Charles Ellicott Commentary Revelation 13:11

"And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like unto lamb, and he spake as a dragon." — Revelation 13:11 (ASV)

THE APPEARANCE OF THE SECOND WILD BEAST

For the understanding of this portion of the vision, we must notice the contrasts and resemblances between this and the former wild beast. They are both wild beasts. They both have horns. They both have a dragon-like inspiration (Revelation 13:11). They both tyrannize over men. But, on the other hand, the second beast is less monstrous in appearance: we read only of two horns, and we hear nothing of seven heads.

He somewhat resembles a lamb; he rises from the earth, and not from the sea; his power lies in deception (Revelation 13:13–14) as well as violence; he seems to possess more supernatural power: yet the whole of his work is directed to magnifying the first beast (Revelation 13:12). Do not these features lead to the conclusion that the principles which the second wild beast supports are the same as those on which the former wild beast acted, but that he supports them with more subtlety, intelligence, and culture? But for all the deception he employs, his work, when stripped of its specious drapery and seen in its naked ugliness, is to promote the honour of the first wild beast.

Because of this seductiveness, and of his efforts to support his mission with higher sanctions (Revelation 13:13), he is called in later chapters (Revelation 16:13; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10) the False Prophet. The force and appropriateness of this designation becomes more apparent when we notice that the features which are assumed bear a deceptive resemblance to those of a lamb.

The advancing intelligence of the world, its increase in knowledge and wisdom, the wider diffusion of culture and thought, produce a change in the general fashion of life, but the spirit which animates society is unchanged. The second wild beast is that change which is a change of mode, but not of spirit—a change of manners, but not of heart; there is more refinement, more civilisation, more mind, but it is still the world-power which is worshipped; it is the self-seeking adoration of pleasures, honours, occupations, influences which spring from earth and end in earth—the pursuit of powers which are worldly.

Some see in this second wild beast the Pagan priesthood aiding the imperial power, the embodiment of the first wild beast; others see in it the Papal sacerdotal power, the heir of Pagan rites; others, again, would combine the two, and view this second wild beast as the sacerdotal persecuting power, Pagan and Christian.

I believe that, though there is truth in these views, they are too narrow.

It is true that priesthoods—Pagan and Christian—have often devoted their influence to the upholding of the great world-power; it is true that men called to be Christian teachers forgot their function, and used their knowledge and power to bolster up the power of the beast and to make men worship the world, as though there were nothing higher for men to worship than this world could afford; it is true that they used, in later days, their powers to aggrandize the Church rather than to reform the world and regenerate men; in so far as they did this, they acted like the second wild beast.

But the stretch of the vision embraces more than these.

All who use their knowledge, their culture, their wisdom, to teach men that there is nothing worthy of worship except what they can see, and touch, and taste, are acting the part of the second wild beast. And whether they are apostles of science, or apostles of culture, or apostles of logical immorality, or apostles of what is called materialism, if their teaching leads men to limit their worship to the visible and the tangible, they are making men worship the beast who is the adversary of the servants of the Lamb.

And I beheld . . . Better, And I saw another wild beast rising out of the earth. Both wild beasts rise from beneath. The sea, out of which the first rises, represents the tumultuous impulses and passions of mankind; the earth, the more fixed element of human thought and wisdom, or society consolidated and disciplined by intelligence and culture: the wisdom, however, which guides this wild beast is not divine wisdom, but that wisdom which a sacred writer described as earthly, sensual, devilish (James 3:17).

He had two horns like (those of) a lamb.—There is an appearance of gentleness about him, but he spake as a dragon; the voice betrays him. He that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth. The spirit of the adversary is in him (John 3:31; John 8:44).