White Horse: Conquering, and Continue to Conquer

Some interpret the rider on the white horse as Christ, the Gospel, a false Christ, or a false gospel, but for the readers at that time, the most natural association with a white horse rider carrying a bow would be the Parthians and warfare, the formidable enemy of the Roman Empire. The Parthians (Acts 2:9) were known for their horsemanship and archery, with their primary weapon being the ‘bow.’ They established the Parthian Empire, and the wars between it and the Roman Empire lasted for three hundred years. The Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC marked the beginning of the three-century war between Rome and the Parthian Empire. The Parthian cavalry employed the ‘Parthian shot’ tactic, using ten thousand mounted archers to defeat seven Roman legions totaling forty thousand men. This was the most devastating defeat in Roman history; the Roman consul Crassus was killed, and the legionary eagles were captured.

The purpose of the rider on the white horse in the first seal of Revelation is to conquer, and to go on conquering (“conquering and to conquer”), but the “crown” of victory is “given to him” by God, indicating that his victory is God’s judgment. The 250 years of persecution of the early church by the Roman Empire were also 250 years of God’s continuous judgment upon the Roman Empire. More than 60 years after the writing of Revelation, during the reign of Aurelius (AD 161-180), the last of the Five Good Emperors of Rome, wars were constant. The Parthians in the east and the Germanic people in the north successively invaded, natural disasters occurred frequently, the national treasury was empty, and the Antonine Plague broke out. The empire went from prosperity to decline, ending the two centuries of Pax Romana (also translated as Roman Peace), and soon after, the Crisis of the Third Century occurred.

The vision of the four horsemen in Revelation symbolizes God’s judgment on earthly kingdoms: war and invasion, social unrest, economic collapse, and death by plague, one after another. The judgment of the four horsemen was first fulfilled in the Roman Empire and continues throughout human history. Whether secular nations or so-called Christian nations, no earthly kingdom can escape these four outcomes. Because the Lord said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), no matter how ideal a social system may be, it is a counterfeit earthly kingdom of man. Therefore, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21); we should not exalt any nation as a lighthouse or a city on a hill. The authority of the sword belongs to God, but the church must not rely on political power to build God’s kingdom; believers bear a cultural mandate, but we should not imagine that the world will become increasingly better.