Deeper Commentary
CHAPTER 12
12:1 And a great sign was seen in heaven-
We are dealing with symbols (1:1), of things to happen after John's
time. There is no description here of any historical event in the garden
of Eden or some rebellion in Heaven before that. The woman here is caught
up to God (:5), so we are not talking about a woman in literal heaven, and
the moon and stars which are her clothing show these things are symbols
and not literal.
A woman arrayed with the sun and the moon
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars-
She was who the people of Israel were intended to be, and thus she becomes
our representative. The sun is a symbol for the Lord Jesus, and she is
clothed with Christ, with His righteousness. This idea is used at the end
of Revelation about the believers. Peter Watkins in his excellent book
Exploring The Apocalypse sees the woman of Revelation 12 as a symbol
of the church expressed in terms of Mary- for it was her who gave birth to
“the man child” Jesus, who is to subdue the nations with a rod of iron
(Rev. 12:5 = 2:27; 19:15). The stars around her head would, if we let
Scripture interpret Scripture, refer to Israel (Gen. 37). There are many
links between Revelation and John’s Gospel, and thus it may be significant
that in Jn. 19:25-27 Jesus calls Mary “Woman” and then in Revelation, He
uses the same title for the “woman” who bears the man child. Yet the point
of Revelation 12 is surely to show us from Heaven’s point of view the huge
disruption in the universe caused by the birth of Jesus that night in
Bethlehem. A baby’s birth, brought about by the quiet faith and
indefatigable ambition of a teenage girl, shattered the whole cosmos. This
is really what happens when we perform acts of faith based on slowly
developed spiritual understanding. We do things which have cosmic
consequences. See on Lk. 1:28.
The significance of chapter 12 is that almost
every student of Revelation's structure finds this chapter to be the very
core of the book. Nils Lund's suggestion has been followed with minor
amendments by most students (Chiasmus in the New Testament: a Study in
Gormgeschichte (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press,1942)):
A Prologue (1:1-20)
B Seven Epistles (2:1-3:22)
C Seven Seals (4:1-8:1)
D 144,000 saints & Seven Trumpets (7:1-11:19)
E The Two Witnesses (11:1-13)
F Woman clothed with the sun (12:1)
G Dragon in heaven (12:4)
H Woman flees to wilderness (12:6)
J Satan cast out (12:12)
H' Woman flees to wilderness (12:14)
G' Dragon persecutes woman (12:15)
F' Woman’s seed keeps the commandments of God (12:17)
E' The Two Beasts (13:1-18)
D' 144,000 saints & Seven Angels (14-1-15:4)
C' Seven Bowls (15:1,5-16:21)
B' Seven Angels: whore of Babylon vs. New Jerusalem (17:1-22:5)
A' Epilogue (22:6-21).
But Revelation is a kaleidoscope of images.
In viewing a kaleidoscope, some images are more impressing or relevant for
us than others. And thus the book of Revelation has been for those who
have read it over the centuries. But in our last days, all the visions
have their final application, culminating in the literal return of the
Lord to establish the Kingdom on earth. The events spoken of here
therefore have various historical applications, and one main application
in the last day.
12:2 She was with child, and was crying out with labour pains and the
agony of giving birth- This is another connection with the gospel of
John, where the Lord speaks of His followers under tribulation as a woman
in labour, whose release comes when they 'see' Him again (Jn. 16:21). This
will ultimately be at His return, and so this language speaks of the
tribulation of the church in the last days.
12:3 And there was seen another sign in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and upon his heads seven diadems- The seven heads and ten horns of the apparently invincible dragon are in obvious contrast to the Lamb [the Lord Jesus], who has no horns but seven heads and seven spirits (Rev. 5:6). Those seven spirits are the totality of God's power. The conflict appears to be all in favour of the beast. But closer thought and reflection shows that through the cross [for "the Lamb" has obvious sacrificial associations], the Lord Jesus has all power. All the scary heads and horns of the dragon and beasts will have no power against Him. The battle has already been won. The dragon and beasts may persecute God's people, but they begin the entire conflict as born losers. Because of the cross, through which all power / Spirit in Heaven and earth has been given to the Lamb.
Alfred Norris in The Apocalypse for
Everyman sums up the picture of the beasts presented in Revelation:
“Once there was a woman in heaven about to give birth, and an evil dragon
stood in front of her, intending to devour the newborn child (12.1-3). It
had already done great damage in throwing down a third part of the stars
(12.4), but when the baby boy was born he was snatched away from the
dragon to the safety of God's throne (12.5), while the woman, too, ran
away to a safe hiding place in the wilderness (12.6). The wicked dragon
was beaten in a war with Michael and his angels and, with its own angels,
was thrown out of heaven to the earth (12.7-9). The heavens rejoiced that
the dragon had been expelled (12.10-12a), but things looked bad for the
earth, for the dragon meant to continue doing evil during the short time
left to it (12.12b). First it pursued the woman, but she fled out of its
way to her refuge (12.13-14), and even the flood it sent after her failed
to overwhelm her, because the earth itself came to her aid by swallowing
up the flood (12.15-16). There were still some of her children left,
though, remaining faithful to their God and Lord, so the dragon decided to
make life hard for them (12.17). What it did was to stand by the seashore
and conjure up out of the sea a dreadful beast to which it gave worldwide
authority (13.1-2) and also healed it when it looked as though it was
wounded to death (13.3); so that the earth fell down and worshipped before
the dragon, and before the beast which took over its power (13.4). From
the wings of the stage the dragon still caused its voice to be heard
through another beast, from the earth (13.11), and helped both beasts to
gather the nations together to war against God Almighty (16.13). But its
designs failed, for when the beast and the false prophet (the second
beast) were beaten by the Lamb it was placed under restraint in the abyss
(20.2) and not allowed out for 1000 years, at the end of which it was
released, and gathered the nations together against the saints (20.7). The
nations were overcome, however, by fire from heaven, and the dragon was
finally removed from the scene by being destroyed in the lake of fire
where its helpers, the beast and the false prophet, had been cast
(20.10)”.
It is obviously the same dragon throughout the Book from chapter 12 to
chapter 20. The differences between the form it takes are because
different aspects of its actions are being presented; again we say, that
Revelation is a kaleidoscope of images. I noted on 11:7 that "the beast"
is first mentioned there but without introduction. The beast perhaps has
no introduction because of the idea of Revelation being a kaleidoscope of
images. It's not that a beast is introduced, defined and then we have
progressive development of the beast theme in a chronological sense. What
we have, true to the apocalyptic genre, is a kaleidoscope of images,
rotating before us.
The persecuting entity changes forms and has
various aspects. It is presented in chapter 12 as a dragon; the dragon
continues to exist, having given power to the beast of chapter 13. Then
another beast arises, a "little horn" who also acts as the beast (Dan.
7:11). The beast is destroyed and then finally the dragon himself at the
very end of Revelation. Politics and alliances within the land promised to
Abraham change quickly. This is the kind of sequence we can expect; one
persecuting alliance [the dragon] empowers another [the beast of Rev. 13),
then another beast arises, then there is separate persecution orchestrated
by the charismatic individuals presented as the little horn, the whore and
the false prophet. All these entities have points of similarity with each
other [e.g. the dragon and beast both have seven heads and ten horns]. But
they are none the less distinct and unique. As noted many times, we are
not to look for a chronological fulfilment in terms of a sequence of
events. These are all kaleidoscope images of the persecution to be
unleashed upon the earth / land. They merge and morph with each other, and
yet re-emerge as separate entities. The dragon has seven heads and ten
horns, with each head crowned; the beast from the sea has likewise seven
heads and ten horns, but now it is the horns which are crowned; on the
heads of the beast there are "names of blasphemy" (13:1). Their prototype
in Daniel 7:20 has ten horns upon only one head.
These nuances may be significant, but they
will only be recognizable when they have their fulfilment in the very last
days (perhaps literally) before the Lord returns. It could be that the
seven crowned heads refer to political leadership; but then they become
the bearers of the names of blasphemy, as if they take on a more
spiritual-religious aspect; and it is then the horns who are crowned at
the time of the beast in chapter 13. The outline picture is however clear;
a succession of groups of leaders and entities controlled by them (for the
horns are "kings" and "kingdoms"), all summarized within one coalition of
hatred against Israel; and a group of seven various "heads" of this
coalition, seven mountains or nations (17:9), who exist either
simultaneously or follow one another in quick succession.
