Revelation 19:14; Upon White Horses

Revelation 19:14 (KJV)  And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. 

Upon White Horses. The great Captain is mounted, and they are mounted too. He comes as the Warrior, Judge and King, and they share with Him in the same character. They are warrior judges and kings with Him. In chapter 9, we were introduced to cavalry from the underworld, of spirit horses from beneath; why not then celestial horses also? Horses and chariots of fire protected Elisha at Dothan. Horses of fire took up Elijah into heaven. And heavenly horses bring the saints from heaven when they come with their great Leader for the final subjugation of the world to His authority. It is up to the bridle-bits of these horses that the blood in that battle is to flow. (Revelation 14:20).

Revelation 14:20 (KJV)  And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs. 

These horses are all white, the same as the Great Captain rides. Everything in harmony. The riders all are royal and righteous ones, and the same is expressed in the colour of their horses.

Whether literal horses are to be understood, it is not necessary to inquire. Power is an abstract quality, incapable of being seen with the eye. It must be put on shape to become visible. It is best shown in living forms. So we had to do with symbolic horses in chapter 11. But here the whole character of showing is different. This opening of heaven, the coming forth of Christ with His heavenly armies to the battle which ensues, the destruction which is to wrought, the victory which is won, and the kingdom which is set up, is so essentially literal in each particular, that it is hard to find room in the record for any other conclusion than that the horses are as literal as the sitters on them. They are at least the pictures of holy power bearing the King and His hosts to battle and victory over literal armies. These was reality in the powers which carried up Elijah, and there is reality in the powers on which these heavenly armies ride forth to the battle of the great day; and I know not why these powers should not be in the form of real horses, of the character of the world to which they belong. “The four Spirits of the heavens, which go forth standing before the Lord of all the earth,” were shown to Zechariah 6:8 as horses, drawing four chariots; and I know not why we may not here understand the same or similar “spirits pf the heavens.” put forth in similar forms. Habakkuk 3:8, referring to this same scene, addresses he Lord, and says, “Thou didst ride upon thine horses, thy chariots of salvation.” There are “chariots of God;” and so there must be horses of God. It is never safe to explain away what may have in it a momentous literal reality, even though it may be very different from anything we know of. At any rate, the armies of heaven, as there here appear, are all cavalry.

[Joseph A. Seiss, The Apocalypse – An Exposition of the Book of Revelation, Kregel, 1987, 438-439]