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S
So if the entire passage is historical, why give it to John? I'm anticipating that you will say these events occurred after the revelation, however if that's true then sequentially Jerusalem WAS the city of Babylon. Now, there are things to come namely the assembly and defeat of Gog and Magog by God's very hand. Psalm 80 shows Israel as expanding not reducing it's borders in the region. Correct me if I'm wrong in assuming you are drawing a distinction between Jerusalem (The city of God) and the jews (The people of Israel). If Revelation is not a sequential book of prophecy, where does it pick up at the present time?
S
In a word, false doctrine. Things are getting worse by the hand of man, not better. Preterists are waiting for man to prepare the earth for Jesus to return to reign. They believe he is waiting for man to "perfect" the earth for His arrival. This thread is evidently not the place to discuss that doctrine, if the thought is Brexit is a step in the direction of preparing the earth for the arrival of the antichrist, not the return of THE Christ.
From what you have said, you really have no idea what preterism is. Please do not assume that because I read Revelation from an historical perspective that I can be pigeon holed as preterist. I do not however find any biblical support for millennial theory. I used to accept the millennial perspective but it simply will not bear the weight of examination. The Brexit is simply a non-biblical issue. I have a friend on here that once summed up a comparison between the historical and the futuristic approach that says it far better than I can.
S
That assessment denies prophecy by definition unless all the prophetical accounts have been fulfilled thus far. Are you willing to hang your hat on that logic? Terms like pigeon holed are used by people who are emotionally attached to positions and view any questioning as personal attacks. You can pigeon hole me as a pre trib interpreter of prophecy, I have no problem with that. Bottom line up front, we will certainly see and soon.
LOL. I suppose we all feel that what we believe is the truth. This what is known in psychology as "privileged access." No one relishes the notion that perhaps what I believe is a lie. No one deliberately chooses to believe a lie. Personally, I take no offense at the term "pigeon holed." It is simply a word that defines a process of identifying stereo types. As far as prophesy is concerned, we can examine history against scripture. We cannot however examine scripture against the future which we do not know. I do believe that prophesy for the most part has been fulfilled. If you wish to challenge me in regard to any prophesy of scripture I will be please to examine them with you.
S
I guess the challenge would be please define ALL prophecy that has been fulfilled and ALL prophecy yet to be fulfilled. Back it up with historical reference and scriptire. if Rev 17:12 falls in the category of unfulfilled then it will meet the context of this thread and we can have a discussion as to if and how Brexit applies.
Here is my teaching outline on chapter seventeen. This is an examination of the symbols as they relate to their historical fulfillment.
I. The Judgment of Babylon the Great and the Beast, 1-14
A. Identifying Babylon the Great
It is argued by many that Babylon the Great can only be Rome. Others attempt to connect Babylon the Great to the Roman Catholic Church. This notion is so far-fetched and ludicrous that I am not even going to spend any time dealing with it. Since there are only two figures in this scene I think it much more expedient to simply to explain who they are rather than who they are not. As we have already pointed out from previous chapters, Babylon is identified as Jerusalem and Rome is the beast, but to answer the first assumption that Babylon is Jerusalem, let us note some reasons from scripture that confirm this connection. Foy Wallace Jr, in his work on Revelation offers four observations from scripture which connect Jerusalem to Babylon that I feel are worthy of consideration.
1. His first argument is from verse sixteen which tells us that the beast hated the harlot so, these are clearly opposing entities. Rome cannot be the Harlot lest we have Rome hating itself, nor can Rome be both the beast and the harlot.
2. The hatred of the beast for the harlot certainly agrees with the animosity that existed between Rome and Judea.
3. “There is no basis for a symbol or an analogy in which Rome could have been depicted as having become a harlot, for Rome never stood in the spiritual relation to God as a faithful city, turned to harlotry. The harlot was a once faithful city to God (This could never be said of Rome). Only Jerusalem can fill this symbolic description.” (Foy Wallace Jr.)
4. The theme of the book of Revelation is not concerned with Rome or the Roman Empire as its central character. Rome was only an incidental instrument of God by which Jerusalem's judgment would be executed.
5. “All of this was in direct fulfillment of the things Jesus foretold in Matthew 23 and 24 and in Luke 21 concerning the apostasies and abominations which would bring doom to the city of Jerusalem.” (Foy Wallace Jr.).
B. Chapter seventeen is another scene of Jerusalem's judgment but in chapter seventeen we find something that is not given in the other chapters depicting this same event. In this chapter the angel provides us with more clear definitions of the symbols.
“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”
1. The subject of the scene is judgment.
2. The object of the judgment is the “great harlot.” This is not the first time God uses the word harlot to describe a nation but he only seems to use this term to describe a once faithful nation. God said of Nineveh, “All because of the many harlotries of the harlot, the charming one, the mistress of sorceries, who sells nations by her harlotries and families by her sorceries. Behold, I am against you,” declares the LORD of hosts...” Nahum 3:4-5. Like Nineveh, Jerusalem became a harlot when she began to prefer other nations to Jehovah.
