Revelation 13 Identification of the First Beast Part 2 Greg Bahnsen {52 of 63}

Lord, we pray that your spirit would grant unto us discernment this day to read the Scriptures to our spiritual profit and benefit. We ask you that we would not be led astray and our imaginations would not deceive us, but that we might properly discern the meaning and sense of the Scriptures. And Father, we pray that we would do this not as curiosity seekers, but as those who wish more than ever to be encouraged by what the Word says to us, as those who want to receive instruction from you as to how we should live and what attitudes we should have. We pray, Father, you'd forgive us for our failure to be that kind of people, to have an attitude that reflects that of our Savior, the kind of people that continually need to come to you and ask your forgiveness for our sins. We ask, Lord, that your spirit might strengthen us this day, even through the reading of the Scriptures, then to be a holy people, the saints of the Lord. We ask, Father, that you might bless us together in our fellowship and our worship this morning as well, that we might have true communion together. And we have this around our Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. We've been studying for a number of weeks now the 13th chapter of the Book of Revelation. And we've looked at the conflict that the 13th chapter shows us, the conflict between the state and the Christian Church in the early age of the Church. And we've looked at the resisters in that struggle between the state and the Church, and how the resisters are described as those who have the faith of Jesus and follow the law of God. We've seen their destiny that they are bound to be persecuted and overthrown. And we've seen their comfort that God should avenge them and advance his church through this struggle that we've been reading of. And then for the last couple weeks we've been looking especially at the identity of the Beast in Revelation chapter 13. Revelation 13 begins the second major or the second half of the prophetic section of the Book of Revelation. The first half dealt with the fall of Jerusalem and the apostate Jews, and the second half of Revelation deals with the fall of Rome and those the secular persecuting power of the empire. So we've seen the struggle and we've seen the resisters, and we've had some introduction to the beast. Remember, I'm going to skip reading the entire chapter this morning so that we can get on with our lesson from last week. But remember that the beast is portrayed in Revelation 13 as like a dragon. He is very much like Satan, who is the one that empowers him. The beast is also like the four beasts of Daniel's prophecy of the Old Testament. The beast is said to have seven heads and 10 crowned horns with names of blasphemy upon the heads of the beast. And this beast is one that survives a death stroke given to it. And the beast is predominantly a humanist who replaces God's law with his own law. Last week I said in studying the scriptural doctrine of the Antichrist or the beast, that we should note that the little horn of Daniel's prophecy is, I think, really a foreshadowing of the beast. The little horn of Daniel's prophecy is in many respects characteristic of the beast in Revelation 13. What I didn't say last week, and I ought to have, and I want to correct that now, is that the little horn of Daniel's prophecy certainly is fulfilled in a sense by Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus Epiphanes was a really rotten sort of fellow who lived in the intertestamental period and persecuted the Jews along with a number of other people. And he was a wicked man in Jerusalem. He had, for instance, a swine sacrificed upon the Jewish altar. As you can imagine, the abomination of desolation that that involved. In the eyes of the Jews, it's Antiochus Epiphanes and his his persecution of the Jews that led to the Maccabean revolt in the intertestamental period. So the little horn of Daniel's prophecy does refer to Antiochus, I believe. But I believe that Antiochus and the little horn themselves are but prototypes of the beast that John is speaking of in Revelation 13. All right, so the little horn, through indirection, if nothing else, points us to the beast of Revelation 13, the man of lawlessness. And in second Thessalonians, chapter two, upon consideration of what is said about that man of lawlessness should be identified also with the beast of Revelation 13. However, the term Antichrist, as we find out in the first two epistles of John in the New Testament, the term Antichrist does not apply to the man of lawlessness and the beast or the little horn, but rather is a. A summary statement for the heretical apostate teachers that have left the Christian assembly in John's own day, the personification of heretical apostasy. That much by way of review, do I need to answer any questions now? Before we get back on track, I want to get right down into the identity of the beast today and finally fulfill my promise of identifying him for you. Any questions in terms of this review, where we are in the book, what's been said thus far, the purpose of this chapter. Okay, well, if we're all together, let's look then at the identity of the Beast. And what I did last week is to begin by reading in Hal Lindsey's commentary on the book of Revelation, how he identifies the Beast. And, well, instead of rereading it, let me just summarize for you what we said last week. According to Hal Lindsey, the beast of Revelation 13 is someone who is now alive, I mean, right now, today alive in Europe, and is a person who will lead the European Common Market and unify all of Europe by solving a world crisis according to a humanist fashion. He will come to dominate the world very quickly. He will do so awesomely with political might and military might, and he will do so without a fight. He will do this with royal trickery and. And miraculous signs and all the rest. So the Beast, then, is some potential political leader now alive in Europe. Then we began to look at the End of the hour last week at Arthur Bloomfield's book, How to Recognize the Antichrist. In many respects, this is an amazing book. It's amazing because of some, I just think of the outrageous things that it says. But it's amazing also in that he has done a very good job of calling out, from his premillennial perspective, every sentence or phrase in the Bible that has anything to do with the Antichrist. And the man is capable of drawing significant distinctions, too. For instance, how to recognize the Antichrist. You might think of some of the more obvious things that are said by premillennialists and dispensationalists about the activities of the Antichrist when he comes into his full ascendancy and power. But Bloomfield