Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 6:3,4

Revelation 6:3-4. The second horse is red, the colour of blood (comp. 2 Kings 3:22); and he and his rider appear in answer to the second cry Come. In this seal Jesus comes just as He came in the victory of the first seal; but He comes in war and with the sword. There are two ways in which the warfare may be viewed. It may be the struggle of light with darkness and of truth with error, the opposition awakened by the faithful proclamation of the Gospel, and deepened into fiercer enmity as the Gospel makes progress in the world, the contest spoken of by our Lord in Matthew 10:34-36. Were this the struggle alluded to, the ‘war' represented by the second rider would be that between the world and the Church, an opposition shaping itself into many other forms than those of the march of infantry or the thunder of artillery. But the words of Revelation 6:4 forbid this interpretation. The war there thought of is not between the Church and the world, but between different portions of the world itself. The ‘earth' out of which peace is taken is the ungodly world, and the slaughtering of which we read is not produced by the attacks of the wicked on the good, but by those of the former on one another. War, in short, is here represented as one of the curses or judgments which a world that will not accept the rule of the Prince of peace brings upon itself. It rejects those principles by which alone security and peace can be enjoyed. It yields to its own evil passions, and the sword and the battlefield are the result. In the midst of all this nothing is said of what shall be the condition of the righteous. By and by we shall hear more of them. In the meantime, with the first vision in our mind, we may rest in the assurance that they are safe in the hollow of their Redeemer's hand. Before passing on it may be well to notice the extremely peculiar language in which the effect of the wars here alluded to is described in the second of the three clauses of the description, and that they should slaughter one another. The verb is the sacrificial word already met by us in chap. Revelation 5:6, and it appears to be chosen for the purpose of bringing out the irony of God's dealings with those who reject His Son. They will not flee to the slaughtered Lamb, taking advantage of His sacrifice. In the righteous judgment of God, therefore, sacrifice of another kind shall be required of them: they shall ‘slaughter one another.' Their mutual and fratricidal war is a coming of Jesus to judgment. Compare Isaiah 34:6, ‘The Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.'

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 6:3,4

Old Testament

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