Although the Authorised Version says, “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea”, the better reading of the verse seems to be the one of the NASB and NIV: “And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore…
The last thing we hear of the ‘dragon’ is that he is standing here, on the shore of the ‘sea’, the sea of nations. To achieve its goal, the ‘dragon’ hatches a stinking egg, for a ‘beast’ rises out of the sea.
When you read the above verse and look at Daniel’s four creatures, which indicate four successive world powers, the similarities stand out immediately. In Daniel’s case the first creature looks like a lion…
John sees the ‘beast’ rising up out of the water of the ‘sea of nations’: first the ten horns with the crowns, then the seven heads with the names of blasphemy, just like the Roman emperors were themselves honoured as ‘gods’ in their time…
The title ‘anti-Christ’ only occurs in the last books of the New Testament, in the epistles of John.1 It is the characteristic of the ‘last hour’.2 The spirit of the ‘anti-Christ’ was already at work in John’s day too, and many ‘anti-Christs’ have appeared…
In Daniel’s vision the fourth beast is also said to have ten horns. “While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it.
This is stated in a somewhat matter of fact fashion, but what terrible consequences these words have. The Jewish people are defeated. Who can read the book by Flavius Josephus The Jewish War with dry eyes, about the Romans’ war against the Jews in 66–70 AD…
The whole world population will worship the beast—every tribe and nation and language and people, worldwide, for this is what the expression in the Book of Revelation means. There is no escape, nowhere to turn…
The Lamb that was slain is the guarantee of the victory of God’s children, even though for some, that victory is attained through martyrdom. “Whoever has ears, let them hear.” That call is always heard when the glorified Christ addresses one of the seven churches, to His Church of all ages.
There is a problem with the text of this verse. It can be translated in two different ways and one finds these differences already in the oldest manuscripts. The first version is the one quoted above, which is also similar to the Authorised Version…
The first beast comes up out of the sea (of nations); the second beast comes up out of the earth. The ‘spirit out of the ground’ NIV translates, out of the earth NASB translates. A spirit/ghost that pretended to be Samuel also came up out of the earth.
The second beast looks like the Lamb, but it speaks like the ‘dragon’, against the Father, and against the Son. It is later plainly called ‘the false prophet’. The coming of the ‘beast’ and the ‘false prophet’ form part of a worldwide ‘messianic’ expectation and hope for a world saviour.
