On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 2: The Revelation of Christ as God

In our opening presentation in this series, we offered a description of the antiquity of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Revelation, and also sought to establish the approximate time and place of the authorship of the work, including the fact that it was written by the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, who also wrote the Gospel bearing his name, and the epistles which have been attributed to him from the earliest times. Doing that, we cited Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus of Rome, Victorinus of Pettau, and the Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John. Our purpose was to exhibit the fact that from these eight ancient second and third-century Christian sources, a rather consistent narrative is presented in which it may be determined that the apostle John wrote his Gospel account, was imprisoned in exile on Patmos at an undetermined time in the reign of the emperor Domitian, and upon the death of Domitian he returned to Ephesus, where he penned the Revelation of Yahshua Christ. It is not certain when he may have written his three surviving epistles.

While doing that we also presented and discussed the arguments of one of the earliest skeptics of John’s authorship of the Revelation, Dionysius of Alexandria. So we hope to have also convincingly explained how the arguments of Dionysius are all faulty or without merit, and after the faults are elucidated he really has no arguments remaining to provide a substantial basis for his doubt.

Furthermore, there are some tales found in the early Christian writers of which we ourselves must be skeptical. Presenting our witnesses, one tale that we encountered from Tertullian described John’s having been boiled in oil without injury before his exile to Patmos. In the Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John, a work which is esteemed to predate Tertullian by at least several decades, although John’s exile is recorded no such story of his having been boiled in oil is found. Rather, in that record it is attested that John was banished to Patmos instead of being executed on account of a miracle where he had raised a dead woman to life. Outside of the Book of Acts, I do not necessarily credit the writings which purport to record the acts of the apostles, but this does indicate that not all accounts found in the so-called “Church Fathers” are trustworthy or even consistent.

However when there are eight ancient witnesses to a particular historical narrative, such as the exile of John and his writing of the Revelation after his exile had ended, then the records are difficult to simply brush aside. Then, as we shall see, when the text of the Revelation itself supports that same narrative, then we must accept it as relative truth.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 4: The Churches at Ephesus and Smyrna

In our last presentation we took a long digression in order to elucidate the mistakes which the early Christian writers had made where they attempted to explain the references which Yahshua Christ had made in Revelation chapter 2 to a certain group, or class, of men whom He had called Nicolaitans. The earliest of those writers, Ignatius of Antioch, had acknowledged the existence of a group called Nicolaitans, but without explanation he referred to them as being “falsely so-called” Nicolaitans, and if they did not deserve the label then even if an actual sect existed which called themselves by that name, it could not have been the same as those to whom Christ had referred here.

Later so-called Church Fathers attributed to the Nicolaitans certain sins for which Christ had explicitly condemned Balaam and a woman whom He called Jezebel in this chapter, but Christ Himself never attributed those sins to the Nicolaitans, so the attribution cannot stand. Several others went so far as to connect these Nicolaitans to the Nicolaus of Antioch mentioned in Acts chapter 6, which is basically a slander of that particular Nicolaus. The events of Acts chapter 6 date to as early as 34 AD, and certainly happened long before 41 AD where the death of Herod Agrippa I is recorded in Acts chapter 12. We may think that if a man who was described by Luke as having been one of the early saints and leaders of the church in Judaea had broken away and began some heretical sect supposedly known to all of those early Christian writers, that Luke, as well as Peter, James and Paul along with him, most of whom must have known Nicolaus personally, would have mentioned his heresy somewhere in their writings, as they all lived and wrote for at least another 28 years. James and Paul each died about 62 AD, in different places and under different circumstances, and that is when Luke ended the records of the Book of Acts. Therefore it is highly unlikely that the Nicolaus of Acts chapter 6 had founded any heresy worthy enough to be mentioned, and even hated, by Christ here in Revelation chapter 2. Yahshua Christ must have been referring to something else.

So in rejecting the false assumptions and unsupported conclusions of the so-called Church Fathers in reference to the Nicolaitans, and examining the history of the early Church from the writings of the apostles who authored our New Testament scriptures, in my opinion a much more accurate interpretation of the references to Nicolaitans mentioned here in Revelation chapter 2 may be attained. The word nicolaitan means prevailing over the people, and seeing the Judaizers with whom the apostles had struggled, who sought to rule over the people in the dispensation of rituals, later called sacraments, we can determine that a Nicolaitan is one of that particular class of priest, whether Judaic or Pagan, who sought to control the people by withholding mysteries and dispensing sacraments, or rituals.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 6: The Churches at Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea

In our last presentation, having concluded our commentary on Revelation chapter 2 we discussed the messages to the assemblies at Pergamos and Thyatira. In those messages, each of these assemblies were criticized by Yahshua Christ for having accepted men and women who were advocating the same sin, but in a somewhat different manner. The assembly at Pergamos had evidently had at least several unnamed members who upheld what Christ had described as the “teaching of Balaam, who had taught Balak to put a trap before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication.”

