War in Heaven
Memory Text: “And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17, NKJV).
Revelation 12 is the Great Controversy in miniature, starting when Lucifer’s sin caused a war in heaven and ending when the saints are eternally victorious.
And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Rev. 12:7-9
And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Rev. 12:3-4.
Two weeks ago, I noted that, “in Genesis, the serpent is just a talking animal; it isn’t until Revelation, at the whole other end of the Bible, written well over a thousand years later, that we are told that the serpent was the devil, Satan.” When I wrote that, I had not seen the next quarter’s lessons, but as Providence would have it, here we are, at the very spot where the serpent is identified as the Devil, Satan.
Here, we are given what screenwriters call the “backstory,” the history of that old serpent, the devil or Satan, before he showed up in the Garden of Eden to tempt Eve. As it turns out he came from heaven. He had been a heavenly creature. But not just any heavenly creature, the greatest being God had ever created—until wickedness was found in him:
You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.
You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.
Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. Ezek. 28:12-17.
Once iniquity was found in Lucifer, he went about tempting the angels to join his rebellion. Sadly, he was successful in convincing a third of the angels, “a third of the stars of heaven,” (Rev. 12:4) to join him. This led inevitably to war in heaven, because God’s government and Satan’s government cannot coexist. One must be victorious, the other vanquished:
And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Rev. 12:7-9
Satan and the third of the angels who followed him were cast out of heaven.
When the seventy-two returned with joy to Christ, they said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in Your name.” As if to say, “that’s nothing, I prevailed over the chief demon in heaven,” Jesus replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” “Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Luke 10:17-20.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Isa. 14:12-15.
Satan is a defeated foe. He has already lost the cosmic battle with Christ.
“Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.” Rev. 12:1-2.
Who is the woman? The church of Jesus Christ is always depicted as a woman, a pure bride wearing white, so to speak. Gal. 4:21-31; Eph. 5:23-32; 2 Cor. 11:2; Rev. 19:7-8. The fallen or false church is depicted as a woman of easy virtue, or a prostitute. Rev. 17.
Why is she clothed with the sun, having the moon at her feet? Uriah Smith suggests it is because the Church basks in the bright sunlight of the gospel era, the experience of having had Jesus Christ on earth, whereas the church of the Old Testament had only the pale reflection in the moon, the reflection of the gospel in types and shadows. The New Testament church is standing on that moon, symbolizing that she is grounded upon the Mosaic revelation and the Old Testament, but is clothed with the bright sunlight of the gospels’ revelation of Jesus Christ, God incarnate.
In reality, Christ gave birth to his church, but in this symbolic passage, the woman--the church—is depicted as giving birth to Christ. But there is an immediate threat to the Christ child:
“And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.” Rev. 12:4
There is that old dragon called the devil and Satan, up to no good, as usual. The symbol of the dragon does triple duty in Revelation 12, primarily symbolizing Satan, as in verses 7 to 9, but also symbolizing entities that Satan worked through: Rome in its pagan phase (v. 4) and also Rome’s papal phase (v. 14).
King Herod, a Jewish king but a client of the pagan Roman Empire, which had conquered Judea and Samaria over 60 years before, tries to kill Jesus immediately, to “devour him as soon as he was born.” Mat. 2. But the wise men from the East foil his plans.
She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. Rev. 12:5
The iron scepter symbolizes the fact that the kingdom of God’s Son, Jesus Christ’s eternal kingdom, will be unbreakable. Daniel 7:13-14; Psalm 2. Sin and rebellion will never arise again. Nahum 1:9. And of course Jesus was caught up to heaven (Acts 1:11) after once again gaining victory—through his perfect, sinless life and substitutionary death--over that old serpent called the devil and the adversary.
Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days. Rev. 12:6
But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. Rev. 12:14
These verses refer to a time when God’s true church is forced underground, “into the wilderness,” by Satan and the red dragon of Rome, during its papal phase. Pursuant to the day-year principle, the 1,260 days are not literal days but symbolic days and literal years. The time, times and half a time are the same prophetic period; a “time” was a year, hence the latter description refers to three and a half prophetic years, or 1,260 prophetic days, which is 1,260 literal years.
Adventists traditionally date this prophetic period from 538 A.D. to 1798.
Why 538? The Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian had decreed in 533 that the bishop of Rome was to be the unquestioned head of all Christian churches, but with the Goths dominating the Italian peninsula, that decree was ineffectual. In 538, Belisarius won a victory over the Ostrogoths, breaking the siege of Rome and beginning the downfall of the Goths in Italy. This allowed the bishop of Rome to rule in fact as well as in theory.
It also allowed Justinian to concentrate on theology, ruling on doctrinal minutia and using religion to try to re-unify the old Roman Empire, which was long gone. Justinian ultimately failed at political re-unification, but he did greatly help the bishopric of Rome, which effectively assumed the mantle of pagan Rome, taking “its power, its seat, and great authority” (Rev. 13:2), and one of the titles of the Roman emperors, “Pontifex Maximus,” the great bridge-builder.
1798 was the year when the post-revolution French General, Louis-Alexandre Berthier, later Napoleon’s chief of staff, arrested Pope Pius VI (Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi) and imprisoned him at Valence, where he soon died. This symbolically ended the pope’s temporal, or earthly, power which had been waning since the Reformation in the 16th Century, and administered a “deadly wound” which will later be healed. Rev. 13:2
“And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Rev. 12:17.
Elsewhere we are told that “the testimony of Jesus Christ is the Spirit of Prophecy.” Rev. 19:10. Here is a hint that Satan is not yet finished persecuting God’s true church, those who keep the commandments and who listen obediently to what Jesus Christ would tell us through His prophets, and rely on Him for pardon, power, and ultimate salvation. The gift of prophecy enrages the dragon; he wants to destroy all prophets and prophecy.
So it will get worse before it gets better, but we are promised that we can overcome by the blood of Jesus Christ, and by sealing our testimony and witness with our lives:
“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” Rev. 12:11-12.
We might yet have to bear witness with our lives. Are you ready for the coming test?
Is the Harvest Ripe?
Memory Text: “Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, ‘Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe’” (Revelation 14:14, 15, NKJV).
Is the harvest ripe? The better question is: are the harvests ripe, because Revelation fourteen tells of two harvests. Just as there are two general resurrections of the dead (John 5:28–29; Acts 24:15; Rev. 20:5-6), so there are also two harvests.
First comes Jesus’ harvest which, like the first resurrection, is the one we fervently want to be included within, because it means eternal life:
“I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, ‘Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’ So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.” Revelation 14:14-15
The Son of Man
John, the Seer of Patmos, “the disciple that Jesus loved (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20),” sees someone who looks like “a son of man,” sitting on a cloud. John is describing Jesus Christ using Daniel’s prophetic term (Daniel 7:13-14) which was also what Stephen, under inspiration, called Christ (Acts 7:56). Perhaps most surprisingly, “son of man” was Jesus’ favorite term for himself. (Mark 2:10-11; 8:31; 14:62; Mat. 9:6; Luke 5:24; 9:22)
Why does Jesus so often call Himself the son of man?
At first blush, what seems most important to us about Jesus Christ is exactly that He was not just another man; Jesus was the Son of God. (Isa. 9:6; John 1:1; Luke 1:35; Mat. 14:33) He was the only man in history who was both fully God, as well as fully human. Yet Jesus did not go around referring to Himself as the son of God. Quite the opposite, he kept that under His hat, so to speak, allowing it to be revealed to select ones at certain times. For example, when Peter testified that Jesus was the Son of God, “Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.’” Mat. 16:17.
I have often wondered about Jesus’ use the term “son of man.” It seems strange that He would describe Himself as being, in effect, just like everybody else, for we are all sons of men, all human beings. But, of course, it is exactly to emphasize what Jesus has in common with the rest of us that He calls Himself the son of man.
The author of Hebrews makes it beautifully clear that Jesus Christ could not effectively serve as our example, our helper, our substitutionary sacrifice, our advocate, and our heavenly high priest and mediator if He did not share in our humanity:
“For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, in order to make atonement for the sins of the people. Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted. Heb. 2:17-18.
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Heb. 4:15.
“He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.” Heb. 5:2
In 1995, Joan Osborne released a pop song asking, “What if God was one of us?” It became a huge hit. Of course, the Christian religion is premised on exactly the fact that God was one of us. Jesus Christ was one of us, is one of us, and will always be one of us.
I noted above that, at first blush, what seemed most important about Jesus is that He was the son of God. But after one has accepted by faith the truth that Jesus was God, then the most astonishing thing becomes His decision to become one of us, to become Immanuel, “God with us,” to save as many of us as He could.
An amazing mystery of love, one we will study throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity, is that Jesus, who was God from eternity, consented to become a man, born of a human woman, suffering all the pain and weakness of humanity, and dying a painful death.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Philip. 2:5-8.
The description “son of man” highlights this most amazing aspect of Jesus’ love for fallen sinners. Jesus was a divine being, part of the Godhead in heaven:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1.
Yet the divine Word consented to be born a human being so that He could save us. Through his sinless life and substitutionary death, the son of man brought heaven--eternal life in a sinless paradise--within my grasp and yours! It is too wonderful to fully comprehend, which is why we’ll need eternity to comprehend it. But, for now, the phrase “son of man” should ever be a most precious sound, bringing joy and gratitude to our hearts.
The Harvest is Ripe
Note that the son of man is not in the temple, or heavenly sanctuary, but is sitting on a cloud. This introduces a timing element: if Jesus is not in the sanctuary, then the investigative judgement has ended, probation has closed, and Jesus has pronounced,
“He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Rev. 22:11-12
Probation is closed, the investigative judgment is finished, and everyone’s eternal destiny has been determined and fixed. The redeemed are, indeed, living without a mediator because Christ’s mediatorial role has come to an end. But, contrary to what some conservative Adventists imply, we cannot be lost during this time because our eternal destiny has already been determined. The truth that we are to live without a mediator between the close of probation and the Second Coming can be a terror to no one who understands the prophecies.
A surprising aspect of the memory passage is that the angel coming out of the temple cries with a loud voice at Jesus, saying, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” This is surprising because we are not used to seeing anyone yelling orders at Jesus. What is up with this rude angel?
One possible interpretation is that the angel coming out of the temple and crying out to the son of man symbolizes the prayers of the saints. In biblical typology, incense represents prayers (Psalm 141:2; Rev. 5:8). The altar of incense was a fixture in the earthly sanctuary, on which the priest was to burn incense twice a day, in the morning and in the evening (Ex. 30:7-8). The earthly sanctuary has its anti-typical counterpart in heaven (Heb. 8:5), and John was shown an angel with a censor burning incense to mingle with the prayers of the saints (Rev. 8:3-4). Clearly, our prayers ascend to the heavenly sanctuary, but when Jesus leaves the sanctuary they will still follow him, in this case, out of the temple to where He is seated on the cloud.
The saints of God are under terrible duress at this time. They are crying out to Jesus, “Hurry up and come gather in your harvest!” Uriah Smith suggests that their prayer is that of Luke 18:7-8:
And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
And, finally, Jesus acts in answer to the prayers. “So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.” The redeemed are at long last gathered from the earth and taken up to heaven to be with the Lord.
The Bad Reaping
There is another reaping, a second reaping, corresponding to the second resurrection. We do not want to be any part of this:
“Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, ‘Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.’ The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia.” Rev. 14:17-20.
Blood as high as a horse’s bridle, for 180 miles
A horse’s bridle is typically five feet or more off the ground. A stadion was 607 feet or 185 meters, so 1,600 stadia equals 184 miles or 296 kilometers. So the blood was five feet deep for 184 miles. That is awful a lot of blood. It vividly conveys the reality that most of the world’s inhabitants will not be saved.
Interestingly, it is not the son of man, Jesus, who carries out this second reaping. Jesus does the good reaping of verse 15, but He is not here depicted as being the one who reaps the grapes into the winepress of God’s wrath.
The Everlasting Gospel
Memory Text: “Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth — to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people” (Revelation 14:6, NKJV).
The three angels’ messages are first and foremost about the gospel.
The Everlasting Gospel
What is the gospel? The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins. What we could not do for ourselves, God stepped in and did for us. We cannot build a Tower of Babel to heaven, so God lowered a ladder down to us in the form of the only begotten Son of God, God incarnate, whose perfect life and substitutionary death makes heaven possible for us.
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom 5:6-8. NIV
“being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Rom. 3:24-26 NKJV
Notice four points in these passages from Paul’s epistle to the Romans:
1. We are justified freely by grace. “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, lest any should boast.” Eph. 2:8-9. “knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Gal. 2:16. “He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Titus 3:5
2. Grace is a declaration of God’s righteousness. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. “It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” Rom. 9:16.
3. Grace justifies those who by faith accept Jesus. “We believe it is through the grace of the Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." Acts. 15:10. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Mark 16:16.
4. God’s love was demonstrated for us while we were yet sinners. “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!” Eph 2:4-5. “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” 1 Peter 1:18-20. “He has saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but by His own purpose and by the grace He granted us in Christ Jesus before time began.” 2 Tim. 1:9.
Christ experienced the fullness of the Father’s wrath against sin; He was rejected so that we could be accepted. He died the death that was ours, so we could live the life that was His. This is the everlasting gospel, what the angel has for us, and for the whole world.
The three angels messages in Revelation 14 are first and foremost about the gospel, the good news of Christ’s saving death on our behalf.
“He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.’” Rev. 14:7
How is this specific message of the first angel about the gospel?
The Hour of His Judgment is Come
Seventh-day Adventists have always read the phrase “because the hour of his judgment has come” in light of our interpretation of Daniel 8:14, “Unto 2,300 days, and then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”
William Miller correctly discerned that the 2,300 were prophetic days/literal years, that began in 457 BC and ended in 1844 AD. But Miller believed that the cleansing of the sanctuary referenced in Daniel 8:14 was the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to this earth when, in fact, the prophecy refers to the cleansing of the sanctuary in heaven in the anti-typical day of atonement. It was this heavenly sanctuary that would begin to be cleansed in 1844.
Part of this cleansing process is the investigative judgment, during which is determined the genuineness of every claim on the blood of Christ. The sins of those who are adjudged redeemed are placed upon the scapegoat, who symbolizes Satan, and removed from the sanctuary that way, whereas the sins of those whose claim upon Christ is adjudged false go back on themselves. In both cases, the sins are removed from the sanctuary and consumed in the lake of fire, after the millennium, when the New Jerusalem descends to the earth. It is only then that the earth is cleansed in the manner William Miller believed would happen in 1844.
So “the hour of his judgment is come” refers to a most solemn spiritual reality taking place in the heavenly sanctuary. Armed with this interpretation of Daniel 8:14, the Adventist pioneers realized that the first angel of Revelation 14 was speaking directly to them. The hour of God’s investigative judgement in heaven had indeed come, but only the early Adventists knew this, and it dawned on them that God was specially commissioning them to share that knowledge with the whole world.
What must be emphasized, for present purposes, is that the heavenly sanctuary is all about the gospel. The author of Hebrews explains that Jesus is our heavenly high priest, pleading his merits on our behalf before the Father in the sanctuary in heaven. He is our high priest, after the order of Melchizedek. Heb. 5:6-10; 6:19-20.
“. . . because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.” Heb. 7:23-8:2.
“But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, . . . he entered the Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. . . . For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” Heb. 9:11-15.
“But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” Heb. 9:26-28
The heavenly sanctuary is all about the gospel, all about Christ our heavenly mediator, pleading His blood and righteousness on our behalf. When we think of the heavenly sanctuary, we should be thinking gospel, more gospel, and everlasting gospel.
