5. The Religion
of the Beast
Self-contempt produces in man the most unjust and
criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that
truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults.
- Eric Hoffer, “The True Believer”
We all need to live with ourselves, but our lives give us
many reasons to despise ourselves, or to be afraid of being despised by
others. People define many religious
categories, but there are really only two.
You deal with your self-contempt yourself, by a combination of
justifying yourself and blaming somebody else, or you surrender to the truth
and let yourself be rescued by admitting the truth. These are really the only two kinds of
religion in the world, as Jesus clearly taught (John
As they realize in Alcoholics Anonymous, you don’t start by getting a right understanding of who or what God is, or even whether such a being exists. You find out the truth about God as you face up to the truth in your heart and right in front of your face. You become deceived about God and everything else, no matter what your religious patter, when you choose darkness. To walk in the light always means to submit to the higher authority of what is the truth, just as walking in darkness always means asserting what we want to think, building our own “reality” and in so doing rising up against that which really is.
Walking in darkness is a quest for independence - to be accountable to nobody - but it’s a lot of work. This makes us anxious for help from others that will hate as we do, that will tell us how right we are, how much better we are than those bad people out there. That encouragement to live the life of darkness and self-deception is the essence of the religion of antichrist, the promise of salvation through believing what we want to believe. In the movie “The Matrix,” this religion is taking the blue pill that makes the illusory world of the matrix seem real. Jesus, like all the prophets before him, called people to take the red pill, to see things as they are, even though, as we suspect beforehand, it is not a pretty sight. So how do we tell the difference?
The Religion of Antichrist Arises from the Earth
Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth,
and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon.
- Revelation 13:11
The religion of an antichrist always arises from the earth,
not from above. Its teachings may be
accurate at many points, as the Pharisees were, but its spirit is known by its
fruit. As Paul wrote to Timothy, “they
will heap up to themselves teachers according to their own lusts, having
itching ears” (2 Timothy 4:3).
When the Bible tells us to put teachers to the test, it doesn’t
ask what they say about the Trinity, or about the pope or Muhammad, or how they
think people should be baptized. James
describes God’s plumb line like this (James
Who is wise and
understanding among you? Let him show by
good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking
in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but
is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where
there are envy and self-seeking, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first
pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits,
without partiality and without hypocrisy.
Now the first deception to entice us as we read this is to try hard, from our earthly selves, to show how good our conduct is, “done in the meekness of wisdom.” But trying to display our virtue is all about self-seeking and bitter envy, having nothing to do with meekness, and so - coming from the wrong source - it never works. James does not intend for us to attain to anything good here, since that effort is inevitably the self-seeking he is warning against. We’re to receive it from above as we acknowledge we don’t have it. As Amos put it, “Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” If it is to come down from above, it cannot arise from us. We are not meant to be like the Chaldeans, of whom it is said, “Their justice and dignity proceed from themselves” (Habakkuk 1:7). This precisely defines earthly religion, the religion of the beast – self-righteous and sanctimonious.
If we learn to receive from above as Amos teaches, we find ourselves rescued instead of proving ourselves better than others by accomplishing something excellent, and so we easily escape from the envy and conceit which have always been a ruling passion. How then do we receive this wisdom from above?
It’s not some secret wisdom. When Martha was running around trying to do
things for Jesus, Mary was listening to him, and that was the right choice, the
wisdom from above (Luke
Earthly religion is foolish and evil simply because it does not sit down quietly and listen to God. It’s too busy doing things - striving for excellence, being more virtuous than others, hating successful competitors the way Cain hated Abel, filling the pews and getting bigger buildings, putting on big crusades, striving to get noticed by the world.
Because such religion does not look above for its life, it glories in “life” from this world – fame, wealth, and the approval of celebrities and other “important” people – and it delights to join the world in its conquests. Nine hundred years ago, crusading made them feel powerful and victorious, raping and burning for Jesus. “Christian” Spain drove out the Moors and the Jews and then went on to the western hemisphere to get rich by doing genocide for Jesus, and the other Europeans did the same. One hundred years ago, American Christian missionary organizations enthusiastically supported a war of aggression to “Christianize” the Roman Catholic Philippines, annihilating at least 200,000 out of a population of nine million[1]. The devotees of this Christianity “rob widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers,” as Jesus said. Their spiritual fervor is actually powered by their crimes, precisely because their religion does not come from above but from the earth – being as James said, “earthly, sensual, and demonic.”
This is not an incidental failing but the core of antichristian religion, and all the more as it takes the name of God in vain in order to deceive - beginning with its own devotees. It all starts with seeking to justify ourselves, which the word of God will never permit, because that makes it impossible for God to justify us, who loves us and knows that nothing less will do.
