Posted on 05/29/2021 10:33:28 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
My just-released novel, MICHAEL: Last-Days Lightning, which all too briefly, but nonetheless, thankfully, went to number one in Christian fiction on Amazon, has sparked the beginning of a follow-up novel. I’ve tentatively given the next novel the title MESSIAH: The Prince That Shall Come.
The story will build on the protagonist’s experiencing Bible prophecy fulfillment while in a state of having dreams and visions as the result of a serpent bite he received while he was on the Island of Patmos. MESSIAH will deal with Antichrist coming to power as the world’s greatest deceiver. This understanding is based upon Jesus’ words:
I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. (John 5:43)
Lord willing, the novel will be the third of the books that began with REVELATIONS: The Rapture Generation, in which Tyce Grayson received that snake bite.
The purpose of mentioning all of that—along with, of course, admittedly hoping to promote the novels—is that while researching for writing the third novel, I cogitated on some things about the Antichrist I’ve often wondered about over the years.
One of the primary things that has piqued my thinking—and imagination—is that there are two people in God’s Word who are given the title “son of perdition.”
British theologian Arthur W. Pink (1886–1952) more or less framed the idea that provided impetus for my thinking.
As we have seen, in John 17:12 Christ termed Judas “the Son of Perdition,” and 2 Thess.2:3 we find that the Antichrist is similarly designated—“That Man of Sin be revealed, the Son of Perdition.” These are the only two places in all the Bible where his name occurs, and the fact that Judas was termed by Christ not a “son of perdition,” but “the Son of Perdition,” and the fact that the Man of Sin is so named prove that they are one and the same person. What other conclusion can a simple and unprejudiced reader of the Bible come to? (from The Antichrist, by A. W. Pink, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/p/pink/antichrist/cache/antichrist.pdf)
Pink went on to write that he believed Antichrist, the son of perdition, will be a reincarnated individual. There isn’t sufficient space in this commentary to totally explain his thinking, but I recommend that you read at the link given above if you’re interested in why he believed this.
I can’t fully embrace this notion because of my bias against the belief in reincarnation by those held by Hindus in India and other places, and the fact that God’s Word says it is appointed unto man once to die, then comes the judgment.
That steels the notion against reincarnation in my mind, but leaves open the possibility for a return from the dead in the case of this one man—Judas Iscariot, who was apparently lost from the beginning, according to Jesus Himself in His prayer as recorded by John:
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. (John 17: 12)
I, nor anyone, can fully explain to my satisfaction why Judas went to “his own place” upon death, or why he was apparently instructed by Jesus to do what he was supposed to do at the Last Supper—i.e., go betray the Lord to the Judaizers and the Romans. We see these strange things in the following verses:
And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. (John 13: 27)
After Judas committed suicide, the disciples sought to replace him as the twelfth member of their group with one of two other men. They wanted the now resurrected and ascended Jesus to tell them what to do.
And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. (Acts 1:24–25)
We come then back to Arthur Pink’s statement that both Judas Iscariot and the one who will be Antichrist are called not “a” son of perdition, but “the” son of perdition. These are the only two who are so-designated as this evil individual.
Pink goes on, in depth, to point out that Judas was called by Jesus “devil.”
Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve. (John 6: 70–71)
This, Pink believed, meant that Judas was so possessed by a supernatural evil spirit–by Satan himself—that he was lost without chance of redemption. This certainly seems to be the case, considering the total context of what we know about Judas Iscariot and about salvation as given in God’s Word.
The key word in the matter seems to me to be the word “men.” Was Judas a “man” at the time of his accepting the sop given by Jesus,? Or was he something other?
We look again at the Scripture verse about death and judgment:
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. (Hebrews 9: 27)
Yet Judas Iscariot died, by his own hand, and went to “his own place.” Still, he is “the son of perdition”—same as Antichrist’s designation. Not “a” son of perdition, but “the” son of perdition.
Further, Pink writes the following.
