Sic Semper Tyrannis: A Heterodox Escatological Speculation

So, a friend asked me in a conversation today if I thought the end was near. You know, things look pretty rotten in many corners of the world: wars, bombs, Gallic headbutting. "Isn't this the way things are supposed to look just before the Apocalypse?" he suggested. I conceded that. But then I explained my own pet theory about the End of the World -- at least the side of it WE see.

First a little background: if Christians want to speculate about apocalyptic stuff, we turn mainly to John's Apocalypse. Of course, there's a big argument over the appropriateness of doing so. Some folks think the events in Revelation already happened (preterists). Some think the events are a sort of allegory for the way things generally are, not predictions of specific events (there's a name for them, but I don't remember it. I'll just call them "presentists," since they say Revelation is always NOW.) And lastly, there're the futurists, those who think Revelation described particular events that will occur in the future. So, three positions: the End CAME THEN, the End IS ALWAYS NOW, and the End IS COMING TOMORROW.

So, I do what I often do in a case like this: answer the multiple choice question as "Yes." In my scheme, all three answers are right, but not necessarily to the exclusion of the others. Here's the theory:

John's Apocalypse describes (basically) two opposed forces: the Christ side and the Antichrist side. Good vs. Evil, in other words. However -- and now we enter my speculating -- only the Christ side is infallibly prescient. (Why? 'Cause God is decreeing these events. He's not just looking into the future and saying "Golly! Sure am glad everything turns out alright for my side!" He's making it all happen, according to His own plan.) So only the Christ side acts according to the story as it IS and MUST BE.

But what about the other side, the Antichrist side? What determines their battleplan? Satan, obviously -- he's the villain of the piece -- but what rationale does he use in shaping his strategy? Obviously he KNOWS what John wrote, but it is equally obvious that on some level he doesn't BELIEVE it. If he did, he would repent, right? So the deceiver is as deceived -- more deceived, even -- as his human dupes. He KNOWS what God has said He will do, and EVERY TIME Satan tries to thwart the divine intention, and EVERY TIME he fails. That is reprobation in a nutshell, at its most irrational and self-destructive.

The Antichrist side, then, is motivated by Satan's obstinate and willfully ignorant contrary nature. (That's his name, right? Satan, the Enemy.) Which leads me to another speculation: Satan isn't waiting for God's "cue" to start his side of the war. Why? Because he doesn't KNOW when the end will come -- Jesus said only the Father knows the day and hour. I think he'll be just as surprised as everyone else. Instead, what we see in John's Apocalypse, at least in the behavior of the Antichrist side, is simply Satan's basic modus operandi since his insurrection in heaven. So, instead of the whole Antichrist-takes-over-the-world bit being Satan's endgame strategy, it's actually his ONLY major strategy and he's ALWAYS trying to pull it off, in EVERY generation. But the last time he tries it, he'll NEARLY succeed -- then Christ will come and stomp him into the mud.

Some corollaries to this theory:

1. IT'S ALWAYS GOING TO LOOK LIKE THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO END. All we can see is the human side of things: political and social events and trends. We can infer the Satanic motivations behind many of these events, the way the audience infers the puppeteer when the puppets sing. So, from where we sit, we think something along the lines of the following: "Gosh, look at (INSERT NAME HERE)! He looks like he's trying to take over the world! He's obviously scary nuts and hates Christians and Jews! I'll betcha he's the Antichrist!" And, according to my theory, WE ARE RIGHT. The scary monomaniacal tyrant bent on genocide and world domination IS an Antichrist, whoever he is. Why? Because Satan's trying to stage a play, and he's only got one script, and the lead role is named "Antichrist." So things have always been this way: Satan tries to pull off his scheme, an Antichrist rises to power, raises Cain for awhile, then gets smacked down, BECAUSE IT'S NOT TIME FOR THE END YET. Thus, if I'm right, Hitler WAS the Antichrist, as was Stalin, as was Nero, as was Antiochus Ephiphanes, as was Haman, as was Pharaoh, etc. The Iranian president is one now, for my money. To reiterate, then, it will always look like the End, because all we can see is the human side of the story, and that story is dominated by the repeating cycle of Satan's persistent Grand Coup Scheme.

2. THE ANTICHRIST ALWAYS LOSES. And necessarily so! Why? The Antichrists before the End cannot triumph, because that would mean the End, right? So we can be assured that the wannabes, whoever they are and however powerful they appear, will fall. That's comforting, yes? It may be pretty scary in the meanwhile -- lots of death and destruction -- but "the Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail" eventually, because the End is not yet come. (This does not, of course, give us a sense of how bad things can get and still NOT be the End. Heck, even the Holocaust wasn't the End. But, then, Hitler was defeated and things got better. As the Crow said, "It can't rain all the time.") But what about the final Antichrist, the "real" Antichrist? Well, we already know that story, don't we? He'll get pretty far, farther than any of his predecessors. But in the End he'll get it but good. We're talking Fist-from-On-High scale retribution. So, no matter how bad things look and no matter how scary the Antichrist is, HE WILL ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS LOSE. Guaranteed, money in the bank, never fail. Thus the title for this post, "Sic semper tyrannus" -- "Thus will it always be for tyrants." To all the aspiring Antichrists of the world: history has a plot, and you DO NOT want to be the villain. The Hero is WAY out of your weight class.

That's the message I take away from John's Apocalypse, ultimately: the Eschatology of the Happy Ending. Satan has an alternative plotline, and he's tried to impose it since he fell. Unfortunately, even if he can't change the True Story, he can deceive people into believing his story, and people live according to the story in their head. BUT that -- the False Story that opposes the True Story -- is in fact PART of the True Story! The Antichrist side, so desperately trying to seize control for itself, is merely playing out its role in the Story it's trying to destroy. How beautifully, satisfyingly, divinely ironic! So while all we see here is a tragedy -- a wilderness of dragons -- John's vision assures us that we really live in a comedy of heroism and unexpected blessing. As a Christian, I am aware of both stories -- and I choose to live in the comedy.