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The 70 Weeks of Daniel (Part 2)

What Are We to Make of Israel
What Are We to Make of IsraelSteve Gregg

Steve Gregg delves into the interpretation of the 70 Weeks prophecy in Daniel 9, discussing the significance of the sacrifices and offerings ceasing, as well as the identity of the prince mentioned in the text. Contrary to a literalist interpretation, Gregg argues that there is no 2,000 year gap between the 69th and 70th week, but rather three distinct sections within the 70 weeks. He examines the idea of the Antichrist and its mention in Daniel and Revelation, highlighting the composite nature of the beasts in Daniel and the symbolic representation of the Antichrist as a political system. Gregg also explores alternative interpretations of the man of sin and the temple of God.

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Transcript

Looking again at Daniel 9, picking up now at verse 26, the latter half of the prophecy. The question now, of course, is to the 62 weeks, which followed the original seven weeks. The 69 weeks, do they lead up to the beginning or the end of Jesus' ministry? Now the reason that's important is this.
If they lead up to the beginning of his ministry, then it would seem that his ministry is included in the 70th week.
And it is said, in verse 27, in the middle of the week, he should cause his sacrifice and offerings to cease. Well, Jesus' crucifixion is said to have done exactly that.
In the book of Hebrews, it says that his offering brought an end to at least the validity of any other sacrifices or offerings.
Prior to that, the Jewish sacrifices in the temple were valid and God-ordained. But after Jesus died, they were just tradition and just rebellion.
The Jews continued to offer sacrifices, but they did so because they rejected Jesus' sacrifice. So, as far as God is concerned, and that's who's giving the prophecy, the sacrifices and offerings cease at the cross. And it is my belief that the 69th week brings us to the baptism of Jesus.
The 70th week, the next seven years, begins at the baptism of Jesus, right at the end of the 69th week, obviously.
And, in the middle of the week, three and a half years later, Jesus dies. Now, we'll have some questions about what the remainder of the 70th week is, the last three and a half years that transpire after the death of Jesus, but we'll worry about that at another time.
The dispensational view, which is much more popular, as I said, calculates the weeks in such a way that the 69th week ends at the death of Jesus and postpones the beginning of the 70th week until the end of the present world system. The last seven years, they believe, of the period before Jesus comes back is the 70th week. Now, first of all, I'd ask, does anyone see evidence of a gap here between the 69th and the 70th week? There does not appear to be anything at all about it in the passage.
The interesting thing is the dispensationalists, who are the people who put the gap there, are the ones who tell us that we're supposed to take the most literal possible approach to biblical interpretation. That is, in fact, the boast of dispensationalists is they have the moral high ground in biblical interpretation because they're consistent literalists, they say. Well, they certainly aren't literalists when they say there's a 2,000 year gap between the 69th and the 70th week.
I mean, think about what that's saying. The angel is there to give him an idea of how much time we're looking at. And he says, here's the whole thing, 490 years, a little less than 500 years left for God to deal with the people of Israel.
Okay, that's informative. But if, in fact, between the 483rd year and the 484th year, there's a gap of 2,000 years, that's four times the length of the whole period. The whole period of 490 years, multiply that by four, and that's an unaccounted for, an unmentioned gap.
So that the less than 500 years is extended to be more like 2,500 years. And the prophecy is entirely misleading. It's as if I would say to you, would someone here give me a ride home? My car's not running.
You say, how far do you live from here? Well, I live about, I think about 60 miles from here. Okay, I'll take you. So we get in the car, we drive 60, 70, 100, 200, 300 miles.
And you say, are we getting close? I say, well, it's a little further up here yet. You say, but we've gone 300 miles. How is it that you said it was 60 miles? Well, it is 60 miles, but I didn't tell you between the 59th and the 60th mile, there's a gap of 240 miles.
You know, I mean, how misleading is that? The angel said it's going to be 490 years, period. And dispensationists say, no, it's really five times that long, at least, so far. That gap is not hinted at and would be entirely misleading if it was there, is not produced by literal biblical interpretation.
It is produced by agenda-driven interpretation. But what's the agenda? Why would someone do that? Why not just take it the way you think it would be? After all, the period of 70 weeks divides into three sections, seven weeks, 62 weeks, and one week. No one ever said there was a gap between the seven weeks and the 62 weeks.
Every dispensationist believes that as soon as that seventh week ended, the beginning of the 62 weeks happened. I mean, there's no gap there. Why put a gap between the 69th and 70th week, which isn't mentioned or hinted at? The reason is because of the eschatological scenario they want Daniel to be making about the 70th week.
You see, what it says in verse 27 is, Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week. Now, you may have heard this. If you haven't, you will if you live long enough and hear dispensationalists teach.
He, they believe, is the Antichrist. And he will make a covenant with the Jews for seven years. But it says in the midst of the week, halfway through the tribulation, he should cause the sacrifice and offerings to cease.
What's that mean? To the dispensationalist, it means this. That at some point after the future rapture of the church, the Antichrist will rise, make an agreement with the nation of Israel that he will protect them and be their friend for the next seven years. Under that umbrella of protection from a perceived friend who's really secretly an enemy, the Antichrist, they will rebuild the temple.
And once they've got it operational, after three and a half years, halfway through that seven year covenant, Antichrist is going to betray them. He's going to walk into the temple and put an image of himself in the Holy of Holies of the Jewish temple and require all people ever to worship it on pain of death. And after that, which is the remainder of the 70th week, the three and a half years after, they call the great tribulation.
They call the seven years the tribulation.
The last three and a half years they call the great tribulation, because they say that's when really all the plagues of Revelation are poured out and all the worst stuff comes out in that last three and a half years. That's the scenario they have.
That's how they interpret Revelation.
That's how they interpret Matthew 24. And that's how they interpret Daniel.
But let me ask you, when you start a sentence like verse 27 with the word he, doesn't the word he require some kind of antecedent? He is a pronoun. You don't start a sentence with he unless you have previously mentioned who. There has to be an antecedent to the pronoun.
Where is the antecedent?
Well, they say it's the Antichrist. He who makes the covenant is the Antichrist. Where did he come into the picture here? Did you see the Antichrist anywhere here? I didn't.
Now they say, oh, then you weren't paying attention because he's right there in verse 26.
Where is he there? It says the people of the prince who is to come. The prince who is to come is the Antichrist.
And he, the Antichrist,
will make this covenant for seven years with the Jews in the end times and break the covenant, going into the temple, desecrating the temple, bringing it into the sacrificial system, just like Antiochus Epiphanes did in 168 BC. This is a scenario that anyone who's been in Bible prophecy teaching churches has probably heard. But it's not exegesis.
First of all, why would he, in verse 27,
refer to the prince who is to come in verse 26? Who is the prince who is to come? Well, what's it say in verse 26? The Messiah is going to be cut off. He's going to die. And then what? The people of the prince who is to come are going to come and destroy Jerusalem and the temple.
