Category Archives: Biblical

Is American and Iranian Eschatology Virtually the Same?

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I do not usually expound on political matters knowing that anything I say on the subject will polarize my audience and distract from the biblical/theological focus of the blog site. But the following essay rings too true biblically to ignore. And for those who like Trump Michael Peabody shortly after offered a counter-balancing perspective. Good stuff. Will share both here.

Jon

“Glory Be to God”: Trump’s Religious Framing of the Iran War and What It Reveals Inside a 24-hour window that also included an excluded Catholic service at the Pentagon.
ReligiousLiberty.TV


Donald Trump posted three words on Truth Social this morning that deserve more attention than they are likely to receive: “Glory be to God.” The full post, published Saturday, reads: “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!” CBS News
Trump issued this ultimatum the day before Easter Sunday. Bloomberg An American president, on Holy Saturday, threatening what could be a catastrophic new military escalation, closed his message with a doxology. The glory of God invoked in the same breath as hell raining down on tens of millions of people.


Iran’s central military command rejected the threat within hours. Gen. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi called it “a helpless, nervous, unbalanced and stupid action” and, echoing Trump’s own language, warned that “the simple meaning of this message is that the gates of hell will open for you.” CBS News
Two governments, each reaching for the language of divine wrath on the holiest weekend of the Christian calendar. This is not incidental. It is a pattern. And for those of us who track what happens when state power fuses with sacred language, it is accelerating faster than most Americans realize.


The Rhetoric Stacks Up
We have been tracking this pattern at ReligiousLiberty.tv since before the bombs started falling. When the U.S. and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury on February 28, the religious framing was already baked in. During a press briefing on the Iran war, Defense Secretary Hegseth told Americans they should take a knee and pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ,” and elaborated separately: “Our capabilities are better. Our will is better. Our troops are better. The providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops, and we’re committed to this mission.” Prism News


Then came the March 26 prayer service at the Pentagon. Hegseth recited what he described as the “premission reading” given by a chaplain to troops involved in the capture of Venezuela’s then-president, reading from the Book of Psalms: “I pursued my enemies and overtook them. I did not turn back til they were consumed. I thrust them through so that they were not able to rise. They fell under my feet.” Military Times He continued: “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. Preserve their lives, sharpen their resolve, and let justice be executed swiftly and without remorse that evil may be driven back and wicked souls delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them.” He closed “in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ, King over all kings.” The Nation
This was not a private prayer. It was delivered at a government-organized worship service inside the Pentagon, during an active war, to officials in the chain of command of the world’s most powerful military.


The language has filtered downward. According to a complaint from a noncommissioned officer, U.S. forces were told that President Trump had been “anointed by Jesus” to spark events leading to Armageddon. The Guardian cited 200 further complaints received by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation that commanders were invoking Christian “end times” rhetoric in relation to the conflict. One said the operation had been framed as “God’s divine plan,” with references to the book of Revelation and the imminent return of Christ. Premier Christianity
NPR’s Quil Lawrence also noted that Hegseth has used the phrase “no quarter” in connection with the conflict. That phrase has a precise legal meaning: it is illegal not to give quarter, not to take prisoners. That is a war crime. NPR When that phrase travels inside explicitly Christian prayer, the implications are not theological. They are operational.


The Pentagon Chapel and the Catholic Question
Into this already volatile climate came the Good Friday episode, which unfolded on the same day as Trump’s Saturday ultimatum. Hegseth’s Pentagon held a Protestant-only Good Friday service at its in-house chapel, with no Catholic Mass scheduled. The setup drew frustration from at least one Pentagon employee after an internal email made the arrangement explicit: “Just a friendly reminder: There will be a Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass) for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel.” Mediaite


There is a legitimate liturgical footnote. Catholics do not celebrate traditional Mass on Good Friday. The Church observes instead a Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion. A Defense Department official later explained that the chaplain office’s priest was not in town, and that no Catholic Good Friday service had been arranged as a result. Yahoo! Some of the initial criticism overstated the canonical significance. But the liturgical detail does not resolve the larger concern. In February, Hegseth invited Pastor Doug Wilson to lead prayer at the Pentagon. Wilson has advocated for a vision of Christian governance that would ban public Catholic rituals, including Masses, Marian processions, and Corpus Christi devotions. Roughly a quarter of the U.S. military identifies as Catholic. Mediaite


The Washington Post reported that Hegseth has been hosting monthly evangelical Christian prayer services in the building. Last May, he brought Brooks Potteiger, his Tennessee pastor and spiritual advisor, to lead one such gathering, during which Potteiger described President Donald Trump as a divinely appointed leader. Hegseth said at the time he wanted to make the monthly services a permanent tradition. Prism News
Hegseth also announced he was reducing the number of faith codes used in the military from 200 to 31, saying the move addressed “political correctness and secular humanism” in the Chaplain Corps. The Daily Beast A Pentagon employee who has worked there since 1980 said this was the first time in their tenure that a Catholic Good Friday observance had not been offered. Thelettersfromleo
The cumulative picture is not one of religious liberty. It is one of religious preference institutionalized at the top of the chain of command, during a war.


