The Changing Form of the Fourth Empire: From Daniel to Revelation’s Seals, Trumpets and Judgment Vials

7th Semester / Week 1

As we begin our study of Revelation, we must first ground ourselves in one of the foundational pillars of our faith: Jesus taught that His followers are to be known by their love for one another (John 13:34–35). And because Scripture warns us not to take vengeance into our own hands (Romans 12:19), we study prophecy not with anger or fear, but with confidence in God, who says, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay.”

When we trace the vast prophetic outlines that God revealed through Daniel and later through John, we do so not to assign blame or demonize any group, but to understand how Scripture unfolds the long, patient story of God’s dealings with nations, empires, and His covenant people. Prophecy is not a weapon. It is a lens. And when used rightly, it gives clarity to the world in which we live and steady confidence in God who governs its history.

Our present study begins at the point where Daniel’s great panoramic vision ends and where the Revelation of Jesus Christ begins. What Daniel saw in the sixth century B.C. as symbolic outlines and bewildering imagery, John saw as their continuation—developed, expanded, and headed toward its fulfillment. It’s not accidental that the last book of Scripture borrows Daniel’s symbols and extends Daniel’s chronology. These two prophets, separated by more than six hundred years, were shown two halves of the same divine disclosure.

Because Daniel’s visions laid the foundation, and John’s visions extended the structure, we’re meant to read them together, correlating symbol with symbol and theme with theme, allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture. And just as Daniel foresaw centuries of world empires beyond his own time period, Revelation likewise presents the divine roadmap of events beginning in the age immediately following its composition in 95 AD. Early Christians understood this. And for many centuries, believers recognized that Revelation’s visions—particularly the seals, trumpets, and vials—were not distant predictions separated from them by millennia, but the prophetic outline of God’s dealings with the Church and the world through the long Christian era. This understanding was so widespread among Protestant believers that it can simply be referred to as “The Traditional Interpretation,” or more technically, the Historicist view.

Before the creation of Preterism by Jesuits or the rise of dispensational Futurism, readers across the centuries understood that Revelation wasn’t merely about 70 AD or a sudden, unrelated new stream of prophecy that would be separated by thousands of years, but rather, the direct continuation of Daniel’s outline of world empires that were to stretch well beyond 70 AD. They understood that the four great Gentile powers Daniel saw in his visions—Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome— formed a single prophetic road stretching from the prophet’s day until the final establishment of Christ’s kingdom. Daniel saw the sequence begin; John saw its last and longest stage carried out to its end.

This is why the book of Revelation returns to a figure Daniel had already made central: the ten-horned beast. The fourth empire Daniel saw was Rome, represented in his visions by a terrifying creature different from all others, one possessing iron teeth and ten horns. This fourth beast was a final Gentile empire that would endure, transform, and reappear in different phases across the centuries until the kingdom of God displaced it entirely.

Throughout the centuries in countless commentaries, this continuity had been described in terms that are strikingly accurate to the text of Scripture. The beast of Revelation 13 and 17 was not a new symbol introduced without precedent. It’s Daniel’s beast reappearing in a later phase of its existence. Daniel had shown the four empires while John, writing centuries later, only needed to show the fourth, for the first three had already fallen. And therefore his prophetic attention is directed entirely toward the future of the Roman Empire.

When John wrote, Babylon, Persia, and Greece had vanished; Rome remained. The empire in power during John’s lifetime was the sixth of seven heads on the beast—an interpretive key that the angel in Revelation 17 makes unmistakably clear. The angel says to John:

“There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come,” (Revelation 17:10).

The words “one is” refers to the government of the Roman Empire which reigned at that particular moment, which was Rome when it was headed by the “Caesars.” And because the seven heads are explained as successive phases of the same imperial system, this ties the beast unmistakably to Rome. The angel adds that the woman John saw—the great harlot—symbolized “the great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” In John’s world there was only one such city. Rome stood unrivaled in its global dominance. This identifies the empire symbolically, historically and politically.

