Christian Apocalypse

An apocalypse (from the Greek word apokalypsis, meaning “an uncovering”) is a disclosure of secret knowledge regarding future dramatic human events. In a religious context an apocalypse is a revelation of God’s plan for the end time. An alternate definition is that an apocalypse is the actual climactic end to the world and human history. Eschatology (es-ka-tol-uh-gee) is a branch of theology concerned with the end time. Apocalyptic eschatology reveals God’s plan for the end time in terms of why, when and how he will bring the world and human history to an end.

     The evolution of the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic worldview was explained in Chapter 5. A brief refresher: It started with rationalizations for why the Israelites had suffered so much for centuries in spite of being God’s chosen people. Their evil oppressors had fared much better than they had. Prophets said God was punishing the Israelites for their sins. This didn’t always correspond with historical realities, however. When the Israelites renewed their devotion to God and their covenant relationship, they still suffered. At times they were persecuted specifically because of their faith. A new way of thinking evolved. There were two fundamental components of reality—the realm of good, under the authority of God, and the realm of evil, controlled by Satan and his demons. There was no neutral ground; everyone was either aligned with God and truth or with Satan and evil. For some unknown reason the forces of Satan had gained control, but God would soon intervene, destroy the forces of evil, and reign over his righteous kingdom forever.

     Early Christians preserved the Jewish apocalyptic worldview based on cosmic dualism, as many of them were converted Jews. Jesus was first a Jew and was no different. Conditions that spawned this worldview had only gotten worse under the heel of the Roman Empire. A key aspect of this worldview was that even though things were bad at the time and getting worse, it wouldn’t be long before God would act. Apocalypticists fully expected history, as they knew it, would soon end, most likely in their lifetime.

     There were many Christian apocalypses written, but only the book of Revelation made it into the New Testament canon. Other apocalypses were judged apocryphal for a variety of reasons. Some varied too much from Christian orthodoxy, some were of dubious authorship, and some were of too late a date. Some of the many apocryphal apocalypses were the Apocalypse of Paul, the Assumption of Paul, the Apocalypse of John, the Apocalypse of Mary, the Apocalypse of Thomas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the First Apocalypse of James, and the Second Apocalypse of James.

     Apocalypses are a distinct literary genre, sharing several common features, although not all have every feature. They were written in response to widespread oppression, persecution and wickedness and portray the world through the lens of cosmic dualism. The present age has come to be dominated by Satan, but God will not tolerate this much longer. God has a plan to overthrow Satan, save those who have been faithful, condemn those who haven’t, and establish his kingdom of righteousness for eternity. Major events are often explained as the fulfillment of prophecy. Apocalypses are typically expressed as dreams or visions and are heavy with symbolism. A heavenly intermediary such as an angel is needed to explain the symbolism that discloses God’s plan for the future. In the end God will prevail and evil will be vanquished. Apocalypses are not about the distant future; they were written for contemporary audiences about ominous contemporary circumstances.

     Most apocalypses are pseudonymous, first-person narratives, presented in the name of a revered religious figure. This is the case with the apocryphal apocalypses mentioned above (allegedly written by Paul, John, Mary, Peter, etc.). The book of Revelation in the New Testament is an exception.

The Book of Revelation

The central book of New Testament eschatology is Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse of John. The author identifies himself as John, a common name that doesn’t pin down his identity. Many Christians maintain that he was none other than Jesus’ beloved disciple John, the son of Zebedee. This is highly unlikely for a variety of reasons. The author doesn’t claim to have been Jesus’ disciple and doesn’t write of any first-person interactions with Jesus or display any personal knowledge of Jesus. His only mention of the twelve disciples (Rev 21:14) is done from a third-person point of view, which suggests the author wasn’t including himself with the twelve. From its content most scholars date Revelation to late in the first century. It’s unlikely that the disciple John would have lived that long, although a Christian tradition holds that he died in 98 CE. Acts 4:13 states that the disciple John was “unlearned and ignorant” (i.e., illiterate), hardly someone capable of writing at a sophisticated level, at least without a great deal of formal training later in life. Revelation portrays Jesus as hell-bent on revenge, in stark contrast to the loving, merciful, turn-the-other-cheek Jesus that John the disciple would have known, and the Jesus found elsewhere in the New Testament.

     John writes that he received his revelation while on the Isle of Patmos (in the Mediterranean southwest of present-day Turkey). Most scholars think John was a Jewish-Christian preacher who had come to despise the Romans, perhaps because of first hand knowledge of the crushing of the Jewish rebellion from 66-70 CE, the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, and the persecution of Christians. Scholarly speculation has it that the Romans exiled John to Patmos because of his ardent preaching about Christ and Christianity.

     Revelation is presented as the testimony of Jesus Christ narrated to John by an angel. It begins with John’s vision of Jesus, “like unto the Son of man,” standing in the midst of seven golden candlesticks. Jesus holds seven stars in his right hand. (This is the beginning of a flood of the superstitious number seven.) Jesus explains that the seven candlesticks are seven churches in Asia Minor (an actual seven), and “the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.” John is instructed to write to the seven churches (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea) and explain the things he sees in his vision—what the future holds for humanity and that Jesus knows the works of those in the seven churches who have been faithful and those who have not.