The Archbishop Speaks
The most significant development of this week may have come from an unexpected corner. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services and the senior Catholic leader overseeing spiritual care for all U.S. military personnel, told CBS that Hegseth’s invocation of Jesus Christ to justify the conflict is “problematic,” and advised Catholic service members to “do as little harm as you can, and to try and preserve innocent lives.” Inquisitr
Broglio is not a progressive critic. He is a conservative archbishop. As recently as January 28 of this year, he praised Hegseth at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, saying Hegseth “definitely wants to return the chaplaincy to responsibility for religious services, religious instruction, and advising the commanders.” That earlier alignment makes his public break all the more significant as a signal that the rhetorical line between faith-informed leadership and sectarian war justification has, in his judgment, been crossed. Prism News


Pope Leo XIV condemned war during a Palm Sunday Mass, saying Jesus “rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war” and “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” The Nation The pope was not speaking abstractly. He was responding to a specific, named situation.

A Historical Pattern, With a Critical Difference
Presidents have long reached for religious language in wartime. Lincoln invoked the will of God throughout the Civil War while carefully refusing to claim God was on the Union’s side alone. His Second Inaugural is a model of theological humility under pressure. FDR led the nation in prayer on D-Day, asking God to protect the troops and grant them endurance. George W. Bush used the word “crusade” after September 11 before advisors persuaded him the word was diplomatically catastrophic. Even Obama invoked the protection of the Almighty for fallen troops and their families.
None of that is equivalent to what is happening now. Historian Ronit Stahl, a scholar of the military chaplaincy, said it is “rarely” the case that “an American military leader justified killing by declaring that God has sanctioned violence as an ultimate, higher good,” and that it is “highly unusual for high-ranking officers or civilian military leaders to relish killing and violence in God’s name as a religious duty.” The New Republic
What American leaders have historically done is invoke God as a source of protection and moral accountability. What Hegseth is doing is different: he is invoking God as the sanctioning authority for maximum lethal force, while simultaneously reshaping the institutional religion of the military to reflect one narrow branch of evangelical Protestantism, and while troops on the ground are reportedly being told their deployment is part of a biblical plan for the end of the world.


The Armageddon Question
We have to say plainly what some of our readers are already thinking, because it needs to be said with precision rather than left to fever-swamp speculation. There are people inside this administration, and within the network of evangelical advisors surrounding it, who believe the current conflict in the Middle East may be connected to biblical end-times prophecy. Figures in this network have publicly described Middle East wars as signs of the “last days,” argued that geopolitical upheaval fulfills biblical prophecy, and framed American military action in explicitly dispensationalist terms. The Intercept Paula White-Cain, head of the White House Faith Office, operates within a theological tradition that reads current events through what is called dispensationalist eschatology: a system that divides history into eras, assigns a special prophetic role to the modern state of Israel, and anticipates a final global conflict before the return of Christ.


Certain evangelical voices have explicitly linked the Iran conflict to passages in Ezekiel 38-39, which describe a coalition including “Persia” (modern Iran) rising against Israel in the last days. One such commentator wrote: “I believe the Bible clearly foretold that Israel would be scattered and regathered, fulfilled on May 14, 1948, and that’s when the prophetic time clock began to tick.” Harvest


We want to be careful here, and precise. The vast majority of people who hold these theological views are sincere Christians interpreting ancient texts as best they can. Belief in the second coming of Christ is not fringe. It is held by hundreds of millions of people across the globe, including many of our own readers. The Adventist tradition has its own rich, carefully developed theology of last-day events, and we will address that directly below.
The problem is not that people in government believe in the end times. The problem is when those beliefs shape the prosecution of an actual war, in real time, in ways that close off diplomatic options, license extraordinary violence, and tell soldiers that their deaths are part of God’s cosmic plan. U.S. forces were reportedly told that President Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to “light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon.” Premier Christianity That is not private theology. That is command-level religious instruction during an active combat deployment. And it has no place in a constitutional republic whose military swears an oath to a secular document, not a denominational creed.


When a government begins believing its own war is divinely ordained and prophetically necessary, it loses the flexibility that peace requires. You cannot negotiate your way out of Armageddon. You cannot accept a ceasefire if the bombs are God’s plan. This is precisely why the fusion of prophetic end-times theology with military command authority is among the most dangerous things that can happen in a nuclear-armed state.

The Adventist Perspective: A History That Has Been Waiting for This Moment
Seventh-day Adventists have been watching what is happening in Washington with a particular quality of attention. For the broader public, the events of the past several weeks are alarming but novel. For Adventists, they are alarming and deeply familiar.
The Adventist Church was born, in large part, out of precisely this concern.
The church emerged from the Millerite movement following the Great Disappointment of 1844, and its founders almost immediately turned their attention to the question of church and state. They saw in Revelation 13 a prophetic outline of how religious coercion would return to the earth in the last days: a great power, initially characterized by religious liberty and republican government, would eventually unite church and state, use civil authority to enforce religious observance, and persecute those who refused to comply. They identified that power as the United States of America.


