The Purpose of the Revelation

It is a fact, whatever may be the cause, that there is a widespread prejudice on the part of very many Christian teachers against the reading and study of the book of Revelation. This prejudice exists, notwithstanding the fact that the book comes to us with even stronger claims to its Divine authority than any other of the sacred writings. This prejudice was, of course, foreseen by the Divine Author, and in order that it might not evilly affect those who reverently desired to acquaint themselves with every “word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” special encouragement was given to read and to hear it read. Like all other of the sacred writings, it has withstood all the assaults of its enemies and its misguided friends, some of whom have sought to prove that the book was simply the product of man’s ingenuity. Without taking into consideration in any measure the manifold evidences that are contained inside the book itself, it has been proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that no other book of the Bible is supported by so many outside evidences of its Divine origin. That the divinely chosen Apostle and beloved disciple of our Lord was the one specially privileged to receive the Divine communications and to behold the wonderful visions that make up the larger portion of the book, is not only stated therein, but is also a fact that is otherwise thoroughly established.

The title of the book reveals the nature of its contents. It is a prophecy. It is designed to make known things to come. The study of prophecy never has been and in all probability never will be popular. This is especially true of symbolic prophecy, which surely is a characteristic of the prophecies of the Apocalypse. Aside from the very many unquestionable fulfillments of its predictions in past history, it is quite generally held by the most eminent and devout students of the Apocalypse that the marvelous story it contains, the remarkable arrangement, order, and structure of its many visions, the character and choice of the symbols employed to tell its story, are of themselves most convincing evidences of its Divine origin.

It has been truly said that the visions are evidently designed to exhibit the true worshipers of God engaged in a violent conflict with evil, antagonistic powers, until the Advent of the Redeemer. The great central matter involved in the conflict is, Who has the right of authority over men? Who shall be recognized as worthy of their homage and worship? In different periods in connection with this terrible conflict, Christ, as the chosen of God, is represented in visions as appearing and claiming exclusive right in these matters. He is represented as encouraging and assisting those who are loyal to him, and holding out to them the promise of a reward of life eternal, of exaltation to his throne, and of a share in his glory, honor, and immortality. On the other hand, we have a long succession of antagonistic powers, portrayed under various strange and startling symbols, falsely claiming the right that belongs to Christ alone, and endeavoring to compel men to make their homage to him subordinate to the homage rendered to themselves. The very matters involved in the conflict make it apparent that it is one between the true followers of Christ, and the false professors and open opposers; also, that the conflict covers centuries, and that it will be most terribly severe. The character of the symbols employed to describe these usurpers of Christ show that the most prominent ruling powers of the world, particularly the ecclesiastical, are those represented on one side of the great conflict.

This conflict is represented as being one in which all Heaven is most intensely interested. Its end and its result are finally described in the visions. When the usurpers and blasphemers of God have reached the climax of their career, a career which his sovereignty has permitted, and which he has overruled to the accomplishment of his grand purposes, then Christ is represented as interposing, and by terrible judgments, refutes their claims before the world, and accomplishes their destruction. Those who in the conflict continue loyal to him are then rewarded; his Kingdom is established over the earth, and the blessing of God begins to be realized by all mankind.

Is a Knowledge of History Necessary to an Understanding of Prophecy?

In the introduction of this study of the Apocalypse it is appropriate that something be said with regard to the two schools or methods of interpretation which are radically in conflict with the one adopted and followed in this exposition. These two schools are the Preterist and the Futurist. The one we understand to be the true one is called the Historical. Concerning the Preterist it seems sufficient to say that it is very generally discarded at the present time as unworthy of credence. Its teaching is that all the visions of the Apocalypse were completely fulfilled in the early centuries of the Church’s history. The Futurist interpretation is that all its visions are yet to have their fulfillment after the Church has finished its course and has entered into its reward.

It will be to the point to note in this connection, that the words of the great Teacher Himself, “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass ye might believe,” suggests a principle of interpretation important to be observed in the study of prophecy. It is obvious, then, that it would be impossible for any one to decide whether the predictions of the Apocalypse have or have not met their fulfillment either wholly or partially, without observing this divinely given principle. In other words, a certain knowledge of the events of history is essential in order to determine to what extent the visions have met fulfillment.

Strange as it may seem, there are some who claim that the Apocalyptic visions cannot have had a fulfillment in history, because, as they say, we are told to search the Scriptures, and are nowhere told to search the historians. God, they say, is His own interpreter. Such reasoning we believe is unsound. How could we ever know that the prophecies of Daniel have met their fulfillment without acquainting ourselves with the records of history? A knowledge of history is absolutely essential to the intelligent understanding of prophecy.

We are not to compare prophecy with uninspired or profane history, say our Futurist friends. According to this theory, then, there could not have been any prophetic light thrown on the period of four hundred years prior to the First Advent. The same also would be true of the last eighteen hundred years. Such reasoning would lead us to very unsound conclusions.

When the Apostle exhorted that we do well to take heed to the more sure word of prophecy, he evidently intended that we should look to the events and occurrences recorded in history to see the fulfillment of what had been predicted by the Prophets; else how could we be profited by giving heed to the more sure word of prophecy? Let us consider for instance the prophecy of Daniel. In the vision of chapter 7 a tenfold division of the Roman Empire was predicted to take place before the establishment of the Kingdom of God on the earth. We know from Bible history that the Roman Empire was existing in its undivided form up to about 60 AD, but we are dependent upon profane history for the knowledge that it was still existing as a universal empire when St. John was divinely used to close the canon of Scripture by having imparted to him the visions of the Apocalyptic prophecy, which repeats this very same prediction of Daniel. How do we know that this prediction of Daniel has or has not met its fulfillment, unless from profane history? Profane history records the fact that just such a division of the Roman Empire occurred nearly fifteen hundred years ago. It is then an indisputable fact that our knowledge of the fulfillment of prophecy is dependent upon the faithful records of uninspired historians. The Savior’s words, “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe” (John 14:29), are sufficient to substantiate this line of reasoning.

Another unreasonable, indeed rash statement made by some Futurist interpreters is that the events connected with the history of the Church of this Gospel Age are not subjects of prophecy. Those who make such a statement seem not to see that a knowledge of history is needful even to warrant such an assertion! How, we ask, without a knowledge of the history of the Gospel Age, can it be known that the visions of St. John in the Apocalypse do not present a connected outline of the leading and important events of Church history? The assertion is an entirely proper one that a knowledge of what has actually taken place is as needful to justify a denial, as an assertion of the fact. We must know a person as well before we can pronounce that a certain portrait does not resemble him, as in order to assert that it does.

“Trustworthy historians record events which they neither invented nor caused, but what occurred under God’s providential government; it was He who caused, or permitted these events; they are in one sense as Divine as prophecy; that is, both proceed from Him. Prophecy is God telling us beforehand what shall happen; authentic history is men telling us what has, in the providence of God, taken place. …”

“We dare not for these reasons exclude the light afforded by history, in the endeavor to answer the questions: Is the prophecy of the Apocalypse fulfilled or partly so, or is it still unfulfilled? and is it in its general scope Christian or Jewish?”

The Futurist interpretation applies the prophetic visions of the Apocalypse to the Jews after the Church is glorified. Discovering amongst whom and under what circumstances the Futurist view had its origin, will surely have a bearing upon our conclusion as to the correctness or incorrectness of this method of interpretation. It originated in the Roman Catholic Church, and was a reply of the Roman Catholic theologians to the Reformers of the Sixteenth Century who applied those Apocalyptic visions that portrayed the great Apostasy, the Antichrist, to the Romish system.

Rome had her theologians, learned men, among whom were Ribera and Bellarmine. “Ribera was a Jesuit priest of Salamanca. In 1585 he published a commentary on the Apocalypse, denying the application of the prophecies concerning Antichrist to the existing Church of Rome. He was followed by Cardinal Bellarmine, a nephew of Pope Marcellus II, who was born in Tuscany in 1542, and died in 1621. Bellarmine was not only a man of great learning, but the most powerful controversialist in defense of Popery that the Roman Church ever produced. Clement VIII used these remarkable words on his nomination: ‘We choose him, because the Church of God does not possess his equal in learning.’ Bellarmine, like Ribera, advocated the Futurist interpretation of prophecy. He taught that Antichrist would be one particular man, that he would be a Jew, that he would be preceded by the reappearance of the literal Enoch and Elias, that he would rebuild the Jewish temple at Jerusalem, compel circumcision, abolish the Christian sacraments, abolish every other form of religion, would manifestly and avowedly deny Christ, would assume to be Christ, and would be received by the Jews as their Messiah, would pretend to be God, would make a literal image speak, would feign himself dead, and rise again, and would conquer the whole world — Christian, Mohammedan, and heathen; and all this in the space of three and a half years. He insisted that the prophecies of Daniel, Paul, and John, with reference to Antichrist, had no application whatever to the Papal power” (H. Grattan Guinness).

The earliest of what may be termed Protestant writers who adopted the system of Futurist interpretation are Todd and Maitland, the latter living from 1792 to 1866. There have been many since their day who have adopted their views, with some minor changes. These views are very little different from those of the two Roman Catholic theologians above mentioned. It cannot therefore be successfully disputed that the Futurist interpretation of the Apocalypse had its origin in Rome at the end of the Sixteenth Century and was designed to relieve the Papacy from the terrible stigma cast upon it by the Protestant interpretation. The claims of Papist leaders were that “the Papal head of the Church of Rome was not the power delineated by Daniel and St. John. Accurately as it answered the description, it was not the criminal indicated. It must be allowed to go free, and the detective must look out for another man, who was sure to turn up by and by. The Historic interpretation was, of course, rejected with intense and bitter scorn by the Church it denounced as Babylon, and the power it branded as Antichrist, and it is still opposed by all who in any way uphold these. The Futurist school denies the application of these important, practical prophecies to the conflicts of the Church during the last eighteen centuries. It robs the Church of their practical guidance all through that period. This is the position taken by the Church of Rome, this is the position taken by the popes, cardinals, bishops, and other great teachers of that apostate Church. This is the prophetic interpretation they have embodied in a thousand forms and insisted upon with dogmatic authority. This has been the interpretation of proud Papal usurpers, of cruel persecutors, of merciless tyrants, of the Romanist enemies of the Gospel and of the saints and servants of God.”

Solidity and Reliability of Historical Interpretation

The Historical interpretation given by the Reformers and the long line of martyrs and Christian confessors prior to the Reformation was taken up by reverent and able men of God after their predecessors had laid down the lamp of prophecy. Protestant interpreters have built upon the foundations erected by these saints of old, the true historic interpretation of the wonderful Apocalypse of Jesus Christ. “They have built up a solid and symmetrical system, a system which has developed slowly, which has progressed constantly, which has been born out of diligent investigations only, but of profound experience; a system whose truth has been sealed and demonstrated by its ever-growing correspondence with the actual course of events.” Let us mention the names of some of these men who have unquestionably been used of God since the Reformation to further unravel the mysteries of the Apocalypse. We notice first, Joseph Mede, who lived in the first half of the Seventeenth Century. It is said that he was distinguished for meekness, modesty, and liberality, and that he devoted the tenth of his small income to charitable and pious purposes. His learning is spoken of as profound and extraordinary. His chief work was an exposition of the Apocalypse, which was translated into English in 1640. This godly and learned man prefaced his work with the prayer, “Thou who sittest upon the throne, and thou, O Lamb, Root of David, who only wast worthy to take and open this book, open the eyes of Thy servant, and direct his hand and mind, that in these Thy mysteries, he may discern and produce something which may tend to the glory of Thy name and profit the Church.” It will not be our purpose to note his particular interpretations save to say that he followed the well-beaten track of the Historical interpretation; that his work on the Apocalypse was endorsed by the Puritan Church leaders; and that it was endorsed also by the Westminster confession, as is seen from the words recorded in the twenty-fifth chapter of their solemn confession: “There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ, nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ and all that is called God.” This confession of faith adopted just after Mede’s death was subsequently accepted by the National Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

Sir Isaac Newton, who lived in the latter part of the Seventeenth Century, further advanced the system of Historical interpretation. Contemporaneous with Sir Isaac Newton there lived several other interpreters of the Apocalypse. Among these were Jurieu and Daubuz, who were both exiled Huguenots, and “belonged to the five hundred thousand Protestants” who were compelled to leave France by the persecuting edict of Louis XIV, in revoking the edict of Nantes. Their sufferings under the Papal power turned their attention to the prophetic Word and in it they found consolation. Jurieu, for example, begins his prophetic work with the sentence: “The afflicted Church seeks for consolation. Where can she find it but in the promises of God?” His work is entitled The Approaching Deliverance of the Church. Therein he sets forth the thought “that the Papacy is the anti-Christian kingdom, and that that kingdom is not far from its ruin; that the present persecution may end in three years and a half, after which the destruction of Antichrist shall begin, which shall be finished in the beginning of the next age and then the Kingdom of Christ shall come upon the earth.” This was published in 1637. Apocalyptic Historic interpretation continued to increase through the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries, and the sacred light of these prophecies is still guiding the Church of God across the wide ocean of her dangerous way. Those steadfast stars of prophecy which lighted the persecuted Waldenses through the darkness of the Middle Ages, which lighted the progress of the Lollards and the Bohemians before the Reformation, which lighted the noble Reformers through the gloom and tempest three hundred years ago, and which have lighted watchful saints through troubled centuries, are shining still, in that high and holy firmament whence no mortal hand can pluck them down; and they shall shine on—those glittering stars of prophecy—till they have fulfilled their glorious mission, till they have guided the Church in safety to her celestial haven, and their long-enduring radiance melts at last in the rising splendors of eternal day.

It is the teaching from analogy that the Church is a subject of prophecy. God’s ancient people were never left without the guidance of the “lamp of prophecy.” Is it reasonable to suppose that the Church of this dispensation would be left without this lamp? It was because of a failure to give heed to these prophecies, which were read every Sabbath day in their synagogues, and which were being fulfilled before their eyes, that the Jews fulfilled them in rejecting and crucifying their Messiah (Acts 13:27). Indeed, their history, as well as the condition of their home land during the last eighteen hundred years, was foretold by their Prophets. Furthermore, their future restoration to favor, and the great tribulations they are to encounter just prior to their conversion to the Messiah, are all described by their Prophets, not simply in a general way, but in the most minute detail. It is to the latter that Futurists wrongly apply the visions of the Revelation. We ask, Why apply the visions of the Revelation to the Jews when their history was already so minutely foretold by the Old Testament Prophets? It has been wisely asked: “Is it likely that there should be no analogy, but a perfect contrast, in the history of antitypical Israel? Has she no Egypt to leave, and no wilderness to traverse, no land to inherit, no oppressors to tyrannize over her, no evil kings to mislead her, no reformers and deliverers to arise, no Babylon to carry her captive, no Temple to rebuild, no Messiah to look for, no judgments to apprehend?

“Are the Church’s foes so much more obvious, her dangers so much more potent, that it should be superfluous to supply her with prophetic light to detect them? Because the Jews were an earthly people, and she a heavenly Church, is she therefore not on earth, and not surrounded by the ungodly? Are her enemies heavenly because the Church is so? Nay, but most earthly, for the wicked spirits against whom the Church wrestles, wage their warfare incarnate, in earthly, sensual, devilish systems, and in actual men, as did Satan in the serpent in Eden. Every conceivable reason would suggest her greater need of prophetic light.” The Apocalypse is the book of the New Testament which answers to the prophets of the Old.

Furthermore, it is a fact that the Holy Spirit through St. Paul gave utterance to a prediction that in its scope covered the whole Christian Age. It is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, 8, and reads: “The mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth [hindereth] will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming [presence].” The hindering obstacle, whatever it may have been, was in existence when the Apostle wrote his epistle, and was to continue in existence until the rise of the “man of sin,” the wicked one. This “man of sin” was to continue until the Lord’s Second Advent, and then was to be destroyed. It is also a fact that the first generation of Christians were forewarned by our Lord Himself of the fall of Jerusalem and the terrible scenes associated with that fall. This prediction of our Lord was given for the benefit of the early Christians; and as has been truthfully said, “there is, therefore, no room for asserting that the fulfillment of the Apocalypse must be future because the Church cannot be the subject of prophecy whose sphere is the earth. If she may be the subject of one or two, she may equally well be the subject of a hundred, and the question must be decided on other grounds.”

Again, St. John speaks of himself as a brother and companion in tribulation of those who are addressed: “I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 1:9). Who can believe that St. John was speaking of the Jews as his brothers? At the time he wrote, the Apostle was suffering tribulation because of his loyalty to his Master, Christ. The same was true at this time (when Pagan Rome began its persecution) of many others whom he addressed, as history records. How appropriate, then, are his words! St. John was speaking as a Christian confessor at this time (not a confessor of the Jewish religion), as the words that follow show: “I John was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

Again, in chapter 6, under the fifth seal, we have a symbolic vision referring to martyrs, of whom it is said that they were “slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held.” This evidently means that they were slain for confessing their Christian faith; in other words, like St. John, they suffered because they were Christians.

