A Deeper Look at What the Bible Says About the Bible

By Matt Smethurst:

The Bible makes many claims about itself within its text. What does it say?

Click here to download a hard copy of this article.

There are only two options when it comes to knowledge of a divine creator: revelation or speculation. Either he speaks, or we guess. Christians believe that, thankfully, he has spoken. The God of heaven and earth has “forfeited his own personal privacy” to reveal himself to us—to befriend us—through a book.¹Scripture is like an all-access pass into the revealed mind and will of God.

By virtually any account the Bible is the most influential book of all time. No shortage of ink has been spilled on writings about it, against it, and in favor of it. But what does the Bible say about itself?   Continue at Matt Smethurst

Christ Is Not Just Another Theme in the Old Testament

I am increasingly hesitant to use the phrase "finding Christ in the Old Testament" (or Pentateuch, Psalter, or Wisdom Literature, and so on). It seems to imply that the person of Christ is merely a theme among others to be mined from the Old Testament alongside other themes such as justification, resurrection, or the like. 

The second person of the Trinity made incarnate is, of course, more than simply a theme of God's self-revelation in the Old Testament Scriptures. He is the culmination of God's self-revelation in all of history, the perfect embodiment of the godhead (Col 2:9). To a certain extent, we could say that the quest to find Christ in the Old Testament is analogous to the quest to find Thomas Jefferson in Declaration of Independence. Christ is everywhere throughout the Old Testament. It speaks of him explicitly and implicitly, in promises, patterns, types, hints, and images. Through these various ways the Old Testament reveals and anticipates the richness of his character: his work, his life, his glory, his hope, his might, his love, his suffering, his wisdom, and so much more, and it does this all before the historical event of his incarnation.

The OT witness to Christ is as rich and varied as are all of the functions he performs. When evangelicals talk about Christ in the Old Testament, they tend to look for images, patterns, or outright anticipations of Christ's work of substitutionary atonement. Of course, Christ's work as once-and-for-all sacrifice is central to the Christian hope for salvation, but it only gets at part of the distinct and lordly character and work of the Son of God himself.   Continue at Scott Redd

Suffering Now or Later: Revelation 14:1-20

 

Revelation 14:1-20 asks the question, is it worth it to endure as a Christian? Does it pay to be a Christian? Is it worth it to be a Christian if your family faces discrimination, if your children are threatened with death? Does it pay to be a Christian for fourteen Khmu familes in Laos, whose homes and church buildings have been destroyed more than once? In 2003 fourteen Khum families were evicted from their homes. And now they are being forced to move again. The roof of their church has been torn off by unbelievers over and over.  But the Khum are staying strong in the faith. They continue to worship together three times a week. What keeps them going? What is their secret? And what will keep us going so that we trust Jesus until the end?

Revelation 13 focuses on the persecution of God’s people, but chapter 14 teaches us how we can endure persecution. Is it worth it to be a Christian? Is the cost and sacrifice too great? Let’s look at the first five verses in chapter 14.

Children of God

 

The 144,000 are with the Lamb on Mt. Zion. Who are the 144,000? I argued in Revelation 7 that the 144,000 represented the church of Jesus Christ—all Christians. I am not going to review those arguments again here. If that is right, these verses represent our story. John is talking about our lives, our destiny. This isn’t the story of Christians who live in another galaxy far, far away. This is our story. This is about uncle Jim who is a Christian and your mother and father, and your sons and daughters who know Christ.

Where are these Christians? They are on Mt. Zion. And where is that? Mt Zion stands for heaven. The heavenly Jerusalem. So, even though John is talking about Christians, he takes us to the future. He transports us to heaven itself. And why does he do this here? We immediately see after the persecution of Revelation 13 one reason why Christians should endure persecution. They are promised a heavenly reward. They will be with Lamb on Mt. Zion forever. They have the name of the Lamb and the name of the Father on their foreheads. This language is obviously symbolic. It means that they belong to God. They are his children.

Christian, who are you? You are a child of God. You are part of his family. Do you ever feel like you are a nobody? Do you feel that no one cares for you? We all have moments like that. You may feel like even fellow-believers in the church don’t love you. But we are reminded here that you belong to God. God loves you and you are his child. You are precious to him. Maybe you even feel like your husband or wife doesn’t love you. But God loves you. And his love should motivate you to obey him and to keep his commandments. Continue at Thomas Schreiner

Cessationism, Revelation & Prophecy

From Voice, Nov/Dec 2012. Used by permission.

