By Neil Earle
The average reader approaching the Four Horsemen of Revelation 6 and the description of the massive earthquake in verse 16-17 would be sure they had stumbled onto a description of the End of the World – sun turns black, moon like blood, stars falling like fig trees, men hiding in caves or so terrified that they ask the mountains to fall open them.
But Bible readers will recall they’ve read this somewhere before. John’s description recalls Isaiah 13:9-11 and the fall of ancient Babylon where almost the same exact phrases are used. “So, they’re both talking about the End and God’s wrath,” many conclude. But a deeper familiarity with the Bible’s Apocalyptic Literature might give reason for caution.
Apocalyptic passages are not to be read in the same straight-forward way we approach devotional writing such as Psalm 23 (the Lord is my Shepherd) or instructional passages such as the Beatitudes (Blessed the meek). Apocalyptic is more like the Movie page as opposed to the Sports page or the Comics page or News page in the daily paper. As Robert Mounce writes: “The details in this dramatic description…are not to be taken with complete literalness…They were part of well-established [prophetic] portrayals of the day of the Lord” (The Book of Revelation, page 161). “Strictly literal” readings of Scripture can get one in trouble. Trees don’t literally clap hands (Isaiah 55:12) and God doesn’t have wings (Psalm 91:4).
The “heavenly signs” of the sun turning black and the moon red are understandable events associated with volcanoes exploding as reports after Krakatoa (1883) and the Mexican earthquake of 1985 make clear. John the Teacher, like Isaiah and Joel, associates these heavenly dislocations with the Wrath of the Lamb and the great day of God’s intervention. This is the way prophetic writing often functioned. Apocalyptic used extensive hyperbole sometimes to dramatize literal events for three reasons:
In the days before Special Effects and Magical Realism, Apocalyptic was descriptive and powerful. (Nahum 1:3-7). “The earthquake was a regular feature of divine visitation,” says Mounce, “as far back as God’s appearance on Mount Sinai” (Exodus 19:18). But Apocalyptic hypes this to the max. Gorge Lucas and the creators of The Dark Knight would have understood.
The often omitted sidelight of Revelation 6 and the cataclysmic earthquake is the link between the descriptions and what they are meant to do. Apocalyptic descriptions are often tied to God’s active deliverance of his people. Note that this is what immediately follows in Revelation 7 with the sealing of the 144,000. Psalm 18:1-19 is evidence that apocalyptic activity and God's deliverances are often linked together – note the appearance of earthquakes (verse 7), lightning and hail (verse 12), tidal waves (verse 15). In other words, if God will inspire this language to be used for his servant David, how much more for a church standing on the brink of extinction, a major emphasis in Revelation (Revelation 2:10).
The “heavenly signs” are a prophetic way to speak of God intervening for his people. There were heavenly signs at Jesus’ death indicating God’s presence at Calvary. Disturbances in the heavens when filtered through the “special effects” style of Apocalyptic writing are poetic license to exaggerate that is a consistent feature in Scripture (meteor showers = stars falling). Some descriptions may be based on actual happenings as we will see next time but the real purpose is to get attention, and John’s Apocalypse certainly does that.