Revelation 6

B. The first six seal judgments ch. 6

John received revelation concerning the judgments that would take place on earth after the Lamb opened the seals on the scroll (Revelation 5:1). God gave him this information to help us understand what will take place in the future (Revelation 1:19). The following diagram places the seal, trumpet, and bowl judgements that begin to unfold here in the context of the earlier revelation concerning Daniel’s seventieth week (Daniel 9:24-27).

The failure of scholars to agree on the correlation of events that have happened in church history with these judgments confirms that the events predicted here are still future (cf. Revelation 1:19; Revelation 4:1). Some postribulational interpreters view the seals as describing conditions preparatory to the Tribulation. [Note: E.g., Ladd, pp. 95-96; and Johnson, p. 472. ] Posttribulationists understand the Tribulation to be the culminating period of the church’s persecution on earth before Christ’s second coming. They believe the church will go through the Tribulation. Premillennial scholars believe that the seals picture events that are part of the Tribulation. [Note: E.g., Walvoord, The Revelation . . ., pp. 122-23; Pentecost, pp. 278-79; and Harris, p. 238.] I favor the second view. The seals, trumpets, and bowls judgments seem to fit best this last seven-year period of which Daniel prophesied (i.e., the Tribulation, Daniel 9:27).

The order of events predicted in Revelation 6 is very similar to the order Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse. That passage is key to understanding the further revelation that God gave John about this future time. These events are the appearance of antichrists, war, famine, death, martyrdom, and earthly and heavenly phenomena. Later in the Olivet Discourse Jesus mentioned an event that occurs at the middle of Daniel’s seventieth week, namely, the abomination of desolation (Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14). Consequently the events that He described before the midpoint, namely, those of the first six seals, will probably occur in the first half of the Tribulation. Jesus referred to this three and one-half year period as the "beginning of birth-pangs" (Matthew 24:8; Mark 13:8).