Furthermore, we’ve already seen that the majority of early Christian and Protestant interpreters have always known that Revelation’s use of “Babylon” had referred to Rome. Babylon has been the code word for Rome, and we find it directly used in Peter’s Epistle to refer to Rome:

“Your sister church here in Babylon sends you greetings…” (1 Peter 5:13).

Church historian Eusebius documented that Peter was writing from Rome. He based that statement on the authority of Clement of Alexandria and Papias, which was also the view of Jerome who wrote that Peter was: “…referring figuratively to Rome under the title of Babylon.” The fact that Babylon was the code word for Rome was rarely questioned until Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536 AD).

All of which was why interpreters saw Revelation as the continuation of Daniel’s prophetic narrative concerning Rome—its rise, its forms, its transformations, and ultimately its eventual collapse under the reign of Christ. They saw Scripture present the Roman Empire not as a static institution but as an empire that would evolve across multiple stages of history. Historicist interpreters such as Edward Bishop Elliott had recognized that Revelation contains not one but three distinct visions of Daniel’s fourth empire, each describing a different aspect of Rome’s transformation.

Pagan Rome

The first of these three visions concerns pagan Rome, symbolized by the dragon and by the seven “crowned heads” (Revelation 12:3; 17:10–11). Historicist expositors such as Elliott, Mede, and Guinness noted that John’s description here corresponds precisely to the earlier, pagan form of the empire as it existed in the centuries surrounding Christ’s Advent and the apostolic era. These heads represent not seven individual rulers, but seven successive forms of Roman government – the very constitutional stages recorded by Rome’s own historians. Rome passed through its seven forms of government which were identified first as the time period of kings, followed by consuls, dictators, decemvirs, and military tribunes. And then came the imperial form under the Caesars which was the system in place during John’s lifetime. The seventh form followed in the restructuring under Diocletian — a short-lived governmental arrangement that, as Revelation foretold, was to “continue a short space.” Here Scripture identifies itself with precision: five forms had fallen before John, one existed in his day, and another would arise shortly after. The prophetic symbol fits the Roman Empire at exactly the right historical moment.

Divided Rome

The second vision portrays the divided Roman lands which were the “healed head” of Revelation 13 and 17:12-18. After suffering the “mortal wound” it received when the Western Empire fell in 476 AD, the Roman Empire didn’t vanish; instead, it revived as a new political organism composed of ten kingdoms referred to as “crowned horns” occupying the old imperial territory. These ten Gothic and Germanic successor states—long recognized by Historicists—correspond to the ten horns, each kingdom wearing a crown rather than the crown being on the previous forms of government of the Roman Empire. Rome had died as a unified empire, but lived again in a divided form, precisely as Daniel had predicted and Revelation reaffirmed. This again was not a new empire but rather the same fourth empire, just transformed.

Ecclesiastical Rome

The third vision concerns ecclesiastical (Church-based) Rome, the era when the great harlot of Revelation 17 sat enthroned upon the ten-horned beast. In this period, stretching through much of the Middle Ages and lasting specifically 1,260 years, the Church of Rome rose to unprecedented temporal influence over the kings of Europe. That woman “rode” the political power of the divided empire, guiding it, leveraging it, and at times dominating it. Revelation also foretold her eventual downfall: the very kings who once supported her would grow weary, rise up, strip her, and bring her low.

Historicist interpreters have long understood this prophecy as beginning to unfold in the Reformation and then progressing through the gradual erosion of Papal political authority. According to this view, the 1,260 years reached their conclusion in 1798 AD, when the office that claimed universal authority over all Christians was abruptly overthrown. First, we must remember that Scripture says we are the “Temple of God,” and as foretold in 2 Thessalonians 2, there was to be a position of authority that was to rise up over the Church. For centuries that position of authority had claimed to rule over the Church and has borne the title “Holy Father,” a name belonging exclusively to God. He still to this day rules over the majority of Christianity that willingly submit to his authority, yet in 1798 AD the pope was forcibly removed from his throne and taken as a prisoner to France, and the temporal power that once enabled the papal system to “persecute” and “wage war against the Saints” was shattered, never again returning to the level of coercive authority it once exercised. Many historians estimate that well over a million Christians who resisted its authority were brutally killed by that harlot religious system over the course of the 1,260 years, just as Revelation 17:6 had foretold.