In chapter 7, under the sixth seal, there is presented to us a company in heaven of whom it is said, they came out of great tribulation. These were not Jews, for it is stated that they were gathered out from “every nation and kindred and tongue.” It is also said of them that they “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Unquestionably these were Christian martyrs also.

In the eighth chapter mention is made of “the prayers of all saints,” and of “the prayers of the saints.” Prayers ascend from suppliants on earth; and the word saints in New Testament language means Christians. The eminent expositor, Mr. Guinness, has presented on this point the following forceful argument:

“We have no right in the last book of the New Testament to revert to the Old Testament signification of this word [saint]. Let the general tone of John’s Gospel and Epistles be recalled, and his choice of this word to designate true Christians, in the midst of an ungodly world, and falsely professing church, will be felt to be in beautiful harmony. What is the grand distinction made in John’s Epistles between true Christians and those who are not? It is holiness, saintship. ‘If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth; but if we walk in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ …

“Such language shows that in the eyes of St. John, practical purity and holiness, saintliness, is the grand characteristic of Christians. When, therefore, we find him consistently designating a certain body by the distinctive appellation of ‘the saints,’ we conclude that those so called are true Christians, in opposition to the ungodly or to false professors. Where does John ever apply such a term to Jews? Where in the whole New Testament can the term be found so applied? Why then should we assert that it is applied to Jews here? Paul uses it forty-three times, and in every case as a synonym for Christians. Luke uses it four times in the Acts, and Jude twice in his Epistle, in the same sense; in fact, only once is it used in any equivocal sense in the whole New Testament. (‘Many bodies of the saints which slept arose,’ Matthew 27:52).

“We observe these ‘saints,’ who are thirteen times mentioned in the Apocalypse, doing and bearing exactly what we know from other Scriptures the saints of the Christian Church must do and bear in this dispensation. We find them watching, waiting, praying, enduring tribulation (chapter 13:10), resting in heaven (chapter 14:12, 13), and at last manifested as the Bride of Christ, and as the ‘armies which were in heaven’ clad under both emblems, with the ‘fine linen clean and white, which is the righteousness of saints’; we find them associated with the martyrs of Jesus (chapter 17:6), a clear proof that they cannot be Jewish saints.

“In short, so far from the Church being actually and exclusively in heaven at the commencement of the prophetic drama of this book, she is seen on earth during its entire course. She is seen collectively under various symbols, such as the one hundred and forty-four thousand, the two witnesses, the sun-clad woman, the armies of heaven, the New Jerusalem; and her members are seen severally as ‘the saints.’ They are seen first in their sufferings, and then in their glory; first slain for Jesus’ sake, then enthroned beside him. Can it be questioned that the saints who pray, and wait, and suffer, and die as martyrs of Jesus, are the same saints, the ‘called, and chosen, and faithful,’ who are seen with the Lamb afterwards, as his Bride, and as his white-robed followers? If they are not, the unity of the book is gone, it becomes an incomprehensible confusion. If the saints who form the Bride of the Lamb in chapter 19 are not the saints who in the previous chapters witnessed for him in life and in death, then the lesson written most legibly on the pages of prophecy—the lesson that, in spite of ignorance and obscurity, the Church in all ages has learned from it—the truth that sustained millions of martyrs in their protracted sufferings and cheered them in their dying agonies—the truth with which this prophecy seems instinct, ‘If we suffer, we shall also reign with him’—is utterly obliterated from its pages! The suffering ‘saints’ get no reward; and the happy, blessed Bride rises not from a surging sea of sorrow and suffering to the joy of her Lord’s embrace, and the glory of his throne. One of the great morals of the book is gone, as well as its dramatic unity. …

“This system of interpretation involves besides, a logical inconsistency. The Bride is the Christian Church; her raiment identifies her with the previously mentioned ‘saints,’ and the ‘saints’ [this wrong interpretation says] are a Jewish remnant.¹ …

“The only way of avoiding the force of this argument is to deny that the Bride of the Lamb is the Church; for it is evident that the Bride is identical with the saints, and it is evident also that the saints are on earth during the whole course of the book. Those who are resolved to prove that the Church is not represented as on earth in these visions must therefore not only deny that the saints are the Church, but seeing the saints are identical with the Bride, must also deny that the Bride is the Church; and many Futurists are to be found, who actually do deny this.

“Let it be granted then that, fulfilling all these types from Eden downward, and realizing all the figures of most intimate association and union which language can convey—the vine and the branches, the head and the members, the Bridegroom and the Bride—the white-robed saintly Bride of Revelation 19 is the Church of the redeemed; and we claim that without all contradiction, the Church is on earth during the action of the Apocalypse, and that therefore the Apocalypse is a Christian prophecy, fulfilled in the events of the Christian era.”

(1) “The future existence of a Jewish remnant is not denied, though their history and experience are mapped out by a certain school of prophetic interpreters, far more definitely than by the Word of God. That the remnant or remainder of the Jewish nation will be restored to Palestine before the Millennium, brought there into great trouble, and prepared by it to say, ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,’ that Christ will appear for their deliverance, and that they will be converted at the sight of him, this much seems clear from Scripture. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance, and He has not cast away His people whom He foreknew.’”

History of Apocalyptic Interpretation

Considering the words of the Revelator, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy,” two most interesting questions are suggested: First, to what extent have the Lord’s people heeded this exhortation? Second, to what conclusions have they come regarding the scope and application of its sublime visions? A brief, general reply to these questions is that they have been read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested by the Church increasingly from the time they were given until the present time; and that, while in the period previous to the Reformation the followers of Christ who heeded the exhortation had no correct idea as to the length of time that would elapse before the complete fulfillment of the visions, they held that these visions portrayed the Church’s history throughout the age, and not merely a closing fragment of that history, nor a Jewish remnant after the Church was glorified.

From Irenaeus (145 AD), a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of St. John, to Chrysostom and Jerome (345 AD), there was a very general agreement on the following matters which may truthfully be said to constitute the key to Apocalyptic interpretation:

(1) That the “little horn” of Daniel 7, the “man of sin” of 2 Thessalonians 2, and the “beast” of Revelation 13, were to rule from Rome, and that these prophecies referred to one and the same power—the Antichrist.

(2) That the hindrance to Antichrist’s full development and rule, mentioned by St. Paul (2 Thessalonians 2), was the Roman emperors reigning in the city of Rome.

(3) That the ten-horned dragon and the ten-horned beast of Revelation 12, 13, and 17, were the same as the fourth beast seen by Daniel (Daniel 7), and that they describe different aspects of the Roman Empire.

(4) That the “ten horns” on the beast seen by St. John and on the fourth beast of Daniel referred to a division of the Roman Empire into ten kingdoms, at a time future from St. John’s day.

(5) That when this breaking up of the Empire would take place, the predicted Antichrist would then begin to rule.

It is a most remarkable fact that all the noted expositors throughout the entire age until now are agreed in these matters. It is true that the writers who lived during the first two and a half centuries supposed that when Antichrist became seated at Rome, his career would be a brief one. However, it is reasonable to suppose this would be the case in view of the Divine rule of progressive interpretation of prophecy.

In proving the above statements we quote first Irenaeus. In his book Against Heresies, chapter 26, he says: “John in the Apocalypse teaches us what the ten horns shall be, [that is, the same] which were seen by Daniel.”

We thus see that this Christian writer, who lived only about half a century after St. John’s day, linked together the vision of Daniel 7 with those visions that make up the much larger part of the Apocalypse.

Another quotation from Irenaeus (Book V, chapter 30) shows that he believed that the manifestation of Antichrist would require first the overthrow of the Empire of Rome then existing. The quotation reads:

“Let them await, in the first place, the division of the kingdom into ten; then in the next place, when these kings are reigning, and beginning to set their affairs in order, and advance their kingdoms, let them learn to acknowledge that he who shall come claiming the kingdom [dominion] for himself and containing the aforesaid number (666), is truly the abomination of desolation.”

It seems clear that this writer, who in all probability saw those who had conversed with St. John, believed that the Apocalypse was already beginning to have its fulfillment in his day (145 AD). His forecast, although he was ignorant of it, covered nearly four centuries, for it is an indisputable fact of history that in 476 AD the Roman Empire fell, and shortly after, in about 539 AD, the Bishop of Rome was occupying the seat of the Roman emperors in the city of Rome, and was claiming supremacy in religious matters over all peoples of the Roman earth; and at this time the territory of the Empire was occupied by ten kingdoms.

Hippolytus, who is said to have been a disciple of Irenaeus, held that the Babylon of the Apocalypse meant Rome. Referring to this he says: “Tell me, blessed John, apostle and disciple of the Lord, what didst thou see and hear concerning Babylon? Arise and speak, for it sent thee also into banishment.”

