Revelation 13The Beast from the Sea and the Beast from the Earth

This is the final, evil, blasphemous government of the Antichrist, and the Antichrist himself. The horns and heads are different nations and kingdoms within that government, and their leaders (we’ll learn more in chapter 17). It’s an unholy alliance. Satan himself, the dragon, will give this world leader and all of his under-leaders, nations and governments his own power and throne and authority. The sea beast is the ultimate tool of Satan to try to destroy God’s people, the church, and that’s what plays out in the next two chapters.

The sea beast is the Antichrist (11:7; 13:1; 14:9, 11; 15:2; 16:2; 17:3, 13; 19:20; 20:10). Scripture speaks of antichrists, the antichrist spirit, and here in Revelation the Antichrist: three different things that all come from the same demonic place.

The angel explains the waters further in 17:15 (the chaos of the nations) and the beast in 17:8–14, if you want further description.

The imagery also echoes Daniel 7: “Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea” (Daniel 7:3). This beast doesn’t have wings, so it’s a little different, but it’s an echo of that Scripture.

The leopard is cruel, the bear feet are crushing, and the lion’s mouth roars terror. This beast is powerful and terrible: a nightmare.

He will gain the political, economic and religious powers of the world at the same time: the manifestation of a dictatorial tyrant ruling the entire world at once. This beast is the deification of secular authority, a counterfeit power that demands total allegiance and excessive praise, like the Roman Empire of the first century and many other antichrist empires throughout world history. However, some of the things that happen through this beast were not possible in the first century, or through the Roman Empire. They’re all possible today, though!

The bottom line: our responsibility to follow government rules ends when the government opposes God’s purposes on earth. We are then tasked with resisting and opposing blasphemous and demonic actions by governments.

There was a prominent rumor around the Roman Empire that Nero, although he died in 68 AD, would resurrect and return. In fact there were multiple Nero pretenders whose insurrections had to be put down by Domitian and Titus. John obviously does not believe Nero is coming back: this is written close to three decades after Nero’s death, and even the rumor had died out by then. But John is saying, “If you thought Nero was bad, wait till you see what’s coming!”

This beast is the worst of their fears. This ruler will pull on lots of myths, religious beliefs and mysticism around the world, as well as seizing all the powerful human institutions and the allegiance and worship of humans.

The beast is imitating God as a false god. When Scripture tells us to be imitators of God, it’s literally the opposite of this: we’re to imitate God’s character, and receive in humility only the power and authority that He delegates to us.

The imagery echoes the “little” horn of Daniel 7:8, with “a mouth that spoke boastfully,” and the king of Daniel 11:36 who “will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods.”

The beast who recovers from a wound is a perverted imitation of the Lamb who was slain (5:6). “Seemed to have had a fatal wound” is literally in the Greek, “a head that had been slain unto death”: the same structure as the Lamb who had been slain. And then literally, “a plague of death from which it had been healed.” To the original readers this parallel to the Lamb would be obvious. This is a false resurrection. Wow! This is heavy stuff.

The tables discussed: How does Satan pervert God’s creation today? Think of sexuality, the economy, worship, compassion, government.

This song of worship to the beast is a mockery, a parody, of Moses’ song of worship to God. There’s a line taken right out of it: “Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you?” (Exodus 15:11). This counterfeit worship is obviously trying to mimic the true praise of God and steal that from Him.

This is a fourfold blasphemy: (1) against God, (2) against His name, (3) against His dwelling place, heaven, and (4) against those who live in heaven, the angels and saints. Those outright affronts to the truth are coupled, of course, with “proud words,” but also with authority that comes from Satan: authority to ruin people, as we’ll see later. And “forty-two months” is three and a half years.

Paul describes the Antichrist’s blasphemies further: “He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4). This guy is going to be the worst.

These activities were not carried out by Rome or its emperors in this way, or to this extent. So although there might be some level of near fulfillment with Rome in the prophetic telescope, there is definitely still a far future fulfillment, one that hasn’t happened yet and that the telescope is pointing toward.

“It was given”: this beast is subordinate to Satan, the dragon, and has no authority or power but what is given to him. This world leader is a servant of Satan.

This is the second time the people of God, the church, are defeated in Revelation (11:7 is the other). But the battle’s not over.

The phrase “every tribe, people, language and nation” is used throughout Revelation (5:9; 7:9; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6), more often to refer to God’s dominion. This is a horrifying turn: short-term, but horrifying nonetheless. The saints will be victorious over the beast (15:2).

There are two ways the Antichrist, the sea beast, exercises authority: (1) waging war against the saints, and (2) demanding universal worship. The whole world besides the saints will engage in this demonic worship. They don’t have anything holding them back from it, and they’re being coerced, at gunpoint basically.

This was one of the temptations rejected by Jesus: Satan said, worship me, and Jesus said, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” (Matthew 4:8–10). And it was taught by Jesus to be rejected (Matthew 24).

