REVELATIO 12 COMMETARY

EDITED BY GLENN PEASE WITH PERSONAL COMMENTS

The Woman and the Dragon

1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman

clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet

and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

1.GLENN, “Here begins the second half of the book on the trials and triumphs of the church. Here we see the first woman of the book and she represents the people of God. A new cycle begins here going back again to the birth of Christ and the battle of the seed of God and the serpent. Gen. 3:15 set the stage for this and here is the major battle of this war of all history. You will note that it is the seed of the woman=Eve. And here again it is the seed of the woman. Men dominate the symbolism most often, but here we have the woman in the spot light. She has all the sources of light in the world-sun, moon and stars.

The sun, moon and stars are signs that we are going back to The beginning. But here is a new creation with the Creator Himself coming onto the stage of history. The woman here is symbolic of, not just Mary the mother of Jesus, but of God's people, the Church. This is agreed upon by more than those who agree on many of the symbols. Others say she is wisdom, Israel, heavenly Jerusalem, or some even say God.

The sun, moon and stars were used often in the astrological dynamics of Rome. Isis and Artemis has association with the sun and the moon. It was a very exalted position. Jesus is identified with the sun in 1:16; 10:1; and Mal. 4:2. God is identified with the sun in 21:23; 22:5 and Psalm 84:11.

The 12 stars =God's people of both the O.T. and N.T. Jesus was born of a remnant of Israel-Rom. 9:5 and Isa. 9:6.

The sign appears in heaven, but was carried out on earth. There is a dual battlefield where one is in heaven and the other on earth. Above the history where Herod is trying to kill the Christ child, Michael and the dragon are fighting. There is a parallel with the earthly and the heavenly, and so always a dual battle front. On earth the woman does not defeat the dragon but escapes. In heaven the dragon is defeated.

1B.BARNES, “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven - In that heavenly world thus disclosed, in the very presence of God, he saw the impressive and remarkable symbol which he proceeds to describe. The word “wonder” - s?µe???? se‾meion - properly means something extraordinary, or miraculous, and is commonly rendered “sign.” See Mat_12:38-39; Mat_16:1, Mat_16:3-4; Mat_24:3, Mat_24:24, Mat_24:30; Mat_26:48; Mar_8:11-12; Mar_13:4, Mar_13:22; Mar_16:17, Mar_16:20; in all which, and in numerous other places in the New Testament, it is rendered “sign,” and mostly in the sense of “miracle.” When used in the sense of a miracle, it refers to the fact that the miracle is a sign or token by which the divine power or purpose is made known. Sometimes the word is used to denote “a sign of future things” - a portent or presage of coming events; that is, some remarkable appearances which foreshadow the future. Thus in Mat_16:3; “signs of the times”; that is, the miraculous events which foreshadow the coming of the Messiah in his kingdom. So also in Mat_24:3, Mat_24:30; Mar_13:4; Luk_21:7, Luk_21:11. This seems to be the meaning here, that the woman who appeared in this remarkable manner was a portent or token of what was to occur.A woman clothed with the sun - Bright, splendid, glorious, as if the sunbeams were her raiment.

Compare Rev_1:16; Rev_10:1; see also Son_6:10 - a passage which, very possibly, was in the mind of the writer when he penned this description: “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?”And the moon under her feet - The moon seemed to be under her feet. She seemed as if she stood on the moon, its pale light contrasted with the burning splendor of the sun, heightening the beauty of the whole picture. The woman, beyond all question, represents the church. See the notes on Rev_12:2. Is the splendor of the sunlight designed to denote the brightness of the gospel? Is the moon designed to represent the comparatively feeble light of the Jewish dispensation? Is the fact that she stood upon the moon, or that it was under her feet, designed to denote the superiority of the gospel to the Jewish dispensation? Such a supposition gives much beauty to the symbol, and is not foreign to the nature of symbolic language.And upon her head a crown of twelve stars - A diadem in which there were placed twelve stars. That is, there were twelve sparkling gems in the crown which she wore. This would, of course, greatly increase the beauty of the vision; and there can be no doubt that the number twelve here is significant. If the woman here is designed to symbolize the church, then the number twelve has, in all probability, some allusion either to the twelve tribes of Israel as being a number which one who was born and educated as a Jew would be likely to use (compare Jam_1:1), or to the twelve apostles - an allusion which, it may be supposed, an apostle would be more likely to make. Compare Mat_19:28; Rev_21:14.

2. CLARKE, “There appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun - That the woman here represents the true Church of Christ most commentators are agreed. In other parts of the Apocalypse, the pure Church of Christ is evidently portrayed by a woman. In Rev_19:7, a great multitude are represented as saying, “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his Wife hath made herself ready.” In Rev_21:9, an angel talks with St. John, saying, “Come hither, I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb’s wife.” That the Christian Church is meant will appear also from her being clothed with the sun, a striking emblem of Jesus Christ, the Sun of righteousness, the light and glory of the Church; for the countenance of the Son of God is as the sun shineth in his strength. The woman has: - The moon under her feet - Bishop Newton understands this of the Jewish typical worship and indeed the Mosaic system of rites and ceremonies could not have been better represented, for it was the shadow of good things to come. The moon is the less light, ruling over the night, and deriving all its illumination from the sun; in like manner the Jewish dispensation was the bright moonlight night of the world, and possessed a portion of the glorious light of the Gospel. At the rising of the sun the night is ended, and the lunar light no longer necessary, as the sun which enlightens her shines full upon the earth; exactly in the same way has the whole Jewish system of types and shadows has been superseded by the birth, life, crucifixion, death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of Jesus Christ. Upon the head of the woman is: - A crown of twelve stars - A very significant representation of the twelve apostles, who were the first founders of the Christian Church, and by whom the Gospel was preached in great part of the Roman empire with astonishing success. “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the Stars for ever and ever.” Dan_12:3.

3. GILL, “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven,.... This vision begins a new account of things, and represents the church in the apostles' times, and purer ages of Christianity, and under the Heathen and Arian persecutions; after which an account is given of the beast, mentioned in Rev_11:7, of his rise, power, and reign, and then of the victories of the saints over him and of the vials of God's wrath upon him, and of his utter ruin and destruction; when comes on the marriage of the Lamb, and after that the first resurrection, and the thousand years' reign; and the whole is closed with a most beautiful description of the new Jerusalem state, which is the grand point and utmost period this prophetic book leads unto. This vision was seen "in heavens", whither John was called up to, Rev_4:1; and where the various scenes, in a visionary way, were acted, both before, and after this; and which was an emblem of the state of the church on earth: what was seen is called "a wonder" or "sign", it being very amazing to behold, and very significative of persons and things; and a "great" one, because it respects great affairs, and wonderful events relating to the state of the church in future times, as well as present: and the first thing seen and

observed was

a woman: by whom is meant, not the virgin Mary, as highly favoured of God, and big with her firstborn son Jesus; though there may be an allusion to her, and in some things there is a likeness, as is by some observed; as Mary brought forth Christ corporeally, and God in the fulness of time sent forth his Son, made of a woman, so this woman brings forth Christ spiritually, or the manly birth of his kingdom in the world, or one that should be the instrument of enlarging his kingdom; and as Herod sought to destroy Christ in his infancy, and as soon as born, so the dragon here stands watching to destroy the manly birth as soon as brought forth; and as Joseph, with Mary, and her son, by a divine direction, fled into Egypt, where they continued during the reign of Herod, so to this woman are given two wings of an eagle, to flee into the wilderness, where she abides, and is nourished, during the reign of antichrist; and as Herod, after the flight of Mary, killed all the infants of Bethlehem, of two years of age, and under, that he might destroy her son, so the dragon casts out a flood of water after the woman, to carry her away, and makes war with the remnant of her seed; and as the son of Mary, after he had done his work, was taken up to heaven, and made Lord and Christ, so the man child, this woman brings forth, is caught up to God, and his throne, to rule all nations with a rod of iron. But Mary, and the birth of Christ, can never be intended in this vision, that affair being past and over, and would never be represented to John in this manner, who was well acquainted with it: nor is the church of God, among the Jews of the former dispensation, designed; who were highly honoured of God, on whom he shone forth at the giving of the law to them; who had his word and ordinances, to be a light unto them, and had the priests and prophets of the Lord among them; and whose crown and glory it was to descend from the twelve patriarchs; and who were in great expectation of, and most earnestly desired, and longed for, and were, as it were, in pain for the coming of the Messiah; but to what purpose could such a representation of them be made to John now? much less is the church of the Jews, or the Jewish synagogue, as it was at the coming and birth of here designed, which was an evil, wicked, and adulterous generation, and so bad as not to be declared by the tongue and pen of man, and therefore far from answering the description here; but the pure apostolic church is meant, or the church of Christ, as it was in the times of the apostles, and the first ages of Christianity: the description answers to the first of the seven churches, the church at Ephesus, and to the opening of the first seal; and the church apostolical is here called "a woman", because the church was not now in its infancy, in nonage, as under the former dispensation, but grown up, mature, and at full age; and because espoused and married to Christ her husband, to whom she now brought forth many children, in a spiritual sense, as she hereafter will bring forth many more; and, because of her beauty in the eyes of her Lord and husband, which is greatly desired, and highly commended by him; as also because of her weakness in herself her ministers and members, not being able to do anything without her husband, Christ, through whom she can do all things. And who is further described by her habit and attire,

clothed with the sun; which does not point at her future state in glory; see Mat_13:47; but to her then present state on earth; and is expressive of that clear light of Gospel doctrine, which shone out upon her, like the sun in its meridian glory, and of the heat of love to God, Christ, and his people, and zeal for his truths, ordinances, worship, and discipline, which appeared in her; and of that inward holiness of heart which made her all glorious within; and of the outward purity of life and conversation, which greatly adorned her; but, above all, of the righteousness of Christ, who is the sun of righteousness, and the Lord her righteousness; which righteousness, as it was doctrinally held forth by her in the clearest manner, was also as a garment on her, to cover, preserve, and beautify her; and is comparable to the sun for its glory and excellency, outshining that of angels and men; and for its spotless purity, being without any blemish or deficiency; and for its perpetuity, being an everlasting one, and even exceeding the sun in duration.

And the moon under her feet; the church is sometimes compared to the moon herself, because, as the moon receives its light from the sun, so she receives her light from Christ; and as the moon often changes, and has its various "phases" and appearances, so the church sometimes is in the exercise of grace, and sometimes not; sometimes under trials and persecutions, and at other times in rest and peace; one while retaining the doctrines and ordinances of the Gospel in their power and purity, and anon almost overrun with errors and superstition; but this cannot be the sense here. The common interpretation is, that it signifies the church's contempt of, and trampling

upon all worldly things, which are changeable, perishing, and passing away; and which very well suits with the primitive saints, who did set their affections on things in earth, but on things in heaven, who sold their worldly possessions, and laid them at the apostles' feet. Brightman thinks, that, as the moon is a luminary, it may denote the light derived from the word of God, which was a lamp to her feet, and a lantern to her paths, by which her discipline and public worship were directed, and all the private actions of life were squared; which is no contemptible sense of the words: but I rather think the ceremonial law is intended, which is very fitly represented by the moon; it consisted much in the observation of new moons, and its solemn festivals were governed and regulated by them; see 2Ch_8:12. There was some light in it, and it gave light to the saints in the night of Jewish darkness; it pointed out Christ to them, and was their schoolmaster to teach and lead them to him; yet, like the moon, it was the lesser light, the light it gave was interior to that which the Gospel now gives; and as the moon has its shots had that its imperfections; had it been faultless, there had been no need of another, and a new dispensation, but that could make nothing perfect; and, as the moon, it was variable and changeable; it was but for a time, and is now done away; it is not only waxen old like the moon in the wane, but is entirely vanished away: and yet, though it was abolished by the death of Christ, it was kept up and maintained by many of the Jews, even of them that, believed: persons are naturally fond of ceremonies; and many had rather part with a doctrine of the Gospel than with an old custom, or an useless ceremony; and this was, in a great measure, the case of the Jews; see Act_21:20; so that it was one of the greatest difficulties the Christian church had to grapple with, to get the ceremonial law under foot; for though it was under the feet of Christ, it was a long time ere it was under the feet of the church; and a wonder it was when it was accomplished. Mr. Daubuz has given a new interpretation of this clause; and by "the moon" he understands the Holy Ghost, the Governor of the church, next to Christ, his successor and Vicar, and the minister of him, the sun of righteousness; who is said to be "under the feet" of the church, to assist her in her labour, and in the bringing forth of her man child; and to support and sustain her followers and members; and to be a luminary to them, to guide them in their ways.

And upon her head a crown of twelve stars; by "stars" are meant the ministers of the Gospel, which Christ holds in his right hand, and the church here bears on her head, Rev_1:20. And these "twelve" have respect to the twelve apostles of Christ; and the "crown", which was composed of these stars, designs the doctrine which they preached; and this being on her "head", shows that it was in the beginning of this church state that the pure apostolic doctrine was embraced, professed, and held forth; for in the latter part of it there was a great decline, and falling off from it; in the times of the Apostle Paul, the mystery of iniquity began to work; and in John's time many antichrists were come into the world: and also this signifies, that the church openly owned the doctrine of the apostles, and was not ashamed of it before men, and publicly preached, and held it forth in her ministers, to all the world; and that this was her crown and glory, so long as she held it in its power, purity, and was both what she gloried in, and was a glory, an ornament to her: and this was also an emblem of her victory over her enemies, and of her future happiness, and pointed at the means of both; that it was by a faithful and steadfast adherence to the doctrine of the apostles that she overcame Satan, and all her spiritual enemies, and came to the possession of the crown of life and glory.

4. HENRY, “Here we see that early prophecy eminently fulfilled in which God said he would put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, Gen_3:15. You will observe,I. The attempts of Satan and his agents to prevent the increase of the church, by devouring her offspring as soon as it was born; of this we have a very lively description in the most proper images.1. We see how the church is represented in this vision. (1.) As a woman, the weaker part of the world, but the spouse of Christ, and the mother of the saints. (2.) As clothed with the sun, the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Having put on Christ, who is the Sun of righteousness, she, by her relation to Christ, is invested with honourable rights and privileges, and shines in his rays. (3.) As having the moon under her feet (that is, the world); she stands upon it, but lives above it; her heart and hope are not set upon sublunary things, but on the things that are in heaven, where her head is. (4.) As having on her head a crown of twelve stars, that is, the doctrine of the gospel preached by the twelve apostles, which is a crown of glory to all true believers. (5.) As in travail, crying out, and pained to be delivered. She was pregnant, and now in

pain to bring forth a holy progeny to Christ, desirous that what was begun in the conviction of sinners might end in their conversion, that when the children were brought to the birth there might be strength to bring forth, and that she might see of the travail of her soul.2. How the grand enemy of the church is represented. (1.) As a great red dragon - a dragon for strength and terror - a red dragon for fierceness and cruelty. (2.) As having seven heads, that is, placed on seven hills, as Rome was; and therefore it is probable that pagan Rome is here meant. (3.) As having ten horns, divided into ten provinces, as the Roman empire was by Augustus Caesar. (4.) As having seven crowns upon his head, which is afterwards expounded to be seven kings, Rev_17:10. (5.) As drawing with his tail a third part of the stars in heaven, and casting them down to the earth, turning the ministers and professors of the Christian religion out of their places and privileges and making them as weak and useless as he could. (6.) As standing before the woman, to devour her child as soon as it should be born, very vigilant to crush the Christian religion in its birth and entirely to prevent the growth and continuance of it in the world.5. JAMISON, “Rev_12:1-17. Vision of the woman, her child, and the persecuting dragon.This episode (Revelation 12:1-15:8) describes in detail the persecution of Israel and the elect Church by the beast, which had been summarily noticed, Rev_11:7-10, and the triumph of the faithful, and torment of the unfaithful. So also the sixteenth through twentieth chapters are the description in detail of the judgment on the beast, etc., summarily noticed in Rev_11:13, Rev_11:18. The beast in Rev_12:3, etc., is shown not to be alone, but to be the instrument in the hand of a greater power of darkness, Satan. That this is so, appears from the time of the eleventh chapter being the period also in which the events of the twelfth and thirteenth chapters take place, namely, 1260 days (Rev_12:6, Rev_12:14; Rev_13:5; compare Rev_11:2, Rev_11:3).great — in size and significance.wonder — Greek, “sign”: significant of momentous truths.in heaven — not merely the sky, but the heaven beyond just mentioned, Rev_11:19; compare Rev_12:7-9.woman clothed with the sun ... moon under her feet — the Church, Israel first, and then the Gentile Church; clothed with Christ, “the Sun of righteousness.” “Fair as the moon, clear as the sun.” Clothed with the Sun, the Church is the bearer of divine supernatural light in the world. So the seven churches (that is, the Church universal, the woman) are represented as light-bearing candlesticks (Rev_1:12, Rev_1:20). On the other hand, the moon, though standing above the sea and earth, is altogether connected with them and is an earthly light: sea, earth, and moon represent the worldly element, in opposition to the kingdom of God - heaven, the sun. The moon cannot disperse the darkness and change it into-day: thus she represents the world religion (heathenism) in relation to the supernatural world. The Church has the moon, therefore, under her feet; but the stars, as heavenly lights, on her head. The devil directs his efforts against the stars, the angels of the churches, about hereafter to shine for ever. The twelve stars, the crown around her head, are the twelve tribes of Israel [Auberlen]. The allusions to Israel before accord with this: compare Rev_11:19, “the temple of God”; “the ark of His testament.” The ark lost at the Babylonian captivity, and never since found, is seen in the “temple of God opened in heaven,” signifying that God now enters again into covenant with His ancient people. The woman cannot mean, literally, the virgin mother of Jesus, for she did not flee into the wilderness and stay there for 1260 days, while the dragon persecuted the remnant of her seed (Rev_12:13-17) [De Burgh]. The sun, moon, and twelve stars, are emblematical of Jacob, Leah, or else Rachel, and the twelve patriarchs, that is, the Jewish Church: secondarily, the Church universal, having under her feet, in due subordination, the ever changing moon, which shines with a borrowed light, emblem of the Jewish dispensation, which is now in a position of inferiority, though supporting the woman, and also of the changeful things of this world, and having on her head the crown of twelve stars, the twelve apostles, who, however, are related closely to Israel’s twelve tribes. The Church, in passing over into the Gentile world, is (1) persecuted; (2) then seduced, as heathenism begins to react on her. This is the key to the meaning of the symbolic woman, beast, harlot, and false prophet. Woman and beast form the same contrast as the Son of man and the beasts in Daniel. As the Son of man comes from heaven, so the woman is seen in heaven (Rev_12:1). The two beasts arise respectively out of the sea (compare Dan_7:3) and the earth (Rev_13:1, Rev_13:11): their origin is not of heaven, but of earth earthy. Daniel beholds the heavenly Bridegroom coming visibly to reign. John sees the woman, the Bride, whose calling is heavenly, in the world, before the Lord’s coming again. The characteristic of woman, in contradistinction to man, is her being subject, the surrendering of herself, her being receptive. This similarly is man’s relation to God, to

be subject to, and receive from, God. All autonomy of the human spirit reverses man’s relation to God. Woman-like receptivity towards God constitutes faith. By it the individual becomes a child of God; the children collectively are viewed as “the woman.” Humanity, in so far as it belongs to God, is the woman. Christ, the Son of the woman, is in Rev_12:5 emphatically called “the MAN-child” (Greek, “huios arrheen,” “male-child”). Though born of a woman, and under the law for man’s sake, He is also the Son of God, and so the HUSBAND of the Church. As Son of the woman, He is “’Son of man”; as male-child, He is Son of God, and Husband of the Church. All who imagine to have life in themselves are severed from Him, the Source of life, and, standing in their own strength, sink to the level of senseless beasts. Thus, the woman designates universally the kingdom of God; the beast, the kingdom of the world. The woman of whom Jesus was born represents the Old Testament congregation of God. The woman’s travail-pains (Rev_12:2) represent the Old Testament believers’ ardent longings for the promised Redeemer. Compare the joy at His birth (Isa_9:6). As new Jerusalem (called also “the woman,” or “wife,” Rev_21:2, Rev_21:9-12), with its twelve gates, is the exalted and transfigured Church, so the woman with the twelve stars is the Church militant.

6. PULPIT, “This chapter commences another series of revelations. Again St. John returns to the beginning, and traces the spiritual history of the Church and the Christian in their warfare with Satan. But the visions which now follow are somewhat different in character from those already related, inasmuch as the conflict is now described rather as between the powers of heaven and hell than between the individual Christian and his oppressors. As with the other visions, so here, the recital seems calculated to support the suffering Christian in his trials, since the overthrow of the powers of darkness is foretold; and the whole series culminates in an account of the final abasement of the devil, and the exaltation of the Church and the bliss of heaven.

The following analysis will help to make clear the relation of the several parts of the vision.

I. THE ORIGIN OF THE ENMITY BETWEEN CHRIST AND THE WORLD. (Rev_12:7-13.)

II. THE PROGRESS OF THE WARFARE.

1. The assaults of the devil.

(1) The dragon's direct attacks on Christ (Rev_12:1-7 and Rev_12:13-17).

(2) On the Church by means of the wild beast (Rev_13:1-10).

(3) On the Church by means of the two-horned beast (Rev_13:11-18).

2. The overthrow and punishment of the devil. (Rev_20:1-10.)

(1) The fate of the dragon (Rev_14:7).

(2) The fate of the wild beast (Babylon) (Rev_14:8; Rev_17:1-18.; 18.; Rev_19:19, et seq.).

(3) The fate of the two-horned beast (Rev_14:9; Rev_19:19, et seq.).

3. The victory of the faithful. (Rev_14:13; Rev_19:1-10; Rev_21:1-27.; 22.)

Rev_12:1

And there appeared a great wonder; and a great sign was seen (Revised Version). This sign consists of the whole of the appearances, the account of which is contained in this verse and the following one. The vision is thus plainly declared to be figurative (cf. the use of the corresponding verb in Rev_1:1). In heaven. Though the scene of the vision opens in heaven, it is immediately afterwards transferred to the earth. It is doubtful whether any particular signification is to be attached to the expression, though Wordsworth notes concerning the Church, "For her origin is

from above; hers is the kingdom of heaven." And Bengel, "The woman, the Church, though on earth, is nevertheless, by virtue of her union with Christ, in heaven." A woman. The woman is undoubtedly the Church of God; not necessarily limited to the Christian Church, but the whole company of all who acknowledge God, including the heavenly beings in existence before the creation, as well as creation itself. The figure is found both in the Old Testament and in the New. Thus Isa_54:5, Isa_54:6, "For thy Maker is thine Husband ... For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved" (cf. also Joh_3:29; 2Co_11:2; Eph_5:25-32). Clothed with the sun. The whole description is intended to portray the glory and beauty of the Church. Most of the ancient commentators give particular interpretations of the symbols employed. Thus the sun is believed to represent Christ, the Sun of Righteousness. Primasius quotes Gal_3:27, "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." And the moon under her feet. This is interpreted as showing the permanent nature of the Church; she treads underfoot the moon, the symbol of changing times and seasons. It is thought that a reference is thus intended to the futility of the endeavours made to subvert the Church (cf. Son_6:10). Others variously interpret the moon of

(1) the Mosaic Law;

(2) the irreligion of the world;

(3) the Mohammedan power.

But the figure is probably intended simply to enhance the beauty of the vision, and to portray the exceeding glory of the Church. We may also imagine the symbol to denote stability of existence in the midst of change of outward appearance, as the moon is ever existent and ever reappearing, though obscured for a time. And upon her head a crown of twelve stars. This image immediately suggests a reference to the twelve apostles of the Christian Church, and the twelve tribes of the Jewish Church. Wordsworth observes, "Twelve is the apostolic number, and stars are emblems of Christian teachers." In like manner the Jews were accustomed to speak of the minor prophets as "the twelve." The crown is ste´fa??? —the crown of victory—the idea of which is prominent throughout the vision.

7. PAUL KRETZMANN 1-6, “The Battle of Michael with the Dragon.

The woman clothed with the sun:

v. 1. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars;

v. 2. and she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

v. 3. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and, behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

v. 4. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth; and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

v. 5. And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her childwas caught up unto God and to His throne.

v. 6. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

In spite of the awe which this picture and the entire vision arouses in our hearts, it contains a message of great comfort and cheer: And a great sign was seen in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon beneath her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and being pregnant, she cried in the pains of birth and was in torment to give birth. This woman symbolizes

the Daughter of Zion, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, Isa_54:5-6. She is clothed with the sun; for to her the Sun of Righteousness has appeared, thus giving to her the brightness of the true day in Christ Jesus. The moon, the queen of night, is under her feet, for she has overcome all change and conquered all darkness. She has a crown of twelve stars, for the doctrine of the apostles and prophets is her greatest ornament, her precious jewels. It is the function of the Church always, till the end of time, to bring forth spiritual children, Isa_54:1-17; Pa. 45:17; Gal_4:26-27; Psa_110:3. These children are indeed brought forth with travail; to bring them to faith and to keep them in faith is a work which God alone can perform through the Gospel, and the operations of His Spirit conflict with all the natural desires of man.

In glaring contrast with this picture is that of the dragon: And there was seen another sign in heaven; and, behold, a huge red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems, and his tail dragged the third part of the stars of heaven, and threw them to the earth; and the dragon stood before the woman that was about to give birth, that, when she had born, he might devour the child. The dragon, as often in Scriptures, represents Satan, the old evil serpent, Eze_29:3; Isa_27:1; Isa_51:9, here with particular reference to the work which he does through his chief tool and instrument, the Church of Anti-Christ. There he shows all his craft and power, and his seven heads and ten horns, kings and rulers and heretical teachers in the Church, stand him in good stead, aid him in his design to destroy Christ and all His Christians utterly. For with every new believer Christ is born, Gal_4:19, and therefore the devil intends to devour, to annihilate, Christ in His Church by turning the Christians away from Him, by corrupting the Church.

The dragon's fierceness is now indicated: And she gave birth to a man-child, who was intended to rule all the nations with an iron rod; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne; and the woman fled into the wilderness, where a place has been prepared for her by God, that they should nourish her there twelve hundred and sixty days. The believers, born in Christ and with Christ, through the Word, through Baptism, would indeed be in great danger from Satan and his henchmen, were it not for the fact that, with Christ and in Christ, their souls are even now safe at the throne of God, in the hands of the Lord. The devil may indeed destroy our body and take our life, but he cannot rob us of our eternal salvation. The desert, or wilderness, into which the Church was obliged to flee is practically identical with this whole earth; for it has happened time and again that the confessors of Christ were forced to conceal themselves in the most secret and unlikely places in order that the enemies of the Gospel might not find them. But in spite of all such tribulation, which was especially great during the rule of Anti-Christ, the Church was nourished. Even as the Lord reserved for Himself, at the time of Elijah, seven thousand that had not bowed their knees to Baal, so He protects His Church, the poor small crew, in the midst of the most trying vicissitudes of temptation and persecution. That is glorious comfort for all Christians.

8. PULPIT, “The foes of God and of his Church."That old serpent." In previous chapters of this book there have been hints of sundry evil forces which would at divers times harass the Church of God. Who they would be, or what, or how they would work, has not yet been shown to us. This is done, however, in chapters which we have yet to consider. Of them there are several. Of each one we have a representation in the form of allegory or parable. In this chapter the first of them is shown us. We can be in no doubt as to who it is that is intended; nor is there any very great difficulty about the main features of the sketch, however obscure some of the minor details may be. The enemy is the devil. The object of his rage is the faithful Church, represented under the symbol of "a woman, clothed with the sun," etc. When we find, too, that this woman brought forth a man child, who is sought to be devoured as soon as born; who is, in spite of all, caught up to God and to his throne, from which seat of power he is to rule the nations as with a rod of iron;—we have very distinctive marks pointing unmistakably to our Lord. The enemy, failing to devour him, persecutes the woman, and lulling in his designs against her, he goes on to war with the remnant of her seed. But, as the chapter shows, in every instance the evil one rushes on only to his own defeat. So that this chapter contains a parable of glorious meaning, as it sets forth the working of Satan against the Church of God. His present work is to make war against those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Why should he select these as the objects of his attack? Why? Because others are doing his work for him! He disturbs himself only about his disturbers. He has little need to look

after others. Let us, then, try, in the light of this chapter, to look our foe full in the face, and to find out what he is, what he can do, and what he cannot. Our subject, then, is—our foe, as sketched by a Divine hand.

I. OUR FOE IS A PERSONAL ONE. (Rev_12:9.) It would be of little avail to say that the personality of the evil one cannot be decided from such a chapter as this; for the allusions to Satan elsewhere are so numerous and so varied that they shut us up to the conviction of his personality; i.e. that he is a distinct being, with a will, plan, and pro-pose of his own, moving in "the heavenly places," i.e. in the realm of spirit. We often find the personal pronouns used concerning him (Joh_8:44). The names and epithets applied to him indicate the same. The name "the devil" means "the slanderer." He is represented in Scripture as slandering God before men, and as slandering men before God. The apostle speaks of him as "going about seeking whom he may devour." Nor can there be a doubt that we are taught by our Lord and his apostles that to Satan's pernicious agency much of the evil in the world must be traced. Let us remember our Lord's conflict with him.

II. HE IS AN OLD ONE. "The devil sinneth from the beginning" (1Jn_3:8; Joh_8:44). He first sinned in heaven, and was cast out from thence ere he came to deceive the whole world. Then he tempted Adam in Eden. He came into conflict with our Lord. He hindered apostles in their work (1Th_2:18). He has been counterplotting the sowings of the Son of man for eighteen hundred years (Mat_13:39). And he is at work still. We well know, indeed, that there is one difficulty which often presses upon thoughtful minds. It is this: Can it be that God should let one being have such tremendous power for evil? Now, although the devil's power is not so great as stone people seem to think it to be, we confess that it would be a very great relief to us if we felt warranted in saying, No. But there are three remarks which have to be set over against this question.

1. Whatever evil is in the world is here, whether there be a devil or no. And if evil is only a spontaneous product of man himself, then human nature is much worse than the Bible declares it to be.

2. But if we grant that some of it comes from outside, it is then merely a question whether the outside evil is led on by one single force, or by an indefinite number of agents, organized or unorganized.

3. If we accept the doctrine of the unity of leadership in the forces of ill outside earth, the difficulty is merely one of degree, not of kind; e.g. if one pope can by his will move his organized forces at any part of the world, why may not a like power be, for aught we know, outside the limits of this globe?

III. HE IS A DARING ONE. The flashes of light which we get on this point in Scripture are many. Michael and his angels. Our Lord. Peter. Judas. In heaven. In Eden. In the desert. At the last Supper. In Gethsemane. He carefully selects those on whom he will try his temptations. The greater the object, the fiercer the onset. If a man stands up for Jesus, Satan will desire to have him, that he may sift him as wheat. It is a far greater thing to bring an eagle to the ground than a sparrow. It is a vaster achievement to batter a fortress than a hut. And the greater our influence, and the higher our standing in the Church, the more fiercely will the evil one assail us.

IV. HIS ATTEMPTS ARE OFTEN FAILURES. (Rev_12:8, "The dragon warred and his angels, and they prevailed not.") It is a relief to find that it is so; and that the evil one's most daring attempts have been the signal for most humiliating failures. The supreme illustration of this is his onset upon our Lord in the desert (Mat_4:1-11). From heaven he was cast out, and even on this earth he is an outcast still (Rev_12:9-11). His power in far off realms is at an end. His pride was his condemnation. He was overpowered by a Greater, when Jesus died. "Now is the prince of this world cast out" (Joh_12:31). And already, in prospect of his complete, utter, and final defeat, is the heavenly song begun, "Now is come the salvation," etc. (Rev_12:10, Rev_12:11). It is no wonder that we go on to read that—

V. HE IS AN ANGRY FOE. (Rev_12:12, "He has great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short

time.") In what way this has been revealed to the evil one, we do not know; but we shall do both ourselves and Scripture a wrong if we refuse to let this thought bring us its appropriate inspiration and comfort. Truly it is good to know that the end of his power is foreseen.

VI. HE IS A MALICIOUS ONE. (Rev_12:13.) If defeated in one scheme, he tries another. It cast out of heaven, he will plague the earth. "He worries whom he can't devour." And as he prevailed not against the Lord of the Church, he persecutes the Church of the Lord. He has long been engaged in plotting schemes against the people of God, desiring to have them, that he may sift them as wheat.

VII. HE IS A WATCHFUL AND CRAFTY ONE (Rev_12:4, Rev_12:13, Rev_12:15), varying his methods according to the case in hand. "We are not ignorant of his devices" (2Co_2:11). We have to contend against "the wiles of the devil" (Eph_6:11). He is active, too, in executing his plans. The whole of this chapter is one lengthened sketch, in symbol, of the manifold forms of his activity. And perhaps we are hardly prepared to see how varied are his methods of work, until we collect the several hints scattered throughout the Word of God. In the world at large he counterplots the sowing of the Son of man (Mat_13:38,. 39); he deceives by powers, and signs, and lying wonders (2Th_2:9,2Th_2:10); in a city like Pergamos he sets up his throne (Rev_2:12, Rev_2:13); he collects his followers in a synagogue of his own (Rev_2:9); he preys on the body, inflicting dumbness on one (Mar_9:17), and binding another for eighteen years (Luk_13:16); he casts some of the saints into prison (Rev_2:10), and hinders apostles in their work (1Th_2:18); he inflicts on Paul a thorn in the flesh (2Co_12:7, 2Co_12:8), and goes about in search of prey (1Pe_5:8), in a constant state of unrest (Mat_12:43); he lays snares for the ungodly (2Ti_2:26); causes many to turn aside after him (1Ti_5:15); he puts it into the heart of Judas to betray his Master (Joh_13:2), and leads Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the Holy Ghost (Act_5:3); if men are just coming to Jesus, he throws them down and tears them (Luk_9:42); and while the Word is being heard, he stealthily takes it out of the heart, lest they should believe and be saved (Luk_8:12). So terrible is the tale of his deceit that we are ready to give up heart, till we note—

VIII. HE IS A CIRCUMSCRIBED FOE. This chapter tells us of three limits put to him and to his power.

1. One, of space. He is cast down to earth. He is "the god of this world" (2Co_4:4).

2. A second, of time. "A time, and times, and half a time." The same mysterious period of twelve hundred and sixty days, during which the witness bearing is to go on, and the beast (Rev_13:1-18.) is to continue.

3. There is yet a third limit, that of force (Rev_12:16, "The earth helped the woman," etc.). Nothing can be plainer than that in this chapter we are shown the cheering fact that the evil one cannot have it all his own way. If his work counterplots the good, none the less surely does the good counteract him. He is mighty; but there is a Stronger than he. We are taught in Scripture that there are five ways by which his power is restricted and his intention foiled.

(1) There is providential dispensation (Rev_12:6, Rev_12:14, Rev_12:16; 1Co_10:13).

(2) There is angelic ministry (Rev_12:7).

(3) There is the direct exertion of Christ's commanding word (Mat_17:18).

(4) There is the counteracting power of Divine grace (2Co_12:9).

(5) There is the intercession of our Redeemer (Luk_22:31, Luk_22:32).

IX. HE IS A FOE WITH WHOSE DEVICES WE HAVE TO RECKON IN FIGHTING THE BATTLE OF LIFE. (Rev_12:17.) Note:

1. He is one at whom we cannot afford to laugh, and whose existence we cannot afford to deny.

Nothing gives the enemy such leverage as the denial of his existence. It is the very lie he loves to put into our mouths. The only "father," surely, who loves his children to disown his existence.

2. He is a foe before whom we need not quail. While we may not laugh in careless indifference, we need not cower in fear. Life is not so easy as if there were no devil to fight; it is not so hard but that we may ensure his defeat.

3. He is a foe to whom not an inch of room should be given (Eph_4:27). Let us ever be wary lest he get advantage over us; and let us swear eternal enmity to him and all his works.

4. He is a foe for whose onsets we should prepare, by a survey and appropriation of heavenly forces. We stand between two opposing agencies—the Spirit of God on one side, and the devil on the other. Let us not grieve the Spirit by toying with the devil.

5. He is a foe on whose ultimate defeat and complete discomfiture we may surely and confidently reckon if we look to Jesus. "Greater is he that is for us," etc. Our Lord hath overcome him for us, and in his strength we shall overcome too. And we shall be better and stronger Christians for having had such a foe to fight. Not only is it the battle that tries the soldier, but that makes him. We have, however, not just one skirmish, and then peace. Oh no! "Patient continuance in well doing." Daily fighting, daily praying, daily victory, till the end.

"The land of triumph lies on high;

There are no foes t' encounter there!"

9. WILLIAM KELLY, “Signs are beheld above: the sources, principles, and agents in the coming crisis are seen on high. "There appeared a great sign in the heaven." The being seen in heaven shows that it is not a mere history of what takes place on earth, but a view given of God's purpose. Though seen above, the woman represented is to be Israel on the earth. The symbol is of the chosen people as a whole, for a future state of things which God means to establish here below. Utterly weak in herself, she was "clothed with the sun." Israel shall be invested with supreme authority on earth, long as she has been desolate and down-trodden by the Gentiles. "And the moon under her feet" intimates that the condition of legal ordinances (or, as some would regard it, derivative rule), instead of governing her as of old, shall be under her feet. How aptly the moon sets forth the reflected light of the Mosaic system to any thoughtful mind! What are feasts, new moons, or sabbaths to the Christian? In the millennium this will not be out of sight, as now under Christianity, but reappear: only when Jehovah is truly honoured as her husband, there will be manifest subordination, as may be seen in Ezekiel's prophecy.

More than this appears. "And on her head a crown of twelve stars." There will be the fullest administrative authority in man, not only for use but to adorn her. In short, whether it be supreme, derivative, or subordinate authority, all is now assured to her. Israel is therefore to be the manifest vessel of God's mighty purposes for the earth; and God here so looks at her and presents her to the prophet's eye. But this is not all. Another glory is here, greater than all; for "unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." What could Israel do without Jehovah's Anointed, the Messiah? "She was with child, and crieth, travailing in birth, in pain to be delivered." It is not yet the day for joyous and triumphant accomplishment of the divine purpose, when before Zion travails she is to bring forth, and before her pain come, she is to be delivered of a man-child; as Isaiah proclaims to Israel in his last chapter. There is weakness and suffering yet, but all is secured, and the end pledged on high. Compare Mic_5:2-3, where, as here, the birth of Messiah (for the woman is the mother, not the bride) is connected with the future day of Israel's deliverance. Only in the Revelation is the man-child caught up meanwhile to God and to His throne, of which we have more to say in its place.

"And there appeared another sign in the heaven, and, behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads." It is Satan, but here invested with the form of the most determined and successful enemy that Israel ever had. For crushing as was the overthrow under Nebuchadnezzar, the Roman power trod down Jerusalem with a more

tremendous and permanent tyranny. Besides, as the Roman Beast collided with Christ once, so must it be destroyed at His appearing. This therefore makes the unfolding of the double sign so much the more striking. Not that the deliverance is yet come; but Israel and the enemy are confronted before the prophet according to God's mind. What a mighty encouragement before Israel passes through the worst trouble!

The dragon has seven heads, as it is here said, or the completeness of ruling authority; and ten horns, not twelve, but at any rate an approach to it, in the instruments of the power wielded in the west. Man is never truly complete. God gave the woman twelve stars. The dragon has but ten horns. And this appears to look on to the last days; for the empire, whilst it possessed imperial unity, never had ten co-ordinate and subordinate kings, as the Beast will surely have before its judgment (Rev_17:12; Rev_17:17). It is the dragon too we may say in purpose. But God would not allow that completeness of administrative power even in form which belonged to the woman. All will be in due order when the Lord Jesus takes the government of the earth into His hands in the age to come. "Verily I say to you, That ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." The twelve apostles of the Lamb are destined to a special place of honourable trust.

"And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth." Does not this imply that the third part is the distinctively Roman side of the empire? It was "the third part" we saw in the Trumpets, both in the four earlier ones and also in the sixth. This seems to set forth the western empire, or what was properly Roman. The Romans actually possessed, because they conquered, a great deal that belonged to Greece for instance, and Medo-Persia and Babylon. This last was far east; but the properly Roman part was western Europe. There the dragon's malignant influence was to be particularly felt, at least in those that filled the place of rulers. It "drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them unto the earth; and the dragon standeth before the woman that was about to bring forth, that he might devour her child as soon as she should bring forth." It is Christ above all that he dreads. The old serpent is the constant foe of Christ in the war of all time. "And she brought forth a man-child, who is about to rule [or, tend] all the nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and unto his throne."

Some things call for explanation here. First, a notion prevails that the woman is the church. Many Christians have so conceived. A few words are sufficient to dispel the illusion, and do. How could the church be the mother of Christ? Viewed figuratively as a woman, the church is the bride of Christ (as we see in Rev. 19, 21, 22); whereas the Jewish body is truly represented as His mother. Christ, as man, came of the Jews after the flesh. And He plainly is the One here described as the Man-child. The same truth is evident in the scriptures, whether we take the Psalms or the Prophets. "Unto us," says Isaiah, "a child is born, a son is given." Again, in the second Psalm, we find that He who is honoured by God Himself as the Son is to rule the nations with a rod of iron. The Lord Jesus is the destined Ruler here prominent, as the woman is Israel in full corporate character for dominion on the earth. To the daughter of Zion shall come the first dominion, the kingdom to the daughter of Jerusalem, as Micah predicts.

It may be no small difficulty how to bring herein the birth of Christ. Observe then that here the Spirit of God is not proceeding with the course of the prophecy. For the seventh Trumpet brought in the end in a general way. It has been already explained that here we have supplemental matter of the highest moment. Another thing should be taken into account, that in this portion no date serves to fix the time when the birth of the Man-child takes place. But if emphatically timeless, why should the birth of the Man-child be introduced here, seeing that the Lord had been born, had lived, had died and gone to heaven long before? While introducing Israel according to His purpose, God in this striking manner rehearses it mystically, and combines it with His and our translation to heaven after the style of O.T. prophecy. The disclosure of God's covenant dealings with Israel in order to their eventual restoration furnishes the occasion. All are, as in this prophetic perspective, introduced here together, Christ being both the Bridegroom of the church, and the King of Israel and of all the nations, though only the last of these relationships suits this place save mystically.

God is not at all disposing the purposes before us as a question of time, but of connection with Christ their centre. The prophet is about to enter into the final scenes of the world; but before this is done, God's counsel is shown as to Israel. This brings forward the devil in his evil antagonism to that counsel; for it was assuredly what the adversary most of all dreaded. Scripture lets us see Satan invariably opposing Christ with greater tenacity of purpose and hatred and pride than any other. Recognising in Him the fatal bruiser of himself and the great deliverer of man and creation to God's glory, a constant and direct enmity on Satan's part to the Son of God is familiar throughout the Bible. But there is more than this: Satan sets himself against His connection with the now poor and despised people of Israel. Hence before God espouses the part of Israel, the fact is shown that Christ is caught up to Him and to His throne. Not a word drops about His life; not a word here about His death or His resurrection. This proves to us how mystical the statement is. Had it been an historical summary, we must have had those stupendous events on which depends all reconciliation with God for man and the universe. But all this is entirely passed over. Like the woman, the Man-child is viewed in God's purpose. The reason seems just this, that here is intimated, as in O.T. prophecy, how the Lord and His people are wrapped up in the same symbol. Just so, in a yet more intimate way, what is said about Christ applies to the Christian. Compare Isa_1:8-9, and Rom_8:33-35.

On this mystical principle then the rapture of the Man child to God and His throne involves the rapture of the saints in itself. The explanation why it could be thus introduced here depends on the truth that Christ and the church are one, and have the common destiny of ruling the nations with a rod of iron. Inasmuch as He went up to heaven, so also the church is to be caught up. "So also is Christ," says the apostle Paul in 1Co_12:12, when speaking of the church; for we must naturally suppose the allusion is to the body rather than to the Head. Yet he does not say, so also is the church, but "so also is Christ." In a similar spirit this prophecy shows us the Male of might taken to heaven, entirely above the reach of Satan's malice. If this be so, it has a remarkable bearing on what has been already asserted as to the book. We here begin over again, with divine purposes and their unseen action and aims as the object of the Holy Ghost in this latter portion. It is a supplemental volume, revealing secret springs and the great agents, with mercies too, of the closing scenes.

This is strictly in order. The heavenly saints are above. It is now a question of preparing the earthlypeople, Israel, for their place here below. Put for heavenly and for earthly people all turns on Christ. Hence Christ being born of Israel, there is and ought to be first set forth that connection of His. Next is the devil's opposition to the counsels of God, and hindrance for the time being; which gives occasion to the Lord Himself taking His place in heaven, the church following Him into heaven, without a date to either, like a binary star. In short, the first portion of the chapter is a mystical representation of the Lord's relationship with Israel and of Satan's deadly antagonism; then the Lord's removal out of the scene to heaven, which gives room for God's binding up, as it were, with Christ's disappearance to heaven the saints' translation there. In this way the rapture of the Man-child is not brought in here historically, but in mystic connection; and the great agents are all in their place according to God's mind.