This was not a peripheral concern. It was central to Adventist identity. As early as 1851, the denomination began to preach that the second great prophetic symbol of Revelation 13 represented the United States. By the late 1880s, when Sunday law legislation was moving through Congress, Adventists collected 250,000 signatures against it, organized what became the International Religious Liberty Association, and made religious freedom for all people, not just for themselves, a defining institutional commitment. Ellen G. White Writings
Ellen G. White, the church’s most influential early writer, articulated the theological stakes with precision. She wrote: “The union of the church with the state, be the degree never so slight, while it may appear to bring the world nearer to the church, does in reality but bring the church nearer to the world.” General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Her concern was not merely institutional. It was eschatological. She believed that when the United States, the nation she saw as history’s great experiment in religious freedom, began to use government power to enforce religious observance, it would signal the approach of the final crisis of earth’s history.
White’s prophetic concern was not that the U.S. would become too secular, but that it would lose its Protestant commitment to religious liberty through church-state union and coercive religious laws. Her ideal America was not a state enforcing Christian belief, but a nation protecting freedom of conscience for all. Spectrum Magazine


The Adventist Church’s official position has consistently held that government enforcement of religious observances is incompatible with biblical and constitutional principles, and that “God desires from all His creatures the service of love, service that springs from an appreciation of His character. He takes no pleasure in a forced obedience; and to all He grants freedom of will, that they may render Him voluntary service.” Adventistliberty
This is why Adventists have historically been among the most vigilant, and most principled, defenders of First Amendment religious liberty, not only for themselves but for everyone. The church stated explicitly: “We would be as earnest against a law compelling people to keep Saturday as a law forcing all to cease from labor on Sunday. We want freedom for all. We regard religious liberty as the cornerstone of all true freedom.” Ellen G. White Writings
Now consider what Adventists are watching in 2026.
They see a Defense Secretary with Crusader cross tattoos hosting mandatory-adjacent evangelical worship services inside the Pentagon. They see the number of recognized military faith codes cut from 200 to 31. They see a Protestant-only Good Friday service in a chapel that serves a military force that is one-quarter Catholic. They see active-duty troops being told their war is part of God’s plan to trigger Armageddon. They see a president closing military ultimatums with “Glory be to God” on the day before Easter. They see the White House Faith Office populated by dispensationalist end-times theologians. They see Project 2025’s proposal for a uniform Sunday rest law moving through policy discussions. The North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists formally stated that the Sunday rest proposal “represents a dangerous desire to use state power to advance religious objectives” and is “irreconcilable with America’s rich heritage of protecting the religious freedom of all its citizens.” North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists


The day the United States and Israel bombed Iran, one Adventist writer received a message from a friend that said simply: “Jesus is coming soon.” Adventist Today That writer went on to reflect, thoughtfully, on what it means to deploy prophetic language responsibly, and on the danger of crying end-times so often that the warning loses its force.
It is a fair caution. Adventists have been saying “Jesus is coming soon” through every major crisis of the last 180 years. The church has learned, sometimes painfully, that date-setting and event-mapping are spiritually and intellectually treacherous. Some within Adventism have argued that the church’s “watertight non-negotiable chronology of events leading up to the second coming” has become its own Maginot Line: a defense built for a war that arrives from an unexpected direction. Spectrum Magazine


But responsible caution about prophetic speculation is different from failing to name what is plainly visible. What Ellen White warned about was not an abstraction. She described, with remarkable specificity, a scenario in which the government of the United States would use religious rhetoric and official state power to privilege one form of Christianity, marginalize dissenters, and frame its military and political ambitions in the language of divine mandate. She warned that this process would begin gradually, that it would seem reasonable and even pious to many observers, and that its early stages would be dismissed as alarmist by people of good will.
The Adventist tradition does not claim to know the day or the hour. It does not know whether the Iran war is the beginning of Armageddon, or one more chapter in the long, terrible history of human conflict dressed in religious clothing. What it does know, with 180 years of institutional clarity, is what the early warning signs look like. And it knows that silence, when those signs appear, is not wisdom. It is abdication.
Ellen White wrote: “We are not doing the will of God if we sit in quietude, doing nothing to preserve liberty of conscience.” General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
This is not quietude.


What Religious Liberty Actually Requires
One source told the Washington Post: “I don’t approve of cramming your religious faith down people’s throats, and when the top of the chain couches these operations in this hyper-Christian tone, it flies in the face of the freedom of religion that the Constitution enshrines and that our men and women in uniform sign up to defend.” The Daily Beast
The military context makes this uniquely urgent. Civilians can walk away from a boss who proselytizes. Service members cannot walk away from a chain of command. When the Defense Secretary organizes monthly Christian worship services inside the Pentagon, reduces the military’s faith codes by 84 percent, marginalizes chaplains who do not share his theology, and prays in the name of Jesus Christ for overwhelming violence against the nation’s enemies, the constitutional concern is not abstract. It lands on real human beings who are already being asked to risk their lives.
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America put it well: “The idea behind faith in the military, whatever your faith is, is really useful in combat. However, being weaponized is the opposite of what the original intention is. People tune out, and that is really, really dangerous.” The Daily Beast


Iran’s general, responding to Trump’s Saturday ultimatum, reached for his own divine framing. The “gates of hell will open for you,” he wrote, echoing Trump’s language back at him. Two nuclear-adjacent powers, trading the language of holy wrath across an international crisis. The mirroring is not coincidental. It is precisely what happens when the leader of a nominally secular republic begins framing military action in the language of cosmic religious conflict. It licenses the same framing on the other side. It narrows the space for diplomacy. It raises the cost of backing down. And it tells everyone who might be persuaded toward peace that to stop fighting would be to defy God.
The archbishop of the military services said the war is hard to view “as something that would be sponsored by the Lord.”
The pope said God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.
Ellen White said the union of church and state, be the degree never so slight, brings the church nearer to the world.
On Saturday, the president closed a military ultimatum with a doxology.
The theological tradition these leaders claim to represent has a word for that. It is not “glory.”
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A Literal Reading of Israel and Its Enemies Misunderstands Revelation

The principle of “spiritual and worldwide” in relation to Israel can be seen throughout the book of Revelation. In Zechariah 12:10 the “inhabitants of Jerusalem” mourn over the one they have pierced. But In Revelation 1:7 it is “every eye” in the entire world that mourns over the one they pierced. What the Jerusalemites do in Zechariah the whole world does in Revelation. In Revelation 1:7 the author clearly takes a literal and local matter from Zechariah and expands it to the whole world in relation to Jesus Christ.