Despite the fact that the majority of conservative evangelical Christians since the Reformation have held to a cessationist position with regard to divine revelation, true cessationists are rapidly disappearing. In the articles and books I have written nothing has evoked as much criticism and anger as my position that God is speaking to His people today exclusively through Scripture. Due to the influence of a multitude of popular authors, theologians and conference speakers, cessationism is barely treading water, even within the most biblically solid churches and organizations.

As a matter of fact, among those who claim to be evangelicals there are five identifiable views prevalent today on the matter of revelation:

Pentecostal/Charismatic/Thirdwave

All miraculous gifts exist today, including the gift of prophecy. God speaks through prophets and to His people both audibly (through dreams, visions, words of knowledge), and inwardly (inaudibly in the mind or heart). Representatives of this position are Jack Deere, John Wimber, the Kansas City Prophets, the Assemblies of God and the Word of Faith movement. Charismatic author Tommy Tenney, in his popular book The God Chasers, writes,

God chasers…are not interested in camping out on some dusty truth known to everyone. They are after the fresh presence of the Almighty… A true God chaser is not happy with just past truth; he must have present truth. God chasers don’t want to just study the moldy pages of what God has done; they are anxious to see what God is doing.¹

Classical Mysticism/Spiritual Formation

 

Through the use of various disciplines and spiritual exercises, God will speak to us both audibly and inaudibly. Dallas Willard and Richard Foster are two such examples. Willard, a leader within the Spiritual Formation Movement, recently updated a previous book renaming it Hearing God, Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. The thrust of his book is that we can live “the kind of life where hearing God is not an uncommon occurrence, [for] hearing God is but one dimension of a richly interactive relationship and obtaining guidance is but one facet of hearing God.”² In other words, the maturing Christian should expect to hear the voice of God on a regular basis, independent from Scripture, and that voice will reveal God’s individual, specific will for his life. Such personal communication from the Lord, we are told, is absolutely essential because without it there can be no intimate walk with God.³ And it is those who are hearing from God today, in this way, who will redefine “Christian spirituality for our time.”⁴

 

Evangelical Mysticism

God is speaking to Christians regularly, mostly inaudibly through inner voices, hunches, promptings, feelings and circumstances (examples: Henry Blackaby and Beth Moore). Southern Baptists ministers Henry and Richard Blackaby wrote Hearing God’s Voice to “teach God’s people not only to recognize his voice but also immediately to obey his voice when they heard it.”⁵ They promise that “as you spend time with Jesus, you will gradually come to recognize his voice more readily than you did at first…You won’t be fooled by other voices because you know your Lord’s voice so well.”⁶ And, once you have figured out when God is speaking to you, “write it down in a journal so you can refer back to it as you follow him.”⁷

In this category could be placed the New Calvinists or Calvinistic Charismatics such as John Piper, Wayne Grudem, Mark Driscoll and C. J. Mahaney. Their followers are sometimes called the young, restless, and Reformed.   Continue at Gary Gilley

Signs of the Times: Revelation 6:1-17

Revelation 6:1-17 teaches us that our God is the Lord of history. He is the final judge.

"Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer. When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!” When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!”

 And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

Now that we have come to chapter six my own interpretation of Revelation will become clearer. Obviously there are many different views of what Revelation means. I don’t have time to critique other viewpoints in detail. I certainly don’t claim inspiration or infallibility for my reading, and you are called upon to test all things and to hold fast what is good.   Continue at Thomas Schreiner

Charismatic Chaos

The charismatic movement, once considered a splinter group on the fringe of Christianity, has gained steam and entered the ‘90s at full speed. Dramatic new accounts of bizarre, supernatural events are attracting men and women hungry for religious experiences while causing others simply to ask, What is really happening here?, or more important, What should I believe? 

This 12-message album thoughtfully and carefully shines the light of Scripture on teaching that is gaining a massive and loyal television following, leading to disunity on a world-wide scale, and promising to fuel controversy for years to come. Recorded by John MacArthur, these messages will help you gain an understanding of his bestseller Charismatic Chaos in a short amount of time.

