Wednesday August 23rd 2017
Revelation 13:1-18
key verse:1
THE ANTICHRIST AND THE FALSE PROPHET
The great dragon of chapter 12 is Satan, the father of lies. The beast which comes from sea in chapter 13a is the Antichrist, the son of perdition. The beast which comes from earth in chapter 13b is the false prophet, the spirit of falsehood. In chapter 12, Satan is expelled from the sky and in chapter 13 he deploys an intense and evil activity.
1. The beast that comes from sea (1-10)
The description of the animal in chapter 13 looks like the description of the fourth animal in Daniel 7 (cf 5 to 8: arrogant words, 6 to 25: blasphemous words, 7 to 21: war towards the saints, 5 to 25: three and a half years). It's the Antichrist, whose the power is the unity of the strength of the 4 animals in Daniel: majesty of lion, brutality of bear, speed of leopard, and the extraordinary strenghth of lion. The healing of the (fatal) wound parodies the resurrection and attracts the inhabitants to worship him. He will receive authority (4). It's maybe a politician superhuman worshipped by mankind. A great power was given to him, but "power was given to him" (repeated 4 times in 5-7), which means that he will act only within the limits imposed by the Almighty. He will persecute the saints (7a) and make them worship the beast. But the worshippers will have the eternal perdition (8). The saints will persevere, because they root their faith in the final victory (10b).
2. The beast that comes from earth (11-18)
If the beast who comes from sea has the other peoples as origin, the beast which comes from earth has the Jews as origin. This beast parodies the Holy Spirit. The beast will pretend to have the role of "comforter" in place of the Holy Spirit. It magnifies the son of perdition to whom it's a zealous and very effective servant. The false prophet will act as the right arm of the Antichrist (12). The prodigies accomplished by the false prophet will seduce all the earth. The Antichrist's pride will be unbounded. The passion of power will goad him to enter God's temple and proclaim himself as God. He will create a false religion making people worship the Antichrist through other's pictures (13,14). He will do a speaking picture (madonne ?) and will make them worship the picture. But during Jesus' second coming he will be annihilated. He forces all those servants to have a mark of the beast of their foreheard as the condition of suvival (16-17). Then, comes the peculative number of 666. If 7 is the perfect number according to God, 6 is the perfect number according to mankind, like 6000 chariots of Pharaoh, Goliath's 600 shekels of iron, 6 degrees before Salomon's temple, etc.
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