Revelation 13:1-18 NIV
[1] The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.
[2] The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. [3] One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.
[4] People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”
[5] The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months.
[6] It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. [7] It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.
[8] All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.
[9] Whoever has ears, let them hear.
[10] “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 calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.
[11] Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. [12] It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. [13] And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people.
[14] Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. [15] The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. [16] It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, [17] so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
[18] This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.
(N̶o̶t̶e̶:̶ ̶a̶ ̶P̶r̶e̶s̶i̶d̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶t̶e̶r̶m̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶4̶2̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶s̶)
Well, a few things need to be said here. First, quoting from the early church is not eisegesis. Eisegesis is going in scriptures with a preconceived thought or idea, and that’s not what I was doing. I was simply sharing with you and others that when it concerns this particular teaching, the earliest church believed and taught that The Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan. Whether he is right or wrong is debatable, but I’m not saying that he has ultimate truth over the scriptures.
It does help, though, to read from the early church, because they have a lot of insight and knowledge about how Christianity spread in the Post apostolic Church age. In the second century, there was a man named Irenaeus. Irenaeus was the student of Polycarp, who was the student of the apostle John. When Irenaeus was alive, there were two copies of the book of Revelation that were circulating. One version had 666, and the other version had 616. Irenaeus had the authority to say that the manuscript with 666 was correct because of the teachings that he had received from Polycarp.
Second, the reason I quote from Daniel 11 is because when it concerns those particular verses, the first time we see these particular verses used to describe attributes of the Antichrist was Hippolytus, who was the student of Irenaeus. A lot of the reasons that some pre-millennials take this viewpoint is because of how early this particular interpretation is.
I’m very much well aware of all the different interpretations when it concerns the book of Revelation. I used to be a dispensationalist, but I am not anymore. I am an historical premillennialist, or a chillast.
And I agree that we all should be on our guard, to be sober-minded and awake, because look at the world around us… Everything is exactly like Jesus foretold it would be like. And even though that may sound frightening to some, we should also keep in mind, He says “look up for your redemption draws near”. Our hope comes from Jesus Christ, not JD Vance, not Trump, not conservatives, and not the Republican party. Our hope, our blessed hope, is Jesus Christ.
We’ll said. I’ve always loved Daniel’s prophecy because it nails future happenings so clearly that it’s hard to dispute his predictions of Alexander the Great and antiochus epiphanies and many others.
I have a lot of respect for the historical premill view. It’s a pretty good one and pretty valid as far as I’m concerned. I’m covenantal though and don’t have much time for dispensationalism.
It was good to hear from you.