Pope John Paul - Existed until April of 2005, Last Member: John Paul II
Pope Paul - Existed Until 1978, Last Member Paul VI  - The "ONE IS" of Rev. 17:10
Pope John - Existed Until 1963, Last Member John XXIII
Pope Pius - Existed Until 1958, Last Member Pius XII

Pope Benedict - "Fell" 1922, Last Member before fall: Benedict XV

Pope Leo - Existed Until 1903, Last Member: Leo XIII
Gregory - Existed Until 1846, Last Member Gregory XVI
Chart of Papal Name Lines Fall Dates
"Five Have been, one is, and one more yet to

come who will remain only a short while"
Rev. 17:10

In Revelation 17:10, it says the 7 heads are 7 kings. In the book of Daniel, it is very clear that kings are defined as lines of kings. Here is how that is done: Consider that the four beasts are defined as four kings in Daniel 7:17. Those four beasts represented the four empires that were to arise, beginning with the one Daniel was already living in, Babylon. But as anyone with a knowledge of history knows, each of the four empires predicted in Daniel 7 had a succession of more than one king that ruled each of them. Therefore, the word king represents a whole line of rulers for each empire. Therefore, in Revelation 17:10, the word king represents a line of kings.

This is significant because the 8th is NOT said to be a mountain, nor a head, nor a king. He is simply the eighth. In the prophecies of Daniel, the word king is symbolic of a line of individual kings. In Revelation 17, it avoids use of the word king to describe him.  It also says that he is not a mountain.  Thus, as the eighth and not a head, not a king, and not a mountain, it shows that he is a single individual.

Additionally, each of these lines has a name, which is the name of their founder. Here is how that is defined by the Bible. In Daniel 7:17, it says that the four beasts are four kings. The same set of kingdoms symbolized in Daniel 7 is also presented in Daniel 2 through the dream that was given to Nebuchadnezzar. Therefore, each king or beast of Daniel 7, corresponds to one of the metals of the image in Daniel 2. For example, the lion in Daniel 7 is the same power represented by the gold head in Daniel 2. Just as the lion is defined as a king in Daniel 7:17, there is a king defined in Daniel 2. In Daniel 2:38, King Nebuchadnezzar was told "You are this head of gold." Now, to anyone who has studied Babylonian history, it should be obvious that there was a line of kings that ruled Babylon beginning with Nebuchadnezzar and ending when the Medes and Persians conquered Babylon. Yet, while there was a line of kings, God grouped them together under the name of their founder, Nebuchadnezzar. This is God's way of defining the name of that line.

Likewise, one could do the same for the leopard with four heads. Alexander the Great could be considered the founder of the kings that took over for Alexander after he died until the kingdom was divided. For the bear, one could say that Cyrus the Great (also known as Cyrus II) was the founder of the Persian Empire because he conquered Babylon. According to historians, that Cyrus II was the founder of his empire was a recognized fact among his contemporaries. For the dreadful looking beast of Daniel 7, perhaps one could say that Octavian was the founder of the Roman line because he finished off the last of the four divisions of the Greek Empire that came out of Alexander the Great's empire in 30 B.C. when he defeated the combined forces of his brother-in-law, Mark Anthony, and Cleopatra of Egypt. The Roman Republic was finished off just a few years before the battle of Mark Antony and Cleopatra against Octavian. Thereafter, other forms of government of Rome arose. Note that historians consider that the Roman Empire arose in 168 BC at the Battle of Pydna, but it is a fact that the Greek Empire was not completely removed until 30 BC when Egypt was absorbed into the Roman Empire. For this reason, Octavian could be considered the founder of the line of Rome.

The point of this is that each king for each beast was named for its founder. Therefore, in Revelation 17, each of the kings has a name that is the name of its founder.

In Revelation 17:10, when it speaks of the king that is, this verse is telling you that 5 lines of kings have died out before a particular point in time and that one name line or line of kings continues to exist. It turns out that historically, as you can visually see above, the line of kings that continued to exist beyond the five other lines was that of the name of Pope Paul, specifically Pope Paul VI. Consequently, Pope Paul VI is the "one is" of Revelation 17:10. He is the "one is" simply because his name line continued to exist beyond the other five. Six name lines continued past 1798 but one by one they died out until only Paul remained.

Pope Paul VI reigned from 1963 to 1978.  There was one more name or line of kings yet to come who is counted among the seven names and who would remain only a short while.  The name line of John Paul had in fact never existed before 1978, so indeed it was "yet to come" from the perspective of Pope Paul. In addition, the total time of reign of both popes of the John Paul line was about 26 years.  All of the other 6 names each have a total reign time that is much longer than that of John Paul.  Click here to see the reign times of each of the 7 papal names.

But, what happens after the seventh name has died out or fallen? Revelation 17 speaks of an eighth (king) who will rise after the seventh king. Now, remember that each of these kings has a name that comes from the founder of their line. Revelation 17:11 tells us that the next name (king) to come after John Paul will be from one of the original seven names ("of the seven" - meaning of the seven kings or names), and then apparently will become the eighth name, a new name never used before in Papal history. There is no king listed after the eighth name, so he will be the final line. And, because he is not a mountain in Revelation 17, we know that he will be only one individual. There will not be two or more popes in his line.

In April of 2005, the John Paul line came to an end with the death of John Paul II. At that point, the John Paul line of kings could be said to have "fallen" because no more popes will die in office with the name John Paul attached to them. The new pope, Benedict XVI, is from a line that has already fallen because it is a name that is one of the five that came before the "one is" of Revelation 17:10. Obviously, he cannot fall again, so this indicates to us that this pope will NOT die with that name. We believe he will change names based on Revelation 17:11, which says that the eighth comes out of the seven, where the seven are the names of the 7 lines of kings who rule the Papacy during the time that the beast "is not". Because the eighth has a name different from the seven kings and will be a completely new name, this means the eighth will start out with one of the names of the seven kings and will then change to a new name, the name he will die with.

For this reason, the name Pope Benedict XVI is not shown on the chart above as the name that Benedict falls with. Instead, the Papal name Benedict fell with was Pope Benedict XV who died in 1922.

The man who is currently Pope Benedict XVI is of indefinite duration. He will change his Papal name to a new name to become the 8th when the he receives the power to be the beast. He dies when Jesus comes again.
The time spanned by the box to the right is the "one is" time of Pope Paul VI. Five papal names had died out before him (Gregory, Leo, Benedict, Pius, John), he was (his line simply outlasted the previous five), and of the seven kings, there was one more name yet to come that had never been before (John Paul).
Thus, the angel, when speaking to John, was speaking to him as if he had traveled into the future into the time of Pope Paul VI. All time references in Revelation 17 are relative to this vantage point in time.