Harassed But Victorious: Revelation 12:1-17 (Thomas Schreiner)

By Thomas R. Schreiner–

 

We have to be careful about drawing conclusions too quickly and too superficially. Otherwise our solutions to a problem may be incorrect. Perhaps you have counseled a couple and thought you knew what was going on in their lives, but as time passed you realized that you didn’t understand what was really going on at the beginning. As you really probe into the situation, you begin to see the true reasons for their family problems. Perhaps there is significant evil going on that you didn’t see or grasp at the beginning, for the evil was hidden. The same principle is true physically as well. A person may be diagnosed with a cold when they actually have lung cancer. The superficial diagnosis is dramatically wrong.

That is the sort of thing John does in Revelation 12. John has been telling us in Revelation about the great conflict between good and evil, and focusing on God’s victory and judgment over those who persecute the church. But now he pulls back the curtain and reminds us that the evil done in the world is deeper than we might imagine. Behind the evil that is being done is our great adversary and opponent, the devil. The battle is not only what we see with our eyes. There is a spiritual battle going on, which we do not see. Let’s read about it in Revelation 12.

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. ² She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. ³ And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. ⁴ His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. ⁵ She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, ⁶ and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

 ⁷ Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, ⁸ but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. ⁹ And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world–he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. ¹⁰ And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. ¹¹ And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. ¹² Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” ¹³ And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. ¹⁴ But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. ¹⁵ The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. ¹⁶ But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. ¹⁷ Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.

The devil’s attempt to destroy Christ failed (12:1-6).

The chapter opens with a woman who was clothed with the sun, and the moon is under her feet, and her head is crowned with 12 stars. The language reminds us of Joseph’s vision of rule over his family. But who is this woman? I don’t think it can be limited to Mary or even to Israel. This same woman flees into the wilderness to be protected in v. 6. And it this woman whom the dragon tries to destroy in vv. 13-17. The woman should be identified as the true people of God, beginning with the true Israel and concluding with the church of Jesus Christ.

Verse 17 speaks of the rest of the offspring of the woman. The offspring of the women are the individual members of the church. This fits perfectly with what the same author, the apostle John, teaches in 2 John. In 2 John he writes to the elect lady and speaks of the children of the elect lady. Well, the elect lady refers to the church conceived of as a whole, and her children refer to the members of the church. So too, here. The woman refers to the people of God as a whole, and the offspring to the individual members of God’s people. God has promised his people will rule the world, that we will judge angels. And the woman is about to give birth to the child (v. 2) that will rule the entire world.

But suddenly a great enemy appears on the scene who is determined to destroy the child. This enemy is described as a fearsome dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns. We read in v 3 that he swept one-third of the stars of heaven to the earth. The stars of heaven here probably refers not to angels, but to the believers who belong to the Lord, who have a heavenly existence because they belong to God. We read about Antiochus Epiphanes, the great enemy of Israel, in Dan 8:10. “And some of the host and some of the stars it threw down to the ground and trampled on them.” The stars in Daniel are certainly believers, and so too here.

And now in Revelation Satan stands before the woman as she is about to give birth, so that he can destroy the Christ. Nothing has changed, for the devil has been a murderer from the beginning. The seed of the serpent, Cain, put to death, the seed of the woman, Abel. The devil tried to rid the world of Israel through Pharaoh. The devil incited Saul to try to kill the Lord’s anointed, David. The devil worked through Haman when he tried to murder Mordecai and wipe out the Jewish people. The devil was working through Antiochus Epiphanes, when he put to death those in Israel who remained faithful to the Lord. In our story the devil tried to put to death the Christ. And we see later in the story that the devil continues to persecute the church. We have a great and terrible enemy. And he hates us and our Christ. He tried to kill Jesus through Herod when Herod killed the children in Bethlehem. But he did not succeed.

In v. 5 John goes from the birth of Jesus to his ascension. John doesn’t concentrate on the cross here, but Jesus’ victory. He reigns at the right hand of God, or as Ps 2 says he will rule the nations with a rod of iron. The promise of Gen 3:15 has become a reality. The seed of the woman has triumphed over the serpent. He has crushed his head.

Have you ever walked into a home after it was burglarized? And felt the evil of the invasion? It is a sign of the power of the evil one. And every day, there are people lying and killing and robbing and destroying. There is a horror to evil. When we see its effect on human beings, it takes our breath away, for it is frightening and devastating and it seems overwhelming. But Jesus the Christ has conquered evil. He reigns and rules over all. He will one day rule over evil with a rod of iron. In the meantime God’s people are protected by him for 1,260 days (from the cross to the second coming) in the wilderness.

Jesus triumphed over Satan through his death (vv. 7-12).

In v. 7 we read about a great war in heaven between Michael, the archangel, and Satan. Michael defeated Satan and he was expelled from heaven. Verse 9 reminds us of how great that victory is: For our opponent is the devil—the one who slanders us before God. He is Satan (our adversary). He is the one who deceives the whole world. As 1 John says the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Or, as the gospel of John says he is the ruler of the world. He is the prince of the power of the air. Paul says that there are spiritual forces of wickedness that oppose us.

