And I saw another beast rising out of the earth; and it had two horns like to a lamb, and spake as a dragon;
A second beast now comes into view. He does not rise from the churning sea of the nations like the first; he comes up from solid ground. Everything about him is copied. He looks like the Lamb, but the moment he opens his mouth his real parentage comes out.
The two beasts come from different places, and the difference matters. The sea pictures nations in uproar. The earth pictures a world that has settled into order.
This beast does not rise up out of the sea like the first. The sea pictures society in trouble and unrest. He comes up out of the earth, a state of ordered and settled government. When we look at his character and his claims, we find something even more dreadful than the first beast.
The horns are the point of the picture. Commentators read them as the offices Christ Himself holds — and note which one is missing.
First, this beast had two horns like a lamb. He claims to be the expected Messiah, so he imitates the true Christ and takes on His appearance. He was like a lamb in the vision, and he also had two horns. Those horns are two of the forms of power that Christ as the Messiah will exercise. These are here the forms of prophetic and kingly power. Satan could not give the third form, that of the priest. He had lost his own place as accuser in heaven when God cast him down.
Earlier in Revelation the true Lamb has seven horns. Two horns are a copy scaled down.
From Revelation 13:11, we have the second beast with lamb-like horns. He counterfeits Christ (as in Revelation 5:6), but he has two horns instead of seven. His mouth betrays his Satanic origin.
The costume is convincing; the speech is not. John's Gospel shows two things about Jesus that this beast cannot copy — He is the Lamb of God, and He is the Shepherd whose sheep know His voice.
He impersonates a lamb, but his speech reveals his true character. Jesus came as THE LAMB of God, as John 1 shows. John 10 shows that He is the true Shepherd of the sheep, and His voice made Him known. Here the false "lamb" proves he is no true shepherd but a slave-driver. He speaks with the voice of the dragon.
Jesus warned that people would refuse Him and welcome a man who comes in his own name. Here that warning comes true, and it explains why crowds follow this beast.
Our Lord said, "I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him" (John 5:43). This prophecy now obtains a dreadful fulfilment. Of course Christ's sheep know His voice. They will not follow a stranger. They will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers (John 10:4-5)... They have rejected the true Shepherd. Now they swallow the claims of the "idol shepherd" whole. They have refused "the Lamb of God." Now they gladly take in the wolf in sheep's clothing. The god of this world has found them a Messiah suited to their taste. This one calls for no repentance. He flatters their vanity instead of rebuking their sin.
Later chapters name this beast again, and Satan gives him a different gift from the one he gave the first beast.
The second Beast, or Antichrist, is the same person as "the false prophet," who is named three times (Revelation 16:13; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10). Two men head the rebellion against Christ in His royal and prophetic rights, and Satan controls and energises them both — a trinity of evil. "The dragon has given his external power to the first Beast; to the second he gives his spirit, so that having this spirit it speaks as a dragon."
His work runs in two directions at once.
He is the Man of sin, the lawless one of 2 Thessalonians 2. He plays into the hands of the Roman power in the West, causing everyone to worship his image on pain of death. In the East he comes out in his true character as the Antichrist. He opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God, and sets himself up as the object of worship in the rebuilt temple of God in Jerusalem.
- Ground — He comes up out of the earth, not the sea. He arrives when the nations have settled into order, not while they are in turmoil.
- Costume — His two horns copy the prophetic and royal power of Christ. The priest's office is missing, and the true Lamb has seven horns.
- Voice — The disguise is only skin deep. The dragon has given him his own spirit, so he speaks as a dragon, and that speech tells you whose he is.
- Welcome — The world receives him because he demands no repentance and flatters instead of rebuking. It refused the One who came in His Father's name.
- Safeguard — The sheep know the Shepherd's voice and will not follow a stranger. Discernment in that day is a matter of hearing, not of watching.
and it exercises all the authority of the first beast before it, and causes the earth and those that dwell in it to do homage to the first beast, whose wound of death was healed.