Even the investigative judgment, the thought of which seems so frightening, is all about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and His grace to us in blotting out the record of our trespasses:
Jesus will appear as their advocate, to plead in their behalf before God. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” 1 John 2:1. “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” “Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” Hebrews 9:24; 7:25. Great Controversy, p. 482.4
All who have truly repented of sin, and by faith claimed the blood of Christ as their atoning sacrifice, have had pardon entered against their names in the books of heaven . . . The Lord declares, by the prophet Isaiah: “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Isaiah 43:25. Said Jesus: . . . “Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven.” Revelation 3:5; Matthew 10:32, 33. GC. 483.2
Worship Him Who Made the Heavens, the Earth
How is worshiping the Creator God about the gospel? For one thing, the whole gospel is contingent upon Darwinism being false and Biblical creationism being true. I’ve a written much about this, including this passage from my book Dinosaurs- An Adventist View:
“The doctrine of creation is central to the doctrine of Christ, because it is central to the purpose of Christ’s death on the cross. The central Christian belief—a doctrine not peculiar to any sect or denomination—is that Christ, through His atoning sacrifice as the Lamb of God, is the Redeemer of mankind. This is the sine qua non of Christianity. But why does mankind need redemption? Mankind is sinful and is in need of redemption because of Adam’s sin and the resulting fall of the human race. The Bible specifically teaches that Christ was the second Adam, who overcame where the first Adam failed.
But according to the basic tenets of Darwinism, there never was an Adam. Darwinism teaches that man evolved from lower primates. Since there was no Adam, Adam never sinned, and there never was a fall of mankind. Far from suffering the effects of a “Fall,” mankind has experienced a spectacular rise from bacteria to Beethoven, from microbe to Mozart, from single cell to Shakespeare, from ameba to Einstein. Although not created in the image of any god, mankind has somehow managed to separate himself from all other animals by developing self-awareness and civilization, with its government, religion, commerce, law, science, technology, art, literature, theater, philosophy, etc.
Since there never was a Fall, mankind does not need redemption or atonement. Christ’s role as redeemer of a fallen humanity is obliterated. One commentator on the relationship between science and theology put it this way: “The traditional view of redemption as reconciliation and ransom from the consequences of Adam’s fall is nonsense for anyone who knows about the evolutionary background to human existence.”
Those who would delete the first ten chapters of Genesis would fatally undermine the entirety of Scripture. The creation, the Fall, the plan of salvation, the sacrificial system—these are all laid out in the first ten chapters of Genesis. Without this foundation, none of the rest makes sense. Jesus pointed out that Moses’ writings were about Himself (Luke 24:25-27; John 5:39) and that faith in Moses’ writings was a prerequisite to faith in Himself: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” John 5:46, 47 (RSV).
Yes, the gospel is at the very heart of the first angel’s message to worship the Creator God.
For Seventh-day Adventists, the first angel’s message to “worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water” is a reference to Exodus 20:11, the Fourth Commandment, telling us to worship the Lord of the Sabbath, the Lord who made the heavens and the earth in six literal, 24-hour days, and rested on the seventh day, setting it aside and making it holy. How is the Sabbath about the gospel?
In one of the most prominent Sabbath passages in the New Testament, the author of Hebrews tells us that the Sabbath symbolizes God’s finished work of salvation on our behalf; indeed, the Sabbath is a type of justification by faith—resting from your own works to celebrate what God has accomplished on our behalf:
“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.” Heb. 4:9-10.
Again, the Sabbath symbolizes the Gospel. It is all about what Jesus has done for us!
We could go on and talk about the second angel’s message that “Babylon [Rome] is fallen, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” What was Rome’s unfaithfulness, which she enforced on the whole Christian world? She compromised with, syncretized, and incorporated into herself all the pagan religions—all of which were, and are, based upon salvation by human effort—and lost sight of the pure gospel. The Reformation came when Martin Luther rediscovered the truth that “the just shall live by faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4; Rom 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38) The thunderous truth of the Reformation, which shook the Christian world to its foundations, was that all Rome’s schemes and artifices to sell salvation and paradise were a fraud, because salvation is a gift Christ has given us with His death on the cross of Calvary. (John 3:16; 4:10; Rom. 5:15; 6:23; 8:32; Eph. 2:8)
What is the third angel’s message about? About a Beast substituting human effort, and a humanly-devised day of rest, for the Sabbath that God created and made holy, which, as we have just seen, symbolizes resting in Christ’s salvation freely given us. The mark of the Beast is to build a Tower of Babel to reach the heavens by our own efforts and might, instead of relying upon the ladder that God in His mercy has lowered to us.
We cannot discuss the second and third angels in depth here. The point is that the three angels’ messages, as understood and taught by Seventh-day Adventists, are all about the everlasting gospel! We need not be bashful, but rather should be bold, in teaching and preaching these messages God has given us, because they are, in verity, about justification by faith in the saving merit of Jesus Christ. They are about the everlasting gospel.
Glorifying God
Memory Text: “Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12, NKJV).
Alternate Memory Text: “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgement is come.” Rev. 14:7
How do we go about fearing and glorifying God, given that we are living during the investigative judgment in Heaven, the final event to take place before Christ will return in the clouds of glory?
We are living in the anti-typical day of atonement. On the typical day of atonement which came once a year, Israel was ordered to “aflict your souls.” Lev. 16:29. What does it mean to aflict one’s soul?
To this day, believing Jews still observe the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, and still wrestle with what it means to aflict one’s soul. They go to synagogue, pray, and fast until sunset. Self denial is an important part of the observance of the Day of Atonement.
We who understand the solemn spiritual truths the earthly Day of Atonement typifies should be living lives of prayer and self-denial. We should be confessing our sins, overcoming them and putting them away with God’s help, and relying on the grace of Jesus Christ to blot them out of the books of heaven when our case comes up for review.
Fearing and glorifying God means, at a minimum, obeying His commands: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” Eccl. 12:13-14.
We should be living a God-centered life. Even though we have to live in the world and we must earn a living, making a living must not preoccupy us and become our sole focus. Rather we should seek first God’s righteousness and His kingdom: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” Mat. 6:33.
Whatever we do should be done for the glory of God, including what we eat and drink: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 10:31 “ For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” 1 Cor. 6:20.
Glorifying God means worshiping God, not least with our minds. God made us intelligent creatures and He expects intelligent worship, not just emotional, ecstatic or spiritual worship. “Come let us reason together,” says Christ. Isa. 1:18. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Phil 2:5.
Worshiping God with our minds means meditating on good, praiseworthy things: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy — meditate on these things.” (Phil. 4:8, NKJV).
Glorifying God with our minds means that the products of our minds should glorify God, and be based upon the spiritual realities that God has revealed to us in His word. That means that any ideology we subscribe to must not be founded upon atheism or any other satanic lie—which excludes Marxism, or any variant or outgrowth of Marxism or cultural Marxism. We cannot glorify and worship God with our minds, if our minds are occupied by the construction, study, or teaching of anti-God ideologies such as Darwinism, Marxism, Freudianism, etc.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Rom. 12:1
Thrones Set in Place and Books Opened
Memory Text: “Saying with a loud voice, ’Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water’ ” (Revelation 14:7, NKJV).
The hour of God’s judgment is come, says the first angel. But when and where is that judgment to take place?
Daniel answers both questions.
First there are four kingdoms: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Then Rome falls and gives way to ten kingdoms, the ten “barbarian” tribes that took over the Western Roman Empire. But then a different kind of king arises, speaking blasphemies and seeking to change times and laws. This is the transition from pagan Rome to papal Rome, the Roman Catholic Church of the middle ages. The papacy uproots or displaces three of the kings which took over from pagan Rome.
Suddenly, Daniel sees something completely different:
“As I loooked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.
His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool.
His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened. Dan. 7:9-10
Daniel’s attention is taken away from the march of earthly kingdoms across the pages of history, and he is shown a scene that is very clearly set in heaven.
Based upon the fact that “books were opened” and “thrones were set in place,” we know that this is a time and a place of judgment, because we are judged by what is written in the books.
“And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.” Rev. 20:12
Daniel and John are both showing us the same thing: a scene of judgment in heaven. So the “where” is simple: the judgement takes place in heaven.
And when is this judgment in heaven to take place?
The judgment scene in heaven is in Daniel 7:9-10, after the little horn has established itself by uprooting three of the ten barbarian tribes that invaded Rome, which happens in Daniel 7:8.
The sequence is that (1) the little horn establishes itself, (2) the judgment opens in heaven, (3) Daniel’s attention is returned to earth, where he “continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking.”
So John sees the establishment of the little horn, then the judgment opens in heaven, then John sees that the little horn is still speaking blasphemy. Then “I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire.” Dan. 7:11.
So this judgment in heaven opens after the little horn is established but before this king is ultimately destroyed in the execution of the judgment, shortly after the visible second coming of Christ.
We must underscore this point: The judgment in heaven begins before the Second Coming. It takes place before the Second Adventist of Christ, which is why we call it a “pre-Advent judgment.”
This is logically inescapable: The judgment in heaven must take place before the Second Advent, i.e., it must be a pre-Advent judgment, because when Jesus returns to earth he “has his reward with him.” Rev. 22:12
“Behold, I am coming soon, and My reward is with Me, to give to each one according to what he has done.”
So since Christ is to give each according to what he has done, the examination of the books of heaven to see what each of us has done, has to have taken place before Christ returns.
By the way, the same principle is set out in the Old Testament; indeed, Revelation 22:12 is a quotation of Isaiah:
“Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and His arm establishes His rule. His reward is with Him, and His recompense accompanies Him. Isa. 40:10
“Behold, the LORD has proclaimed to the ends of the earth, ‘Say to Daughter Zion: See, your Savior comes! Look, His reward is with Him, and His recompense goes before Him.’” Isa. 62:11
And Jesus himself clearly stated the same thing: “For the son of man will come in His Father’s glory with His angels, and then He will repay each one according to what he has done.” Mat. 16:27.
But the time window in which the heavenly judgment can take place is still very large, because we believe that the little horn, the papacy, had consolidated its power by 538 AD, but the Second Coming final execution of judgment is still in the future, lo these 1,485 years later.
But when the when the angel interprets the dream for Daniel, he tremendously narrows the window for the heavenly judgment.
“He gave me this explanation: ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time. But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Dan. 7:23-27.
Here, we are told that the the little horn, the diverse or different king, persecutes the saints for a times and half a time. This is three and one-half prophetic years, which is 1,260 prophetic days/literal years. It is only after this 1,260 year period that the “court will sit,” meaning that the judgment in heaven will convene.
If we start the 1,260 years in 538 AD, this prophetic period ends in 1798, the year the pope is taken prisoner by forces from revolutionary France, giving the papacy its “deadly wound.” Only after this prophetic period expires will the “books be opened and the thrones set in place.” So now we should be looking for this judgment in heaven to begin after 1798. Again, that narrows the window a great deal, from 1,485 years to just the period after 1798, or the past 225 years.
Can we narrow it further?
The vision in Daniel 8 begins with the Ram with two horns (Medo-Persia) and ends with the little horn. “How long shall be the vision?” And he said to me, “Unto 2,300 days, and then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”
Given that the 2,300 prophetic days/literal years includes the entire length of the vision in Daniel 8, we should expect it to begin during the time of the Medes and the Persians, and end during the time of the little horn, which is the span of the vision in Daniel 8.
Beginning the prophetic period in 457 BC, during the time of Medo-Persia, brings the 2,300 year period to a close in 1844, during the time of the little horn power. This period also ends after 1798, which is within the window predicted by Daniel 7:23-27. Everything fits together very exactly.
The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. Rev. 3:5
The Four Hundred Ninety Years
Memory Text: “And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand” (Romans 13:11, 12, NKJV).
Last week, we saw that, 1) the judgment takes place in heaven and 2) it begins after the establishment of the little horn power and after the expiration of the 1,260 prophetic days/literal years, so after 1798.
We also saw that if we begin the 2,300 prophetic day/literal year period in 457 BC, it ends in 1844, which is after 1798, which is right on target. But how do we know that the 2,300 days begins in 457 BC?
The answer is based in Daniel 9, where we can see a Messianic prophecy that has been perfectly fulfilled if we start in 457 BC.
After a season of fervent prayer, Daniel is visited by a heavenly messenger, the angel Gabriel. He has an important message for Daniel about another time period. He tells Daniel:
Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Gabriel tells Daniel, “your people,” the Jews, have 70 weeks of probationary time remaining. Seventy weeks is seventy “sevens” or 490 prophetic days/literal years.
This period of 490 years begins “from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem.” The Bible records several decrees helpful to the Jews and Judea issuing from various rulers of the Medo-Persian Empire. So we must work backward from the fulfillment of the prophecy, and the prophecy clearly points toward Christ:
“to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.”
Only Jesus brings in “everlasting righteousness,” and only Jesus is the “most Holy.” “To anoint the most Holy” refers to Jesus being “the anointed one,” or the Messiah (in Hebrew) or the Christ (in Greek). Only Jesus is “Messiah the Prince.” It is very clear that the prophecy conveyed by the Gabriel to Daniel is a Messianic prophecy.
The period from the going forth of the command until “Messiah the Prince” is “seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks,” which is a total of 69 weeks, or 483 years. If we end this period in 27 AD, when Christ began his public ministry, was baptized and hence officially becomes the “anointed one,” the Messiah, it begins in 457 BC (there is no zero year).
This takes us back to the reign of Artaxerxes, as described in the biblical book of Ezra, particularly the seventh chapter of that book; the decree described there must be the one that Gabriel pointed out to Daniel. Ezra 7:8 tells us, “They arrived at Jerusalem in the fifth month of the seventh year of the king’s reign.” Historians believe that Artaxerxes’ father, Xerxes, was murdered in 465 BC, by the commander of his palace guard, but Artaxerxes did not become king until 464, which would make his seventh year 457. William Shea has produced a more detailed discussion of this dating.
Gabriel’s prophecy has a non-linear, or what we might loosely call “chiastic,” structure; it does not go in chronological order. The structure is: JTJT—Jesus, Titus, Jesus, Titus. The Jesus part is this: J2: “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.” How?: J1: “shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself.”
Jesus began his public ministry in 27 AD, but it did not last the full week, the full seven years; Jesus was “cut off” in the middle of the week, dying on the cross after 3 and 1/2 years of public ministry, in the spring of 31 AD.
But He was “cut off” not for Himself but on our behalf, so that we could be saved. His death on the cross fulfilled the Old Testament system of substitutionary, expiatory sacrifices, which were brought to the sanctuary. The great substitutionary sacrifice necessary to save fallen sinners was Jesus’ death on the cross.
And, of course, this was how Jesus “caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease.” Christ having made the real sacrifice, that sacrifice no longer needed to be typified by the sanctuary system of lambs and other animal sacrifices. “These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” Col 2:17. Type had met anti-type.
Gabriel’s prophecy given to Daniel revealed that Christ, the Messiah, would be crucified and cause the sacrificial system to cease in its symbolic importance in the spring of A.D. 31. These predictions were fulfilled in every detail. Exactly at Passover, when the high priest was offering the Passover lamb, Christ was sacrificed for us.
The 490 years that were appointed or decreed for the Jewish nation came to a close in 34 AD, with the stoning of Stephen; that is when their national probation ended. The gospel, and all the “oracles of God”—the patrimony of the Hebrew Scriptures—were then given to the gentiles. We see a vivid picture of God’s patience in giving the Jews almost half a millennium of additional probation after their captivity in Babylon. God never gives up on anyone or any group of people too soon.
Terrible things were soon to happen. Now we enter the Titus part of the prophecy: T1: “and the people of the prince that shall come [Titus] shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.” T2: “and for the overspreading of abominations he [Titus] shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
This prophecy saw its fulfillment in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem, “the city,” and Herod’s Temple, the Second Temple, “the sanctuary.” Jesus pointed out that “the abomination of desolation written about by the prophet Daniel” would be fulfilled when the Roman armies surrounded Jerusalem:
“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand). Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house. Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.” Mat. 24:16-18.
“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that her desolation is near.” Luke 21:20
The prophecy that Gabriel told Daniel, recorded in Daniel 9, was fulfilled very exactly in the time-frame specified. Thus, we know that 457 BC is the right date to start the 490 years. But is it also the right date to begin the 2,300 years, which would then end in 1844?
Because the 490 years are a subsequently given time prophecy, it makes since that they would link back to the time prophecy of Daniel 8:14. It also stands to reason that, because no starting date was given for the 2,300 years, the starting date specified for the 490 years should also apply to the 2,300 years as well.
But, ultimately, the final rationale is that it just fits. We know from Daniel seven that the judgment in heaven cannot begin until the little horn power is established, and until he has persecuted the saints for 1,260 years, ending in 1798. Thus a date that ends in 1844 fits the whole prophetic scheme of the book of Daniel.
Worshiping the Creator
Memory Text: “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11, NKJV).
Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water. Rev. 14:6-7
This angel with the everlasting gospel tells us to “worship Him who made the heavens, the earth, sea and the springs of water.” There is no gospel without the Creator God. There is no Christianity without the Christ through whom God the Father created the universe. Heb. 1:2 We covered this briefly in the lesson for April 15th, but we will cover it in greater depth here.
Ever since the long ages geology and then, shortly thereafter, Darwinism took over the scientific world, Christians have sought some way to harmonize these “scientific” theories with Bible Christianity and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christians want to be peacemakers, because our Lord said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Mat. 5:9.
Alas, it cannot be done. Those naturalistic theories fatally undermine the biblical narrative and the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were created in order to provide a rational underpinning for atheism, and they cannot be made compatible with the true origins God has revealed in his word.
A. The Implications of Lyellism[1] for Christianity
I call long-ages geology “Lyellism” after its foremost expositor, the lawyer-turned-armchair-geologist, Charles Lyell. Lyellism drastically undermines the Bible and biblical Christianity. The Bible states that the earth, with its plants and animals, was created in six days. Gen. 1:1 - 2:3; Ex. 20:11; 31:17. If Lyell was correct, however, the plants and animals were created over the course of almost 600 million years. That is a big difference. Lyellian geological theory could not possibly be farther from the biblical teaching.
We tend to forget that God created the world in six days. God foresaw this tendency and told us to remember it. He hallowed the Sabbath as a memorial to His creation. “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating he had done.” Gen. 2:2, 3 (NIV).[i]
After the Exodus from Egypt, when God was teaching the Israelites His laws, He used the manna to teach Sabbath observance. One day’s worth of manna was collected each morning, but it would not keep overnight. Ex. 16:15-20. On the sixth day, however, the Israelites were to collect two day’s worth, and it would keep overnight and throughout the Sabbath day. Thus, they did not need to collect manna on Sabbath morning, and those who went out to collect it found none. Ex. 16:5, 6, 22-30.
In the fourth of the Ten Commandments, God commands us to observe the Sabbath:
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Ex. 20: 8-11 (NIV, emphasis added).
God states within the commandment itself that the Sabbath is a memorial to the creation week. This would have been a remarkably dishonest thing for God to do if the world had been made over the course of hundreds of millions of years, rather than in six days.
The uniqueness and importance of the Ten Commandments cannot be overemphasized. Accompanied by thunder and lightning, God descended to Mount Sinai and audibly spoke the Ten Commandments within the hearing of the entire congregation of Israel. Ex. 20:1-21; Deut. 4:10-13. God Himself inscribed the Ten Commandments in stone tablets. Deut. 4:13; Ex. 31:18. God did not take these extraordinary measures with any other of the laws and regulations He gave to the Israelites. Although Moses, in indignation at Israel’s idolatry, smashed the original stone tablets, God commanded him to chisel out two more tablets, upon which God re-inscribed the Ten Commandments, again with His own finger. Ex. 34:1, 28; Deut. 10:1-4.
The new tablets, called the tablets of the Testimony, were placed inside the Ark of the Testimony. Ex. 34:29; 40:20; Deut. 10:5. The ark of the Testimony, also called the Ark of the Covenant, was a wooden box overlain with gold, with a solid gold lid, called the mercy seat or atonement cover. Affixed to the lid on each side were golden sculptures of angels, or cherubim, with their wings overshadowing the middle. Ex. 25:10-22.
The ark was the most sacred article of furniture in the sanctuary. Only the Levites were allowed to carry it, one man was struck dead for touching it without authority, and seventy men of Beth-Shemesh were slain for looking inside it. Deut. 10:8; 2 Sam. 6:6, 7; 1 Sam. 6:19.
The ark was placed in the most sacred compartment of the sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. Ex. 26:33, 34. The visible manifestation of God’s presence, the glory of God that some rabbis called the “Shekinah Glory,” was just above the ark, between the cherubim. Ex. 25:22; Lev. 16:2; 2 Sam. 6:2; Psalms 99:1; Ezek. 9:3. Only the high priest was allowed to look upon the ark, and then only once a year on the Day of Atonement. Even on the Day of Atonement, the high priest could not enter without incense and the blood of a sacrifice. Lev. 16.
To summarize, the most sacred compartment of the sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, contained the most sacred article of furniture, the Ark of the Testimony. Above the Ark dwelt the visible glory of God, and within the Ark were the tablets of the Testimony. The tablets contained the Ten Commandments, in the middle of which is the Fourth Commandment. The Fourth Commandment contains God’s statement, written by His own finger, that He created the world and all its creatures in six days. But if Lyell was correct, God’s statement, at the very center of the Hebrew religion, is at best a practical joke.
The symbolism of the sanctuary services is clear. Sin, the broken law, has resulted in man’s alienation from God, with death as the inevitable result. 1 John 3:4; Rom. 4:15, 6:23. The blood of Christ is the only sacrifice that can secure mercy and atonement with God. 1 John 2:1, 2; Heb. 9:11-28. This is the very heart of Christianity, its core doctrine. The broken law creates the need for the atonement of Christ. Whatever denigrates the law also denigrates the need for the atonement. A Lyellian interpretation of the strata leads to the conclusion that the world was not created in six days. Therefore, the commandment to observe the Sabbath as a memorial to the six-day creation is void. This is how Lyellism nullifies part of the law and, to the same extent, nullifies the atonement.
Lyellism directly conflicts with the Bible regarding Noah’s Flood. Chapters six through nine of the book of Genesis contain a description of the events leading up to the Flood, the Flood itself, and its aftermath. All humanity, all the land animals, and all the birds, with the exception of those on Noah’s ark, were destroyed. Gen. 7:21-23. Jesus Christ attests to the historical reality of the Flood. Mat. 24:37-39; Luke 17: 26, 27 (“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the Flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the Flood came and took them all away.”) Peter attests to the reality of the Flood, as does the author of Hebrews. 2 Peter 2:5; 3:5, 7; Hebrews 11:7. After the Flood, God made a covenant with Noah and the animals that He would never again destroy the world with water. The rainbow is the symbol of this covenant. Gen. 9:8-17.
But Lyellism denies that a worldwide flood ever occurred. If Lyell was correct, the Flood story, Noah, his ark, and God’s covenant sealed and symbolized by the rainbow, were all invented out of whole cloth, and should not be understood as factual or historical.
Lyellism also seriously erodes the doctrine of the Fall. The Bible teaches that death entered the world because of Adam’s sin, with the resulting fall of the human race. Rom. 5:12. (“[S]in entered the world through one man, and death through sin”). The Bible teaches that death entered not only the human race, but also the entire creation, as a result of Adam’s sin. Rom. 8:18-22.[ii]
The sedimentary strata show man at the top, and the entombed remains of a large variety of animals far down into the crust of the earth. If interpreted according to Lyellian assumptions, the strata show that death reigned for hundreds of millions of years before man ever appeared on the scene. Thus, in the Lyellian system, death, as a general phenomenon, cannot have been caused by the fall of mankind.
This was noticed early in the Lyellian revolution. American geologist and clergyman Edward Hitchcock, writing in 1840, stated:
The general interpretation of the Bible has been, that until the fall of man, death did not exist in the world even among the inferior animals. For the Bible asserts that by man came death (1 Cor. 15:21) and by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin (Rom. 5:12). But geology [Lyellism] teaches us that myriads of animals lived and died before the creation of man.[iii]
If death is not a result of the fall, then it must be part of God’s plan—part of the creation that God declared “very good.” (Gen. 1:31.)
The Bible also teaches that the animals were created to eat grass and other vegetation, not each other. “And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” Gen. 1:30 (NIV, emphasis added). In the earth made new, the animals will not prey on each other or on man. Isaiah 11:6-9. (“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb . . . the lion shall eat straw like an ox. . . . They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.”) If all animals were created herbivores, and in Heaven will again be herbivores, the predatory nature of animals must be a result of the Fall.[iv]
If Lyell was correct, however, nature was “red in tooth and claw”[v] long before Adam sinned. The dinosaurs provide many examples of meat-eating predators. Tyrannosaurus rex had powerful jaws packing sixty teeth, the exposed portions of which were six inches long, sharp, and serrated. In a single bite, T. rex could snap off a chunk of meat weighing five hundred pounds.[vi] T. rex was one of a group of carnivorous dinosaurs called theropods (“beast foot”).
A disturbing picture of God emerges if one accepts Lyellism. God claims to have created the world in six days and destroyed it by a universal Flood, neither of which is true. He placed the Sabbath, a memorial of the six-day creation, at the center of the Ten Commandments, despite knowing the world was not created in six days. If one accepts Lyell, the Bible is also wrong in teaching that sin caused violence and death. These things existed for many millions of years before man was created. If the lion is indeed to lie down with the lamb in the Earth made new, it will be a marked departure from the order of God’s original creation. For the Lyellian, not as much was lost by the Fall as Christians had always believed, and therefore not as much has been redeemed by the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Lyellism severely damages the integrity of biblical Christianity.
B. The Implications of Darwinism for Christianity
In this discussion, Darwinism does not mean “change over time,” diversification and speciation within the basic types of animals, or small evolutionary changes sometimes called “micro-evolution.” As used in this chapter, the term Darwinism means the larger claims of Darwinism—the microbes-to-man theory of evolution, in which a cell assembled itself, breathed life into itself, and then evolved into ever higher and more complex life forms. Most importantly, Darwinism means that man evolved from the apes and was not specially created by God.
From beginning to end, the Bible claims that God created the heavens and the earth,[i] that God is the creator of the entire universe,[ii] that God created the animals,[iii] and that God created man in God’s own image.[iv] If the Bible is wrong in these claims, it is not a trustworthy witness, and none of its other claims are credible.
Kurt Wise convinced himself of this by conducting a remarkable experiment. Wise had become interested in science at a young age and, by the time he was in the eighth grade, aspired to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. But he soon began to wonder whether the Darwinism and Lyellism of modern “science” were consistent with his deeply held faith in Christ and the Scriptures through which he had come to know Christ. To test the prominence of the doctrine of creation, Wise took a new Bible and a pair of scissors, and began reading and cutting:
Beginning at Genesis 1:1, I determined to cut out every verse in the Bible that would have to be taken out to believe in evolution. Wanting this to be as fair as possible, and giving the benefit of the doubt to evolution, I determined to read all the verses on both sides of a page and cut out every other verse, being careful not to cut the margin of the page, but to poke the page in the midst of the verse and cut the verse out around that. In this fashion, night after night, for weeks and months, I set about the task of systematically going through the entire Bible from cover to cover. Although the end of the matter seemed obvious pretty early on, I persevered.[v]
At the end of the experiment, there was not much left of Wise’s Bible. It fell apart in his hands as he tried to lift it. “I had to make a decision between evolution and Scripture. Either the Scripture was true and evolution was wrong or evolution was true and I must toss out the Bible.”
Wise chose to believe in the veracity of Scripture. He did not give up his dream, however, and eventually earned that Harvard Ph.D. All through the many years of formal education at institutions steeped in Darwinism, Wise has remained a biblical creationist. He now teaches at Dayton, Tennessee, the site of the famous Scopes trial, at a college named after William Jennings Bryan.
If its foundational teaching on creation is wrong, the Bible is impeached beyond any hope of rehabilitation. There is no reason to believe it the inspired Word of God. There is no reason to treat it differently than any other ancient literature. We would sadly have to agree with Charles Darwin that the Scriptures are “no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindus.”[vi] If Darwinism is true, the Bible has no better claim to our time than Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Chaucer, and Shakespeare. It is merely literature to which the educated should be exposed.
Those Christians who would so casually discard the doctrine of creation do not seem to appreciate its centrality to the core doctrines of the faith. It is central to the doctrine of Christ, because, first of all, Christ is the Creator. The opening chapters of Hebrews and the Gospel of John confirm that God created the world through Jesus Christ. “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:2. “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.” Heb. 1:2. The bible clearly teaches that Christ is God and was with the Father from the beginning, and the Father created all things through Christ. Yet if Darwinism is correct, the universe created itself, and Christ created nothing. Darwinism demotes Christ from His office of Creator.
Second, the doctrine of creation is central to the doctrine of Christ, because it is central to the purpose of Christ’s death on the cross. The central Christian belief—a doctrine not peculiar to any sect or denomination—is that Christ, through His atoning sacrifice as the Lamb of God, is the Redeemer of mankind.[vii] This is the sine qua non of Christianity. But why does mankind need redemption? Mankind is sinful and is in need of redemption because of Adam’s sin and the resulting fall of the human race.[viii] The Bible specifically teaches that Christ was the second Adam, who overcame where the first Adam failed.[ix]
But according to the basic tenets of Darwinism, there never was an Adam. Darwinism teaches that man evolved from lower primates. Since there was no Adam, Adam never sinned, and there never was a fall of mankind. Far from suffering the effects of a “Fall,” mankind has experienced a spectacular rise from bacteria to Beethoven, from microbe to Mozart, from single cell to Shakespeare, from ameba to Einstein. Although not created in the image of any god, mankind has somehow managed to separate himself from all other animals by developing self-awareness and civilization, with its government, religion, commerce, law, science, technology, art, literature, theater, philosophy, etc.
Since there never was a Fall, mankind does not need redemption or atonement. Christ’s role as redeemer of a fallen humanity is obliterated. One commentator on the relationship between science and theology put it this way: “The traditional [Biblical] view of redemption as reconciliation and ransom from the consequences of Adam’s fall is nonsense for anyone who knows about the evolutionary background to human existence.”[x] Since Darwinism destroys Christ’s role as Redeemer, it effectively destroys Christianity:
Evolution . . . contradicts the basic foundations of Christianity. As Leonard Verduin asserted, “in the place of the story of a ‘Fall’ has come the story of an ascent.” Christianity and evolution are diametrically opposed. Either our first parents were created in the image of God and experienced a fall into sin or they did not. If they did not, then why be Christian? Calvary most radically questions evolution. If there has been no fall, why would we need God to die in our behalf?[xi]
Those who would delete the first ten chapters of Genesis would fatally undermine the entirety of Scripture. The creation, the Fall, the plan of salvation, the sacrificial system—these are all laid out in the first ten chapters of Genesis. Without this foundation, none of the rest makes sense. Jesus pointed out that Moses’ writings were about Himself (Luke 24:25-27; John 5:39) and that faith in Moses’ writings was a prerequisite to faith in Himself: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” John 5:46, 47 (RSV).
Christ can still be a moral teacher and a moral example, of course, but Christianity consists of far more than morals and ethics. The field of ethics is open to anyone of any religious persuasion, including atheists and agnostics. Indeed, the eighteenth-century gentlemen who founded the United States believed that moral and ethical principles could be discerned without recourse to revealed religion; the truths of “natural law” were “self-evident” to men such as Thomas Jefferson. Atheists, agnostics, animists, ancestor worshipers, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Muslims, and Jews can be moral and ethical. To be a Christian, however, one must believe that Christ died to save fallen humanity. If there was no Fall, there can be no Christianity.
All attempts to reconcile Darwinism and Christianity founder on the doctrine of the Fall, a doctrine that, as Herman Melville noted, is “now popularly ignored.”[xii] Michael Ruse made an attempt to reconcile Darwinism and Christianity in his book Can a Darwinian Be a Christian?[xiii] Ruse notes that an essential component of Christian theology “is that humans are descended from a unique pair (monogenism). That part of the Adam and Eve story cannot be interpreted symbolically.” Having conceded that the Adam and Eve story must be taken literally for Christianity to work, Ruse admits that it “goes completely against our thinking about the nature of the evolutionary process. Successful species like humans do not pass through single-pair bottlenecks: there is certainly no evidence that this was true of Homo sapiens, a species which seems to have been well spread around the earth.”[xiv]
After returning to the subject later in the book, Ruse admits that there had to be a fall in order for Christianity to make sense. “In the course of evolution, there must have been a first moment of conscious moral choice. That is the point at which the ‘fall of humanity’ began and humans were estranged from that natural fellowship with God which should have been theirs, and from their natural ability to relate unselfishly to one another.”[xv]
But Ruse is once again forced to admit that although this is necessary to Christianity, it is not compatible with Darwinism:
If one is an evolutionist of any kind, then the Adam and Eve story must be modified in some respect. . . . the Garden of Eden scenario, with the lion lying down with the lamb, sticks in the craw of the evolutionist. And the whole business of an original, unique Adam and Eve goes flatly against modern evolutionary biology. . . . Is one supposed to believe that the parents of Adam and Eve—for they will have had such in the evolutionary story, if not in Genesis—were soulless or sinless or what? And what about their brothers and sisters, and the next generation of Homo sapiens, most of whom were not descended from Adam and Eve?[xvi]
“Obviously,” writes Ruse in his epilogue, “if you are a fundamentalist Christian, then the Darwinian reading of Genesis is going to give you major problems—insoluble problems, I suspect.” But all versions of Christianity have Christ in the office of Redeemer and mankind in a fallen condition from which he needs redemption. That is not “fundamentalism.” That is mere Christianity.