Let us never underestimate the might of our adversary the devil. He tries to destroy the church through persecution, or by false teaching. But he is a defeated enemy. We are told here that he is expelled from heaven and thrown to the earth. But when did this battle with Michael take place? Here we should be guided by the text. John isn’t talking here about the original fall of Satan when he first rebelled against God. Nor is John talking about Satan being evicted from heaven sometime in the future. No, the key to interpreting Michael’s victory is what we read in vv. 10-11. “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb.’” In other words, Michael didn’t triumph over the devil in his own strength. He cast him out of heaven because of the death of Christ, because of the victory won at the cross.

This fits with what John says elsewhere. As Jesus contemplates going to the cross in John 12:31 he says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” John doesn’t say anything different from what we find in his gospel. The devil has been cast down because he has been defeated at the cross. Michael wins the victory because of what Jesus has done at Calvary. And that means that the accuser of the brethren has now been expelled from heaven. That doesn’t mean that Satan has quit accusing us, but his accusations have no basis. He may accuse us day and night. There is not a one of us who doesn’t sin every day. So, Satan can say: “You should destroy Tom Schreiner, for he has sinned in his thought life. He has sinned in the words he has said. He has sinned in the things he has done.” And God says, “Satan, those accusations are out of order. For I have already judged those sins. They are judged in the person of my son. My judgment has been satisfied in the blood of the lamb.”

When Satan attacks you and your conscience is raw and you can scarcely lift your head up to God because of your sins, when you feel utterly condemned and worthless and defiled, then remind yourself of the truth of the gospel. I am righteous by the blood of the lamb. Lord, I am guilty and defiled and unclean, but I am clean by virtue of your blood and your death for me. I have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. May you find your comfort in the objective work of Jesus Christ.

John doesn’t stop there of course, for even though we are not perfect as Christians, we are marked by faithfulness. Those who are saved are those who have not loved their lives unto death. The power of Satan has been broken in our lives if we freely give ourselves to the Lord, and are willing to die for the sake of the gospel. This is the evidence and sign that we have been truly redeemed by the blood of the lamb—not perfection but we have a new direction and a new desire in our heart to live for the Lord.

There is great joy in heaven, according to v. 12, for Satan has been expelled and defeated, but life on earth will be a challenge and difficult, for the devil has come to the earth, knowing that his time is short. I understand this short time to be the whole period from the resurrection of Christ to his second coming. The devil has been cast down the earth by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and now he knows his time his short. He knows he is a defeated enemy.

The Lord protects the church from Satanic attacks (vv. 13-17).

When Satan sees that he has been defeated and no longer has access to heaven, he is enraged. He knows his time is short. He knows he is going to lose. But he fights anyway. After all, the devil is ultimately insane. He is self-destructive. And the one thing he wants to do is to destroy the woman—the people of God. And so with insane fury he attacks the church.

But the woman is protected by the Lord. She is given the two wings of an eagle and flees to the wilderness. The two wings of the eagle do not represent the U.S. Air force as some have said. It is something far better than that. It refers to the saving power of God himself. We are reminded of Exod 19:3, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” The church isn’t in the garden of Eden or in the heavenly city, but in the wilderness. She is there for a time, times, and half a time, and I would argue that this refers to the time from the resurrection of Christ to the second coming—to the time when Satan was expelled from heaven at the cross until Jesus comes again.

But even though the church is in the wilderness and life is tough, she is nourished and protected by God himself. The devil is enraged and water pours from his mouth to engulf the woman, but the earth opens its mouth, so that she is not drowned. I think it is quite obvious that John doesn’t have in mind a literal flood here. He would be quite surprised to find out that anyone would think that water coming out of a serpent’s mouth was interpreted literally. The point is deeper than that. Satan tries to destroy the church with a flood of lies, persecution, and false teaching.

Let’s just think of false teaching for a moment. How often throughout history has the church been subjected to heresy, which threatened to undo her. Many within the church have gotten terribly excited about heretical ideas. They think they are brave and cutting edge, and there is a feeling of exhilaration in abandoning what their forefathers taught. And it is the same today. How excited people get about open theism, in saying that homosexuality is good, and in denying the truth of the Bible. They can feel sophisticated, cultured, and wiser than those who preceded them. But the church will finally triumph over this flood of errors. In his book Orthodoxy, Chesterton rightly captures the joy and excitement of orthodoxy.

This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. . . . The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. . . . The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable. It would have been easier to have accepted the earthly power of the Arians. . . . It is easy to be a madman: it is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob. To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom—that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.

What Revelation teaches us is that it is God who protects the church from falling astray. The devil spews forth his filth and lies and hatred, but the church resists and resists and resists. And the glory of her triumph shines all the brighter because she resists the allurements of Satan.

The church’s preservation in the wilderness redounds to the glory of God. For how can anyone stand in the midst of such difficulties? Only by the grace of God. Only through the power of the cross. It is no great virtue to stand when we are in the majority, but to stand when we are in the minority and when we are unpopular and when we are persecuted, that is a testimony to the grace of God. We can look around and get depressed as we see the state of the world. But John tells us: Be encouraged. Even though you are in the wilderness, you will triumph. You will make it to the heavenly city. As Jesus said, “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:19-20). 

Life on earth is a battle, but we must not be pessimistic or defeatist. We are to be full of optimism, not because we are strong but because we have won the final victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not need to the fear the devil or demons or disease or death. We are more than conquerors through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thomas Schreiner is James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Among his many books are Romans, Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ: A Pauline Theology, New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ, Magnifying God in Christ: A Summary of New Testament Theology, and Galatians.

Read blog posts by Thomas Schreiner here.