It is hardly necessary to say that in the Greek there are two different words for “Devil” and “demon.” There are many demons, but only one Devil. Further, in no other passage is the word “devil” applied to any one but to Satan himself. Judas then was the Devil incarnate, just as the Lord Jesus was God incarnate. Christ Himself said so, [as recorded in John 6:70–71] and we dare not doubt His word. (Ibid.)
Pink then refers to the following Scripture to round out his thinking on the matter of Judas Iscariot being one and the same as the future Antichrist—a reincarnation, of sorts.
The Beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the Bottomless Pit, and go into perdition. (Revelation 17:8)
He points out that most expositors of his time held that Revelation 17:11 referred to the final form of Rome as the last world empire over which Antichrist will rule. But his implication was that they denied that an actual being will come from the bottomless pit as that Antichrist character (verse 8). Pink maintains that it is Judas Iscariot in a reincarnation. But it is a supernatural man, indwelt by an evil spirit like no other.
He writes:
In Matt.12:43 the Antichrist is called “The Unclean Spirit,” not merely an unclean spirit, but “the Unclean Spirit.”…
[In] the writer’s mind there is no doubt whatever that none other than the Beast is here in view. If this be the case, then we have further evidence that the coming One will be no mere man indwelt by Satan, but a fallen angel, an evil spirit, the incarnation of the Devil. (Ibid.)
I’m not at all sure about the term reincarnation in this case. There certainly is something profound connecting Judas Iscariot and the one who will be Antichrist, however. This “beast” will be wounded as unto death, then supposedly brought back to life at the midpoint of the Tribulation—another strange element to consider.
My own thinking revolves around the prophecy that foretells the first and second beasts of Revelation being thrown directly in the lake of fire. They apparently get no time of judgment before the Great White Throne as do men of the human sort. These are apparently already judged. This, to me, means they might not be or any longer have human, redeemable traits, so are summarily cast into that final place of the damned. Nephilim? I don’t know, but it’s interesting to contemplate.
Bottom line is that if you don’t know Jesus Christ for salvation of your soul, you will end up in the place where these two beings, the Antichrist and the False Prophet, will spend all of eternity.
Here’s how to avoid their fate as well as the fate of Satan, who will be the third being thrown into that place of eternal punishment.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)
The Rapture is a miraculous event where we in this bdoy will be instantly transformed to new bodies in hyper-dimensional spacetime then gathered into the clouds to meet the Lord int he air.
God does the miraculous, Angels use technology. And there are good Angels and bad Angels.
I agree with your points.
Here’s something else to consider: we may not believe in reincarnation, but those of the occult and eastern religions, Masons, and new age types do. Most millennials will fall prey to occultic lies, knowing very little to zero about the antichrist, most do not go to church.
If the beast from the bottomless pit is supposed to be the false Christ, and the main proof for the true Christ is his resurrection, then the false Christ will need an alleged resurrection to mimic the true Christ, to deceive the unchurched, mostly the youth, who don’t know the Bible.
This transhumanism you mentioned undoubtedly is to play a part in all this, which millennial types are so taken with.
We might mention the Kabbalists who believe that Sabbatai Zevi, a false Messiah, is supposed to rise from the abyss (the bottomless pit in the KJV). Or Rabbi Schneerson the head Rabbi of the Chabad (Kabbalists) organization who died a few years ago, his followers to this day believing that he will be reincarnated.
Like I said in a paragraph above, we might not believe in reincarnation, but those of the occult do. It is they, most millennials, and the unchurched who don’t know their Bibles that will believe the reincarnated christ lie, and will be damned.
How thick can the irony get with this stuff? People in their own names peddling fiction.
The antichrist keeps those keyboards tapping away with the next installments.
Establishment Jesus is the fake Jesus whom the Jesus of the Bible warned everyone about. Time for a total system collapse from its own dead weight.
I, nor anyone, can fully explain to my satisfaction why Judas went to “his own place” upon death..
Few appreciate simple, homespun meanings:
dig a hole for oneself
(informal) to create a situation that is difficult to get out of.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dig_a_hole_for_oneself
Well, while I tend to agree with your sentiment that we should be about the Father’s business, Paul in II Thess. 2 seems to indicate that the believers at that point in history will have the discernment to know who this guy is, “let he who has wisdom count the number of his name.” Only believers will have that kind of wisdom or discernment. The rest of the world will be totally deceived. I also realize that there are several views on when the rapture takes place which complicate this issue.
