The defeat of the devil is a future but certain event.
In the mean time, John’s Revelation teaches us, we should expect ongoing spiritual conflict. It is important to understand that spiritual conflict is not merely spiritual. It is not just a matter of prayer, meditation, fasting, and other spiritual disciplines. Nor is it just a matter of miracles and exorcism. It is, of course, all these things. But it is also—for lack of a better term—political, i.e., pertaining to everyday life in the city (polis). Spiritual conflict takes place in the routines of life, as we struggle to live as residents of the City of God within the City of Man.
The devil does not make such a life easy, for he engages in spiritual conflict via proxies. Revelation 13 describes the devil’s agents as two hideous beasts: one from the sea, the Antichrist (verses 1–10), and one from the land, the False Prophet (verses 11–18). To live Christianly within the City of Man, we must exercise discernment, knowing what evil looks like and how it acts. And so, John describes for us the nature and activity of each beast.
John’s language is highly symbolic. The first beast is not literally a grotesque pastiche of leopard, bear, and lion, with seven heads, ten horns, and ten diadems. (A diadem, by the way, is “a jeweled headband used as a crown,” according to the World English Dictionary.) Rather, as Revelation 17.7–18 makes clear, it is a very human king, or perhaps a very human kingdom, that wages war against God’s people. Commentators disagree whether the Antichrist is an individual governor or the institution of government. I am of the opinion that it is a little of both.
This very human “beast” imitates the dragon in all its devilishness. That is the point of the seven heads and ten horns (compare 13.1 with 12.3). The beast also derives its authority from the dragon, which gives it “his power and his thrown and great authority.” No wonder, then, that the beast sets out “to make war on the saints and to conquer them.”
Spiritual conflict with the devil thus becomes political conflict with a persecuting government. Romans 13 teaches us that government is God’s servant. Revelation 13 reminds us that it also can become the enemy of God’s people.
Such enmity can be borne, however, for God limits its duration. John tells us that the beast “was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months,” a long time to be sure, but a limited one nevertheless. God also limits the enmity’s extent. The beast is given authority over “all who dwell on earth,” who will “worship it,” but not over anyone whose name has “been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain.”
In the century just past, more Christians were killed for their faith by their governments than in all previous nineteen centuries combined. That is a sobering thought, but not an unexpected reality. Revelation 13 forewarned us of the possibility long ago.
“Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.” Indeed!
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