    Includes the following 13 messages:

Listen Does God Still Give Revelation? June 16, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-53 Download: High Low

Listen Does God Still Give Prophecies? June 30, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-54 Download: High Low

Listen Proper Biblical Interpretation August 04, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-55 Download: High Low

Listen Does God Do Miracles Today? August 11, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-56 Download: High Low

Listen The Third Wave August 25, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-57 Download: High Low

Listen How Do Spiritual Gifts Operate? September 01, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-58 Download: High Low

Listen What Was Happening in the Early Church? September 08, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-59 Download: High Low

Listen Does God Still Heal? September 22, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-60 Download: High Low

Listen Speaking in Tongues September 29, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-61 Download: High Low

Listen What Is True Spirituality? October 13, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-62 Download: High Low

Listen Does God Promise Health and Wealth? Part 1 October 27, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-63 Download: High Low

Listen Does God Promise Health and Wealth? Part 2 November 03, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-64 Download: High Low

Listen Does Experience Determine Truth? June 09, 1991 Selected Scriptures 90-52 Download: High Low

Sinclair Ferguson 23-Part Series on The Book of Revelation

To download the following MP3 Files, right click and save to your hard drive. 

Sinclair Ferguson is senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, S.C., and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary. One of the most renowned Reformed theologians in our day, Dr. Ferguson is also a member of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. He is a prolific author whose many books include The Holy Spirit, The Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction, and In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel Centered Life

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Revelation or Obfuscation? - Revelation 1:1-3

A Greeting to Die For - Revelation 1:4-8`

Nothing to See on Patmos? - Revelation 1:9-20

Ephesus: The Church that Fell - Revelation 2:1-7

Smyrna: The Church that was Faithful - Revelation 2:8-11

Pergamum: The Church That Compromised - Revelation 2:12-17

Thyatira: The Church That Was Too Tolerant - Revelation 2:18-29

Sardis: The Church With a False Reputation - Revelation 3:1-6

Philadelphia: The Church with the Open Door - Revelation 3:7-13

Laodicea: The Church That Was Lukewarm - Revelation 3:14-22

Heaven's Open door - Revelation 4

The Lion, The Dragon, and the Heavenly Door - Revelation 5

When the Seals are Opened - Revelation 6

Before the Seventh Seal - Revelation 7:1-8:1

When the Trumpets Sound - Revelation 8:1 - 9:21

The Little Scroll - Revelation 10:1-11

Continue at Monergism

What Unbelieving Pagans Know about God and Why They Are Responsible for It

I am continually amazed at how much dense theology Paul is able to pack into a few lines of a letter. Consider, for example, just four verses: Romans 1:18-21.

 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Paul has just finished exulting in the “good news” of the gospel (Rom. 1:15-17), but he now begins to paint a contrasting backdrop of the “bad news” for those who rebel against their holy creator. Whereas “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith” to all who believe (vv. 16-17), “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven” against all who suppress God’s truth (v. 18). Paul piles up the terms in reference to the godless Gentiles: on the one hand, “ungodliness and unrighteousness” describes what they do, and on the other hand “by their unrighteousness” is the way in which they go about their work of suppressing truth. The reality of the redundancy is repulsive: by their unrighteousness they perform unrighteousness.  Continue at Justin Taylor

Is Psychology the 67th Book of the Bible?

All truth is God’s truth, or so the saying goes. The problem with this seemingly axiomatic assertion is not simply its ambiguity, but the way it serves as a means to justify using extra-biblical sources (such as psychology) to deal with spiritual issues. This is especially common among integrationists in the field of Christian counseling. The view of integrationism is that only when Scripture and psychology are integrated—brought together into a unified whole—is one able to engage in a truly effective counseling ministry. This view is really an assault on the idea that Scripture alone is sufficient for spiritual growth.

Psychology as General Revelation

But how exactly does this relate to the idea that all truth is God’s truth? The integrationist argument goes something like this: Because God has made Himself known through two channels—special revelation (the propositional truth recorded in scripture) and general revelation (the non-propositional truth deposited by God in the created order of things)—man has a mandate from his Creator to investigate and discover truths through means such as psychological research, the findings of which should be accepted as having their origin in God. Scripture alone, then, is not sufficient, but rather, as John H. Coe asserts, “Only when all forms of revelation are taken together can we speak of the sufficiency of revelation.” Put simply, all truth is God’s truth and should be embraced as such whether it be found in Scripture (special revelation) or in psychological research (general revelation).

