The Internet search engine I usually use at home recently found 106,291 Web sites that discuss the "Antichrist," 214,907 that examine the "Mark of the Beast," and 390,253 that comment on Revelation 13, one of the portions of Scripture that addresses these themes. Clearly, millions of people all over the world are interested in these topics!

Many identify the "Mark of the Beast." Some say that Social Security numbers in the United States qualify. Others claim that the bar codes we increasingly find on the things we buy and sell match the description. Still others assert that John the Revelator foresaw the tiny computer chips that store vital information and can be implanted just under the skin to be scanned when needed. These are just some of the interesting proposals!

Professional commentators identify the "Beast" and its "Mark" in harmony with their overall approaches to the book of Revelation. Preterists emphasize the fulfillment of John’s prophecies in his own time, probably during the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian near the end of the first Christian century, possibly about thirty years earlier during Nero’s rule. In this case, the dragon is Satan, the sea monster is the Roman Empire, and the land monster is the cult of emperor worship that flourished in the region we now call Turkey.

Futurists hold that many of the prophecies of John the Revelator anticipate things that will occur in the last chapter of humanity’s story. We should look forward, not backward, they claim. Most Seventh-day Adventists, including Ellen White, have been historicists, who hold that the book of Revelation depicts the entire sweep of human history from before its beginning until after its end. The term idealists is often applied to those who find in the book of Revelation symbols of the struggle between good and evil that are psychologically and sociologically illuminating in every era.

As specialists as diverse as Roy Branson, Jonathan Butler, Ronald Graybill, Leigh Johnsen, Douglas Morgan, Arthur Patrick, Alden Thompson, Charles Teel Jr., and Zack Plantak report, albeit with varying degrees of frequency and intensity, picturing the United States as the land monster of Revelation 13 has often been politically telling for those of us who are Seventh-day Adventists. This symbolic beast, innocent "like a lamb" but speaking "like a dragon," has enabled us to appreciate the many liberties the United States guarantees its citizens. It also has encouraged us to be aware of this nation’s temptations in the directions of imperialism abroad and oppression at home.

The symbols of Revelation 13 have therefore made it easier for us to view the United States with both gratitude and political suspicion. Sometimes these attitudes have been healthy, other times they have been pathological. In my view, however, without any gratitude for the United States, we are cynical; without any political suspicion about its words and deeds, we are naive. I am therefore hesitant wholly to deny the possibility of thinking of the United States as the land monster in the second portion of Revelation 13.

It is one thing to reconstruct as accurately as possible what a text first meant and another to discern what it means now, however. In this matter, as in so many others, it is possible to err in both directions.

On the one hand, we are not entirely convincing if we claim that the text always meant to others exactly what it means to us now. On the other, we are not entirely persuasive if we assert that the text can mean for us only what it meant to those who first wrote and read it. Unfortunately, some modern interpreters put too much emphasis upon what the text objectively meant, whereas some postmodern ones put too much importance on what it subjectively means.

We need to concentrate upon how these perspectives interact. Reading Scripture wisely is a dynamic, subtle, and communal process! Our tasks are to discover as best we can what the text once meant to others, to discern what it might now mean for us, and, most importantly, to connect the two in ways that are mutually illuminating and instructive, neither arbitrary nor capricious. As many have suggested on other occasions, we should study Scripture for ourselves, not by ourselves.

Doing this successfully is not overwhelmingly difficult when reading Revelation 13. The previous chapter identifies the dragon as Satan. The sea monster assists the dragon, and the land monster promotes the sea monster. Working together, these three constitute an unholy and dangerous trinity that fuses corrupt religious, political, and economic power in the interests of tyranny. Wherever the shoe fits, wear it!

Revelation 13 seems more suspicious of political power than Romans 13. In the second passage, which was also written during the time of Roman rule, Paul writes, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God."* Does Paul differ with John because he was a Roman citizen and John probably wasn’t? Although this may be part of the story, it probably isn’t the whole of it.

When we read all of Romans 13, we see that Paul believed the proper role of government is to maintain peace and order. At one point, he writes that "rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad." He also says that political authority "does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer." Had he experienced an opportunity to do so, I think that John the Revelator would have agreed with Paul about government’s legitimate functions. John was making a different and equally important point: political power is the servant of Satan—not God—when it joins with religious and economic forces to force religious conformity. I see no reason why Paul would dissent.

Which is right, Revelation 13 or Romans 13? Both are! Taken together, with proper respect to what they both once meant and what they both may now mean, they are the beginning of Christian political wisdom.

*Scriptural citations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version.

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