אבנימ

The Interpretation of Prophecy Part Two Chapter 3 Section 1

The author divides his final chapter on the prophetical future of the Church and the Kingdom of Christ into four sections. In the first section he discusses the Church in her relations to the kingdoms of this world. Scripture deals with this conflict in both general terms, as in Psalm 2, and also very specifically in select prophecies in the books of Daniel and the Revelation. It is to this latter class of writings that the author addresses himself in this section.

We find in Daniel two visions concerning the kingdoms of this world contra the kingdom of God, viz. Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the great image and the Stone made without hands in Daniel 2, and Daniel’s vision of the four beasts and the Son of Man in Daniel 7. In the first, the kingdoms of this world are seen from the external perspective of the Chaldean monarch. The grand human statue shows the historical kingdoms in their outer glory, beginning with Babylon, the head of gold. Being incorporate together into one statue they are shown to be all of a piece, i.e. the successive kingdoms are all part of the one kingdom of this world which aspires to godlike majesty and supremacy apart from God. The kingdom of God appears small and insignificant in comparison when it first appears. Represented by the stone that comes, as it were, out of nowhere, it utterly demolishes the world’s kingdoms represented by the image, and then becomes the great mountain that fills the whole world. It has an entirely different origin than the earthly kingdoms, it is “cut out without hands”, and thus shown to be of a completely different kind. By it the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is filling, and will ultimately saturate the entire earth.

In Daniel’s second vision, the four beasts correspond to the four parts of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue, but this vision reveals the inner character of these kingdoms, rather than their outer glory. The former appears, as it were, from the outward and human perspective, the latter from the spiritual and heavenly. The depiction of beasts in the vision unveils the essential nature of the kingdoms of this world as being actuated by base and degraded passions. The four beasts all have a common origin – they arise out of the sea, that is, they all ascend from the tumultuous earthly elements of sin-plagued humanity. As with the first vision, the worldly kingdoms are utterly destroyed by the advent of the Kingdom of God, in this case explicitly revealed as the Son of Man.

The visions in the Revelation are in the main a detailed expansion of Daniel’s vision of the beasts and the Son of Man. In Daniel we see a very brief sketch, and are then left to consider the final result. John takes us through the process of the conflict between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God, and describes many of its concomitant events and circumstances. As in Daniel, the beast rises up out of the sea, but in Revelation it is one beast, not several, whose particular characteristics are described in greater detail. In this John is showing the kingdom of this world as one kingdom throughout human history, an idealized depiction of the City of Man in rebellion against God.

As in Daniel, we also behold in Revelation the majesty and dignity of the Son of Man who triumphs in glorious power over his enemies. But here we also see the conflict unfolding through history between the two kingdoms until the final consummation in the new heaven and new earth. Moreover we now have another human actor in the drama, the church portrayed as the Woman, the Bride of the Lamb. And thus the kingdom of God is again represented by regal humanity in contradistinction to the vile passions of the beast, but now that humanity is two-fold and complete: Man and Woman, The Lord Christ and His Bride the Church.

In tracing the conflict between the two kingdoms, John begins with the awesome revelation of the Son of Man, the same as in Daniel 7, but seen here in fuller detail and identified as Jesus Christ. We are subsequently taken back to the time when The Woman is in labor to deliver her Deliverer, whom the Dragon waits to devour. The Woman is the Church, the people of God, hearkening back to Genesis 3.15, and the Man-child is the promised Seed, Christ. Though the Dragon, i.e. the Devil, seeks to destroy Him, He is preserved and taken up into Heaven: a picture of our Lord’s resurrection and His triumph over sin and death. The visions then show Satan being cast down from heaven, which is consequent of Christ’s triumph, and denotes the great weakening of the Dragon’s power, as Christ rules in heaven. The Dragon can no longer threaten the great Man-child — he can only persecute the Woman while time remains. As the drama of history unfolds, the Lord preserves and keeps His Bride through these persecutions, and prepares places of protection for her.

While the first beast depicts the political power of the City of Man, the second beast that appears to support him is called the “false prophet” and represents the world’s wisdom. He is given the power of speech by the Dragon, hence we understand that the spirit behind this world’s wisdom is “earthly, sensual and demonic” (James 3.15), inspired by the spiritual powers of darkness. This beast comes not from “the sea,” as the first, but “from the abyss.” In the Church’s ongoing struggle it is the lying words of the 2nd beast that are the most perilous. The Church should fully expect that as the time of the end approaches, the snares set by 2nd beast will grow in subtlety and refinement.