Are the Seal of Revelation 'Past History?'

by Phillip Goodman

RSS Feed facebook digg this Thursday, July 24 2008 in Understanding Prophecy | 5 Comment(s)

More and more I am seeing confusion regarding the chronology of the Seal Judgments. Many are placing the Seal judgments basically in a “historicists” setting, with the Tribulation period (Daniel’s 70th Week) not beginning until Seal 6. This makes Seals 6 & 7 to be the only Seal judgments in a futurist mode. Seals 1-4, and sometimes Seal 5, are said to be already past, or in progress.

Here are some of the reasons the first four Seals cannot be historical, some of which I detail in my book The Assyrian Connection.

1. When Jesus tells John to write to the 7 churches, He always closes each individual message with “let him hear what the spirit says to the churches (plural)”. Since 7 is the number for completion/perfection/maturity, and these messages are given to the church(ES), then they encompass all of the church body throughout the church age, right down to the present time. This is confirmed by the message to Thyatira to “hold fast until I come”, i.e., the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the Church age. In the chronology of Revelation which Jesus gives in 1:19, the church age is included in “the things which are.” Therefore, “the things which shall take place after these things” occur after the church age. This segment of Revelation begins in 4:1 where John is caught up to heaven (a picture of the Rapture) to see “what must take place after these things.” This includes the opening of all 7 Seals.

2. There is an unmistakable parallel between Seals 1-4 (the four horses) and the chronology of the last days given by Jesus in Matthew 24:7-9. Matthew lists (1) false christs and nation will RISE (Grk = from rest/peace), i.e., a clear parallel with Seal 1/1st Horse, (2) kingdom against kingdom, i.e., corresponding to Seal 2/2nd Horse, 3) famine and earthquakes, i.e., parallel to Seal 3/3rd Horse, (4) Luke’s version mentions “plagues” (21:11), i.e., which reflect Seal 4/4th Horse, (5) then Matthew continues with “they will kill you …on account of My name”, i.e. corresponding to the 5th Seal, (6) and finally Matthew 24:29-30 gives a precise description of Seal 6. Now, the first 4 events above (Seals 1-4) in Matthew’s account are said to be “the beginning of birth pangs.” This term refers back to Jeremiah 30:4-7, which shows the “birth pangs” leading to “Jacob’s Trouble,” which Jesus referred to as the “Great Tribulation” in Matthew 24:21. Since the whole point of Matthew 24 is to give an answer to the question “Lord, what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”, then the term “beginning of birth pangs” is a reference back to Jeremiah’s account of the Tribulation and his use of the “birth pangs” metaphor which introduces it. This would argue strongly for the Revelation parallel account (the Seals) to be included in Matthew’s timeline, which is strictly within Daniel’s 70th Week. Another clear time-passage showing the “birth pangs” within the timeframe of the Tribulation is the Isaiah 13:8-9 (actually the whole chapter) description of that same period.

3. Very pragmatic, and even statistical, evidence regarding the one-fourth of earth’s population killed as a result of Seals (horses) 1-4 makes it impossible that these events could have occurred in past history. The result of Seals 1-4 is that a fourth of the earth’s population is killed (see Seal 4, Revelation 6:8). If Seals 1-4 cover past history, that means, mathematically, that ON THE AVERAGE, at EVERY point in time during the past 2000 years, 25% of mankind must have died as a result of war, famine, plague, and “the wild beast of the earth” (Seal 4). Now, we know, of course, that 100% of mankind dies in every generation. But it is not true, nor has it ever been true, that 25% of the human race has died—ON AVERAGE for 2000 years, or, for that matter, even at any single point in history— as a result of the type of trauma portrayed in Seals 1-4.

For example, the scale of warfare has dramatically increased in the past 200 years far beyond anything that has ever occurred before. This is particularly true during this past century. World Wars I & II were unprecedented in the magnitude of both deaths and destruction. Since population has also increased on an exponential curve, and since we are dealing with percentages (one-forth), then this has to be factored in.

Here is what we find statistically. During the 19th century the average global population for that 100-year period was 1.3 billion. The cumulative reports on the human catastrophes of pandemics, famine, democide and genocide, wars, natural disasters (droughts, volcanoes, floods, etc.), terrorism (that is, the kind of war, famine, plague judgments of Seals 1-4) show that these tragedies resulted in 103 million deaths. This amounts to only 8% of the population for the 19th century. This is far below the 1/4th figure required.

The 20th century, beginning with a population of 1.6 billion, and ending with 6 billion (for a century-long average of 3.4 billion people) had a total of 240.5 million deaths attributable to these same factors (pandemics, famine, democide/genocide, wars, natural disasters, terrorism). The averages out to only 7% of the population for the 20th century. This includes, of course, the War to End All Wars, WW I, and then WW II with over 50 nations involved in a conflict which included the apocalyptic Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We have to remember that the unimaginable figure of 50 million people killed in WW II shrinks percentage-wise when factored into the even more unimaginable century-long average of 3.4 billion people on the planet. Even when all of the other human tragedies which qualify within the type of killer-catastrophes of the Seal Judgments are added in, it amounts to only 7% of humanity in the last century. This is nowhere near the 25% required by the prophecy.

Even though the Seal judgments call for a cumulative average of 25% of the world’s population being killed during the extended period of these Seals, if we were to consider, for example, only the snapshot in history of one of the worst plagues ever, the Black Plague (Black Death) over a 10-15 year period around 1350 AD, we find that 20-30% of people died as a result in Europe/Asia. But this doesn’t include the unknown populations in Africa, or North and South America. Nor are these figures representative of even a tiny fraction of the 2000 year-cumulative-span that the historicists view of Seals 1-4 are supposed to represent. There simply are not any reputable historical statistics that demonstrate that the cumulative deaths of humanity over the past 2000 years come anywhere close to a 25% figure.

1. The 4th Horse shows that “Death; and Hades” were following it. This shows the destination of the fourth-part of humanity who are killed by the wars, famines, plagues, etc. Hades is the “holding cell” of lost souls awaiting the final Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20. There is only one “window” in history where it would be possible that every single individual who dies goes to Hades. Since wars, famines, plagues, etc. affect ALL of humanity, and since these calamities cannot possibly be selective, say, in taking only the lost, then there must be a period when ALL of humanity is lost! This period, unique in history, will be that timeframe immediately after the time when the Rapture removes all Christians to heaven. That will be the only time in history when, for a brief time (before the 144000 and gentile new believers arise), 100% of the earth’s population will be lost. The death of 25% at that POINT IN HISTORY will insure that all of those killed are lost, and bound for Hades…hence, “death and hades” in the form of the 4th Seal captures their souls. That places Seals 1-4 strictly in the future, occurring AFTER the Rapture.

2. Finally, Seals 1-4 fit perfectly within that timeframe Jesus called the Tribulation period, not only for the reasons stated in points 1 & 2 above, but because of what Jesus said about this protracted, intense time of near human extinction. Jesus said about this time that “unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved” (Matthew 24:22). Looking at this in stages, Revelation shows that (Stage 1) one-forth die in Seals 1-4, (Stage 2) another one-third die in Trump 6 in 9:15, making it a total of one-half of the world’s population who are killed at this point. Then, in (Stage 3) the 7 Bowl judgments poison 100% of the earth’s water and land, making it impossible for any human to live beyond 3-4 days, or a week at most. None of these figures take into account the number of Christian martyrs, which will be immense. But these three stages make imminent sense out of Jesus’ words—“unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved” (Matthew 24:22).

In conclusion, the Seal Judgments are still future—all of them.

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