God placed His image-bearing living-icons in the original Edenic garden-temple and commissioned them to participate as helpmeet in His creative work by extending and globally disseminating the “goodness” He had set in place through six days of providing structure and fullness to overcome the chaotic emptiness and void.

Note well(!) that even before the Fall, even before unreached lost souls needed the message of salvation from the fires of hell, humanity already had and always has had a mandate to spread out and fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea! “Earth-filling” is not a special calling for missionaries, but even more foundationally it is not even a uniquely Christian thing! Rather it was part and parcel, built-in to the blueprint design of the entire, corporate, human race! “Filling the earth” with overflowing reflections and manifestations of the multi-faceted and variegated glory of God is meant to be as fundamental a human impulse as is making/having babies (i.e. “fruitful multiplication”).

The third component of what it looks like for normal humanity(!!!) to fulfill its calling and purpose and reason-for-being — alongside “fruitful multiplication” and “earth-filling” — is “taking dominion” over the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, and the beasts of the earth. But alas, a sly serpent “more crafty than all the beasts of the field” comes along and dupes mankind into abdicating our responsibility. Not only do things go haywire, but in fact the original design gets completely flipped upside down. Whereas Adam’s priestly role was to serve and protect the garden-temple, he instead grants the beast authority and dominion to guide and direct the rules and decisions and mode of operation of mankind. Instead of man “taking dominion” of the beasts, he gave the (representative leader) of the beasts dominion over himself and his/God’s homeland!

With beasts “taking dominion” over man, it is no surprise that other elements of the Creation Mandate also get flipped around, distorted, and backwards. Rather than filling the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea, mankind corporately proceeds to alternate between either:

• “Fill the earth,” um yes, but fill it with violence and evil (Gen 6:11) rather than expanding the “goodness” of the prototype world that God began. … OR …
• Cluster up to build up their own prideful ambitions and settle into the comfort of domesticated worldliness with a seemingly directly-in-your-face rejection of God’s plan for them to “disperse over the face of the whole earth” (Gen 11:4).

And thus proceeds the storyline of human history: the nations of the world live according to the plan that seems right according to their own possession of knowledge of good and evil, as advised and guided by the “beastly” overlords who led them into this path in the first place.

Hence it is no surprise that when Daniel 7 speaks of the kings and kingdoms of this world, and the spiritual powers and principalities behind them, he evokes the symbolic language of “beasts” to describe those (politico-demonic) forces that have dominion over mankind in this upside-down, topsy-turvy, present-worldly condition wherein we live exiled from Eden. Instead of ruling the beasts, man welcomed the beasts to rule over him and to subdue the earth in their own beastly ways, and so they do. So they do indeed.

Fast forward to Revelation 13, and John’s apocalyptic vision reveals that the Mastermind Dragon has found at least two distinct subordinate beastly approaches to employ as best suited to varied circumstances as he maneuvers to contain the followers of the Lamb and prevent/delay them from filling the earth with the Lord’s glory:

• Scary beasts that threaten to chomp you if you don’t revere their fierce power!
• Seductive beasts that offer the delightful produce of blessings from this fruitful world without the burden of spreading the blessings outward or the toil of shining the light into the dark places.

Indeed, in the beginning of the story which Revelation tells of Church history, several of the seven lampstands are flickering and dimming precisely due to falling into temptation from these beastly forces. In some places, the Roman imperial cult is pressuring the Christians to succumb to the fear of power and express a type of obedient reverence to the emperor that is only due to a divine being. In other places, local freedoms and economic success is pressuring the Christians to store up earthly gold rather than treasures in heaven.

But the overall story arc of Revelation has a doubly positive message: not only does Jesus Himself win (He does win!, Amen!), but also He matures His church to a point where she “overcomes/conquers” the beast, its image, and the number of its name (Rev 15:2)! The seed of Eve definitively crushed the head of the serpent in His own work and on His own merit, but the Creator has always intended His image bearers to participate in expanding the global manifestation of His goodness. Hence, looking back to the original plan from the creation narrative, and subsequent disruption of that plan, we can now see the importance and necessity of God’s people “overcoming the beast.” In Genesis 3 the dominion structure got turned upside down: beasts were given authority to rule and reign in the world God made. Man put himself under the beastly realm. But as bulls in china shops, wild beasts wreak immeasurable havoc in garden-temples. God’s people would need to overcome the chaos-making thrashings of the untamed beasts and be restored to their rightful position as God’s partner in dominion over Creation if we would ever expect Messiah’s Kingdom to persist in a robust and unshakable state of Shalom.

The other two aspects of the original creation/dominion/cultural mandate are more readily recognized, and have oft been noted, in John’s revelatory vision. For example, “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Rev 7:9) shows that in the fulness of time God’s people have indeed multiplied fruitfully and filled the earth!

In summary then: a major component of the integrated story arc of Revelation (and hence Church and world history) is Christ bring His people through a New Exodus from subjection to beastly powers into a state where they instead overcome/conquer the beast (Rev 15:2) to whom they wrongfully gave dominion in the Garden, thereby (finally!) fulfilling the original (Gen 1:28) Creation Mandate to its uttermost!

But now, we want to make all that a little more concrete. There is a danger that even true, good, and beautiful Biblical theology stays theoretical or abstract. In the comments that follow I do not desire to cultivate a critical or judgmental spirit, but I do want to remain exegetically faithful to the message I believe the text of God’s word is seeking to communicate. All Scripture is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness, and apocalyptic literature in general is meant to challenge conventions, disrupt the complacent status quo, and serve as a splash of cold water in the face. Apocalyptic literature is designed to “have bite,” not to leave you with soggy milquetoast applications. So then…

If the Bride who has made herself ready (Rev 19:7) for eternal perfect union with the Lord of the Universe consists of a people redeemed from slavery to beasts, then I must say she does not in general look like the church of Iran or America today. Which is to say, insofar as the church of Iran is underground, I don’t think that the vision of “overcoming” the beast aligns with hiding lampstand light under bushels in order to avoid persecution. Nor does the vision of “overcoming the beast” align with the church of America, nor the rest of Christendom living under the shelter of the wings of the Pax Romana Christiana, clinging to its 666 talents derived from preserving God’s blessings through the patronage of the sword of Constantine.

Rather, the church whom Jesus is coming to wed looks more like the church of Acts — pressing forward in Spirit-empowered, dynamic martyr-witness to the Kingdom of God despite the fiery opposition of the kingdoms of this world, and despite the alluring enchantment of the lusts of this world. Or rather, and more completely, the church whom Jesus is coming to wed looks like the church of Acts would have looked if it had continued filling the earth with New Creation men and women bearing the image of Christ and making disciples of all nations, thereby fulfilling all aspects of the Creation-Mandate-turned-Great-Commission to the uttermost.

If all that be true, it is a little bit daunting to think that the Bride who has made herself ready consists of the church of beast-overcomers, because even where the message of the gospel is actively spreading(!), whether in Iran or America, it seems that those Christian populations tend to slide into one or the other form of beast-worship: obeisance to the threats or entanglement with the allurements. Nevertheless, insofar as the New Covenant is sealed in the blood of the High Priest who ever lives to intercede, He continues His effectual ministerial work until His law is so emblazoned on the renewed hearts and souls of the faithful remnant of His people that they can stand before both the scary and the seductive forms of the Beast and say, “I pledge my full allegiance to the Lamb. You have nothing on me.”