It’s noteworthy that the vision of Daniel 7
is presented as seven separate visions, each introduced by the rubric “I
saw” (7:2,4,6,7,9,11,13). Revelation is an expansion upon Daniel’s
visions, and there we find seven visions which are in turn subdivided into
seven visions and even some of those subdivisions are subdivided into
seven visions. Admittedly, these can be defined in various ways, but some
of the more obvious ones are:
7 visions:
1) Revelation 4 - 8:1
2) Revelation 8:2 - 11
3) Revelation 12 - 14
4) Revelation 15, 16
5) Revelation 17, 18
6) Revelation 19
7) Revelation 20
The seven visions of conflict explaining the Establishment of God’s
Kingdom between Rev. 11:15-13:8:
1. The woman with child: the birth of Jesus, 12:1-2
2. The great red dragon: the enemy of Peace, 12:3-6
3. The war in heaven: the Cross, 12:7-12
4. The dragon, the woman, and her children: the struggle of God’s people,
12:13-17
5. The seven-headed beast from the sea, 13:1-4
6. The war against the saints: persecutions, 13:5-10
7. The beast and his mark: corruption of the emperor and the dragon’s
agents, 13:11-18
Then there are the Seven Visions of Zion, Rev. 14:1-20; the Seven Bowls of
the Wrath of God, Rev. 15:1-16:21; the Seven Visions of the Fall of
Babylon, Rev. 17:1-19:10; the Seven Visions of Recompense, Rev.
19:11-21:5.
The point is that the outline scenario of Daniel 7 is repeated in more
detail in Revelation. But the primary reference remains the same- a
prediction of a final time of trouble within the land promised to Abraham,
which will come to term in the return of Christ to earth to establish His
Kingdom upon the ruins of Israel’s enemies. For this is the metanarrative
of Daniel's prophecies, beginning from the empires dominating the land
outlined in Daniel 2.
"Seven heads and ten horns" refers to how groups of seven and ten nations
and kings surrounding Israel are associated with previous dominations of
Israel (7= Dt. 7:1; Josh. 3:10; Acts 13:19; 10 = Gen. 15:18; Ps. 83; the
ten surrounding nations starting with Egypt and ending with Babylon of
Jer. 46-50; the ten toes of the image of Daniel 2, the ten horns of the
beast of Daniel 7; the ten invading nations of Ez. 38 headed by Gog).
The similarity with the fourth beast of
Daniel 7 have led many to see a fulfilment in Rome; with the seven heads
referring to seven forms of government or the seven mountains,
or hills, on which it is claimed Rome is built; or to seven capital cities
in the Roman empire (Rome, Carthage, Aege, Antiochia, Augustodunum,
Alexandria, and Constantinople). The ten horns are seen as ten European
peoples who came out of the Roman empire. This may be true to a limited
extent, but the events described here lead to the establishment of God's
Kingdom. This didn't happen, and certainly not at the hands of Constantine
as claimed. Further, the attempts to enumerate seven forms of Roman
government, or ten kingdoms coming out of the broken up Roman empire, are
arbitrary and seriously flawed. Far more than ten kingdoms came out of
Rome; and Rome broke up over a period of time. Likewise the various forms
of Government can be defined variously. It is all rather forced, and
involves coming to history looking for a fulfilment of Revelation, rather
than letting the symbols speak for themselves and find obvious fulfilment
when the right time comes. J.B. Norris has written a helpful critique of
the continuous historical approach to Roman history, which remains
unanswered. He demonstrates the highly selective use of historical fact
and the cherry picking of incidents to fit into a picture required by a
pre-existing commitment to the continuous historical approach. The
argument that the Roman empire broke up in a very short time into ten
kingdoms is particularly suspect. There were far more kingdoms than Huns,
Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Vandals, Alans, Burgundians, Heruli, Saxons
and Lombards. And these are the kings of the "earth"; and there is
absolutely no Biblical reason for interpreting the earth / land as Western
Europe. That bears all the signs of 'Western' centric bias.
The Bible is Israel centred, focused upon the
earth / land promised to Abraham. Daniel 2 predicts a sequence of body
parts which shall dominate that area, and then Daniel 7 gives more detail
about these parts, expressing them in form of beasts, which shall come
together in the last days to dominate the land and crush God's people.
Revelation develops these beasts further- but the essential message is the
same: it concerns the latter day domination of Israel by her enemies.
There will be a final time of tribulation, resolved by the return of the
Lord Jesus to earth and the establishment of His Kingdom on earth. The
seven diadems will then be seen as a poor imitation of the “many diadems"
on Christ’s head (19:12).
So in summary my suggestion is that the seven
heads and ten horns on the dragon and beast refer to a quick succession or
co-existence of various peoples, leaders or entities originating from or
around the land promised to Abraham, which will persecute God's people in
the last days. They will all form part of the coalition of evil known as
the beast or dragon, and radical Islam will be their religion. The dragon
/ beast is clearly an extension of the fourth beast of Daniel 7. To
understand that beast would require major exposition, which you can see at
http://www.n-e-v.info/cm/dan7com.html
, and yet that in turn requires an understanding of the image of Daniel 2
which is the basis for the beasts; see on
http://www.n-e-v.info/cm/dan2com.html
, and the development of the beasts in Daniel 8, see
http://www.n-e-v.info/cm/dan8com.html
Dan. 7:21,22 speak of how the "saints" will
be persecuted by the beast, and then "the saints" will 'possess the
Kingdom'. The "saints" are Israel, the same Hebrew word is used in Ex.
19:5 to describe them as a holy or saintly nation, a nation of saints,
sanctified ones. If we understand the Kingdom as primarily the land
promised to Abraham's seed for them to 'possess', then this makes sense.
That land will be dominated and trodden down by the beast, and then the
remnant of Abraham's seed will triumphantly possess it eternally; and that
mountain, or Kingdom, will then grow to fill the whole planet.
The little horn devours, treads down and breaks in pieces "the earth"
(Dan. 7:23); that has little meaning if applied to the whole planet. The
context speaks of destruction and persecution of "the saints", God's
people in His land. The reference is surely to the specific land of
Israel.
The beast will "devour" the land (Dan. 7:7),
just as the historical Babylon 'devoured' Jerusalem with fire (Jer. 30:16;
Lam. 4:11; Ez. 15:5; 19:12; 23:25; Hos. 8:14; Am. 1:4; 2:5) and the
Assyrians devoured the land (Jer. 50:17; Hos. 11:6; 13:8; Joel 1:4,19,20;
2:3,5,25). All these verses use the same word translated 'devour' in Dan.
7:7. Clearly enough, the 'devouring' of the fourth beast is a summation of
all previous 'devourings' of God's land and people. Even in Old Testament
times, this idea of a singular beast embodying all Israel's enemies was
not unknown. For Ez. 34:28 looked forward to the day when "Neither shall
the beast of the land devour them [any more]". Mal. 3:11 likewise speaks
of how "the devourer" will be rebuked by God when finally Israel respond
to the Elijah prophet (Mal. 3:1). This again suggests that the final
devouring of Israel will be whilst the Elijah prophet is making an ongoing
appeal for their repentance and acceptance of Jesus. Once they do so, the
devourer is rebuked and Jesus returns to His desperately repentant people.
12:4 And his tail drew the third part of
the stars of heaven and he did throw them to the earth; and the dragon
stands before the woman that is about to give birth, so that when she
gives birth he may devour her child- A dragon waves its tail before
it pounces. The decorum of the symbol may mean that this is but the
prelude to a greater, final destruction which the dragon wants to achieve.
The earlier visions have described how 'thirds' of the people in the land
are destroyed. Here we have this described in dramatic terms; a third of
the stars (referring to the sons of Jacob, Gen. 37; or possibly to their
leaders) are thrown to the earth, in order to be trampled; we have just
read of Jerusalem being trampled for three and a half years in 11:2. But
the dragon at the same time intends to destroy the seed of the woman, the
Christian believers, her newborn male child.
The attempt to destroy the newborn boy child
is of course framed in terms of Pharaoh’s attempt to destroy the baby boys
of Israel in Egypt, and Herod's attempt to do the same to the Lord Jesus
at His birth. But neither Pharaoh nor Herod achieved their aim; the baby
boys of Israel, especially Moses, were somehow preserved; as was the Lord
Jesus from Herod's intentions.
