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.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 315; Apocalypse Revealed 262-263, 301, 306, 314, 316, 320, 322-323)

2636. 'Abraham was a son a hundred years old' means a complete state of union. This is clear from the meaning of 'a hundred' as that which is complete, dealt with immediately below, and from the meaning of 'years' as state, dealt with in 482, 487, 488, 493, 893, here a state of union. What a complete state is of the Lord's Divine united to His Human, or what amounts to the same, united to the Rational - for the human has its beginnings in the inmost part of the rational, 2106, 2194 - is not easy to express in a way that can be understood, though it can nevertheless be illustrated by the things which with man are called a complete state when he is being reformed and regenerated.

[2] It is well known that a person cannot be regenerated except in adult years, for not until then is he able to exercise reason and judgement and in so doing to receive good and truth from the Lord. Before entering that state he is being prepared by the Lord through the implantation of such things as can serve him as the soil for receiving the seeds of truth and good. Implanted thus are many states of innocence and charity, also cognitions of good and truth, and consequently thoughts. This implantation occurs during many years before his regeneration takes place. When a person has been endowed with these things and so has been prepared, his state is now said to be complete, for the things that are interior have been arranged ready to receive. All those things with a person which the Lord grants him prior to regeneration and by means of which he is regenerated are called remnants, which in the Word are meant by the number ten, 576, 1738, 2284, and also by a hundred when the state for regeneration is complete, 1988.

[3] These things that are so with man may serve to illustrate what is meant by a complete state of the Human united to the Divine in the Lord. That is to say, they may illustrate the state when the Lord by His own power - through the conflicts brought about by temptations and through victories, and through the powers of Divine wisdom and intelligence - gathered to Himself within the Human, that is, within the Rational, so much of the Divine that He was able to unite the Divine itself to the Divine acquired within the Rational. And it was to represent this state that, even though Abraham had spent many years in the land of Canaan, Isaac was not born to him until he was a hundred years old. These are the arcana contained within the number 'a hundred years', which was Abraham's age.

[4] That the number 'a hundred' means that which is complete may also be seen from other places in the Word, as in Isaiah,

No more will there be from it an infant of days, nor an old man who has not completed his days, for the child will die a son a hundred years old, and the sinner a son a hundred years old will be accursed. Isaiah 65:20.

Here 'a hundred' clearly stands for that which is complete, for it is said, 'No more will there be an infant of days, nor an old man who has not completed his days', and, a child and a sinner will be 'a hundred years old', that is, a time when his state is complete.

[5] In Matthew,

Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields, for My name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will be allotted the inheritance of eternal life. Matthew 19:29; Mark 10:29-30.

Here 'a hundredfold' stands for that which is complete, otherwise described as 'good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over', in Luke 6:38.

[6] In Luke,

Some seed fell on good ground, and when it had grown up it brought forth fruit a hundredfold. Luke 8:8; Matthew 13:8, 23; Mark 4:20.

Here also 'a hundred' stands for that which is complete, a number which would not have been mentioned unless it had had that meaning. A similar meaning exists in the parable about the debtors, where the Lord says that one owed a hundred baths of oil and the other a hundred cors of wheat, Luke 16:5-7. The same applies in other places where a hundred is mentioned. It is similar with a thousand, regarding which number, see 2575.