Revelation question (for all eschatological views)

[themuzicman]

Rev 13

14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who ^had the wound of the sword and has come to life. 15 And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, 17 and [he provides] that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark , [either] the name of the beast or the number of his name

How was or will this prophecy be fulfilled in your view?

(Please identify your view by name.)

This has some present relevance, since this is about to happen... again?

Michael

[Bill the Cat]

Futurist here -

Pretty straight forward. This false prophet will work under the authority of the beast and make people get a mark on them in order to barter.

[Zguy28]

Historicist.

The Papacy. The Roman Empire died but came back to life in the Papacy of Rome with all of its civic power and jurisdiction.

As far as buying and selling, how many times has the Roman Catholic Church prohibited commerce and interaction with heretics or non-believers?

Thankfully, that worldly power was pretty much crushed in the 1860's via the Italian Revolution.

[NeilUnreal]

I interpret it in a preterist/universal sense. To the original readers it was referring to events that were happening around them and that the writer was foreseeing would happen. In the universal sense, it refers to the fact that powers other than God will always seek to gain and even compell our allegiance, by signs and wonders if possible, by coercion and seals if not.

This is not a particularly esoteric view. The writer saw certain things happening around him in the Roman empire, but he interpreted and recorded them in terms of universal truths. That they should recur is not merely unmysterious, it's expected.

So, the events have recurred and may yet recur, without impinging on the fact the the writings in The Revelation refer to specific events occurring at that time. Every generation and individual has to reject the mark anew, though with more dire consequences for those living in the darker moments of history. Whether there will come a "final" last and most desparate cycle for these events that trumps everything preceding, I do not know.

-Neil

[Jnthn]

Futurist here -

Pretty straight forward. This false prophet will work under the authority of the beast and make people get a mark on them in order to barter.

Recently, I've started to wonder whether the marks in question are somehow related to retinal scanning or fingerprint authentication...

J

[themuzicman]

The problem is this: How do you associate that with the anti-Christ, the beast or the dragon in today's context?

(Or for that matter, any of the events that are supposed to precede it)

Michael

[RCNicholas]

As far as buying and selling, how many times has the Roman Catholic Church prohibited commerce and interaction with heretics or non-believers?

Can you cite the historical evidence that it has done so?

Not trying to derail the thread, just curious.

[Bill the Cat]

The problem is this: How do you associate that with the anti-Christ, the beast or the dragon in today's context?

(Or for that matter, any of the events that are supposed to precede it)

Michael

Any right-hand man will do. A charismatic leader with an incredibly persuasive subordinate could fit the bill.

[themuzicman]

So, if the US implemented a finger printing or retinal scan system for commerce, would you object to using it?

[Bill the Cat]

No because these read your EXISTING features, not anything implanted or tatooed.

[spauline]

I would say it has several layers of meaning. Certainly, in preterism, the pagan Roman priests encouraged emperor worship. And in futurism, we are led to believe that just an individual man (St. John the Baptist) heralded the coming of the True Christ, so there shall be an individual human person who will herald the coming of antichrist.

However, I feel that although these layers are legit in their own right, the deeper meaning is an allegorical sense: Christ, the Lamb, has seven horns and seven eyes. He has seven eyes because he sees and knows all truth. He can neither deceive nor be deceived. Also he has seven horns, meaning, just as horns in Daniel represented kings with power, so Christ possesses the fullness of kingship, especially in regards to His Salvation. That is, all Salvific power originates from Christ. But also there are seven sacraments, the primary means (although not exclusive) that Christ redeems us.

Now, I've posted this before, but in the separation of Christian heresy, the heretics lose five sacraments and retain only two, Baptism and Marriage. So it is like the lie of the dragon from the beginning, forming the essence of man's fallen nature, does indeed speak against these realities of Baptism and Marriage in its ultimate sense: hence, just as Baptism calls the person to have faith and believe in what God has said, to repent and stop doing their own will and instead do the will of God, to concede that we depend on God for everything we have, that is, that we are His Child, so the fall denies all these realities: do not believe in and have faith in God and what He has revealed, and refuse to obey Him. Do your own will, not His, and be independent, you don't need His help or love in any sense. You are not His child, but a child of the devil.

