NEW LIFE FOR THE ROMAN EMPIRE, THE ANTICHRIST, OR BOTH?
There may be some who take issue with the way the proposed scenario interprets the beast’s existence, absence, and coming again in Rev 17:8 & 11. Instead of viewing these prophetic motifs as applying to the one ruler who will dominate all, and have the full authority of the revived Roman rule in himself, some see them referring to the previous existence of Roman power, its current phase of dormancy, and its future re-awakening. They would see the “was, and is not, and will come” as referring to Roman power and influence, and not to the Antichrist himself. [ 77 ]
The intent of the angel is a major consideration in the question of whether the revival in Rev 17:8 refers directly to the entirety of the Roman rule. What the angel tells the Apostle John, and his reasons for disclosing it, form the immediate context that restrict all possible interpretations. In response to John’s astonishment over the vision of the harlot being carried by the beast, the angel says to the Apostle:
Why do you wonder? I shall tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.
Revelation 17:7
The angel tells the Apostle that he will explain the mystery of the harlot and of the beast. The angel’s purpose in explaining the beast is to go further and explain the mystery of its relationship with the harlot. Central to the angel’s message are the beast’s interactions with the harlot. Revelation 17 is not only about the beast or the harlot. If it was, only the beast or the harlot would have been featured in the vision.
And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.
Revelation 17:3
And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh, and will burn her up with fire.
Revelation 17:16
The mystery the angel is explaining to the Apostle is not only how the harlot lived but also how she died. Some part of the harlot’s life will be intertwined with that of the beast and her death will be at his hands. How this comes about is the mystery.
Revelation 17 is about the relationship of the beast and the harlot as they interact together, leading to the harlot’s demise. Therefore, the angel’s explanation, which begins in Rev 17:8, must fundamentally be about the underlying dynamics of this relationship during the future events recorded in vs. 8-13. Knowing this, we should be curious to know how the beast’s absence and immanent re-emergence from the abyss in the future time of v. 8 aids in understanding this relationship.
If the existence, absence, and re-existence of the beast as told by the angel in v. 8 and v. 11 is interpreted as the absence of the Roman Empire’s power on the world political scene, then we must ask if this interpretation really contributes to a greater understanding of the passage or the angel’s message.
The second interpretational factor involves the time references in these sequences of verses. During his explanation of the vision, the angel places his own present time as narrator at different points chronologically. As events move forward in time, the angel discloses these forward movements of future history chronologically. The angel also places his present time at the same time as certain significant events within that chronological flow. By doing this, the angel allows his readers to enter into the time frame of these events and to understand their chronological relationships to each other.
Beginning in Rev 17:8 the angel places his own present time at the same time as the most significant event in that verse. The angel highlights the most significant event in each of the 4 verses (17:8a, 8c, 10, 11) by placing his own present time at the same time as that important event. While this may sound confusing, it will be much easier to understand when we actually look at these verses in detail later. Still, any interpretation of Rev 17:8-13 must take into account the way the angel moves his own present time into the present times of vs. 8-11. Failure to account for the chronological connections in the angel’s presentation of these verses can easily lead to misinterpretation and misapplication of Rev 17:8-13.
Among those who regard the book of Revelation as largely being fulfilled in a future time, there are some who regard the literary presentations of Rev 17:8a, 8c, & 11 as a direct reference to the former dominating presence of the Roman Empire’s rule, its dormancy for millennia, and its re-assembly during a future time. This second Appendix is an examination of various interpretations and applications of Rev 17:8-13 which hold that view.
To be clear, a revived rule of the Roman Empire’s power is expected. It had an active period following the decline of the Greek Empire. It was responsible for the destruction of both Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in 70 A.D. After eventually reaching the height of its projected power and influence, it declined and entered a dormant phase as other smaller powers gained strength in former Roman areas. Roman power will reassemble and rule again during the final events. However, seeing Rev 17:8-13 as the Roman Empire existing, not existing, and existing again, must confront and overcome multiple difficulties.
The First Alternate View is what we will call the idea that Rev 17:8a & 8c must be directly applied to the Roman Empire’s previous existence, dormancy, and future role in world affairs.
The beast which you saw was existing, and is not existing, and is about to ascend up from the abyss, and into destruction he goes.
Revelation 17:8a [*]
As they see the beast that was existing, and is not existing, and will come.
Revelation 17:8c [*]
While a future fulfillment for the book of Revelation, especially from 4:1 to the end, appears to be the most consistent application of the governing interpretive principles (historical grammatical hermeneutic), the First Alternate’s interpretation of vs. 8 & 11 as found above, encounters several significant difficulties when we examine the text closely. [ 78 ]
The first obstacle that must be overcome is that v. 8 indicates that the beast is absent in the present time of the verse.