If this be borne in mind, the whole subject is considerably cleared. "She brought forth a man-child to rule all the nations with a rod of iron." There is no difficulty in applying this to the Man-child, viewed not personally and alone but mystically; and the less, because this very promise is made to the church in Thyatira, or rather to the faithful there. It will be remembered that at the end of Revelation ii. it was expressly said that the Lord would give to the overcomer power over the nations, and he should rule them with iron rod, broken to pieces like vessels of pottery, just as He Himself received of His Father. But where for the present is Israel? Hidden in the wilderness, yet preserved till God's public kingdom appears. "And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should nourish her there a thousand two hundred [and] sixty days." The days are numbered for the tried; as elsewhere in the shortest form compressed for like purpose as to the Beast's reign.

In verse 7 is a new scene; and here from counsel we come much more to facts, though unseen by men on the earth. It is not God's counsels or principles viewed in His mind, but positive events; first of all from above, as later on we shall find consequent changes on the earth. The mystery of

God awaits its term. Its completion will surely come. But even before His world-kingdom come, what a vast and striking change! Saints will no longer have to wrestle with the spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies! Satan can never again play the part of accuser on high.

"And there came war in the heaven: Michael and his angels to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels, and prevailed not; nor was their place found any more in the heaven. And the great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent that is called Devil and Satan, that deceiveth the whole habitable world, was cast unto the earth; and his angels were cast with him. And I heard a great voice in the heaven, saying, Now is come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ; because the accuser of our brethren is cast down, that accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and loved not their life unto death. For this be glad, O heavens, and ye that tabernacle in them." It is evident that at this time persons are spoken of as being above who sympathise deeply with their suffering brethren on earth. Such is the incontestable fact. Who are they but those one with Christ, the Male of might? Compare Rev_13:6. They anticipate from Satan's catastrophe the entire establishment of the kingdom, though three and a half times have yet to pass in fact. Satan has lost that access to the presence of God in the quality of accuser of the brethren which he had previously possessed; nor will he ever regain the highest seat of his power then lost, the pledge of ruin ever more and more irretrievable. He is no longer able to fill heaven with his bitter taunts and accusations of the saints of God. What a blessed change for them! What a relief to those on high!

"Woe," it is added, "to the earth and to the sea! because the devil hath gone down to you, having great fury, knowing that he hath a short season." This clearly connects the dispossession of Satan from his heavenly seat with the crisis of Jews and Gentiles at the end of the present age. We find here the hidden reason. Why should there be then such an unwonted storm of persecution? why such tremendous doings of Satan here below for a short time, the three years and a half before the close? Here it is explained. Satan cannot longer accuse above; accordingly he does while he can his worst below. He is cast down to earth, never to regain the heavens: a fact of deep import and of pregnant consequence. Again, he will be banished from the earth, as we shall find, into the bottomless pit by-and-by; and though he be let loose thence for a short time, it is only for his irremediable destruction; for he is cast then (not merely into the pit or abyss, but) into the lake of fire, whence none ever comes back.

Such is the revealed course of the dealings of God with the great enemy of men from first to last. How strange to fancy that such amazing events took place ages ago without the saints of God knowing it! From Rev. 4 there is a throne of judgment, not of grace; from Rev. 12 Satan has no longer access to heaven; and there is therefore no more room for wrestling against spiritual powers of wickedness in heavenly places. Our struggle against them is so characteristic of the Christian, that any interpretation of the Revelation is convicted of error, which assumes that it ceases while the church is on earth. The Epistle to the Ephesians must thereby be no longer applicable: a consequence necessarily flowing from the error, and as certainly false and impossible.

From verse 13 the history is pursued not from the heavens, but on the earth. "And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the male. And to the woman were given two wings of the great eagle, that she might flee into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished shore a time and times and half a time from the serpent's face." Thus power is given to escape, rapid means of flight from Satan's persecution; not power to withstand Satan, and fight the battle out with him, but ample facility to hide from his violence. This is conveyed by the two wings of the great eagle - a figure of vigorous means to escape. The most energetic image of flight in nature is vividly applied to the case in hand

"And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a river after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the river." The endeavour to stir up impetuous action, excited by his craft to overwhelm the Jews, is vain; for "the earth," or what was then under settled government, "helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went to make war with the

remnant of her seed that keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus." By these are meant such of the Jews as then are known for subjection to God and a certain witness of Jesus. If the woman represents a more general state of Israel, the remnant of her seed are the witnessing portion. The mass, or "the many" of the future as Daniel calls them, will be quite apostate. The Jews of that day will thus vary much. Even among the godly then some will be much more energetic and intelligent than others, as we see in Daniel 12. Satan hastens therefore, and sets himself to put down those chosen vessels in the testimony of Jesus, a testimony not so much of communion for the Christian, but distinctly in the spirit of prophecy.

9. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “A great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun.

The sign of the woman in heaven

Let us consider the scene. There is a woman clothed with the sun, crowned with stars, and having the moon under her feet. A woman has ever been the chief symbol of the Church. The relation between the Lord and the Church is most correctly represented by the relation between a true husband and a faithful wife. The husband is delighted to supply his wife with every comfort; his counsel guides, his strength defends her. So is the Lord to the whole universe, but especially to heaven and the Church. A wife, on the other hand, loves her husband, and him only, as a husband. She trusts in his judgment, she has confidence in his strength and protection, she delights in carrying out his views so far as she can see them to be right (Psa_45:10-11). The Church, then, is the Lord’s wife: she loves Him--leans upon Him--confides in Him--is jealous for His honour, worship, and dignity, and clings fondly to Him in life, death, and eternity. She, therefore, is represented by this glorious woman. And the teachings of this chapter show us that when the Church would be manifested to the world, she would be a great wonder, she would startle and astonish mankind, and would have to encounter the fierce opposition of those who are meant by the dragon, which sends out floods from his mouth to destroy her and her man child. The Church, then, especially as to her love for the Lord, His law, His kingdom, and His children, is meant by this woman. And, in truth, it is this love which forms the very essence of the Church (Joh_13:34-35). No other qualifications have the Church in them if there be not charity in them. To be, then, in the love of truth and goodness, is to be in that blessed community, the Church, which is represented by the magnificent symbol presented to the spiritual sight of St. John, “a woman clothed with the sun.” The sun corresponds to the Divine love, and this all-essential source of blessedness appears to the angels of heaven as a sun immeasurably surpassing ours in splendour, and while its holy glow warms, it also blesses them. The Lord (Jehovah) is a sun and a shield, lie giveth grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly (Psa_84:11). The sun is the centre of the solar system. Divine love is the centre of the spiritual system. The sun warms all nature, Divine love warms all heaven, and every heaven-seeking spirit in the world. The soul is cold, chilled, and barren, until Divine love cheers, encourages, and quickens the affections. The woman, then, was clothed with the sun, to teach us that the Church in her purity is filled, nourished, embosomed, and blessed, by the Divine love of the Lord. To be clothed with the sun is then the privilege of the Church, when she is single-hearted and true to the Saviour. She feels His presence cheering, purifying, exalting, and blessing her; He raising her up far above all that is low and sordid, with “healing in His wings.” The object next offering itself for our attention is the moon. “The moon was under her feet.” And when we remember the two great lights mentioned in Genesis, “the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night,” we shall readily perceive that the moon corresponds to the light which shines in the soul when we are in states of spiritual night. Our limited powers tire, and must have rest, variety, and restoration. In spiritual things the mind opens with delight to the beauties of the Divine Word. Worship is welcome, and we enjoy a delightful season of refreshing. There are showers of blessing, and, like the apostles of old, we exclaim, “It is good for us to be here! Let us make tabernacles and abide.” It is full day. But, after a season, we feel the necessity of a change. We have been hearing and enjoying, now we must go and act. We have had our spiritual day, now we must have night, and that is often the period of external activity. We are engaged in natural business, and our natural feelings and perceptions become dim. It is night; we are no longer conscious of the cheering presence of the light of love in which we formerly rejoiced, but we are not without light, we have the light of faith: this is the moon. Faith, like a beautiful moon, rules the night. Upon such a moon, then, the woman was observed to stand. And so it is with the true Church. She relies on an

enlightened faith, not upon dark mysteries. The moon reflects light, and illuminates the darkness, and just in proportion as it faces and reflects the sun. Faith, in proportion as it perceives the Divine love prevalent in all things, affords light and comfort to its possessor. While, then, the sun of Divine love is described as embosoming the woman, the moon of faith is under her feet. The one affords nourishment, support, and joy, the other yields a firm foundation. Faith is a rock, derived from the Rock of Ages. And a clear, firm, heartfelt, rational, spiritual faith, will enable the members of the Church to stand firm under every trial, and to conquer in every conflict. “There was upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” The stars are used to represent the glorious possessions of this woman, because they correspond to the smaller lights of religion afforded by individual truths. When we clearly see and know the spiritual lesson afforded by each verse of the Holy Word, it becomes a star in the firmament of the soul. When the mind is well stored with the sacred knowledge of Divine things, it is like the heavens in the night-time, when the sky is radiant and robed with brilliancy. When the soul has no longer the bright manifest presence of the Sun of Righteousness, and shade and darkness come on, it is a blessed thing to have one and then another small but holy light breaking in upon us like star after star, which shows its lovely ray in the evening, until the whole gorgeous canopy is lighted up. The twelve stars represent all the knowledge of Divine things. The number twelve in the usage of the Divine Word represents all things both of goodness and truth: it is the compound of four and three multiplied together. The woman is said to have a diadem of twelve stars, to teach us that she loves and honours all the instructions that come from the Lord: all the knowledges of goodness and truth are to her as so many stars, and she makes them her glory and her crown. The head represents the highest intellectual faculty, and a diadem the wisdom which enriches and adorns that faculty in the Lord’s true servants. They do not esteem the knowledge of Him and His kingdom as things indifferent; they are the glories of their intellect: they do not wear them about their feet; they are their crown. “And she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.” The man child which she desired to bring forth represents the new system of doctrine and order and society, which she desired to initiate. Instead of the love of self which had so long desolated society, and made God’s earth a scene of turmoil, struggle, and distress, she desires to substitute the love of God, and love to one another. Instead of life’s business being regarded as a mere worldly pursuit, she would teach all men in all things to live the life of heaven. Such is the new system of doctrine and practice which the Lord’s new Church would fain engender. But ah! she cries, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. When society has been so long formed upon the two great sources of mischief, selfishness and mystery, as so-called Christendom has, we need not wonder that purer principles shored at first be received with difficulty. This difficulty arises from two causes, a contrary faith and a contrary life. Let it then be our first and chief aim to bring the rule of the man child fully into our daily conduct, and evincing an example in our lives of the blessedness of living for heaven and earth at the same time, we shall then be able to assist others in their life-work by encouragement and counsel, and that not only in private but in public matters. For surely the woman cries loudly that the earth is groaning from a thousand sorrows, which are but the results of ignorance, folly, and falsehood. (J. Bailey, Ph. D.)

The sun-clothed woman

1. We have the image of a “woman.” Woman was made out of Adam. Adam was “the figure of Him that was to come.” Christ is “the second Adam.” And the wife of the second Adam is the Church, made out of Him by the hand and Spirit of God from that deep sleep of His for the sins of the world.

2. This woman is in the way of motherhood. This is the characteristic of the Church in every period of its existence. The Church is meant for the work of begetting and bearing saints. It is not for show but for fruitfulness--for the bringing forth of a royal seed of God, to inherit His kingdom, and to rule and reign in the ages of eternity.

3. This woman is magnificently arrayed. Of course, no mere creature, or any number of creatures, can be literally dressed with the sun. It is only a pictorial representation, which is to be figuratively understood. The sun is the fairest and most brilliant thing our eyes have ever seen. It is the great

orb of brightness. To be clothed with it, one would needs be clothed with light. And so it is with the Church and the people of God. Jesus says, they are “the children of light” (Luk_16:8). It is the office and end of all God’s merciful appointments “to turn men from darkness to light” (Act_26:18). The Church has ever been an illuminated body. Its children are not of darkness, but of the day. While others grope in darkness they are arrayed in light. The sun is at the same time the great lightgiver. It radiates brightness as well as possesses it. And to be clothed with the sun, one must necessarily be a glorious dispenser of illumination. And such is the Church. Its members and ministers have been the brightest lights of the ages. It is constituted and ordained for the teaching of the nations, and the bearing of the light of heaven to the benighted souls of men. The sun is likewise an orb of great excellence and purity. Nothing can diminish its glory, or taint its rays. To be clothed with it is to be clothed with unsullied excellency. And so it is with the Church. It may have shabby members, but they are not really of it. Light is the garment of God. It is the symbol of His own nature. And as all true people of His are “partakers of the Divine nature,” being begotten unto Him from above, they enter also into the same clothing. The Church is robed with the sun.

4. This woman is victorious in her position. She has “the moon under her feet.” As the sun is the king of day, so the moon is the empress of night, and is a fit picture of the kingdom of darkness. And as to be clothed with the sun is to be “light in the Lord,” so to tread the moon under foot is the image of victory over the powers of darkness, whether of nature, or aught else. And this is a blessed characteristic and honour of the Church. All her true members are conquerors. They have subdued their prejudices, and brought their bodies and passions under the sway of another and better dominion and discipline. The moon is under their feet. And the same is equally true of the Church as a body. She is the hero of battles and victories. Kings have combined to exterminate her, tyrants haw oppressed her, children have betrayed her, friends have deserted her, but still she has lived on. The moon is under her feet.

5. Still further: this woman is royal in rank and dignity. Regal gems glitter about her brow. There is “on her head a crown “--a crown “of stars.” Whatever the particular allusion may be, whether to patriarchs, or tribes, or apostles, or all of these, or to the totality of her teaching agency, there flashes forth from this the unmistakable idea of kinghood and authority; yea, of celestial royalty and dominion (1Pe_2:9). People look with contempt upon the Church. They think her mean among the majesties of this world. They esteem her manner of life a letting down of man’s proper dignity and consequence. They scorn her modesty and humility as effeminacy. But the Church is a royal woman, crowned with the stars of heaven.

6. And she is ha travail to bring forth. She is persecuted; but these are not so much pains of persecution. Persecution has its spring in hall’s malignity; this agonising has its origin in the love, and faith, and hope of a pious maternity. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)

Social Christhood and social fiendhood

I. Social Christhood.

1. It is glorious. Encircled with the solar beams of Divine truth. Treads down all worldliness in its spirit and aims.

2. It is multiplying.

(1) Its offspring is brought forth in pain. Who knows the anguish of those earnestly engaged in endeavouring to form Christ in men, and to bring Him forth?

(2) It is brought forth to govern. Every Christly convert is a king, as well as a priest unto God.

(3) It is destined for a Divine fellowship. Sublime destiny.

II. Social fiendhood. The “great red dragon,” the old serpent, the prince of the power of the air, works in the children of disobedience everywhere.

1. His possession of enormous power.

(1) Of intellect. “Seven heads.”

(2) Of execution. “Seven horns.”

(3) Of empire. “Seven crowns.”

(4) Of mischief (verse 4).

2. His determined antagonism to Christhood. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The Church a woman

1. Where John says, there appeared a great wonder in heaven, this shows us that God’s works for His Church, and against her enemies, are most part wonderful.

2. In the comparing the Church to a woman, we see that of herself she is but weak, but strong is He who owns her.

3. By her description, we see that all her decking and ornaments are heavenly and spiritual.

4. More particularly, she is clothed with the sun: herewith should we likewise be clothed, to make us glorious before God, and acceptable.

5. She has the moon under her feet, which teaches all her true members in like manner to tread upon the world in affection, and never to let it have place, either in heart or head.

6. It is first said that she was clothed with the sun, and then that she trod on the moon, to show us that we will never despise the world till we put on Christ, and know the excellence of Christ and of heavenly things. (Wm. Guild, D. D.)

10. James R. Davis “In any movie it always important to identify all the characters and where they fit into the overall theme of the movie. As you watch a movie, the characters are usually defined as the plot of the movie progresses. So it is in John's vision. The main characters for chapter 12 are described and presented in such a way that it leaves no doubt as to whom they are and the roles each play. John sees a dragon, which is identified as that ancient serpent called the devil, which leads the world astray. He makes war against the woman and the angels in heaven. Then there is a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and about to give birth. She gave birth to a male child who ruled the nations with an iron scepter. The child can be none other than Jesus Christ whom the devil desired to devour. John describes other offspring of the woman as "those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus." (12:17) Therefore the woman initially represents the fleshly seed of Abraham which gave birth to the Christ child. After Christ is caught up into heaven, the woman continues to represent the spiritual descendants of Abraham that are given birth through Christ church. They are the spiritual descendants of Abraham and Christ because they have obeyed God and hold to the testimony of Jesus Christ.

11. ZEISLER, As all of us know, effective battle requires knowing the nature andstrengths and

weaknesses of our enemy. If we extend this metaphor, wemight say that the first slide, in verses 1 through 6 of chapter 12,is taken from a long distance away. It is a shot of events, but thedetails are clouded because of the distance, resulting in a distortedimpression of the way things really are. In effect, the first pictureof the events we will study is from the point of view of Satan-- notlyingdirectly, but deceiving us as to the impact of what we areseeing. The second slide in the last half of the chapter is taken witha telephoto lens, which zooms in on the details. It allows us to seeclearly and corrects the distortion so that we have a properfoundation to stand on.

The vision of the Woman reminds the reader of God's promise to Adam and Eve about the Messiah (the Seed of the Woman) Who will bruise the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). It could have been assumed that the reference to the Woman in the twelfth chapter refers to the Virgin Mary. However, from further references in which the distant descendents of the Woman (Christians) are discussed, it is evident that here the Woman must be considered to be the Church. The radiance of the sun surrounding the Woman symbolizes the moral perfection of the saints and the blessed illumination of the Church through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The twelve stars symbolize the twelve tribes of the New Israel - that is, the unity of the Christian peoples. The agony of the Woman during labor symbolizes the exploits, deprivations, and suffering of the servants of God (the prophets, apostles, and their successors) borne by them during the spreading of the Gospel throughout the world and during the confirmation of Christian virtues among its spiritual children (those who were baptized). St. Paul called the Galatian Christians: "My children, for whom I painfully labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you" (Gal. 4:19).

12. DAVID RIGGS, “In this section we have an altogether different vision, but it deals with the same period of time that we have already studied. We do not step out of that era into another. We get a glimpse of the actual struggle at work between God and Satan. God uses His forces (Christ and His followers) and Satan uses his (evil governments and false religions). In chapters 12-14 seven majestic figures or personages are involved in the intense conflict: (1) the woman, (2) the great dragon, (3) the man child, (4) Michael, (5) the sea beast, (6) the earth beast, and (7) the Lamb with the 144,000. John says, "And there appeared a great wonder (footnote: "Or, sign"; chapters 12-14 are highly symbolical) in heaven" (as seen from heaven's viewpoint). First, he sees a woman of glorious appearance. She was clothed with the sun (glorious and exalted) and had the moon under her feet (dominion). She had on her head a crown of twelve stars (victorious). Also, the radiant woman being with child "cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered" (vs. 2). This woman probably does not represent the Jewish nation or the virgin Mary, but the spiritual remnant through which the Messiah would come. This view is sustained by Micah who said, "Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies." (Micah 4:10). The one brought forth by the daughter of Zion would "be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." (Micah 5:2) Micah also added, "Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth." (Micah 5:3-4) This woman, gloriously arrayed, represents more than just the Patriarchical and Mosaical remnant. After bearing the man child she came to symbolize all of those "who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (vs. 17). Paul said, "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace" (Rom. 11:5).

13. EXPOSITORS BIBLE, “THE FIRST GREAT ENEMY OF THE CHURCH.

Rev_12:1-17.

THE twelfth chapter of the Revelation of St John has been felt by every commentator to be one more than usually difficult to interpret, and that whether we look at it in relation to its special purpose, or to its position in the structure of the book. If we can satisfy ourselves as to the first of these two points, we shall be better able to form correct notions as to the second.

Turning then for a moment to chap. 13, we find it occupied with a description of two of the great enemies with which the Church has to contend. These are spoken of as "a beast" (Rev_13:1) and "another beast" (Rev_13:11), the latter being obviously the same as that described in Rev_19:20 as "the false prophet that wrought the signs" in the sight of the former. At the same time, it is evident that these two beasts are regarded as enemies of the Church in a sense peculiar to themselves, for the victorious Conqueror of chap. 19 makes war with them, and "they twain are cast into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone."* This fate next overtakes, in Rev_20:10, "the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan," so that no doubt can rest upon the fact that to St. John’s view the great enemies of the Church are three in number. When, accordingly, we find two of them described in chap. 13, and chap. 12 occupied with the description of another, we are warranted in concluding that the main purpose of the chapter is to set before us a picture of this last. (* Rev_19:20)

Thus also we are led to understand the place of the chapter in the structure of the book. We have already seen that the seven Trumpets are occupied with judgments on the world. The seven Bowls, forming the next and highest series of judgments, are to be occupied with judgments on the degenerate members of the Church. It is a fitting thing, therefore, that we should be able to form a clear idea of the enemies by which these faithless disciples are subdued, and in resisting whom the steadfastness of the faithful remnant shall be proved. To describe them sooner was unnecessary. They are the friends, not the enemies, of the world. They are the enemies only of the Church. Hence the sudden transition made at the beginning of chap. 12. There is no chronological relation between it and the chapters which precede. The thoughts embodied in it refer only to what follows. The chapter is obviously divided into three parts, and the bearing of these parts upon one another will appear as we proceed.

"And a great sign was seen in heaven; a woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she was with child; and she crieth out, travailing in birth, and in pain to be delivered. And there was seen another sign in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems. And his tail draweth the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them into the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman that was about to be delivered, that when she was delivered he might devour her child. And she was delivered of a son, a man-child, who as a shepherd shall tend all the Rations with a scepter of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and unto His throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two hundred and threescore days (Rev_12:1-6)."

In the first chapter of the book of Genesis we read, "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also."1 Sun, and moon, and stars exhaust the Biblical notion of the heavenly bodies which give light upon the earth. They therefore, taken together, clothe this woman; and there is no need to search for any recondite meaning in the place which they severally occupy in her investiture. She is simply arrayed in light from head to foot. In other words, she is the perfect emblem of light in its brightness and purity. The use of the number twelve indeed suggests the thought of a bond of connection between this light and the Christian Church. The tribes of Israel, the type of God’s

spiritual Israel, were in number twelve; our Lord chose to Himself twelve Apostles; the new Jerusalem has "twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel."2 (1 Gen_1:16; 2 Rev_21:12)

But though the light is thus early connected with the thought of the Christian Church, and though the subsequent portion of the chapter confirms the connection, the woman is not yet to be regarded as, in the strictest sense, representative of that community or Body historically viewed. By-and-by she will be so. In the meantime a comparison of Rev_12:6 with Rev_12:14, where her fleeing into the wilderness and her nourishment in it for precisely the same period of time as in Rev_12:6 are again mentioned, together with what we have already seen to be a peculiarity of St. John’s mode of thought, forbids the supposition. The Apostle would not thus repeat himself. We are entitled therefore to infer that at the opening of the chapter he deals less with actual history than with the "pattern" of that history which had existed from all eternity in the mount. Hence also it would seem that the birth of the child, though undoubtedly referring to the birth of Jesus, is not the actual birth. It, too, is rather the eternal "pattern" of that event. Similar remarks apply to the dragon, who is not yet the historical Satan, and will only be so in the second paragraph, at Rev_12:9. The whole picture, in short, of these verses is one of the ideal which precedes the actual, and of which the actual is the counterpart and realization.

The resemblance, accordingly, borne by the first paragraph of this chapter (Rev_12:1-6) to the first paragraph of the fourth Gospel (Joh_1:1-5), is of the most striking kind. In neither is there any account of the actual birth of our Lord. In both (and we shall immediately see this still more fully brought out in the apocalyptic vision) we are introduced to Him at once, not as growing up to be the Light of the world, but as already grown up and as perfect light. In both we have the same light and the same darkness, and in both the same contrariety and struggle between the two. Nor does the comparison end here. We have also the same singular method of expressing the deliverance of the light from the enmity of the darkness. In Joh_1:5, correctly translated, we read "The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness overcame it not," the thought being rather negative than positive, rather that of preservation than of victory. In the Apocalypse we read, And her child was caught up unto God, and unto His throne, the idea being again that of preservation rather than of victory.

Such is the general conception of the first paragraph of this chapter. The individual expressions need not detain us long. The woman s raiment of light has been already spoken of. Passing therefore from that, it need occasion no surprise that He who is Himself the Giver of light should be represented as the Son of light. God "is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."1 Jesus, as the Son of God, is thus also the Son of light. No doubt the conception is continued even after we behold the woman in her actual, not her ideal, state. Jesus is still her Son.2 Yet there is a true sense in which we may describe our Lord not only as the Foundation, but also as the Son, of the Church. He is "the First-born among many brethren,"3 the elder Brother in a common Father’s house. He is begotten by the power of the Holy Spirit4; and they that believe in His name are "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."5 So close indeed in the teaching of St. John is the identification of Christ and His people, that whatever is said of Him may be said of them, and what is said of them may be said of Him. Human thought and language fail to do justice to a relation so profound and mysterious. But it is everywhere the teaching of the beloved disciple - in his Gospel, in his Epistles, in his Revelation although the Church may not fully understand it until she has lived herself more into it than she has done. Her "life" will then bring her "light."6 (1 1Jn_1:5; 2Comp. Rev_12:17; 3 Rom_8:29; 4 Mat_1:20; 5 Joh_1:13; 6Comp. Joh_1:4)

The dragon of the passage is great and red: "great" because of the power which he possesses; "red," the colour of blood, because of the ferocity with which he destroys men: "He was a murderer from the beginning;" "Cain was of the evil one, and slew his brother;" "And I saw the woman" (that is, the woman who rode upon the scarlet-coloured beast) "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus."1 The dragon has further seven heads, - seven, the number of completeness, so that he possesses everything to enable him to execute his plans; and ten horns, the emblem at once of his strength and of his rule over all the kingdoms of the world. Upon the heads, too, are seven diadems, a word different from that which had been employed for the woman’s "crown" in the first verse of the chapter. Hers is a crown of victory; the diadems of the dragon are only marks of royalty, and may be worn, as they will be worn, in defeat. The dragon’s tail, again, like the tails of the locusts of the fifth Trumpet and of the horses of the sixth, is the instrument with which he destroys2; and the third part of the stars of heaven corresponds to "the third part" mentioned in each of the first four Trumpets. The figure of casting the stars into the earth is taken from the prophecy of Daniel, in which it is said of the "little horn" that "it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them."3 (1 Joh_8:44; 1Jn_3:12; Rev_17:6; 2 Rev_9:10; Rev_9:19; 3 Dan_8:10)

The dragon next takes up his position before the woman which was about to be delivered, that when she was delivered he might devour her child; and the first historical circumstances to which the idea corresponds, and in which it is realized, may be found in the effort of Pharaoh to destroy the infant Moses. Pharaoh is indeed often compared in the Old Testament to a dragon: "Thou didst divide the sea by Thy strength: Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters;" "Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself."1 The power, and craft, and cruelty of the Egyptian king could hardly have been absent from the Seer s mind when he employed the figure of the text. But he was certainly not thinking of Pharaoh alone. He remembered also the plot of Herod to destroy the Child Jesus.2 Pharaoh and Herod men quailed before them; yet both were no more than instruments in the hands of God. Both worked out His "determinate counsel and foreknowledge."3 (1 Psa_74:13;Eze_29:3; 2 Mat_2:16; 3 Act_2:23)

The child is born, and is described in language worthy of our notice. He is a son, a man-child; and the at first sight tautological information appears to hint at more than the mere sex of the child. He is already more than a child: he is a man. There is a similar emphasis in the words of our Lord when He said to His disciples in His last consolatory discourse, "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but when she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world."* From the first the child is less a child than a man, strong, muscular, and vigorous, who as a shepherd shall tend all the nations with a scepter of iron. Strange that we should be invited to dwell on this ideal aspect of the Son’s work rather than any other! No doubt the words are quoted from the second Psalm. This, however, only removes the difficulty a step further back. Why either there or here should the shepherd work of the Messiah be connected with an iron scepter rather than a peaceful crook? The explanation is not difficult. Both the Psalm and the Apocalypse are occupied mainly with the victory of Christ over His adversaries. His friends have already been secured in the possession of a complete salvation. It remains only that His foes shall be finally put down. Hence the "scepter of iron." Strange also, it may be thought, that in this ideal picture we should find no "pattern" of the life of our Lord on earth, of His labors, or sufferings, or death; and that we should only be invited to behold Him in His incarnation and ascension into heaven I But again the explanation is not difficult Over against Satan stands, not a humbled merely, but a risen and glorified, Redeemer. The process by which He conquered it is unnecessary to dwell upon. Enough that we knew the fact. (* Joh_16:21)

The woman’s child being thus safe, the woman herself fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, and where she shall be nourished by heavenly sustenance. Thus Israel wandered forty years, fed with the manna that fell from heaven and the water that flowed from the smitten rock.1 Thus Elijah fled to the brook Cherith, and afterwards to the wilderness, where his wants were supplied in the one case by the ravens, m the other by an angel.2 And thus was our Lord upheld for forty days by the words that proceeded out of the mouth of God.3 This wilderness life of the Church, too, continues during the whole Christian era, during the whole period of witnessing.4Always in the wilderness so long as her Lord is personally absent, she eats heavenly food and drinks living water. (1 1Co_10:3-4; 2 1Ki_17:6; 1Ki_19:5; 3 Mat_4:4; 4 Rev_11:3)

Such is the first scene of this chapter; and, glancing once more over it, it would seem as if its chief purpose were to present to us the two great opposing forces of light and darkness, of the Son and the dragon, considered in themselves.

The second scene follows: -

"And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels: and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the devil, and Satan, the deceiver of the whole inhabited earth: he was cast down into the earth, and his angels were cast down with him. And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accuseth them before our God day and night And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that tabernacle in them. Woe for the earth and for the sea! because the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short season (Rev_12:7-12)."

If our conception of the first six verses of the chapter be correct, it will be evident that the idea often entertained, that the verses following them form a break in the narrative which is only resumed at Rev_12:13, is wrong. There is no break. The progress of the thought is continuous. The combatants have been set before us, and we have now the contest in which they are engaged. This consideration also helps us to understand the personality of Michael and the particular conflict in the Seer’s view.

For, as to the first of these two points, it is even in itself probable that the Leader of the hosts of light will be no other than the Captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The dragon leads the hosts of darkness. The Son has been described as the opponent against whom the enmity of the dragon is especially directed. When the war begins, we have every reason to expect that as the one leader takes the command, so also will the other. There is much to confirm this conclusion. The name Michael leads to it, for that word signifies, "Who is like God?" and such a name is at least more appropriate to a Divine than to a created being. In the New Testament, too, we read of "Michael the archangel"1 - there seems to be only one, for we never read of archangels2 - and an archangel is again spoken of in circumstances that can hardly be associated with the thought of anyone but God: "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God."3 Above all, the prophecies of Daniel, in which the name Michael first occurs, may be said to decide the point. A

person named Michael there appears on different occasions as the defender of the Church against her enemies,4 and once at least in a connection leading directly to the thought of our Lord Himself: "And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of Thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time Thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever."5 These considerations justify the conclusion that the Michael now spoken of is the representative of Christ; and we have already seen, in examining the vision of the "strong angel" in chap. 10, that such a mode of speaking is in perfect harmony with the general method of St. John. (1 Jud_1:9; 2Brown, The Book of Revelation, p. 69; 3 1Th_4:16; 4 Dan_10:13; Dan_10:21; 5Dan_12:1-3)

Light is thus thrown also upon the second point above mentioned: the particular conflict referred to in these verses. The statement that there was war in heaven, and that when the dragon was defeated he was cast down into the earth, might lead us to think of an earlier conflict between good and evil than any in which man has part: of that mentioned by St. Peter and St. Jude, when the former consoles the righteous by the thought that "God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment,"1 and when the latter warns sinners to remember that "angels which kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, He hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."2 The circumstances, however, of the war, lead rather to the thought of a conflict in which the Son, incarnate and glorified, takes His part. For this "Son" is the opponent of the dragon introduced to us in the first paragraph of the chapter. "Heaven" is not so much a premundane or supramundane locality as the spiritual sphere within which believers dwell even during their earthly pilgrimage, when that pilgrimage is viewed upon its higher side. And the means by which the victory is gained - for the victors overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony - distinctly indicate that the struggle referred to took place after the work of redemption had been completed, not before it was begun. (1 2Pe_2:4; 2 Jud_1:6)

Several other passages of the New Testament are in harmony with this supposition. Thus it was that when the seventy returned to our Lord with joy after their mission, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject unto us in Thy name," He, beholding in this the pledge of His completed victory, exclaimed, "I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven."1 Thus it was that when charged with casting out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons, our Lord pointed out to His accusers that His actions proved Him to be the Conqueror, and that the kingdom of God was come unto them: "When the strong man fully armed guardeth his own court, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him his whole armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils."2 To the same effect are all those passages where our Lord or His Apostles speak, not of a partial, but of a complete, victory over Satan, so that for His people the great enemy of man is already judged, and overthrown, and bruised beneath their feet: "Now is a judgment of this world now shall the prince of this world be cast out;" "And when He" (the Advocate) "is come, He will convince the world of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged;" "Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage;" "Whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith;" "We know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not; but He that was begotten of God keepeth him, and the evil one toucheth him not."3 (1Luk_10:17-18; 2 Luk_11:21-22; 3 Joh_13:31; Joh_16:11; Heb_2:14-15; 1Jn_5:4; 1Jn_5:18)

In passages such as these we have the same thought as that before us in this vision. Satan has been cast out of heaven; that is, in his warfare against the children of God he has been completely overthrown. Over their higher life, their life in a risen and glorified Redeemer, he has no power. They are forever escaped from his bondage, and are free. But he has been cast down into the earth, and his angels with him; that is, over the men of the world he still exerts his power, and they are led captive by him at his will. Hence, accordingly, the words of the great voice heard in heaven which occupy all the latter part of the vision, words which distinctly bring out the difference between the two aspects of Satan now adverted to, - (1) his impotence as regards the disciples of Jesus who are faithful unto death: Rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them; (2) his mastery over the ungodly: Woe for the earth and for the sea! for the devil is gone down unto you in great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short season. Although, therefore, the fall of the angels from their first estate may be remotely hinted at, the vision refers to the spiritual contest begun after the resurrection of Jesus; and we ask our readers only to pay particular regard to the double relation of Satan to mankind which is referred to in it: his subjection to the righteous and the subjection of the wicked to him. One phrase only may seem inconsistent with this view. In Rev_12:9 Satan is described as the deceiver of the whole inhabited earth, for that, and not "the whole world," is the true rendering of the original.1 "The whole in habited earth" cannot be the same as "the earth." The latter is simply the wicked; the former includes all men. But the words describe a characteristic of Satan in himself, and not what he actually effects. He is the deceiver of the whole inhabited earth. He lays his snares for all. He tempted Jesus Himself in the wilderness, and many a time thereafter during His labors and His sufferings. The vision gives no ground for the supposition that God’s children are not attacked by him. It assures us only that when the attack is made it is at the same instant foiled. There is a battle, but Christians advance to it as conquerors; before it begins victory is theirs.2 (1Comp. R.V. {margin}; 2Comp. 1Jn_5:4)

One other expression of these verses may be noted: the short season spoken of in Rev_12:12. This period of time is not to be looked at as if it were a brief special season at the close of the Christian age, when the wrath of Satan is aroused to a greater than ordinary degree because the last hour is about to strike. The great wrath with which he goes forth is that stirred in him by his defeat through the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord. It was roused in him when he was "cast into the earth," and from that moment of defeat therefore the "short season" begins.

The third paragraph of the chapter follows: -

"And when the dragon saw that he was cast down into the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man-child. And there were given to the woman the two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, unto her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman water as a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream. 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. And the dragon waxed wroth with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus; and he stood upon the sand of the sea (Rev_12:13-17, - Rev_13:1 a)."

We have already seen that the woman introduced to us in the first paragraph of this chapter is the embodiment and the bearer of light. She is there indeed set before us in her ideal aspect, in what she is in herself, rather than in her historical position. Now we meet her in actual history, or, in other words, she is the historical Church of God in the New Testament phase of her development. As such she has a mission to the world. She is "the sent" of Christ, as Christ was "the sent" of the

Father.* In witnessing for Christ, she has to reveal to the children of men what Divine love is. But she has to do this in the midst of trouble. This world is not her rest; and she must bear the Saviour’s cross if she would afterwards wear His crown. (* Joh_20:21)

Persecuted, however, she is not forsaken. She had given her the two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, unto her place - the place prepared of God for her protection. There can be little doubt as to the allusion. The "great eagle" is that of which God Himself spoke to Moses in the mount: " Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles wings, and brought you unto Myself;"1 and that alluded to by Moses in the last song taught by him to the people: "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him."2 The same eagle was probably in view of David when he sang, "How excellent is Thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings;"3 while it was also that on the wings of which the members of the Church draw continually nearer God: " They mount up with wings as eagles."4 To the woman then there was given a "refuge from the storm," a "covert from the heat," of trial, that she might abide in it, nourished with her heavenly food, for a time, and times, and half a time. Of this period we have already spoken. It is the same as that of the three and a half years, the "forty-two months," the "thousand two hundred and threescore days." It is thus the whole period of the Church’s militant history upon earth. During all of it she is persecuted by Satan; during all of it she is preserved and nourished by the care of God. At first sight indeed it may seem as if this shelter in the wilderness were incompatible with the task of witnessing assigned to her. But it is one of the paradoxes of the position of the children of God in this present world that while they are above it they are yet in it; that while they are seated "in the heavenly places" they are exposed to the storms of earth; that while their life is hid with Christ in God they witness and war before the eyes of men. The persecution and the nourishment, the suffering and the glory, run parallel with each other. One other remark may be made. There is obviously an emphasis upon the word "two" prefixed to "wings." Though founded upon the fact that the wings of the bird are two in number, a deeper meaning would seem to be intended; and that meaning is suggested by the fact that the witnesses of chap. 11 were also two. The protection extended corresponds exactly to the need for it. The "grace" of God is in all circumstances "sufficient" for His people.5 No temptation can assail them which He will not enable them to endure, or out of which He will not provide for them a way of escape.6 Therefore may they always take up the language of the Apostle and say, "Most gladly will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the strength of Christ may spread a tabernacle over me. Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong."7 (1 Exo_19:3-4; 2 Deu_32:11-12; 3 Psa_34:7; 4 Isa_40:31; 5 2Co_12:9; 6 1Co_10:13; 7 2Co_12:9-10)

The woman fled into the wilderness, but she not permitted to flee thither without a final effort of Satan to overwhelm her; and in the manner in which this effort is made we again recognize the language of the Old Testament There the assaults of the ungodly upon Israel are frequently compared to those floods of waters which, owing to the sudden risings of the streams, are in the East so common and so disastrous. Isaiah describes the enemy as coming in "like a flood."1 Of the floods of the Euphrates and the destruction which they symbolized we have already spoken; and in hours of deliverance from trouble the Church has found the song of triumph most suit able to her condition in the words of the Psalmist, "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us: then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul: then the proud waters had gone over our soul. Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth."2 The main reference is, however, in all probability to the passage of Israel across the Red Sea, for then, says David, calling to mind that great deliverance in the history of his people, and finding in it the type of deliverances so often experienced by himself, "the sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. ... In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God. ... He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many

waters."3 (1 Isa_59:19; 2 Psa_124:2-6; 3 Psa_18:4-16)

The most remarkable point to be noticed here is, however, not the deliverance itself, but the method by which it is accomplished. To understand this, as well as the wrath of Satan immediately afterwards described, it is necessary to bear in mind that twofold element in the Church the existence of which is the key to sc many of the most intricate problems of the Apocalypse. The Church embraces both true and false members within her pale. She is the "vine" of our Lord’s last discourse to His disciples, some of the branches of which bear much fruit, while others are only fit to be cast into the fire and burned."1 The thought of these latter members is in the mind of St. John when he tells us, in a manner so totally unexpected, that the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth. He is thinking of the nominal members of the Church, of the merely nominal Christianity which she has so often exhibited to the world. That Christianity the world loves. When the Church’s tone and life are lowered by her yielding to the influence of the things of time, then the world, "the earth," is ready to hasten to her side. It offers her its friendship, courts alliance with her, praises her for the good order which she introduces, by arguments drawn from eternity, into the things of time, and swallows up the river which the dragon casts out of his mouth against her. When Christ’s disciples are of the world, the world loves its own.2 They are helping "the earth" to do its work. Why should the earth not recognize and welcome the assistance given it by foolish foes as well as friends? Therefore it helps the woman. (1 Joh_15:5-6; 2 Joh_15:19)

But side by side with this aspect of the Church which met the approbation of "the earth," the dragon saw that she had another aspect of determined hostility to his claims; and he waxed wroth with her. She had within her not only degenerate but true members, not only worldly professors, but those who were one with her Divine and glorified Lord. These were the rest of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus. They were the "few names in Sardis which did not defile their garments,"l "the remnant according to the election of grace,"2 "the seed which the Lord hath blessed."3 Such disciples of Jesus the dragon could not tolerate, and he went away to make war with them. Thus is the painful distinction still kept up which marks all the later part of the Apocalypse. The spectacle was one over which St. John had mourned as he beheld it in the Church of his own day: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that not all are of us. Little children, it is the last hour."4 It was a spectacle which he knew would be repeated so long as the Church of Christ was in contact with the world; and he notes it now. (1 Rev_3:4; 2 Rom_11:5; 3 Isa_61:9; 4 1Jn_2:18-19)

One other point ought to be noticed in connection with these verses. The helping of the woman by the earth seems to be the Scripture parallel to the difficult words of St. Paul when he says in writing to the Thessalonians, "And now ye know that which restraineth to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work: only there is one that restraineth now, until he be taken out of the way."* This "restraining" power, generally, and in all probability correctly, understood of the Roman State, is "the earth" of St. John helping the woman because it is helped by her. (* 2Th_2:6-7)

We have been introduced to the first great enemy of the Church of Christ. It remains only that he shall take up his position on the field. The next clause therefore which meets us, and which ought to be read, not as the first clause of chap. 13, but as the last of chap. 12, and in which the third person ought to be substituted for the first, describes him as doing so: And he stood upon the sand of the sea, upon the shore between the earth and the sea, where he could so command them both as to justify the "Woe" already uttered over both in the twelfth verse of the chapter.

There we leave him for a time, only remarking that we are not to think of ocean lying before us in a calm, but of the restless and troubled sea, raised into huge waves by the storm-winds contending upon it for the mastery and dashing its waves upon the beach.

2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she

was about to give birth.