That happened, didn't it?
Who were those people who destroyed the temple? It was the Romans. They were the people of the prince. So who's the prince? Well, one of those natural things to assume is it's the leader of the Romans at the time when they came and destroyed the city and the sanctuary.
A prince leading a people would come
after the Messiah had died and would destroy the city and the sanctuary. This certainly matches up with uncontroversial history. Jesus died in 30 AD approximately, and the temple was destroyed in 70 AD.
And that's everything in verse 26 then was fulfilled.
There's no reason to associate the prince who is to come with anything but the prince who did in fact come. There are actually dispensationalists who say, well, no, it says the prince who is to come.
So that's future. Yet from Daniel's point of view, it was future. It was still 600 years into the future for Daniel.
The prince who is to come,
or we might say the prince who was in Daniel's day to come, has come. He came and his people destroyed the city and the sanctuary, just like Daniel said. There's no reason to read an antichrist into this passage.
And we're going to say more about that prince who has come a little bit. But I would say this, that whoever the prince who is to come is, and I think it's most likely a reference to the Roman general Titus, but I'm open to other suggestions. Whoever it is, is going to have to be a leader of the Romans because it's the people of him.
It's his people and they were the Romans. So somebody associated with the Roman armies that destroyed Jerusalem is the prince who is to come. But the interesting thing there is that the prince who is to come is not even the subject of the sentence.
The people are the subject of the sentence. The prince who is to come is the object of a preposition. He doesn't even occupy a significant place in the grammar of verse 26.
The destruction of the city and the sanctuary is not said to be done by the prince, but by the people of the prince. It's the people who are the focus here. The prince is an ancillary.
He's an object of a preposition. How would it be that the Messiah, who's been mentioned both in verse 25 and in 26, would suddenly be so eclipsed in the narrative by this prince who is to come that now he, in verse 27, has become not the Messiah, but the prince? If you've already got that theological system in your head, it reads okay. But if you're not sold on it, and you just read it and say, why would anyone say that he, in verse 27, is this vague prince who is to come? Now, I would also point out that I don't believe the Antichrist has been mentioned anywhere in Daniel.
It certainly hasn't been mentioned previously in this chapter. And although some people find the Antichrist in Daniel 7 and Daniel 8 as the little horn, and some find him as the king of the north in Daniel 11, 36 to the end of the chapter, 37 to the end of the chapter, none of those cases in their context point to an end times figure. Is the Antichrist even in Daniel anywhere? If we have time, we'll look at that.
But we may not have time tonight.
He certainly isn't a focus in Daniel 9. There's no mention of him, unless it's this reference to a prince who is to come. Who's going to be the prince of the people who are going to destroy Jerusalem in 70 AD? It certainly is natural to assume it's someone who led those people in 70 AD, not someone who was going to come along 2,000 years later.
All dispensationalists acknowledge that the Romans were the ones who did what verse 26 says is going to happen. They destroyed the city and the sanctuary in 70 AD, the Romans did. But they believe the prince who is to come is a future Antichrist, who they say must be a Roman.
Partly based on this and partly based on some other what I consider to be misinterpretation of things, the dispensationalists believe that there's going to be a revived Roman Empire in the end times. And that the nations that were once part of the Roman Empire will be reunited under headquarters in Rome, and it'll be the Antichrist who leads that coalition. And therefore he is a Roman, if not racially, at least by nationality.
And therefore the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem are the Roman people of that prince who is to come, a Roman also. But in what sense are people who lived and died 2,000 years ago, in any sense associated with a man who's going to be part of some future kingdom that hasn't arisen yet? He shall confirm the covenant with many for a week. Did Jesus come and confirm a covenant with many? Yes, the remnant of Israel, his disciples.
He said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. He established the new covenant. What was that confirming? It was confirming what Jeremiah said.
Jeremiah 31 said, I'm going to make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Jesus came and confirmed that and said, yes, this cup is that covenant, you're in. The most natural way to understand this is that the Messiah will make a covenant, will confirm the covenant with many, that is with the disciples who became the church.
Yet it says, in the middle of the week, he shall bring an end to the sacrifice and offering. The dispensation view is that it's the Antichrist who brings an end to sacrifices and offerings that we offered in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, the third temple that's not yet been built but will be. That the Jews will be offering animal sacrifices there until the Antichrist comes in the middle of the tribulation, sets up an image of himself in the Holy of Holies.
That's what Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian dictator, did to the Jews 168 BC and that caused the Jews to see their temple as desecrated. Actually, Antiochus Epiphanes didn't put an image of himself. He just sacrificed a pig to Zeus on an altar in the Holy of Holies and the Jews thought the temple was desecrated and they didn't use it again until they drove him and his armies out and rededicated the temple three years later.
It brought an end to the sacrificial system in 168 BC. That's not what Daniel's talking about here. But many people think the Antichrist is going to do that and he'll bring an end to the sacrificial system in the middle of the tribulation by desecrating the temple.
Again, we haven't really seen any Antichrist introduced into the prophecy yet. We're still talking about a he who has been previously referred to and the focus of the previous two verses has been the Messiah, the Prince. Did Jesus, in the middle of a week, that is, after three and a half years from some starting point, did he bring an end to the sacrificial system? Of course he did, with his own death.
Now this itself tells us that the 70th week began at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, not the end. Remember, the dispensationalists believe the 70th week hasn't started yet, but the 69th week ended at the death of Jesus, and nothing has happened with reference to this prophecy since then. The 70th week is still future.
Throughout most of church history, it was believed that the 69th week brought us to the beginning of Jesus' ministry. That would be the beginning of the 70th week, and that's when Jesus would start his ministry. Then, if he died three and a half years later, that would be in the middle of the 70th week.
That's when it says the sacrificial system will be brought to an end. And then it says, at the end of verse 27, "...and on the wing of abomination shall be one who makes desolate." Jesus quotes the Septuagint about this when he said, in Matthew 24, verse 15, he said, "...when you see the abomination of desolation." The expression, abomination of desolation, is the Greek Septuagint rendering of this phrase, an abomination that makes desolate. And Jesus is quoting the Septuagint of this passage.
He said to his disciples, "...when you see it." Now, what is he referring to when he says that in Matthew 24? Let's look there for a moment, because Jesus obviously is referring to this prophecy, and his understanding of this prophecy is pretty significant for our understanding of it. In Matthew 24, in verse 15, it says, "...therefore when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, he who reads, let him understand. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house, and let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who are pregnant and those who are nursing babies in those days." Only a few verses after this, in verse 34, Jesus said, "...assuredly I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place." So whatever tribulation he's talking about, whatever abomination he's talking about, he said, this generation will not pass before these things take place. It still raises questions.
What is meant by the abomination of desolation?
Unlike Matthew, Luke was writing to Gentiles. He was a Greek writing to a Greek. All church fathers agree, Matthew wrote to Jews.
