Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind (35 page)

But Christ could. He established a new Kingdom whose sacramental meal was the Eucharist, and at that meal were people “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (5:9). The Mass is intimately tied to the mystery of the Kingdom. Until this Kingdom, no one would have dreamed that Jew and Gentile could commune together in peace. This mystery is contained on the scroll about to be opened by the breaking of the seals.

We now approach the details of the judgment that reveals to the whole world the true nature of the Messianic Kingdom: the mystery of the scroll. The symbolic importance of the number
seven
continues to be evident in the seals and trumpets: seven of each of them. They signify the perfect judgment of God upon the leadership of an unbelieving Jerusalem. In Leviticus, Moses had warned Israel that they would be punished seven times if they forsook God: “If you will not hearken to me … I will chastise you again sevenfold for your sins” (26:14, 18). St. John emphasizes that history is firmly within the grasp of the Lamb with the seven horns and seven eyes.

Rather than seeing the seals and the trumpets as chronologically related, the passages should be viewed as portraits of this period from different angles. The seals look at these events from the perspective of the Lion/Lamb who opens them. His Church had been ruthlessly persecuted during the Great Tribulation of 64 to 67 A.D., and justice is finally being meted out upon those persecutors from 67 to 70 A.D.

The opening of the first seal reveals a message of hope, given by the King for the encouragement of the persecuted Christian community: “I saw … a white horse, and its Rider had a bow; and a crown was given to Him, and He went out conquering and to conquer” (6:2). This Rider symbolizes Christ, armed with the conquering Truth He proclaims. The picture of Christ the Word on a white horse is reminiscent of an Old Testament passage in Wisdom: “Thy all-powerful word leaped from Heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior carrying the sharp sword of Thy authentic command” (18:15–16).

Christ appears on a white horse riding in victory over His enemies again at the end of The Apocalypse (19:11). This first seal is an anticipation of that event. The visions of The Apocalypse begin and end with the white-horse Rider. The first seal reminds the Christian community that even though there is much suffering to undergo first, the final outcome is assured: Christ will be victorious. From Heaven’s perspective, He already is.

The next three seals are also horses with riders. The red horse signifies war: “Its rider was permitted to take peace from the land” (6:4). The black horse signifies famine, with outrageous prices for foodstuffs. The pale horse symbolizes death: “I saw … a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him” (6:8). As history attests, famine follows war, and death follows them both. The events of Ezekiel’s time (Ezek. 6:11–7:15) foreshadowed St. John’s time (GR3).

It is noteworthy that the seals are opened in the same order that Jesus used in warning His disciples about the fall of the Temple (signs 2 and 3 in the Olivet Discourse). St. John is describing the fulfillment of his Lord’s predictions spoken about four decades earlier.

The fifth seal reveals the martyrs of the Church, killed during the intense persecution of the Sanhedrin and Nero (sign 5 in the Olivet Discourse). Their souls are obviously awaiting the final resurrection, but why are they under the altar in Heaven? This is a reflection of the Old Covenant Temple. In the Temple, the blood of the sacrifices flowed under the altar. The Old Testament taught that the life of a creature was in its blood (Lev. 17:11). These martyrs were New Covenant sacrifices. They had joined their suffering to those of Christ’s Passion. St. Paul alludes to his own desire for this union of suffering. In Colossians, he writes, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body” (1:24).

From an earthly perspective, these martyrs had wasted their lives as a burning lamp in one of Nero’s garden parties, or as lion bait for entertainment at the Coliseum. But from a heavenly perspective, their earthly loss of life was a Christian sacrifice. In reality, their lives were not lost, but preserved under the altar in Heaven. Their sacrifice had eternal significance in God’s Kingdom in Heaven.

These martyrs cry out to God for justice against their persecutors. (Even from the perspective of a Christian in Heaven, evil should be punished.) They are told to be patient; it will be only “a little longer” (6:11). Indeed, history records that it was less than three years before the fall of Jerusalem. More martyrdom must be accomplished before God will be ready to exact justice. We are reminded that the purpose of our earthly existence is not human happiness, but human divination. This idea may sound strange to us, but was a common theme of the early Church Fathers.

The sixth seal is actually the final one, since the seventh seal recapitulates these events in trumpets, thunders, and woes. This seal uses the apocalyptic language to which we have now become accustomed, especially in our examination of this event in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:29). This is the climax to the disruptions of 70 A.D.: political dynasties will be dislodged (GR5).

The events leading up to 70 A.D. saw not only the fall of the most prominent religious dynasty of the Roman Empire (the institutional Jewish priesthood, which could trace itself back to Aaron and Moses), but also, with the suicide of Nero, the blotting out of the line of Augustus. The next true emperor of Rome was Vespasian, who was not of the lineage of Augustus. Even his dynasty would not extend past his two sons.

Josephus tells us that in the upheaval surrounding the Temple’s fall, many Jews actually hid in the caves around Jerusalem, just as the sixth seal predicts (6:15).

♦
The Great Tribulation
. Before St. John starts the seventh seal’s recapitulation, he pauses in Chapter 7 to expand on this climactic sixth seal. By now it should be clear to any careful reader that St. John’s vision is following the blueprint of the Olivet Discourse. Jesus assured His disciples that they were on the winning side in the battle with evil, but there would still be a time when their prospects looked bleak. They would suffer from the effects of famine, persecution, and war in the “Great Tribulation.” But then “the Son of man” would come to the “Ancient of Days” and “be presented before Him” to be recognized by all in His kingdom as victorious ruler (Matt. 24:30; Dan. 7:13).

