Before leaving Revelation 13 we must look at the other Beast—the “image of the beast”—as our quotation on the clock dial covers this and shows it is connected with Daniel’s prophecy. Daniel outlines the Fourth “terrible” Beast arising out of the Mediterranean Sea with iron teeth and ten horns: ‘'I considered the horns, and behold there .came up among them another little horn before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots; and behold in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things.”1 It is generally agreed that this Fourth Beast represented Imperial Rome from B.C. 30, and its Papal development is again indicated by the blaspheming horn: “And he shall speak 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 time, and times and the dividing of time.”2 These three horns indicated below were “plucked up” by the blaspheming horn power in due course, and were clearly indicated by Daniel a thousand years before the event, as history has shown.
Elliott in his exposition has a variation in the horns, replacing the Huns with Ostrogoths, but the application is the same, i.e., “First in A.D.533 the horn of the Vandals in Africa; and possibly after, the horn of the Ostrogoths in Italy were rooted up by Justinian’s forces under Belisarius. Then after the conquest of the Exarchate in A.D. 750, the Lombard horn was eradicated through the instrumentality of Pepin and Charlemagne, and attached for ever to the Roman See, under the singular appellation of the Patrimony of Peter.”6 From The Apocalypse and History we quote the following: “It has been stated, although on somewhat doubtful authority, that as a result of these events, the three black frogs of the Frankish banners and insignia, were transformed into three golden lilies—the fleur-de-lys—and that Paul I out of gratitude for deliverance from the Lombards, and a donation of the States of the Church, ordained that this emblem should be borne for all time in the centre of the Papal arms.” It is contended that the Popes wore the triple crown to commemorate this event. The minute detail of Daniel’s prophecy of the blaspheming horn and the comprehensiveness of the historical counterpart, we suggest, allows of no other possible interpretation; and we hope to show that this is amplified in the “Image of the Beast” which is our next consideration.
The “Image of the Beast” constitutes the sixth item on the seven phases of Ecclesiasticism on the Septiform Table8 just as the “Beast of the Earth,” as shown in our sixth article, constituted the fifth phase. These references are made that the general reader might keep in mind the historical period in the Apocalypse dealt with.
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Author: F. Bilton
Keywords: image of the beast, ten horns, little horn, mouth speaking great things, vandals, huns, Lombards, Number of the Beast, Six six six, Six hundred sixty six, Mark of the beast, Number of man, Man's number, 666, beast of the sea
Bible reference(s): Dan 7:8, Dan 7:25, Rev 13
Source: “Christ’s Outline of World Events in Revelation (7),” The Testimony, Vol. 23, No. 270, June 1953, pp. 165-70.
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