In Isaiah 34:9-10 the land of Edom (a small nation in the Old Testament) is said to burn forever, with smoke constantly going up. This passage refers to the local situation of one of Israel’s national enemies in the Old Testament. In Revelation 14:10-11, on the other hand, the experience of Edom is applied to everyone in the world who receives the mark of the beast, an end-time spiritual concept. Here again, the author of Revelation takes a literal and local matter related to one of the enemies of Israel and applies it in a spiritual and worldwide sense.

In Joel 3:12-13 the tiny “Valley of Jehoshaphat” outside Jerusalem is the scene of the final battle between Judah and its geographical enemies. The geographical location of the enemies in Joel is in what we call the Middle East today. In Revelation 14:14-20, on the other hand, “outside the city” clearly has to do with the enemies of God’s end-time people located all over the world (notice the six-fold repetition of “earth” in Revelation 14:14-20), rather than just a small valley outside of literal Jerusalem.

So in the book of Revelation, Israel, the neighbors of Israel and even Babylon and its river are all applied in a spiritual, world-wide sense. The key to the language is relationship with Jesus Christ. Those who are on the side of the Lamb are ranked with Israel. Those who find themselves in opposition to God are Babylon, Egypt, Edom and the Euphrates River. Just as Israel is to be understood as spiritual and world-wide, so Babylon in Revelation is also spiritual and world-wide.

The principle of spiritual and worldwide Israel (and its OT enemies) is crucial for understanding Revelation. If you read into the book of Revelation the literal and local things of the Old Testament, you will misunderstand the whole purpose and intent of the book. You will have a great deal of difficulty finding Jesus Christ in Revelation and Jesus Christ is what the whole book is supposed to be about (Rev 1:1). If a method of interpretation does not bring Jesus into clearer focus, the book of Revelation has not been rightly understood. In the book of Revelation all the other books of the Bible meet and end. In the book of Revelation, you find the Old Testament and the New Testament. You find a revelation of the gospel. Revelation makes the Old Testament come alive, because the things of the Old Testament are baptized into Jesus Christ and applied to people who are living in the last days. So, the book of Revelation can make the Old Testament come alive for God’s people today.

A Spiritual, Worldwide Israel

While I respect all godly Christians who differ with me on Revelation, I think the spiritual, worldwide nature of Israel in Revelation is easy enough to demonstrate, beginning with Rev 5:9-10. This text builds on Exodus 19:5-6, where ethnic, geographical Israel is a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Israel in Exodus was an ethnic group heading for a geographical place. But the New Israel of Revelation is the purchase of the cross, and is applied to people from every tribe, language, and nation. Rev 5:9-10 adopts the language of Old Testament Israel. But there is no ethnic or geographical limitation to the New Israel of Revelation 5.

Another example of the New Israel in Revelation is the 144,000. In Rev 7:4-8 there is a description of 144,000 individuals made up of 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. It sounds like a very ethnic group. But in the vision John never sees this group. Instead, when he looks he sees a great multitude that cannot be numbered, made up of people from every tribe, language and nation (7:9-10). This “heard” and “saw” pattern is common in Revelation (Rev 1:10-12; 5:5-6; 17:1-3; 21:9-10). What John hears described and what he sees seem very different, and yet at another level they are the same. So although he hears about 144,000 Israelites, the meaning of the image is not focused on ethnic Israel. Israel has spiritual, worldwide characteristics in Revelation. This has huge implications for the interpretation of much of the symbolism in the book.

In Revelation, not only Israel is seen in spiritual and worldwide terms, but the same is true of Israel’s enemies, such as Babylon and the beasts. Let’s look at a specific geographical term in Revelation 16:12: “The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the east.” If you take the language of Revelation literally, the Euphrates River must mean the Euphrates River, a literal, geographical spot in the Middle East (in modern day Iraq). But John himself explains what the Euphrates River is all about. Revelation 16:12 is part of the sixth plague. In Rev 17:1 he elaborates on the sixth plague when he describes a prostitute called Babylon sitting on “many waters” (the Euphrates River as described in Jer 51:13). The Euphrates River passed right through ancient Babylon. So the angel who comes to John in Revelation 17 is the sixth bowl angel. He has come to explain something about the Euphrates River. That something is found in Revelation 17:15.

“Then the angel said to me, ‘The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages.’” The waters John saw (in Rev 17:1) represented the Euphrates River. And what does the Euphrates River represent in Revelation? In verse 15 the angel tells us exactly. They are “peoples, multitudes, nations and languages.” The Euphrates River is a symbol of many nations– the political, secular, and economic powers of this world. In the Old Testament, the Euphrates River was a literal and local river but in the book of Revelation it is a symbol of world-wide powers in support of end-time Babylon. So not only Israel is seen in spiritual, worldwide terms, so are the enemies of Israel, represented as Babylon, the Euphrates River, Sodom, and Egypt. This is crucial for the interpretation of such symbols within Revelation.