So a phrase like the abomination of desolation, weird as that phrase is, is pretty true to the Hebrew idiom, and Matthew doesn't bother to interpret it or change it. He just records Jesus saying it when you see the abomination of desolation. But Luke is writing to a Gentile, much less familiar than Matthew's audience would be with the Hebrew idiom.
So he paraphrases. He does this from time to time in his writing. He says the same thing, but in different words.
He paraphrases it so Theophilus will understand.
And in Luke 21, where we have Luke's version of this same chapter, Matthew 24, is the same, in most respects, with Luke 21. But in Luke 21, we have the very point at which Jesus says, when you see the abomination of desolation, if you put these chapters next to each other and go verse by verse, you'll see the parallels.
When you come to verse 20 in Luke 21, Luke 21 20, we are now at the point in the discourse that both Matthew and Mark represent Jesus as saying, when you see the abomination of desolation, Luke paraphrases this for his audience. He says, but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
Let those who are in the midst of her depart.
Let not those who are in the country enter her. For these are the days of vengeance, that all things that are written may be fulfilled.
And he says, but woe to those who are pregnant, those who are nursing babies in those days. For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. You can see the parallel ideas.
You're going to see something and you should flee from Judea to the mountains and woe to you
if you've got babies to take care of and you're pregnant because that's going to be really hard. But notice, instead of saying when you see the abomination of desolation, which follows the wording of Matthew and Mark, Luke's wording says when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that it's desolation. There's the word desolation from Daniel.
Know that the desolation is near.
What desolation? Well, the one that he said is going to happen in that generation. Because once again, a few verses later in verse 32, Luke says, Luke's version says, assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.
Jesus is talking about something that would happen in that generation. Armies surrounding Jerusalem. Did anything happen in his generation like that? Certainly did.
That's Luke's way of paraphrasing abomination of desolation. Luke, an inspired writer, understood what the abomination of desolation in the words of Jesus meant. And Jesus' words were quoted from Daniel.
In fact, Jesus even said, as it's written in Daniel the prophet.
So Jesus is talking about the Romans coming and destroying Jerusalem as the abomination of desolation spoken by Daniel the prophet. Now, going back to Daniel 9, that shouldn't be too surprising because look, Daniel 9, 26 and 27, the last two verses, they're kind of, each of them covers the same ground a different way.
At the beginning of verse 26, it says the Messiah will be cut off or die. In the beginning of verse 27, it says he's going to bring an end to the sacrifice and offering. How? By his death.
The last part of verse 26 says, and the people of the prince who has come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. So verse 26 talks about the death of the Messiah followed by the destruction of Jerusalem. So does verse 27.
Same information restated.
Jesus dies, brings an end to the sacrificial system, and then there comes an abomination that makes desolate. Makes what desolate? Jerusalem desolate.
These prophecies are fulfilled in the death of Jesus and in the destruction of Jerusalem. There's nothing in the passage to hint, even a little bit, that there is somehow some big gap that these are going to happen off into the future. There's nothing there.
And that's why pretty much the church didn't see anything there.
You know, there were people before dispensations who who saw this gap, but they were not in the majority. I think Irenaeus was one of the church fathers who actually saw some kind of a gap, but he didn't find it there.
I don't know where he got it. It's not in there. You know, unless he had a different book of Daniel than we have.
The one I have doesn't mention a gap, doesn't even hint at it. But most of the church fathers did not agree with Irenaeus about that. I think Irenaeus and Hippolytus, if I'm not mistaken, were the two church fathers who did think there was some kind of a gap.
But the rest of the church fathers rejected that. And they believe that Jesus' ministry occupied the first half of the 70th week, which began after the 69th week without a gap. That doesn't much matter what the church fathers thought, just so you'll know.
You know, when dispensationalism reintroduced this gap, there were a couple of church fathers that had held some view sort of like that, but most of them rejected it. The question is not what the church fathers believe, but what does the text say? What did Jesus say? Jesus quoted from this in Matthew 24, speaking about the Roman armies coming against Jerusalem. Jesus said, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, here it is.
The interpretation of the passage given by Jesus certainly counts for more than that of Irenaeus or Hippolytus or John Darby or Schofield or anyone else. Even if every evangelical preacher held that there's a gap there, which they don't, by the way, but the dispensationalists do. If you could not find one person who didn't see a gap here, you should be able, by reading the text yourself, to decide whether there's a gap there or not.
There is not. And Jesus places the very end of verse 27 as taking place in 70 AD, when the Romans came. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, that is when you see the abomination of desolation, then know that the desolation of Jerusalem is near.
And it was and it did happen. So what happened to the second half of the 70th week? If Jesus died in the midst of the 70th week, how did the last three and a half years play out? What was the end of the 70th week? What happened there? It's not entirely clear what happened there, but notice the 70 weeks are said to be the time that God is determined to deal with Israel. After Jesus died and rose again and Pentecost, the gospel went only to the Jews.
God was still dealing only with Israel for a period of time afterwards. No one knows exactly how long afterward, but something like three years after Pentecost, the apostle Paul was specifically commissioned to go to the Gentiles. God was dealing exclusively with the Jews until he commissioned a man to go to the Gentiles.
Why then? Why didn't he commission him earlier or later? Was it possible that although we don't have the exact date of it, we know the approximate time of it, that God knew the 70th week had ended, that three and a half years had passed after Jesus died. And now God was no longer to deal exclusively with the Jews. The 70 weeks, the angel said, are for God's dealing with Daniel's people and the holy city.
When the Gentiles began to be evangelized, that may have well ended that period. Another theory is this, and that is that there is a gap, but it's a short one. That from the time Jesus died in the middle of the 70th week to the time that the second half of the 70th week came was a gap of a few decades only.
Because the Jewish war, which brought about the end of Jerusalem, began in 66 AD and ended in 70 AD. It was three and a half years. There are some who think that the Jewish war, that three and a half years, is the second half of Daniel's last week.
But if that's true, then the period between the crucifixion of Jesus and the beginning of the Jewish war would be a gap right in the middle of the 70th week. But once again, we've got this disadvantage. We don't have any reference to any gap in the passage.
So the theory may not be sound. On the other hand, it's interesting that when God brought Israel out of Egypt, he told them he's going to take them to the promised land. And the Bible tells us it could take 14 days to get from Egypt to the promised land on foot.
And they could have been there in 14 days, and that's certainly what was expected. He made a covenant with them at Mount Sinai. But when he got them to the edge of the promised land, they rebelled.
And they didn't keep the covenant. And God said, OK, you're going to die, but your kids will go into the promised land. And the fulfillment of the promise was delayed for a generation.
Why? Because even though God had taken the Jews out of Egypt, he hadn't gotten Egypt out of the Jews. It took a whole generation of Jews to get over that Egyptian legacy. And their children who were born in freedom were able to appreciate the new arrangement that God had made.
