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| Powers in the Bible Prophecy |
The first power, the dragon, is identified
with the devil (Revelation 12:9), the lord and god of this
world (John 16:11; 1 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 6:12), who acted and continues to
act through any power that rises up against God.
The second power, the beast coming out of the
sea, is an image of the dragon. The book of Revelations places special emphasis
on “one of the heads”, the one with 10 horns. This head, the prophecy says,
“had a fatal wound” but it is to be healed (Revelation 12:3; 13:1, 3 [according to Daniel 7:3, 7]; 17:3, 7). This wound led to the end of the old
order, in which the beast coming out of the sea had much power and influence,
which it will regain, according to the book of Revelation.
The third power, the false prophet, is the
beast with the horns of a lamb, the one that came out of the earth during the
end times, which begins to speak with the voice of a dragon, healing the wound
of the first beast (see Revelation 13:11-18).
Does the book of Revelation or the Bible decode
the identity of these beasts?
Who is the dragon?
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| Powers in Prophecy |
The dragon is identified with the devil or
Satan (Revelation 12:9), but he has seven crowned
heads (Revelation 12:3). Noticing that the same seven heads are present in the
beast(s) of Revelation 13:1; 17:3, we find the key to their identification
in Revelation 17:9-10. However, their
identification is not direct and complete, but is presented in enigmatic
language, indicating only the research direction: the seven heads are “seven
mountains [or seven hills] (…) and seven kings”. In biblical poetry, the
mountains are metaphors of earthly powers when they are in opposition to “the
mountain of the Lord” (Psalm 68:16; Isaiah 2:2; Jeremiah 51:25-26; Daniel 2:35b, 44; Obadiah 1:21).
The text does not refer to kings as persons.
Apocalyptic prophecies seldom refer to individuals something shown in earlier
prophecies such as Daniel’s vision of similar beasts. By metonymy, kings
represent their kingdoms (Daniel 2:37, 39). The beasts that the interpreter
angel (who explains the revelation to John) calls “kings” are then revealed as
“kingdoms” (Daniel 7:17, 23). One would point to a
democracy or a federation of states using the same language: emperor/empire.
Therefore, the seven heads of the dragon and the beast(s) are seven kingdoms.
However, although they are synchronously seen in the vision, the angel says
that they are powers that follow each other historically.
They do not represent all the empires of the
world (many of which are not mentioned in the Bible), but only
those that came into direct conflict with God’s people, the Israelites, and the
Christians. They can be distinguished starting from the identification of the
sixth “emperor” (empire). The angel points out that by the time he addressed
the visionary, five empires had already fallen, and the sixth, the one that was
then in power (“one is”), was the Roman Empire (Revelation 17:10; the book of
Revelation dates from the end of the first century AD).
Therefore, the first five powers that Israel
and the world in which the believers were scattered faced can be identified historically:
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, the Medo-Persian Empire, and the Macedonian Empire,
continued by the Hellenistic civilization. It can be seen that, as one goes
down in history, these kingdoms become larger and more complex.
If Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon are mere
imperialist monarchies, the Empire of Medo Persia is both a dual power (of the
Medes and the Persians) and a huge empire spread over three continents. The
Macedonian Empire replaces the Persian Empire, but soon becomes divided into
four major Hellenistic monarchies.
The sixth empire, the Roman Empire, in
turn, is not only spread over three continents, but also continued by the “ten
horns” (kings / kings), which first appear in Daniel 7:7, 20, 24. These are the
European states, the successors of the Christian Roman Empire, which have
expanded over time as a civilization with a universal impact and a Christian
tradition. According to Daniel’s vision, this divided empire would remain until
the end, when God’s judgment would punish it (Daniel 7:11, acc. Revelation
19:20).
The sixth head of the apocalyptic beast, the
Roman Empire which was carried on by political Christianity is, of all heads, the
oldest, largest, most divided power in the Hellenistic world, the most
hypocritical, and the one with the bloodiest history. This head is especially
called the “beast” in Revelation 13. It is the same head that received the
death blow, so nowadays it no longer looks like a beast, but like an assaulted
victim. The prophecy, however, warns us that the beast will recover and do what
it did before under the admiring eyes of the whole world (Revelation 13:3, 12).
The seventh kingdom, which would be short-lived
(Revelation 17:10c), is more difficult to identify. A suggestion can, however,
be made. If we follow the logic of the succession of previous empires, this
seventh head must be a superlative of evil, a more complex power than the
previous ones, and it must strike the previous power, as the others had done.
History shows that the power that fatally struck the Christian
“empire” is secularism, with all its political and cultural forms,
which arose through the French Revolution (Déchristianisation) and which, after
the advent of Darwinism and Marxism, produced new anti-Christian political and
cultural revolutions, which culminated in the militant atheism of the communist states and the monstrous Nazi episode.
Most crimes against humanity have been
committed by the secular states of the most enlightened age in history. Over
the course of a few years, communist forces, especially Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot, destroyed over 100 million
lives, surpassing Hitler. Furthermore, the spiritual mutilation
brought about by anti-Christian education has been and is more serious than
genocide.
