The Historicist: The Seven Trumpets

by Jerry Huerta

The traditional historicists have held the judgments of the trumpets as the response to the continuous persecutions and martyrdoms of Christ’s saints and their petitions under the fifth seal, rendering the judgments of the trumpets upon Daniel’s fourth beast, ancient Rome. Edward Bishop Elliott, for example, held the first six trumpets represented the judgment of Rome by the Goths, then Saracens, and Turks. But Elliott’s view neglects Daniel’s prophecy that God’s judgment is set first and foremost for deciding the fate of saints for the purpose of supplanting the little horn’s dominion, “to consume and to destroy it unto the end” (Daniel 7:9-10, 18, 26). Daniel’s prophecy agrees with Peter’s testimony on God’s judgment in this age, and under the New Covenant.

Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:16-17).

Again, Daniel does not support any judgment of the ordained kingdoms before the little horn, which includes Rome, the fourth beast. Henry Grattan Guinness failed to grasp the judgment of the saints in Daniel, but he did see “the judgment of God as to its moral character and deserts” of the papacy.[1] The fifth seal in the Revelation expands on Daniel’s prophecy that God judges the saints before any retribution falls on the papacy.

And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. (Revelation 6:10-11)

The fifth seal establishes that the persecution of the saints will continue for a little season before any retribution falls on those who have tormented and kill them. Here we have the disposition of the saints before any retribution falls upon those who torment and kill them. Awarding of the white robes also conveys judgment (Revelation 19:8) and further establishes that the fifth seal expands on the judgment in Daniel 7. Revelation 20:4 relates the final martyrs anticipated by the fifth seal, insomuch as they are beheaded for not worshiping the beast or his image and for not receiving his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands. And as revealed in the previous work, Historicism’s Missing Connections, Revelation 11:7 also expands on the final torment and killing of the martyrs conveyed in the fifth seal.

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. (Revelation 11:7)

The Greek word rendered ascendeth in the King James Version is anabainon and is in the present participle active, which relates the action of the participle is going on at the same time as the action of the main verb in the sentence. The tense of the verbs establishes that the beast comes up out of the abyss or the bottomless pit at the time he makes war with the saints and kills the two witnesses. In revelation 17:8, the present indicative active is used with the Greek terms mellei and anabainein to indicate the beast is about to come out of the abyss.

The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is… And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. (Revelation 17:8, 11)

Revelation 17:11 and 17:8 substantiates that the phenomenon of the two witnesses occurs after John sees the judgment of the harlot Mystery Babylon, taking into account Babylon is a contemporary entity with the sixth king or head. Revelation 17:8 relates the eighth head is the beast that “was” and about to come up out of the abyss, while Revelation 11:7 reveals it has come up out of the abyss to war with the two witnesses. Historicism, as well as preterism and futurism, have fallen on this issue. Guinness agreed that the eighth head is the revived head but mistakenly held the seventh as the head that was wounded.

Mark the “deadly wound” inflicted on the last of its seven heads, and the marvellous healing of that wound, or the revival of the slain head or government, then mark the tyrannical and dreadful doings of this revived or eighth head.[2]

Guinness was mistaken. The texts from Revelation 17, above, reveal that the eighth head “was” at the time the sixth head “is” active and the harlot Babylon has already fornicated with the kings of the earth. (The latter phenomenon is revealed by the use of the aorist indicative active form of the verb to describe the fornication of the harlot as previous actions.) The Revelation maintains the eighth head “was” before the sixth head, which establishes that the eighth is one of the five that were fallen, and not the seventh as Guinness held. Again, Guinness was mistaken, the eighth head is not the revival of the seventh. His confusion is evident in his contradiction later in his book when he states that the papacy is the seventh head that is the revival of the sixth head, the Roman Empire.

The “little horn” and revived “head” then are alike in place, time, character, authority, persecuting action, duration, and doom….