And it's sort of like a transitional generation took place as the Jews wandered in the wilderness. So all that generation died off, and then their kids went into the promised land. Some feel there may have been something similar with the new covenant.
Because Jesus made the new covenant in 30 AD, but there was still a lot of old covenant in the hearts of new covenant Jews. They still worshipped at the temple. They were still in Jerusalem, surrounded by all the trappings of their Jewish culture, and they participated fully in it for a generation.
And then the temple was destroyed, and they didn't anymore. And some say it's sort of like when God made the old covenant. Before he could bring them into what he had promised them, there was a generation that had to kind of cycle out of the old way of thinking.
And a new generation had to come up that wasn't raised necessarily with that commitment. And some think that's true in the new covenant, which could possibly account for an unpredicted gap of a generation from the death of Jesus to the Jewish war. I'm not arguing that that is the case, because it has the same problem in a way.
Well, not exactly. It doesn't have the same problem as a 2,000-year gap. Because a 2,000-year gap considerably alters the entire information of the prophecy.
Whereas a 35-years gap or something like that doesn't change 490 years that much, but it does a little. So I'm not going to argue for that. I'm just saying that's one of the theories out there.
I think it's more likely that the 70th week of Daniel ended with the conversion of Paul and the commissioning of an apostle for the first time to go to the Gentiles. And that's officially ended God's time of dealing only with Israel. So that's the way I would answer the question, what happened to the second half of the 70th week? It did run its course.
All right, now, on the reference to the prince who is to come, this is viewed as a future antichrist by dispensationalists. They obviously think the future antichrist is a very significant theme of the Bible. So much so that a passing allusion to him as the prince who is to come would be understood by any biblically informed person to mean the antichrist.
And therefore, the next verse could start with he. And of course, even though the Messiah has been prominent in the previous verses, just the mere hint of antichrist suddenly brings him to the fore because he's such a significant biblical character. And certainly many Christians who are eschatologically absorbed in modern teaching, especially, are very fixated on antichrist.
There's this kind of general sense that many Christians have gotten that antichrist is like a major character in the Bible. But is he? In fact, is there any reference in the Bible to an individual personal antichrist in the end times? Do you know all the church fathers seem to believe in a future antichrist. But did anyone who wrote in the Bible believe in one? That's the question.
The belief in a future antichrist who will rule the world and persecute Christians goes all the way back to the church fathers and pretty fairly universal to this day. But the question is, where did it come from? It's a little bit like the question is the devil a fallen angel? Well, where will you ever meet someone who questions it? From earliest times, it's been taught in the church. But where is it in the Bible? That's the question.
And same thing with this future antichrist. What exactly is in the Bible about the antichrist? I'll tell you all the verses that are ever brought up because I know them all. I was a dispensational teacher myself and not like most people.
I was very interested in identifying the antichrist. So I know what the verses are. I can tell you all of them.
There's Revelation 13, the beast. There's Daniel chapter seven, the little horn. There's Daniel chapter eight, the little horn.
There's Daniel chapter 11, the willful king. And there's 2 Thessalonians chapter two, the man of sin. Those are the five places in the Bible from which antichrist is divined by people who are looking for antichrist in the New Testament.
Or the Old Testament for that matter, Daniel. Of course, the prince who is to come is also in that list. We've been talking about him.
There's not a thing in Daniel nine to identify the prince who is to come with the future antichrist. And the situation is similar with all the other cases. Think about the beast of Revelation 13.
Now, many of the church fathers agreed that the beast of Revelation 13 is a future antichrist. The same as the man of sin, the son of perdition that Paul spoke of in 2 Thessalonians 2. And the same as the little horn of Daniel chapter seven. So there's a lot of solid people have made those identifications.
But I learned a long time ago to become skeptical of even what lots of people say if I can't find one word of it in the Bible. What do we have in Revelation 13 about a future antichrist? Well, you've got this beast, okay? A beast at the beginning of chapter 13 rises out of the sea. The beast has the mouth of a lion.
He's like a leopard. He's got the feet of a bear. He's got seven heads and ten horns.
And all the world wonders over him and worships him and says, who is like the beast? Who can make war with the beast? And he blasphemes and he persecutes the righteous and so forth. Now, is there going to be a future dictator of the world who will do that? Maybe. I wouldn't be surprised if there would be.
Is Revelation 13 talking about that? I don't think so. There's nothing in Revelation to suggest that the beast is an individual person. For one thing, he's obviously the composite of Daniel's four beasts, Daniel seven.
In Daniel 7, 1 and following, Daniel sees beasts come out of the sea too. This beast in Revelation 13 comes out of the sea. So do the beasts of Daniel seven.
At the beginning, the beasts, four of them come out of the sea. The first is like a lion, the second like a bear, the third like a leopard, the fourth one has ten horns. The beast of Revelation has, he's like a leopard, he's got a mouth of a lion, feet like a bear, and he's got ten horns and seven heads to boot.
Now, the beast of Revelation is a composite of Daniel's four beasts. And who were they? Four men? No, four kingdoms. The Babylonian, the Mediaperson, the Grecian, and the Roman.
Almost all evangelical scholars, including dispensationalists, will tell you that the four beasts of Daniel are not for individual men. They are for empires that would succeed one another. Now, you take those four empires and merge them into one image in Revelation 13.
How do you get an individual man out of that? Obviously, it's much more consistent, at least with Daniel, and as far as I know, even with Revelation. They say the beast is not an individual, but a political system, an empire, a government system. There may be a man at its head, but he's not mentioned.
Because the beast has seven heads and ten horns in Revelation. According to Revelation 17.10, it says that the, and thereabouts, the seven heads are seven kings. And lo and behold, the ten horns are ten kings.
So there's at least 17 kings involved in this beast. How could he be one man? It's a political system made up of many kings. Now, I won't go into detail about what I think the beast represents, but I think the evidence is thoroughly against it being an individual.
True, once the beast is introduced, it says he did this and he did that. I think that's pretty much what makes people think it's an individual man. But you know what? There's a harlot named Babylon, who's described as a woman sitting on the beast.
And she does this and she does that. And no one I know thinks it's a real woman. I've never read any commentary that believes the harlot in Revelation 17 is a woman.
A real woman. It's described as a woman. It's symbolic.
Likewise, the bride, the city dressed like a bride that comes down out of heaven in Revelation 21. Described like a woman also. The lamb's wife has made herself ready.
Well, who's the lamb's wife? An individual woman? No, the whole church. In other words, in Revelation, whole entities made up of many, many, many individuals are often collectively referred to as a personification of some character in the drama. A harlot, a bride, an animal, two animals, because there's another one, the second beast comes up too.
The point is, there's nothing in Revelation or elsewhere to suggest that the beast in Revelation should be seen as one person. That's not the way Revelation usually is understood about other parallel situations. And since we get the imagery of the beast from Daniel 7, there's not a person I've ever met who thinks Daniel 7 presents four persons in these four beasts.
