The Antichrist 2: The Beast from the Sea

The first post yesterday talked about the title "Antichrist" itself.

Today let's look at the "Beast" of Revelation 13 and 17. In terms of their original meanings, there is no apparent connection between the antichrists of 1 and 2 John and the beasts of Revelation. And Revelation does have two beasts.

The beast that popular end times teaching today focuses on is the first beast of Revelation 13, the "beast from the sea." There is a second "beast from the land" later on in the chapter. Its function is to cause the earth to worship the first beast.

Revelation says several things about the beast from the sea of which here are a few key ones:

1. It had seven heads, one of which seemed mortally wounded, but healed.
2. Men worshipped both the dragon (Satan) and the beast.
3. It makes war on the saints and conquers them.
4. It has authority over all the earth.

This is all very vague to us. Revelation 17 brings these prophecies into clearer focus. Again, we remember that we are not the first audience of this text. It was written to the churches of late first century Asia Minor (see Rev. 2-3). None of the original recipients have been alive for almost 1900 years.

So how would a person living in Asia Minor in the first century hear the following words?

1. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman is seated (17:9). Hmm. What would someone living in the Roman empire in the late first century think here. There is a city with seven hills called Rome, that just happens to be the HQ of the empire. Hmmm.

2. There are also seven kings, five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come and whenever he comes it is necessary for him to remain a little while. And the beast that was and is not. He himself is eighth and is from the seven and he departs to destruction (17:10-11).

If I were living in Asia in the first century and was hearing about seven kings relating to a city with seven hills, I think I would probably at this point think: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero. We would now be the reign of Vespasian (not counting the year of three emperors). Titus was after him. An eighth might then be Domitian.

Most scholars think of Revelation being written during the reign of Domitian. Of course I think Robinson in his Redating the New Testament might have used this verse as an argument for a date around 70. Another possibility sometimes mentioned is that this particular part of Revelation was written during the reign of Vespasian and then later incorporated into the later, expanded, final version of Revelation during the reign of Domitian.

In any case, it seems very likely that a first century audience of these words would be thinking of Roman emperors when they heard these words.

So what's the deal with the fatal wound that has healed? Two of the first five emperors died violent deaths. Caligula was assasinated. Nero committed suicide. Interestingly enough, many Romans apparently found it hard to believe he was really dead (kind of like Hitler or Elvis). There was a rumor floating around that Nero would return and have his day.

Here's an excerpt from the Sibylline Oracles, which dates from around the time of Revelation:

"In the last time a war will take place arond the time of the waning of the moon. This war will throw the world into confusion and be deceptive in guile. A man who killed his mother will come from the ends of the earth in flight, devising penetrating schemes in his mind. He will destroy every land and conquer all and consider all things more wisely than all men.

"He will immediately seize the one because of whom he himself perished. He will destroy many men and great rulers, and he will set fire to all men as no one else ever did. Through zeal he will raise up those who were crouched in fear. There will come upon men a great war from the West. Blood will flow up to the band of deep-eddying rivers. Wrath will drip in the plains of Macedonia, an alliance to the people horn the West, but destruction for the king." (5:361-374).

Several comments in the Oracles make it clear that this prophecy refers to Nero, who had been dead for some time when this was written. Revelation seems at least to use this legend of the return of Nero as the basis for its imagery of the beast from the sea. An eighth king will be like Nero returned from the dead.

Nero fits the bill for the number 666 as well. If you take the letters of the word Caesar Nero and treat them as numbers instead of letters (the ancients didn't have separate symbols for numbers), they add up to 666. You'll remember that Nero was the one who put both Peter and Paul to death as well as many other Christians. He was responsible for the first real persecution of Christians, which took place in Rome around the year 64-65.

If we ask how the original audiences of Revelation would have heard the passages about the two beasts, therefore, it seems very likely that they would have heard them in terms of the Roman empire and its emperors. They expected very bad times indeed to come with the return of an emperor like Nero (or perhaps they would have even expected the return of Nero himself?). By the time Revelation reached its final form, they might have equated this beast with Domitian.

Emperor worship was a strong force in Asia Minor, in which the emperor was worshipped as a god. The beast from the land might thus correlate to whatever Roman administrator was responsible for the emperor cult in Asia Minor. Remembering that Roman coinage during the time of Domitian called him "Lord" and "God" and that he more than any emperor before him insisted on worship well before his death, we can at least conjecture the conflict of conscience it might have caused Jew and Christian to decide whether to use his coinage or not, to "take his mark" and not to be able to buy or sell if you didn't.

Could we take this imagery spiritually in terms of someone yet to come? I won't dare tell the Holy Spirit not to speak this way to someone or create "spiritual fulfillments" in this way. But these parts of Revelation have very, very strong connections to the first century, at least in their original meanings. "Babylon," for example, was a code word for Rome that Jews and early Christians used in the period after Rome destroyed Jerusalem (cf. 1 Peter 5:13).

Certainly there has been no literal millennial reign or literal resurrection of matyrs or white throne judgment. But the distress represented in the symbolism of Revelation has in the first place to do with the distress of at least a segment of the late first century church. Those who have used it of contemporary times have done so over and over again these last two hundred years... And so far they've been wrong every time (cf. that now out of print book, "88 Reasons the Lord is Coming Back in 1988").

In short, those who relate these parts of Revelation to contemporary events have ended up looking stupid every single time thus far. Just think of all the people who have speculated about who the Antichrist will be thus far. Just think of all the movements and cults that have started off of particular prophetic interpretations. Every last one of them has been wrong!

So unless you're a prophet of the kind of stature of Jeremiah or Isaiah, I'd give up calling Obama the antichrist on this one. Has he even been to Rome? Does he look like Nero to you--OK, maybe the hair cut is the same...