The Fourth Beast of Daniel 7 is not Rome

 The 4thBeast of Daniel 7 is not Rome

Hello again.  I am going to divert a little and not speak of extraterrestrials directly because as SDAs there are some things we must unlearn first.  I do not intend to be condescending.  I am an SDA and had to unlearn these things as well.  You will find me to be very careful in actually reading what the Bible says.  This does not mean I always take things literally, but one mistake we make is we do not read what the text actually says which means we interpret incorrectly.  So let us pay close attention to what the Bible actually says.

I assume most of us know what Daniel 2 means.  We believe gold = Babylon, silver = Persia, brass = Greece, iron = Rome and iron mixed with clay = period of fragmentation in which no power dominates.  And finally, stone = kingdom of God.  We will use this as a foundation.

With respect to showing that the 4^th beast of Daniel 7, and therefore the beast of Revelation 13 is not Rome, let us begin with Daniel 7:1.  In this verse we learn that the vision which follows occurred in the first year of King Belshazzar.  If we place this first year as the year Belshazzar ruled as regent in Babylon while his father Nabonidus spent time in Arabia, this places the vision in 553 BCE. 

Daniel has the vision and then an angel interprets it for him.  I will bold what I wish to emphasize.

As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. (Daniel 7:17).

The angel explicitly places all four kings in the future to the time of the vision.  This makes sense because Babylon had already arisen.  In fact, this vision occurred 52 years after Babylon became the prominent power in the known world.  It was only 14 years away from falling when Daniel had this vision.  I, along with many others, fell into the trap of assuming the four beasts of Daniel aligned with the four metals of Daniel 2.  But here, we see that the four beasts arise in the future.  This means that the lion = Persia, the bear = Greece, and the leopard = Rome.  What would the fourth beast be?  If we use Daniel 2 s a guide, we must conclude that the fourth beast can only appear after the period of fragmentation in which iron mixes with clay since it is clear that no power gains dominance during the period of fragmentation.  I would also point out that the period of fragmentation is not specified precisely.

For those who argue I have no historical basis for my beast shift, I could easily say that Persia conquered like a lion but then issued laws and policies, some of which we inherit today, thereby becoming a man.  I could say the tilted bear was Phillip of Macedon followed by Alexander the Great who rose higher than his father Phillip and that the three ribs symbolize the Greek States (which Phillip unified under one rule for the first time in Greek history), Persia, and Egypt.  I could say the leopard’s four wings correspond to the eventual division of the empire into four parts, and on and on.

But let us get back to the main thread of the discussion.  If I only had this verse to work with, my argument might be interesting, but far from conclusive.  Fortunately, we have Revelation 17, a text pretty much ignored in SDA Revelation seminars.  Revelation 17’s purpose is to reveal the mystery of the great prostitute and the beast upon which she rides.  It is to this chapter, then, we turn to show that my use of Daniel 7:17 is correct.

We first note that when the angel speaks to John, he does this sometime at the end of the 1^st century CE.  I believe the disciple John wrote Revelation and not the mysterious John of Patmos conjured up by modern scholars.  This is important.  Now we must pay close attention to what the angel says to John at the end of the 1^st century CE.

The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the inhabitants of the earth, whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. (Revelation 17:8 emphasis is mine).

We learn that the beast used to exist at some point in the past.  The beast will one day ascend from the abyss = Tartarus = bottomless pit.  But at the end of the 1^st century, the beast does not exist.  We know that the Roman empire ruled during this time and yet we are told explicitly that the beast does not exist.  As if this were not conclusive enough, we are given additional information.

This calls for a mind that has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; also, they are seven kings, of whom five have fallen, one is living, and the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction (Revelation 17:9-11 emphasis is mine).

We learn that at the end of the 1^st century, five heads or kingdoms had fallen as kings (more later).  One ruled during John’s time, and the 7^th and final king would come but remain only a short time.  The final piece to the puzzle is that the entire beast is an 8^th power.  This is definitive.  Rome is the 6^th head, but not the beast.  In fact, another power would arise after Rome before the beast exists once more.  In other words, the beast as a whole used to exist.  It does not exist as a whole now, but the 6^th head exists.  The 6^th head exists while the beast does not exist.  Eventually, the entire beast will exist again, and it will come from Tartarus = the abyss = the bottomless pit and when it does this, it will be an 8^th power.

