Who Was The Beast Of The Book Of Revelation?

[JAG 5000]

Who Was The Beast Of the Book Of Revelation?

Short answer: Nero Caesar.

Read on , , ,

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{The following was taken from He Shall Have Dominion. by Dr. Kenneth L. Gentry Jr. It is not a word for word quote but the substance of this below is Dr. Gentry's. I typed it in. It is not on the web. Footnote at the bottom}

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Who Was The Beast Of Revelation? The Beast is a well known Christian Eschatological character. Premillennialists incorrectly believe that the Beast is to appear in the future. This is false. The Beast was a 1st Century character that appeared in the 1st Century and will never appear again in human history.

The Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation.

The Time Of The Beast. John clearly expects his prophesied events to take place in his day, the 1st Century.

John writes: "The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place." Revelation 1:1

"Then he told me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near" Revelation 22:10

"must soon take place" "the time is near"

In light of Revelation's significance to its first-century audience, the Beast must be someone relevant to that first-century audience.

"The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near." Revelation 1:1-4

“Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.” Rev. 1:11 {these were churches of the 1st century that received this letter of Revelation}

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Revelation 13 presents the Beast as a horrible and powerful foe attempting to destroy God's people.

Sometimes Revelation presents the Beast as a kingdom and sometimes as an individua leader of that kingdom.

In some places the Beast has seven heads which are seven kings collectively considered.

In Revelation 13:1 John notes that he saw a Beast coming up out of the sea having 10 horns and seven heads. Revelation 17:10 specifically says that the seven heads represent seven kings.

Thus the Beast is presented as a kingdom. But kingdoms have representatives. This is why John also speaks of the Beast as an individual.

John urges his readers to calculate the number of the Beast which is the number of a man Revelation 13:18

The Beast's General Identity is the first-century Roman Empire and NOT a "revived Roman Empire" as imagined by Dispensationalism.

According to Revelation 17:9 the Beast's seven heads represent "seven mountains." The seven mountains symbolize Rome. Rome is the one city in history distinguished and recognized by its seven mountains.

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The Beast's Specific Identify. The Beast in his personal identity is Nero Caesar. He and he alone fits the bill as the personal and specific expression of the Beast. This vile character fulfills all the requirements of the text of Revelation.

First the number of the Beast. In Revelation 13:18 the number of the Beast is 666. The usefulness of this number lies in the fact that in the first-century alphabets serve as both phonetic symbols and as arithmetical values. Significantly a common spelling of Nero Caesar's name is Nrwn Qsr, which provides the numerical value of 666

Second the Textual Variant. See Dr. Gentry's book for this explanation. Page 381

Third the Beastly Image. Revelation 13 both calls and portrays the one behind the 666 riddle as a "beast.". The term "beast" can easily symbolize persons with a beastly nature. Almost all scholars agree that Nero Caesar possessed a beastly nature.. Nero Caesar is even hated and feared by his own countrymen, as ancient Roman historians agree. The pagan writer Apollinius of Tyana, a contemporary of Nero Caesar, calls him a "beast."

Fourth, the war with the saints. John's Beast will make war with the saints and overcome them.{Rev. 13:7} In fact Nero Caesar conducts a blasphemous war with the saints for a specific period of 42 months {Rev. 13:5} Nero begins his persecution of Christians in A.D. 64. The persecution finally ends when Nero Caesar dies on June 8, A.D.68 forty-two months later, but for a few days. {Point of interest: Nero's own end comes by the sword.}

Conclusion: The Beast of Revelation was the beastly Nero Caesar of the 1st Century.

Source He Shall Have Dominion by Dr. Kenneth L. Gentry Jr. pages 379 - 381

Best Regards,

JAG

[daniel1212]

"Try researching this stuff yourself instead of relying on people who told you that Jesus drank grape juice. Most of this stuff that you are quoting is wrtitten by theologians and theology just believes what theology wants to believe. It is nothing more than sophistry, rationalizationa and cleverness."

Actually most of this stuff that I am referring is written by those who engage in research and substantiate their refutations of your wishful esoterically theology with facts.

[amnestynone]

“Actually most of this stuff that I am referring is written by those who engage in research and substantiate their refutations of your wishful esoterically theology with facts.”

You never know who has the facts until you check them yourself. I spent years doing it! I repeat theology is sophistry, rationalization and cleverness.

[daniel1212]

"You never know who has the facts until you check them yourself. I spent years doing it! I repeat theology is sophistry, rationalization and cleverness."

I do not need to do more research in response to one who believes in the equivalent of fairy tales.

[amnestynone]

The ancients hid thier wisdom in myths that had deep er meanings. If you will study ancient religions instead of just copying and pasting polemics into and out of memory you might learn something.

