What is the Mark of the Beast.

Hobie · Wed Jul 31, 2013 - 01:54:44

So much is said about the Mark of the Beast and yet few look to see what the Reformers and their contemporizes and even before them saw as the Mark of the Beast.

The Protestant reformers, including Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, Wesley, and many others, recognized that the beast power and its resulting mark was mentioned under various synonyms in Scripture. It was the little horn of Daniel 7, the man of sin, the son of perdition who introduces the mystery of iniquity in 2 Thessalonians 2, the antichrist of 1 John 2 and 4 and 2 John, Babylon of Revelation 14, 16, 17, 18, and the whore and scarlet beast of Revelation 17. Throughout the Reformation era, one religious power was considered as the origin of the Mark of the Beast with the power of the Antichrist. William Tyndale identified what he considered as Antichrist in his treatise "The Practice of Prelates" and in his Preface to the 1534 edition of the New Testament. Many of the early Protestant Bibles contained artwork that portrays the Scarlet Woman of Revelation 17, and identifies what they saw as this apostate religion.

John Wesley's Notes; But he that had the mark, namely, the name of the first beast, or the number of his name - The name of the beast is that which he bears through his whole duration; namely, that of Papa or Pope: the number of his name is the whole time during which he bears this name. Whosoever, therefore, receives the mark of the beast does as much as if he said expressly, "I acknowledge the present Papacy, as proceeding from God;" or, "I acknowledge that what St. Gregory VII. has done, according to his legend, (authorized by Benedict XIII.,) and what has been maintained in virtue thereof, by his successors to this day, is from God." By the former, a man hath the name of the beast as a mark; by the latter, the number of his name. In a word, to have the name of the beast is, to acknowledge His papal Holiness; to have the number of his name is, to acknowledge the papal succession. The second beast will enforce the receiving this mark under the severest penalties. (John Wesley, Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, Revelation 13:17)

In LeRoy Edwin Froom, Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vols. 2 and 3, we find Wycliffe's associate, John Purvey, felt that the Mark of the Beast had to do with the Papacy, and pertained to papal power and decrees. Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli's successor at Zurich, took it to be the Papacy's power. Luther's associate, Nikolaus von Amsdorf (died 1565), of Magdeburg, thought it had to do with enforced papal ceremonies and decrees. Bishop Nicholas Ridley, of England (martyred in 1555), declared it involved allegiance to the beast. Scottish mathematician Sir John Napier (died 1617) defined it as a profession of obedience to Rome. Pietist Johann Lucius (died 1686) believed it to be the confession of the Roman religion. And Sir Isaac Newton (died 1727) placed the mark of the beast and the seal of God in contrast, and saw the Antichrist, Little Horn, Man of Sin, Babylon as the Papacy.

So were they correct and if so, where did the Protestant Reformers come up with the basis for what they saw as the source of the Mark of the Beast?

Hobie · Wed Jul 31, 2013 - 02:02:07

Here is the verses which describe the beast and its mark.
Revelation 13:15-18
King James Version (KJV)
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Revelation 14:8-12
King James Version (KJV)
8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Revelation 15:2
King James Version (KJV)
And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

Revelation 16:2
King James Version (KJV)
And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.

Revelation 19:20
King James Version (KJV)
And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

Revelation 20:4
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

The Bible identifies what is beast and its mark with much detail, so what can we find to support or disprove the Reformers assertions, and how do we today apply the prophecy and undsertand what is the Mark of the Beast and the power behind it.

Red Baker · Wed Jul 31, 2013 - 05:27:08

Quote from: Hobie on Wed Jul 31, 2013 - 01:54:44
So much is said about the Mark of the Beast and yet few look to see what the Reformers and their contemporizes and even before them saw as the Mark of the Beast.

The Protestant reformers, including Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, Wesley, and many others, recognized that the beast power and its resulting mark was mentioned under various synonyms in Scripture. It was the little horn of Daniel 7, the man of sin, the son of perdition who introduces the mystery of iniquity in 2 Thessalonians 2, the antichrist of 1 John 2 and 4 and 2 John, Babylon of Revelation 14, 16, 17, 18, and the whore and scarlet beast of Revelation 17. Throughout the Reformation era, one religious power was considered as the origin of the Mark of the Beast with the power of the Antichrist. William Tyndale identified what he considered as Antichrist in his treatise "The Practice of Prelates" and in his Preface to the 1534 edition of the New Testament. Many of the early Protestant Bibles contained artwork that portrays the Scarlet Woman of Revelation 17, and identifies what they saw as this apostate religion.

John Wesley's Notes; But he that had the mark, namely, the name of the first beast, or the number of his name - The name of the beast is that which he bears through his whole duration; namely, that of Papa or Pope: the number of his name is the whole time during which he bears this name. Whosoever, therefore, receives the mark of the beast does as much as if he said expressly, "I acknowledge the present Papacy, as proceeding from God;" or, "I acknowledge that what St. Gregory VII. has done, according to his legend, (authorized by Benedict XIII.,) and what has been maintained in virtue thereof, by his successors to this day, is from God." By the former, a man hath the name of the beast as a mark; by the latter, the number of his name. In a word, to have the name of the beast is, to acknowledge His papal Holiness; to have the number of his name is, to acknowledge the papal succession. The second beast will enforce the receiving this mark under the severest penalties. (John Wesley, Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, Revelation 13:17)

In LeRoy Edwin Froom, Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vols. 2 and 3, we find Wycliffe's associate, John Purvey, felt that the Mark of the Beast had to do with the Papacy, and pertained to papal power and decrees. Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli's successor at Zurich, took it to be the Papacy's power.

So were they correct and if so, where did the Protestant Reformers come up with the basis for what they saw as the source of the Mark of the Beast?

Greetings Hobie,

Allow me to make a few observations concerning what you said. First, let me say that I appreciate very much you using the KJV in your post. If I am going to debate someone, I prefer to do so with the same scriptures that I trust and believe in as the word of God. There are some good men and godly who are not as convinced as I am concerning such things, but, I am not going to change for many reasons, and that I will save for the thread that deals with this subject, so enough said concerning that point. Again, thank you.

Observation #1~"The Protestant reformers, including Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox,"~I have tremendous respect for these God fearing and godly men, nevertheless, we must try their words with the scriptures as we would the Pope's and every other religion under heaven, agree? They had light concerning the subject, but only base upon up until their time.

I am convinced 100% that if they were living in our days, they would have a more perfectly knowledge of (using your words) "the beast power and its resulting mark was mentioned under various synonyms in Scripture. It was the little horn of Daniel 7, the man of sin, the son of perdition who introduces the mystery of iniquity in 2 Thessalonians 2, the antichrist of 1 John 2 and 4 and 2 John, Babylon of Revelation 14, 16, 17, 18, and the whore and scarlet beast of Revelation 17."

The little horn/man of sin/abomination of desolation/antichrist, working under the power of the beast, is not limited to the Popes and the religion of the Catholic church~that is a deception of the devil, to deceive even more of the people in false religion!

Those godly men did not even know anything of the many false religions that has filled this world since their days! Just to name a few: SDA, Mormons, Christian Science, JW, and the prosperity gospel preachers. and these are just the extremes ones. Time would fail me to expose the many others who have corrupted the gospel of Jesus Christ. Men like John Hagee, Falwell and others, who have pushed a false hope for the nations of the Jews, etc. Surely, Revelation 9 and eleven, and twenty, is being fulfilled right before our very own eyes.

You can not limit the whore of Revelation seventeen to the Catholic church,and if you do so, you are missing so much truth.

#2~ "Wesley,"~Really? He went against the reformers on their doctrine of "election of grace and the doctrine of grace overall! He was guilty of falling from grace, as Paul's explain the phrase in Galatians. Oh well, I am sure he knows better now, and is very thankful for God's grace. I am sure he's in heaven, base upon his faith and love for what he understood to be the truth.

#3~"It was the little horn of Daniel 7, the man of sin, the son of perdition who introduces the mystery of iniquity"~Hobie, the Little horn/man of sin~DID NOT introduce the mystery of iniquity, they ARE the mystery of iniquity! Please follow me:

Both Paul and John together said that the mystery of iniquity doth ALREADY WORK~2 Thess 2:7, or, even NOW are there many antichrist~1 John 2:18. The beast (which is the devil and his angles working through the generation of the wicked, and using them to do his will) have always been in this world since the fall of Adam and Eve. The only difference is this: both John and Paul both taught (along with Jesus~Matthew 24; Mark 13 and Luke 21; and Daniel before them all~7-12) that in the latter days of the last day (being the time of Christ, from his birth to his coming again) that the little horn/antichrist/man of sin/abomination that God will make desolate, shall come in greater number and power than ever before! And has it ever! I just mentioned a few of them above.

1 John 2:18

"Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come (that is, in greater number and with more deception than ever before), even now are there many anitichrist; (of course, they have always been here since the fall of man. Who were the Pharisees? Sadducees? but antichrist/man of sin!) whereby we know that it is the last time."

Base upon Daniel's, Jesus' words and the apostles teachings.

The Pope's did not introduce the man of sin when they begin to used their corrupt powers as Christ's spokesman in this world, the man of sin was in Adam after he sinned! And, I might add, that he is in all of us~it is called in the holy scriptures: the OLD MAN. Selah. May God open the eyes of his people to see this truth.

RB

Hobie · Wed Jan 25, 2023 - 19:45:55

We look at Revelation 14:9-11...
"9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name." Revelation 14:9-11.

In Revelation 14: 9-11, the Bible describes the terrible fate of those who receive the Mark of the Beast. We find in contrast, Revelation 14: 12 which describes those who stand victorious with Jesus on Mount Zion:
"Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Revelation 14: 12.

Now lets look at Revelation 7:1-3
"1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,
3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." Revelation 7:1-3.

So we see in Revelation 7: 1-3 an angel ascends from the east with the seal of the living God. This angel comes down from heaven and puts a seal on people's foreheads. Two classes are represented: Those who receive the mark of the beast and eventually receive the plagues. And those who keep the commandments of God, who are sealed by the angel, and do not receive the plagues.

The Sabbath appears in the heart of the Ten Commandments. It was given by the Creator as a sign or seal of His authority. It identifies Him by name, "The LORD your God". It identifies the realm over which He has jurisdiction, "the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them". It also identifies the basis of His authority, "for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, . . . and rested the seventh day". It is the seal of God which now at the end will be on Gods people. as
we see the Bible teaches that the final issue will be over the seal of God as opposed to the mark of the beast.

Now the Roman Catholic Church clearly claims it has the authority to change the Sabbath...
"Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. It could not have been otherwise as none in those days would have dreamed of doing anything in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical and religious without her. And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things". ---Letter to Cardinal Gibbons, November 11, 1895, from C.F. Thomas.

The Mark of the Beast is his seal of authority, and that would be "a rule or order that it is obligatory to observe" which he has passed. This would include the Sabbath along with all the other changes he has made that he claims he has the authority to do so.

"And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws:" Daniel 7:25.
We find this in the Catholics claims..
"The Pope has power to change times, to abrogate (change) laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts of Christ.
The Pope has authority and has often exercised it, to dispense with the command of Christ." ---Lucius Ferraris, Ecclesiastical Dictionary, Decretal, de Tranlatic Episcop, 1755.

So it is a change of Gods seal of authority which are his laws which have been with us since creation and were written out on the tablets of stone, by the Beast with false laws or rules of divine observance that are his seal of authority. We are charged to follow Gods truth not traditions or doctrines of men, and his commandments stand as Jesus said:

"If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Fathers commandments, and abide in his love." John 15:10
We see the warning for us..

"And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words: . . . beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." Col. 2:4-8.

"Let no man beguile you of your reward. . . Why as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances . . . after the commandments and doctrines of men?" Col. 2:18-22.

Here is a good explanation by Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D.:
"...Throughout the centuries Christians have speculated about the meaning of "the Mark of the Beast" and "the Number "666" of the Beast" mentioned in Revelation 13. Today the interest continues unabated for this apocalyptic endtime Antichrist who will control the economic, political, and social life of mankind by placing a mark and a number upon people....

...The key passage that has been the object of endless speculations, is Revelation 13:16-18. The reason is that this passage speaks of the mark, the name, and the number of the beast that will be placed on the right hand and forehead of people: "[The Beast] causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six" (Rev 13:16-18). In this prophecy we are told the endtime generation will receive the mark of the beast. We are told that the mark of the beast is the name of the beast, and the name of the beast is its number 666. In other words, the mark, the name, and the number 666 of the beast are essentially the same.

Our Adventist church has shown courage in recent years by rejecting the traditional numeric interpretation of the number 666, proposing instead a symbolic interpretation based on several possible meanings of the number 6, such as "humans separated from God," and the human refusal to proceed to seven, to give glory to God and find rest in Him. If the symbol for truth is seven, six stands for the false worship promoted by the Beast.

At this point the challenge is to build upon our newly accepted symbolic interpretation by taking a fresh look at the unity that exists among the MARK, the NAME, and the NUMBER of the Beast. Revelation 13:17 clearly indicates that the three are essentially the same, sharing the same meaning: "... the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name" (v. 17; NIV).

By recognizing that the Mark of the Beast and the Number of the Beast are essentially the same, we can hardly still limit the Mark of the Beast to the enforcement of Sunday observance. The time has come to look for a broader application of the endtime promotion of false worship.

A careful study of how the two beasts of Revelation 13 will join together to force the false worship of God upon "all the inhabitants of the earth" (v. 8), challenges us to explore afresh how Satan is accomplishing his purpose today.

Such a study can broaden our horizon by leading us to recognize, for example, that there is more to MARK OF THE BEAST than the enforcement of Sunday observance..... It is a known fact that in Western Europe less than 10% of Christians (both Catholic and Protestant) attend church on Sunday. For the vast majority of Christians Sunday has become the day to seek for pleasure and profit, rather than for the presence and peace of God.

The issue today is no longer: Which day do Christian observe? But, Do they observe any day at all? By their lifestyle most Christians show that they are not interested in a HOLY DAY, whether it be Saturday or Sunday, but in HOLIDAYS. This can help us understand why the Sabbath is going to be such a controversial, testing truth in the final showdown, simply because it summons people to give priority to God by consecrating their time to Him on the seventh-day. And people are very touchy about their time. They want to spend their time seeking for pleasure and profit, not for the presence and peace of God in their lives.

The endtime showdown is not about names or numbers per se, that is, Sunday versus Sabbath, First Day versus Seventh-day, but about what these two days represent: Self-centered worship versus God-centered worship. It is within this context that THE MARK AND NUMBER OF THE BEAST must be understood.

...this study examines the sharp contrast between the seal of God and the mark of the beast. Their basic function is to symbolize a religious commitment: one to Christ and the other to the antichrist. Both the seal and the mark embody the inherent motifs of ownership and protection .... Both are religious signs of loyalty. This is signified by their placement "on the foreheads" - the place of mental assent - and "on the hand" - the place of external conformity....."

Hobie · Wed Jan 25, 2023 - 20:05:00

Lets look at the sign or seal more closely and see what we find..
Look in Ezekial 9:4 "and the Lord said to him, 'Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it."

We see a mark is put on the forehead on those who morn over the evil being done.

The following are verses that refer to a seal of God.

"Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed." John 6:27.

"Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." .