is very cautious there. He says Christians will not be around to identify the Antichrist in that way. And therefore we won't emphasize that Christians are going to be raptured. And therefore what we need is to be even more subtle than that and be able to identify the Antichrist in his deceptive period. You see, he says the Antichrist will go through a period of time where a whole world wonders after him, and everybody thinks he's really great and. And Christian preachers will extol him. And even those who you think are the most spiritual people in your church will be 100% deceived by him. He says. Now, in that period of time, before all the really blatant and explicit atrocities of the Antichrist come out publicly in that period of time, how do we recognize The Antichrist. And so the book is an amazing book in that way, and he's very strong on that. We must be cautious and only those who have spiritual discernment are going to be able to do this. Well, I don't have time to read for you a great deal in Ludwigson, so I'm not Ludwigson, I'm sorry, Bloomfield. And so I summarized what I thought were some of the key points about the Antichrist and how you should be able to recognize him according to Bloomfield. And then I'll read just a few pages at the end. Okay. You should know that the Antichrist will instigate a crisis in the world that will eventually lead to the conversion of the Jews, but at the same time the destruction of the church. The Antichrist is to arise almost unperceived, as I've already indicated. He will arise with great deceit. He is going to appear in the midst of a near universal disaster as the savior of the world. He will oppose the Jews right off at the start. I mean, there will be no question. But the Antichrist is anti Semitic at the very beginning. But he will not oppose the church at the beginning. The opposition to the church will only come later. The Antichrist will be one who raises taxes. That makes it easy to identify who it is, doesn't it? He will raise taxes and restore in that sense the Roman Empire. He's going to unify all of the European Common Market and he's going to raise taxes in order to sustain himself politically. He will be a dictator who conquers the world. He will desire to conquer the world. Excuse me, but his actual political power will be limited mainly to the revived Roman Empire in the Middle East. Now there are some fascinating things that are going to happen. Preachers are going to extol him. The seemingly spiritual people in your church will be completely deceived by him because he's going to build great cities. He's going to appear to be a savior of the world. But at the Rapture, after three and a half years of this deceptive power, at the Rapture, Satan will take over the Antichrist body. Antichrist is going to die in a mysterious way. The whole world will be confused as to why he died. And then Satan will, in an incarnational, resurrectional sense, take over the body of Antichrist. Alright, now just let me read a few final pages and you'll have a full picture of how to recognize him according to Bloomfield. Bloomfield says that Antichrist will come and operate for a number of years before the Rapture. He will not be revealed as Satan until after the Rapture. At the Rapture, Antichrist will be killed and Satan will take over his body and and reign in person on the earth. It will seem like a resurrection. From that time on, the world will know that he is Antichrist. That is his revelation. Paul speaks of him whose coming is after the working of Satan. He must come before he is revealed. Okay, so Antichrist comes now, if you follow Lindsay, Antichrist is somewhere in Europe right now. Okay, Antichrist comes, he starts doing all these things. World crisis is solved. Why? He appears to be a savior. He's doing all these great things, and then his revelation is at the point where Satan takes over his body. This, of course, cannot happen, he says, until the temple is rebuilt, as you might imagine, because the Antichrist, the beast, has to sit in the temple of God. And then just one more long quote. Antichrist will be a man, not Satan. He will have something extremely spectacular at the start in order to sell himself to the world, but especially to the nation that he uses to restore a world empire. The signs and wonders do not necessarily carry all the way through Antichrist reign. There were signs and wonders at the birth of Christ, but they were not repeated. There were signs and wonders at Pentecost, but most of them were not repeated. Antichrist signs and wonders will be for the purpose of deceiving the world. But once he has accomplished that purpose, the signs and wonders may cease. At the time of his rise, there will be a great world crisis, probably due to the fact that the nations are preparing to use atomic power and Russia will be expected to use her superpower to dominate the world. Antichrist will single handedly relieve the world of this threat by a demonstration of signs and wonders that show that he has more power than Russia or any other nation that might flex its muscles at that time. I wonder if people in Russia write books like this that say, you know, that terrible Western power of the United States will be crushed by the Antichrist and the world will be relieved. It's a terribly jingoistic book. God will have some signs and wonders, but they will be of a spiritual nature. Antichrist signs and wonders will be of a physical nature, but they will connect directly with the spirit world. Yes, the signs and wonders may come directly from outer space, where Satan is known to have principalities and powers. This demonstration of power is going to be so spectacular, so sensational, so unexpected, that no one who loves the truth could possibly fail to recognize the fulfillment of this prophecy. Whenever we talk about things of this kind, the question Always. Will this happen before the Rapture? You've been asking that question as I've been reading. I'm sure this will not only happen before the Rapture. It will happen some little time before the Rapture. Many of the events and developments that have to come before the Rapture happen during the reign of Antichrist. These include the building of great cities mentioned before in this book. A crisis in Israel that turns all the Jews back to God, not just to the land, the complete return of the Jews. Every last Jew is going back, as reported in the next chapter. The rebuilding of the temple and a great worldwide evangelistic explosion. All right, now we all on the same track. When every single Jew gets back in the promised Land and the Temple is rebuilt and there's this widespread conversion among the Jews and a worldwide evangelistic explosion and a world crisis precipitated by the atomic power of Russia, and