The "beast" of Rev 13 through hermeneutics and the traditional

[PeteWaldo]

The title was supposed to be:

The "beast" of Rev 13 through hermeneutics and the traditional historicist approach to prophecy.

If admin can please change it, perhaps better to fit the space would be:

The "beast" of Rev 13 through hermeneutics and historicism

I authored all of the content of this post that comes from my website.

 

The science of hermeneutics is used by scholars to interpret everything from literature, to poetry, to legal documents to scripture. Let's see if scripture can help us define and explain the "beast" of John's chapter 13 prophetic vision in the book of Revelation through sound hermeneutic principles.

 

In Daniel's chapter 7 dream we find: Daniel 7:3  And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.

Daniel 7:4  The first [was] like a lion, and had eagle's wings...
Daniel 7:5  And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear...
Daniel 7:6  After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard...
Daniel 7:7  After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly...

In the verse below we are brought to understand, that at least in the figurative language of a vision or dream in prophecy, a "beast" is defined as a kingdom.   

Daniel 7:23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.

BEAST = KINGDOM

Daniel detailed his kingdom "beasts" so well that there is a broad agreement among both Jewish and Christian scholars that the kingdoms represented by Daniel's lion, bear and leopard, are the successive ancient kingdoms of Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece, followed by the fourth beast, that is understood to be the Roman Empire.

 

 

 

I left out a map of the Roman Empire because because it is not mentioned in Rev 13. The conclusion regarding Daniel's lion, bear and leopard beasts being successive kingdoms, is reached within the traditional historicist approach to prophecy.  This is simply the view that figures in figurative language may represent actual people, places or things, and that bible prophecy is fulfilled steadily as the era about which it is written gradually unfolds.  This is the approach through which virtually all Christians and Jews understand Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled, and for the first 1800 years including the Reformation, the church understood New Testament prophecy was being fulfilled. Taking a uniform approach to all bible prophecy.

 

When we turn to the New Testament and John's prophetic vision we read:

 

Rev 13:2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as [the feet] of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

 

Now we could go to the zoo to investigate those figures, or perhaps engage in unsupportable speculation and presumption, or we could apply an adjacent hermeneutic to see if the Bible might offer some clues. And as we already saw, we find three of the very same figures, and even mentioned together in the very same chapter in the figurative language of Daniel's prophetic dream, as we see in this composite of those kingdom beasts in the figurative language of John's prophetic vision.

The reverse order could be because Daniel's dream was forward looking at these kingdoms to come, while the 1st century of John's vision was looking backward at their fulfillment.  This leopard-bear-lion kingdom "beast" was to "continue" 42 "months" as confirmed in The seats of the ancient successive kingdom beasts of Daniel's lion, bear and leopard which are widely believed to be Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece, are occupied today by the countries of Iraq, Iran, and Syria/Lebanon.

With Muslim population in Iraq at 97%, Iran 98%, Syria/Lebanon 90%/60% Islamic.

 

The dragon in Rev 13:2 is Satan. The power that Satan gave his "beast" is the sword, through which Islam was spread, and the threat of which for 1400 years has prevented people from leaving Islam and coming to Christ. Another part of the power of the Islamic kingdom "beast" is oil. No surprise we find western nations whoring themselves out to countries that are composed of up to virtually 100% antichrists (Saudi Arabia), that are even sworn to annihilate us (Iran), to keep the flow of oil going. Countries with statutes that call for the death penalty for "apostasy" and for the crime of "blasphemy" that we in the west would characterize as speaking openly and honestly about Muhammad as he is revealed in Islam's own books. Western nations even give weapons to these totalitarian countries, that will eventually be turned on Israel's democracy. Evermore compromising the safety and freedom of the citizens of the Israeli Jewish State, who are the only people in the Middle East, that share our western values. Who protect the freedom, liberty of Israeli Jews, Christians, non-Muslim Arabs - and Muslims. Indeed Muslims also enjoy more freedom in Israel, than they do in any Islam controlled state on earth.

This Islamic kingdom "beast" is described "as a leopard", perhaps also because while an individual Muslim can change (against tremendous odds loosing family, friends, inheritance and in some places even their lives), it is impossible for Islam to change, as long as the Quran (mouth of the "beast") exists:

Jeremiah 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? [then] may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.