John, in calling us to the fellowship of the apostles, begins like this (1 John 1:5-10):
This is the message which we heard from him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and the truth is not in us.
These few words set before us light and darkness. In the rest of his letter, John shows how our choice determines whether we walk with God in the light or whether we are led in darkness after the “many antichrists.”
If we deny that we are walking in darkness as the passage says, we are saying right there that we have no sin, and are therefore deceiving ourselves, so that the truth is not in us. Clearly, the spirit of truth wants us to be finding out about and acknowledging our sins all the time. If we really would rather avoid that, we are at war with the truth already, so we will avoid seeing the bad news about ourselves. Thus we will abide in darkness, and our ways will show it. “As for those who turn aside after their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them away with the workers of iniquity,” the antichrists (Psalm 125:5).
Once we’re in the business of seeing ourselves as good people, we have to see others as bad people to make that work. Just wanting to see others as less than ourselves, which is just what we do not want others to do to us, proves us corrupt. This is why the religion of antichrist, in one form or another, will recruit anybody who is looking for a religion that justifies the things he wants to do, that is, a religion that teaches him that he is good because somebody else is worse than he is. Such religion is always a crusading religion because it invites us to be righteous and to be saviors of the world by scourging bad people instead of facing ourselves. That’s more fun and seems easier than waging war against evil within. A religion that arises from the earth will always make excuses for the earth from which it arises, instead of subjecting it to God’s truth as God ordained in the beginning (Genesis 1:26-28). Having God’s charge to rule over all earthly power beginning with ourselves, we pervert this commandment by white-washing and promoting ourselves, and then bydoing the same for the other earthly powers in which we live. This brings us to the next point.
The Religion of Antichrist Serves the Worldly Power that Upholds It
He exercises all the power of the first beast in his
presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first
beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
- Revelation 13: 12
The second beast from the earth is called up to give legitimacy to the first beast, the great empire of Antichrist. In every age, this is the function of imperial religion – not to serve God, not to obey and teach truth, but to train people to be loyal citizens of this world, avoiding what is despised and supporting whatever the imperial society honors. In exchange, the empire flatters and feeds the religious establishment that proclaims its godliness and saving power.
The prophets of the Asherah and Baal, and later, the court prophets under Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah, existed to speak favorably of King Ahab’s plans and to glorify him, not to say whatever God had to say (1 Kings 22:1-28). They ate from Jezebel’s table, not from the table of the Lord on high, and that’s why Ahab’s and Jezebel’s whip kept them in line.
Roman paganism adorned the imperial state and taught everyone its eternal power and virtue, and that the emperor himself was a god. Once the Roman Empire “converted” to Christianity, the Christian church converted to the Roman Empire, so fully identifying with it that Christians in the Parthian empire were persecuted when Rome and Parthia had wars, not on account of Christ but for their supposed Roman connection. In the same manner, “Christian” crusaders - when they were not slaughtering Middle Eastern Christians themselves - incited Muslim persecution against them, not because of Christ but because the Christians were identified with the crusaders and their barbarities, who served not Christ, whose cross and name they bore in vain, but their own lusts.
European colonial powers in the nineteenth century worked further to identify Christianity with European imperialism, in the Middle East as elsewhere. Now the United States is again confirming this lesson in the Muslim world with devastating effect on the Christians of Iraq and Palestine, and targeting Syria, the safest place in the Middle East to be a Christian. American Christians who identify with American power are foremost in encouraging this assault on the name of Jesus and on their Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ. In all these cases the “Christians” have gone beyond simply tagging along like jackals after the wolves. They have actually taken themselves the levers of power in these worldly kingdoms, exercising imperial dominion for their religious purposes just as Revelation 13:12 foresees.
Just as Antichrist is coming, but there are now many antichrists, the False Prophet is coming, but there are now many false prophets. Jesus said, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” Antichristian religion abhors the true self-denial of Christ, in which we suffer loss of our convenience and the world’s friendship in order to hold to the truth that God teaches. In place of truth such religion offers crusading zeal for any worldly power that will speak well of us and throw us crumbs, and in exchange identifies the name of Jesus with the bloody crimes of these powers. It has bowed down and worshipped the lying, plunder, and slaughter that the kingdoms of this world live by, receiving in exchange their service – precisely the temptation to worship Satan that Jesus turned down in the wilderness. Its blasphemy is great indeed.
The Religion of Antichrist Loves Power and Rules through Religious
Strife
If anyone has an ear, let him hear. He who leads into captivity shall go into
captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. This is the faith and perseverance of the
saints.
- Revelation 13:10
The Bible gives several short definitions of the essence of the faith. The creed by which we face the beast, Revelation 13:10, states that to believe God and persevere with Him in the face of the beast and its religion depends on exactly these two points:
1) Relying on the sword does not save your life; it kills you, and
2) Dominating and imprisoning does not keep you free; it leads to your enslavement.
