SRR 100 The Danielic Imperative, Episode 19 — The Feet and the Toes of Daniel 2

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Justification by Faith Alone and Polemical Ministry

The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone. When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the ear and combating the ear.

We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style.

I would first say that to characterize what we do as fashion is itself fashion. It's not hate. It's history. It's not fashion. It's the Bible.

Jesus said, Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle.

Daniel, Eschatology, and the Timeline of the Kingdom

Welcome back to all of our listeners. This is Timothy F. Kaufman and you're listening to the Danielic Imperative. So named because we believe that it is imperative for all Christians to understand the timeline that the Lord laid out in his visions to Daniel.

In order to understand the eschatology of Jesus and his disciples. They referred repeatedly to Daniel's visions in order to lay out a future timeline for the people of God. And the people of God cannot understand the revelation of their own future.

Unless they understand the timeline that was established for us in Daniel. And in fact, I should say that the people of God cannot understand the revelation of their own past. Unless they understand the timeline that was established for us in Daniel.

The fact is much of what was foretold to take place in the future has already taken place. Because we are future to Daniel and to the book of Revelation. As we discussed last week, the Jews wanted to make Christ king.

Because they were expecting that the kingdom would be set up during the fourth empire. In Daniel's visions as he prophesied. And the apostles in various ways and in many circumstances expressed that they were living at the end of all things.

Or the end of the world. The reason the Jews wanted to make Christ king by force. Was because they thought he would be the one who would establish an earthly kingdom. And crush all the other empires in accordance with the vision of Daniel chapter 2.

After all, the end of the world was upon us. Because the fourth empire had in fact arrived. And so had the Messiah. That being the case, they expected that Jesus would set up his kingdom. And in the book of Acts, before he departed, the apostles asked Jesus.

When will you restore again the kingdom to Israel? They were asking for similar reasons. The end of all things was at hand. And all that remained was for Jesus to set up his earthly kingdom.

Right?

Well, at least that's what some of the Jews thought. They thought that after four earthly empires, the messianic kingdom would be the fifth earthly empire in succession. As we discussed last week. Our modern eschatologies, whether they be dispensationalist, futurist, preterist, or Roman Catholic.

Generally assume that the stone struck the feet of the statue in Daniel chapter 2. Only once. And destroyed the entire statue and all the preceding empires at once. And then grew up to be a large mountain that filled the whole earth.

Even our reformed eschatologists assume that the ascendancy of Christ's church to political power after only three centuries. Was the historical fulfillment of the prophecy that the kingdom of heaven would be the fifth earthly empire after Rome.

Calvin himself assumed that the nations must submit to and obey the church. And E .B. Eliot believed that Christians were authorized to coerce the heathen with the pointy end of the civil sword. But that, I believe, is based on the misunderstanding that the stone struck the statue only once.

As we showed in our previous episode, the stone actually strikes the statue twice. The evidence is right there in chapter 2. The stone strikes the feet alone. Breaking the feet alone. Dashing only the iron and clay feet to pieces.

And then the stone strikes the entire statue. Breaking in pieces the gold, the silver, the bronze, the iron, and clay together. Grinding them to dust. Those are two different strikes. In any case, we went through all the evidence for this last week and we won't go through it again in this episode.

But the traditional timeline is this. There are four empires. Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman. And during the Roman Empire, Christ comes and sets up his kingdom. And essentially, over time, the Roman Empire falls and the church takes over the world.

So Christ's kingdom was established and then it grew up and gained civil power and authority and filled the whole earth. But the problem with the traditional timeline is it leaves out something very important.

It is true that during the period of the feet, Christ set up his heavenly kingdom. But there is another kingdom that is set up during the period of the feet. In fact, from among the toes of the feet. A diabolical antagonist is also supposed to arise.

And he too is supposed to have a kingdom. So two kingdoms get set up during the period of the feet. But under the single strike theory, we look back and find only one kingdom established during the period of the feet.

The Christian Church with all of its ecclesiastical and civil power. But where was that diabolical antagonist that we call Antichrist? The little horn of Daniel 7 or the sea beast of Revelation 13. That's where things got fuzzy.

That is precisely why the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of Antichrist are so easily confused. Even by believers. Well, the timeline that results when we understand that there are in fact two strikes against the statue actually clears up the confusion.

There are four earthly empires. And during the fourth empire, the Messiah comes announcing that the kingdom of heaven is approaching. And then he sets up his heavenly kingdom denying explicitly that it had any earthly civil power.