1.BARNES, “And she being with child cried, travailing in birth ... - That is, there would be something which would be properly represented by a woman in such circumstances.The question now is, what is referred to by this woman? And here it need hardly be said that there has been, as in regard to almost every other part of the Book of Revelation, a great variety of interpretations. It would be endless to undertake to examine them, and would not be profitable if it could be done; and it is better, therefore, and more in accordance with the design of these notes, to state briefly what seems to me to be the true interpretation:(1) The woman is evidently designed to symbolize the church; and in this there is a pretty general agreement among interpreters. The image, which is a beautiful one, was very familiar to the Jewish prophets. See the notes on Isa_1:8; Isa_47:1; compare Ezek. 16.(2) But still the question arises, to what time this representation refers: whether to the church before the birth of the Saviour, or after? According to the former of these opinions, it is supposed to refer to the church as giving birth to the Saviour, and the “man child” that is born Rev_12:5 is supposed to refer to Christ, who “sprang from the church” - ?ata` sa´??a kata sarka - according to the flesh (Prof. Stuart, vol. 2, p. 252). The church, according to this view, is not simply regarded as Jewish, but, in a more general and theocratic sense, as “the people of God.” “From the Christian church, considered as Christian, he could not spring; for this took its rise only after the time of his public ministry. But from the bosom of the “people of God” the Saviour came. This church Judaical indeed (at the time of his birth) in respect to rites and forms, but to become Christian after he had exercised his ministry in the midst of it, might well be represented here by the woman which is described in Rev. 12.” (Prof. Stuart). But to this view there are some, as it seems to me, unanswerable objections. For:(a) there seems to be a harshness and incongruity in representing the Saviour as the Son of the church, or representing the church as giving birth to him. Such imagery is not found elsewhere in the Bible, and is not in accordance with the language which is employed, where Christ is rather represented as the Husband of the church than the Son: “Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” Rev_21:2. “I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” Rev_21:9; compare Isa_54:5; Isa_61:10; Isa_62:5.(b) If this interpretation be adopted, then this must refer to the Jewish church, and thus the woman will personify the Jewish community before the birth of Christ. But this seems contrary to the whole design of the Apocalypse, which has reference to the Christian church, and not to the ancient dispensation.(c) If this interpretation be adopted, then the statement about the dwelling in the wilderness for a period of 1260 days or years Rev_12:14 must be assigned to the Jewish community - a supposition every way improbable and untenable. In what sense could this be true? When did anything happen to the Jewish people that could, with any show of probability, be regarded as the fulfillment of this?(d) It, may be added, that the statement about the “man child” Rev_12:5 is one that can with difficulty be reconciled to this supposition. In what sense was this true, that the “man child” was “caught up unto God, and to his throne?” The Saviour, indeed, ascended to heaven, but it was not, as here represented, that he might be protected from the danger of being destroyed; and when he did ascend, it was not as a helpless and unprotected babe, but as a man in the full maturity of his powers. The other opinion is, that the woman here refers to the Christian church, and that the object is to represent that church as about to be enlarged - represented by the condition of the woman, Rev_12:2. A beautiful woman appears, clothed with light - emblematic of

the brightness and purity of the church; with the moon under her feet - the ancient and comparatively obscure dispensation now made subordinate and humble; with a glittering diadem of twelve stars on her head - the stars representing the usual well-known division of the people of God into twelve parts - as the stars in the American flag denote the original states of the Union; and in a condition Rev_12:2 which showed that the church was to be increased.The time there referred to is at the early period of the history of the church, when, as it were, it first appears on the theater of things, and going forth in its beauty and majesty over the earth. John sees this church, as it was about to spread in the world, exposed to a mighty and formidable enemy - a hateful dragon - stationing itself to prevent its increase, and to accomplish its destruction. From that impending danger it is protected in a manner that would he well represented by the saving of the child of the woman, and bearing it up to heaven, to a place of safety - an act implying that, notwithstanding all dangers, the progress and enlargement of the church was ultimately certain. In the meantime, the woman herself flees into the wilderness - an act representing the obscure, and humble, and persecuted state of the church - until the great controversy is determined which is to have the ascendency - God or the Dragon. In favor of this interpretation, the following considerations may be suggested:(a) It is the natural and obvious interpretation.(b) If it be admitted that John meant to describe what occurred in the world at the time when the true church seemed to be about to extend itself over the earth, and when that prosperity was checked by the rise of the papal power, the symbol employed would be strikingly expressive and appropriate.(c) It accords with the language elsewhere used in the Scriptures when referring to the increase of the church. “Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing? As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children,” Isa_66:7-8. “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord,” Isa_54:1. “The children which thou shalt have, after thou shalt have lost the other, shall say again in thy ears, The place is too strait for me; give place to me that I may dwell,” Isa_49:20. The comparison of the church to a woman as the mother of children, is one that is very common in the Scriptures.(d) The future destiny of the child and of the woman agrees with this supposition. The child is caught up to heaven, Rev_12:5 - emblematic of the fact that God will protect the church, and not suffer its increase to be cut off and destroyed; and the woman is driven for 1260 years into the wilderness and nourished there, Rev_12:14 - emblematic of the long period of obscurity and persecution in the true church, and yet of the fact that it would be protected and nourished. The design of the whole, therefore, I apprehend, is to represent the peril of the church at the time when it was about to be greatly enlarged, or in a season of prosperity, from the rise of a formidable enemy that would stand ready to destroy it. I regard this, therefore, as referring to the time of the rise of the papacy, when, but for that formidable, corrupting, and destructive power, it might have been hoped that the church would have spread all over the world. In regard to the rise of that power, see all that I have to say, or can say, in the notes on Dan_7:24-28.

2. CLARKE, “And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, etc. - This, when taken in connection with the following verses, is a striking figure of the great persecution which the Church of Christ should suffer under the heathen Roman emperors, but more especially of that long and most dreadful one under Diocletian. The woman is represented as Being with child, to show that the time would speedily arrive when God’s patient forbearance with the heathen would be terminated, and that a deliverer should arise in the Christian world who would execute the Divine vengeance upon paganism.

3. GILL, “And she being big with child,.... Which may be expressive of the fruitfulness of the church in bearing and bringing forth many souls to Christ, and which were very numerous in this period of time, when it was said of Zion that this and that man was born in her; and particularly of her pregnancy with the kingdom of Christ, to be brought forth, and set up in the Roman empire, under the influence of a Roman emperor: and this being her case, she

cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered; which are metaphors taken from a woman in

travail; and may either denote the earnest cries and fervent prayers of the members of the church, and the laborious and painful ministrations of the preachers of the Gospel for the conversion of souls, and especially for the setting up of the kingdom of Christ in the empire of Rome; or else the sore and grievous persecutions which attended the apostles of Christ, and succeeding ministers of the word, throughout the times of the ten Roman emperors, and especially under Dioclesian; when the church was big, and laboured in great pain, and the time was drawing on apace that a Christian emperor should be brought forth, who should be a means of spreading the Gospel, and the kingdom of Christ, all over the empire; see Jer_30:6; so the Targumist frequently explains the pains of a woman in travail in the prophets by ???, "tribulation"; see the Targum on Isa_13:8.

4. GLENN, “Pain in birth is the most usual experience and so we see Mary no doubt suffered in bringing Jesus into the world. God's own Son came into life by pain, and so we see that even the chosen of God do not escape the common sufferings of man. Here is the Christmas story from a heavenly perspective. Here the remnant of Israel became the True Israel of God, which was His bride by which he brought the Messiah into the world.

The woman is not Mary many feel, but the people of God. The child is Jesus for he is the one who will rule the nations with a rod of iron as in 19:15, and as predicted in Ps. 2:9 which the New Testament relates to the Messiah in Matt. 3:17 and Luke 3:22 and Acts 13:33 and Heb. 1:5, 5:

5. JAMISON, “pained — Greek, “tormented” (basanizomene). De Burgh explains this of the bringing in of the first-begotten into the world AGAIN, when Israel shall at last welcome Him, and when “the man-child shall rule all nations with the rod of iron.” But there is a plain contrast between the painful travailing of the woman here, and Christ’s second coming to the Jewish Church, the believing remnant of Israel, “Before she travailed she brought forth ... a MAN-CHILD,” that is, almost without travail-pangs, she receives (at His second advent), as if born to her, Messiah and a numerous seed.

6. PULPIT, “And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. The present, "crieth," ??a`?e? , is found in à , A, P, Coptic, Andreas in a et bav., etc.; the imperfect, e???a´?e? , is read in C, Vulgate, 7, 8, 31, etc., Andreas in cet p, Primasius; the aorist, e???a´?e? , in B, twelve cursives (cf. the words of our Lord in Joh_16:21, Joh_16:22). A similar image occurs in Isa_26:17; Isa_66:7, Isa_66:8; Mic_4:10. The trouble which afflicted the Jewish Church, and the longing of the patriarchs for the advent of the Saviour, are here depicted. So also St. Paul, encouraging the Romans to bear patiently their sufferings, says, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Rom_8:22).

3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an

enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten

horns and seven crowns on its heads.

1.BARNES, “And there appeared another wonder in heaven - Represented as in heaven. See the notes on Rev_12:1. That is, he saw this as occurring at the time when the church was thus about to increase.And behold a great red dragon - The word rendered “dragon” - d?a´??? drako‾n - occurs, in the New Testament, only in the book of Revelation, where it is uniformly rendered as here - “dragon:” Rev_12:3-4, Rev_12:7,Rev_12:9, Rev_12:13, Rev_12:16-17; Rev_13:2, Rev_13:4,Rev_13:11; Rev_16:13; Rev_20:2. In all these places there is reference to the same thing. The word properly means “a large serpent”; and the allusion in the word commonly is to some serpent, perhaps such as the anaconda, that resides in a desert or wilderness. See a full account of the ideas that

prevailed in ancient times respecting the dragon, in Bochart, Hieroz. lib. iii. cap. xiv., vol. ii. pp. 428-440. There was much that was fabulous respecting this monster, and many notions were attached to the dragon which did not exist in reality, and which were ascribed to it by the imagination at a time when natural history was little understood. The characteristics ascribed to the dragon, according to Bochart, are, that it was distinguished:(a) For its vast size;(b) That it had something like a beard or dew-lap;(c) That it had three rows of teeth;(d) That its color was black, red, yellow, or ashy;(e) That it had a wide mouth;(f) That in its breathing it not only drew in the air, but also birds that were flying over it; and,(g) That its hiss was terrible.Occasionally, also, feet and wings were attributed to the dragon, and sometimes a lofty crest. The dragon, according to Bochart, was supposed to inhabit waste places and solitudes (compare the notes on Isa_13:22), and it became, therefore, an object of great terror. It is probable that the original of this was a huge serpent, and that all the other circumstances were added by the imagination. The prevailing ideas in regard to it, however, should be borne in mind, in order to see the force and propriety of the use of the word by John. Two special characteristics are stated by John in the general description of the dragon: one is, its red color; the other, that it was great. In regard to the former, as above mentioned, the dragon was supposed to be black, red, yellow, or ashy. See the authorities referred to in Bochart, ut sup., pp. 435, 436. There was doubtless a reason why the one seen by John should be represented as red. As to the other characteristic - great - the idea is that it was a huge monster, and this would properly refer to some mighty, terrible power which would be properly symbolized by such a monster.Having seven heads - It was not unusual to attribute many heads to monsters, especially to fabulous monsters, and these greatly increased the terror of the animal. “Thus Cerberus usually has three heads assigned to him; but Hesiod (Theog. 312) assigns him fifty, and Horace (Ode II. 13, 34) one hundred. So the Hydra of the Lake Lerna, killed by Hercules, had fifty heads (Virgil, Aen. vi. 576); and in Kiddushim, fol. 29, 2, rabbi Achse is said to have seen a demon like a dragon with seven heads” (Prof. Stuart, in loco). The seven heads would somehow denote power, or seats of power. Such a number of heads increase the terribleness, and, as it were, the vitality of the monster. What is here represented would be as terrible and formidable as such a monster; or such a monster would appropriately represent what was designed to be symbolized here. The number seven may be used here “as a perfect number,” or merely to heighten the terror of the image; but it is more natural to suppose that there would be something in what is here represented which would lay the foundation for the use of this number. There would be something either in the origin of the power; or in the union of various powers now combined in the one represented by the dragon; or in the seat of the power, which this would properly symbolize. Compare the notes on Dan_7:6.And ten horns - Emblems of power, denoting that, in some respects, there were ten powers combined in this one. See the notes on Dan_7:7-8, Dan_7:20, Dan_7:24. There can be little doubt that John had those passages of Daniel in his eye, and perhaps as little that the reference is to the same thing. The meaning is, that, in some respects, there would be a tenfold origin or division of the power represented by the dragon.And seven crowns upon his heads - Greek, “diadems.” See the notes on Rev_9:7. There is a reference here to some kingly power, and doubtless John had some kingdom or sovereignty in his eye that would be properly symbolized in this manner. The method in which these heads and horns were arranged on the dragon is not stated, and is not material. All that is necessary in the explanation is, that there was something in the power referred to that would be properly represented by the seven heads, and something by the ten horns.In the application of this, it will be necessary to inquire what was properly symbolized by these representations, and to refer again to these particulars with this view:(a) “The dragon.” This is explained in Rev_12:9 of this chapter: “And the great dragon was cast out that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.” So again, Rev_20:2, “And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil.” Compare Bochart, Hieroz. ii. pp. 439, 440. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the reference here is to Satan, considered as the enemy of God, and the enemy of the peace of man, and especially as giving origin and form to some mighty power that would threaten the existence of the church.

(b) “Great.” This will well describe the power of Satan as originating the organizations that were engaged for so long a time in persecuting the church, and endeavoring to destroy it. It was a work of vast power, controlling kings and nations for ages, and could have been accomplished only by one to whom the appellation used here could be given.(c) “Red.” This, too, is an appellation properly applied here to the dragon, or Satan, considered as the enemy of the church, and as originating this persecuting power, either:(1) Because it well represents the bloody persecutions that would ensue, or.(2) Because this would be the favorite color by which this power would be manifest. Compare Rev_17:3-4; Rev_18:12, Rev_18:16.(d) “The seven heads.” There was, doubtless, as above remarked, something significant in these heads, as referring to the power designed to be represented. On the supposition that this refers to Rome, or to the power of Satan as manifested by Roman persecution, there can be no difficulty in the application; and, indeed, it is such an image as the writer would naturally use on the supposition that it had such a designed reference. Rome was built, as is well known, on seven hills (compare the notes on Rev_10:3), and was called the seven-hilled city (Septicollis), from having been originally built on seven hills, though subsequently three hills were added, making the whole number ten. See Eschenburg, Manual of Classical Literature, p. 1, section 53. Thus, Ovid:“Sed quae de septem totum circumspicit orbem.Montibus, imperii Romae Deumque locus.”Horace:“Dis quibus septem placuere colles.”Propertius:“Septem urbs alta jugis, toti quae praesidet orbi.”Tertullian: “I appeal to the citizens of Rome, the populace that dwell on the seven hills” (Apol. 35). And again, Jerome to Marcella, when urging her to quit Rome for Bethlehem: “Read what is said in the Apocalypse of the seven hills,” etc. The situation of the city, if that was destined to he represented by the dragon, would naturally suggest the idea of the seven-headed monster. Compare the notes on Rev. 13. The explanation which is here given of the meaning of the “seven heads” is, in fact, one that is given in the Book of Revelation itself, and there can be no danger of error in this part of the interpretation. See Rev_17:9; “The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth,” Compare Rev_12:18.(e) “The ten horns.” These were emblems of power, denoting that in reference to that power there were, in some respects, ten sources. The same thing is referred to here which is in Dan_7:7-8, Dan_7:20, Dan_7:24. See the notes on Dan_7:24, where this subject is fully considered. The creature that John saw was indeed a monster, and we are not to expect entire congruity in the details. It is sufficient that the main idea is preserved, and that would be, if the reference was to Rome considered as the place where the energy of Satan, as opposed to God and the church, was centered.(f) “The seven crowns.” This would merely denote that kingly or royal authority was claimed.The “general” interpretation which refers this vision to Rome may receive confirmation from the fact that the dragon was at one time the Roman standard, as is represented by the annexed engraving from Montfaucon. Ammianus Marcellinus (Joh_16:10) thus describes this standard: “The dragon was covered with purple cloth, and fastened to the end of a pike gilt and adorned with precious stones. It opened its wide throat, and the wind blew through it; and it hissed as if in a rage, with its tail floating in several folds through the air.” He elsewhere often gives it the epithet of “purpureus” - purple-red: “purpureum signum draconis, etc.” With this the description of Claudian well agrees also:“Hi volucres tollent aquilas; hi picta draconum.Colla levant: multumque tumet per nubila serpens,Iratus stimulante noto, vivitque receptis.Flatibus, et vario mentitur sibila flatu.”The dragon was first used as an ensign near the close of the second century of the Christian era, and it was not until the third century that its use had become common; and the reference here, according to this fact, would be to that period of the Roman power when this had become a common standard, and when the applicability of this image would be readily understood. It is simply Rome that is referred to - Rome, the great agent of accomplishing the purposes of Satan toward the church. The eagle was the common Roman ensign in the time of the republic, and in the earlier periods of the empire; but in later periods the dragon became also a standard as

common and as well known as the eagle. “In the third century it had become almost as notorious among Roman ensigns as the eagle itself; and is in the fourth century noted by Prudentius, Vegetius, Chrysostom, Ammianus, etc.; in the fifth, by Claudian and others” (Elliott).

2. CLARKE, “There appeared another wonder - a great red dragon - The dragon here is a symbol, not of the Roman empire in general, but of the Heathen Roman empire. This great pagan power must have, therefore, been thus represented from the religion which it supported. But what is a dragon? An entirely fabulous beast of antiquity, consequently, in this respect, a most proper emblem of the heathen worship, which consisted in paying adoration to numerous imaginary beings, termed gods, goddesses, etc. The very foundation of the heathen religious system is mostly built upon fable; and it is very difficult to trace many of their superstitions to any authentic original; and even those which appear to derive their origin from the sacred writings are so disguised in fable as literally to bear no more resemblance to the truth than the dragon of the ancients does to any animal with which we are acquainted. But it may be asked why the Spirit of God should represent the heathen Roman empire as a dragon, rather than by anger other of the fabulous animals with which the mythology of the ancient Romans abounded. The answer is as follows; In the eighth chapter of the Prophet Daniel, God has represented the kingdom of the Greeks by a he-goat, for no other apparent reason than this, that it was the national military standard of the Grecian monarchy; we may therefore expect that the pagan Roman empire is called a Dragon on a similar account. In confirmation of this point it is very remarkable that the dragon was the principal standard of the Romans next to the eagle, in the second, third, fourth, and fifth centuries of the Christian era. Of this we have abundant evidence in the writings of both heathens and Christians. Arrian is the earliest writer who has mentioned that dragons were used as military standards among the Romans. See his Tactics, c. 51. Hence Schwebelius supposes that this standard was introduced after Trajan’s conquest of the Daci. See Vegetius de Revelation Militari a Schwebelio, p. 191, Argentorati, 1806; and Graevii Thesaur., Antiq. Roman., tom. x., col. 1529. Vegetius, who flourished about a.d. 386, says, lib. ii. c. 13: Primum signum totius legionis est aquila, quam aquilifer portal. Dracones etiam per singulas cohortes a draconariis feruntur ad praelium. “The first standard of the whole legion is the eagle, which the aquilifer carries. Dragons are also borne to battle by the Draconarii.” As a legion consisted of ten cohorts, there were therefore ten draconarii to one aquilifer; hence, from the great number of draconarii in an army, the word signarii or signiferi, standard-bearers, came at last to mean the carriers of the dragon standards only, the others retaining the name of aquiliferi - See Veget., lib. ii. c. 7, and his commentators. The heathen Roman empire is called a Red dragon; and accordingly we find from the testimony of ancient writers that the dragon standards of the Romans were painted red. We read in Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xvi., c. 12, of Purpureum signum draconis, “the purple standard of the dragon.” See also Claudianus in Rufinum, lib. ii., l. 177, 178. Pitiscus, in his Lexicon Antiq. Romans, and Ducange, in his Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, sub voc. Draco, have considered this subject at great length, especially the latter writer, who has made several quotations from Claudianus, Sidonius, Prudentius, and others, in which not only the standard, but also the image of the dragon itself, is stated to be of a red or purple color. Of what has been said above respecting the dragon, this is then the sum: a huge fabulous beast is shown to St. John, by which some Great Pagan power is symbolically represented; and the Red dragon is selected from among the numerous imaginary animals which the fancies of mankind have created to show that this great pagan power is the heathen Roman empire.Having seven heads - As the dragon is an emblem of the heathen Roman power, its heads must denote heathen forms of government. - See the note on Rev_17:10, where the heads of the beast are explained in a similar way. These were exactly seven, and are enumerated by Tacitus (Annal., lib. i., in principio) in words to the following effect: “The city of Rome was originally governed by kings. L. Brutus instituted liberty and the consulate. The dictatorship was only occasionally appointed; neither did the decemviral power last above two years; and the consular power of the military tribunes was not of long continuance. Neither had Cinna nor Sylla a long domination: the power of Pompey and Crassus was also soon absorbed in that of Caesar; and the arms of Lepidus and Antony finally yielded to those of Augustus.” From this passage it is evident to every person well acquainted with the Roman history, that the seven forms of government in the heathen Roman world were,1. The regal power;

2. The consulate;3. The dictatorship;4. The decemvirate;5. The consular power of the military tribunes;6. The triumvirate; and,7. The imperial government.It is singular that commentators in general, in their citation of this passage, have taken no notice of the triumvirate, a form of government evidently as distinct from any of the others as kings are from consuls, or consuls from emperors. For the triumvirate consisted in the division of the Roman republic into three parts, each governed by an officer possessed with consular authority in his own province; and all three united together in the regulation of the whole Roman state. Consequently, it differed entirely from the imperial power, which was the entire conversion of the Roman state from a republic to a monarchy.And ten horns - That these ten horns signify as many kingdoms is evident from the seventh chapter of Daniel, where the angel, speaking of the fourth beast, says, that “the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise;” and in this view of the passage many commentators are agreed, who also admit that the ten kingdoms are to be met with “amid the broken pieces of the Roman empire.” And it is evident that nothing less than the dismemberment of the Roman empire, and its division into ten independent kingdoms, can be intended by the angel’s interpretation just quoted. If, therefore, the ten horns of Daniel’s fourth beast point out as many kingdoms, for the very same reason must the horns of the dragon have a similar meaning. But the Roman empire was not divided into several independent kingdoms till a considerable time after it became Christian. In what sense then can it be said that the different kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided by the barbarous nations are horns of the dragon? They were so because it was the Roman monarchy, in its seventh Draconic form of government, which was dismembered by the barbarians. For though the Roman empire was not completely dismembered till the fifth century, it is well known that the depression of the heathen idolatry, and the advancement of Christianity to the throne, elected not the least change in the form of government: the Romans continued still to be under subjection to the imperial power; and, consequently, when the heathen barbarous nations divided the Roman empire among themselves, they might very properly be denominated horns of the dragon, as it was by means of their incursions that the imperial power, Founded by the heathen Caesars, was abolished. Machiavel and Bishop Lloyd enumerate the horns of the dragon thus:1. The kingdom of the Huns;2. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths;3 The kingdom of the Visigoths;4. The kingdom of the Franks;5. The kingdom of the Vandals;6. The kingdom of the Sueves and Alans;7. The kingdom of the Burgundians;8. The kingdom of the Heruli, Rugii, Scyrri, and other tribes which composed the Italian kingdom of Odoacer;9. The kingdom of the Saxons; and10. The kingdom of the Lombards.And seven crowns upon his head - In the seven Roman forms of government already enumerated, heathenism has been the crowning or dominant religion.

3. GILL, “And there appeared another wonder in heaven,.... Or "sign"; which represents the woman, or the church's adversary, Satan; not that he was in heaven, in the third heaven, the placeof glory and happiness, for out of that he had been cast long ago; but in his great power and authority here on, earth, particularly in the Roman empire, where the church was labouring to bring forth her man child:

and behold a great red dragon; the devil, as it is explained in Rev_12:9; though not he in person, but the Heathen Roman empire, or the Heathen Roman emperors, acted, influenced, directed, and presided over by him; so Pharaoh king of Egypt, and other cruel and persecuting monarchs and states, are called dragons in Scripture, Isa_27:1; all which places the Targum interprets of

????, "a king", and particularly of Pharaoh king of Egypt; who is like to a great and mighty dragon: and the Roman Pagan empire, as under the influence of Satan, the god of this world, is fitly compared to a "dragon", for its policy and cunning in circumventing and ensnaring the professors of Christianity; and for its cruelty and inhumanity in persecuting of them; and for its poison of idolatry, will worship, and superstition: and it may be called a "great" one, for its strength and power, which lay in its immense treasure and riches, in numbers of men, in powerful armies, in strong cities, castles, &c. and for its large extent and jurisdiction; and a "red" one, because of the blood of the saints shed in it, by which it became of this colour; suitable to the character and bloody practices of the old serpent the devil, by whom it was influenced, who was a murderer from the beginning; and agreeably to one of the names by which the Jews (x) frequently call the Roman empire Edom, the name Esau had from the red pottage he sold his birthright for, and who himself was born red, Gen_25:29; it seems there were red dragons; Homer (y) says of the dragon, that it is red upon its back:

having seven heads, and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads; the "seven heads" of the Roman empire either design the seven mountains, or hills, on which Rome, the metropolis of the empire, was built, as the seven heads of the beast on which the woman drunk with the blood of the saints sat, are explained in Rev_17:9; or rather the seven forms of government which successively should obtain in the empire, as kings, consuls, decemvirs, dictators, tribunes, emperors, and popes; hence these heads are said to have "seven crowns" upon them, as expressive of the imperial power and dignity which were in them, and exercised by them: Mr. Daubuz thinks seven capital cities in the Roman empire are meant, as Rome, Carthage, Aege, Antiochia, Augustodunum, Alexandria, and Constantinople; and nothing is more common than to call chief cities the heads of the countries they belong unto, as Damascus the head of Syria, and Samaria the head of Ephraim, Isa_7:8. Pliny (z) calls Babylon the head of Chaldea; and Cornelius Nepos says (a) of Thebes, that it was the head of all Greece; and Syracuse is by Florus (b) called the head of Sicily, as Rome is in Livy (c), and other writers, the head of the world: and by the "ten horns" are meant either the ten kingdoms which should hereafter arise out of the Roman empire, and whose kings should give their kingdoms to the beast; or the ten Roman emperors, the persecutors of the Christians; or rather the ten provinces, or jurisdictions, which the empire was divided into while Pagan: Brightman out of Strabo has shown, that in the times of Augustus Caesar the Roman empire was distributed into two parts, the one was more immediately under the care of the emperor, and the other was governed by deputies; and each were divided into ten provinces; that which the emperor held consisted of Africa, France, Britain, Germany, Dacia with Mysia and Thracia, Cappadocia, Armenia, Syria, Palestine with Judea and Egypt, in all ten; and that part which was governed by deputies were the outermost Spain, and the isles by it, the innermost Spain, &c. Sardinia with Corsica, Sicily, Illyricum with Epirus, Macedonia, Achaia, Crete with Cyreniaca, Cyprus, Bithynia with Propontis; so that the Roman Pagan empire, as under the dominion of Satan, is manifestly designed by the dragon thus described. The Jews (d) speak of ten horns which the Israelites had, which when they sinned were taken from them, as it is written, Lam_2:3, and were given to the nations of the world, according to Dan_7:20; "and of the ten horns that were in his head", &c.

4. GLENN, This red dragon was ugly and surpassed any so-called freak with its 7 heads. The woman was a beauty with the jewels of the sun, moon and stars, but here is a monster with 7 heads. The beauty and the beast is what we have here. Even Godzilla only has one head. With 7 heads you could cut one off and he would still have 6 left and so he would be hard to kill. He had 7 lives. The 7 heads would mean great wisdom and 10 crowns on them would mean great political power, and the crowns would represent great authority.

Enormous or great is the Greek word "megas" from which we get megaton and megabite. It is really big. It is a godzilla of dragons.

Speculation is very common, and people come up with all kinds of ideas as to who the antichrist is. Here is one example. "There are about 40 prophecies concerning this person and Prince Charles has already fulfilled over 20 of them. No one else in the world past or present has fulfilled so many requirements and thus I believe that this man will most likely fulfill the remaining points. Daniel 9:26 tells us that this

person will be a `prince' of the people who destroyed the temple in A.D. 70. Revelation 13:2 says this prince receives his throne, power, and authority from the red dragon. Prince Charles received his power, throne, and authority in 1969 at his investiture where the Red Dragon of Wales was presented on banners, flags, and cut right into the back rest of the throne in Caernarf on Castle. This is the ensign that appeared on the Roman standards of Titus' army which destroyed the temple in A.D. 70. At this event Queen Elizabeth II said to Charles... "This dragon gives you your power, your throne, and your authority`4 To which Charles responded with . . . "I am now your Liege-man and worthy of your earthly worship." "Liege-man" meaning Lord or Master. This entire ceremony is available on video Another description of the "beast of the sea" is found in Revelation17:9-11 "and they are seven kings, five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain a little while. Andthe beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is one of the seven, and he goes to his destruction ." This is a very complex riddle but it is not meant to cause mental anguish. Sticking to the Roman standard, we see that this passage refers to the era of Holy Roman Emperors. Five of which were named Charles. The fifth was Charles VII who is an ancestor of Charles VIII ,the Prince of Wales today."

5. JAMISON, “appeared — “was seen.”wonder — Greek, “semeion,” “sign.”red — So A and Vulgate read. But B, C, and Coptic read, “of fire.” In either case, the color of the dragon implies his fiery rage as a murderer from the beginning. His representative, the beast, corresponds, having seven heads and ten horns (the number of horns on the fourth beast of Dan_7:7; Rev_13:1). But there, ten crowns are on the ten horns (for before the end, the fourth empire is divided into ten kingdoms); here, seven crowns (rather, “diadems,” Greek, “diademata,” not stephanoi, “wreaths”) are upon his seven heads. In Dan_7:4-7 the Antichristian powers up to Christ’s second coming are represented by four beasts, which have among them seven heads, that is, the first, second, and fourth beasts having one head each, the third, four heads. His universal dominion as prince of this fallen world is implied by the seven diadems (contrast the “many diadems on Christ’s head,” Rev_19:12, when coming to destroy him and his), the caricature of the seven Spirits of God. His worldly instruments of power are marked by the ten horns, ten being the number of the world. It marks his self-contradictions that he and the beast bear both the number seven (the divine number) and ten (the world number).

6. PULPIT, “And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and there was seen another sign in heaven (Revised Version). (See on Rev_12:1.) The appearance seen is not a representation of the devil as he actually is, but the sign—the dragon—is figurative and descriptive of the particular characteristics now about to be exhibited. In heaven—most likely merely in the space above, where he could be easily seen. Wordsworth, however, says, "Because the power here represented assails the Church, the kingdom of heaven." And behold a great red dragon. His identity is established by Rev_12:9, where he is called "the great dragon, the old serpent, the devil, Satan, the deceiver.'' Red; no doubt to enhance his terrible appearance; suggestive of his murderous, destructive character. "Dragon" ( d?a´??? ,) in the New Testament occurs only in this book. In the Old Testament the word is of frequent occurrence. In the LXX. d?a´???is used seventeen times to express the Hebrew tannin (a sea or land monster, especially a crocodile or serpent); five times it stands for leviathan; twice it represents kephir (young lion); twice nachash (serpent); once ? (he-goat); and once pethen (python). Tannin (singular) is always rendered by d?a´??? except in Gen_1:21, where we find ???t?? ; but twice it is corrupted into tannim (viz. Eze_29:3; Eze_32:2). The latter word, tannim, is the plural of tan (a jackal), and is found only in the plural; but once it is found corrupted into tannin (Lam_4:3). There is no doubt as to the signification of the appearance. The dragon, is, in the Old Testament, invariably a symbol of what is harmful, tyrannous, murderous. It is a hideous, sanguinary monster, sometimes inhabiting the sea, sometimes the desolate places of the earth, always "seeking whom it may devour." In some passages it refers to Pharaoh (Psa_74:13; cf. Eze_29:3;Eze_32:2); in others it is a type of what is noxious or desolate (Job_7:12; Isa_13:22; Isa_34:13; Psa_44:19; Jer_9:11, etc.). In Isa_27:1 we have the combination, "leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent;\ the dragon that is in the sea." Having seven heads and ten horns. The description of the beasts in Revelation 12-17, is evidently derived from the vision of Daniel (7.), although the details differ. It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the interpretation generally should follow the same

lines as that applied to the Old Testament symbols, with which the writer was so familiar. The appearances described in Daniel are universally considered to typify various worldly powers which oppressed the Church and nation of the Jews. Similarly here the symbolism seems intended to portray the opposition of the devil to the Church of God, working through the power of the world. The heads and horns are both declared in Rev_17:10, Rev_17:12 to typify kingdoms—in what way we shall presently see (Rev_17:10). The numbers seven and ten are both symbolical of completeness (see Rev_1:4; Rev_5:1; Rev_13:1;Rev_17:3). We have, therefore, in this picture of the dragon, the idea of the full and complete power of the world arrayed on earth against God and his Church. This power, connected with and derived from the devil, the prince of this world (Joh_12:31), is often alluded to by St. John as being opposed to, or in contrast with, the godly (see Joh_7:7; Joh_14:17; Joh_15:1-27.; 16.; 17.; 1Jn_2:15; 1Jn_3:13; 1Jn_5:4, etc.). And seven crowns upon his heads; seven diadems (Revised Version). That is, the kingly crown, the symbol of sovereignty, worn by the dragon to denote his power as "prince of this world." The word d?ad?´µata is found in the New Testament only here and Rev_13:1 andRev_19:12. It is not the ste´fa??? , the crown of victory worn by the saints (see Rev_2:10; Rev_3:11; Rev_6:2, etc.). No account is given of the disposition and arrangement of the heads, horns, and diadems; nor is it necessary. The seven crowned heads signify universal sovereignty; the ten horns, absolute power. Probably those to whom St. John wrote understood the symbol as referring specially to the power of heathen Rome, which was at that time oppressing the Church; but the meaning extends to the power of the world in all ages (see on Rev_13:1).

7. W. BURKITT, “The church was described before: her arch-enemy, the devil, is described now: he is called a dragon for his subtility, a great dragon for his power, a red dragon for his fiery curelty. His seven heads denote his manifold subtilities, and mischievous contrivances, his devices and wicked imaginations against the church; his ten horns denote his vast power and great strength, both in himself and his members; also the number and power of his agents, who serve ashorns to push and hurt the church.

His seven crowns upon his head denote his regal power, which he holds by usurpation, and his many victories and conquests which he obtains in the world, yet over none but those who are willingly overcome by him.

The whole of the description represents Satan as a powerful, subtle, cruel, victorious adversary. All which properties he discovers in the assault he makes upon the ministers of the church, called stars of heaven, which he endeavours to cast down to the earth; that is, to hinder their shining in the firmament of the church.

Hence learn, 1. What a mighty enemy the church has, fierce and fiery, red and bloody, full of craft and cruelty, of power and policy; and how deplorable her condition would by, if the Lord himself was not on her side.

Learen, 2. Who is prime author of all that curelty and bloodshed against the church of God, even the red dragon with its heads and horns, his ministers and agents: the greatest monarchs upon earth, if they gore and hurt the church, are the base heads and horns of this monstrous dragon.

8. DAVID RIGGS , “John sees another wonder in heaven--"a great red dragon." He is pictured as a dragon to demonstrate his monstrous nature. Notice his vivid description: he had ten horns (symbol of power) and seven crowned heads (dominion). The crowns ("diadems" ASV) were worn by royalty (hence, a symbol of authority). The dragon's tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. He was of immense size, power, and fury. Also, he stood before the woman to devour (to eat up greedily or ravenously, to seize upon and destroy) her child as soon as it was born. Thus, from the time in the garden of Eden (Gen. 3:15) to this point in the conflict, the dragon has stood ready to destroy the Seed when He would come. The dragon, of course, is Satan, the old serpent, the devil (vs. 9; 20:2).

9. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR 3-4, “A great red dragon.

The great war

A contest here is waging which enlists and engages the mightiest powers that exist. It is the great and far-reaching conflict between good and evil, between truth and falsehood, between right and usurpation, between the kingdom of God and the empire of Satan, between heaven and hell--the great war of a divided universe, coming to final issue upon this little world of ours! It is largely silent and invisible. Though raging round us every hour, we perceive so little of it, that many doubt its reality. But its very hiddenness is evidence of its awful greatness. The little broils and disputes of a neighbourhood are loud, and thrust themselves on every ear, because they are confined to a level and limit within easy observation and comprehension; but this conflict we can only know by Divine revelation, because it encompasses so much of eternity, and pertains to spiritual potencies under and behind the outward ongoing of things. But, whether conscious of it or not, such a mighty strife exists, and we ourselves are all parties to it, and combatants in it. If not of the glorious woman, we are of the seven-headed and ten-horned dragon, at war with her, her seed, and her God. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)

The dragon foiled and the Church preserved

Ever since wrong commenced, there has been a bitter antagonism between it and right. Though varying with varied circumstances, all moral wrong and all falsehood have their deep origin in selfishness. This monster-evil displays itself in ten thousand ways, but in essence it is always the same, the substitute of man’s individual will for the will of God. Every new unfolding of truth and goodness from heaven finds the state of society previously formed by selfishness and mystery ready to assail it, and if possible to destroy. Thus was it when the Lord Himself came upon the earth. He ushered into the world new doctrines of love and light. The serpent, then, in His case, stood ready to devour, and at length nailed Him to the Cross, crying, “Crucify Him! crucify Him!” The great dragon is, then, a pretended religion, which is, however, nothing but disguised selfishness. Let us look at each of these features in detail. The serpent, as being the form on earth which corresponds to self-love in its disorderly state, when we call it selfishness, is felt to be truly so instinctively by us all, and is so used throughout the Divine Word. The great business of all religion is to conquer this serpent in every one of us. Unless selfishness is overcome, there can be no progress made. We cannot of ourselves destroy our serpents, but the Lord will give us power to do so. He says (Luk_10:19). By the help of Him, then, who conquered all the efforts of the powers of darkness, and sanctified His own human nature that He might give us power to purify ours, we can obtain the victory over self-love in all its unhappy forms. From being proud we can become truly humble; from being hard and stern we can become gentle and considerate; from being cold and stately we can become warm and happy. We can tread on the serpent of self-love and the scorpion of malignant falsehood, and deprive them of that life by which all things die around them, and fill their places with that heavenly life which is the source of every blessedness. The great and terrible figure before us, then, is indicative of a system which, though prepared to soar, and having much power and much adornment, yet is deeply grounded in selfishness, and would be ready with all its might to oppose the new Church and its heavenly doctrines. It was a serpent, but a serpent with wings--a dragon. Wings are the means by which birds soar, and they correspond to those general truths by means of which men’s thoughts soar. But the wings of the dragon are false principles of religion, by which there is an imitation of truth, but only an imitation. There is a flying upwards, but it is only the flying of a serpent. That is to say, it is a system of pretended truth respecting God, and heaven and eternal things, but altogether, in its interior character, selfish. It would be constructed with great ingenuity and skill, indicated by its having seven heads. It would have much power of persuasiveness and apparent truth intimated by its ten horns, and would make a great display of heavenly wisdom, misapplied. The heads are seven, to signify, as that number ever does, completeness, and a relation to holy things; but as they are heads of the dragon, they represent that completed, but perverted, ingenuity by which a false religion satisfies its deluded adherents. Horns are the emblems of power. Horned animals push, and exert their power by means of their horns. The crowns, or diadems, as the Greek word more properly expresses, are literally fillets or bands for the head, beautified with precious stones. They

represent, therefore, a display of numerous heavenly truths of considerable brilliancy, for these are spiritual precious stones, but decorating principles inwardly false, nothing but dragon’s heads. Every religion lives by its real or supposed power of meeting the demands of the soul for inward peace and everlasting happiness. True religion is genuine, pure, healthful, and wears the glorious beauties of heavenly knowledge gracefully. False religion is inwardly corrupt, but decorates herselfwith many heavenly excellences to charm by outward show, and to hide its interior iniquity. Such, then, is the system before us; secretly the same selfishness which has been the groundwork in every age of all the misery which has afflicted the whole world; but having an apparent air of great intelligence, great plausibility, great power, and an abundant use of the holy truths of the Word, ready, however, to oppose the Lord’s bride, the New Jerusalem, and devour her manly and genuine doctrine. Selfishness has decorated itself with the appearance of religion, but by its fruits we may know it. It can fly abroad, and show itself as soaring to heaven, but it is only a flying serpent. (J. Bailey, Ph. D.)

4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky

and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in

front of the woman who was about to give birth,

so that it might devour her child the moment he

was born.

1.BARNES, “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven - The word rendered “drew” - s??? suro‾ - means to “draw, drag, haul.” Prof. Stuart renders it “drew along”; and explains it as meaning that “the danger is represented as being in the upper region of the air, so that his tail may be supposed to interfere with and sweep down the stars, which, as viewed by the ancients, were all set in the visible expanse or welkin.” So Dan_8:10, speaking of the little horn, says that “it waxed great, even to the host of heaven, and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground.” See the notes on that passage. The main idea here undoubtedly is that of power, and the object of John is to show that the power of the dragon was as if it extended to the stars, and as if itdragged down a third part of them to the earth, or swept them away with its tail, leaving two-thirds unaffected.A power that would sweep them all away would be universal; a power that would sweep away one-third only would represent a dominion of that extent only. The dragon is represented as floating in the air - a monster extended along the sky - and one-third of the whole expanse was subject to his control. Suppose, then, that the dragon here was designed to represent the Roman pagan power; suppose that it referred to that power about to engage in the work of persecution, and at a time when the church was about to be greatly enlarged, and to fill the world; suppose that it referred to a time when but one-third part of the Roman world was subject to pagan influence, and the remaining two-thirds were, for some cause, safe from this influence - all the conditions here referred to would be fulfilled. Now it so happens that at a time when the “dragon” had become a common standard in the Roman armies, and had in some measure superseded the eagle, a state of things did exist which well corresponds with this representation.There were times under the emperors when, in a considerable part of the empire, after the establishment of Christianity, the church enjoyed protection, and the Christian religion was tolerated, while in other parts paganism still prevailed, and waged a bitter warfare with the church. “Twice, at least, before the Roman empire became, divided permanently into the two parts, the Eastern and the Western, there was a “tripartite” division of the empire. The first occurred 311 a.d., when it was divided between Constantine, Licinius, and Maximin; the other 337 a.d., on the death of Constantine, when it was divided between his three sons, Constantine, Constans, and

Constantius.” “In two-thirds of the empire, embracing its whole European and African territory, Christians enjoyed toleration; in the other, or Asiatic portion, they were still, after a brief and uncertain respite, exposed to persecution, in all its bitterness and cruelty as before” (Elliott). I do not deem it absolutely essential, however, in order to a fair exposition of this passage, that we should be able to refer to minute historical facts with names and dates. A sufficient fulfillment is found if there was a period when the church, bright, glorious, and prosperous, was apparently about to become greatly enlarged, but when the monstrous pagan power still held its sway over a considerable part of the world, exposing the church to persecution. Even after the establishment of the church in the empire, and the favor shown to it by the Roman government, it was long before the pagan power ceased to rage, and before the church could be regarded as safe.And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child - To prevent the increase and spread of the church in the world.

2. CLARKE, “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven - It is not unusual in Scripture, as Dr. Mitchell observes, to call the hindmost of an enemy the tail, as in Jos_10:19 : Ye shall cut off the hindmost of them, which is literally in Hebrew, ?????? ???? “Ye shall cut off their tail.” See also Deu_25:18. It is also observable that the word ???a, in this verse, has been used by the Greeks in the same sense with the Hebrew word ??? already referred to. Thus ???a st?at??, which we would translate the rear of an army, is literally the tail of an army. See the Thesaurus of Stephens, in loc. The tail of the dragon is therefore the heathen Roman power in its seventh or last form of government, viz., the imperial power; and is not, as Dr. Mitchell supposes, to be restricted to the last heathen Roman emperors. The heathen imperial power is said to draw the third part of the stars of heaven, by which has generally been understood that the Roman empire subjected the third part of the princes and potentates of the earth. But that this is not a correct statement of the fact is evident from the testimony of ancient history. The Roman empire was always considered and called the empire of the world by ancient writers. See Dionys. Halicar., Antiq. Romans lib. i., prope principium; Pitisci Lexicon Antiq. Roman., sub voc. imperium; Ovidii Fast., lib. ii. l. 683; Vegetius de Revelation Militari, lib. i. c. 1., etc., etc. And it is even so named in Scripture, for St. Luke, in the second chapter of his gospel, informs us that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that The Whole World should be taxed, by which is evidently meant the Roman empire. The whole mystery of this passage consists in the misapprehension of its symbolical language. In order therefore to understand it, the symbols here used must be examined. By heaven is meant the most eminent or ruling part of any nation. This is evident from the very nature of the symbol, for “heaven is God’s throne;” they therefore who are advanced to the supreme authority in any state are very properly said to be taken up into heaven, because they are raised to this eminence by the favor of the Lord, and are ministers of his to do his pleasure. And the calamity which fell upon Nebuchadnezzar was to instruct him in this important truth, that the heavens do rule; that is, that all monarchs possess their kingdoms by Divine appointment, and that no man is raised to power by what is usually termed the chances of war, but that “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.” The meaning of heaven being thus ascertained, it cannot be difficult to comprehend the meaning of earth, this being evidently its opposite, that is, every thing in subjection to the heaven or ruling part. Stars have already been shown to denote ministers of religion; and this is more fully evident from Rev_1:16 of this book, where the seven stars which the Son of God holds in his right hand are explained to signify the seven angels (or messengers) of the seven Churches, by whom must be meant the seven pastors or ministers of these Churches. The resemblance of ministers to stars is very striking; for as the stars give light upon the earth, so are ministers the lights of the cause they advocate; and their position in heaven, the symbol of domination, very fitly betokens the spiritual authority of priests or ministers over their flocks. Hence, as the woman, or Christian Church, has upon her head a crown of twelve stars, which signifies that she is under the guidance of the twelve apostles, who are the twelve principal lights of the Christian world, so has the dragon also his stars or ministers. The stars therefore which the dragon draws with his tail must represent the whole body of pagan priests, who were the stars or lights of the heathen world. But in what sense can it be said that the heathen Roman empire, which ruled over the whole known world, only draws a third part of the stars of heaven? The answer is: The religious world in the time of St. John was divided into three grand branches, viz., the Christian world, the Jewish world, and the heathen and pagan world: consequently, as a

dragon, a fabulous animal, is an emblem of a civil power supporting a religion founded in fable; it necessarily follows that the stars or ministers of the Jews and Christians cannot be numbered among those which he draws with his tail, as they were not the advocates of his idolatry, but were ministers of a religion founded by the God of heaven, and consequently formed no part of the pagan world, though they were in subjection in secular matters to the pagan Roman empire. The tail of the dragon therefore draweth after him the whole heathen world.And did cast then to the earth - That is, reduced all the pagan priests under the Roman yoke. The words of the prophecy are very remarkable. It is said the tail of the dragon draweth, (for so s??e? should be translated), but it is added, and Hath Cast then upon the earth, to show that at the time the Apocalypse was written the world was divided into the three grand religious divisions already referred to; but that the tail of the dragon, or the pagan Roman power under its last form of government, had brought the whole heathen world (which was a third part of the religious world in the apostolic age) into subjection previously to the communication of the Revelation to St. John. It is the dragon’s tail that draws the third part of the stars of heaven, therefore it was during the dominion of his last form of government that Christianity was introduced into the world; for in the time of the six preceding draconic forms of government, the world was divided religiously into only two grand branches, Jews and Gentiles. That the sense in which the third part is here taken is the one intended in the prophecy is put beyond all controversy, when it is considered that this very division is made in the first and third verses, in which mention is made of the woman clothed with the sun - the Christian Church, the moon under her feet, or Jewish Church, and the dragon, or heathen power. Thus the heathen Imperial government is doubly represented, first, by one of the seven draconic heads, to show that it was one of those seven heathen forms of government which have been successively at the head of the Roman state; and secondly, by the dragon’s tail, because it was the last of those seven. For a justification of this method of interpretation, see on the angel’s double explanation of the heads of the beast, Rev_17:9 (note), Rev_17:10 (note), Rev_17:16 (note).And the dragon stood before the woman, etc. - Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine, abandoned the absurdities of paganism, and treated the Christians with great respect. This alarmed the pagan priests, whose interests were so closely connected with the continuance of the ancient superstitions, and who apprehended that to their great detriment the Christian religion would become daily more universal and triumphant throughout the empire. Under these anxious fears they moved Diocletian to persecute the Christians. Hence began what is termed the tenth and last general persecution, which was the most severe of all, and continued nearly ten years; (see Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History of the Third Century); and as it was the Divine pleasure that, at this time, a great deliverer should be raised up in behalf of his suffering people, the woman, or Christian Church, is very appropriately represented as overtaken with the pangs of labor, and ready to be delivered. Before the death of Constantius, the heathen party, aware that Constantine would follow the example of his father, who so much favored the Christians, beheld him with a watchful and malignant eye. Many were the snares that, according to Eusebius, were laid for him by Maximin and Galerius: he relates the frequent and dangerous enterprises to which they urged him, with the design that he might lose his life. When Galerius heard of the death of Constantius, and that he had appointed Constantine his successor, he was filled with the most ungovernable rage and indignation, notwithstanding he did not dare to take any steps contrary to the interest of Constantine. The dread of the armies of the west, which were mostly composed of Christians, was a sufficient check to all attempts of that kind. Thus the dragon, or heathen power, stood before the woman, or Christian Church, to devour her son, or deliverer, as soon as he was born. See Dr. Mitchell’s Exposition of the Revelation, in loc.