"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise," Ephesians 1:13 .

"And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Ephesians 4:30.

Note that the previous verses seem to indicate a spiritual seal, not a physical seal. The following verses seem to be more of a physical seal

"2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,
3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." Revelation 7::2-3.

"And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads." Revelation 9:4

The seal of a king gives his name, shows or declares his claim to authority, and thirdly, the region of his rule. Henry VIII, King of Britain, Wales and Scotland for example. How is the seal used or what is the purpose of a King's seal:

"15 Then these men assembled unto the king, and said unto the king, Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed.
16 Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee.
17 And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel."Dan 6:15-17.

So the seal of the King is a statement that his decree is not to be changed, and not to be changed by anyone.

"And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:" Romans 4:11.

Here we see that the sign of circumcision is also a seal of righteousness, even unto them in which it is imputed though they not be circumcised. A sign and a seal are synonymous, basically the same. Now this verse is very clear..

"Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." 2 Timothy 2:19.

To depart from iniquity is to keep God's law. The people of God, those who call on the name of Christ, are sealed with His law. And we see even more on this..

"Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them." Ezekial 20:12.

"And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God." Ezek 20:20.

So the law seals you and the sabbath is a sign of God, or His seal, representing His authority as Creator. So you can see where this is going, God shows his seal of his authority in his commandments especially with the declaration of his name, his claim to authority, and the region of his rule in the following.

"8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." Exodus 20:8-11

Notice that we can find the seal of God in verse 11.
The name given: the Lord
His title: Creator
His domain: heaven and earth to include all inhabitants

God has His seal and no one can change it.

Hobie · Wed Jan 25, 2023 - 20:36:11

Now we look at the first part of Revelation...

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him to shew His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John, who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein; for the time is at hand." Revelation 1:1-3

The word "Revelation" or "Apocalypse" means to reveal and the book of Revelation is meant to reveal vital issues to the New Testament Church and the end-time church in particular.

The notion that the book of Revelation is a sealed book or one not intended for man to understand goes against that. Moreover, it must be understood the book is written "to show His servants" those things which they needed to know in order to come to terms with events as they would unfold. To understand the book of Revelation therefore requires an intimate knowledge of God and His word as well as the promised guidance by the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit was promised to those who obey God and He would lead God's people into all truth.
"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come"John 16:13.

Now we have the verses that refer to the mark of the beast and also characteristics:

"16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." Revelation 13:16-17.

"9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Revelation 14:9-12.

"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God." Revelation 15:2.

"And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image." Revelation 16:2.

"And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." Revelation 19:20.

"And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worship the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." Revelation 20:4.

So both the Beast and its Image are worshiped.
Notice how many times worship is mentioned in connection with the Mark of the Beast, so we see it has importance.

We glorify and worship God in following his commandments and specifically worship is embodied in the forth. So Gods seal of authority are his commandments or law, the Mark of the Beast shows his authority with false laws and times he has changed, the verses also make clear he is worshiped and that those who follow him will receive his mark.

Now, not only are Gods seal of authority, the commandments, set aside but then they go the next step and to justify ignoring the Gods truths destroy the Sabbath. They say the Law is done away with and Christians do not have to keep the Sabbath, and that since Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Sunday, Christians have set aside Sunday as a day of rest and worship in honor of the resurrection. Yet none of that is scriptural or from Christ or the Apostles, but from 'tradition' of the Beast.

The Beast is clearly identified as political and religious power who will have a SIGN; an identifying label, a MARK, which it will seek to impose on all who will submit to its will. It will not be a "secret" sign, or mark, but has to be obvious, outward, easily recognized sign, which the whole system wears to show its allegiance!

The "little horn" of Daniel 7:8, which "has a mouth speaking great things," and which will "think to change TIMES and LAWS" is the key so you must look down through the centuries, to see what has changed Gods commandments! Have God's laws been changed; has anyone said to worship man in the place of God, or made and worshiped idols even though God says not to, or taken Gods name and blasphemed it, or abolished His divinely appointed Sabbath and replaced his holy days with pagan festivals. We can find and connect all the changes or introduction of false "times" such as the worship of festivals that are not scriptural or from God but from another source.

Listen to what God says in Amos 5:21-27, "I hate, I despise your feast days, And I do not savor your sacred assemblies. 22 Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them, Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. 23 Take away from Me the noise of your songs, For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. 24 But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream. 25 Did you offer Me sacrifices and offerings In the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? 26 You also carried Sikkuth your king And Chiun, your idols, The star of your gods, Which you made for yourselves. 27 Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus, Says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts." Amos 5:21-27.

If you do a study on 'Sikkuth' and 'Chiun'. They are Molech and Ishtar, and Israel was warned about worshiping these Babylonian gods of the false eastern pagan religions. Thus we can see the festival days of paganism creeping in and being substituted for what God had given them to celebrate and worship Him........

The introduction of Pagan holidays into the church began about the fourth century A.D. when the Roman Emperor Constantine, in order to consolidate his rule, incorporated the Pagan holidays and festivals into the church ritual, attracting the Pagans, but he gave the holidays and festivals new "Christian" names and identities and Easter was one of the foremost. In order to introduce the feast of Easter into the calendar, the dates were changed by Dionysius, so that Easter was celebrated a month later than the original Jewish Pasch feast. This was to bring it in line with the ancient eastern festival dates for this feast, and the new date for Easter was then introduced by force. On this day, the ancients lit fires and baked cakes to the queen of heaven with the ancient pagan religions. Ancient Israel was constantly warned against these pagan day from the ancient Babylonian religion.
In Jeremiah 7:18, we read:
The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven; and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger.

The ecclesiastical historian, Socrates, attributes the introduction of the festival of Easter into the church to the perpetuation of an old usage, 'just as many other customs have been established.' (Hist. Eccl. V. 22)

So we see why this entity is associated with changing the "Times and Laws" of God and its close association with Sun worship; and the evidence in history to the change of God's weekly Sabbaths for Sunday, (Dies Solis) the day of the sun. Basically putting the pagan festivals on unsuspecting believers, with holidays of another origin, not of God.

It will rise up at the end and war againts the saints, for observing Gods laws or his seal of authority. The Mark of the Beast will be its false edicts which will be backed up by force, enforcing the changing of "times and laws", and people will have to choose either to follow God or follow the Beast and take on its Mark.

Hobie · Thu Nov 30, 2023 - 11:23:37

Quote from: Red Baker on Wed Jul 31, 2013 - 05:27:08Greetings Hobie,

Allow me to make a few observations concerning what you said. First, let me say that I appreciate very much you using the KJV in your post. If I am going to debate someone, I prefer to do so with the same scriptures that I trust and believe in as the word of God. There are some good men and godly who are not as convinced as I am concerning such things, but, I am not going to change for many reasons, and that I will save for the thread that deals with this subject, so enough said concerning that point. Again, thank you.

Observation #1~"The Protestant reformers, including Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox,"~I have tremendous respect for these God fearing and godly men, nevertheless, we must try their words with the scriptures as we would the Pope's and every other religion under heaven, agree? They had light concerning the subject, but only base upon up until their time.

I am convinced 100% that if they were living in our days, they would have a more perfectly knowledge of (using your words) "the beast power and its resulting mark was mentioned under various synonyms in Scripture. It was the little horn of Daniel 7, the man of sin, the son of perdition who introduces the mystery of iniquity in 2 Thessalonians 2, the antichrist of 1 John 2 and 4 and 2 John, Babylon of Revelation 14, 16, 17, 18, and the whore and scarlet beast of Revelation 17."

The little horn/man of sin/abomination of desolation/antichrist, working under the power of the beast, is not limited to the Popes and the religion of the Catholic church~that is a deception of the devil, to deceive even more of the people in false religion!

Those godly men did not even know anything of the many false religions that has filled this world since their days! Just to name a few: SDA, Mormons, Christian Science, JW, and the prosperity gospel preachers. and these are just the extremes ones. Time would fail me to expose the many others who have corrupted the gospel of Jesus Christ. Men like John Hagee, Falwell and others, who have pushed a false hope for the nations of the Jews, etc. Surely, Revelation 9 and eleven, and twenty, is being fulfilled right before our very own eyes.

You can not limit the whore of Revelation seventeen to the Catholic church,and if you do so, you are missing so much truth.

#2~ "Wesley,"~Really? He went against the reformers on their doctrine of "election of grace and the doctrine of grace overall! He was guilty of falling from grace, as Paul's explain the phrase in Galatians. Oh well, I am sure he knows better now, and is very thankful for God's grace. I am sure he's in heaven, base upon his faith and love for what he understood to be the truth.

#3~"It was the little horn of Daniel 7, the man of sin, the son of perdition who introduces the mystery of iniquity"~Hobie, the Little horn/man of sin~DID NOT introduce the mystery of iniquity, they ARE the mystery of iniquity! Please follow me:

Both Paul and John together said that the mystery of iniquity doth ALREADY WORK~2 Thess 2:7, or, even NOW are there many antichrist~1 John 2:18. The beast (which is the devil and his angles working through the generation of the wicked, and using them to do his will) have always been in this world since the fall of Adam and Eve. The only difference is this: both John and Paul both taught (along with Jesus~Matthew 24; Mark 13 and Luke 21; and Daniel before them all~7-12) that in the latter days of the last day (being the time of Christ, from his birth to his coming again) that the little horn/antichrist/man of sin/abomination that God will make desolate, shall come in greater number and power than ever before! And has it ever! I just mentioned a few of them above.

1 John 2:18

"Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come (that is, in greater number and with more deception than ever before), even now are there many anitichrist; (of course, they have always been here since the fall of man. Who were the Pharisees? Sadducees? but antichrist/man of sin!) whereby we know that it is the last time."

Base upon Daniel's, Jesus' words and the apostles teachings.

The Pope's did not introduce the man of sin when they begin to used their corrupt powers as Christ's spokesman in this world, the man of sin was in Adam after he sinned! And, I might add, that he is in all of us~it is called in the holy scriptures: the OLD MAN. Selah. May God open the eyes of his people to see this truth.

RB

What would you consider a 'false religion', if not one with a man who claims godship, and says he is infallible, to say nothing of the pagan rites and worship it brings..

Texas Conservative · Thu Nov 30, 2023 - 14:15:01

Wow. Responding to a post from 2013.

Don't buy the Sabbath mark stuff either.

Amo · Sat Dec 16, 2023 - 13:51:36

QuoteThe Pope's did not introduce the man of sin when they begin to used their corrupt powers as Christ's spokesman in this world, the man of sin was in Adam after he sinned! And, I might add, that he is in all of us~it is called in the holy scriptures: the OLD MAN. Selah. May God open the eyes of his people to see this truth.

The main problem with your above assertion is of course, that the entire context of Paul's reference to the man of sin was future tense. Making it basically impossible for Paul to have been referring to the fall of humanity in Adam, and the spiritual struggle within each of us with the old man. None of 2 Thessalonians specifically addresses the spiritual battle you are speaking of, or centers around historical content. The entire letter is concerning the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and events connected to same. All basically future tense.

2Th 2:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. 5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? 6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. 8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: 9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

The above message from Paul is concerning his own day and forward, not historical reference to the fall in Adam. As Paul himself declared, he had already formerly discussed these things with those he was presently addressing. No doubt expounding upon such within prophetic scripture, maybe for even probably prophecies from the book of Daniel. As our prophetic forefathers properly determined, these prophetic utterances of Paul were regarding the development of the papacy, which had already begun in his day through apostate "Christian" teachers. The New Covenant Temple of God is unquestionably the Church and for the individual members of the Church. This man of sin then, would set himself above all professors of the Christian faith. Which is exactly what the papacy did, and still does to date.

You are of course free to disagree. Many of us though, will stick to the observations which our Christian forefathers who were persecuted for what they believed rather than being persecutors of others, determined concerning this exact "Christian" professing entity which persecuted them.

Amo · Sat Dec 16, 2023 - 14:09:48

QuoteThose godly men did not even know anything of the many false religions that has filled this world since their days! Just to name a few: SDA, Mormons, Christian Science, JW, and the prosperity gospel preachers. and these are just the extremes ones. Time would fail me to expose the many others who have corrupted the gospel of Jesus Christ. Men like John Hagee, Falwell and others, who have pushed a false hope for the nations of the Jews, etc. Surely, Revelation 9 and eleven, and twenty, is being fulfilled right before our very own eyes.

You can not limit the whore of Revelation seventeen to the Catholic church,and if you do so, you are missing so much truth.

More problems with your above assertions. The whore of the book of Revelation is absolutely referred to in scripture as a single entity, not numerous one's sharing leadership. It has daughters, and it unites other entities under its banner or leadership. The prophecy gives many attributes and or identifying marks of this whore. If your assertions above regarding other churches and or denominations being the whore, or different parts of it is to be considered, please do expound and show us how they fulfill these identifying marks. As the Protestant Reformers, SDA's today, and many others may very simply do regarding the papacy. Then we can move on from that point. As an SDA, I would be glad to address your details regarding how we fit that bill. Thank you.

I suppose, I will post some historical info regarding Protestant progression of thought concerning the topic on hand. They may be lengthy, but certainly informative for those of interest.

Amo · Sun Dec 17, 2023 - 16:21:54

DEVELOPMENT OF VIEWS CONCERNING THE LITTLE HORN OF DANIEL 7 AS THE PAPACY

Unless otherwise specified, the following quotes and references are taken from one of the four volumes of THE PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, by Le Roy Edwin From. Emphasis is mine, references in blue.
All quotes below may be viewed at link provided.

https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/956/toc

QUOTES FROM THE PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, VOL. 1

CHAP 19 HERALDS OF THE NEW FULFILLMENT

III Jerome Last Comprehensive Witness Before the Eclipse

10. BARBARIC DIVIDERS OF ROME NAMED

Jerome (Jerome 340-420) lists Rome's dividers at that time, and bares his anxiety" over the imminent Antichrist:

"He that letteth is taken out of the way, and yet we do not realize that Antichrist is near. Yes, Antichrist is near whom the Lord Jesus Christ 'shall consume with the spirit of His mouth.'... Savage tribes in countless numbers have overrun all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Bergundians, Allemanni, and—alas for the commonweal!—even Pannonians. For 'Assur also is joined with them.' The once noble city of Moguntiacum [now Maintz] has been captured and destroyed. In its church many thousands have been massacred. The people of Vangium [now Worms] after standing a long siege have been extirpated. The powerful city of Rheims, the Ambiani, the Altrebatae, the Belgians in the skirts of the world, Tournay, Spires, and Strasburg have fallen to Germany: while the provinces of Aquitaine and of the Nine Nations, of Lyons and of Narbonne are with the exception of a few cities one universal scene of desolation." (Jerome, Letter 123 (to Ageruchia), in NPNF, 2d series, vol. 6, pp. 236, 237. It is interesting to note that he lists ten tribes, though he is not attempting to set forth the ten divisions of the fourth empire of Daniel 7. It is well known that there were many more than ten tribes which first overran Western Rome, but they were always merging and shifting as they settles down not kingdoms. The prophetic interpreters who in later times made their various lists of ten seem to have named the ten kingdoms which they regarded as significant in establishing themselves in the territory of Western Rome, thus forming the foundations of the later nations of Europe.)