These three stages—pagan, divided, and ecclesiastical—form a single, unbroken historical line from Daniel to John. Revelation does not introduce an entirely new set of symbols or powers; it follows Daniel’s fourth kingdom into its later centuries, showing how Rome would change shape repeatedly but remain on the stage when the seals, trumpets, and vials would unfold. Once this continuity is recognized, Revelation ceases to be a bewildering maze of imagery. The symbols connect back to the Old Testament, and the timeline flows naturally into the world of recorded history.

Principles of Prophetic Interpretation

Before tracing Revelation’s unfolding judgments across the centuries, we must first establish the interpretive principles that Scripture itself provides for understanding prophetic symbolism. Without these principles, the details might appear arbitrary—fancifully invented or pulled from thin air. But once these biblical foundations are recognized, it becomes clear that our interpretation rests on solid ground.

Revelation is not written in literal narrative but is, as the text itself declares, a book intentionally “signified”—that is, communicated through symbols (Revelation 1:1). Because the beast, its heads and horns, the woman who rides it, and the waters upon which it sits are all interpreted within the text (Revelation 17:8-18), the rest of the prophecy becomes decipherable through the same symbolic method. The Bible provides the interpretive key, and the Old Testament functions as the Rosetta Stone by which these symbols gain their meaning. As ancient Egypt’s hieroglyphics remained a mystery until the discovery of a key, so the imagery of Revelation unlocks when illuminated by Scripture’s earlier prophetic language.

The symbols in Revelation are not arbitrary or whimsical, as though they were mere alphabetic characters or Egyptian hieroglyphs with no inherent relationship to the realities they represent. Biblical symbolism operates according to a consistent interpretive logic. Because Scripture itself gives meaning to many of its symbols (for example, in Revelation 17), our task is to identify and honor the governing principles behind those inspired explanations.

Thus, when evaluating a proposed interpretation, we must examine whether the relationship between the symbol and the thing symbolized is natural, coherent, and biblically grounded. A valid connection must be capable of consistent use wherever that symbol appears; if the interpretation breaks down or introduces contradictions, it must be abandoned. Thankfully, much of this groundwork has already been laid by faithful interpreters who, across the centuries, compared Revelation’s symbols with their Old Testament counterparts. Our task is to determine whether their conclusions form a natural fit and whether the symbol’s meaning holds consistently across Scripture.

While there may be minor variations, a symbol cannot mean one thing in one passage and something entirely different in another unless Scripture itself clearly indicates a shift. Only when these conditions are met can we be confident that we are following the same biblical principles Scripture uses to interpret its own symbolism. As will be shown throughout these studies, this method stands in stark contrast to the imaginative speculations that characterize much of Futurist interpretation; our commitment is to instead allow Scripture to interpret Scripture.

The “Law of First Mention” often aids this process. Its principle suggests that when a symbol appears for the first time in Scripture, that initial appearance provides a foundational meaning that carries forward into later prophetic usage. While not absolute, and always subordinate to context, this principle becomes indispensable when dealing with imagery already defined in the earlier Scriptures.

A clear example of this symbolic method appears in the interpretation of celestial imagery. When Revelation describes the falling of “stars” to the earth, literalism becomes impossible—astronomical stars dwarf the earth in size and cannot physically fall onto it. The Old Testament, however, consistently uses stars to symbolize rulers and authorities. Joseph’s dream was immediately understood by Jacob to refer to himself, his wife, and his sons. Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Joel likewise employ celestial symbols to depict political upheaval and the downfall of kingdoms. Even the coming Messiah is prophesied as a “Star” arising out of Jacob (Numbers 24:17). Therefore, when Revelation speaks of stars falling to earth, it’s employing the same symbolic language to describe the downfall of great leaders or ruling authorities.

