5. What does that “wild beast” with seven heads symbolize, and by what of a superhuman kind is it controlled?

⁵ This “wild beast” is a symbolic one, like the four wild beasts pictured in the prophecy of Daniel, chapter seven. Those four symbolized certain human governments, empires, political world powers, such as the Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Grecian Empire, and the Roman Empire, with something added to picture the modern-day Anglo-American dual world power. But what does the “wild beast” of Revelation, chapters thirteen through nineteen, symbolize? Human political rule as a whole, on a global scale. Although controlling the whole world, it is not a federation of all national governments with a central world capital. It is made up of many political parts, which have been dominated throughout millenniums of time by a succession of seven world powers. On top of that, it has been dominated by the superhuman fiery-red “dragon.”

The rulership to which it subjects itself is that of the superhuman fiery-red “dragon.” This explains why Revelation 13:2 informs us that “the dragon gave to the [wild] beast its power and its throne and great authority.” There is no mystery as to whom the “dragon” symbolizes. Revelation, chapter twelve, verse nine, plainly says that the “dragon” is the “original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth.” Satan the “dragon” is not alone in ruling all the political governments of the earth. He has legions of angels, superhuman spirits like himself, and these demons fight on the ‘dragon’s’ side over the issue of universal sovereignty.