The coalition dominating the land promised to
Abraham therefore seeks also to persecute the Christians there and not
simply orthodox Jews. Is. 37:3 uses a significant figure in this context
to describe how when Jerusalem was surrounded by the Assyrians, with much
of the land and people desolated, something was conceived, but there
appeared no strength to deliver the child. That person conceived was a
repentant remnant of Judah, who were perhaps prefigured by Isaiah's
children of sign, and the unusual conception of his wife in Isaiah 7 which
became typical of the Lord's conception and birth of a virgin.
The intention of all the latter day trauma
which Revelation describes is to bring about the repentance of a remnant.
This group of genuine Christians within the land, perhaps largely Jews,
will elicit the especial wrath and attention of the dragon coalition. But
just as the two witnesses of chapter 11 were miraculously preserved for
three and a half years, so the woman and her child are likewise.
The little horn of Daniel 8 is connected with
the dragon:
|
". . . it cast down some ... of the
stars to the ground, and stamped upon them" |
"And his tail drew the third part of
the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth" |
|
(Daniel 8:10) |
(Revelation 12:4) |
The dragon drew a third of the stars of
heaven to the earth with his tail. If this is read literally – and
Revelation 12 has to be read literally to support the Popular
Interpretation – the sheer size of the dragon is immense – a third of the
whole universe (or solar system at least) could be contained just on his
tail. There is no way the planet earth would be big enough to contain such
huge creature sprawling over it. Most of the stars of the solar system are
bigger than our earth – how then could a third of them land on earth? And
remember that all this happened, or will happen, after the first century
A.D., when this prophecy was given.
12:5 And she gave birth to a son, a man
child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child
was caught up to God and to His throne- The "man child” is clearly
referring to the Lord Jesus, who is to subdue the nations with a rod of
iron (Rev. 12:5 = 2:27; 19:15). But this is a prophecy of events to happen
after His birth. The entity the woman gives birth to is part of "the seed
of the woman", they are "in Christ" as Paul would put it; but not the Lord
Jesus personally. All that is true of Him becomes true of those in Him. We
have learnt already that those who overcome shall reign with Christ on His
throne, and they too "shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels
of the potter are broken to pieces" (2:27). Perhaps that repentant Jewish
remnant at this time will be literally snatched away from persecution and
be preserved. It would seem that this man child is connected with the two
witnesses, who die and are resurrected, and then likewise snatched away to
Heaven: "And they heard a great voice from heaven saying to them: Come up
here! And they went into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies saw them"
(11:12). The woman who gave birth to this remnant would then refer to the
true Christian believers who were already in existence before the
tribulation started. They escape, as explained in :6.
12:6 And the woman fled into the
wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that there they may
nourish her one thousand two hundred and sixty days- This
three-and-a-half-year period is surely the same "42 months" during which
Jerusalem is trampled (11:2) and the same period during which the two
witnesses testify before their death (11:3). It may be objected that the
man child is snatched away before this three-and-a-half-year period begins
(:5). It could be that the snatching away to God occurs not immediately,
and that we are reading in :5 of a situation which finally occurs (after
three and a half years) and now :6 backtracks to explain how this happens.
For it was Mary who fled through the wilderness to Egypt with the man
child in her arms. And it would seem that she was there in Egypt with the
Lord for around three and a half years. This is the same period of the
Elijah ministry (Lk. 4:25). The 'problem' with the witnesses being killed
after this period and the man child being snatched away before it need not
unduly concern us; I have many times made the point that we have in
Revelation a kaleidoscope of images, and we are not being given any neat,
linear chronological outline of events. As the images rotate and merge,
there are going to be points of apparent overlap and morphing of images.
The woman who gave birth to the repentant
Jewish remnant, the man child, finds safety in the wilderness as did Mary
and as did Israel when they fled Egyptian persecution. There they too were
provide for. This may connect with the picture presented in Is. 26:20 of
the faithful entering into a quiet room, until the tribulations pass over.
Likewise the letters to the churches with which Revelation open feature
the idea of the faithful being somehow preserved from tribulation (see on
2:10). The only other time the Greek phrase "a place prepared" occurs is
also in John's writings (Jn. 14:2,3); due to the Lord's death, salvation
is assured for all in tribulation. The prepared place is in God's Kingdom
(Mt. 25:34). Perhaps the woman will somehow be saved or given miraculous
protection during this tribulation period.
12:7 And there was a war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with
the dragon; and the dragon and his angels retaliated- John is as it
were "in heaven", viewing things going on in the heavenly throne room.
Each situation and entity on earth has representative Angels, who are
God's Angels, and not themselves sinful nor rebellious; although they can
represent sinful situations and actions on earth. Michael, the Angel who
stands for Israel (Dan. 10:21; 12:1; Jude 9), fights with the dragon
entity and his supporters. We note that Gabriel is the Angel associated
with the Lord Jesus. But we read here of Michael, not Gabriel. This is not
a struggle between Jesus and the devil. It speaks of a struggle between
Israel and Israel's persecutors. But ultimately, those persecuting the
Israelites are fighting God Himself and His Angels. The same word for
"fought / retaliated" is used of how the beast which the dragon empowers
appears invincible- "Who is able to make war [s.w.] against him?" (13:4).
Yet he is effectively making war against God, who is at war against him
(19:11); the beast in another of its manifestations makes war / fights
with the Lamb (17:14). This is another manifestation of the jihadists
locusts rushing to "make war" (9:7,9 s.w.). The war is not only against
Israel, but against the believers; for the same word is used of the beast
making war against the two witnesses (11:7). This is all part of the final
battle when the kings of the land gather to fight (16:14; 19:19 s.w.).
What it doesn't mean
Angels cannot sin and that there can be no
rebellion in heaven. Thus this passage – which is the only one of its kind
– must be interpreted in a way that does not involve angels sinning or
there being sinful angels making people sin on earth, seeing that sin
comes from within us, not from outside of us (Mk. 7:20–23). Note carefully
that there is no reference here to angels sinning or rebelling against
God, only to a war in heaven.
That the Devil–dragon represents some kind of
political power is indicated by it having “crowns upon his heads” (v. 3).
Revelation 17:9,10 also comments on this dragon: “Here is the mind that
hath wisdom” – i.e. don’t try and understand this animal as a literal
being – “The seven heads are seven mountains... these are seven kings”.
One of the kings continuing “a short space” perhaps connects with the
Devil–dragon having “but a short time” in Revelation 12:12.
After the drama of :7–9, verse 10 says that
there was “a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation
and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for
the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our
God day and night”. If :7–9 occurred at the beginning of the world, before
the time of Adam and Eve, how could it be said that after Satan’s fall
there came salvation and the kingdom of God? After Adam’s sin, mankind
began his sad history of slavery to sin and failure – a state hardly to be
described as “salvation” and the kingdom of God. There is rejoicing that
the Devil – the accuser – has been cast down to earth. Why should there be
rejoicing if his coming to earth was the start of sin and disaster for
man? If a fall from heaven to earth is understood figuratively rather than
literally, as representing a fall from authority (as Is. 14:12; Jer.
51:53; Lam. 2:1; Mt. 11:23), much more sense can be made of all this. If
all this happened before the time of Adam, or at least before the fall of
man, how could the Devil have been accusing “our brethren”, seeing they
did not then exist? There is nothing indicating that all this happened in
the Garden of Eden. A vital point is made in Revelation 1:1 and 4:1 – that
the Revelation is a prophecy of “things which must shortly come to pass”.
It is not therefore a description of what happened in Eden, but a prophecy
of things to happen at some time after the first century, when the
Revelation was given by Jesus. Any who are truly humble to the Word will
see that this argument alone precludes all attempts to refer Revelation 12
to the Garden of Eden. The question has also to be answered as to why the
identity of the Devil and information about what happened in Eden should
be reserved until the end of the Bible before being revealed.
In view of this and many other things in
Revelation 12 (and the whole prophecy) which are just incapable of any
literal fulfilment, it is not surprising that we are told first of all
(Rev. 1:1) that this is a message that has been “signified” – i.e. put
into sign language, or symbol. As if to emphasize this in the context of
Revelation 12, Revelation 12:1 describes the subsequent action as “a great
sign” (A.V. margin). In reading of what the Devil does when he is on the
earth, there is no description of him causing people to sin; indeed, vs.
12–16 show that the Devil was unsuccessful in his attempts to cause
trouble on earth once he arrived there. This contradicts the popular
interpretation. In their eagerness to show that Rev. 12:7–9 refers to
fallen angels at the beginning of the world, apologists for a personal
Satan have rather overlooked the context of the passage. A woman in
Heaven, in the agony of childbirth and resting her feet on the moon, is
faced by a dragon, whose tail throws down a third of the stars of Heaven
to earth (Rev. 12:4). She gives birth, and the child “was caught up unto
God, and to his throne” (Rev. 12:5). Clearly enough the “heaven” where all
this occurs isn’t the “heaven” where God lives and where His throne is.