Those who believe that Christianity is compatible with Darwinism are not thinking the problem through to its logical conclusion. Stephen Jay Gould—who was not a Christian, but Jewish in ethnicity and Marxist in politics—claimed that there is no conflict between science and religion because they have separate, non-overlapping “magisteria,” or teaching domains. He wrote that, “science and religion should be equal, mutually respecting partners, each the master of its own domain, and with each domain vital to human life in a different way.”[xvii]
This sounds reasonable, but it is wrong. Christianity and “science” do have overlapping teaching domains, because they both teach on origins, and without its doctrine of origins, Christianity is a deracinated, senseless mess. Those who would avoid the conflict between evolution and creation by consigning science and religion to separate domains are condemning Christians to a kind of schizophrenia in which they are asked to believe scientific “facts” that are in gross conflict with their Christian beliefs.
Not all Darwinists pretend there is no conflict between evolution and Christianity. In fact, many are refreshingly honest about the conflict.[xviii] Will Provine, a Darwinist professor at Cornell University, has written, “As the creationists claim, belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.”[xix]
In a debate with Provine, Phillip Johnson stated it this way: “The implication of evolutionary biology . . . is perhaps not exactly that God does not exist. If God does exist, however, existing is about the only thing He has ever done.”[xx] Provine stated that Darwin developed the theory of natural selection with an expressly anti-Christian purpose in mind. “He believed that inventing the idea of natural selection was like committing murder. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was murdering the cultural tradition in which he had been raised, and in which Phil continues to live (rather belatedly).”[xxi]
Christians should not fool themselves about the atheistic implications of Darwinism. Before the triumph of Darwinism, atheism was a minority position among intellectuals, because atheists were forced to violate common sense by positing a self-created universe. Nineteenth-century intellectuals were anxious to substitute a naturalistic understanding of origins. By supplying the crucial biological thesis, Darwin paved the way for atheistic domination of intellectual life.[xxii]
Darwin was not a believer. Although he studied theology at Cambridge, he had lost faith long before he formulated his theory of evolution by natural selection. Interestingly, the false doctrine of an eternally burning hell was instrumental in turning Darwin away from Christianity. In his autobiography, Darwin wrote:
I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true: for if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.[xxiii]
It certainly is, but Darwin was mistaken in believing that it is Scriptural.[xxiv] It is regrettable that Christians have preached this doctrine, maligning the character of the loving God of the Bible:
It is beyond the power of the human mind to estimate the evil that has been wrought by the heresy of eternal torment. The religion of the Bible, full of love and goodness, and abounding in compassion, is darkened by superstition and clothed with terror. When we consider in what false colors Satan has painted the character of God, can we wonder that our merciful Creator is feared, dreaded, and even hated? The appalling views of God which have spread over the world from the teachings of the pulpit have made thousands, yes, millions, of skeptics and infidels.[xxv]
The heresy of eternal torment made an atheist of Darwin, and Darwin has made atheists of millions of people. Christians should not say that doctrines do not matter, that only one’s relationship with Christ matters. Doctrines matter enormously because of the picture of God they portray, which bears on whether God is Someone people would want to have a close relationship with.
But if Darwinism is incompatible with Christianity, why is Christianity still so healthy in the United States? The answer is simple: most American Christians ignore Darwinism. A Gallup poll taken in November 2004 showed that 45 percent of Americans, the largest group, believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form within the past 10,000 years. Another 38 percent believe that God guided the process of evolution.[xxvi] Only 13 percent said they believed in evolution with no guidance or participation by God.[xxvii] This last position, held by only a small minority, is the position of “science” and the scientific community. These polling data, which have not changed significantly since Gallup began asking this question in 1982, are a source of frustration for Darwinists, who are constantly trying to increase public acceptance of evolution. Darwinists jealously guard their monopoly in the public schools, although 68 percent of Americans believe that creationism should be taught along with evolution in public schools.[xxviii]
The effect that Darwinism has had upon Christianity is best seen in Western and Northern Europe, where Christianity exists largely as a cultural heritage, rather than as a living religion, and opinion leaders are bitterly hostile to creationism.[xxix] Church is very sparsely attended, with fewer than 10 percent of the people attending church regularly, as compared to about 40 percent in the United States.
We are also seeing the effects of Darwinism in the liberal protestant denominations of the United States. These have yielded to the Darwinists, undercutting the foundations of their faith. Since the 1960s, they have suffered a precipitous decline in membership:
The most significant fact about the mainline Protestant churches in America in the past two decades has been the drastic decline in membership. This began in the 1960s and has continued to the present. . . . It is difficult to conceptualize the extent of the membership declines suffered by the mainline churches during the 1970s and early 1980s. Every week these denominations averaged a decline of over five thousand; this is the equivalent of mainline Protestantism’s closing one local church of almost seven hundred members every day for a decade and a half.[xxx]
Between 1965 and 2001, the Episcopal Church lost more than a million members, shrinking from 3.6 million to 2.5 million. Between 1970 and 1984, the Methodists closed 2,665 local churches, an average of nearly four per week.[xxxi] In a fifteen-year period between 1968 and 1983, the Presbyterians lost 25 percent of their members, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) lost 29 percent. Attendance was also down.[xxxii]
These churches’ repudiation of the doctrine of creation, which occurred during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, did not lead directly to the decline in membership. Rather, it contributed to a long process (arguably begun in the 18th Century by German “higher criticism”) whereby the authority of Scripture was eviscerated and pastors lost interest in biblical preaching.
The creation week and the Flood are unacceptable to modern, naturalistic “science” because they depend upon the supernatural, upon God’s miraculous power. But every other miracle in the Bible is just as unacceptable to science, for exactly the same reason. If we toss out the doctrine of creation because “science” doesn’t like it, we must soon jettison every miracle in Scripture. And that is just what happened in the mainline protestant seminaries, where naturalistic explanations were sought for every miracle in the Bible.
Throwing out its miracles robs the Bible of its power and spiritual sustenance. It compromises or destroys the most precious promises in Scripture. To choose one among many possible examples, the Bible teaches that those who have died in Christ will be resurrected with a new body, even if their ashes have been scattered to the winds.[xxxiii] Obviously, the bodily resurrection taught in Scripture is no less miraculous than the original creation. If God lacked the ability to create two of us in one day, how can He recreate millions of us at the resurrection? What is left of Christianity after the great truths concerning the creation, the Fall, the plan of salvation, Christ’s miracles, Christ’s redeeming sacrifice as the second Adam, and the resurrection from the dead, are all tossed out?
Seminary professors taught their students to be embarrassed about every miracle in the Bible. Since there is a miracle on almost every page, seminary-trained pastors soon lost interest in biblical preaching. By the 1960s, three generations later, the mainline protestant denominations were totally devoted to some form of social or political teaching, at the expense of religion.[xxxiv] As the Methodist writers quoted above describe it:
Our mission has been reduced to politics, our Social Principles mirror, to a great extent, the political opinions from one part (generally the left) of the secular political spectrum. When our church speaks, it speaks mostly in political terms rather than religious ones. The programs of many of our local churches appear to be a mix of activities from the Y.M.C.A., the Garden Club, and the League of Women Voters.[xxxv]
It is not difficult to imagine how this would adversely affect attendance. If politics is all a pastor has to offer, why not stay home on Sunday morning and watch Meet the Press?
By contrast, the more conservative protestant denominations—which have not abandoned miracles, the doctrine of creation, or biblical preaching—are relatively healthy and growing.[xxxvi] Obviously, many things other than doctrine play a role in church growth and decline; in fact, doctrine may not matter as much as other factors, such as whether the congregation is kind and loving. But for people who care about intellectual integrity, any compromise with Darwinism is extremely corrosive to faith, and renders plenary biblical faith impossible.
To summarize what we have learned in the last two chapters, Lyellism can be compatible with Christianity only if one accepts a special creation of man at the top of the geologic column. Even then, the Bible is drastically undermined because, (1) not all living things were created in six days, and thus the Sabbath commandment is something of a hoax, (2) death and predation were not caused by sin, and (3) the world-wide Flood described in Genesis never happened, and all references to it, including those from the mouths of Jesus and Peter, are misleading. Nevertheless, with those limitations, it is possible to be both a Lyellian and a Christian.
Modern Lyellism is for all practical purposes, however, inseparable from Darwinism, and it is not possible to be a Darwinist and an intellectually consistent Christian. If Darwinism is true, Christianity is utter nonsense. By natural selection acting upon random genetic mutations, microbes evolved by stages into humanity. The story is one of amazing progress from a lower to a higher plane of existence. There were no perfect “Adam and Eve,” no “sin,” and no “Fall.” Since there was no sin and no Fall, we have no need of a Redeemer. Death is a natural, necessary, and indispensable part of life, not the result of a fallen condition from which we need redemption. If Darwinism is true, any thought of Christianity being true is out of the question.
[i] Gen. 1:1; Ex. 20:11; 31:17; 2 Kings 19:15; 2 Chron. 2:12; Neh. 9:6; Job 38:4; Psa. 90:2; 102:25; 104:5; 115:15; 124:8; 146:5, 6; Prov. 8:27-29; Isa. 37:16; 45:18; 66:1, 2; Jer. 10:12; 32:17; 51:15; Acts 14:15; Heb.11:3; 2 Pet. 3:5; Rev. 10:6; 14:7
[ii] Job 9:6-9; 26:7; 38:31-33; Psa. 8:3; 68:33, 34; 136:5-9; Isa. 40:22, 26-28; 42:5; Amos 5:8; Acts 17:24, 25
[iii] Gen. 1:24, 25; 2:19; Jer. 27:5; Psa. 104:24-26.
[iv] Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:7; 5:1, 2; Deut. 4:32; Psa. 8:5, 6; 100:3; 119:73; 139:14, 15; Eccl. 7:29; Isa. 17:7; 45:12; 64:8; Jer. 27:5; Matt. 19:4; Mark 10:6; Acts 17:24-26; Heb. 2:7; I Tim. 2:13.
[v] Kurt Wise, in In Six Days: Why 50 Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation, John F. Ashton, Ed. (Sydney: New Holland Pub., 1999 (published in the U.S. by Master Books, Green Forest, AK), p. 330.
[vi] Darwin, Charles, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. I, p. 278, cited in Clark, Robert T. and James D. Bales, Why Scientists Accept Evolution, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1966), p. 30.
[vii] Gen. 3:15; 4:3-7; 8:20; 22:8; Ex. 20:24; 24:4-7; Lev. 1-7; 16:1-34; 17:11; Num. 28, 29; 1 Sam. 7:9; 2 Chron. 29:20-24; 30:15-20; 35:1-11; Ezek. 6:9-20; 7:17; 8:35; Psa. 22; Isa. 53; Ezek. 46; Mark 10:45; 14:12; Luke 22:20; John 1:29, 36; Acts 8:32; Rom. 3:24-26; 5:10-11; 1 Cor. 5:7; 15:3; II Cor. 5:18-19; Gal. 1:3-4; 4:4-5; Eph. 1:7; 5:2; Col. 1:13, 14, 19-22; 1 Tim. 2:5, 6; Titus 2:13, 14; Heb. 2:17; 9:11-28; 10:10; 1 Pet. 1:18-20; 1 John 2:2; 4:10; Rev. 5:8-13; 7:13-17; 12:11; 19:6-9; 21:22-27
[viii] Gen. 3; 1 Kings 8:46; Psa. 51:5; 130:3; 143:2; Prov. 20:9; Eccl. 7:20; Isa. 53:6; Hos. 6:7; John 8:23, 24; 1 Cor. 15:22; Rom. 5:12; Eph. 2:1-3; 1 John 1:8;
[ix] Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:21, 22, 45-49
[x] Baldwin, John T., Creation, Catastrophe, & Calvary, (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2000), p. 108, quoting Karl Schmitz-Moormann, president of the European Society for the Relation of Science and Theology.
[xi] Seventh-day Adventists Believe . . ., A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1988), p. 92.
[xii] Herman Melville, Billy Budd, (New York: Signet Classics), p. 17
[xiii] Ruse, Michael, Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
[xiv] Ruse, at 75, 76.
[xv] Ruse, at 205.
[xvi] Ruse, at 209.
[xvii] Gould, Stephen Jay, “Dorothy, It’s Really Oz” Time, 154:8, August 23, 1999. Gould expanded on this theme in the book, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 1999). Gould viewed religion as part, along with philosophy, art, and literature, of “the magisterium of ethics and meaning.” (p. 62). But beliefs about ethics are only part of religious beliefs. Most religious beliefs have to do with the ultimate nature of reality—the existence of God, His character, His nature, His provision for mankind, the extent to which He has revealed Himself to mankind through His word and through His creation, the sinful, fallen nature of mankind, God’s grace shown to mankind, God’s desire for mankind to live in a sin-free, disease-free, death-free world, whether there is an afterlife, what happens to a person when they die, whether there is a heaven or a hell, etc. These are the main questions with which religion is concerned, not questions of ethics. In fact, ethical issues tend to be far more susceptible to reason and logic—and hence to a broad social consensus—than purely religious issues. As some of his critics noted, Gould defined religion in a way that is unrecognizable to the religious.
And what about “meaning?” Gould was willing to cede questions of “meaning” to the magisterium of religion, but the meaning of life is different if we evolved from monkeys than it is if we were created in the image of an eternal and omnipotent God. If we were created, our purpose is to glorify our Creator; if we evolved, our purpose is . . . well, who can say? If science decides whether we evolved or were created, then meaning is within the magisterium of science, not the religious magisterium.
[xviii] See, e.g., Jacob Weisberg, “Darwinism and Religion: Quit Pretending they’re Compatible” Slate, August 10, 2005 “That evolution erodes religious belief seems almost too obvious to require argument. It destroyed the faith of Darwin himself, who moved from Christianity to agnosticism as a result of his discoveries and was immediately recognized as a huge threat by his reverent contemporaries. . . . evolutionists should quit pretending their views are no threat to believers. This insults our intelligence . . .”
[xix] Provine, Will, “No Free Will,” in Catching Up with the Vision, Ed. By Margaret W. Rossiter, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) p. 123.
[xx] Debate between Phillip Johnson and Will Provine at Stanford University on April 30, 1994. See http://www.arn.org/docs/orpages/or161/161main.htm. During the debate, Johnson states, “This is the fourth time that Will Provine and I have met in debate, . . . so I feel qualified to say where we will tend to agree and disagree during this debate. First, where we agree. The modern neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is fundamentally inconsistent with any meaningful theism—with any meaningful God who acts as creator of the world.”
[xxi] Ibid. Ariel Roth cited an even more pointed statement made by Will Provine:
“Scientist work closely with religious leaders to fight against the introduction of creationism into the classrooms of public schools. Liberal religious leaders and theologians, who also proclaim the compatibility of religion and evolution, achieve this unlikely position by two routes. First, they retreat from traditional interpretations of God’s presence in the world, some to the extent of becoming effective atheists. Second, they simply refuse to understand modern evolutionary biology and continue to believe that evolution is a purposive process.
