An Unholy Parody

Overview

On guarding against false teachers. According to the commentary, these verses express an assumption that false teachers will infiltrate the church. How can such a thing happen? What are the ways we can guard against it? In an age where truth is presented to us via the internet from teachers we rarely know personally, are we sufficiently cautious and discerning in how we receive this teaching? How do we apply Paul’s exhortation to Timothy: “You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them” ()?

Satan in this section of Revelation seems to be parodying the Godhead and produces his own false trinity—the dragon (himself), the beast from the sea (the antichrist), and the beast from the earth (the false prophet, ). While the first beast represents political influence, the second beast is the head of religious influence.

On guarding against false teachers. According to the commentary, these verses express an assumption that false teachers will infiltrate the church. How can such a thing happen? What are the ways we can guard against it? In an age where truth is presented to us via the internet from teachers we rarely know personally, are we sufficiently cautious and discerning in how we receive this teaching? How do we apply Paul’s exhortation to Timothy: “You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them” ()?

Genuine believers are exhorted to discern true from false worship in order to persevere in the faith (13:18)

Beale, G. K., & Campbell, D. H. (2015). Revelation: A Shorter Commentary (p. 284). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Like the first beast (13:1) this beast ascends, but now it comes “from the earth,” echoing the four kingdoms of .

This second beast parodies Christ as the Lamb with seven horns in by having “two horns like a lamb.”

On discerning the identity and activity of the enemy. The commentary suggests that wisdom and understanding be directed not toward calculating literal numbers in order to identify a particular person, but instead toward developing discernment in relation to all the ways the enemy, as a demonic parody of the Trinity, opposes and infiltrates the church throughout its history. How is this related to one’s interpretation of “666”? Is it possible, in the midst of a fixation on identifying demonic personalities in our own day, that we might miss the actual, subtler work the enemy is engaged in even within the church? Would you agree with the commentary’s view that Revelation gives warnings against the activity of the enemy in every generation, not just his activity in the time immediately preceding Christ’s return? If that is the case, what implications does this have for the way we understand and apply this aspect of Revelation in our lives?

This second beast parodies Christ as the Lamb with seven horns in by having “two horns like a lamb.”

This fits Jesus’ warning against false prophets who “come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves” ().

Beale, G. K., & Campbell, D. H. (2015). Revelation: A Shorter Commentary (p. 288). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

This fits Jesus’ warning against false prophets who “come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves” ().

It also alludes to , where the “ram with two horns” is the Medo-Persian Empire in its opposition to God.

The horns of the false trinity (; , ) describe the might of the evil powers in defiance of God and his will.

Moreover, this second beast also “speaks like a dragon,” a further parody of Christ, who speaks with the authority of God (; ). The same lying words used by the dragon and the antichrist to deceive the world (; ) will characterize the false prophet, fulfilling the prophecies of (the “great apostasy”) and (the “many antichrists”).

The central verb in the rest of is poieō (“make, produce, or create”), used nine times in 13:12–16 to describe the incredible activity of this beast on the dragon’s behalf.

The dragon gave his authority to the first beast, and now “all authority” is transferred to the second.

There is a distinct chain of command, and the purpose is to enslave the whole world in their falsehoods, primarily to “make” every person “worship the first beast.” The verb “make” is poieō and indicates an activity designed to cause people to do something, in this case worship the false trinity.

The basis of this worship, as in 13:3–4, is the healing of the mortal wound, that imitation of the greatest miracle of all, the resurrection of Christ. As Christ’s resurrection launched Christianity, so its copy will launch this new blasphemous counterfeit religion.

The next activity of the false prophet is to “perform” (poieō) spectacular but counterfeit miracles that mirror those of Christ and his elect .

Moses was viewed as a miracle-working prophet (; ; ), and Elijah and Elisha were justly famed for their incredible miracles.

John’s Gospel centers on the “sign” miracles of Jesus, as the wonders he produced “signified” the essence of who he was.

The signs here are true miracles but performed to support a lie, that the false trinity is the true Trinity. and speak of miracles used by false teachers in the service of their lies.

Here the second beast parodies Elijah, who calls down fire on Mount Carmel in and has God send down fire on the soldiers sent by Ahab to arrest him in .

This miracle occurs validly twice in Revelation, with the two witnesses () and at the destruction of Satan’s army (20:9). The false prophet brings fire down “in full view of the people,” not in service of God but to deceive the people into worshiping a false god. It is not a religious act but a public relations performance with an evil purpose behind it.

However, God is in actual control, as seen in another instance of edothē (“was given”) in 13:14 to mean God permits the beast the power to perform the miracle.

Since the sinners have rejected God’s offer and refused to repent, God is “giving them over” (as in , ) to the deceptions they clearly prefer. If they want to worship the very demonic powers who have tortured and killed their friends and neighbors (), God will allow them to experience that delusion in all its terrible force.

As a result of these deceptive powers, the earth-dwellers obey the false prophet and erect an idolatrous image.

This echoes , where Nebuchadnezzar constructs a 90-foot gold idol and commands the nations to worship it. Under the imperial cult a great number of statues of the emperors were placed in temples, and Ephesus alone had temples dedicated to Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Domitian. The temple of Domitian contained a statue of him 22 feet high, and this could well provide the background for the image here. Moreover, under the teaching of the Nicolaitan cult noted in , , , many so-called Christians participated in this practice of venerating the emperor.