Historical Christianity had
committed many monstrous crimes, but the number of victims was spread over an
incomparably longer period. The Dechristianisation civilization
has almost completely collapsed in the East, but it still has cultural and
sometimes political support in the West. This power manifested itself in the
time between the wounding of the traditional Christian beast and its healing,
which has not yet been accomplished.
Who is the beast?
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| Powers in the Bible Prophecy |
As for the beast from the sea, this also has
seven heads and ten horns, like the dragon. But unlike the dragon, the beast
has no crowns on its heads, but on its ten horns (Revelation 13:1), which in
Daniel’s prophecy, where they first appear, are all on one head. In Daniel 7:7,
the head (the beast) with ten horns is the Roman Empire, an interpretation
accepted since the early Christian centuries (Dan. 7: 7).
During the same period, the ten horns were
identified as kingdoms that would appear and divide the territory of the
Empire, and the main horn in their midst was interpreted as the antichrist. The
identification of the antichrist horn with the medieval papacy was first made in
the Middle Ages. Archbishop Eberhard II of Salzburg affirmed this belief
at the Regensburg Council (1240) (see LeRoy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of
Our Fathers, vol. 1, p. 796). This view, also shared by the
Waldenses, became a standard in the Protestant world after the
Reformation (see Catholic Encyclopedia, “Antichrist”).
The Roman Empire was divided politically but
remained relatively religiously united, continuing the totalitarian and
arrogant policy specific to paganism, under the authority of the bishops and
the threefold pontifical crown.
The “3½ times”/ years (= 42 months = 1260
days) of the Roman antichrist’s domination (Daniel 7:25; Revelation 12:6, 14;
13:5), were interpreted in the apocalyptic code as “a day for each year” (acc.
Ezekiel 4:6d) and thus symbolize 1260 years of terror over believers who refused to submit
to the state church, from Justinian to Napoleon (538-1798). The
correct calculation of this period, which represents the time when the popes
exercised their temporary power, was made in 1689, a century before the end of
the period.
John’s vision recounted in Revelation 13:1-2
describes the beast coming from the sea as a combination of all the beasts in
Daniel 7, but the prophecy deals exclusively with the Roman head, the one with
ten horns, now also crowned, as an allusion to the time just before the great
collapse, when the pseudo-Christian powers of the world “for one hour will
receive authority as kings along with the beast” (Revelation 17:12-14).
The prophecy also refers to the historical
persecution during the 1260 years, so this beast is seen as an equivalent
symbol of the antichrist’s horn in Daniel 7:25 (see Revelation 11:2-3; 12:6,
14; 13:5). However, in Revelation 13, the papacy is no longer a dominant horn
among others, but is the Roman head itself in the final phase of world history.
The death blow/wound received by the beast
began with the repeated abolition of the pontifical state from 1798-1870 and
the weakening of the church’s authority, with the advent of secularism. The
Vatican, the modest successor to the medieval pontifical states, has been
recognized since 1929, and, after the modernist reform (1960, Vatican II),
through the initiation of official diplomatic relations with the United States
(1984) and through the political and ideological involvement of the last popes,
the political influence of the Vatican began to grow.
The prophecy, however, foretells that the
mortal wound will heal, the beast will receive universal admiration and
recognition, and will act as in the Middle Ages—which would be unbelievable
were it not for the many unbelievable facts history is full of.
Who is the false prophet (the beast-lamb)?
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| The Powers in Bible Prophecy |
The beast with lamb horns in Revelation 13:11 is more difficult to identify because it does not come up in previous prophetic visions. Nevertheless, a few clues can help. Lamb horns represent a youthful and benevolent policy, compared to the dangerous horns of the first beast. Still, the described creature manages to control the whole world (Revelation 13:12, 14b). It is described as “coming out of the earth” as the spirit of the prophet invoked by the witch (1 Samuel 28:13-14). It works miracles like Elijah’s (Revelation 13:13) to deceive the world, which is why this beast is called the “false prophet” in Revelation.
Given that it does all these political and
religious acrobatics in favor of the first beast, enabling the healing of its
historical wound, it is suggested that this world power has a recent history
and that its predicted actions have not yet come to fruition or are just
beginning. The identification of the pseudo-prophet beast with the United States
was proposed by John N. Andrews in 1851, who also suggested
that the image of the beast was a form of fallen Protestantism that would
control the state.
The apocalyptic alliance of evil
The apocalyptic description is quite
transparent. The three powers form a blasphemous alliance: the dragon parodies
the Father; the first beast parodies the Son, and the false prophet parodies
the work of the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the prophets.
The threefold alliance of evil, described in
Revelation, is formed to oppose God and God’s people. The identities of the
three powers show us that this alliance (also called Babylon, Revelation 14:8;
16:19; 17:5; 18:2, 10, 21) will encompass all political and religious forces
that will sympathize with the alliance’s project, under the leadership of the
dragon (the devil) and his lieutenant (the Roman antichrist).
The loyalty test to this universal alliance
will be related to the imposition of “a mark on their right hands or on their
foreheads” (Revelation 13:16; 14:9; 20:4b), under economic pressure,
accompanied by persecution, until the “final solution” (Revelation 13:15, 17;
acc. 6:11c; 17:6; 18:24; 20:4).
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| Powers in Bible Prophecy |
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