3. GILL, “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth,.... So Solinus (e) speaks of dragons that have power not only in their teeth, but in their tails, and do more hurt by striking than by biting; and the great serpent, which Attilius Regulus and his army fought with, not only destroyed many of his soldiers with its vast mouth, but dashed many to pieces with its tail (f); which serpent, Pliny (g) says, was a hundred and twenty foot long: this is said in allusion to Antiochus Epiphanes, in Dan_8:10; and designs either the subduing of the third part of the principalities, states, and kingdoms of the known world, to the Roman empire, through its great power and strength; which lay in its tail, in its train of armies which attended it, whereby such a number of nations were drawn into subjection to it, insomuch that the empire was called all

the world, Luk_2:1; or else the influence the dragon should have upon the ministers of the word, who are compared to stars, Rev_1:20; by causing them to relinquish their ministry, and drop their heavenly employment, and fall from that high and honourable state in which they were, into a carnal, earthly, and worldly religion; and that either through policy, cunning, and flattery, or through sorcery, magic art, lying oracles, and prophecy; see Isa_9:15; or through the violence of persecution they had not power to withstand; of which falling stars there are many instances, as the ecclesiastical histories of those times show:

and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born; just as the dragon Pharaoh lay in the midst of his rivers, in the river Nile, Eze_29:3; to slay the male children of Israel as soon as born; and as the dragon Herod sought to take away the life of Jesus quickly after his birth; and as Satan is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, so the Pagan empire, or the Pagan emperors, took every opportunity to stifle the kingdom of Christ in embryo, and to prevent the bringing forth of any illustrious person; and sought to destroy him as soon as he appeared, who might be thought, or suspected to be an instrument of encouraging and establishing the kingdom of Christ in the empire: the instances Brightman produces are appropriate, and to the purpose; as of Maximinus destroying Alexander the son of Mammea, who he saw was inclined to the Christians; and of Decius taking off the two Philips, father and son, who were favourable to their cause; but especially the watchfulness of the dragon to destroy the man child was very manifest in the Roman emperors towards Constantine; Dioclesian and Galerius, observing his virtuous disposition in his youth, left nothing unattempted to cut him off privately; he was sent against the Sarmatians, a cruel and savage people, in hopes he would have been destroyed by them; and was set to fight with a lion in the theatre, under a pretence of exercising and showing his valour; and many other methods were used to take away his life, but none succeeded.

4. GLENN, “ Tremendous power is need to sweep a third of the stars out of the sky, and so what a horrible threat to the child about to be born. A pregnant woman against a mighty dragon with enormous power. What are the woman's chances? It is a more unbalanced battle than that of David and Goliath. It is like a child facing the heavy weight champion of the world. It is an unfair match. It is like the little church of the first century facing the mighty Roman Empire.

Here is a thriller on near tragedy, but with a happy ending, just like all the great space thrillers of man's creation. All great adventure movies have the bad guys with great power and having what seems to be all the advantages, yet the good overcome those advantages and win the battle. The life-giving woman and the death-dealing dragon in conflict, and we shut our eyes as the dragon lunges to devour the child, for it is too terrible to witness the outrageous injustice. But then, at the last possible moment, there is a rescue.

Jeske writes, "In ancient mythology it was common to portray the struggle between good and evil in terms of a great primeval battle. The Babylonian creation myth tells of lthe defeat of the seven-headed water monster Tiamat by Marduk, the god of light. An ancient Egyptian myth speaks of the red dragon Set who pursues the goddess Isis and is later killed by Horus her son. In Greek mythololgy the pregnant goddess Leto escapes from the dragon Python and gives birth to Apollo, who returns and kills the dragon. So John's portrait of the conflict between the woman with child and the red dragon with seven heads is not a new idea in the literature of the ancient world. "What is new is what John does with this imagery and the identification he makes. His task is to proclaim the good news of God's victory in Christ and to present his readers with a message of hope in their difficult situation."

He goes on to point out that the defeat of Satan in heaven means he no longer has any place there to bring accusation against the saints as he did against Job. He is cast out to earth, his last stronghold, but what happened in heaven is a picture of what will be happening on earth where he shall soon be completely defeated and the universe be free of all evil.

5. JAMISON, “drew — Greek, present tense, “draweth,” “drags down.” His dragging down the stars with his tail (lashed back and forward in his fury) implies his persuading to apostatize, like himself, and to become earthy, those angels and also once eminent human teachers who had

formerly been heavenly (compare Rev_12:1; Rev_1:20; Isa_14:12).stood — “stands” [Alford]: perfect tense, Greek, “hesteken.”ready to be delivered — “about to bring forth.”for to devour, etc. — “that when she brought forth, he might devour her child.” So the dragon, represented by his agent Pharaoh (a name common to all the Egyptian kings, and meaning, according to some, crocodile, a reptile like the dragon, and made an Egyptian idol), was ready to devour Israel’s males at the birth of the nation. Antitypically the true Israel, Jesus, when born, was sought for destruction by Herod, who slew all the males in and around Bethlehem.

6. PULPIT, “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth; draweth (Revised Version). Not the stars with which the woman is crowned (see Rev_12:1), but other stars. In describing the vast power of the devil, St. John seems to allude to the tremendous result of his rebellious conduct in heaven, in effecting the fall of other angels with himself (Jud Joh_1:6). The seer does not here interrupt his narrative to explain the point, but returns to it after verse 6, and there describes briefly the origin and cause of the enmity of the devil towards God. The third part (as in Rev_8:7, et seq.) signifies a considerable number, but not the larger part. And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born; which was about to be delivered, that when she was delivered, he might devour her child (Revised Version). A graphic picture of what is true of Christ himself of the Church, both Jewish and Christian, and of every individual member of the Church. This is another example of the personal history of Christ being repeated in the history of his Church. The devil, in the person of Herod, attempts to prevent the salvation of the world; through Pharaoh he endeavours to crush the chosen people of God, through whom the Messiah was to bless all the earth; by means of the power of Rome he labours to exterminate the infant Church of Christ.

7. W. BURKITT, “That is, "Herod watched to destroy Christ as soon as he was born, Mat_2:1-12 so while the church was endeavouring to propagate Christianity and make converts to Christ, the dragon watched, intending to devour them." The devil's great design is to crush every good thing in the beginning, to nip grace in the bud, to kill the infant church in the cradle; he is therefore said to stand before the woman, to prevent all possibility of her child's escape. Behold his bloody cruelty! but though he stood before her, he had no power to hurt or touch either, mother or child: behold his powerful restraint!

Observe farther, The child's birth, preservation, and preferment.

1. Its birth, she brought forth a child, not children: to show the paucity of the church's members, and also their unity, they are all but one man child, make up all but one body, and the dragon's purpose was to devour all in one, and all at once.

2.Its preservation, the child is caught up to God, and to his throne; that is, heaven took it immediately into its care and protection, out of the dragon's reach, to his shameful disappointment.

3. Its preferment, it was to rule all nation's with a rod of iron; that is, with such severity, mixed with lenity, as was needful; the church shall prevail against all opposers.

Observe lastly, After the woman's delivery, her flight into the wilderness is set down, and her continuance for a long time, together with God's protection over her; a plain allusion to Elijah's flying into the wilderness from the rage of idolatrous and bloody Jezebel, and God's feeding him extraordinarily at the brook of Cherith.

From the woman's that is, the church's flying into the wilderness for a while, we learn, That the visibility of the church is not always conspicuous, to her enemies especially.

2. That it is sometimes lawful to fly in time of hot and bitter persecution: the woman fled into the wilderness.

3. In that the woman had a place, and food prepared for her, we learn God's provident care for his church in the day and hour of her greatest extremities; when she lurks and hides herself in obscurity. During the time of antichrist's reign, God will take care that some shall feed her with wholesome food, the doctrine of the gospel, that sincere milk of the word, to the intent that she may grow thereby.

8. JAMES DAVIS, "Satan unleashes his forces against Abraham's fleshly seed as they undergo the travailing experience of giving birth to the Christ child. As the Christ child is born, Satan endeavors to consume him, but Christ is caught up in heaven to forever be with God. As Christ is caught up into heaven, the scene shifts to heavenly realms as Satan follows making war with the angels, but Michael leads an angelic host to defeat Satan and he is hurled back down to his earthly domain. From there Satan wages war against the rest of Abraham's spiritual descendants which are now given birth through the spiritual seed of Christ."

9. The Dragon (Satan) then tries to destroy the promised seed, various events are recorded in the OT in which there are attempts to destroy the line from which the Christ will be born. � Cain slays Abel, but Seth is raised, Gen 4. � Pharaoh orders the Israelite male babies to be killed, Ex 1:15. � Saul tries to kill David, 1 Sam 18:11. � When Athaliah proceeded to destroy the whole royal family, 2 Ki 11:1. � Haman tries to kill all the Jews but Esther intervenes, Esth 3:6, 7:3. � Herod tries to kill all the young male children There are also various other points in the OT where the line leading to the Messiah could be broken (Hendriksen). � When God destroys the people of the earth but saves Noah. � Sarah is unable to conceive, but the miracle child Isaac is born. � The lord orders Isaac to be sacrificed but then provides a substitute � Rebekah, Isaac's wife was barren, but she conceives � Esau threatens to kill Jacob for robbing him of his birthright, but in the end does not. � The Lord wants to kill the children of Israel but Moses intervenes as an intercessor.

10. Revelation 12 Holy War: Running With The Devil Or Running From The Devil By Rev. Michael Furey "Here we have a dragon against a pregnant woman. Possibly one of the most vulnerable and easiest targets is a pregnant person. How could a person in such a condition run from a dragon? How are we in our own human frailties going to disengage the power of the dragon in our lives? There is no way we can fight the evil and suffering in this world by our own power. Even with the help of others, no amount of human voluntarism or compassion can save the world. And worse, at the end of history when Satan is permitted to reign in terror upon the earth in his incarnation as the antichrist, it is a period known as the tribulation or the time of Jacob's trouble. Adolph Hitler will look like a gentile and kind Sunday School teacher compared to the antichrist. In Matthew 24 Jesus said pray you are not pregnant at such a time. Those in Judea especially are admonished to flee and run so fast you don't have time to grab your clothes. At the end of time the holy war will mushroom and evil will explode with power. We will not be able to completely decode the signs and comprehend their messages in their entirety, but one kernel of meaning that is certain to remain here is that there is a holy war in progress. The entire history of the world, especially of the history of Israel as recorded in the Bible is a story of how Satan has tried to wipe out the people of God, particularly the seed of Israel, and more particularly the lineage which would give us the messianic child, Jesus. "

5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will

rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”[a] And

her child was snatched up to God and to his

throne.

1.BARNES, “And she brought forth a man child - Representing, according to the view above taken, the church in its increase and prosperity - as if a child were born that was to rule over all nations. See the notes on Rev_12:2.Who was to rule all nations - That is, according to this view, the church thus represented was destined to reign in all the earth, or all the earth was to become subject to its laws. Compare the notes on Dan_7:13-14.With a rod of iron - The language used here is derived from Psa_2:9; “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.” The form of the expression here used, “who was to rule” - ??´? µe´??e? p??µa?´?e?? hos mellei poimainein - is derived from the Septuagint translation of the Psalm - p??µa??e??? poimaineis - “thou shalt rule them”; to wit, as a shepherd does his flock. The reference is to such control as a shepherd employs in relation to his flock - protecting, guarding, and defending them, with the idea that the flock is under his care; and, on the supposition that this refers to the church, it means that it would yet have the ascendency or the dominion over the earth. The meaning in the phrase, “with a red of iron,” is, that the dominion would be strong or irresistible - as an iron scepter is one that cannot be broken or resisted. The thoughts here expressed, therefore, are:(a) That the church would become universal - or that the principles of truth and righteousness would prevail everywhere on the earth;(b) That the ascendency of religion over the understandings and consciences of people would be irresistible - as firm as a government administered under a scepter of iron; yet,(c) That it would be rather of a character of protection than of force or violence, like the sway which a shepherd wields over his flock.I understand the “man child” here, therefore, to refer to the church in its increase under the Messiah, and the idea to be, that that church was, at the time referred to, about to be enlarged, and that, though its increase was opposed, yet it was destined ultimately to assert a mild sway over all the world. The time here referred to would seem to be some period in the early history of the church when religion was likely to be rapidly propagated, and when it was opposed and retarded by violent persecution - perhaps the last of the persecutions under the pagan Roman empire.And her child was caught up unto God - This is evidently a symbolical representation. Some event was to occur, or some divine interposition was to take place, as if the child thus born were caught up from the earth to save it from death, and was rendered secure by being in the presence of God, and near his throne. It cannot be supposed that anything like this would “literally” occur. Any divine interposition to protect the church in its increase, or to save it from being destroyed by the dragon - the fierce pagan power - would be properly represented by this. Why may we not suppose the reference to be to the time of Constantine, when the church came under his protection; when it was effectually and finally saved from pagan persecution; when it was rendered safe from the enemy that waited to destroy it? On the supposition that this refers to an increasing but endangered church, in whose defense a civil power was raised up, exalting Christianity to the throne, and protecting it from danger, this would be well represented by the childcaught up to heaven.This view may derive confirmation from some well-known facts in history. The old pagan power was concentrated in Maximin, who was emperor from the Nile to the Bosphorus, and who raged against the gospel and the church “with Satanic enmity.” “Infuriate at the now imminent prospect of the Christian body attaining establishment in the empire, Maximin renewed the persecution against Christians within the limits of his own dominion; prohibiting their assemblies, and degrading, and even killing their bishops.” Compare Gibbon, 1:325, 326. The last struggle of pagan Rome to destroy the church by persecution, before the triumph of Constantine, and the public establishment of the Christian religion, might be well represented by the attempt of the dragon to destroy the child; and the safety of the church, and its complete deliverance from pagan persecution, by the symbol of a child caught up to heaven, and placed near the throne of God.

The persecution under Maximin was the last struggle of paganism to retain the supremacy, and to crush Christianity in the empire. “Before the decisive battle,” says Milner, “Maximin vowed to Jupiter that, if victorious, he would abolish the Christian name. The contest between Yahweh and Jupiter was now at its height, and drawing to a crisis.”The result was the defeat and death of Maximin, and the termination of the efforts of paganism to destroy Christianity by force. Respecting this event, Mr. Gibbon remarks, “The defeat and death of Maximin soon delivered the church from the last and most implacable of her enemies,” 1:326. Christianity was, after that, rendered safe from pagan persecution. Mr. Gibbon says, “The gratitude of the church has exalted the virtues of the generous patron who seated Christianity on the throne of the Roman world.” If, however, it should be regarded as a forced and fanciful interpretation to suppose that the passage before us refers to this specific event, yet the general circumstances of the times would furnish a fulfillment of what is here said:(a) The church would be well represented by the beautiful woman.(b) The prospect of its increase and universal dominion would be well represented by the birth of the child.(c) The furious opposing pagan power would be well represented by the dragon in its attempts to destroy the child.(d) The safety of the church would be well represented by the symbol of the child caught up to God, and placed near his throne.

1B. GLENN, The child is Christ, and he will be a world ruler of great power. No one else fits this picture, even though some try to make the child one of the popes or martyrs. It is Christ and a man now rules the world from heaven. Here we see Isa. 9:6 fulfilled, for the child is also ruler. Seiss says this is the rapture, for where the head goes, so goes the body. It is true, and so we are raised with Christ and sit with him in heavenly places and reign now with him. Jesus had to be snatched out of the clutches of the dragon, which represents the grip the dragon had at the cross and in the grave. The word snatched means "to take something forcefully."

2. CLARKE, “And her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne - In Yalcut Rubeni are these words: “Rachael, the niece of Methusala, was pregnant, and ready to be delivered in Egypt. They trod upon her, and the child came out of her bowels, and lay under the bed; Michael descended, and took him up to the throne of glory. On that same night the first born of Egypt were destroyed.”Rev_12:5 per John Edward ClarkeAnd she brought forth a man child - The Christian Church, when her full time came, obtained a deliverer, who, in the course of the Divine providence, was destined: - To rule all nations - The heathen Roman empire,With a rod of iron - A strong figure to denote the very great restraint that should be put upon paganism, so that it should not be able longer to persecute the Christian Church. The man child mentioned in this verse is the dynasty of Christians emperors, beginning with Constantine’s public acknowledgment of his belief in the divinity of the Christian religion, which happened in the latter part of a.d. 312, after the defeat of the Emperor Maxentius.And her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne - A succession of Christian emperors was raised up to the Church; for the Roman throne, as Bishop Newton observes, is here called the throne of God, because there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

3. GILL, “And she brought forth a man child,.... Not Christ, literally and personally considered, or Christ in his human nature, as made of a woman, and born of a virgin, which was a fact that had been years ago; but Christ mystically, or Christ in his members, who are called by his name, because he is formed in them, and they are the seed of the woman, the church; and many of these were brought forth to Christ by the church in the primitive times, who were a manly birth, hale, strong, and robust Christians; or rather this manly birth may design a more glorious appearing and breaking forth of the kingdom of Christ in the Roman empire; for though Christ came as a King, yet his kingdom was not with observation in the days of his flesh; and though, upon his ascension to heaven, he was made and declared Lord and Christ, and had a kingdom and interest in the world, and even in the Roman empire, during the first three centuries, yet this

was attended with the cross and persecution; but now, towards the close of that period, Constantine, a Christian emperor, was born, under whose influence and encouragement the Gospel was spread, and the kingdom of Christ set up and established in the empire; and this seems to be the thing intended here, he being of a generous, heroic, and manly disposition:

who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; this has a manifest reference to Psa_2:9; which psalm, and the passage referred to in it, evidently belong to Christ; and as this is represented as something future, what should be hereafter, and not what would immediately take place, it may regard the kingdom of Christ in the last times, of which the present breaking forth of it in Constantine's time was an emblem and pledge; and may denote the universality of it, it reaching to all the kingdoms of the world, and the manner which Christ will rule, especially over his enemies, antichrist and his followers, whom he will destroy with the breath of his mouth, and break in pieces with his rod of iron, and order all that would not have him to reign over them slain before him; and as this may be applied to Christ mystical, the seed of the church, and members of Christ, as it is in Rev_2:26; it may relate to their reign with Christ on earth, when they shall sit on thrones, and judge the world, when the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to there; but since this is expressly said of the man child in the text, it may be expressive even of the temporal government of Constantine, who was an heroic and victorious prince, and extended his dominions to the several parts of the world; as far as Britain to the west, and all Scythia to the north, Ethiopia to the south, and the remote parts of India to the east, even to the ultimate parts of the whole world, as Eusebius (h) affirms, making his kingdom to be three times larger than that of Alexander the great: and more especially it may describe the kingdom of Christ in his times; which was spread throughout all the nations of the empire; when Paganism was demolished, both in the continent and in the isles of the sea, and the strong holds Satan were pulled down, not by carnal, but spiritual weapons; when multitudes of souls were converted by the word, the rod of Christ's strength, and when the saints were guided, directed, fed, and comforted by it; for the allusion seems to be to the shepherd's rod, with which he leads and feeds his sheep; the same word signifies both to rule and feed:

and her child caught up unto God, and to his throne; which is to be understood not of Christ's ascent to heaven in human nature, when he was set down on the same throne with his Father; nor of Christ mystical, or of the saints being caught up into the air, to meet the Lord and be for ever with him, and sit down with him on the same throne; but rather of some glorious advance of the church and kingdom of Christ on earth; for as "to fall from heaven" is expressive of debasement and meanness, and of a low estate that a person is brought into, Isa_14:12; so an ascending up to heaven, as the two witnesses in the preceding chapter are said to do, denotes exaltation, or a rise to some more glorious state and condition, which was the case of the church in Constantine's time: and this may also take in the accession of Constantine himself to the imperial throne, which was the throne of God; for king's have their sceptres, thrones, and kingdoms from him, they his viceregents, and in some measure represent and are therefore called gods, and the children of the most high; yea, since Constantine, as advanced to the empire, was such an instrument in Christ's hand for the setting up and establishing his kingdom in it, Christ himself may be here represented as reigning over the Roman empire, as a presage and prelude of his reigning over all the earth another day.

4. HENRY, “The unsuccessfulness of these attempts against the church; for, 1. She was safely delivered of a man-child (Rev_12:5), by which some understand Christ, others Constantine, but others, with greater propriety, a race of true believers, strong and united, resembling Christ, and designed, under him, to rule the nations with a rod of iron; that is, to judge the world by their doctrine and lives now, and as assessors with Christ at the great day. 2. Care was taken of this child: it was caught up to God, and to his throne; that is, taken into his special, powerful, and immediate protection. The Christian religion has been from its infancy the special care of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. 3. Care was taken of the mother as well as of the child, Rev_12:6. She fled into the wilderness, a place prepared both for her safety and her sustenance. The church was in an obscure state, dispersed; and this proved her security, through the care of divine Providence. This her obscure and private state was for a limited time, not to continue always.

5. JAMISON, “man-child — Greek, “a son, a male.” On the deep significance of this term, see on

Rev_12:1, Rev_12:2.rule — Greek, “poimainein,” “tend as a shepherd”; (see on Rev_2:27).rod of iron — A rod is for long-continued obstinacy until they submit themselves to obedience [Bengel]: Rev_2:27; Psa_2:9, which passages prove the Lord Jesus to be meant. Any interpretation which ignores this must be wrong. The male son’s birth cannot be the origin of the Christian state (Christianity triumphing over heathenism under Constantine), which was not a divine child of the woman, but had many impure worldly elements. In a secondary sense, the ascending of the witnesses up to heaven answers to Christ’s own ascension, “caught up unto God, and unto His throne”: as also His ruling the nations with a rod of iron is to be shared in by believers (Rev_2:27). What took place primarily in the case of the divine Son of the woman, shall take place also in the case of those who are one with Him, the sealed of Israel (Rev_7:1-8), and the elect of all nations, about to be translated and to reign with Him over the earth at His appearing.

6. PULPIT, “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; a son, a male—the Greek ????´? , a?´?se? , renders it emphatic—who is to rule, as in the Revised Version; to rule, or to govern as a shepherd (cf. the verb in Mat_2:6). This reference and Psa_2:9 leave no doubt as to the identification of the man child. It is Christ who is intended. The same expression is used of him in Rev_19:1-21., where he is definitely called the "Word of God." And her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. The sentence seems plainly to refer to the ascension of Christ and his subsequent abiding in heaven, from whence he rules all nations. The seer, perhaps, wishes to indicate at once the absolute immunity of Christ from any harm proceeding from the power of the devil, whose efforts are henceforth directly aimed only at the Church of Christ. Satan still hopes to injure Christ through his members. As remarked above (see on Rev_19:4), what is true of the personal history of Christ is often true of his Church and of his true members. And thus some have seen in this passage a picture of the woman, the Church, bringing forth members, to devour whom is Satan's constant purpose, but who in God's good time are taken to his throne to be near himself.

7. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR 5-6, “She brought forth a man child.

The Church protected

1. The godly of the Christian Church brought forth by the pains of the apostles and their successors, are called but one man child: which teaches, that all the true members of Christ’s Church should be in a holy unity but as one man (Act_4:32); and of masculine courage for the truth (Jer_9:3) against all opposition.

2. Whereas that which is primely proper to Christ is in a secondary respect attributed to His Church, to rule all nations with a rod of iron; we learn the strict union that is between Christ and His Church (Act_9:4).

3. Whereas it is said that the man child was caught up to God and to His throne, we see--

(1) Satan’s disappointment in all his attempts against Christ’s Church (Psa_2:4).

(2) What happiness and high preferment abides God’s children at last, however they be troubled or despised here.

(3) How joyful may death be to them, who is justly called the king of terrors to others. (Wm. Guild, D. D.)

8. Rev. Michael Furey, "Gordon R. Lewis, Decide For Yourself: A Theological Workbook [For People Who Are Tired Of Being Told What To Believe], Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1970, pp. 163-168. Lewis discusses the different views of believers regarding the timing of the rapture. My view is the rapture could occur any time: before, during, or after the tribulation. I tend to think the church of God must suffer the cleansing effect of tribulation because judgment

begins with the house of God and God's people are in pretty bad shape. Nothing draws a person to God like suffering. Are we any better than Israel who has been under the fires of suffering for millenia? Usually the popular version of a pre-tribulational rapture is taught in the media or the pulpit. At minimum, people should at least know the Bible is not cut and dried clear on this subject.The people of the church should not act like parrots quoting verses mindlessly."

9. DAVID RIGGS, “The man child no doubt represents Christ. He is the one who was to rule the nations with a "rod of iron" (Psalm 2:6-9; 110:1-7; Rev. 19:11-16). He was "caught up" to God, not for protection but to establish His rule. (See 1 Pet. 3:22; Matt. 28:18; Eph. 1:20-23 Rev. 3:21). Dan. 7:13-14 says, "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." One short verse (Rev. 12:5) covers the entire time from Christ's birth to His crowning in heaven. The woman receives divine protection during the time of the dragon's persecution (vs. 6, 13-14). As has been shown, five verses describe the same period of time--11:2, 3; 12:6, 14; 13:5. The faithful remnant (represented by the woman) would not be destroyed but would be protected and aided by God.

6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place

prepared for her by God, where she might be

taken care of for 1,260 days.

1.BARNES, “And the woman - The woman representing the church. See the notes at Rev_12:1.Fled - That is, she fled in the manner, and at the time, stated in Rev_12:14. John here evidently anticipates, by a summary statement, what he relates more in detail in Rev_12:14-17. He had referred Rev_12:2-5 to what occurred to the child in its persecutions, and he here alludes, in general, to what befell the true church as compelled to flee into obscurity and safety. Having briefly referred to this, the writer Rev_12:7-13 gives an account of the efforts of Satan consequent on the removal of the child to heaven.Into the wilderness - On the meaning of the word “wilderness” in the New Testament, see the notes on Mat_3:1. It means a desert place, a place where there are few or no inhabitants; a place, therefore, where one might be concealed and unknown - remote from the habitations and the observations of people. This would well represent the fact, that the true church became for a time obscure and unknown - as if it had fled away from the habitations of people, and had retired to the solitude and loneliness of a desert. Yet even there Rev_12:14, Rev_12:16 it would be mysteriously nourished, though seemingly driven out into wastes and solitudes, and having its abode among the rocks and sands of a desert.Where she hath a place prepared of God - A place where she might be safe, and might be kept alive. The meaning is, that during that time the true church, though obscure and almost unknown, would be the object of the divine protection and care - a beautiful representation of the church during the corruptions of the papacy and the darkness of the middle ages.That they should feed her - That they should “nourish” or “sustain” her - t?e´f?s?? trepho‾sin - to wit, as specified in Rev_12:14, Rev_12:16. Those who were to do this, represented by the word “they,” are not particularly mentioned, and the simple idea is that she would be nourished during that time. That is, stripped of the figure, the church during that time would find true friends, and would be kept alive. It is hardly necessary to say that this has, in fact, occurred in the darkest periods of the history of the church.

A thousand two hundred and threescore days - That is, regarding these as prophetic days, in which a day denotes a year, twelve hundred and sixty years. The same period evidently is referred to in Rev_12:14, in the words “for a time, and times, and half a time.” And the same period is undoubtedly referred to in Dan_7:25; “And they shall be given into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing of time.” For a full consideration of the meaning of this language, and its application to the papacy, see the notes on Dan_7:25. The full investigation there made of the meaning and application of the language renders its consideration here unnecessary. I regard it here, as I do there, as referring to the proper continuance of the papal power, during which the true church would remain in comparative obscurity, as if driven into a desert. Compare the notes on Rev_11:2. The meaning here is, that during that period the true church would not become wholly extinct. It would have an existence upon the earth, but its final triumph would be reserved for the time when this great enemy should be finally overthrown. Compare the notes on Rev_12:14-17.

2. CLARKE, “And the woman fled into the wilderness - The account of the woman’s flying into the wilderness immediately follows that of her child being caught up to the throne of God, to denote the great and rapid increase of heresies in the Christian Church after the time that Christianity was made the religion of the empire.Where she hath a place prepared of God - See on Rev_12:14 (note).

3. GILL, “And the woman fled into the wilderness,.... Not as soon as she was delivered of her child, which is not reasonable to suppose, and would have been improper if not impracticable; nor indeed was this flight until after the war was over, mentioned in Rev_12:13; nor until the dragon and his angels were conquered and cast out; nor until a fresh persecution was raised by the dragon against the woman, as appears from Rev_12:14; where this account stands in its proper place, and is here only introduced by way of prolepsis, or anticipation, and that with this view, to show what care was taken of the woman, as well as of her son: and this does not design the flight of the Christians from Jerusalem to Pella, a little before the destruction of the former; nor the expulsion of the Jews or Christians from Rome, either by Claudius or by Nero; but the disappearance of the true church, and its obscure state and condition quickly after the above advance of it; for through the riches and honours which Constantine bestowed upon the Christians, they became vain, proud, ambitious, and careless; false doctrine and superstition obtained; the antichristian apostasy came on apace, and prevailed and increased, and so obscured the true church, that in process of time it became invisible, was in the cleft of the rock, and in the secret places of the stairs, or like persons in a wood or wilderness, not to be seen, as well as desolate and uncomfortable:

where she hath a place prepared of God; God has had, and will have a church in the worst of times; as he reserved a number in Elijah's time, so he did in the times of the antichristian apostasy, who bowed not the knee to idolatry; this woman, the church, and her case, are the same with the 144,000 sealed ones in Rev_7:1, whom God distinguished, hid, and preserved; for the wilderness is a place of retirement and safety, Eze_34:25, as well as of obscurity; and if any particular place is pointed at, I should think the valleys of Piedmont, which lie between France and Italy, are intended, where God has preserved, and continued a set of witnesses to the truth, in a succession, from the beginning of the apostasy to the present time, living in obscurity, and in safety, so far as not to be utterly destroyed:

that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days: in allusion to the children of Israel in the wilderness, where they were fed with manna forty years; so the overcomers, or true Christians in the Pergamos church state, have hidden manna given them to eat, the food of the wilderness, with which church state the church in the wilderness must be considered as contemporary, as also with the Thyatirian and Sardian church states; for though, at the Reformation, which the Sardinian church state introduces, the church appeared again, and has been ever since coming up out of the wilderness, yet she is stall in it; where she is fed and nourished with the Gospel, and the ordinances of it, by the faithful ministers of the word, the two witnesses that prophesy in sackcloth; the time of whose prophesying: is exactly of the same date

with the woman's bring in the wilderness, and with the reign of antichrist, namely, forty two months, or 1260 days, that is so many years, Rev_11:2.

4. GLENN, The church needed protection after Jesus ascended. The desert was a place of testing where the church had to go through tribulation, but be protected and spared. This 1,260 days is an indifinite time and represents the period of history in which the church has to face tribulation. This means the entire time between the ascension of Christ and His coming again.5. JAMISON, “woman fled — Mary’s flight with Jesus into Egypt is a type of this.where she hath — So C reads. But A and B add “there.”a place — that portion of the heathen world which has received Christianity professedly, namely, mainly the fourth kingdom, having its seat in the modern Babylon, Rome, implying that all the heathen world would not be Christianized in the present order of things.prepared of God — literally, “from God.” Not by human caprice or fear, but by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, the woman, the Church, fled into the wilderness.they should feed her — Greek, “nourish her.” Indefinite for, “she should be fed.” The heathen world, the wilderness, could not nourish the Church, but only afford her an outward shelter. Here, as in Dan_4:26, and elsewhere, the third person plural refers to the heavenly powers who minister from God nourishment to the Church. As Israel had its time of first bridal love, on its first going out of Egypt into the wilderness, so the Christian Church’s wilderness-time of first love was the apostolic age, when it was separate from the Egypt of this world, having no city here, but seeking one to come; having only a place in the wilderness prepared of God (Rev_12:6, Rev_12:14). The harlot takes the world city as her own, even as Cain was the first builder of a city, whereas the believing patriarchs lived in tents. Then apostate Israel was the harlot and the young Christian Church the woman; but soon spiritual fornication crept in, and the Church in the seventeenth chapter is no longer the woman, but the harlot, the great Babylon, which, however, has in it hidden the true people of God (Rev_18:4). The deeper the Church penetrated into heathendom, the more she herself became heathenish. Instead of overcoming, she was overcome by the world [Auberlen]. Thus, the woman is “the one inseparable Church of the Old and New Testament” [Hengstenberg], the stock of the Christian Church being Israel (Christ and His apostles being Jews), on which the Gentile believers have been grafted, and into which Israel, on her conversion, shall be grafted, as into her own olive tree. During the whole Church-historic period, or “times of the Gentiles,” wherein “Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles,” there is no believing Jewish Church, and therefore, only the Christian Church can be “the woman.” At the same time there is meant, secondarily, the preservation of the Jews during this Church-historic period, in order that Israel, who was once “the woman,” and of whom the man-child was born, may become so again at the close of the Gentile times, and stand at the head of the two elections, literal Israel, and spiritual Israel, the Church elected from Jews and Gentiles without distinction. Eze_20:35, Eze_20:36, “I will bring you into the wilderness of the people (Hebrew, ‘peoples’), and there will I plead with you ... like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of Egypt” (compare Notes, see on Eze_20:35, Eze_20:36): not a wilderness literally and locally, but spiritually a state of discipline and trial among the Gentile “peoples,” during the long Gentile times, and one finally consummated in the last time of unparalleled trouble under Antichrist, in which the sealed remnant (Rev_7:1-8) who constitute “the woman,” are nevertheless preserved “from the face of the serpent” (Rev_12:14).thousand two hundred and threescore days — anticipatory of Rev_12:14, where the persecution which caused her to flee is mentioned in its place: Rev_13:11-18 gives the details of the persecution. It is most unlikely that the transition should be made from the birth of Christ to the last Antichrist, without notice of the long intervening Church-historical period. Probably the 1260 days, or periods, representing this long interval, are RECAPITULATED on a shorter scale analogically during the last Antichrist’s short reign. They are equivalent to three and a half years, which, as half of the divine number seven, symbolize the seeming victory of the world over the Church. As they include the whole Gentile times of Jerusalem’s being trodden of the Gentiles, they must be much longer than 1260 years; for, above several centuries more than 1260 years have elapsed since Jerusalem fell.

6. PULPIT, “And the woman fled into the wilderness. As with Christ, so with his Church. His great trial took place in the wilderness; so the trial of the Church occurs in the wilderness, by which

figure the world is typified. It is generally pointed out that this verse is here inserted in anticipation of Rev_12:14. We prefer rather to look upon it as occurring in its natural place, the narrative being interrupted by Rev_12:7-13 in order to account for the implacable hostility of the devil.Where she hath a place prepared of God. à , A, B, P, and others insert e??e?? as well as ??´p?? , "where she there hath," etc.—a redundancy which is an ordinary Hebraism. Though the Church is "in the world," she is not "of the world" (Joh_17:14, Joh_17:15); though the woman is in the "wilderness," her place is "prepared of God." The harlot's abode (Rev_17:1-18.) is in the wilderness, and it is also of the wilderness; it is not in a place specially prepared of God.That they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days. The sense is the same as in Rev_12:14, "that she should be sustained there." The interpretation of the 1260 days, or 3.5 years, coincides here with that adopted in Rev_11:2. It describes the period of this world's existence, during the whole of which the devil persecutes the Church of God. As Auberlen points out, this is, in Rev_13:5, declared to be "the period of the power of the beast, that is, the world power." (For a discussion of the whole subject of this period, see on Rev_11:2.)

7. W. BURKITT, “Observe here, 1. That by the woman we are to understand the Christian church in her militant state, called a woman, in regard of her weakness and dependency; as also in regard of her fruitfulness, she bringing forth many children unto God, which are borne upon her knees.

Observe, 2. This woman, the church, is said to appear in heaven,having her original from heaven, her conversation in heaven, her tendency towards heaven, and her dependency upon heaven.

Observe, 3. The woman described by her rare perfections, which are three; l. Clothed with the sun, that is adorned with those graces which Christ the Sun of righteousness has put upon her, and environed with the pure light of the gospel shining about her.

2. Having the moon under her feet, that is, the legal worship, according to some; the Christian church outshining now the Jewish state of imperfection, casting off and trampling under the yoke of the Mosaic dispensation.

Others by the moon understand the world, which is like the moon, full of spots, defiling and polluting, full of changes and alterations, the fashion of this world passeth away. 1Co_7:31. It is never long in one garb; and her having the moon under her feet implies the church's being enabled by Christ to overcome and trample upon all the enjoyments and satisfactions of the world, and to despise all the affronts and insults of the world.

3. Upon her head a crown of twelve stars, that is, holding fast the pure doctrine of the gospel, first preached by the twelve apostles, and after them by succeeding ministers, which is as crown on the church's head.

Where note, That the apostles and all faithful ministers with them, are styled stars. As stars they shine before men, by the light of life and doctrine. As star they shine with a borrowed light, derived from the Sun of righteousness.

Again, as stars are in continual motion for the good of the universe, so are the ministers of the gospel for the good of the church; as stars, they shine in their own orb, attending the proper duty of their place and station: and as stars shine brightest in the cold winter nights, so do they in the times of affliction and persecution.

8. PULPIT, “The Church in the wilderness.This Rev_12:6 is repeated in Rev_12:14, as if calling special attention to the facts which it declares. But it cannot be understood, nor its lessons learnt, until sundry questions are asked and answered.

1. Who is the woman told of? She is the same as we read of in Rev_12:1, where she appears, not in distress, humiliation, and fear, fleeing with all speed from her dreaded foe, as is the case in this Rev_12:6; but in all august splendour, with radiant vestments and starry crown, with the moon as

her footstool, and the glory of the sun shining upon her. But who is she? "The blessed Virgin Mary," answers the whole Catholic world without a moment's hesitation; and in innumerable paintings and sculptures, sermons and songs, they have so set her forth as she is represented here. And that there is no reference to the nativity and incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ in this chapter, he would be a bold man who would affirm; but that the mother of our Lord is mainly, and, much more, exclusively meant, we cannot think. What is further said concerning her is impossible as applied to the virgin mother. But, without question, Mary, "the handmaid of the Lord," was a true and beautiful type of that queenly woman who is portrayed in the opening verses of this chapter. And that woman is none other than the Church of God, she of whom it was so often said, "Thy Maker is thy Husband;" "Behold, I am married unto thee." And in this very book how often we read of" the Bride, the Lamb's wife"! Of that faithful Church of God under the ancient dispensation, Christ, according to the flesh, came. "Born of a woman, made under the Law."

2. What is meant by the "travail" of the woman at the hour of her child's birth? The sweet story of Christmas is indeed pointed at here; but much more than that. Are we not reminded of those words of Isaiah, "As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth children;" and of St. Paul's words to the Galatians, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you"? And so did the ancient Church, with much spiritual travail, in earnest trust and fervent prayer, in patient hope, "waiting for the consolation of Israel," give birth to the Christian Church, of which Christ himself was the Head and Type and Lord. And then:

3. Who is, or what is, the great red dragon—that portentous monster whose hideous portrait and purpose are here revealed? Who is that who is as Pharaoh, watching for the birth of Israel's babes, in the far off evil days of their bondage in Egypt, that he might destroy them; or as Herod, inquiring diligently concerning the birth of the holy Child Jesus, that he might murderously rid himself of the possible rival "King of the Jews,"—who is meant here? And surely not Herod, nor, exclusively, Nero or Rome, but the prince of this world, Satan, the old serpent, the devil—he and none other—is the "great red dragon." "Red, as the colour of fire and as the colour of blood. Red, as the emblem of the waster and destroyer, as the emblem of him who 'was a murderer from the beginning.'" The dragon is that fabulous monster of whom ancient poets told as "huge in size, coiled like a snake, blood red in colour, or shot with changing tints," insatiable in voracity and ever athirst for human blood. In Psa_91:1-16. it is linked with "the lion and adder, and the young lion"—all which, together with the dragon, God's servant should "trample underfoot." Fit emblem, therefore, for that cruel, bloodthirsty, and persecuting power with which Christ's Church has so often had to contend. Its variety of assault is told of by the "seven heads;" its huge strength, by the "ten horns;" its exalted authority amidst men, by the "seven diadems;" and its arrogant and audacious dominance, by "the tail which drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them down to the earth." Such is the Church's adversary, the devil, who, in St. John's day, assumed a form which justified this horrid portraiture, but who, in whatever form he may assume, from whichever of his "seven heads" his attack may spring, is ever, in spirit, purpose, and aim, one and the same, always and everywhere. We need not linger on the next question:

4. Who is the child that was born? That the Lord Jesus Christ is meant is, we think, incontestable; but as it is not of his life and ministry that this vision mainly tells, but of that Church in which and for which he was born, his sojourn and sufferings here are passed over. Only his entrance into and departure from this world are spoken of, and we are bidden contemplate him not here, but at the right hand of God, whither he ascended after his work on earth was done. But "the woman," and not her child, lingers here, exposed to the cruel assaults of her dread foe until the twelve hundred and sixty days, the period of time which we find so perpetually mentioned in this book, and which equals the three years and a half, the half of the complete number seven, and thereforetype of a period not complete, but brief and broken,—until this time be done, the woman—the Church—must remain in the wilderness to which she has fled, or, rather, has been borne of God (verse 14), and where she is sheltered from the power of her dread foe, and nourished by the ministers of God. It now only remains to ask:

5. What is this wilderness which is spoken of here? And the reply is that it is a type of the condition of the Church until the twelve hundred and sixty days, the time allotted for the Church's trial, be accomplished. And concerning that condition we would now speak—of its privations and

perils, but, most of all, of its privileges.

