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17:8 Jerusalem’s whole history, in fact, was one of relentless persecution of the godly, and especially of the prophets (Matt. 21:33-44; 23:29-35; Acts 7:51-53). As St. John tells us in 18:24, “in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on the earth.” Jerusalem was the persecutor of the prophets par excellence. But it is not always easy to look at things with “theological” eyes. At the moment of her glory, a successful harlot is beautiful, alluring, seductive. God’s Word is realistic, and does not pretend that evil always appears repulsive. The temptation to sin, as we all know, can be very attractive (Gen. 3:6; 2 Cor. 11:14). As St. John beheld the Great Harlot, therefore, he was quite taken in, fascinated with her beauty: He wondered with great wonder (cf. Rev. 13:3-4: “And the whole Land wondered after the Beast; and they worshiped the Dragon . . . ”). The angel therefore rebukes him: Why do you wonder? St. John records this to warn his readers against being seduced by the Harlot, for she is beautiful and impressive. The antidote to being deceived by the wiles of the False Bride is to understand the Mystery of the Woman and of the Beast that carries her. The angel will now reveal the nature of the Harlot’s alliance with the Beast, her opposition to Christ, and her approaching destruction. St. John’s readers must understand that there is no longer any hope of “reform from within.” Jerusalem is implacably at war with Jesus Christ and His people. The once-Holy City is now a Whore. The Angel Explains the Mystery (17:8-18) 8 The Beast that you saw was and is not, and is about to ascend out of the Abyss and to go to destruction. And those who dwell on the Land will wonder, whose name has not been written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the Beast, that he was and is not and will come. 9 Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the Woman sits, 10 and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. 11 And the Beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven, and he goes to destruction. 12 And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings, who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the Beast for one hour. 13 These have one purpose and they give their power and authority to the Beast. 14 These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful. 15 And he said to me: The waters which you saw, where the Harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. 16 And the ten horns which you saw, and the Beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and will make her naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire. 17 For God has put it into their hearts to execute His purpose, to execute one purpose, and to give their kingdom to the Beast, until the words of God should be fulfilled. 18 And the Woman whom you saw is the Great City, which has a Kingdom over the kings of the earth. 8 The angel begins his explanation by speaking about the Beast, since the Harlot’s intimacy with the Beast is so integral to her character and destiny. Again, we must note that this is a composite Beast (cf. v.3 above), comprising the attributes of both the Roman Empire and its original, the Dragon. Milton Terry says: “In his explanation the angel seems to point our attention particularly to the spirit which actuated the dragon, the beast from the sea, and the false prophet alike; and so what is here affirmed of the beast has a special reference to the different and successive manifestations of Satan himself. . . . Hence we understand by the beast that was and is not an enigmatical portraiture of the great red dragon of 12:3. He is the king of the Abyss in 9:11, and the beast that killed the witnesses in 11:7. He appears for a time in the person of some great persecutor, or in the form of some huge iniquity, but is after a while cast out. Then he again finds some other organ for his operations and enters it with all the malice of the unclean spirit who wandered through dry places, seeking rest and finding none until he discovered his old house, empty, swept, and garnished as if to in-vite his return.” 11 The angel represents the Beast as a parody of “Him who is and who was and who is to come” (1:4): The Beast . . . was and is not and is about to ascend up out of the Abyss. At this point, it is likely that the specific human referent of the Beast is Vespasian, who became Caesar after the chaos which followed upon the death of Nero. Ford comments: “The beast ‘was’ (Vespasian was in favor with Nero) and ‘is not’ (he fell from favor) and will come from the abyss (he was restored with the help of the ‘men of the pit,’ an epithet for perverse men from Qumran). Vespasian stands parallel to ‘he who is to come.’ In a sense the empire passed through the same stages; ‘it was,’ from Caesar to Nero, ‘was not’ in the critical year of the four emperors, and came again with Vespasian.” 12 Ultimately, as we have seen, this is a description of the original Beast, the Dragon, the ancient enemy of God and His people. If at the moment there is a temporary respite from his cruel opposition, the Christians must be aware that he is about to ascend again out of the Abyss to attack and persecute them again; nevertheless, St. John reminds them that the Beast’s defeat is assured, for his ascension is not to power and glory at the right hand of God, but only in order to go to destruction. The word destruction is apoleian, the root of Apollyon, the “king of the Abyss” in 9:11. St. John is pointing out that although the Beast is allowed, for a time, to ascend out of the abyss, he is just as certain to return there. His 11. Milton S. Terry, Biblical Apocalyptic: A Study of the Most Notable Revelations of God and of Christ in the Canonical Scriptures (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1898), pp. 429f. 12. Ford, p. 289. 174
17:11-12 destiny is utter destruction, and he cannot succeed in destroying the Church. But the Dragon/Beast will be successful in carrying off apostate Israel into his idolatrous cult. Those who dwell on the Land will wonder . . . when they see the Beast, that he was and is not and will come. The word used earlier for the Beast’s rise from the Abyss is anabaino – , in mimicry of Christ’s Resurrection/Ascension; the word come here is pariste – mi (the verb form of parousia), in imitation of Christ’s Coming in power and glory, bringing judgment and salvation (the definitive Parousia occurred at the Ascension, resulting in Christ’s Parousia against Jerusalem in A.D. 70). Thus, just as the first-century Christians lived in expectation of their Lord’s near Parousia, so the apostate Jews looked to the Beast for deliverance and salvation. The “second coming” of the Dragon, after his apparent (and real) defeat by Christ, was an occasion of wonder, astonishment, and worship by the Christ-rejecting Jews. The rise of the total state, in opposition to the Kingdom of Christ, was for rebellious Israel an ascension to glory, a parousia, a day of the lord. The Beast was their Messiah, and his Anti-Parousia delivered them – into the hands of Apollyon, the perdition and destruction of the Abyss. The only ultimate issue of the Beast’s ascension from the Abyss is the greater damnation of himself and his worshipers. Why, ultimately, did the Jews reject Christ and worship the Dragon? Because, in contrast to Christ’s elect, who were “chosen in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4) apostate Israel’s name has not been written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world (cf. 13:8). St. Peter wrote that Jesus Christ, the great Cornerstone, was for the Jews “a Stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the Word, and to this doom they were also appointed” (1 Peter 2:8). 