According to Paul in 2nd Thess 2, the departure comes FIRST (proton in the gReek) THEN the man of sin can be revealed. The first Englkish translation of the Greek used ‘the departure’ to translate the apostasia. Apopstais is not a technical word, thus it can mea more than a single use. It can mean physical departure, and the context of Paul’s writings anjd respones to those he previously taught indicate apostasia was used to denote a physical departure.
Enoch and Elijah were not reincarnated. And the 19th century pre tribulation rapture philosophy is quite distinct from what happened to Enoch and Elijah.
In the Old Testament it says, And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him (Gen. 5:24); the apostle Paul also says about Enoch that by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him (Heb. 11:5). There is nothing about Heaven in either phrase. It says only that Enoch was translated, but does the relocation really have to be to Heaven?
Remember that heaven was closed until Christ’s resurrection and that no man had ascended up to Heaven, but He that came down from Heaven.
Translation didn’t mean rapture nor ‘taken away that he may not see death’ mean aboding in heaven.
The antichrist was Nero.
Apocalypse 13:16-18 is based on Ezekiel 8 and 9. The “mark” symbolized the spiritual condition of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The ones with the “mark” were in allegiance with God. However, in Apocalypse, the mark is reversed. That is to say, the mark was on those who were against God and had allegiance to the “beast.”
John wrote that the number “is the number of a man’s name; and his number is 666.” This tells us that those who received the “mark” were actually in allegiance with a “man,” an actually person of the first century. So, who was he? Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus! Better known as Nero Caesar.
John used a puzzle called gematria in which numbers are used to represent certain letters. John used this puzzle to reveal Nero without actually writing down his name. Remember, the early churches were being persecuted during this time—not only from the Jews, but also from the Romans. The numerical values of the Hebrew letters in Neron Kesar (Nero Caesar) are:
Nero’s Name
Nero Caesar fits the gematria code number “666.” Using this code, his name would be rendered as “NRWN QSR.” (NRWN QSR). The number values are:
N = 50
R = 200
W = 6
N = 50
Q = 100
S = 60
R = 200
which, when added together, equals 666. The fact that Nero fits the description of the “beast” is well documented. According to Suetonius, he murdered his parents, wife, brother, aunt, and many others close to him and of high station in Rome. He was a torturer, a homosexual rapist, and a sodomite. He even married two young boys and paraded them around as his wives. One of the boys, whose name was Sporus, was castrated by Nero. He was truly bestial in his character, depravity, and actions. He devised a kind of game: covered with the skin of some wild animal, he was let loose from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women, who were bound at stakes. He also initiated the war against the Jews which led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD..
In Apocalypse 13:7, the Beast is said to “make war with the saints and to overcome them.” Apocalypse 13:5 says that the beast would conduct such blasphemous warfare for a specific period of time: 42 months. The Neronic persecution was instituted in 64 AD and lasted until his death in June 68 AD, which is three and a half years, or 42 months! Nero fits the bill for the role of the beast!
Apocalypse 13:10 and 14 says the Beast not only slays by the sword, but ultimately is to die of a sword wound. Do you know how Nero died? According to Suetonius, he “drove a dagger into his throat, aided by Epaphroditus, his private secretary” (ch.49). Nero killed with the sword and was killed by the sword. That Nero did, in fact, kill by the sword is a well-attested fact. Paul, for example, is said to have died under Nero by decapitation by means of the sword. Tertullian credits “Nero’s cruel sword” as providing the martyr’s blood as seed for the church. He urges his Roman readers to “Consult your histories; you will there find that Nero was the first who assailed with the imperial sword the Christian sect.”
Rapturists believe in reincarnation like Hindus?
Quack, quack, reincarnation, rapture, quack?