Consulting the Old Testament Scriptures in order to find what the teaching of Balaam had been, in Numbers chapter 25 we find that the Moabites had instructed their women to seduce the men of Israel into engaging in illicit acts of sexual intercourse. There we read, in part, “1 And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.” Then a little further on: “3 And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.” But it is not until this incident is mentioned again later, in Numbers chapter 31, that we find that it was indeed Balaam who had taught this, where we read that it was done “through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.” So Balaam, who was hired to curse Israel, could not curse them as Yahweh had caused only blessings to emanate from his mouth. Therefore, perceiving that if the men of Israel could be coaxed into such a sin that they would lose the favor of their God, he instructed Balak to do that very thing.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 8: The Lamb of God

Presenting our commentary on Revelation chapter 4 we had discussed Visions of the Throne of God, where in part we had compared John’s vision here with the similar earlier visions of both Isaiah and Ezekiel. In chapter 6 of Isaiah, the prophet had said rather explicitly that he saw “the Lord sitting upon a throne”, while in the opening chapter of his book Ezekiel only said that “upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it”, and described the man as having the appearance of fire. But towards the end of the chapter, Ezekiel said “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.” Then as he opened chapter 2, he described things which the man had said to him. While Ezekiel attested that what he saw was merely a vision, and used a word which means likeness quite often in its description, Isaiah did not use those terms. But what Isaiah saw also must have been only a vision, or the burning coal which the seraph creature had set upon his mouth would certainly have caused him harm.

Now here in Revelation chapter 5, John is still describing what he had seen and not only do we see a vision of a man upon the throne of Yahweh, whom from His Own words had professed to be Christ, but we also shall see a vision of a Lamb, and the Lamb also represents Christ. Many Roman Catholics and other Trinitarians may imagine that this supports their Trinity doctrine, but that is not true, as these are only visions and in a vision Yahweh God may represent Himself in any way and as many times as He desires. Leading the Israelites out of Egypt, He was the pillar of a Cloud in the day and He was also the pillar of Fire at night, however both images represented one and the same God. Furthermore, He was the Rock in the Desert at that same time, and that was still the same God. It was Paul of Tarsus who exclaimed that Christ was the rock in the desert, in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, but He never really said that Christ was a literal rock. Paul only referred to a Spiritual Rock, and writing that, he was equating Christ with Yahweh in that chapter. Yahweh God was the Burning in the bush, He was the Spirit in the Cloud, the Spirit in the Fire, and the Spiritual Rock, and Christ is also an aspect of Him – the substance of His person and the fullness of the Divinity bodily, as Paul also described Him in the opening verses of his epistle to the Hebrews and in Colossians chapter 2. The term bodily is what is meant by the word incarnate, which means in the flesh.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 10: The Assurance of God

Discussing the so-called Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in relation to The Pattern of Empires in Revelation chapter 6, we sought to reconcile them to the apparent stages of the rise and fall of the Roman empire, since even though other empires certainly seem to have followed the same general pattern, Rome is the primary subject of the prophecy in these chapters of the Revelation. Now before we commence with our commentary on the Revelation itself, we shall take a moment to review Daniel chapter 2, as it is directly relevant to Revelation chapters 6 and 8. As we had also cited in that last presentation, this same observation was made by the 2nd century Christian bishop Irenaeus.

But first we must offer another digression. In our observance of the pattern of empires we noted that the various stages actually overlap one another. Rome’s White Horse stage began to take form when the city warred against the other tribes of the Italian peninsula and subjected them to itself. Then it turned to the nations abroad and began to subject them as well. Initially this expansion of the empire was conducted under the pretense of good intentions, especially as the bickering Greek states invited Rome to settle their disputes with one another. This White Horse seems to parallel the original expansion of the United States, when the contiguous territory on the North American continent was subjected up through the mid-19th century.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 12: The Condemnation of Roman and Byzantine Churches

As we proceed with our commentary on the Revelation, we shall hopefully be able to even more clearly elucidate the fact that its prophesies have foretold many of the most notable events of the history of these past two thousand years. But these are not singular events. Rather, most of them take place over several or even many centuries, so they really describe historical processes instead. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse describe four processes and sets of circumstances in the course of the history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, which from the time that it began extending overseas to the time of the fall of the western portion of the empire, which includes Rome itself, had lasted over seven hundred years. During the last three centuries of that process, the Germanic tribes were contending with the empire with increasing frequency until they were finally able to overrun it completely.