While these countries and various sects of Islam may have differences so great they even murder each other,  they are perfectly united spiritually through the false prophet Muhammad and his Quran.  As a result they are each and every one filled with the spirit of antichrist who are taught that to confess that Jesus is the Son of God, or even to pray in Jesus' name, would be to commit the single most "heinous" and only unforgivable sin ("shirk") in the false prophet Muhammad's counter-gospel anti-religion.

Sura 19:88 They say: "(Allah) Most Gracious has begotten a son!" 89 Indeed ye have put forth a thing most monstrous!

 

Quran Surah 9.29 Fight those.....(even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. 30 .....Christians call Christ the son of Allah. .....Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!

 

1 John 2:22  .....He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father

Edited November 5, 2014 by PeteWaldo

[PeteWaldo]

Can we begin to recognize fulfilled Bible prophecy through the tradition of historicism, when 1.5 billion people - that's 1/4 of mankind in the world today - are each and every one an antichrist as an article of their faith in the false prophet Muhammad alone?
 
Revelation 19:20 And the beast was taken,..." As explored in the previous post  the "beast" is the false prophet Muhammad's Islamic empire - his followers.
 
"... and with him..." Daniel's beasts were assigned the masculine gender: "...and his nails [of] brass ..... and stamped the residue with his feet:"

"...the false prophet..." The false prophet Muhammad who founded his counter-gospel, antichrist, anti-religion of the Islamic kingdom "beast".
 
"...that wrought miracles..." Some reject Muhammad as the false prophet because he did not perform a single miracle, however the Koine Greek word "semeion" translated as "miracles" and "signs", is defined in Strong's as "that by which a person is distinguished from others and is known". That makes Muhammad a perfect fit for the false prophet, since he is his known for his Quran, and has without question been distinguished from others by it for 1400 years. Muhammad's Quran is the "semeion" that he wrought before his people - Muslims - the "beast".

"...before him,..." From Strong's "before" meaning "in the presence of" - the beast.
 
"...with which he deceived them..." Muhammad's followers deceived by the Quran.

"...that had received the mark..." The number 666 according to some of Muhammad's own followers.

 

All a person needs is to be marked by the name of the beast - Islam.....

 

Rev 13:17 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.

 

......but for those that want to insist on a physical mark, consider the physical prayer marks and bumps in Muhammad's followers foreheads, from praying to Muhammad's alter-ego and Satan's "messenger" "Allah".

 

 
"...of the beast, and them..." Islamic kingdom, Muhammad's followers

"...that worshipped his image." Today's Islam and second Jihad, are the image of the first Islamic Jihad, and the beast's ambition to conquer all the kingdoms of the world, and subjugate all people to Muhammad's followers.  Jihad is the pinnacle of worship in Islam.
"These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone."

Edited November 5, 2014 by PeteWaldo

[other one]

I have a question.....    do  the wars in Psalms 83 and Ezekiel 38+ happen before Daniel and Revelation that you speak of here??

[PeteWaldo]

I have a question.....    do  the wars in Psalms 83 and Ezekiel 38+ happen before Daniel and Revelation that you speak of here??

 

Sorry this is a bit wordy, but I am hoping its location in this thread can help me having to mention some of this repeatedly.

 

The purpose of this thread was to introduce a reasoned and hermeneutically sound approach to the identity of the LBL "beast" of Revelation 13, and I would appreciate very much if you could express an opinion as to what your impression is. Try forming that opinion, while setting setting the baggage of your present doctrine aside.

And please don't get the impression that I don't appreciate your response because normally a thread like this simply falls in the street in Christian forums, since it is contrary to what most folks are taught, yet it is pretty difficult to argue a more sound approach.

 

It won't be productive for folks to try to proof text passages or verses, that spring from preconceived notions and doctrines we have been taught, rather than considering the whole of Bible prophecy through the church tradition of historicism, and only then judge it against futurism or preterism, entirely on each of their own merits.

 

If the historicist approach is new to you, take the example of a futurist trying to understand the entire approach of preterism, by taking a single element from preterism, and then trying to understand it by wringing through the filter of their futurist doctrine. Since (after Rev 3) there is a 1900+ year gap that divides the two views, they are irreconcilable, and this is why each must be considered in its fulness and then entirely on its own merit. There is however some reconciling of historicism with parts of both preterism and futurism, such as the restoration of Jews to their covenant land that futurists recognize, and just as anticipated by Reformers and Puritans through Bible prophecy, centuries before that restoration ever began to take place.