(what you wrote in that other thread was hilarious)
Revelation 17
8 The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to perdition; and the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will marvel to behold the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. 9 This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven hills on which the woman is seated; 10 they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while. 11 As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to perdition.
the prediction of the beast who will die (“is not”) and then be revived from the pit refers to the re-emergence of the Empire after the chaos that followed the death of Nero (see commentary on 13:3). At that time, those who thought the Empire would fall will “wonder” in amazement at its resurgence.
John tells us wisdom is needed to discern the meaning of the seven heads. This is reminiscent of the beast in 13:18, where wisdom is required to know the meaning of “666.”
The seven hills represent the first seven emperors of the Roman Empire. When we begin counting with Julius, as the historians of John’s day did, we learn that Nero is the sixth king, the one who is reigning at the time John writes Revelation; this is who John is referring to by the phrase, “the one who is.”
The Caesar who reigned after Nero, Galba, only reigned six months, fulfilling what John said, “[W]hen he comes he must remain only a little while.”
But who is the “eighth”? At the outset, it is noteworthy that John does not call him “the eighth,” but simply, “an eighth.” This is because he only saw seven heads and seven hills. The “eighth,” therefore, is not to be understood in the same way that the other seven are. He is not necessarily the successor of the seventh king. At the same time, he does “belong to the seven.” In connection with this, it is important to realize that, though John has foretold the collapse and resurgence of the Empire, his list of seven kings stops short of the reign of Vespasian, the tenth Caesar, who brought about its revitalization. John is using the number “eight,” then, symbolically. “Eight” was a symbol of resurrection and new beginnings in first century Judaism and Christianity.12 The Christians especially understood this in reference to Christ, who was raised from the dead on the “eighth” day. In fact, if one calculated the numeric value of Jesus’ name, one would find that it equals “888.”13 The “eighth” king, therefore, is likely a reference to the reestablishment of the Empire—its “resurrection”—under Vespasian
Maybe the Antichrist is a hominid, like Bigfoot. I hear the reward is now up to $3 million. You should get some of that.
, “let he who has wisdom count the number of his name.”
666 Nero
“666” is the numeric value of Nero’s name in Hebrew
The preterists are at it again, we see.
Which the apostle Peter warns us about in his 2nd epistle. The false prophets and scoffers of that epistle:
“There shall come in the last days scoffers...saying, where is the promise of his coming.” Peter repeating Jesus warning in Matt. 24, that those days will be “as it were” the days before the flood.
Enter the Preterists, who tell us instead, that Jesus’ warning - “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man” - applies only to the days before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
No doctrine more precisely describes the false prophets Peter was warning about, than that of the Preterists.
“let he who has wisdom count the number of his name.”
666 Nero
“666” is the numeric value of Nero’s name in Hebrew
I would RESPECTFULLY differ in opinion.
666 and CÆSAR NERO
Some will suggest that the book of Revelation was written only for those living at the time, and that 666 most probably applies to Cæsar Nero, who ruled Rome from 54 to 68 A.D., rather than someone from latter centuries. This point of view, which suggests Revelation had an immediate application to the first century, rather than being prophetic, is known as preterism, and is commonly held by the Catholic Church. So, just how is Nero linked to 666?
The preterist takes a relatively uncommon form of Nero’s name, Nero Cæsar or Cæsar Nero, and adds an “n”, resulting in Neron Cæsar. Next the Latin is transliterated into Aramaic, resulting in nrwn qsr, which when using the numeric equivalent of the letters, then adds up to 666 as follows:
Nun = 50
Resh = 200
Waw = 6
Nun = 50
Qoph = 100
Samech = 60
Resh = 200
An example of this spelling has apparently been recently discovered in one of the Dead Sea scrolls. If you use the same process, but without the added “n” the result is 616. Interestingly, some early manuscripts have 616 rather than 666, but even scholars such as Irenæus [A.D. 120-202] attribute the 616 to only a copyist error (Against Heresies: Book V Chapter XXX.), “this number [666] being found in all the most approved and ancient copies” [of the Apocalypse] and asserts that “men who saw John face to face bearing their testimony” [to it - 666].
