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Revelation 13.part II
December 17th 2017
Meat
Okay, we left off last week at verses5-7 which said:
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
We talked all about them. Let’s read now beginning at verse 8, admitting that at first glance they seem sort of hard to explain. Verse 8 John adds:
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
Okay, back to verse 8 where John writes:
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
From verse 8, and the preterist vantage point, “all of national Israel” (note the phrase “all who dwell on earth” and we have seen that earth is Israel and Sea is Gentiles) so “all who dwelled in Israel worshipped the beast,” except for those whose names were “written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain.”
John adds, “If any man have an ear let Him hear,” obviously speaking to those whose names have been written in the Lamb’s book of Life so they would understand.
This was Jesus message as well – those with eyes to see and ears to hear saw and heard.
Verse 10, which says:
10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
For starters, this passages is presented e differently in the [1] ESV (English Standard Version) than it is in the [2] New King James Version:
The ESV reads: “If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.”
While the New King James says: “He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.”
Suffice it to say that this appears to be a clear prophecy regarding how the beast (in the singular sense) would be slain.
If this is its meaning (which I believe it is) it would be taken as a comforting fact, helping the believers in Nero’s day to endure through intense persecution in light of this prophecy and waiting for the end of it and him within 3 and a half years.
Nero martyred thousands (including Paul) by the sword, and “Tertullian” in his book, Before Jerusalem’s Fall”) credits ‘Nero’s cruel sword’ as providing the martyr’s blood as seed for the church.”
It’s a historical fact that Nero also met his own suicidal demise at the hand of a sword when he certainly could have taken poison.
He did indeed live and die by the sword. It was this event in June 68 AD which brought an end to this most intense period of persecution against the Church.
Again, we know that Nero fit the description of this beast in the specific sense, with his 42-month reign of persecution from November 64 – June 68 AD (vss. 5-7), with his death by the sword (even as he had used the sword to cause death) (verse 10), and with his demand for worship (vss. 4 and 8).
We have also seen that first-century Rome fit the description of this beast in the general sense, with its identification as the fourth beast in Daniel’s similar vision (Daniel 7:1-8), and with the healing of the mortal wound suffered by one of its heads (vss. 1-3; cf. Rev. 17:7-10).
Before we move on let’s talk a bit about the term, Anti-Christ – which is so popular in Christian culture today and is spoken of as being described all over the Book of Revelation. I continue to refer to it as though it is a character in the Book of Revelation but . . .
Interestingly enough, the term is never used by John in his writing of Revelation.
Daniel seems to speak of him in his 70 seeks Prophecy and Paul mentions the man of Sin in II Thessalonians 2 but other than these writings it is only John who speaks of Anti-Christ and this is ONLY in his epistles (not Revelation itself).
But even in the aforementioned verses the term “Antichrist” isn’t used. Only in two books – 1st and 2nd John is the term used but again NEVER in Revelation.
Where the term is used in I John 2:18, I John 2:22, Ist John 4:3 and II John 7.
This is what the verses say:
1st John 2:18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
1John 2:22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
1st John 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
2nd John 1:7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
In these passages, John makes the following points:
[1] His readers had heard that “antichrist is coming.”
[2] Many antichrists had come, indicating that it was the last hour (in John’s day).
[3] Anyone who denies the Father and the Son, or that Jesus is the Christ, is “theantichrist.” (Notice nothing about the Holy Spirit in the list of beings denied?)
[4] The “spirit of the antichrist” was in the world in John’s day, and was characterized as denying that Jesus is from God.
[5] “The antichrist” is anyone who does not “confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.”
According to John there were many such persons in his day and I think its important to remember all these things when people start blammering on and on about the Antichrist.
Okay, let’s read verses 11 now where we are introduced to a second beast coming up “out of the earth.”
11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
Here we are presented with a tad bit of a problem from the fulfillment side of the fence.
No body is really sure who or what this second beast was. So we will cover the biggest theories – may the Spirit guide.
