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.1 That spirit foretold Saul that he and his sons would soon be with him, in the earth, the following day.2 The earth is the place where the realm of the dead is, and of which Hannah says: “The Lord brings death and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and raises up.”3 [from the earth] Does this ‘coming out of the earth’ in this verse of the Book of Revelation refer here to someone ‘rising from the dead’, as some expositors have indeed thought? Is Judas not called “the son of perdition”4 by Jesus, and does Paul not also call the anti- Christ “the son of perdition”?5 So will people like that rise up from the earth to come back to life to become the ‘second ‘beast’? According to logic, therefore…A kind of literally logic…But, no!
This seems to me to be a typical example of comparing text-with-text incorrectly. In this wrong way you arrive at Judas rising from the dead as antichrist number two. So what should we understand by the expression ‘earth’? Is it the Abyss, the dwelling place of the evil powers?6 That seems to be a good possibility. The first beast comes up out of that Abyss,7 and there, of course, lies the origin, the spiritual source of inspiration of the ‘second beast’. Or does the ‘earth’ refer here to the Roman province/land, Asia Minor, the heartland of the divine Roman emperor worship cult? This is in contrast to the West, where Rome lies – in the ‘sea’ of nations in the West—seen from John’s viewpoint on Patmos. However, many nations also lay in the East, North and South, seen from John’s perspective. Could the ‘earth’ refer to ‘Eretz Israel’, the land of Israel? Is that where the ‘second beast’ comes from? Not very likely. Where he, geographically speaking, will come from only time will tell. We will see when it happens! But one thing is for sure: this ‘coming out of the earth’ refers to ‘natural man’, sinful man without God, inspired by the powers from the ‘Abyss’. He is from the people ‘who dwell on the earth’, Revelation 8:13. Their citizenship is on earth, not in Heaven. “The first man, Adam, is from the earth, earthy: the second man, the second Adam, is from Heaven”, according to Paul.8 There is ‘wisdom’ that is “earthly, natural, demonic”, according to James.9 John says: “He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth.”10 ‘Earth’ represents below, unspiritual, sinful and demonic, from the Abyss. Everything that comes from ‘below’ in Scripture is not good. Only what comes from ‘above’, from Heaven, comes from God. Pure earthly Nazism had occult backgrounds, a deification of the earth and the Übermensch, the superhuman, borrowed from Icelandic sagas and Nordic myths. The ‘second beast’ looks like the Lamb. It looks like Christ—no seven horns11 to be sure, only two, but still the similarity is obvious! Is it therefore actually the anti-Christ, the ‘Christ- instead-of-Christ’? This does not seem to be very likely, because the first beast is always called ‘the beast’,12 and the second beast makes the world worship the first beast. He is the ‘false prophet’. It is a dangerous beast. It speaks beautiful words of charity, love and peace, as if you were listening to Christ Himself. It is the message of the ‘dragon’, however. It is the sweet-sounding lisping of the serpent/’nachash’ from Paradise. It proclaims the brilliant slogans, theories and ideologies that lead to the worship of the ‘beast’—very warm, enticing and convincing, until of course someone resists! Then it spouts pure hatred! You sometimes experience this from people around you. They are more than willing and ready to believe the strangest things, but not of course if you contradict them and point to the Way, the Truth and the Life!13 If people have no faith anymore, it is to be feared that they will believe anything and everything.
• The ‘first’ beast blasphemes God, His Name, His Tabernacle, and those who have their ‘citizenship in Heaven’.14 The ‘second’ beast exercises the power of the ‘first’ beast, which had received the ‘power’ from the dragon.15 These together operate like a false ‘trinity’.
• The dragon is the anti-Father. The ‘first’ beast is the anti-Christ, the anti- Son. The ‘power’ and the false prophet’s utterances is the anti-Holy Spirit. Unclean spirits emanate from them, “And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits16; and they are ‘arrested’ together17; and they finally end up together in the lake of fire.18
Bible References:
1.1 Samuel 28:13 2.1 Samuel 28:19 3.1 Samuel 2:6 4.John 17:12 KJV 5.2 Thessalonians 2:3 KJV 6.Revelation 9:1, 11:7, 17:8, 20:1–3 7.Revelation 11:7, 17:8 8.1 Corinthians 15:47 9.James 3:15 10.John 3:31 KJV 11.Revelation 5:6 12.Revelation 13:14–18, 14;9 and 11, 15:2, 16:2, 10 and 13, 20:4, 10 13.John 14:6 14.Revelation 13:6 15.Revelation 13:2b 16.Revelation 16:13 17.Revelation 19:20, 20:1 18.Revelation 20:10