And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.
Revelation 17:3
And the angel said to me, “Why do you wonder? I shall tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.”
Revelation 17:7
The beast which you saw, was existing, and is not existing, and is about to ascend up from the abyss, and into destruction he goes, and all those who are dwelling on the earth will marvel whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, as they see the beast that was existing, and is not existing, and will appear.
Revelation 17:8 [*]
John sees the beast in vs. 3 and 7, but in v. 8 that beast is gone. This would indicate that the present time of Rev 17:8 does not occur at the same time as vs. 3 & 7.
The form of the beast which the Apostle sees in his vision of 17:3 is correctly regarded by futurists as a form of the revived Roman rule. John’s vision in v. 3 and the angel’s promise to explain it in v. 7, are from a time perspective in which that Roman power has already been restored. However, as the angel begins to explain the mystery of this beast and the harlot, he says twice in v. 8 that the beast is currently absent.
The beast that you saw, was and is not ...
Revelation 17:8a
If the beast is assumed to be the Roman Empire in total, then clearly, the present time of v. 8 cannot be the same as, nor flow from v. 7. If the beast in Rev 17:8 is the total Roman rule that was existing, went dormant, and re-emerges in the end-times, then v. 8 must be regarded as having its present time before vs. 3 & 7.
This is a problem for the First Alternate View because the beast’s absence occurs after it has achieved the 7-headed & 10horned configuration. The beast with heads and horns is generally thought to represent the structure of Roman power after its dormancy. Yet Rev 17:8 seems to indicate that Roman power reawakened before the beast’s absence in that verse.
To be clear, Roman power will be re-awakened. Yet this is not what Rev 17:8 is about. Those who view Rev 17:8 as the angel’s prediction of the dormant and re-emerging phases of the Roman Empire must convincingly address the angel’s use of the present tense to indicate the assumed absence of Roman power. One cannot hold to the interpretation that the absence of the beast referred to in Rev 17:8 is the dormant phase of Roman power while still maintaining that the present time period of v. 8 is the same as or follows after the time period of vs. 3 & 7.
Neither at the time of John’s reception of the vision and the angel’s explanation, nor at the future time at which the angel places his own present time period, is the Roman rule dormant. When the Apostle John was exiled to the island of Patmos where he wrote his prophetic work, the Roman Empire was in full control of its territory. At the future time when the harlot interacts with the beast with 7 heads and 10 horns, Roman rule is already reestablished. So, in neither John’s time period, nor in the time period of the angel, is the Roman rule absent, even though v. 8 is assumed to declare twice that Rome’s power is absent.
This is not insignificant. Why would the angel place his own present time at the same time that the Roman power was absent? What relevance does this absence have to the meaning of the passage or the angel’s intent in the chapter? Why would the angel highlight the phase of dormancy? Rome would exert no influence during this period. Rome as a political force is non-existent. Yet, viewing the absences in Rev 17:8 as the dormant phase of Roman power, finds the angel emphasizing the very period when Rome is not weak, but irrelevant in world affairs. The angel would be highlighting the only period when Rome could not have any relationship with the harlot. This implication seems to take us further away from the angel’s stated intention of explaining the relationship between the harlot and the beast.
The only solution to the conflict of the time perspectives, if one is insistent upon viewing the absence in Rev 17:8 as the dormant phase of Roman rule, is to locate the present time of v. 8 before the time period of vs. 1-7. By assuming that the angel is starting his explanation of the harlot and the beast prior to the beast’s arrival on the political scene, in theory, one might be able to resolve the conflicting time periods. However, placing the present time of v. 8 prior to Rev 17:1-7 presents other problems.
The first problem created by viewing the present time period of Rev 17:8 as prior to the time of vs. 1-7, is the whiplash effect it would produce in the reader. Verses 1-7 would have their own present time period after the re-assembly of Roman rule, as indicated by the existence of the beast in these verses. Verse 8 must then jump backward in time to a period before Rome’s power is re-established. The unnatural whiplash effect produced by locating v. 8 prior to the restoration of Roman power, aside from being extremely awkward, still does not seem to have any connection with the angel’s explanation of the mystery of the harlot interacting with the beast.
Worse yet for this view are the contradictions it creates with the context. In the same sentence where the angel states that the beast is absent in present time, he also directly ties the existence of the beast to the present time of John’s vision. In Rev 17:3 John sees the beast and the woman sitting upon it. In Rev 17:8a the angel tells John, “The beast which you saw, was, and is not ...” Rev 17:8a seems to indicate that the beast John saw carrying the woman is now absent. The way the angel phrases v. 8a certainly seems to be a forward flow of time from v. 3 through at least v. 8, because the beast John saw is the beast that is absent. This wording of Rev 17:8a would seem to make the predating of v. 8a at odds with itself.