[daniel1212]

"The ancients hid thier wisdom in myths that had deep er meanings. If you will study ancient religions instead of just copying and pasting polemics into and out of memory you might learn something."

I work to serve the living and true God who sets His people apart from all other ancient religions and does not make these distinctions and what He commands ambiguous and for the esoteric elite, and warns of such.

Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. (Colossians 2:18-19)

I leave you to your alter-Christo deceptions.

[chuckles]

I thought of making a list of things that still must come to pass that would make 70AD impossible, but I was too lazy. I usually do this at 12am-4am and am always in a hurry to get to bed. If you say Revelation was written in 90-94 AD 20 years past 70 AD, they just say John was writing about what happened in the past while he was locked up on Patmos. The Book plainly states it must come to pass in the future. John wrote “Blessed is he that hears the word of this prophesy. How can a prophesy do any good for the hearer if it’s 20 years old?

[daniel1212]

"I thought of making a list of things that still must come to pass that would make 70AD impossible, but I was too lazy. I usually do this at 12am-4am and am always in a hurry to get to bed. If you say Revelation was written in 90-94 AD 20 years past 70 AD, they just say John was writing about what happened in the past while he was locked up on Patmos. The Book plainly states it must come to pass in the future. John wrote “Blessed is he that hears the word of this prophesy. How can a prophesy do any good for the hearer if it’s 20 years old?"

That is why preterists insist Rev. was penned prior to 70 AD.

[Cronos]

To mhg

Cc jag.

Mhg, I have no idea what you mean by preterist. I humbly just read the Biblical books and history books and it is plain that your pre tribulation rapture philosophy is a 19th century invention that is non biblical and non historical.

Jesus will have a second coming and not a third coming. Those few believers on Earth, at the end of time will be changed to spiritual being on the second coming of Jesus - 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

Jesus incarnate sits on the right of the Father - Mark 16:19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God (Also see - Matthew 26:64, Luke 22:69; Acts 7:55, Psalm 16:8). In Acts 7:56 the heavens opened up and Stephen saw Jesus on the right of the Father, before his martyrdom (in fact Jesus was standing to welcome him home!). This is in accordance with the promise by God the Father to Jesus in Psalms:110:1 The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. At the end of time Jesus will be handed the scroll (Revelation 5:1-5) - which is the ‘Title Deed to Planet Earth’. As the seals are opened there will be great tragedies. He will finally come to crush His enemies and claim ‘Planet Earth’ in God’s timing (1 Thessalonians 4:16; Matthew 24:36) - Acts 1:11 ..., “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

[Cronos]

To mhg

What Jesus actually said, as recorded in the Gospels, is that his return (the Second Coming) will be visible, apparent to everyone in the world, sudden, in fact, unexpected, or as he put it, “as a thief in the night”, with the clear implication being that daily life will proceed with complete normality *right up to that very moment when the Lord returns and everything changes*.

Christians are, in fact, explicitly adjured over and over again to act as if Jesus were going to return fifteen seconds from now, and comport themselves in their lives and actions accordingly.

[Cronos]

Christ’s Kingdom will not have physical boundaries, because it is spiritual.

In 1 Thess 5:2 Paul is not speaking of the stealth of the thief, but the unanticipated suddenness with which thieves strike. He calls it “sudden destruction” (5:3). Notice the destruction comes suddenly on the unbelievers. This is the last judgment. Paul clearly states that immediately after this event, eternity begins. He writes, “and so we shall always be with the Lord.”

Yet rapturists teach that this coming (the rapture) will be followed by the seven-year Great Tribulation and then a thousand-year earthly Kingdom. Why does St. Paul not at least allude to these events?

In Revelation, The Millennial Kingdom is the present ecclesiastical one. The fact that St. John feels no need to justify the statement makes it all the more significant

Read the passage in Revelation, Nowhere does it say that “Christ will be physically present on earth, reigning from the throne of David in Israel.” Nowhere does this passage even imply a physical, earthly kingdom in Jerusalem, Israel. It seems almost blasphemous to picture Christ seated on a throne doing administrative tasks, involved in ruling the day-to-day affairs of the earth. Rather, His Kingdom is spiritual. His Kingdom is universal. His Kingdom is ecclesiastical.

[Cronos]

Note that the pre tribulation rapture is non biblical and non historical.

[Cronos]

The mark is not technological.

Nite that there are two Marks in the book of Revelation.