     In Chapter 4 John describes his vision of entering heaven through a door in the sky. There he sees God seated on his throne. Around the throne are 24 elders, 4 beasts and the Lamb of God that has been slain, symbolizing Jesus. God holds a scroll in which is written the future of the world. The scroll is secured with seven seals. No one is worthy of unsealing it save one, Jesus, the Lamb of God. Jesus breaks the seals one at a time, releasing disasters upon the earth each time. The first disasters kick off a seven-year period called the tribulation. After the seventh seal is broken, seven angels appear, each holding a bowl of God’s wrath. In turn each angel blows a trumpet and pours out another round of disasters upon the earth. Among the disasters announced by the seventh trumpet is the rise of a beast, an agent of Satan. (The beast will come to be known as the Antichrist later in Christianity.) The beast’s ascension to power starts a three and a half year period—the second half of the tribulation—called the great tribulation. The charismatic ruler will gain control over everyone on the earth except for those who remain faithful to God. A religious ruler called the false prophet will assist the beast. Together they will establish a worldwide economic, social and religious system. To buy or sell one must take the mark of the beast (Rev 13:17).

     Special servants of God, “[A]n hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel” (Rev 7:4), will be sealed (protected) by God against harm by the beast. Twelve thousand will come from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. The sign of their protection will be a mark on their foreheads. All 144,000 will be virgin men: “These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins” (Rev 14:4).

     After the bowls of wrath have all been emptied, the climatic battle of Armageddon commences. Christ appears from heaven riding a white horse, leading an army of the righteous from heaven to defeat the armies of the beast. Satan is bound up and cast into the “bottomless pit” (hell), and a 1,000-year period of peace on earth begins—the millennium so often spoken of in Christianity. At the end of the millennium Satan is inexplicably freed to reorganize the hostile nations (rhetorically called Gog and Magog) for the final battle against God. They are consumed by fire from heaven, and the Last Judgment is initiated, Satan is cast back into hell to suffer eternally with the Antichrist and the false prophet, a new heaven and new earth are created, and a new Jerusalem (1,500 miles in length, width and height) descends from heaven. All dead are raised for judgment along with the living. Everyone whose name is written in the Lamb’s book of life will spend eternity with God in heaven (the new Jerusalem); those who do not appear in the book will spend eternity in hell.

     As with other apocalypses of Judaism and early Christianity, Revelation was not about the distant future. (Indeed, how could 144,000 virgin men, descended from the original 12 tribes of Israel, exist in the 21st century?) Two visions described in Revelation reveal when the end time would occur. This should be understood in the context of John’s evident hate of everything Roman. He even appears to have problems with the seven churches in Asia Minor because of their acceptance of Roman and Hellenistic ways. In Chapter 17 an angel describes the great whore of Babylon that has fornicated with kings of the earth, with the wine of her fornications intoxicating inhabitants of earth. The angel leads John into a wilderness where they see a woman sitting atop a beast that has seven heads and ten horns. The woman holds a golden cup filled with the impurities and abominations of her fornications. On her head is a sign: “Babylon the Great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations.”

     What does this symbolism represent? This isn’t difficult to interpret. Babylon the Great is a metaphor for Rome. There are several reasons for this conclusion:¹ The angel tells John that “The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth” (Rev 17:9). Rome was known in antiquity as the “city of seven hills,” another legitimate seven. That the “woman” is a metaphor for a city that governs a large empire is clearly shown in Rev 17:18: “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” In additional symbolic references to Rome, she is the center of the world’s commerce (Rev 18:3, 11-13), the corrupter of nations (Rev 17:2, 18:3, 19:2), and the persecutor of saints (Rev 17:6).

     The identity of the beast (Antichrist) is given in verse 13:18: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” John encoded the beast’s name using a system called gematria that equates letters of the Hebrew language to numbers. The number of the beast is given as 666. In gematria, if you take a number and try to work backward to the corresponding name there are an indeterminate number of possible answers. Going the other way—starting with a given name and determining its number—there is only one solution or number.

     The number for a person depends on which name or combinations are used (first, middle, last) and the spelling that can vary depending on the language. If you start with the common Greek spelling of Roman emperor Nero—“Neron Caesar”—transliterate it into Hebrew (which omits vowels), then calculate the number you get 666.

     Nero fits the description of the beast nicely. He was a brutal emperor from 54-68 CE; he was the first emperor to persecute Christians, some of which was brutal; he had his own mother and two wives killed; ancient writers claimed he was responsible for the great fire of Rome in 64 CE to clear land for an expansive golden palace, then blamed the fire on Christians and had many brutally killed.²

     Some early New Testament manuscripts have the number 616 instead of 666. If the Latin spelling of Nero is used—“Nero Caesar”—the second “n” in Neron is omitted, along with its numerical value of 50, and the number of the beast is 616. The implication here is that those responsible for this version of Revelation clearly understood the beast to be Nero, but they and their audience were probably more familiar with the Latin spelling for the emperor, so they went with 616. Nero is the only person that goes with 666 and 616, which is all the more reason to conclude that John of Patmos was equating the beast with Nero and early Christians had no problem understanding this.

