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We Have Identified the Beast, And It Is Us.
This paper was submitted April 15, 1988 to Dr. Paul Stephens at Regent College, Vancouver for a course in Book of Revelation
In Romans 13:17; 1 Peter 2:13-17; Titus 3:1-3,8; and 1 Timothy 2:1-3, a picture is painted of civil government as having been both Divine origin and Divine sanction. The language used by Paul and Peter is clear – the state is established by God. If there is an authority, God has established it. The purpose of this authority is two-fold – it is to punish the evil-doer, and as such acts as an instrument of God’s wrath, and it is to encourage those who do good, and thus is an arm of God’s grace. Indeed, the governing authority is said to be God’s servant.
In Revelation 13:1-18, the beast out of the sea represents world government or civil power directed against the church(1). These world governments, symbolized by the beast, and representing in John’s day either Nero or Domitian(2) (this writer thinks the latter), are the instruments of Satan who calls them “out of the sea” to do his bidding. The beast out of the earth represents the civil religion, or, in John’s day, the emperor cultus, and perhaps in a broader way, false religions and philosophies sanctioned by the civil government. One represents the persecutions of Satan, one of his deceptions.
Throughout the book of Revelation, God reveals Himself to John as enthroned in heaven. The Lamb of God is pictured with God enthroned on high. It is this writer’s view, following the progressive parallelism interpretative approach to Revelation, that chapters 12-14 form a picture of the entire time between the first coming of Christ and His second coming in judgment. This is the church era, the gospel era, the “here but not yet here” time of the Kingdom of God on earth. In the beginning of this section, the Messiah is snatched up to God and to His throne. At the same time, Satan is seen as defeated, first by Michael and his angels, and, at the same time, by the blood of the Lamb. He is cast down to the earth where, enraged, he sets himself against the church. “He is filled with fury, because he knows his time is short” (Rev. 20:12). He is bound or limited in his power (Rev. 20:3), yet he is still free to wage war against God’s people.
In a similar way in Paul, Satan is said to be the “god of this world” who “blinds the minds of unbelievers.” The earth is his throne (Rev. 16:10, 2:13). Indeed, in Luke 4:5-8 Satan offers to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for Jesus’ worship. “I will give you all this authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.” In spite of this, Christ is in fact the Head over every power and authority (Col. 2:9). He has been exalted above all rule and authority, power and dominion (Eph. 1:21). In the death and resurrection of Christ, Satan’s doom is assured; Christ’s rule is established and begun. “Now is the time for judgment in this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.” Satan’s ultimate total defeat is pictured most vividly in Revelation 20 where he is thrown into the lake of fire.
What kind of composite picture can be drawn from these verses? First, that God rules through Christ over all things. Nowhere in the Bible is this more clear than in Revelation where God’s throne is pictured more than thirty times. Second, that Satan has power in this age to persecute and to deceive. This earth indeed is the kingdom of the evil one, who, within limits set by God, can, just as individual people, be controlled and enslaved to Satan. This control by Satan of the ruling authorities, most vividly pictured by the beasts in Revelation 13, is nonetheless a derivative control – it is granted by God. One could say that according to God’s prescriptive purpose, the state should punish the evil doer and in so going serve God. Yet, in His decretive will God has provided that the state serve His ultimate hidden purpose even while reveling against His prescriptive purposes.
This dilemma forms the heart of this essay, and indeed, the heart of the “problem” of government in general. How does one respect the beast, the persecuting government? How does one live under and submit to the beast?
The possibility of the problem is clear in 1 Tim. 2:1. Here Paul exhorts Timothy that prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for kings and all those in authority. Why? That order may be established, that Christians “may live a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and holiness.” Fee notes that for many scholars this sounds “terribly bourgeois, even selfish”(3). Yet Paul’s desire (for whatever ultimate reason; this is unclear) is that there be an ordered world. This is good, and as one can legitimately draw from what follows, favors the spread of the gospel. God desires the spread of His kingdom in this era of Satan’s activity on earth, and one contributing factor to that spread is the ordered state. Berkouwer writes:
In the service of justice, which is continually measured by human sin and by demons, the state makes the path of the kingdom of Christ through the world a path through an ordered world(4).
That Paul asks for prayers assumes that the rulers and authorities need prayer. This suggests that the civil authority may choose not to serve God’s purpose and may choose not to reward real good and punish real evil. The state can say, “I rule, I decide what is good and what is evil.” That the refusal of the ruling authorities to honor their established purpose can have negative consequences on the church is obvious from history and from Revelation 13. The state is on the hit list of Satan:
The aims of this kingdom of darkness are the thwartings of God’s purpose, and the disruption of God’s order on earth. God’s preservation of life and order with an eye to His kingdom in Jesus Christ is certainly high on the fallen angel’s list of targets(5).