We are now presented with the specter of atheistic evolutionists and liberal theologians, whose understanding of the evolutionary process is demonstrable nonsense, joining together with the ACLU and the highest courts in the land to lambaste creationists, who are caught in an increasing bind. Evolutionary biology, as taught in public schools, shows no evidence of a purposive force of any kind. This is deeply disturbing to creationists. Yet in court, scientists proclaim that nothing in evolutionary biology is incompatible with any reasonable religion, a view also supported by liberal theologians and religious leaders of many persuasions. Not only are creationists unable to have their ‘creation science’ taught in the schools, they cannot even convince the court system that evolution is in any significant way antithetical to religion; thus, the courts are effectively branding their religious views as terribly misguided. No wonder creationists (somewhere near half of the population!) are frustrated with the system and want equal time for their views, or at least to be spared bludgeoning with evolution.” William B. Provine, Academe 73(1):50-52 (a review of Edward J. Larson’s book Trial and Error: the American Controversy of Creation and Evolution (Oxford University Press)) as cited in Roth Origins: Linking Science and Scripture (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1998) p. 26.
[xxii] Bethell, Tom, “Darwin in the Dock” The American Spectator, June 1992, quoting from a Phillip Johnson speech to the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, in Illinois.
[xxiii] Ibid. The passage was at first omitted from the published work, but in 1958, it was brought to light by Darwin’s granddaughter. Although Darwin went to Cambridge with the intention of becoming a clergyman, he soon abandoned this ambition and lost faith in the Bible. “But I had gradually come by this time, i.e. 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos [sic].” In his letters, Darwin describes a long intellectual process in which he gradually lost faith in Christianity. “Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress.” Darwin, Charles, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. I, pp. 277-278, cited in Clark, Robert T. and James D. Bales, Why Scientists Accept Evolution, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1966), p. 30-31.
[xxiv] “Hell” is not a place, but an event that takes place at the end of time. Matt. 13:39, 40; Matt. 16:27; Rev. 22:12. “Hell” is the destruction by fire of the unsaved after the millennium of Revelation. Rev. 21:7, 8; Rev. 20:7-9, 14, 15. The entire earth is purified by fire. 2 Pet. 3:10-12. The destruction of the unsaved is complete; they do not live on and on. Matt. 10:28; Mal. 4:1-3; Psa. 145:20; 37:20; 21:9; Isa. 47:14; Ezek. 28:18, 19. Terms like unquenchable fire and eternal fire do not mean that the fire burns on and on. Compare Mark 9:45-48 with Jer. 17:27; Matt. 25:41 with Jude 7. “Hell” is prepared for the devil and his angels; God does not want any of us to be lost. Matt. 25:41; 2 Pet. 3:9; Ezek. 18:32.
[xxv] Ellen White, The Great Controversy, p. 536.
[xxvi] This group makes the mistake of believing that strong evidence supports Darwinism. In fact, the case for Darwinism is based on philosophy. It is what you’re left with to explain the creation if you deny, a priori, the existence of God. If you believe, as this group apparently does, that there is a God capable of guiding evolution, there is no reason to believe in the Darwinian origin myth in the first place.
[xxvii] The Gallup Organization, which reports that, “The public has not notably changed its opinion on this question since Gallup started asking it in 1982.” One change is that, since 1997, the totally atheistic position has inched upward from 10% to 13% of the population.
[xxviii] The Gallup Organization, as reported by ABC News. See, also, Laurie Goodstein, “Teaching of Creationism is Endorsed in New Survey,” The New York Times, August 31, 2005, citing a poll conducted by July 7-17, 2005 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, stating “nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools.”
[xxix] In 2002, when it became public that Emmanuel City Technology College in London was teaching creationism as part of its curriculum, astonishing hatred poured forth from the British press. “My academic colleagues across the Atlantic have to waste large parts of their first-year biology courses trying to put right the damage done by the educational Taliban who now rule all over the United States,” wrote Steve Jones, a professor of genetics at University College London. “British youngsters are now being fed subsidised untruths about the nature of science,” he wrote. “It is easy to dismiss such people as clowns or cranks, but they are dangerous.” Commenting on the two-million pounds donated by an English businessman to found the school, Jones ranted, “Now we know the price of ignorance . . . That seems a pretty good bargain at just a couple of grand a kid. You get a new crop of innocent minds to poison each year and, with plans to set up yet more schools with the same funding, stupidity will soon be available wholesale.” “Creationism is anti-science and it is an abuse of children's burgeoning intellect to teach them that it is as credible as evolution,” said Keith Wood, president of the England’s “National Secular Society.” Prime Minister Tony Blair defended Emmanuel College: “I think it would be very unfortunate if concerns over that were seen to remove the very, very strong incentive to make sure we get as diverse a school system as we properly can.” London Telegraph, March 22, 2002. But critics feared that “Mr. Blair's enthusiasm for ‘faith schools’ will result in more of this kind of nonsense being taught in our education system.” Sarah Cassiday, The Independent, March 19, 2002. In fairness to the mother country, similar things are said in the U.S. whenever it is suggested that American public schools give equal time to some form of creationism or intelligent design, although the tone is usually not so hateful and vitriolic.
[xxx] Willimon, William H., and Robert L. Wilson, Rekindling the Flame, Strategies for a Vital United Methodism.
[xxxi] Ibid.
[xxxii] Ibid. See, also, Dave Shiflett, Exodus: Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity (Sentinel, 2005); Thomas C. Reeves, The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity (Free Press, 1996); Dean M. Kelley, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion (Mercer University Press, 1986, 1995); Colleen Carroll, The New Faithful: Why Young Adults are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy (Loyola, 2002);
[xxxiii] Job 19:25-27; Matt. 22:30; Acts 4:2; 23:6-8; 24:15, 21; John 5:28, 29; 11:23, 24; 1 Cor. 15:12-23, 35-58; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17; Phil. 3:20, 21; Rev. 20:4-15
[xxxiv] See, e.g., Earle E. Cairns, Christianity Through the Centuries, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1954, 1981), pp. 425-428, 443-448.
[xxxv] Ibid.
[xxxvi] See, e.g., the sources listed in note 23, above. This discussion leaves out the Catholic Church, whose numerous pronouncements on origins are varied, often ambiguous, and tailored to the different concerns of different audiences. But it is important to note that Protestants and Catholics are in a different position with regard to Darwinism. Since Luther’s day, Protestants have claimed the Bible as the sole authority for their doctrines and teachings. Even if Sola Scriptura has often been more aspiration than actuality, Darwinism, which destroys the authority of Scripture, is a terrible blow to the vitality of Protestant Christianity. The authority of the Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, is derived primarily from its own traditions and claims. In the Roman system, it is the church that confers authority on Scripture, not vice versa. Thus, Darwinism is far less threatening to the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, there have been very prominent Catholic creationists, such as Alfred Watterson McCann and George Barry O’Toole. Michael Behe, an important figure in the “intelligent design” movement, is a Roman Catholic.
[1] The term Lyellism is stylistically preferable to the ponderous Uniformitarianism. Neither Darwin nor Lyell invented the theories that made each famous. But what Darwin did for evolution, Lyell had previously done for uniformitarianism: he argued the doctrine in such a compelling way that all opposition in the scientific community was swept aside. Darwin would have been the first to acknowledge that if there is a “Darwinism,” there should also be a “Lyellism.”
[i] A year is the time it takes the earth to circle the sun, a day the time it takes the earth to revolve on its own axis, and a month is the time it takes the moon to pass from a particular phase (e.g., full) back to the same phase, averaging 29.53 days. By contrast, the week has no natural reason for existence; it exists because God established it at the creation. Atheistic regimes have thus sought to displace the weekly cycle. For example, French revolutionaries invented a calendar in which the months were divided into three ten-day cycles, and all the days were renamed. See, Schama, Simon, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), pp. 771-774.
[ii] “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Although the phrase subjected to frustration seems vague, the phrase bondage/slavery to decay/corruption implies that the creation is subject to disease and death. The creation is not subjected to disease, death, and natural catastrophes as a result of its own choice but as a result of man’s sin. See John T. Baldwin, Creation, Catastrophe, & Calvary, (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2000), pp. 112, 113.
[iii] Hitchcock, Edward, Elementary Geology, (Amherst, Mass: J.S. and C. Adams, 1840), p. 218, as quoted by John T. Baldwin, Creation, Catastrophe, & Calvary, (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2000), p. 111.
[iv] “While they remained true to God, Adam and his companion were to bear rule over the earth. . . .The lion and the lamb sported peacefully around them or lay down together at their feet.” Ellen White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 50; “God gave our first parents the food He designed that the race should eat. It was contrary to His plan to have the life of any creature taken. There was to be no death in Eden.” White, Spiritual Gifts, pp. 120, 121.
[v] Alfred Lord Tennyson In Memoriam (1850)
[vi] Dowswell, Paul, John Malam, Paul Mason, and Steve Parker, The Ultimate Book of Dinosaurs, (Bath, UK: Dempsey Parr, an imprint of Parragon, 2000), p. 31.
[vii] Wilford, John Noble, The Riddle of the Dinosaur, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), p. 241.
The Sabbath and the End
Memory Text: “And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 3:9, NKJV).
Sunday’s lesson makes an important point: If we are all just the products of time and chance, what we do is determined by the same forces that made us what we are. We do what our molecules determine that we will do. Determinism inevitably follows scientific materialism, and determinism means that we are not free moral agents and cannot be held responsible or accountable for our actions.
How does the concept of a judgment make sense, when every “decision” we think we have made was actually just the interplay of chemical and physical forces?
The best that evolutionary theory can do is to tell us that the moral and ethical ideas that seem so real to us evolved as some sort of coping mechanism that increased our chances of survival; morality is not ultimately real, and we cannot really be judged. Judgment can be real only if we were, and are, free moral agents who have the choice to do wrong or do right. All concepts of judgment and morality, right and wrong, crime and punishment, ultimately rest on a belief in a Creator God who created us with free moral agency, with the free choice and the ability to choose right or wrong.
The message of the three angels flying in midair in Revelation 14 announces that “the hour of His judgment has come.” (Rev. 14:7, NKJV) Since we were created by God with the capacity to make moral choices, we are responsible for the decisions we make. If we were merely a random collection of cells that evolved only via natural processes, our “choices” would not really be free choices, but would be determined by the non-divine chemical and physical forces over which we had no control.
But judgment implies moral responsibility. In this crisis hour of earth’s history, the judgment hour, God calls us to make decisions in the light of eternity. That the hour of judgment has comes implies that there is a Creator, and indeed the very same angel implores us to “worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of waters” (Rev. 14:7, NKJV).
Tuesday’s lesson reminds us that every attempt to alter our reading of Scripture so as to compromise with Lyellism, or long-ages geology is doomed to failure. It destroy’s the Bible’s teaching that death is linked to sin, and thus the fossil record represents a post-sin record, laid down by the Genesis Flood.
One advantage of Adventism is that our modern-day prophet has warned us, quite strongly and specifically, that we cannot compromise our reading of Scripture on this point:
“I was then carried back to the creation and was shown that the first week, in which God performed the work of creation in six days and rested on the seventh day, was just like every other week. The great God in his days of creation and day of rest, measured off the first cycle as a sample for successive weeks till the close of time. . . . On the seventh day of the first week God rested from his work, and then blessed the day of his rest, and set it apart for the use of man. The weekly cycle of seven literal days, six for labor, and the seventh for rest, which has been preserved and brought down through Bible history, originated in the great facts of the first seven days.
“When God spake his law with an audible voice from Sinai, he introduced the Sabbath by saying, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” . . . “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” This reason appears beautiful and forcible when we understand the record of creation to mean literal days. The first six days of each week are given to man in which to labor, because God employed the same period of the first week in the work of creation. The seventh day God has reserved as a day of rest, in commemoration of his rest during the same period of time after he had performed the work of creation in six days.
“But the infidel supposition, that the events of the first week required seven vast, indefinite periods for their accomplishment, strikes directly at the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. It makes indefinite and obscure that which God has made very plain. It is the worst kind of infidelity; for with many who profess to believe the record of creation, it is infidelity in disguise. It charges God with commanding men to observe the week of seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike his dealings with mortals, and is an impeachment of his wisdom.
“Infidel geologists claim that the world is very much older than the Bible record makes it. . . . And many who profess to believe the Bible record are at a loss to account for wonderful things which are found in the earth, with the view that creation week was only seven literal days, and that the world is now only about six thousand years old. These, to free themselves of difficulties thrown in their way by infidel geologists, adopt the view that the six days of creation were six vast, indefinite periods, and the day of God’s rest was another indefinite period; making senseless the fourth commandment of God’s holy law. Some eagerly receive this position, for it destroys the force of the fourth commandment, and they feel a freedom from its claims upon them.”[i]
“It is one of Satan’s devices to lead the people to accept the fables of infidelity; for he can thus obscure the law of God, in itself very plain, and embolden men to rebel against the divine government. His efforts are especially directed against the fourth commandment, because it so clearly points to the living God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth.
“There is a constant effort made to explain the work of creation as the result of natural causes; and human reasoning is accepted even by professed Christians, in opposition to plain Scripture facts.”[ii]
“Inferences erroneously drawn from facts observed in nature have . . . led to supposed conflict between science and revelation; and in the effort to restore harmony, interpretations of Scripture have been adopted that undermine and destroy the force of the word of God. Geology has been thought to contradict the literal interpretation of the Mosaic record of the creation. Millions of years, it is claimed, were required for the evolution of the earth from chaos; and in order to accommodate the Bible to this supposed revelation of science, the days of creation are assumed to have been vast, indefinite periods, covering thousands or even millions of years.
“Such a conclusion is wholly uncalled for. The Bible record is in harmony with itself and with the teaching of nature. Of the first day employed in the work of creation is given the record, “The evening and the morning were the first day.” Genesis 1:5. And the same in substance is said of each of the first six days of creation week. Each of these periods Inspiration declares to have been a day consisting of evening and morning, like every other day since that time. In regard to the work of creation itself the divine testimony is, “He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” Psalm 33:9. With Him who could thus call into existence unnumbered worlds, how long a time would be required for the evolution of the earth from Chaos? In order to account for His works, must we do violence to His word?”[iii]
There is no way to reconcile Lyellism with biblical truth. Unfortunately, many Christians have tried, offering several theories in an attempt to accommodate the Bible to Lyellian geology. These accommodationist theories have common characteristics.
First, instead of interpreting the earth’s crust in the light of biblical history, they reinterpret the Bible to make it fit geological theories. Second, the accommodationist theories typically interpret most of the fossiliferous strata as the residue of long ages that passed before man was created, which has the effect of decoupling disease, predation, suffering, and death from Adam’s sin and the Fall of mankind. The terrible things that we find in the fossil record must therefore have been part of God’s original creation, which He called “good.”
1. The diluvium theory
One of the earliest accommodationist theories was William Buckland’s “diluvium” theory. He and several of his contemporaries taught that much of the Pleistocene layer, then often called the “diluvium” or the “drift,” was deposited during the Genesis Flood. But these men also taught that the lower strata were formed hundreds of thousands of years before Adam was created, which deviates from the biblical doctrine that God created the plants and animals in one week just a few thousand years ago.[i]
After he was shown that the “diluvium” was primarily the work of glaciers, glacial till, not floodwaters, Buckland abandoned his diluvium theory in favor of the “tranquil theory,” which held that Noah’s Flood left no residue.[ii]
2. The gap theory
A more prominent accommodationist theory is the “gap theory,” also known as the “active gap,” “ruin and restoration,” “pre-Edenic ruin,” “ruin and reconstruction” and “interval” theory. It postulates that a very long interval of time elapsed between Genesis 1:1 (“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”) and Genesis 1:2 (“And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”).
The gap theory is attributed to Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), a Scottish Presbyterian pastor. Although it has many variations and has changed over the centuries, its core is that, during the supposed “gap” between the first two verses of Genesis, there existed a previous creation on this Earth.
The earliest versions of the gap theory teach that Lucifer ruled this previous creation, which was peopled by a race of beings without souls. Desiring to become like God, Lucifer eventually rebelled (Ezekiel 28:11-19, Isaiah 14:12-20),[iii] incurring God’s judgment in the form of a flood, called the “Lucifer flood.” The Lucifer flood is indicated in Scripture by the “waters” and the “deep” of Genesis 1:2.
The rest of the first chapter of Genesis describes a re-creation or reforming of the earth from a chaotic state, not the initial creative effort. All the plant, animal, and human fossils in the rock strata date from the “Lucifer flood ” and are not genetically related to the plants and animals living today, which are a result of the re-creation described later in the chapter.