11. LITTLE HORN ANTICHRIST, NOT ANTIOCHUS

Stoutly refuting Porphyry's application of the Little Horn to Antiochus, Jerome gives the remarkable assurance that "all ecclesiastical writers" of the past agree in expecting Rome's division into ten kingdoms before the Little Horn can appear. He places the three uprooted horns in Africa.

"Porphyry places the two latter beasts, representing the Macedonians and the Romans, in the one kingdom of the Macedonians, and divides it: he wishes the leopard to be understood as Alexander himself; the beast which is different from the other beasts, to be four successors of Alexander, and thereafter he enumerates ten kings even to Antiochus surnamed Epiphanes.... In vain Porphyry surmises that the little horn, which arose after the ten horns, is Antiochus Epiphanes, and of the ten horns three were rooted up: Ptolemy the sixth surnamed Philometor, Ptolemy Euergetes the seventh, and Artaxerxes king of Armenia, whose forefathers died much before Antiochus was born. We indeed know that Antiochus really fought against Artaxerxes, but that the latter remained in his former kingdom. Therefore we say what all ecclesiastical writers have handed down: that in the end of the world, when the kingdom of the Romans must be destroyed, there will be ten kings who divide the Roman world among themselves, and the eleventh will be raised up, a little king, who will overcome three kings of the ten kings, that is, the king of the Egyptians, and of Africa and of Ethiopia, as we shall point out more plainly in what follows." Translated from Jerome, Commentaria in Danielem, chap. 7, verses 7, 8, in Migne, PL, vol. 25, cols. 530, 531.)

12. JUDGMENT FOLLOWS LITTLE HORN'S REIGN

Describing at considerable length the judgment scene of Daniel 7:9 and related texts, Jerome parallels similar scenes in the Apocalypse and Ezekiel, with God as judge, and the books of judgment involved. Ibid., verses 9-27, cols. 531-534

13. JUDGMENT IS FOLLOWED BY SECOND ADVENT

Jerome sees the judgment sent because of Antichrist's pride and blasphemy, for "the Roman kingdom will be destroyed, because that horn spake great things." "In the one Roman kingdom," he says, "all the kingdoms must be destroyed at one time. He expects this to herald the advent, for there will never be an earthly kingdom, but the fellowship of the saints, and the coming of the triumphant Son of God in the clouds of heaven." For the advent he cites the stone in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar and Acts 1:9—II. Ibid., verses 11, 13, col. 533.

CHAPTER 32 ANTICHRIST A SYSTEM, NOT AN INDIVIDUAL

IV. Eberhard Interprets Papal System as Little Horn

In the midst of this tremendous struggle between the emperor and the pope one great ecclesiastical figure towers conspicuously. It is EBERHARD II, archbishop of Salzburg (1200-1246), chief spokesman for the emperor among the German bishops, and one of Frederick's chief counselors.

Frederick had conquered nearly all the states of the church when the pope summoned a council to meet at Rome in 1241. In a summons requesting Salzburg to be represented at the papal council—a document which is still preserved in the Salzburg ecclesiastical office—Eberhard was ignored by the Roman Curia. As a countermove Eberhard appeared at a diet in Verona, called by Frederick. Some clerics sided with the papal party, but Eberhard took his stand by the side of the emperor, though it brought him many vexations. His whole position toward Rome was endangered, not because of doctrinal controversies, but because of his fidelity to the emperor. Josef Hirn, "Erzbischof Eberhards II. von Salzburg Beziehungen zu Kirche und Reich," Jahresbericht des k.k. Ober-Gymnasiums in Krems (1875), pp. 30, 31.

EBERHARD II, FIRST TO APPLY LITTLE HORN TO HISTORICAL PAPCY

Eberhard II, thirteenth century archbishop of Salzberg, chief supporter of Fredrick II and initial expounder of the little horn of Daniel 7 as the historical papacy; Aentinus' annals of Bavaria, in which this remarkable exposition of the prophecy of Daniel 7 appears.

1. SETTING OF EBERHARD'S "LITTLE HORN" INTERPRETATION

His boldest statement, however, was made at a synod of Bavarian bishops held at Regensburg, or Ratisbon, in 1240 or 1241; where he gave utterance at the same time to a new interpretation of some lines of prophecy. Here, during this council, Eberhard, in a brilliant oration preserved by Aventinus, or Turmair, in his noted Bavarian Annals, clearly sets forth this identification of the prophecy of the Little Horn. In this striking presentation Eberhard not only openly calls the pope a wolf in shepherd's garb, the Son of Perdition, and Antichrist, but also gives his revolutionary exposition of the pope as the Little Horn of Daniel 7.19 Eberhard is not named in the record, but is referred to as the Archimysta. In the well- known medieval Latin dictionary Glossarium . . . Mediae et Infimae Latimtatis, by Charles Dufresne du Cange, the term "archimysta" is set forth as an expression of Aventinus, used as a synonym for archbishop.

As to the reliability of these Annals, Johann Turmair. better known as Aventinus (1477-1534), the "Father of Bavarian History," studied at the universities of Ingolstadt, Vienna, Krakow, and Paris. After tutoring for Prince William IV, he was appointed histori¬ ographer of the royal court of Bavaria. Thus he was enabled to gather the materials for his Annales Boiorum, completed in 1521. Their antipapal tone hindered publication, as Aventinus openly confessed sympathy for Luther's doctrines. Arrested in 1528, then released, he lived a rather unsettled life until he died in Regensburg in 1534. (Patricius Schlager, "Thurmayr, Johannes," The Catholic Encyclopedia , vol. 14, p. 713; Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 2, p.
794, art. "Aventinus.")

Eberhard returns to a neglected exposition taught before Augustinianism had crowded the earlier views out of the current belief—the interpretation of the breakup of the fourth kingdom as the division of the Roman Empire among the barbarian kingdoms. Only now, instead of looking forward to the coming of an unidentified individual Antichrist as the prophesied Little Horn, Eberhard looks back over the centuries since Rome's dismemberment and sees in the historical Papacy, as a system or line of succession, the fulfillment of the predicted Little Horn, coming up among the ten divisions of Rome, and uprooting three. Such is the bold outline.

Eberhard's Regensburg Council speech, in 1240 or 1241, came at approximately the same time that the pope attempted to convoke the Council of Rome, which was thwarted by Frederick. And at the First General Council of Lyons (1245) the emperor was again excommunicated by the pope; Eberhard was excommunicated subsequently, and died under the ban in 1246. Burial in consecrated ground being refused, he was buried in common ground in an annex of the parish church in Radstadt. Some forty years later, in 1288, his remains were transferred to the consecrated ground of the Salzburg Cathedral. Joseph Rainier, "Salzburg, Archdiocese of," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13, p. 412. In the Annals of Convent Garsten his obituary states that he was "a man of great learning" who "ruled his see most nobly forty-six years." Hans Widmann, Geschichte Salzburgs, p. 351. Let us examine the details of his statements.

4. PRIESTS OF BABYLON SIT IN TEMPLE OF GOD

Connecting Babylon and Antichrist with the Man of Sin sitting in the temple of God, Eberhard reaches his climax when he connects these symbols of Antichrist with the Little Horn and its lawless proclivities—its flouting of established law and its ordination of its own laws—all revealed in the secrets of the Holy Writings to those who will understand. Of the popes he says:

"Those priests [flamines] of Babylon alone desire to reign, they cannot tolerate an equal, they will not desist until they have trampled all things under their feet, and until they sit in the temple of God, and until they are exalted above all that is worshipped. He who is servant of servants, desires to be lord of lords, just as if he were God. He speaks great things as if he were truly God. He ponders new counsels under his breast, in order that he may establish his own rule for himself, he changes laws, he ordains his own laws, he corrupts, he plunders, he pillages, he defrauds, he kills—that incorrigible man (whom they are accustomed to call Antichrist) on whose forehead an inscription of insult is written: 'I am God, I cannot err.' He sits in the temple of God, and has dominion far and wide. But as it is in the secrets of the holy writings, let him that readeth understand: the learned will understand, all the wicked will act wickedly, neither will they understand." Ibid.

The significance of Eberhard's expression should not be lost—that men were "accustomed" in his day, to call the pope "Antichrist." He was but voicing dramatically what had become a widespread conviction and open declaration.

5. PAPAL HORN ARISES AMONG ROME'S DIVISIONS

The historical dismemberment of the Roman Empire, so strangely ignored in the preceding centuries, not only because of Augustinianism but also because of creation of the Holy Roman Empire, which was meant to be its successor, is put in its rightful place by Eberhard. The ten divisions of Rome that he listed differ from later enumerations, as is also the case with the three horns, but it is the first attempt of its kind of which we have record. And Eberhard's conclusion from the outline is, "What is more clear than this prophecy!" Note it:

"Ten kings exist at the same time, who have divided the circle of the earth, formerly the Roman empire, not for ruling but for destroying. There are ten horns, that which seemed incredible to divine Aurelius Augustine; the Turks, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Africans, the Spaniards, the Gauls, the English, the Germans, the Sicilians, the Italians possess the Roman provinces and have cut off the Roman colonists in these parts. And a little horn has sprung up under these, which has eyes and a mouth speaking great things; he reduces to order the three most powerful kingdoms of Sicily, Italy, and Germany, and compels them to serve him; with an unendurable lordship he plagues the people of Christ, and the saints of God; he mingles divine and human things, he sets in motion the abominable and the detestable things. What is more clear than this prophecy! All the signs and wonders which that heavenly teacher of ours pointed out to us (unroll the chronicles) have been fulfilled long ago." Ibid., p. 685.

It must be apparent that Eberhard's building upon earlier prophetic interpretation on this point of the dissolution of the Roman Empire had an important bearing on his attitude toward the Papacy. If the Roman Empire had not yet fallen, the Antichrist and the Little Horn could not have come; if, as Eberhard said, the dissolution of Rome had occurred centuries ago, these prophesied powers could be looked for in history.

V. The Revolutionary Implications of Eberhard's Interpretation

Why was this such a revolutionary idea? Why was the church so slow to realize that the Roman world power was a thing of the past? During the barbarian invasions Jerome had cried out that the Roman world was falling, See page 445. but he had not lived long enough to see the accomplished fact. Indeed, long after his lifetime men could not bring themselves to believe that Rome had fallen. The spell of the Eternal City was upon even her conquerors, and after a lapse of several centuries Charlemagne made the unsuccessful attempt at restoring it. The fiction of the "Holy Roman Empire," which, to repeat the cliché, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, was never a restoration, much less a continuation, of the real Roman power....

Further, the formation of a concept of the Little Horn or Antichrist as a long growth of a religio-political empire emerging from gradual apostasy in the church would necessarily be a late development.

(1) The conviction of the imminence of the end would not have allowed the earlier expositors to imagine such a long period, even if the initial stages of such a process had been recognized.

(2) The popular traditions of an individual Antichrist—a Jew, an unbeliever, or a semi-demon-ruling for a short period as despot and persecutor, although derived largely from non-Christian sources, See pages 293-301, would tend, in combination with the expectation of the speedy dissolution of all things, to condition the early church against an interpretation involving Antichrist's long development in history.

(3) In the nature of things, such a fulfillment could never be perceived until a long time after it had begun to develop, for not until its maturity could a system of that kind fill the specifications of the prophecy.

(4) Probably the most powerful influence that would prevent the earlier development of a historical interpretation of the Little Horn and the Antichrist was the Augustinian view, which completely changed the direction of prophetic interpretation and dominated the church from Augustine's time on. See pages 473 ff. The concept of the millennium as fulfilled in the earthly church and of the hierarchy as rulers of the kingdom of God On earth blinded men to the departures of the church and made it seem all the more unthinkable that the bishops of Rome, the most venerated prelates of Christendom, could so depart from the original faith as to be represented by such prophetic symbols.

2. EBERHARD SEES PEAK OF PAPACY

Not until the apostasy and corruption in the church became more and more evident, and the pride and power of the pontiffs of Rome had grown until it not only used the temporal sword on dissenters, but even sought to make vassals of kings and emperors, could the accusation be raised that the pope was exhibiting the traits of Antichrist. Not until a Gregory VII had claimed to be Vicar of Christ with authority over kings, and an Innocent III had set himself up as Vicar of God over the whole world, wielding the two swords of spiritual and civil penalties over great and small, See chapter 27., did Eberhard stand forth to level his finger at the Papacy as the Antichrist and the Little Horn "speaking great words against the most High."

He could not have made that application in the infancy of the Papacy. The claim to primacy, the imperious tone, and the political influence were already growing in the time of Gregory I, but the prophetic expositors of that day could hardly have applied to him the epithet with which he denounced the pride of a fellow prelate. In spite of Gregory I's denunciation of the claim to universal bishopric as a manifestation of Anti- Christian spirit, See chapter 22., the application was not made to the Roman popes when they afterward assumed the same dignity.

The modern conception of religious liberty had not developed, and its early gleams in the pre-Constantinian church had been lost in the deceptive glitter of political power under the Christian emperors; consequently the sinister aspect of the persecution of minorities was lost on the church. Not until the papal sword, after centuries, had been wielded with increasing ruthlessness upon multiplied victims, did the description of the Little Horn wearing out the saints become attached in men's minds to the Roman See.

3. THIRTEENTH-CENTURY DISILLUSIONMENT

But in the thirteenth century the corruptions of the hierarchy had long been apparent. Men had become weary of the worldliness of the clergy, the avarice, the simony, the injustice. The failure of the monastic reforms to cure the corruption of the church increased the protest of the laity against the contrast between the life of the clergy and the Christian ideal of self-renunciation and service, a protest which expressed itself variously, in the voluntary poverty of various lay groups, such as the Waldenses, in the wistful dreams of Joachim, and in the original zeal of the Franciscan and Dominican friars. These ideals, even among those loyal to the pope, such as Joachim, inevitably threw the worldly Papacy into an unfavorable light by contrast—at least for many who had eyes to see.

It was natural that Eberhard in Germany, in contact with the emperor, saw more clearly than did Joachim in Italy the menace of the Papacy's struggle to control both spiritual and civil power, and doubtless there he had more opportunity to hear the pontiff called Antichrist in the contest with Frederick. But his "Little Horn" application was not merely name-calling. He was not an enthusiast for voluntary poverty, for he was an influential archbishop; nor was he a disillusioned Joachimite, for Joachim's writings—genuine or pseudo-had not yet spread so far. But he was in a position to see three things: (1) that Rome had fallen long ago when her domain was divided into barbarian kingdoms; (2) that the Little Horn rising out of the divided successors to the empire, growing "among them" and coming into power "after them," was connected with the breakup of Rome, which no illusion of a Holy Roman Empire could push into the future; and (3) that the description of the Little Horn, with "eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things," "whose look was more stout than his fellows"—a kingdom among kingdoms, yet diverse from the rest, and at the same time a religious power, speaking "great words against the most High," and a persecuting power wearing out the saints—fitted the Papacy most remarkably. And the reader of medieval history as it is written today—even allowing for bias on the part of a supporter of Frederick—can see that the picture is not overdrawn.

Eberhard's historical interpretation of the Little Horn and the Antichrist doubtless had less circulation in Italy, and especially in papal circles, than in Germany. The Joachimites at first looked to Frederick as the Antichrist, and not until the Spirituals had experienced persecution do we find the application of the term "mystic Antichrist" to a future pseudo pope and then an individual, actual pope.