Secondly, just as Marriage expresses the highest and most beautiful mystery of Creation, that God has made the Creation to express in symbolism the deeper mysteries of God's Salvation and Love (so that the gift of man to woman and woman to man and the child that comes from it is a symbol of the love the Trinity, the Father and Son mutually giving and receiving and their love becoming the Holy Spirit), so the dragon lied in the beginning that the Creation can be "taken" from God and divorced from the love it signifies, becoming a selfish end unto itself (i.e., look at contrast between the Woman Bride of Christ and the Whore), so that the dragon lies that humanity can fulfill itself merely with created goods as ends in and of themselves instead of as a means to express the love and goodness of God, pointing ultimately to the possession of God Himself.

So, then finally (sorrry for diatribe), the false prophet images the spiritual essence of the dragons's lie in the fall as symbolized by the plagiiarization and evil twisting of the two Sacraments (horns) left in heresy, making it the utlimate heresy.

I have an essay if you would like more.

[Zguy28]

Can you cite the historical evidence that it has done so?

Not trying to derail the thread, just curious.

The excommunication of the Cathars comes to mind by Pope Alexander III.

Or the Synod of Toulouse with regard to regulations of the Inquisition:

Synod of Toulouse

1. BISHOPS must bind under oath when necessary in each parish, within and outside a city, a priest and two or more lay people of good reputation to diligently, faithfully, and often search out heretics in their parishes, individual suspicious houses, subterranean rooms and additions to houses, and other hiding places. If they discover a heretic, follower, patron, or protector of heretics, they must, taking precaution that they do not escape, quickly notify the bishop and mayor of the place or his bailiff so they will be duly punished (command of the episcopal inquisition according to the practice of the synods of Verona, Bourges, Narbonne, and the twelfth general synod). 2. Exempt abbots, who are not subject to episcopal jurisdiction, must act in the same way as the bishops. 3. The governors of the respective districts should order diligent search of country residences, houses, and forests for heretics and destroy their hiding places. 4. Whoever, allowing a heretic to stay on his property either for money or any other cause, if he confesses or is convicted, loses his property forever and his body is handed over to the civil authority for punishment. 5. He also is subject to legal punishment whose property, although without his knowledge but by negligence, has become an abode of heretics. 1. The house where a heretic is found must be torn down and the property must be confiscated. 2. The bailiff who lives in a suspicious place and is not diligent in searching for heretics loses his office and is not permitted to be employed either there or in any other place. 3. In order to prevent an innocent person from being punished or slanderously accused of heresy we command that no one shall be punished as a heretic or follower of heresy before he is so declared by a bishop or other clerical persons. 4. All are permitted to search for heretics in others' territories, and the bailiffs must help them. The king can, accordingly, search for heretics in the territory of the count of Toulouse, and the count of Toulouse in the king's land. 5. If one who is tainted with heresy voluntarily gives up the heresy he is not allowed to remain in the house where he formerly lived in case the house was under suspicion of heresy. He must be moved into a Catholic house which is free from suspicion. Besides, he must wear two crosses on his coat; the one on the right and the other on the left, and of a different color from his coat. Such persons cannot hold public office or be admitted to legal actions unless they are fully re-instated after due penance by the pope or his legate. 11. Whoever has involuntarily returned to the Church, through fear of death or for any other reason, must be imprisoned by the bishop so he can perform his penance or not be able to seduce others. Whoever retains his property must, by order of the prelate, provide for his own necessities. If he possesses nothing, then the prelate must provide for him. 12. All members of a parish shall vow to the bishop under oath that they will preserve the Catholic faith and will persecute heretics according to their power. This oath must be renewed every two years. 13. Males and females who have attained the use of reason must confess their sins to a priest three times a year, or with their priest's permission to another priest. They must perform the imposed penances humbly and according to their strength and receive the holy sacrament of the Eucharist three times a year. Whoever does not do this is under suspicion of being a heretic. 14. Lay people are not permitted to possess the books of the Old and New Testament, only the Psalter, Breviary, or the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, and these books not in the vernacular language. 15. Whoever is accused of heresy or is only suspected of heresy is not permitted to practice his profession as a doctor. When a sick person has received Holy Communion from his priest he must be careful that no heretic or one suspected of heresy visit him, for terrible things have already happened through such visits. . . . 17. No prelate, baron or other superiors shall entrust the office of bailiff or steward to any heretic or follower of heresy, nor keep in his service one who has been condemned or suspected of heresy. 18. He is accused of heresy or is suspected of heresy who has been legally proved by good and honorable people before a bishop of having a bad reputation. .. . 42. Women who own castles or fortresses are not permitted to marry enemies of the faith and the peace. ... 44. Whoever is too poor to employ a lawyer has to be provided with one if necessary by the curia. 45. Pastors must explain these regulations to their parishioners four times a year.

