Now For The Real Enemy... Series

We’ve come to the last of our talks in our present series on Revelation. Today we’re looking at a passage in Revelation 12. Revelation has 22 chapters, so we’re only half way through the book. Many commentators think that Revelation 12 is one of the key chapters in Revelation. In this chapter, God and humankind’s chief protagonist, Satan, the serpent, the devil, the deceiver, is revealed.

Some of the chapters in Revelation we’ve been looking at in recent weeks may have seemed a bit grim, a bit dour, as they have described God’s wrath and judgment. Today’s passage isn’t like that. Satan is introduced in the first six verses – and in the following six verses we learn that he is defeated and thrown out of heaven. But there’s a sting in the tail. Satan is thrown out of heaven – to earth! And he isn’t happy.

In the first half of the passage we’re looking at today, in verses 1 to 6, John has a vision of a woman, a child and a dragon. It’s a passage that’s packed full of symbolism and references to the Old Testament. I think it’s quite difficult to understand. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought over the past week and I feel reasonably comfortable with most of it. But I’ve needed quite a bit of time with it. It’s going to be difficult to unpack the symbolism AND draw lessons from it in the space of 20 or 25 minutes. And it would be a great pity if we don’t have time to reflect on the wonderfully positive message in verses 7 to 12. I’m going to assume that most of us here know Old Testament stories and passages and will grasp the connections fairly quickly if I point them out. I’m afraid that if I spend a lot of time explaining the symbolism in detail, we won’t get through the passage. So, my general plan is to look at what’s going on in verses 1 to 6 first. Then we’ll look more quickly at verses 7 to 12. I think that’s an easier passage. Then we’ll consider what it means for us.

In verses 1 to 6, we’ll first identify the characters and after that, look at what they are doing. The main characters, in order of appearance, are a woman, a great red dragon and a child. I’m going to start with the characters who are easiest to identify.

The great red dragon is easy to identify, because just a bit further on we are told who he is. Verse 9 says, ‘And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.’ The great red dragon is Satan. But notice that he is also identified as ‘that ancient serpent.’ The reference to ‘that ancient serpent’ immediately gets us thinking about the Garden of Eden and the serpent tempting Adam and Eve.

Also easy to identify is the child. Verse 5 tells us that he is a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. He was about to be devoured by the dragon but he is caught up to God and to his throne. The reference to ruling all the nations with a rod of iron is from Psalm 2, and in that psalm the one who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron is God’s son. The child is Jesus. On the cross, Satan thought he had devoured him. But God raised him from the dead and he ascended to God’s side in heaven.

The woman is a bit trickier to identify. If the child is Jesus, then the woman who bears him must be Mary, right? That is what Catholics generally say. But there are clues that that we should identify the woman who bears the child in a different way. The woman is clothed with the sun. She has the moon under her feet, and on her head, she has a crown of twelve stars. This is, of course, symbolic! The most natural Old Testament reference is to Joseph’s dream in which the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to him. Joseph was sold by his brothers as a slave and taken to Egypt. Many years later, his brothers came to Egypt to buy grain. They were presented to Joseph but they didn’t recognize him – and they bowed down to him. So Joseph’s dream was fulfilled: the stars – his brothers – bowed down to him. The 12 stars therefore represent the sons of Jacob – and therefore the tribes of Israel. Most commentators generalise this to mean God’s faithful people of any time. Jesus was born to Mary but there is a sense in which he was born into God’s people.