The first is from God. No evil will be allowed “till we have sealed the servants of our God upon their foreheads” (7:3). This is the “mark” that was mentioned in the letter to the Church in Philadelphia, in anticipation of the mark of God that would later stand in contrast to the mark of the beast. The fact that God’s servants are sealed with this mark “upon their foreheads” shows that their minds are right. They think as Christians should because their loyalty is to God and His Kingdom.

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Next the mark of the beast. Could it really be a microchip that will be imbedded in the forehead or hand at some point in the future, as you believe?

No, the biblical text refutes that concept.

The “mark” was a common symbol in the Old Testament, signifying loyalty. Cain was given a mark for disloyalty after he killed his brother (Gen. 4:15). The mark of lamb’s blood on the doorposts in Egypt just before the exodus of the Hebrews was a public announcement of loyalty. In Ezekiel 9:4–6, a mark was put on each loyal man’s forehead before God destroyed those in Jerusalem who were doing evil. This mark was the Hebrew letter tau, or T, and those without it were killed in judgment. The early Church saw it as a prophecy pointing to the sign of the Cross.

Like the Kingdom that is being revealed, the marks of The Apocalypse are internal. There are two marks: the mark of the beast and the mark of the Lamb (as we see earlier in the book of Revelation).

The mark of the beast and the mark of the Lamb are inward and discernible only through the actions of those marked. Having it on the hand signifies the change in what we Christians do as a result of our loyalty, while the forehead mark signifies how our loyalties change the way we think. The loyalty to God’s Law within the Christian community would be obvious to everyone when emperor worship was demanded in the marketplace. Christians refused to “go along to get along,” and they ended up as a people marked by Rome for death. At the same time, God marked these martyrs for eternal life.

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In the vision of the winepress, “anyone [who] worships the beast and its image” is equated with “receiv[ing] a mark on his forehead or on his hand” (14:9). This spiritual understanding of the marks dovetails best with the mark of God’s presence even in eternity.

[Cronos]

Revelation is clear that there are two beasts

The one from the sea, signifying a gentile power, the Roman empire.

The one from the land, signifying Judean power, the Sanhedrin. This is the whore city of Jerusalem of 67 AD that rode the beast until the beast burnt and devoured her, just as the Roman legions burnt and destroyed Jerusalem.

[Cronos]

The soon dovetails with

1. The book of Revelation itself which starts with John saying that they are already living in the time of the great tribulation.

2. History which shows that the Jesus movement did have a great tribulation in 64 to 67 AD when the secular and religious authorities both tried to smother it.

3. Jesus clearly telling his listeners in 30 AD that the time would come during their lifetimes

[Cronos]

The test in 8.7 is a third of the trees.

The first trumpet is followed by “hail and fire, mixed with blood” (8:7). This is a picture of destruction and death beyond the ability of any human to stop; a devastated ecosphere, with “a third of the trees” destroyed (8:7).

This is historically attested in Josephus book “The War of the Jews”

The Roman army actually used so many trees for their siege engines and their crosses that the area around Jerusalem was completely deforested for miles (WJ, XI).

[Rurudyne]

I said nothing about it.

We are told to neither add nor to take away from Revelation, but taking away is apparently worse.

When Paul wrote of the resurrection he said that those alive would not preceded those asleep (1st Thessalonians).

The “first resurrection”, however it may be construed, is completed as described in Revelation and the saints are riding in behind the Lord. This happens at the very end of the great tribulation.

Now I will bring up something that Christ Himself wondered about, if He would find faith on earth when He returns, but more He said: “And shall not God avenge his elect, that cry to him day and night, and yet he is longsuffering over them? I say unto you, that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”

Recall that those slain by the beast, who were under the altar do in fact match up with this description as those “that cry to him day and night”.

That doesn’t mean that there is no one left with faith, there are remnants after all, and just as the two witnesses had been ministering until possibly just days before this army rides down to earth, so there may still be scattered survivors of the purges to be like those Paul described.

This leaves little room to my thinking for a taking away either nearly 7 or nearly 3.5 years before this point,

But there’s something else I’m beginning to suspect may be at work and that is that this rapture may well be what is in the interest of men yet not in the Lord’s interest. Here I’m kinda, though not literally, drawing a potential parallel with what Christ said when He rebuked Peter.

So let me ask, is it in the Lord’s interest, is He glorified most when, if His people escape harm or by them being refined through troubles as Scripture sometimes references? I do not pretend to know which glorifies the Lord the most, He knows. If it is one, it will be that. If it is the other, it will be that. If it’s something else, it will be that. Just as Christ doing just as had been determined, though Peter thought it shouldn’t happen that way, is exactly what glorified the Lord the most and therefore was what was in God’s interest (but not man’s) so too should we expect these coming years to glorify the Lord according to His interests.