Next we read of a power struggle “in heaven”, and the dragon and his
angels are “cast out” (Rev. 12:9). The dragon throws one third of the
stars of Heaven to earth – are these Angels? If so, how come the dragon
and not God casts them to earth? That’s quite the opposite of the scenario
painted in Paradise Lost. How can a literalistic reading of this
passage cope with the two episodes of Angels being cast down to
earth? At the very least, care in thought and exposition is clearly
lacking in the orthodox reading of this passage. The woman, who is never
recorded as leaving “Heaven”, then flees “into the wilderness” (Rev.
12:6). Once the dragon is cast to the earth, then he starts persecuting
the woman by hissing huge volumes of water at her (Rev. 12:13). The earth
opens and swallows this water (Rev. 12:16) – even though the woman is
never recorded as losing her “in heaven” status. All this is reason enough
to not interpret “heaven” and “earth” in this passage in any literal
manner. The appearance of the woman and dragon “in heaven” is described as
a semeion, a “sign”, something that needs to be interpreted,
rather than a literal fact (Rev. 12:1,3).
The language of ‘war’ is surely metaphor
rather than literal description. What begins as a literal battle ends as a
legal one, as the metaphor changes to the law court, with accusers, judge
and Satan’s case rejected. If the legal language isn’t to be taken
literally, why should the ‘war’ language be so literal?
The Chronological Problem
The woman of :1 is “clothed with the sun, and
the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars”. These
heavenly bodies, as well as the woman, apparently suspended in heaven,
cannot be literal. She could not literally be clothed with the sun, or
have stars as big as the earth on her literal head.
Another sign appears in heaven in :3 – a red
dragon. This is commonly taken as a literal heaven, but why should it be,
seeing that the same heaven is referred to in v. 1 and that is clearly
figurative? Verse 4 shows the dragon casting a third of the stars of
heaven to earth. We have seen that because of the size of the stars and
earth, this cannot therefore refer to literal stars or heaven. The Kingdom
of God is to be established on earth (Dan. 2:44; Mt. 5:5), which will not
be possible if the earth is destroyed (which it would be) by huge stars
falling onto it.
The woman in “heaven” then delivered her
child, who was “caught up unto God and to his throne” (v. 5). God’s throne
is in heaven. If the woman was already in heaven, why would her child have
to be “caught up” to heaven? She must have been a symbol of something on
earth, although in a figurative “heaven”. She then flees “into the
wilderness” (v. 6). If she was in literal heaven, this means there is a
wilderness in heaven. It is far more fitting for her to be in a figurative
heavenly place, and then flee to a literal or figurative wilderness on the
earth.
We then come to v. 7 – “there was war in
heaven”. All other references to “heaven” in Revelation 12 having been
figurative, it seems only consistent that this was war in a figurative
heaven. This must be the case, as there can be no rebellion or sin in
literal heaven (Mt. 6:10; Ps. 5:4–5; Hab. 1:13). The common view claims
that wicked angels are locked up in hell; but here they are in heaven.
They are not therefore literal angels.
I sometimes ask those who believe in the
orthodox idea of the Devil the following question: ‘Can you give me a
brief Biblical history of the Devil, according to your interpretation of
Bible passages? The response is highly contradictory. According to
‘orthodox’ reasoning, the answer has to be something like this:
a) The Devil was an angel in heaven who was thrown out into the garden of
Eden. He was thrown to earth in Gen. 1.
b) He is supposed to have come to earth and
married in Gen 6.
c) At the time of Job he is said to have had
access to both heaven and earth.
d) By the time of Is. 14 he is thrown out of
heaven onto earth.
e) In Zech. 3 he is in heaven again.
f) He is on earth in Mt. 4.
g) He is “cast out” at the time of Jesus’
death, according to the popular view of “the prince of this world” being
“cast out” at that time.
h) There is a prophecy of the Devil being
‘cast out’ in Rev. 12.
i) The Devil is “chained” in Rev. 20, but he
and his angels were chained in Genesis, according to the common view of
Jude 6. If he was bound with ‘eternal chains’ then, how is he chained up
again in Rev. 20?
From this it should be obvious that the
popular view that the Devil was cast out of heaven for sinning cannot be
true, seeing that he is described as still being in heaven after each
occurrence of being ‘cast out’. It is vital to understand both heaven and
the Devil in a figurative sense.
Revelation 12: Deconstructing Pagan
Myths
Various scholars have shown that this passage
is full of allusion to contemporary pagan myths (e.g. Neil Forsyth,
Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1989) chapter 13). For example, the Greeks believed that the dragon Python
attempts to kill the new born son of Zeus but is stopped the escape of the
child’s mother, Leto, to the island of Delos; Apollo then comes and slays
the dragon. For the Egyptians, Set the red dragon hunts Isis but is then
killed by her son Horus. In other myths, the dragon of darkness tries to
kill the sun god but is killed by him. There are other examples of the sun
god myth being alluded to in Revelation. Take the description of Jesus as
having eyes as a flaming fire and feet of pure bronze (Rev. 2:18). This is
said to the Thyatira ecclesia – and the god of Thyatira was Apollo, the
sun god, known locally as Tyrimnos, who appeared in this very form on the
city’s coins. The point of the allusion was that actually, there is no sun
god – for the Christians in Thyatira, that means Jesus.
This is in keeping with what we have seen
elsewhere in the Scriptures – pagan myths are alluded to in order to
deconstruct them. Surely the point of all the allusions here in Revelation
12 is to say: ‘Take your attention away from all these myths of what
supposedly is going on out in the cosmos. Get real. Here on earth, you are
going to be persecuted by Rome [or some other adversary]. Prepare for it
in your hearts. The real enemy isn’t a dragon in the sky. It’s Rome’.
Other scholars have demonstrated that Revelation 12 and 13 contain many
allusions to contemporary Jewish writings – e.g. Rev. 12:9; 13:14 speak of
the beast / Satan “leading astray those that dwell on the earth”, quoting
from the Apocalypse of Abraham and Enoch 54.6 about the
armies of Azazel / Satan who “lead astray those that dwell on the earth”.
The point is that pagan Rome and the Jewish ‘Satan’ were those who were
leading astray, and who would be punished in the cataclysm of AD70; and in
a last days context, it is the latter day Satan / beast who will lead
astray many and be destroyed by the second coming of Christ.
For 15 years Dr. David Pitt-Francis applied
an exceptional mind to trying to get to grips with the book of Revelation
(David Pitt-Francis, The Most Amazing Message Ever Written
(Irchester, UK: Mark Saunders Books, 1983)). His conclusion, written up in
chapter 9 of his book, was that not only does Revelation 12 not teach the
existence of a personal Satan, but it actually is a parody of the whole
belief in a sinful Satan figure existing in Heaven. He follows the
approach that Revelation 12 alludes heavily to pagan myths of a Satan
figure existing in Heaven, and that the whole idea of the chapter is to
show that, given the victory of the Lord Jesus over all evil, those pagan
ideas are just no longer tenable in any form. The idea of a Satan figure
in Heaven has been ‘cast down’ for the serious believer in Christ: “Satan
was imagined to have dominated at least a third of heaven in pre-Christian
times. Babylonian, Zend and Teutonic thought assumed ‘Satan’ or his
equivalent to be in possession of about a third of heaven. Jewish apostate
thought (as in Enoch) also imagined a third of heaven to be in the
possession of rebellious angels. The vision of a dragon occupying a third
of heaven, and specifically defined as the ‘Devil and Satan’ is provided
at this stage, not to indicate some literal fact, but to summarise the
preconceptions about the Devil which had existed in pagan thought before
the coming of Christ, and that had even crept into Judaism... It was
primarily the task of Christianity to show the world that evil could have
no place in heaven, that it did not occupy a place in heaven except in the
imagination of mankind, and that it could be vanquished by the grace of
Christ, and the Word of His testimony... The casting forth of Satan from
heaven is a powerful symbol of what would happen to the human concept of
evil as a result of the teaching of Christ. The woman and the dragon
cannot coexist in heaven... Could there have been such a literal ‘Devil’
or even a ‘literal’ dragon, who perverted a third of the angels in heaven
and cast them to the ground, as Jewish apocalyptic writers had actually
believed? If we adopt this literalistic stance, we not only fall into the
error of those books against which the Revelation was written but miss the
main message of the chapter, that since the advent of Christianity to
disprove the concept of imagined evil in heaven, no ‘Devil’ has ever had
any place there”. He goes on to suggest that ‘Satan’ in post–Christian
religions [e.g. Islam] has always been envisaged as a being living under
the earth, in a supposed “hell”, rather than in Heaven. Whether or not we
feel happy with this kind of ‘spiritualized’ interpretation of Revelation,
the allusions of Revelation 12 to material in the book of Enoch about
Heavenly rebellions, Enoch being caught up to God etc., cannot be
gainsaid. And I suggest that such allusions are indeed, as David
Pitt-Francis suggests, in order to deconstruct these wrong ideas.
