What Is the Beast? by GEORGE I. BUTLER

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 22, 1909

What Is the Beast?

By GEORGE I. BUTLER

GEORGE I. BUTLER

(Concluded)

In the previous article, having quoted at length the prophecy (Rev. 13: 1-10) of the power denominated “the beast,” and showed it to be a symbol of an influential world-power after which all the world followed, we turned for its complete identification to Daniel’s vision of the four great world empires,—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome. We learned that Rome existed in two phases: first, as a heathen imperial power; second, as a professedly Christian—religio-political—power. This was shown by the change in the symbol. While Rome in its first phase was a wonderful power, its second phase was still more wonderful. Rome ruled by the popes exceeded in importance Rome ruled by the emperors. “The little horn” exceeded all the rest of the ten in world influence. Leading Protestant commentators agree that “the little horn” represents the papacy.

That which is symbolized by “the little horn” of Daniel 7 is precisely the same as that symbolized by “the beast” of Rev. 13: 1-10. Rome in both its phases is represented by the revelator: first, in chapter 12, by the great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, which stood ready to devour the “man-child,” our Lord Jesus Christ, as soon as he was born (Herod, a Roman ruler, attempted his death); the second phase is symbolized by a sea monster having the same ten horns, and represented as doing the same kind of work attributed to the “little horn” of Daniel’s prophecy. This similarity—really identity—is so forcibly presented by Elder Uriah Smith, author of “Daniel and the Revelation,” page 524, edition of 1897, that we quote it verbatim:—

“1. The little horn was a blasphemous power. ‘He shall speak great words against the Most High.’ Dan. 7: 25. The leopard beast of Rev. 13: 6 does the same. ‘He opened his mouth in blasphemy against God.’

“2. The little horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them. Dan. 7: 21. This beast also (Rev. 13: 7) makes war with the saints, and overcomes them.

“3. The little horn had a mouth speaking great things. Dan. 7: 8, 20. And of this beast we read (Rev. 13: 5): ‘And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.’

“4. The little horn arose on the cessation of the pagan form of the Roman empire. The beast of Rev. 13: 2 arises at the same time; for the dragon, pagan Rome, gives him his power, his seat, and great authority.

“5. Power was given to the little horn to continue for a time, times, and the dividing of time, or 1260 days [years]. Dan. 7: 25. To this beast also power was given for forty-two months, or 1260 days [years]. Rev. 13: 5.

“6. At the end of that specified period, the dominion of the little horn was to be taken away. Dan. 7: 26. At the end of the same period, the leopard beast was himself to be ‘led into captivity.’ Rev. 13: 10. Both of these specifications were fulfilled in the captivity and exile of the pope, and the temporary overthrow of the papacy by France in 1798.

“Here are points that prove identity; for when we have in prophecy two symbols, as in this instance, representing powers that come upon the stage of action at the same time, occupy the same territory, maintain the same character, do the same work, exist the same length of time, and meet the same fate, those symbols represent the same identical power. ”

With these conclusions, no candid person can disagree. Both must refer to the papacy, that great overshadowing power that ruled the kings of the earth through all the Dark Ages previous to the Reformation. The same Roman Catholic Church exists to-day, representing the largest division of Christendom, still holding all its doctrines of the past, against which the great Reformation protested, and against which the third angel proclaims the most solemn warning to be found in the Canon of inspiration. Its work and influence are still potent in the world, and of late have been steadily increasing, especially in those lands which had once cast off its influence. Every specification of the revelator concerning it has been literally fulfilled, excepting its final destruction, which is now impending.

It arose among the ten kingdoms, out of the great sea of European populations, with all its blasphemous titles of pretended divine authority, wholly of Roman parentage. It was a composite power: its body like that of a leopard, Daniel’s symbol of the Grecian power (Daniel 7); its feet like those of a bear (Medo-Persia); its mouth like that of a lion (Babylon), the preceding three universal kingdoms of Daniel’s prophecy having been swallowed up by Rome and become a part of its territory. The dragon, the symbol of Revelation 12,—Rome as a heathen power—gave to papal Rome “his [the dragon’s] power, and his seat, and great authority.” Constantine, the first professedly Christian emperor, moved his own capital to Byzantium, and renamed it Constantinople, in honor of himself, thus leaving Rome, the old capital, to become the great papal capital of Christendom; and Justinian, the emperor of Eastern Rome, by a decree in A. D. 533, made the pope head over all the churches, and gave him the authority to correct heretics. This decree the Catholics themselves quote as a basis of their authority to rule.

