The Dragon's Empire

To identify the Antichrist, we must first understand what the relevant biblical passages say about him, his methods, and his goals. The subject of the Antichrist raises many questions. Who is he? When will he appear? How will we identify him? In popular culture and preaching, he is a global political leader who uses military might to subjugate other nations and attack Israel in the land of Palestine.

The Bible foresees a malevolent figure who is determined to deceive the followers of Jesus Christ, causing as many as possible to abandon the true faith and even betray fellow believers.

• “Then many will be offended and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise, and they will mislead many. And because lawlessness will increase, the love of the many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end, he will be saved” – (Matthew 24:10-13).

• “The hour is coming that whoever kills you will think that he is offering divine service to God” – (John 16:2).

[Colosseum BW - Photo by Kevin Olson (Seoul) on Unsplash]

The objective of the Devil is to destroy the people of God, the Church of Jesus Christ. This plan has been underway for thousands of years and is much larger than just one man or government that will appear at the end of the age.

The Book of Revelation calls Satan “the great dragon, the ancient serpent, he who is called Adversary and Accuser.” The name ‘Ancient Serpent’ connects the Devil and his perpetual war against the Messiah and the People of God to the Garden of Eden. It is an old conflict – (Genesis 3:1, Revelation 12:9, 20:2).

• “And the Dragon was enraged against the woman and departed to wage war on the rest of her seed, those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” – (Revelation 12:17).

• “Then said Yahweh to the Serpent: Because you have done this, <…> I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed” – (Genesis 3:14-15).

The Dragon’s efforts to destroy the saints will intensify as the end of the age grows near, and it will reach its climax just before the arrival of Jesus. When Christ does appear, he will destroy “the Man without law, the son of destruction,” and the Beast will be cast alive into the Lake of Fire - (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12, Revelation 19:20).

The Church has been flooded by predictions and theories about the Antichrist over many centuries. He has been identified with several Roman emperors, the Pope, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and other political figures. Plausible arguments are offered to support these propositions. Nevertheless, not one of the proposed candidates ever became the world-dominating “Beast from the Sea.”

The terms used by Scripture to describe this dark figure include “Antichrist,” “the Man of Lawlessness”, “the Son of Destruction”, and “the Beast.” Do they all refer to the same individual? There is no direct literary link, for example, between John’s “Antichrists,” plural, of his first epistle and “the Beast from the Sea” of the Book of Revelation. The identification of the term “antichrist” with “the Beast” is an assumption, though certainly a plausible one. That term Antichrist only appears in two of John’s letters, and nowhere else in the rest of the Bible – (1 John 2:18-22, 4:3, 2 John 1:7).

The language used by the authors of the New Testament to describe this man is primarily from the Book of Daniel and its vision of the Little Horn, “the king of fierce countenance.” However, the New Testament documents do not simply quote Old Testament passages verbatim. They reapply them in the light of what God has done through Jesus Christ, and often in unexpected ways. If there is any hope of correctly identifying the Antichrist or Beast, we must seek it in Scripture, not the daily news headlines.

In the Book of Revelation, John sees the Beast “ascending from the Sea.” He describes it using a Greek participle in the present tense, signifying an ongoing action. John saw this Beast as it was coming out of the sea. John saw a process, not a one-time event– (Daniel 7:1-8, Revelation 13:1-5).

This Beast has “seven heads,” which, we are told later, represent “seven mountains,” and these seven mountains represent seven kings or kingdoms. By the first century, five of these regimes had “fallen,” one was in power when John wrote Revelation, and the final or seventh kingdom is “yet to come.” Thus, the narrative of Revelation concerns more than just one final empire at the end of the age - (Revelation 13:1-5, 17:8-11).

John uses the characteristics of Daniel’s four beasts from the sea to describe what, for John, is now one entity, a single but terrifying monster. In the Book of Daniel, the four individual beasts represent four successive kingdoms. John saw only one beast, but it incorporated the animal features of all four of Daniel’s beasts. Moreover, John listed the four beasts in reverse order as if reading the history of world empires in reverse, starting from the end of the book – (Daniel 7:1-8).

