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Grace & Peace: Revelation 86

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).

“And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (Rev. 14:8).

This is the first place in the Revelation where the name Babylon makes its entrance. The Babylon that is introduced in this place has her fall actually described a few chapters later, in chapter 18. A great deal of ink has been spilled in trying to identify this Babylon, and both here and in the sections that follow I will hazard my reasons for supposing Babylon to be Jerusalem—the city doomed to destruction throughout the course of this entire book.

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Grace & Peace: Revelation 85

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).

“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters” (Rev. 14:6–7).

We should first consider the fact that in this place the gospel is being proclaimed by a flying angel in the midst of the sky. We know from the record of Scripture that the gospel was fundamentally entrusted to the church, and not to angels (Matt. 28:18-20). But the fact that men are the ordinary preachers of gospel does not require the angels to be silent about it, as in this instance the angel isn’t. When Paul chides the Galatians for drifting away from the gospel, he says this: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8). The problem here was that it was a different gospel, and not the fact that it was preached by an angel. So ordinarily men are to preach the gospel, but this proclamation from the heavens fits in with what we are taught elsewhere.

We are coming to the climax of God’s wrath being poured out over Jerusalem, and Jesus had predicted this very thing before that destruction. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matt. 24:14). This angel speaks to all nations—to “them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” This is a sign that the demolition of Jerusalem is about to happen.

This angel preaches, it says, with a “loud voice.” What is the content of what he says? What is the shape of this everlasting gospel? What the angel says here fits in with what we are taught elsewhere. He says that men are to “fear God” (Luke 1:50; Luke 12:5). “But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:35). He says that men must “give glory to him” (Matt. 5:16; Matt. 9:8). “Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel” (Matt. 15:31). He says that “the hour of his judgment is come” (John 12:23, 31-32). “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged” (John 16:8–11). And as we saw in the first chapters of Genesis, the God of the gospel is the God who made all things—whether “heaven, and earth, and the sea,” or “the fountains of waters.”

In short, what the angel declared in the preparation for Jerusalem’s destruction sounds very much like what the apostle Paul declared.

“God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts 17:24–31).

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Grace & Peace: Revelation 84

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).

“And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers haring with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God” (Rev. 14:1-5).

As we come to the fourteenth chapter of Revelation, we do so having been introduced to an evil travesty of the Trinity: the great dragon, Satan, the sea beast, which was Rome, and the land beast, which represented the priestly leadership in Jerusalem. As this chapter opens, the contrast couldn’t be sharper than it is. Those enslaved to the beast in the previous chapter had the mark of the beast on their right hand, or on their forehead. Here the 144,000 have the name of the Father on *their* foreheads. Everyone has the name of someone on their forehead.

The scene here appears to be in the heavens, and not on earth. We saw in chapter 7 that the 144,000 likely represented the total number of the elect, which means they were not assembled on the *earthly* Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. Rather, the scene is the heavenly Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem that descends from Heaven at the conclusion of Revelation. In Hebrews 12:22, it teaches us that in worship, the saints of God assemble in a heavenly Jerusalem, and it mentions Mt. Zion expressly. The harpers here are described as being before the throne, and the 144,000 are said to have been redeemed from the earth. All this places the scene in Heaven.

So we have here a wonderful image of the perseverance and preservation of the saints. In chapter 7, the 144,000 were still on earth, and they were all sealed to protect them there. Here in Heaven their number is undiminished, not one was lost. The reason is plain. These were the only ones who could learn the new song that the harpers were playing. These men were virgins, undefiled with woman. This is talking about spiritual fornication, or idolatry. It is not talking about lawful marital relations, which are not defiling at all (Heb. 13:4). These are called virgins because together they all constitute the Virgin who descends out of Heaven like an undefiled bride at the end of this book (Rev. 19:7). They are called virgins because they have nothing to do with the great harlot, who is to be introduced shortly. In 2 Cor. 11:2, Paul uses virginity as a symbol of spiritual integrity. Moreover, these are those who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. They are described as being without fault before the throne of God.

A close examination of this passage and the description of heavenly worship in Hebrews 12:18-23 is likely to be rewarding. Both scenes take place on Mt. Zion. In Revelation the worshipers are the firstfruits and in Hebrews they are described as being the church of the first born. And the 144,000 represent the entire number of the elect, as do the worshipers in Hebrews, whose names are written in heaven.

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Grace & Peace: Revelation 83

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 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 Six hundred threescore and six” (Rev. 13:16–18).
In order to understand this (often misconstrued) section of Revelation, we must (literally) return to our ABCs. In English, we use Roman letters and Arabic numerals. When we want to spell a number out, we write three. When we want to use a symbol for it, we write 3. We are so used to this system that we hardly ever even reflect on it. It is a very good system, if I may say so.