The papal head was wounded to death when the French, under Berthier, in 1798, captured Rome, and carried the pope a prisoner into exile to France, where he died. The papacy for a brief period was without a pope, and Rome was declared a republic. A new pope was elected, but the papacy was for many years very much weakened. Indeed, up to the present time its previous power has never been fully restored. But recent indications demonstrate that its influence is rapidly increasing. But of this more will be said hereafter.

“The forty and two months,” that is, 1260 years of his supremacy, reached to 1798. These wonderful fulfilments demonstrate beyond all question that we have the right view of this prophecy. The symbolic beast, against which the third angel’s message warns, can be no other than the papacy, with all its apostates from the blessed gospel of Christ,—a spiritual system completely antagonistic to the humble, loving spirit of our Master and many of his glorious doctrines.

In order to bring this power before the reader clearly, that the absolute necessity of such a warning message to the whole world in the last days as will enable all candid people to renounce the errors growing out of this papal system, may be shown, we notice briefly 2 Thess. 2: 1-8 (American Revised Version): “Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is just at hand; let no man beguile you

in any wise: for it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know that which restraineth, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work: only there is one that restraineth now, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and bring to naught by the manifestation of his coming.”

Can there be any question who this lawless one is? Certainly not to the candid one who has read prophecy and history side by side. The papacy is the only power that has dared to claim the prerogative of changing the law of God. He shall “think to change times and the law [American Revised Version],” “He shall speak great words against the Most High,” “shall wear out the saints of the Most High,” and think to change the law of whom?—Without doubt, the law of God. Dan. 7: 25.

Surely this is, above all others who have professed to be Christ’s followers, “the lawless one.” “He sitteth in the temple,” or professed church, of God, claiming to be the only true head of the true church, claiming to be vicar of Christ, with power to forgive sins, called by his faithful followers, “Lord God the pope,” that is, the “Holy Father.” He exalts himself even above God by claiming to change his holy law. He has set aside God’s holy Sabbath,—the day God sanctified in Eden before sin entered the world, and with an audible voice from Sinai’s holy mount commanded to be kept, a voice which shook the whole earth upon which we tread,—the Sabbath which all Bible believers must admit was kept by God’s people for four thousand years, yea, by Christ himself, all his apostles, and the whole church for more than one century,—and has substituted in its place the old heathen Sunday, the day on which all idolaters worshiped the sun. This change from the seventh-day Sabbath of Bible authority to another day never in a single instance mentioned as a sacred day or a day to be kept as a Sabbath, in all the Bible, is believed by all good Catholics, and taught by all their highest authorities, to have been made by the papacy. This power is to be finally reckoned with for its abominations and blasphemies and lawlessness when Christ shall come. The third angel’s message embodies its last final warning.

One more reference we make to Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth. She is represented as a woman riding on and directing the Roman beast of Revelation 17, with its seven heads and ten horns. She was “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,” and it is not strange that John the revelator, should cry out in astonishment: “And when I saw her, I wondered with a great wonder.” A professed Christian church drunken with the blood of Christ’s own martyrs; where was ever seen in this world such an astonishing wonder as that?

Is it surprising that God should see the necessity of a final terrible warning to go with a loud voice to all peoples, nations, tongues, and kings, previous to the end? The reader must not fail to remember that the influence emanating from this apostate, blasphemous power has been world-wide, permeating with its subtle, so-called religious influences all people and nearly all religious bodies. In many instances this fact has not been understood by these bodies themselves; many have come out from the Roman communion carrying out with them many of the errors of the mother church. In the very last days of time, these errors must be laid aside. Every scrap of the old Babylonish garment must be laid aside, and the beautiful garment of Christ’s righteousness must be the attire of his pure church who will be translated. The only people who ever pretend to be proclaiming this closing message are Seventh-day Adventists. They have made this claim from the very beginning of their existence as a people. This is their message to-day. They explain it, believe it, proclaim it. From a feeble, humble little flock of disappointed believers in 1845, they have grown, with their unpopular doctrine, to be a people more than a hundred thousand strong, and their missionary work is reaching to the ends of the earth. The progress of this message has been phenomenal.

Bowling Green, Fla.