Revelation: Souls Under the Altar

 Revelation: Justification by Faith

Souls Under the Altar

Revelation 6:9–11 (ESV):

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.
They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

Again we see the language of the tabernacle appearing. At the fifth seal, we see souls under the altar crying out to God for vengeance and justice.
They had been slain for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Some interpret this as literal souls who continue living consciously as persons. But that would either be a tight fit under the altar or require a massive altar!
No, to better understand this, we must return to the temple service, where this language originates. Revelation chapters 4 and 5 already take place in a heavenly temple, and here again we find this altar.
The earthly temple was a shadow or pattern of the heavenly reality.

In the temple service, we indeed find an altar where something was poured at its base:

Leviticus 4:7 (ESV):

And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the Lord that is in the tent of meeting, and all the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

This altar was the altar of burnt offering, which stood before the entrance of the golden tabernacle, in the bronze courtyard.
If the temple is a model of heaven, then what happened in the outer court (where the altar of burnt offering stood) must represent the earth. This is where the offering was brought, people were washed with water, and everything was made of bronze rather than gold.

We therefore see that blood was poured at the base of the altar of burnt offering.
In Hebrew thinking, the “soul” or “life” was in the blood:

Leviticus 17:14 (ESV):

For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.
(Note: The word for “life” here is the same as for “soul.”)

The blood was evidence of life. If blood had been poured out, life had been poured out.
The souls under the altar are the blood crying out to God for vengeance.

But why do these souls seem so alive?
Because to God, they are living and crying out to Him.
This was also the case with Abel:

Genesis 4:10 (ESV):

And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.”

The blood of Jesus cries out even more:

Hebrews 12:24 (ESV):

and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

God sees the blood as the person himself crying out to Him.
But God does not forget this and will make everything right. He will raise them up and avenge the blood on account of Jesus.

Psalm 9:11–12 (ESV):

Sing praises to the Lord, who sits enthroned in Zion!
Tell among the peoples his deeds!
For he who avenges blood is mindful of them;
he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.

He is the Judge and will bring judgment at the return of Christ. This will be proof of the royal authority of Jesus as Judge.
God does not forget the blood but will avenge it on that great day of vengeance.
The souls under the altar show this.

But they also received white robes and were told to rest for a little while longer. For a time, they were to rest. There would be more tribulation, and among the living there would still be those who would seal their testimony with their blood.

The fact that they received white robes means that God saw them as righteous. They were justified, and these dead were shown to be right with God because of the faith they had exercised. Their martyrdom was powerful evidence of this.

God has not forgotten these dead, and He sees them as alive before Him and counts them as righteous:

Isaiah 61:10–11 (ESV):

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations.