The souls under the altar in Revelation 6:9 are told “that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled” (verse 11, Revelation 6). If one allows the Bible to interpret the Bible, they will find these words in Isaiah Chapter 57, verses 1 and 2: “The righteous PERISH (DIE), and no man lays it to heart (consider what is really happening), and merciful men are taken away (by death), none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace. THEY SHALL REST IN THEIR BEDS, each one walking in his uprightness.”
The “beds” these righteous who perish rest in are their death beds – their graves! There is even an old Christian hymn that contains the words “shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming, ” the well known hymn “Softly and Tenderly.” Remember, the Bible over and over again refers to death as “sleep.” It would only naturally follow that one’s grave would then be called their bed.
Revelation 6:9 speaks of “the souls of them that were slain.” These are not living souls, but slain or dead souls. I AM a soul. You ARE a soul. We don’t have souls residing within us. We ARE souls, that is we are living, breathing beings. That’s what an abundance of scripture reveals the soul to be.
Although the text in Revelation 6 says that these slain souls speak or cry out, this language is figurative and not to be taken literally. It is similar to the figurative language employed in Psalm 19 where the earth and sky are said to utter speech and that “there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.” (See Psalm 19, verses 1-4).
Anyone who uses the text in Revelation 6 to prove that martyrs go to heaven when they die must also teach that they then are gathered under this great altar and cry out, “How long, O Lord, how long?” They appear to be getting a little tired, if not frustrated at remaining under this altar. Heaven isn’t all it’s cracked up to be evidently. It appears to be a place of frustration and not knowing what is going to happen next and when. When one takes obvious symbolic language and tries to force literalness into the text, well, they quickly run into some gigantic problems.
Stop and think for a moment. What would one find under an altar that historically was used to offer sacrifices to God – a lot of blood, right? It is the blood of these martyrs, like Abel’s shed blood, that cries out for vengeance. (See Genesis 4:10-11). Murdered Abel was actually not speaking at all. He was dead. These “souls under the altar” are actually not speaking at all. They, too, are dead, but their blood – figuratively shown to be pooling beneath this altar of sacrifice – is crying out for vengeance!
Solomon had it right when he wrote: “The dead know not anything!” (See Ecclesiastes 9:5). God gives foundational truth in the writings of the prophets and Hebrew scriptures. We are to build upon that foundational doctrine, not pit scripture against scripture and try to DISprove the accuracy of these Old Testament texts. (“Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return” is foundational truth. No later scripture contradicts that divine truth. “He remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). We tend to forget it. Where does the sacred inspired record of God place the dead redeemed? Asleep in the dust of the earth! (See Daniel 12:2). Remember, it was Satan who introduced the lie “You shall not surely die.” (See Genesis 3:4 and 19). Satan was telling mother Eve, “Hey, girl, you have an immortal soul. You don’t really die. Death is only an illusion. Don’t listen to your Creator. Listen to me.”
He who has ears to hear, LET HIM HEAR!
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley