Why the False Prophet is the Antichrist and Why it Matters (Part 1/6)
Introduction
Ask yourself, who starts eschatology with the False Prophet?
We always start with the Antichrist right? Of course we would. The Antichrist is the primary figure prophesied throughout the Bible. Everyone begins with him. If we are honest, the False Prophet is a secondary figure that endorses the Antichrist like a John the Baptist or in today’s vernacular some sort of a “hype man.” The False Prophet is considered tertiary; an afterthought. Some take this so far as to insist that this figure must be the Pope. But could any possible fulfillment of this epic prophecy be any more anemic?
Adolph Hitler and the Pope; these are the traditional profiles of the Antichrist and the False Prophet. But what if the Bible predicts a far more intense reality arising in the end times? What if Revelation 13 describes not two mortal men but instead prophesies the very Advent of Satan in the earth and the Antichrist who will lead the entire human race to perdition? I believe the Bible declares the seven headed dragon (aka Satan) will be cast from heaven and come to earth as a seven headed beast bringing his heavenly war with him. The human counterpart is the second beast with horns like a lamb will deceive the reprobate nations with false signs and wonders empowered by Satan. Revelation 13 is not about Adolph Hitler and the Pope, it is about Satan and the Antichrist. Any other reading will fail to capture the intensity of what is slated to arrive in our world. And this article is my attempt to prove this is the biblical view.
But first let’s back up a bit.
You may have noticed how Bible prophecy is interpreted with an incredible array of diversity. One stream of social media declares with certainty how Obama is the Antichrist while others insist it must be Trump. This isn’t surprising when we’ve been piecing this puzzle together in the dark. The Church has done her best to understand these mysteries with limited light. Earnest saints through the millenia have applied eschatological interpretations to religious organizations (like the Vatican) and/or political entities (like the EU) that have arisen periodically. The end times have always been cloaked with mystery and we have done our best to apply what we see in Bible prophecy.
The Book of Revelation is one of the great victims of just this sort of interpretive complexity. Ask any two Christians what they believe about the Apocalypse and you are likely to get a wide array of potential answers. Some believe the prophecies are purely symbolic and had meaning only to those living in the distant past while others believe it is still a future. Even so, theologians and leymen alike land all over the eschatological spectrum.
All too often eschatological narratives end up way too complicated. The simple reading of the Bible is lost to convoluted complexity. So much so that commentaries become required reading. A priestly class of theologians end up the only ones qualified to wade into these apocalyptic waters, mistreating Bible passages in the quest to justify imagined narratives; ultimately reduced to theological acrobatics just to make everything fit. Much of modern eschatology is a cocktail of Bible passages overly complicated by interpretative narratives.
But now we find ourselves living in a new technological world creating realities that were unthinkable to previous generations. The once impossible is becoming commonplace and we have new light with which to understand the Bible. Technology is allowing Genesis 11:6 “anything that they imagine will become possible to them.” Possibilities once thought science fiction are now daily fact. Our world is becoming something we never dreamed and Bible prophecy has never been more relevant. The time has come to revisit our eschatology with new light.
The eschatology that has been constructed under the dim light of the past will become a plague if left uncorrected. One need but look around to see the result of unbiblical and neglected eschatological effort. The field is fraught with misinterpretation. We must hold to the Bible over the understanding of man. We must be ever vigilant that our narratives are subject to every light the Bible sheds. If we do not, we will find ourselves dogmatically defending irrelevance.
The Word of God must be our guide in everything; in life and theology. The Bible in and of itself is wholly sufficient to understand the end times. We need not lean on our understanding when we can confidently depend entirely on the Bible. And when Bible truth cuts against our understanding, we are confronted with the issue of loyalty.
Where’s Waldo?
The Word of God is like nothing else on earth. It has no beginning and no end. Everything else around us is created but not so the Word of God. It transcends all and all things are subject to it. The meaning revealed in its pages is an eternal wellspring of wisdom and life. It cannot be improved upon. Whatever meaning we attempt to give it only deceives us. We must only draw from the Word of God, never read into it.
For all the things we might say about the seven headed beast of Revelation 13 one thing we cannot say is that it is purely a man. Last time I checked humans don’t have seven heads. We are left to hold that only one of the seven heads is the Antichrist. Unless my math is wrong, this leaves 6 other heads that are something other than the Antichrist. So the beast is at the very best 1/7th Antichrist. Not a compelling percentage when we are left to believe the Beast is only 15% Antichrist and 85% something or someone else.
