“Behind
the Scenes”
Revelation
12:1-17
July
7, 2023 YouTube
As we open chapter twelve of the book of Revelation, we are
brought behind the scenes of history to understand the spiritual conflict from the
beginning of Creation to the return of Jesus. The beginning of the war and the
prophesy of its end is found in Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between you
and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise
your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (ESV). And here we find the three figures of
Revelation 12: the woman, the Child, and
the serpent.
“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.”
We begin with the woman.
Who is she? It is natural to jump
to the conclusion that she is Mary, the mother of Jesus. (The Roman Catholic
Church interprets this text that way.) But it is not Mary. Mary does not fit the context of the rest of
what is said.
The woman is a great sign in heaven – she is a great
wonder. She is clothed with the sun – her beauty is like the sun in the sky. The moon is under her feet – she has
authority. She has a crown of twelve stars
indicating her royal status and symbolizing the twelve tribes who waited for
the birth of the Child Who had been promised to bruise the head of the serpent,
and the twelve Apostles who saw it come to pass. She is the Israel of God. She
is the Church. She is the elect people of God. She is the bride of Christ.
The Song of Solomon is to be interpreted in two ways
together: it is a love song to a woman that Solomon deeply loves and looks
forward to marrying, and it is symbolic of Christ’s love of the Church, who is
His bride.
Solomon says, “He: If you do not know, O most beautiful
among women, follow in the tracks of the flock, and pasture your young goats beside
the shepherds’ tents. I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh’s
chariots. Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of
jewels (Song of Solomon 1:8–10, ESV).
Again and again, Solmon speaks of the beauty of his
intended bride.
Likewise, John records these words about the Church in the
Kingdom: “Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the
seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride,
the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high
mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from
God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a
jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at
the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the
sons of Israel were inscribed—on the east three gates, on the north three
gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of
the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the
twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:9-14, ESV).
The authority of the woman comes from bearing the Child
through the line of the King of David in Judea.
The Child is the fulfillment of the Promise and the final King of all.
“Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days
of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where
is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and
have come to worship him.’ When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and
all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the
people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, ‘In
Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: ‘”And you, O
Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of
Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel”’ (Matthew
2:1-6, ESV).
John continues: “She was pregnant and was crying out in
birth pains and the agony of giving birth.”
Despite the promise that the Savior, the Child, would come
from the line of David as the final King, the delivery of the Child was not
easy – the serpent – grown into a dragon – fought against the Child and the
Church through which He is born.
At His birth, the dragon tried to kill Him:
“Then
Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious,
and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that
region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had
ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the
prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel
weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more’”
(Matthew 2:16–18, ESV).
Throughout
the life of the Child on earth, the dragon sought to kill Him, and finally, he
saw the Child put to death:
“So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather
that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd,
saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.’ And all the
people answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children!’ Then he released for
them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified” (Matthew
27:24–26, ESV).
The dragon believed he had won against the Child. But he
soon found out he had failed in the greatest possible way.
“And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red
dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.”
The great red dragon is the mature serpent of the Garden who
led Adam and Eve into sin. He has seven heads and seven diadems on them – he is
royalty in the house of the damned – the devil.
And he has ten horns – indicating his power in this world. As Jesus said, “I will no longer talk much
with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I
do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the
Father. Rise, let us go from here” (John 14:30-31, ESV).
“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. 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, 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.”
The
dragon brought with him one third of the angels of Heaven who had followed him
in his revolt against God, making them demons.
The
dragon stood before the woman – from the beginning of the Church with our first
parents in the Garden – to the birth of the Child – believing that he could
kill the Child and overthrow the promise of God and His salvation of His
people.
But
the woman fled into the wilderness. The Church
was removed from the total destructive power of the devil. The dragon cannot destroy the woman. The dragon cannot defeat the Child. God
protected the woman by moving her into the wilderness – away from the dragon’s power
to stop the work of the Child.
And
God nourishes the woman for 1,260 days. We
ought to remember this from chapter eleven when the two witnesses are dead for
three and a half days. Three and a half,
forty-two, and 1,260 are the same symbol.
God tells us that there is a period that is specific and limited. It is
the period from Jesus’ Ascension to His Second Coming. It is the time of the tribulation. It is the age
of the Church from Jesus’ Ascension until His coming again. And Jesus tells the Church based on the true
confession of Peter: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew
16:18, ESV). All the powers of Hell
cannot prevail against the woman – against the Church. The Church will not disappear from the earth
despite the dragon continuing to war against the Church.
Augustine
says of the dragon’s warring agist the Church: “The earth has been filled with
the blood of the martyrs as with seed, and from that seed have sprung the crops
of the church. They have asserted Christ’s cause more effectively when dead
than when they were alive. They assert it today, they preach him today; their
tongues are silent, their deeds echo round the world. They were arrested,
bound, imprisoned, brought to trial, tortured, burned at the stake, stoned to
death, run through, fed to wild beasts. In all their kinds of death they were
jeered at as worthless, but ‘precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of
his saints’” (https://www.gotquestions.org/blood-martyrs-seed-church.html).
