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Revelation twelve describes the birth of the Church, made up of those who accepted the promised Messiah. It also predicts the hostility Satan has against God’s promised one.
REVELATION 12:1–6
1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her
feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars:
2 And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered.
3 And there was seen another sign in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads
and ten horns: and on his heads seven diadems:
4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth: and the dragon
stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that when she should be delivered, he
might devour her son.
5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was
taken up to God, and to his throne.
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, that there they
shall feed her a thousand two hundred sixty days.
This vision (Rev. 12:1–6) shows how the promised Savior interacts with the human source of the Savior and to an opposing force bent on destroying the Savior. They, all three, can be represented by individual persons. The Savior is, of course, Jesus Christ. The human source of his flesh is his mother Mary. The opposing force is Satan. One can go further, though, and visualize the opposing force as King Herod who sent men to kill the newborn Jesus. But to interpret this vision in terms of three individual human beings is to miss its wider implications. The vision really shows larger-than-human groups even though Jesus and Mary are the heads of two groups.
What is being born is the Church, the flesh and blood sisters and brothers of Jesus. They have been marked by baptism as members of his body. This body is being generated from the authentic Israel composed of those who lived the Mosaic covenant. They built the society that nurtured the biological bloodline of Jesus, starting with Abraham and continuing to Mary and Joseph. But Israel is more than the genealogical tree of direct ancestors and blood relatives of Jesus. Israel is a nation. Israel is all the descendants of Abraham's grandson, the grandson God named Israel (Gen. 32:29).
Humanity's earliest ancestors, Adam's children, gradually plunged into darkness due to their personal sins plus Adam's original sin. But they also contained the savior's bloodline. God called the bloodline out of darkness through Abraham's descendants. The descendants of Abraham's grandson, Israel, were expected to live according to God's precepts. They would then provide the correct environment from which the savior would come. This environment, the nation of Israel, is the woman giving birth.
Israel is the woman in the vision; the Church is the child. Both are collective entities not visible in all their dimensions. One can see some individuals who are members of each community, but one cannot see the whole community. For one thing, each community comprises too many people to be seen at once. For another, each community spans through time reaching far back into the past in Israel's case and far into the future in the Church's case. The most important reason they are not visible is that the relationship among the individual members, the relationship that gives each community its unity, is the very thing human eyes cannot see.
Waiting for the child's birth is the dragon. The dragon is Satan with all those who follow Satan. The whole group is imaged as a dragon. The name "Satan" is a title telling who the dragon is. It is the title held by the fallen angel named "Lucifer." God created Lucifer a high-ranking angel, a "first born" son of God, but Lucifer sinned. God demoted Lucifer to await punishment. Jesus mentions this to his apostles: And he said to them: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven (Luke 10:18).Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41).
Lucifer, Satan, encouraged Eve to disobey God. She encouraged her husband. They both disobeyed. God punished all three. When God told Eve her punishment, God gave her a promise. That promise was also a threat to Satan: "The woman's seed shall crush your head" (Gen. 3:15). The conflict between Satan and humans goes further than Eve's succumbing to temptation. God told Adam and Eve to populate the earth and subdue it. They and their progeny should rule over all living creatures that move upon the earth (Gen. 1:28 KJV).
Satan, after deciding to tempt Eve, took the form of a living serpent and moved upon the earth. With that act alone, even before tempting Eve, Satan had willingly entered Adam's dominion. God disciplined Satan for bearing false witness and cursed Satan above all cattle and all wild animals that God placed under Adam's dominion. Moreover, God said there would be enmity between Satan and the woman, between Satan's seed and her seed.. . . I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed . . . it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel (Gen. 3:15 KJV).
From the very beginning, there has been conflict between Satan and humans. God called Israel out of the human race so that Israel could bring forth the promised one, the woman's seed. Lucifer calls out of the human race those who will follow Satan, the Devil's seed. Between the Devil's seed and the woman's seed there is an enormous power struggle. The dragon represents a larger-than-human image. It is Lucifer as Satan along with those who follow Satan.
