The amazement (and admiration) of the people in general who see the ‘beast’ rise up, is different to John’s wondering in the previous verse: ”I wondered greatly…“1 Their amazement is because of the fact that the ‘beast’ once was, now is not, and yet will come. The ‘people’ are the inhabitants ‘of the earth’,2 the world population who follow the ‘beast and his image’ and bear his mark on their foreheads. Their names are not in the book of life.3 A person is marked by his name. The Book of Proverbs says: “The name of the wicked will rot,” and: “A good name is more desirable than great riches.”4 The High Priest in Israel wore a plate of pure gold on his forehead, on which was engraved Holy to the Lord.5 The people of God are consecrated to God (“…do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God… They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.” Revelation 7:3; 9:4) but the rest of the world population is consecrated to the ‘beast’ that came out of the Abyss. John had seen the first beast come from the sea (of nations), and the second beast from the earth,6 but their origin is the Abyss, and he had seen that too.7 It is said of this ‘beast’, this world power that it once was, at the present time is not, but soon will be there again – rising up from the Abyss and finally sailing into For that is what this is primarily about: this world power. Not its leader ‘anti-Christ’ in the first place, even though that is a ‘beast’ as well! How that sailing into oblivion of this world power is to happen will be shown in chapter 19 with the Lamb as the Victor!8 He will overcome that final empire! States, world empires, civilisations come into being, rise, and then sink, never more to return. Yet this empire will be very different.
Which empire is it? If we compare Scripture with Scripture we come straight away to Daniel 2 and 7. That is where Daniel sees world powers appearing as beasts. The four empires Daniel sees are the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Greek and the Roman Empire. A fifth empire follows in Daniel 2 and 7. It is the rule of Messiah; it is the stone that becomes a mountain and that fills the whole earth in Daniel 2:35; the people of the most High with the ‘Son of Man’, in Daniel 7:13–14, 22 and 27, who will receive the eternal kingdom. That Kingdom follows the fourth empire that has two legs of iron and continues into its two feet with ten toes of iron and clay in Daniel 2, and is the fourth beast that had ten horns on its head in Daniel 6.9 Those ten horns are ten kings according to Daniel,10 and with those ten horns we arrive at the ‘beast’ John saw.
In short, Daniel’s fourth empire is John’s ‘beast’, the Roman Empire, which has been, of course, will be absent for a while (or will appear to be absent), and yet indeed will rise again. The Lamb, Jesus Christ, will bring that final empire down—not gradually, but radically and suddenly, when He comes with the ‘clouds of Heaven’.11 That fourth empire has never really disappeared completely throughout history, and we are living in the time between the seeming absence of the Roman Empire and its resurrection today in the end times.
• Virtually all the Greek and Latin Church fathers, including Augustine, were convinced that the ‘Kingdom of the Son of Man’ would only dawn at Jesus’ Coming in Glory.
• The partial ‘Christianisation’ of the Roman Empire, starting with Emperor Constantine, is different from the fifth ‘Kingdom of Christ’ that will be fully implemented with His Coming in Glory. But there are various ways to ‘count’ the successive Empires!
Bible References:
1.Revelation 17:6b–7 2.Revelation 17:2, 3:10, 6:10, 8:13, 11:10, 13:8,14 3.Revelation 3:5, 20:12 and 15, 12:15, 21:27, 13:8; Exodus 32:32; Philippians 4:3; Psalm 69:29 4.Proverbs 10:7, 22:1 5.Exodus 28:36-38, 39:30 6.Revelation 13:1, 11 7.Revelation 11:7 8.Revelation 17:14 9.Daniel 7:7–8, 19–22 10.Daniel 7:24 11.Revelation 17:14; Matthew 24:30