© source where applicable

Source: http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/Inquisition.html

Obviously that is not the case today with current Roman Catholic Church as can be evidenced here.

[Ted]

ZGuy,

Nice work. What you didn't fill in was the foundation.

The beast is presented as an amalgam of Daniel's four beasts (Dan 7). Thus, since those beast represented man's governments from Babylon on, the beast of Rev 13 represents man's governments from Babylon on. The fall of Rome looked like the end of governments. That is, the beast "died." When the "Holy Roman Empire" rose (of course, neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire...) it looked like a resurrection.

This also fits rather nicely with the chronological flow of Rev 13. Thus, the decree against buying and selling, mixed with the death sentence perfectly fits the Roman Catholic inquisition with the death penalty for heretics and Interdict for non-compliant governments.

Spauline,
There are no legitimate "deeper" allegorical meanings. The problem is that allegorization has no rules. When there are true allegorical meanings, they are quite obvious in the text, such as Jesus' interpretation of the parable of the Sower. Otherwise, there are no limits, and contradictory interpretations are the rule. Please study the ECF interpretations of the parable of the Good Samaritan. You will find every flight of fancy imaginable. That's not interpretation, it's pure speculation.

Ted

[Zguy28]

ZGuy,

Nice work. What you didn't fill in was the foundation.

My time is limited these days.

[spauline]

ZGuy,

Nice work. What you didn't fill in was the foundation.

The beast is presented as an amalgam of Daniel's four beasts (Dan 7). Thus, since those beast represented man's governments from Babylon on, the beast of Rev 13 represents man's governments from Babylon on. The fall of Rome looked like the end of governments. That is, the beast "died." When the "Holy Roman Empire" rose (of course, neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire...) it looked like a resurrection.

This also fits rather nicely with the chronological flow of Rev 13. Thus, the decree against buying and selling, mixed with the death sentence perfectly fits the Roman Catholic inquisition with the death penalty for heretics and Interdict for non-compliant governments.

Spauline,
There are no legitimate "deeper" allegorical meanings. The problem is that allegorization has no rules. When there are true allegorical meanings, they are quite obvious in the text, such as Jesus' interpretation of the parable of the Sower. Otherwise, there are no limits, and contradictory interpretations are the rule. Please study the ECF interpretations of the parable of the Good Samaritan. You will find every flight of fancy imaginable. That's not interpretation, it's pure speculation.

Ted

OK, so let me get this straight. Catholics believe that Christ is God and the Only True Savior of mankind. That essentially all human creatures come into existence with a fallen nature that God has allowed in order that He may redeem them. Catholics believe that it is ontologically impossible to live in the goodness pleasing to God apart from grace, inner renewal. Catholics absolutely condemn secular messianism and teach that the only thing holding back the end of the world is that the Holy Spirit can yet sanctify humanity to a greater degree. Catholics are oppposed to basically all the things that most Christians regard as immoral, including fornication, ABC, divorce and remarriage, drunkenness, materialism.

Catholics believe that every human creature is priceless and called to possess the infinite Love of their Creator forever and forever, amen. Catholics believe that true Christians must worship God on a regular basis, to seek His Will, and to understand Him, what He has revealed, and to seek His aforementioned help and love and life at all times.

But, evidently, Catholics are "children of the devil" because, supposedly, the worship God on the "wrong day".

OK, so like, if we are the children of the devil, utterly against God and totally depraved, under which classification do you put the atheistic materialists and relativistic, hedonistic materialists, who do not give a rat's ass whether God exists in any sense, who would not be caught dead worshippin God on ANY DAY, in ANY church, and who live for nothing but vain material pleasures and accomplishments, who fully embrace lives of the capital sins?

I'm waiting for your response that will enlighten me to the utter darkness that I am evidently in?