The Church as a New Israel

But in what sense can the church be called Israel? Is it ethnic, geographical, or relational? In ethnic terms, Israel started out as a birth family with twelve sons physically descended from Jacob. But “Israel” as a name was not ethnic to begin with, it was the spiritual name given to Jacob after his wrestling match with the angel (Gen 32:24-30). The sons of Jacob/Israel first became a race, and then a nation. So should the church be called Israel in an ethnic sense? No. First of all, Israel as a name is a spiritual designation (Hebrew: yisra’el– “prince with God” or “one who strives with God” or simply “God strives”) rather than just a family name or the name of a country. From the beginning it applied to a spiritual victory in relation to God.

Revelation 5:9-10 applies the national language of kings and priests (Exod 19:5-6) to the New Testament people of God. It tells us that on the cross Jesus purchased His followers from every tribe, people, language, and nation and made them to be a kingdom of priests. So in Revelation the language of Israel is applied to all the people of the earth who accept Jesus Christ. Whoever is in relationship with Jesus belongs to Israel because Jesus Himself is the new Israel. When the language of Revelation 7:4-8, therefore, sounds as if the 144,000 are exclusively of the ethnic tribes of Israel, we need to remember that the things of Israel have been expanded in a spiritual way through relationship with Jesus Christ.

Jesus Himself is the new Israel, He has re-lived the experience of Israel during His earthly sojourn. Anyone who is in relationship with Jesus, therefore, is adopted into the family of the new Jacob. It doesn’t matter if you are German, African, Australian, Indian, or Chinese–it does not matter where you are from or what your ethnic background is–if you are in relationship with Jesus Christ, you are part of the family of Israel. So when Revelation uses the language and history of ancient Israel, we should not think in ethnic terms. When it comes to “Israel,” it is no longer who you are descended from but who you are related to that counts.

Old Testament Israel was also geographically oriented. The family/nation was attached to a particular place. They had borders–borders that would change from time to time–but were reasonably identifiable. Whenever individual Israelites moved away from that national territory, they would seize every opportunity to travel back home, particularly to Jerusalem. Should the church be thought of as Israel in geographical terms? The answer is also no. Jesus, the new Israel, is located in heavenly places (Rev 5:6-14; 7:15-17). There is no place on earth that is closer to Him than any other. No matter where you live you have equal access to Him through the Holy Spirit. To speak of the church in terms of Israel, then, is based on its relation to Jesus Christ. So while Revelation uses Old Testament language about Israel and its neighbors, the significance is neither ethnic nor geographical. Babylon, the Euphrates River, Jezebel, David, Egypt and Sodom are not to be understood in the old ethnic or geographical sense. They have to do with Jesus, the church, and the challenges the church faces in the course of Christian history.

The book of Revelation uses the geographical language of the Old Testament but the meaning of places and groups is different. Physical things about Israel and its neighbors are applied in a spiritual and world-wide sense. The new Israel, on the other hand, is not located in any one particular place or made up of any one particular people. Anyone in any place who is related to Jesus Christ can become a part of that new Israel. If the above is true, it has powerful implications for the interpretation of Revelation. An interpreter who misses this point will have as much difficulty understanding the book as will one who never heard of the Old Testament. Many sincere Christians do not read Revelation in this way. They believe that Revelation is not written to Christians, it is written to ethnic Jews living at the end of time. It really has nothing to do with the church, even though the beginning (1:11,19) and the end (22:16) seem to say that it does. We will look at evidence in Revelation that supports what I have been saying about New Testament Israel.

Israel and the Church in Revelation

This is the second in a series on Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation.

Just as Christ fulfilled the history of Israel in His own experience, so in Revelation the experience of the church is also modeled on that history. When the New Testament talks about the church, it often does so in the language of Israel. In 1 Peter 2:4-10, the members of the church are living stones built up into a spiritual temple. Peter then quotes texts in Hosea that applied to OT Israel and applies them to the church, including Gentiles in this new Israel. In 1 Corinthians 10 Paul likens baptism into Christ as a new Exodus through a new Red Sea. The experience of the church is modeled on that of OT Israel.

So when Revelation introduces the 144,000, 12,000 come from each of the twelve tribes of Israel (On the 144,000 as applying to the church rather than end-time literal Jews see Rev 7:4-8– Excursis on the 144,000). It is talking about the church as twelve spiritual tribes descended from the witness of the twelve apostles (see also Matt 19:27-28). The letters to the seven churches (chapters two and three) contain many references to the people of God in the OT. They will have access to the tree of life (Rev 2:7; Gen 2:17), they will receive the hidden manna (Rev 2:17; Exod 16:33), and they have among them Balaam (Rev 2:14; Num 22-24) and Jezebel (Rev 2:20; 1 Kings 18-21). The church, in the book of Revelation and throughout the New Testament, is modeled on the experience of Old Testament Israel.

So the church really has two models for its behavior. On the one hand, it is modeled on the experience of Old Testament Israel. In the book of Revelation the church is dealing with Sodom, Egypt, and Babylon (Rev 11:8) just as Old Testament Israel did. The experience of the church is described in the language of the past, the language of the Old Testament. But we have already seen that Jesus went through all the experiences of Old Testament Israel. So the church also models on Jesus Christ. “Where I am, there also will my servant be” (John 12:26). Jesus’ life, death and resurrection become models for the life, experience, and behavior of the church. In the book of Revelation, you can see it illustrated in some fascinating ways– the church is pursued into the wilderness (12:6,14), is put to death (6:9-10), endures suffering (13:9-10; 12:14), is made up of kings and priests (1:5-6; 5:9-10), serves 1260 days clothed in sackcloth (11:3– Jesus ministry was 3 1/2 years long), is slain and mocked (11:7-10), but is also resurrected and ascends to heaven (11:11-12). So in the book of Revelation, the church is described in terms of both Jesus and Israel.