this man takes over one of the European Common Market nations and shows that Russia is no longer a threat to the world because he is going to take care of the world. When all those things begin to happen, then you know that it's time to start looking for the Antichrist. Okay. All right. Wanted to read one other page here in Bloomfield that's similar to how Lindsay's insisting that the Antichrist is now alive in Europe. He says, speaking of the number 666 being the number of a man, this is a positive identification, although we may all be reluctant to apply it to this man when he is doing so much for the peace and comfort of the world. Make no mistake. This man will deceive the whole world except those who have special insight. That's why you buy this book. You get special insight. I'm not being sarcastic. Listen, this man will deceive the whole world except those who have special insight. It will be difficult to point to so magnificent a benefactor and say he is Antichrist. If this book is not published before Antichrist arrives, it will probably be difficult to get it into print or into the stores. Now, the fact that it's into print and into the stores indicates that we have a little breathing room. I guess so. Now, finally, I've been saying Ludwig sinned by mistake. In a Survey of Bible Prophecy by R. Ludwigson, he rehearses for us various alternatives what people have said about the Antichrist, who he is. And I just want to read this little chart. It's really quite helpful. He says, antichrist is. And then he says, who held that view? And I just want to go over this with you. According to Polycarp, who was one of the early fathers of the Church. Antichrist is doceticism and Gnosticism to heretical movements. According to Barnabas, Antichrist is Rome, the fourth Empire, the visions of Daniel. We all should have a great deal of respect for Barnabas. I'm going to argue in the long run because I think that's true. But anyway, Antichrist. Well remember now, I've already said Antichrist oughtn't be used in that way because that's really a personification of heretical apostasy. But the beast man of lawlessness being called Antichrist by this pre millennial author is in fact Rome. I think as Barnabas said. Victorinus said that Antichrist is Nero to be raised from the dead. Martin Luther and John Calvin. I haven't traced down Calvin enough to be sure of this, but this man claims that Calvin and Luther maintained that the Antichrist is the Roman Catholic Church and the Papacy. Roman Catholic writers have held in the past that the Antichrist is Luther and the Protestant Churches. That's why I wondered whether people in Russia write books like this about the United States. You know, various writers, and he's right. There's too many really to note here on his chart, have thought that Napoleon was the Antichrist. Milton Terry in his book on hermeneutics, identified the Antichrist as Nero. He goes on to say here that some, like Terry, apply all the details of Revelation to the first century so that the Lord revealed from heaven at this point refers to the destruction of Jerusalem. You'll, you'll recognize I have sympathies with that. In our exposition to date, Hengstenberg and Philip Morrow, although I'm going to say something different about Morrow in a minute. Hengstenberg and Morrow, according to this man, see the Antichrist is the beast out of the sea being the Roman Empire, the Diocletian Roman Empire, and the beast out of the earth is the papacy. Adam Clark and Patrick Fairbairn said that the beast out of the earth is the Roman hierarchy during the time of the Spanish inquisition in the 16th century. And the fire from heaven indicated in Revelation is the Inquisition itself. RC Trench said that the Antichrist is an embodiment of Satan. Bernard Weiss says, or Weiss, depending on how you want to pronounce that, says the lawless one is a Jewish false Christ held in check by the Roman Empire. The first beast of Revelation is the restored Roman Empire. The second beast is pseudo prophecy supporting the first beast. Okay, so this is really complicated. You have a Jewish false Christ, restored Roman Empire and Then the false. The pseudo prophecy of the false religion of the empire. A.R. fawcett, who was one of three men writing a well known commentary on the entire Bible, said that the Antichrist is an openly infidel supplanter of the papacy, which, given the events of this weekend, might give some support to that. I mean, somebody's gonna come along to replace the new Pope, I guess. CI Scofield said that the Antichrist is the last ecclesiastical head, an apostate from Christianity. He is the second beast out of the earth. Ironside. Ha. Ironside and Arnold Gabelaine say that he is the last ecclesiastical head, but he's an apostate Jew, not an apostate Christian, being the beast out of the earth. And then J.N. darby and W.R. neewell and J. Seis, Dwight Pentecost, Donald Gray Barnhouse, Hal Lindsay, W. A. Criswell all hold that the first piece of Revelation 13 is the Antichrist. The second beast is the false prophet who supports him. Doesn't tell you very much, really, but WA Criswell does add in a footnote that it may be Judas Iscariot resurrected. So I told you I wanted to correct something he says about Philip Morrow's view of the Antichrist. Let me read for you a little bit from Philip Morrow's commentary in Revelation as to the identity of the Antichrist or the beast. My own thought about it, as given in a former book published in 1908, is that the clue to the meaning of the number of this man lies in the words, for it is the number of a man, that is to say, the sum total of all human achievement. Let me say that again. It is the clue lies in the words, for it is the number of a man, that is to say the sum total of all human achievement. That number of men is six, repeated again and yet again, but still remaining, no matter how often repeated, the number of incompleteness and imperfection, never attaining to the complete seven. Solomon, in his book of human wisdom, seems to be expressing the same thought when he says this have I found, counting one by one to find out the account. Lo, this only have I found that God hath made man upright. But they have sought out many inventions. Ecclesiastes, chapter 7. And now the vision before us brings us to the end of man's efforts to. To the summing up of his account, to the full fruition of his many inventions. And what is the total sum of his 6000 years of ceaseless activities? Has he reached a Sabbath at last? Has he achieved a state of rest and Satisfaction. Has he attained a 7? Alas, no. He is as far from it as ever. The world as man has made it by his six days of toil and his many inventions is a place of hideous unrest, a place of everlasting turmoil, ever increasing turmoil, corruption