First century applications
Revelation is a description of events on
earth from the perspective of what happens in Heaven – encouraging the
early Christians that God and His Son and His Angels are in fact intensely
aware of the crises going on, and actually the whole scenario is playing
itself out in the court of Heaven. All powers and individuals and
organizations on earth have in Heaven their Angelic representatives, and
the situations are tried by God before His throne – with the result that
it is those on the side of Christ who are vindicated. The language with
which John’s Apocalypse achieves this is shot through with allusion to
earthly realities, often deconstructing the claims of pagans. Rome was the
great reality of the first century world; it was appropriate for the
Jewish mind of the time to understand the “serpent” / adversary figure as
referring to Rome. According to the Jewish Encyclopaedia, “the Serpent is
spoken of as Harasha’, “the Wicked One,” in Gen. R. xx., Bek. 8a
(compare Targ. Yer. Gen. iii. 13); and Rome as the wicked kingdom,
Malkut ha–resha’ah (Gen. R. lxxvi.)” (5).
Roman coins depicted the goddess Roma, THEAN ROMEN, as queen of the gods
and mother of the world’s saviour. John speaks of she who claims to be the
queen of the earth (Rev. 18:7) – and portrays her instead as nothing but a
prostitute, who is soon to be destroyed. The fact Revelation alludes to
the goddess Roma in this way doesn’t mean that ‘she’ actually existed in
Heaven in reality. And the way John in Rev. 12 likewise alludes to myths
about dragons and beasts doesn’t mean they exist either. The material in
Rev. 12 has some twists in it which debunk the legends – thus it is not
emperor of Rome who slays the dragon, it is the victory of Christ on the
cross, through His blood, which is the real means of victory against all
opposition on earth. The telling paradox is that the escape for the
persecuted child is through death, through blood, rather than
through some dashing heroic victory in battle. When Jeremiah compared
Babylon to a dragon gulping down Jerusalem whole, we don’t for a moment
think that Babylon was a literal dragon (Jer. 51:34); likewise when
Ezekiel calls Pharaoh a dragon lying in a stream (Ez. 29:3). The message
was that the real dragon / chaos monster was earthly powers – and God
would break them. And so it is with Revelation’s message, although more
attention is given to the idea of those earthly powers having Angelic
representatives in the court of Heaven.
The language of judgment is really common
throughout the Bible. In fact we could say that legal language is
disproportionately common in the Bible. The idea of a Divine, heavenly
court is common. God is the judge who upholds the weak, those who are
condemned by human judgment (1 Sam. 24:15; Ps. 9:4; 43:1; 140:12; Lam.
3:58; Mic. 7:9); He is even portrayed as the one appealing for justice
(Ps. 74:22). If God is the only and ultimate judge, then His
judgment is all that ultimately matters, and in this sense human
‘sentences’ or judgment from the court of human opinion are reversed by
Him (Prov. 22:22,23). Yet the pain of being judged by those around us is
highly significant to us mortals; and time and again, Scripture is
reminding us that we should not pay deep attention to this, because God’s
judgment is what ultimately matters; and the Divine court is sitting in
session right now, at the very same time as those around us are judging us
with their meaningless human judgments. This, then, is the ultimate answer
to the pain of being slandered and defamed, being misunderstood and
misrepresented, or feeling that persecution by worldly powers is not
noticed by God.
The traditional reading of Revelation 12
makes out that there was a rebellion in Heaven, the Devil came down to
earth, and then trouble started down here. But the whole idea of
Revelation’s visions of ‘heaven’ is that we are being given snapshots of
the ‘throne room’ of Heaven, the Divine court... which is a reflection of
what is actually going on here on earth, and what will subsequently follow
from this in the future. I wish to stress this point, because I think it’s
fundamental to understanding Revelation. Those visions aren’t historical
descriptions of what happened before creation, before human history. They
are insights into how God right then in the first century viewed what was
going on there in the Middle East on planet earth, showing us how He
judged the situations and Governments and individuals involved, and what
would follow from this. Thus when we read that no place was found for the
opposing forces in Heaven (Rev. 12:8), we are to imagine the
representative of those forces, the barrister as it were, being thrown out
of court. They would simply disappear from the Heavenly court room, thrown
out of court as it were, perhaps reflected by the Angel representing them
leaving the court. What makes interpreting Revelation so confusing is that
there are so many layers of allusion going on in the text at one and the
same time. Thus Rev. 12 alludes to the surrounding myths, and yet also on
multiple further layers to Old Testament themes. The vision of Rev. 12
clearly has in mind Pharaoh pursuing the escaping Israelites as a dragon
pursues (Ex. 14:8), Israel like the early church carried on eagles’ wings
to some safety (Ex. 19:4), Pharaoh trying to destroy Israel by drowning
them in the water of the Nile, God providing for His people in the desert.
Again, these allusions are to a real historical situation that happened
here on earth – and not to some Biblically unrecorded drama somewhere out
in the cosmos.
12:8 But he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in
heaven- God's side are assured of victory. Literally, the dragon was
'of no power'; for all such power is vested in the Lord Jesus (s.w. 5:12;
7:12). And yet viewed from earthly perspectives, the dragon appears
invincible in power (13:4). John is viewing heaven opened, and the
geopolitical situation in the land in the very last days being played out
before him, with Angelic actors, as it were, representing the various
entities on earth. But now the dragon has no more place there; this can
also be understood as meaning he had no more power, reading 'heaven' as
symbolic of power. We will still read of the dragon; giving power to the
beast, and then being chained in chapter 20. Again we see that the visions
are not intended to be interpreted in such a way that there emerges a
linear chronological progression of events. Rather are we seeing different
perspectives and angles on the same ultimate realities. The dragon finally
loses power- that is the point.
12:9 And the great dragon was cast down,
the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of
the whole world. He was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast
down with him- The conflict between God and the persecuting coalition
of the last days will be the final manifestation of God's battle with sin
and evil. He will finally be revealed as triumphant. Perhaps the symbology
of a woman is chosen in :1 exactly so as to point up this allusion to the
battle between the women and the serpent which began in Gen. 3:15. Eden is
now about to be restored. This latter day entity will have deceived the
world- perhaps a reference to an influence larger than over the earth /
land promised to Abraham. For the coalition of evil will have deceived
people worldwide to support their mania against Israel and Christians. It
is hard not to see reference here to radical Islam. The same word for
'deceit' is often used in the Olivet prophecy. There would be 'deceit'
associated with false prophets (and "the false prophet" is associated with
the beast in Revelation- a likely reference to some incarnation of
Mohammed, some jihadist imams claiming to be God's prophets on earth).
This will "deceive many", here called "the whole world" (Mt.
24:4,5,11,24), "the nations" (20:3), especially those in the corners of
the land promised to Abraham (20:8). The deceit will involve claims that
the Christ has come (Mt. 24:5)- perhaps a reference to some jihadist claim
about the Mahdi. This deception will be given surface level credibility by
false miracles performed by "the false prophet" (13:14; 19:20), which are
in fact performed by magic (18:23). The deceitful coalition is cast from
heaven to earth; this is figurative for a loss of power, but this entity
is now pictures as angry and desperate on the earth / land promised to
Abraham.
The Greek word ballo translated
“cast out” doesn’t necessarily mean to throw down – Greek has
words for this specific idea and it’s significant that they’re not used
here. Here are a few examples of the usage of ballo, showing that
it really means to expel or re-place:
– A wind “arose” (Acts 27:14); a crowd
“threw” dust up into the air (Acts 22:23); a sword is “put up”
into a sheath (Jn. 18:11) imply the word can mean to throw up as
well as to throw down.
– Men “cast” stones (Jn. 8:7,59), “strike” another man on the face (Mk.
14:65), “put” fingers in the ear (Mk. 7:33), people “lay” upon a bed (Mt.