This argument has been articulated in various ways by different integrationists. Notice the language of divine revelation in the following examples:

• Larry Crabb: “All truth is certainly God’s truth. The doctrine of general revelation provides warrant for going beyond the propositional revelation of Scripture into the secular world of scientific study expecting to find true and useable concepts.”

• Bruce Narramore: “The evangelical church has a great opportunity to combine the special revelation of God’s Word with the general revelation studied by the psychological sciences and professions. The end result of this integration can be a broader (and deeper) view of human life.”  Continue at Matt Waymeyer

The Evangelical Uneasy Conscience Faces the Future

It’s a little book by a dead man from the last generation, and it just might be the road-map for the future of American Christianity. I’m referring to the late theologian Carl F. H. Henry’s 1947 book “The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism.” This slim little paperback’s importance might not seem obvious in a digital whirling world of contemporary Christians, but the issues Henry raised over sixty years ago are more relevant than ever.

When most people think of Carl Henry, they tend to think of his magnum opus, the six-volume “God, Revelation, and Authority,” which dealt with the major philosophical and theological challenges to Christian theism and the biblical canon. Some remember his work as a pioneer, along with Billy Graham, in the explosion of the post-World War II evangelical movement. From his place as a founding faculty member at Fuller Seminary to his role as first editor of “Christianity Today” and beyond, Henry was the intellectual godfather of the cause. But, in my view, “Uneasy Conscience” is what matters most for us these days.  Continue at Russell Moore

Christians in Name Only

The first charge of general defilement Christ brings against the church in Sardis was that they had a vast deal of open profession, and but little of sincere religion. "I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead" (Revelation 3:1).

That is the crying sin of the present age. I am not inclined to be morbid in my temperament, or to take a melancholy view of the church of God. I would wish at all times to exhibit a liberality of spirit, and to speak as well as I can of the church at large; but God forbid that any minister should shrink from declaring what he believes to be the truth.

In going up and down this land, I am obliged to come to this conclusion, that throughout the churches there are multitudes who have "a name to live and are dead." Religion has become fashionable. The shopkeeper could scarcely succeed in a respectable business if he were not united with a church. It is reckoned to be reputable and honorable to attend a place of worship, and hence men are made religious in shoals. And especially now that parliament itself doth in some measure sanction religion, we may expect that hypocrisy will abound yet more and more, and formality everywhere take the place of true religion.  Continue at Phil Johnson

Who Are the 144,000 in Revelation?

And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. (Rev. 7:4)

Many sincere Bible-believing Christians would understand the 144,000 like this: The church is raptured prior to the great tribulation. During the time when the church is gone, a remnant of 144,000 ethnic Jews is converted (12,000 from each tribe). These Jewish converts, in turn, evangelize the Gentiles who make up the great multitude in white robes in v. 9. That’s one understanding of Revelation 7.  A lot of godly people hold that understanding. Let me explain why I understand the 144,000 differently.

The 144,000 are not an ethnic Jewish remnant, and certainly not an Anointed Class of saints who became Jehovah’s Witnesses before 1935. The 144,000 represent the entire community of the redeemed. Let me give you several reasons for making this claim.

First, in chapter 13 we read that Satan seals all of his followers, so it makes sense that God would seal all of his people, not just the Jewish ones.

Second, the image of sealing comes from Ezekiel 9 where the seal on the forehead marks out two groups of people: idolaters and non-idolaters. It would seem that the sealing of the 144,000 makes a similar distinction based on who worships God not who among the Jewish remnant worships God.  Continue at Kevin DeYoung

C. H. Spurgeon on Evolution

At one of the memorable gatherings under "The Question Oak," a student asked Mr. Spurgeon, "Are we justified in receiving Mr. Darwin's or any other theory of evolution?"

The President's answer was:—"My reply to that inquiry can best take the form of another question,—Does Revelation teach us evolution? It never has struck me, and it does not strike now, that the theory of evolution can, by any process of argument, be reconciled with the inspired record of the Creation. You remember how it is distinctly stated, again and again, that the Lord made each creature 'after his kind.' So we read, 'And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.'

"And again, 'And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And 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.'   Keep Reading >>>

Revealed Ethics

At the heart of Christian ethics is the conviction that our firm basis for knowing the true, the good, and the right is divine revelation. Christianity is not a life system that operates on the basis of speculative reason or pragmatic expediency. We assert boldly that God has revealed to us who He is, who we are, and how we are expected to relate to Him. He has revealed for us that which is pleasing to Him and commanded by Him. Revelation provides a supernatural aid in understanding the good. This point is so basic and so obvious that it has often been overlooked and obscured as we search for answers to particular questions.