Eberhard was not the first to call a pope Antichrist, for he says that he was accustomed to that. Gerhoh of Reichersberg a century earlier had applied the term to the worldliness in the church and to the contest between pope and emperor. But Eberhard was a pioneer in seeing in the Little Horn, which sprang out of the divided kingdoms of the fourth prophetic empire, the Roman Papacy, which had slowly emerged to world power out of the breakup of the Roman Empire many centuries in the past.

Both true and false concepts of the continuance of Rome powerfully influenced not only churchmen but statesmen, but the position taken by Eberhard in 1240—that the breakup of Rome gave rise to a group of smaller kingdoms, among whom afterward came up the religio-political power of the historical Papacy' as the Little Horn—became the standard interpretation of fourteenth-century Wyclif in Britain, 33 then of sixteenth-century Luther and most of his associates, and next of Cranmer, Knox, and the bulk of the British Reformers. 34 Practically all the post-Reformation writers on the Continent and in Britain and America declared the same.35 Even the Jewish expositor Don Isaac Abravanel of Spain, in 1496, made a like explanation, 36
33 See Prophetic Faith , vol. 2, p. 55.
34 Ibid., cnart on p. 528.
35 Ibid., p. 784. under "Little Horn 55 ; also vol. 3, p. 252, under "Little Horn."
36 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 228.

This Reformation view was the sort of belief which helped to nerve men to withstand the powerful forces under the command of the Papacy, and to go to the stake rather than yield to her spiritual despotism; for Protestant martyrs dared not obey her injunctions or follow in her apostasies, and thus incur the displeasure of Heaven. Therefore they no longer feared her anathemas.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX: SUMMING UP THE EVIDENCE OF VOLUME I

VII. "System" Concept Gradually Supplants "Individual" View of Antichrist

Indeed, aside from the impetus given to the historical approach, to prophecy,, the most noticeable element of prophetic interpretation from the thirteenth century on into the Reformation was the progressive identification of the Roman church with Babylon and of the Papacy with the multiple prophetic symbols of the Antichrist, the Little Horn the Beast, and the Man of Sin. It was, in fact, the logical outcome of the restoration of historical interpretation, but it was a gradual growth, which could have been established only by the testimony of the passage of time.

1. ANTICHRIST ENTHRONED IN CHURCH

It was inevitable that Antichrist should at the beginning be anticipated simply as an individual, and that the 1260 days should likewise be regarded as literal time (three and a half years) consistent with the life of a single person. The Antichrist was early connected with these other prophetic figures, but the historical identification of this power was not made until between the tenth and thirteenth centuries—the climax of the multiple application coming with the dramatic accusations of Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg, in 1240. Yet the finger of accusation and identification had long been pointed in the direction of ecclesiastical Rome.

To begin with, Tichonius, out of his Donatist experience, saw the secularized church as Babylon, and Augustine mentioned the possibility that the Man of Sin would sit in the temple of the church, but these interpretations were not followed up. In the late ninth century, Berengaud's identification of the ten horns of Revelation 17 and Daniel 7 as the kingdoms which divided the Roman Empire, such as the Goths, Vandals, et cetera, was a step toward placing the Little Horn in the past also, but it seems to have been unnoticed.

Then in 991 Arnulf, bishop of Orleans, sounded his battle cry against the degradation of the church, in which he described the proud pope as "Antichrist sitting in the temple of God, and demeaning himself as a god," and declared that "the mystery of iniquity is begun." .........

3. EBERHARD SEES PAPACY AS MULTIPLE ANTICHRIST

But Eberhard's interpretation, if it did not penetrate to the Joachimites in Italy, was significant as the forerunner of later pre Reformation and Reformation positions. It was natural for persecuted minorities like the Franciscan Spirituals, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses, to use such terms as Babylon and Antichrist to describe their oppressors, but Eberhard, a learned archbishop and man of affairs, had nothing in common with them. Neither was his characterization of the Papacy merely the rhetoric of controversy. It came in the setting of the contest between pope and emperor, but it was true prophetic exposition based on a keen analysis of the Little Horn of Daniel and the parallel prophecies, and a keen insight into history. Eberhard applied to the religio-political empire of the Papacy the threefold description of the Beast, the Man of Sin, and the Little Horn.......

5. LONG DEVELOPMENT OF LITTLE HORN

This religio-political principle, which had existed in embryo in the time of the early church, said Eberhard, became an empire in the time of Hildebrand. The Little Horn, which had burrowed its way up among the divisions of the Roman Empire during the fourth, fifth, arid sixth centuries, and which had enthroned itself in the church, was not only domineering the saints but presuming to control the state. Its reign was thus announced as an accomplished fact. It is one that should be pondered by every Christian student......

6. FULFILLMENT DECLARED ONLY AFTER LONG CENTURIES

We have seen how the time finally came when prophetic intetpretation pointed out that a religio-political power answering to this description had gradually grown up in the established church" in the old seat of empire and patterned upon its lines. But this historical identification was not made, of course, until long after the early church period. No one could see such a development from the early trends until centuries afterward. Eberhard did not point to the rise of the Little Horn as a contemporary fulfillment, but as one which had taken place long ago. At the time when the Papacy was enthroned in the church, men could not see in it the upthrust of the Little Horn among the ten horn kingdoms. With minds fascinated by the dominant Augustinian theory of a then-present millennium, with all its spiritualizing and allegorizing involvements, and by the extra Biblical traditions of Antichrist, they had their eyes fixed upon a future tyrant to appear briefly at the end of the indeterminate thousand years of the church's present reign.

Gregory I set the course for the ship of the church of Rome, amid the succeeding popes strove to fulfill Augustine's dream of the city of God.—the millennium established on earth, the world ruled by divine precepts dispensed by God's duly ordained representatives. As they increasingly succeeded in realizing their, ambitions, their expanding power was accompanied by worldliness and corruption, And when the pinnacle was reached in a papal empire, the Antichristian characteristics became plain enough to see, and accusations were increasingly leveled at the Papacy.

The dominant hierarchy intermingling the world amid the church, persecuted the dissenters, who sought to perpetuate the pristine purity of the early gospel. The latter were not a single group; they were scattered widely; and varied in character, often flourishing in secluded spots that offered shelter and possible refuge from the raging storm of persecution that sought to overwhelm them. In the, history of the church we find the perpetual conflict between the dominant, worldly church and the underground streams of varied and persistent antisacerdotal or reforming schisms and heresies.

When this conflict came to a head, from about the time of Eberhard and onward, we find systematic persecution developing, and irrepressible dissent breaking forth in spite of it, until finally the pre-Reformation movements were to merge into the mighty Protestant revolution. And the identification of the papal system from Scripture prophecy was the militant rallying cry in the great struggle for spiritual freedom.

Red Baker · Mon Dec 18, 2023 - 03:30:59

Ten years ago I posted in this thread, time has flown by! Since Hobie and Amo decided to comment on this thread, I guess I will respond again.

LAter....RB

Amo · Fri Dec 22, 2023 - 10:26:37

Continued from post #10. Quotes below may be viewed at link provided.

https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1579/toc

THE PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS VOLUME 2
CHAPTER 2 WYCLIFF EXPANDS EXPOSITION OF LITTLE HORN

V. Wyclif s Remarkable Expositions of Daniel's Prophecies

As might be expected, Wyclif (John Wyclif 1324-1384)reached his conclusions relative to the Papacy on the basis of the prophecies of Daniel, Paul, and John, just as did the Waldenses of the valleys, Eberhard of Salzburg, and Milicz and Matthias of Janow in Bohemia. By these inspired symbols he was guided and nerved for conflict in the battle and break with Rome. His expositions, however, are not commonly known, as they are in Latin, with no complete English translation thus far available.

1. FOUR PROPHETIC EMPIRES OF Daniel 2 ENUMERATED

Naming Assyria (Babylon), Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome as the four world powers of prophecy, Wyclif brings in the Medo-Persian ram, the Grecian goat and Alexander as the notable horn of Daniel 8, to establish the identity and sequence of the second and third empires.

"The second prophecy is that ... in the second chapter of Daniel relating to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, to whom appeared the image consisting of four parts, signifying four monarchies, so that the head of gold represents the kingdom of the Assyrians, as Daniel explains in the same place, the second kingdom represented by the breast and arms of silver, was the kingdom of the Persians and the Medes, and the third kingdom, represented by the belly and thighs of brass, was the kingdom of the Greeks. For in the eighth chapter of Daniel we read, how he saw a ram, brandishing his horns toward the west, toward the north, and toward the south, and how all beasts were unable to resist him, or to be freed from his hands. And afterward Gabriel explains this as related to the king of the Persians and Medes, and the vision in which he saw the he-goat with one notable horn conquering the ram; Gabriel explains as relating to the king of the Greeks, which he had proved after the occurrence of the event, as is shown in the eighth chapter of Daniel and the first of the Maccabees concerning Alexander the Great. Moreover the fourth part of the image, represented by the feet of iron, is explained concerning the kingdom of the Romans, which by civil law and by wars overthrew the four horns coming forth from Alexander."

2. PAPAL ANTICHRIST IS LITTLE HORN OF DANIEL 7

Striking at the popular Catholic fallacy of a future Antichrist, Wyclif, in England, applies the lawless, persecuting Little Horn to the papal Antichrist, as did Eberhard in Austria, and the ten horns to "the whole of our temporal rulers." Here is Wyclif's clear depiction:

"Why is it necessary in unbelief to look for another Antichrist? Hence in the seventh chapter of Daniel Antichrist is forcefully described by a horn arising in the time of the fourth kingdom. For it grew from [among] our powerful ones, more horrible, more cruel, and more greedy, because by reckoning the pagans and our Christians by name, a lesser [greater?] struggle for the temporals is not recorded in any preceding time. Therefore the ten horns are the whole of our temporal rulers, and the horn has arisen from the ten horns, having eyes and a mouth speaking great things against the Lofty One, and wearing out the saints of the Most High, and thinking that he is able to change times and laws."

After quoting Daniel 7:8, 25, concerning this Little Horn "having eyes and a mouth speaking great things against the Lofty One," Wyclif expressly states: "For so our clergy foresee the lord pope, as it is said of the eighth blaspheming little head."

And after quoting Zechariah 3:8, 9, Wyclif applies to Christ the very words that for centuries had been usurped by the pope—"Serves servorum" (servant of servants).

"It seems to me that this scripture cannot be more soundly or more fittingly understood than concerning our Jesus, who was servant of servants, coming forth from high heaven."

3. APPLIES YEAR-DAY PRINCIPLE TO PROPHETIC TIME

After discussing the relationship of the lunar and solar years, concerning which there is "varied exposition," Wyclif clearly sets forth the year-day principle (a prophetic day equals a year) for prophetic time, citing the experience of Laban and Jacob in Genesis 29.

4. LITTLE HORN'S THREE AND HALF TIMES COVERS CENTURIES

Concerning the "period" that has been "assigned" to Antichrist for his "despotic rule, according to the prophetic sense," Wyclif apparently expounds the first "time" of Daniel 7:25 as covering some three centuries, evidently from Constantine's endowment to Mohammed, the two "times" as the period from Mohammed forward to the period when the clergy exercise their powers of excommunication, and the "dividing of time" as the last segment. That Wyclif understood these "times" to be precise prophetic years is doubtful. But here are his words.

"By a time Daniel understands the whole period in which the church apostatizes, from the time of its first endowment even to the time in which Mahomet prevailed; and by times he understands the diversity of times from this time up to the time when the secular rulers compute harmoniously their gifts which they bestow upon the poor; and by half a time he under stands the residue of time during which the clergy by the deceit of their excommunication and the thunderbolt of their censures against those who do good to them, foolishly kick back by taking away the remedy of their sin."

The remarkable advance in this application lies in the fact that it is applied to the period assigned to the papal Little Horn, and that it contravenes the popular fallacy of three and a half literal years at the end of the age, just as truly as it controverts the concept of a yet future Antichrist. It is a truly Protestant interpretation, as clear as could be expected for the time. It is an indirect application of the year-day principle, reaching back across the centuries and tied to the historical Papacy..........

CHAPTER 15 SWISS REFORMERS PARALLEL GERMAN INTERPRETATIONS

JOHANN OECOLAMPADIUS (1482-1531), leading figure of the Reformation in Basel, was born at Weinsberg.

1. DENIES ANTIOCHUS IS LITTLE HORN OF DANIEL 7

In his commentary on the book of Daniel, which he believed contains the divine timetable, Oecolampadius gives the usual interpretation of chapter 2-Babylonia, Persia, Macedonia, and Rome—with the kingdom of God, which is compared to a stone, finally crushing the whole image. The four beasts of Daniel 7 represent the same four powers of prophecy, with the ten horns as ten kingdoms of Europe, including Spain, England, France, Bohemia, and Hungary." 11 On the Little Horn he takes issue with Polychronius' fifth-century view that Antiochus is the power symbolized, holding rather that it is the Antichrist (the same as the two-horned beast of Revelation 13, and Paul's Man of Sin)-the triple-crowned pope and Mohammed, although Antichrist includes whoever, sitting in the place of God, blasphemes His name and persecutes the church.12

11 Johann Oecolampadius, In Daneilem Prophet, pp. 73-75.
12 Ibid., pp. 76, 77, 92, 132, 133. On Polychronius, see Volume 1 of Prophetic Faith.

IV. Bullinger-Little Horn Is Papacy, Not Turk

HEINRICH BULLINGER (1504-1575), of Zurich, one of the greates prophetic expositors of his time, was the intimate friend of Zwingli, whom he succeeded as chief pastor in 1531..........

Deeply impressed by Luther's tractates, especially his Babylonian Captivity, Bullinger was persuaded that the Papacy-was hopelessly corrupt, and so abandoned the idea of becoming a priest. Receiving his M.A. degree in 1522, he resolved to teach. He obtained a position in the Cistercian Monastery at Cappel as lecturer on the New Testament, which vocation he held until 1529. But from 1523 on, together with Juda, he began preparing tracts to spread the Reformation in Switzerland, an act which led to considerable Catholic hostility.

7. LITTLE HORN IS ROMAN KINGDOM OF POPE

In his commentary on Daniel he is explicit that the Papacy is the Little Horn of chapter 7, which power begins to blossom forth under Gregory and Boniface:

"By the little horn many understand the kingdom of Mohammed, of the Saracens and of the Turks.... But when the apostolic prophecy in 2 Thessalonians 2 is more carefully examined, it seems that this prophecy of Daniel and that prophecy of the apostle belong more rightly to the kingdom of the Roman pope, which kingdom has arisen from small beginnings and has increased to an immense size."

45 Translated from Bullinger, Daniel Sapientissimus Dei Prophetd (Daniel the Most Wise Prophet of God), chap. 7, fol. 78V.

CHAPTER 18 ANGLICAN LEADERS CONTINUE THE PROPHETIC EMPHASIS

V. Jewel Logical Expositor of Prophecies on Antichrist

9. APPEARS AS LITTLE HORN AMONG ROME'S DIVISIONS

In substantiation Jewel (John Jewel 1522-1571) cites Irenaeus, Joachim, Bernard, and John of Paris. The climax and sum of the argument, however, is based on the Little Horn of Daniel 7.