The predicted head rises from the Roman empire. It is therefore Roman. So is the Papacy. We have called the system which owns the pope as head Romanism, because its seat is the seven-hilled city. Secondly, the predicted persecuting power grows up in the second stage of Roman history. It is the seventh or last head of the old empire revived. Now this is the exact position of the Papacy. The Papacy belongs to the second or Christian stage of the Roman empire. It grew up among its Gothic horns or kingdoms. It was the revival of a power which had been slain. When the pagan empire was overthrown the Papal rose in its place. First the Caesars ruled in Rome, then the popes. The Goths overthrew the Roman empire in the fifth century; Romulus Augustulus abdicated the imperial dignity in A.D. 476. This was the “deadly wound” of the seventh head. From that date the Papacy grew with freedom, grew up among the Gothic horns or kingdoms.[3]

Guinness held the eighth head, the papacy, as the revived seventh head and, at the same time, the Roman empire, the sixth head, as the head that is revived. What confusion! Guinness, like the majority of historicists, held several woundings and revivals concerning Revelation 13:3, which led them to mistakenly interpret the eighth head’s rise from the abyss in Revelation 11:7 immediately follow the protestant reformation at the breaking of the power of the papacy.

In 1517 the Reformation began the movement which, like a snowball growing ever greater as it rolls along, has in the year 1887 one hundred and fifty millions of adherents, all professing the faith of Christ in opposition to the apostasy of Rome! Witnessing Churches–protestant Churches sprang up everywhere, and have been multiplying ever since. What shall we say? Is not this a resurrection of the witnesses?[4]

The historicist’s traditional view conflicts with Revelation 17:8, 11, which reveals the eighth head comes up out of the abyss only after the interval of the seventh ends. The eighth head is the last manifestation of the beast with seven heads, one of the five that are fallen, and it cannot have come up immediately following the protestant reformation, at the breaking of the power of the papacy. The traditionalist view has the eighth head rise at the same time its power is broken by Protestantism, which is a huge fallacy. It is the sea-beast, the fifth head, Protestantism wounds, and for this the reason the sea-beast “is not” while the sixth is active. The time the sixth head is active is the time Protestantism has the sea-beast subdued, and she rides the beast with two horns. Historicism is afflicted with breaking John’s linear narration arbitrarily and overlooking recapitulation when warranted. As revealed in the previous work, Historicism’s Missing Connections, the phenomena of the two witnesses is in our future, the period of the seventh trumpet, at the rise of the eighth head, and the day-year principle is closed, according to Revelation 10:6-7. Otherwise, the thousand years of Revelation 20 would be subject to be interpreted as prophetic time. Guinness and the historicists’ dilemma is solved by grasping that the heads commence with ancient Babylon, which affirms John was taken into the future to see the judgment of the harlot Babylon, which makes the sixth head the two-horned beast and the seventh his image (see Historicism Maintained: The Wounded Head). The sixth head is not the Roman Empire.

As stated initially, historicists have conceded, the seven trumpets are the response to the petitions by the martyrs of the fifth seal. However, the traditionalist view of the fifth seal does not account for Daniel’s prophecy that God’s Judgment is first and foremost for deciding the fate of saints before any retribution falls on the little horn, which agrees with the fifth seal. Daniel’s account of the Judgment destroys the interpretation that the judgments depicted by the trumpets fall on the Roman Empire, when grasping the saints must be judged first, with the little horn to follow, long after the Roman Empire has expired. Furthermore, as revealed by the paper Historicism’s Missing Connections, the fate of the saints is revealed by the seven seals in general. It connects the throne scene and Judgment in Daniel 7 with that of Revelation 4-5. In both scenes, books are opened to reveal the fate of the saints before retribution falls on the little horn. The expressions of “after this” and John’s beckoning to show us “things which must be hereafter” in Revelation 4:1 convey the continuation of linear narration and that the phenomena that follow overlap the last era of the churches, and that any departure is arbitrary.