The departure from divine revelation has brought our culture to chaos in the area of ethics. We have lost our basis of knowledge, our epistemological foundation, for discovering the good. This is not to suggest that God has given us a codebook that is so detailed in its precepts that all ethical decisions are easy. That would be a vast oversimplification of the truth. God has not given us specific instructions for each and every possible ethical issue we face, but neither are we left to grope in the dark and to make our decisions on the basis of mere opinion. This is an important comfort to the Christian because it assures us that in dealing with ethical questions, we are never working in a vacuum. The ethical decisions that we make touch the lives of people, and mold and shape human personality and character. It is precisely at this point that we need the assistance of God’s superior wisdom.  Keep Reading >>>

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There is No God Seeker (Romans 3:11)

“I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” – Romans 10:20

 

Here in this verse, God declares that He revealed Himself to those who were not even seeking or asking for Him. That is something to really think about. 

Who was this group that God revealed Himself to? 

Well, we might think it is some distant African tribe or all of the many atheists who at one time professed that there was no God at all. However, the startling biblical answer to the question is that its all of those who have come to have faith in Christ. 

Romans 3:11 says “no one seeks for God.” Literally the text reads, “there is no God seeker.” 

We tend to be blind to this truth, especially when we might have heard numerous testimonies of (now) Christian people who say they were seeking for God all their lives – seeking Him in many different spiritual experiences, even through searching out many different religions. 

While it is certainly true that these people sought many different experiences and were involved in other religions, what the Bible teaches is that none of us by nature wish to know the God of the Bible. We are born DOA (dead on arrival) spiritually speaking, yet we walk a course mapped out for us by the Prince of darkness. We are by nature children of wrath rather than children of God and unless God intervenes, we will never seek to know the one true God. That is the clear teaching of the opening verses of Ephesians chapter 2. All our religious “searchings” are really attempts to run and hide from Him. Like Adam in the garden of Eden after he had sinned, He hid from the presence of the Lord. That is our inner disposition towards God until God moves upon the heart and draws us to Himself. Before that we might want all the trappings of what a relationship with God brings – forgiveness, freedom from a guilty conscience, feelings of happiness and assurance, peace within; but we just dont want to go to God to get these things. We often mistake a desire for these things as a desire for God.    Keep Reading...

Connections Between the Tree of Life in Revelation and the Psalms

"But his delight is in the law of the Lord...He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither."
(Psalm 1:3)

"Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of the street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
(Revelation 22:1-2)

Here is something I've been thinking about with reference to these two verses. I'm not actually taking a stand here and arguing that this is the case, but I want to bounce this idea off of our readers and see what everyone thinks, because I can't find anyone who has ever discussed the relationship between these verses before.

There seems to be an allusion to Psalm 1:3 in the tree of life section of Revelation which I want to understand, but I can't find any commentaries that observe the connection. I'm defining an 'allusion' as when the New Testament refers to the Old Testament using similar imagery and language. Keep Reading...

Archaeology and the Seven Churches

 

HT: Blogging Theologically

How Should We Understand the “Lion and the Lamb” Passage?

Question: How should we understand the “Lion and the Lamb” passage?

Answer: The “Lion and the Lamb” passage in reference here is from Revelation 5:5-6, which reads:

“And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’ And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.”

The context of this passage is the heavenly throne room (Revelation 4-5). After receiving the command to write to the seven churches in Asia Minor, John is “caught up in the spirit” to the throne room in heaven where he is to receive a series of visions that culminate in the ultimate victory of Christ at the end of the age. Revelation 4 shows us the endless praise that God receives from the angels and the 24 elders. Chapter 5 begins with John noticing that there is a scroll in the “right hand of him who was seated on the throne.” The scroll has writing on the inside and is sealed with seven seals.

Summary of Christian Doctrine Chapter 2: Revelation

Summary of Christian Doctrine  Chapter 2: Revelation

Summary of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 3: Scripture

The Image of the Beast -- Then and Now Date

One biblical passage which has perplexed interpreters is Revelation 13:13-15. "[The second beast] performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain."

Popular dispensational writers often take this text to be a prophetic prediction of the high-tech mode of deception used by the antichrist to enslave the world after the Rapture. Read the Rest HERE