"This whole matter is also expressed in the seventh of Daniel: 'The fourth beast was fearful and terrible and very strong: it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue under his feet; and it was unlike to the beasts that were before it; for it had ten horns.' 'And, behold, there came up among them another little horn ... which had eyes like a man, and a mouth speaking presumptuous things.' This beast is the empire of Rome, the greatest empire that ever was. It was divided into ten, or into sundry kingdoms; as | shewed you, and as we see this day. The little horn is antichrist. The empire shall be divided and weakened: then antichrist shall come. 'He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall consume the saints of the Most High, and think that he may change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand.' Daniel saith, 'He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall think he may change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand.' Wherein he sheweth not only the pride and presumption of antichrist, but that he shall also prevail for a time. Such a one there hath been, and yet is. He blasohemeth God, murdereth the saints, hath changed times and laws, the laws of God and the laws of nature. He is antichrist."

56 Jewel, An Exposition Upon the Two Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, in Works, vol. 2, P. 918.

CHAPTER 20 KNOX AND NPIER NOTABLE SCOTTISH EXPOSITERS

III. Knox's First Sermon a Comprehensive Prophetic Exposition

3. PROOF BASED ON BEASTS AND LITTLE HORN OF DANIEL 7

Knox ( John Knox 1505-1572) consented, and the next Sunday was accordingly appointed for Knox to "expresse his minde in the publike Preaching place." On that memorable day Knox-

"took the Text written in Daniel, the seventh Chapter, beginning thus: And another King shall rise after them, and he shall be unlike unto the first, and he shall subdue three Kings, and shall speak words against the most High, and shall consume the Saints of the most High, and thinks that he can change Times and Lawes: And they shall be given unto his hands untill a time, and times, and dividing of times, &c. In the beginning of his Sermon, he shewed the great love of God towards his Church, whom he pleased to forewarne of dangers to come, so many yeers before they come to passe. He briefly treated of the state of the Israelites, who then were in bondage in Babylon, for the most part, and made a short discourse of the four Empires, The Babylonian, The Persian, That of the Greekes, And the fourth of the Romanes; in the destruction whereof, rose up that last Beast, which he affirmed to be the Romane Church; for to none other power that ever liath yet beene, do all the notes that God hath shewed to the Prophet appertain, except to it alone; And unto it they do so properly appertaine, that such as are not more then blinde, may cleerly see them."

Knox, The History of the Reformation Religion Within the Realm of Scotland, book 1, pg. 76.

4. LITTLE HORN SAME AS MAN OF SIN AND BABYLON

But that was not all. Knox next showed that Daniel's "little horn" was identical with Paul's "man of sin" and John's "Whore of Babylon'— three paralleling descriptions of one single Antichrist.

"He shewed that the Spirit of God in the new Testament gave to this King other new names; to wit, The man of sin, The Antichrist, The Whore of Babilon. He shewed, That this man of sin, or Antichrist, was not to be restrained to the person of any one man only, no more then by the fourth Beast, was to be understood the person of any one Emperour. But by such names the Spirit of God would forewarne his chosen of a body and a multitude, having a wicked head, which should not only be sinfull himself, but also should be occasion of sin, to all that should be subject unto him (as Christ Jesus is the cause of Justice to all the Members of his Body) and is called the Antichrist." Ibid.

CHAPTER 24 KING JAMES I TURNS PROPHETIC EXPOSITOR

II. Downham Expounds Stone, Daily, Turkish and Papal Periods

1. POPE TAKES AWAY DAILY TILL PROPHETIC PERIOD ENDS.
Downham (George Downham 1634) gives the standard interpretation of Danie 2, with the following listing of the divisions of Rome—"Britons, Saxons, Franks, Burgundions, Wisigothes, Sueves and Alans, Vandals, Alemans, Ostrogothes, Greeks," and cites a number of reasons why the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is "Antichrist, or the Pope of Rome."George Downham, A treatise Concerning Antichrist, pp. 6, 15. This power in Daniel 6 Downham presents as the exceeding great horn that takes away the "daily," which he defines as the "true Doctrine and Worship of God according to his Word," and which point is repeated and emphasized as the other characteristics of the Papacy are outlined; this interference with the "daily," he contends, would last to the end of the 2300 evening-mornings, or 1150 "complete days," and these "days are years" Ibid., pp. 45, 49, 133.(reaching to the Protestant Reformation).

CHAPTER 25 SIMILAR EXPOSITIONS IN VARIOUS PROTESTANT GROUPS

VII. More Sustains Historical School Against Innovation

1. DENIES PROPHETIC "ABSURDITIES" PERMEATING PROTESTANTISM

More (Henry More 1614-1687) refuted the "follies" and "absurdities" of both Ribera's Futurist and Grotius' Preterist interpretations, and sustained Mede and the Historical system with its papal Antichrist and year-day principle on the prophetic periods, a millennium yet future, and a literal resurrection.15Denying that the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is Antiochus, and insisting that it symbolized the Papacy, More said:

"These things are so plain that nothing can be plainer. Wherefore the little Horn in the Seventh Chapter is a part of the Roman Empire, a Power there whose Reign cannot be circumscribed within the Compass of Three Years and a half, but these Years must be resolved into 1260 Days, and these 1260 Days into so many Years, or no Sense can be made of the Prophesie.16

2. CLEAR ON PAPAL ANTICHRIST AND YEAR-DAY

In his exposition of Daniel he gives the standard historical interpretation of Daniel 2 and 7, with Rome the fourth kingdom divided into ten kingdoms. The Little Horn is the Papacy, with blasphemous claims, which is similarly portrayed in Revelation 13 and 17. 17 The 490 years of Daniel 9 were "cut out" for the Jews. 18 And the power of Daniel 11:37, 38 is the same Antichrist that Paul describes in 2 Thessalonians 2, with the Turk indicated in the last few verses as the king of the north coming to his end.19
15 Henry More, A Modest Enquiry Into the Mystery of Iniquity, book 2, chaps. 1-3, 7-10; An Antidote Against Idolatry, book 5, chaps. 15, 16; book 6, chap. 1, in The Theological Works of Henry More.,16 An Antidote Against Idolatry, book 5, chap. 15, p. 120., 17 More, A Plan and Continued Exposition of... the Prophet Daniel, pp. 4-54., 18 Ibid., p. 105., 19 Ibid., pp. 203-215.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE: Eighteenth Century Marked by Contrasting Developments

VI. Isaac Newton Employs Scientific Approach to Prophecy

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727), mathematician, philosopher, and outstanding genius of his age in the realm of scientific research, was born in Lincolnshire, and grew up in a religious atmosphere. Attending grammar school at Grantham, he was conspicuous for his mechanical ingenuity with windmills, water clocks, and sundials. In 1665 and 1668 respectively, he received a B.A. and an M.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge. His early interests centered in mathematics.........................

3. LITTLE HORN MUST BE WEST OF GREECE

Daniel 7 introduces "several new additions"—the lion's two wings, the three ribs in the mouth of the bear, the leopard's four heads, the fourth beast's eleven horns, and the Son of man coming to the Ancient of Days, sitting in judgment.60The identity of the same four kingdoms—Babylon, Persia, Grecia, and Rome—is stressed, together with the fact that the ten kingdoms arising out of Rome are to be sought in the Western Roman Empire—in the nations to the west of Greece. 61

4. LITTLE HORN IS SEER, PROPHET, AND KING

The ten kingdoms are listed by Newton as follows: (1) Vandals and Alans, (2) Suevians, (3) Visigoths, (4) Alans in Gallia, (5) Burgundians, (6) Franks, (7) Britains, (8) Huns, (9) Lombards, (10) Ravenna. 62The eleventh horn, as a horn in the Latin empire contemporaneous with the division of Western Rome, occupies chapter 7. Its unique characteristic is portrayed thus:

"But it was a kingdom of a different kind from the other ten kingdoms, having a life or soul peculiar to itself, with eyes and a mouth. By its eyes it was a Seer; and by its mouth speaking great things and changing times and laws, it was a Prophet as well as a King. And such a Seer, a Prophet and a King, is the Church of Rome.

"A Seer ... is a Bishop in the literal sense of the word; and this Church claims the universal Bishoprick.

"With his mouth he gives laws to kings and nations as an Oracle; and pretends to Infallibility, and that his dictates are binding to the whole world; which is to be a Prophet in the highest degree.63

5. CHARACTERISTICS AND CHRONOLOGY OF LITTLE HORN

The Papacy's attempt to change times and laws is the burden of chapter 8, together with the plucking up of the three horns (Ravenna, the Lombards, and the principality of Rome) 64the embracing of the Roman religion by the remaining kingdoms, and the achieving of temporal dominion. 65The three and a half times are declared to be "1260 solar years" in fulfillment, on the basis of a prophetic year of 360 days.66

60 Newton, Observations, p. 28., 61 Ibid., p. 73., 62 Ibid., p. 47; for detailed data and evidence, see pp.47-73., 63 Ibid., p. 75., 64 Ibid., pp. 76-84., 65 Ibid., pp. 90-113.

CHAPTER THIRTY Advances in Exposition; Lisbon Earthquake Noted

I. Lowth The 2300 Years Extend to Antichrist's End

1. DATES PAPAL HORN PERIOD FROM BONIFACE (606)

Lowth's (William Lowth 1660-1732) Commentary Upon the Larger and Lesser Prophets interprets the Little Horn of Daniel 7 as the Papacy, exercising ecclesiastical as well as temporal power, the three kingdoms subdued being the Exarchate of Ravenna, the Greeks in Italy, and the Franks. Daniel 7 is paralleled by Revelation 13 and 2 Thessalonians 2. The papal attempt to abrogate divine as well as human law is stressed, and the three and a half times, or forty-two months, is 1260 year-days from Boniface III, in 606. 2 The papal rule will be destroyed, Lowth contends, when the destruction of the present state of affairs ends at our Lord's coming.

2 William Lowth, A Commentary Upon the Larger and Lesser Prophets (3d ed., 1730), p. 382.

VIII. Gill-Stalwart Defender of Historic Positions

JOHN GILL (1697-1771), eminent Baptist expositor and Orientalist, was born in Northamptonshire. Ordained in 1718, and well trained and thoroughly versed in Hebrew and Latin, he settled as pastor at Horsleydown, where he preached for fifty years. A Wednesday evening lectureship was formed for him in 1729, which he held till 1756. In 1748 he was granted the D.D. degree at Aberdeen. Author of numerous works, especially ex positions on prophecy—and on Hebrew vowel points and ac cents—Gill held the outpouring of the seven vials to be still future in his day. He maintained the usual teaching on the trumpets. He also held that the kingdom of God would be established only after His enemies—including Antichrist—are destroyed, and Satan bound. The millennium will be bounded by the two literal, corporeal resurrections, and the eternal kingdom is to be on earth, not in heaven.54

The swirl of current controversy over conflicting schools of interpretation, Christian and Jewish, can be felt in these clear and powerful writings. The pages are heavily and accurately documented with reliable sources. For example, the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is "not Titus Vespasian, as Jarchi; nor the Turkish empire, as Saadiah; nor Antiochus Epiphanes, as many Christian interpreters; for not a single person or king is meant by a horn, but a kingdom or state, and a succession of governors."55 Thus he concludes:

"And since no other has appeared in the Roman empire, to whom the characters of this horn agree, but antichrist, or the pope of Rome, he may well be thought to be intended."56

1. INCLINES TO 1260 YEARS FROM 606-1866

Under 2 Thessalonians pagan Rome's restraint is dwelt upon, retarding the manifestation of Antichrist's usurpation of the seven hills until the empire's breakup.57And in his Revelation the identity of the Beast of Revelation 13 with the Man of Sin and the Little Horn is impressively portrayed—the seat (Rome) given by the removal of the capital to Constantinople. The blasphemous claims and titles of the "Romish antichrist" are recited, and the period of his power is discussed. Catholic defenses are duly noted.58 Concerning the 1260 year-days, we note his impressive statement:

"Hence it appears, that 1260 prophetic days, that is, years, contain the whole period of antichrist's reign and continuance; so that could we tell where they began, it might be exactly known when his reign will end; but for want of knowing the former, the best of calculators have failed in the latter: but seeing the time when he was made universal bishop by Phocas, bids fair for the time of his open appearance, and the beginning of his reign, and of his blasphemy, which was in the year 606, to which, if we add 1260, the expiration of his reign will fall in the year 1866; so that he may have upwards of an hundred and twenty years yet to continue; but of this we can't be certain; however, the conjecture is not improbable."59

54John Gill, An Exposition of the Revelation, p. 232, 55 John Gill, An Exposition of the Prophets, on Daniel 7:8, vol. 6, p. 306., 56 Ibid., 57 Ibid., on 2 Thess. 2:5, vol. 9, pp. 242, 243., 58 Bishop Walmesley, writing under the fictitious name of "Signer Pastorini," launched his General History of the Christian Church From Her Birth to Her Final Triumphant State in Heaven (1771), soon translated not Latin, German, and French. He divided the New Testament era into seven ages, answering to the seven seals, trumpets, and vials-with the fourth age, from 620-1520, marked by the rise of Mohammedanism, and the Greek schism, with the fall of Constantinople as a judgment upon the latter; and the fifth age beginning with the "apostasy" of Luther and the Protestant locusts to last five prophetic months, or 150 years (p. 154 in 1834 ed.), and with sixth and seventh ages still future., 59 John Gill, Exposition of the Prophets, on Revelation 13:5

Continued in next post.

Amo · Fri Dec 22, 2023 - 11:01:22

Continued from post #12.

https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1579/toc

X. De la Flechere-2300 Years Expiring; French Revolution Impending

1. IRON DIVISIONS; MINGLED WITH PAPAL CLAY

As the basis for such a conclusion, La Flechere (John William Fletcher 1729-1785) cites the four empires of Daniel 2, and the division of the fourth-the Roman Empire "divided into ten kingdoms, these were still united together by the Clay, i.e. the Pope's erroneous religion and idolatrous worship." The next event, then, is the coming of the stone kingdom. Next, from Daniel 7, he presents the same four kingdoms, the division of the fourth, and the divisions' names—with the Little Horn as the obtruding Papacy, uprooting Lombardy, Burgundy, and the Vandals. His persecution and his allotted period, soon to expire, ends with his destruction.75

2. CLEANSING OF SANCTUARY TO END DISFIGURED WORSHIP

Third, La Flechere presents Daniel 8, with its Persian, Macedonian, and Roman powers—the bishop of Rome waxing exceeding great, casting down kings and emperors, and taking away the daily sacrifice, that is he "abolished or quite disfigured the true worship of God and Jesus, and cut down the truth to the ground, with his army." To the question, "How long the church should be thus corrupted and desolate?" the answer was, "Till the end of the 2300 days, and then the sanctuary should be cleansed.76

3. 2300 YEARS END IN PRESENT OR NEXT GENERATION

Stressing the importance of this number that fixes the beginnings of things to come on the earth, La Flechere insists that the 2300 are prophetic days, signifying whole years. He then states that they must start with the time of the vision, about 550 B.C.—giving considerable data in behalf of this year—and so leading to A.D. 1750, when the cleansing of God's church should take place; then he expatiates on the pollution of the sanctuary by the Papacy's doctrine of justification by works and outward performances.77 And, noting the variation in chronologies, he adds and puts down 1770, with this impressive word:

"Chronologists may mistake in a few years, but cannot err upon the whole; and as God is true and faithful, so it is manifest, that the prophecy of 2300, must be fully accomplished in our days, or those of the next generation. 78

4. YEAR-DAY PRINCIPLE APPLIED TO ALL TIME PERIODS

Denying that this cleansing had anything to do with the time of Judas Maccabaeus or Antiochus Epiphanes, or even the time of Luther, he applies it to the time of the "end"—"the word end signifies plainly, the catastrophe of God's drama, the last act of the wicked tragedy men have been acting for near 6000 years. 79He then argues that the "latter days" of Daniel 10 and the "end" of chapter 8 mean the same; the 2300 days form a "compleat proof." But he surveys the 1260 years, under the three and a half times, forty-two months, and 1260 days—putting 360 days to the "prophetic year," and touches the 1290 and 1335, and the time of their reckoning. 80

75 Posthumous Pieces of the Late Rev. John William de la Fletchere.....to Which Is Added a letter Upon the Prophecies, Never Before Published (3d ed.). pp. 370, 371., 76 Ibid., p. 372., 77 Ibid., pp. 373, 374., 78 Ibid., p. 375., 79 Ibid., 80 Ibid., pp. 377, 378.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE: Pietism's Advances Counterbalanced by Rationalism's Inroads

IX. Wood Begins the Periods Simultaneously

3. PAPAL ANTICHRIST FOLLOWS IMPERIAL ROME

Hans Wood (died c. 1803) pious layman of Rosemead, Ireland.