3. She sits upon many waters. This imagery is taken directly from Jeremiah 51:13 in which God pronounces his judgment upon the actual ancient city of Babylon. It is fitting that John uses this imagery in speaking of Jerusalem as Babylon the great. The “sitting upon many waters” is used by Jeremiah as a symbol depicting the wealth that Babylon had amassed as a result of trade and alliances with the other nations. Jerusalem is accused of doing the same thing with the allied nations of Rome.
4. She is guilty of immorality with the nations. Her desire was not in the Lord, it was to be like the nations around her. This desire seems to be amplified in the fact that “the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality” with her “and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”
C. The woman sitting on the scarlet beast, 3-6
1. The woman is the harlot, Babylon, Jerusalem.
2. The beast is Rome represented in scarlet. This may be a representation of the sinful character of the beast. God has used this imagery in the past to describe the sinful conditions of Judah and Jerusalem in Isaiah 1:18. It may also be used to depict royalty.
3. The beast was full of blasphemous names. In other words, Rome was full of idolatry, irreverence and reproach against God and his people.
4. The beast had seven heads and ten horns, verses 9-14.
5. The woman was beautifully adorned in royal apparel. Ezekiel 16:10-14,
“I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. “I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. “I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. “Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. “Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,” declares the Lord GOD.”
6. Her cup was full of abominations of unclean things and immorality, Read Ezekiel 16:15-43 and see how God described the harlotry of ancient Israel. There was no difference between the behavior of ancient Israel and Israel of the first century and the fate of both were the same.
7. Her name is “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” She is the source of every type of unclean behavior. (In 11:8, she is also “the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.”)
8. She is a murderous woman. She is a destroyer of the saints. More than that, she had acquired an unrelenting appetite for destroying those whom God had sent to her. Killing the saints and the prophets had become an intoxicating addiction. “I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. “Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!” Matthew 23:34-38.
D. The mystery of the beast is revealed, 6-14.
1. This beast of seven heads and ten horns “was, and is not and will come.” Is this the same idea as, “I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed,” 13:12.
2. “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss.” Remember, in 13:1, this beast is rising up out of the sea, powerful and strong, subduing nations. Now, he is rising up out of the abyss. Why was he in the abyss, because he had received a fatal wound on his head “I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed,” 13:3. Now, he is about to rise again. Why, because his “fatal wound” was about to be healed. “And go to destruction.” The fate of the beast is to ultimately be destroyed. God will destroy the destroyer.
3. “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. 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.”
a. Actually, Rome was surrounded by seven literal mountains – Zion, Acra, Moriah, Bezetha, Millo, Ophel, and Antonio. As a symbol, mountains often represent nations or governmental authorities. There is some question here in the rendering of εἰσιν that impacts how mountains are to be understood. Some translations read, “they (meaning the mountains) are seven kings” making the mountains and the seven kings one-in-the-same thing. Other translations read, “there are seven kings” implying that in addition to the seven literal mountains, there are also seven kings. If this is correct then the text may well be saying that Rome was sitting upon the seven literal mountains and that also, the chronology of the emperors of Rome consisted of seven rulers through the time of the fulfillment of these events. Regardless of how the mountains of this text may be regarded, the emphasis is on the seven kings, not on the mountains.
b. Who are these seven kings? “Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come.”
c.The seventh is prophetic in the sense that he had not come yet. When he did come his reign was only for “a little while.”
4. Who are these seven kings?
The "kings" were not ruling at the same time, for the text states that “five have fallen,” meaning that five of those kings had come and gone and the, “one is,” refers to the king who was ruling at the time Revelation was written. Here in this verse, we have one of the clearest proofs for dating this book. If we simply examine the list of Roman Emperors, we will be able to determine who the sixth king was, and the time Revelation was written.
a. “Five have fallen” – Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), Tiberius (14-37), Caligula (37-41), Claudius (41-54), and Nero (54-68)
b. “One now is” - The ruler after Nero was Galba the sixth emperor, who reigned only seven months from the fall of AD 68 to January of AD 69.
c. “The other has not yet come and when he comes, he will remain only a little while.” This was Otho who reigned only 3 months from January 15 to April 16, of AD 69. Vitellius then reigned only 8 months from April 16 to December 22, AD 69. After this Vespasian assumed the throne and reigns for 10 years from December of AD 69 to AD 79. It was under his reign that Rome began to stabilize politically. Why are only seven kings mentioned? Because it is during the reign of Galba that Jerusalem is destroyed. This would seem to suggest the time in which the beast “was, and is not” and the wounding of the beast. These three briefly reigning emperors represent the three of the first horns that were pulled out by the roots in Daniel's vision in Daniel 7. During the period of these three brief reigns, the beast was essentially dead. Rome had no official emperor during this time because the loyalty of the people had been divided between these three want-to-be dictators. These three were in competition for the title with each one claiming to be Caesar. This resulted in succession by murder. After this, Vespasian assumed the throne and reigned for 10 years from December of AD 69 to AD79. This is the “wound” that was healed and the beast lived again.It was under Vespasian's reign that Rome began to stabilize politically. This is why in 13:3-4, “the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; 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 wage war with him?”