8:6,14; 9:2; Mk. 7:30) – horizontal movement.
– We “put” bits into the mouths of horses (James 3:3) – no vertical
movement there. Thomas “thrust” his hand into the Lord’s side (Jn. 20:27).
– Believers were “cast” into prison (Acts 16:24,37; Rev. 2:10) – the idea
of vertical movement isn’t there. Likewise love “casts out” fear (1 Jn.
4:18).
– The dragon casts water out of his mouth (Rev. 12:15,16), horizontally
along the ground. Here the word clearly doesn’t mean to throw down
from a height – and the same word is used in that context for the Devil
being “cast out”, i.e. ejected, from Heaven.
– Men “cast” dust on their own heads (Rev. 18:19).
The serpent is cast out of heaven, implying
it was originally there. But the literal serpent in Eden was created by
God out of the dust of the earth (Gen. 1:24–25). There is no implication
that the Devil came down from heaven and got inside the serpent. The
language of “cast down” and “cast out” does not require literal downwards
movement – Babylon is “thrown down” in Rev. 18:21. The O.T. basis of “cast
out” is in the nations / beasts being cast out from God’s presence in the
land of Israel. In Rev. 12 we have another woman in the wilderness, who
enters the Kingdom [cp. the land] once the beast is cast out. In Dan. 7:9
the thrones of the beast / kingdoms are “cast down” before God’s Kingdom
is established on earth, just as the beast is cast down before the
establishment of the Kingdom in Rev. 12. The idea of being cast out of
Heaven was and is common in Semitic languages and even wider culture for a
loss of power – thus Cicero comments about Mark Anthony: “You have hurled
your colleagues down from heaven”.
“That old serpent” (Rev. 12:9) is often
misread to mean that the original serpent in the Garden of Eden is now a
dragon in the sky. But care in thought and Biblical exposition is lacking
in such a view. The orthodox understanding is that Satan sinned in Heaven,
and was thrown down to earth, where he tempted Eve in the form of a
serpent. But Rev. 12:9 is a prophecy of the future, just prior to
the return of Christ to earth, saying that then there will be a
conflict “in heaven” – which we understand to be figurative language. The
orthodox interpretation does violence to the obvious chronology, and is
evidently an opportunistic grabbing hold of Biblical phrases with no
attention at all to their context, and stringing them together to justify
popular Christianity’s adoption of Jewish and pagan myths about the Devil.
In passing, note how Gen. 3:15 prophesies that God will put
hostility between the serpent and the woman. This is not what we would
expect to hear if this were indeed speaking of a pre-existent Christ and
Satan. According to the orthodox understanding, the enmity between them
occurred in Heaven before Satan supposedly came down to earth.
Notice, too, that according to the Biblical record in Gen. 3:15 it is God
who created this hostility, whereas the common view implies it was Satan’s
hatred of God which was the original enmity. We read that the dragon /
serpent’s “place” was not “found” in Heaven as a result of the final
struggle (Rev. 12:8). The same term is to be found in Rev. 20:11, where we
read that the ‘Heaven and earth’ had no place found for them in Heaven as
a result of Christ’s final sitting in judgment. Clearly, ‘Heaven and
earth’ are figurative – used here, as so often in the Bible, to refer to a
system of things. Notice how the Devil / dragon / serpent are thus
paralleled with the ‘Heaven and earth’. This worldly system of things in
the last days, the dragon / serpent power, will be no more after the final
judgment seat of Christ. We see all this prefigured in how the rejected
Esau came before his father Isaac, typical of the rejection of the wicked
at the final judgment, and “found no place”, despite his tears and
gnashing of teeth (Heb. 12:17). The rejected people at the final
judgment will “not be able” to enter God’s Kingdom then (Lk. 13:24) – and
the same Greek word is used in Rev. 12:8 to describe how the serpent /
Devil system of people will not “prevail”. Clearly the reference of Rev.
12 is to the very last day, when Christ returns to earth in judgment. The
serpent ‘not prevailing’ and ‘finding no place’ with God in ‘Heaven’
refers [in the light of the same terms used in other Bible passages] to
what happens at the final judgment, at Christ’s second coming, and it is
therefore not descriptive of some past events in Eden. It’s also
noteworthy that the serpent / Devil is ‘cast down’ from Heaven to make
“woe” for “the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea” (Rev. 12:12). This
hardly sounds like the orthodox Satan of Paradise Lost being
thrown down to earth to make trouble for just Adam and Eve. The people who
inhabit “the sea” rather than the earth surely indicates that we are to
understand all this literally. And it is “the serpent” who is thrown down
from Heaven to the earth / sea. Orthodox thinking holds that Satan was
cast down and became a serpent here on earth rather than being a serpent
“in Heaven” as Rev. 12 requires. In any case, the woman in Rev. 12 is
persecuted by the serpent rather than being charmed and tempted by him;
and she escapes from him by fleeing into “the wilderness”, which makes the
serpent mad with her (Rev. 12:13–17). None of this Biblical testimony fits
the orthodox interpretation of the passage – it directly contradicts it.
When we read that the Devil–dragon “deceives”
people, this is defined more specifically in Rev. 19:20 as referring to
deceiving people in the very last days by false miracles worked in
conjunction with the “false prophet”. Thus the deceit is not to be
understood as a general inciting of humanity to sin in their hearts – the
deceit is specified as occurring only in the last days, immediately prior
to the Kingdom of God being established.
The “old serpent” may be a reference to the characteristics of the serpent
whom we meet in Genesis. The serpent–Eve incident played itself out in
history, and still does, in that the children of the woman [God’s people]
are tempted and now threatened by the powers of sin and sinful
organizations. Thus Paul could say that in the same way as the serpent
tempted Eve, so Jewish false teachers in the early church were tempting
the true bride of Christ (2 Cor. 11:3). So it was again in the persecution
of true Christians by the Roman empire, which Rev. 12 initially refers to;
so it was throughout history; and so it will be in the time of the final
tribulation before the second coming of Christ. My specific suggestions as
to the fulfilment of Rev. 12 in the latter day tribulation can be found in
The Last Days Chapter 12–7.
The dragon power is associated with “the
false prophet” and the doing of fake miracles (Rev. 13:14; 19:20) – this
is the basis upon which the dragon / Satan / adversary of God’s people
“deceives” the world (Rev. 12:9). There are multiple connections between
the Lord’s Olivet prophecy and the prophecy of the book of Revelation.
Almost every commentary on Revelation brings these out, and I have listed
many of them in The Last Days Chapter 12. The Lord Jesus
repeatedly warned His followers not to be “deceived” – using the same
Greek word as in Rev. 12:9 about the dragon / Devil ‘deceiving’
unbelievers. But He warns time and again that the source of this deception
will be from “men... false prophets... false Christs... false
prophets” doing false miracles (Mt. 24:4,5,11,24). Jesus says nothing
about some fallen–Angel ‘Satan’ being behind these men. He simply warns
His followers to beware of human deceivers – and Rev. 12 fills
out the picture by specifically painting these men as part of a
massive human system called Satan, the adversary, who would have
all the characteristics of the serpent in Eden, just as the adversaries of
God’s people always have had. This system of opposition, in the first
century context, was both Jewish and Roman – hence the dragon is called
both “the Devil and Satan” in Rev. 12:9 – diabolos being the
Greek term for the Hebrew Satan. They are practically
interchangeable – but both terms occur here, I suggest, in order to show
that the opposition to Christianity was coming from both Jewish and
Gentile sources. Time and again the New Testament writers warn the
Christians of both Jews and Gentiles, men [not demons, spirits,
fallen Angels, Satan etc. – but men] who “seek to deceive you” (1
Jn. 2:26; 3:7; James 1:16). “Be not deceived” is a watchword of Paul (1
Cor. 6:9; 15:33; Gal. 6:7). It is the world which is deceived by
wicked men (1 Tim. 3:13; Tit. 3:3; 1 Pet. 2:25) – just as Rev. 12:9 says
that the dragon / Satan system will deceived “the whole world”. That
system was thus composed of wicked men. In all these passages,
the very same Greek word occurs which is translated “deceive” in Rev.
12:9. Again we have to ask – why did Jesus, Paul, Peter, James and John
not spell out to their converts that it was really Satan who was
tempting them and likely to deceive them? Why do they repeatedly stress
that it is men and the human heart (Heb. 3:10; 1 Jn. 1:8) who are
the deceivers? Why do we have to wait until the very last book of the
Bible to be told that actually, it’s Satan who’s doing this? How can
belief in a personal Satan be so crucial to many churches, when the
earliest Christian converts [made before Revelation was given] had been
taught nothing about any Angel falling from Heaven and being responsible
for temptation? Was there one Gospel for them, but another for the 21st
century church?