The gap theory was given widespread circulation in 1909 when Cyrus Ingersoll Scofield (1843-1921) included it in the annotations to his Scofield Reference Bible.[iv] While the gap theory does explain the presence of violence and death in the lower fossiliferous strata, the explanation is extra-biblical. The Bible divulges nothing of this hidden history, although gap theorists interpret several verses—usually only the King James translation of those verses—in such a way as to give veiled clues about the time of the “gap.”
As an accommodation of geology, the gap theory was more successful when geological opinion was open to Cuvier’s multiple catastrophes. Some of the strata could then be attributed to the “Lucifer flood” and some to the Genesis Flood. In its modern incarnations, the gap theory is strictly a device to expand the biblical time frame in order to allow time for the strata to form over the hundreds of millions of years that Lyellian geology insists upon. Modern gap theorists do not include a “Lucifer flood,” and believe that the Genesis Flood left no geological traces.
But some modern gap theorists still make Lucifer the lord of the purported gap creation.[v] One cannot help but wonder, however, why for 130 million years Lucifer’s only earthly subjects were marine animals, or why it took more than 160 million additional years for Lucifer to get some dinosaurs to rule, or why poor Lucifer was allowed to rule over the men without souls for only the final 1/10,000th of his “gap” reign.[vi]
3. The day/age theory
Another popular attempt to harmonize Lyellism and Scripture is the “day/age” theory, which holds that the days of the first chapter of Genesis are not literal twenty-four-hour periods but long epochs of millions of years.
The Hebrew word for “day,” yôm, can refer to something other than a literal twenty-four-hour period. In Genesis one, however, each yôm of the creation week is modified by an ordinal number, as in “the first day,” “the second day” etc. When so modified, yôm always means a literal twenty-four hour day.[vii]
Moreover, the phrase “there was evening and there was morning” is used to describe each of the days of the creation week. This obviously refers to the dark and light portions of a literal, twenty-four-hour day. Generally, the Hebrew text weighs heavily in favor of interpreting the days of Genesis chapter one as literal days.[viii]
Attempts to interpret the days of creation as ages or eras rather than literal days have been driven not by textual considerations but rather by a perceived need to accommodate Scripture to Lyellism.[ix]
One has to wonder why, if the days of creation were intended to indicate multi-million-year epochs, the writer of Genesis didn’t just say that? It isn’t as though ancient people could not conceive of an earth millions of years old. On the contrary, most ancients believed the earth to be much older than the Bible indicates.
For example, Plato believed that the Flood had occurred two hundred million years ago. The Babylonian historian Berosus placed the creation two million years ago. Hindu traditions that were committed to writing 1,500 years ago teach that the earth’s history can be divided up into endlessly repeating cycles of 4.32 billion years, each of which can be further subdivided into 1,000 subcycles of 4.32 million years duration. The ancient Chinese adopted similar teachings of long cycles.[x]
Obviously, the ancients were very familiar with “old earth” histories and legends; it is rather the Bible’s “young earth” narrative that is unique.
Furthermore, the animals created during a given day of the creation week do not always correspond to the fossils found in the analogous “age.” For example, the Bible teaches that birds were created on the fifth day, and then the land animals on the sixth. Gen. 1:20-25. Obviously, birds come before land animals in the biblical narrative. By contrast, fossils of land animals are found in lower sedimentary strata than the fossils of birds, and therefore land animals are thought to have lived many millions of years before the birds ever appeared. Thus, the order in which creatures appear in the Genesis days does not correspond to the order in which they appear in the Lyellian ages.[xi]
In the biblical creation account, God speaks the creation into being ex nihilo (out of nothing). There is no reason this should have taken hundreds of millions of years. The long ages are necessary to allow time for Lyellian geological “history” and Darwinian biological “history”—not because God needed more than an instant, much less more than a day, to speak the creation into being.
Moreover, unless the day/age theory is coupled with a pre-creation creation and a pre-Fall Fall such as those of the gap theory, it presents violence, predation, and death as part of the creation that God declared “very good,” and not as results of Adam’s sin. It also leaves no geological work for the Genesis Flood to perform.
4. The tranquil theory
Swedish botanist Carl Linne (Latinized as Carolus Linnaeus) (1707-1778), who is famous for having developed the binomial naming system for species, and a classification scheme for the plant and animal kingdoms, suggested that Noah’s Flood was a calm, quiet event in which the waters slowly rose and slowly subsided, without leaving any mark on the earth’s crust. This theory became known as the “tranquil theory.”
Both Lyell and Buckland seized upon the tranquil theory as a way to harmonize Scripture and uniformitarian geology. But unless coupled with the dubious pre-creation creation and pre-Fall Fall of the gap theory, the tranquil theory cannot explain death prior to the Fall of man. Moreover, the Bible describes an event of considerable violence: “all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.” Gen. 7:11, 12 (NIV).
The tranquil theory makes no geological sense. Think of the destruction that local floods, tidal waves, and tsunamis cause today. Bridges, houses, automobiles, boulders and trees can be swept away and destroyed as if they were pebbles and matchsticks.
Powerful ocean currents move massive amounts of water. The south equatorial current in the Atlantic Ocean moves six million tons of water a second northward across the equator.[xii] These currents would have been even more powerful in the unbounded ocean of the Flood, and the amount of erosion and sedimentation taking place would have been immense.
Even if the Flood had risen slowly and calmly, tidal action alone would have stirred up staggeringly vast amounts of sediment that would have left an indelible mark on the Earth. It quickly became obvious that the “tranquil theory” was untenable, and it has largely been abandoned.[xiii]
5. The local flood theory
The most popular accommodationist position is that the Genesis Flood was a local, Mesopotamian valley flood. Since the mid-seventeenth century, various writers have advanced this theory. It gained wide circulation after John Pye Smith promoted it in an 1839 book entitled, On the Relation Between the Holy Scriptures and Some Parts of Geological Science. Smith argued that the Flood could have been “universal” in having wiped out all human beings then living without having affected the entire globe.
Over the years, various local floods have been put forward as having inspired the biblical flood story. British archeologist C. Leonard Woolley, while excavating the site of biblical Ur, discovered a thick layer of silt separating two layers of artifacts. But it was soon discovered that Woolley’s flood was too local to be the local flood.[xiv]
A recent local flood theory, promoted by Bob Ballard, who located the wreck of Titanic, is that the story of Noah’s Flood refers to a catastrophic filling of the Black Sea some seven thousand years ago.[xv]
There are a number of serious problems with the local flood theory. As with the other accommodationist theories, it leaves intact the Lyellian explanation of the worldwide sedimentary layers, meaning that predation and death reigned for millions of years before the creation of mankind and his Fall.
Moreover, the local flood theory cannot be reconciled with a straightforward reading of Scripture. Genesis tells of a flood that covered “all the high mountains under the entire heavens.” Moses was at pains to describe, in the most categorical language he could muster, a universal flood with universal consequences:
“The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the Ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than 20 feet.[xvi] Every living thing that moved on the earth perished —birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the Ark.” Gen. 7:18-23 (NIV, emphasis added).
After examining the Hebrew syntax of this passage, Adventist theologian Gerhard Hasel concluded:
“There is hardly any stronger way in Hebrew to emphasize total destruction of ‘all existence’ of human and animal life on earth than the way it has been expressed. The writer of the Genesis flood story employed terminology, formulae, and syntactical structures of the type that could not be more emphatic and explicit in expressing his concept of universal, worldwide flood.”[xvii]
If the Flood were merely local, it would have been absurd for Noah to spend 120 years[xviii] constructing a giant, 150-yard long barge to save him, his family, and the animals, and it would have been absurd for God to order him to do so. Noah and his family could simply have moved out of the way. In fact, anyone could have moved out of the way, defeating the purpose of the Flood.
Those who believe that a local flood could have wiped out all humanity assume that the human race dwelt only in Mesopotamia. If that long-lived race had been reproducing normally during the (at least) 1,650 years between the creation and the Flood, their numbers could easily have been in the hundreds of millions, even the billions. There is no reason to believe that their civilization was contained within the area that later came to be known as Mesopotamia.
Moreover, the Bible explicitly states that all land animals and birds were destroyed in the Flood. Are we to believe that the wild animals and birds were also limited to Mesopotamia? The only interpretation that does not shred the fabric of the biblical narrative is that the Flood was worldwide, not local.
All of the accommodationist theories—including the “diluvium” theory, the gap theory, the day/age theory, the tranquil theory, and the local flood theory—are failures. They do not merely fail to protect the integrity of the Bible, they fold, spindle, and mutilate plain biblical teachings in a procrustean attempt to make them fit Lyellian conclusions. The whole enterprise reflects a belief that the speculations of geologists are more reliable than God’s word.
Young-earth creationists, who reject Lyellism, do not dispute a law of nature, or even a fact of geology. Creationists merely reject uniformity of rate, believing instead that rapid erosion and massive sedimentation occurred around the time of the Genesis Flood. The creationist assumption and the Lyellian assumption are on the same epistemological[xix] footing: neither can be proven correct because they concern unobservable and unreproducible events of the very distant past. The Lyellian assumption is more scientific only if the term “science” is understood to include the philosophy of naturalism, which forbids any explanation, hypothesis or theory that appeals to the supernatural, or that is suggested by the Bible.[xx]
The issue is stark: geologists have adopted an interpretive principle that is directly contrary to biblical revelation. To the uniformitarian, “everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But, as the apostle Peter warned us, “they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.” 2 Peter 3:4-6 (NIV). Lyellian geologists who insist that Earth’s crust must be interpreted in light of presently observable processes and rates “deliberately forget” the Flood, just as Peter said they would.
[i] Whitcomb, John C., and Henry Morris, The Genesis Flood, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1961), pp. 93, 94.
[ii] Whitcomb, et al, at 97, citing William Buckland, Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, (Bridgewater Treatises, 1836), p. 94.
[iii] It is unfortunate that many critics of the gap theory have denied that these passages refer prophetically to Lucifer, not just to the kings of Tyre and Babylon. Gap theorists are correct in holding that these verses describe the origin of sin within Lucifer, the covering cherub. This event took place in heaven, however, not on earth during the hypothetical time gap between Gen. 1:1 and Gen. 1:2. See, Rev. 12:7-9; Luke 10:18.
[iv] In his book Genesis Vindicated, George McCready Price noted:
In the early part of the nineteenth century this theory was quite popular. With the rise of Lyell’s geology and the modern biological sciences, it went into eclipse for several decades; but it was revived a generation or so ago by C. I. Scofield and others . . . As it is the theory taught in the notes of the Scofield Bible, it is now very aggressively held by many who are emphatic in calling themselves fundamentalists, and who seem to regard the notes of Mr. Scofield as on a par with the Bible itself. . . . The early Reformers had some sad experiences with editions of the Bible with “explanatory” notes. They found that such notes tended to have an unfair and perverting influence on the readers; so they all finally abandoned them. Price, Genesis Vindicated, (Review and Herald, 1941), p. 291.
The Scofield notes also did much to popularize futurist views of prophecy, in which the Antichrist is described as a future bad individual who will desecrate a rebuilt Jewish temple in Jerusalem. See, e.g., Steve Wohlberg, The Antichrist Chronicles, (Ft. Worth: Texas Media Center, 2001), pp. 92-94.
[v] See Jack W. Provonsha, “The Creation/Evolution Debate in the Light of the Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan,” in Creation Reconsidered, James L. Hayward, ed. (Roseville, CA: Association of Adventist Forums, 2000), pp. 303-311.
[vi] See, Weston W. Fields, Unformed and Unfilled: A Critique of the Gap Theory, (Burgener Enterprises, 1994, republished by Master Books, Green Forest, AK); Jack C. Scofield, The Gap Theory of Genesis Chapter One; Russell Grigg, “From the Beginning of Creation: Does Genesis have a Gap?” Creation Ex Nihilo 19(2):35-38 March–May 1997, condensed version at the Answers in Genesis Ministry website, http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1132.asp; Younker, Randall W., God’s Creation, (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 1999), pp. 22, 23 (“the Active Gap Theory has not gained many supporters among Bible interpreters who have a good knowledge of Hebrew.”).
[vii] Younker, Randall W., God’s Creation, (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 1999), p. 29.
[viii] See, Hasel, Gerhard F., “The Days of Creation in Genesis Chapter 1: Literal Days or Figurative Periods/Epochs of Time?” Origins 21(1):5-38 (1994) (GRI website http://www.grisda.org/origins/21005.htm ) which is Chapter 2 of Baldwin, supra. See also Younker, at 28-36.
[ix] See, e.g., Fritz Guy, “Negotiating the Creation-Evolution Wars,” Spectrum, vol. 20, No. 1 (October 1989) (“The problem with all of these interpretations is that they are not indicated, much less demanded, by the biblical text; they are simply ad hoc attempts to make Genesis agree with geology. . . . The gap theory ignores the structure of Genesis 1, and the function of the first sentence as the thesis of the whole chapter. The day-age theory ignores the impact of the refrain, ‘There was evening and there was morning’ [Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31, NIV]”).
[x] Coffin, Harold, Origin by Design, (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1983), p. 287.
[xi] Some creation week events have no analog in naturalist origins theories. For example, on the second day God separated the “waters below” from the “waters above,” creating a “firmament.” Gen. 1:6-8. The meaning of this passage is not clear, but many creationists interpret it to mean that God created an atmosphere bounded from below by the ocean and from above by a water vapor canopy which separated the atmosphere from outer space. At the flood, the vapor canopy precipitated into part of the water that flooded the earth, and the canopy was never replaced. Evolutionists, of course, deny that the vapor canopy ever existed. The vapor canopy theory remains controversial even among creationists. See, e.g., Dillow, Joseph C., The Waters Above: Earth’s Pre-flood Vapor Canopy, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1981); Coffin, Harold, Origin by Design, (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1980), pp. 10, 11; Oard, Michael J., An Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Flood, (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1990), pp. 26-28; Marsh, Frank Lewis, Life, Man, and Time, (Escondido, CA: Outdoor Pictures, 1967) pp. 59, 60; Whitcomb, John C., and Henry Morris, The Genesis Flood, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1961), pp. 215, 240-242, 253-258, 399-405.
[xii] Whitcomb, et al, at 100, 101.
[xiii] Whitcomb, et al, at 97-106.
[xiv] Whitcomb, et al, at 110, 111, citing George A. Barton, Archaeology and the Bible, (1937);G.E. Wright, Biblical Archaeology, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957). Woolley dug five trenches at Ur, only two of which showed the flood strata. A logical inference is that the flood did not overwhelm even the entire city. There was no break in occupation of the site. Today most archaeologists and language specialists doubt that Woolley’s flood strata could be the source of the biblical Flood narrative.
[xv] Ryan, William, and Walter Pitman, Noah’s Flood, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998).
[xvi] 15 cubits. A cubit could be 18 inches or 21 inches. Even taking an 18 inch cubit, 15 cubits is “more than 20 feet.”
[xvii] Gerhard F. Hasel, “The Biblical View of the Extent of the Flood,” Origins 2(2): 77-95 (1975), p. 78, (See Geoscience Research Institute website, http://www.grisda.org/origins/02077.htm ) quoted by Richard M. Davidson in “Biblical Evidence for the Universality of the Genesis Flood,” which is chapter 4 of Baldwin, supra. See, also Younker at 76-86.
[xviii] The 120 years comes from Genesis 6:3: “Then the LORD said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.’” This text, like the two it is sandwiched between, is difficult to interpret. It could be interpreted as a limitation on the human lifespan. Lifespans decreased rapidly after the flood, from 600 years (Noah’s son Shem, Gen. 11:10-11) to 148 years (Nahor, Gen. 11:24-25) in just eight generations. (Abraham, the tenth generation from Noah, lived to be 175 (Gen. 25:7)). There are some problems, however, with interpreting the text as a limitation on the human lifespan. First, 120 years is not an absolute limitation on the human lifespan. The Guinness Book of World Records notes that Jeanne Louise Calment of Arles, France, died in 1997 at the age of 122. A woman in Brazil was believed to have lived even longer, but that case could not be documented. Second, while 120 years is not an absolute limitation, it is not a very good prediction, either. Very few people live past the age of 100. A much better prediction is found in Psalm 80:10: “The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength . . .” Even with today’s advanced medical knowledge, seventy to eighty years is the average lifespan.