A beast is not a person. It's a kingdom. It's an empire.
It's a political system.
And when you put all of them together, you've got a massive, mega political system, not a man. Now, I do believe that it's very, very realistic, not from a biblical point of view per se, but just living at the times we live in.
It's very realistic to suggest there could be a one world kingdom, a one world government, and that some charismatic individual might be elected to run it and he might become a world dictator. I'm not opposed to that scenario really being realistic. I'm just saying I don't do newspaper exegesis.
If the newspapers say so-and-so has been elected to be the ruler of the world, I say, well, I wasn't too surprised about that. Things have been going that direction for a long time. But I'm not going to apply that to Revelation 13 because I do exegesis from the book of Revelation, not from the newspapers.
The book of Revelation and Daniel do not speak of beasts as individuals, and I don't think that that's what Revelation is talking about. So what I'm saying is things could happen that I'm willing to acknowledge could happen, but I'm not willing to say that's what the Bible is about unless you can exegete the passage and get that from it. And you can't.
The beast of Revelation cannot be exegeted that way.
What about the little horn of Daniel chapter 7? Well, that's a little different because in Daniel 7, the little horn comes out of the fourth beast. Now, virtually all evangelicals believe the fourth beast is the Roman Empire.
And in Daniel, the fourth beast has 10 horns initially, then another horn, a little one, grows up out of it. And that little horn blasts fiends and does things like that. For example, in Daniel 7, 7 through 8, this is after the fourth beast has arisen.
Daniel 7, verse 7 to 8 says, Now his eyes like the eyes of a man. If it was a man, you wouldn't be surprised that it had eyes. But this is a symbolic picture of a horn growing out of an animal.
Now it has eyes similar to a man. In verse 11, it says, I watched then because of the sound of the pompous words which the horn, meaning the little horn, was speaking. This little horn is often said to be the Antichrist in the end times.
Now, of course, the horn grows out of the fourth beast, which is the Roman Empire. But as I said, in order to make these things eschatological, that is, in order to transfer the fulfillment to the end times, instead of the times that they actually occurred, dispensationalists have to make a future Roman Empire. There's going to be a revived Roman Empire, and it's out of that Roman Empire that this horn is going to come up.
And therefore the Antichrist will come out of a future revived Roman Empire. However, the fourth beast in Daniel came right after the third beast. The third beast was the Grecian Empire, and then came the Roman Empire.
And this little horn grew out of that. There's no hint that this is a revived Roman Empire that's going to come up again. The ancient Roman Empire fell in the fourth century, fifth century BC.
It doesn't exist. For 1,500 years, there's been no Roman Empire. If there's a future Roman Empire, it's not the same one.
The one we're reading about in Daniel, the fourth beast, is that one. The one that conquered the Grecian Empire, and the one that this little horn grew out of. Well, more to say about it later.
I'm not sure we should say the little horn is a man, but if it is, it's not living in the end times. It grew out of the Roman Empire. This passage does not necessarily tell us about a future individual Antichrist.
Now, there's a little horn in Daniel 8 also, but it can't be a future Antichrist either. Almost all commentators recognize that's Antiochus Epiphanes. Because that horn doesn't grow out of the fourth beast.
It grows out of a he goat, which virtually everyone recognizes as Alexander the Great. In Daniel 8, there's a ram and a he goat. I don't think you'll find anyone who disagrees that the ram represents the Persian Empire.
And the he goat represents the Grecian Empire, headed by Alexander the Great. And it says that the he goat had a notable horn between its eyes, and the he goat killed the ram. Alexander the Great destroyed the Persian Empire.
But then it says in Daniel 8 that that horn was broken, Alexander died, and four horns came up in its place. That's because when Alexander died, four of his generals split up his empire. These are uncontroversial observations from chapter 8. This is pretty much how everyone sees it.
And it says about these four horns in verse 9, it says, And out of one of them came a little horn, which grew exceeding great toward the south, toward the east, toward the glorious land, grew up to the hosts of heaven, and it cast down some of the hosts and some of the stars to the ground and trampled them. This is all very apocalyptic. But notice this horn, this little horn is not like the little horn of chapter 7. The little horn of chapter 7 came out of the Roman Empire, the fourth beast.
This one comes out of the ram that is the Grecian Empire. Out of one of the four horns that replaced the first horn. The first horn was Alexander the Great.
The four horns that came out were his four generals. One of them was Seleucus. And out of his roots came Antiochus Epiphanes, who did to the Jews the things that are described here.
And it would be very hard to find a responsible commentator who does not think this little horn is Antiochus Epiphanes, who of course lived and hurt the Jews back around 168 BC. Take any commentary, you'll pretty much find. The little horn of Daniel 8 is Antiochus Epiphanes.
He's not a future Antichrist. What about the willful king? That's another Antichrist figure in popular theology. He's in Daniel chapter 11.
And again I have to tell you, because you may not know, and I've read lots of commentaries so I know what different commentaries say, that there's much of Daniel 11 that is not controversial. That all commentaries will agree about it. Throughout Daniel chapter 11, you've got a king of the north and a king of the south, and there are all these intrigues and wars between this king of the north and king of the south.
If you get any good study Bible, it doesn't matter who wrote the notes, they all know. All the scholars know. The king of the north is always one or another of the Syrian kings.
The king of the south is always one or another of the Ptolemies in Egypt. And there were these, it's little known history, but scholars know it. Different kings of the north attack different kings of the south at different times.
And Daniel chapter 11 goes through in a remarkable way, very accurately tracing this series of conflicts between Syrian and Egyptian kings. Right up until Antiochus Epiphanes, who is spoken of in great detail in verses 29 through 35, Daniel 11, 29 through 35. But what about after that? Verse 36 through 45, no one can agree what it's talking about.
In verse 36 it says, Then the king, which one? King of the south, king of the north, which one are we talking about here? Apparently of the north, because it says, Shall do according to his own will, he shall exalt and magnify himself above every god, shall speak blasphemies against the God of gods, shall prosper till the wrath has become accomplished, and so forth. And it goes on and talks about this king, who's very willful, and is blasphemous, and wages war and so forth. And no one has been able to give an extremely persuasive explanation of who that is.
All the kings of the first 35 verses of Daniel 11 are easily identifiable in history. Everyone knows who they were. But this king, no one can agree on who it was.
The dispensations say it's a future Antichrist. The problem is, if that's true, then we've got a string of kings leading up to Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 BC. Then the next king is, what, after the year 2000 AD? You've got, again, you've got over 2000 years of a gap between two verses.
Once again, no literal interpretation of the scripture would yield that kind of a gap. But they need it if this king's going to be the Antichrist, and they say it is. There's other views, lots of views.
I would say the view that is most likely to be true is that this willful king represents the Roman Empire, and some have made a very convincing case that it's Herod or the Herod family. Herod was, after the Romans conquered Israel, they appointed Herod as the king, who oppressed the Jews very much. In fact, they appointed him as king of the Jews in 40 BC.
