I get at least three scam calls or texts a week. Who gets that many or even more? What I find surprising is the endless creativity, for example the recent my.gov angle. Also, just how many people are involved trying to steal my money! World crime has been estimated to generate $2T per year with counterfeiting ‘most profitable’. Illegal drugs are next. How do we make sense of this? And come to terms with international aggression such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Or senseless acts of terrorism and gun violence?
In our world the generous and good co-exist with evil. It has always been this way.
Some have argued that evil used to be easily identifiable, now, it has “gone underground.” Modern cultural critics blame deviant behaviour on “social forces” or “family dynamics.” Ultimately, the problem is, we have lost both the language and the ability to identify evil for what it is, and its ultimate source.
Today we look at how the early church understood the problem of evil.
Heaven and Earth
In the book of Revelation, we can get a glimpse of the joy in heaven at the presence and activity of the Holy Trinity: the Father as the ‘ancient of days’, Jesus as the sacrificial lamb and the Holy Spirit as the seven spirits. But there is also a shadow of the unholy trinity:
“And I saw three foul spirits like frogs coming from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet. These were demonic spirits, performing signs who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.” (16:13-14)
The Dragon or Satan is never portrayed as all-powerful. Michael the Archangel defeated Satan and his army of fallen angels, so there was no longer any place for them in heaven. John observed, “The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world ? he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” (12:9) There is a sense of desperation in the struggle of Satan for “he knows that his time is short!” (12:12). Apparently, his goal is to create as much chaos in the time that he has left. The counter-point to Satan is God the Father.
The Antichrist is the beast who comes out of the sea (13:1, cf. Daniel 7:17 “these four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth”. The beast’s power, throne and authority were given by the Dragon or Satan (13:2). He seems to have been wounded but this was healed causing “the whole earth followed the beast with wonder” (13:3). This imitates the death and resurrection of Jesus, but is clearly an Anti-Christ. The people worship the beast saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” (13:4). The beast seems to be a military leader who was “allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. Authority was given to this being over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.” (13:7)
The only NT use of the word Antichrist is in the Johannine Epistles 1 John 2:18 “you have heard that the Antichrist is coming”. So, we know from this verse that any early church did have a widespread belief in an apocalyptic figure coming at the end of time. Also, false teachers were equated with forthcoming of the Antichrist (1 John 4:3), since heresy is a precursor of that final deception. Another possible mention of the Antichrist is as “the man of lawlessness” (2 Thess 2:1-12). This has some possible historic president when the emperor Caligula had threatened to set up a statue of himself in the Jerusalem Temple. This was because the Jews did not accept his divine status. Caligula was assassinated in A.D. 41 about 10 years before the letter to the Thessalonians. It is interesting to compare these NT references to intertestamental Judaism which had some anti-Messiah figures, for example in the Sibylline Oracles 3, 63-74 describes the coming of Beliar to perform seductive miracles and lead astray even some among the faithful. The Apocalypse of Elijah 3: 5-13 “son of lawlessness” will cause the sun to fall and the moon to turn to blood. He will perform any counterfeit miracles and set itself up as a false Messiah. Thus, the anti-Christ theme developed late in the intertestamental period but did not have a full-fledged emphasis until the Christian era.
The false prophet is introduced in Revelation 13:11-15 (cf.19:20, 20:10). Whereas the beast was a military leader, the false prophet has a more religious function, deceiving the world into worshipping the Antichrist. As the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ (John 16:14), so the false prophet glorifies the Antichrist (13:12) and receives his authority from this figure. The imperial cult was promoted by “the Commune of Asia”, whose president was called the Asiarch, citizens were required to participate in the cult. Of all the emperors Domitian especially encouraged this, calling himself “Dominus et Deus noster” (our Lord and God). In Ephesus, for example, there were temples to Julius Caesar, Augustus, Domitian, and later Hadrian.
The great signs mimic the work of Christ (Rev 13:13-14) and counterfeit miracles that deceive were part of the Jewish apocalyptic tradition and in the NT. The “image of the beast” (13:15) recalls Daniel (3:1-6) where King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold to which his subjects were to “fall down and worship the golden image” and the three wise men were thrown into the furnace of fire. The image of the beast is said to “even speak” (13:15). While the priests at the time were not above using pulleys and trickery with ventriloquism to make their images appear alive, most intelligent people of the ancient world readily distinguished between the image and the pagan god. We can conclude that the Roman world was enamoured with magicians and such miracles but according to Revelation the Antichrist will exceed such deeds. He himself will be raised from the dead and his “Minister of Propaganda” will cause the statue to come to life and speak. The writer of Revelation anticipates the execution of anyone who refused to worship the statue.
The mark of the beast is placed on all “both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead.” (13:16). The mark is a seal indicating ownership. Some commentators have seen this as a parody of baptism, the seal of Christians. In Roman practice, taxes or brands were placed on slaves to indicate ownership as well as soldiers who were members of certain cults who devoted themselves to a particular God.
There is mention of a number of the beast “for it is a human number, its number is 666.” (13:18). The ancient practice called “gamatria” was based on the fact that letters of the alphabet were also used as numbers and counting. It is possible the writer used 666 as a threefold counterpart (similar to “holy holy holy”, Rev 4:8). It is fair to say that only the first century readers might have understood some of the symbols we see here, but it’s hard to say how much they knew.
How do we apply this?
Weird and wonderful! But how is this relevant in the second and third decade of the 21st century? I have avoided any question of prediction, such as whether Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump might fulfil a role outlined in this book. On that score I am completely agnostic. Behind all this colourful imagery, I believe that the early church, who were still living in the memory of Christ and ‘battle hardened’ by imperial persecution, had some valuable insights.
First, evil is present, seemingly all-powerful, but and it is a big BUT, limited. Only God is all-powerful, but he gives power to Satan and his emissaries for a time. Revelation concludes with a powerful vision of a final reckoning and an un-ending kingdom of peace lasting into eternity. That we will see in the last sermon in this series.
Second, evil is always personal. In the Book of Revelation evil is betrayed as a rebellion against an all-holy God. All are conscious beings, whether human or spiritual, so the choice is made to oppose God. It is choices that matter.
Environmental movements have used the motto is: Think global; Act local. In light of our focus on Revelation I want to re-write this to: Think cosmic; Act domestic. Not quite as catchy? In all seriousness we are called to do what we can for what matters: the environment, social inequality, injustice, and international disasters. It may feel like a drop-in-the-bucket, but it is about personal conflict and it is ultimately a battle of cosmic forces.
I will conclude with the example of Charles de Gaulle. In June of 1940, which Marshal Petain announced that France had fallen, de Gaulle started making broadcasts from London insisting that France had not been defeated and there was still hope. Quickly he became the focus of French resistance…but nobody knew who he was. They weren’t sure what his name was or how he spelled it. One resister, an art historian named Agnès Humbert, wrote:
“How bizarre it all is! Here we are, most of us on the wrong side of forty, careering along like students all fired up with passion and fervour, in the wake of a leader of whom we know absolutely nothing, of whom none of us has even seen a photograph. In the whole course of human history, has there ever been anything quite like it?”
These resisters of the Nazi conquest didn’t know the first thing about de Gaulle, but he became the focus of their determination, the embodiment of their hopes. So too we are in a battle with a largely unknown leader, but we have hope and are assured of an ultimate victory.
The Rev’d Dr Bruce Stevens supply minister at GUC 2022-23.