I. ITS PRIVATIONS. No doubt there are these; the very name of "wilderness" indicates that there would be. We cannot have the good things of the world—"the flesh pots of Egypt"—and the good things of Christ too. We have to make choice between them. Making the best of both worlds is generally, if not always, a very doubtful procedure, though not a few professed Christians are forever attempting it. "How hardly shall they that have riches"—the specially good thing of this world—"enter into the kingdom of heaven!" So said our Saviour, and all experience confirms his word. For such things are but hindrances and impedimenta, that do but render our way through the wilderness yet more difficult, where it was difficult enough before. It is told of a great cardinal how, when in his last illness, he had himself wheeled into his sumptuous picture gallery, and as he wistfully looked at one art treasure after another, he said to a friend who was with him, "Ah, these are the things that make it hard to die!" No doubt it is so; and hence we are bidden go by the way of the wilderness, so that we may escape the besetments that would otherwise delay our progress.Nor may we look for rest here. The pilgrim may never here say to his soul, "Soul, take thine ease." Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. There were Elims and other "quiet resting places" where, once and again, Israel was permitted to relieve the stress and strain of their long pilgrimage; but the common characteristics of their life was that of pilgrims, and their forty years' sojourn in the wilderness are spoken of, not as rest, but as their "wanderings." And, indeed, the providence of God is ever busy to prevent his people from settling down here as if it were their rest. Hence the disquiet and trouble, the "black care" which enters every abode—the palatial as well as the poorest; the loss and bereavement, all that which the Bible calls the "stirring up the nest,"—all is for the purpose of reminding us that this is not our rest, and to induce us—so slow, generally, to be induced—to seek the better country, even the heavenly one. Oh that men would remember this, and reckon on all these things as the necessary, indispensable, and salutary, if severe, conditions of our present lot! They would then be far less hard to bear, and would more readily fulfil their mission, and serve as a spur to urge us forward in the heavenly road. And there are also—

II. PERILS BELONGING TO THIS PILGRIMAGE. One we have now glanced at—the persistent temptation to make the wilderness a home; to so bring the world into the Church, as that the Church itself should become a world; so to mingle the worldly with the religious life, that the latter should partake more of the former than the former of the latter. This is no imaginary peril, but one actual and visible, and yielded to in cases not a few. And another is the failure of faith. Ah, what trouble came to Israel of old from this one fatal fountain! Their miserable record of sinning and repenting, which went on almost from the day they left Egypt till the day they entered Canaan, caused that all that time should be branded with the reproachful name of "the day of provocation in the wilderness." And it was all owing to their persistent unbelief. And the like peril exists still. Without doubt the difficulties of unbelief are greater than those of faith; but these latter are so great and pressing, oftentimes, that faith well nigh suffers shipwreck. It is easy, comparatively, for the comfortable and well to do, in whose even tenor of life little occurs to raffle or disturb, much less distress—it is easy for such to say fine things about faith, and to censure and condemn those for not believing whose whole life is one long trial of faith; but let those who thus condemn be themselves likewise tried, and then it is probable that their condemnations will gradually change into comprehension, and that into sympathy with, and that into actual sharing of their brothers' unbelief. Yes, this is a real peril of our wilderness condition, and it is one which, if we do not conquer, it will conquer us. It is this which gives force to another peril—the temptation to go back to Egypt, to return to the world which we have avowedly forsaken. Israel was on the point of doing this, and often looked longingly back to the lives they had left. And some yield to it. How many are there who apostatize—leave the Church of Christ, and become, to all intents and purposes, what they were before they entered it, if not worse! Such are some of the perils of the wilderness, from all which may God in his great mercy deliver us!

9. Steve Zeisler gives us a negative account of what the first half of this chapter reveals."It is the impression that picture leaves us with that is the source ofthe distortion, or deception, about the things we see here. They arnot factually untrue at any point, but they leave us with a wrongfeeling. For instance, in what is said about the Lord, we are givenonly the briefest possible description of his ministry. He was born;he was carried away to heaven following his resurrection;

and nothingelse about his earthly ministry is mentioned. His destiny, eventually,is to "rule . . . with a rod of iron." It would seem that we areliberately being kept from seeing him very clearly by thisbreviated description. Further, we are told that the woman flees,runs for her life to the wilderness, which might suggest that theremoval of the Messiah to heaven also has the quality of escape. It isnot obvious that he is in heaven because he is the victor. Rather, ifwe think about only what we see here, it would seem that he is therebecause he had to run for his life; he has escaped the power of themegadragon, the great, impressive, magnificent enemy of God. If all wehad were these verses, I think we would be left with the impressionthat Jesus has retreated to the heavenly sidelines, while the centerstage of the real world- our emotional, psychological, and physicalexperience- is dominated by the enemy of God.6We often hear this type of orthodoxy regarding the facts. Jesus wasborn. He ascended into heaven. He will rule someday. Israel was theinstrument through which Messiah came to earth. Israel has beenpersecuted by the enemy of God. The facts are clearly stated, but theadded impression is that despite the facts, the real winner and thereal power in life is Satan, the enemy. This is not an uncommon perspective for Christians to have. Perhapsyou are lonely, unappreciated, tempted, facing pressures that you haveno hope of alleviating. Maybe your life consists of physical pain orthe horrible psychological pain that comes when we believe that we arefailures and are caught up in a web of self- hatred. The center stagein the "real" world is occupied by the devil. Whatever will be truesomeday, whatever Christ is doing in the distant heavens, right nowhis enemy is magnificent and invincible."

"The first picture we saw might lead us to1conclude that the "real" world is the earthly sphere of ourrelationships, including our psyche, our emotions, and our bodies, andthat the "heavenly" world is the sidelines somewhere in the distance,where Jesus has gone. I think, though, that verses 7 through 12correct that thinking by showing that the "real" world is the"heavenly" sphere. The supremely important issue at stake is whetheror not men have a place before God. Since Jesus is victor in the realworld, he is also victor on this earth and we are protected, whilehere, from being tempted beyond anything we can endure. Satan,however, is restricted to only this world because he cannot accuse usin heaven. It is exactly the opposite of the truth to think that whatI am going through right now is reality and most important andsupremely true while what Jesus is doing in the presence of God isdistant and unimportant and unreal. Satan is on this earth,but evenso, he has only a short time. He is furious because he cannot do thevery things he longs to do. The second observation we ought to make then, is that you can bepositively built up in your faith by suffering, believe it or not, ifyou recognize that the reason the enemy of God is allowed to make ussuffer is precisely because he cannot destroy our relationship withGod. It ought to encourage us to suffer the hurts of our earthly life2because we know with a certainty that those are all Satan can do. Heis prevented from doing the damage that he longs to do to us and toe heart of God. He can only break your leg. He can only take yourjob, but he cannot destroy your relationship with God. He has no placeto accuse you any longer before the throne of God. The question we ought to ask at this point is, "How do we takeadvantage of all this? We have seen it displayed before us inpictures, but how do we appropriate it?" Let me first summarize whatwe have seen and then look at a verse that speaks about appropriatingthese truths. We have looked at two pictures of Satan and his work inthe world. The first one presents him as an invincible, fiery redmegadragon with Jesus escaped to the sidelines. The woman has run forher life into the wilderness and we are vitrually chained to thenecessity of being overwhelmed by Satan. The second picture tells usrather that Satan is the victim. He is the failure. The real issueshave been settled in our favor, and an enraged, frustrated antagonistwho has only a short time, the Scriptures say, is bending his everyintention to make us suffer because he cannot really hurt us."

Thus, having suffered defeat in Heaven, the dragon with all its raging fury arms itself against the Woman (the Church). Its weapons are the various temptations which it directs at the Woman that resemble a wild river. However, she saves herself from temptation by fleeing to the desert; that is, by a voluntary refusal of life's benefits and comforts, which the dragon tries to use to charm her. The two wings of the Woman are prayer and fasting, with which Christians become spiritual and become immune to the entrapments of the dragon, who goes crawling about the world as a snake (Gen. 3:14; also see Mk. 9:29). It behooves us to recall that many zealous Christians from the first centuries onward had already literally migrated into the desert, leaving the noisy towns that were full of temptations. In remote caves, in hermitages and monasteries, they gave all their time to

prayer and thoughts of God and were able to attain spiritual heights that modern Christians cannot fathom. Monasticism flourished in the East during the fourth through the seventh centuries, when in the desert regions of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor many hermitages and monasteries were formed, numbering some hundreds and thousands of monks and nuns. From the Near East, monasticism overflowed into Athos, and from there into Russia, where in pre-Revolutionary time there were many thousands of monasteries and hermitages.

10. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “The woman fled into the wilderness.

The emblem of the church militant

“And the woman,” there is the frailty of her nature; “fled,” there is the uncertainty of her state; “into the wilderness,” there is the place of her retiredness; “where she is nourished by God,” there is the staff of her comfort; “a thousand two hundred and three score days,” there is the term of her obscurity, and the period of all her troubles.

1. First her origin.

2. Her fruitfulness. The honour of women is their childbearing. The Church a fruitful mother, the mother of all that live by faith.

3. Her tenderness. Such is the temper of the militant Church, in fear always, weeping continually for her children, never out of trouble in one place or other.

4. Her weakness or impotency. Howsoever she be always strong in the Lord, and the power of His might.

5. Her frailty. All those usual similitudes whereby the Scripture setteth the Church militant before our eyes, show her frailty and imbecility. She is a vine, a lily, a dove, a flock of sheep in the midst of ravening wolves. What tree so subject to take hurt as a vine, which is so weak that it needeth continual binding and supporting, so tender that if it be pricked deep it bleedeth to death? No flower so soft and without all defence or shelter as a lily; no fowl so harmless as the dove that hath no gall at all; no cattle so oft in danger as sheep and lambs in the midst of wolves. This picture might leave been taken of the Church as she fled from Pharaoh into the wilderness, or as she fled into Egypt from Herod, or as she fled into all parts of the earth in the time of the first persecutions from heathen emperors, in all which her trials she gained more than she lost. For as Justin Martyr rightly observed, “persecution is that to the Church which pruning is to the vine, whereby it is made more fruitful.” (D. Featly, D. D.)

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his

angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon

and his angels fought back.

1.BARNES, “And there was war in heaven - There was a state of things existing in regard to the woman and the child - the church in the condition in which it would then be - which would be well represented by a war in heaven; that is, by a conflict between the powers of good and evil, of light

and darkness. Of course it is not necessary to understand this literally, anymore than the other symbolical representations in the book. All that is meant is, that a vision passed before the mind of John as if there was a conflict, in regard to the church, between the angels in heaven and Satan. There is a vision of the persecuted church - of the woman fleeing into the desert - and the course of the narrative is here interrupted by going back Rev_12:7-13 to describe the conflict which led to this result, and the fact that Satan, as it were cast out of heaven, and unable to achieve a victory there, was suffered to vent his malice against the church on earth. The seat of this warfare is said to be heaven. This language sometimes refers to heaven as it appears to us - the sky - the upper regions of the atmosphere, and some have supposed that that was the place of the contest. But the language in Rev_11:19; Rev_12:1 (see the notes on those places), would rather lead us to refer it to heaven considered as lying beyond the sky. This accords, too, with other representations in the Bible, where Satan is described as appearing before God, and among the sons of God. See the notes on Job_1:6. Of course this is not to be understood as a real transaction, but as a symbolical representation of the contest between good and evil - as if there was a war waged in heaven between Satan and the leader of the heavenly hosts.Michael - There have been very various opinions as to who Michael is. Many Protestant interpreters have supposed that Christ is meant. The reasons usually alleged for this opinion, many of which are very fanciful, may be seen in Hengstenberg (Die Offenbarung des heiliges Johannes), 1:611-622. The reference to Michael here is probably derived from Dan_10:13; Dan_12:1. In those places he is represented as the guardian angel of the people of God; and it is in this sense, I apprehend, that the passage is to be understood here. There is no evidence in the name itself, or in the circumstances referred to, that Christ is intended; and if he had been, it is inconceivable why he was not referred to by his own name, or by some of the usual appellations which John gives him. Michael, the archangel, is here represented as the guardian of the church, and as contending against Satan for its protection. Compare the notes on Dan_10:13. This representation accords with the usual statements in the Bible respecting the interposition of the angels in behalf of the church (see the notes on Heb_1:14), and is one which cannot be proved to be unfounded. All the analogies which throw any light on the subject, as well as the uniform statements of the Bible, lead us to suppose that good beings of other worlds feel an interest in the welfare of the redeemed church below.And his angels - The angels under him. Michael is represented as the archangel, and all the statements in the Bible suppose that the heavenly hosts are distributed into different ranks and orders. See the Jud_1:9 note; Eph_1:21 note. If Satan is permitted to make war against the church, there is no improbability in supposing that, in those higher regions where the war is carried on, and in those aspects of it which lie beyond the power and the knowledge of man, good angels should be employed to defeat his plans.Fought - See the notes on Jud_1:9.Against the dragon - Against Satan. See the notes at Rev_12:3.And the dragon fought and his angels - That is, the master-spirit - Satan, and those under him. See the notes on Mat_4:1. Of the nature of this warfare nothing is definitely stated. Its whole sphere lies beyond mortal vision, and is carried on in a manner of which we can have little conception. What weapons Satan may use to destroy the church, and in what way his efforts may be counteracted by holy angels, are points on which we can have little knowledge. It is sufficient to know that the fact of such a struggle is not improbable, and that Satan is successfully resisted by the leader of the heavenly host.

2. CLARKE, “There was war in heaven - In the same treatise, fol. 87, 2, on Exo_14:7, Pharaoh took six hundred chariots, we have these words: “There was war among those above and among those below, ??????? ???? ???? ????? vehammilchamah^ hayethah chazakah bashshamayim, and there was great war in heaven.” Of Michael the rabbins are full. See much in Schoettgen, and see the note on Jud_1:9.The dragon - and his angels - The same as Rab. Sam. ben David, in Chasad Shimuel, calls ???? ????????? Samael vechayilothaiv, “Samael and his troops;” fol. 28, 2.Rev_12:7 per John Edward ClarkeAnd there was war in heaven - As heaven means here the throne of the Roman empire, the war in heaven consequently alludes to the breaking out of civil commotions among the governors of this empire.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon - Michael was the man child which the woman brought forth, as is evident from the context, and therefore signifies, as has been shown already, the dynasty of Christian Roman emperors. This dynasty is represented by Michael, because he is “the great prince which standeth for the children of God’s people.” Dan_12:1.And the dragon fought and his angels - Or ministers.

3. GILL, “And there was war in heaven,.... Not in the third heaven, the habitation of God, the seat of the angels and glorified saints, there is no discord, jars, and contentions there, nothing but peace, love, and joy; but in the church below, which is militant, and has in it as it were a company of two armies; or rather in the Roman empire, which was the heaven of Satan, the god of this world, and of his angels; and this war refers not to the dispute between Michael the archangel and the devil about the body of Moses, Jud_1:9; nor to the of the angels when they rebelled against God, left their first estate, and were cast down to hell, Jud_1:6; nor to that ancient and stated enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, Gen_3:15, which has appeared in all ages of time, more or less, since the fall of Adam; nor to the combats which Christ personally had with Satan and his powers when here on earth, as in the wilderness, immediately after his baptism, and in the garden, a little before his death, and on the cross, when he spoiled principalities and powers, and destroyed him that had the power of death, the devil; but rather to the conflict which Christ and his people had with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with the Roman powers, and with false teachers during the three first centuries; though it seems best to understand it of the war commenced by Constantine against Paganism, and which was finished by Theodosius, by whom Heathenism received its death wound, and was never restored since the phrase of war in heaven is not unknown to the Jews; they say (i) when Pharaoh pursued after Israel, there was war above and below, and there was a very fierce war ?????, "in heaven":

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon: by whom is meant not a created angel, with whom his name does not agree, it signifying "who is as God"; nor does it appear that there is anyone created angel that presides over the rest, and has them at his command; though the Jews seem to imagine as if the angels were ranged under several heads and governors, of whom they make Michael to be one; for they say (k),

"when the holy blessed God descended on Mount Sinai, several companies of angels descended with him, ????? ???????, "Michael and his company", and Gabriel and his company:''

"so kings armies", in Psa_68:12; are by them interpreted of "kings of angels"; and it is asked who are these? and the answer is, Michael and Gabriel (l). Lord Napier thinks that the Holy Ghost is designed, who is equally truly God as the Father and the Son, and who in the hearts of the saints opposes Satan and his temptations; but it seems best to interpret it of Jesus Christ, who is equal with God, is his fellow, is one with the Father, and in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily: he is the Archangel, the first of the chief princes, the head of all principality and power, who is on the side of the Lord's people, pleads their cause, defends their persons, and saves them; see Jud_1:9; and by "his angels" may be meant either the good angels, literally understood, who are his creatures, his ministers, and whom he employs under him, in protecting his people, and in destroying his enemies; or else the ministers of the Gospel, who are called angels in this book, and who, under Christ, fight the good fight of faith, contend earnestly for it, being valiant for the truth upon earth; or rather the Christian emperors, particularly Constantine and Theodosius, and the Christians with them, who opposed Paganism in the empire, and at last subdued, and cast it out:

and the dragon fought, and his angels; there is such an order among the evil angels, as to have one of their own at the head of them, they having cast off their allegiance to God and Christ, who is styled the prince of devils, and his name is Beelzebub: hence we read of the devil and his angels; see Mat_12:24; and these may be intended here, unless false teachers, who transform themselves into angels of light, as their leader sometimes does, should be thought to be meant, who resist the truth and oppose themselves to the ministers of it; though rather, Satan as presiding over, and influencing the Roman Pagan empire, and the Roman emperors, who acted under him, are here designed; with whom Constantine and Theodosius, under Christ, combated,

such as Maximinus, Maxentius, Licinius, Arbogastes, and Eugenius, and those that were with them. The Arabic version renders it, "the serpent with his soldiers".

4. HENRY, “The attempts of the dragon not only proved unsuccessful against the church, but fatal to his own interests; for, upon his endeavour to devour the man-child, he engaged all the powers of heaven against him (Rev_12:7): There was war in heaven. Heaven will espouse the quarrel of the church. Here observe,1. The seat of this war - in heaven, in the church, which is the kingdom of heaven on earth, under the care of heaven and in the same interest.2. The parties - Michael and his angels on one side, and the dragon and his angels on the other: Christ, the great Angel of the covenant, and his faithful followers; and Satan and all his instruments. This latter party would be much superior in number and outward strength to the other; but the strength of the church lies in having the Lord Jesus for the captain of their salvation.3. The success of the battle: The dragon and his angels fought and prevailed not; there was a great struggle on both sides, but the victory fell to Christ and his church, and the dragon and his angels were not only conquered, but cast out; the pagan idolatry, which was a worshipping of devils, was extirpated out of the empire in the time of Constantine.5. JAMISON, “In Job_1:6-11; Job_2:1-6, Satan appears among the sons of God, presenting himself before God in heaven, as the accuser of the saints: again in Zec_3:1, Zec_3:2. But at Christ’s coming as our Redeemer, he fell from heaven, especially when Christ suffered, rose again, and ascended to heaven. When Christ appeared before God as our Advocate, Satan, the accusing adversary, could no longer appear before God against us, but was cast out judicially (Rom_8:33, Rom_8:34). He and his angels henceforth range through the air and the earth, after a time (namely, the interval between the ascension and the second advent) about to be cast hence also, and bound in hell. That “heaven” here does not mean merely the air, but the abode of angels, appears from Rev_12:9, Rev_12:10, Rev_12:12; 1Ki_22:19-22.there was — Greek, “there came to pass,” or “arose.”war in heaven — What a seeming contradiction in terms, yet true! Contrast the blessed result of Christ’s triumph, Luk_19:38, “peace in heaven.” Col_1:20, “made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; whether ... things in earth, or things in heaven.”Michael and his angels ... the dragon ... and his angels — It was fittingly ordered that, as the rebellion arose from unfaithful angels and their leader, so they should be encountered and overcome by faithful angels and their archangel, in heaven. On earth they are fittingly encountered, and shall be overcome, as represented by the beast and false prophet, by the Son of man and His armies of human saints (Rev_19:14-21). The conflict on earth, as in Dan_10:13, has its correspondent conflict of angels in heaven. Michael is peculiarly the prince, or presiding angel, of the Jewish nation. The conflict in heaven, though judicially decided already against Satan from the time of Christ’s resurrection and ascension, receives its actual completion in the execution of judgment by the angels who cast out Satan from heaven. From Christ’s ascension he has no standing-ground judicially against the believing elect. Luk_10:18, “I beheld (in the earnest of the future full fulfillment given in the subjection of the demons to the disciples) Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” As Michael fought before with Satan about the body of the mediator of the old covenant (Jud_1:9), so now the mediator of the new covenant, by offering His sinless body in sacrifice, arms Michael with power to renew and finish the conflict by a complete victory. That Satan is not yet actually and finally cast out of heaven, though the judicial sentence to that effect received its ratification at Christ’s ascension, appears from Eph_6:12, “spiritual wickedness in high (Greek, ‘heavenly’) places.” This is the primary Church-historical sense here. But, through Israel’s unbelief, Satan has had ground against that, the elect nation, appearing before God as its accuser. At the eve of its restoration, in the ulterior sense, his standing-ground in heaven against Israel, too, shall be taken from him, “the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem” rebuking him, and casting him out from heaven actually and for ever by Michael, the prince, or presiding angel of the Jews. Thus Zec_3:1-9 is strictly parallel, Joshua, the high priest, being representative of his nation Israel, and Satan standing at God’s fight hand as adversary to resist Israel’s justification. Then, and not till then, fully (Rev_12:10, “NOW,” etc.) shall ALL things be reconciled unto Christ IN HEAVEN (Col_1:20), and there shall be peace in heaven (Luk_19:38).against — A, B, and C read, “with.”

6. PULPIT, “And there was war in heaven. The passage Rev_12:7-13 is an interruption of the narrative of the persecution of the woman by Satan. It is caused, apparently, by a desire to account in some degree for the relentless hostility of the devil towards God and his Church. Two explanations of the passage may be referred to.

(1) Rev_12:7-13 relate to the period anterior to the Creation, concerning which we have a slight hint in Jud_1:6. This, on the whole, seems to agree best with the general sense of the chapter, and to present fewest difficulties. Thus:

(a) It accounts for the insertion of the passage (see above).

(b) The war is directly between the devil and Michael, not between the devil and Christ, as at the Incarnation and Resurrection.

(c) Jud_1:8 and Jud_1:9 seem to require a more literal interpretation than that which makes them refer to the effects of Christ's resurrection.

(d) It was not at the period of the Incarnation that the scene of Satan's opposition was transferred to the earth, as described in Jud_1:12.

(e) The song of the heavenly voice may be intended to end with the word Christ (Jud_1:10), and the following passages may be the words of the writer of the Apocalypse, and may refer to the earthly martyrs (see on Jud_1:10).

(f) This attempt of the devil in heaven may be alluded to in Joh_1:5, "The darkness overcame it not" (see also Joh_12:35).

(2) The passage may refer to the incarnation and resurrection of Christ, and the victory then won over the devil. This interpretation renders the whole passage much more figurative.

(a) Michael is the type of mankind, which in the Person of Jesus Christ vanquishes the devil.

(b) Subsequent to the Resurrection Satan is no more allowed to accuse men before God in heaven, as he has done previously (see Job_1:1-22.; 2; Zec_3:1; 1Ki_22:19-22); he is thus the accuser cast down (Joh_1:10), and his place is no more found in heaven (Joh_1:8).

(c) The earth and sea represent the worldly and tumultuous nations. Perhaps the strongest argument in favour of the second view is found in Luk_10:18 and Joh_12:31. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; Michael and his angels [going forth] to war with the dragon (Revised Version). Alford explains the infinitive phrase as compounded of the genitive t??? and depending upon e??e´?et? . Michael ( ìàÅêÎéíÈ ) signifies, "Who is like to God?" We may compare this with the cry of the worldly in Rev_13:4, "Who is like unto the beast?" In Daniel, Michael is the prince who stands up for the people of Israel (Dan_12:1-13. l; Dan_10:13, Dan_10:21). Michael, "the archangel," is alluded to in Jud Dan_1:9 as the great opposer of Satan. St. John, perhaps borrowing the name from Daniel, puts forward Michael as the chief of those who remained faithful to the cause of God in the rebellion of Satan and his angels. Theangels of the dragon are the stars of verse 4, which he drew with him to the earth, and possibly the reference to this event in verse 4 gives rise to the account in verses 7-13. Some commentators interpret the war here described as that between the Church and the world. Michael is thus made to be symbolical of Christ, and some have no difficulty in indicating a particular man (such as Licinius) as the antitype of the dragon. And the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. The Greek is stronger, not even their place, etc. ???de´ is read in à , A, B, C, Andreas, Arethas; ???´te is found in P, 1, 17, and others. So complete was the defeat of Satan that he was no longer permitted to remain in heaven in any capacity.

7. W. BURKITT, “By Michael and his angels, understand Christ, whose the angels are, and so much the name imports, Michael, that is, who like God; Christ is the likeness of his Father, his essential likeness. St. John in a vision beholds Michael and his angels combating with the dragon

and his angels; yea, vanquishing and overcoming them. This may comfort the church under all her conflicts, that at length her Michael will finally prevail, and she in him.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the powerful preaching of the gospel, has weakened the kingdom of sin, Satan, and antichrist. His angels are his ministers, martyrs, and confessors; those particularly of the first ages, who, by their cries to God, and apologies to their rulers, by their holy lives, and patient deaths, did overcome their enemies. And thus Michael and his angels, Christ and his ministers, fought against the dragon and his angels, against Satan and his cruel instruments, who were so far from prevailing, that they lost ground continually; the Christians overcame them by their faith and patience. And the great dragon was cast down, he was by the preaching of the gospel deposed from being worshipped as a god, and his power was taken away.

From the whole note, 1. That though Michael, Christ alone, be able to overcome the dragon and all his angelic powers, yet for his own greater honour, and their greater confusion, he overcomes him and them by his ministers and faithful servants.

Note, 2. If Michael our prince be with us, Christ Jesus, the captain of our salvation, our leader, then, though the combat may be sharp, yet the victory is sure; for if he be for us, who can (successfully) be against us?

Note, 3. That Satan and his angels were cast out together; for of the devil and his instruments the lot shall be alike; they sin together, and they shall suffer together, and shall never be parted.

Lord, how dreadful will an imprisonment with devils and damned spirits be to eternal ages! To lie for ever with Satan in that mysterious fire of hell, whose strange property it is always to torture, but never to kill; or always to kill, but never to consume. The dragon was not only cast out of heaven with his angels, but both were cast down into hell, even into that lake which burns with fire and brimstone.

8. JAMES NISBET, “‘There was war in heaven.’

Rev_12:7And if in heaven, where the Lord Almighty works His plans of goodness and love, then, without surprise, on earth, with its fallen passions and selfish, unholy ambitions.

I. But what has the gospel of Christ to say to the whole question?—How does Christianity speak with regard to the right and wrong of war? Certainly there is an answer. The spirit of Christianity, the ethics of the gospel, the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ are opposed, absolutely, to the spirit of war in itself. In old days, in the times before Christ, war nearly always, on one side or the other, and not infrequently on both, represented the savage instincts and rude elements of human character and infirmity. And war was lightly entered upon, even within our own history, in a spirit of pride and cruelty, hate and revenge. And war, as hate, is wrong, absolutely. And only gradually, as the spirit of Christianity is better loved and understood, are the evil springs of war abandoned and its selfish cruelties put away. And at least we must admit that in these days the brighter the light of Christianity is, in any nation, the more wonderfully are all these features changed even in the very conduct of war itself.

II. We, a great Christian empire, have frequently had thrown upon our hands the unwilling, painful task of rising up to defend by force our dependent peoples from evils under which they cried. Our very Christianity calls us to the terrible conflict of war sometimes. And if war were always and inevitably wrong, then the greatest empire in the world ought to exist without an army and without a fleet. And the most peace-loving Christian man could not contemplate that, with the world as it is, as a sane or even a possible situation.

III. Again, war is God’s scourge for many things that are more deadly wrong than war.—In a fallen and struggling world the Almighty uses war as a drastic remedy for many a slow and cankering poison. He makes ‘even the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain.’ War has its terrible mercies and its grim healing. We can look back on our own civil wars

and learn that. We can read it in the lurid glare of the French Revolution. We can unearth it in many an ancient story of a decaying nation and a corrupt people. A new race of unselfish and devoted men, of pure and noble women, of high and worthy ideals, can come in only by war sometimes, and in a baptism of grief and blood.

—Rev. Dr. E. Hicks.ST.MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS

‘Michael and his angels.’

Rev_12:7The belief in angelic creatures has been a favourite article in the universal creed, but the most unequivocal and direct evidence of their existence and ministry is to be found in the Bible. Fifteen, at least, of the inspired writers have described them.

I. Of the vast number of the holy angels there is very little doubt.—The Jewish Rabbis state that ‘nothing exists without an attendant angel, not even a blade of grass.’ The great Aquinas asserts that ‘there are more angels than all substances together, celestial and terrestrial, animate and inanimate.’ St. Gregory calculates that ‘there are so many angels as there are elect.’ Charles Kingsley maintains that ‘in every breeze there are living spirits, and God’s angels guide the thunder-clouds.’ But what saith the Scripture? On its pages their number is variously stated. (See case of Moses, Elisha, Daniel, St. John.) At the advent of Jesus there appeared ‘a multitude of the heavenly host,’ and one dark eventide, near Gethsemane, He declared to St. Peter that if He prayed to His Father He would give Him ‘more than twelve legions of angels.’

II. But all the angels are not of the same rank.—Michael, for example, is represented in Scripture as being the next in rank to the Angel-Jehovah. In the Book of Daniel he is spoken of as ‘one of the chief princes’ in the celestial hierarchy, and in the Book of St. John as ‘the archangel.’

III. The ministry of angels.—They were ever the servants of Jesus during His incarnate life, as they are now in His glorified life; and sometimes God has employed them to punish the wicked. But they are specially ‘sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation.’ Nor do they forget the body which enshrined the soul. They guard its sleeping-place, as they did the sepulchre of Jesus, until the early dawn of the resurrection, when they will give up their trust.

9. PAUL KRETZMANN 7-12, “The dragon cast out of heaven:

v. 7. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

v. 8. and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven.

v. 9. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

v. 10. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

v. 11. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

v. 12. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that

he hath but a short time.

Here a strange scene is depicted: And there occurred a battle in heaven, Michael and his angels battling with the dragon; and the dragon battled and his angels, and were not able to prevail, neither was their place found any more in heaven; and there was thrown out the huge dragon, the old serpent, who is called devil and Satan, who seduces the whole world; he was thrown to the earth, and his angels were thrown with him. It seems that the dragon did not give up his attempts to destroy the believers as personified in the child that was caught up to heaven, but attempted to storm heaven itself. Even in the Old Testament the devil is pictured as being among the sons of God, the angels, as they came for their daily ministry, Job_1:6-12. But his attack proved a failure; for Michael, the archangel, Dan_10:13-21; Dan_12:1, summoned the hosts of heaven and gave battle so successfully that the dragon, or Satan, called the old serpent with reference to the fall of man, and the devil because his constant endeavor is to bring ignominy and shame upon all men,—was cast out of heaven with his host. The devil, with the entire kingdom of Anti-Christ on his side, is not able to prevail against Christ. All his carnal, all his hellish weapons may, indeed, inflict wounds upon the believers, but the spiritual armor of the Christians, Eph_6:1-24, is so strong as to overcome all the attacks which Satan may launch. We tremble not, we fear no ill, they shall not overpower us; this world's prince may still scowl fierce as he will; he can harm us none; he's judged, the deed is done; one little word can fell him.

And so the voice of victory is heard: And I heard a great voice in heaven saying, Now has come salvation and power and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is thrown down, he that accuses them before God day and night. Here is a further explanation of the manner in which the devil and his angels attacked the believers, namely, by accusing them before God day and night, by carefully keeping an account of every failing and of every transgression that may be charged to their account, and then dinning this in the ears of the Lord continually. But here the anthem of victory arises, giving all honor to God the Father, the Author of our salvation, and to His Son, Jesus Christ, who wrought a complete salvation for us. His kingdom is established forever, and all the subjects of this kingdom, all true believers, are safe in His power. All the accusations of the devil, true and weighty as they would be in themselves, have lost their strength in view of the fact that the atonement of Christ has covered all these sins and their guilt, that the redemption which He effected has brought a full reconciliation with God.

Therefore the hymn of victory continues: And they conquered him through the blood of the Lamb, and through the word of their witness, and they did not love their soul unto death. For this reason rejoice, heavens, and those that dwell in them. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has come down to you having a great rage, knowing that he has little time. And they, the believers themselves, won the victory over Satan; they are always winners, in the fight against him, through the power of Christ, through the fact that His blood was shed for their redemption, and through the fact that they bear witness of this salvation and thus conquer the enemies with the Gospel. In the Gospel, in the testimony of salvation, there is a mighty, a world-conquering power, for the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit is present in it. Therefore not only the believers on earth are filled with the exultation of triumph, but the dwellers in the heavens are also called upon to rejoice with the Church in its victory; even the angels take part in the triumph over the powers of darkness. Outwardly it may seem as though the Christians were forced to submit; in reality, however, the martyrs who had to die for their faith, but did not cling to life, are the victors, and their victory will be revealed before the eyes of all men on the last day. Fearful times, indeed, we may expect after the fruitless attempt of Satan to storm heaven, for he is now enraged more than ever, and he means to make the most of the short time still remaining to him before the last day comes. Let him storm and rage; we Christians are safe in the protecting hands of the Lamb.

10. GLENN, “ The New Testament seems to start history all over again. A new Adam faces the same old dragon, but this time he overcomes the temptation and starts a new people of God on earth. Satan is a defeated foe, but he still fights the people of God. He is cast out of heaven to earth, and here is his last stand.

Michael is always pictured in combat with the devil. Jude 9, Dan. 10:13. He is the great

defender of the realm of God. He is God's general. This was was fought in the Christ event of the cross and resurrection. What was going on in the earth in time was effecting the battle of heaven. John 12:31 and Heb. 2:14. It was the death of Jesus that got Satan cast out of heaven.

Eugene Peterson writes, "The dragon and his hosts, no match for Michael and his angels, falls out of the sky in a heap. "Bounced" is more like it- unceremoniously tossed out. The terrorizing names-great dragon, ancient serpent, devil, satan, deceiver of the whole earth are a pile of dirty laundry on the ground." Isa. 14:12, Luke 10:18.

This is a new defeat of Satan who fought Christ as an ascended man to the throne, but it was afutile effort and he was easily defeated. He failed to destroy Christ on earth and in heaven and so his last strategy will be to fight the woman and her offspring. This is why the Church has to go through tribulation.

11. ZEISLER, Verses 7 through 17 are essentially a more detailed replay of twoevents we saw in the first six verses.

12. Next, John sees a war in heaven. He sees Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon and his angels. The great dragon and his angels are cast out (they are defeated). This represents the spiritual battle that was going on in John's day because verse 11 says that they (the saints who had been martyred) overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. "The word of their testimony" is the same "testimony" or "witness" under consideration throughout the book (1:2,9; 6:9; 11:7; 12:11; 12:17; 19:10; 20:4). The expression, "They loved not their lives unto death" means that they were willing to give up their lives. They are the same "martyrs of Jesus" described throughout the book (2:13, 6:9-11; 7:13-17; 16:6-7; 17:6; 18:24; 19:2; 20:4). Thus, the martyred saints in John's day had a part in this victory over Satan. DAVID RIGGS

13. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “There was war in heaven.

War in heaven

I. The character of the war of rebel angels in heaven.

1. Wilful. They brought it on themselves.

2. Irreconcilable.

(1) On the part of God.

(2) This war is irreconcilable on the tart of rebel angels also, for when they sinned that moment their natures were changed. The passions of the soul, and the affections of the heart, which once so sweetly harmonised, were thrown into disorder and became as jarring elements, or as the troubled sea that cannot rest.

3. Unreasonable. It was a war of ingratitude, of folly, of madness--was a war against duty, against interest, against happiness itself; a war, in short, for which not only the justice of God must for ever condemn them, but the voice of reason, and the voice of the whole intelligent creation.

4. It was to rebel angels a most fatal and disastrous war. They gained nothing, but lost much.

(1) They lost the favour of God, even that favour which is life, and that lovingkindness which is better than life.

(2) They lost their own moral loveliness.

(3) They lost their seats in heaven.

II. Compare and contrast the war of rebel angels in heaven with the war of rebel men on earth.

1. Was the war of rebel angels a wilful war? So also is the war of rebel men.

2. Was the war of rebel angels an irreconcilable war? Thank God, here we can drop the comparison, and take up the contrast. Yes, on this theatre of war, in the midst of heaven-daring rebels, our blessed Redeemer has, by the shedding of His most precious blood, made the great atonement.

3. Was the war of rebel angels an unreasonable war? And what shall we say of the war of rebel men? Angels sinned against creating goodness--man against redeeming love. Angels warred under black despair--man under hope of heavenly grace. The sword of justice pursued revolting angels--the wings of mercy were outstretched to shelter revolting man. And yet man rebels!

4. Was the war of rebel angels fatal and disastrous? So, also, most assuredly, will be the continued war of rebel men. Millions have already fallen in the impious contest, and shall rise no more. (D. Baker, D. D.)

The heavenly and the earthly conflict

1. It is here indicated that we are members of a larger community than that which is apparent to our senses; a community which gathers into itself all intelligent souls, all spirits which God has made, all who at whatever distance can approach Him in adoration or prayer. You and I, busy as we are with our occupations, our human interests, our sympathies, more or less wide with politics and society, blind as we are to the eternity in which even now we move, are one in life and hope with sons and servants and ministers of God, whose number cannot be counted for multitude. Where they are and what they are, whether they be in our midst as we sit here, or whether they tenant yonder far-off stars; whether their shape be what Hebrew poets imagined, and Italian painters painted, or whether it be some new and to us unknown clothing of the spirit--are questions about which we may dream, but to which we can give no answer. It is sufficient for us to know that between us and God is not the deep void of an appalling nothingness, but beings who, like us, are conscious of His presence; and some at least of whom if, unlike us, they need not pray, can at least, like us, bow down their faces and adore.

2. The text implies also that in that larger community there is the same great conflict going on which is for ever raging here--the conflict for mastery between evil and good. This present world of human souls is not the only scene of strife. For back in the remote and incalculable past we read of angels who “kept not their first estate”; and far on in the perhaps still distant future we read of “war in heaven.” Stretched between the two is human history, and all the acted problems of which history is the sum. It is not given to us to fight the great battle which St. Michael is represented as fighting with the dragon; but it is given to us to fight a battle apparently smaller, but in fact as great, which involves the same principles, and which is only another form of the same universal struggle. What is it, for example, to tell a lie? It seems but a little thing: the yielding to a sudden impulse--the movement of a muscle or two--a faint vibration of the air--and the lie is told. We forget it, and all seems over. And what is it to tell the truth instead of a lie? Only a momentary resolution--the perhaps reluctant passing of a sentence in the judgment-hall of the conscience--a breath, and nothing more. And yet on these two courses depend issues which stretch out into illimitable space, and into endless time. As the balance of motives sways to truth or to falsehood the soul ranges itself in one of two great armies; it is one more victory or one more defeat for the cause of goodness and of God. The battlefield is not some vast interstellar space in which all the gathered spiritual hosts are massed in dense array, but the prosaic ground of our studies, our shops, and our dining-rooms. The battle is not waged so much at some supreme moments of mental struggle, when all the forces of our nature come into conscious play, but in the subtler form of the setting aside of plausible motives, and the struggling with apparently trivial sins. “Do this--it

is very pleasant, and will do no real harm.” “Do this--it is almost necessary, and the little wrong of it can soon be undone.” Sometimes we listen and sometimes we refuse! and all our lives long, day by day and hour by hour, we alternate between victory and defeat, in a struggle which sometimes becomes a despair. For the path of holiness is not the calm ascent of a marble stairway; it is for all of us, for some no doubt more than for others, a life-long journey over a rugged and sometimes uncertain road, a stumbling over many stones, a wandering into many a by-path, a fall into many a snare; and when heaven’s gates open to us at last, they open to a tattered traveller with a worn and weary soul. But for all there need be no despair. The victory is slow to come, but it comes at last; and its coming, for this world at least, depends, in God’s providence, not on angels and archangels, but upon you and me and men like ourselves. It depends on our doing the best we individually can, with the help which is given to us from above, to crush in our own souls, and in the sphere in which we move, the daily and hourly temptations to selfishness, to injustice, to untruth, to uncharitableness, to indolence, and to irritability. Every dishonest act which we decline to perform, every falsehood which we refuse to utter, every uncharitable word which we leave unsaid, every sensual impulse which we crush, is for ourselves, for the world of men, for the world of spirits of which we are members, one more thwarting of the power of evil, one more victory of the power of good, one more step towards that consummation when the great choir of intelligent souls shall circle round the Father of spirits from whom both they and we derive our life, and to whom both we and they alike return. (Edwin Hatch, D. D.)

Hope of the final triumph of good

Looking at these words from a Christian’s point of view, we are reminded by them that whatever else was meant by the war in heaven of which they speak, they, at least, mean for us that the powers of evil have done their utmost to overcome Christ and the powers of good, and have failed--that Christ has proved good to be stronger than evil, and light than darkness. And the high hope is raised that He has done this for the whole universe, for the spirits in every other world-if such there be--as well as for the spirits of us poor men struggling with evil in this. That He has done it for us, is what His gospel tells us. The powers that are for us, we are taught, are greater than the powers that are against us. God the Father is for us. Christ the Son, the express image of His person and character, is for us. The Spirit which communes with our spirit, and stirs up conscience, and keeps it alert against the foe, and helps our weakness, and disturbs and tortures us with remorse when we yield to temptation--this Spirit is for us. All good influences are for us and help us against sin, and these influences begin early, and last while life lasts in some one or more of their manifold shapes--the words of our parents, the little prayers they taught us, the words and example of dear friends that are gone, the softening power of sorrow, the warnings of sickness and pain, the calm, peaceful face of the just man, the turbid complexion, the restless eye, and repulsive look of the wicked, the influence of a familiar friend, the influence of a good book, the influence of the best of books, the blessings of thought and labour, and of duty done, the power of prayer and communion with God, the power which words of truth, of charity, of wisdom have over us, the pleasure we draw from beauty, whether in poetry, in painting, or in music--these, and ten thousand other influences with which all of us may, in one way or other, surround ourselves, are all of them so many ministering angels which fight under Christ’s banner on our side against that which is false and evil, and for that which is good and true--and all proclaim a victory won elsewhere for good, which shall in the end be a victory here too--complete and final over evil. There is another spiritual and eternal truth here. We are told the good angels conquered the bad angels and their leader, and drove them out. Now, again, whatever we may choose to say of this account, at least it suggests a very plain and wholesome lesson. When we think of angels at all, we may imagine that the great difference between us and them is that they are strong and we are weak; but this festival warns us that this is not so. The great difference between us and them is, that they are obedient, and we are disobedient; they are humble, and we are proud. All other differences lie in that. The strong good angels beat the strong bad angels, because the one were obedient to God’s laws, the others were rebellious against them. Michael overcame the dragon, because Michael was God’s champion, and the dragon was his own. The one depended upon God, the other depended on himself. We may call this a story, an allegory, still there is an abiding truth in it. Say, for a moment, it is a story, then this is the moral of the tale.

Obedience is strength; disobedience ensures defeat. In science, in knowledge, in conduct, in religion, obedience, humility, and trust in God, are qualities without which no discoveries are made, no advance accomplished, no virtue attained, no holiness perfected. They are qualities without which our characters are poor and weak, our ways unstable, and our thoughts and desires mainly selfish. (John Congreve, M. A.)

Michael and his angels fought.

Who is Michael?

It is in itself probable that the Leader of the hosts of light will be no other than the Captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The dragon leads the hosts of darkness. The Son has been described as the opponent against whom the enmity of the dragon is especially directed. When the war begins, we have every reason to expect that as the one leader takes the command, so also will the other. There is much to confirm this conclusion. The name Michael leads to it, for that word signifies “Who is like God?” and such a name is at least more appropriate to a Divine than to a created being. In the New Testament, too, we read of “Michael the Archangel” (Jud_1:9)--there seems to be only one, for we never read of archangels--and an archangel is again spoken of in circumstances that can hardly be associated with the thought of any one but God (1Th_4:16). Above all, the prophecies of Daniel, in which the name Michael first occurs, may be said to decide the point. A person named Michael there appears on different occasions as the defender of the Church against her enemies (Dan_10:13; Dan_10:21), and once at least in a connexion leading directly to the thought of our Lord Himself (Dan_12:1-3). These considerations justify the conclusion that the Michael now spoken of is the representative of Christ. (W. Milligan, D. D.)

