By
Marsue and Jerry Huerta
In Rev 3:18 we are
counseled to buy from Christ gold tried in fire and in 1
Cor 3:12-13 the gold tried in fire is defined as doctrine, the beliefs and
teachings in Christendom.
The doctrines of
Christendom throughout time are symbolized as gold, silver, precious stones,
wood, hay, stubble in 1 Cor 3:12. The significance is that the sound beliefs
and teaching from Christ are hard to find, while the unfit ones are common and
easily found. It’s like the road to salvation that’s hard to find.
On the subject of the
7 heads, there are a number of Beasts with 7 heads. The one we will focus on is
the scarlet beast in Rev 17
7 But
the angel said to me, "Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of
the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her.
8 The beast that you saw was, and is not, and
is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the
dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from
the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is
not and is to come. ESV
The reason we use the
ESV will become apparent presently. We highlight this beast because it’s uniquely
stated that it, was and is not and is to come. In essence, it has an inactive period and its
revived again, which is not the case for the other beasts. Furthermore, Revelation relates that grasping
this mystery (that was, is not, and is to come) exposes the meaning of the
seven heads.This is what we see when we continue in Rev 17,
9 This calls for a mind with wisdom: the
seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated;
10 they
are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet
come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while.
11 As for the beast that was and is not, it is
an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. ESV
Here is why we use the ESV. The KJV
translates they are also seven kings as “And there are seven kings” which is poor
translation. The KJV confuses the evidence that the seven heads are renamed
mountains and then kings, making them a series of appositives. We also see
John’s use of appositives in Revelation 12:9. Daniel and John both use the
literary device of appositives to hide the prophecies from the powers that be so
as to not arouse them to destroy the scriptures. If John had revealed the
Dragon was the Roman empire they would have tried to destroy the book.
Let’s return to the passage in Revelation.
Now, each of the fallen kings in Revelation
17:10 WAS, AND IS NOT, from John’s POINT OF VIEW, which is the time that the
sixth king or head reigns, insomuch as kings reign or have a time in which they
hold power over a dominion.
Let us emphasize kings reign, they have power
and dominion by every definition of the term king. And when it says they are
fallen it means that each one was but is not at the time that the sixth king
reigns.
Again, Revelation 17:10 means that the five
kings held power over a dominion that ended before the time of the sixth king,
just like the beast that was and is not from John’s POINT OF VIEW. This
evidence proves the beast that rises out of the bottomless pit is one of the
five kings who have fallen from John’s point of view. In essence, the beast
that rises from the bottomless pit cannot be the sixth or seventh king, but
must be one of the five kings or heads that reigned before the time of the
sixth king, because it was, and is not, while the sixth king is!
The evidence that the revived head is one of
the five that had fallen seems to evade most expositors, which consigns their
doctrine on the seven heads as the common wood, hay and stubble of 1 Cor 3:12.
They seem incapable of understanding tenses in grammar: past, present, future–was,
is not, and is to come–is insolvable puzzle for the preponderance of
expositors.
We see this problem especially with the supersessionists
and dispensationalists in that they misrepresent that the revived head as the
sixth one.
Supersessionist Jay Rogers and Daniel Morais
hold the revived head is the sixth one, which they interpret as the emperor
Nero,
Second, John says the eighth “is of the seven”
(Revelation 17:11). This is an idiom that we might have difficulty with today.
Apparently, he means that the eighth was revealed to him later, but he is of
the seven. In other words, the eighth king is one of the seven. He is the king
who “is” at the time John is writing Revelation. In other words, the “eighth”
that John saw is actually the same emperor as the “sixth.” If this seems to be
a stretch to say the eighth “is of the seven,” actually the sixth, compare this
with Daniel 7:8.
Jay Rogers, “Notes on
Daniel: Interpreting Revelation 17 with Daniel 7,” https://www.forerunner.com/daniel/X0023_Notes_on_Daniel__par
As explained in the commentary on Revelation 13, the head
of the beast with the “fatal” wound in Revelation 13:3 is generally understood
to be Nero who killed himself by stabbing himself in the neck. The healing of
the fatal wound is generally understood to refer to the rise of the Flavian
Dynasty at the accession of Vespasian… Vespasian must be the seventh, and Titus
the eighth head of the beast.
Daniel Morais, “Revelation 17: A Preterist
Commentary,”
https://www.revelationrevolution.org/revelation-17-a-preterist-commentary/
Dispensationalist John Walvoord also treats
the sixth head as the revived head,
The final form of world government, symbolized by the
eighth beast itself, is the world empire of the great tribulation time. The
revived Roman Empire which will be in sway immediately after the rapture of the
church is apparently indicated by the seventh head, while the beast, described
in verse 11 as the eighth, is the world empire, which is destroyed by Jesus
Christ at His second coming.
John F. Walvoord, “The
Revelation of Jesus Christ,” https://walvoord.com/article/275
When Walvoord wrote the revived Roman empire
becomes the seventh world empire it’s because the dispensationalists and
historicists hold the seven heads or kings as world empires in agreement with
Daniel, as opposed to the supersessionists who interpret them simply as Roman
emperors. The interpretation that the seven kings are Roman emperors is founded
on errors and misrepresentations, which is a subject for future videos. The
kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome in Daniel are renamed as heads,
mountains and kings by John according to historicist and dispensationalists,
which is the superior interpretation that complements Daniel’s work.
