The Pale Horse and the Authority of Death Text: Revelation 6:7-8
Introduction: God's Leash on Death
We live in a world that is terrified of death, and so it should be. Our entire secular project is a frantic, and frankly pathetic, attempt to keep death at bay. We worship at the altar of medicine, we deify youth, we distract ourselves with endless entertainment, all in a desperate bid to forget the final appointment that every last man of us has to keep. The modern man wants to believe that death is a natural process, a biological reality, the unfortunate end of the line. But he does not want to believe that death is a messenger. He certainly doesn't want to believe that death has a master.
But the Scriptures will not allow us this comfort. Death is not a random intruder. Death is a servant. In the book of Revelation, as the Lamb unrolls the scroll of human history, we are shown that the great calamities of the world, the great sorrows that sweep across nations, are not meaningless chaos. They are not the result of bad luck or impersonal historical forces. They are judgments. They are summons. And they are all on a leash, held firmly in the hand of the crucified and risen Christ.
The first three horsemen have already ridden forth. The white horse of conquest, the red horse of civil war, the black horse of famine. These are the ordinary means by which God chastens the nations and calls them to account. But with the fourth seal, the veil is pulled back even further. We are not dealing with abstractions now. We come face to face with the grim personifications of our greatest fears: Death and Hades. But the central point of this terrifying vision is not the power of Death. The central point is the authority given to Death. We must pay careful attention to the grammar of God's sovereignty. Death does not take authority; authority is given to him. This is the bedrock of Christian comfort in a world full of graves. Death is a tool, and the hand that wields it is the same hand that was pierced for our salvation.
This passage is a direct assault on the modern secular mind, which believes that man is the master of his own fate and that history is a story we write ourselves. John shows us that history is a scroll being unsealed by the Lamb, and the riders who shape it are sent from the throne of God. For the unbeliever, this is a terrifying reality. For the believer, it is the ground of all our hope. Our God reigns, even over the grave.
The Text
And when He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.”
Then I looked, and behold, a pale horse; and he who sits on it had the name Death, and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.
(Revelation 6:7-8 LSB)
The Summons and the Specter (v. 7-8a)
We begin with the opening of the seal and the ghastly appearance of the rider.
"And when He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, 'Come.' Then I looked, and behold, a pale horse; and he who sits on it had the name Death, and Hades was following with him." (Revelation 6:7-8a)
Once again, the action begins with the Lamb. It is Jesus, the slain and risen King, who opens the seal. None of this happens apart from His sovereign will. History is not a runaway train; it is His story, unfolding according to His purpose. The command, "Come," is issued by the fourth living creature, the one with the appearance of a flying eagle (Rev. 4:7). This is significant. The eagle represents swiftness, heavenly perspective, and judgment from above. This judgment is not earth-born; it descends from the very throne room of God.
And what appears is horrifying. John sees a "pale horse." The Greek word is chloros, from which we get our word chlorine. It is not a noble white or a fiery red. It is the sickly, greenish-yellow pallor of a corpse, the color of decay. This is the color of disease and death. The rider is not given a description, only a name: Death. This is the ultimate personification. All the previous riders brought instruments that lead to death, but this one is Death itself.
And he is not alone. "Hades was following with him." Hades is the Greek equivalent of the Old Testament Sheol. It is the grave, the realm of the dead. Death is the agent that separates soul from body, and Hades is the receptacle that gathers the dead. They are an inseparable team. Death reaps, and Hades gathers the harvest. This is a picture of utter finality, from the world's perspective. There is no escape. When this rider comes for you, the grave follows right behind.
This imagery is designed to strike a holy fear into our hearts, but not a slavish one. It is a polemic against the cheap view of life and the flippant disregard for eternity that characterizes fallen man. God is reminding us that death is not just a biological event; it is a legal and spiritual one. Death is the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). This rider exists because of what happened in the Garden. He rides because Adam rebelled.