So far in the book of Revelation it seems that references to “the earth” (or “land”) refers to the nation of Israel. Is this the case here?
Here Preterists are not so sure and are divided as well as on the identity of this second beast.
There does seem to be a much greater consensus, though, that this second beast is one and the same with the “false prophet” spoken of in Revelation 16:13, 19:20, and 20:10.
Anyway, first we notice that this second beast exercises “the authority” of the first beast (identified in the previous post as Nero).
It does so “in its presence” (or “on its behalf,” as the ESV states).
It makes “the earth” (which we have been calling Israel) to worship the first beast (again, who we said is Nero).
So let’s look at the four different potential candidates for this second beast.
First view: (The Roman Concilia” or what is known as the Cult of the Emperor”):
Preterist Steve Gregg says,
“The most frequently encountered view [among preterists] suggests that this beast is a symbol for ‘the cult of the emperor,’ that is, that organized force within the [1st century Roman] empire that sought to enforce the worship of the Caesars.
The second beast’s two horns like a lamb (v. 11) suggest a religious nature more than a political one.”
This government entities job was in ancient times to regulate all details related to emperor worship in ancient times.
It had the authority to impose economic sanctions on individuals who would not prove their willingness to worship the emperor.
I see this as a very viable candidate for 2nd Beast.
Second view – A singular Jewish Leader or Governor:
Some think this beast must be confined to Israel because it comes “out of the earth,” making that interpretation at least consistent with previous rules of interpretation.
The reason this second beast has only two horns in contrast with the 10 horns of the first beast is because of its smaller “sphere of government.”
One Preterist scholar (Russell) says, “He can be no other than the Roman procurator or governor of Judea under Nero, and the particular outbreak must be sought at or near the outbreak of the Jewish war.”
Russell points to Gessius Florus, who was hands down the worst and most oppressive governor of the Jewish province, ruling from 64-66 AD.
Josephus says he was also the primary cause for the Jewish revolt which led to the Roman-Jewish War of 66-73 AD.
Russell acknowledges that Josephus and other historians don’t specifically record that Gessius Florus enacted “compulsory enforcement of homage to the emperor’s statue and the ascension of miraculous pretensions” but he adds that “the image of the beast is clearly the statue of the emperor.”
Russell also notes that we know historically that “the test by which the martyrs of this period were tried was to adore the emperor, to offer incense before his statue, and to invoke the gods.”
Again, this view holds some water too.
The third view is a collective Judaism and Jewish Leadership:
Famous Preterist David Chilton sees the second beast as representing “the Jewish religious system and leadership collectively as a false agent of God.”
Chilton wrote,
The Jewish leaders, symbolized by this Beast from the Land, joined forces with the Beast of Rome in an attempt to destroy the Church (and uses specific actions in Acts 4:24-28; 12:1-3; 13:8; 14:5; 17:5-8; 18:12-13; 21:11; 24:1-9; 25:2-3, 9, 24 to prove it)
Chilton adds, The Book of Acts records several instances of miracle-working Jewish false prophets who came into conflict with the Church (cf. Acts 8:9-24) and worked under Roman officials (cf. Acts 13:6-11); as Jesus foretold (Matt. 7:22-23).
Some of them even used His name in their incantations (Acts 19:13-16).
One blogger, who holds to this view, wrote the following, after citing John 19:15-22, where the chief priest declared “We have no king but Caesar“:
Not only did the religious leaders reject their true King, they also pledged their allegiance to Rome. The book of Acts also tells of both Jewish false prophets who performed signs and wonders (e.g. Simon the Magician, Acts 8:9-24) through magic, and of the allegiance between Rome and Jewish false prophets and leaders.
Both of these come together in Acts 13:6-11, where a false prophet and magician named Bar-Jesus is with the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus, as well as Elymas the Magician.
The role of the second beast was to point back to the first beast, working with the first beast against the Church.
This is exactly what we see apostate Jewish leaders doing throughout the Gospels, and Acts.