According to Daniel 2, that kingdom is set up in the period of the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's statue. The fourth empire then divides into toes in chapter 2 or into horns in chapter 7. And from among those fragments of the fourth empire arises a diabolical fifth earthly empire.

And tramples on the saints and speaks arrogant words against the Most High God. Then only after the little horn's earthly power is destroyed in accordance with Daniel 2 .35 and Daniel 7 .26 does the stone of Christ's kingdom grow up to fill the whole earth.

According to Daniel 2 .35 or as revealed to Daniel chapter 7, the saints receive a kingdom under the whole heaven. Becoming not the fifth earthly empire of Daniel's visions as Calvin thought, but rather becoming the sixth earthly empire of Daniel's visions.

Christ and his saints do not receive an earthly kingdom with civil power until after Antichrist is destroyed. And as we said last week, for the Christian to long for civil power for Christ's church prior to the second strike of the stone is to long for Antichrist, which is the mistake that many Protestants have made.

And they convert to Roman Catholicism, believing that there was only supposed to be one strike of the stone. But in order to avoid their error, we need to know when the statue of Daniel chapter 2 made the transition from iron legs to iron and clay feet.

And then when it made its next transition from iron and clay feet to iron and clay toes. Those transitions are absolutely critical to understanding the Danielic timeline. So when do those transitions happen?

The answer is contained for us in the scriptures, and we will turn to them now. What we are going to do is discuss the scriptural testimony of the transition from the legs of iron to the feet of iron and clay, and how we can recognize that transition.

We will need to have a brief side conversation on the dating of the book of Revelation, something we can extract from the scriptures. And then we will go on to discuss the transition from the period of the feet to the period of the toes.

What we will find is that the very specific prophecies of the scripture about what was to happen at the transition from iron legs to iron and clay feet, namely the setting up of the heavenly kingdom of Christ, all coincide clearly with that specific identifiable historical transition.

And then the very specific prophecies about what was to happen at the transition from the iron and clay feet to iron and clay toes, namely the setting up of the earthly kingdom of Antichrist, also coincide clearly with that specific identifiable historical transition.

Okay, so let's move into an examination of what the iron legs period means, what the iron and clay feet period means, and what the iron and clay toes period means. But before we do that, we should acknowledge something important about the whole book of Daniel.

It is just as much about the succession of empires as it is about the transition that takes place between and within them. Bear with me on this because it is important. Daniel focuses as much on transitions as he does on succession.

What we mean is that Daniel indeed provides abundant imagery of the succession of kingdoms, Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, Roman, gold, silver, bronze, iron, iron and clay in chapter 2, lion, bear, leopard, an indescribable beast in chapter 7, ram and he-goat in chapter 8.

That much is so well known it hardly needs repeating. But Daniel is also about transitions too, and we must not miss it. For example, Daniel starts with Nebuchadnezzar, who is the head of gold in Daniel 2 .38.

But upon the conclusion of the gold period, the Lord says simply, Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. That's Daniel 5 .28. And the first to receive it is Darius the Mede. That's Daniel 5 .30.

Then, after the incident in the lion's den, we are informed that Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius the Mede and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. That's Daniel 6 .28. Notice the passing reference from the dominance of the Medes to the dominance of the Persians, a transition that occurs within the period of silver, and also the transition from the period of gold to the period of silver, which happens when the Babylonians forfeit the kingdom and the Medes and the Persians take over.

We notice as well that in chapter 7, we are looking not just at a succession of empires, but also at a succession of transitions. As we have noted in our very first episode, each beast in Daniel's vision in chapter 7 is depicted in its final configuration before the rise of the next empire.

The lion is depicted as standing on his feet as a man, notably after Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation. The bear is already lifted up on one side, indicating that the period of the Medes has passed, and it is the period of the Persians who came up last, according to Daniel 8 .3.

The leopard has already been divided four ways, and there is no mention of the period of Alexander's dominance at all. The fourth empire, as we noted previously in our first two episodes, has already lost three of his horns and now only has ten remaining, which is the configuration in which the fifth empire, the empire of the little horn, takes over, having removed three of the first horns.

But there is more. In Daniel 7 .11, we have described for us the transition from the Roman Empire to the empire of the little horn as the beast dies, and the preceding empires are given a prolongation of life in the form of the little horn.

