Revelation 13 Then [a]I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having [b]seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name.
Most commentators regardless of their theological affiliation agree that the Beast shifts from an individual to a corporate entity. We talked about this last week if you recall. The Beast, we said then, is an Individual, Nero Caesar, who also embodies a people – in this case the Roman Empire. John flips back and forth between the Individual expression and the corporate expression.
As we hinted at and are now hammering on the reason that we believe that the Beast in Revelation must be a first-century reality is because of the time markers we find in John’s Revelation. Those time markers require us to find the Beast in the first century or else the time markers give us a real problem.
Now here on the time Markers,
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must [a]shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. 3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.
John says that all that he is writing about must shortly take place and then says the time is near in terms of the matters he writes of.
This disallows us to find this Beast and his Mark that John later speaks of in Rev. 13 to be some personage today because if it is some personage today then it didn’t shortly take place and it was not near. This means that we are not allowed to play “Find Waldo” with the Beast. In my lifetime the Beast has been floated as Henry Kissinger. The Beast has been floated as Ronald Wilson Reagan who had 6 letters in his first, middle, and last name. The Beast has been floated as Mikhail Gorbachev. Throughout history people thought Napoleon was the beast, Hitler was the Beast, and countless others. Like the children’s game of “Finding Waldo” Evangelicals have been forever trying to identify the Beast and His Mark. John’s language forbids us from doing this. Not only these two instances in Chapter 1 but also elsewhere in this book of Revelation
Revelation 2:16; 3:11; 22:7, 12, 20
2:16 Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.
Revelation 3:11
11 [a]Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.
Revelation 22:7
7 “Behold, I am coming quickly! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”
Revelation 22:12
Jesus Testifies to the Churches
12 “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to everyone according to his work.
Revelation 22:20
20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.”
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
Now, not only do the time markers move us in the direction of a 1st century Beast but Revelation 17 gives us location information that points us in the direction of a 1st century Beast that is Nero Caesar and Rome.
In Revelation 17 we see a woman riding on a beast. John is perplexed by all that he is seeing and an Angel gives him a cryptic explanation
7 But the angel said to me, “Why did you marvel? I will tell you the [c]mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.
9 “Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. 10 There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. 11 The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to [f]perdition.
Now we refer first to the seven heads that John sees. The Angels say that those seven heads correspond to seven mountains.
It is widely conceded that Rome itself is the city built on seven hills. Rome has been known by that knick almost from its beginning. So the seven heads point us to Rome.
Further, we learn in 13:1 that the Beast rises out of the Sea.
Then [a]I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea,
Now whether one considers John’s location on the Island of Patmos, or if believes that John is writing as positioned with the 7 churches of Revelation or if one envisions John writing as positioned in Israel in each case, John would have been facing Westward in the Mediterranean world to see the Sea and beyond the sea in that direction lay ancient Rome. As such it would make sense that in his vision he would see the beast that is the Roman Empire rising out of the sea.
So we being w/ a cumulative argument that strengthens itself along the way. First, there are the time markers. Then there are those seven heads as seven mountains all pointing towards Rome. Then there is the rising out of the sea – a necessity if one believes that John is looking westward across the Mediterranean towards Rome.
Now we consider how John speaks of the Beast as having authority. John pictures the beast in such a way that fits well w/ 1st century Rome. In Rev. 13:2 it is said of the Beast by John that he has;
ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name
The ten crowns obviously would signify great political authority which would have been true of Rome in spades.
The horns are also significant. In Scripture, horns are often associated with stature and power. In Daniel 720-21 for example Daniel has a similar dream that references ten horns. In the ancient world, horns were seen as symbols of political and military power because of the power seen in the horns of an ox or a ram. Daniel 7 even finds one of the horns making war on the saints thus pushing us towards identifying the beast as a militarily powerful entity.
Josephus in his “War on the Jews” says of Rome; “The Romans were the Lords of the habitable earth.” Rome as multiple horns fits with John’s imagery.
We press on in the symbolism in chapter 17 that explains this Beast
10 There are also, seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. 11 The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to [f]perdition.
Here we transition from a geographic location hint (seven heads – seven mountains) and a hint having to do with power, authority and might (horns & crowns) to a hint that has to do with chronology.
There are also, seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time.
Now how does this point us towards Rome and the Empire?
