Understanding Revelation (13:11)

"Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon."

(Revelation 13:11)

The case of two beasts in one chapter can be confusing! John distinguishes the first by its political power. He pictures the kingdom of the world opposed to the kingdom of God. It is the age old conflict of darkness and light. The second beast focuses on religious deception that seeks to turn people away from worshiping the one true God in order to worship Satan.

John’s concern in Revelation 13 is to warn of Satan’s deceptiveness, not only in the world at large but even in the church.

How can people fall for false religions? The deception is to make the false religion appear to have a ring of truth about it. John shows that Satan does this through parodying Christ and the apostles. A parody is a weak imitation of the real thing, whether of some literary work or person or religion. The second beast is first described as a parody of Christ. “Then I saw another beasts coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon.” Irony drips from this picture. If one thinks of a lamb, he certainly doesn’t have any image of a dragon in mind! What John is saying is that the beast gives some appearance of the gentleness of the lamb—and in this case, he has reference to parodying Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God. His appearance as a lamb is meant to deceive others into accepting what he has to say. His speech as a dragon implies deception since John has already described Satan as “the great dragon…who deceives the whole world” (12:9). No one is afraid of a lamb or intimidated by a lamb. He feels comfortable around a lamb. In just such setting, the second beast gains access to the world’s trust, and then, deceives with diabolical speech.

(Phil A. Newton)

Understanding Revelation (13:8-10)

"All who dwell on earth will worship it [the beast], everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. If anyone has an ear, let him hear: If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints. 

(Revelation 13:8-10)

Neutrality in relationship to the Lord God is impossible. If any in John’s audience think that they can straddle the fence in order to avoid persecution and oppression, he lets them (and us) know that there’s no middle ground. He tells us, “All who dwell on the earth will worship him,” that is, the beast. This whole spirit of rebellion against God and rejection of Christ as Savior characterizes the spirit of those worshiping the beast. John wrote in his first epistle along this same vein. “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ [i.e., Messiah]? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son…and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world”  He added another note in his second epistle. “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist”. John indicated that the antichrist is not a singular person but a pervasive, singlular spirit of rebellion against God denying Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the gospel.

He further clarifies who will worship the beast and who will not: “everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.” That is all-encompassing. The line of distinction is clearly drawn. The whole mass of unbelieving humanity is likely in mind here and not merely a part from one brief period of history. Who worships the beast? John makes it clear; those whose names were not written from the foundation of the world in the Lamb’s book of life. Leon Morris is right, “John wants his little handful of persecuted Christians to see that the thing that matters is the sovereignty of God, not the power of evil. When a man’s name is written in the book of life he will not be forgotten. His place is secure”.

(Dr Phil A. Newton)

Understanding Revelation (13:3) pt. 2

"One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast."

(Revelation 13:3)

Part 2:

It is John's attempt to give an approximate description in earthly terms of what he saw in the heavenly vision. The wound was real and fatal, and yet it seems to have been healed, because the enemy is able to continue his activity. It is fatal because, from the resurrection on, Satan's power was fatally restricted and his days numbered. The temporary healing represents the fact that God allows the enemy to continue to use his agents through the 3 1/2 year period until Christ's return, all the while safeguarding the spiritual security of His people. 

The beast is being set up as a Satanic counterfeit of Christ. In (Rev.13:14), the beast's recovery is even referred to as a resurrection – though (Rev.17:8) will reveal that this is a "resurrection" which will end in eternal destruction. There is a difference between the Lamb's recovery and that of the beast. Whereas the Lamb really did overcome the defeat of death by resurrection, the beast's continued existence is not a reversal of his actual defeat, even though he continues to exist after being vanquished along with the dragon. He loses his authority to accuse the saints and has no authority except that allowed him by God. Nevertheless, the dragon and the beast deceptively cover up the fact that their authority has been removed. (Rev.17:8) likewise notes that the beast's apparent rising from death ("coming up out of the abyss") is only for the ultimate purpose that he should "go to destruction." Christ's defeat of the devil was like D-Day in the Second World War, and the subsequent existence of the devil (and his servant the beast) like the subsequent resistance of the German forces to the inevitable advance of the Allies. Like the turning point of D-Day, the decisive outcome is now assured, even though the battle still rages. 

(G.K. Beale)

Understanding Revelation (13:3)

"One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast."

