The Career of the Antichrist. Rev 13
- In Daniel chapter seven we learned that the final
kingdom is the second stage of the Roman empire, usually referred to as the revived Roman empire. Daniel 7:7-9, 19-25.
- The Antichrist is referred to in that chapter as
the little horn. He is actually an eleventh horn that arises after a
ten-nation alliance develops. Daniel 7:24.
- The Antichrist overthrows three kingdoms. He
tears three horns out by the roots, Daniel 7:24, and he assumes control of
the alliance.
- The Antichrist is depicted in terms of his
character as arrogant. This is his major characteristic, he elevates
himself above everything. Daniel 7:8.
- He is described as menacing and terrifying in 7:19, 20.
- He is militarily powerful and victorious, always
defeats his enemies, 7:23, and he persecutes believers.
We will see all of these
alluded to again in Revelation chapter thirteen. There is new information given
in Revelation 13 but what is given there helps identify the person of that
first beast because it pulls together all these threads from back in Daniel.
In Daniel chapter eight the
focus is on the ram and the goat, and that does not depict the Antichrist at
all. The goat has two horns, another little horn comes up but it is not the
same little horn; it comes out of a different kingdom, Greece and not Rome, and it is an ancient historical figure who is chosen
by God the Holy Spirit to foreshadow or depict certain aspects of the character
and activities of the Antichrist. We have seen that there are three ways in
which Antiochus Epiphanes foreshadows the Antichrist. The first is in terms of
his character: he is brilliant, he is arrogant and insolent in terms of his
orientation to divine authority, he is cunning, he is deceptive, manipulative,
and he wins. He is able to solve problems and work out solutions to
international difficulties that no one else can solve. In terms of culture he
is antagonistic to all divine viewpoint and establishment truth. He attacks the
truth; he hates the truth; he attacks the saints who represent the truth, and
he desecrates the Tribulation temple in Jerusalem. He is the control freak of all control freaks. He
controls through taxation, he controls the economy, he controls people through
money and through the economy. These trends are there through all
manifestations of kingdoms in the kingdom of man. The Antichrist’s third
characteristic is self-deification. He sets himself up functioning as a
god.
In Daniel chapter nine we saw
that the Antichrist is the prince of the people who is to come, referring to
the fact that the people who are to come are the Romans who destroyed the
temple in AD 70. So he is Roman, European, he comes out of the
revived Roman empire. Secondly, we saw that he enters into a peace treaty
with Israel, Daniel 9:27. He will desecrate the temple. This is
called the abomination of desolation. And he will set himself up as God to be
worshipped as God in the temple. Later in Revelation 13 we see that he sets up
an idol to himself to be worshipped in the temple.
In Daniel 11:36 we see that he is arrogant, he exalts himself above
all deities in 11:36, 37, he is on
the historical scene just prior to the “end of wrath”—an important point
because it wipes out some of the arguments of the preterists. He is empowered
by a foreign god which is Satan, 11:39.
At the end he will be drawn into a military engagement in Israel in the Middle
East with the king of the
north and the king of the south as his antagonists, 11:44. The king of the north probably represents Syria or Syrian-Turkish—Iraqi alliance, or something of
that nature; the king of the south represents an Egyptian threat. He will
control the economic resources of the Middle-East. He will be destroyed by God,
11:46.
In 2 Thessalonians 2:1-9 we
saw that the Tribulation will not come and the Antichrist will not be revealed
until the departure [not apostasy] occurs. The Antichrist is referred to as the
son of perdition, the same phrase that is used to describe Judas. He is called
the lawless one because he rejects the law of God and wants to be a law unto
himself.
Revelation 13:1 NASB
“And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I [John] saw a
beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his
horns {were} ten diadems, and on his heads {were} blasphemous names.” This is a
similar scenario as Daniel chapter seven where Daniel had a vision and saw
these beasts coming out of the sea. That is the backdrop for understanding
Revelation 13:1. John sees one beast coming up out of the sea. This beast is a
composite of the four beasts that Daniel saw coming out of the sea. So this is
the final manifestation, final representation in history of the kingdom of man.