The Divine Commission (v. 8b)
The second half of verse 8 is the most crucial part of the passage. It establishes the theological framework for everything we have just seen.
"Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth." (Revelation 6:8b LSB)
Here is the linchpin. "Authority was given to them." Death does not have inherent authority. Hades has no claim of its own. Their power is delegated, derived, and limited. The Lamb who opens the seal is the one who grants the commission. This is a staggering truth. It means that every war, every famine, every pandemic, every tragedy that results in death, occurs within the sovereign permission of God. Death is not a rogue agent; he is a bailiff, carrying out a sentence decreed from the bench of the Almighty Judge.
Notice the limits. Their authority is "over a fourth of the earth." This is a severe judgment, but it is not a final one. It is a restrained judgment. God in His wrath remembers mercy (Hab. 3:2). Even in this devastating display, God is restraining the full measure of what sin deserves. He could give Death authority over all the earth, but He does not. This is a call to repentance, a shot across the bow of a rebellious world. God is demonstrating His power and the consequences of sin, in order to drive men to seek mercy while it may still be found.
And what are their instruments? "Sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth." This is not a random collection of disasters. This is covenant language. This is the precise list of covenantal curses that God promised to bring upon His people if they broke His law. Go back and read Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. God warned Israel that if they forsook Him, He would bring the sword of their enemies, the famine of a barren land, the pestilence of disease, and He would even send wild beasts among them (Lev. 26:21-26). Ezekiel repeats this fourfold judgment, calling them God's "four severe judgments" (Ezekiel 14:21).
What John is seeing is the application of these covenant curses upon a world that has rejected the covenant Lord. The principles of God's dealings with Israel are now being applied to all the nations. When any people, any nation, any civilization rebels against the Creator, they place themselves under the stipulations of His law, and that includes the curses. God is a covenant-keeper, and He keeps His promises, both the blessings for obedience and the judgments for rebellion. These are not random acts of nature; they are the methodical, legal, covenantal judgments of a holy God.
The Gospel Over the Grave
So where is the good news in this grim tableau? If we leave Death and Hades on the field, we are left with nothing but terror. But this is a Christian book, and the gospel is never far away. The good news is found not in the rider, but in the one who opens the seals.
The one who gives Death his commission is the very one who has defeated him. Jesus Christ, by His death and resurrection, entered the domain of Death and Hades and utterly plundered it. He holds the keys. He says this Himself in the first chapter of this very book: "Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Revelation 1:17-18).
The rider on the pale horse may have a temporary, delegated authority to kill the body, but the Lamb has the ultimate authority, the keys. This means He has the power to lock and to unlock. He determines who enters and who leaves. For the unbeliever, Death is the terrifying bailiff who drags them before the Judge. But for the believer, Death has been transformed. He is no longer a grim reaper, but an usher. He is a servant who has been commanded by our King to escort us into His presence.
The Apostle Paul taunts this rider. "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55). The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But Christ has fulfilled the law and paid the penalty for our sin. He has de-fanged death. The horse is still pale, and the experience of dying is still the consequence of the fall, but its ultimate power is broken. It cannot hold us. Hades, the grave, has been turned from a prison into a waiting room for the resurrection.
This is why the Christian can look at war, famine, and pestilence without despair. We grieve, yes. We weep with those who weep. But we do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13). We know that the Lamb is on the throne. We know that these judgments are His judgments, and they are purposeful. For the world, they are a call to repentance. For the church, they are a means of purification and a reminder that this world is not our home. They are the birth pangs of the new creation.
The final scene of this drama is not the pale horse. The final scene is Revelation 20, where Death and Hades themselves are seized and "thrown into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:14). The very agents of God's temporary judgment will themselves be done away with in the final consummation. The reign of death will be over, forever. Therefore, do not fear the rider. Fear, rather, the one who holds his leash. And if you are in Christ, that one is not your judge, but your Savior, your brother, your King. He has the keys, and He has promised to bring us safely home.