Chapter One: Keys of Understanding
The book of Revelation speaks of strange beasts and strange wonders, including strange fire falling from heaven in the last days. For the reader and examiner of this prophetic book, these strange and wondrous things can be bewildering and hard to understand without some guiding principles or method of study.
When it comes to Bible prophecy, most particularly the books of Daniel and Revelation, Seventh-day Adventists today have a rich blessing of understanding. Much of this heritage is due to the contributions of the early Adventist pioneers who diligently and prayerfully studied their Bibles without inherent bias.
When studying apocalyptic Bible prophecies, Seventh-day Adventists have long held to the historicist method of interpretation. Historicism, sometimes called “continuous historical” interpretation, views John the Revelator’s prophecies as unfolding along a historical timeline beginning with John’s time and ending with God’s kingdom set up on the new (restored) earth. As for guiding principles, the primary or chief principle is for Scripture to interpret Scripture. This book seeks to examine and come to a deeper understanding of John the Revelator’s prophecy about the two-horned beast in Revelation 13 using this primary principle. For a more complete understanding of this and other principles of study, see Appendix I.
Historical Interpretations of Revelation 13
Revelation 13 tells of two distinct beasts that will play pivotal roles in the last days leading up to Christ’s triumphant return: The ten-horned beast from the sea and the two-horned beast from the earth. What does a beast represent in Bible prophecy? Allowing Scripture to be its own expositor, we can clearly see that the four beasts spoken of in the prophetic book of Daniel (see Daniel 7) represent four distinct kingdoms; therefore, it makes good theological sense that the two beasts in Revelation 13 would also represent kingdoms.
Long before the time of the Protestant Reformation, the ten-horned beast (Revelation 13:1-10) had been identified with the Roman papacy: a civil and religious power that was viewed as being spiritually corrupt and having the character of antichrist. This historical belief is still held by some Christians today, including Seventh-day Adventists.
As for the identity of the two-horned beast (Revelation 13:11-17), there wasn’t much commentary or developing understanding until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—a time when America was steadily progressing in its development and expansion in the New World.
In Europe, as far back as 1680, Dr. Thomas Goodwin of Magdalen College, Great Britain, equated the two-horned beast with Protestantism as being the formed image to the Roman papacy, the ten-horned beast of Revelation 13. Later on, noted American expositors leading up to and during the time of the Second Great Awakening in America not only concluded the two-horned beast to be Protestant in nature, but identified its locality with the New World (America).
“In 1767, American Baptist historian Isaac Backus came to believe that it involved a Protestant likeness of the Papacy.… In 1798 Congregationalist Jeremy Belknap, and in 1799 Congregationalist [and] Judge John Bacon, similarly thought it to be Protestantism—Bacon even coming to hold that the two horns represent ‘civil and religious liberty’ in America. Similar views were held in 1816 by Baptist Robert Scott, M.D., and Disciples leader Samuel McCorkle in 1830, as well as Samuel Smith in 1834.” [1]
Early Adventist Views of the Second Beast
After the Great Disappointment on October 22, 1844, some Sabbatarian Adventists further examined the identity of the two-horned beast and developed more explicit interpretations. There were various Sabbatarian Adventists who saw the spiritual condition of the “fallen” Protestant churches in America, the country’s immoral stain of slavery, and the erosion of the separation between church and state within American governance (i.e., Sunday laws) as ominous signs pointing to the second beast and the future image or likeness of the first beast. LeRoy Edwin Froom writes:
Among Sabbatarian Adventists about the earliest clear application was by Hiram S. Case, who identified it as the Protestant Churches in America, with its Republican features (Present Truth, November, 1850, p. 85). George W. Holt had written of this second, or ‘image beast,’ as having lamblike characteristics, denominated Protestant and Republican (ibid., March, 1850, p. 64), but without further identification.
Hiram Edson similarly called it ‘Protestant Rome,’ with the two horns as ‘civil and ecclesiastical power’ (Advent Review Extra, Sept., 1850, p. 9). But Case specified it as ‘church and state’ united, that is, ‘Protestant churches and Republicanism’—an image of the older papal church-state union (Present Truth, November, 1850, p. 85). They were feeling their way.
Pictorially, on the Otis Nichol prophetic chart of 1850 the two horned Beast is definitely denominated ‘Image of Papacy,’ or ‘Protestant Republic of the United States,’ with the two horns labeled ‘Republican and Protestant’ (The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers [PF], vol. 4, 1074, 1075). In 1851 Joseph Bates presented essentially the same view (Review & Herald, Aug. 5, 1851). And likewise James White in his later 1863 chart, captioned it ‘Protestantism,’ with the two horns as civil and religious power (PF vol. 4, 1080-1082).[2]
Among the early Adventist expositors, J.N. Andrews most notably shaped Adventist thinking about the identity of the two-horned beast. The next chapter will examine Andrews’ published writings in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald(1851-1855), which not only were influential in establishing what would become the standard Adventist exposition, but still have a stronghold on Seventh-day Adventist understanding today.
[1] LeRoy Edwin Froom, Movement of Destiny (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assoc., 1971), 121-122
[2] Froom, Movement of Destiny (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assoc., 1971), 123-124