Finding Christ in the Book of Revelation

From a New Testament perspective, all prophecy is Christ-centered. In other words, if one’s interpretation of prophecy does not deliver a clearer picture of Jesus, that prophecy has probably not been truly understood. If the interpreter is not careful, he or she might get the impression that the beasts, the vultures, the darkness, the earthquakes, and the hailstones are what the book of Revelation is all about. But they are more like the form in which the central message of the book is given. The true centerpiece of the book of Revelation is not war or catastrophe, it is Jesus Christ and him crucified. His presence permeates the book even when He is not named. Almost every chapter has a reference to Him in one way or another. Besides the direct use of His name, He is also observed in symbols like Son of Man (1:13), Lamb (5:6, and the male child of the woman (12;5). In addition to Christ, there are also references to churches and the cross (for example, Rev 1:5-6,11; 5:6; 11:11). To read this book without gaining a clearer picture of Jesus is to miss the key point.

In the book of Revelation, the symbols of the Old Testament are transformed because of what Christ has done. Revelation is built on the prior revelations in the Old Testament (also called the Hebrew Bible) and its major themes. But because of Jesus’ earthly life, His death and resurrection, and His ministry in the heavenly sanctuary, these Old Testament themes find fresh and creative meaning. Since the book of Revelation is a New Testament book, it picks up on the New Testament’s understanding of Old Testament themes in the light of the Christ event. While it is full of Old Testament symbolism, Revelation is a Christian book designed to teach us something about Jesus, life in the church, and the meaning of the cross.

This general picture (Revelation is a Christian book) is confirmed by an introductory statement in plain language near the beginning of the book, Revelation 1:5-6. There we are addressed with a minimum of symbolism, in language that cannot be misunderstood, as if John wanted to establish without question, right at the beginning, just what this book is about. It is about Jesus Christ, the “faithful martyr” (cross), “the firstborn from the dead” (resurrection), and the “ruler of the kings of the earth” (His ministry in heaven). No matter how strange the language of the book may seem, therefore, it is a deeply spiritual book, it unveils Jesus Christ and calls forth mighty songs of worship and praise. Jesus Christ is the center and substance of each part of the book, even the seals and the trumpets. He transforms the symbols and ideas the vision draws from the Old Testament. Truly in the book of Revelation “all the books of the Bible meet and end” (Ellen G. White, Acts of the Apostles, 585).

There is a basic insight that we need to keep in mind here. Throughout the New Testament, Christ is seen as the one who fulfilled the whole experience of God’s Old Testament people. The author of Revelation is constantly pointing to the New Testament Christ, but he is using Old Testament language to do it. God meets people where they are. John, as he is writing Revelation, sees the Christ of the New Testament in the Old. This leads to amazing depth when you dig behind the surface of the text, discover the Old Testament allusions, and see how the gospel transforms the Old Testament in the light of the doing and dying of Christ. For detailed study on how Christ fulfills the life and experience of God’s Old Testament people, see my book Meet God Again for the First Time, published by Review and Herald, 2003.

What I Think I Know About Rev 17: 8) The ten horns of Revelation 17 are distinct in meaning from the seven heads of the beast.

In Revelation 16 and 17 one encounters the kings of the east (16:12), the kings of the whole inhabited world (16:14), the kings of the earth (17:2), the seven kings (17:10), and now the ten kings (17:12)! We have seen that the kings of the whole inhabited world and the kings of the earth both represent the secular political alliance of the end-time. As such, they are to be equated with the Euphrates River and with the beast of Revelation itself in its final phase. We have seen that the kings of the east (Rev 16:12) are the end-time equivalent of Cyrus the Persian and his allies who conquered Babylon by drying up the Euphrates River. The kings of the east are represented by the Lamb and His called, chosen and faithful followers in Revelation 17:14. This leaves two groupings of kings unaccounted for, the seven heads of the beast, which are seven kings (Rev 17:9) and the ten horns of the beast, which are explained in 17:12-14. Both the seven heads and the seven horns are attached to the beast in the initial vision (Rev 17:3). What relationship do the seven kings and the ten kings have with each other, if any?

We have noticed already that the seven kings (the seven heads of the beast) are consecutive. In the explanation (17:7-18) of the vision (17:3-6), John is told that five are fallen, one is now, and one is yet to come. So while the beast is pictured with seven heads, the heads are not contemporaneous, they are consecutive. As in Revelation 13:14, when one of the beast’s heads is wounded to death (Rev 13:3), the whole beast dies and is then resurrected with a new head (Rev 13:14). So the seven heads (kings) represent seven consecutive phases of the beast.

In contrast, the ten horns, which are also pictured on the beast (17:3), are ten kings (Rev 17:12). As one pictures the beast, with its seven heads and ten horns, one might get the impression that the ten horns are scattered fairly evenly across the ten heads. But whoever they are, they are not an entity that existed in John’s day. They do not, in reality, have any connection with the seven heads except that all seventeen kings have some relation to the beast. But the seven and the ten are not contemporaneous with each other. The ten kings do not come into play on the world scene until the seventh head has passed off the scene. They are an end-time group without a pedigree or back story. Rather than being consecutive, they come to power together (17:12), they have authority together and take actions together (Rev 17:13-14), and they go out together (Rev 17:12, 14, 17). They receive their dominion along with the beast (17:12) in the last period of earth’s history, the time of the “eighth” (Rev 17:11), earth’s final crisis. It is not until the beast rises in support of Babylon during the final crisis, that they come into play.