He had to fight the Jews for three years before he could take the throne. The Jews resisted Herod until 37 BC, until Herod took over. We could argue that after Antiochus Epiphanes, the very next persecutor of the Jews was Herod and his family.
And there are things in Daniel 11, 36 through 45, that people have identified with Herod, or at least with the Romans, of whom Herod was a representative. I won't go into that detail, but suffice it to say there's nothing in that passage that necessarily looks forward to a future Antichrist. There's nothing in any of Daniel that does.
The little horn of Daniel 7 rose out of the Roman Empire. The little horn of Daniel 8 rose out of Alexander's Empire. And this willful king, we don't know what he arises out of, but he's next, after Antiochus Epiphanes, and therefore probably refers to the next persecutor of Israel after that, which obviously is in the past, not the future.
But then we have the very famous man of lawlessness. The last remaining passage that is usually thought to be relevant to the Antichrist. So far we haven't found any that even probably speak of a future Antichrist, but this is the one that most people think of besides the Beast of Revelation.
By the way, dispensationalists believe that the church will be raptured at the beginning of the 70th week of Daniel, and God will begin dealing with the Jews, but his dealing with the Jews is to raise up the Antichrist to persecute them. Notice none of the passages we've looked at so far use the word Antichrist. That's because no passage in the Bible uses that term except two or three passages in 1 John, which are not talking about eschatology, and one passage in 2 John.
And there the teaching is, whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ, the same is Antichrist. So we don't ever read of a single Antichrist, even in the few places where the word Antichrist is found, whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ is Antichrist. A lot of Antichrists out there.
Anyway, no word Antichrist, but we do have the man of sin here, and this is often one of the characters that are thought to be the Antichrist. Let me read the beginning of 2 Thessalonians 2. Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter as from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means.
That day will not come unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was with you still, I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.
Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.
So, we have this lawless one, the son of perdition, the man of sin, and Paul says, don't let anyone tell you that the day of Christ has come because that day cannot come until there's a falling away first and the man of sin rises. But he says, but there's something restraining him right now that's keeping him from rising. And that has to be taken out of the way so that he can rise.
And then he comes up and what does he do? Well, he opposes God in verse 4. He sits in the temple of God, verse 4. He acts like he thinks he's God in verse 4. He deceives people by performing supernatural feats by satanic power in verse 9. And he'll be destroyed by the brightness of Christ appearing in verse 8. Verses 6 and 7 tell us there's something restraining him that will be taken out of the way. Paul doesn't say what it is. He just says, remember when I was with you, I told you about this.
Why doesn't he just spell it out? He's being a little secretive about this. Why isn't he telling us what it is that's restraining? He says, you know what it is. I told you about this before.
I'm not going to mention it here.
You know what's restraining him. Why? Why don't you just say so, Paul? I mean, after all, we don't know what you're talking about.
It's very clear we don't know what he's talking about because there's so many theories about it. Let me give you three theories of fulfillment. One's the futurist, which is held by the dispensationalists.
One is the preterists. And one is the historicists. These are different views of revelation, but they also have different views of the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians 2. The futurist theory is that this is the Antichrist in the tribulation period.
They believe that he will be Satan incarnate. And that's why he has miraculous abilities. He'll sit in the temple of God.
Now, there's no temple of God today in Jerusalem. But they believe the temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt. And the man of sin will sit there and call himself God.
They believe it must be a future person because he's going to be destroyed at the second coming of Christ. Christ hasn't come yet, so it must be someone who's going to be living at the time just before Jesus comes. So it must be an individual living in the future.
And the present restraint. What is it that's hindering him from rising now? According to dispensationalism, it's the Holy Spirit resident in the church. Paul refers to the restraint as he and as it.
He uses the neuter and the masculine pronouns for the restraining thing. And they believe that when it says he, it means the Holy Spirit. When it says it, it means the church.
Because the Holy Spirit's in the church. And the argument goes like this. The man of sin, the incarnation of Satan, cannot rise to power while the church is in the world.
The power of the Holy Spirit in the church would simply not allow this to happen. So the church has to be raptured. And then when the church is taken out of the way, the church and the Holy Spirit in the church, which restrains, then the man of sin will rise after the rapture.
But the assumption that whatever is restraining the man of sin must be us, or the Holy Spirit in us, is the one theory that simply won't work in the passage. Because Paul would not be saying in verses 6 and 7 that the church has to be raptured before the man of sin can rise. When he said in verses 2 and 3, especially verse 3, that the church can't leave until the man of sin rises.
You can't have it both ways. And either Paul is very confused. Or else he's not saying what the dispensationalists think he's saying.
So I don't hold that theory. Now, there's also the preterist theory. The preterist theory thinks all this was fulfilled in 70 AD.
And you've heard I'm a partial preterist, so you probably assume I take the preterist view about this. Not necessarily. I want to take the most likely view.
And I'm not sure the preterist view on this passage is the most likely. A partial preterist doesn't have to take everything in the preterist way. And I'm not so sure that I'd be persuaded of a preterist view of this passage.
There are several, to be exact. And that's one of the weaknesses of it. The preterist view is that some Roman or Jewish troublemaker is the man of sin that would arise in Jerusalem before 70 AD and desecrate the temple.
And that would eventually bring about the destruction of Jerusalem. One view is it was a man named John Geshala, who we would not know about except Josephus tells about him. And while Jerusalem was under siege, there were three warring factions in the city.
One was led by this man, John Geshala, whom Josephus refers to as a tyrant. And he led one of the factions in slaughtering other Jews in the city while the Romans were besieging outside the walls. John Geshala was a bloodthirsty, cruel man.
And at one point, he took all his followers into the temple. And they just kind of had a party there. They drank the sacred wine until they got drunk and they slaughtered people who came in and so forth.
And some preterists would say, well, he's the man of sin. He went into the temple of God and defiled it. So that would be one possibility.
Another reasonably good theory is that it's Nero. There's another preterist idea that Nero is the man of sin who persecuted the church and who brought about the conditions that later brought the defilement of the temple. Some people think it's Jesseus Florus, who was the governor of Jerusalem, the Roman governor of Jerusalem from 64 to 66, which led up to the Jewish war.
And that he was a really cruel tyrant and he did horrible things to the Jews, which caused the rebellion that led to the Romans coming in and starting the Jewish war. So, and some think it's Vespasian, who was the emperor at the time of the Jewish war and the emperor at the time that Jerusalem fell. I don't think any of these things are quite as good as another option.
And one reason for that is because Paul said the man of sin will sit in the temple of God. And Paul never used that expression to mean the Jewish temple, but he did use that expression. Paul used the expression temple of God in two other places in his writings besides here.
