JERUSALEM; ROME; REVELATION - The Preterist Archive

360. This started to take place particularly after Calvary. Indeed, it continued - in
ever-increasing intensity - especially during subsequent Church History. Thus: Matthew
Henry, Newton, Brown of Haddington, Priestley, Scott, Adam Clarke, and Albert Barnes, etc.
361. After the heavenly ascension of Christ, the victory against Satan’s Roman dragon
had already been won - in principle. Yet that adversary - mortally wounded - now turned and
keeps on turning his wrath against Christ-ians here on Earth. Since the ascension, Satan can
no longer reach Christ in Heaven. So now, he vents his anger against Christ’s Church
Militant still here on Earth. For such Christ-ians are Jesus’ true brethren (alias the ‘other
children’ of the noblewoman) or the Christian Church, and are indeed “the remnant of her
seed” or her other offspring. 183
362. It is true that Christians, even before their deaths, are ‘in spirit’ already enthroned
with Christ. For even now, they already rule, here on Earth, together with Him (and even in
the heavenlies). l84 But ‘in the flesh’ - Christians are still here on Earth. They are still under
attack from Satan and his agents. That is why Satan’s greet red dragon alias the Pagan
Roman Empire, as a tool of Satan himself, wrathfully yet unsuccessfully sought to destroy the
earthly Church after the ascension of Christ and also at and after the time of Nero.
363. Indeed, Satan’s dragon-like Pagan Roman Empire sought to destroy the Church
especially after the A.D. 70 fall of Jerusalem, and even after the 321 A.D. nominal
christianization of the Roman Empire. Thus: Tertullian, Victorinus, Pareus, Mede, the Dordt
Dutch Bible, Goodwin, Poole, Matthew Henry, Newton, Brown of Haddington, Scott, Adam
Clarke, Elliott, David Brown, and Albert Barnes.
364. “For the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war against the
remnant of her seed which keep the Commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus
Christ.” 185 That means Christians who love their Saviour and His Decalogue. Thus: the
Geneva Bible, the Dordt Dutch Bible, and Matthew Henry, etc.
365. Revelation chapter thirteen gives us the details of this Roman attack against the
true Christian Church. The exiled John, apparently gazing westward toward Rome while
himself walking along the beach on Patmos in A.D. 69, wrote: “Then I stood upon the sand of
the sea. And I saw a beast rise up out of the sea” (namely the Mediterranean Sea in which
Patmos itself is located). The beast was “like a leopard. And its feet were like the feet of a
bear, and its mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave it its power and its seat
[alias its throne] and great authority.” 186
366. Clearly, this beast is the Pagan Roman Empire. This was the fourth beast in the
vision of Daniel seven - the beast which consumed the remnants of the three preceding beasts
(viz. the lion-like Babylonian and the bear-like Persian and the leopard-like Grecian World-
Empires). 187 Indeed, it is precisely this Roman beast that would persecute the true Members
of the Bible-believing and consistently-Christian Church as the real people of God. 188 Thus
almost all Christian expositors, both Catholic and Protestant, down through all the centuries
and even today.
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