On Divine and Bestial Eternity

Early in Revelation, the Father is described as the one who “is and who was and who comes” (Revelation 1:4). 1:8 suggests that the Trinity might be described in the same way. The Trinity is not a God immune to time; the eternality of the Trinity is the eternality of one who embraces all time, who is and who was and who comes; the God who is before every beginning, who is present in each present, who has always already arrived at every one of our futures. We cannot go to the past before He was; we cannot escape His presence in the presence; we cannot surpass His future, or arrive before Him.

Now, this beast possesses a parody of this eternality of God. 17:Verse 8 has a chiastic structure:

a. beast was and is not and comes

b. to ascend out of the abyss and into destruction to go

b’. and wonder will all the dwellers in the land whose names are not written in the book

a’. seeing the beast because he was and is not and comes

The structure of the description of the beast matches that of God. The Greek is similar:

1:4: ho on kai ho en kai ho erchomenos

17:8a: o . . . en kai ouk estin kai mellei anabainen ek tes abussou

17:8b: en kai ouk estin kai perestai

17:11: ho en kai ouk estin

Yet the two diverge in significant respects. First, the description of the eternal God includes no negation, no ouk estin. He is, was, and comes. Every description of the beast’s “eternity” includes the negative particle. The beast was and now is not, and yet will come again. In this respect, we might say that the beast’s career is closer to that of Jesus than to God as such. Even that comparison is not exact, because though Jesus passed through death there was never when he ουκεστιν. He passed into death, through death, but never become a non-being.

Second, a slight but perhaps significant difference: The beast’s temporality moves in normal creaturely fashion from a past through a (negated) present toward the future. He was, is not, and will ascend from the abyss. But God’s eternity begins from a present: He is, was, and comes. For creatures, the past slips into nonexistence, but for God the present is prior and encompasses His past and future. He is present in past and future.

Finally, the eventual end of the beast is crucial. The beast was, is, and will ascend from the abyss, but the end point of his ascent from the abyss will not be eternal enthronement. Jesus was, then was not, and then ascended from the abyss, but His ascent was to glorious life on His Father’s throne. The beast was, is not, and returns, but only to head toward destruction.

Both the similarities and the differences are worth noting. The beast is a political figure in Revelation, with heads and horns that are kings. Like all tyrannies, the beast’s aspires to divine status, divine eternity. And a tyranny can mimic divine eternity to a certain extent: Rome was for a long time, and even when it was shaken by crisis, it came back to life and was again. Ultimately, though, the Lord overthrows these idols, and shows that He alone is the God who is present in all presents, shows that all pretenders ultimately come to an ouk estin.