In Revelation 19 we read the following:
Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.
And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.
From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written: “King of kings and Lord of lords.”
A number of questions arise from this description. To begin with, this is not the first figure seated on a white horse we have encountered in Revelation. In chapter 6 we meet another horseman:
And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.
The question of whether or not these are the same figure is somewhat controversial. Some argue that the rider in chapter 6 is Christ come in judgment to reclaim Israel. The traditional view, however, and one I share, is that the rider in Chapter 6 is a false imitation of the true Christ.
Here we see the relationship between the two.
| Chapter 6 | Chapter 19 |
| Bow | Sword in mouth |
| Crown (stephanos) | Many diadems |
| Goes out to conquer | In righteousness judges and wages war |
The chapter 19 description has more details, but these are the common elements.
The first element is the weapon. The rider in chapter 6 wields a bow; the one in chapter 19 uses a sword coming out of his mouth. The bow is a common weapon of war and seems to indicate that the chapter 6 rider uses human means of warfare in his quest to conquer. The sword in chapter 19, on the other hand, is a sword that comes out of his mouth. This gives an obvious symbolic meaning to the sword: it is the Word of God.
Thus the first common element shows a distinction between what we might call worldly conquest and the conquest that Christ makes. One uses deadly force; the other a different sort of power. This is a striking oddity — how does Christ conquer with the Word?
I believe that this shows us a fascinating aspect of the way the world works. Why do people obey governments, even oppressive and unjust ones? Clearly if a significant percentage of the population — some estimate it at between 5 and 10 percent — were to refuse loyalty to the government, it could not function.
Some argue that the monopoly governments hold on force makes it difficult or impossible to oppose them. But the 20th century gives a number of examples where governments have collapsed when even their armies have refused to fight for them.
In fact, governments gain and retain power through a word. Every government retains power as long as its subjects are convinced that the government exercises power legitimately. Once a government loses that perception of legitimacy, it will lose its hold on power, so that even its own armies will cease to fight for it. A splendid example of this is the “people power” revolution in the Philippines, where the Marcos dictatorship lost power when people filled the streets after various abuses by the government. The Marcos government was toppled by words, not violence.
The relatively small amount of violence that accompanied the fall of the Soviet Bloc is another instance of the way that words can be more powerful than the armies of nations.
The other common elements back up this distinction between raw force and the power that springs from the word. The stephanos represents victory gained by conquest. It is also given by someone or some institution in superior authority. The diadem, on the other hand, represents royal authority and has no necessary connection with conquest. Again by contrast it is not necessarily given by a superior authority. It represents supreme authority in its particular context.
And finally there is a contrast between the rider in chapter 6, who goes out “conquering and to conquer” and the one in chapter 19, who “in righteousness judges and wages war.” The repetition of “conquering and to conquer” is characteristic of Hebrew expression (John, the author of Revelation, was Jewish) and denotes emphasis. This rider is all about conquest — the expansion of his power. The rider in chapter 19, on the other hand, is motivated by righteousness in what he does. He intends good when he judges and wages war. The effects of his actions cannot rightly be criticized. Nobody could stand before him and correctly claim, “You did me wrong.”
So … we are all somewhat captivated by the myth of redemptive violence. We all long for the catharsis of the destruction of evil by overwhelming force so common in human storytelling. The divine story, on the other hand, tells of such a catharsis brought about, not by the violence of battle force, but by the one who wields the two-edged sword that comes out of his mouth and whose name is The Word of God.
It is hard to imagine what that catharsis, that victory, looks like. It is clearly a final and complete, even effortless victory. The entire account of the battle is contained in two verses, one of which describes the capture of the enemy leadership and the other describing the slaying of the enemy armies by the sword coming out of the rider’s mouth. This seems violent enough, but again recall that the sword in question is the word of God. That fact subverts the notion that this is a violent act.
Regardless of how the literal realization of this passage comes about, we are reminded of the theme of the book of Romans, which says:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.