“The great dragon was... that old serpent”
(Rev. 12:9). The dragon had “seven heads and ten horns” (v. 3), therefore
it was not literally the serpent. It being called “that old serpent” shows
that it had the characteristics of that serpent in Eden, in the sense of
being a deceiver, as the serpent was. Thus the Devil is not literally the
serpent. If it is, then the dragon is the snake. But the dragon is a
political power, manifesting sin 9satan). Pharaoh is likened to a great
dragon (Ez. 32:2) but we can’t reason that therefore he was a literal
dragon. Similarly, “the sting of death is sin” (1 Cor. 15:56), but that
does not mean that death is a literal snake. It has the characteristics of
the snake, through its association with sin. How could the Devil have
deceived “the whole world” (v. 9) before he was thrown out of heaven
seeing that there was no one in the world before Adam?
The Greek archaios, translated “old”
in Rev. 12:9 and Rev. 20:2, can easily be misread as meaning simply ‘the
archaic / very old’ serpent. But archaios is a form of the Greek
root arche – the dragon power of Rev. 12 is the arch–serpent, the
archetypical serpent. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the serpent is very
old. For the serpent who tempted Eve suffered from the curse which came
upon all other “beasts of the field” (Gen. 3:1), and died. We see serpents
today eating dust and crawling on their bellies, living and dying like any
other creature. The arche serpent doesn’t therefore mean ‘the
extremely old serpent, the animal who tempted Eve, is still actually
alive’. We meet the word arche elsewhere in the context of
meaning ‘archetype’ rather than ‘having been in existence from the
beginning of Biblical history’: “The principles (Gk. arche)
of Christ” (Heb. 6:1); “the first (Gk. arche) principles of the
oracles of God” (Heb. 5:12); and quite commonly arche is simply
translated as “magistrates”, “rulers”, “principalities” – the ordering,
arch–principles and foundations of society (Lk. 12:11; 20:20;
Rom. 8:38; 1 Cor. 15:24; Eph. 1:21; 3:10; 6:12; Col. 1:16; 2:10,15; Tit.
3:1). In line with this understanding, I think we could fairly paraphrase
Rev. 12:9 as: “The great dragon, the classic, typical serpent, the
thinking and behaviour of Eden’s snake played out all over again in
classic role, the Gentile / Roman Devil and the Jewish Satan, an evil
system adversarial to God’s true people”.
Austin Farrar coined the term “a rebirth of
images” (Austin Farrar, A Rebirth of Images (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1963)) to describe what’s going on in Revelation. Old Testament
images are taken up and given a new focus; and this is what’s happened
with the image of the serpent. It’s not a reference to the same
serpent as was in Eden – but a rebirth of that image. G.B. Caird has
commented on the very common error of interpretation made with Rev. 12:
“Later Christian tradition, by the fallacy of misplaced concreteness,
treated this as a precosmic event... quite failing to recognize that
John’s imagery had an earthly referent” (G.B. Caird, The Language and
Imagery of the Bible (London: Duckworth, 1988) p. 55). What Caird is
saying, in dense theological language, is that Christian folk have over
literally interpreted the reference to the serpent, assuming that Rev. 12
is talking about something happening before creation, when in fact it is
referring to things happening on earth in John’s own generation.
12:10 And I heard a great voice in
heaven, saying: Now has come the salvation and the power and the kingdom
of our God and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our
brothers is cast down, who accuses them before our God day and night-
The great voice is presumably from the Angels representing the faithful.
Not that the faithful personally are in Heaven, for there is no conscious
survival of death. But their representative Angels are there, who look
upon those persecuted by the dragon as their "brothers". The dragon is a
veritable diabolos, a false accuser. In Jewish thought, one can
be accused before God, in the heavenly throne room, without personally
being there. Within John's writings we have a classic example in Jn. 5:45,
where the same word is again used of how Moses [who was dead] accused the
Jews before God. Our own thoughts accuse us to God (Rom. 2:15). The dragon
entity had representation before the throne of God, falsely accusing "our
brothers". The reference would presumably be to the Jewish Christian
remnant, rather than to Jewish people generally. The accusation was in the
sense that the Islamists consider Jews and Christians to be especially
worthy of Divine condemnation; they justify their extreme judgment against
Jews and Christians on the basis that they say God has spoken harshly
against them. The Koran is full of this kind of thing. God is not
unmindful of it.
There are copious links between Rev. 12 and
Mt. 24. This chapter therefore has reference to the last days as well as
AD70, bearing in mind the reference of the Olivet prophecy to these two
periods. What proves this beyond doubt is that as soon as the dragon is
cast out we are told "Now is come salvation... the Kingdom of our
God... for the accuser of our brethren is cast down" (12:10). Neither
salvation nor the Kingdom of God can fully come without the second coming.
If Scripture interprets Scripture, then the dragon being cast out must
refer to the events of the second coming. There is rejoicing because the
believers were no longer being accused (Greek 'seized upon' or accused in
a law court), implying that this will be going on until the dragon/beast
is cast out by Michael, the Angel who acts for God's people in the last
days (Dan. 12:1). The dragon accusing them before God sounds like Job's
satan- as if the supreme intensity of suffering brought upon a
materialistic, self-justifying Job to make him fit for God's full
fellowship points forward to our tribulation to come. As Job was brought
to say that he had heard of God by the hearing of the ear (theoretically),
but now, through his sufferings, "my eye sees You" (Job 42:5), so the
latter day tribulation will develop God's people.
The ‘accusation’ of God’s people “before God”
by the serpent / Devil doesn’t mean he has to be literally in Heaven (Rev.
12:10). The same term is found in Jn. 5:45 where the Lord Jesus states
that the long–dead Moses ‘accuses’ the Jews to God. Our own thoughts
accuse us to God (Rom. 2:15). What all this surely means is that things
done on earth, good and bad, even thoughts and feelings, are somehow
represented before the throne of God, perhaps by representative Angels
there, and God [to continue the figure] ‘judges’ those reported
accusations. But this doesn’t require our literal presence in Heaven to do
this. The first century mind, especially those from a Jewish background,
would likely have picked all this up with no problem; it is the European
insistence on literalism in semantics which has led to so many of the
problems in interpretation which these verses have given rise to. We have
to somehow shed our slowness and hesitancy to accept that figures [e.g. of
a judgment court replete with literal books, throne, accusers, witnesses]
are just that– figures.
The 'coming' of salvation and the public
assumption on earth of the power, authority etc. which the Lord already
has in Heaven can only fully speak of the second coming. Any application
to any other events are mere shadows and unworthy of much attention
compared to the obvious application to the second coming.
12:11 And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and
because of the word of their testimony- This may imply that their testimony to others is
related to their victory against the dragon. The language of overcoming is
applied to us all in the letters which opened Revelation. The faithful
overcome by the blood of the lamb- by what is done for them- and also by
the word of their preaching, as if the act of preaching and witnessing
against a hostile persecuting system was what helped maintain their faith.
Preaching is a spiritual exercise for the benefit of the preacher. Through
their work of witnessing, the persecuted believers overcome their
tribulation. Witness is therefore not because God is in need of it, but
for the personal spiritual benefit of the witnesses. The testimony made by
the "brothers" is that of the two witnesses in 11:7. It is the final
witness amidst tribulation that is resolved by the coming of Jesus and the
establishment of the Kingdom. See on Mt. 24:14. It is this fearless
Christian witness which provokes the beast of chapter 11 to ascend out of
the pit to make war with them; and the dragon likewise goes to make war
with the woman and the remnant at this time in chapter 12. As the two
witnesses are killed at the end of their witness, so here it is during
their work of witness that "they loved not their lives unto the death".
A
12:12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you that dwell in them. Woe
for the earth and for the sea! Because the Devil has gone down to you,
having great anger, knowing that he has but a short time- Those John
was observing in "Heaven" could refer to the Angels. But we have just read
of some of the latter day faithful being observed being snatched up to
"heaven" (11:12; 12:5). Perhaps it is specifically they who are referred
to. But this defeat by Divine force, just as Pharaoh experienced, provoked
a final burst of wrath by the dragon entity. The earth would refer to the
land promised to Abraham; and the sea perhaps to the neighbouring
territories.
