Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

13:5-7
that he receives a head wound should make us think of
the scene in the Garden of Eden, when God promised
that Christ would come and crush the Dragon’s head
(Gen. 3:15). Daniel had prophesied that in the days of
the Roman rulers, Christ’s Kingdom would crush the
Satanic empires and replace them, filling the earth.
Accordingly, apostolic testimony proclaimed that
Christ’s Kingdom had come, that the devil had been
defeated, disarmed, and bound, and that all nations
would begin to flow toward the mountain of the Lord’s
House. Within the first generation, the Gospel spread
rapidly around the world, to all the nations; churches
sprang up everywhere, and members of Caesar’s own
household came into the faith (Phil. 4:22). In fact,
Tiberius Caesar even formally requested that the
Roman Senate officially acknowledge Christ’s divinity. 8
For a time, therefore, it looked as if a coup were taking
place: Christianity was in the ascendant, and soon
would gain control. Satan’s head had been crushed, and
with it the Roman Empire had been wounded to death
with the sword (see 13:14) of the Gospel. 9
But then the tables were reversed. Although the
Gospel had spread everywhere, so had heresy and
apostasy; and under persecution by the Jews and the
Roman State, great masses of Christians began falling
away (1 Tim. 1:3-7, 19-20; 4:1-3; 6:20-21; 2 Tim. 2:16-
18; 3:1-9, 13; 4:10, 14-16; Tit. 1:10-16; 1 John 2:18-19).
The New Testament gives the definite impression that
most of the churches fell apart and abandoned the faith;
under Nero’s persecution, the Church seemed to have
been stamped out entirely. The Beast had received the
head-wound, the wound unto death – yet it still lived.
The reality, of course, was that Christ had defeated the
Dragon and the Beast; but the implications of His
victory still had to be worked out; the saints had yet to
overcome, and take possession (cf. Dan. 7:21-22; Rev.
12:11).
And the whole Land wondered after the Beast; and
they worshiped the Dragon, because he gave his
authority to the Beast; and they worshiped the Beast,
saying: Who is like the Beast, and who is able to
make war against him? St. John is not speaking of the
world (the “earth”) following the Beast; the word he
uses here should be translated Land, meaning Israel. We
know this because the context identifies his worshipers
as those who dwell on the Land (Rev. 13:8, 12, 14) – a
technical phrase used twelve times in Revelation to
denote apostate Israel (see above on 3:10). It is true, of
course, that Nero was loved all over the Empire as the
benevolent provider of welfare and entertainment. But
it is Israel in particular which is condemned for
Emperor-worship. Faced with a choice between Christ
and Caesar, they had proclaimed: We have no king but
Caesar! (John 19:15). “With this cry Judaism was, in
the person of its representatives, guilty of denial of
God, of blasphemy, of apostasy. It committed suicide.” 10
Their reaction to Caesar’s apparently victorious war
against the Church (Rev. 11:7) was awe and worship.
Israel sided with Caesar and the Empire against Christ and
the Church. Ultimately, therefore, they were worshiping
the Dragon, and for this reason Jesus Himself called
their worship assemblies synagogues of Satan (Rev. 2:9;
3:9).
5-7 Again St. John draws our attention to the Beast’s
blasphemies against God (cf. 13:1). Specifically, he
says, the Beast seeks to blaspheme His Name and His
Tabernacle, those who tabernacle in heaven. Our
citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20), we are enthroned
there in Christ, our representative (Eph. 1:20; 2:6),
and, as we have seen, the Church’s official worship
takes place in the heavenlies, with myriads of angels in
festal assembly (Heb. 12:22-23; cf. comments on 8:1-
2). In contrast to those who reject the faith, who “dwell
on the earth,” the New Covenant people tabernacle in
heaven around the throne of God. In the same breath,
therefore, St. John tells the Church of both the Beast’s
cruel opposition to them and their certainty of
protection around the Throne in the heavenly court.
Alexander Schmemann has beautifully drawn attention
to the nature of worship as the Church’s weekly
ascension to heaven (cf. Ex. 24:9-11; 34:1-8, 29-35;
Mark 9:1-29): “The early Christians realized that in
order to become the temple of the Holy Spirit they
must ascend to heaven where Christ has ascended. They
realized also that this ascension was the very condition
of their mission in the world, of their ministry to the
world. For there – in heaven – they were immersed in
the new life of the Kingdom; and when, after this
‘liturgy of ascension,’ they returned into the world,
their faces reflected the light, the ‘joy and peace’ of that
Kingdom and they were truly its witnesses. They
brought no programs and no theories; but wherever
they went, the seeds of the Kingdom sprouted, faith was
kindled, life was transfigured, things impossible were
made possible. They were witnesses, and when they
were asked, ‘Whence shines this light, where is the
source of its power?’ they knew what to answer and
where to lead men. In church today, we so often find we
meet only the same old world, not Christ and His
Kingdom. We do not realize that we never get
anywhere because we never leave any place behind
us.” 11
8. This is reported by Tertullian in his Apology, chapter 5 (The Ante-Nicene
Fathers, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds.; Eerdmans, 1973):
“Unless gods give satisfaction to men, there will be no deification for them:
the god will have to propitiate the man. Tiberius accordingly, in whose days
the Christian name made its entry into the world, having himself received
intelligence from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of
Christ’s divinity, brought the matter before the Senate, with his own decision
in favor of Christ. The Senate, because it had not given the approval itself,
rejected his proposal. Caesar held to his opinion, threatening wrath against
all accusers of the Christians. Consult your histories . . .” (pp. 21f.). A.
Cleveland Coxe comments: “Great stress is to be placed on the fact that
Tertullian was probably a juriconsult, familiar with the Roman archives, and
influenced by them in his own acceptance of Divine Truth. It is not
supposable that such a man would have hazarded his bold appeal to the
records, in remonstrating with the Senate and in the very faces of the
Emperor and his colleagues, had he not known that the evidence was
irrefragable” (pp. 57f.).
9. The Biblical head-crushing theme is especially prominent in the Book of
Judges; see James B. Jordan, Judges: God’s War Against Humanism (Tyler, TX:
Geneva Ministries, 1985).
10. Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (McLean, VA:
MacDonald Publishing Company, two vols., n.d.), Vol. 2, p. 581.
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