This is one of those works of art that represents an era, yet it is totally unique. Double portraits were quite rare in the fifteenth century, and so art historians have had a difficult time interpreting this one by Jan van Eyck. The man who bears an uncanny resemblance to Vladimir Putin is possibly Giovanni Arnolfini, an Italian cloth merchant from Lucca who was living in Bruges, Belgium, where he commissioned this painting. The lady, who is not pregnant (she has an ideal body type), may be his wife, Giovanna Cenami. At least, that’s what many art historians believe. Some others say that the man is a different member of the Arnolfini family. We can’t know for sure who these people are, so it makes the job of figuring out what on earth they are doing that much more difficult. For years, because of a seemingly iron-clad argument written by Erwin Panofsky, people believed that this painting shows the wedding of Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami, and that the painting itself, with the two requisite witnesses reflected in the mirror on the wall, functioned as a wedding contract. This actually is kind of a crazy idea and it’s hard to believe that it survived as long as it did. Later, another art historian suggested that this painting shows a betrothal ceremony, which is when the groom visits the home of the bride and, after the details of the dowry are hammered out, he pledges to marry the lady. More recently, another scholar suggested this is a memorial portrait of a man and his late wife because it is similar to portraits of married couples on tombstones, which often have a little dog at the couple’s feet to symbolize fidelity.
Perhaps a lot more than works of a portraiture type, what we do know of van Eyck is that he seemed to favour works of a religious nature. Accordingly, because of the number of satanic symbols in the painting itself, there has been a lot of suggestions, now and in the past, that what we are really looking at in this work is the fulfilment of a vision on canvas that the artist had of the Antichrist and the False Prophet. For some, but not all fundamentalist Born Again Christians, the major focus in times past has been to try and identify the first beast of Revelation Chapter 13. By all accounts he is the Antichrist. Nevertheless, there are two beasts and both beasts are equally as bad as each other. The second beast, the False Prophet, does not seek authority for himself. Instead, he hands his authority over to the political beast, the Antichrist. If the male figure on the left hand side of the painting is representative of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, as so many think is the case, then holding the hand of the female figure is in an outward motion specifies a presentation of the women to the world. We can then only assume that Putin is portrayed as the False Prophet in the painting - and that the female figurine on the right hand side of Putin is the Antichrist. Satan’s representative here on the earth. We know that the Antichrist a man and yet here we are looking at a female figurine on the right hand side of the work. Remember this though it was the women who was tempted in the Garden of Eden by the snake, (or Satan), to eat of the fruit. Therefore, it would a lot of sense to think that in revealing the False Prophet and the Antichrist to Jan van Eyck, Satan would portray the Antichrist as female. In the light of the appearance of a new and terrifying figure on the world stage, that even evangelical Christians have endorsed, presidential candidate Donald Trump bears an uncanny resemblance to the female figure on the right hand side of the work. That fact alone is enough to send shivers down the backbone of even the hardiest of men or women. Simply, the thought of this man ever achieving the presidency of the United States is more than my small mind is able to deal with at the moment. It is mind boggling, to say the least.
WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.