And in Daniel 7 .26 -27, we have the transition from the fifth earthly kingdom of the little horn to the sixth earthly kingdom of Christ and his saints. And again in Daniel 8, we not only see at the beginning the transition from the Babylonian Empire to the Medo-Persian Empire in the form of the ram, but we also see the transition from the Medo-Persian Empire to the Greek Empire in the form of the he-goat.

But again, there is something more. Even within empires, we see transitions taking place. Within the Medo-Persian Empire, we see the transition from the lesser horn of the ram to the greater horn of the ram, that is, the transition from the dominance of the Medes to the dominance of the Persians.

And within the Greek Empire, we see the transition from the notable horn, that is, Alexander the Great, to the dominance of the four smaller horns that replaced him. Over and over in every chapter, we are not only seeing a succession of empires taking place, but we are also seeing momentous transitions taking place, transitions of monumental significance from one empire to the next, and also, within empires, from one configuration to the next, from the Medes to the Persians or from Alexander to his successors.

Even in chapter 10, there are transitions in view. The chapter is narrated during the period of Cyrus, king of Persia, in verse 1. But the period of the Greeks is not far away, as the narrator says. But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come.

That's verse 20. And in chapter 11, we have one of the most interesting transitions in the entire book narrated for us. We are told in verse 1 that we are in the period of Darius the Mede, and in verse 2, we are told that three more kings shall arise in Persia.

And the fourth shall be far richer, and will stir up all against the kingdom of Greece. In other words, we are being told not only of the transition from the Medes to the Persians, within the Medo-Persian empire, but also the transition from the Persians to the Greeks, that is, from the ram to the he-goat of chapter 8, or from the bear to the leopard of chapter 7, or from the silver to the bronze in chapter 2.

And not only that, Alexander the Great is mentioned in passing, both his rapid rise and sudden fall. And then we have described for us the transition to his four successors, and even a description of the fact that some of these will be even plucked up for others, and the remainder of the chapter focuses on the succession of kings within that divided empire.

As we discussed in a prior episode, that is, episode 4 of the Danielic Imperative, the entire chapter from Daniel 11, verse 3 until verse 45, describes in detail the period of the Greeks in the wars of the successors of Alexander, concluding in the great eschatological battle that takes place between Pompey of Rome, who occupied Asia Minor north of the Taurus Mountains, and the pirates of Pamphylia, who occupied a thin crescent of land in Asia Minor south of the Taurus Mountains.

That final narrative in chapter 11 concludes with the death of Pompey just a year after Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon to become the first bona fide dictator or king of the Roman Empire. That was when the Roman nation transitioned from a republic to an empire to occupy its place in history as the fourth empire of Daniel's visions.

And then chapter 12 begins with events that are distinctively Roman in nature, referring to the time of trouble and the delivery of the people of God, something that was to occur, of course, during the fourth empire.

So, let me first thank our listeners for trudging through that with me. That is a lot of transitions, and probably hard to listen to, but it is important and revealing to us. My guess is that not very many of our listeners have ever heard a lecture about imperial transitions in Danielic eschatological literature, and yet it is plainly obvious that it is one of the most important things Daniel talks about.

Our point in dwelling on all these transitions is that when we arrive in the New Testament, we are transported to the time prior to the most important transition in all of Danielic eschatology, the transition from the iron legs to the feet of iron and clay in Daniel chapter 2.

Jesus said the kingdom of heaven was near. The apostles said that they were in the last times, and the Jews wanted to make Jesus king, and the apostles wanted to know when Jesus would restore the kingdom to Israel.

Why? Because the period of the feet was almost here. There was a huge transition about to take place, and everybody wanted to know about it. That is what Peter was talking about when he said Joel had prophesied about these last times.

This is from Acts 2, verses 16 -17. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

The last days had come. And consider these striking verses as well. In Matthew 16 -3, Jesus rebukes the hypocrites, saying, You can discern the face of the sky, but can you not discern the signs of the times?

Elsewhere, when he is encouraging the sheep, in Luke 21 -28, Jesus says,. And when ye see these things come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh. And also, a couple verses later, So likewise, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.

The book of Revelation starts with the admonition to John that the time is at hand. The New Testament was written at a time of transition, and something big was about to happen. And Jesus believed that they had sufficient knowledge to know this.

The time was about to come upon them, and the kingdom was almost here. They were approaching the period of the feet of the statue, when the Messiah was to set up his kingdom, according to Daniel 2 -44.

