It is Satan, of course, who is behind the scenes; but his slave, the second Beast, “deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the Beast: saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the Beast which had the wound by a word and did live. And he had power to give life (or breath) &c., 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.” (Verses 14, 15).
Observe, by the way, a further proof that this second Beast is after the final rise of the first Beast; for he causes an image to be made “to the Beast which had the wound by a sword and did live.” “And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, the name of the Beast, or the number of his name.” (Verses 16,17). That mark was a seal of subjection or slavery to the Beast.
“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] 666 (ver. 18).” I do not pretend to solve any such question as this. It would be easy to repeat what others have thought. Some of the early Christians, especially the pious Bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus, supposed that it was “the Latin man.” Others have found various names, in accordance with their polemics and prejudices. Romanists discovered in it the enigma of Luther; Protestants, the name of more than one Pope. Mahomet in ancient, and Napoleon in modern times, have been imagined. But are such notions better than conundrum? It is not the way of the Spirit to occupy God's people with reckoning letters or numbers after this vague fashion. May we not be satisfied that this is one of the points of detail left for “the wise” of the latter day, and that when the time comes, the clue will be given, and all the light that may be required? For there is in the ways of God a sort of economy, at least when we come to matters of detail and application. Just as He does not give a saint the strength to bear him through a special trial, till it is at the doors, so the Lord may only vouchsafe the needed instruction about this number when the man himself appears.
The application of the prophecy to a particular person will be the point then. It seems premature and useless to discuss such a question till the parties are on the stage. The wise shall understand then, and all will be as clear as day to them, but not to the wicked.
(See Dan. 12) The general truth, however, is plain. There is this second “Beast,” the active, energetic power that opposes Christ; but when the day of reckoning comes, and the judgment of the Lord is upon him, he will be no longer spoken of as a Beast, but as the “false prophet” that wrought miracles. (Rev. 19:2020And 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).) Supposing the second beast to be Antichrist, I am inclined to think that there is a spurious imitation of Christ in his causing the first Beast to be worshipped. The Lord Jesus spake and wrought for the purpose of exalting God the Father, while the Father Himself makes Christ the special object. “Let all the angels of God worship him,” (the Son,) and, again, “that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.” So it is with this Beast. He will help to exalt the great world-power, but withal he equally, and yet more in spiritual things, exalts himself. He has horns like a lamb. That is, he pretends to the power of Christ. But he speaks as a dragon (i.e., the expression of his mind is Satanic.) Being a Beast, it is intimated that he is invested with temporal authority; while he is also expressly designated a false prophet. Thus, it is a personal antagonist of what Christ was and will be, rather than of what He is. Popery—Anti-Christendom, if you will—is a travesty of Christ's priesthood, and will perish with all that partakes its sin in the gainsaying of Korah. But here (when Christ, having closed His heavenly work, is about to assume His earthly royal dignity), is one who opposes and exalts himself in the city of the great king. For it is the Holy Land that is the central seat of his power and deceits. He is, I think, the person that the Lord Jesus referred to in contrast with Himself, in a passage just quoted in part, where He sums up all in a few little words (John 5:4343I 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)); “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.” The Jews would not have Him who came from the Father. His sent One and servant, though His equal in honor and power, had so come and been refused. But there was one whom they are to receive, one who will flatter and exalt man in sin; for he will own no authority higher than his own, and this is the echo of man's will. Him I believe to be the personage we have here—one who, as to actual territorial dominion and external splendor, may have a superior, but who, in point of spiritual energy and weight, is pre-eminent.
