What does revelation 17-8 mean?

Answer 1

If we mean Chapter 17, verse 8, then this is your answer:

There are many, many layers to the Revelation and we could easily write an essay just about a few short verses. In this case, I'll try to address all the important points without making the answer too long.

Here's the text from Rev 17:8, a scene in which John is being shown a vision of a beast and an angel is explaining the significance of the vision. The angel says to John:

"The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come."

What does this mean? During Revelation, a "beast" is used a symbol for a very powerful king and the empire he will rule. Unfortunately, it would take many pages to explain all the significance behind this symbol, but I'm going to skim a little bit for our purposes.

As the angel explains, this beast "once was, now is not and yet will come up out of the Abyss." This is the key to our understanding. The "Abyss" here is translated from the same word for "Abyss" that we see when Satan is finally cast down into a place of restraint by God so that he cannot do any more evil work in the world (Rev20:1-3). So, since we see the symbolism of this king represented as a "beast" coming out of that same pit, we see that we're being told this king is associated with the darkness of the abyss and the devil. The works of God and of Jesus Christ and His angels appear out of heaven, the work of the devil is related to that which is below, in a horrid place of destruction.

So, this beast we see that represents a very dangerous, powerful king and his kingdom "comes out of the abyss" and astonished "everyone whose names have not been written in the book of life." Now what does that mean? In this part of the vision, we see that all of those who do not truly know God or His son Jesus are totally amazed at the beast. To them, it's an incredible and awe-inspiring thing to see this king and his kingdom emerging into the world- they very likely mistake this event for something wonderful.

The scripture gives us a specific look at why the people are so amazed: "this beast once was, now is not and yet will come." Something about this totally captivates those who do not love God, those who don't know any better than to say "I know that this is not something from God I'm seeing. This beast that has everyone so amazed is not my hope and it is not my miracle. I know God is greater." People who don't know God and have no love for Him or experience with His power don't have the discernment to see the beast for what it is- dangerous and evil. They don't put two and two together and are blind to what God and His children should clearly see: the origin of the beast is the abyss, not heaven.

What does it mean to say the beast "once was, now is not and yet will come"?

There has been much debate about this. There's another passage in Revelation 13:1-4 which describes this same multi-headed beast and says that one of the beast's heads "...seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed" and, because of this "The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast." we see a repeat of that same sense of amazement by the world that doesn't know God- somehow they're incredibly impressed by this beast that seems wounded but then is miraculously healed.

What does it mean?

Some people interpret this as saying that the human king or ruler who is represented by the beast will literally appear to die or be very ill, and then miraculously recover, deceiving the world into thinking he is something amazing and worthy of being followed. This would make sense, then, that people would say "The king once was, now is not (because he's dead or dying) and yet, here he comes again, alive! Amazing!"

Another theory that seems to relate to our passage we're discussing today is that people are amazed because the kingdom the beast rules "once was, now is not, and yet will come." Some people associate this with the verse saying the beast has a fatal wound that is healed, and interpret it as saying that this ruler will "resurrect" an old empire or kingdom that has died away and it will amaze people that he's able to do it. This might be related to the Roman Empire (again we just don't have enough time here today to go into the reasons why), and the amazement of people that such an ancient kingdom which is completely gone in modern times will reappear on the scene as the greatest empire of the modern world.

Finally, a very good theory is that this "healing" of the beast and the phrase "once was, now is not and yet will come" refers to religion. We know from other verses in Revelation (see 13:13-18) that the world will fall into a deceptive religion where millions will worship this great king and his image, so it could be what the angel is telling John is that this ruler, whose kingdom reminds the world of the ancient Roman empire and who commands himself to be worshiped just like the ancient Roman Caesars did, suddenly has brought a massive, extinct political and religious idea screaming back into modern relevance.

Even though there are several ways to look at the verse, we get the same message reinforced more clearly each time we examine it: this person and his kingdom will appear to be "amazing" to all of those in the world who have no better God. They're going to be so amazed by this powerful new force that they put all their hope- and their religious practice- into it, giving their whole lives to a worldly invention which has died or gone away and then almost miraculously reappears in prominence. It's important to note that the first thing the angel tells John is that, no matter how powerful this king and his kingdom appears and no matter how convinced people are of its power, it is absolutely, definitely going to its own destruction- God sees the evil abyss which contains that which is lost and corrupt and doomed to failure is the birthplace of this king, and that he's going back to that birthplace when his time is over, even if the world thinks he'll be around forever.