The four empires of Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome are set forth as the foundation for the papal phase of Rome under the first beast of Revelation 13 90 The second beast signifies Constantinople, the seat of Roman dominion after the empire in the West had fallen. 91 The papal Antichrist is coupled to the "Anti-christian woman" of Revelation 17. The seven heads are forms of Roman government, one of them being the imperial; and the eighth head is the "Universal Bishop." 92 In Revelation 20the millennium follows the "resurrection of the just." 93

4. LITTLE HORN PAPACY; TURK IN Daniel 11

In chronological sequence the four beasts of Daniel 7 are portrayed in detail and identified, according to the Historical School, with the eleventh horn-coeval with the ten-as the Papacy, having the character of Seer, and dominating for three and a half prophetic years; the Ottoman power is described in Daniel 11:44, 45.94

5. DAILY TAKEN AWAY BY INNOVATIONS IN WORSHIP

Wood declares the 1290 years are to be dated from the taking away of the daily sacrifice, which he defines as the substituted innovations in "divine worship" brought forward by the eleventh horn, and resulting in the "profanation of the temple. "And the activity of the image of the beast and the expulsion of the woman to the wilderness is just at the end of these prophetic periods.95

90 Wood, op. cit., pp. 176,177., 91 Ibid., p. 191, 92 Ibid., pp. 178, 179, 230., 93 Ibid., p. 324, 94 Ibid., pp. 364ff., 470,471., 95 Ibid., pp. 476, 477.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE: French Revolution Leads to Papal Wound

X. Priestley-French Revolution Is Earthquake in Action

1.CALAMITOUS TIMES TO AFFLICT PAPAL NATIONS

[color=blueJOSEPH PRIESTLEY, L.L.D., F.R.S. (1733-1804), English clergyman, philosopher, and scientist.[/color]

His famous sermon, titled The Present State of Europe Compared with Ancient Prophecies, preached at the Gravel Pit Meeting in Hackney, was based on Matthew 3:2, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Priestley contended that "great calamities such as the world has never yet experienced," were to precede the coming of the kingdom of Christ. In this sermon, preached during the height of the French Revolution, he stated further:

"These calamities will chiefly affect those nations which have been the seat of the great antichristian power; or, as all Protestants, and I believe justly, suppose, have been subject to the see of Rome. And it appears to me highly probable, as I hinted in my last discourse on this occasion, that the present disturbances in Europe are the beginning of those very calamitous times."34

2. PAPAL LITTLE HORN TO BE DESTROYED BY ADVENT

Bidding his hearers to "look back to the ancient prophecies and compare them with the present state of things," he showed that the Little Horn of Daniel 7 was "the Papal power," to be destroyed when the judgment shall sit. After mentioning the awful period of trouble of Daniel 12:1, Priestley averred that the New Testament prophecies on the fall of Antichrist, such as 2 Thessalonians 1:7, corresponded with those of the Old Testament, and were to be accomplished suddenly by the second coming of Christ and not before.35

3. REVOLUTION IN FRANCE THE PREDICTED EARTHQUAKE

Citing Sir Isaac Newton, Whiston, and Clarke, on the part the "prevalence of infidelity" was to play in putting a stop to the papal tyranny, Priestley said:

"This great event of the late revolution in France appears to me, and many others, to be not improbably the accomplishment of the following part of the Revelation, chap 11:3. And the same hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men (or literally, names of men) seven thousand, and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to God. '

"An earthquake, as I have observed, may signify a great convulsion, and revolution, in states; and as the Papal dominions were divided into ten parts, one of which, and one of the principal of them, was France, it is properly called a tenth part of the city, or of the mystical Babylon." 36

4. KINGDOMS ELEVATING PAPACY TO OVERTHROW HER

"It is farther remarkable, that the kings of France were those who gave the Popes their temporalities, and the rank they now hold among the princes of the world. And it is foretold, Revelation 17:16, that 'those kings who gave their power and strength unto the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God has put it in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree to give their kingdoms unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. '

34 Joseph Priestly, The Present State of Europe Compared With Ancient Prophecies, p. 2., 35 Ibid., pp. 2, 8, 9., 36 Ibid., pp. 25, 26.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE: End of Period Recognized and Proclaimed

When the stroke had fallen, and the pope had been taken captive, a chorus of voices in England, Continental Europe, and America witnessed to the ending of the 1260-year era of the Papacy. In rapid succession some of the typical and impressive testimony uttered at the time will be noted.

II. Vaply Proclaims 1798 in Sermon to Reading Association

RICHARD VALPY, D.D., F.S.A., MRSL (1754-1836)

1. END OF 1260 YEARS FIXED FOR 1798

Declaring that "God has never left Himself without witness," and that "history is indeed but a record of the completion of prophecy," Valpy comments on the "present awful events" that involve the world, and the "disastrous revolution, which have plunged Europe into blood." He declares, "The hand of God is filling up, by instruments of the most fearful execution, the great outline, which he had traced before by his Prophets and his Apostles."16 Then comes this luminous declaration:

"Among the Prophecies, which must have excited your attention, are those, which relate to the present state of Rome. If with all Protestant Commentators, we understand the Roman Pontiff to be represented under the figurative emblems of Daniel, and the Author of the Revelations, and by the still clearer description of St. Paul, we must be struck with the completion of the prophecy. Daniel and St. John mention the period of 1260 years from the establishment to the extinction of that government. In the year 538, the empire of the Goths was abolished in Rome, and from that time the Pontifical power advanced with rapid strides, until it became, by its influence and its authority, the most extensive dominion in Europe. If this epoch be admitted, the period mentioned by Prophets fixes the destruction of the Pontifical authority to the present year, in which the Pope has been forced to fly from Rome by the arms of France."17(Fac simile on page 768.)

2. BEGAN WITH GOTHIC EXPULSION AND PAPAL ELEVATION

In added notes, in the published sermon, Valpy adds:

"In the year 538, the Goths were driven from Rome, and at that time the aspiring Vigilius, by his secret intrigues with the artful Theodora, was promoted to the Pontifical dignity, which he purchased with 200 pounds of gold: an unequivocal proof of the character of a man of sin.
"During the Pontificate of Vigilius, the pretensions of the successors of St. Peter to a general superiority began to be openly asserted; and shortly after, their supremacy was publicly acknowledged. It was at this time that the Pope assumed the title of Vicegerent of Jesus Christ.... Now too celibacy was more generally enjoined. The use of Holy Water was first publicly recommended by Vigilius in 538."18

3. EXPULSION OF POPE DRAWS ATTENTION TO PROPHECY

Valpy then traces the growth of papal power and the growing acquisition of "strength and of territory." He discounts the temporary exiles occasionally suffered by the pontiffs, and mentions Bishop Newton's observation that we must see the conclusion before we can precisely ascertain the beginning of this notable period. Then he adds, "If we have now witnessed the fall of the Pope's temporal dominion, it cannot be an unprofitable task to endeavor to trace its origin."19Valpy then remarks significantly that "on the expulsion of the Pope from Rome, the attention of many contemplative persons was turned to the prophecies relating to that power."20

4. INCREASE OF KNOWLEDGE Is OF PROPHECIES

In the same notes "On the Prophecies Relating to the Fall of Rome," he says:

"It is not therefore a subject of wonder that many should run to and fro in tracing these events to the designs of the Almighty declared in Prophecy; for thus knowledge shall be increased; and thus we may prepare to meet our God." 21

Valpy quotes from leading expositors, such as Newton, Faber, Woodhouse, and Kett, who had shed light on prophecy. He especially mentions King—"of extensive erudition and ingenuity, and of accurate Biblical knowledge"—who, he notes, likewise begins the 1260 years in 538, 22 and so ends them in 1798.

16 Richard Vaply, Sermons Preached on Public Occasions, vol. 1, pp. 144-146., 17 Ibid., pp. 146,147., 18 Ibid., p. 258., 19 Ibid., pp. 260, 261., 20 Ibid., p. 262., 21 ibid., p. 254., 22 Ibid., pp, 253-269.

V. Simpson 1260 Years Accomplished Before Our Eyes

DAVID SIMPSON (1745-1799), theologian and religious writer.

1. COMPREHENSIVE SKETCH OF LITTLE HORN

Simpson sketches Daniel 7-the ten divisions of the Roman Empire, the arising of the Little Horn among the ten, subduing three of the ten and usurping their dominion, and increasing in power until it had obtained a peculiar kind of power and jurisdiction overall the seven other horns.33 This dominion was to continue three and a half times (a time being a year of 360 days) or a total of1260 years, at the end of which it would be destroyed. Then he traces the accomplishment—the Roman Empire was dismembered, the bishop of Rome arose, and three of the ten states("the senate of Rome, the kingdom of Lombardy, and the exarchate of Ravenna; three governments all in Italy") were subdued, the pope assuming a triple crown.34

2. 538 BEGINNING ACCORDS WITH 1798 ENDING

Simpson next discusses the dates fixed by some for beginning the 1260 years—606 (from Phocas), 666 (the apocalyptic number), and 756 (when the pope became a temporal prince). The time of Gregory I is also mentioned. But he adds this footnote:

"There is some reason, from the present appearances of things, to suppose, that the 1260 prophetical years must be calculated from a period somewhat earlier than the commencement of the seventh century. The year of our Lord 538 accords with the downfall of the Pope's temporal do minion A.D. 1798."35

3. FULFILLING THIS DAY BEFORE OUR EYES

Referring then to the signs of the approaching end, Simpson asks pointedly:

"Are not abundance of these predictions fulfilling at this day before our eyes?...

"Does it not seem that those 1260 years are upon the point of expiring?"36

4. BEAST'S CLAWS CUT AND TEETH DRAWN

Expatiating on the prophesied changes that had taken place, and on how the nations that "for so many ages had given their power unto the Beast" were to "turn against that Beast, and use means for its destruction," Simpson then asks:

"Is not this part of the prophecy also, in a good degree, fulfilled at the present moment? Have not all the CATHOLIC powers forsaken his HOLINESS of Rome in the time of his greatest need? And is not He, who, a few ages ago, made all Europe tremble at the thunder of his voice, now become weak like other men? Are not the claws of the Beast cut, and his teeth drawn, so that he can no longer either scratch or bite? Is he not already, in our own day, and before our own eyes, stripped of his temporal dominion?"37

5. PRESENT FULFILLMENT POWERFULLY CONFIRMS TRUTH

Now comes this climactic declaration:

"Is it not extremely remarkable, and a powerful confirmation of the truth of Scripture prophecy, that just 1260 years ago from the present 1798, in the very beginning of the year 538, Belisarius put an end to the empire of the Goths at Rome, leaving no power therein but the Bishop of that Metropolis?

"Read these things in the prophetic Scriptures; compare them coolly with the present state of Europe, and then, I say again, deny the truth of Divine Revelation, if you can. Open your eyes, and behold these things accomplishing in the face of the whole world. This thing is not done in a corner."38

33 David Simpson, A plea for Religion, p. 134., 34 Ibid., pp. 134, 135., 35 Ibid., p. 138., 36 Ibid., pp. 164, 165., 37 Ibid., p. 165.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: Summing Up the Evidence of Volume II

II. Conclusion Deducible From Volume II

In evaluating the evidence assembled in Volume II we may therefore logically conclude that the two major points of emphasis in prophetic interpretation, which stand out predominantly in the period covered, are (1) the well-nigh universal identification of the Papacy as Antichrist, and (2) the allotted time, chronology, and recognized close of its special prophetic period-and all in relation to the divine plan of the ages.

The church of the early centuries looked simply for an individual Antichrist, to whose exploits a literal three and a half years was then most naturally and logically assigned. To these early Christians all future time was foreshortened, because they expected the end of the age to come soon. Although their view reached beyond the actual breakup of Rome, it was circumscribed by the fact that Antichrist had not yet developed historically, and so could not possibly be identified in advance with certainty.

In later centuries the conviction developed that the Antichrist of prophecy was an extended system of organized apostasy, already long established within the church. As the centuries passed and the corruptions in the dominant church became more and more evident, the cry was increasingly raised that the various prophetic symbols of Antichrist-the Little Horn, Beast, Babylon, Harlot, Man of Sin, Mystery of Iniquity, and so forth—fitted Romanism just as a custom-made shoe fits the foot.

The sequence, the timing, and the character of the papal Little Horn seemed inescapable. First, Rome had come as the fourth prophetic empire; next, Rome's breakup had followed; and then, after Rome's partitioning, the Antichrist, or Little Horn, had appeared, pushing its way up through these permanent divisions of Roman territory and meeting all the specifications predicted. The logic of the reasoning seemed invulnerable. So it came to be commonly recognized that the concurrent "1260 days," assigned for Antichrist's special exploits, were obviously in prophetic or symbolic time, as verily as the other specifications of the Antichrist were symbolic. Understood in this way, the time feature became clear and consistent, and the conclusion inescapable.

It is likewise to be noted that all the great time periods of prophecy have been progressively discerned. They have always been recognized during the process of contemporary fulfillment. Thus, as noted in Volume I, the 70 weeks were seen by the Jews, writing in the third century before Christ, to be weeks of years. And it is known that there was widespread expectancy of the Messiah about the time of Jesus. In fact, Jesus Himself came saying, "The time is fulfilled," with the acknowledged fulfillment appearing in His own life and death.

In the early centuries of the Christian Era the 1260 days were believed to center on the still future Antichrist. But until its actual appearance, and the long extent of its duration came to be recognized, the year-day principle was not extended to include this period. From Joachim (1190) onward, however, the 1260 prophetic days, as symbolizing years, were increasingly recognized by Jew as well as Christian, and by Catholic and non-Catholic alike. And beginning with Arnold of Villanova (1297), Walter Brute (1393), and Nicolas Krebs of Cusa (1440), the 1290, 1335, and 2300 days of Daniel were similarly seen to represent years.

