Revelation 6:9

Revelation 6:9. And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slaughtered because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they held. With the opening of the fifth seal we pass into scenes of a kind in many respects distinguished from those of the first four. No voice of one of the living creatures now cries ‘Come:' there are no horses and their riders: we make a transition from what is of earth to what is not of earth.

The Seer beholds first ‘the altar.' We have already seen that the whole imagery of the heavenly abode is taken from the structure of the Tabernacle, afterwards copied in the Temple. The only question, therefore, is whether we have here the altar of incense which stood in the holy place, or the great brazen altar of burnt-offering which stood in the outer court. One answer is given to this question by all the most eminent commentators, and it would seem as if one only could be given. It is the latter of the two; and if any difficulty be found in accepting this owing to the fact that we might expect the souls of the saints to be preserved in the inner rather than in the outer sanctuary, the answer will be found in the first consideration to be immediately submitted when we inquire who the saints are. But whether that answer be correct or not, there can be little doubt that we have here a vision of the brazen altar. What is seen under it is the blood (see below) of those slaughtered in sacrifice. Nothing of this kind found a place at the altar of incense, while the command of the law was that the blood of animals sacrificed should be poured out ‘at the bottom of the altar of burnt-offering, which is before the tabernacle of the congregation' (Leviticus 4:7). Those here referred to had been sacrificed. The word used, the same as that applied to the Lamb in chap. Revelation 5:6, leaves no doubt upon the point. They had been sacrificed in the same manner as their Lord; their blood had been shed as His was, and their bodies had been laid upon God's altar to be consumed as an offering acceptable to Him. It corresponds with this that what St. John sees under the altar is in all probability blood. He speak indeed of ‘souls,' or rather ‘lives;' but to the Hebrew blood and life were equivalent terms; ‘the life of the flesh,' he said, ‘ is in the blood' (Leviticus 17:11). No shadowy spectres, therefore, were beheld by the Seer. He beheld only blood, but he knew that that blood was the souls or lives of men.

Two important questions demanding consideration meet us. First, What is the period to which these martyred saints belong? Secondly, Are they martyrs in the sense in which that word is usually employed, or do they include a larger number? In reply to the first of these questions, we have to urge that these saints belong neither to the period of the Neronic persecution, nor to any longer period of Rome's history, nor to the whole Christian era from its beginning to its close. We must agree with those who think that they are saints of the Old Testament Dispensation. (1) Mark where the blood lies. It is under the brazen altar in the Court. The way into the Holiest of all had not yet been manifested. (2) Observe the manner in which their ‘testimony' is described. The word used for ‘testimony' occurs nine times in the Apocalypse, and in every case (including even chap. Revelation 12:11), except the present and chap. Revelation 11:7 which may be in some respects similar, it is associated in one form or another with the name of Jesus. The absence of any such addition in the words before us can hardly be thought of otherwise than as designed; and, if so, a distinction would seem to be drawn between the ‘testimony' here alluded to and the full ‘testimony of Jesus.' (3) The word ‘Master,' not ‘Lord,' of Revelation 6:10 is remarkable. It can hardly be referred directly to Christ: it is rather an epithet of God Himself, to whom it breathes the feeling of Old Testament rather than New Testament relation (comp. Acts 4:24; Jude 1:4, Revised New Testament margin). (4) The parallelism of thought between Revelation 6:10 and Revelation 6:11 of this chapter and Hebrews 11:39-40 is very marked, and confirms what has been said. (5) A powerful argument tending towards the same conclusion is that the saints of the New Testament receive during their lift on earth that very ‘white robe' which is here given to the souls under the altar. Thus in chap. Revelation 7:14, after they have been described as ‘standing before the throne and before the Lamb,' it is said of them, in the Elder's inquiry, Who they are and whence they came, that they had ‘washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,' words evidently implying that the cleansing and whitening referred to had taken place during the period of their mortal pilgrimage. In Revelation 3:4, they who are described as the ‘few names' must have been already clothed in the ‘white garments' which they had not ‘defiled.' In chap. Revelation 19:8 the Lamb's bride is made ready for the marriage which has not yet taken place, by its being given her to array herself ‘in fine linen, bright and pure;' and in the 14th verse of the same chapter, at a time when the Church's victory has not yet been completed, the Rider on the white horse is followed by the armies of heaven ‘clothed in fine linen, white and pure.' To the same effect is the counsel addressed to the Church of Laodicea in chap. Revelation 3:18, that she shall buy of her Lord ‘white garments,' as well as the description in chap. Revelation 19:8 of what ‘fine linen' means, ‘for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.' It is true that in chaps, Revelation 7:9; Revelation 7:13 and Revelation 4:4, these white robes are also those of glory in heaven, but it is unnecessary to dwell upon the fact that the believer appears there in the same perfect righteousness as that in which he is accepted here. The ‘white robe' of the present passage, therefore, is a more complete justification than that which was enjoyed under the old covenant. It is that referred to by St. Paul when, speaking to the Jews at Antioch of Pisidia, he said, ‘By Him every one that believeth is justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses' (Acts 13:39). It is that robe of righteousness which had been promised in Isaiah 61:10 and Zechariah 3:4, that complete reward for which David longed (Psalms 51), and to which both Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:34) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 36:25) had pointed as the great gift of Gospel times. The promise of the Old Testament, which the saints of God who then lived did not ‘receive,' was not simply that of a better country, but of the ‘day' of Christ, with all the blessings that should accompany it. In that hope they ‘exulted,' and at length they ‘saw it and rejoiced' (comp. note on John 8:56). Not until Christ came were even Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their faithful seed perfected. At death they passed into a place of holy waiting until the great work of redemption should be finished; and then only did they receive what is now bestowed upon the follower of Jesus even during his earthly life. Only under the Christian Dispensation have they been made equal to us; and at this moment they wait, as we wait, for the making up of the full number of the redeemed, and for the open acknowledgment and acquittal which shall yet be granted them. (6) Finally, it ought to be noticed that in the verse before us the saints referred to are not said to have been killed under the fifth seal which, like all the others, starts from a point of time contemporaneous with the beginning of the Christian age. It is rather distinctly implied that they had been killed before. The moment the seal is broken their blood is seen.

These ‘souls underneath the altar,' therefore, are the saints of the Old Testament waiting for the completion of their happiness by having added to them their ‘fellow-servants' of New Testament times.

The second question is not less important than the first. We cannot enter upon it fully, and it will meet us again. In the meantime it is enough to say that the analogy of other passages of the Apocalypse leads to the conclusion that the persons alluded to are not confined to those who had actually been killed in the service of God. It includes all who had remained faithful unto death, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the long line of those who, whether known or unknown, had died in faith. All were offerings. All had a life of struggle. All shared ‘the reproach of Christ' (Hebrews 11:26); and all had an interest in crying, ‘Lord, how long?' If, therefore, martyrs in the ordinary sense of the term are to be first thought of, it seems to be only as the type and emblem of the whole company of those who had lived and died in faith.