Re-evaluating
the Historicist’s Interpretation of the Revelation
by
Jerry Huerta
copyright
2021
The earliest
historicists presumed that the structure of Revelation is the same as Daniel’s
book or that the narration repeatedly backtracks. This pattern is what is known
as recapitulation. They held the seven seals essentially cover the same period
as the seven churches and the trumpets nearly the same period as the seven
seals and the vials almost the same period as the trumpets. In essence, the septets
(the seven seals and seven trumpets and seven vials) fold back on the seven
churches in defiance of specific developmental guidelines.
Indeed, one of the
issues in interpreting the Revelation is “progressive revelation.” The earliest
historicists did not accept the prophetic view of the seven churches. Even so,
today, a significant number acknowledge the progressive revelation that the
seven churches represent prophetic eras, especially as the last one exemplifies
our modern-day era of a market-driven society in the illustration that the
church is lukewarm and maintains they are “rich and increased with goods, and
have need of nothing” (Revelation 3:17). That is undoubtedly the character of
the prosperity churches today. The point is that historicism has acknowledged
the need to correct previous misconceptions, and I establish my thesis on this
principle.
One example of
correction is the developmental guideline in Revelation 4:1, “I will shew thee
things which must be hereafter,” which has never been given proper weight by
traditional historicists. They acknowledge that the seven churches follow a
linear narration but dismiss the developmental guideline of Rev 4:1 and return
to the period of the first church as if the seven seals must follow Christ’s first
advent instead of following the opening of the last church. My work does not
dismiss any developmental guidelines. It maintains the seals must represent
phenomena following the introduction of the final church, as the trumpets covey
the phenomena of the last seal and the vials the final trumpet. My
restructuring makes my work unique amongst others of the same subject or school
of thought.
My model maintains
the Revelation portrays a linear narration starting at chapters 1 through 11
before it breaks that narration in chapter 12 to return in the time from whence
it started. In essence, the book is intended to be folded in half. I ground my
model on the Hebraic calendar and its prophetic festivals as well as the
developmental guidelines in the book. In other words, the seven churches
represent the seven months between the spring and autumnal festivals, which
maintains the seals, trumpets, and vials depict the antitypical types of Rosh
Hashanah, and Yom Kippur (Festival of the trumpets and Day of Atonement. By
antitypical we mean the representation of the festivals, just as the lamb in
Passover represented Christ.)
Here is a list
that exposes the traditional historicist’s interpretation of the seals,
trumpets, and plagues as fuel fit for the fire in 1 Corinthians 3:13.
·
One,
the verb tenses in Revelation 17:10-11 unequivocally convey the eighth
head/kingdom is one of the fallen five, before the sixth, which exposes the folly
that the sixth head is any form of government of the Roman beast or the Roman
empire itself. No doubt, the eighth kingdom represents the revived Papacy in
the historicist’s school of thought. Said texts destroy the rendition that John’s
perspective was his day, but rather the future event of the judgment upon the
fallen church, prophesied in 2 Thessalonian 2:3.
·
Two,
the harlot Babylon cannot be hated and burned by the ten kings and at the same
time give their power to her to make war with Christ at his return, which
demolishes the interpretation that the harlot Babylon is the Papacy at any time.
·
Three,
it is ludicrous to interpret the little horn in Daniel 7 as God’s fallen church
at any time in history. The little horn was corrupt at its inception. Again,
this demolishes the interpretation that the harlot Babylon is the Papacy at any
time.
·
Four,
the sea beast is the head that is wounded and represents the Papacy, since
Daniel maintains it is the little horn and not the fourth beast that fulfills
the 42-mouth criterion. It is the little horn and not the fourth beast that
fulfills the criteria that it blasphemes, speaks great things, is given the
saints to war against, etc. This identity demonstrates the sea-beast is the
head/kingdom that “was, and is not” in Revelation 17 and cements the sixth
head/kingdom is the two-horned beast, America, and the seventh is the image.
·
Five,
nowhere in the Bible are mountains held cryptically as passing forms of
government, Uriah Smith’s view, or individual kings, the preterist view.
