Revelation 13:11

The Two-Horned Wild Beast

25. (a) How does John describe another symbolic wild beast that comes onto the world scene? (b) What is indicated by the two horns of the new wild beast and by its coming out of the earth?

²⁵ But now another wild beast comes onto the world scene. John reports: “And I saw another wild beast ascending out of the earth, and it had two horns like a lamb, but it began speaking as a dragon.

This wild beast has two horns, indicating a partnership of two political powers. And it is described as coming out of the earth, not out of the sea. Thus, it comes out of Satan’s already established earthly system of things. It must be a world power, already existing, that takes on a significant role during the Lord’s day.

26. (a) What is the two-horned wild beast, and how does it relate to the original wild beast? (b) In what sense are the horns of the two-horned beast lamblike, and how is it “as a dragon” when speaking? (c) What are nationalistic people really worshipping, and to what has nationalism been likened? (See footnote.)

²⁶ What can it be? The Anglo-American World Power​—the same as the seventh head of the first wild beast but in a special role! Isolating it in the vision as a separate wild beast helps us to see more clearly how it acts independently on the world stage. This figurative two-horned wild beast is made up of two coexisting, independent, but cooperating political powers. Its two horns “like a lamb” suggest that it makes itself out to be mild and inoffensive, with an enlightened form of government to which all the world should turn. But it speaks “as a dragon” in that it uses pressure and threats and even outright violence wherever its version of rulership is not accepted. It has not encouraged submission to God’s Kingdom under the rule of the Lamb of God but, rather, to the interests of Satan, the great dragon.