We may call these events processes because, as it is defined in common sources, a process is “a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.” Once men ever realize that Yahshua Christ and the prophets of Yahweh in the Old Testament have described these historical processes long before they actually began to unfold, then we must admit that the particular end of them which has been achieved is indeed the will of God, that He is true and He has set the course of the history of men to accomplish His purposes. Men must then admit that whether they submit to Him or not, they have no choice but to do His will, whether it be for their own good or for their own destruction, which is also something that He has already determined.

The entire process of the rise and fall of the Roman empire, as we have already discussed at length, was also prophesied by Daniel, in chapter 2 of the Book of Daniel in our Bibles. When we realize that Revelation chapters 6 through 8 parallel Daniel chapter 2 then the identification of these prophecies with the fall of Rome is irrefutable. However now we must digress to discuss another vision in Daniel which also describes the rise and fall of Rome, which is found in Daniel chapter 7. We had previously promised this discussion in relation to Revelation chapter 13, and we will reserve the greatest part of it for that time. But there are certain elements of it which we must comment upon here, because it foretells of historical events and circumstances leading up to things which we shall see prophesied here in Revelation chapter 9.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 14: The Two Witnesses

Presenting Revelation chapter 10 and the vision of the angel with the little book which was opened, we made the assertion that this prophecy had begun to be fulfilled with the Protestant Reformation. It certainly describes some of the circumstances which had set the foundation for and which ultimately led to the Reformation, and that is the next significant development of European history in the wake of the Arab and Turkic invasions of Europe which were described in the prophetic visions of Revelation chapter 9.

History is never merely black-and-white, and once one begins to study it earnestly, one should rather quickly discover that there are ever-increasing degrees of complexity in the layers of circumstances and conditions which underlie and precipitate significant world events. So while the many visions of the Revelation describe future history and historical circumstances in broad strokes, we also have tried to avoid becoming mired in historical details as we endeavor to explain their fulfillment. But as we have already explained, an understanding of history is necessary in order to comprehend their fulfillment.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 16: The Nature of the Devil and Satan

In our last presentation, discussing the opening portion of Revelation chapter 12, we set forth the proposition that not only does the chapter describe the birth of Christ Himself, as well as other events of the remote past, but it also prophecies of the birth of a nation, or actually, of a kingdom under the dominion of Christ. The declaration was already made towards the end of chapter 11, which we interpret as a prophecy of the Reformation, that “15… The Kingdom of the Society of our Prince and of His Anointed has come, and He shall rule for the eternal ages!” We would cross-reference this passage with Daniel chapters 2 and 7 and the prophecy of a kingdom which belongs to the saints of the Most High. But here once again it is evident that an ongoing process is being described, and not a singular event, since a very similar declaration is made in this chapter, in a verse which we have not yet discussed, where we read “10… Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God has come.” As we had also asserted, the interpretations of this chapter are manifold, and each aspect deserves our full attention.

So now we shall continue our discussion with another aspect of this prophecy in Revelation chapter 12, as it reveals for us the nature and the origin of the Devil and Satan, who is also called the Serpent and the Great Dragon. We have already seen that it was the Great Dragon who had sought to kill the Christ child as soon as He was born, and in that instance this dragon must have been manifest in the person of Herod, the Edomite king of Judaea. But as it is described here later in this chapter, the same Dragon would go on to persecute the seed of the woman, so the Dragon cannot represent Herod alone, since Herod was dead by the time that the woman had received the testimony of Christ. So although Herod represented the Dragon, the Dragon is described as continuing long after Herod is gone, where it is evident that the Dragon, the Devil and Satan must all be terms which represent a collective entity rather than any mere individual. Here we see that the same entity is also referred to as the Serpent, and as “that Serpent of old,” long after that Serpent of old must also be dead, so once again we would assert that all of these terms represent a collective entity, even if they also describe individuals of that collection, or of that race, who had lived at any given time.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 18: The Papal Beast

In the opening presentation of our commentary on Revelation chapter 13, titled Of Beasts and Tyrants, we saw John describe a great beast which arose out of the sea, and among other attributes it was described as having seven heads and ten horns, and had the characteristics of a leopard, a bear and a lion. Then along with these it also shared many of the attributes with which the four beasts of Daniel chapter 7 were described. Both the beast here and the beast in Daniel had arose out of the sea, which we interpret as being the mass of the world’s people. Therefore, since the four beasts of Daniel’s vision also had ten horns, and had the features of a leopard, a bear and a lion, we should certainly understand that there is a connection between them, that they are prophesying the same phenomenon. This is further affirmed where in Daniel chapter 7 we read that “17 These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth” and further on in the Revelation, in chapter 17, we read: “9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. 10 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.” The woman representing the children of Israel collectively, which is clear in our interpretation of Revelation chapter 12, it becomes quite certain that the beasts and its seven heads represent kings and kingdoms with which the woman was associated throughout history.

But as we had also sought to explain, the scope of the Revelation concerns a much broader view of the history of Israel, past and future, rather than only the future from the time of John. The visions or statements which describe past events give us the ability to better understand the visions of the future as they have been provided by John. So where in chapter 12 we saw the vision of the dragon, Satan and his angels being cast out of heaven, because Satan is also one and the same as “that serpent of old” we know that this explains some of the circumstances of the remote past, and the events of the early chapters of Genesis. Likewise, where it says in Revelation chapter 17 that five kings had already fallen, we can examine the history of Israel to identify five great kingdoms upon which the woman had sat, at one time or another. But Daniel prophesied only of the future from his own time, whereas the Revelation is of a greater scope, so we know that we should include ancient Egypt among the five. The fallen Kingdoms of Revelation chapter 17 are therefore the empires of Egypt and Assyria, which were both past by Daniel’s time, and then the Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic Greek empires. The one which is must of course be the Roman empire, which was near its peak as John wrote the Revelation, and these last four are Daniel’s four kingdoms, in chapter 2, or four beasts, in chapter 7 of his prophecy.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 20: The Song of Moses

In our last presentation, The Harvests of God which discussed Revelation chapter 14, we see that three such harvests were described. But because the King James Version and most other popular Bible translations mistranslate the verb ξηραίνω, which is to be dry or parched, in those editions there only appear to be two harvests. First there is a harvest of firstfruits, which is described as the hundred and forty-four thousand that are apparently already with Christ. The verb used to describe the act of their having been redeemed is in the perfect tense, and where they are described as being virgins and as following Christ the verbs are in the present tense. So it is apparent that this harvest is already completed, which also fits the prophetic context of the earlier descriptions of the hundred and forty-four thousand who were sealed.

Then after an angel admonishes those dwelling upon the earth to praise Yahweh their God, there is an announcement of the fall of Babylon, which seems only to presage the fall of Mystery Babylon which is described later, in chapter 18 of the Revelation. Then there is a further admonishment not to worship the beast, and punishments are announced warning those who would. After that, there is an exclamation in verse 13 which proclaims: “Blessed are those dead among the number of the Prince who are dying from now on!” So this context also supports our claim that the firstfruits are already harvested, and that evidently they are already with Christ.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 22: The Woman is the Whore

In the early chapters of the prophecy of Jeremiah, namely in chapters 1, 3 and 16, the prophet is told to address the children of Israel, the scattered flock of Yahweh, who were already in the north country (1:13; 3:12, 18; 16:15). Then in Jeremiah chapter 16, in one of those references, there is a promise that Yahweh would send for them many fishers, a prophecy which was fulfilled in the spread of the Gospel of Christ as He had told His apostles, as it is recorded in Matthew chapter 4, “19 … Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” But immediately following that promise in Jeremiah there is another, where the Word of Yahweh says “and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.” Christ had never mentioned the hunters, as it was apparently not yet their time.

When Jeremiah wrote those words, he was not speaking of Jews. He began his prophecy in the 13th year of Josiah, which may be estimated to around 627 BC. There were no Jews in the north at that time. But the Israelites were called Khumri in the inscriptions of the Assyrians, and that is the origin of the Greek word Kimmeroi, who in English we know as the Cimmerians, who are a historical branch of the Germanic people. Of them, the Judaean historian Flavius Josephus in Book 11 of his Antiquities of the Judaeans had explained that (Antiquities, 11:133) “there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers.” As Josephus himself had explained at length beginning in Book 13 of his Antiquities, the Judaeans, the modern Jews, were an admixture of Edomites, or Idumaeans, and the small percentage of the people of Judah who had returned to Jerusalem about seventy years after the Babylonian captivity and destruction of the city in 586 BC.