St. Michael and all angels

We need only remark, with reference to the combatants whom we find engaged the one against the other, that they are undoubtedly good and evil angels, Michael the archangel being the leader of the first, and Satan, or the devil, the leader of the second. The battle is between those angels which have never swerved from allegiance to God, and mighty spirits that “kept not their first estate.” Now, though St. John may have intended to delineate a long subsequent struggle between evil and good, we can hardly doubt that he derived his figures from the first moment of apostasy, when rebellion brake out in the heavenly hosts, and evil appeared in the universe. There is often much said as to the mysteriousness of the entrance of evil, regard being had only to its entrance into the world which we inhabit. But in reality the mysteriousness belongs to an earlier stage. It is not very wonderful that man should fall when there was a devil to tempt him; the wonder is that there should have been a tempter. We may proceed from one order of being to another, and so observe the propagation of evil; but sooner or later we must come to a point at which evil commences spontaneously--at which, that is, it originates itself; for there is no way of explaining how, under the economy of God, any creature can be sinful, except by allowing that some creature made himself sinful. And Scripture confirms this conclusion. And it would appear to have been through pride that Satan originally transgressed. And it is further to be observed that idolatry has been the chief sin to which in all ages Satan has tempted mankind; as though his great aim was to attract to himself the worship due only to God, so that he might in a measure substitute himself for God, and thus be upon earth what, on the popular supposition, he had impiously and profanely attempted to be in heaven. But whatever may have been the precise object at which his pride moved Satan to aim, it is certain that it brought him into opposition to God, or placed him in a condition of revolt to His authority. And it is also certain that he was not solitary in rebellion. But legions there also were which stood faithful in the midst of the growing apostasy. And it would seem more than probable that what is delineated under the imagery of a

battle is nothing but that contest between the evil and the good, which took place through temptation upon the one side and resistance upon the other. The battle was the battle of principle--apostate angels plying the unfallen with solicitations to rebellion, and the unfallen withstanding those temptations and maintaining their allegiance--certain squadrons of the heavenly hosts, with Satan at their head, endeavouring to draw into their own sinfulness the remainder who, with Michael as their leader, were still faithful to their God. And it gives us a very striking representation of the fury and the shock of temptation, that the effort on the part of angels to involve others in apostasy should be set forth as the assault of an army upon army--nothing less than the meeting torrents of hostile battalions being stern enough to express the fearful collision. Alas! it is not so with ourselves. We know little of what may be called the shock of being tempted. There must be the perfection of holiness in order to the perfection of this. It may help to satisfy us as to what our Redeemer endured from temptation in the struggle maintained with His repugnance to evil--it may help, we say, to satisfy us as to this, that what good angels endured while solicited to rebellion is like the crash when one belted squadron is sword to sword with another. But temptation was necessary; and then it was, according to the figurative representation, when good angels had been sufficiently exposed to the onslaught of evil, that God interfered as a God of judgment, and banished from His presence those who disputed His authority. The great dragon was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out of heaven. “Neither was their place found any more in heaven.” It was a final expulsion when Satan and his angels were cast out from heaven; there was no mercy, there was no plan of redemption, by which the apostate might regain their lost place. But though it was foreknown to God that Satan would prevail over man though he had not prevailed over Michael and his angels, it was also foreknown that a Mediator would interpose, and should finally “destroy all the works of the devil.” It was not to hold good of man, when banished from paradise, “neither was their place found any more in heaven.” And therefore there can be no ground for arraigning the goodness of God, in that the dragon and his angels were allowed to plant themselves there. There was to be provided immeasurably more than an equivalent to all the evil wrought; and what charge is there against mercy, when the gift of a Saviour in store is set against the allowance of a tempter? Now, hitherto we have confined ourselves to what may be called the literal interpretation of the passage under review. However figurative may be the mode of description, we are certified that there are orders of spiritual beings higher than our own, that a large section of those creatures apostatised from God, while others, though tempted to rebellion, continued faithful and were then confirmed in happiness, so as to be placed beyond the power of falling. It is not necessarily at all a metaphorical representation that “ Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and his angels,” but this actual battle gave a metaphor expressive of other conflicts between evil and good. Other conflicts, in short, are likened to and shadowed forth by one of which heaven itself was the scene; but this obviously gives a literal character to the first battle, by which the imagery is supplied that is used in this passage. Our text most probably refers to the downfall of heathenism in the downfall of the Roman empire. The “war in heaven” is the contest between Christianity and paganism; the leading combatants are the Christian preachers, martyrs, and confessors on the one side, and persecuting emperors, magistrates, and priests on the other. The former are likened to Michael and his angels, because God and good spirits were on their side; the latter to Satan and his angels, because their cause was emphatically that of the devil, and all his powers were employed and exerted for it. And when Michael and his angels cast out the devil and his angels, the great revolution under Constantine is depicted, which deposed heathenism from all rule and authority, and advanced Christianity to dominion and empire. But we need not dwell longer on the prophetical import of our text, our object being answered, if we can make you see that there is so actual a conflict between evil angels and good as may furnish metaphor for any high contest which goes forward on the stage of this creation, when the cause of God and Christ is that which marshals to the fight. Ah! men and brethren, ye who have not cared anything for the soul, who through that carelessness have wrought the defeat of good angels and strengthened the devices of bad, be ye moved by the intense interest which mighty spirits take in you to take some interest in yourselves, and not to throw away that immortality which the unfallen cherubim would have you spend gloriously with them, and which fiends are plotting to involve in their own fearful anguish. “Michael and his angels have fought against the dragon, and the dragon has fought and his angels”; but the dragon has “not prevailed”; he has been” overcome through the blood of the Lamb”; and so thorough is the moral change, so complete the substitution of the soul now turned into a habitation of God--the dominion of righteousness for the dominion of evil, that we may say

of the apostate crew, as was said of them when they were hurled from their original abode, “Neither is their place found any more” in him. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost

their place in heaven.

1.BARNES, “And prevailed not - Satan and his angels failed in their purpose.Neither was their place found any more in heaven - They were cast out, and were seen there no more. The idea is, that they were defeated and driven away, though for a time they were suffered to carry on the warfare elsewhere.

2. CLARKE, “And prevailed not - Against the cause of Christianity.Neither was their place found any more in heaven - The advocates of the heathen idolatry were prevented from having any farther share in the government of the empire. The wonderful success of Constantine over all his enemies, and his final triumph over Licinius, correspond exactly to the symbolical language in this verse.

3. GILL, “And prevailed not,.... That is, the dragon, or the devil, and his angels, prevailed not against Michael and his angels; but, on the other hand, were conquered by them, as the above tyrants were by Constantine and Theodosius: some copies read in the singular number, "and he prevailed not", as the Alexandrian copy, the Complutensian edition the Arabic and Ethiopic versions; and other copies in the plural number, "they prevailed not": and as the Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions:

neither was their place found any more in heaven; in the Roman empire; or "his place", as some copies and versions: this was the time of the judgment of the world, or of the empire as Pagan; Satan the prince of the world, who had long governed in it, was now cast out of all power and authority in it, and all the idol gods in whom he was worshipped, with all the idolatrous priests; nor were there any more any Heathen emperors, for after Constantine's time there was only Julian the apostate, and who reigned but a little while; and after Theodosius, who cleared the empire of Paganism, there never was any, and there is reason to believe there never will be.

4. MEYER, “SATAN CAST DOWN FROM HEAVEN

Rev_12:7-17

The spirit of evil waits to destroy each birth of good in our world. As soon as Mary had given birth to our Lord, Herod sought to destroy Him, and this is characteristic of all the ages. But God’s care is always at hand to deliver His own. He has His prepared places, where He hides those who trust in Him. He keeps them in the secret of His pavilion from the strife of men.Sin has brought conflict, not on our earth only, but throughout the universe; but from the heavenly places it has been driven, and the last stand is made on our earth. Is it not possible that the awful war which has desolated mankind may be one of the last phases of this age-long conflict? There is but one talisman of victory. We overcome only in so far as we take shelter in the blood of the Lamb and wield as our weapon the Word of God. As darkness cannot resist the light, so evil cannot exist before the witness of the Church and the child of God, if only we care more for the

honor and glory of Christ than for our own lives. To the end there must be war between the seed of the woman and the dragon, and there must be bruising. But the final outcome is sure. As Satan was cast out of heaven, so he shall be cast out of earth, and Christ shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.

5. JAMISON, “prevailed not — A and Coptic read, “He prevailed not.” But B and C read as English Version.neither — A, B, and C read, “not even” (Greek, “oude”): a climax. Not only did they not prevail, but not even their place was found any more in heaven. There are four gradations in the ever deeper downfall of Satan: (1) He is deprived of his heavenly excellency, though having still access to heaven as man’s accuser, up to Christ’s first coming. As heaven was not fully yet opened to man (Joh_3:13), so it was not yet shut against Satan and his demons. The Old Testament dispensation could not overcome him. (2) From Christ, down to the millennium, he is judicially cast out of heaven as the accuser of the elect, and shortly before the millennium loses his power against Israel, and has sentence of expulsion fully executed on him and his by Michael. His rage on earth is consequently the greater, his power being concentrated on it, especially towards the end, when “he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Rev_12:12). (3) He is bound during the millennium (Rev_20:1-3). (4) After having been loosed for a while, he is cast for ever into the lake of fire.

9 The great dragon was hurled down—that

ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who

leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the

earth, and his angels with him.

1.BARNES, “And the great dragon was cast out - See the notes on Rev_12:3. That there may be an allusion in the language here to what actually occurred in some far distant period of the past, when Satan was ejected from heaven, there can be no reason to doubt. Our Saviour seems to refer to such an event in the language which he uses when he says Luk_10:18, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven”; and Jude, perhaps Rev_12:6, may refer to the same event. All that we know on the subject leads us to suppose that at some time there was a revolt among the angels, and that the rebellious part were cast out of heaven, for an allusion to this is not infrequent in the Scriptures. Still the event here referred to is a symbolical representation of what could occur at a later period, when the church would be about to spread and he triumphant, and when Satan would wage a deadly war against it. That opposition would be as if he made war on Michael the archangel, and the heavenly hosts, and his failure would be as great as if he were vanquished and cast out of heaven.That old serpent - This doubtless refers to the serpent that deceived Eve (Gen_3:1-11; Rev_20:2; compare the notes on 2Co_11:3); and this passage may be adduced as a proof that the real tempter of Eve was the devil, who assumed the form of a serpent. The word “old” here refers to the fact that his appearance on earth was at an early stage of the world’s history, and that he had long been employed in the work which is here attributed to him - that of opposing the church.Called the devil - To whom the name devil is given. That is, this is the same being that is elsewhere and commonly known by that name. See the notes on Mat_4:1.And Satan - Another name given to the same being - a name, like the other, designed to refer to something in his character. See it explained in the notes on Job_1:6.Which deceiveth the whole world - Whose character is that of a deceiver; whose agency extends

over all the earth. See the Joh_8:44 note, and 1Jo_5:19 note.He was cast out into the earth - That is, he was not suffered to pursue his designs in heaven, but was cast down to the earth, where he is permitted for a time to carry on his warfare against the church. According to the interpretation proposed above, this refers to the period when there were indications that God was about to set up his kingdom on the earth. The language, however, is such as would be used on the supposition that there had been, at some period, a rebellion in heaven, and that Satan and his followers had been cast out to return there no more. It is difficult to explain this language except on that supposition; and such a supposition is, in itself, no more improbable than the apostasy and rebellion of man.And his angels were cast out with him - They shared the lot of their leader. As applicable to the state of things to which this refers, the meaning is, that all were overthrown; that no enemy of the church would remain unsubdued; that the victory would be final and complete. As applicable to the event from which the language is supposed to have been derived - the revolt in heaven - the meaning is, that the followers in the revolt shared the lot of the leader, and that all who rebelled were ejected from heaven. The first and the only revolt in heaven was quelled; and the result furnished to the universe an impressive proof that none who rebelled there would be forgiven - that apostasy so near the throne could not be pardoned.

2. CLARKE, “That old serpent - The rabbins speak much of this being, sometimes under the notion of ??? ??? yetser hara, the evil principle, and sometimes Samael.He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him - This is very like a saying in the book Bahir, in Sohar Gen., fol. 27, col. 107: “And God cast out Samael and his troops from the place of their holiness.”Rev_12:9 per John Edward ClarkeAnd the great dragon was cast out, etc. - By the terms Devil and Satan mentioned in this verse, Pareus, Faber, and many other commentators, understand literally the great spiritual enemy of mankind. But this view of the passage cannot be correct, from the circumstance that it is the dragon which is thus called. Now, if by the dragon be meant the devil, then use are necessarily led to this conclusion, that the great apostate spirit is a monster, having seven heads and ten horns; and also that he has a tail, with which he drags after him the third part of the stars of heaven. The appellations, old serpent, devil, and Satan, must, therefore, be understood figuratively. The heathen power is called that old serpent which deceived the whole world, from its subtlety against the Christians, and its causing the whole Roman world, as far as it was in its power, to embrace the absurdities of paganism. It is called the devil, from its continual false accusations and slanders against the true worshippers of God, for the devil is a liar from the beginning; and it is also called Satan, ???, which is a Hebrew word signifying an adversary, from its frequent persecutions of the Christian Church. The dragon and his angels are said to be cast out, which is more than was said in the preceding verse. There mention is made of his being found no longer in heaven, or on the throne of the Roman empire, here he is entirely cast out from all offices of trust in the empire; his religion is first only tolerated, and then totally abolished, by the imperial power. This great event was not the work of a reign; it took up many years, for it had to contend with the deep-rooted prejudices of the heathen, who to the very last endeavored to uphold their declining superstition. Paganism received several mortal strokes in the time of Constantine and his sons Constans and Constantius. It was farther reduced by the great zeal of Jovian, Valentinian, and Valens; and was finally suppressed by the edicts of Gratian, Theodosius I., and his successors. It was not till a.d. 388 that Rome itself, the residence of the emperor, was generally reformed from the absurdities of paganism; but the total suppression of paganism soon followed the conversion of the metropolitan city, and about a.d. 395 the dragon may be considered, in an eminent sense, to have been cast into the earth, that is, into a state of utter subjection to the ruling dynasty of Christian emperors.

3. GILL, “And the great dragon was cast out,.... From heaven, or from power and authority in the Roman empire, namely, the devil, where he had long presided; it is observable that Constantine himself speaks of "the dragon" being removed from the government of the commonwealth by the providence of God, and by the ministry, or means of him (m); and he had his own effigies on a table placed before the porch of his palace, with the cross over his head, and a dragon under his

feet thrust through with darts, and falling headlong (n);

the old serpent; who is so called, because, of old, from the beginning, almost as soon as the world was, he appeared in the form of a serpent, or rather made use of it as an instrument and means, by which he seduced Eve, and so brought on the ruin of mankind, it is very usual with the Jews to call the devil ??? ???????, "the old serpent" (o); wherefore John uses this phrase as a known one, to explain who was meant by the great dragon:

called the devil and Satan; the first of these names signifies an accuser, and a forger of calumnies, and such is the old serpent; he accuses God to men, as if he was envious of their happiness, as in the case of our first parents, and of men to God, of which there is an instance in the case of Job; and hence he is in Rev_12:10 called the accuser of the brethren; and the latter of them signifies an enemy, one that is filled with hatred and enmity to God and Christ, and to his church and people, whose adversary he is said to be, and at whose right hand he stands to resist, as he did Joshua the high priest:

which deceiveth the whole world; which he did by deceiving our first parents, from whom all mankind spring, and in whose loins they were when they were deceived; so the Jews say (p) of the old serpent, that ???? ??? ?????, "he deceives the whole world"; and so he deceived and corrupted the old world before the flood; and so he seduces every age and generation of men in the world; but here the Roman empire, sometimes called all the world, as in Luk_2:1, is meant, whom Satan deceived by drawing it into idolatry and superstition;

he was cast out into the earth; he was cast out of the Roman empire, from the rule of it, and worship in it, the Heathen gods and Heathen emperors being no more; when he possessed and instigated, and influenced the Huns, Goths, and Vandals, a meaner and baser sort of people, hereafter in this chapter called the earth, which is said to help the woman, contrary to the intention of Satan; the phrase denotes the greatness of the fall of Satan, his loss of power, and the meanness and low estate of the persons he afterwards had the power of, both the savage people before mentioned, and the antichristian party:

and his angels were cast out with him; the Heathen emperors, magistrates, priests, and other votaries of his, which he made use of as instruments to do his will.

4. GLENN, “Satan wanted that throne that Jesus took, but he lost out-Isa. 14:12-15. Now the rulers of the heavenly realms see the plan of God and how he will rid the universe of the evil one. Jesus now reigns over the principalities and powers as a man, the Son of David, which he began even in time=Luke 10:17-20.

5. JAMISON, “that old serpent — alluding to Gen_3:1, Gen_3:4.Devil — the Greek, for “accuser,” or “slanderer.”Satan — the Hebrew for “adversary,” especially in a court of justice. The twofold designation, Greek and Hebrew, marks the twofold objects of his accusations and temptations, the elect Gentiles and the elect Jews.world — Greek, “habitable world.”

6. PULPIT, “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; cast down (Revised Version); the whole inhabited earth. "The dragon:" so called, because he is the destroyer (see onRev_12:3). "The ancient serpent," as he was revealed in Gen_3:1-24. So in Joh_8:44 he is "the destroyer from the beginning." "The devil" ( ??a´ß???? ) is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew Satan, ðîÈùÒÈ , "the accuser, the adversary;" reference is made in Joh_8:10 to the signification of the name, "The Deceiver." Wordsworth says, "The deceits by which Satan cheated the world in oracles, sorcery, soothsaying, magic, and other frauds, are here specially noticed. These were put to flight by the power of Christ and of the Holy Ghost, in the preaching of the gospel by the apostles and others in the first ages of Christianity. Our Lord himself, speaking of the consequence of the preaching of the seventy disciples, reveals the spiritual struggle and the victory: 'I was beholding Satan as

lightning fall from heaven' (Luk_10:17, Luk_10:18)." He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him; cast down to the earth, etc. (Revised Version). "To the earth" in a twofold sense:

(1) the phrase is a description of the loss of dignity and power on the part of Satan, in being cast to earth as opposed to heaven;

(2) earth is the scene of his future operations, where he may still in some degree sustain the struggle against God.

7. ZEISLER, The first picture we saw might lead us to1conclude that the "real" world is the earthly sphere of our relationships, including our psyche, our emotions, and our bodies, and that the "heavenly" world is the sidelines somewhere in the distance, where Jesus has gone. I think, though, that verses 7 through 12correct that thinking by showing that the "real" world is the" heavenly" sphere. The supremely important issue at stake is whether or not men have a place before God. Since Jesus is victor in the real world, he is also victor on this earth and we are protected, while here, from being tempted beyond anything we can endure. Satan ,however, is restricted to only this world because he cannot accuse us in heaven. It is exactly the opposite of the truth to think that what I am going through right now is reality and most important and supremely true while what Jesus is doing in the presence of God is distant and unimportant and unreal. Satan is on this earth, but even so, he has only a short time. He is furious because he cannot do the very things he longs to do. The second observation we ought to make then, is that you can be positively built up in your faith by suffering, believe it or not, if you recognize that the reason the enemy of God is allowed to make us suffer is precisely because he cannot destroy our relationship with God. It ought to encourage us to suffer the hurts of our earthly life2because we know with a certainty that those are all Satan can do. He is prevented from doing the damage that he longs to do to us and toe heart of God. He can only break your leg. He can only take your job, but he cannot destroy your relationship with God. He has no place to accuse you any longer before the throne of God.

8. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “The great dragon.

., that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan.

The foes of God and of His Church

I. Our For Is A Personal One (Rev_12:9).

II. He Is An Old One. “The devil sinneth from the beginning” (1Jn_3:8; Joh_8:44).

III. He Is A Daring One.

IV. His Attempts Are Often Failures. The dragon warred and his angels, and they prevailed not (Rev_12:8).

V. He Is An Angry Foe. “He hath great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time” (Rev_12:12).

VI. He Is A Malicious One (Rev_12:13).

VII. He Is A Watchful And Crafty One (Rev_12:4; Rev_12:13; Rev_12:15), varying his methods according to the case in hand.

VIII. He Is A Circumscribed Foe. This chapter tells us of three limits put to him and to his power.

1. One, of space. He is cast down to earth. He is “the God of this world” (2Co_4:4).

2. A second, of time. “A time, and times, and half a time.”

3. There is yet a third limit, that of force. “The earth helped the woman,” etc. (Rev_12:16). We are taught in Scripture that there are five ways by which his power is restricted and his intention foiled.

(1) There is providential dispensation (Rev_12:6; Rev_12:14; Rev_12:16; 1Co_10:13).

(2) There is angelic ministry (Rev_12:7).

(3) There is the direct exertion of Christ’s commanding word (Mat_17:18).

(4) There is the counteracting power of Divine grace (2Co_12:9).

(5) There is the intercession of our Redeemer (Luk_22:31-32).

IX. He is a foe with whose devices we have to reckon in fighting the battle of life (Rev_12:17). Note--

1. He is one at whom we cannot afford to laugh, and whose existence we cannot afford to deny.

2. He is a foe before whom we need not quail.

3. He is a foe to whom not an inch of room should be given (Eph_4:27).

4. He is a foe for whose onsets we should prepare by a survey and appropriation of heavenly forces.

5. He is a foe on whose ultimate defeat and complete discomfiture we may surely and confidently reckon if we look to Jesus. (C. Clemance, D. D.)

Satan the great dragon

In calling him the dragon, the Holy Spirit seems to hint at his mysterious power and character. To us a spirit such as he is must ever be a mystery in his being and working. Satan is a mysterious personage though he is not a mythical one. We can never doubt his existence if we have once come into conflict with him; yet he is to us all the more real because so mysterious. If he were flesh and blood it would be far easier to contend with him; but to fight with this spiritual wickedness in high places is a terrible task. As a dragon he is full of cunning and ferocity. In him force is allied with craft; and if he cannot achieve his purpose at once by power, he waits his time. He deludes, he deceives; in fact, he is said to deceive the whole world. What a power of

deception must reside in him, when under his influence the third part of the stars of heaven are made to fall, and myriads of men in all ages have worshipped demons and idols! He has steeped the minds of men in delusion, so that they cannot see that they should worship none but God, their Maker. He is styled “the old serpent”; and this reminds us how practised he is in every evil art. He was a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies. After thousands of years of constant practice in deception he is much too cunning for us. If we think that we can match him by craft we are grievous fools, for he knows vastly more than the wisest of mortals; and if it once comes to a game of policies, he will certainly clear the board, and sweep our tricks into the bag. To this cunning he adds great speed, so that he is quick to assail at any moment, darting down upon us like a hawk upon a poor chick. He is not everywhere present; but it is hard to say where he is not. He cannot be omnipresent; but yet, by that majestic craft of his, he so manages his armies of fallen ones that, like a great general, he superintends the whole field of battle, and seems present at every point. No door can shut him out, no height of piety can rise beyond his reach. He meets us in all our weaknesses, and assails us from every point of the compass. He comes upon us unawares, and gives us wounds which are not easily healed. But yet, powerful as this infernal spirit certainly must be, his power is defeated when we are resolved never to be at peace with him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

“ow have come the salvation and the power

and the kingdom of our God,

and the authority of his Messiah.

For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,

who accuses them before our God day and

night,

has been hurled down.

1.BARNES, “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven - The great enemy was expelled; the cause of God and truth was triumphant; and the conquering hosts united in celebrating the victory. This representation of a song, consequent on victory, is in accordance with the usual representations in the Bible. See the song of Moses at the Red Sea, Exo. 15; the song of Deborah, Judg. 5; the song of David when the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, 2 Sam. 22; and Isa_12:25. On no occasion could such a song be more appropriate than on the complete routing and discomfiture of Satan and his rebellious hosts. Viewed in reference to the time here symbolized, this would relate to the certain triumph of the church and of truth on the earth; in reference to the language, there is an allusion to the joy and triumph of the heavenly hosts when Satan and his apostate legions were expelled.Now is come salvation - That is, complete deliverance from the power of Satan.And strength - That is, now is the mighty power of God manifested in casting down and subduing the great enemy of the church.And the kingdom of our God - The reign of our God. See the notes on Mat_3:2. That is now established among people, and God will henceforward rule. This refers to the certain ultimate triumph of his cause in the world.And the power of his Christ - His anointed; that is, the kingdom of Christ as the Messiah, or as

anointed and set apart to rule over the world. See the notes on Mat_1:1.For the accuser of our brethren is cast down - The phrase “our brethren” shows by whom this song is celebrated. It is sung in heaven; but it is by those who belonged to the redeemed church, and whose brethren were still suffering persecution and trial on the earth. It shows the tenderness of the tie which unites all the redeemed as brethren, whether on earth or in heaven; and it shows the interest which they “who have passed the flood” have in the trials, the sorrows, and the triumphs of those who are still upon the earth. We have here another appellation given to the great enemy - “accuser of the brethren.” The word used here - ?at?´????? kate‾goros, in later editions of the New Testament ?at?´??? kate‾go‾r - means properly “an accuser,” one who blames another, or charges another with crime. The word occurs in Joh_8:10; Act_23:30, Act_23:35; Act_24:8; Act_25:16, Act_25:18; Rev_12:10, in all which places it is rendered “accuser” or “accusers,” though only in the latter place applied to Satan. The verb frequently occurs, Mat_12:10; Mat_27:12; Mar_3:2; Mar_15:3, et al.The description of Satan as an accuser accords with the opinion of the ancient Hebrews in regard to his character. Thus he is represented in Job_1:9-11; Job_2:4-5; Zec_3:1-2; 1Ch_21:1. The phrase “of the brethren” refers to Christians, or to the people of God; and the meaning here is, that one of the characteristics of Satan - a characteristic so well known as to make it proper to designate him by it - is that he is an accuser of the righteous; that he is employed in bringing against them charges affecting their character and destroying their influence. The propriety of this appellation cannot be doubted. It is, as it has always been, one of the characteristics of Satan - one of the means by which he keeps up his influence in the world - to bring accusations against the people of God. Thus, under his suggestions, and by his agents, they are charged with hypocrisy; with insincerity; with being influenced by bad motives; with pursuing sinister designs under the cloak of religion; with secret vices and crimes. Thus it was that the martyrs were accused; thus it is that unfounded accusations are often brought against ministers of the gospel, palsying their power and diminishing their influence, or that when a professed Christian falls the church is made to suffer by an effort to cast suspicion on all who bear the Christian name. Perhaps the most skillful thing that Satan does, and the thing by which he most contributes to diminish the influence of the church, is in thus causing “accusations” to be brought against the people of God.Is cast down - The period here referred to was, doubtless, the time when the church was about to be established and to flourish in the world, and when accusations would be brought against Christians by various classes of calumniators and informers. It is well known that in the early ages of Christianity crimes of the most horrid nature were charged on Christians, and that it was by these slanders that the effort was made to prevent the extension of the Christian church.Which accused them before our God - See the notes on Job_1:9-10. The meaning is, that he accused them, as it were, in the very presence of God.Day and night - He never ceased bringing these accusations, and sought by the perseverance and constancy with which they were urged to convince the world that there was no sincerity in the church and no reality in religion.

2. CLARKE, “The accuser of our brethren - There is scarcely any thing more common in the rabbinical writings than Satan as the accuser of the Israelites. And the very same word ?at??????, accuser, or, as it is in the Codex Alexandrinus, ?at????, is used by them in Hebrew letters, ?????? katigor; e. gr., Pirkey Eliezer, c. 46, speaking of the day of expiation; “And the holy blessed God hears their testimony from their accuser, ?? ??????? min hakkatigor; and expiates the altar, the priests, and the whole multitude, from the greatest to the least.”In Shemoth Rabba, sec. 31, fol. 129, 2, are these words; “If a man observes the precepts, and is a son of the law, and lives a holy life, then Satan stands and accuses him.”“Every day, except the day of expiation Satan is the accuser of men.” - Vayikra Rabba, sec. 21, fol. 164.“The holy blessed God said to the seventy princes of the world, Have ye seen him who always accuses my children?” - Yalcut Chadash, fol. 101, 3.“The devil stands always as an accuser before the King of Israel.” - Sohar Levit., fol. 43, col. 171. See much more in Schoettgen.Rev_12:10 per John Edward ClarkeAnd I heard a loud voice, saying, - Now is come salvation, etc. - This is a song of triumph of the

Christian Church over the heathen idolatry, and is very expressive of the great joy of the Christians upon this most stupendous event. The loud voice of triumph is said to be heard in heaven, to show that the Christian religion was now exalted to the heaven or throne of the Roman. empire. “It is very remarkable,” as Bishop Newton observes, “that Constantine himself, and the Christians of his time, describe his conquests under the image of a dragon, as if they had understood that this prophecy had received its accomplishment in him. Constantine himself, in his epistle to Eusebius and other bishops concerning the re-edifying and repairing of the churches, saith that ‘liberty being now restored, and that the dragon being removed from the administration of public affairs, by the providence of the great God and by my ministry, I esteem the great power of God to have been made manifest to all.’ Moreover, a picture of Constantine was set up over the palace gate, with the cross over his head, and under his feet the great enemy of mankind, who persecuted the Church by means of impious tyrants, in the form of a dragon, transfixed with a dart through the midst of his body, and falling headlong into the depth of the sea.” See Eusebius de Vita Constantini, lib. ii. c. 46; and lib. iii. c. 3, and Socratis Hist. Eccles., lib. i. c. 9. Constantine added to the other Roman ensigns the labarum, or standard of the cross, and constituted it the principal standard of the Christian Roman empire. To this labarum Prudentius refers, when speaking of the Christian soldiers, in his first hymn pe?? stefa???,Caesaris vexilla linquunt, eligunt Signum Crucis,Proque ventosis Draconum, quae gerebant, palliis,Proferunt Insigne Lignum, quod Draconem subdidit.“They leave the ensigns of Caesar; they choose the standard of the cross; and instead of the dragon flags which they carried, moved about with the wind, they bring forward the illustrious wood that subdued the dragon.”When the apostle saw the woman in heaven, well might he call it, in the spirit of prophecy, a great wonder.

3. GILL, “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,.... Which was a song of praise on account of the victory obtained by Michael and his angels over the dragon and his, or for the overthrow and downfall of Paganism in the Roman empire; for by "heaven" is meant the empire, now become Christian, or the Christian church state in it; and the "loud voice" heard in it by John shows that there was a great number in it, who rejoiced on this occasion, and that they were full of affection and fervency, and therefore expressed themselves in such manner, and in form following:

now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; "salvation" was come when Christ obtained it by his sufferings and death, and comes to particular persons in the effectual calling, and it will only be fully come when it is perfectly enjoyed in heaven:but here it designs a deliverance from Satan, as the god of this world, who was now dethroned, and cast down from his power, authority, and influence in the empire; and from Pagan idolatry and superstition, and from the ten days of tribulation, the cruel and bloody persecutions under the Heathen emperors; and denotes that safety and security, comfort, peace, and happiness, the churches enjoyed under the government of a Christian emperor: and now was come "strength"; not the strength of Christ personal, displayed in the redemption of his people; but rather of Christ mystical, of his church and interest, which had been very weak and low, and under oppression and persecution, but was now exalted, and in a flourishing condition, and was become strong and mighty; or it may design the strength and power of Christ, shown in destroying his enemies, in casting the dragon out of heaven down to the earth, and in bringing to confusion and destruction the Heathen emperors, princes, and others, who fled to the rocks and mountains for fear of him, and because of his great wrath: also now came "the kingdom of our God", the Gospel of the kingdom was preached everywhere and Gospel churches were set up in all parts of the empire, both which are sometimes signified by the kingdom of God; here was now an illustrious appearance of the kingdom of God in the world, such as had never been before; and which was a pledge and presage of the greatness of the kingdom, or of that everlasting kingdom which will be set up hereafter, when all other kingdoms will be at an end: to which is added "the power of his Christ"; or his authority as Lord and Christ, which took place at his resurrection, ascension, and session at the right hand of God, and which will more fully appear at the last day, when he shall come in glory, and exercise his authority in judging the quick and dead, of which there was some resemblance at this time, in dethroning Satan, destroying Paganism, and putting an end to the

power of the Heathen emperors and empire; and which is expressed in such language as the day of judgment is, Rev_6:12; for to the opening of the sixth seal does this passage belong: a further account is given of the matter of this song, and the reason of it:

for the accuser of our brethren is cast down; hence it appears that this is not a song of the angels in heaven, since the saints are never called their brethren, nor the angels theirs, but their fellow servants; rather it may be thought to be the song of the saints in heaven, acknowledging those on earth to be their brethren, as they are, for there is but one family in heaven and in earth, and the saints on earth are called the of the souls under the altar, Rev_6:9; but as this refers to the state of the church in Constantine's time, it must be the song of the saints in that state, who call the martyrs, that had been slain under the former persecutions, their brethren; for that they are the persons meant is clear from the following verse, whom Satan is an accuser of, for he is designed here; the word rendered "devil" signifies an accuser, and a false one, and is so translated Tit_2:3; this is a name frequently given to Satan by the Jews, and have adopted into their language the very Greek word (q) that is here used; and often say of him that he accuses Israel, and particularly that he accuses Israel above, that is, in heaven; and that he stands and ????? ???? (r), "continually accuses them", the very phrase used in the next clause: when Israel came out of Egypt, they say (s) the angel Samael (the devil) stood and accused them; the first day of the month Tisri, according to them (t), is appointed a day for blowing of trumpets, to confound Satan, who comes to accuse at that time; so they say (u) that Satan stood and accused Abraham, and others; and indeed he was an accuser from the beginning, both of God to men, and of men to God; we have instances in Job and Joshua the high priest, Job_1:8 Zec_3:1; but here it refers to the accusations brought against the Christians in the primitive times, during the ten persecutions, which were very horrid ones indeed; as that they had their private suppers, at which they ate their own infants, and their nightly meetings, for the gratifying of their lusts, in which they committed adultery, incest, and all manner of uncleanness; if ever a fire happened in a city, they were charged with it; and whenever there were any famine, or pestilence, or wars, or any public calamity, they were accused as the cause and occasion of it; as appears from the apologies for them written by Justin, Tertullian, Cyprian, Minutius Felix, &c. so that Satan at this time was remarkably the accuser of the brethren; but now this father of lies was cast down, he was cast out of heaven, and deprived of that power and authority he had in the empire, and lost his influence over men, and could not spread his lies, and get his false charges and accusations credited and received as before; he was not indeed wholly destroyed, nor even shut up in the bottomless pit, but he was cast down to the earth; he was in a low condition, his power was greatly diminished, and he was conquered by Christ, and cast down and bruised under the feet of the saints,

which accused them before our God day and night; so the evil spirit in Ahab's time, and Satan in Job's time, are said to stand before the Lord: and this shows the malice, and also the insolence of the devil, that he should stand and accuse the saints before God, who he knew was their God, and was on their side, and therefore his accusations could be of no avail; and though Christ appears in the presence of God for them, and is their advocate with the Father, yet he is constant and indefatigable in going about, and picking up charges against them, and carrying them to God.

4. HENRY, “The triumphant song that was composed and used on this occasion, Rev_12:10, Rev_12:11. Here observe, (1.) How the conqueror is adored: Now have come salvation, strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ. Now God has shown himself to be a mighty God; now Christ has shown himself to be a strong and mighty Saviour; his own arm has brought salvation, and now his kingdom will be greatly enlarged and established. The salvation and strength of the church are all to be ascribed to the king and head of the church. (2.) How the conquered enemy is described. [1.] By his malice; he was the accuser of the brethren, and accused them before their God night and day; he appeared before God as an adversary to the church, continually bringing in indictments and accusations against them, whether true or false; thus he accused Job, and thus he accused Joshua the high priest, Zec_3:1. Though he hates the presence of God, yet he is willing to appear there to accuse the people of God. Let us therefore take heed that we give him no cause of accusation against us; and that, when we have sinned, we presently go in before the Lord, and accuse and condemn ourselves, and commit our cause to Christ as our Advocate. [2.] By his disappointment and defeat: he and all his accusations are cast out, the indictments quashed, and the accuser turned out of the court with just indignation. (3.)

How the victory was gained. The servants of God overcame Satan, [1.] By the blood of the Lamb, as the meritorious cause. Christ by dying destroyed him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil. [2.] By the word of their testimony, as the great instrument of war, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, - by a resolute powerful preaching of the everlasting gospel, which is mighty, through God, to pull down strongholds, - and by their courage and patience in sufferings; they loved not their lives unto the death, when the love of life stood in competition with their loyalty to Christ; they loved not their lives so well but they could give them up to death, could lay them down in Christ's cause; their love to their own lives was overcome by stronger affections of another nature; and this their courage and zeal helped to confound their enemies, to convince many of the spectators, to confirm the souls of the faithful, and so contributed greatly to this victory.

5. JAMISON, “Now — Now that Satan has been cast out of heaven. Primarily fulfilled in part at Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, when He said (Mat_28:18), “All power [Greek, ‘exousia,’ ‘authority,’ as here; see below] is given unto Me in heaven and in earth”; connected with Rev_12:5, “Her child was caught up unto God and to His throne.” In the ulterior sense, it refers to the eve of Christ’s second coming, when Israel is about to be restored as mother-church of Christendom, Satan, who had resisted her restoration on the ground of her unworthiness, having been cast out by the instrumentality of Michael, Israel’s angelic prince (see on Rev_12:7). Thus this is parallel, and the necessary preliminary to the glorious event similarly expressed, Rev_11:15, “The kingdom of this world is become (the very word here, Greek, ‘egeneto,’ ‘is come,’ ‘hath come to pass’) our Lord’s and His Christ’s,” the result of Israel’s resuming her place.salvation, etc. — Greek, “the salvation (namely, fully, finally, and victoriously accomplished, Heb_9:28; compare Luk_3:6, yet future; hence, not till now do the blessed raise the fullest hallelujah for salvation to the Lamb, Rev_7:10; Rev_19:1) the power (Greek, ‘dunamis’), and the authority (Greek, ‘exousia’; ‘legitimate power’; see above) of His Christ.”accused them before our God day and night — Hence the need that the oppressed Church, God’s own elect (like the widow, continually coming, so as even to weary the unjust judge), should cry day and night unto Him.

6. PULPIT, “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven. The "great voice" is characteristic of all the heavenly utterances (cf. Rev_5:2; Rev_6:1, Rev_6:10; Rev_16:17, etc.). The personality of the speaker is not indicated. From the following chorus the voice would seem to proceed from many inhabitants of heaven. Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; the salvation and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ (Revised Version). The Revised Version marginal reading may also be noticed, Now is the salvation \ become our God's, and the authority [is become] his Christ's. The heavenly inhabitants celebrate the triumphant confirmation of God's supremacy, which has been vindicated by the defeat and expulsion of the rebellious hosts. "The salvation of God" ( s?t???´a ) is that which proceeds from him; "that salvation which belongs to God as its Author" (Alford); cf. Rev_7:10; Rev_19:1. "The authority of his Christ" is first manifested in heaven; Satan is cast down to the earth, and here again at a subsequent epoch the authority of Christ is displayed, and another victory won over the devil. This seems to be the conclusion of the heavenly song. As before stated (see on Rev_19:7), the three and a half verses now concluded seem to relate to a period previous to the creation of the world. It seems equally probable that the following two and a half verses refer to those earthly martyrs and suffering Christians for whom this book is specially written. These two views can be reconciled by supposing the song of the heavenly voice to cease at the word "Christ" (Rev_19:10); and then the writer adds words of his own, as if he would say, "The cause of the victorious song which I have just recited was the fact that the devil was cast down, the same who is constantly accusing ( ?? ?at??????? ) our brethren. But they (our brethren) overcame him, and valued not their lives, etc. Well may ye heavens rejoice over your happy lot, though it means woe to the earth for a short time." For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. The one accusing them ( ?? ?at??????? ); not the past tense. Satan does not cease to accuse, though he may not do so with effect, since he may be overcome by the "blood of the Lamb." The heavenly beings are henceforth beyond his reach. He can yet accuse men—our brethren—says St. John; but even here his power is limited

by the victory of the death and resurrection of Christ referred to in verse 5. "Accuser" ( ?at?´????? ) is found in à , B, C, P, Andreas, Arethas. The form ?at?´??? , found in A, is rather the Targumic and rabbinic corruption of the word øåâéè÷ , than the Greek word itself. "Of our brethren," the saints and martyrs (see above); "is cast down" (or, "was cast down") from heaven.

7. W. BURKITT, “After Michael and his angels', Christ and his followers' victory over the dragon and his angels, over Satan and his instruments, here follows a solemn thanksgiving for the devil's downfall: the saints in heaven join with believers on earth in this song of confidence and triumph: when they speak of God, they say our God: and when they speak of the church below, they say our brethren: behold a sweet communion between the church militant and the church triumphant; indeed they constitute and make up but one church, one family, one household: the whole family of heaven and earth is but one.

Observe farther, Another name here given to Satan, the accuser of the brethren; he accuses them continually before God, and by his instruments before men; the primitive Christians were accused by their enemies to the magistrates as guilty of the most villanous practices in their religious assemblies: and behold the assuduity of Satan in accusing the saints day and night; but blessed be God, as Satan is a continual accuser, Christ is a continual mediator.

Observe again, How the saints overcame Satan.

1. By the blood of the Lamb; that is, by faith in his blood.

2. By the word of their testimony; that is, by their preaching, professing, and practising the word of God.

3. By their sufferings and martyrdom, they loved not their lives unto the death: that is, they loved not their lives so well but that they were willing to expose them to death, rather than renounce the cause of Christ, and desert their holy profession.

Observe lastly, After this great exultation and joy in heaven for the devil's downfall, here is a denunciation of woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea, upon that account; that is, to all earthly sensual men, whether they inhabit the continent, or any island in the sea; because the devil is come down full of rage, knowing that his time is short to execute his malice in.

Learn hence, 1. Who is the author of wrath, and malice, and revenge; and whose children they are that partake of that spirit and temper: the devil has great wrath; that is his character, and the very soul and spirit of the apostate nature.

Learn, 2. That something good may be learned from the evil one; Satan is very busy, doubly diligent, because his time is short; so should we be; our grave and coffin is at hand, our glass has but a little sand; since but a few leaves are remaining in the book of our lives unfilled up, it concerns us to write the closer, and the faster too: as Satan's time for mischief is short, so is our time for doing good.

8. GLENN, “The futurists say this is still to come and thereby play down the present victory in Christ. They say Satan still accuses God's people in heaven, and that this defeat is yet in the future. It is not very convincing and robs us of the present victorious Christ.

9. Jerry NelsonNOW is the kingdom of our God, NOW is the power of his Christ, and NOW what? NOW is the accuser of our brethren cast down. All said in one sentence, in one breath. Satan was cast out at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Our sins are hidden from God by the blood of Jesus. If Satan could still access God, he could reveal our sins to God, by accusation, therefore making the blood of Christ insufficient to hide our sins. Did Christ die in vain? No! Jesus defeated Satan on the cross, once and for all, in total. The war in heaven was raging as Jesus was dying on

the cross. The moment Jesus died Satan was cast out, never to be found there again. God had purged heaven of all evil, for the entrance of His Son as the King of Kings. The kingdom of God was established, and Satan is not in it! NOW is come salvation, praise God! To support this go to: John 12:27 Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. 28 Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. 29 The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. 30 Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. 31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. 32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. 33 This he said, signifying what death he should die. The prince of this world (Satan), Jesus speaking of His own death. Tied together. John 14:28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. 30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. Jesus again speaking of His death and the coming of the prince of this world (Satan). Tied together. John 16:4 But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? 6 But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. 8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 Of sin, because they believe not on me; 10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; 11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. Every instance Jesus speaks of His death, every instance Jesus speaks of the prince of this world (Satan) being "cast out," "cometh," and, "judged." All three verses tie the prince of this world to the death of Christ. I think that if it were put before a jury, that would be strong evidence. Scripture, verifying scripture.

I hear the accuser roarOf ills that I have done;I know them all, and thousands more,Jehovah findeth none.

Though the restless foe accuses,Sins recounting like a flood;Every charge our God refuses-Christ has answered with His blood.

`10. In verse 10, when Satan was defeated, John said that he heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ: for (or "because") the accuser of our brethren is cast down..." This does not mean that the kingdom was established at a later date than the day of Pentecost (Jehovah's Witnesses' teaching on this verse), but those things (salvation, kingdom, etc.) were completely realized when Satan's forces were defeated. In other words, the victory at that time over Satan and his forces

demonstrated that the kingdom was indeed an everlasting kingdom. This is the same as taught in 11:15 and the same principle as in 10:7 (completing the prophets), and precisely as Daniel had said in Dan. 7:21-27. Those above in heaven were to rejoice because Satan had been cast down, but those below on earth were to beware because Satan had but a short time before his forces would be completely defeated. The blood of the martyrs was quickly to be avenged but in the meantime Satan would try to hurt and kill as many Christians as he could. The "short time" of Satan and the "little season" of the martyrs are the same (see comments on 6:11). In 20:1-3, Satan's short time ends which means that the martyrs' little season ended, and also that during the thousand years, Satan's extensive power to put Christians to death would be taken away. DAVID RIGGS

11. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR 10-17, “Now is come salvation.

The heavenly song of victory

This is a song of heaven--of that heaven from which the dragon had been cast out.

I. The salvation. It is “the salvation” that is here sung of--the salvation of Him whose name is Jesus, the Saviour. It is salvation--not consisting of one blessing or one kind of blessing, but of many; made up of everything which can be indicated by the reversal of our lost condition. It is not done at once, but in parts and at sundry times, each age bringing with it more of “salvation” in every sense; unfolding it, building it up, gathering in new objects, overcoming new enemies, occupying new ground, erecting new trophies.

II. The power. This is the more common rendering of the word (not “strength”), as when Christ’s miracles are spoken of, or “the powers of the world to come.” As yet God’s power has not been fully manifested; it has been hidden. Many trophies, no doubt, it has won; many enemies it has defeated; many brands it has plucked from the burning; but the full revelation of its greatness is yet to come. When that day arrives, earth as well as heaven shall rejoice.

III. The kingdom of our God. It is the kingdom--the kingdom of kingdoms; not of Satan or man, as now, but of God, nay, our God. Our God, says heaven; our God, re-echoes earth.

IV. The authority of His Christ. “The Christ of God” is the full name for Jesus of Nazareth--God’s Messiah--He in whom all royal, priestly, judicial, prophetical power is invested. To this Messiah all power has been given, all authority entrusted, in heaven, and earth, and hell. (H. Bonar, D. D.)

Victory

1. By this song of thanksgiving we see what should be our rejoicing and duty in thanking God in like manner; to wit, that Christ, His Church and cause prevails; and that Satan and his instruments are foiled.

2. When the former prevail, we see the great benefit to man that redounds thereby; to wit, salvation comes, and strength, and the kingdom of our God to reign in men’s hearts, and the power of His Christ to be seen in their lives.

3. Whereas it is said that the accuser of the brethren is cast down; then as it is said (Isa_1:9;

Rom_8:33), who is it that can condemn, or lay anything to the charge of the Lord’s elect? It is He that helps and justifies us, and has cast down the accuser of the brethren.