With the Reformation came the full chorus of Protestant voices, hundreds strong, declaring the contemporary fulfillment of prophetic symbolism in the Papacy. Although some made supplemental application of one or two of the prophecies to the Turks, and there was a variety of timing in the attempt to locate the 1260 years, the unanimity of conviction concerning this rapidly expiring segment in the career of the Papacy was most significant.

During the Reformation and post-Reformation periods, the predominant Historical School system of prophetic interpretation took on impressive proportions, based on the accepted fulfillment of the anticipations of earlier times-the historical interpretation of the symbolic prophecies, and the year-day time periods—with the Papacy fitting inescapably into the continuous sequence of unfolding history. That sequence was not only historical but logical and inexorable—the four empires without a break between them; the disintegration of the Roman fourth empire, likewise without a gap following Rome; and then the appearance, among the still shifting fragments, of the Little Horn Antichrist in the early Middle Ages, similarly without a parenthesis, or blank space, intervening after Rome's breakup.

It was the Jesuit countersystems of Futurism and Preterism that deliberately injected the scheme of a great gap of centuries, for the obvious purpose of shielding the Papacy from uncomfortable scrutiny and censure, by shifting the application to the remote future or the distant past. The obvious inconsistencies of these two systems have been duly noted. Protestants did not at first accept these Catholic counterinterpretations. Nevertheless, the device succeeded to an unanticipated degree, and con fusion ensued.

Meanwhile, the focal point of prophetic emphasis shifted to the closing date of the 1260—year period. Many had searched back to earlier times, seeking to assign the beginning of the era of the Little Horn to some point in the fifth, sixth, or seventh centuries. Now many began to look forward, endeavoring to compute the approaching end of the 1260 years. The story has been unfolded of how a sizable number proclaimed the ending of the time in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and declared the capture of the pope in 1798 the exact counterpart of the prophetic demand. Clearly another epoch had been fulfilled in the sweep of prophecy, and was contemporarily recognized and declared.

Hobie · Fri Dec 22, 2023 - 14:02:13

Quote from: Texas Conservative on Thu Nov 30, 2023 - 14:15:01Wow. Responding to a post from 2013.

Don't buy the Sabbath mark stuff either.

Been in the forums for almost 30 years, but does truth change, I would say not. And now you have the Pope changing what he claims he has the power to bless with same sex couples as if he is divine. It does not stop and shows the blasphemy behind it.

Hobie · Sat Mar 09, 2024 - 02:44:38

Quote from: Amo on Sun Dec 17, 2023 - 16:21:54DEVELOPMENT OF VIEWS CONCERNING THE LITTLE HORN OF DANIEL 7 AS THE PAPACY

Unless otherwise specified, the following quotes and references are taken from one of the four volumes of THE PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, by Le Roy Edwin From. Emphasis is mine, references in blue.
All quotes below may be viewed at link provided.

https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/956/toc

QUOTES FROM THE PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, VOL. 1

CHAP 19 HERALDS OF THE NEW FULFILLMENT

III Jerome Last Comprehensive Witness Before the Eclipse

10. BARBARIC DIVIDERS OF ROME NAMED

Jerome (Jerome 340-420) lists Rome's dividers at that time, and bares his anxiety" over the imminent Antichrist:

"He that letteth is taken out of the way, and yet we do not realize that Antichrist is near. Yes, Antichrist is near whom the Lord Jesus Christ 'shall consume with the spirit of His mouth.'... Savage tribes in countless numbers have overrun all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Bergundians, Allemanni, and—alas for the commonweal!—even Pannonians. For 'Assur also is joined with them.' The once noble city of Moguntiacum [now Maintz] has been captured and destroyed. In its church many thousands have been massacred. The people of Vangium [now Worms] after standing a long siege have been extirpated. The powerful city of Rheims, the Ambiani, the Altrebatae, the Belgians in the skirts of the world, Tournay, Spires, and Strasburg have fallen to Germany: while the provinces of Aquitaine and of the Nine Nations, of Lyons and of Narbonne are with the exception of a few cities one universal scene of desolation." (Jerome, Letter 123 (to Ageruchia), in NPNF, 2d series, vol. 6, pp. 236, 237. It is interesting to note that he lists ten tribes, though he is not attempting to set forth the ten divisions of the fourth empire of Daniel 7. It is well known that there were many more than ten tribes which first overran Western Rome, but they were always merging and shifting as they settles down not kingdoms. The prophetic interpreters who in later times made their various lists of ten seem to have named the ten kingdoms which they regarded as significant in establishing themselves in the territory of Western Rome, thus forming the foundations of the later nations of Europe.)

11. LITTLE HORN ANTICHRIST, NOT ANTIOCHUS

Stoutly refuting Porphyry's application of the Little Horn to Antiochus, Jerome gives the remarkable assurance that "all ecclesiastical writers" of the past agree in expecting Rome's division into ten kingdoms before the Little Horn can appear. He places the three uprooted horns in Africa.

"Porphyry places the two latter beasts, representing the Macedonians and the Romans, in the one kingdom of the Macedonians, and divides it: he wishes the leopard to be understood as Alexander himself; the beast which is different from the other beasts, to be four successors of Alexander, and thereafter he enumerates ten kings even to Antiochus surnamed Epiphanes.... In vain Porphyry surmises that the little horn, which arose after the ten horns, is Antiochus Epiphanes, and of the ten horns three were rooted up: Ptolemy the sixth surnamed Philometor, Ptolemy Euergetes the seventh, and Artaxerxes king of Armenia, whose forefathers died much before Antiochus was born. We indeed know that Antiochus really fought against Artaxerxes, but that the latter remained in his former kingdom. Therefore we say what all ecclesiastical writers have handed down: that in the end of the world, when the kingdom of the Romans must be destroyed, there will be ten kings who divide the Roman world among themselves, and the eleventh will be raised up, a little king, who will overcome three kings of the ten kings, that is, the king of the Egyptians, and of Africa and of Ethiopia, as we shall point out more plainly in what follows." Translated from Jerome, Commentaria in Danielem, chap. 7, verses 7, 8, in Migne, PL, vol. 25, cols. 530, 531.)

12. JUDGMENT FOLLOWS LITTLE HORN'S REIGN

Describing at considerable length the judgment scene of Daniel 7:9 and related texts, Jerome parallels similar scenes in the Apocalypse and Ezekiel, with God as judge, and the books of judgment involved. Ibid., verses 9-27, cols. 531-534

13. JUDGMENT IS FOLLOWED BY SECOND ADVENT

Jerome sees the judgment sent because of Antichrist's pride and blasphemy, for "the Roman kingdom will be destroyed, because that horn spake great things." "In the one Roman kingdom," he says, "all the kingdoms must be destroyed at one time. He expects this to herald the advent, for there will never be an earthly kingdom, but the fellowship of the saints, and the coming of the triumphant Son of God in the clouds of heaven." For the advent he cites the stone in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar and Acts 1:9—II. Ibid., verses 11, 13, col. 533.

CHAPTER 32 ANTICHRIST A SYSTEM, NOT AN INDIVIDUAL

IV. Eberhard Interprets Papal System as Little Horn

In the midst of this tremendous struggle between the emperor and the pope one great ecclesiastical figure towers conspicuously. It is EBERHARD II, archbishop of Salzburg (1200-1246), chief spokesman for the emperor among the German bishops, and one of Frederick's chief counselors.

Frederick had conquered nearly all the states of the church when the pope summoned a council to meet at Rome in 1241. In a summons requesting Salzburg to be represented at the papal council—a document which is still preserved in the Salzburg ecclesiastical office—Eberhard was ignored by the Roman Curia. As a countermove Eberhard appeared at a diet in Verona, called by Frederick. Some clerics sided with the papal party, but Eberhard took his stand by the side of the emperor, though it brought him many vexations. His whole position toward Rome was endangered, not because of doctrinal controversies, but because of his fidelity to the emperor. Josef Hirn, "Erzbischof Eberhards II. von Salzburg Beziehungen zu Kirche und Reich," Jahresbericht des k.k. Ober-Gymnasiums in Krems (1875), pp. 30, 31.

EBERHARD II, FIRST TO APPLY LITTLE HORN TO HISTORICAL PAPCY

Eberhard II, thirteenth century archbishop of Salzberg, chief supporter of Fredrick II and initial expounder of the little horn of Daniel 7 as the historical papacy; Aentinus' annals of Bavaria, in which this remarkable exposition of the prophecy of Daniel 7 appears.

1. SETTING OF EBERHARD'S "LITTLE HORN" INTERPRETATION

His boldest statement, however, was made at a synod of Bavarian bishops held at Regensburg, or Ratisbon, in 1240 or 1241; where he gave utterance at the same time to a new interpretation of some lines of prophecy. Here, during this council, Eberhard, in a brilliant oration preserved by Aventinus, or Turmair, in his noted Bavarian Annals, clearly sets forth this identification of the prophecy of the Little Horn. In this striking presentation Eberhard not only openly calls the pope a wolf in shepherd's garb, the Son of Perdition, and Antichrist, but also gives his revolutionary exposition of the pope as the Little Horn of Daniel 7.19 Eberhard is not named in the record, but is referred to as the Archimysta. In the well- known medieval Latin dictionary Glossarium . . . Mediae et Infimae Latimtatis, by Charles Dufresne du Cange, the term "archimysta" is set forth as an expression of Aventinus, used as a synonym for archbishop.

As to the reliability of these Annals, Johann Turmair. better known as Aventinus (1477-1534), the "Father of Bavarian History," studied at the universities of Ingolstadt, Vienna, Krakow, and Paris. After tutoring for Prince William IV, he was appointed histori¬ ographer of the royal court of Bavaria. Thus he was enabled to gather the materials for his Annales Boiorum, completed in 1521. Their antipapal tone hindered publication, as Aventinus openly confessed sympathy for Luther's doctrines. Arrested in 1528, then released, he lived a rather unsettled life until he died in Regensburg in 1534. (Patricius Schlager, "Thurmayr, Johannes," The Catholic Encyclopedia , vol. 14, p. 713; Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 2, p.
794, art. "Aventinus.")

Eberhard returns to a neglected exposition taught before Augustinianism had crowded the earlier views out of the current belief—the interpretation of the breakup of the fourth kingdom as the division of the Roman Empire among the barbarian kingdoms. Only now, instead of looking forward to the coming of an unidentified individual Antichrist as the prophesied Little Horn, Eberhard looks back over the centuries since Rome's dismemberment and sees in the historical Papacy, as a system or line of succession, the fulfillment of the predicted Little Horn, coming up among the ten divisions of Rome, and uprooting three. Such is the bold outline.

Eberhard's Regensburg Council speech, in 1240 or 1241, came at approximately the same time that the pope attempted to convoke the Council of Rome, which was thwarted by Frederick. And at the First General Council of Lyons (1245) the emperor was again excommunicated by the pope; Eberhard was excommunicated subsequently, and died under the ban in 1246. Burial in consecrated ground being refused, he was buried in common ground in an annex of the parish church in Radstadt. Some forty years later, in 1288, his remains were transferred to the consecrated ground of the Salzburg Cathedral. Joseph Rainier, "Salzburg, Archdiocese of," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13, p. 412. In the Annals of Convent Garsten his obituary states that he was "a man of great learning" who "ruled his see most nobly forty-six years." Hans Widmann, Geschichte Salzburgs, p. 351. Let us examine the details of his statements.

4. PRIESTS OF BABYLON SIT IN TEMPLE OF GOD

Connecting Babylon and Antichrist with the Man of Sin sitting in the temple of God, Eberhard reaches his climax when he connects these symbols of Antichrist with the Little Horn and its lawless proclivities—its flouting of established law and its ordination of its own laws—all revealed in the secrets of the Holy Writings to those who will understand. Of the popes he says:

"Those priests [flamines] of Babylon alone desire to reign, they cannot tolerate an equal, they will not desist until they have trampled all things under their feet, and until they sit in the temple of God, and until they are exalted above all that is worshipped. He who is servant of servants, desires to be lord of lords, just as if he were God. He speaks great things as if he were truly God. He ponders new counsels under his breast, in order that he may establish his own rule for himself, he changes laws, he ordains his own laws, he corrupts, he plunders, he pillages, he defrauds, he kills—that incorrigible man (whom they are accustomed to call Antichrist) on whose forehead an inscription of insult is written: 'I am God, I cannot err.' He sits in the temple of God, and has dominion far and wide. But as it is in the secrets of the holy writings, let him that readeth understand: the learned will understand, all the wicked will act wickedly, neither will they understand." Ibid.

The significance of Eberhard's expression should not be lost—that men were "accustomed" in his day, to call the pope "Antichrist." He was but voicing dramatically what had become a widespread conviction and open declaration.

5. PAPAL HORN ARISES AMONG ROME'S DIVISIONS

The historical dismemberment of the Roman Empire, so strangely ignored in the preceding centuries, not only because of Augustinianism but also because of creation of the Holy Roman Empire, which was meant to be its successor, is put in its rightful place by Eberhard. The ten divisions of Rome that he listed differ from later enumerations, as is also the case with the three horns, but it is the first attempt of its kind of which we have record. And Eberhard's conclusion from the outline is, "What is more clear than this prophecy!" Note it:

"Ten kings exist at the same time, who have divided the circle of the earth, formerly the Roman empire, not for ruling but for destroying. There are ten horns, that which seemed incredible to divine Aurelius Augustine; the Turks, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Africans, the Spaniards, the Gauls, the English, the Germans, the Sicilians, the Italians possess the Roman provinces and have cut off the Roman colonists in these parts. And a little horn has sprung up under these, which has eyes and a mouth speaking great things; he reduces to order the three most powerful kingdoms of Sicily, Italy, and Germany, and compels them to serve him; with an unendurable lordship he plagues the people of Christ, and the saints of God; he mingles divine and human things, he sets in motion the abominable and the detestable things. What is more clear than this prophecy! All the signs and wonders which that heavenly teacher of ours pointed out to us (unroll the chronicles) have been fulfilled long ago." Ibid., p. 685.

It must be apparent that Eberhard's building upon earlier prophetic interpretation on this point of the dissolution of the Roman Empire had an important bearing on his attitude toward the Papacy. If the Roman Empire had not yet fallen, the Antichrist and the Little Horn could not have come; if, as Eberhard said, the dissolution of Rome had occurred centuries ago, these prophesied powers could be looked for in history.

V. The Revolutionary Implications of Eberhard's Interpretation

Why was this such a revolutionary idea? Why was the church so slow to realize that the Roman world power was a thing of the past? During the barbarian invasions Jerome had cried out that the Roman world was falling, See page 445. but he had not lived long enough to see the accomplished fact. Indeed, long after his lifetime men could not bring themselves to believe that Rome had fallen. The spell of the Eternal City was upon even her conquerors, and after a lapse of several centuries Charlemagne made the unsuccessful attempt at restoring it. The fiction of the "Holy Roman Empire," which, to repeat the cliché, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, was never a restoration, much less a continuation, of the real Roman power....

