1, 2. (a) What does John say about the dragon? (b) How does John, in symbolic language, describe a visible organization used by the dragon?

THE great dragon has been cast down to the earth! Our study of Revelation makes it clear that never again will the Serpent or his demon followers be allowed back into heaven. But we are not yet finished with “the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth.” The account next identifies in greater detail the means used by Satan to fight against ‘the woman and her seed.’ (Revelation 12:9, 17) John says of that serpentine dragon: “And it stood still upon the sand of the sea.” (Revelation 13:1a) So let us pause to examine the dragon’s means of operation.

² No longer are the holy heavens afflicted by the presence of Satan and his demons. Those wicked spirits have been ousted from heaven and confined to the vicinity of the earth. This no doubt accounts for the tremendous growth of spiritistic practices in modern times. The wily Serpent still maintains a corrupt spirit organization. But does he also use a visible organization in order to mislead mankind? John tells us: “And I saw a wild beast ascending out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, and upon its horns ten diadems, but upon its heads blasphemous names.

Revelation 13:1b,

3. (a) What ferocious beasts did the prophet Daniel see in visions? (b) What did the huge beasts of Daniel 7 represent?

³ What is this freakish beast? The Bible itself gives the answer. Before the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C.E., the Jewish prophet Daniel saw visions involving ferocious beasts. At Daniel 7:2-8 he describes four beasts coming out of the sea, the first resembling a lion, the second a bear, the third a leopard, and “see there! a fourth beast, fearsome and terrible and unusually strong . . . and it had ten horns.” This is remarkably similar to the wild beast seen by John about the year 96 C.E. That beast also has the characteristics of a lion, a bear, and a leopard, and it has ten horns. What is the identity of the huge beasts seen by Daniel? He informs us: “These huge beasts . . . are four kings that will stand up from the earth.” (Daniel 7:17) Yes, those beasts represent “kings,” or political powers of the earth.

4. (a) In Daniel 8, what did the ram and the he-goat portray? (b) What was indicated when the great horn of the he-goat was broken and it was succeeded by four horns?

⁴ In another vision, Daniel sees a two-horned ram that is struck down by a goat with a great horn. The angel Gabriel explains to him what it means: “The ram . . . stands for the kings of Media and Persia. And the hairy he-goat stands for the king of Greece.” Gabriel goes on to prophesy that the great horn of the he-goat would be broken and be succeeded by four horns. This actually happened more than 200 years later when Alexander the Great died and his kingdom was split into four kingdoms ruled over by four of his generals.​—Daniel 8:3-8, 20-25.a

5. (a) What connotations does the Greek word for beast convey? (b) What does the wild beast of Revelation 13:1, 2, along with its seven heads, stand for?

⁵ It is clear, therefore, that the Author of the inspired Bible regards the political powers of the earth as beasts. What kind of beasts? One commentator calls the wild beast of Revelation 13:1, 2 a “brute,” and adds: “We accept all the connotations that θηρίον [the·riʹon, the Greek word for “beast”] conveys, such as that of a cruel, destructive, frightful, ravenous, etc., monster.”b How well that describes the bloodstained political system by which Satan has dominated mankind! The seven heads of this wild beast stand for six major world powers featured in Bible history up to John’s day​—Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome—​and a seventh world power prophesied to appear later.​—Compare Revelation 17:9, 10.

6. (a) In what have the seven heads of the wild beast taken the lead? (b) How was Rome used by Jehovah in executing his own judgment on the Jewish system of things, and how did the Christians in Jerusalem fare?

⁶ True, there have been other world powers in history besides the seven​—just as the wild beast John saw was made up of a body as well as of seven heads and ten horns. But the seven heads represent the seven major powers that have, each in its turn, taken the lead in oppressing God’s people. In 33 C.E., while Rome was ascendant, Satan used that head of the wild beast to kill the Son of God. At that time, God abandoned the faithless Jewish system of things and later, in 70 C.E., allowed Rome to execute his judgment on that nation. Happily, the true Israel of God, the congregation of anointed Christians, had been forewarned, and those in Jerusalem and Judaea had fled to safety beyond the Jordan River.​—Matthew 24:15, 16; Galatians 6:16.

7. (a) What was due to take place when the conclusion of the system of things arrived and the Lord’s day began? (b) What proved to be the seventh head of the wild beast of Revelation 13:1, 2?