One is 1 Corinthians 3.16 and the other is 2 Corinthians 6.16. In both places, in speaking to the church, he said, you are the temple of God. Now, it's a consistent teaching of the New Testament that the church is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that we are living stones, Peter said in 1 Peter 2.5, being built up into his temple. There's many references in the New Testament to the church being the house of God, the temple of God, and so forth.
But Paul uses the expression temple of God only three times. In two of them, he specifically says the church is the temple of God. In the third case, he doesn't say who the temple of God is.
He just says this man of sin will sit in the temple of God. But since Paul has never used that expression to mean anything other than the church, then sitting in the Jewish temple would not be the same thing as sitting in the temple of God. But rather, sitting in the church, having some position in the church would.
And therefore, throughout history, Christians have largely seen the church as the place where the man of sin is to be looked for. The church fathers unanimously believed that what was hindering the rise of the man of sin was the Roman Empire. Lactantius said, In other words, the preservation of the Roman state would postpone the rise of that tyrant, the man of sin.
Tertullian said, He's talking about the Second Thessalonians 2. Cyril of Jerusalem said, Jerome said, Ambrose wrote, Now these are just a few. I could have given twice as many quotes from church fathers. All the church fathers, before the fall of Rome, anticipated the fall of Rome, followed by the rise of the man of sin, based on this passage and one other, Daniel 7. Remember the little horn of Daniel grows out of the Roman Empire? And in Daniel 7 it says, They believed that the fall of the Roman Empire was the signal for the rise of the man of sin, the little horn.
They believed that Paul and Daniel were talking about the same thing. And you see it because they mentioned the ten kings. Rome will dissolve into ten kingdoms.
That doesn't come from Second Thessalonians. That comes from Daniel 7. The beast had ten horns that were ten kingdoms. So the point is they're mixing the man of sin in Second Thessalonians with Daniel 7, the little horn.
They all did, and they assume Paul did, and they may be right. This would explain a number of things. One is why was Paul so vague about what's restraining, what has to be taken out of the way.
When Paul was in Thessalonica, if you read in Acts 17.7, he was hailed before the Roman courts. And his accusers said, this man is teaching us things contrary to Caesar, saying there's another king, one Jesus. He was accused of saying things that undermined the Roman Empire.
Well, a few months later when he wrote these epistles back to the Thessalonians, he is talking about the removal of the Roman Empire, according to the church fathers. They thought he was. And he didn't want to say so.
What if that letter fell into hostile hands? He's already suspected of undermining the Roman Empire. If he said, the Roman Empire has to be taken out of the way before the man of sin can rise. It would be reasonable for him to say, you remember I told you about this.
I'm not telling you who we're talking about right now. You know who it is. You know what it is.
It's the emperor in the empire. That's what the early church thought Paul was saying. And it makes reasonably good sense.
But the question is, well then, but the Roman Empire fell. Where's the little horn? Where's the man of sin? Well, that's a good question. What did happen after the Roman Empire fell? Did any power arise in the temple of God? In the church? That fulfilled all the things that the little horn is supposed to do and that the man of sin is supposed to do? Well, you don't have to know very much history to know.
That the barbarians were still stacking Rome in the 500s. But around 600, when Rome was gone, the empire was gone. We have the first of the popes.
Gregory the Great. And the institution of the papacy. Now, did the papacy do any of these things? Is there any of them they didn't do? Do they sit in the temple of God? Do they sit in the church? Do they not? Did they do miracles? Oh, yeah.
Throughout their history.
You've got stigmata. You've got apparitions of Mary.
You've got claims of images coming to life, opening their eyes, turning their heads, lighting their own candles. The Catholic Church has all kinds of stories of miraculous things going on. Through the power of Satan, of course.
Did they say they were God? They sat in the temple of God. Did they say they were God? Well, you judge. Here's some quotes that the pope said.
The pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not a mere man, but as it were, God and the vicar of God. It's a quote from Ferrari's ecclesiastical dictionary, Catholic. Another work on the authority of councils, a Catholic work, says, quote, all names which in scripture are applied to Christ by virtue of which it is established that he is over the church.
All the same names are applied to the pope. Unquote. Pope Pius V said, quote, the pope and God are the same.
So he has all power in heaven and earth. Unquote. Pope John XXII said, quote, to believe that our Lord God, the pope, has not the power to decree as he is decreed is to be deemed heretical.
Unquote.
Our Lord God, the pope, the pope is God. There's several others, quite a few other quotes from papal history of them saying, you know, we are God on the earth and things like that.
So it sounds like Paul didn't miss his prediction there. The reformers all believed that the papacy was the man of sin. And I said, but it's a man, not an organization.
Come on. I mean, all the passages we've been talking about, beasts and humans, women in Revelation, so forth, they all represent systems, organizations, collective groups, personified as individuals. The man of sin, the reformers believed, was the papacy.
Do I believe it? The arguments are pretty good for it. I don't know. Paul is vague.
But the papacy and its history and its timing of rising and where it arose in the church of God and so forth, all those things seem to point in that direction. Martin Luther said, I feel much freer now that I'm certain the pope is the Antichrist. And frankly, Calvin and all the reformers referred to the papacy as the man of sin and the Antichrist.
In fact, the translators of the King James Version of the Bible in 1611, they wrote, if you have a King James Bible with you, at the beginning, before the Bible begins, there's what's called the Epistle Dedicatory, where the translators dedicated their work of the King James Version to the King James himself. And they say all these flattering things to King James. He was a Protestant.
England kind of vacillated between Protestantism and Catholicism for many years. Sometimes one king would be Protestant, the next would be Catholic. And the Protestant would kill all the Catholics, and the Catholic king would kill all the Protestants, and so forth.
England really had a lot of problems vastly between Catholic and Protestant, but King James was a Protestant. And in the Epistle Dedicatory of the King James, the translators actually said this. They were speaking about King James' zeal for Protestantism.
It says that his zeal has given such a blow unto that man of sin, meaning the pope, as will never be healed. They thought the rise of such a strong Protestant king would be the end of the papacy's influence in England. And they called it such a blow to the man of sin.
They were just using the language all the reformed people did. All Protestants referred to the pope as the man of sin and the antichrist, and so forth. The Westminster Confession of Faith, which is like the standard reformed theological document, in chapter 25, article 6, it says, quote, Now, these guys didn't think they were saying something controversial.
All Protestants thought that. It wasn't until the, pretty much the 1800s, that some Protestants began to deny that the popes were the antichrist. Again, I'm not reformed.
I don't care if the popes are the antichrist or not.
I think the case is pretty interesting. It was the universal view of the Protestant church, and of many before.
Hus, Wycliffe, and Tyndale were before the Reformation.
They all thought that, too. In fact, even the Franciscan Order, which is Catholic, long before the Reformation, there were people saying the pope's the antichrist.
Any pope, all the popes, the whole system of popes, the antichrist. And this is very controversial now, but it wasn't controversial in the least among non-Roman Catholics until the 1800s. The point here is, though, the 70 weeks of Daniel are either fulfilled in Christ at his first coming, or fulfilled in the antichrist in a future 70th week.