Indeed, all the early Christian writers held to this view. Tertullian, who lived contemporary with Irenaeus and Hippolytus, thus writes: “Babylon in our own John [that is, the Apocalypse] is a figure of the city of Rome, as being equally proud of her sway over the saints.”

Augustine, who was born 354 AD, in his book City of God, says: “Rome, the second Babylon, and the daughter of the first, to which it pleased God to subject the whole world, and bring it all into one sovereignty, is now founded.” In another place he calls Rome “the western Babylon.” In still another he says: “It has not been in vain that this city has received the mysterious name of Babylon; for Babylon is interpreted confusion, as we have said elsewhere.”

It is evident from these quotations that the early Church Fathers understood that the Babylon of the Apocalypse meant Rome. And this had always been the interpretation of the Historic school, although for the past eight centuries events have proved that Papal and not Pagan Rome was meant. It would not be possible for those Christians living under Pagan Rome to conceive that Rome Christian could ever become such a terrible persecutor of the saints as was seen later on. It required a further unfolding of so-called Christian history to reveal this to the saints of God.

It was very generally believed as far back as the middle of the Second Century that the fall of Rome was imminent and that therefore the advent of Antichrist was close at hand. Justin Martyr, who suffered death as a confessor of the Christian faith, and who became a Christian only about twenty or thirty years after St. John’s death, in his Dialogue with Trypho(chapter 33), says: “He whom Daniel foretells would have dominion for a ‘time, times and a half’ is already even at the door about to speak blasphemous and daring things against the Most High.”

Cyprian, whose conversion to Christianity took place in 241 AD, in his work Exhortation to Martyrdom, wrote: “Since the hateful time of Antichrist is already beginning to draw near, I would collect from the sacred Scriptures some exhortations for preparing and strengthening the minds of the brethren, whereby I might animate the soldiers of Christ, for the heavenly and spiritual contest.”

Irenaeus and Hippolytus thus interpret the mysterious number 666 of Revelation 13. They give as the interpretation the word Lateinos. Irenaeus says: “Lateinos is the number 666, and it is a very probable [solution], this being the name of the last kingdom, for the Latins are they who at present bear rule.”

Victorinus wrote an exposition of the Apocalypse about the close of the Third Century. “This is the earliest commentary in existence on the whole book. He interprets the going forth of the rider on the white horse, under the first seal, to have reference to the victories of the Gospel in the First Century. It will be seen that this view involves the Historical interpretation of the entire book of the Revelation.”

Chrysostom, at the close of the Fourth Century, in his commentary on 2 Thessalonians, makes a very interesting and valuable statement concerning what St. Paul referred to as the “let” or hindrance to the revelation of the “man of sin”: “One may naturally inquire, What is that which withholdeth—and after that why Paul expresses himself so obscurely, ‘he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.’ That is, when the Roman Empire is taken out of the way, then he shall come; and naturally, for as long as the fear of this Empire lasts, no one will readily exalt himself; but when that is dissolved, he will attack the anarchy and endeavor to seize upon the government, both of men and of God. For as the kingdoms before this were destroyed, that of the Medes by the Babylonians, that of the Babylonians by the Persians, that of the Persians by the Macedonians, that of the Macedonians by the Romans, so will this be by Antichrist, and he by Christ.”

Chrysostom then gives a reason why St. Paul was so reserved in mentioning in his letter what the hindrance was, although he said he knew what it was and reminded the Thessalonian Christians in his epistle that he told them what it was when he was with them. Chrysostom, giving the Apostle’s reason for his reserve, says: “Because he [St. Paul] says this of the Roman Empire, he naturally only glanced at it and spoke covertly, for he did not wish to bring upon himself superfluous enmities and useless dangers; for if he had said that after a little while the Roman Empire would be dissolved, they would now immediately overwhelm him as a pestilent person, and [also] all the faithful as living and warring to this end [for the overthrow of the Empire].” Tertullian, who flourished the latter part of the Second Century, informs us that the Christian Church prayed for the emperors of Rome and for the stability of the Empire because they knew “that a mighty shock impending over the whole earth was only retarded by the continued existence of the Roman Empire.”

Another whose writings clearly prove the character of Apocalyptic interpretation up to the beginning of the Fourth Century is Origen (born 185 AD); in his famous book against the Pagan writer Celsus, who was an opposer of Christianity, he says: “Paul speaks of him who is called Antichrist, describing, though with a certain reserve, both the manner and time and cause of his coming. The prophecy also regarding Antichrist is stated in the book of Daniel, and is fitted to make an intelligent and candid reader admire the words as truly Divine and prophetic, for in them are mentioned the things relating to the coming Kingdom, beginning with the time of Daniel to the destruction of the world.”

We close this brief summary of Apocalyptic interpretation for the first three centuries after the visions were given, in the language of Mr. Guinness: “It should be noted that none of the Fathers held the futurist gap theory, the theory that the book of Revelation overleaps nearly eighteen centuries of Christian history, plunging at once into the distant future, and devoting itself entirely to predicting the events of the last few years of this dispensation. As to the subject of Antichrist, there was a universal agreement among them concerning the general idea of the prophecy, while there were differences as to details, these differences arising chiefly from the notion that the Antichrist would be in some way Jewish as well as Roman. It is true they thought that the Antichrist would be an individual man. Their early position sufficiently accounts for this. They had no conception, and could have no conception, of the true nature and length of the tremendous apostasy, which was to set in upon the Christian Church. They were not prophets and could not foresee that the Church was to remain nineteen centuries in the wilderness, and to pass through prolonged and bitter persecution under a succession of nominally Christian but apostate rulers, filling the place of the ancient Caesars, and emulating their anti-Christian deeds. Had they known these things, we may well believe their views would have completely harmonized with those of Historic interpreters of later times. The Fathers went as far as they could go in the direction in which Historical interpreters of these last days have traveled. Further, much that was dark to them in prophecy has become clear to their successors in the light of its accomplishment. Divine providence has thrown light, as it could not fail to do, on Divine predictions.”

It was only about thirty years before the days of Chrysostom that the last cruel persecution of the Church by the Pagan government ended. It was at this point in history that the Roman government was changed from Pagan to Christian (so called). The persecutions of Pagan Rome had, to a large extent, the effect of holding all Christians together. It is true that many errors in doctrine had crept into the Church, but on the whole the Church was loyal to Christ. In Constantine’s day, church and state became united, and worldliness and error, like a flood, soon engulfed the simple, pure religion of Christ. It was at this time that many true Christians began to separate from the great formal profession. These separations continued until the overthrow of the Imperial government and the official recognition of the Roman bishop (about 539 AD) as the religious ruler of Christendom. The true, loyal followers of Christ from this latter event, and even earlier, until the Reformation, were quite generally looked upon by the professing Church as heretics. These, as the records of history show, interpreted the visions of the Apocalypse that we have above cited as having their fulfillment in the great apostate Church system—the Papacy. Roman Catholic writers, however, during this period generally applied these visions as having had their fulfillment in Pagan Rome, although there were some writers remaining in the nominal system who continued to look for the Antichrist, and who applied the Apocalyptic visions as covering the history of the Gospel Age to the consummation. Among these were Primasius, who lived in the middle of the Sixth Century; the Venerable Bede, who lived in England at the close of the Seventh Century; Ambrose Anspert, who lived in the middle of the Eighth Century; Andreas, at the same time, who was a bishop of the Church in Caesarea. All of these interpreted the Apocalypse as covering the whole period of the Gospel Age, and they were, therefore, of the Historic school.

The period in which these expositors wrote was marked by the Papacy’s gradual attainment of temporal dominion over the kingdoms of Western Rome. At the beginning of the Eleventh Century all the kingdoms of Europe were submitting to its control, indeed giving voluntary support to it, and were being employed by Papacy to persecute the saints of God even unto death. At this time some writers began to clearly recognize in Papacy the long-predicted Antichrist, although there were numbers of true Christians still connected with the great professing Church. Referring to these, it has been said: “Two notions contributed powerfully to prevent their recognizing in the imperfectly developed Papacy the predicted ‘Man of Sin.’ They imagined that as the Eastern Empire of Rome, seated at Constantinople, still continued, the ‘let,’ or hindrance to the manifestation of the Antichrist, remained, completely overlooking the fact that the anti-Christian power foretold in prophecy is definitely linked with the seven hills of Rome, and thus with the fall of the Western Empire, and the apostasy of the Latin or Western Church. Then they spiritualized and explained away a great deal of prophecy, and supposed that they were living in the Millennium, and that Antichrist would not be manifested till the brief outbreak of evil at its close. This false notion had fatal consequences. While these interpreters, in common with the generality of Christians at that period, were looking for the advent of the ‘man of sin’ in the distant future, he stole unperceived into their midst and usurped the place of Christ over his unwatchful flock.”