 

If you want an introduction to this traditional approach, of all Jews and Christians to Old Testament prophecy and the first 1800 years of church history including those great men of God of the Reformation, try The False Prophet by 87 year old Ellis Skolfield. It is a brick by brick empirical argument that is free, and fun and fast to read. Raised in the scriptures on his mother's knee in a missionary family in the Philippines, for over 35 years the author has written about the subject of Islam in Bible prophecy.

 

Regarding your question I popped open Halley's Bible Handbook for Psalms 83 and read: "A Prayer for Protection - From a Conspiracy of Federated Nations: Edomites, Arabians, Moabites, Ammonites, Amalekites, Philistines and others.

 

Ezekiel 36 and 37 is a wonderful prophecy regarding the restoration of Jews to their land, some parts of which may be yet to be fulfilled.

 

Sometimes things can become more clear - like the second post in this thread - when we exercise an ethnographic hermeneutic, and consider Bible prophecy as being about God's people and the Holy Land, and surrounding area. The whole "world" as folks recognized it in the prophet John's day. And as Strong's suggests:

 

world

New Testament Greek Definition:

3625 oikoumene {oy-kou-men'-ay}

feminine participle present passive of 3611 (as noun, by

implication of 1093); TDNT - 5:157,674; n f

AV - world 14, earth 1; 15

1) the inhabited earth

1a) the portion of the earth inhabited by the Greeks, in

distinction from the lands of the barbarians

1b) the Roman empire, all the subjects of the empire

1c) the whole inhabited earth, the world

1d) the inhabitants of the earth, men

2) the universe, the world

 

Edited November 5, 2014 by PeteWaldo

[Last Daze]

I and others have expressed some thoughts on it here:

[PeteWaldo]

I and others have expressed some thoughts on it here:

 

Thanks very much for the reply bro. Let's look at the premise that thread begins with:

 

I've always read and heard that the trio of evil (the red dragon, the beast from the sea, and the beast from the earth) found in Revelation 12 and 13 correlate to Satan, the Antichrist, and the false prophet respectively. This would mean that the trio is made up of a demon, a human, and another human.

 

 

To which you later expressed your reservations:

 

Based on that description, I have difficulty seeing how the beast from the sea can be a human.

 

 

So what if the trio were made up of Satan, a spirit from Satan, and that human false prophet?

Might that seem to be a reverse trinity? Should we expect anything else from that jealous fallen angel?

Indeed Islam is to the Gospel as the negative is to a photograph, as surely as Muhammad was the exact opposite of our sinless Messiah:

 

Bukhari:V5B59N459 Narrated Ibn Muhairiz: I entered the Mosque and saw Abu Said Al-Khudri and sat beside him and asked him about Al-Azl (i.e. coitus interruptus). Abu Said said, "We went out with Allah's Apostle for the Ghazwa of Banu Al-Mustaliq and we received captives from among the Arab captives and we desired women and celibacy became hard on us and we loved to do coitus interruptus."

 

Let me preface by saying that I understand that there has been no shortage, of those that anticipated a single figure as "The" "Antichrist", from the ECFs and throughout the last 1900 years or so. But even today preterists and futurists can't agree on who it was or will be.

 

But what if the church anticipation of a single individual as "The" "Antichrist" - whether the preterists belief that it was Nero, or futurists believing that it is about a single individual of some future someday and specifically revealed in this chapter 13 "beast" - wound up being nothing more than a distraction? A distraction particularly to this generation, from the matter of fact reality that there are 1.5 billion antichrists in the world today, and that each and every one is necessarily so, as an article of their faith in the false prophet Muhammad alone? People that are taught that to confess that Jesus is the Son of God, or even to pray in Jesus' name, would be to commit the single most "heinous" and only unforgivable sin ("shirk") in the false prophet Muhammad's counter-gospel antichrist cult.

 

As we all know, the term "antichrist" doesn't even occur in the book of Revelation (let aloine specifically in the chapter explored in the OP), but is stuck there through doctrinal presumption. So let's look at all of the verses that contain the term:

 

1 John 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

1 John 2:22  Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: [(but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also].

1 John 4:3  And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that [spirit] of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

2 John 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

 

So John informs us that there were many antichrists even back in his first century.

 

Now consider the adjacent hermeneutic that I highlighted.

