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.
So, we’ve identified the main characters. There are other elements in the story. For example, there are stars who are swept away by the dragon’s tail. We could spend time thinking about what or who they represent. Perhaps they represent angels. But that isn’t so clear, and I want to move on.
What are the main characters doing or trying to do? There’s a replay of an Old Testament scene going on here. You may have already guessed which one it is by the reference to ‘that ancient serpent.’ In the Garden of Eden God gives Adam an instruction. He must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God tells him, ‘…for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ God then forms Eve. Along comes Satan in the form of a serpent. He approaches Eve. HE tells her that if she eats fruit from that tree, she will not surely die. Satan contradicts what God told Adam. It’s clear that Eve understands God’s command. So she demurs. But Satan continues to encourage Eve to do what God had forbidden. He tells Eve, ‘God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So Eve takes some of the fruit and she gives some to Adam and they eat it. God then finds out. What do you think God thinks of the situation? Who do you suppose God would be angry with? Satan, Eve or Adam? God is angry with all three. God tells the serpent: ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman AND BETWEEN YOUR OFFSPRING AND HER OFFSPRING.’ He tells Adam, ‘cursed is the ground because of you … you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face.’ And he tells Eve, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; IN PAIN YOU SHALL BRING FORTH CHILDREN.’ All these elements are present in what John describes to us in Revelation. There’s the deceitful serpent. There’s the woman. She is bearing a child and in pain. There is enmity between the serpent (that is, the great red dragon) and the woman. There is also enmity between the serpent and the woman’s offspring. The dragon wants to devour the child.
So the scene in Revelation 12 is very much like the scene in Genesis 3. But it’s different. And it ends differently.
The woman is now the people of God. The child is the Son of God. And THIS episode doesn’t end with the fall. It ends with the child raised up to God’s throne. Satan hasn’t simply tried to bring down our ancient ancestors, Adam and Eve. He has sought to devour the Son of God. In 30 A.D. it looked very much like another victory for Satan. Jesus is crucified. Satan thinks he’s won! But he was wrong.
This is the great turning-point in human history, the great turning point in this conflict. The conflict started as a conflict between Satan and humankind. But God entered the conflict, entering the world as a child. He defeated Satan. He broke Satan’s power. How did Jesus do that? Where did Satan’s power come from? Satan is called ‘The accuser.’ And he had reason to accuse. The defendant – we, humankind – were guilty. We sin in many ways. We were deserving of death. But now, the death sentence has been carried out! Jesus died on the cross! Now Satan has no basis to accuse God people of anything! His power is broken. God delivers his son from the dragon. After this, the woman flees into the desert, to a place prepared for her. Has this happened? Or is it still in the future? One commentator I read, someone called Grant Osborne, thinks that it ‘… describes the church during the final period of human history, when Satan and his agents lead the final terrible persecution …’
So, that is what is happening in verses 1 to 6.
Let’s go on to verses 7-12! It starts straight off by telling us ‘Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.’ I’m not surprised that war broke out in heaven! Satan has tried to destroy the Son of God! And now, Satan’s power is broken. Michael and his angels defeat the dragon and all his angels. A voice speaks from heaven. It says, ‘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.’
So in this passage, John reminds us of this this great cosmic truth. On the cross, Jesus defeated Satan. He broke Satan’s power. But it isn’t just Michael and his angels who gain the victory over Satan. God’s people have a part to play in it too. We read, ‘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.’ Someone called Eugene Boring, who was a professor of New Testament in the USA, wrote: ‘If Revelation teaches us anything, it is that the power by which God brings the kingdom is the power of suffering love revealed in the cross.’ It is through sacrifice that Satan is defeated.
Our passage today is the one which really takes the wraps off who Satan is and the battle in the heavenly realms.
I’d like to take a moment to look at how Satan is described. Look at verse 9. It tells us ‘And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, THE DECEIVER OF THE WHOLE WORLD.’
We know that the ancient serpent was a deceiver and John tells us that Satan is the deceiver of the whole world. Satan’s nature is to be a deceiver. The word ‘deceive’ comes up more in Revelation than any other book in the New Testament. There is a lot of deception going on in End Times. But what about the title ‘dragon’? We haven’t got time to go into the background to this but some respected commentators, Richard Bauckham, for example, see the dragon in Revelation as an allusion to a great sea-creature in the Old Testament called Leviathan. Leviathan often represents political forces. If that’s right then describing Satan as the dragon communicates the idea of Satan operating in the political realm. I think this makes a lot of sense, especially as we see how the dragon operates in the following chapters. So, Satan is the great deceiver. He operates through deception, and he operates within the political realm. Our passage has given us cause for rejoicing. Our ancient adversary is defeated. But the passage ends with a note of caution. A voice comes from heaven. The voice says, ‘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!’
The dragon has been thrown down. His power is broken. He has been thrown out of heaven ... to earth. Yes, he has been defeated. But he is still dangerous and he’s in a seriously bad mood.
When will this happen? Or has it happened? The voice from heaven says, ‘But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath.’ Things are going to get very unpleasant for the people of the earth when this happens. I can’t think of any event in human history which suggests that Satan has been thrown down to earth. So I think it’s still in the future. That would also fit with Grant Osborne’s view that the woman’s flight into the desert is in the final period of human history. The great battle in heaven and the dragon and his angels being thrown out, takes place after that.
What can we take away from this? I took as my text Revelation 12:9. It starts, ‘And the great dragon was thrown down.’ I called my talk, ‘The dragon is thrown down!’ For me, that is the most powerful message of this passage.
Verses 7-12 tell us that our enemy, Satan, the dragon, is defeated. It says three times that the great dragon was thrown down and it says once that his angels were thrown down with him. The passage could hardly be more emphatic! Christ entered our world. He defeated Satan on the cross. Satan’s overthrow is certain. At present, there is a war going on in Ukraine. We may say, ‘That’s a long way away. It doesn’t affect us.’ But it certainly does affect us. Here, the war isn’t simply a long way away. It’s in a completely different realm of existence! It’s in heaven. It’s a war between Satan – the dragon – and the archangel Michael and his angels. But this war affects us profoundly. Our lives are touched at every point by our enemy, that ancient serpent. Our passage today tells us without any shadow of doubt that our enemy is defeated. The time will come when he will be thrown out of heaven. And the time will come when he is thrown into a lake of fire. I don’t know what will happen in the war in Ukraine in the coming years. But I know the outcome of the cosmic war. It’s defeat for Satan and victory for Christ, his angels and his people. We are assured of that victory because a child was born 2000 years who was the Son of God. Because Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. And because the people of God conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. So, let’s be encouraged. And let’s play our part in this great conflict.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 10.30 a.m. service, 20th November 2022