REVELATION 12:7–9
7 And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels:
8 And they prevailed not, neither was their place found anymore in heaven.
9 And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduced the whole world; and
he was cast down unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Michael and God's angels fight against the dragon and the angels that follow the dragon. These verses refer to an earlier struggle in the angelic heaven when Michael led the good angels against Lucifer and the disobedient angels when Lucifer first sinned. Lucifer's boast was "we will be like gods!" Michael's response was the question, "Who is like to God?" Michael is named for this thought: "Mikha'el?"—"Who is like to God?" The angels rallied around these two opposing thoughts, and their test was done. Those who wanted to be as gods fell from grace because they chose against God's will. Those who insisted that no one is like God retained God's grace because they freely accepted God's will. Scripture alludes to these events, (Ex. 29:12–19, Is. 14: 9–29, Matt. 25:11, & Hebrews 1:1–6), but does not fully clarify them. Michael and the good angels then forced Lucifer and the rebellious angels out of heaven. No longer permitted access to the angelic heaven, these fallen angels were exiled to earth (or maybe, more correctly stated, to the physical universe).
God later created humans and placed them on earth within reach of fallen angels. Right away Satan tempted the humans. Our first parents might have resisted temptation as Michael did. If they had, the fallen angel's powers would have been further limited. But our first parents did not resist. Instead, they themselves fell from grace.
God later established within the human race the Israelites and offered them the opportunity to accept a freely chosen covenant. They were to recognize and obey God's laws, serve God wholeheartedly, and provide the bloodline for God's own Son to enter history. God blessed the Israelites and resided with them in a special way. The Israelites saw God's special presence as a cloud hovering above the Arc (Ex. 40:15–33). The Israelites were to honor, praise, and adore God on earth similar to the way the angels honored and adored God in heaven. In this sense the covenant with Israel provided for a kind of heaven on earth.
Abiding by this freely entered covenant with God had its consequences. It brought the Israelites into a new sphere of conflict with Satan. Satan tried to tempt them to abandon their covenant. They were sidetracked often, but in the end, Satan failed. Some Israelites, the Judeans (a remnant), did bring forth the savior. The savior survived all the early plots against his life. In the fullness of time, he completed the mission given him and crowned it by willingly accepting the martyrdom his father had already accepted.
After his death, his apostles spread his teaching throughout Judea, beginning with Peter's speech at Pentecost. As the apostles convinced people and baptized them, the newly born Church grew. During the same time, a spiritual war developed in Judea. It separated those who believed Jesus from those who did not. One side proclaimed, in so many words, that all Israel should know that God has made the crucified Jesus both Lord and God's anointed one (Acts 2:36). The other side warned the apostles that they should not talk about Jesus (Acts 5:28).
Like the angels who responded to Lucifer and Michael, each Judean during this period freely chose to believe or not believe. The climax of this choice caused an irreparable division of Judea. The believers inherited a new heaven on earth, the Church. God now maintains a special presence with the Church rather than the Temple. Members of the Church now continue the worship of God with prayers of praise, honor, and glory similar to the worship in the angelic heaven. The Judeans who did not believe were excluded from this new heaven. They found their customary sphere of activity more restricted to worldly considerations than before.
The Temple's destruction is an earthly sign of this restriction. From now on, God no longer maintains a special presence among the circumcised. That is why God allowed the Temple's destruction. There is to be no more daily sacrifice offered by the Temple authorities in atonement for sins. But the Church would continue to honor every day the ultimate sacrifice that Christ made for sin on Calvary.
Even when the old Temple was standing, the Judeans had very restricted access to God's presence. Most could not even enter the inner courtyard surrounding the Temple much less enter the Temple itself. Now that the Temple is gone, they can only get as close as the outermost courtyard. This is as close as God had always allowed the Gentiles to approach. The unbelieving Judeans will continue to expect the Messiah, but no longer a Messiah that would bring righteousness to all nations. The unbelievers will expect one that would primarily serve Judean interests. Jesus warned them that they would soon accept someone who claims to be the Messiah, but he will come in his own name. I am come in the name of my father, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive (John 5:43).