Indeed, the classic, or clearest form of the manifestation of Satan on earth has been the totalitarian state(6). The state, unlike the Son of God, does indeed fall prey to the second temptation, to worship Satan in exchange for power and authority. The rulers and authorities can choose to serve Satan rather than Christ.
In Revelation 13 the state is manifestly pictured as the servant of Satan. “Men worshipped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast” (13:4a). This beast exalts itself, blaspheming and slandering God and His dwelling place. He wages war against and conquers the saints. All inhabitants of the earth, except for those belonging to the Lamb slain from the creation of the world, worship the beast.
Can it still be said that this governing power, so set in its own will and desire against the purposes of God, so full of wrath for the people of God, is nevertheless established by God? In order to answer this question, two factors need to be reiterated. First, everything which is said about the beast in Revelation 13 is said from the stand point of the enthronement of Christ (Rev. 12:5) and the defeat of Satan (Rev. 12:7f). Second, the authority granted to the beast to blaspheme God and to wage war against the saints is granted by God Himself. In verse 5, for example, the beast is said to have been given authority for forty-two months (which this writer takes as referring to the full gospel era). Would Satan limit his own persecuting activity, and indeed would he even know how long his power would last? As Mounce observes, the four times in verses 5-7 where the passive rendering “was given” is found emphasize the subordinate role of the beast(7), the reign of the beast by divine permission. “He operates within the limitations determined by God”(8). The word “permission,” whatever its full meaning in Mounce’s mind, must not be construed either as a means of limiting God’s involvement. It is clear from scripture that God actually decrees sinful men and governments to do that which is clearly evil, but that which they clearly wish to do. The crucifixion of Jesus, for example, happened according to God’s set purpose and foreknowledge. Perhaps one could say that God gives the beast (civil government) reign and even when that authority rebels against its mandate from God, yet it is fulfilling the mysterious purpose of God. If God is on the throne in fact, then He is ruling; and if He is ruling He is controlling and limiting and ordaining the activity of His enemy.
What is the believer’s response to this? Fortunately for us those living under the power of a real beast there is an interlude, a short break in the vision of chapter 13, where there is found directed to the one listening to the reading of the book an emphatic “hear ye, hear ye” (13:9). Indeed the call “He who has an ear, let him hear” is reminiscent both of the letters to the churches in chapters 2 and 3, and the words of Jesus during his earthy ministry (Matt. 11:15). What follows is very important indeed! Because of textual problems, the two poetic couplets which do follow are open to three possible interpretations. These are given below:
1. (A.V.) a. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity.
b. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.
2. (R.S.V.) a. If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes.
b. If anyone slays with the sword, with the sword he must be slain.
3. (N.I.V) a. If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go.
b. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed.
Suffice it to say that only the latter two options are taken seriously by modern commentators, as a result of up to date textual analysis. The second and third couplets have basically the same sense. In both cases, the first couplet teaches that the believer must accept what God has ordained. This establishes in regard to the work of the beast that there is to be a certain sober, perhaps passive, expectation and acceptance. This couplet is drawn from Jeremiah 15:2 (and possibly 43:11), where object of the captivity is, in the first case Judah, and the second case Egypt:
Jer. 15:2: And if they ask you, “where shall we go?”
Tell them, “this is what the Lord says:
“Those destined for death, to death;
those for the sword, to the sword;
those for starvation, to starvation;
those for captivity, to captivity.
Jer. 43:11: He will come and attack Egypt,
bringing death to those destined to death,
captivity to those destined for captivity,
and the sword to those destined for the sword.
The second couplet could either follow Jeremiah, or, given the second rendering, the words of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemene, in Matthew 26:52, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” This second rendering of the second couplet warns against the use of forceful defense by the church. The third rendering suggests the inevitability of being slain by the beast. In neither case is forceful activity against the persecuting authorities recommended. The third rendering however seems more likely in light of the context. The beast is given authority to wage war against the saints (and actually killing the saints in 13:15). The saints are called patiently to endure; indeed, the entire book is a statement for a church needing confidence to endure persecution. In addition, as the Revelation draws so heavily from the O.T., it seems likely that John had in mind the conflicts in Jeremiah rather than the words of Jesus in the Garden. Again this rendering, pointing to the inevitability of suffering, speaks for accepting that which God has ordained.
(One wonders to what extent the beast in Revelation 13 is to be considered to be analogous to the Babylonians in Jer. 43, or more likely, the Babylonians, pestilences, and beasts of the earth in Jer. 15 which come by God’s hand in judgment against the kingdom of Jerusalem.)