Just before 1000 AD Gherbert of Rheims said of the pope that he was “Antichrist sitting in the temple of God.” In the Eleventh Century Berenger affirmed the Roman See to be “not the Apostolic seat, but the seat of Satan.”

During this whole period, however, there were little companies of believers, separated from civilization, as it were, who saw clearly in the succession of Roman bishops the Antichrist of the Apocalypse. The Waldensian Christians claimed that their forefathers left the nominal Church in the days of Constantine in the Fourth Century. However, we do not begin to have mention of them by that name in history until about the Twelfth Century. They have been generally called the “Israel of the Alps.” They lived in what is known as the Waldensian valleys. “They were true Protestants long before the Reformation. They were lovers and students of prophecy from the oldest times. There is in existence a faithful history of this people written two hundred and fifty years ago by one of their pastors, Leger by name.” It will be foreign to our purpose here to relate the terrible persecutions that these Christian confessors suffered at the hands of Rome. These matters are well-authenticated events of history. The question before us is, How did these suffering saints interpret the Apocalypse? A noted writer of the Nineteenth Century, referring to Leger’s history of the Waldenses, thus writes: “Leger tells with simple clearness the story of the Waldenses from the earliest times, quoting from ancient and authentic documents. He gives in full their confession of faith, and narrates the history of their martyrdoms. In this book of Leger’s is their Treatise on Antichrist, written in the year 1120, eight hundred years ago. It is written in a language now extinct; Leger gives a French translation in parallel columns. In simple, telling terms that treatise brands the Romish Church as the harlot Babylon, and the Papacy as the ‘man of sin,’ and Antichrist. That was the faith and confession of the Waldenses.”

Another body of Christian confessors commonly called the Albigenses lived in the south of France, in Provence and Catalonia. History informs us that they were a civilized and highly educated people. In the year 1208 we have mention of them as undergoing terrible persecution at the instigation of the Papacy. Among these people there sprang up an extensive revival of true religion, and one of the natural effects was a bold testimony against the abominations of apostate Rome. Sismondi, the great Italian historian, of whom it is said that “his mind was to the last open to truth; neither fettered by prejudice nor blinded by self-conceit, and whose feelings on religious questions were especially intense,” having on one occasion heard a sermon in an English church on eternal punishment, vowed never again to enter another church holding the same creed; and, to quote his own words, “never to contribute to spread what the English call their reformation; for by its side Romanism is a religion of mercy and peace” (International Encyclopedia). This man was an unprejudiced historian. In his history of the Albigenses, on page 7, he relates how these Christian confessors, as well as the Waldensian confessors, interpreted the vision of Babylon of the Apocalypse: “All agreed in regarding the Church of Rome as having absolutely perverted Christianity, and in maintaining that it was she who was designated in the Apocalypse by the name of the whore of Babylon.”

It will not seem strange to any that Rome could not endure such a testimony, and it was at this particular period that Rome began that terrible war of exterminating heretics. The prophecies concerning this are mentioned in both Daniel and the Apocalypse (Daniel 7:21; Revelation 13:7).

The name John Huss is well known to every student of Christian history. He was martyred by Rome as a Christian confessor. He lived in the early part of the Fifteenth Century—over a hundred years before the Protestant Reformation. How did he interpret the Apocalypse? His exact words are preserved on this matter. We quote from Acts and Monuments, Volume III, pages 497–498, an epistle addressed by him to the people of Prague: “The more circumspect ye ought to be, for that Antichrist laboreth the more to trouble you. The last judgment draweth near, but to the elect children of God the kingdom of God draweth near. Know ye well, beloved, that Antichrist being stirred up against you deviseth divers persecutions.”

From the same authority we have a letter addressed by Huss to the Lord John de Chum having special reference to the Apocalyptic harlot of Revelation 17. It reads: “By your letter which I received yesterday I understand first, how the malignant strumpet, that is, the malignant congregation, whereof mention is made in the Apocalypse, is detected, and shall be more detected; with which strumpet the kings of the earth do commit fornication, fornicating spiritually with Christ; and as is there said, sliding back from the truth, and consenting to the lies of Antichrist, through his seduction, and through fear, or through hope of confederacy for getting worldly honor.”

We quote from another letter addressed to his friends, exhorting them not to be troubled because of the burning of his books:

“Master John Huss, in hope, the servant of God, to all the faithful who love Him and His statutes, wisheth the truth and grace of God.

“Surely even at this day is the malice, the abomination, and filthiness of Antichrist revealed in the pope and others of this council.

“Oh how acceptable a thing should it be, if time would suffer me to disclose their wicked acts, which are now apparent; that the faithful servants of God might know them! I trust in God that He will send after me those that shall be more valiant; and there are alive at this day that shall make more manifest the malice of Antichrist, and shall give their lives to the death for the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall give both to you and me the joys of life everlasting.

“This epistle was written upon St. John Baptist’s day, in prison and in cold irons; I having this meditation with myself, that John was beheaded in prison and bonds for the Word of God.”

We call attention also to John Wycliffe, whose learning as well as simple faith and manly courage have never been questioned. He lived in the Fourteenth Century, and testified fearlessly against the abominations and errors of the Church of Rome. He translated the Scriptures into English and interpreted the Apocalypse just as the Waldenses did. He wrote a special treatise called The Mirror of Antichrist. From Wycliffe sprang the English Lollards, whose interpretation of the Apocalypse was the same as that of their leader. Lord Cobham, one of the Lollards, when brought before King Henry V and “admonished to submit himself to the pope as an obedient child,” gave this answer: “As touching the pope and his spirituality, I owe them neither suit nor service, for as much as I know him by the Scriptures to be the great Antichrist, the son of perdition, the open adversary of God, and an abomination standing in the holy place.” This faithful confessor was condemned to death as a heretic.

We come now to the period beginning with the Reformation. Historians inform us that just before this time the terrible persecutions of Rome against the confessors of primitive, evangelical Christianity had caused an entire cessation of public testimony against the abominations of the great anti-Christian apostasy. While it would not be correct to say that the application of the prophetic visions of the Apocalypse was the sole agency in bringing about the Reformation, yet it is undoubtedly true that these interpretations played a very important part in bringing about this great work. “The doctrinal and practical truths of Scripture guided the action of the Reformers as well as the prophetic. They opposed the Church of Rome, condemned alike by the doctrines, the precepts, and the prophecies of the Word of God. It might be difficult to say which of the three weighed with them the most. On each they were clear and emphatic. These three elements cannot be separated in estimating the springs of the Reformation. From the first, and throughout, that movement was energized and guided by the prophetic Word. Luther never felt strong and free to war against the Papal apostasy till he recognized the pope as Antichrist.”

All the Reformers, with one consent, agreed that Rome was the “Babylon” of the Apocalypse, and the Papal pontiff the “man of sin.” The Apocalyptic command, “Come out of her, my people,” was used by the Reformers to urge all true Christians in that system to separate themselves from it. To them, separation from Rome meant separation from Antichrist. In the year 1520 Luther wrote to Spalatinus these words: “I am extremely distressed in my mind. I have not much doubt but the pope is the real Antichrist.” In the fall of the same year in a treatise entitled The Babylonish Captivity of the Church, Luther called the Papacy “the kingdom of Babylon.” On receiving the Papal bull of excommunication he again wrote to Spalatinus these words: “At last the Roman bull is come, and Eckins is the bearer of it. I treat it with contempt. You see that the expressed doctrines of Christ himself are here condemned. I feel myself now more at liberty, being assured that the popedom is anti-Christian and the seat of Satan.”

In December he published two tracts in reply to the Papal bull, one of which was called Martin Luther Against the Execrable Bull of Antichrist. It was in this way that the Reformation was begun. In a Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians he gives utterance to the following (having reference to St. Paul’s words in 2 Thessalonians 2:4): “Is not this to sit in the temple of God, to profess himself to be ruler in the whole Church? What is the temple of God? Is it stones and wood? Did not Paul say, ‘The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are’? To sit—what is it but to reign, to teach and to judge? Who from the beginning of the Church has dared to call himself master of the whole Church but the pope?” In another of his writings he says that when Daniel “saw the terrible wild beast which had ten horns which by the consent of all is the Roman Empire, he also beheld another small horn come up in the middle of them. This is the Papal power, which rose up in the middle of the Roman Empire.”

The Helvetic Confession, drawn up by the Reformers of Switzerland in 1536, contains an article condemning the Papacy as Antichrist. The same is true of the Smalcald Confession, adopted by Luther’s followers in 1537.

John Calvin, in a letter to the Emperor Charles V, says: “I deny that See to be apostolical, wherein nought is seen but a shocking apostasy. I deny him to be the vicar of Christ who in furiously persecuting the Gospel demonstrates by his conduct that he is Antichrist.”