Conclusion to the Whole Series
Revelation 17 is one of the most difficult passages in the whole Bible. For many years it made little sense to me. Little by little, some things began to fall into place and in this essay I have attempted share those things I think I have come to know about the chapter. There are many aspects of the chapter that are still a puzzle to me. I am hoping that, working together, we might be able to expand the elements of the chapter that I think I know.


What I Think I Know About Rev 17: 7) While Daniel 7 plays a strong role in the background of Revelation 17, the major Old Testament background is the fall of Babylon motif.

The fall of Babylon motif is signaled by Revelation 16:12 and 17:1, as noted earlier. The mention of the Euphrates River (Rev 16:12) and the “many waters” (Rev 17:1) are clear allusions to ancient Babylon and its fall to the armies of Cyrus, King of Persia. To understand this relationship, it is helpful to visit the fall of Babylon texts in Jeremiah and Isaiah. A good beginning point is Jeremiah 50:33-34 (NIV): “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘The people of Israel are oppressed, and the people of Judah as well. All their captors hold them fast, refusing to let them go. Yet their Redeemer is strong; the LORD Almighty is his name. He will vigorously defend their cause so that he may bring rest to their land, but unrest to those who live in Babylon.’” This text makes it clear that Babylon’s fall was not an accident. It was part of the direct purpose of God on account of Babylon’s oppression of God’s people.

God continues His indictment of the Babylonians in Jeremiah 50:35-36: “’A sword against the Babylonians!’ declares the LORD—‘against those who live in Babylon and against her officials and wise men! A sword against her false prophets! They will become fools. A sword against her warriors! They will be filled with terror.’” Yahweh’s attack against the Babylonians specifically targets Babylon’s officials, her wise men, her false prophets and her warriors. This is a listing of the people who made Babylon strong; her administrators, her thinkers, her religious leaders and her military personnel.

The prophecy continues in verse 37: “A sword against her horses and chariots and all the foreigners in her ranks! They will become women. A sword against her treasures! They will be plundered.” The previous verses talk about officials, wise men and warriors. Now this verse talks about horses and chariots, mercenary troops and treasures. Again this is a listing of the resources that make Babylon strong! But there is one more resource that has not yet been listed (Jer 50:38 [NIV]): “A drought on her waters! They will dry up. For it is a land of idols, idols that will go mad with terror.” What are the waters being dried up here? The waters of Babylon, the Euphrates River!
You see, the Euphrates River was part of the defenses of ancient Babylon. It provided a moat around the city that made an attack against the walls almost impossible to carry out. But the Euphrates River was even more than this in Jer 50:38. It had become a symbol of all the resources that supported ancient Babylon, including the warriors and officials and treasures that made Babylon strong. When Revelation 17:15 interprets the Euphrates River as a symbol of the civil and secular powers of this world in support of end-time Babylon, it is using the Euphrates River in a way consistent with its usage in the Old Testament. The drying up of the Euphrates symbolizes the loss of Babylon’s strength to defend herself. This theme is repeated in Jeremiah 51:36-37 and Isaiah 44:24-28, with the inclusion of Cyrus as a key player in the drama of drying up the Euphrates (Isa 45:1-4).

With this in mind, let’s summarize the fall of Babylon, as narrated in the Old Testament, in a sequence of five events. Cyrus, king of Persia (a “king from the east”—Rev 16:12), dried up the literal Euphrates River, conquered the city of Babylon, permitted Israel to go free, and arranged for the rebuilding of Jerusalem. This five-part narrative clearly sets the foundation for the last portion of the Book of Revelation (chapter 15-22). In the Book of Revelation an end-time Cyrus (the “kings from the rising of the sun”—Rev 16:12), dries up the end-time Euphrates River (Rev 16:12, cf. 17:15), delivers end-time Israel (Rev 18:20 – 19:1-5), leading to a New Jerusalem (Revelation 21-22). In other words, the fundamental narrative substructure of the Revelation 16-22 is grounded in the Old Testament story of Cyrus and Babylon’s fall. The conquest of Cyrus is, so to speak, a subtext for everything that happens in Revelation 16-22.

What I Think I Know About Rev 17: 6) While Revelation 17 takes a global approach to the end-times, The Great Controversy approaches the same events from a local perspective.


Revelation’s global (world-wide) approach to the final events of earth’s history is evident in the description of the major players. The secular/political entity of Revelation 17 involves “the kings of the earth” and “the inhabitants of the earth” (Rev 17:2), and “the kings of the whole inhabited world” (Rev 16:14). When “the cities of the nations fell” every mountain and island was affected, also a very global picture. The beast is venerated by “those who live on the earth” (Rev 17:8). The waters of 17:1 are “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and languages” (Rev 17:15).

Babylon is likewise global in scope. It is “the great city that rules over the kings of the earth”. It rides the beast, which represents the people and kings of the earth. So the interaction between Babylon and the beast, including Babylon’s destruction by the ten kings, is portrayed in world-wide, global terms. The experience of the saints at this time, therefore, is also seen in terms of the world-wide situation (Rev 17:6).

In the final crisis of earth’s history (as portrayed in Revelation 17) Babylon, which represents a worldwide alliance of religious institutions, controls the beast, which represents a worldwide alliance of secular, political, military institutions. Like the papacy in the Middle Ages, Babylon dominates “the kings of the earth” for a short time. But when the kings of the earth realize that in joining Babylon they have ended up on the losing side (Rev 17:14), they take out their frustration on the religious alliance that led them astray (Rev 17:16).