and violence. He never gets beyond the number six and never could. He never gets beyond the number six and never could. That's going to be the meaning of the 666. What a contrast between man's work and God's. When God's sixth day came, its sun went down upon a finished creation. The work was complete and perfect, and God saw everything that he had made. And behold, it was very good. The evening and the morning were the sixth day. But God's account did not stop at six. It goes on to completeness. For the next words are thus. The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. And he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. This is indeed a day of rest to come, a millennium of blessedness, as this book of revelation of Jesus Christ shows us. But that seventh thousand years of heavenly rest, those are the words you underline this 7,000 years of heavenly rest. You see, when the earth is 6,000 years old, it will expire in the number of man, 666. And then will come the millennium, which is to say, if we can date with Bishop Usher, the creation of the world, roughly. And by the way, I'm not totally immune from the idea that Usher was on the right track. Nevertheless, if we say that the world is approximately 6,000 years old now, then we know that the millennium is in fact going to begin in this generation, or not this generation, this century. And so he writes in 1908 that he feels that we're about to hit that heaven, that Sabbath millennium, that Sabbath 1000 year period. But man's efforts will eventuate in no Sabbath day. But on the contrary are works such as call for repentance and. And his conscience needs to be purged from them by the blood of Christ. So God must step in. He must settle man's long account. He must bring every work into judgment. He must blot out all the vain works of man. And then when the earth shall have been purged from them all by the outpouring of the seven vials of his scorching wrath. And when the two beasts shall have been cast into the lake of fire, and the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, shall have been bound for a thousand years, and shut up in the bottomless pit till the thousand years be fulfilled, then will dawn that day of sabbath rest which remaineth unto the people of God. Such was the writer's thought concerning this passage 17 years ago, and such is his thought about it still. And therefore it has been no small satisfaction to him to find in Hengstenberg's comments on the passage the following and now we quote. The 666 is as it were the swollen blown up 6, the 6 in its highest potency, but still when swelled up and increased to the uttermost, no more than six, but the six being carried through units, tens and hundreds, the number marks the soaring pretensions and might of the beast, while on the other side the relation of the 6 to the 7 and 12 implies that in respect to the church, he still, after all, came short. Hangstenberg also calls attention to the only other passage in Scripture where this number 666 is to be found, saying quote, here we must not wander about after our own imagination. I'm going to read that sentence again. Here we must not wander about after our own imaginations after we've been told this is the you see, the 666 is the puffed up pretensions of the Antichrist trying to become a seven, trying to become a Sabbath rest, but only getting to six and only getting to six. And only getting to six. He goes on to say, the Seer of the Apocalypse lives entirely in Holy Scripture. On this territory, therefore is the solution of the sacred riddle to be sought, and there also it can be found with certainty. Those are also words you underlined, if you're being careful. With certainty we will now identify the Antichrist. In the whole of the Old Testament there is but one instance in which the number 666 occurs in connection with a name. It is written in Ezra 2, verse 13, the children of Adinocam. 666. From this now Morrow goes on from this he deduces that the name Adonicam must be the number of the beast. Am I losing you? Hangstenberg says, we first of all know symbolically the 666 talks about the pretensions of man trying to become God and try to give the Sabbath rest, which only God can give, which according to Morrow, God will give in this century. Since it's supposed to be the seventh 1000 year period after creation. Alright, now Hingsdenberg goes on to say that since the writer of the Apocalypse lived in terms of the thought world of the Bible, we have to find where The Bible mentions 666. Lo and behold, the only place in the Bible where we find that is in Ezra 2, verse 13, where we have the children of Adonikam. And in that connection his children are said to be 666. Now you're with me to this point we continue. What does the name Adonikam mean? If it's the number of the beast? It means the Lord arises. In Hebrew, Adonikam means the Lord stands up or Lord arises as given in Jackson's dictionary of scripture names. It is the Lord of rising up. And Hengstenberg sees in this a reference to the rising up again of the beast after it had received its death wound, so to speak. This is all going to become very entangled now as all these connections start being made. I make a note of this interesting suggestion that the reader may have the benefit of it as regards the application of the prophecy as a whole. Bengal notes the fact that quote, as old as is the description here given of the papacy, so old also is the testimony to the truth by which this prophecy is applied to the papacy. This was done long ago by the Walden Waldazines and afterwards by the followers of Wycliffe and Huss. So was the case before Luther's time, and by him the light was much more widely diffused. But Bengel is here referring to the first beast. To the first beast. For with vitre. Excuse me, with Vitranga, he held that the beast from the sea is the Pope. The beast from the earth is the power which supports and defends the Pope's authority, instancing the various religious orders, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, etc. You're not confused yet, are you? Well, I am because I can't make out for the life of me now whether this is symbolical, whether it has definite referent, whether it's the papacy, whether it's, you know, Rome in John's day, whether it's somebody in this century. This just goes all over the field. Hanksenburg points out various and serious objections to the view, however, and then I'm not going to read it all for you. What it hap. What. What the objection is, though, he says, is not to identifying this as the second beast, but the objection is to identifying this as the first beast. But I don't know what this is, you see. But nevertheless, Hinkson was right. We shouldn't identify this as the first beast, but it may be