The
dragon and his demons will shed the blood of Christians, but he will never
defeat the Church. In fact, his warring
hurts himself and grows the Church, as Augustine writes.
And
John records the permanence of Satan and his demons exile from Heavan:
“Now
war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And
the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no
longer any place for them in heaven. 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.”
The
devil remains hostile and powerful, but he is a fallen foe. He has lost and will not overcome the
Church. The Church is in the wilderness
being fed by God – protected and nourished – until the final trumpet is sounded
and Jesus comes to earth with all of His angels.
As
the Child is born – the Son of God – the dragon is outraged, and he attempts to
devour Him – as we said – through many ways, the devil tries to kill the Child
so He cannot accomplish His work of the salvation of the elect – His church.
Yet,
the Child is born. Jesus in born in the
line of David as the final King. As is prophesied by the Psalmist: “I will tell
of the decree: The LORD said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth
your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in
pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psalm 2:7-9, ESV).
And the rage of the dragon increases as he sees that the
Child rises from the dead and ascends back to His throne at the Right Hand of
Father. There is no future chance for him to attack the Child, so he turns to
attack the Woman.
“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.’”
Christ has risen from the dead and ascended back to the
Father in the power and glory of the Kingdom.
Having returned to His throne the authority of Christ is revealed to all
and makes it plain that He has won over the creature, Satan.
Still, until Jesus’ return, the devil and his demons accuse
us constantly before God. The devil does
not know everything, but he knows our sins, because he has tempted us into
doing them. So, he accuses us as sinners
before God and accuse us that God could not forgive us for our sins.
Martin Luther wrote of this accusing of the devil for his
sins: “I adhere to the fact that I am baptized, not to my life and my vocation,
but to the Man called Jesus Christ. Through Him, I am in grace and have
forgiveness of sin. Similarly, when I hear the Gospel, I hear nothing about
myself or about my works that could justify me before God; I hear about Christ,
who has been given to me by the Father for my redemption from sin and eternal
wrath. Thus through the Word and Baptism you have a reliable testimony and a
confirmation. You need no longer doubt and waver, but you can and should have
the conviction that you have a gracious God and Father in Christ” (https://bibleportal.com/bible-quote/i-adhere-to-the-fact-that-i-am-baptized-not-to-my-life-and-my-vocation-but-to-the-man).
When the devil accuses us of our sin and calls us to doubt
our salvation, we are to remember that we are sinners, but that is why Jesus
shed His Blood for us and delivered us from the punishment of Hell and
death. The devil is wicked and powerful,
but he is fallen and lies to get us to doubt and sin all the more. But the
Triune God has chosen to save us for Himself by Himself eternally.
And so, we rejoice with the heavens and all the creatures
of Heaven, “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.
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!”
God
flies the Church – the woman – away into the wilderness – protected so she will
not be prevailed upon by the devil and his demons. And God feeds her in the wilderness for a
times, times, and half a time. God
sustains her for one time and two times and a half a time – three and a half
times. Three and a half again – the age
of the Church from the Ascension to the return of Jesus.
“The serpent poured water like a river out of
his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. 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. 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 is after the children of the woman – the
individual Christians of the Church. He
wants us to doubt and sin and even temporarily renounce Christ as a false sign
that he is winning against Jesus. But he
knows he has been conquered. He still
has power – as God allows him to have it.
But he failed. How could the evil
one have succeeded against the living God?
And God has made all we who believe conquerors because of
the work of Jesus. As we well know:
“Who
is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who
is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For
your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be
slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him
who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers,
nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:34-39, ESV).
Brothers and sisters, behind the scenes of the world we
observe, a spiritual war has occurred.
Satan, a mere creature created by God, attempted to overthrow God, his
creator, the Almighty, and he obviously and surely was quickly defeated and
thrown to the earth with his angels. He
is the serpent of the Garden of Eden who matured into the dragon.
In order to save the people that God chose to be His from
before the foundation of the world, the Son of God incarnate as the Person of
Jesus – fully God and man, so He was able to live a perfect life under the Law
and die as our Substitute for our sin.
He accomplished His work having been put to death, but rising and
ascending back to His throne, where He reigns all-powerful.
Since the devil failed to kill and stop the Child Who is
Jesus, the devil has turned on the Church – knowing that he cannot defeat her,
but looking to cause as much harm to her as he can until Jesus returns to throw
him into the lake of fire.
He knows he has been conquered. He knows that we are conquerors through Jesus.
He is using every power he has against we Christians. We are safe in
Christ. We are assured of Christ’s Work
as we read and know the Word of God. And we overcome through the perseverance
that God the Holy Spirit works in us – though we may be called to suffer death
for Jesus.
Let us remember the words of James, “But [God] gives more
grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”
(James 4:6-7, ESV).
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for allowing us to see behind
the curtain – to see that all these things were planned by You. We thank You for choosing a people for
Yourself. We thank You for Your use of
the creature, Satan, to bring about the death of Jesus – that Jesus would rise
and ascend securing our salvation. Thank
You for bringing Your Church through the evil Satan stills brings around us,
let us live for You and be willing to die for You, and may we praise You
forever. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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