Interpreting them as successive governments that have persecuted God’s people is
scriptural, a fact.
·
Six,
the notion that the Papacy rides the Roman empire in John’s day, five hundred
years before it comes into existence, is ludicrous.
Knowing that John’s
sea-beast is synonymous with the little horn in Daniel 7 and 8, we can deduce that
the casting of the stars to the earth in Revelation 12:4 and the similar event
in Daniel 8:10 are explained as a two-part or bipartite attempt by the dragon
to sabotage the church by continuing to seduce the Church to resort to the
sword to uphold its authority. To reiterate, God’s intent was to plant his
church in “heavenly places,” which is expressed in Ephesians 1:3 and 2:6, but
the dragon seduced a number of the hosts to apostatize or fall from this
station through the Roman emperors and the Roman popes. Through recapitulation,
Daniel 8 develops this bipartite association between the fourth beast and the
little horn of Daniel 7. The dragon, through the Roman empire, the fourth
beast, sought to seduce the church into wielding the sword as the corrector of
heretics, just as the dragon, through the papacy, lured the horns or nations
that formed the European See to commit supposed heretics to the sword and
flame. In Daniel 8:11, the Roman Empire magnified itself against the “prince of
host” Christ, as did the papacy. In a subcategory to his treatise titled, On
the Subordination of the State to the Church, a nineteenth-century catholic
prelate Tommaso Maria Zigliara, maintained the pope held all things necessary
for the “valid authority over all peoples or nations,” which support my
thesis.[1] The Roman Empire cast down the sanctuary of God in AD 70, while, in
agreement with historicist Gerhard Pfandl, the papacy cast down the sanctuary
by,
placing human intercession into the hands of the
priests, the use of confessional, and by sacrificing Christ anew in every Mass,
the Papacy has eclipsed Christ’s heavenly ministry in the minds of the
worshipers. Believers no longer approach Christ directly; instead, they go to
the priest, to the saints, or to Mary. By substituting the priest’s service
here on earth for Christ’s role in the heavenly sanctuary the little horn has
symbolically “cast down the place of his sanctuary” to the earth and thereby
defiled it.[2]
Daniel 8:9 conveys
that the little horn rises out of one of “them” and “waxed exceeding great,
toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.” Those who
maintain the horn represents Antiochus Epiphanies interpret the antecedent of
the pronoun “them” as the horns. Yet, Antiochus does not exhaust the criteria
that identify the little horn, while the bipartite interpretation that the
little horn is the Roman Empire and the papacy fulfills all the criteria and
correlates with the history of the latter entities. The most revealing bipartite
interpretation is that both the Roman Empire and the papacy both came from out
of the Western Macedonian dominion and “waxed exceeding great, toward the
south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.” The historical
accounts relate that the Roman Empire,
conquered Macedonia and waxed exceeding greater than
Alexander “towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant
land” (Daniel 8:9). Rome waxed to the south and Egypt was ultimately made a
province of Rome in 30 BC. Antiochus Magnus was defeated by Rome and made to
pay tribute and Syria became a Roman province in 65 BC as Rome waxed to the
east. The pleasant land is Judea and Rome made it a province in 63 BC.[3]
In support of the
bipartite interpretation of the little horn in Daniel 8, pope Urban II
sanctioned the first Crusade that invaded the pleasant land from the same
western dominion that was once Macedonia and inevitably took possession of
Jerusalem for the pope in AD 1099. The fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in
AD 1204, which fulfilled the criterion that the little horn waxed exceeding
great to the east. In AD 1218 the fifth Crusade besieged the Egyptian port of
Damietta and held it for two years at the completion of the siege, fulfilling
the criterion that the little horn waxed exceeding great to the south.