After the idol is erected, God allows the false prophet to “give breath” to the image and “make it speak” (13:15). Life is breathed into the idolatrous statue, and it speaks. It was popularly believed in the first century that the gods did inhabit their idols, and rituals existed to call forth the spark of the divine in them. The Roman world was enamored with magicians and rituals. But the antichrist will go beyond such deeds and will bring these things to pass in reality.

The primary thing the now-living image will proclaim is a new state religion. Nebuchadnezzar in , , demanded worship of the dead idol on penalty of death, leading to the famous incident of the three young men in the furnace. This image makes it a capital crime to refuse to participate in the worship of the beast/antichrist. This did not occur under Domitian, but 15 or so years later, in AD 112, a Roman official named Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan saying he had executed Christians who had refused to offer wine and incense before a statue of the emperor. The whole of the province of Asia was expected to participate in the imperial cult, but it never became a capital crime. Under the antichrist, it does so.

The final use of poieō (causes) occurs here, as the false prophet “causes, or makes” all people (believer and unbeliever alike) receive a mark to identify their allegiance to the antichrist. As in 6:15 and 19:18, all the social categories are noted to stress the universality of this new law. The first pair stresses the social side, the second pair the economic side, and the third pair the societal side. Both the haves and the have-nots must receive the mark.

Two rules define the new demands.

First, the mark is to be on the forehead or wrist, Satan’s counterpart of the seal of God on the forehead in 7:3. Both God’s seal and the antichrist’s mark signify ownership.

In , the Hebrew letter tav was placed on the foreheads of the faithful to show they belonged to Yahweh.

In Roman practice religious tattoos were often worn to indicate a person’s patron god.

It signified both the rejection of former loyalties and absolute acceptance of the new allegiance. There will be no neutrality; one either belongs to Christ or to the beast. To take the mark will mean final rejection of Christ. As in , and (the sin that leads to death) it will constitute final apostasy from Christ: the unpardonable sin.

Second, “no one can buy or sell” without the mark.

In Smyrna and Philadelphia, economic persecution had left believers poverty-stricken (; ), and at Pergamum and Thyatira the guild structure of the trades placed enormous economic pressure on Christians. This is the ultimate expression of this tactic.

Starvation awaits those who refuse the mark.

Believers will lose their jobs, their homes, and their places in society; then they will be hunted to the death. This was true at times in the first century; it is true in many places today; and it will universally be the case throughout history.

Believers will lose their jobs, their homes, and their places in society; then they will be hunted to the death. This was true at times in the first century; it is true in many places today; and it will universally be the case in the final period of history.

The mark is further linked with the “name of the beast” and then with “the number of its name.”

When believers see Christ in eternity, “his name will be on their foreheads” (), so once more the antichrist is parodying Christ. The “number of his name” refers to the ancient practice of gematria. The letters of the alphabet were also used as numbers, with the first nine letters of the alphabet being the numbers 1–9, the second nine letters 10–90, and so on. So every name and word had a numerical value when you added up the total of the letters in the word. For example, ABC would be six (1 + 2 + 3).

There has been so much wild and wooly speculation on the number 666 through the centuries that John’s opening observation is perhaps more needed today than it was in his time: “This demands wisdom.” John adds that it also demands understanding. Jesus, in the Olivet Discourse, says, “Let the reader understand” (; ). So John commands the readers to exercise extreme care and divinely guided wisdom in interpreting this number.

There are several possible options:

The names of world leaders, so long as we remember it is a 1st-century, not 21st-century, name—not Hitler or Mussolini or any other modern figure but Julius Caesar or Vespasian.

Apocalyptic riddles with symbolic significance; for example, the name Jesus (Iēsous) in Greek adds up to 888 (I = 10, ē = 8, s = 200, o = 70, u = 400, s = 200).

A symbol for the antichrist—since 6 is the number of finite man, 666 would symbolize humankind in ultimate sin and rebellion against God.

A triangular number, the sum of 1–36 (= 666) with 36 the triangular number for 1–8 (the beast as the eighth king).

The most oft-cited solution falls under option one above, and it may well be the most likely. The name “Nero Caesar” in one Hebrew spelling (qsr nrwn) adds up to 666, and this is supported by the alternative number 621 in a few ancient manuscripts, which is “Nero Caesar” in Latin; this would show it was the understanding in some quarters of the church. A second and very good possibility combines the second and third options above. The use of the threefold 666 as a counterpart and foil for the three “holies” of 4:8, and the gematria of the name of “Jesus” (888) would contrast the absolute imperfection of the antichrist (666) with the completeness of 777 and the absolute (beyond) perfection of Jesus as holy and as 888. Both these options fit well in the context, and I cannot choose between them.

Close

In this chapter we have seen that, as Satan’s original rebellion was likely a self-centered desire for praise and power, this has continued down through the ages.

For Satan’s final effort he can only emulate God’s perfect work, so everything he does is a parody of God’s actions.

He establishes a false trinity that appears on earth for the final period of history—the dragon (functioning behind the action), the beast/antichrist, and the second beast/false prophet.

John’s readers would have seen this taking place in the imperial cult with its economic and religious pressure on Christians, and it has also been exemplified in the false teachers and anti-Christian tyrants throughout the church age.

This has important implications for the present.

In our time there are many “antichrists” () who twist Christian belief and turn the world against the church.

Regardless of when Christ actually returns, we must remain ready for ongoing pressure and persecution of God’s people.

We stand firm in our faith knowing that our final victory is certain, for God is still sovereign even if it seems like evil is taking over.

An Unholy Parody

Part 2