This will happen sixty years after the Temple's destruction. The Judeans, the remnant of Israel, therefore, experienced a spiritual war. Michael and those who follow Michael (Michael is the patron angel of Israel) fought against the dragon and those who follow the dragon. Michael defeated the dragon, and the dragon was cast down to earth.
REVELATION 12:10–13
10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying: Now is come salvation, and strength, and the
kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: because the accuser of our brethren is
cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night.
11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of the testimony, and
they loved not their lives unto death.
12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you that dwell therein. Woe unto the earth, and to the
sea, because the devil is come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time.
13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman, who
brought forth the man child:
When the dragon realized that it again had been cast down and could no longer grasp the child, it went after Israel, the woman who bore the child.
REVELATION 12:14
14 And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the desert unto her
place, where she is nourished for a time and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
The Lord protected the woman as promised. The remnant of Israel still left on earth was given wings (so to speak) to fly into the desert, desert meaning a place in the ordinary world. The ordinary world has always been parched for God's living waters. She, the Israel remaining on earth, will be preserved there throughout the times of the Gentiles. Here is how I understand this.
After the Church was born, those Judeans who could not accept Jesus re-examined their faith. There were two conflicting schools of thought in Judaism. The Pharisees thought that there was life after death with a place of bliss and happiness for the righteous and place of punishment for the wicked. The Sadducees did not think there was life after death. During the Judean civil war, the Zealots exterminated the Sadducees. Because Christians quoted Scripture to prove their claims, the Pharisees decided to consolidate their faith upon Scripture they felt was long established and already widely accepted as God's word. Accordingly, they fell back to Scripture originally written in Hebrew. Anything not originally written in Hebrew they did not accept. This included much Scripture the Christians used to prove that Christ is the Messiah.
The unbelieving Judeans fell back to an earlier stage in their religious development. What they retained is still true, but it is not all that had been revealed to Israel. Their descendants did not see what they saw. Their descendants have few alternatives but to base their faith in Judaism upon the testimony and Scripture passed down to them. Their descendants continue to this day as the remnant of Israel. They include many sincere people who do not recognize Christ. This remnant will remain unmoved by faith in Christ until the end times. God has revealed this and has provided the circumstances whereby this can take place.
REVELATION 12:15–16
15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman, water as it were a river; that he might cause her
to be carried away by the river.
16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the river, which
the dragon cast out of his mouth.
God's word has been compared to living waters that come from heaven that people might have spiritual life. Jesus told the Samaritan woman that if she drank the water he would give her, she would never again thirst (John 4:15). The water symbolizes God's truth. I think the water spewed by the serpent symbolizes false inspirations that bring not life but death. The earth rescued the woman by swallowing this water so it could not sweep her away. The devil inspired lies, persecutions, bigotry, and violence against the woman to destroy her. This flood of hatred made her existence miserable throughout her exile, but it did not destroy her.
The most recent and worst persecution was the Nazi Holocaust. Hitler's inspiration was to eliminate the Jewish people, and the Nazis went to frightening lengths to accomplish it. But other people, entirely independent of the Jews and for national security reasons of their own, destroyed the Nazi regime at a time when the Jews were absolutely helpless to defend themselves. The woman, the remnant, survived.
REVELATION 12:17
17 And the dragon was very angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who
keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
At the beginning of the Church age there was no Nazi Germany to be mobilized against the woman, but there was
the Roman Empire, so the dragon went to mobilize the Roman Empire.
REVELATION 12:18
18 And he stood upon the sand of the sea.
The sea is the Mediterranean. The Judeans would, from their perspective, recognize that Rome lies directly opposite them across the Mediterranean Sea. The third woe is still yet to come, but these signs and later the vials or seven plagues illustrate how severe the third woe will be for the unbelieving Judeans.
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