disappointed was I when I came to examine the result of the rules and principles by which he had promised to work. The following specimens of new translation based on his "ancient authorities," will show of themselves to "the servants of the Deity" what I mean.

1. In ch. i. 6 -- "He hath made for us a kingdom -- priests unto Him who is his God and Father."

2. In ch. v. 10 -- "Thou hast made them unto our God a kingdom and priests; and they reign on the earth."

3. In ch. vi. before us, he omits "and see" in the four places where the phrase "Come and see" therein occurs.

Now, the first two instances prove to an intelligent believer of the gospel that Mr. Tregelles’ "ancient authorities" are unreliable; and that, if he understood "the truth as it is in Jesus," he would not have been led by them. Fourteen hundred years ago carries us back to the latter half of the fifth century, or A.D. 464, about 140 years after the complete establishment of Laodicean Catholicism as the religion of Daniel’s Fourth Beast. This Church and State establishment was then regarded as God’s kingdom, and the Laodicean ecclesiastics as his priests. Now, some Greek MSS, of this epoch read as Tregelles has given it; while others read "kings and priests, and they shall," not they "do," "reign on earth." Here is a discrepancy -- some fifth century manuscripts against some less ancient. Tregelles prefers the former because of their relative antiquity, and is biased, though he may not be aware of it, by the Laodicean dogma that the Church is the kingdom, that Christ is now reigning, and the saints with him as they join him in the skies. We have, therefore, no hesitation in rejecting the authority of his new translation based on such readings which are utterly at variance with the first principles of the oracles of God. The readings are self-evident corruptions of the true text by transcribers who sought to make the apocalyptic saints sing in harmony with the traditions of the Laodicean Apostasy. True believers are now kings and priests elect for God. He has promised them a kingdom, and they shall reign on the earth. This is the teaching of the word ministered by prophets and apostles, and not readings of Greek MSS., even if written in the days of John, affirming the contrary, could be anything else but spurious.

I have not seen any good reason for much diversity of rendering in the translations of this sixth chapter. The common version is substantially correct. I not only see no reason for striking out "and see" from the text of verses 1,3,5 and 7, but I see a good and sufficient reason why it should be retained. The reason is this. In ch. v. 3, it is affirmed that no man in the universe was found worthy, blepein auto, to see it -- the scroll with seven seals. John wept at this announcement. But he was afterwards comforted with the assurance that Jesus Christ could see it, and loose the seals. When, therefore, the time came to convert this assurance into fact, John, as the dramatical representative of a class who would be contemporary with the opening of the first four seals, and would "see" or discern their unloosing, was invited not only to "Come," but to "Come and see." Hence, the significance of the sentence would be spoiled by rejecting the words kai bleme, "and see." What was he to come for? To see -- to see or discern the operation while the Lamb should be engaged in the successive seeing or loosing of the first four seals. The words are an important part of the text, and must in no wise be rejected, as the learned and "divine" author of the "Horae Apocalypticae" has done on the authority of Dr. Tregelles, whose translation he follows.

I have deviated from the common version in rendering zoa, living ones, instead of beasts; stephanos, coronal wreath, instead of crown; purros, fiery red; koinix, choenix, and denarios, denarius, terms of measure and coin, I leave for interpretation; Hades, I have transferred; despotes, also transferred; but as to the phrase, "the fourth of the earth," in verse 8, we defer any remark upon it until we come to the interpretation of the fourth seal.

I have remarked above that the general subject of the translation of Apoc. vi is the conflict between the truth incarnate in the Woman’s Seed and their adversary, the seed of the Serpent, enthroned in Pagan Rome. However prolonged, it reveals that the conflict was not to be endless, but should terminate in bruising the Satan, and the departing of his heaven as a scroll when it is rolled up. This is the terminus ad quem, the end to which this sixth chapter brings us. It begins with the first seal and ends with the sixth; hence, the first seal is the terminus a quo, the end from which the conflict takes its apocalyptical inception.

The first seal, then, being our point of departure in this great contest, which was to determine the fate of that Pagan power which had "magnified itself against the Prince of the Host, and had already taken away the Daily, and cast down the place of his sanctuary" (Dan. viii. 11), it is important and desirable to know the chronology of the first seal, that is, the epoch of the beginning.

And how is this to be determined? It certainly was not opened before John’s banishment to Patmos; for the seals were a prophecy to him of what should come to pass afterwards. The best evidence extant declares that John resided in Patmos in the reign of Domitian, where, A.D. 96, he saw the things he records in the apocalypse. The first seal in its symbolization is not of a color suited to the times and events of the period from the assumption of Jesus to the right hand of power, to A.D. 96. The following quotation from Gibbon will give the reader some idea of the agents who figured before the world and gave character to the times in which it was the misfortune of honest men to live. With the exception of Vespasian and his son Titus, by whom God broke up the Jewish State, and burned the city of his Son’s murderers (Matt. xxii. 7), the imperial rulers of the Roman people, from Tiberius to Domitian, were tyrants of a truly "dreadful and terrible" description. "Their unparalleled vices," says he, "and the splendid theatre on which they were acted, have saved from them oblivion. The dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius the timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy. During fourscore years (excepting only the short and doubtful respite of Vespasian’s reign) Rome groaned beneath an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families of the republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent that arose in that unhappy period."

The color of the first seal is not characteristic of the age in which these rulers flourished in crime. Red or black would have expressed the color of their times, but certainly not the white of the first seal.

I see no epoch for the commencement of the first seal earlier than John’s exile in Patmos, nor any one later than the reigns of the five emperors who succeeded "the timid, inhuman Domitian." When we come to consider the first seal in particular, we may perhaps be able to "see it."

The chronological epoch of the commencement of the seals being determined, the loosing of the seals will, of course, be in the order of their enumeration -- the second before the third, and the third before the fourth, and the fourth before the fifth, and the fifth before the sixth, and the sixth before the seventh. There will have been to the loosing of each seal a definite period assigned, which may be styled the seal-period. The predicted events of a seal must be found in its own seal-period; they will culminate and acquire their full development in the period; but it by no means follows that the judgments will have ceased to operate, or have become exhausted, before the opening of the next seal ensues. Thus, lamentation, mourning, and woe, are the subject of the third seal, and a characteristic also of the fourth; only in the latter the evil is increased by its association with famine, pestilence, and the sword. Certain things symbolized in the first seal, and in active development in the first seal period, do not cease at the opening of the second seal, but continue operative through all the six, till it can be said, "He that was to go forth conquering and that he might conquer, and receive the coronal wreath, hath conquered, and is crowned the victor in the fight." Hence, certain of the things "signified" in the first seal, though not expressed in the word-painting of the others, underlie them all, and crop out in another part of the prophecy.

 

 

 


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