5. “The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven.”
a. “The beast which was and is not....” Notice, it says the beast. Which beast – the one who “was and is not,” not one of the seven heads of the beast; thus, this is Rome itself.
b. “Is himself also an eighth.” An eighth what? He is the eighth king. The angel is identifying kings/emperors.
c. “Is one of the seven.
6. “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.” 'Horns' typically refer to power or authority. These are the ten tributary kings of Rome who have no kingdom of their own because they receive their authority from the beast for a little while.
7. “These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast. These will wage war against the Lamb...” These tributary kings exist only to give their power and authority to the beast. These join with the beast in the persecution of the saints – “war against the Lamb.”
I. The Judgment of Babylon the Great and the Beast, 1-14
A. Identifying Babylon the Great
It is argued by many that Babylon the Great can only be Rome. Others attempt to connect Babylon the Great to the Roman Catholic Church. This notion is so far-fetched and ludicrous that I am not even going to spend any time dealing with it. Since there are only two figures in this scene I think it much more expedient to simply to explain who they are rather than who they are not. As we have already pointed out from previous chapters, Babylon is identified as Jerusalem and Rome is the beast, but to answer the first assumption that Babylon is Jerusalem, let us note some reasons from scripture that confirm this connection. Foy Wallace Jr, in his work on Revelation offers four observations from scripture which connect Jerusalem to Babylon that I feel are worthy of consideration.
1. His first argument is from verse sixteen which tells us that the beast hated the harlot so, these are clearly opposing entities. Rome cannot be the Harlot lest we have Rome hating itself, nor can Rome be both the beast and the harlot.
2. The hatred of the beast for the harlot certainly agrees with the animosity that existed between Rome and Judea.
3. “There is no basis for a symbol or an analogy in which Rome could have been depicted as having become a harlot, for Rome never stood in the spiritual relation to God as a faithful city, turned to harlotry. The harlot was a once faithful city to God (This could never be said of Rome). Only Jerusalem can fill this symbolic description.” (Foy Wallace Jr.)
4. The theme of the book of Revelation is not concerned with Rome or the Roman Empire as its central character. Rome was only an incidental instrument of God by which Jerusalem's judgment would be executed.
5. “All of this was in direct fulfillment of the things Jesus foretold in Matthew 23 and 24 and in Luke 21 concerning the apostasies and abominations which would bring doom to the city of Jerusalem.” (Foy Wallace Jr.).
B. Chapter seventeen is another scene of Jerusalem's judgment but in chapter seventeen we find something that is not given in the other chapters depicting this same event. In this chapter the angel provides us with more clear definitions of the symbols.
“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”
1. The subject of the scene is judgment.
2. The object of the judgment is the “great harlot.” This is not the first time God uses the word harlot to describe a nation but he only seems to use this term to describe a once faithful nation. God said of Nineveh, “All because of the many harlotries of the harlot, the charming one, the mistress of sorceries, who sells nations by her harlotries and families by her sorceries. Behold, I am against you,” declares the LORD of hosts...” Nahum 3:4-5. Like Nineveh, Jerusalem became a harlot when she began to prefer other nations to Jehovah.
3. She sits upon many waters. This imagery is taken directly from Jeremiah 51:13 in which God pronounces his judgment upon the actual ancient city of Babylon. It is fitting that John uses this imagery in speaking of Jerusalem as Babylon the great. The “sitting upon many waters” is used by Jeremiah as a symbol depicting the wealth that Babylon had amassed as a result of trade and alliances with the other nations. Jerusalem is accused of doing the same thing with the allied nations of Rome.
4. She is guilty of immorality with the nations. Her desire was not in the Lord, it was to be like the nations around her. This desire seems to be amplified in the fact that “the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality” with her “and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”
C. The woman sitting on the scarlet beast, 3-6
1. The woman is the harlot, Babylon, Jerusalem.
2. The beast is Rome represented in scarlet. This may be a representation of the sinful character of the beast. God has used this imagery in the past to describe the sinful conditions of Judah and Jerusalem in Isaiah 1:18. It may also be used to depict royalty.
3. The beast was full of blasphemous names. In other words, Rome was full of idolatry, irreverence and reproach against God and his people.
