THE BOOK OF REVELATION

INTRODUCTION - The Beast of Revelation plays an important role in the history of the first century church. In our identification of the Beast, we have seen that the Beast represents both a man and a kingdom, someone who is known by the early church, known for his great power, wickedness, and persecution of the people of God. Daniel 7 confirms the fact that the empire of Rome is the Beast of Revelation, the fourth and final world empire which comes before the final kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. This morning we shall consider three more characteristics of the Beast given to us in Revelation 13.

1) THE DEATH AND REVIVAL OF THE BEAST - Revelation 13:3 - The Beast is described as receiving a death blow to one of its heads. This should have killed the beast, but instead the Beast comes alive again. He is called "the beast that was, and is not, and yet is" (Revelation 17:8,11). How does this fit in with Nero and Rome being the Beast? In Revelation 13:10, John gives a promise to the church that the one who killed with the sword (Nero) will also die by the sword. This was the "patience and faith of the saints." Nero's persecution would not go on forever. It's end would come soon and he who killed with the sword was actually killed by the sword in his own suicide. How do we explain the resurrection of the Beast? It is again important to have a knowledge of first century history in order to understand John's meaning. The Beast represents both Nero and Rome. It is Nero who receives the death blow, and with the death of Nero it seemed as if the Roman empire was coming to an end. With the death of Nero, the ancestral line of Julius Caesar was extinguished. The one family which had held the throne of Rome since its beginning was eradicated with Nero's suicide. This opened an incredible problem for the government and for the nation of Rome. At the death of Nero, the entire nation was thrown into civil chaos. Civil war threatened to destroy the empire. Foreign nations saw the advantage of a weakened Rome and began to attack her. In just one year, three emperors would compete for the Roman throne and would die. After Nero's suicide, Galba took the throne, but was then killed by the Roman guard. Otho was then proclaimed emperor, but the guard divided over his nomination. The ensuing war left the forces of Otho defeated and he committed suicide. Vitellius, who was the victor in the battle, took the throne, but Vespasian came back from Jerusalem, attacked Rome and had Vitellius killed before he took the throne. The chaos and anarchy experienced right after the death of Nero was incredible. Three civil wars, several foreign wars, the destruction of cities, the burning again of Rome, death everywhere in the empire, the year 69 AD becoming known as "The Year of the Four Emperors" - all of these things led historians of the day to think that Rome was finished as a nation. The Beast of Revelation was dying. Yet surprisingly, with Vespasian's rise to the throne, the empire became stable again. Rome had received a mortal blow when Nero died, and it looked like the Beast could never recover. Yet the empire would rise again, and under Vespasian's rule it would carry out the imminent destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem.

2) THE WORSHIP OF THE BEAST - Revelation 13:4,8 - The worship of the Beast of Revelation is not too difficult to demonstrate in the history of Rome. Emperor worship was well established during the days of Nero and he took every advantage to be worshipped as a god. The practice of emperor worship began with Julius Caesar who was put on the same level as the chief of the Roman gods, Jupiter. Julius Caesar was called, "god manifest…the invincible god…the common savior of the life of man." Temples, statues and altars were built to him and after his death, human sacrifices were offered in his name. Augustus Caesar followed and though he did not want to be worshipped in the city of Rome, he gladly accepted divine worship in other places. At his death he was voted by the senate as a god, being called "the most divine Caesar…savior of men." Tiberias Caesar followed and he too was consecrated as a god at death with a temple being built for him in the city of Smyrna (one of the cities to whom John writes Revelation). Gaius Caligula Caesar came next and he was the first of the Caesars to openly demand worship while he was still alive. He had a temple erected to himself and if he hadn’t been murdered, he would have had an image of himself erected in the Temple of Jerusalem. Claudius Caesar followed Caligula and he too was made into a god at his death. Nero follows this long line of emperors being worshipped, and he naturally took to the part. Like Caligula, he did not wait until he died to be worshipped. Believing himself to be the incarnation of Apollo and Caesar Augustus, he had temples erected and was worshipped as Apollo. In Ephesus he was called "almighty god…savior." The emperor cult was very strong in the days of Revelation's writing and Christians refused to bow to this deification of the emperor. They were persecuted for this and lost their lives under Nero's reign for refusing to recognize the emperor as god.

3) THE INFAMOUS NUMBER OF THE BEAST - Revelation 13:18 - Here is the one characteristic of the Beast of Revelation which has captured the imaginations of Christians and non-Christians alike. Everyone has heard of the number 666 and people down through history have ascribed numerous names to this infamous number. How is the number tied in with Nero Caesar? John tells us that the number of the beast (666) can be calculated or counted. John is referring to a common practice of the day which we call "cryptograms." Ancient alphabets served two purposes. First, they were used as letters to write out words. Secondly, the letters also served as numbers. We are familiar with this when we think of Roman numerals (I, V, X, C) which are letters that represent numbers. The attached diagram shows how the Hebrews and Greeks also used their letters to represent numbers. The first nine letters were numbers one through nine. The next ten letters represented the tens. The remaining letters represented the hundreds. It was a very common practice in John's day to reduce a statement or a name down to its numerical equivalent. Each letter of the name had a numerical value, the numbers were all added up, and the final number represented the name. We must realize that the number which John gives at the end of Revelation 13 should not be pronounced 6-6-6, as if the numbers were all separate. Instead, it is the number six hundred and sixty-six (the sum or total of the letters in the name of the Beast). Who is the Beast? Well, that number in ancient and modern times could refer to hundreds of people. However, we are also limited by the other characteristics which we have seen already in Revelation. It is the name of a man, one of John's contemporaries, a wicked ruler who makes war with the saints and is worshipped as a god. Certainly Nero fits the description so far. How does his name fit into the complete picture? "Nero Caesar" in Greek adds up to 1005, yet "Nero Caesar" in Hebrew (Neron Kaiser) adds up to 666. Why does John use Hebrew and not Greek? For one thing, Revelation 13 is an Old Testament chapter, drawn straight from Daniel 7. Secondly, John writes the book in Greek, but thinks in Hebraic style. Many of the words of Revelation are Hebrew words brought into Greek (Abaddon, Armageddon, Satan, Amen, Hallelujah). Asia Minor, to whom John writes, would be populated by both Jews and Greeks who were familiar with Hebrew. Already they had plenty of information from the characteristics which John gives them in the first part of the chapter. The calculation of the number of the Beast would prove no difficulty for the early church.