AP Video: How to Read Revelation & Avoid the Mark of the Beast

[RZehr]

That’s pretty neat.
However, it reminds me of the Hitler speech that AI made into English. The rich difference, the impact, of listening to Hitler in English, vs. reading a summary of his speech is huge.
Same thing here. To watch the video of the speaker, and hear the tone, etc., is also a much more powerful experience.

Absolutely.

But I don’t blame anyone at all for not spending the time to watch. I very, very seldom watch video links others put on here.

I’m just sharing it because I liked it. I like it much more than the follow up Part 2.

An outline like this helps me decide whether I want to watch a video or not. And because it has timings, it lets me sample the parts I might be most interested in if I am short on time. But it can only do that if it's reasonably accurate. Sounds like these outlines were?

I think so.

[barnhart]

I really like how Paul Lamicela explains this. I believe it makes so much sense and is so coherent with Anabaptist theology.

So there's a distinct eschatological position now that can be generally applied to Anabaptists?

Historically Anabaptism predates the literalism of pre-millenialism, so it is fair to say there is a historical Anabaptist eschatology even if it no longer captures the current scope of belief.

[Soloist]

I really like how Paul Lamicela explains this. I believe it makes so much sense and is so coherent with Anabaptist theology.

So there's a distinct eschatological position now that can be generally applied to Anabaptists?

Historically Anabaptism predates the literalism of pre-millenialism, so it is fair to say there is a historical Anabaptist eschatology even if it no longer captures the current scope of belief.

wife: it is so strange when moving to find that you are going from one eschatology (or lack thereof) to another, depending on the church group.

[Josh]

One of the obvious conclusions is that one’s eschatological position makes almost zero difference in how you live day to day following Jesus.

[RZehr]

One of the obvious conclusions is that one’s eschatological position makes almost zero difference in how you live day to day following Jesus.

I agree.

[barnhart]

So there's a distinct eschatological position now that can be generally applied to Anabaptists?

Historically Anabaptism predates the literalism of pre-millenialism, so it is fair to say there is a historical Anabaptist eschatology even if it no longer captures the current scope of belief.

wife: it is so strange when moving to find that you are going from one eschatology (or lack thereof) to another, depending on the church group.

I can see that might seem strange, but once you understand their never was a single origin group it makes more sense. Not all variance is the result of factionalism, sometimes groups are diverse simply because of diverse history.

[Bootstrap]

One of the obvious conclusions is that one’s eschatological position makes almost zero difference in how you live day to day following Jesus.

Except for this: Some people think the Mark of the Beast is computers or Covid vaccines or whatever, or that whatever politician they dislike must be the Antichrist, some people decide that secular leaders are appointed by God to save us in the last times, etc.

There were clear apocalyptic themes in Hitler's propaganda, and some Christians bought into that.

Bad eschatology can lead people away from biblical Christianity. The whole point of the Revelation is that our allegiance must be to Jesus Christ and God will preserve us and bring us to victory. Bad eschatology can lead us to other allegiances, and to putting our trust in fearmongering people.

[MattY]

As someone who takes the futurist interpretation, I may not be the right audience to judge the video. And let me preface this right now: Whatever your interpretation of Revelation, that's a secondary or tertiary (third) matter. There are a lot more important things. But Anabaptist Perspectives and Paul Lamicella took the time to make the video, and RZehr took the time to promote it, so if I have disagreements, I hope expressing them is better than dismissing his efforts.

I gave it a once-through listen a few weeks ago and found it unconvincing and a bit frustrating. I listened again today, pausing to write notes. As an argument for his view, I admit he presented it well. But if used as a rebuttal to futurism/dispensationalism, it seems like a long non-sequitur. The essence of futurism isn't Hal Lindsey or Left Behind; arguing against them doesn't disprove futurism. People getting obsessed with finding fulfillments or stage-setting for the end times in current events need some interpretive humility, which is just as compatible with futurism as with preterism or historicism.

The following is my notes typed up, with some further comments, quotes, and links added. Sorry if it's disjointed or unorganized. There is a bit of sarcasm; no offense intended, I hope it's not taken that way, I was just expressing my disagreement.

2:00 Genre - Apocalyptic. Well, like Daniel.