Based on the second occurrence, wouldn't it be perfectly reasonable to believe that the meaning in the in the first instance, was referring to a spirit too? Now I am not rewriting the verse, but introducing a perfectly reasonable understanding of it with ".....ye have heard that [the spirit of] antichrist shall come.....". Now if you go back and reread 1 John 2:18 again, with the sense of antichrist as a spirit in mind, doesn't that verse make a lot more sense? Might it even begin to read something like John making a plea somewhat akin to the one I am making here?

 

If that were the case, then where did "The" "Antichrist" go, according to the verses that actually contain the term?

Edited November 5, 2014 by PeteWaldo

[rollinTHUNDER]

Hello Pete,

There are many misconceptions and assumptions associated with the term "antichrist" and I'm one who likes to steer away from such.

John was the only disciple to use the term "antichrist." Years later, he also wrote the book of Revelation, yet he never mentioned the name antichrist anywhere in Revelation. There’s still a great possibility that the beast won’t even be a man, but instead, it may be a kingdom, an empire or even a world government. It’s also very possible that the term antichrist that John mentioned may have already been fulfilled in the first century. Especially when you consider that the Romans were not only responsible for the destruction of the Temple, but they also crucified Christ, and martyred almost all of His disciples as well.

Christ told His disciples that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church. Could this be what John meant when he said that antichrist would come? Satan meant to destroy the kingdom, but God used it against him as Christ rose victoriously. John escaped, but was later imprisoned on the Isle of Patmos, where he wrote the book of Revelation, in which there was no more mention of antichrist. We may never know the answer to this, but I see no reason to assume that antichrist is a single man that will come in the future and/or the beast in Revelation. The man of sin/son of perdition will most definitely come in the future, but let’s not assume that this is what John meant by the term "antichrist." According to John, every unbeliever of Christ had the spirit of antichrist, not just Islam. Furthermore, Mohammed wound not come for another 400 years later, so there would be no need for Christ to warn His disciples about the rise of Islam.

Cheers

[PeteWaldo]

It’s also very possible that the term antichrist that John mentioned may have already been fulfilled in the first century.

 

 

Hi rollin,

Wouldn't we be hard pressed to believe that it was fulfilled in the 1st century when there are 1.5 billion antichrists in Islam alone - and they are necessarily so, as an article of their faith in the false prophet Muhammad?

 

I have found that even atheists become quite convicted when I casually refer to them as antichrists. I wonder how different the world would be if, over the last 1400 years, Christians had casually referred to Muslims as antichrists.

Did the notion that is was a single individual from the past or future, make it so that it wouldn't even occur to Christians to do so?

 

The man of sin/son of perdition will most definitely come in the future, but let’s not assume that this is what John meant by the term "antichrist."

 

But could so many jamming the terms "antichrist" and that "man of sin" together, as if they were the same term and thing (per John Darby), and the church believing as you that "The man of sin/son of perdition will most definitely come in the future", perhaps be yet another distraction to blind the church from from being able to see present day reality?

 

I doubt few in here would question that we are in the "falling away" or apostasy of the church, with thousands of churches abandoned and converted into mosques, particularly throughout Europe where the church has been dead for most of a century. Let alone the interfaith pluralism of so much of the institutional "church" who don't realize, that they are doing little more than helping Muslims build one-way so-called "bridges", to Islam. Muhammad's followers are at complete liberty to lie if it is the only way to achieve their goals (dissimulation or taqiyyah). Indeed if the goal is obligatory, like Dahwah (proselytizing), and it can't be done through the truth, then lying is obligatory.

 

So if we understand that the falling away is so well under way, and the only other reference to "son of perdition" is to Judas, we may be able to consider that it could be something to do with a spirit of betrayal, or not, please don't distract yourself with that point.

But let's consider where that "man of sin" "sitteth":

 

2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for [that day shall not come], except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

 

How many churches have congregants that dither on in tongues (usually more like glossiola), with no interpretation of what the spirit is uttering, and without even "trying the spirit" to see if the spirit as the antichrist verses instruct to see if it is "that spirit of antichrist"? If you don't know unclean spirits and demons in the church, and lots of Christians being delivered from unclean spirits and demons, and a great read on the subject that is free online is Neil Anderson's "Bondage Breaker". Another read on the subject also available free online is "Demons in the Church".

 

Could expecting a future "that man of sin" blind some of us to realizing that he is manifest right there within the "temple of God", which is the body of Christ corporately, and even in some of our individual temples of the Holy Spirit.

 

But if you want to get an even better idea of what I am talking about, please do a youtube search of Kandalini in the church.