The teaching here is simple: if we don’t have this issue straight in the face of Antichrist, we will not believe God, and we will not persevere, although we may well be zealous “Christians.” We will fall away and join the inhabitants of the earth in their worship of the beast, because like them we will be awed by its power and violence (Revelation 13:4).
In all this, the “faith” of antichrist is clear. The sword will give us peace and safety (1 Thessalonians 5:3), and imprisoning and dominating others will keep us free. There is no way to square this view with the words of Jesus, who says by contrast, “With what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (Matthew 7:2), and again, “Release and you will be released” (Luke 6:37). The faith of Jesus answers to antichrist that:
1) The name of the Lord is a strong tower - the righteous runs into it and is safe even if he gets beheaded for the name of Jesus, and
2) If we abide in his word, we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free – whatever others around us may do.
Once we believe the beast about the sword and domination, thereby rejecting the essence of the faith of Christ, the religion of antichrist gives us many options. The seven-headed beast is “like a leopard,” the four-headed Hellenistic empire of Daniel 7:6. Its religion likewise resembles Greek paganism, and indeed descends directly from it. Just as the beast rules politically through rivalry, its religion deceives in the same way.
The Greek religious world had something for everybody. You could worship Zeus and the other gods in the official religious observances. You could prophesy in the ecstatic mystery cults. You could, with the philosophers, despise all of this as empty superstition, and trust in human reason alone. The different schools contended with each other, but in so doing combined to form a religious world that offered something to everyone, united in the message that Greek civilization with one or another of its religious world views was the hope of mankind and the light of the world.
As Paul wrote, “Greeks seek wisdom.” Some sought it in philosophy, and some in irrational mystical union with a god. As the Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in The Prophets, “Among the strange legacies that have come down to us from Greek civilization is the belief that great poetry comes into being through a state of madness.” Because irrationality and contempt for intellectual understanding are so prevalent among religious people, we can easily assume that this is simply a property of religious belief. Religious people even justify this attitude with quotations like “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” That’s true, rightly understood, but Paul also wrote, “In evil be babes, but in understanding be men.” He certainly proved as intellectually rigorous as anybody, as his opponents confirmed by beating and stoning him because they had no better arguments.
Religious irrationality, and the contempt of “intellectuals” for it, is not universal. This kind of intellectual world is specifically of ancient Greece, maybe the first civilization in history in which the leading thinkers openly despised their gods. It works now as it did in the days of the four-headed leopard that passed it on to us. A whole religious world invites every religious or anti-religious persuasion, in which we can compete over religious questions like gladiators in the arena, but in which we all serve the imperial culture of this world, while its emperor watches with glee from the stands.
As Paul wrote, the common denominator in this religion, in which all else is optional, is to despise the cross of Christ. It’s foolish and weak to die (1 Corinthians 1:23-24). Thus we must be wise and strong, protecting ourselves. The religion of antichrist knows nothing of the source of true wisdom and strength, the cross, which is the weakness and foolishness of God. This religion can’t stand the undiluted words of Jesus, because his words come from and lead to the cross. Our self-protection causes us to reject the true Christ. So, as a manure pile attracts flies, our self-protection attracts antichrists offering to rescue us.
This sickness is easy to diagnose. The words of Jesus, notably the Sermon on the Mount, seem like foolishness, and you can’t imagine actually being able to live that way. If that’s you, look up and raise your hand. If untreated, this sickness is death, but you can be cured. Many have found this cure before us, starting with the prophets and apostles.
Jesus said, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). “Therefore” refers back to what he said just before - that God will give good things to those who ask Him, and of these good things, true wisdom and understanding are chief. Since, as Jesus said again, “The measure you measure will be measured back to you,” how we act is what we’re asking for. Doing to others as we want done to ourselves is a prayer to God, which He will answer, as we understand in this way what He is like. Thus “the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Psalm 19:8). The whole law and the prophets depend on, and are understood, through doing God’s will – summed up in: “whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them.”
God reserves understanding for those who walk with God and obey Him, as Jesus said when the seventy returned from traveling for him (Luke10:21-22). “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” is the essence of the truth (Micah 6:6-8). It’s all about how we treat people, including God. There’s nothing there about any of the religious doctrines that people call essential, except to walk humbly with your God. “Walk humbly” certainly means to live with Him in His light (1 John 1:5-10), and so to learn each day that each of us is mistaken about a great many things. That’s fine, a joyful thing in fact, so long as when we hear our symptoms described, we raise our hand.
[1] http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=h&p=c&a=p&ID=23095. William Jennings Bryan, “The Religious
Argument” in The Commoner,