the second beast, and so the second beast would be the papacy. We know that much. The second part of the chapter clearly pictures papal Rome. All right, now we come to the end of this chapter, and what he says is, what then is the outcome of the great movement of our times? This is not the appropriate point at which to introduce a discussion of that question. So I will only say that my latter observations confirm the view presented in the book quoted above entitled the Number of Man, which, briefly, is this. This is the best we're going to get as far as an application now of what this man's interpretation is. The movements now in progress in the three great departments of human affairs, the political, the commercial and the religious, are converging to one end and will eventuate in a single system comprehending in its vast embrace all human affairs of every sort and kind. Now, when he says. Right now, he's talking about in the writing of his book, so we're talking about after the First World War and shortly before the Second World War, this monstrosity will be a super government and will be headed during its brief career by the superman for whom the world is looking. By the way, the word superman is put in quotes. Anybody want to tell me why? What is Morrow referring to? Superman. Not the comic strip character. That's right, to Nietzsche, Superman, the overman. In Nietzsche, its religion will be humanism, the worship of man. All the progressive, liberal and modernistic forces in the religious field are thoroughly humanistic. The Church of man, the universal brotherhood, is already an ideal and will ere long have at last a formal realization. And while on the surface it may appear that these new religious tendencies are the opposite in many respects to Catholicism, the reverse is the case. For Catholicism, too, is thoroughly humanistic, and in the person of the Pope, a mere human being is already worshipped by millions. It will therefore be but the natural outcome of existing tendencies and potencies for all the religious systems and forces, Christian in the name and which are opposed to the Gospel of Christ, to amalgamate under the headship of the Pope. As I see it, there are but two things requisite for the accomplishment of what is briefly outlined above. First, a sufficient motive, which must be one that has a worldwide appeal. Secondly, an adequate political machine, also capable of embracing the whole world. And these necessary things already exist, underlined and italicized. And these necessary things already exist. The first is seen in the insistent and universal demand for world peace, and the second in the League of Nations, and in estimating the possibilities of the present situation. Account must be specially taken of the great expansion of the political influence of the Vatican since the Great European War, and of the fact that political leaders are more and more looking in that direction for salvation, for the salvation of the world and civilization. This interesting part of our subject will receive forward treatment in the last chapter. Can anybody perceive why I've told you about Bloomfield and Lindsay and then read for you? Morrow? Morrow says almost, although it's very confusing in that he takes a symbolic approach, a definite referent approach, an ancient approach, a modern approach, the papacy end, the political end. And he really mixes these all together. But when all is said and done, he comes out with a very clear interpretation. He says, you want to know what the beast is all about? It's the League of Nations supported by the papacy. Okay, the first beast then is the League of Nations unifying all the world under its political tyranny. And then the papacy, the second beast is supporting it. Do I have to tell anybody here what the League of Nations is or was the point being that if I did, it's only a sign of the fact the League of Nations no longer exists. Now this was an interpretation advanced at, well, about 50 years ago. 50 years ago. Now, in our generation, in our lifetime, we have been writing. If I don't hurry up and finish this book, it may not get into the bookstores because the Antichrist will stop it from being published. Men writing that there is a man in Europe right now who is the Beast and all these things. I could continue reading from commentaries ancient and modern, I think only to demonstrate that the whole course of church history is a path strewn with faulted predictions of the Antichrist living in one's own generation and being identified with the movements of his own time. I think the the writing of another pre millennialist, Robert Mounts. Not the Robert Mounce that some of you know here in Mississippi, but Robert Mount at Western Kentucky has written in the new International Commentary series on the Book of Revelation. This comment of his is much more in line with what I think sensible interpreters of the Book of Revelation from a non covenantal perspective are saying. Mount says this, But who is the beast of John's vision? From the verses which follow we learn that he possessed the authority of Satan, blasphemed the name of God, warred victoriously against the saints, and received the worship of the pagan world. Now listen closely. There is little doubt that for John the Beast was the Roman Empire as persecutor of the Church. It was that spirit of imperial power which claimed a religious sanction for its gross injustices. And that is one of the most sane statements that you'll find in any commentary anywhere on the Book of Revelation. There is little doubt that for John the beast was the Roman Empire as persecutor of the Church. Why does John write about the League of Nations or somebody who is in Europe right now? John has no interest in what happens in the 19th and 20th centuries. John is on Patmos, already exiled for the testimony of Jesus. John knows that his brothers in the Lord, Paul and Peter, have been killed for their faith by Nero, that wretched monster. John writes to encourage the Church and to pick up the Church and to tell the Church the outcome of all these things. And when he writes, he speaks of the Roman Empire persecuting the Church in his own day. But alas, as mounts, the premillennialist says that, of course, in saying that undermines the whole futurist interpretation of the Book of Revelation, because the futurist interpretation, I might remind you from previous lectures, has to do with the far future from John's day. The futurist interpretation is what we call pre millennialism or dispensationalism today in its approach to the book, but mounts writing as a premillennialist says there's no doubt but that John was writing about the Roman Empire persecuting the Church in his own day. And so before the paragraph ends, these devastating words, now