Another problem created when the present time of v. 8 is located prior to vs. 1-7 is the strong parallel structure that v. 8 shares with v. 11. Both vs. 8 and 11 state that the beast existed in past time, and then does not exist in present time. The strong parallel elements shared between vs. 8 and 11 would tend to confirm for the reader that these verses are describing the same events. If that is true, which seems to be the force of the literary usage, then it would be necessary to place the present time of v. 11 also prior to the re-establishment of Roman rule.
Since both vs. 8 and 11 share the same language, then both verses would have to be located on the timeline prior to the events described in Rev 17:1-7, 9-10, 12-13. One must also ignore the seeming contradiction v. 8a contains to this chronological rearrangement, and the continuing dissonance caused by having the angel highlight the time when Rome could have no influence on world affairs and no relationship of any kind with the harlot.
However, the reader’s sensation of chronological whiplash is now doubled as he is pulled back (v. 8), pushed forward (vs. 9-10), pulled back (v. 11), and pushed forward again (vs. 12-13). He is ripped back from the flow of events in vs. 1-7 to the prior time period of v. 8. Then the reader is pushed forward again into the original chronological flow of events in vs. 9-10, only to be ripped back in time to the events of v. 11. Finally, he is pushed forward into the original chronological flow of events in vs. 12-13. This disjoined chronology is extremely unnatural, and not how language normally functions. It also hardly seems to fit with the angel’s overall message. The flow of time is usually assumed to be linear, consistent and moving only forward in time unless otherwise indicated by the text.
Placing Rev 17:11 prior to the re-establishment of Roman power, because of its shared literary structure and language, creates other problems. In v. 11, the phrase that indicates a reemergence refers to events that are strongly linked to post-reconstituted Roman rule. The beast itself is said to also be an 8th king, who is one of the 7 prior kings. Some futurists may go so far as to say that the former existence of the Roman Empire displayed 7 stages of “kings.” However, the angel tells us that in its future relationship with the harlot, the re-established Roman Empire will have an 8th king, whose time period is after the re-establishment of Roman power. Thus, the literary similarity of v. 11 with v. 8 would require both to be located prior to the re-establishment of Roman power, even though v. 11 itself contains indications that the reemergence they are both addressing are after Rome’s reestablished authority.
There may be some who would contend that the angel begins his explanation in v. 8 and following, and he, therefore, begins his explanation before the time frame seen in vs. 1-7. The content of v. 8a, however, seems to dismiss this assumption. The angel’s words direct John’s attention to what he has just seen and focus them on what happens next.
The beast which you saw, was, and is not, and is about to ascend up from the abyss ...
Revelation 17:8a [*]
The angel’s own words in v. 8a seem to eliminate predating this verse before the time of vs. 1-7.
Those who may contend that v. 9ff is the beginning of a predated explanation still must also overcome v. 11's direct ties to post-revival political events.
And the beast which was existing, and is not existing, is himself also an eighth, and is out of the 7 ...
Revelation 17:11 [*]
To preserve the theory that the absence and reappearance in Revelation 17 refer to the dormancy and reassembly of Roman power as a whole, some credible way must be found to reconcile the absence in the present time of Rev 17:8 & 11 with the fact that their context seems to place the time of these verses after Rev 17:1-7, 9-10a. One way to do this would be to contend that the vision of the beast in vs. 1-7 would have to be located during the time before the old Roman power went dormant. This view could locate the angel’s statement of the 7th king’s pending arrival in v. 10 within the pre-dormant phase of Roman power. Yet, this also has many difficulties to overcome.
To maintain that the beast with 7 heads and 10 horns, who also carries the harlot, was a form of the pre-dormant phase of Roman power would require historical examples of how Rome’s structure and actions in its previous existence were consistent with the description the angel gives it in vs. 3 & 7.
Some have thought they found 7 stages of Roman power. This would seem to reflect the sequential nature of Rev 17:10. However, maintaining that the 7-headed & 10-horned beast was part of the pre-dormant Roman rule would require that the 10 horns also be satisfactorily found in Rome’s past in a manner consistent with how Scripture itself regards multi-horned political regimes. So, we must ask, when in Rome’s history has its structure been even remotely similar to that of Rev 13:1, Rev 17:3 or 17:7 in that Rome had 10 kingdoms or regions exercising their authority simultaneously and autonomously?