All the English Reformers—Tyndale, Bradford, Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer, Jewel, and others—men who suffered martyrdom for testifying to the truth as it is in Christ, believed the pope to be the predicted Antichrist of the Apocalypse.

John Knox, the great Scottish Reformer, wrote a history of the Reformation, on the title page of which a summary of its contents is thus given: “The manner, and by what persons, the light of Christ’s Gospel has been manifested into this realm, after that horrible and universal defection from the truth which has come by the means of that Roman Antichrist.” In his history he gives a list of the articles of faith, supposed to be those of the Lollards of Kyle. The thirty-second article reads thus: “That the pope is the head of the Kirk of Antichrist.” Knox was in his early years attached to the Romish Church. He is supposed to have had his faith shaken in that Church about 1535, chiefly by the study of the “fathers.” It was not, however, until about 1543 that he openly professed Protestantism. An incident is related of him that occurred in 1547. Becoming wearied of persecution he came to the castle of St. Andrew, intending to leave Scotland for Germany. While at the castle he is said to have taken the part of a godly Protestant preacher against Dean Annan, a Romanist. The Roman Catholic prelate was defeated in the discussion and was compelled to take shelter under the protection and authority of his Church. He said that this authority “damned all Lutherans and heretics and therefore he needed no further disputation.” John Knox’s reply to this was: “Before we hold ourselves, or that ye can prove us, sufficiently convinced, we must define the Church by the right notes given to us in God’s Scriptures of the true Church; we must discern the immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ from the mother of confusion, spiritual Babylon, lest that impudently we embrace a harlot instead of the chaste spouse; yea, to speak in plain words, lest we submit ourselves to Satan, thinking that we submit ourselves to Jesus Christ. For, as for your Roman Church, as it is now corrupted … I no more doubt that it is the synagogue of Satan, and the head thereof called the pope to be the man of sin of whom the Apostle speaketh, than that I doubt that Jesus Christ suffered by the procurement of the visible Church of Jerusalem.”

The “Key” to the Apocalypse

Another question that is logically suggested in this introduction, and one closely related to the foregoing discussion, is: What constitutes the “key” to the Apocalypse? There are those who believe that the “key” to unlock the meaning of the visions has not yet been given, but that at some future time it will be received by a specially chosen one, and then there will be a complete exposition of all the visions of the Revelator—an exposition so clear that no one can possibly mistake its meaning, and there will be no need of study to understand it. No time or space will be required in refuting this view, as it should be well known by students of the Bible that this is contrary to all God’s methods in making known His Word. We are told to “search the Scriptures,” to study to show ourselves approved unto God, rightly dividing the Word of truth. Not only so, but we find that the order for this entire age has been to permit the Truth to be so beclouded with error that it has been with great difficulty that followers of Christ have held fast to it and walked in its light. And this is in accordance with what Jesus, addressing His disciples, said: “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven.” The fact of the matter is, the Lord Himself has furnished the key that unlocks the mysteries of the Apocalypse. It was placed in the hands of the Church over eighteen hundred years ago. The Church has not only been in possession of this key since the visions were first given to St. John, but she has made good use of it, and with increasing success, as history has lent its assistance. This does not mean that all its visions were divinely explained. It does mean, however, that enough has been explained, and explained so clearly, as to settle once for all that the Apocalyptic visions refer to the history of Christianity, false and true, and cover the entire Gospel Age.

Another, who has happily expressed the matter, has said: “No interpretation of the Apocalypse can be secure and stable, but that which is based on divinely given explanations of its symbols and visions. In seeking to understand the prophecy, our first question should be, What saith the Scriptures? The diligent use of the divinely given helps for the interpretation of the symbolic prophecy is the true and only way to its comprehension. Abandoning speculation and dogmatism, those who seek to understand symbolic prophecy, and especially the mysterious prophecies of the Apocalypse, should turn to the real helps which God has given to the comprehension of these portions of His Word. The primary key to Scripture is Scripture itself. The gate of entrance to the meaning of symbolic prophecy is Divine interpretation. The first duty of the student of prophecy is to listen to that which the revealing Spirit has said as to the meaning of its own mysterious utterances.

“He who would enter the temple of truth must be content to do so by the divinely given door. The Old Testament is certainly the entrance to the New, and in a special manner the book of Daniel in the Old Testament is the porch or passage leading to the Apocalypse.”

Sir Isaac Newton, who is generally recognized as the most thorough mathematician and natural philosopher of his—or perhaps of any—age (born 1642), was a most devout believer in the Christian religion, and wrote a book called Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel. In this remarkable work he says: “Among the old prophecies, Daniel is most distinct in order of time, and easiest to be understood, and therefore in those things that relate to the last times [which Newton interpreted to mean the Gospel Age] he must be made the key to the rest.” Concerning the connection of the prophecies of the Apocalypse with those of Daniel, he says: “The Apocalypse of John is written in the same style and language with the prophecies of Daniel, and hath the same relation to that of all of them which they have to one another, so that all of them [those of St. John and those of Daniel] together make one complete prophecy.”

As is well known, the book of Daniel contains several outlines of the history of the world’s great empires. Its prophecies begin with Daniel’s day, and reach without a single gap to the establishment of the Kingdom of God over the world. One of these prophecies is that of the image, stone, and mountain of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel 2); another is that of the vision given to Daniel himself, of the four beasts—the latter vision giving a more detailed account, in symbol, of the same course of events, and ending with the establishment of the Kingdom of God, as did the first one. There is scarcely a dissenting voice among prophetic expositors that the great empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Grecia are represented respectively in the two visions by the gold, silver, and brass of the image, and by the first three beasts of Daniel 7, and that these all passed into history less than a half century before Christ was born. There is the same general agreement that the great Roman Empire is symbolized by the iron legs of the image and the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision (Daniel 7). Indeed, the Scriptures themselves mention the above kingdoms as the ones represented in these visions. It was this fourth or Roman Empire in its Pagan form that was ruling the world when St. John was given the visions of the Apocalypse. It was this Roman government, under the Emperor Domitian, that banished St. John to the lonely Isle of Patmos.

Now mark the “key” that opens the door to the portal of the Apocalypse. It is seen in that this fourth or Roman Empire is one of the chief subjects of the Apocalyptic visions. Three entire chapters are devoted to it—the twelfth, thirteenth, and seventeenth—besides its being incidentally referred to in at least ten other chapters. The obvious conclusion, then, is that all the events foretold in the Apocalypse belong to that order of things and to that course of history predicted of the fourth beast of Daniel, or the Roman Empire. It will thus be seen that the Apocalypse contains visions that take up the history foretold by Daniel, as well as fill in many important details of that history, the details being, as is divinely implied in statements in the opening and closing chapters of the Apocalypse, the history of God’s servants in their relation to the world-government of Rome, in its undivided, but more especially in its divided, state. This divided state is symbolized by the ten horns on the head of the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision (Daniel 7), and on the head of the beast of the Apocalypse (Revelation 12, 13, and 17).

How then, we ask, can it be successfully disproved that all the visions of the Apocalypse belong to this outline, as given in Daniel? And how can they be properly understood until they are fitted into this general outline, as part of a great symbolic revelation concerning the course and succession of events of this Gospel Age? We have already shown that earnest Christians who lived contemporaneous with St. John, as well as others who succeeded him in the early centuries, interpreted the “ten horns” on the fourth beast as having reference to the governments into which the Western Roman Empire was divided in connection with the overthrow of the imperial power ruling in the seven-hilled city; furthermore, that the “little horn” of Daniel 7, that came up among the “ten,” represented the political aspect of Antichrist; and still further, that the beast of Revelation 13 and 17, under one of its heads, was identical with the same “little horn” of Daniel 7 and the “man of sin” of 2 Thessalonians 2.

Evidence Adduced from Vision of Christ Dwelling Among the Candlesticks

This very apparent connection between the visions of the Roman Empire in Daniel and in the Apocalypse furnishes evidence of the correctness of the Historical interpretation, and the incorrectness of the Futurist. We have, however, that which is more important and convincing than even this. We have a Divine explanation of two of the chief visions of the Apocalypse that makes it absolutely necessary that we apply these visions to events which began long centuries ago and which cover the whole course of history from St. John’s day to the complete end of this Gospel Age. The first of these is the explanation by Christ Himself of the vision of the One like a Son of Man walking amidst the candlesticks. Certain statements made in the messages sent by Him to the seven Churches contain the same thought. The second of these is the explanation of the revealing angel in chapter 17, involving five distinct matters that inseparably link the vision of the ten-horned, seven-headed beast and the harlot woman seated thereon with five of the most prominent features of the past history of the Church. We will examine these in the order mentioned above.