he's going to take it all back. Yet the beast is more than the Roman Empire. John's vision grew out of the details of his own historical situation. But its complete fulfillment awaits the final denouement of human history. The beast has always been and will be in a final, intensified manifestation, the deification of secular authority. Now, let me very quickly run through from, you know, background, theologically this. What he's saying is there's a double fulfillment and that John only saw the fulfillment in his own day. But in fact, the final fulfillment will come at the end of history with the deification of secular authority. And with that, all of a sudden, premillennialism is given a stay of life. Now we can go ahead and interpret the book in premillennial fashion, recognizing that John thought it would be fulfilled in his own day. But John, you see, was looking at a range of mountains, and he didn't know that there was going to be another one beyond. You see, this going to be a first fulfillment. He and then a second fulfillment. The significance of that is that premillennialists interpret the Old Testament in precisely the same way, the Old Testament, in predicting certain things to take place, didn't know that there would be a difference between the first and second coming of Jesus Christ. So you have the mountaintop image, you see, and the one fulfillment is seen in, the second is obscured. But now they're doing that, and I'm saying the modern, sophisticated, and very scholarly, to be sure, free millennialists is now doing that with the New Testament in order to do what? To salvage his system of interpretation. And Dr. J. Adams, in his book the Time Is At Hand, has very well, very aptly put the error of this system of thought and this way of interpreting the Book of Revelation, when he calls it diplopia. Anybody here have diplopia? What does that mean? Double vision? Exactly. Some people wearing glasses might have that difficulty. That's why I asked. Double vision. If you have that medical malady and you take off your glasses and you read the Book of Revelation, Adam says, so you're going to see two things. You're going to see one thing as two. And that's exactly. You see what Mount is doing. There is one thing happening here, but he's seeing it twice. He's seeing the one fulfillment of God's one prophetic word in John's day and then saying, well, in fact, it has to happen twice. But where is the textual support for the necessity of a second fulfillment of this? Yes, but don't we, in a sense find double fulfillment in other places in Scripture, like, for instance, the little horn in Dan, if it was in practice? Yeah. What I try to suggest to you there is what John does is he uses the. He uses the images and the language of a prophecy applying to Antiochus. And he is. And then John, you see, with scriptural warrant is saying, this language applying to Antiochus is equally applicable to the beast of our day. In other words, John, if John draws upon Old Testament imagery and applies it to something specific, there's no difficulty. And if the Book of Revelation says, now we realize there's a beast today and another beast to come, I'd have no difficulty. The difficulty is that mounts without any biblical warrant, multiplies the fulfillment of this, and therefore is guilty of double vision. If that's too fast, I want to go over that again, because it's a very important distinction between letting John use Old Testament imagery to apply to his own day and without any scriptural warrant, somebody taking the language applying to John's day and saying, well, it must apply to our day as well. Well, I want to know who gives the Inspired warrant and prerogative to make a double application of John's language. Other questions up to this point, we still haven't identified the Beast. So let's move on here. To identify the Beast, I think it'll be helpful to look at the mark of the beast. And so we'll move on to the mark of the beast at the end of the chapter. Remember, those who don't have the mark of the beast on their forehead and upon their hand cannot buy or enter into the marketplace. Then verse 18 at the end of the chapter says, here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666. Okay, we're putting aside for a minute the question of who is the Beast? To ask the question, what is the mark of the beast and what does it mean? Because that should be a good clue to identifying him. Now, Hal Lindsey says about the mark of the Beast the following. And of course, it's going to have a modern application, as you already are conditioned to expect. As far fetched as this may sound, the United States government may, right at this moment, be inadvertently setting up the system by which this monstrous outrage will be committed. New laws now require that every U.S. citizen receive a Social Security number by the time he enters the first grade, and that this number will be his identifying number all his life. It will serve in lieu of a man's Selective service number. No doubt it will eventually also replace his driver's license number. In fact, for a number of years, the banking system of this country has been inundated with a massive paper, both from checks and credit card expenditures. The problem has become such a crisis that serious studies are being undertaken to devise a paperless society, one in which all food, bills, services, etc. Will be paid for by a person's personal credit card number. Instead of money or checks. No money at all will exchange hands. Your paycheck will automatically be deposited in your bank, and you will simply show your credit card number to anyone you're doing business with. This, in turn, will bill. They in turn will bill the banks, and the banks will credit the money into their accounts. No one except the bank will ever handle the money. In order for this to work, everyone must have a personal identification credit number, and the Social Security number we all receive could easily qualify as this number. Of course, all information about your personal and credit habits, which could affect your credit rating, would be on file under your number and would be instantly available by computers to anyone Needing the information, both friend and foe. In seeking to think through all the possible problems that could arise from this, one of the first considerations has been the problem of theft of your card or loss of it in some other manner. Since your whole financial welfare is wrapped up in your card, a thief could wipe you out overnight. The apostle John says that the false prophet will require everyone to have an identifying mark on either his forehead or right hand. Strangely enough, this is the same solution that's being talked about by some who are wrestling with this problem right now. There's