13 Instead, the Church has inherited the former status (Ex. 19:6) held by Israel: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession . . .” (1 Pet. 2:9). 9-10 The angel turns to speak of the Dragon’s incarnation in the Beast from the Sea. Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. The “seven mountains” again identify the Beast as Rome, famous for its “seven hills”; 14 but these also correspond to the line of the Caesars, for they are seven kings; five have fallen: The first five Caesars were Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius. 15 One is: Nero, the sixth Caesar, was on the throne as St. John was writing the Revelation. The other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while: Galba, the seventh Caesar, reigned for less than seven months. 11 But the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the severe political chaos attending it must not be interpreted by Christians to mean the end of troubles. For their real enemy is the Beast, who will become incarnated in other Caesars as well. He is also an eighth king, yet is of the seven: the antichristian brutality of succeeding tyrants will mark them as being of the same stripe as their predecessors. Eight is the number of resurrection in the Bible; St. John is warning that even though the Empire will seem to disintegrate after the rule of the seven kings, it will be “resurrected” again, to live on in other persecutors of the Church. Yet the Empire’s comeback will not result in victory for the Beast, for even the eighth, the resurrected Beast, goes to destruction. The Church will have to exercise patience during the period of the Beast’s ascendancy, but she has the assurance that her enemies will not succeed. Their King will be victorious; His servants have been predestined to share in His triumph. 12 The ten horns which St. John saw on the Beast are ten kings. The number 10 in the Bible, as we have noted on other occasions, is related to the concept of “manyness,” of quantitative or numerical fullness. That these “kings” are associated with the Beast, adorning his heads as “crowns,” and that they receive authority with the Beast (i.e., by virtue of their relationship with him) indicates that they are rulers subject to, or allied with, the Empire. Rome actually had ten imperial provinces, and some have read this as a reference to them. 16 It is not necessary, however, to attempt a precise definition of these ten subject kings; the symbol simply represents “the totality of those allied or subject kings who aided Rome in her wars both on Judaism and Christianity.” 17 The burden of the text is to point to these kings, with whom the Harlot has plied her trade 13. In context (v. 6-8), St. Peter is quoting from Isaiah’s prophecies of the Jews’ rejection of Christ (Isa. 8:14; 28:16; see Matt. 28:12-15). John Brown of Edinburgh commented on 1 Peter 2:8: “The direct reference in the term disobedient is, no doubt, to the unbelieving Jews. When God proclaimed to them, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste,’ – they disbelieved the declaration. They disobeyed the command. They rejected the stone. They would not build on it. They would not receive Jesus as the Messiah; on the contrary, they ‘took him, and with wicked hands they crucified and slew him.’” (Expository Discourses on 1 Peter, two vols.; Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, [1848] 1975, Vol. 1, p. 314). 14. It is not at all necessary, with Russell (The Parousia, p. 492), to seek seven mountains in Jerusalem as the fulfillment of this statement. The Harlot is seated on the Beast, and thus on the seven hills of Rome; in other words, apostate Judaism, centered in the City of Jerusalem, is supported by the Roman Empire. 15. This has been called into question by some, since, in a technical sense, the Empire began with Augustus, not Julius (cf. Tacitus, The Annals, i.1). Yet that was a technicality which, as far as the normal conversation and writing of the first century were concerned, was irrelevant. For all practical purposes, Julius Caesar was Emperor: He claimed the title imperator, and most early Roman, Christian, and Jewish writers count him as the first Emperor. Suetonius begins his Lives of the Twelve Caesars with Julius as the first Emperor, as does Dio Cassius in his Roman History. Book 5 of the Sibylline Oracles calls Julius “the first king: and 4 Ezra 12:15 speaks of Augustus as “the second” of the emperors. For our purposes, Josephus seems to provide the most convincing testimony, since he wrote for both a Roman and a Jewish audience, in the common parlance of the day. In his Antiquities of the Jews he clearly speaks of Augustus and Tiberius as the second and third emperors (xviii. ii.2), of Caligula as the fourth (xviii.vi.10), and of Julius as the first (xix. i.11). The most extensive discussion of all the evidence is in Moses Stuart, Commentary on the Apocalypse, two vols. (Andover: Allen, Merrill, and Wardwell, 1845), Vol. 2, pp. 445-52; cf. Isbon T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John: Studies in Introduction with an Exegetical and Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, [1919] 1979), pp. 701f. 16. These were: Italy, Achaia, Asia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Germany. See F. W. Farrar, The Early Days of Chrtitianity (Chicago and New York: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1882), p. 532. 17. Terry, p. 433. 175
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But when you see Jerusalem surround
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Copyright @ 1987 by Dominion Press
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FOREWORD Foreword Readers of the Bo
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE Publisher’s
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE case for esch
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE this book bec
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE In contrast,
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INTRODUCTION St. Irenaeus is somewh
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INTRODUCTION we must be saved” (A
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INTRODUCTION previous relationship
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INTRODUCTION You have lain down as