Edited November 5, 2014 by PeteWaldo
All videos need to be placed in the video forum for approval first

[other one]

 

I have a question.....    do  the wars in Psalms 83 and Ezekiel 38+ happen before Daniel and Revelation that you speak of here??

 

Sorry this is a bit wordy, but I am hoping its location in this thread can help me having to mention some of this repeatedly.

 

The purpose of this thread was to introduce a reasoned and hermeneutically sound approach to the identity of the LBL "beast" of Revelation 13, and I would appreciate very much if you could express an opinion as to what your impression is. Try forming that opinion, while setting setting the baggage of your present doctrine aside.

And please don't get the impression that I don't appreciate your response because normally a thread like this simply falls in the street in Christian forums, since it is contrary to what most folks are taught, yet it is pretty difficult to argue a more sound approach.

 

It won't be productive for folks to try to proof text passages or verses, that spring from preconceived notions and doctrines we have been taught, rather than considering the whole of Bible prophecy through the church tradition of historicism, and only then judge it against futurism or preterism, entirely on each of their own merits.

 

If the historicist approach is new to you, take the example of a futurist trying to understand the entire approach of preterism, by taking a single element from preterism, and then trying to understand it by wringing through the filter of their futurist doctrine. Since (after Rev 3) there is a 1900+ year gap that divides the two views, they are irreconcilable, and this is why each must be considered in its fulness and then entirely on its own merit. There is however some reconciling of historicism with parts of both preterism and futurism, such as the restoration of Jews to their covenant land that futurists recognize, and just as anticipated by Reformers and Puritans through Bible prophecy, centuries before that restoration ever began to take place.

 

If you want an introduction to this traditional approach, of all Jews and Christians to Old Testament prophecy and the first 1800 years of church history including those great men of God of the Reformation, try The False Prophet by 87 year old Ellis Skolfield. It is a brick by brick empirical argument that is free, and fun and fast to read. Raised in the scriptures on his mother's knee in a missionary family in the Philippines, for over 35 years the author has written about the subject of Islam in Bible prophecy.

 

Regarding your question I popped open Halley's Bible Handbook for Psalms 83 and read: "A Prayer for Protection - From a Conspiracy of Federated Nations: Edomites, Arabians, Moabites, Ammonites, Amalekites, Philistines and others.

 

Ezekiel 36 and 37 is a wonderful prophecy regarding the restoration of Jews to their land, some parts of which may be yet to be fulfilled.

 

Sometimes things can become more clear - like the second post in this thread - when we exercise an ethnographic hermeneutic, and consider Bible prophecy as being about God's people and the Holy Land, and surrounding area. The whole "world" as folks recognized it in the prophet John's day. And as Strong's suggests:

 

world

New Testament Greek Definition:

3625 oikoumene {oy-kou-men'-ay}

feminine participle present passive of 3611 (as noun, by

implication of 1093); TDNT - 5:157,674; n f

AV - world 14, earth 1; 15

1) the inhabited earth

1a) the portion of the earth inhabited by the Greeks, in

distinction from the lands of the barbarians

1b) the Roman empire, all the subjects of the empire

1c) the whole inhabited earth, the world

1d) the inhabitants of the earth, men

2) the universe, the world

 

 

 

 

this is what's wrong with these threads.....   someone can ask a very simple question and get a very long response that really doesn't answer the question.

 

People are so interesting in just posting their own ideas that there is no real conversation.......   just a conglomerate of ideas that really can never mesh together.

[PeteWaldo]

Regarding your question I popped open Halley's Bible Handbook for Psalms 83 and read: "A Prayer for Protection - From a Conspiracy of Federated Nations: Edomites, Arabians, Moabites, Ammonites, Amalekites, Philistines and others.

 

Ezekiel 36 and 37 is a wonderful prophecy regarding the restoration of Jews to their land, some parts of which may be yet to be fulfilled.

 

 

 

this is what's wrong with these threads.....   someone can ask a very simple question and get a very long response that really doesn't answer the question.

 

People are so interesting in just posting their own ideas that there is no real conversation.......   just a conglomerate of ideas that really can never mesh together.

 

I did answer, but the answers will not be clear because you are trying to understand a single element but within an entirely different approach to Bible prophecy than you are likely at all familiar with, and through the filter of an eschatology you presently hold.

I spent a lot of time forming that response, rather than simply pointing out that your questions were off topic.

Edited November 5, 2014 by PeteWaldo