And when we read the New Testament, we are transported to an era that was on the cusp of that great transition. We mentioned several other apostolic references to the last days, and the end of the world in the episode last week.

It was all true. The end of the world was upon them, and the period of the feet was fast approaching. The culmination of all eschatology was about to begin. Something big was about to happen. So let's take a look at this, the most important transition in all of Danielic eschatology, the transition from the iron legs to the iron and clay feet.

The New Testament Proclamation of the Near Kingdom

A remarkable amount of New Testament narrative is occupied with the approaching transition. In fact, the gospel John went about preaching, and the gospel Jesus went about preaching, and the gospel his apostles and disciples went about preaching, was all about that transition.

They went all throughout the land, saying, The kingdom of heaven is nigh. And when Jesus sent out the 70 to preach, the King James says in Luke 10 9 that Jesus told them to say, The kingdom of God has come nigh unto you, making it sound like the kingdom had already arrived, and they were just announcing it.

But the English word come is not there in the Greek. In the Greek, Jesus sent the 70 out to preach, not that the kingdom of God has come nigh to you, but rather, the kingdom of God is nigh to you. We do not want to dwell unnecessarily on the obvious, but it is important to know that nigh does not mean here.

It does not mean the kingdom of heaven has arrived. It simply means the kingdom of heaven is nigh, or near. It is about to arrive. They were saying that the kingdom of heaven is approaching. They may as well have said, The period of the iron will soon end, and the period of the iron and clay will begin.

Or, the period of the legs will soon end, and the period of the feet will begin. Because the period of the feet is when the kingdom of heaven will be established, and the kingdom of heaven is what they came announcing.

It is almost here. In other words, the New Testament was written during the period of the iron legs, and the constant warning of Christ and his disciples is that the period of the feet is almost here.

A huge transition was about to take place, and all the signs were pointing to it. So what did Daniel say about that transition from legs to feet? Daniel dwells briefly on the significance of the transition from iron legs to iron and clay feet when he says that the legs are iron, because the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron.

That is Daniel 2 .40. But the feet and toes are part potter's clay and part iron, because the kingdom shall be divided. That is Daniel 2 .41. And again, whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave to one another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.

That is Daniel 2 .43. It is important to note here that by divided, Daniel is not referring to the division into toes or into horns in chapter 7, because both the feet and the toes are divided somehow, which is to say the feet are divided and the toes are divided because they are made out of iron and clay that do not mix well.

Thus, divided here does not refer to the fragmentation into toes. It only refers to the fact that the whole kingdom is somehow mixed like iron with clay after the period of iron. So in what way is the kingdom mixed?

Well, let's rule out at the outset the ESV interpretation which renders it as you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage. That is not what the text says. If you look back on the preceding empires, we have a series of kingdoms that are solid gold, solid silver, solid bronze, and solid iron.

And throughout all those empires, they marry and are given in marriage. In fact, the book of Esther has a king in the Medo-Persian Empire marrying the Jewish maiden Esther. And chapter 11 of Daniel depicts intermarriage between the successor kingdoms of Alexander.

And the king's children are marrying each other there in that kingdom. And in no way does Daniel depict the silver or bronze periods as mixed, even though their kings were clearly marrying outside of their own people.

So the iron and clay period cannot be a reference to mixing with one another in marriage as the ESV would suggest. It is clear from the passage that the iron and clay is weak in a way that the preceding empires were not weak.

So we cannot conclude that the fourth empire was weak through marriage since the preceding empires engaged in mixed marriages too. That is obviously not what Daniel was talking about. But we can figure out a way that the later Roman Empire at some point became substantively different in a way that set it apart not only from the early part of the Roman Empire, but also set it apart from all the preceding empires.

To figure that out, let us revisit those preceding empires and take note of what the scripture tells us about them. In spite of their constant internal and external warfare and plenty of debauchery and intrigue, all the preceding ruling families were undivided in the sense that they were not mingled outside of royal kingly lines.

All the kingdoms were ruled by royal lines of kingly men. The Babylonian Empire was ruled by a succession of royalty descended from Nebuchadnezzar, for his son was king after him, according to Daniel 5 .2.

And his son's son was king after him, according to Jeremiah 27 .7. Then the Medes reigned, passing the kingdom from father to son, for Darius was the son of Hagiwaris, of the seed of the Medes, according to Daniel 9 .1.

