It's a Given, a devotional thought

The other day I was reading Revelation Chapter 13, and this simple but powerful phrase kept jumping out at me. It's right in the middle of that very vivid and somewhat unsettling vision of the Beast coming out of the Sea (13:1-10) and the Beast coming out of the Earth (13:11-13), which I take as a highly symbolic, apocalyptic description of the Powers and Principalities at work in the world (those that were at work during the Roman persecution of the Church then and those that are still at work in the world whenever similar atrocities, idolatries and/or imperialistic projects rear their heads...). 

 Anyways, the interpretation of Revelation is a ponderous task, fraught with challenges, but like I say, in my reading this simple phrase jumped out at me: “It was given to him...” Three times John uses the passive form of the verb “to give” in this passage, in regards to the Beast and its apparent authority. In 13:5, “he was given a mouth to utter blasphemies,” and “he was given authority”; in 13:7 “he was given power to make war against the saints.” 

 There is something very subtle but very powerful going on here, because obviously to say that “something was given...” in the passive form like this sort of raises the question: Given by whom?

Earlier (13:2) it’s the dragon (a symbol for the Satan) who “gives the beast his power and his throne and his authority”; but here, it’s less obvious who is doing the giving. If John had meant that the dragon was the giver, surely he would have specified the dragon as the subject of the verb, as he did before. But he didn’t; he doesn’t. And the reason, I think, is because ultimately, any apparent power or apparent authority that the beast (i.e. the Powers, Principalities, Rulers and Authorities at work in this world) may have, whether they admit it or not, is given them by God.

Even if they use that authority idolatrously and blasphemously, as the Beast does in Revelation 13, in some mysterious way, even then it doesn’t change that fact that whatever authority they may have they hold only according to the will or God. And this is good news for us, because it means that, even when evil and darkness seems to be winning, their victory is, in the final analysis, illusory. God is still in control; the beast (or beasts, such as they are) is not and every “beast” from the Roman Empire up to the present day, will give an account, in the end, for the way they used the authority God permitted them to have.