By the time of Nero’s persecution, this only intensified. So, just as the Roman Empire, under the rule of Nero, fits the description of the first beast, the apostate Jewish leaders who point away from the true King (towards Rome and the Caesar) fit into the description of the second beast.
They were certainly
“from the land,” (Israel)
worked in accordance with the Roman Empire,
pledged allegiance to their “king,”
and opposed the church.
They also performed signs and wonders
they were considered false prophets just as the second beast is called throughout Revelation.
Even during the time of Christ, as we pointed out last week Israel as a nation had shown devotion to the Roman government.
Says Ken Gentry, “since the times of Julius Caesar, Israel had benefited from certain special privileges from Rome that were not allowed to other of its subjects.”
Josephus points out that these privileges
included the ability of the Jews to gather freely for their special religious meetings, which was contrary to Roman policy (Josephus, Antiquities 14:10:8), and “to also maintain its strict monotheism.”
It’s quite likely that this relationship is what was symbolized by the harlot woman “sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns” (Revelation 17:3).
Also, the Jews enjoyed even more favor when Nero’s second wife, Poppaea Sabina, became intensely interested in Judaism.
Gentry adds something really applicable here, saying:
“The Jews responded to the favors of Rome…by offering ‘sacrifices twice every day for Caesar, and for the Roman people’” (he got this from Josephus, Wars 2:10:4 and cross references it with Daniel 11:31, 12:11).
This offering in honor of Caesar, however, was stopped in the summer of 66 AD, which Josephus says led to the Jewish-Roman War. It seems that one
Eleazar, the son of Ananias the high priest, a very bold youth, persuaded those that officiated in the divine service to receive no gift or sacrifice for any foreigner.
This was the true beginning of our war with the Romans: for they rejected the sacrifice of Caesar on this account: and when many of the high priests and principal men besought them not to omit the sacrifice, which it was customary for them to offer for their princes, they would not be prevailed upon.
Thus far this view makes the most sense to me. There is one more major view to consider.
Four – Vitellius, Rome’s 9th Emperor:
Because we have stayed with the Sea being gentiles and this second beast rises up from the land, I don’t think this view carries the weight that the second and third do.
Nevertheless, we can learn a lot about the level of worship that was demanded of Nero by examining Vitellius, as described by Suetonius, who was the tenth Emporer of Rome.
Vitellius, the ninth emperor, was devoted in his worship of Nero. It is said that he “greatly pleased the public by offering sacrifices to Nero’s spirit in the Campus Martius [Latin for “Field of Mars,” a 2 square kilometer public square in Rome] and he would “make all the priests and people attend.”
These were “funerary offerings to Nero” and this left “no doubt in anyone’s mind what model he chose for the government of the State.”
The actions of Vitellius appear to fulfill what is written in Revelation 13:11-12 of a second beast, referred to later as the false prophet, which reads:
“Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence [or on its behalf], and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed.”
Vitellius had such a rabid fascination with Nero that Vespasian had to “make a determined effort to check the growth of the “Nero cult” when he came to power.”
In the time Revelation was written the ancients believed that statues spoke and performed miracles.
It was thought that the gods and demons used statues as conduits to communicate with humans and work miracles.
Both Justin and Irenaeus wrote that
the heretic Simon Magus is said to have brought statues to life (Clementine Recognitions 3.47; Justin, Apologia 1.26; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.23).
In fact in ancient times, that was precisely the point of having idols. People thought that the life of the person or being was actually in the idol.
In their book, Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (1999), the authors (Brown, Bowersock, Grabar) write about the common sight of images of Roman emperors in the third and fourth centuries.
These images took prominent places throughout the empire and were literally worshipped. This was ordinary in the first century as well:
Those who beheld Constantine in his golden raiment were said by Eusebius to be “stunned and amazed by the sight—like children who have seen a frightening apparition.” But away from court and capital, emperors rarely appeared in person.
