Revelation 19:15

These verses follow the rejoicing in heaven over God’s righteous judgment on Babylon the great, the harlot who stands for the world set against God (Revelation 19:1–10). A great multitude has just announced the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7–9). Now the scene turns from worship in heaven to Christ’s coming to the earth, and what follows is his victory over the beast, the false prophet and their armies (Revelation 19:19–21).

This is the second coming of Christ, his visible and glorious return to the earth. Jesus himself foretold it when he spoke of the sign of the Son of man in heaven (Matthew 24:30), and Paul writes of the day when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in flaming fire (2 Thessalonians 1:7–9). At the ascension the disciples were told that this same Jesus would come again (Acts 1:9–11), and here John sees him come.

John writes “I saw” with eídō, a primary verb meaning properly to see, with the eyes or with the mind, and by implication to know. He uses “I saw” again and again through Revelation for what God showed him in vision. Heaven itself is opened, and God lets John see what he is about to do in history. “Behold”, idoú, calls for attention to what comes next.

The first thing John sees is a white horse (híppos, leukós). White in Scripture speaks of purity, holiness and victory, and the horse stands for power and readiness for battle. In the ancient world a white horse was the mount of a conquering king, a picture Jewish and Roman hearers alike would understand. Israel had long hoped for a Messiah who would come as a king and set up a righteous kingdom, and Isaiah said of him, “with righteousness shall he judge the poor” (Isaiah 11:4). John sees that hope fulfilled, with Jesus coming now in glory as the victor.

His eyes (ophthalmós) are “as a flame of fire”. The risen Christ appeared to John with the same eyes at the start of the book (Revelation 1:14), and the man in Daniel’s vision had eyes of fire as well (Daniel 10:6). Fire speaks of his purity and holiness, of a gaze that sees into the depths of every heart and tells truth from falsehood, and of judgment that burns up unrighteousness the way fire both purifies and destroys. Everything lies open before his eyes (Hebrews 4:13), so the injustice the world hides is seen by him, and so is every life. Malachi warned of the one who would come like a refiner’s fire (Malachi 3:2–3), and these are his eyes.

On his head are many crowns. The word is diádēma, from diá and déō, a band bound around the head, the crown of a king. A different word, stéphanos, names the wreath given to a victor. Roman emperors wore the diadem as the sign of their rule. Christ wears many, because every nation, kingdom and power belongs to him, and his title in verse 16 says the same in words. Isaiah promised a son of David whose government and peace would increase for ever on David’s throne (Isaiah 9:6–7), and God has given Jesus the name which is above every name (Philippians 2:9–11).

He is clothed with a vesture, himátion, an outer garment such as a robe or cloak. It is “dipped” in blood. The verb báptō means to cover wholly with a liquid, and so to stain, as cloth is stained with dye. The robe is soaked through, the mark of a thorough and decisive victory.

His name “is called The Word of God”, in Greek ho Logos tou Theou. Lógos, from legō, “to speak”, means something said, together with the thought behind it, and it is the word used of Christ himself as God’s own expression. John opens his Gospel with this name: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, and all things were made by him (John 1:1–3). That Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), and God has now spoken to us in his Son (Hebrews 1:1–3).

So the rider is the eternal Son, who was with God before all things, through whom God made the world, and through whom he speaks, acts and now judges. The one who judges is God himself, fully made known in Christ. John’s first readers knew Jewish talk of the Memra, God’s active word, and Greek talk of the Logos, and here the name belongs to a person, the Son of God.

The armies are the hosts of heaven, and their clothing shows that the redeemed saints ride among them. The word for armies, stráteuma, means a body of troops, an ordered force ready for battle under Christ’s command. They “followed” him, akolouthéō, which means to go the same way with someone and is used especially of disciples following Jesus. They ride white horses like his own, so they share in his victory and his righteous cause. A victorious Roman general was given a triumph, a grand procession through the city with his soldiers following, and John’s readers would see something like it here, on a far greater scale.

They are “clothed” (endýō) “in fine linen, white and clean” (leukós kaí katharós), and the white is the same word as the white of his horse. Býssinos means made of fine linen, a costly cloth worn by kings and priests, and in Revelation it clothes both the great city and the saints. A few verses earlier John is told what the saints’ linen means: “the fine linen is the righteousness of saints” (Revelation 19:8). White and clean speak of purity and holiness.

Faithful believers differ here. On one reading the armies are the angels alone, the mighty hosts who serve God. On the fuller reading, which the linen of verse 8 supports, the glorified church rides out with the angels and shares her Lord’s vindication. Scripture often speaks of the Lord coming with his people. Zechariah saw the LORD go out to fight for Jerusalem with all his saints (Zechariah 14:3–5), Enoch prophesied, “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints” (Jude 1:14), and Paul writes that God will bring with Jesus those who sleep in him (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

Their white linen is a gift. God made Christ to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ will present the church to himself glorious and spotless (Ephesians 5:27), and he has redeemed his people by his blood out of every nation and made them kings and priests (Revelation 5:9–10). Those who suffered with him ride with him. John writes that everyone who has this hope purifies himself, even as Christ is pure (1 John 3:2–3).

On his vesture, the himátion of verse 13, and on his thigh, mērós, a name is written (gráphō, to write). The thigh is a strong and prominent part of a rider’s body, plain to see on horseback, and the place where a sword was often worn. In Scripture a name stands for character and authority. The name in verse 12 is hidden, and this one is written out where every eye will see it.

KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS names the highest King and the highest Lord, the one above every other. Great kings claimed the title for themselves, as when the Persian king Artaxerxes wrote to Ezra the priest as “king of kings”, and on their lips it was a boast over lesser rulers. Nebuchadnezzar confessed that Israel’s God is “a God of gods, and a Lord of kings” (Daniel 2:47). Paul calls God “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15). And Revelation has already given the Lamb this name: “These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful” (Revelation 17:14). The armies of verse 14 are those called, chosen and faithful ones.

Christ rules every king, government and nation, and every other power and master as well. All authority comes from him and will bow to him. God set his King upon his holy hill of Zion (Psalm 2:6–9), Daniel saw one like the Son of man given an everlasting dominion (Daniel 7:13–14), and the risen Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). That authority is already his, and at his coming it is shown openly, until every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:9–11).

The rider of these verses is the same Jesus who came the first time in humility, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He took the form of a servant and humbled himself to death on a cross (Philippians 2:7–8). In heaven John was told of the Lion of the tribe of Judah and then saw a Lamb as it had been slain (Revelation 5:5–6), and here the Lion who is the Lamb rides the white horse. His death and resurrection have already won the victory, and his return brings it to its end, for he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet (1 Corinthians 15:25). He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13), the one who is, and was, and is to come, the Almighty (Revelation 1:8).

John wrote these visions to believers who were suffering, most likely under the emperor Domitian around AD 95, when they were pressed to take part in the worship of the emperor. To them, as to us, the vision gave hope and a call to endure, because the King they served was coming.

These verses give the people of God a sure hope. In a world where injustice and deceit often look strong, they show the one who is Faithful and True, whose eyes see every wrong and whose word does what it says. His judgment is righteous in every part, so his people can wait for it with confidence. They ride with him in linen he gave them, and they share his triumph because he first shed his blood for them. For anyone who still stands against him, the same verses are a solemn warning and an open call to turn to him while the Lamb who was slain still offers mercy. The hidden name tells us there will always be more of him to know, and the written name tells us who has the last word over every power on earth: KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.