Up to 5:30 - no disagreement. But some cautions:
Caution 1: Genre analysis should be a servant (i.e. subordinate) to interpretation, not the other way around. It can be helpful to interpretation. But we should not make interpretation a slave to genre analysis.
Caution 2: Revelation contains more than one genre (prophecy, letter, apocalyptic genres). It's not purely apocalyptic.
Caution 3: being apocalyptic lit. doesn't justify any loose or allegorical interpretation - just being apocalyptic doesn't justify the way he'll interpret it.
Caution 4: there are differences with uninspired apocalyptic literature vs. Revelation. See https://www.gotquestions.org/apocalypti ... ature.html

14:00 - Not a fan of using Sybilline Oracles (non-Christian lit.) before Daniel or other OT books to interpret Revelation

Per Wikipedia: "Gematria" was used by the Epistle of Barnabas to try to say that the 318 servants of Abraham symbolized Christ. (example of taking gematria too far and using it where it wasn't meant to be used).
It was used by Gnostics (part of their "secret knowleddge") and heavily criticized by Irenaeus and Hippolytus, and consequently, it was not a popular method of interpretation with the early church. Regarding the mark of the beast, Irenaeus said, because many names can add up to 666, we shouldn't waste time speculating about it, but instead await the fulfillment. We don't need to know in advance:

while reason also leads us to conclude that the number of the name of the beast, [if reckoned] according to the Greek mode of calculation by the [value of] the letters contained in it, will amount to six hundred and sixty and six;…It is therefore more certain, and less hazardous, to await the fulfilment of the prophecy, than to be making surmises, and casting about for any names that may present themselves, inasmuch as many names can be found possessing the number mentioned; …
We will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing positively as to the name of Antichrist; for if it were necessary that his name should be distinctly revealed in this present time, it would have been announced by him who beheld the apocalyptic vision. For that was seen no very long time since (i.e. not long ago), but almost in our day, towards the end of Domitian’s reign.''

He says numbers are "always symbolic". Okay. No, in fact, they often are not *only* symbolic. They often are fulfilled literally in real-life events, for example the years ("let 7 times pass over him, Daniel 4, speaking of Nebuchadnezzar being driven to madness), or the four heads of the leopard (Alexander the Great's kingdom was literally divided four ways after his death). Stop interpreting by the Sybilline Chronicles.

Rome = Babylon. Very likely true, usually acknowledged by futurists. The ultimate adversary might not be literally in Rome or Babylon though - futurism can be fine with that.

23:35 - Oh, the "wondrous sea" is the Mediterannean! So it's a literal sea. But he was just talking about the "sea" being symbolic of chaos. And I thought we can't take anything literally! /sarcasm
*Here's the point: Things can be symbolic in one place and literal in another in the same book, even the same chapter. Context and comparing scripture with scripture determines the meaning. Genre and extrabiblical literature, less so.

28:10 - Old Testament symbols - okay good, finally

31:45 - I've never heard anyone interpret Revelation 12 as being about literal stars falling.

33:40 - The word angels (angelos) can mean messengers, so the angels of the 7 churches could actually be leaders of the churches. Or, the human messengers who carried John's letters to the churches.

Two dangers - fear of persecution and allure of the prostitute - right, agreed. But just because it *applies* broadly to us, doesn't mean that timeless warnings are the *interpretation* of the passage. Broad encouragement and warning through the symbology doesn't preclude actual future fulfillment in specific people and events of the things shown. Revelation is a book about the ultimate victory of Christ.

"All this stuff" was happening in the first century and is still happening now, he says - What specifically, and how? Is this falsifiable in any way? Is there a way to contradict or refute this, or is it so vague and broad that it's content-free and unable to be contradicted? That's partly what I find frustrating about this view.
Is "all the stuff" in Dan. 2, 7, 8, 9, etc., being generally fulfilled now in a very symbolically / allegorical way? Or did the visions and symbols actually get fulfilled in specific, concrete ways? (Any study of these chapters reveals the answer is clearly the latter). The unfulfilled parts of Daniel 2 and 7, etc., as well as the book of Revelation which parallels it, will be fulfilled in the same manner.