The interpreter of this vision of chapter one is evidently our Lord Jesus Himself. He says: “The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven Churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven Churches.” It is to be observed that this divinely given interpretation binds its application to the Christian Church, and that the seven messages recorded also do the same. And that which is even more convincing is the fact that some matters presented in these messages are so intimately and profoundly connected with the prophetic visions seen subsequently by St. John, recorded in chapters six to twenty-two, that this of itself imparts a Christian character to those visions also, and conclusively proves that the Apocalyptic visions relate to the history and destiny of the Church of Christ. “This intimate connection is seen in the fact that the promises in the letters to the seven Churches relate to experiences and privileges and rewards set forth in the predictions which occur in the prophetic portion of the book.”

As an illustration, note the promise made to the overcomers in Smyrna: “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the Second Death” (Revelation 2:11). The Church at Smyrna, or the true Christians of the Pagan Roman persecuting period represented by it, experienced terrible persecution and suffering, and were noted for their endurance of afflictions and poverty. Note how closely the promise to the suffering Christians of those times is connected with the prophetic vision that describes its realization: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the First Resurrection: on such the Second Death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years” (Revelation 20:6). As one has said: “The Christian character which certainly attaches to the promise must therefore also attach to the prophecy, for the thing promised and the thing prophesied are the same.”

For a further illustration of this very marked connection between the promises to the Churches and the prophecies, we call attention to the promise to Sardis: “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life” (Revelation 3:5). Note the connection in chapter nineteen where we have a picture of the “Bride” arrayed in fine linen, white and clean, which is said to be the righteousness of the saints. In chapter twenty-one those symbolized by the New Jerusalem are represented as having their names “written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Here we have again the rewards promised in the earlier part of the Apocalypse identified with the prophetic fulfillment at its close.

Consider next the special promise to the believers of Philadelphia: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God; and I will write upon him my new name.” Who can doubt that this is a Christian promise? The fulfillment of this promise is recorded in two prophecies of this book—chapter fourteen, in the vision of the Lamb standing on Mt. Zion and with Him a hundred and forty-four thousand, having Christ’s name and the name of His Father written in their foreheads; and chapter twenty-one, in the vision of the New Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, in the foundations of which were the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb; and we have the vision further explained, that the New Jerusalem is a symbol of the Lamb’s Bride (verses 9–10).

We next observe the promise contained in the message to the Church of Laodicea: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne” (Revelation 3:21). The fulfillment of this promise is recorded in chapter 20, where we have the overcoming saints described as sitting on thrones and living and reigning with Christ. The reward promised to Christian victors—the reigning with Christ—is identical with the reward of the victors over the power of the beast described in another part of the Apocalypse. Is it not manifest that the promises and prophecies have reference to the same Christian experiences and rewards? In view of all this, how can it be questioned that the Apocalypse is a Christian prophecy, and that it relates to the Church of Christ in its present experience of suffering and trial, and also its future experience of triumph?

We now come to consider the one and only Divine explanation of the prophecy that occupies, as we have already noted, so large a proportion of the Apocalypse. This is that of the harlot woman, “Babylon the Great,” and the seven-headed, ten-horned beast that carried her. Concerning this vision (different aspects of which are seen in at least ten chapters of the book), we hear the revealing angel saying to St. John: “Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns” (Revelation 17:7–8).

It can hardly be questioned that the interpretation of this vision by the heavenly revealer was divinely intended to constitute a key to the unlocking of the remaining visions of the Apocalypse. Before considering the Divine explanation it will be necessary first to get the vision itself well in mind. The vision is described by St. John in the words: “And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication; and upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration [amazement]” (Revelation 17:3–6).

It will be seen that the one important feature of the vision is that of the “woman” seated on the scarlet-colored beast, and the effects produced upon the inhabitants of the earth by drinking of a golden cup which the woman holds in her hand. Preceding this description, one of the seven angels which had the seven vials of wrath addressed St. John in the words: “Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication” (verses 1–2). It will be observed from these words that what was to be specially explained to St. John was the judgment of the great harlot and the beast which carried her. This judgment would, of course, necessarily require an explanation of who the great harlot represented, as also the same of the beast which carried her. These things the revealing angel does explain. Observe specially his words: “I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.” Note carefully the five expressions that mark the angelic explanation.

(1) “The beast that thou sawest” (verse 8).
(2) “The ten horns which thou sawest” (verse 12).
(3) “The waters which thou sawest” (verse 15).
(4) “The woman which thou sawest” (verse 18).
(5) “The seven heads [which thou sawest]” (verse 9).

The angel’s explanation of these five matters is the key to the Apocalypse. The beast, the horns, the heads, the waters, and the woman are all interpreted, and their interpretation involves the Historical interpretation of the Apocalypse. It is very apparent that the harlot woman constitutes the great and prominent feature of the vision. There is no need for any special interpretation to show that this harlot woman symbolizes a false church system of world-wide influence and power. The only explanation needed concerns what particular church system is represented. While we have no direct statement that this harlot woman represents a false church system, we do have indirect evidence that is just as convincing. It is represented in the fact that she is exhibited in contrast with another “woman,” which we know represents the true Church. Both women are mentioned under two striking and contrasting symbols.

The one is designated as both a harlot woman and an unholy city (Revelation 17:5); the other is represented as a pure, chaste woman and a holy city (Revelation 21:9–10). The one is called Babylon the Great; the other is called the New Jerusalem. The one is associated with the “beast”; the other with the “Lamb.” The one is represented as in illicit union with the kings of the earth; the other is represented as the chaste Bride of the Lamb. The one is clothed in “purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls”; the other is arrayed in “fine linen, clean and white.” The one is “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus”; the other is made up of the saints and includes the martyrs. The one is punished with both temporal and eternal judgments; the other is rewarded with everlasting honor and felicity.

The interpretation of either one of these suggests the interpretation of the other. For instance, since we have the chaste woman — the holy city — interpreted to be the Lamb’s Bride, the other must be its opposite: the false Church, the counterfeit Bride.

To those familiar with church history it would seem that no Divine interpretation concerning what particular Church is described by the Babylonian harlot is needed. However, evidently in view of the fact that it is prophesied that all nations would be deceived into thinking that the church system represented was the true one, the revealing angel gives the information concerning what Church is referred to in the words: “The woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” The angel’s words clearly point to but one city, and that is Rome, for Rome was the only city that reigned over the kings of the earth in St. John’s day. It is the only Church that has taken the name of a city. It is the only city that has had a church hierarchy which has exercised such a far-reaching dominion over nations and peoples and tongues.

Furthermore, the Roman city is designated in the further explanation of the angel: “The seven heads are seven mountains [hills] on which the woman sitteth.”
Who is not aware that this is a well-known feature of the city of Rome? “All the Latin poets for five hundred years speak of Rome as the seven-hilled city. Rome is depicted on her imperial coins as sitting on seven hills. Among the early Fathers, Tertullian and Jerome may be cited as referring to this feature. ‘I appeal,’ says Tertullian, ‘to the citizens of Rome, the populace that dwells on the seven hills.’ Jerome, when urging Marcella to quit Rome for Bethlehem, writes: ‘Read what is said of Rome in the Apocalypse of the seven hills.’”

The names of the seven hills of Rome are the Palatine, Quirinal, Aventine, Coelian, Viminal, Esquiline, and Janiculan.

Another explanation given by the angel concerns the many “waters”: “The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” Such was certainly the position of Rome and of the church system ruled from Rome. The peoples and nations and tongues were for long centuries subject to her sway; and while her temporal authority over kings is gone, she still claims it and exerts a world-wide influence over many peoples and tongues — an influence which, in the present time, is increasing her influence and power.

(1) This, however, does not complete the explanation of the seven heads.

A still further explanation of the revealing angel is that of the “ten horns” on the beast. The ten horns are explained as symbolizing ten kingdoms which, at the time St. John was given the visions, were still future. Indeed, these ten horns are the same as those seen by Daniel on the fourth beast, which were divinely explained to him as the ten-fold division of the Roman Empire. The explanation given by the revealing angel to St. John is contained in the words: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings [kingdoms], which have received no kingdom as yet [that is, at the time St. John saw the vision]; but receive power as kings one hour [‘at one and the same time,’ as rendered by noted translators] with the beast.”

As the ten horns, according to Irenaeus — a disciple of a disciple of St. John — are “the same as mentioned by Daniel,”and since they came into existence with the division of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, the vision of the “harlot woman” seated on the beast could not possibly begin to meet its fulfillment until the Roman Empire was thus divided. In the angel’s explanation, these horns or kingdoms are represented as first giving voluntary submission to the harlot woman, or city (government).