It is stage two of the fourth beast, the Roman empire, and he is represented by having ten horns and seven
heads. The ten horns represent the ten nations, the seven heads represent the
seven powers after the Antichrist takes out three of them. The ten horns or ten
diadems represent rulership. The blasphemous names identifies each of them as
being in rebellion against God. Each of these are apostate nations in Europe,
which is no surprise because Europe is basically apostate. They were apostate for many
centuries via the Roman Catholic church and are now apostate because they have
rejected that and all religion. If there is any active religion in Europe
it is Islam which has been growing by leaps and bounds. The sea represents
Gentile nations, just as it does in Daniel chapter seven. This will be
contrasted with the second beast who comes out of the earth, v. 9, and because
of that there are many people who want to say that indicates the land. But if we
do a word study of the Greek word ges
[ghj] in Revelation this would be the only time it meant
just the land of Israel.
It is used dozens of times in Revelation and in every other place it refers to
the earth itself. There is nothing that necessarily means that this is Israel and that he is therefore Jewish.
Daniel 7:2, 3 takes us to
Daniel’s vision: “Daniel said, “I was looking in my vision by night, and
behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea.”
This shows the control that heaven has over the nations and over the history of
the world. “And four great beasts were coming up from the sea, different from
one another.” So the sea seems to be the mass of unbelieving humanity,
primarily Gentile humanity, and thus it represents the evil of the cosmic
system. Revelation 17:1-3, 15 also refers to this, the great harlot who sits on
many waters. This is the end-time kingdom. The beast is represented there as
the great harlot who has polluted herself with the immoralities, with false
religion. This is the control of those Gentile nations representing the kingdom
of man. Revelation 17:15
NASB “And he said to me, ‘The waters which you saw where the harlot
sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues [languages]’.” The
Bible interprets itself.
Revelation 13:2 NASB
“And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like {those}
of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his
power and his throne and great authority.” Notice the order, it is the reverse
of what Daniel saw. Daniel saw first the lion with the wings of an eagle—Babylon; then he saw the lopsided bear—the Medo-Persian
empire; then the leopard—Greece. Now John mentions these in reverse order showing
that this kingdom picks up all of the characteristics of those previous
kingdoms going all the way back. There is a lot of discussion as to whether the
beast is the kingdom or the king. In the Bible the king and the kingdom are
often spoken of in the same way. The king represents the kingdom. So when we
talk about the beast—the lion, the leopard, the bear—that is the whole empire,
the culture. All of this is personified in the ruler and he gets his power from
the dragon, Satan. All that he has comes from Satan, and God in His permissive
will has allowed this to take place and allowed evil to reach its greatest
flowering at this time in order to show the ultimate consequences of
unrestrained evil in human history. 2 Thessalonians 2 tells us about how the
“restrainer”—who is God the Holy Spirit—is going to be removed during this
period, and if it wasn’t for God stepping in everything would self-destruct.
Revelation 13:3 NASB
“{I saw} one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was
healed. And the whole earth was amazed {and followed} after the beast.” This is
an authenticating miracle that is going to appear to validate and authenticate
the beast as being from God. He is a substitute messiah. He is not coming along
and seeing he is not God, he claims to be God and so he is going to have his
authenticating resurrection. It is a counterfeit resurrection, not because he
is not really raised from the dead but because God isn’t the source of the
resurrection.
What is meant by the “head”
here? If the heads represent a nation then what this would be saying is that it
is if one of those nations is destroyed and thought to be dead and gone, and
that it comes back in history. In Philip Goodman’s book The Assyrian Antichrist he argues that position. The problem is
that the head here isn’t nation, it is the individual, the leader of that
nation. The Antichrist is not one of the seven or one of the ten, he is the
eleventh horn that comes up. If the head here represents a nation, the ten
nations are all there, and this would indicate that one of them died at that
time because it is talking about the existence of those ten nations. Another
view that is put forth is that one of the heads is Assyria and that Assyria is going to come back, or it is even suggested that
Tiglath-Pileser, Asher-bani-pal, Sennacherib or Antiochus Epiphanes even is
going to be resurrected… or Nero. But the best reason why it is not a nation is
found in the context. If we look down into the second half of the chapter where
it talks about the false prophet we are told that one of his signs that
validates him as well is when he restores life to the beast: v. 12, “He
exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes
the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound
was healed.” That is talking about an individual. [13] “He performs great
signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the
presence of men.” This is not a false fire, he is doing real miracles. The
reason these miracles are false (and that is how it is stated in the Greek: pseudos/yeudoj, a lie)
is that he is claiming that it is God who is performing the miracle, but God is
not the source of the power, Satan is. Satan is allowed by God to do certain
things. [14] “And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs
which it was given [granted—God’s permissive will] him to perform in the
presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to
the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.” The word that
is used for “wound” is the Greek word plege
[plhgh] from which we get our English word “plague.” The
context indicates whether it is a wound—e.g. the Samaritan in the parable was
beaten up and the word plege is
used there to describe his wounds; they are not fatal.
