CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 

IN VISION JOHN WAS CARRIED TO OUR DAY WHEN THE BEAST

"IS ABOUT TO COME UP OUT OF THE ABYSS".

THE 1260 DAYS OF PAPAL SUPREMACY ARE NOT MENTIONED

IN REVELATION 17.

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS OMISSION? 

Both the beasts of Rev. 13 and 17 have seven heads and ten horns and have a number of similarities, and refer to the same power. The woman and the beast of Rev. 17 we have shown is the same as the beast of Rev. 13 where the church is included in the beast symbol. Apart from this there is one other difference, and that concerns the time element. The beast of Rev. 13 rose "up out of the sea", whereas the beast of Rev. 17 comes "up out of the abyss" (R.V.). The former represents the beginning or birth of the beast. In Dan. 7 the angel explained to Daniel that the four beasts which "came up from the sea" meant that "four kings" would "arise out of the earth" (vs. 3, 17). Thus indicating their origin. However, the beast of Rev. 17 does not come "up out of the sea" but "up out of the abyss", which we have shown refers to the place of death. He must, therefore, have lived before and died. By this we know that the prophecy of Rev. 17 focuses upon the time when the death-stroke received by one of the heads of the beast of Rev. 13 is healed, and all the world will wonder after the beast. Thus one of the heads–the Papal head of the beast of Rev. 13 has a resurrection. Only one head exists at a time, so the Papal head that was slain is the one to be healed (Rev. 13) or resurrected (Rev. 17); then all the world will wonder after the beast whose head is healed of its death-stroke. Therefore we know that Rev. 17 was given by God so His people might become intelligent concerning the final conflict which will follow the resurrection of the persecuting beast. 

In furtherance of this thought we observe a significant omission of any mention or reference to the 1260 days of Papal supremacy. They are mentioned in Dan. 7, included in the 2300 days of Dan. 8 and 9; they are referred to in Dan. 11:35, 40; 12:7, 11, 12 and in Rev. 11:2, 3; 12:6, 14 and 13:5; but not in Rev. 17. Why? Obviously because the main application of this prophecy belongs to the time subsequent to the completion of those days. 

That John is carried forward in time to the period just before the beast is resurrected to power, in other words to our own day, is perfectly obvious from the fact that the angel no less than three times in this chapter emphatically states that the beast 

215 

"was" and now "is not, and shall come". Three tenses are brought to view: one points to the past activities of the beast before it received its deadly wound; another points to the future activities of the beast; while the angel speaks of the present–the "is not" period of the beast's activities when, through receiving the deathstroke, he is unable to persecute the people of God. Observe the three times the angel makes it clear that it is now, now when the beast cannot as yet lead the nations of the world to persecute God's people because of its death-stroke that is not completely healed, now that the prophecy is to have its message for God's people. Now, ere the persecuting beast fully emerges from his state of death, now when the beast "is about to come up out of the abyss", this prophecy belongs. It was to our day that John was carried and shown the soon-coming resurrection of the beast that is to result in peril to the people of God; it was to now that he was carried to behold the unfolding of the scenes of the last great conflict resulting in "the judgment of the great whore", which has been mentioned in Rev. 16, but more fully described in Rev. 17:16, 17 and in Rev. 18. 

Rev. 17:8 reads: "The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss." Again in the same verse we read: " . . . when they behold the beast, how that he was, and is not, and shall come." 

Again we read, in v. 11: "The beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth [i.e. when he comes] and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition." 

Thus John was carried forward in time to our day when he was able to look back on the beast of persecution that "was", and as he stood in the period when the beast of persecution is in a state of inactivity, an "is not" state, he looked to the near future when the beast "is about to come up out of the abyss". From today he, with us, looked back to the time when the woman used the State to persecute the saints, for he said: "I saw, the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus" (v. 6). It is at this time that five of the heads have fallen and the 6th "one is", and only one more head of persecution is to be upon the beast. From today, looking back into the days of Papal supremacy, John could describe the Papacy as the whore "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" (Rev. 17:2). As we have shown, this prophecy refers mainly to the final conflict which will be a worldwide repetition of what occurred in Europe during the days of Papal supremacy. In a much greater sense v. 2 is to be repeated for this is the feature which is particularly emphasized in the loud cry. The angel comes down from heaven having mighty power, 

216 

"And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen ... for all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her" (Rev. 18:1-3). Thus the time to which John was carried when he was shown "the judgment of the great whore", the time when he was shown the awful fate to befall the Babylonian whore that has so often in the past persecuted God's people, was between 1798 (when the beast's power to persecute was completely taken away) and when the beast again comes to life in the near future. The woman, having fully given kings and nations her poisonous wine, persuades the kings to please her by persecuting the saints. The rising power of evil is met by the descending power of God as His servants mightily proclaim the loud cry. 

The prophet Ezekiel, while dwelling in Babylon, was carried by the Spirit and "brought in the visions of God to Jerusalem" where he saw and described things as if he were bodily present at Jerusalem. From Ezek. 8:7-18, without reading the introductory verses, one would come to wrong conclusions as to where Ezekiel was at the time. Just as Ezekiel was lifted up and carried to another place by the Spirit, so John in vision was carried forward to our day and he described what he saw of the past Papal persecutions; he saw the wounding of the Papal head of the beast, and pointed to the things happening in our day which are indications that the persecuting beast "is about to come up out of the abyss". 

"And prophecy foretells, a restoration o f her power. 'I saw one of his heads wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed; and all the world wondered after the beast' . .. She is' silently, growing into power" (GC. 579, 581). 

Thus the study of Rev. 17 is destined to become more and more important to the people of God, for it contains a message which will be more fully proclaimed as the evil days depicted therein draw nearer and nearer, bringing God's people nearer to their supreme testing time when the Church and State will combine for their destruction.

Luke 21:8

Christian, Be Not Deceived!