The false prophet commanded the “dwellers of the earth” or those who inhabited Jewish lands to make an image to the beast, which, of course, was forbidden for a Jew to do, but we need to keep in mind that the false prophet was a great deceiver (Revelation 13:14). He caused folks to do what they wouldn’t ordinarily do, if they were truly aware of the significance of their deed. So, we probably need to be looking for a figurative image rather than one made of wood or stone.
Notice that, speaking of the false prophet, John tells us: “It was given (didomai –G1335) him to give G1335) life (pneuma – G4151) to the image to the beast” (Revelation 13:15). The text doesn’t say, as some English translations have it, he had “power” or “authority” to give life to the image to the beast. Rather, “it was given him to give…” The same Greek word (G1335) is used twice in the phrase. The word appears 414 times in the New Covenant text, according to my Bible suite, and it is translated “power” only twice, here and in verse-14 of the 13th chapter of the Apocalypse (KJV). So, we need to ask ourselves, in what sense was the false prophet “given” the ability to “give” life?
Does anyone, other than God, have the power or authority to “give” life? The only occurrence in all of the Bible, where an inanimate object was given actual life, is Genesis 2:7. There, God made an image out of clay, and he breathed life into the image, so that it was able to speak and walk. It had LIFE, and God called his creation man and named him Adam. Since that time, the work of God has been often imitated (Psalm 135:17; Jeremiah 10:14; Habakkuk 2:19), but with one very common discrepancy. The thing that was made did not have the breath of life, and it could not speak or walk around. So, in what sense did John speak, when he tells us that “it was given” the false prophet to “give life to the image to the beast” (Revelation 13:15)?
I believe we get an idea of what John is referring to from the epistle of James. Here, James tells his readers: “For as the body without the spirit (pneuma — G4151) is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). Who would argue that James meant faith was literally alive, like you and me? James spoke figuratively, or one may say he spoke in a spiritual sense. Faith isn’t faith at all, unless there is evidence in one’s own life that it exists. Nevertheless, it is “we” not our faith who do the acting or give the evidence. “We” animate our faith, and in doing so we say our faith is alive.
In other words, to “give life” in Revelation 13:15 is a figurative matter, not a literal issue. Just as it is given us to give life to our faith by acting like we trust the Lord in the events that occur in our lives, so, too, “it was given” the false prophet to give life (pneuma – G4151) to the image to the beast, and as many who would not worship this image, the false prophet had them killed (Revelation 13:15), showing that he possessed the very same political power that was given the beast.
Therefore, since we need to understand that John doesn’t intend for us to understand that the false prophet actually possessed the power to give life to anything, what did all this mean in the first century AD? What did ‘giving life to the image to the beast’ look like in John’s generation? If we are to understand the word image to mean something that looked like or bore a certain resemblance to the first beast, then we need to look for an image that had multiple heads. I find it interesting that Annas, the high priest who was the first high priest placed into that office by Rome, had five sons who attained to that office. He also had a son-in-law officiate the high priesthood, and when the war with Rome broke out in 66 AD, his grandson Matthias, son of Theophilus, was reigning as high priest. It seems to me, that this is a fair image to the beast, one that had life, and that life originated with Annas, and this image was able to speak, just like what we find in Revelation 13:15.[1] If this is not the image to the beast, why not, and what proof is there that there is another we should look for, and if it appears what would it look like?
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[1] In an earlier study I went into more detail developing this idea. See What Is the Image to the Beast?
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