Revelation 13: The Antichrist and the False Prophet
Revelation 13: The Antichrist and the False Prophet
v1-10: The Antichrist
As mentioned in the blog for Revelation 12, NIV said "The dragon a stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea." that seems to indicate that the "dragon" is a different creature than the "beast." Many translations follows the NIV choice.
In NKJ however, it says: "Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea." (v1a), meaning that John was the one at the shore. It does not mention the dragon at all. Apparently different manuscripts used different words here and translations had been using different manuscripts.
The "dragon" in NIV, refers to Satan, which was mentioned last chapter. The "beast" from the sea refers to the anti-Christ. The “sea” is often used to symbolize “peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.” It emphasize that this "beast" is a human.
The anti-Christ has ten crowns on it's ten horns, and it has seven heads that bear blasphemous names. (v1b) This is similar to the dragon described in Revelation 12, except that the crowns are on the dragon's seven heads. Some say that the seven heads represents the 7 Great Empires - (1) Egyptian (2) Assyrian (3) Babylonian (4) Persian (5) Grecian (6) Roman (7) Future New World Empire.
John further describes that the anti-Christ looks like a leopard but had feet like a bear and mouth of a lion. The dragon gave the beast "his power and his throne and great authority." (v2)
John used the same animals that Daniel used in Daniel 7. In Daniel, the lion represents Babylon, the bear represents Medo-Persian Empire, and the leopard symbolized the Greek empire. Daniel saw the fourth beast as well, and the angel with Daniel explained the fourth beast this way "‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time. " (Daniel 7:23-25)
The fourth beast in Daniel is and extension of Roman empire into the last days (what is called the New World Empire), and the "king will arise, different from the earlier ones" refers to the anti-Christ in this chapter.
Daniels also said that the anti-Christ have a covenant of peace with Israel: "He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him." (Daniel 9:27) However the anti-Christ will betray Israel in the middle of the seven years, and bring abomination to the temple. This was the new temple that was build during tribulation.
During the 3.5 years, John saw that one of the beast's head (i,e, the anti-Christ) had a fatal wound, but the wound had been healed, and the whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. The people worshipped the dragon as he is the one that gave power to the beast. They also worshipped the anti-Christ and ask “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?” (v3-4)
The "fatal wound" may be referring to an assassination with a bullet to his head, like what happened to President Kennedy. However, Satan protected him and he did not die, but the news may have falsely declared that it was fatal. Later on, he miraculously showed himself on TV to amaze everyone that he us still alive. All the spiritually blind people worshipped him and Satan, the fake "god." This is just a poor imitation to make the antichrist look like the Messiah.
John continued to write that the anti-Christ uttered proud words and blasphemies, and slander God's name and those who live in heaven. He might be declaring God doesn't exist and there are no heaven for the saints. (v5-6)
The antichrist was given forty-two months (the familiar 3.5 years of the second half of tribulation) to exercise his authority. After that, Jesus will return and defeat him and Satan.
In v8, it said "All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Everyone who is not a believer in Christ will worship the anti-Christ.
Interestingly, the words "...Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" highlights that Jesus was chosen to die for us even at the creation of the world. It is not an afterthought by God to send His son to save sinful men. God knew that His Son will need to die, even before time began. Yet, He still created us whom he knows will bring sin into the world. Praise Him for his wonderful plan of creation and redemption!
v7, 9-10 War With Israel
Verse 7 says the anti-Christ "was granted", i.e. "allowed" to wage war with the "holy people", i.e. Israel. God is still in control of the events on earth! He was given a temporary victory. He was seen as the leader of all nations and races; In chapter 17, ten kings/nations allied with the anti-Christ for the war against Israel, and eventually against Jesus Christ when He return.
Jesus had already warn them of this attack. He said in Matt 24:15-21 "So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel.... then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains....For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short."
Zechariah 12:2-9 wrote the promise from God, that he will protect the Israel. He will make Israel a "heavy stone" - that whoever attempt to lift it will hurt himself. God will strike "every horse with panic, and its rider with blindness." Then the Lord will destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem, at the end of the war.
Jesus Himself also testify that He will come at the end of the war: "Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." The Israelites recognize that Jesus was the true Messiah, whom they murdered and ignored, until now.
There is a different translation between NIV/ESV with NKJ for Revelation 13:10. In NKJ it said "He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword." This seems to mean that those who captured the Jews will be captured, and those who killed the Jews will be killed.