This symbolic method also clarifies the identity of the rider on the white horse in the opening seal (Revelation 6:2). Many readers have instinctively assumed this figure to be Christ since Christ later appears on a white horse in Revelation 19. Yet the two wear different crowns. Christ wears a “diadem,” the royal crown of sovereignty, whereas the rider in the first seal wears a “stephanos,” a garland crown of conquest or martial victory. Combined with the economic details in the following seals—such as the reference to food prices measured in Roman denarii—the symbolism aligns not with Christ but with the opening phase of Rome’s decline. The first seal is not the triumphant advance of the Savior but the beginning of the political destabilization of the Roman Empire.

Another essential interpretive principle is the day-for-a-year principle. Biblical prophecy frequently uses days to symbolize years, especially in symbolic contexts (Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6). This principle is not imposed artificially but arises naturally from Scripture’s own usage. Revelation’s timelines—such as the 1,260 days—find consistent historical fulfillment only when understood in this symbolic way. These judgments are not sudden catastrophes compressed into a short period but long, unfolding processes through which God’s justice works itself out in history. Human nature responds very differently to long-term decline than to sudden catastrophe. Revelation repeatedly notes that those afflicted “did not repent,” which aligns far more naturally with gradual moral and political decay than with instantaneous global destruction which would’ve naturally induced repentance.

It must be noted that prophecy is not given to satisfy curiosity or to gratify speculative imagination, but to cultivate faithfulness. Daniel was shown empires rising and falling not to indulge his intellect but to steady the people of God in ages yet to come, helping them understand that human kingdoms rise and fall under the hand of God and that no empire—however powerful—can hinder the coming of Christ’s final consummated kingdom. When John received Revelation, it was for the same purpose: that Christians might endure through the long arc of history, recognizing their place within God’s plan and trusting that His judgments, though often slow, are always certain.

This also explains why prophetic meaning was often withheld from those who first received the visions. Daniel openly confessed that he did not understand what he was shown, and even John, granted greater clarity, likely grasped only a small part of what he recorded. Their limited understanding is not a deficiency, but part of God’s design: the meaning of prophecy unfolds progressively as history moves toward its fulfillment. And as we witness each fulfillment, we should be awestruck at being able to see God’s hand at work, fighting for His Church and fulfilling His prophecies one by one.

These principles—symbolic consistency, Old Testament grounding, the law of first mention, the day-for-a-year principle, and the pastoral purpose of prophecy—form the interpretive framework through which Revelation becomes not a bewildering puzzle but a coherent continuation of Daniel’s prophetic outline. With these tools in hand, we’ll be able to understand how God has communicated to us our history.

This brings us to the heart of Historicism’s Traditional Interpretation of prophecy which simply affirms that God’s prophecies are “history” written in advance, it’s “His”-story, which eventually becomes “history” before our eyes. Our ancestors understood this clearly. Those who used those principles of prophecy correctly knew precisely where they stood on God’s prophetic timeline, they measured their place within Revelation, and they predicted, accurately, what events must follow. Their predictions became the very facts of history we now read. Only a view that “rightly handles” Scripture can produce such verifiable fulfillment.

The book of Revelation was never meant to be sealed for thousands of years, never meant to contain a two-millennia gap in which God’s people had no prophetic roadmap. John opens by saying the book concerns “things which must shortly take place” (Revelation 1:1), and near its close, the angel repeats the same phrase (22:6). The events John records began not in a distant future age but shortly after the time it was written. The Seals, Trumpets and Vials chart the course of history, including what relates to Christ’s Church.

This is central to Historicism’s claim that the Seals, Trumpets and Vials unfold in chronological order. Although other sections of Revelation are not chronological – chapter 12, for instance, clearly leaps backward in time – the judgments contained in the Seals, Trumpets and Vials reveal a continuous timeline. Historicists may differ on the interpretation of the seven churches or the nature of the millennium in chapter 20, but they have historically shared a common understanding of the chronological sequence of the Seals, Trumpets and Vials. This unity arises not from imagination, but from centuries of firsthand testimony. Believers living through the fall of pagan Rome, the rise of ecclesiastical Rome, the invasions of Goths and Vandals, the spread of Islam, the corruption of the medieval papacy, the Reformation, and the revolutions of Europe frequently documented how the prophecies of Revelation were unfolding around them. Their writings stand as eyewitness accounts that match the text with a level of precision impossible to fabricate after the fact.

