Revelation 6 - IVP New Testament Commentaries

The Opening of the Fifth Seal

Nowhere in the series is it more important to maintain "a sense of where we are" than in connection with the fifth seal. John is still in heaven, while the visions under the first four seals are calamities happening on earth (v. 4, "to take peace from the earth," and v. 8, "over a fourth of the earth"). But does the fifth seal present a vision of earth or a vision of heaven?