In “Exposing the Seven Heads of Revelation”
Christian Forums it was confirmed that in Revelation 17 the scarlet beast “was” before the sixth king and revives fully as the eighth.
And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. (Revelation 17:9-11)
The proper reading of the passage undermines the preterist and futurist’s interpretation of Revelation. In the preterists’ rendering, it cannot be reasonably held that in John’s time, history confirms one emperor preceded a sixth one and ended up living again as the eighth. In the futurist’s reading, the antichrist or eighth king cannot have existed before the Roman Empire, which is the king that “is” in their view.
The passage from Revelation is a conundrum that is only solved by grasping that the Spirit took John to the future to witness the judgment of the harlot Babylon and the kings are kingdoms commencing with ancient Babylon. From this perspective, the king that “is” represents an entity of our time (the beast rising out of the earth, and the seventh is the image that it forms). From this perspective, the kings of the earth are already in bed with the harlot, and the earth’s inhabitants are already intoxicated by her doctrines, which is her “wine” (Jeremiah 51:7; Revelation 18:3).
And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great harlot that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. (Revelation 17:1-2)
The reason for the woman's condemnation is a matter of debate. Some argue that it is because she was unfaithful to God, as mentioned in Jeremiah 3:1-3, while others believe it is due to her corrupt nature, as described in Nahum 3:1-5 when referring to Nineveh. The first viewpoint suggests that she broke her covenant with God and its judgment time, while the latter implies that she was wicked from the start. The solution to this dilemma is revealed in the next chapter,
And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. (Revelation 18:2)
Egeneto, translated “is become,” signifies a change in condition, which substantiates Babylon in Revelation 17 is judged for her infidelity to God, her fallen state, as in Jeremiah 3:1-3. Jeremiah 5:27 also supports this rendering in the example where the prophet wrote, “as a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore, they are become great, and waxen rich,” concerning covenant violations. And the NT is not silent about a great falling away before Christ’s return (Matthew 5:13, 24:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12; 1 Timothy 4:1–3; Romans 14:10; 2 Corinthians 5:10). Furthermore, the seventh and final church in Laodicea, is judged for just such a fallen condition,
And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. (Revelation 3:14-17)
The state of being rich and increased with goods and yet being wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked is a significant reason God’s people were judged in the past, as witnessed in Jeremiah. This prodigal state is also linked to a market-driven society in which the merchants achieve an elevated status that is facilitated by the harlot Babylon,
For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. (Revelation 18:3)
The consequences of these links to past covenantal violations and the harlot Babylon undermine the preterist and futurist’s renderings. Preterists maintain the harlot represents the great city of Rome or the ancient city of Jerusalem. Yet, pagan Rome did not “become” the habitation of devils; inherently, it was pagan; they worshiped gods and goddesses. And the partnership of the Church, God’s people, with the wealthy merchants of the earth is a contemporary story, not a past one. The Jews in Christ’s time could not be regarded as enriching the earth’s merchants; the Roman Empire had enriched them. And feudalism destroyed the status of the merchants when Rome fell. As for futurism, the enrichment of the merchants, for the most part, has been ongoing for over two hundred years; it is not some future phenomenon. The most extraordinary rise of the merchants is a contemporary phenomenon commencing with the late eighteenth century that continues to this day.
With the rise of the papacy and feudalism, the merchants of the earth suffered a societal downfall. Before feudalism, the merchants of the Mediterranean region had attained great status through the Roman Empire. A secularist, lawyer, law professor, and author Michael Tigar wrote a book concerning the rise of capitalism in which he comments,
To regard Roman legal concepts as applicable to “all peoples” was not so formidable a conceit. Between 280 B.C. and the destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War in 146 B.C., Rome had forcibly conquered most of the lands bordering on the Mediterranean. A village-based agricultural economy was rapidly being replaced by the class structure of the Empire, in which the dominant figures were traders, bankers, merchants, landowners, and the military power which protected their interests. The labor force which fueled this system was slave or half-free, recruited mainly from the conquered and colonized peoples. The power of the ruling class could commit the Roman state to the enforcement of a commercial law which permitted trade.
[ii]
(It must be noted here that all past empires, such as the Babylonian, Persian, and Greek, were obtained through religion, raising the status of the merchants, and facilitating war.
[iii]) With the fall of Rome, the Western dominion became feudal. It returned to a village-based agricultural economy in which the merchants became social outcasts, which was upheld by the papacy. “Profit-taking was considered a form of usury, and the merchant’s soul was thought to be in jeopardy.”
[iv] As this stage developed the merchants, ultimately identified as the “bourgeois” for city dweller, were not content with their status but continually fomented rebellion to improve their status again,
merchants, town dwellers, or bourgeois— call them what you will— were advancing by open revolution, subversion, and economic chicanery ill-understood by their “betters.” All four groups were either outside the law or against it.
[v]
This essay will focus on the role of merchants as an antagonist in the narrative of Revelation, particularly their association with the harlot. While the history of their rise since the fall of Rome is not within the scope of this essay, a market-driven society is a crucial part of the narration of Revelation. In this story, the rich merchants and the harlot Babylon play a significant role as antagonists at the return of Christ. Tigar's work sheds light on these merchants’ modern rise to power,
Finally, there are the laws that the merchants made for themselves, the legal system they fashioned to serve their own interests. First they set up tribunals to settle disputes among themselves, then wrested or cajoled concessions from spiritual and temporal princes in order to establish zones of free commerce, and finally— over a period of centuries— swept to power over nations.
[vi]
Under feudalism, the papacy struggled with the merchants. In modern times the Protestants secularized society, which enriched the merchants. Sociologist George M. Thomas writes of this phenomenon,
The Protestant Reformation in addressing specifically religious issues raised by the nature of the feudal church articulated a rational cosmos… Ecclesiastical bureaucracy was delegitimated at several levels, resulting in a transfer of authority to the secular state and local institutions… The reformation found its first alliance with the territorial prince, partly because of a mutual interest in undermining imperial church authority, but basically because of a similar ontology based on rationalizing principles and common acceptance of a rational central authority. The spread of the Reformation throughout the town councils must be interpreted in the larger political contexts of its isomorphism with the prince as well as with the town’s increasing dependence on the incorporation into the central authority.
[vii]
Christian Forums Jerry Huerta, Exposing the Seven Heads of Revelation,
Exposing the Seven Heads of Revelation by Jerry Huerta copyright 2023
[ii] Michael Tigar, Law and the Rise of Capitalism, Monthly Review Press (June 1, 2000) 28 0f 348
[iii] Marsue and Jerry Huerta,
Thy Kingdom Come; Re-evaluating the Historicists Interpretation of the Revelation, Booktrail Publishing (January 4, 2022)
[iv] Tigar, Law and the Rise of Capitalism, 21 of 348
[v] Ibid., 13 of 348
[vi] Ibid., 22 of 348
[vii] George M. Thomas, Revivalism and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press; Revised edition (January 19, 1998), 147