To the inevitability of this fate, John brings an exhortation: “this calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.” In light of the reality of what is coming or has come, in light of the darkness of a time when God seems far away and when His control of events seems to be slipping, an unwavering patient endurance and trust is necessary. Both patient endurance and faithfulness are possible only if God is in fact on the throne, if His control even of the beast is recognized, and if a future time exists when all will be set right. Patience by its very nature is made possible by a hope or expectation that good will be restored. Otherwise even patience is futile. The God of Revelation 13 is not the God of process theology, who means well but is not in control. This God is One who has given the beast his powers, and who will bring the beast to a final end in the lake of fire. As Ladd writes, “Only an unswerving faith that God is still God and is still ruling, and that His kingdom is over all” will make faithfulness and patience possible(9).
This attitude of patient endurance is in fact very similar to that attitude which is commanded and which forms a back drop to Romans 13. The believer is not to take revenge but is to trust in the Lord whose business it is to avenge and repay (Rom. 12:19). One way God does this is through the state. Perhaps in some way he even does this through the apostate governments represented by the beast. Yet, even in this life that when governments are allowed by God to punish the one who does good (the saints) and commends the evil doer, the believer is to trust that God remains on the throne.
Death comes to the saint when he refuses to obey the civil government. In John’s day this meant that he refused to say “Caesar is Lord” or “Jesus is accursed”(10). Yet governing authority is respected in its God-givenness as the believer accepts his punishment from the state. The ultimate hope is in the great day of the Lord when all evil will be punished. God avenges evil even in authorities which He has established. At all times the believer can go back to 1 Tim. 2:1 and remember to pray. Even, perhaps especially, the beast needs the prayers of the saints. Who knows but that his wrath may be withheld by God through the prayers of His people.
The beast manifests itself more or less obviously in different times in history, or, in the present time, in some countries more than others. Each nation (and each local government) can forsake the divine mandate for government, and every nation does to some extent. States are not “born again” as individuals, yet, even if only truly regenerate men or women are ruling, the “old man” still colors the policies of that ruling body. So it seems that there are degrees in which a national government can be given over to the beast. The more absolute the power of a ruler or ruling body, the more likely the beast may manifest itself – one thinks of Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Samoza’s Nicaragua, or the Afrikaner’s South Africa. Right or left wing totalitarian regimes are particularly vulnerable to forsaking the divine plan for government.
Representative governments are structured, by God’s grace, such that a beastly control of the nation by a single person or selected minority is less likely. There is a sense in which the entire populace is responsible for the nation’s policies. In America, or England, or Canada, for example, the people can point only to a limited extent to an elite group of monied individuals or power brokers. Responsibility eventually comes back to the people. The people are the government, or perhaps more accurately, the people can be the government in a real way.
Western representative democracies may not in any direct way be persecuting Christians. Yet, they may be allowing, permitting, or even supporting the subversion and weakening of Christians through the civil religion (patriotism) or through unrestrained material/sexual allurements (greed, which is idolatry). Many laws which pass may be clear violations of God’s mandate for government. Liberal abortion policies, for example, punish the innocent and aid the guilty, while the military/industrial complex sends billions of dollars of arms around the world with the government’s blessing.
In a representative democracy, no matter how far from the ideal the nation has drifted, the people are still the government. The people are the beast. Faithful endurance and patience in this case cannot mean a passive acceptance of fate. There are channels of activity in which the saints of God must participate. To fail to do so results in an increasingly beastly character of the government and, ultimately, a greater subversion or persecution of the Christian. One must participate with a spirit of patient endurance and faithfulness. It is possibly more difficult to manifest this spirit as an active participating member of a representative government than as one who passively must accept a period of persecution. To forsake responsibility is to forsake the call of God that governing authorities be a certain way. Whether the citizen of a representative democracy likes it or not, he is the government. It is essential in these days when the beastly character of western democracy is manifesting itself more and more vividly than the true rulers, the populace, become faithful, patient participants. Otherwise it can only be said that “we have identified the beast and it is us.”
Endnotes
(1) This is the view of Beasley-Murray, Hendricksen, Ladd, and Mounce.
(2) Ethelbert Stauffer, Christ and the Caesars, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), pp. 177-191.
(3) Gordon D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), p. 27.
(4) G. C. Berkouwer, The Providence of God, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), p. 119.
(5) Ibid. p. 119.
(6) Oscar Cullman, The State in the New Testament, (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), p. 74.
(7) Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), p. 258.
(8) Ibid. p. 255.
(9) George E. Ladd, A Commentary on the Book of Revelation, (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1974), p.182.
(10) Stauffer, pp. 147-191.
Bibliography
Beasley-Murray G. R., The Book of Revelation, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.
Berkouwer, G. C., The Providence of God, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.
Cullman, Oscar, The State in the New Testament, London: SCM Press, 1955.
Fee, Gordon D, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, New York: Harper and Row, 1976.
Hendriksen, William, More Than Conquerors, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1986.
Ladd, George E., A Commentary on the Book of Revelation, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.
Mounce, Robert H., The Book of Revelation, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.
Selwyn, Edward C., The First Epistle of Saint Peter, London: MacMillan, 1974.
Stauffer, Ethelbert, Christ and the Caesars, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955. |
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