Well, if we consider the Emperors of Rome we arrive at five who have fallen (dead) one that is (Nero) and one that is yet to come and who when he finally does come will rule only for a short time.
The five Caesars who had fallen;
Julius Caesar
Augustus (Christ’s Birth)
Tiberius (Christ’s death)
Gaius
Claudius
Nero is the 6th King who is
When Nero dies the Roman civil wars will begin and those wars cough up John’s “the one who is yet to come” a chap named Galba who only ruled 6 months which fits John’s prophetic insight that would only rule for a short time.
So as we continue this cumulative argument we begin to see a strong confirmation that John sees the Beast collectively or corporately as the Roman Empire and individually as Nero Caesar who is the embodiment of Rome.
Then of course there is the Beast aspect itself;
2 Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion.
We talked about this a wee bit last week so we won’t spend a a great deal of time here.
John gives us these carnivores (leopard, bear, lion) to describe the beast. And if we know anything about Rome we know about its Coliseum barbarities where Rome’s enemies would be fed to these carnivore beasts. The Roman Empire was bestial.
Not only Rome collectively, but also Nero as embodying Rome was a Beast. Nero killed his mother Agrippina, his wife, his brother. This beast would tie up slaves to a stake and then molest them and finally kill them. So, the imagery of a beast once we consider all that we’ve considered fits well with the Roman Empire and Nero.
Phillip Schaff wrote that Nero “heaped crime upon crime until he became a proverbial monster of iniquity.”
Next we consider that John says of the Beast;
13:5 And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies,
Of course the Caesars were ascribed divinity and Rome was all about Emperor worship. Nero had coins minted that had his image on the coins with rays of the sun bursting forth from his head signifying he was the incarnation of the Sun God Apollo.
We see Nero and Blasphemy in the way he was worshiped. Dio Cassius, a 2nd century Roman Historian tells of A King of Armenia named Tiridates, came to have audience with Nero; In the course of his visit Tiridates speaks to Nero thus;
“Master, I am the descendant of Arsaces, brother of the kings Vologaesus and Pacorus, and your slave. And I have come to you, my god, to worship you as I do Mithras. The destiny you spin for me shall be mine; for you are my Fortune and my Fate.”[6]
So, again, the descriptors that John is given fit up well with Rome and Nero.
13:7 It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.
We know from history that the first official persecution of Christians by Rome came under Nero’s reign. Worse persecutions would follow from other Emperors but Nero did indeed make war with the saints and overcame them. Peter and Paul are swallowed up by the Neronic persecutions.
Tacitus, a Roman Historian writes of Nero,
“Nero inflicted unheard-of punishments on those who were detested for their abominable crimes commonly called Christians…. An immense number of them died.”
“A vast multitude of the the elect were killed by Nero” I Clement
Now John also tells us that this rage;
“”continue for forty-two months. (13:5)”
This is an arguable point depending on when one begins the start date of the Neronic persecutions of Christians but at least by some accounts Nero began this persecution of the Christians in Nov. of 64 and continues it till he dies 42 months later.
Well, lets do one more bit of analysis that points towards the Beast as Rome / Nero;
13:3 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast.
I think we can make the case that this is referring to the Roman Empire. Nero commits suicide on June 8 68 AD. Very quickly the Beast – Rome falls into civil war and it looks like Rome as an Empire is mortally wounded.
Tacitus offers on how dire these times were in Rome’s history;
“The history of which I am entering is that of a period rich in disasters, terrible in battles, torn by civil struggles, horrible even in peace, four Emperors fell by the sword, three civil wars, more foreign wars, often at the same time.
This was the condition of the Roman State when Serveus Galba was chosen counsel for the 2nd time and his colleague Titus Vinnius entered upon the year that for Galba his last and for the state almost the end.”
The mortal wound of the Empire was healed by Vespasian who became Emperor and brought stability back to the Empire for a time.
This, in addition to what was said last week caps this cumulative argument that the Beast is Rome both in the collective as Empire and individually as the Empire is incarnated in Nero Caesar.
If this is accurate – and I believe it is – then almost all of Revelation is past to us though it was future to them.
It is also the case that if this is accurate that the Judgment in Revelation that is spoken of was a past Judgment and found its fulfillment on Israel in 70 AD with Christ’s Judgment coming against Israel for its rejecting of its Messiah.
And that larger case remains to be developed in sermons for another time.