And here’s the issue with the supersessionists
and dispensationalists. In the case of the supersessionists, how did Titus,
whom the supersessionists hold as the revived head, come before Nero? Their
doctrines are absent any answer to this because of their error that the sixth
king is the one that is revived. If the sixth king or head is interpreted as Nero
then the supersessionists have to explain the absurdity of how the Roman
emperor Titus came before Nero. And when the dispensationalists interpret the
sixth head as the ancient Roman empire they have to explain the absurdity of
how a future revived Roman empire “was” before the ancient Roman empire.
Revelation 17:9-11 affirms that the revived beast
“was” before the sixth head or king, and if one interprets the sixth king as
the Roman Empire then they must explain how the beast that rises out of the
bottomless pit reigned before the Roman empire, which leads to all sorts of
absurdities in preterism and dispensational futurism.
The only way to avoid such absurdities is to
realize that John is taken to the future to see the judgment of the harlot
Babylon and the passage is a prolepsis, a future act or development that is
represented as if already accomplished or existing. Such literary devices are not
uncommon in scripture and this is upheld in the evidence that one of the angels
with the seven vials or plagues shows John the “judgment” of the harlot,
Revelation 17
1
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to
me, "Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is
seated on many waters,
2
with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and
with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become
drunk." ESV
From the historicist and dispensationalist’s rules
of interpretation the judgments concerning the final plagues are at the end of
this age, not at the beginning as the preterists hold. Here is where our
evidence presented in our video “The Philadelphia Church” supports that Rev 17
is a prolepsis, a future perspective. Daniel 12 supports that the trial or
judgement related in Rev 17 is at “the time of the end” in which knowledge is
increased and men travel to and fro, which we see in modern times beyond
anything in the past. Are we to suppose that God did not see that the greatest
increases in knowledge and the transversing of the globe occurs in our modern
times? If so, then the judgment of the harlot was set for our day, not John’s,
and we will affirm this as we continue to produce future videos.
Furthermore, the head that is revived was presented
in the previous chapter 13 as the beast that rises out of the sea,
Revelation 13
3
One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was
healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast…
11
Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like
a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.
12
It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and
makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound
was healed. ESV
The “first beast” in the chapter refers to
the beast that rises out of the sea. According to verse 12, it is the head that
is revived, which places Chapter 17 in chronological order, specifically around
the time when the head is wounded or its power is broken, preceding the reign of the
sixth king. This is supported by the detail that when the
beast from the sea and the scarlet beast are revived, the world “marvels,”
which supports their identity as the same. In other words, in Rev 17, John renames the beast that
rises from the sea as the scarlet beast in its wounded period,
using the literary device of a prolepsis,
Revelation 17
8
The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the
bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names
have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will
marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. ESV
Revelation 17:9-11 demands wisdom to
understand; it reveals that the series of the beasts in Revelation starts with
Daniel’s fourth beast. Daniel’s fourth beast is renamed the dragon in
Revelation 12 through the literary device of appositives. Daniel’s little horn is
renamed the beast that rises from the sea and is the fifth head, making the
sixth head the beast that rises from the earth, and the image becomes the
seventh head. Between Daniel and Revelation, we can account for all seven
heads. A big part of the mystery of the seven heads is revealed in grasping
that Daniel and Revelation complement each other in revealing the “time of the
end.”
The understanding that John uses the literary
devices of appositives and prolepsis, especially in Revelation 17, is as rare
and hard to find as gold, silver, and precious stones. The eschatological
doctrines of preterism and dispensationalism are as common as wood, hay, and
stubble because they fail to grasp the devices in the chapter. It takes wisdom
to learn that the fifth head is in our past and that we live in the time of the
sixth head in Revelation 17:10.
The exposé that Rev
17 utilizes these literary devices was developed some 60 years or more ago by
Historicists like George McCready Price. Citing from Price’s book, Time of the
End, concerning the harlot riding the beast, we read,
But, as before stated, the point of time from which the
beast and its rider are seen by the apostle is our own day, the time of the
end, not the time of the Roman emperors.
George McCready Price, Time of the End (Southern Pub.
Association; 1st edition, 1967), 31.
George McCready Price was a Canadian
creationist. He produced a number of anti-evolution and creationist works, principally
on the subject of flood geology. Price's defense of creation science first
achieved wide notability in 1925 when his theories and arguments were utilized powerfully
by William Jennings Bryan in the famous Scopes Trial; Clarence Darrow appealed
fallaciously to authority. Price went on to study eschatology from a
historicist’s perspective that led him to publish “Time of the End,” which has
contributed to the wisdom in opening the book of Revelation.
One must do a tremendous amount of research
to fine such doctrine today, which makes it was rare as gold, silver and
precious stones. It is the gold tried in fire. With such knowledge we are able
to discern the doctrines of gold, silver and precious stones from those that
are wood, hay and stubble.
To identify the little horn or fifth head,
one must look at the criteria in Daniel and Revelation to find the power that
rose at the end of the Roman Empire. Revelation 13:2 states that the dragon,
the Roman Empire, gave its power and his throne and great authority to the
beast from the sea. One has to have a grasp of the history of the Roman Empire
to decipher what power arose to wield control of the defunct Roman Empire and
upon the very seat that Rome held its dominion. Revelation 13 also maintains that
the beast from the sea also has a likeness to the Greek, Persian, and
Babylonian empires by the description of the beast,
Revelation 13
2
And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a
bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his
power and his throne and great authority.
The leopard, bear and
lion are the beasts in Daniel 7 and what they all had in common is that they
held established religions, they held no separation between religion and state.
The mystery of the
seven heads begins with grasping the evidence that the final manifestation of
Satan’s power is the revival of the fifth head or king, which is in our past,
while the sixth king reigns now.
And identifying the
fifth, sixth and seventh heads is the subject of future videos.
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