If the beast ascends from the abyss, it must have been sent there at some point in the past.  After its demise, the first head arose, and then the second, and so on.  Who might the five fallen heads represent?  If we use Rome as the 6^th head at the end of the 1^st century, we can say that the five powers that ruled and persecuted God’s people prior to Rome represent Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece.  Note that Egypt as a world ruler fell but Egypt was not destroyed.  Assyria fell as a world power, but we still have Iraqis today.  In fact, Iraqis refer to their nation as Assur which is the biblical word for Assyria.  The same applies to Babylon and we can easily see that Iran and Greece are still with us.  Thus the five fallen heads still exist, but not as kings.  So, when the second head rises and the first head falls, we have 2/7 of the beast, then 3/7, then 4/7 and so on.  When the 7^th head finally emerges, we have the beast as a whole, but the 7^th head is only there for a short time.  Then, and only then, do we see the entire beast rise in its entirety as the 8^th power.

In Revelation 13, the inhabitants of the earth are amazed at the beast because they thought the beast was killed, but here it is again.  Who can fight against a power that cannot die?  Logic tells you that the head that was wounded is the 7^th head.  In fact, it can only be the 7^th head the other six having fallen.  But the people of the earth realize that the whole beast, which only comes into existence when the 7^th head emerges, was wounded, but the deadly wound was healed. 

It is therefore absolutely clear that the 4^th beast of Daniel 7 and the beast of Revelation 13 cannot be Rome.  The 6^th head is Rome.  The 7^th head appears after the period of fragmentation for a short time because Daniel 2 tells us that the period of fragmentation occurs after the pure iron of Rome.  If you want to extend the 6^th head to include papal Rome, go ahead but the important thing to note here is that the beast is not Rome and therefore is also not the papacy.

We now have lion = Persia, bear = Greece, Leopard = Rome, period of fragmentation, 7^th head, wounded 7^th head and the beast appears slain, followed by the entire beast resurrected as it were representing the 8^th and final power just before the stone hits the image.  This is very difficult for SDAs because we are fixated on the papacy.  Because we are SDAs, I will now turn to the 1,260 days.

Our church teaches that one day of apocalyptic prophecy = one actual year.  We use Ezekiel 4:6 and Numbers 14:34 to prove this.  Neither Numbers nor Ezekiel are apocalyptic texts so this proof is highly flawed.  What is even more telling itself is Revelation 13.  Read Revelation 13 honestly and without the baggage we associate with it.  Ask yourself whether the 42 months occur before or after the deadly wound is healed.  Our church teaches that the 42 months or 1,260 days, occurs prior to the deadly wound.  But if you read Revelation 13 honestly, you can only conclude that the 42 months occurs after the wound is healed.  Does this mean we must endure for 1,260 years?  Our universal and mindless application of the year-day principle is what prevents us from reading the plain statements of Scripture.  I can demonstrate this very simply.  Consider this passage which our Daniel and Revelation seminars completely ignore.

I watched then because of the noise of the arrogant words that the horn was speaking. And as I watched, the beast was put to death, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire.  As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.  (Daniel 7:11-12 emphasis is mine).

The 4^th beast is burned with fire.  This occurs at the second coming as is clearly shown in Daniel 7 itself, as well as in Revelation 19.  But the other three beasts, which I have identified as Persia, Greece, and Rome, are not destroyed when the 4^th beast is.  They are stripped of sovereignty, but their lives are prolonged.  We can interpret “a season and a time” as referring to an indefinite period of time in the sense that “their lives were prolonged for a little while” or we could say that a season is equal to 90 days while a time = 360 days = 90 + 360 days = 450 days = 450 years.  This means that after the second coming, we have 450 more years to go.  Although I won’t go into a deep analysis of year-day here, this is quite problematic for the SDA view of last day events.  I believe a day-day application is warranted here which aligns with most Christians who feel that the 1,260 days = 1,260 days.  I mention this to give you something to think about.  What is important here is that we actually read what the Bible is saying.

Although there are still many unanswered questions, we can now definitively say that the beast is not Rome or the papacy.  The SDA position is that the action of Revelation 17 occurs in 1798 so that when the angel says the beast is not, that refers to the beast not existing in 1798 when we say the deadly wound was received.  My counter to this argument is a simple one.  To my simple mind, the present tense is the present tense.  If an angel speaks to John and says something does not exist (present tense) that means it does not exist at the time when the words are uttered.  There is no other place our church jumps to another time when interpreting the present tense in the Bible.  Quite frankly, this position is an embarrassment.  The 1798 view does not explain the heads in that it does not say what the 6^th head was in 1798.  In fact, we do not examine the seven heads at all and as I said earlier, ignore Revelation 17 in our seminars.