Similarities Between Exodus and Revelation Part 4

As many of you know, I’ve dedicated the last few years to concentrated study on the book of Revelation. The first, or even the second time of reading this book of the Bible it becomes obvious that there are correlations between the plagues of Exodus and the judgments in Revelation.

Before I go any further with this post, I want to make it very clear that God NEVER lays aside His love when He brings judgment. God is love, and that’s the presupposition for all of my discussions on judgment. It’s an important point to remember, or we may take His judgments too lightly.

And another thing that might be good for you to know is that I don’t believe in pre-Tribulation rapture. If you’ve never heard of that term before, it’s the doctrine that says the church will be removed (or ‘raptured’) from the earth before the Tribulation. I see Jesus admonishing the church to wake up and overcome, not to get ready for the big escape where they can watch from balcony seating. The only ones who get that balcony seating beforehand are those who die, or are slain for their faith. The church stays as an agent of mercy, not as an object of wrath. Even in wrath, God remembers mercy, and He brings it through His people (see Habukkuk 3:2).

There are 21 judgments in the book of Revelation. Some of these are obvious and some strange and obscure. These judgments are broken up into three 7-wave judgments. Many of these judgments are similar to the plagues in Revelation, and I will draw comparisons and contrasts throughout this blog series.

There are the seven seal judgments, which we’ll touch on here in this post and in Part 5.

The stakes are raised in the seven trumpet judgments.

Lastly there are the terrifying seven bowl judgments.

I believe these are all separate waves of judgments, rather than different ways of looking at the same seven judgments, as some scholars suggest.

These last two waves, the trumpet judgments and the bowl judgments, are the ones that most resemble what we see in Exodus. I’ll take five or more posts to unpack what’s happening there and how there are correlations with Exodus.

First let us look at the seals. There’s a ton going on here, but to unpack it we need to look at the prophets, both the 4 major prophets and the 12 minor prophets, for clues. Within these seals there are four horses, one proclamation of judgment from the faithful departed, the first of many earthquakes with other natural disasters, and finally the half hour of silence.

The first place to look for clues is Zechariah, since the four horses are featured there as well, even if not the same colors. Let’s look at this further.

The colors of the horses in Zechariah:

Red

Red

Brown

White

The colors of the horses in Revelation:

White

Red

Black

Pale (sickly)