But Hebrew, Greek and Latin did not work this way. They did not use Arabic symbols for their numbers, but rather used the letters of their own alphabets for both phonetic sounds and for numbers. Thus, in Greek, the first letter alpha (corresponding to our letter a) made its particular vowel sound, but it also represented the numerical value of 1. I trust you are all still with me. This system was common in the ancient world, and is called gematria.

If English had an analogous system, it would be easy to compute the numerical value of our names. For example, my name is Douglas. All we would have to do is add the value of the numbers up: D (4), O (60), U (300), G (7), L (30), A (1), and S (100). The number of my name would therefore be 502. And while this strikes us as odd and contrived (because we don’t do it), it was very common in the ancient world. Greg Bahnsen once pointed out that graffiti at Pompeii has been found that said, “I love her whose number is 542.” There are not enough digits there for it to be her phone number. And the Roman historian Seutonius pointed out (about Nero) that some doggerel poetry was circulating in Rome that pointed out the numerical value of “Nero,” and “murdered his mother” were the same. This was pertinent because Nero had murdered his mother. And because we are talking about a particular intellectual skill set, someone once figured out that if you rearrange the letters of Presbyterians you can spell out Britney Spears. There are always people like this, and so we can be grateful that gematria died out before Facebook was invented.

Now mark this. John knew the name of the person he was thinking of, and he also believed that any reasonably clever member of the churches in Asia would be able to figure it out also. Let the one “with understanding” calculate the identity of the beast. It would be odd in the extreme if young Demetrius of Ephesus stayed up late the night after Revelation was read to their church, and in the morning asked his father who Henry Kissinger might be.

The system John was inviting them to use would have been obvious to them all. But it couldn’t have been too obvious, or else the officials censoring the mail leaving Patmos would have found out that John was writing seditious letters to his churches. The land beast that represented Rome is destroyed in this book. And so John was inviting the readers to transliterate the Greek name Nero Caesar into Hebrew, which the censors would not pick up on. In Hebrew, it would have been Nrwn Qsr. Once the vowel markings were added, as commentator Larry Ball points out, it would have been pronounced as Neron Kaiser.

So what is the numerical value of Nrwn Qsr? As it happens, it is 50 + 200 + 6 + 50+ 100 + 60 + 200 = 666. Nero was the head of the beast who was ruling at the time this revelation was given, and it seems to me that his identity as the sixth head of the seven-headed beast is secure.

It is worth mentioning that in the original, there is nothing like 666 or six six six. The value is found in the sum, in the total. The number given is six hundred and sixty six.

One additional comment should be made about the mark of the beast. The persecution included shutting believers off from the means of sustaining life, using economic chokepoints. You were not allowed to buy or sell unless you were willing to take the mark, or the name, or the number of the name onto your right hand or forehead. This is a diabolical parody of God’s requirement for faithful Jews, who were to bind the law of God on their hand and on their forehead.

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Grace & Peace: Revelation 82

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).

“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the 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 sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, 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” (Rev. 13:11–15).

We have identified the beast from the sea—a great and threatening beast—with the Roman Empire. Its seven heads are seven hills, and its seven heads are also seven kings—the sixth one, Nero, reigning at the time the Revelation was given.

But we now come to a lesser beast, a beast who arises from the land. This beast does not look terrifying the same way the sea beast does because it looks like a lamb. But it speaks like a dragon, showing that it is just as evil as the sea beast, and like the dragon Satan behind the sea beast.

In order to ascertain the identity of the land beast, we have to piece together a few clues. The first is that John identifies this land beast with the false prophet to come later.

“And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet” (Rev. 16:13).

“And 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” (Rev. 19:20).

“And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Rev. 20:10).

So the land beast is described as a religious figure (a prophet), but one who gives a blessing to those who would worship the sea beast, Rome. There is obviously a cozy relationship with Rome. This beast also has the power of working signs and wonders. This beast comes up out of the earth—the word for this is ge, which should be best understood here as the land, meaning the land of Israel. Putting all this together, I take the land beast as representing the priesthood of apostate Israel, with the high priest as a likely representative.

We have an example of this in how the religious leaders of the Jews treated Jesus.

“Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation” (John 11:47–48).

And Caiaphas, being high priest that year, spoke for them all when he said that Jesus must die for the nation (John 11:49).

But what about the signs and sorcery? We have indications of that kind of behavior among the Jews also.

“But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one” (Acts 8:9).

“And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus” (Acts 13:6).

Some of them even tried to use the name of Jesus as though it were a charm.

“Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth” (Acts 19:13).

The Jewish rebels who finally brought about the destruction of Jerusalem were a very different group from the Jewish quislings who worked hand in glove together with Rome. Satan was behind Rome, and these men were prostate before Rome, making them a synagogue of Satan. They were, as Jesus once put it, of their father the devil (John 8:44). The Jewish leadership at this time was demonic.

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