Revelation 13 introduces a second beast: not the world-ruler of the earlier verses, but his working partner. His whole task is to make the earth worship that ruler — which raises a hard question: how can a false messiah win worship for a rival?
The chapter shows two beasts, and they differ in what each supplies.
In Revelation 13 two beasts are seen in vision. The first is the Roman power and its blasphemous head under the direct control of Satan (Rev. 13:1-10). The second beast is the personal Antichrist (Rev. 13:11-17). The first is marked by brute force. It is the political power of the earth in those days, the one to whom Satan "gave his power and his throne and great authority" (Rev. 13:2). The second beast is clearly subordinate to the power of the first (Rev. 13:12). The ends he has in view are religious, not political. The might and strength of apostate Rome supports this religious pretension. So the two beasts act together under their great chief, Satan. All three receive worship together.
Much of the verse turns on the phrase "in its presence." Older translations read "before him." It rules out any rivalry between the two beasts.
This beast exercises all the authority of the first beast before him — that is, in his presence, with his full sanction. It is not a seizing of power. It is in no sense something done without him. It is done in his presence, as it says here. "And makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast" — there is an understanding between them — "whose mortal wound was healed." It is remarkable that in 2 Thessalonians 2 we do not hear of him causing the world to worship the first beast. There he claims worship and is himself worshipped as God.
This looks like a contradiction: a man who demands worship for himself, yet promotes another. Kelly answers that worship in this scene is never limited to one figure.
Three persons are clearly linked in this scene: the dragon, the world-power or first beast, and the second beast, which is both political and religious. Revelation 13:4 shows that men worship the dragon as well as the first beast. So the difficulty stays much the same, whether we take the first beast or the second to be the antichrist and man of sin. Either way, another shares the worship. In fact they are the anti-trinity, and find their bond in the unseen power of Satan.
Satan did not invent this arrangement of one person using another's authority. He copied it.
There is a fact here worth noticing — it is a kind of imitation of the ways of God. As the Father has given all power to the risen Son, and the Holy Spirit exercises all the power of Christ before Him, so Satan imitates the same thing in evil. The dragon will give his throne to the beast. Notice the character in which men will worship him: "One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed." When that wound is healed, there is a kind of resurrection — not of a person, but of the beast's power raised up again. Then all the world will wonder after the beast, and the second beast will exercise all the power of the first beast before him.
All the action in the verse belongs to the second beast. Some conclude the first is only a figurehead. Scott rejects that.
The second beast is a subordinate power, and its royal head is the active minister of the first beast. At first sight one might almost think the first beast is a mere passive machine. All the energy and force of character seem to sit in the second, since "he exercises all the authority of the first beast before him," that is, in his presence. But that is not so. The first beast is a powerful federation of ten kingdoms under an imperial leader — active, bold, persecuting, and blaspheming. The religious beast has no royal authority outside Palestine. So he uses the authority of the first beast, its force and prestige, to carry out his utterly evil design: to get Christendom to bow down in worship before the revived Roman empire.
"Those who dwell on the earth" is a set phrase in Revelation. It marks out one kind of person.
This is a strong expression in Revelation. It describes those who seek their portion on earth at the time when men refuse the Lord Jesus Christ His rights in it. A great trial awaits them (Rev. 3:10)... They will worship the first beast, and the miracles of Antichrist will deceive them. Yet the everlasting gospel will be preached to them, calling them to "Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come." We do not read of their repentance.
- Counterfeit — the scene copies God's order. The Spirit exercises Christ's power in His presence; the second beast exercises the first beast's authority in his.
- Sanction — "before him" rules out rivalry. The first beast gives his authority with full consent, and the two have an understanding.
- Subordinate — the second beast serves as the active minister of the first. His aims are religious; the first supplies the force.
- Reach — outside his own land he has no royal authority, so he uses the first beast's force to bring Christendom to worship the revived empire.
- Victims — those who chose earth as their portion worship the beast, Antichrist's miracles deceive them, and Scripture never records their repentance.