The bipartite
attempt by the dragon power to seduce the church to defile itself by welding
the sword through the Roman Empire and the papacy came to an end with the rise
of the Protestants, and specifically protestant America. The papacy corresponds
historically with the king that “was” and “is not” in Revelation 17, as the
Protestant’s disestablishment of religion wounded it. Here we find the
significance of the absence of the crowns in the description of the beast with
seven heads and ten horns. The twentieth-century historicist George McCready
Price rightly interpreted the significance of the missing crowns in Revelation
17 and how they match perfectly with the history of the papacy and the Protestants,
The ten horns of the scarlet beast of chapter 17 have
no crowns upon them, suggesting that this vision applies at a later period,
after the ten horns have ceased to do the bidding of the Papacy, a fact further
suggested by the statement that these ten kings “have not yet received royal
power,” or the power to oppress or lord it over the minds and lives of men;
“but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the
beast.” (Revelation 17:12, R.S.V.) In other words, at the time here spoken of
intolerance and persecution had ceased for the time being, but would again be
revived, along with the power of the beast from the abyss, the bottomless pit.
And how accurately this describes our own times, when the power to persecute
has been quiescent for nearly two centuries, but when the ominous signs of the
revival of intolerance are visible to all![4]
The schools of
thought competing with historicism must whitewash the history of the papacy and
Protestantism in order to maintain their eschatology. Associate professor of
law, E. Gregory Wallace supports Price’s historical correlation that the
scarlet beast in Revelation 17, that “was” and “is not,” at “the time” of the
judgment of the whore Babylon was heralded in Revelation 13 and represents the
disestablishment of religion by Protestantism. Wallace’s support is in the
historical evidence that the papacy often coerced the kings of Europe into
bowing to its authority, before disestablishment occurred.
This struggle for supremacy was repeated again and
again in the centuries that followed. The emperors sought to retain power over
the church through appointment of bishops and other means. Asserting the
intrinsic superiority of the spiritual over the temporal, the popes would claim
the higher power for themselves, which included the power to depose emperors.
Such claims were backed by the powerful presence of the Catholic church in
society. The church had its own laws, courts, and bureaucracy—it was itself
very much like a state. National power often was fragmented and the only bond
of unity that held society together was its common Catholic religion. Pope
Innocent III proclaimed at the beginning of the thirteenth century that “[e]cclesiastical
liberty is nowhere better cared for than where the Roman church has full power
in both temporal and spiritual affairs”220 and that it had been left to Peter,
the first pope, ‘not only the universal church but the whole world to govern.”221
The popes deposed or threatened with deposition at least six kings and
excommunicated emperors and kings on more than ten occasions. Papal claims
reached a crescendo with Boniface VIII’s bull, Unam Sanctam (1302), and
its bold declarations that “the spiritual power has to institute the earthly
power and to judge it” and “it is altogether necessary to salvation for every
human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.”[5]
It was the papacy
that legitimized the use of the sword against supposed heretics, which was
taken from the horns at disestablishment, hence the missing crowns on the
horns. Price’s interpretation maintains that John was taken by the Spirit unto
the future judgment of the harlot Babylon, a time in which the papacy’s power
is broken by the Protestant’s disestablishment of religion, which has been the
history for some two-hundred years.
The question
arises, how is my work relevant to today’s society? My work’s relevance for
today’s society is rediscovering what Christ meant when he declared his people
as a light to the world and a city set on a hill. At no time in history has it
been more relevant to grasp that declaration’s intent and to fulfill it.
Indeed, my work is the history of how the Church lost that place in society.
[1] Tommaso Maria
Zigliara, Summa philosophica in usum scholarum, Vol. 3, (Paris G.
Beauchesne, 1910), 316; article is translated by Timothy Wilson for The
Josias.com,
https://thejosias.com/2015/12/01/on-the-subordination-of-the-state-to-the-church/
[2] Gerhard
Pfandl, Daniel: The Seer of Babylon, Review & Herald Publishing (July
1, 2004), 80
[3] Marsue and
Jerry Huerta, Thy Kingdom Come: Re-evaluating the Historicist’s
Interpretation of the Revelation, iUniverse (December 28, 2018), 291
[4] George
McCready Price, Time of the End (Southern Pub. Association; 1st edition, 1967),
33.
[5] E. Gregory
Wallace, Justifying Religious Freedom: The Western Tradition, Penn State Law
Review, Vol. 114, No. 2, 2009, 536.
This post is a postscript to the book above, which is available here.