There is good reason that the futurist view dates back to the 2nd century: it uses parallel passages in Daniel to interpret Revelation. Revelation expands on Daniel 2 (the feet and toes of clay), Daniel 7 (the fourth beast, more specifically the little horn), Daniel 9:27 (the desolating abomination), etc. The beast of Revelation is reminiscent of the beasts of Dan. 7, to be sure, but if examined closer, it sounds even more like the "little horn" that comes out of the fourth beast, as well as the Man of Lawlessness (2 Thess 2); all three are boastful, blasphemous, persecute the saints, and are destroyed specifically by Christ at His coming. So there is justification for thinking the beast is an expansion, a closer look, at Daniel 7's Little Horn. (Dan. 11:36-45, talking about a boastful and self-exalting king at the "time of the end", is probably about the same person). You can cross-reference the references to the "time, times and a half" (3 1/2 years, forty-two months), etc. from Revelation 13 to Daniel 7, Daniel 9:27 (half of the "week" of years), Daniel 12 (referring back to the boastful king in Dan. 11), etc., and see that they are probably talking about the same thing.

Also, Daniel 8, as well as Daniel 11:21-35, had prophesied quite specifically (and symbolically) about Antiochus Epiphanes (the Greek little horn of Daniel 8), all of which was fulfilled in specific historical events. He set up the first abomination of desolation at the time of the Maccabees. He is a type of the ultimate end-time opponent, the boastful king, the man of lawlessness.

Returning to the video:
43:45 - Okay. Arguing against a Left Behind/ Hal Lindsey approach is fine. That approach - reading Revelation with one hand and the newspaper with the other, as I already said, is off-base and nonessential to futurism / dispensationalism. An argument against the former is not an argument against the latter.

47:15 - Getting dogmatic about the interpretation of prophecy now, are we? "The 144,000 is definitely this and the Mark is definitely this and not that." Okay then.

Regarding the mark of the beast, it's essential to keep this in mind:



As for the meaning of 666, caution should be used. It's not even totally clear whether we should use Gematria to determine it. It doesn't say to calculate a riddle. It doesn't say to figure out the meaning of 666. It says, "Let the person who has insight calculate the number, for it is the number of man (or a man)." And then it gives the solution: "and it is 666."

I earlier quoted Irenaeus urging caution about calculating anybody's name from it, and the early church father Hippolytus said something similar:

But now we shall speak to the proposition. These things he is also devising in this way, in his desire to afflict the saints in all things. For the prophet and apostle says: “Here there is understanding. Let the one having wisdom calculate the number of the beast: for it is a person’s number, and his number is 666.” About his name it’s not possible for us to expound precisely, in the way the blessed John understood and was taught about it, but only in supposition: for when he appears, the occasion will show the answer. 2. But as much as we understand, even shakily, let us say. For we find many names equaling this number, for example, let us say, there is Titan, an ancient and noble name; or Euanthas. For this also is equal to that number, and a great many others can be found. 3. But since we were already saying that the first beast’s wound was healed and he will make the image speak, that is he has prevailed, and it is manifest to all that the rulers now are the Latins, the name translated into that of a single person becomes “Latinus,” so that we should neither pronounce that this is really it nor, again, ignore that it might not be able to be reckoned otherwise; since we, who “have the mystery of God in a pure heart” (1 Tim 3:9) faithfully keep, with fear, the things said by the blessed prophets so that we won’t fail to recognize when these things are happening. For when the times arrive and he, about whom these things have been said, will be made manifest and the name will be indicated clearly to all.

None of the early church fathers came up with Nero as the meaning of 666, which is weird if that's what it really means. To come up with 666 for Nero, you have to spell Neron Caesar (the transliterated Greek name) incorrectly in Hebrew - leaving out a little letter. Furthermore, if dozens of names can be calculated to come up with 666, how is it an effective means of communication?

Perhaps a more likely solution is to recognize that 7 and 3 are both symbolically significant in the Bible. So if 777 would be the number of absolute perfection, then 666 would be a number that falls absolutely short. The number of a counterfeit, an unholy trinity.

So to sum up: Revelation is basically an expansion of certain parts of Daniel, with references to other OT passages as well, which tells us more about those parts of Daniel that haven't been fulfilled yet, to give us warnings and encouragement, and to point to the ultimate victory of Christ.

[RZehr]

Thank-you MattY for these notes! I have very little emotional attachment to my understanding of this book, and so I appreciate that you took the time to listen twice and take notes. I want to listen again and look at your notes.

I have not the knowledge or ability to really argue or debate this topic, but I do have a bit of curiosity on it.

[Valerie]

What do we do with this passage? Of course it was written before Revelation but it seems the very application of this passage makes us aware that individuals are not to interpret prophecy?
2 Peter 1:
19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.