The Meaning of the Book of Revelation: the Four Horsemen
By 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.
(References: 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
Wind (as in west wind)
In the Bible, the wind represents the power of the Lord working on us through the heavens. The Lord is love itself, and by extending His love He created the energy that created the universe, the energy that still sustains and empowers us. That love, and the wisdom that is its form, can act on us more or less directly depending on our spiritual states. A powerful wind indicates a more direct force.
It's interesting to note that the sun corresponds to the Lord, that its heat corresponds to the Lord's love and its light to the Lord's wisdom. In the natural world, the sun's heat causes wind by warming the air. In the spiritual world, the Lord's love causes spiritual wind by acting through heaven.
The Bible also talks about four winds, an east wind and a "wind of the sea." The four winds stand for the whole of the impact of the Lord's love. The east wind is withering, devastating – it represents the Lord's love as experienced by those in hell. The west wind represents stopping or turning aside the flow of the Lord's love – in Israel the "wind of the sea" would come from the west, opposing the east wind.
(References: Apocalypse Explained 418, 419; Apocalypse Revealed 343 [2-4]; Arcana Coelestia 7679, 7702)