And then we consider the interpretive inconsistency surrounding Revelation 13. If the 7 headed beast is indeed the Antichrist, it requires conflation between an individual and an empire; or even a succession of empires. If one of the seven heads is taken to mean the Antichrist we are already conflating two (or more) realities. In one verse we say the 7 headed beast is an individual. In the next verse we must say it is the power structure of the Antichrist. Arbitrarily vacillating interpretive paradigms between empire, historical empires, power structure, and an individual makes understanding the first beast of Revelation 13 a quagmire of confusion. I would argue that this level of interpretive inconsistency means we are missing what God is revealing. With God’s revelation comes simplicity and clarity not contradictory complexity. If we allow the 7 headed beast to become a projection of our imagined narrative we will inevitably fail to take the larger biblical picture into account.
Accepting the view that the 7 headed beast is a conflation of the Antichrist and a set of kings and a line of empires has led to some precarious inferences. The one that stands out most is the inference that the wounded head of the beast is actually prophesying the death and resurrection of the Antichrist. No where in the text is the idea of resurrection stated. The text states, “One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed.” When the Bible uses the word healed it does not mean resurrected. The Bible says that Jesus died and was resurrected. It does not say that He was mortally wounded and healed. In fact, to preach that Jesus was healed from a mortal wound is nothing less than damnable heresy. A stronger emphasis doesn’t exist to distinguish the importance of differentiating between being healed from a mortal wound and resurrection from death. Yet many have built an interpretive paradigm based on this very inference.
And even more problematic, traditional eschatology has led us to the point of accepting the very strange and unbiblical notion that nowhere is the False Prophet prefigured in the Bible outside the book of Revelation. Isn’t it strange that the Apostle Paul never mentions the False Prophet? The Apostle John never mentions the False Prophet in his letters. Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel never mention the False Prophet. Jesus never mentions him. While all warn against false prophets in general, not one mention is made of the False Prophet specifically as a separate, specific individual that assists the Antichrist. Why can’t we find a prefigured False Prophet outside of Revelation? There is a very troubling prefigurement void.
Have you noticed how every time we see the Antichrist prefigured in the Bible it is singular? Paul says “man of sin” not “men of sin”. Daniel says “little horn” not “little horns”. There is no plural involved in the prophecies of the Antichrist. Outside Revelation you cannot find two human actors prophesied to arise at the end of the age. It is only in the Book of Revelation that we get the idea that there are two men.
Could it simply be the case that the Antichrist’s pitchman isn’t important enough to register on the prophetic radar? This might be conceivable but is highly problematic when we consider the 10 horns John sees in Revelation 13 are important enough to be prefigured in Daniel 7. Why can we find the 10 kings in Daniel 7 but we cannot find the seemingly far more important member of the unholy trinity? The naked reality is that the False Prophet is not prefigured outside of Revelation.
I begin with an argument from silence but I will not end here. I just wanted to start by saying the silence is deafening. By any estimation this is a serious problem. To glance over this silence as irrelevant is in itself a glaring admission.
There is a very simple answer to this question of silence. But answers are always difficult to hear when the mind has already settled a matter. Wouldn’t our eschatological footing be more sure if we could see that the Bible is as vocal about the False Prophet as it is the Antichrist? I believe the Bible is not silent about the False Prophet because the False Prophet of Revelation is indeed a prophecy of the Antichrist.
My intent here is to lay out a convincing perspective based solely on the Bible. You might point out the dangers of departing from generally held interpretive positions. I would fully agree in matters core to the faith and salvation. But I would point out that this is an eschatological discussion not a matter of soteriology. And I would also point out the many, many times when widely held understanding of eschatology have been wrong in the past. So when it comes between what I see the church teaching and what I see clearly in the Bible, I won’t lose sleep ruffling a few feathers. The solution that I am proposing here not only answers the question of silence but I believe is the clearest reading of the prophecy of Revelation 13.
To build my case that the the False Prophet is the Antichrist I will begin with a brief overview of Revelation 12 and 13 that will identify the roles of each of the two beasts. The first beast is a god of war. The second beast is a man of false peace. With this brief overview in place I will walk through the second half of Revelation 13 beginning in verse 11. By examining each statement regarding the False Prophet an unmistakable profile emerges. It is a man operating in false miracles through the power of Satan in order to deceive the reprobate inhabitants of earth at the end of the age. Finally, I will close my case with a clear statement of why it actually matters that we understand this eschatological reality.