Another interpretation of the text is that God was setting a probationary period for the antediluvian race. He would allow 120 years for Noah to preach and to build and provision the Ark, before the antediluvian world would be destroyed. This is the interpretation endorsed by Ellen White: “Connection with God made [Noah] strong in the strength of infinite power, while for one hundred and twenty years his solemn voice fell upon the ears of that generation in regard to events, which, so far as human wisdom could judge, were impossible.” Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 96. The early interpreters Jerome and Augustine saw Genesis 6:3 as the length of time that God had allotted for the antediluvians to repent before He sent his judgment upon them. See, Jerome, Hebrew 6.3; Augustine, The City of God 15.24. One of the Gnostic texts discovered in Egypt in 1947 also teaches that this was a period of God’s grace toward the antediluvians: “And he (Noah) preached piety for one hundred and twenty years. And no one listened to him. And he made a wooden ark, and whom he had found entered it. And the flood took place.” From the Nag Hammadi Library, “The Concept of our Great Power,” translated by Frederik Wisse. See, http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/naghamm/cgp.html.
[xix] Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge, i.e., the study of how we know what we think we know.
[xx] Honest Darwinists admit that their concept of science includes an a priori philosophical commitment to naturalism. See Phillip Johnson, “The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism,” First Things, 77:22-25 (November, 1997).
[i] Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts (Battle Creek, MI: Steam Press of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, 1864), vol. 3, pp. 90-92. Reprinted in Signs of
the Times, 5:90, March 20, 1879, and in Spirit of Prophecy (Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald, 1884), vol. 4, pp. 85-89.
[ii] Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 113.
[iii] Ellen G. White, Education, pp. 128, 129.
A Woman Rides the Beast
Memory Text: “These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful” (Revelation 17:14, NKJV).
The Bible likens apostasy to harlotry or adultery (James 4:4). Speaking of Israel’s rebellion and unfaithfulness, Ezekiel laments, “You are an adulterous wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband“ (Ezek. 16:32, NKJV).
In Scripture, a church or a spiritual people are often depicted symbolically as a woman or a bride. Mark 2:19-20; Eph. 5:23-27; 2 Cor. 11:2; Isa. 62:5; Hos 2:16-23; Jer. 2:2; 31:31-34; Rev. 19:7-9; Rev. 21:2. The woman, symbolizing a church, can be pure and faithful (Jer. 6:2; Eph. 5:25-27), or it can be unfaithful and impure (Hos. 1:2; James 4:4).
Revelation tells of two women: one clothed with the sun, in Revelation 12, and one dressed in scarlet, in Revelation 17. The woman clothed with the sun, which is in the dazzling glory of Christ, is found in Revelation 12. She is faithful to her true lover, Jesus. She is not defiled with the corruption of false doctrines. We’ve already discussed the women in Revelation 12 in some detail, so this week we will be discussing that other woman, the woman in Revelation 17.
This woman is called “the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.” Rev. 17:1. That she is a whore means she is an apostate church teaching false doctrine, not the pure doctrine of true biblical Christianity. That she “sits on many waters” means that she is embraced by a great many people, in many nations and kingdoms. (The angel tells us this later in the chapter: “The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages.” John 17:15).
The kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. Rev. 17:2. Obviously, this church has been a politically powerful church, dealing with monarchs, princes, and presidents, as at least an equal and very often as their superior. That she has made many “drunk with the wine of her fornication” means that a great many people have imbibed her false doctrines and been deceived.
John was shown “a woman sitting upon a scarlet beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.” Rev. 17:3-4. This church is very wealthy, wearing purple and scarlet, the colors of royalty and prostitution, and she is weighed down with gold and precious gems, but her golden cup is full of false teachings.
The beast upon which the woman, this impure church, rides, having ten horns, takes us back to Daniel’s vision in Daniel 7. The fourth beast Daniel was shown had ten horns, and, without question, that beast was Rome. This is very clear from the Book of Daniel, which tells us about four kingdoms. These kingdoms are symbolized by parts of the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2, then by beasts in Daniel chapter seven.
The first kingdom Daniel tells us about is Babylon, which was the head of gold in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Dan. 2:37, 38) and the lion in Daniel’s vision in chapter 7 (Dan. 7:4). The second kingdom is Medo-Persia, symbolized by the chest and arms of silver (Dan. 2:39), the bear raised on one side in Daniel 7 (Dan. 7:5), and the ram with two horns in Daniel 8 (Dan. 8:1-4; 20).
The third kingdom is Greece during the time of Alexander the Great and his successors, symbolized by the belly and thighs of bronze (Dan. 2:39) the four-winged leopard in Daniel 7 (Dan. 7:6), and the goat with the prominent horn, which is broken off and replaced by four horns in Daniel 8 (Dan 8:5-8; 21-22).
The fourth kingdom is Rome, symbolized by the legs of iron (Dan. 2:40), the terrible beast with iron teeth (Dan. 7:7), and the growing horn of Daniel 8:9-12 (although the vision of the horn in Daniel 8 encompasses Rome in both its pagan and papal phases). This is history long past; prophecy long fulfilled.
This fourth beast in Daniel 7—which prefigures the fourth kingdom, Rome—had ten horns, so when John is shown a beast with ten horns (Rev. 17:3), there is no question about the identity of this beast: it is certainly the Roman Empire. And so when we are shown this unfaithful, impure woman, this impure church teaching false doctrine, riding the beast with ten horns, we know that we are seeing a church that is riding Rome. It has taken its seat in Rome.
What church has its seat in the ancient imperial capitol of the Roman Empire? There is and can be only one answer to that question: the Roman Catholic Church.
“And upon her forehead was a name written:
Mystery, Babylon The Great,
The Mother of Harlots
And Abominations of the Earth.
And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. . . . .This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits.”
Peter wrote, “she who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.” 1 Peter 5:13. Babylon? When Peter wrote that letter, Babylon had not been inhabited for centuries; it was a pile of dirt. Needless to say, there was no Christian church in the literal city of Babylon, and no Christians hailing from there. Paul was referring to Rome, so it would seem that “Babylon” must have been, among the apostles, a code-name for Rome.
John would likely have known that “Babylon” was to be interpreted as Rome, which had inherited Babylon’s mystery religions, by way of Greece and Persia. But so that this interpretation could not be mistaken, John was told that the woman sits on seven hills. Almost everyone, then and now, knows that the city of Rome is situated on seven hills.
We cannot be in any doubt that John was shown that an impure church teaching false doctrines would inherit the seat of the Roman Empire.
John “saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” In John’s day, pagan Rome persecuted the Christian Church, but with the benefit of hindsight, we know that the woman riding the beast—the impure church teaching false doctrine which we now know was Rome in its “Christian” phase, or papal Rome, the Roman Catholic Church—persecuted the true Christian Church far longer and with much greater severity than did pagan Rome.
Also with the benefit of hindsight, we know something else: Rome’s children, the Protestant denominations that left the Roman church in terms of its organization, did not forsake all of the errors of the mother church. They still cling to two major errors: Sunday sacredness in place of the Bible Sabbath, and the immortality of the soul, or the belief that a disembodied consciousness continues on after death, in place of the Bible doctrine that we sleep unconsciously in the grave until the resurrection. Thus it can be said that not only is the Roman Catholic Church the Great Harlot, she is the mother of a brood of little harlots.
There is always the temptation of “stampeded prophecy,” meaning an interpretation of prophecy that is a response to the current day’s headlines. Today, the threat to Christians and Christianity comes mainly from the secular, atheistic Left, as represented by the Democratic Party in the U.S. and other Leftist and center-left parties around the Western world.
These forces of atheism are pre-figured in prophecy as “Sodom and Egypt.” Rev. 11:8. They first come onto the scene of Christian history during the French Revolution; they crop up again in the Russian Revolution of 1917, and in all the Leftist Utopian regimes since that time, including, again, the Maoist cultural revolution being waged so remorselessly in today’s United States by the Democratic Party and its allies in the permanent government, the “deep state,” the corporate world (Anheuser-Busch, Target, etc.) the U.N. and transnational NGOs etc.
But the woman who rides the beast—the Roman Catholic Church—had already been persecuting true Christianity for 1,260 years—a virtually endless epoch—before atheistic Leftist utopianism came onto the pages of history, some 230 years ago during the French Revolution. Rome’s reign of error and terror lasted for more than a thousand years longer than the utopian Left has even been around.
False, impure religion will always be the long term threat to pure religion.
Babylon is Fallen
Memory Text: “A second angel followed and said, ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.’ ” Rev. 14:8
In light of Revelation 17, which we studied last week, we are better able to comprehend the message of the second angel, that “Babylon is fallen.” Last week, we saw that “Babylon” is another name for the woman that rides the beast, which symbolizes the corrupt church that set itself up in the seat of the Roman Empire. So Babylon is another name for the Roman Catholic Church.
The second angel’s message is not that literal Babylon, the Mesopotamian city, has fallen—in John’s day, everyone already knew that—the message is that the false and corrupt church that would take over pagan Rome’s seat was heading ultimately toward destruction. When John wrote the Apocalypse, that corrupt church was yet in the future, but prophetically it had already fallen.
The second angel’s message is brief in Revelation 14, but Revelation 17, 18, and 19 have much more to say about Babylon. Revelation 18 starts out like this:
After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted:
“Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a dwelling for demons
and a haunt for every impure spirit,
a haunt for every unclean bird,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
For all the nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”
We might envision birds flying over the ruins of ancient Babylon, and wild animals scampering over the mounds constituting its remains, but that is not the point of this passage. Rather, the prophetic message is that spiritual Babylon is full of false religious doctrines, beliefs and teachings, and these had made their way to Rome, and were about to be incorporated into the fallen, corrupt church that was to take the seat of pagan Rome.
Of course, we can see this very clearly in retrospect, the world having already had well over a millennium’s worth of sad history with Roman Catholicism. The Reverend Alexander Hislop, author of the famous work, “The Two Babylons,” first published in 1853, wrote:
"It has been known all along that Popery was baptized Paganism; but God is now making it manifest that the Paganism which Rome has baptized is, in all its essential elements, the very Paganism which prevailed in the ancient literal Babylon, . . . the Providence of God, conspiring with the Word of God, by light pouring in from all quarters, makes it more and more evident that Rome is in very deed the Babylon of the Apocalypse; that the essential character of her system, the grand objects of her worship, her festivals, her doctrine and discipline, her rites and ceremonies, her priesthood and their orders, have all been derived from ancient Babylon; and, finally, that the Pope himself is truly and properly the lineal representative of Belshazzar. In the warfare that has been waged against the domineering pretensions of Rome, it has too often been counted enough merely to meet and set aside her presumptuous boast, that she is the mother and mistress of all churches—the one Catholic Church, out of whose pale there is no salvation. If ever there was excuse for such a mode of dealing with her, that excuse will hold no longer. If the position I have laid down can be maintained, she must be stripped of the name of a Christian Church altogether; for if it was a Church of Christ that was convened on that night, when the pontiff-king of Babylon, in the midst of his thousand lords, 'praised the gods of gold, and of silver, and of wood, and of stone' (Daniel 5:4), then the Church of Rome is entitled to the name of a Christian Church; but not otherwise. This to some, no doubt, will appear a very startling position; but it is one which it is the object of this work to establish; and let the reader judge for himself, whether I do not bring ample evidence to substantiate my position" (The Two Babylons, pp. 2–3).
Some of the points Hislop argues are that mariolatry originates in the Babylonian worship of Semiramis, and that the worship of the mother and child also originates with the Babylonian worship of Semiramis and her supposed god-child, Tammuz, that she immaculately conceived after the death of her husband, Nimrod. (In Ezekiel 8:14, we see that this Babylonish worship being embraced by some Israelite women). There are some mistakes in The Two Babylons, but I think it is largely correct in its analysis, which relies extensively on ancient sources, and has held up well over the past 170 years.
Contrary to the assertion in the above quotation from Hislop’s introduction to The Two Babylons, however, there is a sense in which Rome is correct in her claim to be “the mother and mistress of all churches.” Rome is indeed the “mother of harlots” in Revelation 17:5, meaning that the Protestant churches that left the mother church did not forsake all of Rome’s false doctrines, most prominently including Sunday worship, arguably the most important element of pagan Babylonian religion that was incorporated into Roman Catholicism. This would be one of the core messages of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination that would be coming into existence shortly after Hislop wrote his masterwork in the 1850s.
Several ancient civilizations worshiped the sun, including Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Babylon, and Rome. In The Worship of Nature, the famous cultural anthropologist James George Frazer notes, “In ancient Babylonia the sun was worshiped from immemorial antiquity.” — (London: Macmillan and Co., 1926), vol. 1, p. 529. Sadly, even the Israelites sometimes fell under the spell of sun worship, as seen in Ezekiel 8:16, and 2 Kings 23:5, 11.
If you have a copy of The (New, Illustrated) Great Controversy, you’ve seen the many illustrations of how sun worship moved from Babylon to Rome, and then into the Roman Catholic Church. And although modern Christians do not view it in this light, it is clear that worship on Sunday, the day of the sun, stems from sun worship, not from Bible Christianity. The change from Sabbath to Sunday as the sanctified day of rest is all the doing of the Roman Catholic Church, inspired by Satan himself:
The great apostate had succeeded in exalting himself “above all that is called God, or that is worshiped.” 2 Thessalonians 2:4. He had dared to change the only precept of the divine law that unmistakably points all mankind to the true and living God. In the fourth commandment, God is revealed as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and is thereby distinguished from all false gods. It was as a memorial of the work of creation that the seventh day was sanctified as a rest day for man. It was designed to keep the living God ever before the minds of men as the source of being and the object of reverence and worship. Satan strives to turn men from their allegiance to God, and from rendering obedience to His law; therefore he directs his efforts especially against that commandment which points to God as the Creator.
Protestants now urge that the resurrection of Christ on Sunday made it the Christian Sabbath. But Scripture evidence is lacking. No such honor was given to the day by Christ or His apostles. The observance of Sunday as a Christian institution had its origin in that “mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:7, R.V.) which, even in Paul's day, had begun its work. Where and when did the Lord adopt this child of the papacy? What valid reason can be given for a change which the Scriptures do not sanction? Great Controversy, p. 53.
By the early Sixth Century, the Roman Church had established itself in great power:
In the sixth century the papacy had become firmly established. Its seat of power was fixed in the imperial city, and the bishop of Rome was declared to be the head over the entire church. Paganism had given place to the papacy. The dragon had given to the beast “his power, and his seat, and great authority.” Revelation 13:2. And now began the 1260 years of papal oppression foretold in the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation. Daniel 7:25; Revelation 13:5-7. (See Appendix.) Christians were forced to choose either to yield their integrity and accept the papal ceremonies and worship, or to wear away their lives in dungeons or suffer death by the rack, the fagot, or the headsman's ax.
Now were fulfilled the words of Jesus: “Ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake.” Luke 21:16, 17. Persecution opened upon the faithful with greater fury than ever before, and the world became a vast battlefield. For hundreds of years the church of Christ found refuge in seclusion and obscurity. Thus says the prophet: “The woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three-score days.” Revelation 12:6. Great Controversy, p. 54.
Scripture clearly warns against associating with this false system of worship:
Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
“‘Come out of her, my people,’
so that you will not share in her sins,
so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
for her sins are piled up to heaven,
and God has remembered her crimes.
Give back to her as she has given;
pay her back double for what she has done.
Pour her a double portion from her own cup.
Give her as much torment and grief
as the glory and luxury she gave herself.
In her heart she boasts,
‘I sit enthroned as queen.
I am not a widow;
I will never mourn.’
Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her:
death, mourning and famine.
She will be consumed by fire,
for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.
We must be clear that we are not attacking individual Catholics, many of whom are, to the best of their ability, living up to all the light they have. Today’s Catholics have an easy access to the Bible that Catholics did not have during the 1260 years of papal persecution, and many of them are making use of it and know the Scriptures well. In many cases, they put us to shame with their obedience to duty and their knowledge of the Scriptures.
But the Apocalypse could not be any clearer that this religious system, this woman who rides the beast, is evil and corrupt. This church is fallen, spiritually, because it syncretistically incorporated all the errors of paganism and then, during the prolonged era of its supremacy, used torture and the threat of a painful death by burning at the stake to force people to accept those errors. Christians must steer well clear of this false system, or we will be visited with the plagues and the consuming fire intended for it.