Further, the formation of a concept of the Little Horn or Antichrist as a long growth of a religio-political empire emerging from gradual apostasy in the church would necessarily be a late development.

(1) The conviction of the imminence of the end would not have allowed the earlier expositors to imagine such a long period, even if the initial stages of such a process had been recognized.

(2) The popular traditions of an individual Antichrist—a Jew, an unbeliever, or a semi-demon-ruling for a short period as despot and persecutor, although derived largely from non-Christian sources, See pages 293-301, would tend, in combination with the expectation of the speedy dissolution of all things, to condition the early church against an interpretation involving Antichrist's long development in history.

(3) In the nature of things, such a fulfillment could never be perceived until a long time after it had begun to develop, for not until its maturity could a system of that kind fill the specifications of the prophecy.

(4) Probably the most powerful influence that would prevent the earlier development of a historical interpretation of the Little Horn and the Antichrist was the Augustinian view, which completely changed the direction of prophetic interpretation and dominated the church from Augustine's time on. See pages 473 ff. The concept of the millennium as fulfilled in the earthly church and of the hierarchy as rulers of the kingdom of God On earth blinded men to the departures of the church and made it seem all the more unthinkable that the bishops of Rome, the most venerated prelates of Christendom, could so depart from the original faith as to be represented by such prophetic symbols.

2. EBERHARD SEES PEAK OF PAPACY

Not until the apostasy and corruption in the church became more and more evident, and the pride and power of the pontiffs of Rome had grown until it not only used the temporal sword on dissenters, but even sought to make vassals of kings and emperors, could the accusation be raised that the pope was exhibiting the traits of Antichrist. Not until a Gregory VII had claimed to be Vicar of Christ with authority over kings, and an Innocent III had set himself up as Vicar of God over the whole world, wielding the two swords of spiritual and civil penalties over great and small, See chapter 27., did Eberhard stand forth to level his finger at the Papacy as the Antichrist and the Little Horn "speaking great words against the most High."

He could not have made that application in the infancy of the Papacy. The claim to primacy, the imperious tone, and the political influence were already growing in the time of Gregory I, but the prophetic expositors of that day could hardly have applied to him the epithet with which he denounced the pride of a fellow prelate. In spite of Gregory I's denunciation of the claim to universal bishopric as a manifestation of Anti- Christian spirit, See chapter 22., the application was not made to the Roman popes when they afterward assumed the same dignity.

The modern conception of religious liberty had not developed, and its early gleams in the pre-Constantinian church had been lost in the deceptive glitter of political power under the Christian emperors; consequently the sinister aspect of the persecution of minorities was lost on the church. Not until the papal sword, after centuries, had been wielded with increasing ruthlessness upon multiplied victims, did the description of the Little Horn wearing out the saints become attached in men's minds to the Roman See.

3. THIRTEENTH-CENTURY DISILLUSIONMENT

But in the thirteenth century the corruptions of the hierarchy had long been apparent. Men had become weary of the worldliness of the clergy, the avarice, the simony, the injustice. The failure of the monastic reforms to cure the corruption of the church increased the protest of the laity against the contrast between the life of the clergy and the Christian ideal of self-renunciation and service, a protest which expressed itself variously, in the voluntary poverty of various lay groups, such as the Waldenses, in the wistful dreams of Joachim, and in the original zeal of the Franciscan and Dominican friars. These ideals, even among those loyal to the pope, such as Joachim, inevitably threw the worldly Papacy into an unfavorable light by contrast—at least for many who had eyes to see.

It was natural that Eberhard in Germany, in contact with the emperor, saw more clearly than did Joachim in Italy the menace of the Papacy's struggle to control both spiritual and civil power, and doubtless there he had more opportunity to hear the pontiff called Antichrist in the contest with Frederick. But his "Little Horn" application was not merely name-calling. He was not an enthusiast for voluntary poverty, for he was an influential archbishop; nor was he a disillusioned Joachimite, for Joachim's writings—genuine or pseudo-had not yet spread so far. But he was in a position to see three things: (1) that Rome had fallen long ago when her domain was divided into barbarian kingdoms; (2) that the Little Horn rising out of the divided successors to the empire, growing "among them" and coming into power "after them," was connected with the breakup of Rome, which no illusion of a Holy Roman Empire could push into the future; and (3) that the description of the Little Horn, with "eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things," "whose look was more stout than his fellows"—a kingdom among kingdoms, yet diverse from the rest, and at the same time a religious power, speaking "great words against the most High," and a persecuting power wearing out the saints—fitted the Papacy most remarkably. And the reader of medieval history as it is written today—even allowing for bias on the part of a supporter of Frederick—can see that the picture is not overdrawn.

Eberhard's historical interpretation of the Little Horn and the Antichrist doubtless had less circulation in Italy, and especially in papal circles, than in Germany. The Joachimites at first looked to Frederick as the Antichrist, and not until the Spirituals had experienced persecution do we find the application of the term "mystic Antichrist" to a future pseudo pope and then an individual, actual pope.

Eberhard was not the first to call a pope Antichrist, for he says that he was accustomed to that. Gerhoh of Reichersberg a century earlier had applied the term to the worldliness in the church and to the contest between pope and emperor. But Eberhard was a pioneer in seeing in the Little Horn, which sprang out of the divided kingdoms of the fourth prophetic empire, the Roman Papacy, which had slowly emerged to world power out of the breakup of the Roman Empire many centuries in the past.

Both true and false concepts of the continuance of Rome powerfully influenced not only churchmen but statesmen, but the position taken by Eberhard in 1240—that the breakup of Rome gave rise to a group of smaller kingdoms, among whom afterward came up the religio-political power of the historical Papacy' as the Little Horn—became the standard interpretation of fourteenth-century Wyclif in Britain, 33 then of sixteenth-century Luther and most of his associates, and next of Cranmer, Knox, and the bulk of the British Reformers. 34 Practically all the post-Reformation writers on the Continent and in Britain and America declared the same.35 Even the Jewish expositor Don Isaac Abravanel of Spain, in 1496, made a like explanation, 36
33 See Prophetic Faith , vol. 2, p. 55.
34 Ibid., cnart on p. 528.
35 Ibid., p. 784. under "Little Horn 55 ; also vol. 3, p. 252, under "Little Horn."
36 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 228.

This Reformation view was the sort of belief which helped to nerve men to withstand the powerful forces under the command of the Papacy, and to go to the stake rather than yield to her spiritual despotism; for Protestant martyrs dared not obey her injunctions or follow in her apostasies, and thus incur the displeasure of Heaven. Therefore they no longer feared her anathemas.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX: SUMMING UP THE EVIDENCE OF VOLUME I

VII. "System" Concept Gradually Supplants "Individual" View of Antichrist

Indeed, aside from the impetus given to the historical approach, to prophecy,, the most noticeable element of prophetic interpretation from the thirteenth century on into the Reformation was the progressive identification of the Roman church with Babylon and of the Papacy with the multiple prophetic symbols of the Antichrist, the Little Horn the Beast, and the Man of Sin. It was, in fact, the logical outcome of the restoration of historical interpretation, but it was a gradual growth, which could have been established only by the testimony of the passage of time.

1. ANTICHRIST ENTHRONED IN CHURCH

It was inevitable that Antichrist should at the beginning be anticipated simply as an individual, and that the 1260 days should likewise be regarded as literal time (three and a half years) consistent with the life of a single person. The Antichrist was early connected with these other prophetic figures, but the historical identification of this power was not made until between the tenth and thirteenth centuries—the climax of the multiple application coming with the dramatic accusations of Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg, in 1240. Yet the finger of accusation and identification had long been pointed in the direction of ecclesiastical Rome.

To begin with, Tichonius, out of his Donatist experience, saw the secularized church as Babylon, and Augustine mentioned the possibility that the Man of Sin would sit in the temple of the church, but these interpretations were not followed up. In the late ninth century, Berengaud's identification of the ten horns of Revelation 17 and Daniel 7 as the kingdoms which divided the Roman Empire, such as the Goths, Vandals, et cetera, was a step toward placing the Little Horn in the past also, but it seems to have been unnoticed.

Then in 991 Arnulf, bishop of Orleans, sounded his battle cry against the degradation of the church, in which he described the proud pope as "Antichrist sitting in the temple of God, and demeaning himself as a god," and declared that "the mystery of iniquity is begun." .........

3. EBERHARD SEES PAPACY AS MULTIPLE ANTICHRIST

But Eberhard's interpretation, if it did not penetrate to the Joachimites in Italy, was significant as the forerunner of later pre Reformation and Reformation positions. It was natural for persecuted minorities like the Franciscan Spirituals, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses, to use such terms as Babylon and Antichrist to describe their oppressors, but Eberhard, a learned archbishop and man of affairs, had nothing in common with them. Neither was his characterization of the Papacy merely the rhetoric of controversy. It came in the setting of the contest between pope and emperor, but it was true prophetic exposition based on a keen analysis of the Little Horn of Daniel and the parallel prophecies, and a keen insight into history. Eberhard applied to the religio-political empire of the Papacy the threefold description of the Beast, the Man of Sin, and the Little Horn.......

5. LONG DEVELOPMENT OF LITTLE HORN

This religio-political principle, which had existed in embryo in the time of the early church, said Eberhard, became an empire in the time of Hildebrand. The Little Horn, which had burrowed its way up among the divisions of the Roman Empire during the fourth, fifth, arid sixth centuries, and which had enthroned itself in the church, was not only domineering the saints but presuming to control the state. Its reign was thus announced as an accomplished fact. It is one that should be pondered by every Christian student......

6. FULFILLMENT DECLARED ONLY AFTER LONG CENTURIES

We have seen how the time finally came when prophetic intetpretation pointed out that a religio-political power answering to this description had gradually grown up in the established church" in the old seat of empire and patterned upon its lines. But this historical identification was not made, of course, until long after the early church period. No one could see such a development from the early trends until centuries afterward. Eberhard did not point to the rise of the Little Horn as a contemporary fulfillment, but as one which had taken place long ago. At the time when the Papacy was enthroned in the church, men could not see in it the upthrust of the Little Horn among the ten horn kingdoms. With minds fascinated by the dominant Augustinian theory of a then-present millennium, with all its spiritualizing and allegorizing involvements, and by the extra Biblical traditions of Antichrist, they had their eyes fixed upon a future tyrant to appear briefly at the end of the indeterminate thousand years of the church's present reign.

Gregory I set the course for the ship of the church of Rome, amid the succeeding popes strove to fulfill Augustine's dream of the city of God.—the millennium established on earth, the world ruled by divine precepts dispensed by God's duly ordained representatives. As they increasingly succeeded in realizing their, ambitions, their expanding power was accompanied by worldliness and corruption, And when the pinnacle was reached in a papal empire, the Antichristian characteristics became plain enough to see, and accusations were increasingly leveled at the Papacy.

The dominant hierarchy intermingling the world amid the church, persecuted the dissenters, who sought to perpetuate the pristine purity of the early gospel. The latter were not a single group; they were scattered widely; and varied in character, often flourishing in secluded spots that offered shelter and possible refuge from the raging storm of persecution that sought to overwhelm them. In the, history of the church we find the perpetual conflict between the dominant, worldly church and the underground streams of varied and persistent antisacerdotal or reforming schisms and heresies.

When this conflict came to a head, from about the time of Eberhard and onward, we find systematic persecution developing, and irrepressible dissent breaking forth in spite of it, until finally the pre-Reformation movements were to merge into the mighty Protestant revolution. And the identification of the papal system from Scripture prophecy was the militant rallying cry in the great struggle for spiritual freedom.

I knew Jerome saw it and wrote on it, good part on the others...

garee · Reply #16 - Re: What is the Mark of the Beast.

Quote from: Hobie on Wed Jul 31, 2013 - 01:54:44So much is said about the Mark of the Beast and yet few look to see what the Reformers and their contemporizes and even before them saw as the Mark of the Beast.

The Protestant reformers, including Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, Wesley, and many others, recognized that the beast power and its resulting mark was mentioned under various synonyms in Scripture. It was the little horn of Daniel 7, the man of sin, the son of perdition who introduces the mystery of iniquity in 2 Thessalonians 2, the antichrist of 1 John 2 and 4 and 2 John, Babylon of Revelation 14, 16, 17, 18, and the whore and scarlet beast of Revelation 17. Throughout the Reformation era, one religious power was considered as the origin of the Mark of the Beast with the power of the Antichrist. William Tyndale identified what he considered as Antichrist in his treatise "The Practice of Prelates" and in his Preface to the 1534 edition of the New Testament. Many of the early Protestant Bibles contained artwork that portrays the Scarlet Woman of Revelation 17, and identifies what they saw as this apostate religion.

John Wesley's Notes; But he that had the mark, namely, the name of the first beast, or the number of his name - The name of the beast is that which he bears through his whole duration; namely, that of Papa or Pope: the number of his name is the whole time during which he bears this name. Whosoever, therefore, receives the mark of the beast does as much as if he said expressly, "I acknowledge the present Papacy, as proceeding from God;" or, "I acknowledge that what St. Gregory VII. has done, according to his legend, (authorized by Benedict XIII.,) and what has been maintained in virtue thereof, by his successors to this day, is from God." By the former, a man hath the name of the beast as a mark; by the latter, the number of his name. In a word, to have the name of the beast is, to acknowledge His papal Holiness; to have the number of his name is, to acknowledge the papal succession. The second beast will enforce the receiving this mark under the severest penalties. (John Wesley, Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, Revelation 13:17)

In LeRoy Edwin Froom, Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vols. 2 and 3, we find Wycliffe's associate, John Purvey, felt that the Mark of the Beast had to do with the Papacy, and pertained to papal power and decrees. Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli's successor at Zurich, took it to be the Papacy's power. Luther's associate, Nikolaus von Amsdorf (died 1565), of Magdeburg, thought it had to do with enforced papal ceremonies and decrees. Bishop Nicholas Ridley, of England (martyred in 1555), declared it involved allegiance to the beast. Scottish mathematician Sir John Napier (died 1617) defined it as a profession of obedience to Rome. Pietist Johann Lucius (died 1686) believed it to be the confession of the Roman religion. And Sir Isaac Newton (died 1727) placed the mark of the beast and the seal of God in contrast, and saw the Antichrist, Little Horn, Man of Sin, Babylon as the Papacy.

So were they correct and if so, where did the Protestant Reformers come up with the basis for what they saw as the source of the Mark of the Beast?

I would offer One error many look to the word mark and sign as if all one in the same therefore take away the spiritual gospel understanding .

Sign two times in Revelation. Mark nine times.

No signs were given. Jesus declared the will of the father. Natural uncovered mankind looks to a sign and not prophecy as it is written(sola scriptura) They seek fulfillment believers are fulfilled at there new born again birth

The number of Man, beast of the field, created on day 6 .Three as a metaphor in parables denotes the end of a matter .Holy, Holy, Holy. . .three, three ,three

The mark of Cain. What God says come to pass .Murder him I will kill you. Not yoked with Christ as was Abel Cain suffered hell the rest of his life on death row. No early out.

Genesis 4:15 And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

The kings of lying signs that cause wonderment, wonderment, wonderment as if true prophecy working over time today. Born again Believers have prophecy(sola scriptura) no need to wonder, wonder, wonder?

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