• “And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority” – (Revelation 13:2. Verbal allusions to Daniel 7:1-8).

The four beasts are identified in the eighth and eleventh chapters of Daniel. The “beasts” represent the kingdoms of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece under Alexander the Great, and one of the four lesser Macedonian kingdoms that descended from Alexander’s empire – (Daniel 8:1-27, 11:1-4).

What John saw was one terrifying final kingdom that combines all the worst elements of its predecessors. This empire will be like its ancestors, but it will also be something far worse.

AN ANCIENT STORY

The Prophet Daniel linked the Babylonian incarnation of the World Empire to “the Land of Shinar,” the ancient kingdom of Sumer from which Babel or Babylon originated. The Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar was the latest version of the original empire.

In the Book of Genesis, we find the first attempt to unite humanity under one government when the kingdom of Babel gathered all nations, peoples, and tongues to the plain of Mesopotamia and erected a great tower, a story that echoes and continues in the Book of Daniel:

• “And the whole earth was of one tongue and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar. And they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime for mortar. And they said, Come, let us build us a city, and erect a tower, the top of which may reach the heavens, and let us make us a name, so that we are not scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” - (Genesis 11:1-4).

• “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God. And he carried them into the land of Shinar to the house of his god. And he brought the vessels into the treasure-house of his god. And the king spoke to Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring in certain of the children of Israel, even of the seed royal and of the nobles; youths in whom was no blemish, but well-favored, and skilful in all wisdom, and endued with knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability to stand in the king's palace; and that he should teach them the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans” - (Daniel 1:1-4).

• “Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits, and its width six cubits. He erected it on the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon <…> Then the herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O peoples, nations, and tongues, that at what time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall down and venerate the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has erected. And whoever does not fall down and venerate will the same hour be cast into the burning fiery furnace” - (Daniel 3:1-6).

The new King of Babel was implementing the same plan as the men who erected the Tower of Babel. He was gathering all nations, tongues, and peoples to be ruled by one government, and they were to speak one tongue. The golden image erected by Nebuchadnezzar corresponded to the Tower of Babel, and its dimensions are reflected in the number of the Beast described in the Book of Revelation:

• “And he deceives the inhabitants of the earth by signs which it was given him to do in the sight of the beast; saying to the inhabitants of the earth, that they should make an image to the beast who has the stroke of the sword and lived <…>. And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free man and the slave, that there be given them a mark on their right hand, or upon their forehead <…> He that has understanding, let him count the number of the beast, for it is the number of man. And his number is Six hundred and sixty and six” - (Revelation 13:14-18. Verbal allusions to Daniel 3:1-6).

The Book of Daniel wants us to hear the verbal and conceptual parallels with the story of the original Babel of Genesis. We ought also to note the verbal allusions to the story of Nebuchadnezzar found in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation. What the Bible presents is not a single event at the end of the age. The plot to install a World Empire spans the history of human civilization.

DECEPTION, APOSTASY, PERSECUTION

So, how do we identify the final incarnation of this World Empire, the seventh kingdom of Chapter 17 of the Book of Revelation? Whether researching the Beast, the Antichrist, or the Man of Lawlessness, certain common characteristics are present.

All three designations are linked to deception and apostasy. Jesus warned of coming “deceivers” and “false prophets” who will disseminate false information about the end. They will cause many believers to fall away from the true faith and turn against one another. False prophets will use signs and wonders to deceive many of God’s elect - (Matthew 24:3-4, 24:24).

When Jesus warned that the “love of many will grow cold” because of lawlessness, he was not speaking about humanity in general, but to his disciples. False prophets will work overtime to deceive the saints and sow discord among the followers of Christ.

Likewise, the Apostle Paul instructs believers not to be troubled by misleading information and false expectations about the Day of the Lord. That day will not come until “the apostasy” occurs and “the Man of Lawlessness, the son of Destruction” is revealed when he takes his seat in the house of God - (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4).