In 2 Thessalonians 2:9 NASB
“{that is,} the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with
all power and signs and false wonders.” Remember the Egyptian magicians in
Pharaoh’s court. They duplicated through the power of Satan some of the
miracles that God was using to authenticate Moses. It doesn’t say they were
fake; they did real things but were under the power of Satan. There are some
people who say that Satan cannot create life. In Genesis chapter one the Hebrew
word bara is used, the main creation
verb, and only God is the subject of bara
in all of the Old Testament. But man can asah,
one of the other words which means to make or do or create; man cal also yatsar, which means to mold or shape
something. So there are different types of creation. Satan cannot create life ex nhilo—out of nothing, and Satan
cannot make something alive that was never alive before; but Satan can create a
pseudo resurrection, and that is what happens here. Whether he actually dies or
truly dies is not really clear from the text, but what is clear is that
everybody believes that he dies. The evidence is there to convince everyone
that the Antichrist had a fatal head wound, that he died and that the false
prophet brings him back from the dead.
The reason for thinking that
he is truly slain is because in Revelation 13:3 it says NASB “{I
saw} one of his heads as if it had been slain.” Revelation 5:6 describes the
throne room of God: “I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures)
and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain…” Was Jesus really slain? Yes, He
was. So this phrase is used to describe both the death of Christ and what
happens to the Antichrist. It appears that just on the basis of the language
that there is a genuine death that occurs and he is brought back to life
miraculously, and this then is used to claim that he must be God.
There is a reason for this.
In Deuteronomy 13 there is a test for the validation of a prophet. Deuteronomy
13:1 NASB “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and
gives you a sign or a wonder, [2] and the sign or the wonder comes
true…” Moses doesn’t challenge the validity or authenticity of the miracle.
What we usually do when we hear about somebody who bring people down and claim
to perform healings, what we usually do is say it was a hoax. Well it probably
was in their case. But that doesn’t mean that we are justified logically in
extrapolating that to every miracle that doesn’t seem to be right. There are
miracles that appear to be real miracles, powers that appear to be real power,
that are tapping into the limited Satanic ability under the permissive will of
God that God allows for the purpose of testing people. That is what Deuteronomy
goes on to say. Deuteronomy 13:3 NASB “you shall not listen to the
words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is
testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”
We are going to assume that there are miraculous, supernatural things that
happen, but that doesn’t mean they are from God. That is why it moves from
being a true miracle to a false miracle, not because it is phony but because it
is not from God. It is the source that matters, not the miracle. This is what
Moses is telling Israel. The issue is what they say, not what they do. It is content, and that
content has to be consistent with the rest of the Word of God.
What is going to happen is
that the test of all tests is when this first beast, the Antichrist who is
setting himself up to be the head of his own religion, is raised from the dead.
Now there is a pseudo messiah, the unholy trinity of the false prophet, the
Antichrist and Satan, and the Antichrist is functioning like counterfeit
messiah. But it doesn’t validate anything, it is a test to show who is truly
following the Lord and who is not. As a result of that in Revelation 13:3, 4 NASB
“{I saw} one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was
healed. And the whole earth they [the earth dwellers] was amazed {and followed}
after the beast; 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 wage war with him?’” “Earth dwellers” is a technical term for
unbelievers who will never trust in Christ as messiah in the Tribulation
period. It is not a term that simply people who live on the earth. It is a term
indicating that their orientation is earth bound, pure human viewpoint from the
soul outward versus those who have a divine viewpoint. Notice: “… saying, ‘Who
is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?’” That question is
really assigning omnipotence to the beast, i.e. that he is like God. So it is a
religious statement in and of itself.
