1And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea.
The Beast out of the Sea
And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. 2The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. 4Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, "Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?"
Dig Deeper
There are many people these days who make a big show of saying that they read the Bible literally. This is generally accompanied by the condescending insinuation that people who don’t read the Bible the way they do, don’t read it literally. To read something literally, however, is not usually what most people think. If I were to tell you, for instance, to "chill out," and you dutifully walked into a freezer, you would not really be taking me literally. That would be more of a wooden literalism that actually takes what I said out of context, rather than doing what I meant, which would be to relax in this example.
Passages like this are a wonderful reminder that to be responsible readers we must read passages of Biblical literature according to the type of genre they actually are. In other words, we have to read them in the way that they were intended to be understood, rather than whatever fanciful and exciting interpretation jumps into our head or sounds exciting and helps sell books. John is clearly not communicating that we should one day expect to see a massive seven-headed beast come up out of the sea. To do so, in fact, would be to miss John’s point altogether.
13:1-2 - Previously, John had been before God’s throne. Now he is moved to the shore of the sea. The biblical symbolism of the sea is fairly familiar. The sea is commonly associated with the enemies of Israel (Isa. 57:20; Isa. 17:12) as well as symbolically representing the Abyss (Rev. 9:1-3). The Beast is both the enemy of God’s people and arises symbolically from the demonic Abyss. The Beast has ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns. In chapter 17, an angel will explain to John some of the imagery of this passage. The ten crowned horns (which represent power) of the Beast are
explained to be kings of imperial provinces (17:12), while the seven heads are shown to be the line of the Caesars (17:9-11). Nero, who will be discussed further in a moment, would be one of those heads. In contrast to the biblical High Priest who wore the name of God on his head (Ex. 28:36-38), the Beast has a blasphemous name on each head. The Caesars were gods in Roman theology. The name Augustus means ‘One to be worshiped’ , and they also took the names divus (god) and even Deus or Theos (God). Nero, for instance, commanded absolute obedience and even erected a 120-foot-high statue of Himself.
John says that the appearance of the Beast was like a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion . The Beast, then, is the Roman empire and is pictured as a ravenous, ferocious animal. These are the first three beasts (in reverse order) used to describe the three of the four great world empires in Daniel 7:1-6). Rome, the fourth empire, encapsulates all of the beast-like aspects of the other three, but is far worse (Dan. 7:7). The passage in Daniel is also where John derives the imagery of the ten horns and seven heads. Clearly, John intends to show his readers that the Beast is not some mysterious figure that looms in the future. It is not the Pope, Osama Bin laden, or some other world figure, despite the fanciful speculations of many so-called prophecy writers. The beast is the Roman empire that combines in itself all of the terrible features of Daniel’s other three empires, Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece, but is far more ferocious. Although, the Beast is Rome, it is also personified by the Emperor Nero. The empire was embodied and represented by the reigning emperor. Nero was so violent that he was referred to by contemporaries as ‘the Beast’. He murdered many members of his own family, was apparently bisexual, reportedly enjoyed watching people suffer in horrifying ways as an aphrodisiac, dressed up as a wild beast in order to attack and rape male and female prisoners, burnt Christians at the stake to light up his garden parties, launched the first imperial persecution of Christians at the instigation of the Jews, and was the emperor of the most powerful empire on earth.
13:3-4 - John says that one of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed . This led to the whole world being astonished and resulted in them following the Beast. The Beast resembles, does the bidding of, and is is connected to the Dragon. This should remind us of the promise that Christ would one day crush the head of the Dragon, the serpent (Gen. 3:15). Likewise, Daniel has prophesied that the Kingdom of Christ would crush and replace the Satanic empires. And so it was that the people of all nations began to flow toward the mountain of the Lord’s House, the Kingdom of God. Members of Caesar’s own household had become believers (Phil. 4:22) and, according to early church father Tertullian, Tiberius Caesar even made a formal request to the Roman Senate to acknowledge Christ’s divinity.
It seemed that the Beast would, indeed be crushed by Christ’s Kingdom. Quickly, however, the tables were reversed as heresy, apostasy, and persecution by the Jews and Roman Senate began to cause great masses of Christians to fall away (1 Tim. 1:3-7, 19-20; 4:1-3; 6:20-21; 2 Tim. 2:16-18; 3:1-9, 13; 4:10, 14-16; Tit. 1:10-16; 1 John 2:18-19). The impression given in the New Testament is that many churches fell apart and abandoned the faith in the face of Nero’s persecution. The Beast had received a head wound but still lived. The reality was that Christ had already defeated the Dragon and the Beast, but the implications of his victory had yet to be worked out. The Saints had yet to overcome and take dominion. We learn that the whole world was astonished and worshiped the Dragon and the Beast. The word rendered ‘world’ here should be translated ‘land’ , which then lets us know that this is Israel. Israel was given a choice between Christ and Caesar and had chosen the way of Caesar, echoing the words of the chief priests from the time of Christ, "we have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15).
Devotional Thought
Even though Christ had defeated the Dragon, many Christians fell away from their faith in the face of persecution. We can fall prey to the same pressure in our time. Satan has already been defeated, but we often don’t act like it. Do you act like Christ has already gained victory for us or do you act more like the Dragon, Satan, is an enemy that is powerful enough to get us to leave Christ and live an ungodly life? How would your life look differently if you began to live everyday with the knowledge that Satan has already been crushed by Christ.
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