The deceiver described by Paul will use “lying signs and wonders” to deceive those who refuse “the love of the truth.” He will be energized by Satan “with all deceit of unrighteousness for those who are perishing.” His appearance will be the product of the Mystery of Lawlessness, which is working already to prepare the way for his unveiling. This Son of Destruction will be destroyed when Jesus arrives. Only those saints who “stand fast and hold tightly to the traditions” taught by Paul and the Apostles will escape deception. The rest will be swept away by false teaching and apostasy - (2 Thessalonians 2:5-14).

If Paul also believed that this Lawless Man is to be a global political leader who wages war on nations or Israel, he says nothing to this effect. That is not his purpose in the passage. We must not assume things that the passage does not mention. However, we should also not conclude that this deceitful man will not have political power. The point is this. Whether he uses political power or not, his goal is to deceive the followers of Jesus Christ and cause them to apostatize.

This lawless man will take his place in “the Sanctuary of God,” a phrase Paul applies to the Church elsewhere in his letters.

When writing his epistles, John was concerned about “the many antichrists” that were disrupting his congregations. Peter also warned of false prophets in the church – (2 Corinthians 6:16, Ephesians 2:21).

• “They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that they might be made manifest that they all are not of us” – (1 John 2:19).

• “But there arose false-prophets also among the people, as among you also there will be false-teachers, men who will stealthily bring in destructive parties, even denying the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves speedy destruction. And many will imitate their destructive ways…” – (2 Peter 2:1).

In his first letter, John calls false teachers “antichrists.” They are forerunners of the final Antichrist and driven by “the Spirit of the Antichrist” that is active in the world even now. They can be identified by their deceptive activities in the church and their denials of the humanity of Jesus Christ - (1 John 2:18-22, 4:3).

The Beast of Revelation is given the authority of the Dragon over the nations, and this indicates that he is a global political leader. However, we must observe how the Beast uses that authority, and against whom he wages war. He may be a politician; nevertheless, the target of his malevolence is the Church, the followers of the Lamb.

The Beast makes war on “the saints.” The Dragon prosecutes his war against “those who have the testimony of Jesus,” and “those who have the faith of Jesus.” The Beast from the Abyss kills “the Two Witnesses,” but only after they have completed “their testimony.” The Two Witnesses are identified as “lampstands,” and in Revelation, lampstands represent churches - (Revelation 1:20, 11:7, 12:17, 13:7, 14:12).

Neither Jesus, Paul, nor John declares that the Man without law, the Antichrist, or the Beast will wage war on the State of Israel or the nations of the earth. Whether the Beast from the Abyss will do so is not the concern of the relevant passages. The focus is on how events will affect the Church. Satan’s goal is to destroy the saints of Jesus Christ through persecution and deception.

So, where does this leave us? First, we must remain vigilant because the rise of the “Beast from the Sea” is an ever-present reality.

Second, since Satan and his vassals use “signs and wonders” to deceive us, the manifestation of supernatural power is no guarantee that any individual, church, or ministry is from God.

And third, however small it may begin, the Antichrist program will become global in scope, for Satan will target faithful believers wherever they are. Even now, there is an empire rising on the world stage, a political entity that is hostile to the Apostolic Faith and led by an individual with little regard for the laws of nations, men, or God. This recent development deserves careful monitoring.

[NOTE: Text printed in small capital letters represents quotations and allusions of Old Testament passages]

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SEE ALSO:

• The  Only True King - (The Lamb’s reign began following his Death and Resurrection. Since then, he has been shepherding the nations to New Jerusalem)

• The Great Cosmic War - (At the end of the age, Satan will launch a total war against the saints, the followers of the Lamb)

• Caesar's Secret Weapon - (The False Prophet uses economic pressure to coerce men and nations to pay homage to the Beast from the Sea - Revelation 13:16-18)

• L'Empire du Dragon - (Pour identifier l'Antéchrist, nous devons d'abord comprendre ce que les passages bibliques pertinents disent de lui, de ses méthodes et de ses objectifs)