To date, no proposal has been fully developed and successfully advanced which finds in Rome’s past, convincing elements consistent with how other scriptural examples of similarly described dominant powers exhibited their fulfillment. So far, Roman history has failed to produce a historically based scenario in which 10 areas of power simultaneously exercised some limited sovereignty in fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel chapter 7.
If one maintains that the beast of Rev 17:3 & 7 is to be found in the pre-dormant phase of the Roman rule, then what is the harlot? If the 7-headed & 10-horned beast is to be found in Rome’s past, then the harlot who rides this beast cannot be left in the future. The harlot rides the beast, so they both must be in existence at the same period of time. Where one places the time of the 7-headed & 10-horned beast, one must also place the harlot. But if one imagines that the 6 or 7 stages of Roman rule in its pre-dormant phase satisfy the model of the beast seen in Rev 17:3 & 7, where is the suitable comparative model of the harlot that rides this beast - a harlot who makes the world’s inhabitants “drunk by the wine of her immorality”?
As Chapter Seven discusses, the “great harlot” should be regarded as an apostate form of a formerly genuine worship. Consistency with the biblical image of harlotry requires a people who had a formal relationship with God which was later replaced with an apostate form. Some may claim the City of Rome, which directly benefitted from the empire’s wealth and influence, was the “great harlot” to which the angel was referring. However, as Chapter Seven demonstrates, this view is lacking an important element.
A third view needs to be addressed. The Empires interpretation sees the 7 heads of the beast as past empires during Israel’s history. They are generally identified as Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Ancient Rome, and Revived Rome. While the Empires view does not necessarily take a direct position on the existence, absence, and re-existence in Rev 17:8 & 11, it does have a significant following. Since other interpretations have been examined in this chapter, it seems a good place to briefly introduce and discuss it. (The Empires view has already been introduced in the endnotes and it will appear in additional notes going forward.)
Under the Empires interpretation, the 7 heads of the beast represent past empires. A significant problem for this view is the complete lack of contextual support. There is no support in Revelation 13 or 17 for viewing the 7 heads as ancient empires. On the contrary, the events revealed in these chapters seem to all happen about the same time.
And they are seven kings, the five fell, the one is, the other did not yet come, and when he comes it is required that he remain a little.
Revelation 17:10 [* with emphasis]
Some may look to the Greek term ἔπεσαν - “fell” in Rev 17:10 for support. For empires to follow one another, the previous one must “fall.” On the surface, this verb seems to point towards a ruinous defeat with all the disruption and chaos that would follow such a “fall.” The Empires view seems to depend on the verb in Rev 17:10 meaning something more than the end of ruling authority for the 5 kings.
When speaking of ancient rulers, it was true that their “fall” likely involved defeat and death. However, even though the prophecies in the book of Revelation are ancient, Rev 17:10 will be fulfilled in the future. Thankfully, more and more nations are governed by elected leaders who are given authority for a fixed length of time. If the prophecy of Rev 17:10 is aimed at 5 elected or appointed rulers, then there would be a known end to their time in authority. The ruler lives on afterward, but without governing power.
So, what exactly “fell”? Must we anticipate 5 defeated kings or empires? Could Rev 17:10 instead pertain to appointed or elected officials who will cease to possess governing authority after their terms end? If so, the power to rule “fell” and not necessarily the individual himself. Then why is the word “fell” used at all in Rev 17:10? The short answer is because Dan 7:20 uses such a verb.
There are a number of striking similarities between Rev 17:10 and Dan 7:20. Both verses appear in passages that describe the activities of a beast with 10 horns. In both verses an angel is describing the loss of power for a group of rulers using a verb that means “to fall.” The angel speaking in Rev 17:10 wanted to tie his explanation to the one given by another angel in Dan 7:20.
The permanent loss of ruling power found in the context of Dan 7:20 should be brought forward and applied to the 5 kings in Rev 17:10. What “falls” in Rev 17:10 is the kings’ power. Some may feel the verb “to fall” requires the ruler’s death. While this may have been how ancient people read these prophecies, the fulfillment is not tied to how they were regarded over time.
The Empires view has only one potential contextual anchor and that is the verb πίπτω - “to fall” in Rev 17:10. Yet the permanent loss of ruling power does not seem to require the verb to mean a loss of life or defeat of a political regime. However, without this, the Empires view loses the last element in the context that seems to offer support. [ 79 ]
The context of Revelation 13 gives no hint to the past roots of the beast aside from what we can deduce from its appearance in the vision. Revelation 17 describes the beast’s appearance the same way, but also with interactions between its own elements, and with the harlot.
Revelation 17:9 poses problems for those who view the 7 heads of the beast as past empires (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, <