Furthermore, Josephus, being a Judaean, was not aware of the origins of the Germanic people of Europe from that same group, whose migrations can be traced through the Greek and Roman Classical literature. Therefore his statement is not entirely accurate in that regard. After the passing of the Assyrians, in other languages they were called Sakae or Sakans, Scythians and Galatae or Galatians. Later, the Galatae east of the Rhine were called Germans by the Romans, while those to the west were called Gauls. But many of these, such as those called Saxons, Goths, Alans, Vandals and Huns, did not even migrate into Western Europe until after the time of Christ, and the time of Josephus.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 24: The Wedding Supper of the Lamb

As we have already explained, in Revelation chapter 12 the apostle John saw a vision of a woman who had twelve stars, by which we should understand that collectively she represents the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, and she was being taken into the wilderness to be nourished for three-and-a-half times, which we had identified as the period of history during which the woman received the Gospel of Christ and then returned to Yahweh her God through Him. But then in another vision in Revelation chapter 17, John is taken back to the wilderness and sees that the woman is now a whore and that she has joined herself to the beast, which is the same beast system that had manifested itself in the various world empires by which she had been held captive during all the time of her punishment. Joining herself to the beast, the woman turned over her kingdom to the beast, as it states in that same chapter. As we also asserted, the woman was once freed from the beast, as it is described in Revelation chapter 13, but has now become a whore by joining herself to it, as she had a better opportunity to keep the Word of God in the Gospel. So for her failure, the whore must be judged, and Revelation chapters 18 and 19 briefly describe aspects of that judgment.

In the Old Testament there is presented a pattern of sin and the inevitably resulting punishment which modern man somehow supposes that he now has the ability to avoid by his own devices. The secular humanist believes that his own skill, knowledge and technology, as well as his own righteousness, can make him his own savior. So here in Revelation chapter 18, the whore was described as having had the same arrogant attitude reflected in the exclamation that “I sit a queen and I am not a widow and I have not seen grief.” For that, what happens to the woman was expressed in Proverbs chapter 16 where Solomon had written that “18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” The Word of Yahweh God, when we realize its fulfillment in history, assures us that in spite of his modern devices, man shall indeed suffer punishment for his sins.

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 26: The Camp of the Saints

After explaining the parable of the tares of the field to His disciples, as it is recorded in Matthew chapter 13, Yahshua Christ then related to them the parable of the net, where it seems that this parable along with those of the treasure hidden in the field and the man seeking the pearl had all been meant to further elucidate the meaning of that parable of the wheat and the tares. In the manner in which Matthew recorded this, these parables were given to the disciples after they requested and received the explanation of the wheat and the tares. So we read, in the closing verses of that chapter, that “47 Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like a net having been cast into the sea and it gathers from out of every race, 48 which when it is full, bringing up upon the shore and sitting they gather the good ones into vessels, but the rotten ones they cast out. 49 Thusly it shall be at the consummation of the age, the messengers shall go out and they shall separate the wicked from the midst of the righteous 50 and they shall cast them into the furnace of fire. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth!” Next, after they received the explanation of the wheat and tares and these other parables, we read: “51 ‘Have you understood all these things?’ [and] They say to Him: ‘Yes!’”

The word for race in verse 47 of that passage is γένος, which is a race or a kind. It is the same word which we see in the Greek scriptures of the Septuagint where it says in Genesis chapter 1 that “25 … God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” Likewise the underlying Hebrew word, מין or miyn (4327) is defined as a kind or species according to the Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Yahshua Christ having used these terms in His explanations to His disciples as they are in Matthew chapter 13, the disciples would have understood words such as γένος in the parable of the net, or σπέρμα, which is seed, in that of the wheat and tares in their plain, literal meanings, and not in the manner in which the philosophical so-called “Church Fathers” defined them centuries later, which are corruptions of those meanings. Just as in the ancient prophets, Yahshua Christ had employed many parallelisms, and the use of γένος in the parable of the net helps us to more definitively understand the use of the word σπέρμα in the parable of the wheat and the tares, that what God created is good, but the corruptions of men or of angels are wicked and in the end God shall not accept them since He does not accept bastards.