The Meaning of the Book of Revelation: the Four Horsemen
Por Jonathan S. Rose, Curtis Childs
Transparency is needed to sort things out. Before big change happens, God first reveals what’s really going on.
In the Book of Revelation - the last book of the Word - the apostle John describes a series of apocalyptic visions that he experienced during his exile on the Isle of Patmos, in the Aegean Sea.
In one of these visions, he saw four horsemen, the first riding a white horse, the second a red horse, the third a black, and the fourth - named Death - riding a pale horse. These "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" - oft-pictured - are described in Revelation 6:1-8.
What do these horses, and their riders, represent? What do they have to do with us, today? Watch as Curtis Childs and Jonathan Rose explore the hidden Bible meaning of the Four Horsemen in the Book of Revelation, in this video from the Swedenborg and Life Series, from the Swedenborg Foundation.
Plus, to go straight to the source, follow the links below to the places in "Apocalypse Revealed" where Swedenborg explained the inner meaning of this famous Bible story. A good place to start would be Apocalypse Revealed 298.
(Referencias: Apocalypse Explained 315; Apocalypse Revealed 262-263, 301, 306, 314, 316, 320, 322-323)
This video is a product of the Swedenborg Foundation. Follow these links for further information and other videos: www.youtube.com/user/offTheLeftEye and www.swedenborg.com
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #115
115. The assurance or trust which people say faith provides, and which they call a "truly saving faith," 1 is not a spiritual assurance or trust but an earthly one when it is based on faith alone. Spiritual assurance or trust derives its essence and life from good actions done out of love and not from the truth that belongs to religious faith apart from those good actions. The assurance provided by a faith separated from good actions is dead; therefore real assurance is not possible for us when we are leading evil lives. An assurance that we are saved because of the Lord's merit with the Father no matter how we have lived is a long way from the truth as well.
All who have spiritual faith, though, have an assurance of being saved by the Lord, because they believe that the Lord came into the world to give eternal life to those who both believe and live by the principles that he taught. They know that he is the one who regenerates such people and prepares them for heaven, doing so all by himself without their help, out of pure mercy.
Notas a pie de página:
1. With this reference to a "truly saving faith," Swedenborg is taking issue with an essential corollary of the Protestant doctrine of faith alone (Sola Fide; see note 1 in New Jerusalem 4). According to Martin Luther (1483-1546) and later Protestant theologians who extended his thought, prospective Christians must first enter into a state of faithful assensus (assent or agreement) with the truth of God's promises as they appear in the Scriptures; this means believing that Christ has already received the punishment for all human sin by dying on the cross, making him "righteous" and "meritorious" in the eyes of God the Father and thus worthy of salvation, and that this salvation is also promised to those who believe in Christ's saving work. Once new Christians achieve this state of assensus, the merit and righteousness Christ has already achieved is "imputed" to them by the Father for the sake of their faith in Christ the Son, and they thus achieve the "state of grace" or salvation. This produces a corresponding state of fiducia (trust, confidence, assurance) that the believer has already been saved, regardless of any good works or acts of love that she or he may perform thereafter (Beeke 1991, 22-26). Martin Luther placed enormous stress on the idea that true fides (faith) contained fiducia within itself, developing the theme extensively in his 1535 Lectures on Galatians:
Now Christ is completely certain that in His Spirit He is pleasing to God. Since we have the same Spirit of Christ, we, too, should be certain that we are in a state of grace, on account of Him who is certain. (Luther [1535] 1955-1986b, 26:378-379)
John Calvin (1509-1564) maintained and extended this emphasis on certainty of salvation within the context of his doctrine of predestination: "The elect [those predestined to be saved] have been given the Spirit by whose witness they know for a certainty that they have been adopted to the hope of eternal salvation" (Calvin [1546] 1960, 2:59). For a survey of attitudes among the early Reformers toward the question of assurance, and an account of the intense debates surrounding the doctrine in the Dutch and English Reformed churches of Swedenborg's day, see Beeke 1991. In this and the following sections, Swedenborg presents his rebuttal of and alternative to the Protestant doctrine of assurance. [DNG]
