I just come across a facinating reapplication of Revelation 13 in Ellen White's writings. I've thought Rev 13 applied primarily to the future for many years. This statement though is radical for re-applying the first beast of Rev 13 to Satan's impersonation of an angel of light rather than to Catholicism.


Verses 4 and 5 of chapter 13 read:

Hi Mark,

I agree with Ellen White. Satan will come and impersonate Christ which is also told by Paul or Peter or ? in the epistle. Don't remember where the text right now.

There's two beasts in Rev 13. I believe the first one is the Eucanemical movement depicted of 7 heads and 10 horns with a crown on the horns. Different then the Rev 12 beast having crown on their heads. This beast comes out of the water = people.

The second beast, I believe is Satan impersonating Christ(like a lamb who spake like a dragon). This beast comes out of the earth = bottomless pit. We have at trumpet #5 an angel oppening the bottomless pit. So Satan is allowed to be visible on earth after the 1260 days. Then we have again in Rev 20, Satan is put in the bottomless pit again but this time with a chain. He is there for 1000 years. Then when the 1000 years is over, Satan is reloosed again.

This bottomless pit or "from the earth", is very important to follow in Revelation as it reveals where Satan is. Rev 17 brings more light of Satan whereabout and the first beast.

Yes, the 19MR282 quote on Rev 13 is fascinating. I'd thought it happened the other way around - that Satan didn't personally appear until the Image Beast was created. Ellen White, in this passage seems to say the opposite. According to her, he appears first and for 42 months is allowed to do his work. Sunday laws seem to follow his appearing. Again, I had thought it was the other way around - that Sunday laws paved the way for his appearing. I'll have to look at it some more.

Her interpretation begs the question; what unleashes Satan from the bottomless pit so that he's allowed to have his own 3.5 year 'ministry' and 'incarnation' as an angel of light? something he's never been permitted before? I wonder if there's a critical turning point where people and nations have so grieved the Holy Spirit through spiritualism and other sins that the Lord finally gives them up the the deceptions they love. This, like you say, appears to happen at the fifth trumpet.

Which begs another question: What is the outward warning that the trumpets are about to sound. I'd always thought we would see Sunday laws and persecution first. This passage is causing me to re-evaluate my end-time thinking. It seems more likely to me now that the trumpets and seals may begin without any of the Sunday laws in sight. That instead, the trumpets and seals are the catylists that bring on the conditions that cause people to resort to extreme measures to appease an 'angry' God by enacting Sunday laws.

That would help explain this quote from Ellen White that appears to fulfil the first trumpet:
For easy reference here is the description of the first trumpet
This description sounds like balls of fire to me.

The reason the Adventists above say they knew but didn't expect the judgements to fall so soon may be that, like me, they were expecting Sunday laws first. When the trumpets sound without the prior Sunday law warning, they are caught off guard.

Mark, where in the GC does Ellen White explain the things you are saying about Rev 13:4-18? Does she apply the leopardlike beast or the lamblike beast and the 42 months to Satan's future personation of Jesus? What does she mean in the following passages:


When she wrote, "Then will take place the final fulfillment of the Revelator's prophecy (Rev. 13:4-18 quoted)" is it possible she meant Rev 13, which began to be fulfilled in 538 AD, will finish being fulfilled when Satan begins personating Jesus?

Ellen White is know to have reapplied prophecies from time to time. The statements you quote, Mike, from the GC are of course inspired and don't conflict with this one we're discussing. It's a reapplication and according to her, in general the prophetic scenes of the end times given to Daniel and John apply primarily to the end.


I wouldn't be so urgent in attempting to get 'historic' Adventists to see the future applications of these things if I thought it was only my opinion. But in my reading I find Ellen White made many clear statements like these advising us that Daniel and Revelation apply primarily to the future.

Mark, considering Ellen thought Jesus was going to return soon it seems unlikely she reapplied Rev 13 to the distant future. She was operating on the basis that Rev 13 had yet to be fulfilled. Why would she reapply it if hadn't been fulfilled yet? Also, she expected Jesus to arrive when it finished fulfilling. So, no time or need for it to be reapplied. Do you see what I mean?

Ellen White also reapplies prophecies that are only partly fulfilled. In fact prophecy usually has a primary application. For example the description of end time events in Matthew 24 applies, like Daniel and Revelation, primarily to the end. But it applied in a secondary sense to the destruction of Jerusalem.

Consider just for a moment the possibility that the secondary application of the first beast of Revelation 13 is the history of the church in the wilderness where it was persecuted by Rome for 1260 years, but the primary application of the same passage is, as Ellen White says, the personal appearance of Satan.

Here's another example of primary verses secondary fulfillment by Ellen White:
In the above quote we have Ellen White doing the same as she did in the quote under discussion. (See the first post.) In that quote she makes the appearance of Satan as an angel of light the primary application of the first beast of Revelation 13. Here she does the same thing again: She makes his appearing the primary application of Revelation 14:8, the second angel’s message announcing the complete fall of Babylon.

The secondary fulfillment of this passage was during the fall of 1844 during the Millerite movement. But as I understand her, the primary fulfillments of both the first beast of Revelation 13 and the fall of Babylon in Revelation 14:8 are future, both being applied by Inspiration to the personal appearing of Satan.

Weren't the Millerites wrong in their application of the 3AMs? Babylon was not "fallen", right?