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INTRODUCTION are only elaborating a
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INTRODUCTION early churches had suc
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INTRODUCTION actions mean more than
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INTRODUCTION Some will complain tha
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INTRODUCTION Outline of Revelation
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1:1-3 that must shortly take place.
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1:4-6 accomplishment. We probably h
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1:7-8 observe that a central aspect
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1:9 14 And His head and His hair we
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1:16 That all the peoples, nations,
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1:20 things that must shortly take
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INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO Part Two H
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INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO The confli
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2:4-6 endure evil men. . . . And yo
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2:9-10 dead, and has come to life:
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2:14-16 expression (none of which m
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2:18-23 and leads my servants astra
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2:26-29 end, to him I will give aut
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3:4-6 church, or even against a nat
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3:8-11 And I will clothe him with y
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3:14-16 sons disinherited and cast
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3:21-22 the elders of a church, and
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INTRODUCTION TO PART THREE The laws
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4:2-3 numerous names and descriptio
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4:5-8 superseded and transcended; t
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4:5-8 19) led Biblical writers to s
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5:1-4 family worship; it is radical
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5:5-7 St. John; and it seems as if
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5:8-10 have gained the victory for
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6:1-2 6 IN THE PATH OF THE WHITE HO
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6:3-4 forth conquering, and to conq
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6:9-10 And authority was given to h
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6:15-17 that Israel’s time has ru
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7:4-8 Though he flourishes among th
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7:4-8 they were listening to the Ap
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7:9 is presumably deliberate, for i
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7:10-14 inheriting the Kingdom (Mat
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7:15-17 They will not hunger or thi
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8:3-5 for that would be about the l
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8:6-7 rout the Midianites, in Judge
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8:12 13 And I looked, and I heard a
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9:13 The vegetation of the earth is
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9:20-21 lations advanced by some co
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9:20-21 men much more atheistical t
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10:2-4 beyond reasonable doubt that
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10:8-10 the Spirit at Pentecost was
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11:1-2 angelic priest measures the
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11:7 have the power to shut up the
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11:11-14 climax with the murder of
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11:16-18 month in the liturgical ye
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Page 144 and 145: 13:18 ✩ ✩✩ ✩★✩ ✩★
Page 146 and 147: 14:1 14 THE KING ON MOUNT ZION St.
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Page 186 and 187: 19:1-2 19 THE FEASTS OF THE KINGDOM
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Page 212 and 213: 21:1 21 THE NEW JERUSALEM The Bible
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22:3-4 Paradise is not, therefore,
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22:6-9 Final Warnings and Blessings
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22:17-21 unconquerable strength and
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CONCLUSION the pure Bride-City, is
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CONCLUSION does not exempt us from
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APPENDIX A it is reflected in “It
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APPENDIX A make him a pillar in the
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APPENDIX A and wine the night befor
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APPENDIX A Babylon, falsely priestl
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APPENDIX A B. CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 1.
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APPENDIX B been the defining mark o
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APPENDIX B The Bible teaches us tha
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APPENDIX C APPENDIX C Common Grace,
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APPENDIX C for all eternity because
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APPENDIX C better arrangement cultu
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APPENDIX C be destroyed. The two ex
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APPENDIX C universe. It is governed
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APPENDIX C completed, the world was
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APPENDIX C deceive the nations. The
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APPENDIX C creeds and theological u
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APPENDIX C coherence that at least
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APPENDIX C There is continuity in l
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Athanasius. On the Incarnation of t
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________. The Institutes of Biblica
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