THE G7 AND ANTICHRIST

by John MacLeod

Antichrist comes!

That notorious, nebulous and nefarious villain mentioned in prophetic Scripture is coming! That personage worse than Attila the Hun, Adolph Hitler, Machiavelli, Jack the Ripper and Ghengis Khan all rolled into one evil, hateful, feared individual is coming! But... what do we really know about him? Are our assumptions based on Biblical fact, or antiquated scholarship?

Rather than rehash many of the old, inconclusive conundrums propounded by past theologians, let us focus our attention on current affairs as accentuated by the light of Scripture, particularly Revelation 13 which gives us specific details of what to be on the alert for. The prevalent thinking of many scholars that the first ten verses of Rev. 13 describe a man, the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition as Paul refers to him in II Thes. 2:3. Yet is it to scholars God reveal His purposes, or to prophets? Amos 3:7 indicates that God won't do a thing until He reveals his secrets to His servants the prophets, not the scholars. We are to study to show ourselves approved, (II Tim. 2:15) and rightly divide the Word of truth, but not, necessarily, to know the secrets of things not yet performed. The End Times will only be revealed to God's servants as they need to have specific knowledge. The problem is that too many scholars have taken it upon themselves to become pseudo-prophets, trying to figure out God's Word in regard to eschatology, rather than give ear to those to whom He has revealed his secrets. These well-intentioned, but misguided scholars then, by forcing their own interpretations on certain Scriptures, neither divine the counsels of God, nor rightly divide the Word of Truth.

Revelation Thirteen is just such a case where most 'scholars' follow the antiquated thinking of the past century's expositors who thought they were witnessing the End Times in their day, and applied a shoehorn to make the scenarios they conjured up in their imaginations fit the Scripture. These men were not prophets, for the things they predicted have not come to pass. Indeed the very form of those things they isogeted have morphosed into other things, yet contemporary scholars continue to build upon their works as if they were inspired.

In Revelation 13, John sees a beast rising up out of the sea. This beast was like a leopard, but it had seven heads and ten horns, the mouth of a lion and the feet of a bear. Not your average zoo denizen! In addition, the heads were covered with names of blasphemy, while the horns each carried a crown. John saw that one of the heads of this beast was as if it had been slain (smitten to death--gk) as if with a sword (vs 14) but miraculously recovered, amazing the whole earth.

Commentators and expositors assert with absolute assurance that this is either the European Common Market, or more likely, the Antichrist spoken of by Paul and John, the very Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel and Jesus. They claim that a man will arise and woo the movers and shakers of world politics and gain control of the whole world's financial system, imposing his own image, name and number of his name on all flesh. This Antichrist will persecute anyone who turns to Jesus during the days of the Tribulation, or Jacob's Trouble, as the Jews will know it. Sometime during his reign he will be either mock-assassinated, or an attempted assassination will be botched and he will survive. His ultimate blasphemy will be to sit in the Temple of God and declare that he is God, and no other form of worship that is not directed toward him may be practiced. At that time the Israelis will know they have a counterfeit god on their hands and try to rid themselves of him. That is when he will turn on Israel and try to annihilate every living Jew on the face of the earth. He will be evil incarnate, Satan embodied in human flesh, the final fulfillment of an unholy, satanic trinity, with Lucifer as head, the Antichrist as son, and the false prophet bearing him witness. Antichrist will finally be cast alive into the Lake of Fire at Jesus' Second coming, and that will be that! But for a short, seven year period, he will have a reign of terror unequaled in human history.

Obviously the above synopsis has been gleaned from many corners of Scripture and consolidated here (as well as in various commentaries and books) in capsulate form. Much of the above data expected of the Antichrist is true, but if we are fooled into expecting something that is a mistake, from this passage that is not expressly about him, such as the botched assassination attempt, we will be misled in identifying him. Such a misidentification would be disastrous. If it were not imperative for believers to recognize the Antichrist, our Lord would not have given us such specific details by which to identify him. Keeping that in mind, let's take a closer look at Revelation 13: 1-10 and see if there isn't something revealed, something that exists only in our time, yet is unrecognized as such because we think it applies to the Antichrist, or the European Common Market, and not some other powerful and dangerous facet of the End Times.

John saw a beast, an animal, rising up out of the seas. In verse 11 John sees another beast rising up out of the earth, so there is a contrast and distinction between these two 'monsters'. Since Adam was made out of the dust of the ground, it would not be out of type for this second beast (Rev. 13:11) then, to also represent a man. But the first beast in 13:1 arises out of the sea. To understand the Revelation, we must comprehend Old Testament imagery in types and shadows. The Lord symbolically identifies the heathen population of the earth as the seas (Ps. 65:7; Isa 17:12), so the sea John views here is the population of the Gentile nations tossing to and fro. Out of them arises a unified, monstrous entity. To fully understand this part of the vision, we need to go to Revelation 17:7-9 where an angel explains the mystery of the seven heads and ten horns. The seven heads represent seven hills, or mountains. Again scholars have asserted that Rome is built upon seven hills, and therefore it must be the fulfillment of this Scripture. But that is to ignore the fact that Moscow, Washington D.C., Tokyo, Paris, London and a host of other national capitals are also built upon seven hills! Shoehorning, or forcing Scripture to fit our opinions, to prove a point blinds us to the truth. The truth here is that the angel gave John a key, equating each head of the beast as symbolic of a mountain, which in the Old Testament typology represents a government! So, the seven heads must only be understood to represent seven governments! We can see this especially in Daniel 2:35 where the government of Messiah is shown as crushing the final expression of the governments of men and becoming a mountain that fills the whole earth.