4. Here is a great comfort likewise, that there is such a sweet communion between the glorious saints in heaven and the Church militant on earth; that when they speak of God they say, “our God,” and when of the Church on earth, “our brethren.” (Wm. Guild, D. D.)

The accuser of our brethren is cast down.

The accuser of the brethren

I. The accuser. The accuser, in this instance, is the enemy of our souls. An accuser need not necessarily be a foe--a friend may accuse; but his relationship to us depends upon the object he has in view by accusing us. If his intention be to harass and vex the accused, then he is an enemy; but if his design be to reform, then, indeed, he is a friend. Though the law accuses, the law is not our enemy. The law is our “schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.” But the design of Satan in accusing the saints is to afflict them, and not that he may induce them to amend their ways; it is not zeal for the glory of God that urges him to blame them for their remissness; he merely takes advantage of their failings to molest them.

II. The accused. “The brethren.” He does not accuse his own subjects. He commends in them the works which in the children of God he censures. It is better for us that he should be our censor than that he should be our vindicator; preferable that he should impeach us than that he should be our advocate.

III. The accusation. The impeachments of Satan, however fictitious they may be found to be in the aggregate, always have a sprinkling of the truth in them; just so much as will give an air of justness to the whole; for our arch-enemy is well aware that falsehood in and of itself cannot injure. Were they charged with neglecting God’s house the accusation would be false, and consequently would not affect them; but when they are accused of alienating their affections from God, they feel the justness of the charges and are grieved--there is sufficient force in the accusation to afflict their conscience. A slander was never known to be either wholly true or entirely false. Satan is incapable of telling the truth as truth. It were as impossible for him to confine himself wholly to it as that the sun should shed showers of rain, or that water should burn. He is “the father of lies”; but he makes use of the truth to keep his inventions together. It is difficult to detect his devices and contrivances--he is capable of transforming himself into an angel of light. Yea, he usurps even the functions of the Holy Spirit; he approaches the Christian while he is meditating upon his performances, and insidiously breathes his charges of lukewarmness and worldliness, causing his heart to bleed thereby. Neither is he to be recognised by the doctrines he inculcates. What measures does the Holy Spirit make use of in convincing the sinner of his wickedness? Does He show the evil of sin? Satan also does this. Does He point to the stringency and rigour of the law? So does Satan. But although he is not recognisable in his doctrines, he may be easily detected in the inferences which he draws from those doctrines. The conclusions which he invariably draws from his teachings are couched in such language as the following: Firstly, thy sins are too great to be forgiven. Secondly, thou mayest as well suffer punishment for much as for little. Thirdly, God is very unrelenting.

IV. The tribunal. It is not to be imagined that Satan gains admittance into heaven, there to lay his charges against the saints, because he has been eternally banished thence. Neither is it by any means probable that, were permission granted him to enter there, he would avail himself of it. And the reason of this is quite plain. He that bruised his head sits triumphant there. His design is to create enmity between God and His children; his purpose is to effect a breach between the saints and their heavenly Father. He endeavours to embitter their spirits when they approach God in meditation and prayer. He strives to weaken their power in prayer, and so to crush their faith as to render it powerless to bear the blessing they came to seek.

V. The victory. “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.” (D. Roberts, D. D.)

Overcoming the accuser

1. The accuser charges the servants of God with guilt. They are not worthy, as he alleges, to stand in the Holy Presence. To this, however, they have a triumphant reply. They do not deny that they have sinned and are unworthy; but they have God’s free gift of pardon since Jesus has died. There is a Rabbinic tradition to the effect that Satan is compelled to refrain from accusations against Israel, and keep silence, on one day of the year--the great Day of Atonement. Though it be a mere legend, it indicates some true perception of the only ground on which the charge of guilt before God can be successfully met. But let us extend the statement. There is no respect of days. The peace of conscience which rests on “the blood of the Lamb” is not for one day, but for all the days of the year. There is a continual and unfaltering answer of the Satanic accusation.

2. The accuser rails against the servants of God as mere self-seekers. In this respect, wicked men are very like their father the devil. Their base instinct is to suspect and jibe at goodness. All virtue is in their eyes humbug. All who seem to be in earnest for any moral or religious object are seeking praise for themselves, and perhaps money also. Disinterestedness is a dream, and holiness a fraud. So says the devil; and so say his followers. Now it may be impracticable in many instances to meet this odious charge with a complete refutation. A good man cannot prove his inward motives to all the outside world, least of all to those who wish to think the worst. To some, however, both in early and in later times of the Church, opportunity and power have been given to make a triumphant answer to the unworthy accusation of selfishness. They were exposed to cruel persecution, and obliged to show whether their hearts were so knit to Christ that they would lay down their lives for His sake. These overcame “because of the word of their testimony.” Far from shirking the ordeal, they conquered by their firm endurance. What then could Satan allege?

3. We are not of “the noble army of martyrs.” But all Christians are called to be martyrs in the sense of witnesses, and all are subjected to some test of fidelity. Yet every one in his own order, and according to the measure of grace which he has received; not the least effective being the little ones that honour the Lord Jesus. (D. Fraser, D. D.)

They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.--

How they conquered the dragon

I. All the blessed ones who are rejoicing in heaven were once warriors and victors here below. We too often think of the saints that have gone before as if they were men of another race from ourselves, capable of nobler things, endowed with graces which we cannot reach, and adorned with holiness impossible to us. The mediaeval artists were wont to paint the saints with rings of

glory about their heads, but indeed they had no such halos; their brows were furrowed with care even as ours, and their hair grew grey with grief. Their light was within, and we may have it; their glory was by grace, and the same grace is available for us.

1. It is clear from our text that every one of the saints in heaven was assailed by Satan. How could there be a victory without a battle?

2. The glorified, in addition to having been attacked, were led to resist the evil one, for nobody overcomes an antagonist without fighting.

3. We find that these warriors all overcame, for heaven is not for those who fight merely, but for those who overcome. “I do fight against my sin,” says one. Brother, do you overcome it? Attack, resistance, and victory must be yours.

4. So, then, in heaven they all rejoice because they have overcome, for the next verse to our text puts it, “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.” It is a theme for gladness in heaven that they did fight and resist and overcome. There is joy among the angels, for they had their conflict when they stood firm against temptation; but ours will be a victory peculiarly sweet, a song especially melodious, because our battle has been peculiarly severe.

II. The victors all fought with the same weapons.

1. First, the blood of the Lamb: it was theirs. The blood of the Lamb will not help us until it becomes our own. It is the blood of the covenant, and it secures all the covenant gifts of God to us. It is the life of our life. So, then, they had the blood of the Lamb, and they possessed the privilege which the blood brings with it.

2. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. Now, what is the testimony of the saints? It is a testimony concerning the blood of the Lamb. If ever we are to conquer Satan in the world, we must preach the atoning blood.

III. While they all fought with the same weapons they all fought with the same spirit; for the text says, “they loved not their lives unto the death.”

1. The expression indicates dauntless courage. They were never afraid of the doctrine of a bleeding Saviour. Let us never be ashamed of our hope.

2. These men, in addition to dauntless courage, had unanswering fidelity. They “loved not their lives unto the death.” They thought it better to die than deny the faith.

3. More than that, they were perfect in their consecration. “They loved not their lives unto the death.” They gave themselves up, body soul, and spirit, to the cause of which the precious blood is the symbol, and that consecration led them to perfect self-sacrifice. No Christian of the true type counts anything to be his own. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The blood of the Lamb, the conquering weapon

I. What is this conquering weapon?

1. The blood of the Lamb signifies, first, the death of the Son of God. The sufferings of Jesus

Christ might be set forth by some other figure, but His death on the Cross requires the mention of blood. The death of Christ is the death of sin and the defeat of Satan, and hence it is the life of our hope, and the assurance of His victory. Because He poured out His soul unto the death, He divided the spoil with the strong.

2. Next, by “the blood of the Lamb” we understand our Lord’s death as a substitutionary sacrifice. It is not said that they overcame the arch-enemy by the blood of Jesus, or the blood of Christ, but by the blood of the Lamb; and the words are expressly chosen because, under the figure of a lamb, we have set before us a sacrifice. Sin must be punished; it is punished in Christ’s death. Here is the hope of men.

3. Furthermore, I understand by the expression, “The blood of the Lamb,” that our Lord’s death was effective for the taking away of sin. When John the Baptist first pointed to Jesus, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Our Lord Jesus has actually taken away sin by His death.

II. I have shown you the sword; now I come to speak to the question, how do you use it? “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.” When a man gets a sword, you cannot be quite certain how he’ will use it. A gentleman has purchased a very expensive sword with a golden hilt and an elaborate scabbard; he hangs it up in his hall, and exhibits it to his friends. Occasionally he draws it out from the sheath, and he says, “Feel how keen is the edge!” The precious blood of Jesus is not meant for us merely to admire and exhibit. We must not be content to talk about it, and extol it, and do nothing with it; but we are to use it in the great crusade against unholiness and unrighteousness, till it is said of us, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.” Let me show you your battle-field. Our first place of conflict is in the heavenlies, and the second is down below on earth.

1. First, then, you who believe in the blood of Jesus, have to do battle with Satan in the heavenlies; and there you must overcome him “by the blood of the Lamb.” “How?” say you. First, you are to regard Satan this day as being already literally and truly overcome through the death of the Lord Jesus. Satan is already a vanquished enemy. By faith grasp your Lord’s victory as your own, since He triumphed in your nature and on your behalf. I would have you overcome Satan in the heavenlies in another sense: you must overcome him as the accuser. At times you hear in your heart a voice arousing memory and startling conscience; a voice which seems in heaven to be a remembrance of your guilt. All comfort drawn from inward feelings or outward works will fall short; but the bleeding wounds of Jesus will plead with overwhelming argument, and answer all. Still further, the believer will have need to overcome the enemy in the heavenly places in reference to access to God. The sacred name of Jesus is one before which he flees. This will drive away his blasphemous suggestions and foul insinuations better than anything that you can invent. We next must overcome the enemy in prayer.

2. It is time that I now showed you how this same fight is carried on on earth. Amongst men in these lower places of conflict saints overcome through the blood of the Lamb by their testimony to that blood. Every believer is to bear witness to the atoning sacrifice and its power to save. He is to tell out the doctrine; he is to emphasise it by earnest faith in it; and he is to support it and prove it by his experience of the effect of it. You can bear witness to the power of the blood of Jesus in your own soul. If you do this, you will overcome men in many ways. First, you will arouse them out of apathy. This age is more indifferent to true religion than almost any other. The sight of the bleeding Saviour overcomes obduracy and carelessness. The doctrine of the blood of the Lamb prevents or scatters error. I do not think that by reason we often confute error to any practical purpose. We may confute it rhetorically and doctrinally, but men still stick to it. But the doctrine of the precious blood, when it once gets into the heart, drives error out of it, and sets up the throne of truth. We also overcome men in this way, by softening rebellious hearts. Men stand out against the law of God, and defy the vengeance of God; but the love of God in Christ Jesus disarms them. The Holy Spirit causes men to yield through the softening influence of the Cross. How wonderfully this same blood of the Lamb overcomes despair. Glory be to God, the blood is a universal solvent,

and it has dissolved the iron bars of despair, until the poor captive conscience has been able to escape. There is nothing, indeed, which the blood of the Lamb will not overcome; for see how it overcomes vice, and every form of sin. The world is foul with evil. What can cleanse it? What but this matchless stream? Satan makes sin seem pleasure, but the Cross reveals its bitterness. This blood overcomes the natural lethargy of men towards obedience; it stimulates them to holiness. If anything can make a man holy it is a firm faith in the atoning sacrifice. When a man knows that Jesus died for him, he feels that he is not his own, but bought with a price, and therefore he must live unto Him that died for him and rose again. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Church’s victory

I. The church’s victory. The Church is here set before us in a state of triumph, having conquered all its enemies and received its reward.

II. The medium through which this victory is obtained, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.”

III. The connection that subsists between the means and the end of the conflict.

1. The blood of the Lamb is the source of the disposition which regenerated men feel when entering upon this spiritual warfare.

2. It is the blood of the sacrifice that perpetuates the conflict, by carrying on the sanctification of the soul.

3. The blood of the Lamb alone can inspire fortitude and courage for this conflict.

4. The blood of the Lamb is the only source of spiritual life, and therefore they conquer by it. It was not spilt as water upon the ground, it was the opening of the fountain of immortality for the soul of man.

5. By the blood of the Lamb they learned the example of conflicting to the death, and gathered the assurance of a glorious triumph beyond it. Two things will tend to make a man a good soldier--a readiness to leave his body a corpse on the battlefield, and a thorough conviction that ultimately his cause must succeed. Both are requisite in the spiritual strife. (John Aldis.)

The encouragement to increased missionary effort to be derived from the assurance of final victory

I. We shall never be aroused to magnanimous efforts till we have a clear apprehension of the invisible enemy who foments all the opposition against Christ and His gospel.

1. In the general description, mark, first, his deadly hatred to God and goodness, implied in the names Satan, the Enemy, the Adversary, the Wicked One. Next, his rage and fury, as the great Red Dragon, the Apollyon or Destroyer. Further, his craft and subtilty, as the Old Serpent, in allusion to the form under which he seduced our first parents. Next, the extent of his dominion, the

whole world lying in wickedness, or, in the wicked one.

2. And what is the general method of Satan’s opposition to Christ, and the salvation of men? His grand vantage-ground is the tendency in human corruption to listen to all his suggestions. He thus works his way unperceived into our hearts.

3. The place where Satan carries on this opposition is set forth in this symbolical passage as his heaven, from the popular notion of heaven as a place of eminence, of ease, safety, and enjoyment. It imports, here, the visible kingdom of Satan in its full pride and power; from which, when he is dispossessed, he is said to be cast down unto the earth.

II. The means of resisting this great adversary.

1. The faithful overcame by the blood of the Lamb; and in what manner did they do this?

(1) By trusting to it for their own salvation;

(2) By proclaiming it to others, as men touched with the love of Him who shed it;

(3) By seeing all the purposes of Almighty God centre in it.

III. The issue of the conflict. “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.” (Bp. Daniel Wilson.)

Missionary conflict and victory

I. Let us consider missions under the aspect of a victory gained.

1. Of course the word implies conflict. The Revelation, resonant with sounds of battle, exhibits the King of Heaven upon earth as engaged in a, struggle. This mode of representation only displays in pictures ideas common to the whole of the New Testament. The Church under the present dispensation is church militant. Let us not despise or underestimate our foe. To follow Christ and to take up His cause anywhere is to challenge the world, the flesh, and the devil.

2. But the point now is that a victory has been won, and this victory is distinguished by two features, celebrated in the song heard by John, which render it extremely interesting and important for those on the threshold of life, whose privilege it is to look forward to service.

(1) The accuser has been cast down, and in his casting down certain practical problems have been solved and doubts swept out of the way. No great and good movement has ever been inaugurated that did not stir up an accuser. He was maliciously busy at the outset of the missionary enterprise, and tried to raise obstacles to harass the timid.

(2) Then, too, in the gospel victories is to be included a beautiful, delightful social revolution, for “now is come the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ.”

II. The principles and instrumentalities whereby this victory was gained.

1. We would not lose sight of the fact that “there was war in heaven.” We have always had the

supernatural support of a leader of invisible legions, whose name, “Michael,” suggests the question, “Who is like unto God? “ and whose guarantee, conveyed along with the marching orders, is, “Lo! I am with you alway unto the consummation of the age.”

2. Looking at these words as a whole, we say they intimate conquests gained through dependence on spiritual forces. It was so, we may remind ourselves, in the conflict with the paganism of the ancient Roman world. It would be a mistake to suppose that the triumph of Christianity followed the so-called conversion of Constantine. On the contrary, he gave in his adhesion because Christianity was already on the march, firm and triumphant. The victory had been won, and it was won with the weapons of faith, hope, love, patience, forgiveness, and prayer. So also has it been in the conflict with the paganism of the modern world. God in nature, God in history, and God in grace is one God, and we may expect Him to be making each department of His rule dovetail in some way into the other, in order to the accomplishment of His purposes.

3. Three things are, we take it, specially necessary to meet the fundamental spiritual requirements of the human heart--viz., redemption; revelation; and these mediated and ministered by messengers of intense self-sacrificing sympathies. These are the very elements which are here displayed aa grounds of success.

(1) “They overcame because of the blood of the Lamb.” Readers must note that in this book, in which the general outlines of Church history are exhibited in symbolic pictures, the blood of the Lamb holds a most prominent place. It precisely forecasts what has happened in the actual event. By the atoning sacrifice of Calvary were the missionaries’ hearts first set on fire. The provision made in the death of God’s dear Son for meeting their condition as sinners was what deeply agitated, and, like the touch of the “live coal from off the altar,” flamed through them into the offer and entreaty, “Here are we, send us.” By the same sacrifice they were sustained in their surrender. The Saviour’s blood was their life. His dying wounds were not only fountains of expiation and cleansing, but also springs out of which pulsated the streams of life through the lips of faith into their thrilled hearts. Advancing with this experience, it turned out that the “story of redemption through His blood” was just the good news the heathen needed, and leaped excitedly to welcome.

(2) To meet the cry for light, the ministers of grace delivered “the word of their testimony.” Observe, “testimony.” Not an argument, but a testimony; not a denunciation, but a testimony; not a destructive attack, but a testimony; not a “peradventure,” but a testimony. This testimony, originally received by apostles from Christ and His Spirit, was by them embodied in “a word.” This “word,” again tasted and tested through the Spirit of Christ by believers, became in their lips and lives a “testimony.” They marched to the field with this testimony, a Pentecostal glory mitring their brows and firing their tongues, and breaking out in “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” They knew whom they believed, and, Philip-like, joining themselves unto the chariot of heathendom, they just preached and explained Him of whom every voice of truth in the Vedas also spoke to those in the darkness feeling after “an unknown God” to be their Shepherd and King.

(3) The third reason does not occupy precisely the same level as the other two. It is not joined to them with “because.” The proposal to surrender life, standing by itself, would be impotent and fruitless. It is when united with “the blood of the Lamb and the word of testimony” that it is energised into an important factor in the product. The mode of expression seems based upon a common course in human affairs. A man takes a stand from which it is sought to divert him by threats of poverty, want, and hardship. There are some in whom the love of life is so near the surface, and so sensitive and ready to take alarm, that the above threat would be enough to make it leap to its feet instantly and shriek out, “You shall not.” Others, however, are not conscious of this love at that point, and the threat does not move them. Then it is represented they will lose caste, be boycotted in society, be shut out of the road which leads to applause and power, and condemned to calumny, reprobation, scorn--or, what is worse, neglect. Some who resisted in the first stage would be sifted out here, whilst a remnant would continue yet untouched and resolute. But now I imagine the ghastly king of terrors drawing nigh to these and compelling them at close quarters to look into his cavernous, cruel face. Proud is this grisly monarch, and omnipotent in his

own conceit. But many think that Death’s bark is worse than his bite. I know the prospect is under some conditions appalling, and yet I can fancy those who had stood the first two tests contemplating this almost with contempt. There is, however, another deeper, darker possibility suggested. It is not merely hardship; it is not merely shame; it is not merely physical extinction; it is the sacrifice of the opportunity of self-cultivation for what seems a grander destiny in this world, and even a better, higher standing in the world to come. Many missionaries, like, e.g., Carey and Livingstone, possessed surpassing powers. They would succeed splendidly anywhere. Had they stayed in this country no one can predict the distinction to which they might have risen. To go away, say into the wilds of Africa, as evangelists is to renounce magnificent chances. Nay more. They who feel the loss most will leave the stimulus of Christian society; the bracing impulse of Christian atmosphere; the sweet help of the first day of the week, with its sacred hush and uplifting worship; the very continuance of the life of piety will be imperilled. That education and development of the faculties and qualities of mind and spirit which in itself is so delightful must be relinquished, and, so far as this world is concerned, relinquished for ever. They must cease to love their own soul, and that unto death. I believe that scores of witnesses in all ages, and, thank God, in ours also, have risen to this height; and it is in this way and by this means they have gained the victory. If you want to capture others, you must abandon self. (R. H. Roberts, B. A.)

Victory over the foe

I hope it is possible for a few minutes to interest you in the fortunes of a battle. “The fight is fought, and the victory is won. Your troops have engaged and conquered the foe.” And we are told they overcame him by three modes and weapons of warfare--the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and the not loving their life even unto death. The several particulars are striking; their combination is wonderful. “They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb.” Strange! But is it not true--true to a history none the less real because it is, in part at least, the history of souls? Is it not true that that Cross of pain and shame has in it the virtue of a thousand times ten thousand victories, compared with which Marathon and Salamis, Trafalgar and Waterloo, were events of temporary and fleeting significance? Is it not true that lives have been remade in their most secret, and yet in their most practical, being--remade for strength, remade for happiness, remade for usefulness, influence, and blessing to other lives, entirely by that sacrifice of the Son of God for sin which is here briefly characterised as “the blood of the Lamb”? The man who has conquered a besetting sin by reason of the blood of the Lamb is a greater hero, greater in kind as well as in degree, than the man who can count his slain enemies in some death-grapple on the Nile by tens and by twenties. But it is conceivable that there might be in some heart a strong sense of gratitude for the death of the Son of God, which as yet has nothing to say for itself as to a definite work to be done for Him. Therefore the voice from heaven speaks in the second place of the word of their testimony. The Christian owes his victory, secondly, to a word--that is, a message or revelation from God, to the truth of which he himself is witness. We have three thoughts here. First, God has spoken. A word is more than a sound. A word has meaning in it. It is the communication of mind to mind. Word is speech, and speech is, by definition, reason communicating itself. This is why Christ Himself is called by St. John “the Word.” In Christ God has spoken, not in precept and prohibition only, rather in revelation of will and mind, setting before us the Divine character in human action, and saying, “This am I; this be thou. Made, and now remade in My image, bear, act, be this to thy brethren.” Thus the word becomes next a testimony. The business of the Christian is witnessing, having, as St. John says, “the witness in himself”; able from experience, able from consciousness of the power and beauty of the gospel, “to set to it his seal” that it is true. He goes about his business, speaks his daily speech, does his everyday work, as one who believes, strives not to contradict, not to belie his conviction, lives as its witness, dies as its martyr. And thus, thirdly, he overcomes because of it. The blood of the Lamb is his motive, but the Word of His testimony is his direction. Without this he might be well-intentioned, but he would neither know his enemy nor know how to cope with him. They overcame him, therefore, because of the Word of which they were witnesses. Yet another principal cause remains. “They loved not their life even unto death.” Contempt for death is a great secret of victory. Even in the perpetration of deeds of darkness, the chance of success is infinitely enhanced by the willingness of the doer to die for it. The assassin who will give life for life is half assured of victory. The text speaks of a

nobler strife, that of the Christian victor, and it says of him that side by side with two other things, faith in Christ’s sacrifice, and faith in Christ’s word, there stands this reason also for his victory, that he loved not his life. The earthly conqueror must have no friendship for his life in comparison with two other things--duty and honour. The earthly conqueror must have no charity for his life when it tries to stand between him and courage, or between him and the love of his country. ‘Tis the peculiarity of the Christian victor, not always realised, perhaps, to the full, even in him, that, taking all things into account, he has a positive desire--positive desire--to “depart and be with Christ.” It is not only that there are so many dark features of the world he lives in, it is rather that he knows Someone on the other side of death, whom he longs to be with. He endures as seeing the Invisible, but all the time he is seeking a better country, that is, a heavenly. (Dean Vaughan.)

They loved not their lives unto the death.--

The evidence of Christianity from the persecution of Christians

The progress of Christianity is a most interesting object of speculation, and must appear truly wonderful when it is considered that it prevailed by means the very reverse of what might have been expected, and which have been used to establish other systems of religion or philosophy, and the corruptions of Christianity itself. Other religions had either the aid of power, or at least of the learning of the age and countries in which they were established. The founders of them were either conquerors, legislators, or men who were distinguished in life; so that independently of the doctrines they promulgated, they appeared in a respectable light to the world. On the contrary, the Founder of Christianity was an obscure person, a common mechanic, in a country the inhabitants of which were despised by the rest of the world; without the advantage of any learned education, where the greatest account was made of that advantage, and where persons destitute of it were held in contempt. The first followers of Christ were, in general, of the same low rank of life with Himself, wholly destitute in power, or of policy. They were all their lives persecuted, as He had been, and many of them died violent deaths. What then were the means by which Christianity, thus extraordinarily circumstanced, did make its way in the world, till, in the natural course of things, the very powers which opposed it came to be on its side? They were, as we are informed in my text, the death of the Founder of Christianity, and the testimony of His followers to His doctrine, miracles, and resurrection, sealed with their blood. If we consider the nature of Christianity, and the object of it, we shall see that it could not be established by any other means than these, how ill adapted soever they may, on a superficial view of things, appear to answer the end. What is Christianity but that firm belief in a future life which produces the proper regulation of man’s conduct in this? Any attempt to gain belief to this, or any doctrine, by power, would have been unavailing and absurd. It is evident that nothing could make mankind believe that Christ wrought miracles, that He died, and rose from the dead, and therefore that there is a future life, to which themselves will be raised, but the proper evidence of the truth of those facts. And in distant ages, in which persons can have no opportunity of inquiring into the truth of the facts for themselves, the only evidence to them is the full conviction that they who had that opportunity did believe them. Now we cannot imagine in what manner any person can express his firm persuasion of the truth, or the value, of any set of principles, more strongly than by his suffering and dying for them. Still, however, there would have been room to doubt, if they had not persisted in their testimony, and if they had not also had both sufficient opportunity, and sufficient motives to consider lind reconsider the thing. Now the witnesses were numerous, and, living together, they must have had frequent opportunities of conversing with one another on the subject, and of comparing their observations. And surely no motive could be wanting, when all the happiness of their lives, and even life itself, was depending. How satisfactory, then, is the evidence of the truth of Christianity from the testimony of almost all its proper witnesses, as sealed with their blood, and therefore not given without the most deliberate consideration, and in opposition to the strongest inducements to declare the reverse of what they did. How much more convincing is this kind of evidence than that of men who draw their swords in defence of any cause? The man who fights hopes to get the victory, and most probably expects to secure to himself some temporal advantage. It cannot by any means, therefore, be inferred that a man may not fight for a falsehood, provided it promises to be a gainful one. We see, then, the infinite superiority of the

pretensions of Christ to those of Mahomet, or of any who have endeavoured to establish a religion by violence. Our Lord, confiding in the power of truth, disclaimed all other aid, and therefore ordered His disciples not to fight, but to die. I would farther observe, that violence in support of truth is utterly contrary to the nature and genius of the Christian religion; and it supposes a temper of mind inconsistent with it, viz., hatred and revenge. And not only should we avoid all actual violence, but everything that approaches to it, as anger and abuse. If calm reasoning fail, these are not likely to succeed. As we must not make use of violence or abuse ourselves, so we should take it patiently when it is offered by others. It is generally a proof that our adversaries have nothing better to offer, and therefore is a presumption that we have truth on our side; and surely the sense of this may well enable us to bear up under any insult to which we may be exposed. A state of persecution has been the lot of truly good men, and especially of all great and distinguished characters whose aim has been to reform abuses, and introduce new light into the minds of men, in all ages. (J. Priestley, LL. D.)

Love triumphant

Geleazius, a gentleman of great wealth, who suffered martyrdom at St. Angelo, in Italy, being much entreated by his friends to recant, and thus save his life, replied, “Death is much sweeter to me with the testimony of truth, than life with its least denial:”

11 They triumphed over him

by the blood of the Lamb

and by the word of their testimony;

they did not love their lives so much

as to shrink from death.

1.BARNES, “And they overcame him - That is, he was foiled in his attempt thus to destroy the church. The reference here, undoubtedly, is primarily to the martyr age and to the martyr spirit; and the meaning is, that religion had not become extinct by these accusations, as Satan hoped it would be, but lived and triumphed. By their holy lives, by their faithful testimony, by their patient sufferings, they showed that all these accusations were false, and that the religion which they professed Was from God, and thus in fact gained a victory over their accuser. Instead of being themselves subdued, Satan himself was vanquished, and the world was constrained to acknowledge that the persecuted religion had a heavenly origin. No design was ever more ineffectual than that of crushing the church by persecution, no victory was ever more signal than what was gained when it could be said that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”By the blood of the Lamb - The Lord Jesus - the Lamb of God. See the notes at Rev_5:6; compare the notes on Joh_1:29. The blood of Christ was that by which they were redeemed, and it was in virtue of the efficacy of the atonement that they were enabled to achieve the victory. Compare the notes on Phi_4:13. Christ himself achieved a victory over Satan by his death (see the Col_2:15 note; Heb_2:15 note), and it is in virtue of the victory which he thus achieved that we

are now able to triumph over our great foe.“I ask them whence their victory came.They, with united breath,Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb,Their triumph to his death.”And by the word of their testimony - The faithful testimony which they bore to the truth. That is, they adhered to the truth in their sufferings, they declared their belief in it, even in the pains of martyrdom; and it was by this that they overcame the great enemy - that is, by this that the belief in the gospel was established and maintained in the world. The reference here is to the effects of persecution and to the efforts of Satan to drive religion from the world by persecution. John says that the result as he saw it in vision was, that the persecuted church bore a faithful testimony to the truth, and that the great enemy was overcome.And they loved not their lives unto the death - They did not so love their lives that they were unwilling to die as martyrs. They did not shrink back when threatened with death, but remained firm in their attachment to their Saviour, and left their dying testimony to the truth and power of religion. It was by these means that Christianity was established in the world, and John, in the scene before us, saw it thus triumphant, and saw the angels and the redeemed in heaven celebrating the triumph. The result of the attempts to destroy the Christian religion by persecution demonstrated that it was to triumph. No more mighty power could be employed to crush it than was employed by the Roman emperors; and when it was seen that Christianity could survive those efforts to crush it it was certain that it was destined to live forever.

2. CLARKE, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb - Here is given the reason why the followers of Christ prevailed at this time against all their adversaries. It was because they fought against the dragon in the armor of God. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb - by proclaiming salvation to sinners through Christ crucified, and by their continual intercession at the throne of grace for the conversion of the heathen world.And by the word of their testimony - By constantly testifying against the errors and follies of mankind.And they loved not their lives unto the death - They regarded not their present temporal estate, but even gladly delivered up their lives to the fury of their persecutors, and thus sealed the truth of what they spake with their blood.

3. GILL, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb,.... The Lord Jesus Christ, by whose blood they were redeemed and ransomed out of the hands of Satan, that was stronger than they; and by which they were justified from all sin, and so all charges and condemnation were of no avail against them, whether of Satan or the world; and by which they were cleansed from all pollution, both internal and external; and by which even their conversation garments were washed and made white; by this they also, drew nigh to God with boldness, as to their own God, notwithstanding the accusations of Satan; and this they could, and did make use of as a shield to defend them against all his charges; and this being sprinkled upon them, as it gave them an inward conscience peace amidst all, so it was their security from the destroying angel; and under this purple covering they went triumphantly to glory, having through it obtained an entire conquest over Satan: as also

and by the word of their testimony; either by Christ, the essential Word, they bore record of, who is sharper than any twoedged sword, and through whom they were made more than conquerors; or rather by the use they made of the Scriptures of truth, the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, to which they bore a faithful testimony, and to which they adhered, and by so doing gained the victory over Satan and his instruments, whether false teachers or persecutors; and particularly by the Gospel, which they embraced, professed, and preached with constancy and courage, and by their last testimony they bore to it at their death, on the account of it, as it follows:

and they loved not their lives unto the death; they did not value them; they made no account of them; they were not anxiously careful to preserve them; they chose to lose them; they ran to the stake, and willingly and cheerfully laid them down; they did not count them dear unto them, as

said the Apostle Paul, that they might finish their course with joy, and testify the Gospel of the grace of God, or bear a testimony to it, Act_20:24; yea, as Christ has directed, Luk_14:26; they hated their lives in comparison of him, and when in competition with him and his Gospel; and by dying thus they conquered Satan; had they loved their lives, and saved them by denying Christ and his truths, Satan would have conquered them; but dying in the cause of Christ, and for it, they got the victory over him.

4. GLENN, Calvary: They overcame him by the blood of the lamb. Confession: They overcame by the word of their testimony. Commitment: They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

5. JAMISON, “they — emphatic in the Greek. “They” in particular. They and they alone. They were the persons who overcame.overcame — (Rom_8:33, Rom_8:34, Rom_8:37; Rom_16:20).him — (1Jo_2:14, 1Jo_2:15). It is the same victory (a peculiarly Johannean phrase) over Satan and the world which the Gospel of John describes in the life of Jesus, his Epistle in the life of each believer, and his Apocalypse in the life of the Church.by, etc. — Greek (dia to haima; accusative, not genitive case, as English Version would require, compare Heb_9:12), “on account of (on the ground of) the blood of the Lamb”; “because of”; on account of and by virtue of its having been shed. Had that blood not been shed, Satan’s accusations would have been unanswerable; as it is, that blood meets every charge. Schottgen mentions the Rabbinical tradition that Satan accuses men all days of the year, except the day of atonement. Tittmann takes the Greek “dia,” as it often means, out of regard to the blood of the Lamb; this was the impelling cause which induced them to undertake the contest for the sake of it; but the view given above is good Greek, and more in accordance with the general sense of Scripture.by the word of their testimony — Greek, “on account of the word of their testimony.” On the ground of their faithful testimony, even unto death, they are constituted victors. Their testimony evinced their victory over him by virtue of the blood of the Lamb. Hereby they confess themselves worshippers of the slain Lamb and overcome the beast, Satan’s representative; an anticipation of Rev_15:2, “them that had gotten the victory over the beast” (compare Rev_13:15, Rev_13:16).unto — Greek, “achri,” “even as far as.” They carried their not-love of life as far as even unto death.

6. PULPIT, “And they overcame him (cf. the frequent references to those who overcome, and the promises made to them, Rev_2:1-29.; 3.; Rev_21:7, etc.). The reference "they" is to "our brethren," the accused ones of Rev_12:10. By the blood of the Lamb; because of the blood, etc. (Revised Version). That is, "the blood of the Lamb" is the ground or reason of their victory, not the instrument. So in Rev_1:9, "1 John \ was in the island called Patmos, because of the Word of God ( d?a` t?`? ??´??? )" (cf. Rev_6:9). Winer agrees with this view of the present passage, against Ewald and De Wette. "The Lamb," who was seen "as it had been slain" (Rev_5:6)—Christ. And by the word of their testimony; and on account of the word, etc. The one phrase is the natural complement of the other. "The blood of the Lamb" would have been shed in vain without the testimony, the outcome of the faith of his followers; that testimony would have been impossible without the shedding of the blood. And they loved not their lives unto the death; their life even unto death. That is, they valued not their life in this world, even to the extent of meeting death for the sake of giving their testimony. There is no article in the Greek, merely a?´??? ?a?a´t?? ; so also in the same phrase in Act_22:4. The article of the Authorized Version in Act_22:4 is probably derived from Wickliffe's Bible; that in the present passage, from Tyndale's.

7. CHARLES SIMEON, “HOW SATAN IS TO BE VANQUISHEDRev_12:11. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.

THE establishment of Christianity, whether in the world at large, or in the souls of individuals, is, by means of a warfare, carried on between “the god of this world,” and the God of heaven and earth. Such is the representation given of it in our text. “There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not, neither

was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth: and his angels were cast out with him [Note: ver. 7–9.].” By this I understand, that whilst our blessed Lord sought, by means of faithful ministers and active saints, to establish his kingdom upon earth, the devil, through the agency of persecuting emperors, and idolatrous priests, and heathen philosophers, laboured to the uttermost to counteract this gracious design. During the three first centuries the conflict was severe: but at last the Lord Jesus prevailed, so that Christianity, under Constantine, became established through the Roman empire, and idolatry was in a great measure destroyed. “Then was heard in heaven a loud voice, saying, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night: and they over-came him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death;” that is, this victory was gained, not by the sword, but by the faith of believers, the fidelity of ministers, and the constancy of all.

The words which we have taken for our consideration at this time belong more particularly to believers, who maintained their steadfastness, and were useful in the diffusion of the truth, by the simple exercise of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They were accused before magistrates continually, through the influence of Satan; but “they overcame their great adversary by the blood of the Lamb.”

Let us consider—

I. The character of the adversary with whom we have to contend—

He is called “the accuser of the brethren:” and this name justly belongs to him at the present day: for he accuses all the Lord’s people,

1. To God himself—

[We are told how repeatedly and how confidently he accused Job [Note: Job_1:9-11; Job_2:4-5.]: and that, “when Joshua the high-priest stood before the angel of the Lord, Satan stood at his right hand to resist him [Note: Zec_3:1-2.],” To the same effect, in the words immediately before our text, it is said, “He accused the saints before God day and night.” How far that wicked fiend may be permitted to prosecute his impious course in the presence of the Most High, we will not undertake to say: but whatever efforts he made in former days, he uses still: and by whatever means he sought to injure the saints of old, ho still has recourse to them for the purpose of offecting his murdorous designs.]

2. To their fellow-men—

[Here we can speak without hesitation. We see how this deceiver accused God’s people of old, to Artaxerxes, to prevent the re-building of the temple [Note: Ezr_4:12-16.]; and to Ahasuerus, in order to effect their utter destruction [Note: Est_3:8-9.]. In like manner he accused the Apostles as ring-loaders of sedition; and oven our Lord himself as a blasphemer and a demoniac, And what is there that he does not lay to the charge of the saints at this day? Through him they are still, exactly as they were in the apostolic age, “a sect that is every where spoken against [Note: Act_28:22.].” Our blessed Lord taught us to expect that mon would “speak all manner of evil against his followers falsely for his sake [Note: Mat_5:11.]:” and so it is, and so it will be, as long as “the accuser of the brethren” retains his influence in the world.]

3. To themselves—

[Few, if any, of the Lord’s people are altogether strangers to the wiles of Satan, Exceeding powerful are the suggestions, whereby he tempts and harasses the souls of men. They are justly compared to “fiery darts,” which penetrate the inmost soul, and which nothing but “the shield of faith can quench [Note: Eph_6:16.].” Sometimes he insinuates that we have committed the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost; and that we can therefore never be forgiven. At

other times he suggests, that we are not of the number of God’s elect; and that, consequently, it is in vain to seek his face, At other times, he would make us believe, that we have sinned away our day of grace; and that therefore our state is remediless and hopeless. Now though the world at large are “ignorant of these devices,” the Lord’s people know them by bitter experience [Note: 2Co_2:11.]; and find, that, whilst this subtle enemy, by accusing them to others, creates to them many “fightings without,” so by accusing them to themselves he generates many “fears within [Note: 2Co_7:5.].”]

But, formidable as this enemy is, my text informs us,

II. By what means we may be sure to overcome him—

Of the saints in glory we are told, that “they evercame him by the blood of the Lamb:” and we in like manner shall overcome him also, if we regard the blood of the Lamb,

1. As the ground of our hopes—

[It is “the blood of the Lamb” which has procured our reconciliation with God: and if we be sprinkled with it, as the houses of the Israelites were sprinkled with the blood of the Paschal Lamb, no enemy whatever can prevail to hurt us. Thousands may fall beside us, and ten thousands at our right hand, but destruction can never come nigh us. There is in that precious blood a sufficient atonement for the sine of the whole world; so that, if we had the sins of the whole world upon our own souls alone, we need not despair: we need only to plunge into “the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness,” and we shall be pure, even as an angel is pure; “our sins of scarlet or of crimson dye shall instantly become as wool, yea, and as white as snow itself.” In vain will Satan then attempt to accuse us: for God, who seeth our secret reliance on the blood of Christ, will “behold no iniquity in us:” and in vain will he attempt to distress our minds; for, “being justified by faith in that blood, we shall have peace with God,” and peace in our own conscience. That plea, the death of Christ for us, will be sufficient to silence every accusation, and to defeat every assault of our great adversary.]

2. As the source of our strength—

[That precious blood has purchased for us all the blessings both of grace and glory; and relying on it, we may be assured that “our strength shall be according to our day.” What is there that God will not de for these who are reconciled to him through the sacrifice of his dear Son? Will he not come down to them, and dwell in them, and be a Father unto them; and deal with them as sons? But there is one promise which comprehends within it every thing that our hearts can wish: “I will be a God unto them [Note: Heb_8:10.].” Consider what is implied in this. If it had been said only, I will be a friend, or a father unto them, it would have been most encouraging; because it would have secured to us all that might reasonably be expected from persons standing in such relations to us. But, when it is said, “I will be a God unto them,” it secures to us the exercise of infinite wisdom, and almighty power, and goodness, and love: and with these on our side, we may defy all the assaults whether of men or devils.]

3. As a stimulus to our exertions—

[Sweetly encouraging was the testimony given to Abel, when he offered a firstling of his flock to God; insomuch that Cain, who understood its import, was filled with rage at the distinguishing grace shewn to his pious and believing brother [Note: Gen_4:4-5.]. But the blood of Christ sprinkled on our souls “speaks infinitely better things to us [Note: Heb_12:24.],” And shall not his love in shedding it for us influence our minds? Shall it not “constrain us to live unto him who died for us and rose again [Note: 2Co_5:14.]?” What will be able to stop us when impelled by gratitude to him? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No: in all those things we shall be more than conquerors through him that loved us [Note: Rom_8:35-36.].” None of these things will move us: we shall “be ready not only to be bound, but also to die,” for our adorable Benefactor; and shall never cease to fight against our adversary till he is overcome, and “bruised under our feet.”]

Application—

Seeing then that our victory over this great adversary is to be gained by the blood of the Lamb, let us exercise faith in that blood,

1. With simplicity—

[This is the precise idea contained in our text. The redeemed overcame by a simple reliance on the blood of Christ as the only ground of their hopes. And in this we must resemble them. We must not blend any thing else with this. We must not endure the thought of uniting any work of ours in any degree whatever with Christ’s meritorious death and passion. We must make Him our only foundation, and glory in him alone — — —]

2. With boldness—

[It is added, that they overcame Satan by the word of their testimony. No doubt they all testified of Christ where-ever they went: and by their testimony they prevailed on thousands to embrace the faith, and to burst the bonds in which they had been held. You are not all, it is true, called to be ministers of Christ, but you are all to be witnesses for him in the midst of a dark benighted world. With the heart you may believe unto righteousness; but with the mouth you must make confession unto salvation. By this you will give the deathwound to Satan: for let light only shine, and the kingdom of darkness will be utterly destroyed — — —]

3. With constancy—

[To the honour of the saints in glory it is recorded, that “they loved not their lives unto the death.” This is the sure way to conquer. Jesus himself, “by death overcame him that had the power of death, that is, the devil:” and in the same way must we triumph also. If we would vanquish Satan in the world, or in our own hearts, it must be by shewing that death has no sting for us; and that we can welcome it for Christ’s sake. “Be ye then faithful unto death, and Christ will give you the crown of life” — — —]

8. JAMES NISBET, “THE VICTORIOUS CHARACTER

‘And they loved not their lives unto the death.’

Rev_12:11If we Christians believe at all, we must believe in an ideal for humanity. Jesus Christ is the Son of Man, and therefore He represents so completely the ideal for manhood, apart from any of the idiosyncrasies of race, that we feel He must be the expression of the Divine will for all humanity.

Let us see how one of the disciples of the Master conceived of this ideal, to realise some of the features of the type and ideal of character which the writer of the Book of the Revelation puts before us. He says:—

I. A man must have faith in good.

II. A man must realise, because of the very strength of his confidence in good, that it is worth paying a price for.

III. A man must also read this deep spiritual principle, so often forgotten by superficial teachers—that it is not enough that he shall be a believer in goodness, that a man must pay a price to maintain good in the world; he also thinks that only they will adequately promote good who have participated in the spirit of the ideal.

9. Steve Zeisler, " Three things are said in that verse. First, they overcame him by the blood of the

Lamb. They did not try to defeat the serpent by advancing on him with their own little sword, hopping on their own rickety horse and charging off like St. George to kill the Dragon. Nothing that any of us has can make us, by ourselves, stand against this enemy. The blood of the Lamb can. It is when we retreat to what Christ has done for us on the cross that we can overcome the lies and distortions and cloudiness that Satan brings to our lives. I am convinced that one of dictums of hell is, "You shall know the truth, skewed and out of proportion, and that truth will make you slaves." We overcome his deceptions not by tough-minded clear thinking on our own part, but by appealing to the blood of the Lamb. In the Book of Jude, Michael was in competition against Satan and it says that even he, the archangel, would not on his own bring judgment against Satan. Michael himself retreated to this statement, "The Lord rebuke you." If the archangel is no one-on-one match for the devil, certainly we are not either. Its first of all the blood of the Lamb that makes us overcomers. The second way they overcame was by "the word of their testimony." I think what he means there is that Christians who never speak up, who4ever ever declare themselves as servants of God, are likely to crumble when the heat is on. People who are never willing to suffer embarrassment or ostracism or misunderstanding because they name name of Christ, people who have never testified of him are apt to bail out of their faith when the pressure comes. On the other hand, people who have already named his name in public, have already stood for him, already been willing to speak on behalf of the Lord, will have some experience with "the word of their testimony," and when pressure comes they will realize they can count on him. The third thing we are told to help us apply the truth here is, "They did not love their life even to death." That is a curious thing to say. Real Christians, godly Christians, are not masochists. John is not saying that people are somehow looking forward to the grave but that those who overcome the serpent are people who love something more than they love even their own lives. They love doing the will of God even more than they love protecting themselves, and it is this kind of person who is able to deal with the wiles and the power and the strength of the great red dragon. Look at this passage from Hebrews, chapter 2, verse 14:5 Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. These people, who fear death, are the opposite of those mentioned in Revelation, who ''did not love their life even to death.' Hebrews tells us that people who are terrified of dying will be enslaved by Satan. If we are afraid of dying, afraid of every inch of death's approach, we will be playing into Satan's hand. If every time we are restricted or opportunities are lost to us, if every time pleasures are denied, we sense death coming closer and closer, we will do anything, promise anything to the slave master to keep us from having to face that impending death. We will lie. We will steal. We will cheat, commit adultery, crush other people. Slowly but surely we will become slaves of the devil. That is what Hebrews says. The opposite of that attitude is presented here in Revelation. These people do not love their life so much that they love doing the will of God less. It6is when we can be people who want something more than we want even life itself that we can have victory."