Instead and in the provinces, their presence was represented by statues and other images.
Municipal squares were dominated by imperial statues;
the portraits of emperors hung in official buildings, shops, theaters, and public porticoes…
In their range and variety, imperial images made emperors omnipresent…the crowd applauded not only the emperor but also his image as it was paraded around them, surrounded—like the emperor himself—by the imperial bodyguard… These “mirror images of majesty” not only made permanent the transitory messages of imperial ceremonial, but were designed to blur the distinction between emperors and their representations…
And listen – There was a rigid insistence on the performance of the same rituals and ceremonies before imperial images as before the emperor himself.
Those approaching an emperor’s statue were required to prostrate themselves “not as though they were looking at a picture, but upon the very face of the emperor.”
A proper atmosphere of sanctity was to be maintained at all times.
As we have said, statues of Nero’s likeness already existed in the Roman Empire during his lifetime, even from early in his reign.
In 55 AD, the second year of his reign, the Roman senate erected a statue of Nero in the Temple of Mars that stood between 110 and 120 feet high.
“The emperor’s brow was crowned with rays, suggesting a comparison or identification with the Sun-god.”
His portrait appeared on coins at the time as Apollo playing the lyre.
Even his mother, Agrippina, was hailed by provincial coins “as goddess and the parent of a god.”
Inscriptions found in Ephesus called Nero “Almighty God” and “Savior,” and inscriptions found in Cyprus called him “God and Savior.”
The behavior of the highly-revered Augustus Caesar (27 BC-14 AD) was very modest compared to the worship Nero demanded for himself.
Dio Cassius writes of an incident in which a regional king was compelled to worship both Nero and his image. This occurred in 66 AD when Tiridates, King of Armenia, paid Nero a visit:
Indeed, the proceedings of the conference were not limited to mere conversations, but a lofty platform had been erected on which were set images of Nero, and in the presence of the Armenians, Parthians, and Romans Tiridates approached and paid them reverence; then, after sacrificing to them and calling them by laudatory names, he took off the diadem from his head and set it upon them…Tiridates publicly fell before Nero seated upon the rostra in the Forum and said:
“Master, I am the descendant of Arsaces, brother of the kings Vologaesus and Pacorus, and thy slave. And I have come to thee, my god, to worship thee as I do Mithras. The destiny thou spinnest for me shall be mine; for thou art my Fortune and my Fate.”
Says Ken Gentry, “By this action this king actually worshiped ‘the image of the Beast’ (Revelation 13:15).”
One senator, though, failed to worship Nero and his “Divine Voice,” and Dio Cassius records that he was executed:
“Thrasaea was executed because he failed to appear regularly in the senate…and because he never would listen to the emperor’s singing and lyre-playing, nor sacrifice to Nero’s Divine Voice as did the rest.”
Nero was even deified in Greece, where he spent a significant amount of time in 67 AD as a musician and actor in the Grecian festivals.
There he was proclaimed as “Zeus, Our Liberator,” and his statue was set up in the temple of Apollo where he was called “The new Sun, illuminating the Hellenes.”
When he returned to Rome in early 68 AD, the entire population was made to come out and greet him with these words: “Hail, Olympian Victor! Hail, Pythian Victor! Augustus! Augustus! Hail to Nero, our Hercules! Hail to Hero, our Apollo! The only Victor of the Grand Tour, the only one from the beginning of time! Augustus! Augustus! O, Divine Voice! Blessed are they that hear thee.”
So, having heard all of this, let’s re-read our remaining verses of chapter 13 beginning at verse 11:
11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
So in the first looked at the first 10 verses in this chapter we showed that Nero fit the description of the first beast in the specific sense and that first-century Rome fit the description of this same beast in the general sense.
We were introduced to his main advocate, a second beast, and we considered four different views regarding the identity of this second beast.
Next week we will look further into the healing of the first beast’s mortal wound, the mark of the beast, and the fact of its identification with the famous “666” symbol.