(Revelation 13:3)

Part 1:

John now sees the beast with a wound on one of his heads. The wound comes from God, because the Greek word for "wound" (plégé) is the word translated "plague" eleven times elsewhere in Revelation, always signifying something of divine origin. This wound on the beast's head is none other than that inflicted by Christ at His resurrection and is the fulfillment of Gen. 3:15: "He shall crush [or bruise] you on the head." Mention of the sword that struck the beast's head in (Rev.13:14) recalls the end-time prophecy of (Isa.27:1): "In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan [or sea monster] the fleeing serpent, with His fierce and great and mighty sword, even Leviathan [or sea monster] the twisted serpent; and He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea." The fact that (Isa.27:1) is also echoed in (Rev.12:3,9) points to the conclusion that the death blow administered to the beast came through Christ's death and resurrection in initial fulfillment of the prophet's words. The effects of this defeat are carried on by the faithfulness of Christ followers (Rom.16:17–20).

(G.K. Beale)

Understanding Revelation (13:2) "The First Beast"

"And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority."

(Revelation 13:2)

The Beast combines features from the four beasts of Daniel 7:1-8, 17-27. The beasts of Daniel represent idolatrous kingdoms. This Beast in Revelation must be a worldly kingdom summing all of them up. The state-controlled persecutions against Daniel and his friends thus suggest the nature of the persecution that the seven churches must face from the Roman state—and persecutions of later ages. 

Because it expresses a general principle of Satanic opposition, we may expect multiple manifestations. These manifestations include the first century, the final crisis, and all times in between.

The Beast represents in the first place demonized state power that demands worship. As with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Dan. 3), the demonized state threatens to kill Christians unless they bow down. But the symbolism of the Beast applies to more subtle temptations to idolatry. In democratic countries, the state does not insist on literal worship. But citizens are tempted to look to the state as if it were a messiah. It is the greatest concentration of earthly power, and so it must be the remedy for all ills, economic, social, medical, moral, and even spiritual. Moreover, state persecution in its blatant form threatens to overwhelm us through fear. But in subtle ways in our hearts we are tempted to give ultimate commitments to anything that we fear: fear of man (human opinion), fear of death, fear of pain, fear of poverty. So this picture of idolatry has universal application. 

(Dr Vern Poythrees)

Revelation (13:1). "The First Beast"

"And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads."

(Revelation 13:1)

Without exception, the imagery of the sea monster is used throughout the OT to represent evil kingdoms which persecute God's people. The same Daniel imagery of horns and heads applied to the dragon in (Rev. 12:3-4) is applied here to another sea beast to depict the dragon's earthly minion.

That the Dragon had diadems on his heads and the beast has them on his horns shows that the dragon has the ultimate rule and mandates his will through the beast, who arises from the watery, dark home of the dragon. The dragon stations himself by the sea, spewing out floods after the church, the beast comes out of the sea, and the harlot "sits on many waters" (Rev. 17:1), thus indicating that the sea is pictured symbolically as the dwelling place of evil. The dark realm of evil encompasses unbelieving people, so that the beast may also be seen as having its earthly origin from the mass of an unregenerate humanity. 

The diadems symbolize the beast's false claims of sovereign, universal authority which are in opposition to the true "King of kings and Lord of lords", who also wears "many diadem's". The blasphemous names written on the beast's heads represent blasphemous claims to earthly, divine kingship by the beast in feeble imitation of Christ's true kingship.

(G.K. Beale)

Understanding Revelation (12:17)

Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus..."

(Revelation 12:17)

The relation of verse 17 to the preceding verses is one of the most challenging interpretive problems in the book. The difficulty focuses on the nature of the difference, if any, between the woman and her offspring, and how they are respectively depicted. The woman in (Rev. 12:6,13-16) depicts the church (and the suffering she undergoes) as she is seen from the ideal, eternal, or heavenly perspective, and her offspring in (verse 17) depict the multitude of individual believers (and the suffering they experience) as seen from an earthly or historical perspective. The woman is presented in (Rev. 12:1) as "in heaven" and in heavenly attire, and the same woman is also presented as suffering on earth (Rev. 12:6,13-16). She continues to be viewed from a heavenly, ideal perspective even in the consideration of her sufferings on earth. In verse 17, however, the same suffering is portrayed from an earthly perspective as the suffering of individual believers. This simply represents two different ways of viewing the church: as a corporate or "ideal" body, the way God sees it from His perspective, and as a community of individuals, which is the way we experience it on earth.

Consequently, the point of (Rev. 12:13-17), taken together, would be that the one heavenly church being persecuted on earth cannot be destroyed (God's perspective) because it is heavenly and ultimately inviolable spiritually, but the many who individually compose the church can suffer physically from earthly dangers (our perspective), but not be destroyed spiritually.

(G.K. Beale)