At the end of the last chapter, we saw the dragon carrying out his warfare against the individual people of God, since he cannot destroy the Church as a whole. And in this chapter, we see how he goes about doing this. With the assistance of two beasts that are introduced here, the dragon causes all sorts of suffering and persecution for the Church and individual believers.
The first of these two beasts arises out of the depths of the sea. In the Bible, the sea is often used as a symbol for turbulence and disorder, especially that which springs from mankind’s disobedience against the Lord. This beast looks like the dragon that he serves, for he also has seven heads, ten horns, and ten crowns. His horns are a picture of power that is exercised in the earth by political authorities. Thus this beast from the sea stands as an emblem for any person, organization, government, or system that is used by the dragon to persecute the Church and individual Christians by any kind of earthly power or tyranny. Although we may be able to identify certain people or governments as being able to fit the picture given of this “political beast,” no single person or system at any single point in human history will ever be the ultimate fulfillment of everything that this beast stands for. Evil people like Adolf Hitler, systems like the Communist Chinese government, or tyrants like the Emperor Nero are indeed partial fulfillments of all this beast entails. But they are not an exhaustive fulfillment. As long as the world lasts, there will be plenty of persons and systems that fill the role of this political beast in their own way. When one of them is stabbed with a deadly wound (verse 3) and removed from the scene of human history, there will be many more who are ready and willing to heal and revive the power of the beast and fill their place.
This political beast – and all the vassals that represent him – exercise so much tyrannical power that people stand in awe of him and even worship him and his master, the dragon. This may be done in the form of actual emperor-worship, as in ancient Rome; or it may simply be done when people look to the government or other systems or persons, and expect them to give them the hope and help that only comes from God alone. Obviously, this is unthinkable for a Christian to participate in; and thus the children of God become the particular targets of the political beast, and often bear the brunt of the persecution and tyranny that it exercises over all people. This goes on, and will continue to go on, for “42 months” – the symbolic number that we have already encountered in this Book, which is equivalent to 3½ years or 1,260 days, and which represents the time period from Christ’s Ascension to His Second Coming.
However, the Christian may still take comfort in all of this, because his or her name is written in the Book of Life (verse 8). Since they can never be removed from the Book of Life, they can never fall out of the love and care of the Lord – no matter what may be brought against them by the political beast.
The second beast that arises to help the dragon in his great war with the Woman and her spiritual children (individual believers) comes up “out of the earth” (verse 11). The political beast from the sea stands as a picture of tyranny that arises and forces its abusive power upon people; but this beast from the earth pictures a deceitful system that comes up in the midst of people – right from the very ground that they live on – and tricks and misleads them into following him and submitting to him, without the use of force.
This beast looks like a lamb, but talks like the dragon. He tries to make himself look like Christ, the true Lamb of God; but his dragon’s voice reveals that he is, in reality, a deceptive anti-Christ. Hence we may call him the “religious beast”; for he represents any person, system, or organization that is used by the dragon to persecute the Church and individual Christians by any kind of religious power or tyranny. While the political beast maintains that identity throughout the remainder of the prophetic message of this Book, this religious beast changes its disguise. Later we will see this same religious beast portraying himself as a false prophet, which then appears as a harlot. Hereby we learn that this religious beast manifests itself in many different ways to deceive people – whether it is by outright idolatry or by pseudo-imitations of Christianity.
This religious beast aids and abets the political beast in his crushing grasp on the human race. He holds so much sway over the peoples of the earth that they are actually willing to let themselves be branded as the property of the beast, by receiving his mark or seal that acknowledges his ownership of them. But the Church and her people belong to God, not the dragon and his minions; and so they will not receive this mark that acknowledges ownership by the religious beast. But with the absence of this mark, the beast arranges affairs in such a way that they will not be able to legally conduct earthly business or make a living to support themselves – thereby persecuting and terrorizing them even more.
This mark is associated with “the number of the beast” (verse 18) – that is, the number that was revealed when the letters of the name were associated with their numerical equivalents. Some have said that the letters of the Hebrew form of Nero’s name would translate into the number 666. If that is true, Nero is only a picture of all anti-Christs and false religions and the power that they exercise. The number 666 stands as a symbol of the “unholy trinity” of the dragon and his two beasts – as opposed to the Holy Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which could be said to be symbolically represented by the number 777.
Lord, we ascribe blessing and praise to You for keeping Your people from the power of these beasts, for You have marked our names in Your Book of Life! Amen.
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