On the other hand, NIV said: "“If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity they will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword they will be killed.” This is probably saying that God has decided who will be captured and who will be killed. It reflects what was written in Jeremiah 15:2 - ‘This is what the Lord says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those for the sword, to the sword; those for starvation, to starvation; those for captivity, to captivity.’
Nevertheless, both translation says that many Jews will be captured or be killed during the second half of the tribulation. So the Jews (God's people) are told to have "patient endurance and faithfulness." (v10b)
v11-18: The False Prophet
John saw another beast rising from the earth. It has two horns like a lamb, and spoke like a dragon. This beast was given the same authority at the antichrist by Satan. The "two horns like a lamb" may be to imitate the real Lamb, and fakes that he is a righteous person. He speaks like a dragon refers to his confidence to speak lies and evil, just like Satan. (v11)
Just like the Pharoah's magicians who can replicate Moses' miracles, the second beast can performed great signs including making fire comes down from heaven (the sky, not where God's throne is), similar to what Elijah did (1 Kings 18). He performs miracles in the power of Satan to discredit the two witnesses we read in Revelation 11. Paul said that the Antichrist will come with all power, signs, and lying wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:9). (v12-13)
By doing these "miracles" and speaking lies, he deceived the people to make an image to the "beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet had lived." (v14) It may be referring to a statue of the antichrist and may be placed at the temple to desecrate it and prevent the Jews from worshipping God. (2 Thess 2:4). Paul had foretold to Timothy that “the Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” (1 Tim 4:1)
Interestingly, verse 15 said:
"And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain." Obviously, this was not possible during the time of the writing. However today, we all know that images can speak, and is called the television. In fact, even statues can speak, or even move, if it is a robot with artificial intelligence in it. We have devices that can recognizes faces and alert the police if they are wanted for crimes, such as not worshipping the image. |
| Dr. Donald Bell |
We called the second beast the "false prophet" as his job is to perform miraculous signs, promote the antichrist as God, and force people to worship his idol. Jesus said in Matthew 24:11 that “many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.” While there are other false prophets, this second beast is the chief of all the false prophets.
The false prophet, the antichrist and Satan is the Unholy Trinity, copying the Holy Trinity of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ and God the Father.
Again, we have the technology today that can implement this "mark" underneath the skin or the hands or foreheads. The RFID chip, for example, had been used on dogs or other pets, to track their health and the owner they belong to. NFC (Near Field Communication) chips are smaller and can do the same thing. You are probably using it in your mobile phone and your credit cards. Some nations, like Sweden, had implemented NFC for their citizens since 2018. The usage is growing in the European countries.
“I believe that one day implants will be as popular as payment cards.” said Wojciech Paprota, who is the founder of London-based Walletmor. “Our payment implant cannot be forgotten or lost. This means that, unlike a standard payment card, it cannot end up in the wrong hands. It will not fall out of our wallet, and no one will take it from there. The implant cannot be scanned, photographed or hacked.” Walletmor’s implant is half a millimeter long and weighs less than one gram.
This kind of chips can also be used as a "passport" and personal ID. You no longer need to carry anything to cross over the border. It can also keep medical records, such as your Covid-19 vaccination date, and other types of diseases you have, your blood type, the medicines you are taking and your allergies. This allows the hospital to treat you even if you are unconscious.*
Even if they don't use the chips, they can just do a QR tattoo on the skin, that provides all the information of the person from the internet once they are scanned.
John ended this chapter with verse 18: "This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666."
This number is the most controversial word in the bible for theologians and scholars. Most think that if we can translate the 666, we will know who the antichrist will be. One common theory is that in Greek or in Hebrew, letters were assigned a numerical value, such as “A” equaling 1, “B” equaling 2, and so forth. Guzik said: "Using this method, many candidates for Antichrist have been suggested, such as the Pope or the Papacy, John Knox, Martin Luther, Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and so forth."
There are also theories that it represents Satan's numbers as compared to God's number of 144 (Poole); the number of the Latin Kingdom (Clarke); others say that if you add up the six Roman numerals (I, V, X, L, C, and D) you will get 666 which indicates the antichrist will a Roman. So far, there had been no major agreement of what it symbolize.
One lesson we can see in Revelation is that the nearer we get to the end of days, the more the scripture reveals to us via new technology, international relationships, and conflicts and wars. Perhaps the meaning 666 will be clear when it's time for Jesus to return.
Footnotes:
* For details of rapture and the currency chip, please see my other blog: https://wordforseason.blogspot.com/2020/04/covid-19-end-times-game-plan.html
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