Having already given so fully that which seems to me the true view of the very important chapter which has just occupied us, I need not say much of counter expositions, many grounds of which have been already set aside by anticipation. Mr. Elliott is perhaps more than usually confident in his hypothesis that the Beast from the sea represents the character and history of the Roman Popes and Papal Christendom, and the two horned Beast the Papal clergy, with the image of the Beast as the Papal councils. It is impossible to call this, at least, the Protestant interpretation. For even Luther made the first Beast to be the Latin secular, the second the spiritual, power; while Bullinger viewed the former as the Pagan Roman empire, as did Foxe. Brightman, no doubt, was even more zealous than Mr. E., for he makes both Beasts to set forth the Popes. But what is of more consequence, the learned Joseph Mede, and, as far as I can collect, Dr. Cressener, Jurieu and Daubuz certainly, rejected these notions, regarding the first Beast as the Roman secular empire, and the second as the ecclesiastical Beast, though with characteristic points of difference. So, in the main, Sir I. Newton. If we inquire of their successors nearer our own day, the case is no better by Mr. E.'s own account.” The explanation of this first Beast as the secular Emperor and Empire of Western Christendom, and of the second Beast as the Pope and Pontifical Empire, so as most of our modern English expositors have taken it (e.g. Faber, Cuninghame, Bickersteth, &c.) I conceive, to have been one of the most plain, as well as most fatal, of Protestant expository errors.” (Vol. III. p. 100, note 1.) Surely, then, if so plain and fatal, Mr. E.'s elaborate array of evidence, and acute correction of the Potestant expository error, have been successful with every fair mind Alas! no. Perhaps the chief independent exposition, since the Horae Apoc., is the Rationale Apocalypticum of Mr. Alfred Jenour (2 vols. 8vo, 1852); and there I read that “the wild Beast from the sea” must symbolize an empire about to rise after the ancient Heathen empire had been destroyed, and which would be, as it were, that empire revived. It must represent too, I think, obviously a secular empire, not a spiritual or ecclesiastical dominion There is nothing to indicate that it partakes in any degree of a spiritual or ecclesiastical character. And I cannot, therefore, but express my astonishment that so many commentators should have acquiesced in the interpretation which makes this sea born wild beast the Papacy. There is not a single feature in the description of the beast itself that can with propriety be so applied. It is, as I have said, a secular not a spiritual power we have here delineated.” (Vol. 2. p. 75.)
On the one hand, then, I agree with Mr. Elliott that it is impossible fairly to interpret the Beast from the sea of the empire founded by Clovis and completed by Charlemagne. Neither the seven heads nor the ten horns, neither the dragon-character, nor, in any sense, the duration, can bear a reasonable application to it. On the other hand, I am compelled to agree with the earliest down to the latest, and including some of the very ablest of Protestants, that not the Papacy is meant but the secular Roman Empire. The conclusion is irresistible. Allowing an inconclusive accomplishment in the Papacy and its clerical supports, I steadily adhere to the conviction that the future alone can exhibit the fulfillment of all the features predicted, without constraint and in all their strength.
It is not true that the Papacy has the command of the Western powers which is here supposed, still less practices for 1260 years with such unlimited dominion.
It is not true that the Pope has authority given him over every kindred and people and tongue and nation, even if you confound this with (instead of distinguishing it from) the dwellers in the Roman world. It is not true that the Pope is the object of all the world's wonder, nor that the confession is extorted, “Who is able to make war with him?” Nor do all, save the elect, in Western Christendom worship him. Need I show how palpably inapplicable is the second Beast to those wolves in sheep's clothing, the Papal clergy? Do they exercise the enormous power, all the power, of the first Beast? And in what fair sense do they perform great miracles or signs, so as to make fire come down from heaven in men's sight? Is it possible that any person, save blinded by system, could be content with such an accomplishment as the wicked and idolatrous figment of the mass, or the lightnings of the Vatican?
The Lord grant that we may deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and this, not only for wrath but for conscience sake! Yea, may we be separated to Christ in a spirit of heavenly grace! How base to think we can take care when the time comes? Baser still, if possible, to plead that the church of God will be previously taken out of the way to heaven—that because all will be right then, we can afford to do wrong now! Remember, that meanwhile, as the Apostle said, are there many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. Now, if you are allowing the spirit of the world, or are trifling with any of the influences of antichrist at the present moment, what would you do if exposed to all the fearful persecutions on the one hand, and to all the temptations on the other, of the day when the man of sin will be revealed? God's grace might strengthen me to face all danger, and to refuse every blandishment, rather than abjure the true and worship the false God and Christ. But is it not most solemn and humbling if I join (no matter what the motive) in any fellowship with known evil?
And here is the great, moral, present value of prophecy. I see the frightful fall at the end, and can trace the stream that runs down to it. Perhaps the way is long and winding, and the river does not seem so perilous; but look a little lower down, where the word of God lifts up the misty veil which shrouds the future, and behold the fatal speed with which all who float there are engulphed to their utter destruction! There are many currents connected with the world, and I may not see, in their sources and first floorings, the full extent of the evil which is the inevitable result. In prophecy God graciously shows me the end from the beginning; so that, if I heed it not, I am dishonoring the warning of His love, who would have me “knowing these things before.” Let us also beware not merely of one evil, but of its every form: especially let us not meddle with it, wherever it assumes a Christ like form in association with the world. Here we have the end of the open, blasphemous power, as well as of the more active and subtle spiritual evil of the crisis. Men will be caught in one or other of these snares—the bold infidelity or the religious gravity of the last days. However they may differ in appearance, they are found in the strictest, saddest, most fatal union at the close. The Lord grant that our hearts may be kept looking to Christ and waiting for Him from heaven! There is no full comfort or blessing, except so far as the eye is single to Him
(Continued from page 224.)