And then the Persians passed the kingdom from father to son within royal lines as well. So you can see that in Ezra 4 .5 -6 and check that against the historical records. The Greek Empire was then ruled by Alexander and notably he serves as the sole exception to this rule and the scripture pauses to point it out for us.

It says, he left his kingdom not to his posterity, that's Daniel 11 .4. That makes him the sole exception and Daniel pauses to point it out for us. But even then his kingdom was left to his generals and to their descendants, most visibly to the warring Ptolemaic and Seleucid families as each king left his portion of the fragmented kingdom to his son and each to his son after him.

Even when the fragments of Alexander's empire were then plucked up for others besides these, as foretold by Daniel 11 .4, the northern kingdom went first to Attalus of Pergamum, who having no son bequeathed it to Rome and the eastern kingdom went to King Tigranus of Armenia and the southern kingdom, along the southern coast of Asia Minor, went to the pirate king of Pamphylia.

They were still in the hands of royalty or in the case of Rome, the aristocracy. Throughout this whole period, from Nebuchadnezzar to the division of Alexander's empire, none of these kingdoms are characterized as mingled with the seed of men.

There was a tremendous amount of internal wrangling between family members and their descendants and some territories even got plucked up by people who were not successors of Alexander and yet none of those empires or kingdoms are characterized as divided the way the iron and clay feet are considered divided.

And when Rome was in its ascendancy from Julius Caesar onward, that is, during the period of the iron legs, it exceeded the preceding empires in military prowess, according to Daniel 2 .40, but certainly not in political intrigue and turmoil.

And even then it remained unmixed. From Julius Caesar through most of the first century AD, the Roman Empire simply appears to be in the phase of the iron legs. It is not in any way or any sense a divided empire.

It is iron to the core and is still just reaching its stride. And the first seven emperors followed the same pattern that we saw from the preceding empires. The kingdom was held and maintained by a royal line of Caesars who were related to each other.

Julius Caesar reigned from 49 to 44 BC. There were civil wars from 44 BC to 27 BC, and then his grandnephew Augustus took over. And then Tiberius, who was the stepson of Augustus, took over, reigning from 14 to 37 AD.

And then Caligula, who was Tiberius' grandnephew, took over, reigning from 37 to 41. Claudius was Caligula's uncle. He reigned from 41 to 54. Nero, who reigned from 54 to 68, was Claudius' grandnephew.

And Galba, related by marriage and adoption to Julius Caesar, reigned from 68 to 69. The succession of these first seven rulers of the Roman Empire bears a resemblance to the succession of kings of Babylon, Medo-Persian, and Greece, in that the succession was kept within a kingly family line.

Galba, the seventh king of Rome, was of noble birth and very wealthy, but related only distantly to the preceding six, and his wife, Amelia Lepida, was also related by marriage to the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

After this, the Caesars began to come from much more diverse and frequently common lineage. Otho reigned from January to April of 69 AD. He was of Etruscan lineage, and we notice that the Etruscans were not of Roman descent, and they were the people the Romans had overthrown to establish the Republic long ago.

Vitellius took over, reigning from April to December of 69. He was of Latium descent, another group the Romans had overthrown to establish the Republic, or he was possibly of common lineage. Vespasian, from 69 to 79 AD, was a commoner.

Titus, 79 to 81 AD, was Vespasian's son. Domitian, from 81 to 96, was Titus's brother. Nerva, from 96 to 98 AD, came from the Coquet family, distantly related to the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Trajan, from 98 to 117, was of Hispanic or Italian stock.

Trajan, from 98 to 117 AD, was of Hispanic and Italian stock. Hadrian, from 117 to 138, was of Hispanic, possibly Italian stock. Antoninus, from 138 to 161 AD, was from southern France. We will leave it to our listeners to research the family lines of the rest of the Roman emperors, but it was with Otho in 69 AD that the Roman emperors began to come from non-Roman lines.

There were some who came from royal lines, and those were mixed in with commoners and foreigners. Our point here is simply that the first seven emperors of the Roman Empire followed the pattern of the preceding empires, and that the succession was kept within the family, in a distinguishable royal line, civil war and political intrigue notwithstanding.

After the first seven emperors, the rulers began to come from much more diverse lineage. This is what we believe Daniel had foreseen when he said, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, in Daniel 2 .43, they referring to these kings of the Roman Empire.