Two Beasts to Reckon With
Memory Verse: “Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name.” Rev. 13:1
Revelation 13 tells us about two beasts, one from the sea, the other from the land.
The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. 2 The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. 4 People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?” 5The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. 6 It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. 7 It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.
We’ve seen in Revelation 12, that the dragon can symbolize (1) Satan (Rev. 12:7-9), (2) pagan Rome (Rev. 12:4), or (3) papal Rome (Rev. 12:14). This is true again in Revelation thirteen: In verse one, the dragon is pagan Rome, because the beast described is clearly papal Rome. We are told that “the dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority,” and we know that pagan Rome gave papal Rome its seat and its authority. One example of the transfer of authority would be that the title of the head of the pagan Roman religion, Pontifex Maximus, once conferred honorarily on the pagan Roman emperors, was transferred to the popes, and still among their titles to this day.
But, in verse four, people are said to be worshiping the dragon, and it seems likely that people are not worshiping pagan Rome but Satan himself, because Satan, although cloaked in a hundred different names of diverse idols and pagan gods, is the hidden figure at the center of all pagan, anti-Christian religions.
The beast had the ten horns, which we know signifies pagan Rome, but this beast also has characteristics of the Leopard (Greece), the Bear (Medo-Persia) and the Lion (Babylon). This means that papal Rome, the Roman Catholic Church, had incorporated beliefs and doctrines that stemmed from Rome, Greece, Medo-Persia, and Babylon.
In last week’s lesson, we focused on the Babylon connection, but clearly the Catholic Church incorporated everything it could get its hands on, not just the Babylonish religion, but every pagan religion. This baptism of paganism continued into the modern era; one fairly recent example being that the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico has embraced the “Virgin of Guadalupe,” who, although thinly disguised as yet another Virgin Mary, is really the goddess Tonantzin, long worshiped by the native Aztec/Mexica before the arrival of Cortes and his conquistadors.
We are told that one of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. Adventists have traditionally identified the fatal wound as the blow delivered to the Catholic Church by Revolutionary France when, in 1798, General Berthier arrested the pope and the pope died in prison. The papacy’s political power has never yet fully recovered from this wound; it is now, for the most part, just another church. But this passage teaches that someday it will recover the full political power it wielded during the Medieval period.
The beginnings of the recovery of the papacy’s political power can be seen in events in the U.S., a nation founded by Protestants and based upon Protestant principles. 1960 saw the first Roman Catholic elected president. In 1984, President Reagan announced the establishment of formal diplomatic relations with the Vatican, appointing William A. Wilson as ambassador. In 2015, Pope Francis addressed a packed joint session of congress, the first pontiff ever to do so; he was lauded and applauded as well as any popular president ever has been. So it is plain that the “deadly wound” is gradually being healed, and the Roman Church is gradually recovering its lost political power.
The beast uttered blasphemies. What is blasphemy? Scripture (Luke 5:18-26) tells us that it is blasphemous for a human being to claim the power to forgive sins. Of course Jesus, as God, had the power to forgive the paralytic’s sins. The Roman Catholic Church set up a system in which it purports to forgive sins; you enter the confessional and confess your sins to a priest, and the priest tells you what your penance will be and what you must do to be forgiven for your sins. Rome’s false system of expiation sets aside the priestly mediation of Jesus Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, in which Christ pleads his blood in our behalf. (1 Tim. 2:5-6; Heb. 7:25; 1 John 2:1)
Another instance of blasphemy is claiming to be God when you are only a man (John 10:33), and the papacy does this with titles such as “Lord God the Pope,” and vicarious filii dei, the “vicar of the Son of God.” Jesus did confer religious authority on His church on earth (Mat. 16:18-20), but He never set up a single human individual or officer to be his personal representative on earth, having the power to speak and rule for Him. Hence the claim that each pope is the personal representative of Christ on earth is a blasphemous claim.
As we’ve seen in previous weeks, the papacy was given power for 42 prophetic months, which is 1260 prophetic days/literal years. This period began with the consolidation of papal power in 538 and ended with the “deadly wound,” which was the Revolutionary’s France’s arrest of the pope in 1798.
How can I claim that this beast from the sea is papal Rome when I have previously argued (including just two weeks ago) that in prophecy beasts represent political kingdoms, whereas women, fallen or virtuous, represent churches? Aren’t I now mixing up my symbols? The answer is that, during the 42 months of papal supremacy, the Catholic Church was not just a church. To the contrary, it was exercising tremendous political power, so much so that it can be represented by a beast as well as woman. The most famous example is when Pope Gregory VII forced King Henry IV to wait outside in the snow for three days and three nights at Canossa in the Italian Alps before allowing the king an audience. A political church or a church-state combination can be depicted as, or symbolized by, a beast. This is very important to bear in mind when we begin to interpret was is meant by “the mark of the beast.”
11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13 And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. 14 Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. 18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.
The first beast came up out of the water, but this second beast came up out of the earth. We’ve seen that “waters” represents, peoples, tongues and nations, and so “the earth” must represent a sparsely populated area of the world.
This second beast looked like a lamb, which means it appeared to be gentle and Christian, like Jesus Christ the lamb of God. But when it opens its mouth to speak, it speaks like a dragon, which, we have seen, can symbolize Satan, pagan Rome, or papal Rome. Because it is called a beast, it is a political entity or a kingdom/nation. But, again, a beast can be a church/state combination, or a type of government in which a church exercises power over the king or the secular state.
This new beast has all the power, but it exercises its power on behalf of the first beast, which is papal Rome. It sets up an “image” to the first beast, which is papal Rome, the Roman Catholic Church. This new “image” of papal Rome would be nominally Christian (but really pagan), just as papal Rome was and is nominally Christian but really pagan, and it would include using political power to enforce the religious system.
By this time, the papacy’s deadly wound has been fully healed, meaning that the papacy has somehow managed to fully regain the political power it lost to Revolutionary France in 1798.
This second part of Revelation 13 is very straightforward and obvious, at least compared to much of Bible prophecy. The events described lie yet in the future.
The second beast of Revelation 13 must be a nation that (1) grew up in a lightly populated region of the earth, (2) has the power to “cause fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people,” and (3) will set up an image to the first beast. This image to the beast would have enough power to rule the whole world, and it would use that power to enforce the prerogatives of that Christian-but-really-pagan religion on the whole world. That includes enforcing “the mark of the beast” by excluding dissenters from the money economy.
What nation could set up such an image?
The Mark of the Beast
Memory Text: “He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.” (Revelation 13:10, NKJV).
The Waldenses
The Waldenses were a people who lived in the Italian Alps and, despite living hundreds of years before the Reformation, made the Bible their only rule of faith, rejecting such papal innovations as the mass, the celibate priesthood, confession, purgatory, indulgences, and infant baptism. In fact, the Waldenses rejected the whole complex of pagan practices adopted by the Roman Church during the middle ages, and held that the Pope was anti-Christ.
Most Catholic and liberal protestant scholars have accepted the view that the Waldenses began with Peter Waldo, a rich man of Lyon, France, who, around 1160 AD, gave all his money to the poor and became an itinerant preacher.
The Waldenses themselves, however, who might better be called Vaudois, traced their religion back to apostolic times. Their historian, J.A. Wylie, notes that even some Catholic researchers admitted that the Vaudois were "not a new sect in the ninth and tenth centuries . . ." But even if they originated in the 12th century, they predated the reformation by 300 years.
Translating the Scriptures into both Italian and French, the Vaudois sent out traveling salesmen whose real mission was to witness and distribute Scripture in the people's languages. These missionaries were liable to be imprisoned or burned at the stake if Papal authorities discovered their clandestine religious mission, but they were not typically molested in their homelands, the Piedmont valleys. Notable exceptions were in the years 1400 and 1488, in which unsuccessful attempts were made to suppress them.
The most savage persecution of the Vaudois began only after the Protestant Reformation was well underway in northern Europe. A major campaign of extermination was mounted in 1561, but again met with only partial success.
Finally, in 1655, the valiant Vaudois were very nearly wiped out. The duke of Savoy sent an army of 8,000 into their villages, demanding that the local populace quarter troops in their homes. They did as he requested, but it was a ruse to give the soldiers easy access to their victims.
On April 24, 1655, at 4:00 A.M., a signal was given and the massacre began. This time, the death toll was more than 4,000. The atrocities committed against this simple and inoffensive people were too grotesque to be described in detail. The 1655 massacre was so infamous and terrible, however, that the government of England, then under the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, lodged a protest with all of the governments concerned.
John Milton was inspired to write the sonnet which begins:
"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, who bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody piedmontese that rolled
Mother and infant down the rocks."
One bright spot in the story of the 1655 massacre was the remarkable leadership of Joshua Gianavello, of the Village of Rora, who mounted a successful defense of one upper valley. Gianavello has become the subject of an historical novel "Rora."
The work of extermination begun in 1655 was nearly completed in 1686, when the remaining Vaudois were either killed, imprisoned, or exiled to Switzerland and Germany. Remarkably, Henri Arnaud led a few hundred of the Vaudois back to their mountain stronghold in 1690 and reclaimed by force their ancient patrimony. Thus, the Vaudois have continued on to the present time.
Interestingly, in 1893, a company of Vaudois migrated to the United States and founded the town of Valdeses, Burke County, North Carolina. At the time, a local newspaper wrote:
"All the little Waldensian children are taught to read and write at a very early age, and their knowledge of the scriptures would put to shame many of our church people of maturer years. They speak both French and Italian very fluently, and are all apparently very bright and intelligent and very anxious to learn the language of this new country."
The Mark of the Beast
History repeats itself. The “mark of the beast” prophecy is about the final outrage in a history of religious persecution that goes back through the ages. Like the persecutions of the past, it is designed to force everyone to conform to an approved system of worship. But God will always have a people, like the Waldenses, who will not capitulate.
Last week, we studied the two beasts of Revelation 13, the first beast out of the sea, representing the papacy of the middle ages which exercised tremendous political power, and the second beast out of the earth, which will make an image to the first beast, meaning a Christian-but-really-pagan religious system enforced by enormous political power.
This second beast forces people to receive a mark:
It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. 18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.
So what is this mysterious mark, our acceptance of which determines whether we will be allowed to buy or sell?
The mark being in the forehead or the hand symbolizes whether a person accepts the doctrine, teaching, or worldview behind the mark. If someone does accept the teaching or doctrine, the mark is said to be in the forehead, the center of reason and critical thinking. If the person rejects the teaching or doctrine, the mark is on the hand, which symbolizes action; in that case, the person has accepted the mark only to be allowed to buy and sell, to participate in the money economy.
But what is the teaching behind the mark? The prophet Daniel provided us with a big clue in his discussion of the beast representing Rome in chapter seven.
“Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.”
Of the four kingdoms shown to Daniel in vision, Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece and Rome, the Roman Empire was the most fierce and merciless. It was different in that way, but, more importantly, different in having a pagan and a papal phase:
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
Ten “barbarian” tribes took over the territory of the Western Roman Empire after it collapsed in 476 AD. But then we are told of another “king,” the little horn, who again is “diverse” or different from the other kings that take over from pagan Rome. He is different because he is not merely or primarily a political ruler; he is the leader of church. He is the papacy. The papacy uprooted three of those ten barbarian tribes that took over from pagan Rome: the Ostrogoths, Heruli and the Vandals, who were not seen again after 538 AD.
25 “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.”
We discussed some of those “words against the most high” last week, including “Lord God the Pope” and “Representative of the Son of God.” But the worst sin was to interpose a human system of confession, penance, and absolution between the believer and his only true mediator, Jesus Christ, who ministers on our behalf in the heavenly sanctuary.
The time and times and half a time, during which time the saints of the most high are given into his hand, and are “worn out”—the Vaudois being but one example among an unnumbered host—is a way of saying three and a half prophetic years, which is the same time period as the 1260 days, and the 42 months; this period began in 538 and ended in 1798, as we have discussed several times.
But one thing we have not discussed is that the papacy will “think to change times and laws.” What does this mean? What laws has the papacy changed? For one, the Catholic Church re-arranged the ten commandments, doing away with the commandment about worshiping images or idols, and splitting the prohibition on covetousness into two pieces.
But there is another law, a law about a time, that the papacy changed: It changed the day for Christian rest and worship from Sabbath the seventh day of the week, to Sunday, the first day of the week. There was never any biblical justification for this change. It was done merely by the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
The church of Rome claims that Sunday is the “mark” of its ecclesiastical authority. “Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. … And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters.” — The American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883.
Catholics freely admit that the change from Sabbath to Sunday has no Scriptural warrant, and was done only on the authority of the Catholic Church. In fact, they have been able to use the fact that most Protestants continue to keep Sunday as a potent argument against the principle of Sola Scriptura and in favor of church tradition.
At the council of Trent, the Gaspar de Fosso, Archbishop of Reggio, said, “The authority of the church could not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the church had changed . . .Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority.” — de Kock, Christ and Anti-Christ, p. 216.
Likewise, an anonymous 19th Century Catholic tract writer wrote:
“We blame you not for making Sunday your weekly holyday instead of Saturday, but for rejecting tradition, which is the only safe and clear rule by which this observance can be justified. In outward act, we do the same as yourselves in this matter; we too no longer observe the Jewish Sabbath, but Sunday in its stead; but then there is this important difference between us, that we do not pretend, as you do, to derive our authority for so doing from a book, but we derive it from a living teacher, and that teacher is the Church.” —ibid, 217.
The keeping of Sunday is not in the Bible, but only in church tradition. It is the mark of the Catholic Church, instituted by its authority, and it will become, in the future, the mark of the beast.
The Seal of God
In contrast to the mark of the beast, God’s true followers will receive the seal of God, which is keeping the true Sabbath. Seals were used in ancient times to attest to the authenticity of official documents. We would then expect to find God’s seal embedded in His law. Ancient seals were a distinctive individualized mark. Isaiah the prophet says, “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples” (Isa. 8:16, NKJV).
The Fourth Commandment contains three elements of an authentic seal. First, the name of the sealer: “The LORD your God” (Exod. 20:10, NKJV). Second, the title of the sealer: the Lord who “made,” (Exod. 20:11) or the Creator. And third, the territory of the sealer: “the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (Exod. 20:11, NKJV).
According to Revelation 7:1-3, the seal of God is placed only on our foreheads, a symbol of our minds. Thus, we understand that the faithful are those who “keep the commandments of God, and have the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12), and included in those commandments is the fourth. Although the beast seeks to change times and laws (Dan. 7:25), God’s commandments stand forever.
Worthy is the Lamb
Memory Texts: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. Rev. 22:1-2 “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” Rev. 5:12
“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Rev. 21:1-4.
“I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Rev. 21:22-27.
With all the beasts running around in the books of Daniel and Revelation, it is easy to lose sight of that one animal that is by far the most important symbolic creature in the Bible, the Lamb. The Lamb is Jesus Christ. John 1:29.
Jesus Christ is the great sacrifice for sins, the reality that the lambs of the tabernacle and temple system of the ancient Hebrews foreshadowed and typified. Jesus Christ is the only One who has made our salvation possible. If any of us is ever saved to see that crystal clear river of life in that city with no night, it is solely because of Christ and what He did for us on Calvary.
Many of us here on earth are still confused about this most vital of all facts, but rest assured that no one in heaven is confused. They all know who is worthy, and why:
“Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. . . . He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. . . . And they sang a new song, saying:
“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”
Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”
The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.
In the end, it is all about the mercy and forgiveness made possible for us by the great Lamb of God. This is why they sing, and why we will sing. David was prophesying when he wrote:
Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice:
let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
If thou, Lord, shouldst be extreme to mark what is done amiss,
O Lord, who shall stand?
But there is mercy with thee,
therefore shalt thou be feared.I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait,
and in his word do I hope.
My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning:
I say, more than they that watch for the morning.Let Israel hope in the Lord:
for with the Lord there is mercy,
and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
Those of us who by God’s grace and mercy triumph over the beast and his image, and over the number of his name, will never be in any doubt as to why we are there. We will be singing the same tune, the same praises to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ:
“I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign . . . a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb:
“Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” Rev. 15:1-4.
It is all about the Lamb of God, and His worthiness.