“Book of life” goes back to Moses in Exodus 32:31–33 (also Psalm 69:27–28; Daniel 12:1; Malachi 3:16; Luke 10:20; Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:5; 17:8; 20:12–15; 21:27). It is the register of the names of those who belong to God, and it is the property of the Lamb of God. “The Lamb’s book of life”: this is His book! If you actually belong to God, you belong to Jesus.

“The creation of the world,” here and every other place it is used in Scripture (notably Matthew 25:34 and Ephesians 1:4), refers to the creation of the visible order of things: the creation event of Genesis 1–2. There are lots of creative things God does, and people do, but that’s not what this is referring to.

This is a common prophetic introduction, one Jesus Himself popularized. There’s an allusion in Isaiah 6:10, which might be what Jesus was picking up on when He said it over and over in the Gospels (also Ezekiel 12:2; Matthew 11:15; 13:9, 15–17, 43; Mark 4:9, 23; Luke 8:8; 14:35).

In Revelation it is used in the letters to all seven churches (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22), and this is the only other usage. So what comes before and after is very important: it is a word to all believers at this point.

The first half of the verse is a paraphrase of Jeremiah 15:2 and 43:11: “those for the sword, to the sword ... those for captivity, to captivity.” In Jeremiah, the people of God are going into captivity and being killed for their own sin. In Revelation, it is through no fault of their own whatsoever. But the same attitude needs to be adopted: you’re going to have to endure this.

This is a prophetic word pause, taking cues from Christ’s word to the churches (Revelation 2–3; also 1:8). There will be other prophetic word pauses as well (14:13; 16:15; 22:12–13, 16, 20): they start and end the book, with a few scattered through the middle. There’s great discernment being hinted at here, and it will be stated at the end of the chapter.

The saints are us. Many translations now say “God’s holy people,” so we don’t get confused, but it’s literally the word hagios, saints.

In other words, there will come a time in human history when our political solutions will fail, when any military solutions will fail. “I think that we fight until that time.” But a time is coming when we will need to focus on patient endurance through trial, and faithfulness to God alone. Faithfulness to God, at that point in human history, will mean laying down arms.

The Phrygians of Asia Minor were the people Revelation was written to; the seven churches were there. Fast forward 400 years, and from the 5th to the 9th centuries they were pacifists because of this view. “But I believe they misjudged the times,” and took that approach too early, because it caused horrific suffering for themselves, their wives and their children. All the men were murdered, and all their wives and children were pressed into sexual and other kinds of slavery. They had generations to fix it, attack after attack over four centuries before they were wiped out; they really could have built a military and fought back. So, like we’ll see at the end of the chapter, this calls for wisdom and discernment: to know when that time has come.

“A second beast, coming out of the earth” parallels “a beast coming out of the sea” and completes the unholy trinity: the dragon (Satan), the first beast or sea beast (the Antichrist), and now the land beast, who will later be called the false prophet.

These two beasts also show chaos where God had established order. In chapter 10 the angel stood with one foot on the sea and one on the land (10:2), asserting his authority there. The dynamic has shifted for a moment with the emergence of these two beasts.

The second beast is later called “the false prophet” (16:13; 19:20; 20:10). He’s a deceiver. He “spoke like a dragon”: he spoke like Satan, deceiving, perverting, fear-mongering and accusing.

It “exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf.” Again we see the unholy trinity: the Antichrist (sea beast) receives authority from the dragon (Satan), as Christ received authority from God the Father (Matthew 11:27). And the false prophet (land beast) glorifies the Antichrist, just like the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ. It’s twisted, demonic mimicry. Yikes!

Neither the first beast nor the second beast has a full first-century fulfillment. Many attempts have been made to make the first beast Rome, or one of the Caesars, but it never fully fits. And with the second beast there is absolutely zero parallel to any first-century person or institution. This guy is clearly still coming: a far future fulfillment.

As Moses told the Israelites for the first time in Deuteronomy 13:1–3, prophets can perform miracles and signs and still be false. Signs are not necessarily the mark of a true prophet. John also warned us about this in his letters, and Jesus did too. John, like Jesus (Matthew 24:24; see also 2 Thessalonians 2:9), envisioned a future day when anti-Christian state power and occult religion come together, with miracles even. Those two things did not exist together in John’s day. Miracles were reported only by traveling magic men (witch doctors, if you will), and rarely at pagan temples; he knows of one specific temple with a couple of reports. But miracles were never attributed to the governing leadership. So this reality was still one for the future, and future for us too!