On the same token, the angel gives John the key as to the identity of the ten horns. Scholars have supposed that the horns represent the ten nations of the European Common Market (in spite of the fact that there are now 17 active members of the EEC, with many more to join in the next couple years, therefore eliminating the EEC as a potential candidate for these ten horns), but if we look at what the angel said here to John, and in Daniel 8, we see that horns are representative of the kings in authority over those mountains (governments). This is further evidenced in the fact that each horn in John's vision wore a crown, showing that they are the supreme authority in the government they represent.

So instead of the Antichrist, what John sees arising out of the mass of troubled humanity is a confederation of seven nations that are guided by ten world leaders. Daniel saw in 8:3 a ram with two horns. This beast was the confederated Medo-Persian Empire with the two kingly families that guided them. Then in verse 5 Daniel describes another beast-- a he goat, with a single horn. This is Greece, with Alexander as king. Clearly it is consistent with the principles of interpretation to identify the beast in Revelation 13 and 17 as an empire led by ten kings if the ram with two horns and the he goat with one horn also represented known political entities (Dan.8:20, 21).

Rather than one world ruler known as Antichrist, we now see that these first ten verses of chapter 13 of the Apocalypse reveal an Antichrist empire getting ready to dominate all flesh. The second beast that causes all to worship the first beast is likely to be the actual person of the Antichrist, in other words, a political confederation of nations will arise which will govern all the world's political, religious and financial institutions. Then this man-- the second beast of Rev. 13:11 will arise to strengthen this empire and take charge of it.

Most eminent scholars and writers agree that the empire that rises up in the last days must be the European Economic Community, or EEC, which will be the revived Roman Empire. They assert that ten European nations, known as the Common Market, will dominate the world. This description no longer fits the EEC, however, for there are at least seventeen active members and nine more waiting in the wings for admission. To try to force the EEC into the role of the ten toes in Daniel's vision is irresponsible. The EEC no longer fits those suppositions, yet most scholars still try to work off that old, worn-out paradigm, interpreting their eschatology by out-moded interpretations.

Instead, we need to be observant, studied, flexible and prayerful to properly understand the information the Lord has given us.

There is presently a confederation of seven nations that meets annually in June to determine policy in regards to human rights, trade and International law. Those who attend this yearly meeting are none other than the actual heads of state, not ambassadors or even cabinet members, but the actual supreme authorities of their respective governments. And there are three more highest authorities, two of which represent no nation, but are CEO's of institutions that also control International policies. The last regent has a nation, but his nation is not formally admitted as a member to the group. So we, in our day, have the conditions met for the fulfillment of the requirements of John's vision, without resorting to a shoehorn, that meets the hermaneutic requirements of interpretation.

What is this confederation?

The Group of Seven. The G7 (or sometimes as the G8, although Russia is not given full voting status), as they proudly refer to themselves. They are the basis of a summit meeting of the strongest industrial democracies in the world. Each year in the Spring, the heads of state from Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, the United States and Canada, along with the president of Russia , the head of the General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meet to discuss and implement policies which will control prices, human rights, international law, and politics around the world.

What of the head that was wounded? What about the botched assassination? You can't assassinate a nation! There is a nation in that group that was smitten as if to death, and divided in half as if with a sword. For four and a half decades this nation lay in two antagonistic camps, divided forever by politics and economic philosophies, or so it seemed. By now you must have surmised that I refer to Germany, divided after the Second World War, but now 'miraculously' re-united, to the wonder of the world. All humanity expected there to be an East Germany and a West Germany forever, but the world was astounded when Germany reforged itself in a matter of eighteen months, completely rebuilding the ruined East to profitability after the collapse of communism. Today Germany rivals Britain for financial control of the EEC. This was a most amazing event, and a fulfillment of prophecy in our day.

Historical Bible scholars pretty much agree that the multi-headed leopard in Dan. 7 refers to Greece under the four generals of Alexander who succeeded him and divided up his empire amongst themselves. If this is true, should we have any doubt that the multi-headed leopard in Rev. chapters thirteen and seventeen is of the same root? Considering that the philosophy of Secular Humanism has its origins in ancient Greece, as does Democracy, and that Humanism, Democracy and Industry are what rule the hearts and minds of men and women the world over today, may we not make the application that the leopard in the Revelation account is fundamentally the philosophy and politics of Greece, the insatiable hunger of Babylon (lion's mouth, see Dan. 7:4); and the strength of Medo-Persia (bear's feet, see Dan. 7:5) all rolled into one? In other words, the New World Order is nothing but a resurgence of the Old World Order that Satan found so convenient to manipulate to his own ends.

The humanistic, democratic philosophies that dominate the G7 countries had their origin in ancient Greece, so it is no wonder that John saw the beast in the form of a leopard, as did Daniel, only John saw it in its fullest expression of mankind's rebellion-- the culmination of all mankind's empires, whereas Daniel saw it in its infancy. The leopard is a dangerous beast, remaining inconspicuous and unnoticed until it has sprung to make its kill, and it is too late for its victim to flee. It soon becomes bathed red in the blood of its unsuspecting victim, which is how we see it again in Rev. 17. Only by then it has adopted a rider-- MYSTERY: BABYLON, MOTHER OF ALL THE HARLOTS OF THE EARTH. But when John first saw this seven-headed leopard rising out of the sea, it had no such rider. A leopard is camouflaged so it can be more or less out in the open, and yet not be seen by its prey, and this is precisely what the G7 is-- camouflaged and right out in the open where it can go about its diabolical business of gaining domination over the whole world undisturbed because those who should be looking for and recognizing it (the Church) are blindly trying to make the Antchrist or EEC fit into their predisposed type-cast, ignoring the present-day, and obvious application. How many shoehorns will we wear out trying to make our prejudicial views fit prophecy, while the real thing which easily slides into the identity of the final bestial empire without 'shoehorning' is ignored?