In sharp contrast, Ellen White, in the book The Great Controversy, approaches the same events from a local perspective. She begins her account of the final events with the close of probation, which she describes as “Christ ceasing His intercession in the sanctuary” (GC 627.3—this parallels Revelation 15:5-8). On page 628 of GC, she then describes the first four plagues of Revelation 16 with appropriate citations. She then pauses to describe the physical and emotional trauma that both God’s people and their opponents will experience during the plagues (GC 628-634). She also describes God’s efforts to help and encourage the saints during that time when some are in prison cells, and others are hidden in solitary retreats in the forests and the mountains (GC 635). She sees companies of armed men approaching these solitary groups to execute the death decree (Rev 13:15—GC 640). To human sight it appears that they are about to die (GC 630).

She then resumes her midrash on the seven bowl-plagues on page 636. God intervenes with a dense blackness, deeper than the darkness of the night (corresponding to the fifth bowl-plague (Rev 16:10-11). God then stops the angry multitudes in their tracks with a shining token of His approval of the huddled and praying saints. The angry mobs realize they have been deceived. This corresponds to the sixth bowl-plague, with its drying up of the Euphrates and its elaboration in 17:14-16. She then quotes portions of the seventh bowl-plague to describe the terror of the unsaved at many heavenly and earthly signs (GC 636-640).

Ellen White then returns to the forest scene where God’s people were suddenly delivered from the angry mobs (GC 640). She notes that the enemies of God’s law include from the ministers (religious leaders) down to the least among them (the followers). They find out “they have been fighting against God. Religious teachers have led souls to perdition while professing to guide them to the gates of Paradise” (still GC 640). Local religious leaders are the equivalent of Babylon in Revelation 17. The people who follow the religious leaders are the local equivalent of the beast and its ten horns. The angry mobs’ change of heart (GC 640) is the local equivalent of the drying up of the Euphrates. And the focus of God’s regard in this whole account is groups of faithful ones in prison or in hiding. These are the equivalent of the “saints” in Revelation 17:6. So while Revelation 17 takes a global approach to the end-times, The Great Controversy approaches the same events from a local perspective.

What I Think I Know About Rev 17: 5) The vision of Babylon in Revelation 17:1 to 19:10 is strongly parallel to the vision of the New Jerusalem in 21:9 – 22:5.


In the latter part of the book of Revelation, the New Jerusalem as the bride of the Lamb is set off in contrast to Babylon the prostitute. This parallel is tipped off by the opening lines of 17:1 and 21:9. Each verse begins with “One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me” (Greek of 17:1: kai ēlthen eis ek tōn hepta angelōn tōn echontōn tas hepta phialas kai elalēsen met emou; Greek of 21:9: kai ēlthen eis ek tōn hepta angelōn tōn echontōn tas hepta phialas . . . kai elalēsen met emou). The Greek of the two verses is identical with the exception that in 21:9 there is an explanatory insertion “which are filled with the seven last plagues” (Greek: tōn gemontōn tōn hepta plēgōn tōn eschatōn). This is way too many words in common to be an accident. The bowl angel of chapter 17 and the bowl angel of chapter 21 are one and the same.

The speech that follows in each case opens in the same way. “Come, I will show you” (Greek: deuro, deixō soi). In 17:1 the angel shows John the judgment of the great prostitute. In 21:9 the angel shows John the bride, the wife of the lamb, which is the New Jerusalem (21:9-11). The comparison between Babylon and the New Jerusalem could not be any clearer. The New Jerusalem comes down from heaven and settles on the ruins of Babylon (Robert Badenas, “New Jerusalem—The Holy City”, in Symposium on Revelation—Book II, edited by Frank B. Holbrook [Silver Spring, MD: Biblical Research Institute, 1992], 255-257).

There are numerous parallels that flow from this double introduction. In each case John is carried away in the Spirit (17:3; 21:10). He sees the great city Babylon (17:5, 18) and the holy city Jerusalem (21:10). The prostitute sits on many waters and the beast (17:1, 3), the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven from God (21:10). Both “women” are covered with previous jewels (17:4; 21:11). One city is the dwelling place of demons (18:2), the other is the dwelling place of God and His people (21:3). One is filled with unclean spirits, the other is empty of anything unclean (18:2; 21:27). The inhabitants of Babylon do not have their names written in the Book of Life (17:8), the inhabitants of Jerusalem do (21:27). The kings of the earth give their power to the beast (17:12-15), they bring glory and honor into the New Jerusalem (21:24).

The fates of the two cities are also in strong comparison and contrast. The fate of both cities is introduced with “It is done” (16:17; 21:6). Babylon receives the wine of God’s wrath (16:19), Jerusalem is for those who desire the water of life (21:6). The plagues of Babylon result in death (18:8), the New Jerusalem is a place where there is no more death (21:4). In Babylon the lamps go dark (18:23), in the New Jerusalem, the Lamb is its lamp, it is brightly lit (21:23, 25, 22:5). Babylon is thrown down with violence (18:23), the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem reign forever and ever (22:5). Underlying this whole contrast is the imagery of a prostitute (unfaithfulness to God) and the image of a bride (faithfulness to God). Human beings get to decide which city to live in and which fate will be theirs. So I think I know that the Babylon of Revelation 17 is strongly parallel to the New Jerusalem of 21-22.