⁷ By the end of the first century C.E., however, many in this early congregation had fallen away from the truth, and the true Christian wheat, “the sons of the kingdom,” had been largely choked out by weeds, “the sons of the wicked one.” But when the conclusion of the system of things arrived, anointed Christians again appeared as an organized group. During the Lord’s day, the righteous ones were due to “shine as brightly as the sun.” Hence, the Christian congregation was organized for work. (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43) By then, the Roman Empire was no more. The huge British Empire, along with the powerful United States of America, held the center of the world stage. This dual world power proved to be the seventh head of the wild beast.

8. Why should it not be shocking that the Anglo-American dual world power is likened to a beast?

⁸ Is it not shocking to identify the ruling political powers with a wild beast? That is what some opposers claimed during World War II, when the status of Jehovah’s Witnesses, as an organization and as individuals, was being challenged in law courts around the earth. But stop and think! Do not the nations themselves adopt beasts or wild creatures as their national symbols? For example, there are the British lion, the American eagle, and the Chinese dragon. So why should anyone object if the divine Author of the Holy Bible also uses beasts to symbolize world powers?

9. (a) Why should one not object to the Bible’s saying that Satan gives the wild beast its great authority? (b) How is Satan described in the Bible, and how does he influence governments?

⁹ Moreover, why should anyone object to the Bible’s saying that it is Satan who gives the wild beast its great authority? God is the Source of that statement, and before him ‘the nations are as a drop from a bucket and as a film of dust.’ Those nations would do better to court God’s favor than to take offense at the way his prophetic Word describes them. (Isaiah 40:15, 17; Psalm 2:10-12) Satan is no mythical person assigned to tormenting departed souls in a fiery hell. No such place exists. Rather, Satan is described in Scripture as “an angel of light”​—a master of deception who exercises powerful influence in general political affairs.​—2 Corinthians 11:3, 14, 15; Ephesians 6:11-18.

10. (a) What is denoted by the fact that on each of the ten horns there was a diadem? (b) What do the ten horns and the ten diadems symbolize?

¹⁰ The wild beast has ten horns on its seven heads. Perhaps four heads had one horn each and three heads two horns each. Moreover, it had ten diadems on its horns. In the book of Daniel, fearsome beasts are described, and the numbering of their horns is to be interpreted literally. For example, the two horns on a ram represented a world empire made up of two partners, Media and Persia, while the four horns on a goat represented the four coexisting empires that grew out of Alexander the Great’s Greek empire. (Daniel 8:3, 8, 20-22) On the beast that John saw, however, the numbering of the ten horns appears to be symbolic. (Compare Daniel 7:24; Revelation 17:12.) They represent the completeness of sovereign states making up the entire political organization of Satan. All these horns are violent and aggressive, but as indicated by the seven heads, headship resides in only one world power at a time. Similarly, the ten diadems indicate that all sovereign states would exercise ruling power simultaneously with the dominant state, or world power, of that time.

11. What is indicated by the fact that the wild beast has “upon its heads blasphemous names”?

¹¹ The wild beast has “upon its heads blasphemous names,” making claims for itself that show great disrespect for Jehovah God and Christ Jesus. It has used the names of God and Christ as a sham to achieve its political ends; and it has played along with false religion, even allowing the clergy to take part in its political processes. For example, the House of Lords in England includes the bishops. Catholic cardinals have played prominent political roles in France and Italy, and more recently, priests have taken political office in Latin America. Governments print religious slogans, such as “IN GOD WE TRUST,” on their bank notes, and on their coins they claim divine approval for their rulers, stating, for example, that these are appointed “by the grace of God.” All of this is actually blasphemous, for it attempts to involve God in the sullied nationalistic political arena.

12. (a) What is signified by the wild beast’s coming out of “the sea,” and when did it begin to emerge? (b) What is indicated by the fact that the dragon gives the symbolic beast its great authority?

¹² The wild beast comes out of “the sea,” which is a fitting symbol of the turbulent masses from which human government springs. (Isaiah 17:12, 13) This wild beast began to emerge out of the sea of turbulent humanity away back in the days of Nimrod (about the 21st century B.C.E.), when a post-Flood system of things, opposed to Jehovah, first manifested itself. (Genesis 10:8-12; 11:1-9) But only during the Lord’s day has the last one of its seven heads fully manifested itself. Notice, too, it is the dragon that “gave to the beast its power and its throne and great authority.” (Compare Luke 4:6.) The beast is Satan’s political creation among the masses of mankind. Satan is truly “the ruler of this world.”​—John 12:31.