There is a problem though with the above calculation. According to the rules of Jewish numerology, known as gematria, when the letter Nun appears a second time in a word, it is known as a “Final”, and takes the value of 700.* So to be precise, NRWN QSR actually adds up to 1316 and not 666.
*Source: Behind Numerology, by Shirley Blackwell Lawrence, copyright 1989, published by Newcastle Publishing Co., Inc., North Hollywood, California, ISBN 0-87877-145-X, page 41.
So the preterist calculation which attributes 666 to Nero, however, is nothing more than a rather desperate attempt to find some likely candidate for the Antichrist other than the Papacy.
http://aloha.net/~mikesch/666.htm
Can anyone check and see if Hominid or Bigfoot = 666?
I don’t believe in reincarnation as taught by man’s false religions, but
the 10 people raised from the dead in the Bible, who presumeably DIED TWICE, make Heb 9:27 a general principle, not a law. (Note: when the corpse sits up the funeral’s over!)
They were:
1) The Zarephath widow raised by Elijah, 1Kin 17:17-22
2) The Shunammite woman raised by Elisha, 2Kin 4:32-35
3) The man raised when he touched Elisha’s bones, 2Kin 13;20-21
4) The many saints raised at Jesus’ resurrection, Mat 27:50-53
5) Jesus, Mat 28:5-8, Mar 16:6, Luk 24:5-6
6) Son of the widow of Nain raised by Jesus, Luk 7:11-15
7) The daughter of Jairus raised by Jesus, Luk 8:41-42, 49-55
8) Lazarus raised, Joh 11:1-44
9) Dorcas raised by Peter, Act 9:36-41
10) Eutychus raised by Paul, Act 20:9-10
Side Note: The opinion of a modern “faith healer” faker aside, a dead person doesn’t “have enough faith” to be healed. No faith was possessed or required by any of the above 10 people to be raised from the dead, but they were raised anyway.
Firstly, it was the common, not the uncommon form of Nero’s name.
Secondly evidence that the early Christians saw “666” as Nero Caesar, is found in the fact that other early manuscripts often changed the number to 616, which is the numerical value of the Nero’s name in Hebrew according to its Latin spelling
Thirdly, this is the Hebraic numbering, not Aramaic.
Fourthly, The early Church universally understood these numbers to refer to Nero. Even the futurist Irenaeus mentions that Nero is the Gematrian solution to the puzzle of the 666. In some manuscripts of The Apocalypse, the number had been copied as 616. Irenaeus points out that even this number would work as the solution to Nero’s abbreviated name. This is further evidence that the early Church understood the 666 as a reference to Nero, the personification of the sea-beast.
One of the lesser antichrists would be Ellen G white, the proohetess of the Seventh day Adventist cult. She held that Jesus is the Angel Michael (who, according to Daniel is just one of many archangels, and is a created being)
Strawmen all over the place. First of all, Catholics can't be full Preterists, only partial Preterists. (Full Preterism is heretical; it denies the Second Coming.) Partial Preterists do not deny that Revelation has prophetic content all over the place, but we assert that its primary fulfillment (up to chapter 20) happened in the first century. So does v chapter 1 verse 1 of Revelation itself.
Most of the better partial preterist scholarship today is being done by Calvinists. It's dishonest to pretend it's some kind of Catholic distinctive or Catholic headfake. You'd be calling most of the PCA "Catholic," and they don't cotton to that.
What’s a preterist? What do you mean by the term?
Peter spoke about the days before the destruction of Jerusalem.
Scripture teaches that the Incarnation ushered in “the last days.” According to Hebrews 1:1-2, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” At Pentecost, Peter preached that “the last days” had arrived, in fulfillment of the words of the prophet Joel: “For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says,
What you seem to be indicating is not what I wrote. You indicate a stance that emphasizes the events of the first century to the exclusion of all else that the Bible teaches about the future. That isn’t what I wrote.
If that us what you mean of an exclusive entry, then your preterist and pre tribulation rapturist are both equally wrong.
The ancient prayer of the Church has always been, “Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!” It still is. The second coming is proclaimed in every Mass: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” Christians have always believed that the Bible teaches there will one day be a second coming
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