The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Part I)

A necessary element to understand Revelation is having a correct concept of time.

Revelation, the title, connotes an insight into the future. This is indeed true, but it need not suggest that the book was written in any chronological manner.

That one apparent event is mentioned after another, does not mean that event occurs after the latter, if such an event even occurred.

For just as we list the attributes of a thing - in the limitation of the human language - one attribute after another, we are obviously not saying that one attribute is before or after another in time. All attributes exist simultaneously at one time and for all times.

Another example is music.

For even as music is played one note at a time, the essence of the music, as in the drama and the emotions that are heard and felt, are not in time itself; and neither do we hear one note at a time. But we hear music.

So then time can merely be a vehicle for the communication of something eternal and timeless.

And also perhaps the appearance of the horsemen at each opening of the seals need not be chronological events, occurring one after another, but rather are like attributes of a thing, or the notes of a music, as the means to paint a picture.

And so what is this picture painted by the horsemen? What is the essential whole that our imaginations are to see, even as our ears hear music and not individual notes?

That will be answered next.