They are subsequently represented by the revealing angel as rising against her, “and making her desolate and naked, and eating her flesh and burning her with fire.” Now this explanation by the angel is a faithful portrayal of outward Christian history for long centuries. It is universally agreed that in less than four centuries after St. John’s day, the Western Roman Empire fell and its territory was divided into ten kingdoms, and that after a brief period these kingdoms all gave their support to the Roman bishop, who sat at first as a religious ruler and next as a temporal ruler.

Gibbon, the great historian — who was an unbeliever — has thus described this momentous event: “About the close of the Sixth Century Rome had reached the lowest period of her depression. By the removal of the seat of Empire [to Constantinople], and the successive loss of the provinces, the sources of public and private opulence were exhausted; the lofty tree under whose shade the nations of the earth had reposed, was deprived of its leaves and branches, and the sapless trunk was left to wither on the ground. … Like Thebes or Babylon or Carthage, the name of Rome might have been erased from the earth, if the city had not been animated by a vital principle which again restored her to honor and dominion. Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter, the nations of the earth began to resume the practice of seeking, on the banks of the Tiber, their kings, their laws, and the oracles of their fate.” Referring to the Papacy — which contained the “vital principle” that restored Rome to honor and dominion — Hallam, in his History of the Middle Ages, says: “Rome inspired all the terror of her ancient name; she was once more the mistress of the world, and kings were her vassals.”

Cardinal Manning, in his work The Temporal Power of the Popes (published in 1860, ten years before the fall of the temporal power of the Papacy), speaks similarly of this remarkable development in the rise of the Roman Catholic system: “Now the abandonment of Rome was the liberation of the Pontiffs. The providence of God permitted a succession of eruptions, Goths, Lombards, and Hungarians, to desolate Italy, and to efface from it every vestige of the Empire. The Pontiffs found themselves alone, the sole fountains of order, peace, law, and safety. And from the hour of this providential liberation, when by a Divine intervention the chains fell off from the hands of the successors of St. Peter, as once before from his own, no sovereign has ever reigned in Rome except the Vicar of Jesus Christ.” It is also a well-known fact of history that, beginning in the sixteenth century, one after another of these kingdoms withdrew their support, seized her lands, and gradually stripped away her power and influence, until in 1870 she ceased altogether to be represented in the councils of these kingdoms. How remarkable, then, is the fulfillment of the prediction that “the kings shall eat her flesh”!

The Inevitable Conclusion

It is our conviction that this Divine interpretation, of itself, proves the Christian character of the Apocalypse, and confines its fulfillment, to a considerable extent, to the events of past history; and that all which now remains to be fulfilled are those visions relating to the destruction of the false religious systems symbolized by the woman — Babylon — and her harlot offspring; the destruction of the governments of earth symbolized by the beast in its final form; and the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon the ruins of earth’s empires. An eminent writer has summarized these themes with precision: “The Holy Spirit, foreseeing, no doubt, that the Church of Rome would adulterate the truth by many gross and grievous abominations; that she would anathematize all who would not communicate with her, denouncing them as cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of everlasting salvation; foreseeing also that Rome would exercise a wide and dominant sway for many generations by boldly iterated assertions of unity, antiquity, sanctity, and universality; foreseeing likewise that these pretensions would be supported by the civil sword of many secular governments among which the Roman Empire would be divided at its dissolution, and that Rome would thus be enabled to display herself before the world with the august attitude of imperial power and with dazzling splendor of temporal felicity; foreseeing, too, that she would captivate the imaginations of men by the fascinations of art allied with religion, ravishing their senses with gaudy colors and stately pomp and prodigal magnificence; foreseeing that she would beguile credulity by miracles and mysteries, apparitions, dreams, trances, and ecstasies, and appeal to such evidences in support of her strange doctrines; foreseeing also that she would enslave men — and even more women — by practicing upon their affections and accommodating herself with dangerous pliancy to their weaknesses, relieving them from the burden of thought and the perplexity of doubt by proffering the aid of infallibility, soothing the sorrows of the mourner by dispensing pardon and promising peace to the departed, removing guilt from the conscience by the ministries of the confessional and by nicely poised compensations for sins; foreseeing further that she would flourish for many centuries in proud and prosperous impunity before her sins would reach unto heaven and come in remembrance before God; foreseeing that many generations would thus be tempted to fall from the faith and become victims of deadly error, and that those who clung to the truth would be exposed to cozening flatteries, fierce assaults, and savage tortures — the Holy Spirit, we say, foreseeing all these things in His Divine knowledge and being the ever-blessed Teacher, Guide, and Comforter of the Church, was graciously pleased to provide a heavenly antidote to these dangerous, widespread, and long-enduring evils by dictating the Apocalypse. In this Divine book the Spirit of God has portrayed the Church of Rome as none but He could foresee she would become — and such, lamentable to say, she has become. He has shattered her spells; taken the wand of enchantment from her hand; lifted the mask from her face; and with His Divine hand has written her true character in large letters and placed her title upon her forehead for all to read: ‘MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH’.” — Wordsworth, Rome, the Babylon of the Apocalypse

From the foregoing, it would seem that the careful student, tracing the symbols of St. John’s visions, cannot avoid the conclusion that the Revelation of Jesus Christ was especially designed to portray in symbols the history of the falling away of the Christian Church from the faith, and its culmination in a great counterfeit system which would blind and deceive all except those whose names were written in the “Lamb’s book of life” (Revelation 13:8). It is also evident that the visions of Revelation describe, in various symbolic forms, the history of the comparatively few faithful, consecrated ones as they came into contact with the world powers and endeavored to hold forth the Word of Truth amid the surrounding ignorance and darkness produced by apostate Christianity.

We may be assured that the book of Revelation — which completes the Divine canon, and which required a supernatural method for its communication — has been, and especially in these closing years of the age is, of vital importance to the service and spiritual development of the Church. It was given to supply a special need; for the Church has always required the help and encouragement which accompany a knowledge of the “sure word of prophecy, a light shining in a dark place” (2 Peter 1:19). No other book of Scripture, to the same degree as the Apocalypse, reveals the Divine overruling of the events of history — both good and evil — for the Church’s growth in grace and knowledge.

While there has been a gradual and progressive understanding of its visions as history has fulfilled them, it was not until these closing years of the age that the general scope of the Apocalypse could be clearly understood. The true character of the Divine Plan of Salvation had become so perverted by fallen church systems that its full meaning could not be grasped until those errors were separated from the Truth, and a clear understanding restored. This restoration has now taken place; indeed, it is the very subject of several of the closing visions of the book. The fulfillment of these latter visions is, as we shall endeavor to show, evidence that “the days of the presence of the Son of Man” are here. The words of Christ — “Now I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe” — are most significant in this connection.

It should be remembered that the book of Revelation was not designed to foretell primarily the history of the world’s political powers. As has been wisely said: “The Church exists in the world, and its outward history is largely affected by the world. Just as one cannot write the story of a person’s life without reference to his environment, so one cannot write the history of the true Church without giving some account of the world in which she bears witness. Wars, revolutions, and other upheavals have greatly affected — or been affected by — the Church’s testimony; hence these occurrences appear in the prophetic visions under various startling symbols. Conversely, the Church’s inner history is shaped by unseen agencies, both heavenly and satanic. Where we see her sustained, cheered, revived, and enlarged in influence, we know Christ, her Head, is acting in her behalf — as portrayed in the symbolic visions of His walking in the midst of the candlesticks [Churches].”

It is evident, therefore, that these prophetic visions were given for the guidance, assistance, and protection of the Church throughout the long, dark centuries of her witness to the Gospel. As we review the experiences of God’s consecrated ones, we learn that these visions have been a mighty power in their lives — preserving the faith of the Church amid peril and apostasy. Indeed, knowledge of these prophecies helped give birth to great reformations, especially that of the sixteenth century; inspired confessors; strengthened martyrs, some of whom sealed their testimony with blood; and helped break the chains of priestcraft, superstition, and tyranny. The book of Revelation is Christ’s final message to the Church: “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches.” (Revelation 22:16)

“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”

The Glory of the Gospel

Upon the Gospel’s sacred page
The gathered beams of ages shine;
For, as it hastens, every age
Fulfills its prophecies Divine.

On mightier wing, in loftier flight,
From year to year the truth shall soar;
And, as it soars, its blessed light
Shall scatter darkness more and more.

More glorious still, as centuries roll,
Shall Truth’s fair banner be unfurled,
Until in strength, from pole to pole,
Its radiance shall o’erflow the world —

Flow to restore, but not destroy;
As when the cloudless lamp of day
Pours out its floods of light and joy,
And sweeps the lingering mists away.