"Therefore he shall go forth with great fury
to destroy, and utterly to make away many" (Dan. 11:44) is a commentary on
Sennacherib's rage (2 Kings 19:27,28). Rabshakeh boasted immediately after
the receipt of the "rumour" that Assyria would 'utterly destroy' Israel
still (2 Kings 19:11). This is matched by "to destroy, and
utterly to make away" in Dan. 11:44. The fury of Assyria against
Jerusalem because of their recognition that they only had limited time to
destroy it before having to turn their attention against the Arab rebels
is the basis of the Jihadist beast of the last days going forth against
God's people with "having great anger, knowing that he has but a short
time" (:12,17). In the same way as "the king of Babylon heard the report"
of the Medes' invasion and was troubled (Jer. 50:43), so the latter-day
"king of the north", while personally present conducting the campaign
against Jerusalem, will be troubled by "tidings" of this massive Muslim
mutiny against him, and will therefore go ahead in a furious rage to try
to exterminate every Jew left in Jerusalem (Dan. 11:44,45). Jer. 51:31,32
stresses how the report of the attack on Babylon will spread like
wildfire. This relates to the beast launching a final burst of persecution
against God's people, "having great anger, knowing that he has but a short
time".
If the Devil was cast down in Eden, he has
had the opportunity to torment man throughout his long history – which is
hardly having only “a short time” in which to wreak havoc.
12:13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he
persecuted the woman that had brought forth the man child- The
allusion is to how Pharaoh recognized he had been beaten by Divine power;
and hastily sought to hunt the Israelites to death. That motif is
continued by the way in which the destruction of Israel's latter day
invaders is celebrated with the "Song of Moses" sung after the Red Sea
deliverance (15:3). There are references to Israel and Egypt; the woman
flees away from the dragon (cp. Egypt) into a wilderness, but is pursued
by the dragon (12:13), who tries to use water as a means of destroying her
(12:15; cp. the Red Sea), but by a miracle Israel are preserved from it.
The woman is carried on eagle's wings, as Israel were out of Egypt (Ex.
19:4). The woman is "nourished" during the three and a half years, as
Israel were fed with manna in the wilderness. Jesus reasons in John 6 that
the manna represents the word of God. It may follow that the nourishing of
the seed of the woman in the wilderness of her latter day tribulation will
be through some special spiritual feeding programme designed by God. It
may well be through an increased level of understanding of the Apocalypse
and other prophecies of the tribulations which we will then be
experiencing.
The wrath of the dragon is because the woman
"had brought forth the man child". I suggested above that this refers to
the successful preaching of the Gospel to the extent that some Jews
repent, forming the repentant remnant which is miraculously preserved from
the dragon. It is quite imaginable that exactly because of this, the
dragon will so hate the woman, the true Christian church. "Persecute" is
the same word used in the Olivet prophecy, of how the true disciples will
be persecuted in Israel both in AD70 and especially in the last days (Lk.
21:12).
12:14 And there was given to the woman the two wings of the great
eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is
nourished for a time and times and half a time from the presence of the
serpent- "The great eagle" is a symbol for both Babylon /
Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 7:4; Ez. 17:3,12) and Pharaoh king of Egypt (Ez.
17:7,17). It could be that in some way, some element of the persecuting
coalition assists her; this would then be parallel with the earth / land
helping the woman by swallowing up the flood spewed by the dragon. This
repeating of the same idea through two different images is typical of what
I mean by saying that Revelation is a kaleidoscope of images, ever
rotating, reinforcing general impressions and themes, and yet with each
image still unique. In the same way we read in :6 that the woman flees;
here in :14 that idea is repeated, but with the detail that she flees by
flying. Or it could be that we should read without the article, "two wings
of an eagle", as if part of the cherubim vision of 7:4 [the "eagle" aspect
of it] assists the woman to safety. Note the connection of Angel and eagle
at 8:13. And the allusion would then be to how God brought His people to
safety from Egypt "on eagle's wings" (Ex. 19:4; Dt. 32:11).
The woman is in the wilderness, in the
presence of the serpent / dragon; for the dragon spits water at her (:15),
and in 17:3,8 the beast arises from the wilderness with the blood of the
saints. So whilst the woman as a whole is preserved, miraculously, some
believers will die as a result of the dragon's mania against them there.
The description of a conflict between a serpent and a woman and her seed
in 12:14-16 must refer back to Gen. 3:15- from which we can conclude that
there will be a short term victory for the devil/ dragon over the seed of
the woman in the last days.
The nourishing or feeding for three and a
half years recalls Elijah being miraculously fed for his
three-and-a-half-year ministry, with ravens bringing him meat at one
stage. The woman is part of the three and a half year Elijah ministry of
the last days, witnessing to Israel under persecution.
12:15 The serpent poured water like a
river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood-
Pharaoh has been alluded to in previous verses; here perhaps is in view
his plan to trap Israel and hurl them into the waters of the Red Sea. It
was God who provided a stream of water in the desert; yet here the serpent
does the same. Likewise it was God who destroyed the earth by a flood; and
here the serpent attempts to do just the same. This is the principle of
anti-Christ, appearing as the Father or Son when in fact they were
bitterly opposed to them and imitating them.
The other allusion is to the Assyrian
invasion of Judah and Jerusalem being likened to a river gushing toward
God's people (Is. 8:7). This is typical of the latter day Assyrian
dominating the earth / land. But just as the Assyrian was unsuccessful in
taking Jerusalem, so the latter day river will be swallowed up [the Greek
for river and "flood" here is the same].
12:16 And the earth helped the woman; the
earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon poured
out of his mouth- "The earth helped the woman" might refer to some of
the Islamists indirectly 'helping' the woman by turning against Babylon.
See on Rev. 17:16. I suggested on :14 that the woman escapes through the
wings of an eagle, and this may parallel this thought- if we understand
the eagle as the symbol of the abusers. Somehow something within their own
system enabled her to survive. The earth opening has been encountered in
9:2, where the bottomless pit is opened. Perhaps it is this very source of
the locusts which absorbs the flood of judgment the dragon spits out
against the woman. The language suggests that the dragon plays God in
bringing a flood upon the woman. The Islamists justify their judgment of
Jews and Christians by arguing they have Divine, even Biblical, warrant
for doing so. But they are stopped in this, in that the flood is swallowed
by the opening earth- itself a sign of condemnation. This is language very
similar to how the Koran describes the abating of the flood in Noah’s
time: “And it was said: O earth! Swallow thy water and, O sky! be cleared
of clouds! And the water was made to subside” (Sura 11.44). They
themselves will realize that their pogrom of destruction against "the
woman" is being stopped by God.
12:17 And the dragon grew angry with the
woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her seed that keep the
commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus- Revelation 12
begins with the dragon trying to kill the man child born of the woman, and
now at the end of the vision he seeks to kill the rest of her children. I
earlier interpreted the man child as the Jewish Christian converts who
repent and who are miraculously taken away from persecution. "The rest of
her seed" would refer to another group of her spiritual children. They
hold the testimony of Jesus in that they too witness to their new faith,
in the face of the most awful opposition and persecution. He persecutes
"the remnant" of the seed of the woman, just as the fourth beast of Dan.
7:7,19 downtreads “the remnant”.
We need to note the parallels between
Revelation 12 and 20. There we meet again "the dragon, the old serpent,
which is the devil and satan" (12:9 = 20:2). The repetition of this exact
phrase indicates we are being given another angle on events here in
chapter 12. At the time of the establishment of God's Kingdom, the
figurative "thousand years" (see notes on chapter 20), this entity
persecutes the faithful; and then once the Kingdom has been established
[not at the end of some 1000 year Millennial reign], he is released from
his prison and makes a futile attack upon the "camp of the saints" before
being finally destroyed by fire (20:9). This event is therefore spoken of
here in chapter 12 as 'making war' with 'the rest of the woman's seed'.
This is the final stage of the ancient conflict envisaged in Gen. 3:15
between the seed of the woman and the serpent.
Rev. 12 indicates that the dragon is
unsuccessful in totally destroying the woman, and therefore turns in a
brief period of fury "to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep
the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus" (12:17). Here we
have the same idea as in 11:7; three and a half years of witnessing amidst
persecution, followed by a brief, intense period of horror, as Christ's
three and a half year ministry was terminated by three and a half days of
especial suffering. Notice that the dragon goes into the wilderness to
persecute the woman's seed; 17:3,8 describes a beast from the wilderness,
full of the blood of the saints. Thus the beast of Rev. 17 is also to be
read in a latter day context.
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter 