no way to lose your number if it's tattooed on you. Yes, your own Social Security number is to be tattooed on your forehead and upon your hand very literally. And that's what Lindsay is worried about. This European Antichrist, now alive, is going to undoubtedly do this, and the United States is developing the system for it to happen. Now, there's something very strange that I've got to add to this. Now. Lindsay being hyper literal and the idea of the number being written on the forehead and hand literally tattooed there goes on to say, in interpreting what the number 666 means, the number of the Roman beast is 666. Down through the years, Bible expositors have tried to figure out exactly what this means, but it's really no big mystery, since the number six in the Bible stands for humanity. I believe the meaning of 666 is man trying to imitate the Trinity of God. Three sixes in one person. Anyone who acknowledges this blasphemous trinity by worshipping the 666 beast will be separated forever from the true triune God. I believe the meaning of 666 is man trying to imitate the Trinity of God. Three sixes in one person, three men in one man. And so it's a blasphemous attempt to imitate the true trinity. And the remark I have to make is, with all, you know, love toward a fellow brother, is that Lindsay is incredibly literalistic. When the Bible intends to be taken metaphorically. And when the Bible finally does say, now look, if you have wisdom, I'll give you the number of the name. At the very point where the Bible intends to be taken very literally, Lindsay just goes off in the greatest flight of fantasy that one could imagine. In terms of the interpretation, he makes it figurative and metaphorical. 666, obviously, that's an attempt to be a human trinity. So it turns out that, you know, what is black becomes white, and what white is becomes black. In this manner of interpreting the Bible what is the mark of the beast? Well, I mean, what is the mark qua mark? That is, what kind of mark ought we to expect here? What is John thinking of? Robert Mounce gives some good background to this procedure, I think in some alternatives. In his commentary he says that in the ancient world there was the practice of branding disobedient slaves and of soldiers defeated in battle. Religious tattooing was widespread in the ancient world and devotees of a particular God were often branded to indicate their loyal devotion. Ptolemy Philopater branded Jews who submitted to registration with an ivy leaf the mark of Dionysiac worship. The word translated quote mark was also used for the likeness or name of the emperor on Roman coins. Caird takes this as the reason for the mark being placed on the hand as well as the forehead. The word was also a technical designation for the seals which were attached to commercial documents and, and stamped with the name and date of the emperor. And we can go on and give other examples as well. But what we're saying is marking was a very common practice in John's day. It was common in terms of literal tattooing. It was a commercial vehicle. Any number of things could be the mark of the beast. But the obvious thing is that John does live in the imagery of Scripture. He lives in the Old Testament in terms of his way of expressing himself. And in the Old Testament, as I've explained to you already In Deuteronomy chapter 6, 6, 8, the Jews were to have on their forehead and upon their hand the law of God. The beast now comes trying to replace God himself and says, no, not the law of God on your forehead and hand, but my name, my direction, my sovereign might and law. Moreover, this sealing of those who worship the beast with his name is really, in terms of the book of Revelation itself, nothing more than a parody of what we find in Revelation chapter 7, where the servants of God are sealed with what? The name of God upon their forehead. And so now the beast comes along and in parody of God, sealing of his saints with his name, wishes to seal his apostate followers with his name as well. Alright, so that much for the mark. The mark should be taken as metaphorical, you see, It's a replacing of God's law with man's law. It's an attempt to identify followers and to seal them in that following in a way parodying God's own sealing of his saints with his name. But now what is the meaning of the number 666? How do I identify that? Time is going to run out if I read for you, all the background. I wanted to. But remember that it was a very, very common practice in all of the ancient cultures of the near east, the Middle east, to have names and words written with their numerical equivalent. Because there wasn't Arabic numbers being used by these people. They used letters of the Alphabet to stand for numbers. And so the first nine letters of the Alphabet stood for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 as numerals, the next nine as the tens, and the next nine as hundreds and so forth. And that's the way they wrote their numbers out. And so you could take anything written in regular script and then you could figure out its numerical equivalent. I think I gave you the example a couple weeks ago of. On the wall of Pompeii, we've uncovered this graffiti that says, I love her, whose name is 545, which was, you know, a way of declaring your love, you see, but not telling people just exactly who it is. But if you sit down and figure it out, if you know this girl's name, you see, you could figure out the numerical equivalent. See, it's 545. Now, I maintain that that is what John is doing here, Revelation. And I don't think that I'm alone in that. Most every commentator has recognized that. But what's the reason for it? Mountz puts his finger on it, I think, when he says gematria, which is the. In Jewish nomenclature, the translating of words into numbers. Gematria was widely used in apocalyptic because of its symbolic and enigmatic quote. It served as a precaution against this charge of sedition and Massingburg. Ford, in her commentary on the Book of Revelation, expands on that a little bit more. She says, why should John have spoken so cryptically? It would seem that in time of persecution or war, the faithful should be warned. However, the warning had to be given in such a way as to obscure its meaning. For the pagans into whose hands the Book of Revelation might fall, if it violated the sacrosanct majesty of Rome, the faithful might be charged with treason. Hence, the gematria was a measure of prudence on John's part. I think that's precisely right. John is writing from Patmos and in the process of sending this letter to the churches, if it should be intercepted or censored or read in some way by any imperial official, John didn't want the Church to whom he was writing to fall under the persecution, the punishment of