An exegesis of the passage in Daniel 9 points entirely to Christ as the fulfillment. And therefore, all 70 weeks have been fulfilled without any gaps, and they were fulfilled in the mid-first century. The idea that they will be fulfilled in a future time by a future antichrist comes from identifying a vague reference to a prince who is to come with necessarily the antichrist, so that he, ever afterward in the passage, becomes the antichrist.
As if antichrist is a very important person
that's been identified earlier in Daniel or elsewhere in Scripture. What we've looked at is all the passages in the Bible that are said to talk about the antichrist. The little horn of Daniel 7 grows out of the Roman Empire, the ancient Roman Empire.
The little horn of Daniel 8 grows out of Alexander's kingdom. The willful king in Daniel 11 comes after Antiochus Biphnes sometimes, somewhere in the late period before Jesus was born. The prince that is to come in Daniel 9 is the prince of those people who destroyed the temple 2,000 years ago, not a future individual.
The beast of Revelation isn't even an individual, it's a beast, it's a system, not an individual man. The man of sin, apparently not an individual man either, or could be, but the prevailing view of non-Roman Catholics has been that it's a system also. The man of sin is a system, not an individual.
And thus exhausts the possible passages to speak out about a future antichrist. I don't think there's anything in the Bible that speaks of a future individual antichrist. But that doesn't mean there won't be a very anti-Christian world dictator There's plenty of anti-Christian national dictators right now.
If any of them gets international power, which is not unthinkable, then we may have something very much like what the dispensationalists describe as a future antichrist, or even what the church fathers did. So much like it that we might say, I guess they were right. Well, I don't decide that people are right because of what developments happen in the political world, I decide about how it fits the Bible.
I can believe there will be a future antichrist, but I don't believe the Bible predicts one. The main thing I would say is nothing in Daniel chapter 9 points to a future for Israel in a tribulation period at the end of the world, or a future antichrist among them.

Series by Steve Gregg

Foundations of the Christian Faith
Foundations of the Christian Faith
This series by Steve Gregg delves into the foundational beliefs of Christianity, including topics such as baptism, faith, repentance, resurrection, an
Original Sin & Depravity
Original Sin & Depravity
In this two-part series by Steve Gregg, he explores the theological concepts of Original Sin and Human Depravity, delving into different perspectives
Strategies for Unity
Strategies for Unity
"Strategies for Unity" is a 4-part series discussing the importance of Christian unity, overcoming division, promoting positive relationships, and pri
Spiritual Warfare
Spiritual Warfare
In "Spiritual Warfare," Steve Gregg explores the tactics of the devil, the methods to resist Satan's devices, the concept of demonic possession, and t
Gospel of Mark
Gospel of Mark
Steve Gregg teaches verse by verse through the Gospel of Mark. The Narrow Path is the radio and internet ministry of Steve Gregg, a servant Bible tea
Is Calvinism Biblical? (Debate)
Is Calvinism Biblical? (Debate)
Steve Gregg and Douglas Wilson engage in a multi-part debate about the biblical basis of Calvinism. They discuss predestination, God's sovereignty and
Isaiah
Isaiah
A thorough analysis of the book of Isaiah by Steve Gregg, covering various themes like prophecy, eschatology, and the servant songs, providing insight
1 John
1 John
Steve Gregg teaches verse by verse through the book of 1 John, providing commentary and insights on topics such as walking in the light and love of Go
2 Timothy
2 Timothy
In this insightful series on 2 Timothy, Steve Gregg explores the importance of self-control, faith, and sound doctrine in the Christian life, urging b
1 Timothy
1 Timothy
In this 8-part series, Steve Gregg provides in-depth teachings, insights, and practical advice on the book of 1 Timothy, covering topics such as the r
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Licona vs. Fales: A Debate in 4 Parts – Part Three: The Meaning of Miracle Stories
Risen Jesus
June 11, 2025
In this episode, we hear from Dr. Evan Fales as he presents his case against the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection and responds to Dr. Licona’s writi
Licona vs. Fales: A Debate in 4 Parts – Part Four: Licona Responds and Q&A
Licona vs. Fales: A Debate in 4 Parts – Part Four: Licona Responds and Q&A
Risen Jesus
June 18, 2025
Today is the final episode in our four-part series covering the 2014 debate between Dr. Michael Licona and Dr. Evan Fales. In this hour-long episode,
No One Wrote About Jesus During His Lifetime
No One Wrote About Jesus During His Lifetime
#STRask
July 14, 2025
Questions about how to respond to the concern that no one wrote about Jesus during his lifetime, why scholars say Jesus was born in AD 5–6 rather than
The Resurrection: A Matter of History or Faith? Licona and Pagels on the Ron Isana Show
The Resurrection: A Matter of History or Faith? Licona and Pagels on the Ron Isana Show
Risen Jesus
July 2, 2025
In this episode, we have a 2005 appearance of Dr. Mike Licona on the Ron Isana Show, where he defends the historicity of the bodily resurrection of Je
What Would You Say to an Atheist Who Claims to Lack a Worldview?
What Would You Say to an Atheist Who Claims to Lack a Worldview?
#STRask
July 17, 2025
Questions about how to handle a conversation with an atheist who claims to lack a worldview, and how to respond to someone who accuses you of being “s
Licona and Martin: A Dialogue on Jesus' Claim of Divinity
Licona and Martin: A Dialogue on Jesus' Claim of Divinity
Risen Jesus
May 14, 2025
In this episode, Dr. Mike Licona and Dr. Dale Martin discuss their differing views of Jesus’ claim of divinity. Licona proposes that “it is more proba
Sean McDowell: The Fate of the Apostles
Sean McDowell: The Fate of the Apostles
Knight & Rose Show
May 10, 2025
Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome Dr. Sean McDowell to discuss the fate of the twelve Apostles, as well as Paul and James the brother of Jesus. M
Why Do You Say Human Beings Are the Most Valuable Things in the Universe?
Why Do You Say Human Beings Are the Most Valuable Things in the Universe?
#STRask
May 29, 2025
Questions about reasons to think human beings are the most valuable things in the universe, how terms like “identity in Christ” and “child of God” can
Bible Study: Choices and Character in James, Part 2
Bible Study: Choices and Character in James, Part 2
Knight & Rose Show
July 12, 2025
Wintery Knight and Desert Rose study James chapters 3-5, emphasizing taming the tongue and pursuing godly wisdom. They discuss humility, patience, and
The Plausibility of Jesus' Rising from the Dead Licona vs. Shapiro
The Plausibility of Jesus' Rising from the Dead Licona vs. Shapiro
Risen Jesus
April 23, 2025
In this episode of the Risen Jesus podcast, we join Dr. Licona at Ohio State University for his 2017 resurrection debate with philosopher Dr. Lawrence