     It should be blatantly obvious that no early Christian would have had any “understanding” that would equate 666 or 616 with “the number of a man” whose first appearance would be two thousand or more years in the future. This quite obviously rules out a beast arising in the 21st century.

     Two questions remain before we can say with certainty that Nero was John’s beast. How could the beast be Nero when he committed suicide with a sword at the age of 30? During the latter part of the first century there was a common belief and dread among many that Nero would return. The belief is known as the Nero Redivivus legend (Nero reborn). That John was referring to the return of Nero is suggested in verse 17:8: “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition … behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.” This is saying that Nero isn’t with us right now, but he will soon ascend from hell to resume his evil ways. Revelation 13.3 seems to be an allusion to Nero returning from the near-dead: “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and the world wondered after the beast.” Revelation 13:14 appears to be a reference to Nero surviving an attempted suicide with a sword: “… an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.”

     The final question: Why would John code the name of Nero and not give the name directly? Many scholars think John was exiled to Patmos by the Romans for his zealous Christian preaching. He would not have been keen on raising the ire of Roman authorities even more with his evil characterization of Emperor Nero and the Roman Empire. Nor would John have wanted the seven churches of Asia Minor to come under increased Roman scrutiny.

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The most prominent figures in early Christianity were apocalypticists who believed the end time was near. John the Baptist is widely recognized by scholars as such. He used the following allegory to inform his followers of an impending apocalypse: “[T]he axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Luke 3:9). John the Baptist was wrong.

     Numerous historical-critical scholars see Jesus as also an apocalypticist. As discussed in detail in Chapter 5, this is the subject of serious debate among scholars, but as shown, the evidence that Jesus was an apocalypticist outweighs the contrary evidence. The first New Testament account of anything Jesus said is apocalyptic: “Now after that John [the Baptist] was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:14-15). Jesus believed his generation would see God’s apocalyptic end to the world order ushered in by a cosmic judge called the Son of man (perhaps himself). Jesus was wrong.

     Scholars widely recognize that the apostle Paul was as an apocalypticist. He believed that Christ would return during his generation. The evidence for this is beyond legitimate argument. His urgent mission was to convert as many Jews and Gentiles as possible to acceptance of the gospel of Christ so they would not end up on the wrong side of God’s plan. The failure of human history to end on time shows that Paul too was wrong.

     A plain reading of Revelation shows that it too was not intended for the distant future. Indeed, the very first verse (Rev 1:1) says that the testimony by Jesus Christ is of “things which must shortly come to pass.” Can that be any clearer? Other verses that show that Revelation wasn’t about the distant future: “… for the time is at hand” (Rev 1:3 and 22:10); ”And, behold, I [Jesus Christ] come quickly” (Rev 22:12); “He [Jesus Christ] which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly” (Rev 22:20). Where the word “quickly” appears in these verses in the King James Version, other translations such as the New Revised Standard Version use the word “soon.”

     After generations had failed to see the return of Nero, and especially after Christianity had achieved a favored status in the Roman Empire under Constantine, the entire context for the Apocalypse of John was no longer relevant. Historical realities had rendered Revelation obsolete. Its author, John of Patmos, took his place alongside John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostle Paul as zealous advocates for a failed eschatological worldview.

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Revelation has always been the most controversial book in the Bible. It narrowly made it into the canon. Thomas Jefferson called it “[M]erely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.”³ Martin Luther, the most influential founding father of the Protestant Reformation, wrote: “There is one sufficient reason for the small esteem in which I hold it—that Christ is neither taught in it nor recognized.”⁴

     Despite Revelation being a recognizably failed prophecy, masses of people continue to have faith that an imminent, climactic end time is encoded in it. Why are humans so willing to believe that which is so obviously a failure? This characteristic of human nature (belief guided by personal values) will be discussed later. Revelation is just one example of Holy Writ that is untrue, yet remains in the Bible because Christianity has no systematic way to remove it from its ancient canon. It must be reinterpreted to maintain a mirage of relevance in today’s world. The first step in reinterpretation has been to equate “Babylon the Great” with a New Rome. For decades the Soviet Union was a popular choice for the modern version of the Roman Empire. After the Soviet Union broke up Russia took its place as the new Rome. The European Common Market was also a popular candidate until the European Union replaced it. The Roman Catholic Church and the United Nations have also been proposed as the new Rome.

     Attempts to identify the Antichrist with an individual in modern times have been common enough among Christian end-time prognosticators that the endeavor has been given a name: Pin the tail on the Antichrist. In the past century the tail has been pinned on Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, multiple Catholic popes, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and other would-be Antichrists. Donald Trump is currently an ascending candidate.

     On and on it goes, but the bottom line will always remain the same: For 2,000 years every end-time prediction of the imminent return of Jesus has been totally wrong. Future expectations and predictions of Jesus’ return will be no different. Jesus won’t be returning soon or otherwise, because, as should be clear by now, he has never been capable of returning.