Acknowledging the linear development between the throne scene in Revelation 4-5 and the seven churches recognize the connection between the open door in Revelation 4:1 and the open door to those who have not defiled their garments during the Sardis era.

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth; I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:7-10)

The key of David is a reference to Isaiah 22:22 by which additional discovery can be garnered. Commentators convey the chapter in Isaiah pertains to a typical example of impending judgment at the hands of an invading army and the intervention of a Messiah type individual that determines who is fit or not to enter the holy city, signified by the open and shut door. The connection between the phenomena related to the open door in Revelation 3:7-10, the throne scene, and seven seals are overwhelming. The discrimination between them “which say they are Jews, and are not” and the true Philadelphian is figurative and not by blood, considering that the church was a Gentile congregation. The intent is a parting of those who are indeed Christ’s from those who are not and this corresponds with the judgment that decides the fate of the saints in Daniel 7. This parting is evidently the object the trial that is about to come upon “them that dwell upon the earth.” The trial is clearly conveyed by the seven seals, insomuch as the saints depicted in the fifth seal petition for relief from this trial at the hands of the four horsemen of the previous four seals.

What historicists have failed grasp is that judgment is a bipartite process beginning with Rosh Hashanah. The traditional Jewish understanding of Rosh Hashanah is that it is the Hidden Day, Yom Ha Kesh, (the only major festival inaugurated on a new moon) which gives us tremendous support in that it corresponds to Christ’s admonitions of how he will come secretly as a thief (Matthew 24:42-43). This is the admonition given the era of Sardis. There is major falling away of the church indicated by the fifth church, Sardis: “thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Revelation 3:1). This judgment is precedented in Amos: “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes” (Amos 2:6). Sardis is acknowledged by a major part of historicism as representing the Reformation, the Protestant era, that became more and more political until the line of distinction between the church and the world was obliterated.[8] Sardis represents the fourth transgression of the seven churches, as Smyrna cannot be counted, and the punishment is that Christ comes as a thief (Revelation 3:3), which is the “day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness” of Joel 2:2, heralded by a trumpet. Joel witnesses that God’s locust army has, “The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run… They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief” (Joel 2:4, 9). Yet, God provides those who “had not defiled their garments” in Sardis an open door of hope through the church of Philadelphia: “behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it’ (Revelation 3:8). This is the same door in Revelation 4:1. Nevertheless, worldliness persisted with the church of the Laodiceans and the locusts/army fulfills the antitypical judgment of Rosh Hashana because the Protestants “sold the the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes” (Amos 2:6). The commerce of the Protestants is documented in the work of the book, Thy Kingdom Come: Re-evaluating the Historicist's Interpretation of the Revelation, by the author of this work.

Historicists will argue the phrase qō-ḏeš wə-niṣ-daq, in Daniel 8:14, gives no indication of Rosh Hashanah. The failure with such a remonstrance is that the little horn in Daniel 8 is acknowledged as a bipartite phenomenon: pagan and papal Rome. The autumnal festivals were clearly connected in such a fashion. The process of cleansing the sanctuary was irrevocably conjoined with the announcement that judgment had begun with the sounding of the trumpet at the day of darkness, Yom Ha Kesh. The significance of Yom Ha Kesh was revealed by the prophets such as Joel, Amos, and John in Revelation. The day is revealed by the release of God’s locust army, depicted as horsemen, and correspond to the locust army of Joel 1-2 and Amos 7:1-3. The souls who petition for relief in the fifth seal, correspond with those who petition between the porch and alter in Joel 2:15-17 and Amos’ petition in Amos 7:2. The relief is the turning back of the locusts' army into the sea, they are turned back to the wicked when his people are sealed and the final trial by fire commences, depicted in Revelation 8-11, Joel 3, and Amos 7:4-8.

[1] Henry Grattan Guinness, Romanism and the Reformation from the standpoint of prophecy, Toronto, S.R. Briggs 1887, 37.

[2] Ibid., 146.

[3] Ibid., 150-152.

[4] Ibid., 368-369