I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 13-16.

Just as the four Living Beings from earlier in this book corresponded with, but had differences from, the four Living Beings in Ezekiel’s visions, so the two beasts in today’s passage correspond, but differ from, the beasts in Daniel’s visions.  First, I want to say that there is more to the meaning of this passage than what I am writing today.  Trying to get a starting point on writing about today’s passage I did an Internet search on what people had written about these beasts.  I found that some believe the first beast represents the great Empires of history.  I will not say that they are wrong, but that did not seem right to me.  However, as I thought about what they had written, it struck me that the first beast is, in a way, government.  In the passage, those who worship this beast say, “Who is able to fight against him?”, which reminds me of the phrase, “You can’t fight City Hall.”  Over all, there are those who worship government and look to it for answers that can only come from God.  This view would make the second beast, those religious leaders who direct people to the government for solutions to problems for which they should turn to God and the transformative power of His Spirit.  I want to point out that such religious leaders are not just on one side of the political spectrum.  And such leaders do not necessarily represent themselves as religious.

OK, I did not expect to write that much about the beasts.  What I wanted to focus on is something which puts a different perspective on the timing of the entire vision.   After the seventh angel poured out the seventh bowl containing God’s wrath upon the earth a voice cried out from God’s heavenly Temple, “It is finished.”  This is exactly the phrase which John wrote in his Gospel as what Jesus said just before dying.  So, everything which came before that phrase in John’s vision happened, at least symbolically, before Jesus died on the Cross.  Having made that connection, I want to think about what that means for understanding the earlier portions of the Book of Revelation.