The second beast’s prophetic activity is a counterfeit of the true prophetic activity of the two witnesses in chapter 11. They did signs and miracles; now this guy is doing signs and miracles and pointing people to worship someone false! He’s doing it by deceit and coercion: worship the beast, or else, as we’ll see in a minute. “Fire to come down from heaven” is a false version of Elijah’s miracle (1 Kings 18:38), and of the two witnesses. It’s similar to the counterfeit miracles of Pharaoh’s magicians (Exodus 7:11, 22; 8:7, 18). As a false Elijah, the land beast prepares the way for a false Messiah, the sea beast, the Antichrist.

It “deceived the inhabitants of the earth”: the land beast is the Antichrist’s minister of propaganda.

This idolatry, this false worship, is just like what we saw in the opening letters to the churches, when Jesus warned against Jezebel (2:20) and the Nicolaitans (2:15). Those had to do with idolatry, which we see here, and sexual immorality, which is coming later from the beast. It’s coming, don’t worry! Remember, the themes from the letters are carried through the whole book. This is where it happens.

The tables discussed: How can a fast help you to do this? How has God helped you to reprioritize in the past, and put Him back in His rightful place? (The teaching fell at the start of the church’s 21 days of prayer and fasting.)

“The image could speak”: the second beast brings the image of the Antichrist seemingly to life. The fulfillment of this prophecy in particular requires technology that was unavailable in the first century. Maybe a demonic power could have done something like it, but historically it didn’t happen. This requires a far future fulfillment, with technology that is obvious and easily available to us today, with screens and video and AI.

Someone asked how close the mark is to the phone everybody carries. “I see it as more like something that’s permanently attached to your body somehow,” tattooed or put under the skin. It’s a fine line, but the phone is pretty close to it, the precursor: we have the technology for chip-based paying already, where you don’t even have to bring your phone or your wallet.

Jews have been forced to be branded before: with the leaf of the false god Dionysus, in the 2nd century BC, by Ptolemy Philopator. Famously, Hitler forced Jews to wear the yellow Star of David badge. This mark seems to be a tattoo of some sort, a branding; it could even be a chip that leaves a mark on the skin.

See the other markings in Revelation (7:3; 14:1; 17:5; 19:12, 16; 22:4). Some of these are likely symbolic, and some are probably tattoos or tattoo-like. The seal of God on all who are His is a good marking: “We want that one. Hey, tattoo me, Lord!”

This mark is a perversion and counterfeit of the sealing mark God gives His people in chapter 7. There the mark protects God’s people from God’s judgment. Here it protects Satan’s people from the beast’s (the Antichrist’s) atrocities, while forcing them to commit atrocities.

The beast will tolerate no dissent to his self-deification. Witnessing to the truth will bring death, or the shutting down of businesses, or not being allowed to buy food: trying to starve believers to death. This is not a prediction that every faithful Christian will be put to death, but that every faithful Christian must be prepared to die.

From the room: unlike God, this beast has no mercy, and with AI coming in, it occurred to someone that AI won’t have any mercy either. “You’re right. It’s just an algorithm. It’s just ones and zeros.”

We saw in chapter 12 that those who are victorious “did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (12:11). This is a key attitude to have to win over that level of persecution. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego famously faced a similar choice (Daniel 3), as did Daniel himself (Daniel 6). The point for us: accept death for Christ over worshiping anyone or anything besides Christ.

The economic persecution may be even harder to overcome. Martyrdom is a moment. Not being able to buy and sell for three and a half years could cause some to get disheartened and give in over time, as they watch themselves and their loved ones waste away on subsistence living. We saw this happen in Canada, with the freezing of bank accounts just a few years ago. That was for a short time, but three and a half years is long, and our present technology can shut down businesses and the ability to buy and sell in an instant, more than any in the history of the world. Here’s the point: economic success cannot be more important than following Jesus. All of that bows to Jesus.

The number 666 is a parody and perversion of the number 7, which is used throughout Revelation and throughout the Bible as the number of perfection.

There is also gematria, “counting a name,” where a number was assigned to each letter and you add them up to get a full number. The Greek word for beast, therion, can be spelled in Hebrew as 666. That’s a possibility for the calculation here. There’s another theory out there that “Caesar Nero” spelled in Hebrew is 666, “but you’d have to spell it wrong, so I don’t like that one.” Ultimately, 666 is certainly a debased or corrupted version of the perfect number 7. And six is man’s number, multiplied over: “the number of a man.”

What we see throughout this chapter is that Satan likes to play dress-up. He likes to pretend to be like God, to manipulate and make fun of God’s holy things, to use counterfeits of what is true and righteous and holy. He is marked by violence, coercion, deception, accusation and fear-mongering. He is a dictatorial tyrant who will use the ultimate dictatorial tyrant human (the Antichrist) and his cheerleader (the false prophet) to deceive anyone who can be deceived in the last days. Do not be deceived.

The point: receive wisdom and discernment from God. “This calls for wisdom,” and God promises it: “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:5).

Chapter 14 continues this drama with the unholy trinity, but Jesus starts to get involved, so it gets way more fun!