There are arguments for a pretribulation rapture, or a midtribulation rapture, I acknowledge them, but they are just arguments for it.

Would it be nice to not have to suffer, as the early Christians had to often had suffer? Nice is certainly ... nice ... but is nice in line with “Holy, Holy, Holy”? Paul also wrote to the effect of himself and others “participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church.” which isn’t all that nice but seems to lend itself to that holiness thing as well as being associated with the possibility of rewards, those crowns given out, at the judgment seat of Christ.

Hey, whatever is going to happen: cling to the Lord, be like Peter on that one occasion when everyone else seemed to be leaving and Christ asked the 12 if they would leave too and Peter said “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

We are heading towards a world where everyone else seems to be falling away, where there is gonna be a real price to pay for not going along to get along but standing apart to be found in Christ, where Romans 1:18-32 is seen everywhere ... when everyone else is going away Christ could ask us too if we would leave and our response, if we are clinging to Him, should be as Peter’s was.

“To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

[MHGinTN]

There more coordinate systems than you perceive. The being who wrote upon the wall in the Babylon palace was / is real, existing in a coordinate system un sensed by the partiers except where he reached into their coordinate system.

The Departure (the apostasia) is not an event confined to the coordinate system you can sense now. The sudden disapearance of hundreds of millions from your sensory range is the only part of The Departure you will witness. You will not be able to see the Body of Christ gathered into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and return to the father's house, for that will happen in a space and time you cannot sense as now configured.

Ponder the meaning of 1 John 3:2 ... the redeemed will see Him as He is now in His glorified state for we shall be like He is now. Stephen was given the ability to see into coordinates the stone throwers were not given the ability to see.. After Jesus resurrection only those given the ability to see Him in His resurrected state saw Him, and at the Ascension hundreds of BELIEVERS were given that ability.

When Jesus makes His Second coming to this Earth solely in our sensory range He will be seen by the whole world because He will be in our sensory range not in hyper-dimensional reality. When He gathers His Body of Believers He will be gathering in a hyper-dimensional sensory range you and I cannot now sense.

Paul tells us that there is a physical body and a spirit body. Can you now sense the spirit body God gave you? That body is real and does exist beyond the dissolution of the physical body, but you can no more see it or sense it than you can 'see' the surface of a planet circling a distant star. Your vision as now configured is unable to see that way.

One last point to you and readers of this post: the Revelation tells us that 'the redeemed from every nation, tribe, and tongue are in Heaven as witnesses when Jesus, The Lamb of God, opens the first seal of the seven sealed scroll, to begin the seven years of the Tribulation..

[TurkeyLurkey]

Please provide your cross-references from the Bible.

[amnestynone]

Try studying the ancient religions instead of just saying nice things that sound good. When I was a young man I was told that Jesus drank grape juice because the church did not approve of wine. Well, grapes were harvested during the summer. According to biblical accounts wine was drank during Pentecost. So how did they keep the wine from spoiling between than and spring? They just opened their mouths and let what ever fly into their minds fly out of their mouths.

This is theology in its purist form. This is when theology was completely discredited to me. I started to look for truths by studying history and the ancient religions and I found a sure correlation between these ancient religions. Christianity as written from the bible is plainly a built from sumarian. Persian Zorastrian and greek antecedents. The four gospels largely have their roots in Buddhism. The Apocalypse is plainly Graeco Egyptian. If you will read Sir Walis Budges “Egyptian book of the Dead” you will find where the symbolism came from.
These religions were Esoteric they hid their wisdom in myths. “Give not holy things to the dogs, They will rend it and turn on you, it like throwing pearls to the swine.” This is very much a statement of why things were kept hidden in myths and parables. Parables were used by other religions to give a multiple level of meaning. Most of you get your religion from the same people who told you that Jesus drank grape Juice. In other wards they do not know what they are talking about. Try researching things instead of being a little puppy dog who accepts what idiots tell you. If you read the gospels you will find the holy men of the time playing all kinds of little games with their quibbling niggling nit picking little arguments. They are representative of theologians of all religions and the mind games and mental processes that they play. This is a clear demonstration of why things were held closely. It is better to keep the truths private rather than to allow them to be twisted and mangled by theologians and others who twist and distort things to fit their own agenda.

[hopespringseternal]

Go take a pill. The people leading Christianity into existence were willing to give up their lives for it.

If you want to see how scam artists behave look at the current crop of democrat politicians who have made themselves fantastically wealthy through other people’s misery. Or look at the televangelists who prey on people while eagerly endorsing all the madness of the left, again making themselves fantastically wealthy while subverting the very message they claim to serve.

You are promoting your own fantasy that is as old as the hills and about as intelligent as a pile of dirt.