666...Who is the man that bares the mark?

  • Thread starter Thread starter IWantGod
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Hi HarryStole, Great post and right on the money! Although its not been proven that Revelation was written before 95 or so AD. I tend to think as the scholars you mentioned Revelation may have been written before 95 AD and sometime around 70 AD. The Hebrew tradition of using numbers with their alphabet is an old one and the number 666 in Hebrew does come out to 666. One think 7 is also the perfect number which represents God and or perfection while the number as you said symbol of creation is also an imperfect number which is not complete. Both Jerusalem and Rome had 7 hills but can also refer to the 7 kings you stated.

John I believe was writing to the persecuted Christians and not predicting some future events that will or might happen centuries in future time, other then to show God’s plan from beginning to end His salvation history. Do you see it that way or do you have thoughts different?
 
IiI find it interesting that John 666 says “And they went back to their former way of life”

For sure the Anti-Christ is anyone that does not believe in the Eucharist. From there many things for all mankind, even Christians leads to confusion and Kaos.

I have found in my own disbelief in the Eucharist years ago I possessed a warped sense of thought. I almost left the church.

However, with repentance and prayer :pray:t3: I’ve come to believe and understand in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is to me Jesus’ presence as it was some 2000 years ago.
 
spina1953 said:
Both Jerusalem and Rome had 7 hills but can also refer to the 7 kings you stated.
Click to expand...
It isn’t merely that the seven hills “CAN also refer to the seven kings,” the angel who interprets the vision to John clearly says that they ARE seven kings…

“The seven hills are seven heads who are seven kings, ‘five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while’.” (Rev 17:10)
 
Hi HarryStotle, yes I got that and i don’t disagree with you on that point. My understanding was that the 7 hills often represent both Rome and jerusalem since they both had 7 hills. i also understood john uses ambiguous style to refer to this period i rome’s history. Rome generally being referred as Babylon and the harlot is the personification of Rome. is this your understanding of this? let me know thanks!
 
My understanding is that the Beast is the Roman Empire and the harlot is Jerusalem in the sense of the leadership and people who rejected God in Jesus and crucified him. There are many details that support that position, but a clear one is that the harlot was riding on the Beast (I.e., Herod was a puppet King and the Sanhedren were largely beholden to the Empire.) Later, in Revelation, the harlot is killed and desecrated by the Beast – very much what happened with the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome in AD 70.

Just on my way out so I can’t elaborate any more on this.
 
Last edited:
People have no idea what they’re saying when they say Allah is not a false god
 
Last edited:
Please note:

Of the five “qualifications” (as authoritative as YahooAsk is) you listed that characterize a prophet, notice that only one has to do with future events coming true.

The difficulty that you have locked yourself into is that YOU have characterized Revelation as primarily predictive writing about the future and, therefore, you are the one who requires that it come true as a “prophecy” in that sense.

You forget that 4 of the 5 “qualifications” of a prophet that you listed have nothing to do with making correct predictions, but have to do with relaying God’s word or guidance to the people. That is all that John needed to do to be a proper prophet and for Revelation to be regarded as prophetic writing. Nothing need be said about the future and John would still qualify as a prophet provided he spoke accurately the word, message or vision which God asked him to relate to the people who needed to hear it. There is no expectation that Revelation MUST be about future events. That is you imposing your expectation on John’s writing.

That does not mean Revelation can’t or doesn’t predict future events, but to determine which aspects are that kind of prophecy, I.e., predictive, requires a great deal of study on the writings. We can’t just assume everything is predictive and then complain when it doesn’t turn out to be correct in the way you expected.

Read the prophets in the OT. Very little of what they wrote or spoke was predictive. Much of it was laying out the expectations of God to the people followed by what they could expect to happen if they are not faithful to carrying out what had been set down by God in his request. In fact, most of the predictive words relate to the people not heeding God and so they could expect such and such to happen. It is in light of that (the consequences of not carrying out God’s prescription) that a false prophet is to be identified. Meaning that a true prophet will rightfully predict the consequences of the obedience or disobedience by the people.

If you want to test John in this sense, read the letters to the seven churches. Each one follows precisely this formula. Each identifies the problem at hand, tells the specific Church community what they need to do and then lays down what they can expect to happen if they do or don’t heed the message.

Prophets in the OT did not go about predicting the future with crystal balls and such. Their primary purpose was to relate God’s message to the people as instruction during difficult times. If the people did or didn’t obey, then certain consequences were “predicted,” but that was the extent that correct prognosticating regarding the future had anything to do with being a true prophet.
 
Last edited:
spina1953 said:
Hi Harry Stotle, Please do I await your more on this!
Click to expand...
It will be a day or two before I get to this. We have a big family celebration all day tomorrow.

The details to make the case are important so I need some time to make them clear and precise.
 
Last edited:
Luke-Suncook said:
That’s a bunch of balony. EVERY PROPHET IN THE BIBLE PREDICTED FUTURE EVENTS! There’s so much symbolism in John’s Apocalypse that it makes no sense that it was intended for people in the early centuries. You believe Revelation doesn’t cover end-time global events but LOCAL early century events. Jesus also said in Mathew 24 that the generation that sees the events HE describes pass , in the chapter WILL NOT PASS until it’s over!

“Verse 33-34 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”

Jesus uses the word ‘THIS.’ THIS is also translated “THE SAME.” Meaning THE SAME generation living during the imminent return of Christ, is the one that sees and endures the events and conditions he previously spoke about between verses 3-32. It’s THE GENERATION on earth during the time of his return and nothing else. NOT the generation he is speaking to!
Click to expand...
The point I am making is that John wrote Revelation before the destruction of Jerusalem; therefore, when Jesus says “This generation will not pass away…” and John speaks of the harlot (Jerusalem) being destroyed by the Beast (Roman Empire) both of them were making the same prediction – which actually WAS a prediction or prophecy – at that time when it was written. The Jews saw the Temple as representing all of the created order, therefore for them it was the end of the world, the end time. For Jewish Christians and Jews to contemplate the complete destruction of their cosmos (the Temple) was unthinkable at that time. When John (and Jesus) predicted it, that would have been beyond comprehensible, which is why the language is cryptic, but at the same time the prediction (or prophecy) was so couched in the Jewish understanding of the OT that it was undeniably a prophecy that was fulfilled for the people at the time. We can only see that if we know the OT as well as the Jews and Christians did at the time, not from our limited perspective 2000 years later.

At the same time, however, the representations such as the Beast, the Harlot, the anti-Christ are archetypes regarding our capacity to identify the enemies of the Church and God proper. In that sense, they are instructive, but are not meant to be predictive any longer. John’s foretelling of events were all accurate precisely because he wrote of them before AD 70, the generation had not passed away*, and so his bona fides as a prophet remain. If we assume he wrote after, we completely miss the force of what he wrote. The early Christians, however, did not miss it.
*Keep in mind that for the Jews a “generation” was forty years. Given that Christ’s crucifixion happened either in AD 30 or 33, the destruction of Jerusalem around Passover AD 70 (forty years almost to the day, if he was crucified in AD 30) the significance of the prophecy would not have been lost on those who knew the Gospels and Revelation.
 
Last edited:
HarryStotle said:
“This generation will not pass away…”
Click to expand...
Well according to some private revelation I read… “This generation will not pass away…” means that there will always be a generation of believers, all the way up to the time Jesus returns.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top