the empire, because he says directly, straight out that what I'm writing about is this monster, the Roman Empire or the emperor himself, Nero. And so John says, let me tell you who this person is. I'll give it to you in number. The number is 666. Now I grant, and I really apologize for the lack of time to do this, but I had a long, long list throughout history of what 666 has been taken to mean, and believe me, it's appalling. I mean, the diversity is even greater than the diversity of the beast we looked at earlier. I mean, Luther's name fits, apparently, the Pope's title fits. Any number of Roman emperors might fit, any number of pagan gods fits. I mean, it's been identified with the Gnostic system of triangular numbers. So it comes out to be, let me see, it comes out to be the number six in triangular form. I mean the number eight in triangular form, which in the Gnostic system of philosophy stands for wisdom. And therefore this really Gnosticism that's being talked about here. So we can go on and on and on and on and on with all the various possibilities that are here. How is it that so many names add up to 666? Well, there's probably a number of us here who have the same numerical equivalent in our name, just because, you know, a number can accommodate any number of qualities when it's a translation of a linguistic referent. But here's another way that you get all these possibilities. First of all, you try 666 in Hebrew and then if you don't get what you want, you try it in Greek, and if you don't get what you want in Greek, you try it in Latin. And then if none of those devices work, then you try all three again by adding a title to the person. So you get the title of the Pope, and then you can try it in Greek or Latin or Hebrew. And then if that doesn't work using any of those three languages and adding a title to a person's name, then don't be too particular about how you spell the name. Alright? So now if you go through all these devices, quite literally, you can get any number of things to fit. But so while there are numerous possibilities, and while there's even a movement afoot among certain sophisticated commentaries such as mountains is now today to say really nobody can know. Nobody. I mean, with all the possibilities, all the things that have been sent through church history, nobody really knows. But I don't believe that John wrote this book in order to be so obscure that nobody could understand it. And I don't believe in the skeptical approach to interpreting The Book of Revelation. John, after all, is given on at least two specific occasions in the drama of Revelation. An angel who interprets the meaning of the symbols for him. God wants the book to be understood. God says, I will tell you the mystery. And so while there are many possibilities, and one must be cautious with all of that, the fact is not all possibilities are equally sane or viable. And in John's own day, with the purposes we've already read to you about that, he might want to cover up what he's saying directly so the Church wouldn't be charged with sedition. In John's own day, the most likely possibility is that it was Nero Caesar. As I've said, Neron Caesar, written in the. In the Aramaic form of the Murabat documents, which were dated to the second year of Nero, is spelled in precisely the way necessary for John, a Jew, to translate the Hebrew letters or the Aramaic letters into the numerical equivalent of 666. So I've done that for you on the blackboard two weeks ago, and I won't repeat it now with this short time. The fact is 666 does fit the number of a name and a name in John's own day, and a name well known for persecution of the Church. And so it fits all the context of this book and pans out literally in terms of the application. Let me add to this that According to Revelation 17, verse 10, we read of the seven heads of the beast, and they are seven kings, the five are fallen, the one is, the other is not yet come. And when he cometh, he must continue a little while. Of the seven emperors that John is talking about, five have fallen. The sixth emperor now rules, and the seventh, when he comes, will rule for only a short time. Now, the first emperor of the Roman Empire, the first to be accounted in terms of being the overall ruler of the empire, was Julius Caesar. So let's go down from Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and the sixth is Nero. Now add to that that the seventh emperor of Rome, Galba, when he came to power, ruled seven months, and that's it. And so what I'm saying is you have a literal and precise application of this prophecy of John to Nero. The sixth emperor now rules, and the seventh will rule only a short time. So Nero's name fits the number of 666. Nero's reign follows as the sixth in the succession, with the seventh being shortly thereafter. And then finally, in Revelation 13, verse 5, we read, and there was given to him a mouth speaking great things. And blasphemies. And there was given to him authority to continue 40 and two months in his persecution of the Church. And we know that the Neronian persecution lasted precisely 42 months. So when all is said and done, it's not nearly so dramatic as Satan resurrecting the body of somebody living in Europe right now, I realize. But when all is said and done, John was writing about his own day and the situation facing the Church then, and he identifies Nero as the ruling emperor of the empire, that is the beast. Well, we've run completely out of time, so I won't even go into the second beast this morning, but eventually I'm going to identify the second beast on the land as the emperor cult in Asia Minor calling for men to worship the emperor, the Caesar, or else not be able to enter into the marketplace, which is precisely what happened in history. It's taken a lot of weeks, and I still didn't have all the time I wanted. But that is the way I think we should identify the beasts. I owe it to you to give you a chance to ask questions. So very quickly, do you have any questions on that? Yes. How did the early church. Did they catch on the only record? Did they count? The only record we have is from over 125 years after the fact. And by that time, people were arguing as to which emperor it should be identified with or with what pagan God it should be identified with. And so the early church, a century or so afterwards, is already beginning to fall into controversy as to the direct identification of it. And that's one of the reasons people say we really can't know. I mean, if the early church didn't know, how could we know? But that's not really the early church. The early church are the recipients of the letter. And I maintain they did know, and they knew by the gematria system of the Jews. And if you use that, you see that Nero was intended it.