The phrase “Great Tribulation” is used only three times in the New Testament. Jesus used it in the Olivet Discourse, referring to the time when the Roman Empire would sponsor a persecution of Christians just before the Temple’s destruction (sign 5). The other two uses are in The Apocalypse. St. John uses the term in 7:14 just as Jesus did: to refer to the Neronian persecution. Only a severe case of Winkle Warp could place this verse into the future after a secret rapture.

♦
Four winds and the mark
. The sixth seal contains an interesting scene of “four angels standing at the four corners of the land holding back the four winds” (7:1). This is very likely a reference to the four winds of Daniel 7:2 that stir up the gentile nations. These gentile nations, when stirred up, would “harm the land” of Israel. Before these angels are allowed to release the winds of wrath, however, God demands more time to complete the identification of Christ’s followers. No evil will be allowed “till we have sealed the servants of our God upon their foreheads” (7:3). This is the “mark” that was mentioned in the letter to the Church in Philadelphia, in anticipation of the mark of God that would later stand in contrast to the mark of the beast. The fact that God’s servants are sealed with this mark “upon their foreheads” shows that their minds are right. They think as Christians should because their loyalty is to God and His Kingdom.

Just as more time was needed to allow for more martyrs in the fifth seal, in the sixth seal a delay is granted to garner more followers for Christ. These delays are one and the same, not consecutive. The purpose: to gather more Jewish Christians into the Church before the destruction of Jerusalem.

These new Christians would be protected in much the same way that the ancient Hebrews were protected in Egypt when the angel of death decimated the Egyptians. In Egypt, the mark was the physical blood of a lamb that the Hebrews put on their doorposts in obedience to God’s command. Then they fled in haste the next morning. In the Jerusalem Church, the mark most likely refers to the spiritual mark received at Mass. Those in the Jerusalem Church also fled in haste at a moment’s notice. The mark of God’s sacrifice saved them both.

It is an interesting aside that this picture of the four winds and their devastation was a very understandable image to the residents of Jerusalem in the decade before 70 A.D. Four years before the war began with Rome, before even the start of the Great Tribulation, an unnamed Jewish prophet appeared in Jerusalem to warn its residents of their coming destruction. He roamed the streets shouting, “ ‘A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!’ This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city.” He did this until he was killed in the war after more than seven years of prophesying (
WJ
, VI, 5:3). Was he a Christian? We really have no way of knowing. Was he a faithful prophet of God? Absolutely. He stood solidly in the tradition of Jeremiah.

♦
The 144,000
. The introduction of the number
144,000
shows again the significance of symbolism to St. John (144,000 is twelve squared times ten cubed.) He writes that this would be the number of Jewish Christians brought into the Church before the fall of the Temple. Notice that it specifically excludes the non-Jewish Christians who have continued to come to Christ since St. Peter opened the door to the Gentiles: “A great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues” (7:9) were seen entering the Church, praising and worshiping God.

This number need not be exact. Symbolically, it is a very complete number (GR2). Here it represents the complete number of Judean Christians to enter the Church before Jerusalem is destroyed by the unleashing of the four winds; before the gentile nations would come to destroy the Temple.

The vision continues by reminding us that the victory of Christ’s forces is assured. The remainder of Chapter 7 gives us a quick glimpse of the celebration that has continually been occurring in Heaven since the victory of Christ on the Cross. “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!… Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen” (7:10–12). There will be more descriptions of this celebration later in The Apocalypse. It reflects Heaven’s eternal joy.

At this point in the vision, we have reached the end of the main story of The Apocalypse, the period leading up to the judgment of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. In typical apocalyptic fashion, St. John proceeds to look at the same events from a different perspective. The reader must resist the modern temptation to organize these seals and trumpets chronologically. Remember Daniel’s vision of the statue? The statue events were revisited in the vision of the four beasts, the seventy sevens, and the vision of the end. In this way, Daniel was able to give more detail (GR8).

After bringing the vision to a climax in the sixth seal, St. John links the seals with the trumpets by having the seventh seal contain all seven trumpets. (The last three trumpets are also the three woes.) The trumpets themselves are reminiscent of those that Jesus told us about in the Olivet Discourse. They were to announce His public coming into His kingdom (Matt. 24:31).

That is what this scroll vision is all about. The scroll’s opening reveals the mystery of the Messianic Kingdom. The trumpets describe the same events as the seals do, but from a different perspective. Whereas the six seals view the coming judgment from the perspective of Christ, the trumpets view these events through the eyes of the Sanhedrin. Evidence of this non-Christian perspective is found in the climax of the last trumpet and its woe, announcing the coronation of Christ: “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever” (11:15). This could be viewed as a “woe” only by an unrepentant unbeliever being judged by the victorious Christ. The masterful use of recapitulation is breathtaking!

An interesting aside revolves around the “prayers of the saints” (8:4–5), shown as having a direct influence on earthly events. These are the same saint/martyrs of the fifth seal. Their prayers are mingled with “much incense.” In the epistle of James we read, “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (5:16). This holds true
even after
the righteous man dies and enters Heaven. This principle anticipates a message of the Millennium that we will encounter in Chapter 20.

♦
The first trumpet: hail and fire
. The first trumpet uses vivid apocalyptic language to describe the effects of the Jewish-Roman War on the land of Israel. All seven trumpets closely parallel the signs that Jesus gave in the Olivet Discourse, particularly in Luke 21.