According to Daniel, there would be a significant and observable transition from legs to feet, and that transition took place in 69 AD, when Galba was assassinated. The succession beyond that point was mingled.

We also believe that this is the significance of the angel's reference to seven kings in Revelation 17, which reads,. That's Revelation 17 .10. This leads us to a rather reasonable and penetrating question.

What is the point of the reference to the seven kings of Revelation 17 .10? Well, there is a good reason for such a listing of kings. The point of listing a succession of kings in Revelation 17 is to highlight a significant eschatological transition that was approaching, just as the angelic narrator did for Daniel in chapter 11, where the listing of a series of kings was intended to convey a significant eschatological transition and his particular place in the Danielic timeline.

Listen to Daniel 11, verses 1 -3. Again, that's Daniel 11, verses 1 -3. He is listing a series of kings in order to help Daniel understand where he is on the Danielic timeline. And remember, the Danielic timeline is as much about the succession of empires as it is about the transitions between them.

In this case, the statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream is about to transition from legs of iron to feet of iron and clay. The revelation to John thus far has been rigidly Danielic, in that the beasts, heads, and horns in chapters 12, 13, and 17 all derive from Daniel's visions.

John's angelic interpreter has been speaking in Danielic terms for a significant portion of the book. The significance of the reference to seven kings, therefore, is that the angel was describing the iron period of the Roman Empire, the period defined by the iron legs of the statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

The angel's message is to inform John of the looming transition to the period of the feet of the statue, a period fraught with eschatological significance, as Daniel had foretold, and what is quite simply the most important transition in all of eschatology, because of what was supposed to happen during the period of the feet.

The fact that John was writing this under the sixth king, Nero, and that there would only be one more after him who must continue a short space, referring to Galba, is not suggestive of the end of the Roman Empire, but rather the end of the iron period.

Rome was about to move out of its iron period and into the iron and clay period, defined by the statue's feet, when they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men. Now, along those lines, as long as we're talking about the first seven kings of the Roman Empire in Revelation 17 .10, we should pause here and interact with the next verse, Revelation 17 .11, which says that the Antichrist is the eighth Roman emperor after the seventh.

Here is Revelation 17 .11. And the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. That is actually a mistranslation. It does not actually say, even he is the eighth.

The Greek does not have the definite article there. It uses the indefinite article. The verse should read, and in fact was written in Greek, and the beast that was and is not, even he is an eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

In other words, the Antichrist, little horn of Daniel 7, and the sea beast of Revelation 13, is like the Roman emperors of the Iron Period. They are the first seven emperors constituting the Iron Period.

And he comes later, but is an eighth, and is of the seven, in the sense that the first seven were Roman, and the little horn of Daniel 7, which is the sea beast of Revelation 13, would also be Roman. As it says in Revelation 17, the woman who rides the beast is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth, which, of course, in John's day, was the city of Rome.

The Iron Period ended with the seventh Roman emperor, but the beast of Revelation 13 was an eighth, but was one of the seven, in that it was also an irresistible Roman power, just like the emperors of the Iron Period.

But what Revelation 17 11 does not say is that the Antichrist is the eighth Roman emperor. Okay, with the Iron Period identified and the first seven emperors of Rome, the period of defeat is now upon us.

The transfer of the kingdom that Daniel had prophesied cannot be far away, nor can the impact of the stone. In fact, as we noted in our previous episode, Jesus confirms this understanding in his discussion on the stone strike in the statue, and repeatedly points forward to the destruction of Jerusalem as the sign to us that the transition from legs to feet had finally happened.

So let's listen again to Jesus' reference to Daniel 2 in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The chief priests, scribes, and elders were pressing Jesus to identify who had given him authority to teach what he was teaching.

That's Matthew 21 23 and Luke 20 verses 1 to 2. He would not answer their question, but he took the occasion to speak the parable of the husbandmen. In this parable, the husbandmen were entrusted with the stewardship of the vineyard.

But when the time of the fruit drew near, the husbandmen beat and stoned and killed the master's servants. The master then sends his own son saying, They will reverence my son. But when he came, they caught him and cast him out of the vineyard and slew him.

That's Matthew 21 33 to 39 and Luke 20 9 to 15. What then would become of the husbandmen? What would the lord of the vineyard do to them? The answer is in Matthew 21 41 and in Luke 20 16, citing from Matthew, He will miserably destroy those wicked men and will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.