As we
look at this passage we see three things. First of all, the beast is
worshipped. But second, we see that the dragon is worshipped. Maybe not
everyone understands that by worshipping the beast they are worshipping Satan but
there are many who will understand that—those who are in the inner circle,
those who are Tribulation temple devotees of the Antichrist, will know that it
is really Satan. They worship the dragon, the test says; they understand very
clearly that they are worshipping the dragon because he gave his authority to
the beast. And they worshipped the beast, so it is very clear they are
worshipping both. This sets up the context of the reign of the Antichrist to be
one of the end time ecumenical religion that is going to have characteristics
of many of the world’s religions so that everybody can come under the same
umbrella, the same tent, and they can all feel like all roads lead somehow to
God. The Christians are the ones who believe in exclusivity, that there is only
one way to God, and so there will be this harsh division. The arrogant
self-righteous religion of the Antichrist in the end times will make it clear
that everybody has to declare their religious devotion. That will be done
through the symbolism of taking the mark of the beast.
2
Thessalonians 2:4 NASB “who opposes and exalts himself above every
so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of
God, displaying himself as being God.” He will sit as God in the Temple of God. Even though it is an apostate temple in the
Tribulation period it is still called the temple of God. Even at the time of Jesus when there was the
Herodian temple that was dominated by the legalism of the Pharisees and the
Sadducees it was called the temple of God because of its geographical location, because that
was what was supposed to be there. [10] “and with all the deception of
wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the
truth so as to be saved.” Later on he will substitute himself with an idol so
that of he is not there personally the people can come and worship the idol.
Revelation
13:5 NASB “There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words
and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him.”
The phrase “given to him” shows the sovereign control that God has over all of
the events of history. This is reinforced in passages such as Revelation 6:4,
8; 7:2; 9:5; Daniel 4:17, 25, 32. His arrogance was seen in Daniel 7:8, 20, 25;
11:36. God gives him authority to act for only 42 months.
The Tribulation period is identified by Daniel 9:26, 29. The seventieth week is
a seven-year period. Half of seven years is three and a half years, so it is
divided into two three and a half-year periods. The Antichrist has this
authority to act for three and a half years, i.e. 42 months, so this
terminology gives us a solid chronological peg. Is it going to be the first
half or the second half? It has to be the second half because it is going to
end with his defeat; it is not talking about the first half. So his real power
and control is going to come in the second half of the Tribulation period. He
is not in that kind of a position in the first half of the Tribulation period.
It is not until the two prophets are sent to heaven that he takes over as an
unopposed tyrant.
Revelation
13:6 NASB “And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to
blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, {that is,} those who dwell in heaven.”
This is the orientation of this empire, it is extremely religious. He assaults
everything that is taught in the Scriptures. [7] “It was also given to him to
make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe
and people and tongue and nation was given to him.” This is truly a global
empire, there is nothing in the language that indicates it is only the
ten-nation confederacy, that confederacy is only stage one in establishing his
authority. There is going to be a massive attempt to exterminate all believers.
[8] “All who dwell on the earth…” That is not saying every human being. This is
talking about all of the unbelievers who have hardened their own hearts and are
not going to ever trust in Christ. “… will worship him, {everyone} whose name
has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of
the Lamb who has been slain.” There are going to be millions who are saved
during the Tribulation period and because they are saved their names their
names will be written in the Lamb’s book of life. But these are the
unbelievers, the ones who never trust Christ.
Then
there is a challenge, an exhortation. Revelation 13:9 NASB “If
anyone has an ear, let him hear.” If anyone is really positive, believe this;
listen, pay attention. This is the same line that we saw in Revelation 2 &
3 in the seven letters to the seven churches. But notice, here it doesn’t say
anything about the church. The church isn’t here, it is raptured before the
Tribulation begins.
Revelation
13:10 NASB “If anyone {is destined} for captivity,
to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be
killed…” This is just a restatement of the principle of capital punishment, an
eye for an eye. “… Here is the
perseverance and the faith of the saints.” What John is doing here is stating a
principle in the “if” clause, that there are those who are going to give
themselves over to the Antichrist, to war and to violence, and they will reap
what they sow. But what is important is for the saints to endure in obedience to
God and not to be caught up in the vindictiveness and hostility of trying to
change the nature of the fourth kingdom. They have to persevere, endure, and no
allow the attacks on them to be a reason for them to get involved in wrong
actions. Two wrongs don’t make it right.
Illustrations