The post The Seven Vials — Part 2: Our Vision caused interesting reactions. One reader suggested I am smoking a hallucinogenic drug. Speaking of his younger days, he said, “none of us had the wild visions you have had and/or [sic] still having. Perhaps you would send me some of your stuff, so the Indian Medicine Man and I could have visions like yours and/or wilder.”
Another reader wrote, “To believe and advocate that all nations will offer joyful worship to God thru Christ at any time is a natural contrivance by the natural mind, and there is nothing Spiritual concerning such.” He added, “‘NATIONS’ will not come to hope in Christ’s name.”1
These readers were reacting to my comments on Revelation’s fifth vision. John wrote, “Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee” (Rev. 15:4; emphasis added). I said we should pray, hope, and work to achieve this end. Our vision should be to see all nations worship Christ in this age.
Charity assigns the best motives for these reactions (1 Cor. 13:4–7). These readers do not oppose kingdom optimism because they are mean. They do not want to limit Christ’s glory. Optimism sounds foreign—even carnal—to them because their prophetic framework forbids it. Their belief system requires a pessimistic outlook for the kingdom as it now exists.
The Bible makes statements that seem to support such pessimism. Jesus said, “wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat . . . and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 7:13–14).
Based in part on such statements, Paul said, “in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1). And, “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse” (2 Tim. 3:13).
Do such statements pertain to the kingdom age? If so, how do we account for how the prophets speak? They “give positive and direct assurance” of kingdom optimism.
The stone cut out without hands became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. All nations shall serve him. All nations shall call him blessed. The whole earth shall be filled with his glory. The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; and all nations shall flow into it. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. (Dan. 2:35; Psa. 72:8, 11, 17, 19; Isa. 2:2; 11:9).2
These statements describe the kingdom Jesus has now established.
In inmillennialism, the above pessimistic passages pertain to the first century. They describe conditions during the “last days” of the Mosaic Age. This was before God judged apostate Israel. False prophets arose and deceived many. Iniquity abounded and the love of many waxed cold. But, as Jesus said, these things happened before the Temple fell (Matt. 24:3, 11–12, 34).
Pessimism characterizes Israel after the flesh, not Israel after the Spirit.3 Few in Israel found the narrow way. The Mosaic Age ended with doom and gloom. Seeing that pessimistic passages belong there allows us to embrace the Messianic-Age optimism foretold by the prophets.
Our current series of posts on Revelation supports this perspective. John’s judgment visions apply to Israel after the flesh. They amplify Jesus’s verdict on his generation. Once the judgment was past, the kingdom age would produce a world where the nations worship Christ.
In this post, we wish to show how the Vision of the Great Whore (Rev. 17–20)4 supports this perspective. We will do so by making two observations.
The Subject of Judgment
First, the subject of this vision’s judgment is apostate Jerusalem.5 She is “the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Rev. 17:6).
Some interpreters believe the harlot represents the Roman Catholic church. This is a mistake. The woman of whom John spoke had killed God’s prophets (Rev. 16:6). These murders happened in the Mosaic Age before the Roman Catholic church existed. She cannot be the whore in Revelation.
And, this harlot killed the apostles. Later in this vision, an angel says, “Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her” (Rev. 18:20; emphasis added). The Roman Catholic church did not persecute the apostles. She did not exist in their generation. Her abuses should not lead to a pessimistic view of the Messianic Age.
Apostate Israel killed both prophets and apostles. Jesus told a parable to illustrate this. He showed how God would take the kingdom from them and give it to a holy nation (Matt. 21:33–45; cp. 1 Pet. 2:9). She is the harlot.
On the day he gave the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24-25), Jesus announced what was about to happen (Matt. 23:29–38). The Jews had killed the earlier prophets. They would also kill those Jesus would send in the “last days” of the Mosaic Age (Heb. 1:2). As a result, God would destroy their Temple (Matt. 23:38). Jesus fixed the timeframe: “All these things shall come upon this generation” (Matt. 23:36).
Jesus makes the murder’s identity clear: “It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33). In the Bible, Mosaic-Age Israel is the persecutor of God’s messengers. She is the harlot of John’s sixth vision in Revelation.
Revelation shows God’s judgment of this harlot. Any pessimism found here does not nullify the optimism of the Messianic Age. The prophets Israel had killed and were killing bore a united witness. Glory would follow Christ’s death and Israel’s judgment (cp. 1 Pet. 1:6–12; 4:4–7, 17). We wish to follow their example, even at the risk of appearing intoxicated.
The Situation of Judgment
Second, the harlot’s judgment occurs in a unique historical context. Daniel set the stage by interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. This king of Babylon saw how God would establish a kingdom “in the latter days” (Dan. 2:28). Daniel’s interpretation shows this meant the “latter days” of the Mosaic Age.
The king saw four kingdoms. The historical record supplies the details. Babylon was first, followed by Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Daniel said, “In the days of these (Roman) kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom” (Dan. 2:44). These kings arose in the “last days” of the Mosaic Age, not in the “last days” of history.
John adds details about “these kings.” As God punishes the harlot, “there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space” (Rev. 17:10).
This fits the first-century situation.6 John wrote Revelation during Nero’s reign. Five Roman Caesars “had fallen”—Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius. One “was”—Nero. When the other “came”—Galba—he reigned less than seven months.7
The following diagram shows the “great tribulation” during which God judged the whore. It also shows the seven kings of Rev. 17:10.
Jesus appeared in human form during the reign of Augustus, the second Roman king (Luke 2:1). John wrote Revelation in Nero’s reign. The Temple fell in AD 70 as Vespasian ruled the Empire.
This was the situation in which God established his kingdom. It accounts for Daniel’s prophecy and John’s Revelation. The Bible does not say this condition will occur again.
Now, Daniel was optimistic about the kingdom God established in this period. He said it “shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever” (Dan. 2:44; emphasis added).
This is the Scriptural prospect for the Messianic Age. Jesus established a kingdom in the first century that will grow to include all nations. As Isaiah said,
Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.” (Isa. 9:6–7; emphasis added)
The pessimistic doom of judgment ended the Mosaic Age. This preceded the glory of the Messianic Age and Christ’s ever-increasing government.
Conclusion
I thank these readers for their comments. May they know I am not smoking a hallucinogen. With tongue in cheek, I paraphrase Paul. I would to God, that not only they, but also all that read this blog, were both almost, and altogether “smoking the same stuff” as me (cf. Acts 26:29).
The vision of all nations worshiping Christ (Rev. 15:4) comes from God’s word. It is not a figment of someone’s imagination. The abuses of the Roman Catholic church will not hinder its arrival. The vision is not for a future age.
Again, this is a vision to which we should dedicate our individual, family, church, and national lives.
More of this optimism is on the way in future posts (D. V.).
Footnotes
- The caps are his; the italics mine.
- William Symington, Messiah the Prince or, the Mediatorial Dominion of Jesus Christ (London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1881), 184.
- See our definitions of “Israel” in two previous posts: The Seven Mystic Figures — Part 1: Identities and The Seven Mystic Figures — Part 2: Exodus.
- For our outline of Revelation, see Mapping God’s Highway In Revelation.
- This is Paul’s “Israel after the flesh” (1 Cor. 10:18). Jerusalem often stands for the entire nation.
- This and the following paragraph draw from a previous post, The Seven Mystic Figures — Part 4: Sea Beast.
- Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, trans. Robert Graves (New York: Penguin Classics, 2007), 254.
