Revelation chapter 9

by NowImFree 25 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  NowImFree

  I have been researching Revelation 9 and have recently come to the realization that the JWs are claiming in their own literature that they themselves are the locust horde coming out of the abyss spoken of in Revelation 9 and they are also claiming that their king is Abaddon the king of the abyss who they say is Jesus. In their old literature they used to say the Abaddon is Satan and now they have done a flip flop and say he is Jesus! This is just amazing to me that they would say this. I have done research on Abaddon and he is known as the king of the demons from the abyss or the prince of hell, another name for Satan. So basically, in the JWs Revelation book on page 142 or so, they are saying they are the locusts from the abyss and that their king is Abaddon or Satan. Did any of you realize this or what do you think? They also claim this in the Watchtower of May 1st 1998.

  NowImFree
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  peacefulpete

  A few months back someone traced the WT spin of this passage and found they had vacillated more than once between Satan and Jesus. Its all a case of modern reinterpretation so as to make the 2000 year old cryptic anti-Roman apocalyptic texts appear to mean something today. The calvary of locusts were the Parthian armies that were believed to be coming with a revivified Christian hating Nero to retake the Empire.
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  Star Moore

  Hmm..Interesting thread.

  Abaddon means Destroyer, right.. And locusts are irritating things..But the locusts have gold crowns on their head..They were given power to kill and torture.

  Thinking it must be God's servants, who are the locusts..and that they could be working for God in the great Tribulation to do the exposing and discovering work, with the "elements of the earth being on fire". So, the angel of the abyss couldn't be a bad guy. In fact it must be Jesus.
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  Leolaia

  Star Moore....You may not have noticed that the locusts and their leader Apollyon ("destroyer") "arise out of the Abyss" as it is stated in Revelation 9:2-3, exactly as the Beast "arises out of the Abyss" in 11:7, 17:8, and the Beast "goes to destruction" (eis apóleian) just as Apollyon is the "Destroyer" (apolluón). This double link to the Beast does not help support an identification of Apollyon with Jesus Christ. Rather, those consecrated to Christ are spared from the attack, just as those sealed in Ezekiel 9:3-6 (a passage which is alluded to in Revelation 9) are spared from the Babylonians. Those who were sealed "with the mark of God on their foreheads" (9:4) were protected from the woes and plagues destined for the earth and sea (7:3), thus they cannot be the locusts themselves such that they are protected from themselves. The locusts are the (demonic) forces of Hades released to wreck havoc on the earth. This gives people who were not consecrated to Christ an opportunity to repent but they steadfastly refuse (9:20-21).

  Then, when the Beast is delegated authority and power from the Dragon (ch. 13-14), everyone who did not have the mark of God on their foreheads were marked with the mark of the Beast (13:16-17), and the Beast put all those consecrated to Christ to death (13:7-10, 15), thereby making the city of the Beast "drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus" (17:6), for "in the face of death they would not cling to life" (12:11). This is the "great tribulation" mentioned in ch. 7. Then the consecrated, assembled together in heaven with Jesus, will defeat the Beast and his lackeys (17:13-14), and everyone who has the mark of the Beast (i.e. everyone who were not put to death for refusing to worship the Beast) are executed and sent to the "lake of fire" (14:9-10, 19:18). This gives a brief summary and overview of the "plot" of these chapters...
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  Sad emo

  Can't wait to get my 'Revelation' book to check that out. The only way I see the WTS as being locusts is that they seem to have a knack of annoying everyone else lol!

  I thought I'd see what a couple of my commentaries said about it and the both definitely say that the locusts are the fallen angels who had been locked up until the end (Jude 6). One commentator suggests that the non-fatal sting may be people's lack of fulfilment/satisfaction, that feeling of something missing in ones life.

  Another commentator showed a historical context for the time that Revelation was written that I never knew. He suggests that the Greek for Apollyon may have been intended as a variant of Apollo - and the cult of Apollo used the locust as one of its symbols. The emperors Caligula, Nero and Domitian all claimed to be incarnations of Apollo...

  Both say that the fact that demons were carrying out the punishment shows that even the wicked operate within his will, even though they might not be aware that they are.
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  Kristofer

  very interesting
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  heathen

  Can't wait to get my 'Revelation' book to check that out. The only way I see the WTS as being locusts is that they seem to have a knack of annoying everyone else lol!

  That's how they do see it . They know they are pests on saturday morning and do annoy people by insisting they know nothing while the only people that know anything important are j-dubs .

  what I find interesting here is that not only is the angel of the abyss jesus but the angel that decends in chapter 10 according to the Revelation book. But they claim the angel in chapter 20 is jesus again with the key to lock away satan . Pretty confusing stuff .
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  Leolaia

  sad emo....The connection with the detained fallen angels in 1 Enoch is a very plausible one, especially since Revelation itself is otherwise dependent on passages in 1 Enoch pertaining to the "bottomless abyss" and the detaining of the fallen angels (e.g. compare Revelation 9:1, 12:4 with 1 Enoch 88:1-3, Revelation 9:2 with 1 Enoch 18:11, Revelation 20:1-3 with 1 Enoch 10:11-14, 88:1-3, 90:23-24). The notion of the "bottomless abyss" where the angels or the Devil is detained comes from 1 Enoch, not the OT.

  BTW, some people confuse the angel who opens the abyss (i.e. an angel on the outside opening it) in 9:1-2 with the "angel of the abyss" in v. 11 who heads the armies of locusts flying out of the abyss. There is no reason in the text to conflate the two. The "angel of the abyss" is a denizen of the abyss, just as "Abaddon" is used in Qumran texts to refer to Sheol itself. In the apocalyptic tradition, Jeremiel or Remiel is the angel inside the underworld who is in charge of the spirits there.
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  heathen

  From what I understand the WTBTS states the abyss itself merely symbolizes a state of inactivity . In other words the preaching work is resumed after having been inactive for a long time . True the ancient greeks believed in an under world but the christians did not . So the locusts harm those without the seal of God ,meaning according to the WTBTS, that they exspose them as frauds and charlatans.
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  Leolaia

  That's pretty much how they interpret it. Of course, there is a complete arbitrariness about it. The Society declares rather than establishes what is symbolic and what is not. And for symbols, there is no principled methodology for recovering the likely reference (such as other ancient uses of the symbol, intertextuality with the OT, etc.), but rather stipulation without demonstration...hence all the 1918, 1919, 1920s declarations, etc. crap that has nothing at all to do with Revelation but which the Society applies to the texts nilly-willy as they see fit.

  Viewing the abyss as merely "symbolizing a state of inactivity", for instance, is simply asserted. In the language of apocalyptic, not everything is a symbol of something else. 1 Enoch, one of the influences of Revelation, for instance, had a very elaborate geography of the world that situated the abyss with respect to certain mountains, oceans, Jerusalem, Gehenna, the portal in the west where the sun sets, etc., so it is clear that the abyss is construed as a place.