And indeed, the backdrop of Revelation’s earliest fulfillments is set in the Roman Empire under Domitian, who reigned in 95 – 96 AD. The emperors of Rome demanded divine honors, receiving worship from their subjects. Christians who refused to venerate Caesar were persecuted, and the empire sought to suppress the faith at its roots. God, who describes His name as Jealous and tolerates no rivals, marked this idolatrous empire for judgment. The Seals and Trumpets chart the progressive downfall of pagan Rome, while the later vials reveal the downfall of the supposedly Christianized Roman power—the papal system that rose from Rome’s ashes and inherited its seat, its titles and its dominion, and often used that power to persecute Bible believing Christians.

Understanding the continuity from Daniel to Revelation allows us to interpret Revelation responsibly, without being swayed by the imaginative systems that arose much later in Christian history. Dispensational Futurism, for all its influence in modern evangelical circles, represents a sharp departure from the interpretations held by almost all believers before the nineteenth century. It disconnects Revelation from Daniel, severs the continuity of the four empires, and relocates most of the prophecy to a short period at the end of history unrelated to the church’s past. But the book of Revelation itself resists such a separation. Its symbols are drawn directly from Daniel. Its timeframes correspond to Daniel’s. Its beast is Daniel’s fourth beast. Its prophetic horizon stretches across centuries, not merely across the final years before Christ’s return.

However, our older, historic view does not downplay the future. The final judgment, the resurrection, the renewal of all things—these remain future and central. But it recognizes that Revelation, like Daniel, traces the long path of world history under divine governance. It shows the rise, transformation, and collapse of Rome in its various phases. It shows the endurance and suffering of the saints across the centuries. It shows the repeated partial judgments of God against oppressive systems and, finally, the full and final judgment when Christ returns and ushers in His consummated, everlasting Kingdom.

And so the journey begins, not with speculation, but with Scripture; not with imagination, but with the testimony of history and with confidence that the God who guides the course of empires has preserved for us a roadmap, written in advance, of His dealings with the world from the days of John to the end of the age.

To follow the path set before us is to trace the hand of God through two millennia of Christian history. For centuries, Protestant believers embraced this interpretation because they witnessed its fulfillment around them. The Reformers—Tyndale, Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Wesley, Spurgeon, and countless others—spoke with one voice on this matter. They testified that the prophecies of Scripture were unfolding with extraordinary precision, and their writings preserve their observations like milestones along the prophetic road.

To dismiss their testimony without examination would be to silence the voices of those who suffered, studied, prayed, and wrote for our instruction. The purpose of our study is not to defend inherited tradition but to evaluate their claims by the only standard that matters: the Word of God. If their interpretations fit the text, then we should rejoice in the faithfulness of God, who never leaves His people without a witness. If they don’t match, then we will at least have gained a rich understanding of both Scripture and the long history of Christ’s Church. But if the match is as exact as they claimed—if the Seals, Trumpets and Vials, and prophetic symbols fit together with the elegance and inevitability of a solved puzzle—then we will behold not merely history, but His-story: the record of God fighting for His Church across the centuries.

We begin where Scripture itself begins—with the continuity of prophetic history, with the unity of Daniel and Revelation, with the identification of the fourth empire as Rome, and with the understanding that God revealed these things not for speculation but for steadfastness, not for fear but for faith, not for division but for the deep recognition that all kingdoms of this world will ultimately yield to Christ.

In the studies that follow, we will trace our history shown in the Seals, Trumpets and Vials. And we recognize that we must carry Daniel’s vision with us. The symbols match. The prophetic road stretches unbroken from Babylon to the return of Christ. And in the midst of that long road, God’s people walk in patient endurance, waiting for the day when:

“The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever,” (Revelation 11:15).

That is the horizon toward which all prophecy points. And it is with this horizon before us that we now begin our journey into the Apocalypse.