4. The beast had seven heads and ten horns, verses 9-14.
5. The woman was beautifully adorned in royal apparel. Ezekiel 16:10-14,
“I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. “I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. “I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. “Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. “Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,” declares the Lord GOD.”
6. Her cup was full of abominations of unclean things and immorality, Read Ezekiel 16:15-43 and see how God described the harlotry of ancient Israel. There was no difference between the behavior of ancient Israel and Israel of the first century and the fate of both were the same.
7. Her name is “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” She is the source of every type of unclean behavior. (In 11:8, she is also “the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.”)
8. She is a murderous woman. She is a destroyer of the saints. More than that, she had acquired an unrelenting appetite for destroying those whom God had sent to her. Killing the saints and the prophets had become an intoxicating addiction. “I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. “Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!” Matthew 23:34-38.
D. The mystery of the beast is revealed, 6-14.
1. This beast of seven heads and ten horns “was, and is not and will come.” Is this the same idea as, “I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed,” 13:12.
2. “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss.” Remember, in 13:1, this beast is rising up out of the sea, powerful and strong, subduing nations. Now, he is rising up out of the abyss. Why was he in the abyss, because he had received a fatal wound on his head “I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed,” 13:3. Now, he is about to rise again. Why, because his “fatal wound” was about to be healed. “And go to destruction.” The fate of the beast is to ultimately be destroyed. God will destroy the destroyer.
3. “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. 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.”
a. Actually, Rome was surrounded by seven literal mountains – Zion, Acra, Moriah, Bezetha, Millo, Ophel, and Antonio. As a symbol, mountains often represent nations or governmental authorities. There is some question here in the rendering of εἰσιν that impacts how mountains are to be understood. Some translations read, “they (meaning the mountains) are seven kings” making the mountains and the seven kings one-in-the-same thing. Other translations read, “there are seven kings” implying that in addition to the seven literal mountains, there are also seven kings. If this is correct then the text may well be saying that Rome was sitting upon the seven literal mountains and that also, the chronology of the emperors of Rome consisted of seven rulers through the time of the fulfillment of these events. Regardless of how the mountains of this text may be regarded, the emphasis is on the seven kings, not on the mountains.
b. Who are these seven kings? “Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come.”
c.The seventh is prophetic in the sense that he had not come yet. When he did come his reign was only for “a little while.”
4. Who are these seven kings?
The "kings" were not ruling at the same time, for the text states that “five have fallen,” meaning that five of those kings had come and gone and the, “one is,” refers to the king who was ruling at the time Revelation was written. Here in this verse, we have one of the clearest proofs for dating this book. If we simply examine the list of Roman Emperors, we will be able to determine who the sixth king was, and the time Revelation was written.
a. “Five have fallen” – Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), Tiberius (14-37), Caligula (37-41), Claudius (41-54), and Nero (54-68)
b. “One now is” - The ruler after Nero was Galba the sixth emperor, who reigned only seven months from the fall of AD 68 to January of AD 69.
c. “The other has not yet come and when he comes, he will remain only a little while.” This was Otho who reigned only 3 months from January 15 to April 16, of AD 69. Vitellius then reigned only 8 months from April 16 to December 22, AD 69. After this Vespasian assumed the throne and reigns for 10 years from December of AD 69 to AD 79. It was under his reign that Rome began to stabilize politically. Why are only seven kings mentioned? Because it is during the reign of Galba that Jerusalem is destroyed. This would seem to suggest the time in which the beast “was, and is not” and the wounding of the beast. These three briefly reigning emperors represent the three of the first horns that were pulled out by the roots in Daniel's vision in Daniel 7. During the period of these three brief reigns, the beast was essentially dead. Rome had no official emperor during this time because the loyalty of the people had been divided between these three want-to-be dictators. These three were in competition for the title with each one claiming to be Caesar. This resulted in succession by murder. After this, Vespasian assumed the throne and reigned for 10 years from December of AD 69 to AD79. This is the “wound” that was healed and the beast lived again.It was under Vespasian's reign that Rome began to stabilize politically. This is why in 13:3-4, “the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; 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 wage war with him?”
5. “The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven.”
a. “The beast which was and is not....” Notice, it says the beast. Which beast – the one who “was and is not,” not one of the seven heads of the beast; thus, this is Rome itself.
b. “Is himself also an eighth.” An eighth what? He is the eighth king. The angel is identifying kings/emperors.
c. “Is one of the seven.
6. “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.” 'Horns' typically refer to power or authority. These are the ten tributary kings of Rome who have no kingdom of their own because they receive their authority from the beast for a little while.
7. “These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast. These will wage war against the Lamb...” These tributary kings exist only to give their power and authority to the beast. These join with the beast in the persecution of the saints – “war against the Lamb.”