12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens

and you who dwell in them!

But woe to the earth and the sea,

because the devil has gone down to you!

He is filled with fury,

because he knows that his time is short.”

1.BARNES, “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens - It is not unusual in the Scriptures to call on the heavens and the earth to sympathize with the events that occur. Compare the notes on Isa_1:2. Here the heavens are called on to rejoice because of the signal victory which it was seen would be achieved over the great enemy. Heaven itself was secure from any further rebellion or invasion, and the foundation was laid for a final victory over Satan everywhere.And ye that dwell in them - The angels and the redeemed. This is an instance of the sympathy of the heavenly inhabitants - the unfallen and holy beings before the throne - with the church on earth, and with all that may affect its welfare. Compare the notes on 1Pe_1:12.Woe to the inhabiters of the earth - This is not an imprecation, or a wish that woe might come upon them, but a prediction that it would. The meaning is this: Satan would ultimately be entirely overcome - a fact that was symbolized by his being cast out of heaven; but there would be still temporary war upon the earth, as if he were permitted to roam over the world for a time and to spread woe and sorrow there.And of the sea - Those who inhabit the islands of the sea and those who are engaged in commerce. The meaning is, that the world as such would have occasion to mourn - the dwellers both on the land and on the sea.For the devil is come down unto you - As if cast out of heaven.Having great wrath - Wrath shown by the symbolical war with Michael and his angels Rev_12:7; wrath increased and inflamed because he has been discomfited; wrath the more concentrated because he knows that his time is limited.Because he knoweth that he hath but a short time - That is, he knows that the time is limited in which he will be permitted to wage war with the saints on the earth. There is allusion elsewhere to the fact that the time of Satan is limited, and that he is apprised of that. Thus in Mat_8:29, “Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?” See the notes on that passage. Within that limited space, Satan knows that he must do all that he ever can do to destroy souls, and to spread woe through the earth, and hence, it is not unnatural that he should be represented as excited to deeper wrath, and as rousing all his energy to destroy the church.

2. CLARKE, “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them - Let the Christians, who are now partakers of the present temporal prosperity, and advanced to places of trust in the empire, praise and magnify the Lord who has thus so signally interfered in their behalf. But it is added: - Wo to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you - By the inhabiters of the earth are meant the people in subjection to the Roman empire; and by the sea, those parts of the Roman dominions appear to be intended that were reduced to a state of anarchy by the incursions of the barbarous nations. It is not without precedent to liken great hosts of nations combined together to the sea. See Eze_26:3. Here then is a wo denounced against the whole Roman world which will be excited by the devil, the father of lies, the heathen party being thus denominated from the method they pursued in their endeavors to destroy the religion of Jesus. See on Rev_12:15 (note).Having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time - The Christian religion, the pagan party see with great regret, is rapidly gaining ground everywhere; and, if not timely checked, must soon brave all opposition.

3. GILL, “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them,.... So in the prophetic language, at times, and upon occasions of rejoicing, the heavens are called upon to join, and bear a part therein, Psa_96:10; and by these may be meant here the angels of heaven, who rejoice at every advance of Christ's kingdom and interest; they rejoiced at his incarnation, and so they do at the conversion of every single sinner; and much more may they be thought to do so at such a time as this, when there were such multitudes of conversions, and the churches and interest of Christ in so flourishing a condition, and Satan's kingdom so much weakened; and to these may be joined the souls of the saints departed, who might be made acquainted with this wonderful change of things in the empire; and it may also be understood of the saints, the members of the several

churches, even all heavenly minded persons, who were born from above, and were partakers of the heavenly calling, and whose conversations were in heaven; these are called upon to take their part in this song of praise and thanksgiving:

woe to the inhabitants of the earth, and of the sea: such as are of the earth, earthy, sensual, and earthly minded persons; and who are like the troubled waters, and raging waves of the sea, cannot rest, but cast up mire and dirt, and foam out their own shame; the barbarous nations of the Goths and Vandals, carnal professors of religion, and the antichristian party, which quickly upon this sprung up, may be intended, on whom this woe is denounced; the reason of which follows:

for the devil is come down unto you; and a greater woe cannot be upon men on earth, than to have the devil among them, who always brings mischief with him, and breathes nothing but ruin and destruction to men; he having lost his power in the Roman empire, possessed the above persons, and took up his residence among them; he came down, but not willingly, he was forced to it, he was cast down:

having great wrath; because he was conquered, and cast out of heaven, and was deprived of the worship that had been long given him, as the god of the world, and of that authority and influence which he had over men: and this his great wrath was seen in stirring up the Arians to persecute the Christians; and in the times of Julian, when he endeavoured to regain his lost power; and in bringing in the Goths, Huns, and Vandals, into the empire, to waste and destroy it; and in moving the antichristian party, which soon prevailed, to make war against the saints:

because he knoweth he hath but a short time; ere he should be shut up in the bottomless pit, or be confined in the place of torment, and ere his full punishment should be inflicted on him; which time of his to tempt, deceive, disturb, and distress men, is to be no longer than during the forty twomonths of antichrist's reign, and the 1260 days, or years, of the witnesses prophesying in sackcloth, and of the church's being in the wilderness, and no longer than till the thousand years' reign of Christ with his saints begins, which, in comparison of his long reign in the Gentile world, is but a short time; and though, after the thousand years are ended, he will be let loose, yet it will be but for a season, a very small time, when he will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, and betormented night and day, for ever and ever.

4. HENRY, “We have here an account of this war, so happily finished in heaven, or in the church, as it was again renewed and carried on in the wilderness, the place to which the church had fled, and where she had been for some time secured by the special care of her God and Saviour. Observe,I. The warning given of the distress and calamity that should fall upon the inhabitants of the world in general, through the wrath and rage of the devil. For, though his malice is chiefly bent against the servants of God, yet he is an enemy and hater of mankind as such; and, being defeated in his designs against the church, he is resolved to give all the disturbance he can to the world in general: Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, and the sea, Rev_12:12. The rage of Satan grows so much the greater as he is limited both in place and time; when he was confined to the wilderness, and had but a short time to reign there, he comes with the greater wrath.5. JAMISON, “Therefore — because Satan is cast out of heaven (Rev_12:9).dwell — literally, “tabernacle.” Not only angels and the souls of the just with God, but also the faithful militant on earth, who already in spirit tabernacle in heaven, having their home and citizenship there, rejoice that Satan is cast out of their home. “Tabernacle” for dwell is used to mark that, though still on the earth, they in spirit are hidden “in the secret of God’s tabernacle.” They belong not to the world, and, therefore, exult in judgment having been passed on the prince of this world.the inhabiters of — So Andreas reads. But A, B, and C omit. The words probably, were inserted from Rev_8:13.is come down — rather as Greek, “catebee,” “is gone down”; John regarding the heaven as his standing-point of view whence he looks down on the earth.unto you — earth and sea, with their inhabitants; those who lean upon, and essentially belong to, the earth (contrast Joh_3:7, Margin, with “Phi_3:19, end; 1Jo_4:5) and its sea-like troubled politics. Furious at his expulsion from heaven, and knowing that his time on earth is short until he

shall be cast down lower, when Christ shall come to set up His kingdom (Rev_20:1, Rev_20:2), Satan concentrates all his power to destroy as many souls as he can. Though no longer able to accuse the elect in heaven, he can tempt and persecute on earth. The more light becomes victorious, the greater will be the struggles of the powers of darkness; whence, at the last crisis, Antichrist will manifest himself with an intensity of iniquity greater than ever before.short time — Greek, “kairon,” “season”: opportunity for his assaults.

6. PULPIT, “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them; O heavens (Revised Version). ?at???????te? , "that dwell," is read in à , 26, 29, 30, 31, 98, Andreas, Vulgate, Primasius, Memphitie, Armenian. The Revisers have followed thecommon reading of s???????te? , "tabernacled," which is found in the majority of manuscripts. Alford observes, "There is no sense of transitoriness in St. John's use of s????´? , rather one of repose and tranquillity (cf. Rev_7:15)."?atas???????te? is found in C. So in Rev_13:6 the abiding place of God is called his tabernacle. These are the words of the writer (see on Rev_13:10). The cause for this rejoicing has been given in Rev_13:9; the devil having been cast out, those in heaven enjoy absolute immunity from all harm which he can work. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! Woe for the earth and for the sea! (Revised Version). A few cursives give t???? ?at??´???s?? , "to the dwellers." The influence of the devil works woe to the whole world—to the human inhabitants, to the animal and vegetable life of the earth which was cursed for man's sake (cf. Gen_3:17). For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time; or, came down (aorist). "A short season" ( ?a???´? ) in which to exist in the world. His wrath, kindled by his ejectment from heaven, is the greater because of the comparative shortness of his reign on earth. This "short season" is the period of the world's existence from the advent of Satan till the final judgment. It is short in comparison with eternity, and it is frequently thus described in the New Testament (Rom_9:28; 1Co_7:29; Rev_3:11, etc.). It is the "little time" of Rev_6:11; the "little season" of Rev_20:3, during which Satan must be loosed. Here ends the digression descriptive of the struggle in heaven before the creation of the world, and the following verses take up and continue the narrative which was interrupted after Rev_20:6.

7. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR 12-17, “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens.

The defeatibility of the devil

I. Mighty as is the master-fiend of evil, he is not proof against defeats. “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens.”

1. Here is a defeat implied. There is nothing permanent in error, there is no stability in wrong. As light extends, and virtue grows, all schemes of wrong, political, social, and religious, crack to pieces and tumble to ruin.

2. Here is a defeat righteously exultable. It is the joy of the prisoner quitting his cell, of the patient returning to health.

II. Great as his defeats may be, they do not quench his animosity. “Having great wrath,” etc. Like the ravenous beast of the desert, his failure to fasten his tusks in one victim whets his appetite for another. Evil is insatiable.

III. His animosity is especially directed against the true church. “He persecuted the woman,” etc.

1. Wherever the spirit of Christ is, the spirit of tenderness, humanity, self-sacrificing love, this he hates and seeks to destroy.

2. Who shall say what he pours forth from his mouth? False accusations, pernicious errors, social persecutions, etc.

IV. The true Church, even in trying circumstances, is under the special protection of heaven.

1. The Church is in the wilderness. The way of Christly men on this earth has always been--

(1) intricate;

(2) dangerous;

(3) gloomy.

2. Though in the wilderness, it has enormous privileges.

(1) It is endowed with heaven-soaring power.

(2) It has the whole earth to serve it. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Victorious rejoicing

1. By this exhortation of others that are in heaven to rejoice likewise, we see, that the saints of God think it not enough for themselves to rejoice at the prosperity of Christ and His Church; but they exhort, and would have all others to join herein with them, that as God is all in all, so He may of all and by all be praised and glorified.

2. We see the contrary disposition of the godly and wicked; that which is matter of joy to the one is of sorrow to the other, and on the contrary; which was seen at Christ’s birth or first coming, and shall beat His record.

3. By the denouncing of a woe to the inhabiters of the earth, we see when it shall be well with the godly then it shall be woe to the wicked.

4. Whereas it is said that the devil was come down to them in great wrath, we see--

(1) Who is the author of all unjust wrath and malice.

(2) As they who serve God get His loving favour, but they who are Satan’s slaves get nothing but his wrath as their recompense in the end; being first their tempter, next their accuser, and at last their tormentor.

5. It is said that he comes in great wrath, because his time is short; which, as it is a comfort to the godly, so it should be a lesson of wisdom: as he is busy in doing ill, so should they be in doing good, because their time is short here, yea, and most uncertain. (William Guild, D. D.)

Woe to the inhabiters of the earth.

Woe on the earth

1. Note how dark is the outlook of the Church of Jesus with respect to this present world! We wonder betimes at the smallness of its success, and the hard struggle it ever has for its existence. But why should we wonder? Think of the might of the devil and his angels, of their malignity against it, and how deeply the whole world is in their possession. All that we can do is to work on, like Paul, if that by any means we may “save some.”

2. Note the true source of dislike and hatred to the Church. There be many who think more of anything on earth than of the Church. They may consider it well enough to have its services when they die, but whilst they live they only neglect and despise it, and are only offended and enraged when its claims are passed. They forget that this is the very spirit of the devil. And every one who dislikes, hates, or persecutes the Church and people of God, has in him the devil’s spirit, acts the devil’s will, and is one of the devil’s children.

3. Note what a lesson of rebuke and duty addresses itself to Christians from the devil’s example. He never rests from his murderous endeavours. He stops for no losses, succumbs to no adversities, desists for no hindrances, turns back from no encounters, and surrenders not even to the Almighty’s judgments, so long as he has liberty to act or time in which to operate. Look at the untiring energy of hell for destruction, and learn wisdom for eternal life.

4. Finally, note the pressing need there is to keep ourselves awake and in readiness for the coming of our Lord. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)

The devil is come down unto you, having great wrath.--

Satan in a rage

The text tells us that the shortness of Satan’s opportunity excites his wrath, and we may gather a general rule from this one statement, namely, that in proportion as the devil’s time is shortened his energy is increased, and we may take it as an assured fact that when he rages to the uttermost his opportunities are nearly over. He hath great wrath, knowing that his time is short. I hope there will be something of instruction in this, and somewhat of comfort for all those who are on the right side. Now, what is true on a great scale is true in the smaller one. Missionaries in any country will generally find that the last onslaught of heathenism is the most ferocious. We will find, whenever the truth comes into contact with falsehood, that when error is driven to its last entrenchments it fights for life, tooth and nail, with all its might; its wrath is great because its time is short. The same truth, will apply to every individual man. When God begins His great work in a sinner’s heart, to lead him to Christ, it is no bad sign if the man feels more hatred to God than ever, more dislike to good things than before: nor need we despair if he is driven into greater sin. The ferocity of the temptation indicates the vigour with which Satan contends for any one of his black sheep. He will not lose his subjects if he can help it, and so he puts forth all his strength to keep them under his power. The general fact is further illustrated in the eases of many believers. There are times when in the believer’s heart the battle rages horribly, when he hardly knows whether he is a child of God at all, and is ready to give up all hope. He cannot pray or praise, for he is so distracted; he cannot read the Scriptures without horrible thoughts. It seems as if he must utterly perish, for no space is given him in which to refresh his heart, the attacks are so continual and violent. Such dreadful excitements are often followed by years of peace, quiet usefulness, holiness, and communion with God. Satan knows that God is about to set a limit to his vexations of the good man, and so he rages extremely because his opportunity is short.

I. How does Satan know when his time is short in a soul? He watches over all souls that are under his power with incessant maliciousness. He goeth about the camp like a sentinel, spying out every man who is likely to be a deserter from his army.

1. He perceives that his time is short, and I suppose he perceives it first by discovering that he is not quite so welcome as he used to be. The man loved sin, and found pleasure in it, but now sin is not so sweet as it was, its flavour is dull and insipid. The charms of vice are fading, and its pleasures are growing empty, vain, and void, and this is a token of a great change. The adversary perceives that he must soon stretch his dragon wings when he sees that the heart is growing weary of him and is breaking away from his fascinations.

2. He grows more sure of his speedy ejectment when he does not get the accommodation he used to have. The man was once eager for sin, he went in the pursuit of vice, hunted after it, and put himself in the way of temptation, and then Satan reigned securely; but now he begins to forsake the haunts where sin walks openly, and he abandons the cups of excitement which inflame the soul.

3. One thing more always makes Satan know that his time is short, and that is when the Holy Spirit’s power is evidently at work within the mind. Light has come in, and the sinner sees and knows what he was ignorant of before: Satan hates the light as much as he loves the darkness, and like an owl in the daylight he feels that he is out of place. Joyful tidings for a heart long molested by this fierce fiend! Away, thou enemy, thy destructions shall soon come to a perpetual end!

II. Inasmuch as the shortness of his tenure excites the rage of Satan, we must next observe how he displays his great wrath. His fury rages differently in different persons. On some he displays his great wrath by stirring up outward persecution. The man is not a Christian yet, he is not actually converted yet, but Satan is so afraid that he will be saved that he sets all his dogs upon him directly. The devil will lose nothing through being behind. He begins as soon as ever grace begins. Now, if the grace of God be not in the awakened man, and his reformation is only a spasm of remorse, it is very likely that he will be driven back from all attendance upon the means of grace by the ribald remarks of the ungodly, but if the Lord Jesus Christ has really been knocking at his door, and the Spirit of God has begun to work, this opposition will not answer its purpose. Much worse, however, is the devil’s other method of showing his wrath, namely, by vomiting floods out of his mouth to drown, if possible, our new-born hope. When the hopeful hearer as yet has not really found peace and rest, it will sometimes happen that Satan will try him with doubts and blasphemies, and temptations such as he never knew before. The tempted one has been amazed and has said to himself, “How is this? Can my desire after Christ be the work of God? I get worse and worse. I never felt so wicked as this till I began to seek a Saviour.” Yet this is no strange thing, fiery though the trial be. At such time, also, Satan will often arouse all the worst passions of our nature, and drive them into unwonted riot. The awakened sinner will be astonished as he finds himself beset with temptations more base and foul than he has ever felt before. He will resist and strive against the assault, but it may be so violent as to stagger him. He can scarcely believe that the flesh is so utterly corrupt. The man who is anxiously seeking to go to heaven seems at such a time as if he were dragged down by seven strong demons to the eternal deeps of perdition. He feels as if he had never known sin before, nor been so completely beneath its power. The Satanic troopers sleep as a quiet garrison while the man is under the spell of sin, but when once the heart is likely to be captured by Immanuel’s love the infernal soldiery put on their worst manner, and trample down all the thoughts and desires of the soul. Satan may also attack the seeker in another form, with fierce accusations and judgments. He does not accuse some men, for he is quite sure of them, and they are his very good friends; but when a man is likely to be lost to him, he alters his tone and threatens and condemns.

III. How are we to meet all this? How must Satan be dealt with while he is showing his great wrath because his power is short?

1. I should say, first, if he is putting himself in this rage, let us get him out all the more quickly. If

he would remain quiet even then we ought to be anxious to be rid of his foul company, but if he shows this great rage let us out with him straight away.

2. And the next thing is, inasmuch as we cannot get him out by our own unaided efforts, let us cry to the strong for strength, who can drive out this prince of the power of the air. There is life in a look at Jesus Christ, and as soon as that life comes away goes this prince of darkness as to his domination and reigning power.

3. One more comfort for you, and it is this--the more he rages the more must your poor, troubled heart be encouraged to believe that he will soon be gone. I venture to say that nothing will make him go sooner than your full belief that he has to go. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled

to the earth, he pursued the woman who had

given birth to the male child.

1.BARNES, “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth - That is, when Satan saw that he was doomed to discomfiture and overthrow, as if he had been cast out of heaven; when hesaw that his efforts must be confined to the earth, and that only for a limited time, he “persecuted the woman,” and was more violently enraged against the church on earth.He persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child - See the notes on Rev_12:5. The child is represented as safe; that is, the ultimate progress and extension of the church was certain. But Satan was permitted still to wage a warfare against the church - represented here by his wrath against the woman, and by her being constrained to flee into the wilderness. It is unnecessary to say that, after the pagan persecutions ceased, and Christianity was firmly established in the empire; after Satan saw that all hope of destroying the church in that manner was at an end, his enmity was vented in another form - in the rise of the papacy, and in the persecutions under that an opposition to spiritual religion no less determined and deadly than what had been waged by paganism.

2. CLARKE, “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth - When the heathen party saw that they were no longer supported by the civil power: - He persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child - The heathens persecuted the Christian Church in the behalf of which Divine Providence had raised up a dynasty of Christian Roman emperors.

3. GILL, “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth,.... When the devil perceived he had not the power in the Roman empire he formerly had; and that his influence was only over the common and meaner sort of people, or over the earthly part of the church, and the barbarous nations in the world:

he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child: he was enraged at the church, and

pursued her with great wrath, who had brought forth a Christian emperor, by whom the kingdom ofChrist was encouraged and supported in the empire; and because he could not come at this child to destroy it, that being caught up to God and to his throne, he attacks the woman, the church, in a new way, by stirring up earthly minded professors of Christianity, the Arians, against her, and by bringing in an inundation of the barbarous nations into the empire, now become Christian; for this persecution cannot be understood of the persecution raised by the Jews, under the instigation of Satan, against the Christian church, quickly after the ascension of Christ to heaven, for then the dragon had his place and power in the Roman empire, whereas this persecution was not till after the downfall of Paganism in it; and for the same reason it cannot design the persecution against the Christians begun by Nero, and carried on under succeeding emperors, which were the ten days of tribulation under the Smyrnaean church state, and were now over; these were the pains and birth throes of the woman, the church, antecedent to, and which brought on, the birth of the man child; and the persons that endured them were those that overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and their death, which were all previous to these times: nor does it respect so much the persecution under Julian, which was carried on not by open force and violence, but by subtlety; be abstained from corporeal punishments and shedding of blood, observing that these methods in former times had given the Christians an opportunity of showing their faith, patience: and fortitude, which had been the means of increasing their number; wherefore he betook himself to more private and artful methods, as to content himself with taking away the revenues of the ministers of the word, not suffering any Christians to be in military employments, denying their children the use of schools, encouraging the Jews, their sworn enemies, and tolerating all sorts of heresies among themselves, that so they might destroy one another; to which may be added, that his reign was but one year and seven or eight months, and therefore can scarcely be thought to be pointed at here; but inasmuch as the Arian persecution was the first after the fall of Paganism, and the principal one before the rise of antichrist, this may most reasonably be concluded to be meant here; and this began even in Constantine's time, for by means of an Arian presbyter that belonged to his sister Constantia, he was prevailed upon, towards the close of his days, to believe that Arius was not the man he was said to be, and that he had had hard measure; insomuch that he was recalled, and received into communion, and Athanasius was driven from his church, and banished to Triers in France: and the historian says (w), that Constantine exercised "vim persecutionis", the force of persecution, or a violent one; bishops were exiled, the clergy were severely handled, and laymen taken notice of, who separated themselves from the communion of the Arians. Under Constantius, his son, the persecution raged much, Athanasius being gone from Alexandria, and one Gregory put in his room; and the people being uneasy at it, some were banished, others cast into prison, and others had their goods confiscated; women were dragged by the hair of their heads to the tribunals, and used very ignominiously; three thousand soldiers entered a church on an Easter day, and killed many women and children; virgins were stripped naked, and the bodies of those who died of their wounds were denied a burial, and cast to the dogs; and the persecution did not stop here, but went through Egypt, where the bishops, some of them, were beaten with rods, others were laid in bonds, and others were banished: in Egypt and Lybia ninety bishops were forced away, sixteen were banished, whose churches were delivered to the Arians. Lucius of Adrianople was bound in chains, cast into prison, and there perished; Paul of Constantinople was first expelled, after that murdered, and Macedonius, an Arian, put in his room; and such who refused to commune with him suffered stripes, bonds, imprisonment, and other tortures, of which they died, and others were banished, where they perished; women that refused had their breasts cut off, or burnt, either with red hot irons, or with eggs roasted at the fire to a very great heat (x); with other instances too many to recite. Under Valens the emperor things were still worse, who became an Arian at the persuasion of his wife, and was baptized by Eudoxius, the Arian bishop of Constantinople, who, at his baptism, obliged him to swear that he would defend Arianism, and persecute those of a contrary opinion; and accordingly he moved an irreconcilable war against them; at one time he expelled Melesius from Antioch, Eusebius from Samosata, Pelagius from Laodicea, and Barsis from Edessa; and all the rest that would not communicate with Euzoius, an Arian, he punished, either with pecuniary fines or with stripes; and he is said to drown many in the river Orontes. This persecution went through the churches of Thrace, Dacia, and Pannonia; but what is most shocking of all is, that some chosen ecclesiastical men, to the number of four score and one, were sent to him from Constantinople to Nicomedia, with a supplication to redress some injuries and grievances; at which he being angry, ordered Modestus, the governor, to take them and put

them to death; but the governor fearing to do it openly, lest there should be an insurrections, ordered a ship to be got ready, pretending to carry them into exile, but directed the mariners to go in a fisher's boat behind, and set fire to the ship, which they accordingly did when at sea, where all the above worthy men perished at once (y). It would be endless to rehearse all the instances of cruelty under this persecution; it need only be observed, that this was at the instigation of the devil, as all persecution is; and that Satan herein acted like himself, as the great dragon, as he was when Rome Pagan was in power: these were Christian emperors in name, but they exercised all the cruelties of the Heathen ones, if they did not exceed them; and a greater regard was shown to Paganism than to the orthodox religion. Valens tolerated all religions but that, especially Heathenism; all his reign the fire burned upon the altars, images were honoured with libations and sacrifices, the public festivals of the Heathens were kept, and the rites of Bacchus were performed in the streets (z); and this persecution was followed by the inundation of the barbarous nations, of which hereafter.

4. HENRY, “His second attempt upon the church now in the wilderness: He persecuted the woman who brought forth the man-child, Rev_12:13. Observe, 1. The care that God had taken of his church. He had conveyed her as on eagles' wings, into a place of safety provided for her, where she was to continue for a certain space of time, couched in prophetic characters, taken from Dan_7:25. 2. The continual malice of the dragon against the church. Her obscurity could not altogether protect her; the old subtle serpent, which at first lurked in paradise, now follows the church into the wilderness, and casts out a flood of water after her, to carry her away. This is thought to be meant of a flood of error and heresy, which was breathed by Arius, Nestorius, Pelagius, and many more, by which the church of God was in danger of being overwhelmed and carried away. The church of God is in more danger from heretics than from persecutors; and heresies are as certainly from the devil as open force and violence

5. JAMISON, “Resuming from Rev_12:6 the thread of the discourse, which had been interrupted by the episode, Rev_12:7-12 (giving in the invisible world the ground of the corresponding conflict between light and darkness in the visible world), this verse accounts for her flight into the wilderness (Rev_12:6).

6. PULPIT, “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. (For an explanation of the characters here alluded to, see on the previous verses.) The devil, defeated in his attempts against God in heaven, and foiled in his attack upon the man child—Christ Jesus (see Rev_12:5), now directs his efforts against the woman—the Church. The interpretation must not be confined to one peculiar form of evil which assails the Church, but must include all—the bodily persecutions with which those to whom St. John wrote were afflicted, the heresies which arose in the Church, the lukewarnmess of her members (Rev_3:16), and all others.

7. W. BURKITT, “Observe here, The incessant and restless malice of Satan and his instruments against the church; neither his fore-mentioned disappointment, his present foil and downfall, nor his fear of future destruction, could move him to desist: but, having attempted to destroy the church with the fire of persecution before, he endeavours to drown it with a flood of errors now. Diabolus mutat consilium, non deponit malitiam; the devil sometimes changes his methods in doing mischief, but never lays down his malice: he persecutes the woman, the church of Christ, after another manner, namely, by a flood of errors and heresies.

Observe, 2. The care that God took for his church's preservation from this fatal mischief also: to the woman were given the wings of a great eagle, for flight into the wilderness; that is, all means and ways of evasion, which God out of his care for his church provides for her safety and protection in the time of trouble: the church's flight in time of persecution is by no means to be censured or condemned, especially when God by his providence provides her wings,that is, gives her opportunity so to do.

Observe, 3. The place she flies into for safety, namely the wilderness, called her place, because

prepared by God for her safety; here she is nourished, that is, hath spiritual food provided for her by God, and a number of faithful ministers are qualified for the feeding of her; for a time, and times, and half a time, that is, for a certain time determined by God, but altogether unknown to us; thus when the church meets with new distresses, God provides for her new deliverances.

8. PAUL KRETZMANN 13-17, “The dragon's hatred for the woman:

v. 13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.

v. 14. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and a half a time from the face of the serpent.

v. 15. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.

v. 16. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.

v. 17. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

The narrative is here continued with a description of the manner in which the dragon carried out the persecution of the woman that was mentioned in v. 6: And when the dragon saw that he was thrown to the earth, he persecuted the woman that had given birth to the man-child; and there were given to the woman two wings of a huge eagle that she might flee to the wilderness, to the place set apart for her, where she was nourished a time and times and a half time away from the face of the serpent. The hatred against Christ and against all that believe in Him gives Satan no rest. Through his instruments, the children of unbelief, he persecutes the Church. But the Lord holds His protecting hand over them that are His, for the Church continues to exist in spite of all hatred, even though it be only in secret places and hidden from the eyes of men. All this happened while the power of Anti-Christ's kingdom was at its height, for three and one half times, and all the rage of the devil did not succeed in exterminating the believers.

But the rage of the devil continued unabated: And the serpent poured out of his mouth, after the woman, water like a river in order to sweep her away with the flood. But the earth assisted the woman, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth. This is a picture of the floods of tribulation which Satan time and again poured forth against the Church. We need but think of the times of great persecutions against the true Church, of the period of the Inquisition, to note in what manner the devil makes fanatics of men against the preaching of the truth. In many a case the rulers of the earth, though otherwise indifferent to the pure doctrine, were the instruments for stemming the tide of persecution and bringing times of comparative peace to the Church and her work.

And still the devil's fury gives him no rest: And the dragon was enraged against the woman and went off to wage war on the rest of her offspring that keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus. As long as this earth stands, the devil will not change. Whenever he has the opportunity and whenever he can create the opportunity, he will continue his hellish warfare against the Christians that continue in the Word of their Lord, that cling to the Gospel of salvation through the redemption of Jesus. But the Church of God cannot be destroyed, though all the portals of hell be arrayed against her; God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early. That is our comfort.

Summary

The seer pictures the Church as a woman whose children and offspring the dragon, Satan, tries to devour; but, owing to the resistance of Michael and the heavenly host, through the power of

Christ, all the attempts of the devil are foiled, and the Church is kept safely in the hands of God.

9. JAMES DAVIS, "There is a bittersweet experience as Satan loses his battle in heaven and is cast to the earth. Satan is defeated, but Christians on earth are now forewarned that now that Satan has lost the battle in heaven, his rage will be directed toward those who now live on the earth. What encourages one to faithfulness more than the assurance of victory? As John continues to describe Satan's persecution of the saints in chapter 13, his readers are reminded of the need for patient endurance and faithfulness. (13:10c) They would need a special assurance of victory as they faced the trials that were coming upon them. The assurance would enable them to patiently endure in faithfulness."

Satan hates the church for it produced the Victor that defeated him, and he seeks for revenge. He is determined to win some sort of victory. He licks his wounds and though he could not defeat the powers of heaven, tries the weaker foes of earth.

10. ZEISLER, Verse 6 tells us of the flightof the woman to the wilderness and verses 13 through 17, I think,cover the same subject. We are told in the second half that she was inthe wilderness for a period of "a time and times and half a time."Almost all commentators read that as "one year, two years and half ayear," for a total of three and a half years, which is the same periodof time mentioned in verse 6: 1260 days. I think John tells us that tohelp us see that he is talking about the same period. Almost certainly these events refer to the role of Israel in the finaldays of human history, but the same kind of protection by God andhatred by the enemy has been true of Israel since the fall ofJerusalem in 70 A.D. Jews have been scattered throughout the worldinto the wilderness of the Gentiles ever since Rome sacked the cityand dispersed the Jewish nation. Satan has tried valiantly through the9centuries to destroy the nation of the Jews, to physically exterminatethem. He has not been able to accomplish this, almost certainlybecause of their dispersion; they have never been physically locatedin one place. We saw the awful attempt of the Nazis in Germany todestroy Jews in World War 11, but they could not get their hands onall of them. By being in the wilderness they have been protected fromextermination. Satan has poured forth lies from his mouth, lies aboutthe character of God and the character of man that might haveundermined Judaism, taking away any reason for its continuedexistence. The Gentile world, however, has swallowed the lies of Sataso thoroughly, applying them so aggressively to themselves that theyhave not forced Israel, in particular, to fall apart. The earth hasdrunk in the lies poured forth from his mouth and protected thenation. What the Lord has done in allowing John to see this replay isto fill in the informati

14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach.

1.BARNES, “And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle - The most powerful of birds, and among the most rapid in flight. See the notes on Rev_4:7. The meaning here is, that the woman is represented as prepared for a rapid flight; so prepared as to be able to outstrip her pursuer, and to reach a place of safety. Divested of the figure, the sense is, that the church, when exposed to this form of persecution, would be protected as if miraculously supplied with wings.That she might fly into the wilderness - There is here a more full description of what is briefly stated in Rev_12:6. A wilderness or desert is often represented as a place of safety from pursuers. Thus David 1Sa_23:14-15 is represented as fleeing into the wilderness from the persecutions of Saul. So Elijah 1Ki_19:4 fled into the wilderness from the persecutions of Jezebel. The simple idea here is, that the church, in the opposition which would come upon it, would find a refuge.Into her place - A place appointed for her; that is, a place where she could be safe.Where she is nourished - The word rendered here “nourished” is the same - t?e´f? trepho‾ -

which occurs in Rev_12:6, and which is there rendered “feed.” It means to feed, nurse, or nourish, as the young of animals Mat_6:26; Mat_25:37; Luk_12:24; Act_12:20; that is, to sustain by proper food. The meaning here is, that the church would be kept alive. It is not indeed mentioned by whom this would be done, but it is evidently implied that it would be by God. During this long period in which the church would be in obscurity, it would not be suffered to become extinct. Compare 1Ki_17:3-6.For a time, and times, and half a time - A year, two years, and half a year; that is, forty-two months(see the notes on Rev_11:2); or, reckoning the month at thirty days, twelve hundred and sixty days; and regarding these as prophetic days, in which a day stands for a year, twelve hundred and sixty years. For a full discussion of the meaning of this language, see the notes on Dan_7:25; and Editor’s Pref. For the evidence, also, that the time thus specified refers to the papacy, and to the period of its continuance, see the notes on that place. The full consideration given to the subject there renders it unnecessary to discuss it here. For it is manifest that there is an allusion here to the passage in Daniel; that the twelve hundred and sixty days refer to the same thing; and that the true explanation must be made in the same way. The main difficulty, as is remarked on the notes on that passage, is in determining the time when the papacy properly commenced.If that could be ascertained with certainty, there would be no difficulty in determining when it would come to an end. But though there is considerable uncertainty as to the exact time when it arose, and though different opinions have been entertained on that point, yet it is true that all the periods assigned for the rise of that power lead to the conclusion that the time of its downfall cannot be remote. The meaning in the passage before us is, that during all the time of the continuance of that formidable, persecuting power, the true church would not in fact become extinct. It would be obscure and comparatively unknown, but it would still live. The fulfillment of this is found in the fact, that during all the time here referred to, there has been a true church on the earth. Pure, spiritual religion - the religion of the New Testament - has never been wholly extinct. In the history of the Waldenses, and Albigenses, the Bohemian brethren, and kindred people; in deserts and places of obscurity; among individuals and among small and persecuted sects; here and there in the cases of individuals in monasteries, the true religion has been kept up in the world, as in the days of Elijah God reserved seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to Baal: and it is possible now for us, with a good degree of certainty, to show, even during the darkest ages, and when Rome seemed to have entirely the ascendency, where the true church was. To find out this, was the great design of the Ecclesiastical History of Milner; it has been done, also, with great learning and skill, by Neander.From the face of the serpent - The dragon - or Satan represented by the dragon. See the notes at Rev_12:3. The reference here is to the opposition which Satan makes to the true church under the persecutions and corruptions of the papacy.

2. CLARKE, “And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle - ??? aet?? t?? µe?a???? Of The great eagle. The great eagle here mentioned is an emblem of the Roman empire in general, and therefore differs from the dragon, which is a symbol of the Heathen Roman empire in particular. The Roman power is called an eagle from its legionary standard, which was introduced among the Romans in the second year of the consulate of C. Marius; for before that time minotaurs, wolves, leopards, horses, boars, and eagles were used indifferently, according to the humor of the commander. The Roman eagles were figures in relievo of silver or gold, borne on the tops of pikes, the wings being displayed, and frequently a thunderbolt in their talons. Under the eagle, on the pike, were piled bucklers, and sometimes crowns. The two wings of the great eagle refer to the two grand independent divisions of the Roman empire, which took place January 17, a.d. 395, and were given to the woman, Christianity being the established religion of both empires.That she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, etc. - The apparent repetition here of what is said in Rev_12:6 has induced Bishop Newton to consider the former passage as introduced by way of prolepsis or anticipation; for, says he, the woman did not fly into the wilderness till several years after the conversion of Constantine. But that there is no such prolepsis as the bishop imagines is evident from the ecclesiastical history of the fourth century; for the woman, or true Church, began to flee into the wilderness a considerable time before the division of the great Roman empire into two independent monarchies. The word translated fled is not to be taken in that peculiar sense as if the woman, in the commencement of her flight, had been furnished with wings, for the original word is ef??e?. The meaning therefore of Rev_12:6 and Rev_12:14, when

taken in connection with their respective contexts, is, that the woman began to make rapid strides towards the desert almost immediately after her elevation to the heaven or throne of the Roman empire, and in the course of her flight was furnished with the wings of the great eagle ???a pet?ta?, that she might Fly, into that place prepared of God, where she should be fed a thousand two hundred and threescore days. It is said here that the period for which the woman should be nourished in the wilderness would be a time, times, and a half; consequently this period is the same with the twelve hundred and sixty days of Rev_12:6. But in no other sense can they be considered the same than by understanding a time to signify a year; times, two years; and half a time, half a year; i.e., three years and a half. And as each prophetic year contains three hundred and sixty days, so three years and a half will contain precisely twelve hundred and sixty days. The Apocalypse being highly symbolical, it is reasonable to expect that its periods of time will also be represented symbolically, that the prophecy may be homogeneous in all its parts. The Holy Spirit, when speaking of years symbolically, has invariably represented them by days, commanding, e. gr., the Prophet Ezekiel to lie upon his left side three hundred and ninety days, that it might be a sign or symbol of the house of Israel bearing their iniquity as many years; and forty days upon his right side, to represent to the house of Judah in a symbolical manner, that they should bear their iniquity forty years, The one thousand two hundred and threescore days, therefore, that the woman is fed in the wilderness, must be understood symbolically, and consequently denote as many natural years. The wilderness into which the woman flies is the Greek and Latin worlds, for she is conveyed into her place by means of the two wings of the great eagle. We must not understand the phrase flying into her place of her removing from one part of the habitable world into another, but of her speedy declension from a state of great prosperity to a forlorn and desolate condition. The woman is nourished for one thousand two hundred and threescore years from the face of the serpent, The empires in the east and west were destined, in the course of the Divine providence, to support the Christian religion, at least nominally while the rest of the world should remain in pagan idolatry or under the influence of this dragon, here called the serpent, because he deceiveth the whole world. The words of the prophecy are very remarkable, The Christian Church is said to be supported by the eastern and western empires, two mighty denominations; and at the same time situated in the wilderness, strongly denoting that, though many professed Christianity, there were but very few who “kept the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

3. GILL, “And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle,.... By which are meant, not the two testaments, by which she was supported under afflictions, trials, and persecutions, and against Satan and all his efforts; nor the two graces of faith and hope, by which she rose, and dwelt on high, in the view of invisible things, and with contempt of the world, its frowns or flatteries; nor, as others think, prayer and good works, by the former of which she flew to God for supplies of grace and protection, and by the latter was useful and profitable to men, and gave glory to God, and escaped the just censures of the world; nor are two powerful kingdoms, within the dominions of the dragon, intended, as others have thought, who take them to be France and Spain, to which Britain was an appendix; when they were in the possession of Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine the great, where the Christians had refuge in the persecution under Dioclesian; but this was before the war in heaven, and the downfall of Paganism in the empire, and before the above persecution; rather these two wings of the eagle design the eastern and western divisions of the Roman empire: it is not unusual in Scripture for a monarchy, or monarch, as the Assyrian king and kingdom, to be signified by an eagle, and the wings of eagles, Eze_17:3; and it is well known that the eagle is the ensign of the Roman empire, to which the allusion is in Mat_24:28; and at the death of Theodosius the empire was divided, as has been observed before, into two parts; the eastern empire was given to one of his sons and the western to another; and this was between the Arian persecution, and the irruption of the Goths and Vandals, when the church was fleeing and gradually disappearing; and these two empires both went under the Christian name, and supported the outward visible church, though much corrupted, and still more and more corrupting; by which means the pure members of the church, though few and very obscure were preserved. In a word, these wings may denote the swiftness in which the church proceeded to disappear, having lost her former simplicity and glory for which eagles' wings are famous, Pro_23:5; and more especially that divine strength and support by which she was bore up, and carried through, and delivered out of sore afflictions and persecutions; see Isa_40:31. The allusion is to

God's deliverance of the people of Israel out of Egypt when he bore them as on eagles wings, and carried them though the wilderness, Exo_19:4, so here it follows,

that she might fly into the wilderness; a place desolate, and full of serpents and scorpions, uncomfortable, and destitute of provisions, and yet a place of safety as well as of solitariness and retirement; and chiefly designs the obscure and invisible state of the pure church in the times of the antichristian apostasy; See Gill on Rev_12:6.

Into her place; which was prepared of God for her, as in Rev_12:6;

where she is nourished by the ministers of the word the two witnesses that prophesy in sackcloth who feed the church with knowledge and understanding; with the words of faith and good doctrine,with the Gospel, and the truths of it, which are sweet, comfortable and nutritive; and with the ordinances of the Gospel, the entertainment of Wisdom's house, the feast of fat things, and the breasts of consolation; and with Christ the hidden manna, the food of the wilderness: and that

for a time, and times, and half a time; that is, all the times of antichrist, the forty two months of his reign; during which time the holy city is trodden under foot, and in a desolate and afflicted condition outwardly, as may be learnt by comparing together Dan_7:25 Rev_13:5; and until the end of wonders, or when time shall be no longer or till the seventh angel has sounded his trumpet as appears from Dan_12:7. This date is the same with 1260 days in Rev_12:6, for "time" signifies a prophetic year, or 360 years; and "times" two years, or 720 years; and half a time, half a year, or 180 years, in all 1230 years; and which are to be reckoned, not from the beginning of the church's flight in Constantine's time, or from the Arian persecution, but from her entering into her wilderness state, or entire disappearance upon the prevalence of the antichristian apostasy; which might be when the bishop of Rome took upon him the title of universal bishop: and here and during this time she is hid

from the face of the serpent; that is, from his wrath so as that he cannot utterly destroy her. God having reserved a sealed number for himself; see Rev_6:16, or from the sight of the serpent as the Arabic version renders it, so as that he could not discern with all his quick sight where the church was.

4. JAMES DAVIS, Satan unleashes the forces of all hell upon the church. Then the church is given the wings of a great eagle to enable her to flee to a place of safety in the wilderness that had been prepared for her by God. This is reminiscent of Israel's fleeing to the wilderness under the protective hand of God as she fled from Egypt. This reminds us of Isaiah's promise to the weak and faint. Isaiah 40:28-31 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Like Israel, the church is out of Egypt but not yet in the promised land.

4B. In verse 13 Satan persecuted the woman (he would destroy her if he could) but in verse 14 she is given divine protection. She was given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness and there be nourished during the time of persecution. The expression "bore you on eagles wings" was used in the O.T. as a symbol of divine aid (Ex. 19:4; Deut. 32:11-12). Again, the period of time given in verse 14 is the same as 11:2, 3; 12:6; 13:5 and Dan. 7:25 ("time" one year, "times" two years, and "half a time" half a year--1,260 days, 42 months, or 3 years). This represents an indefinite period of time through which the spiritual remnant would undergo persecution. The serpent cast out of his mouth water as a river after the woman. This stream that the devil cast out is probably a great line of falsehood against God's people (false charges, malicious reports, etc.) and the earth swallowed it. This helped the righteous instead of destroying them. As long as the faithful drink from the fountain of divine truth and the world from the river of Satan's lies, a

separation between them will remain. It is only when Christians begin to compromise with Satan's falsehoods that tragedy results. The devil was furious with the woman when he saw that he failed to sweep her away with his flood and, thus, he turns to make war with the remnant ("rest" ASV) of her seed who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus. The dragon had been defeated in his effort to devour the man child who was caught up to God and His throne. He had failed to sweep away the woman when the earth swallowed up his river of lies. Made furious by these two defeats, he now turns to persecute the woman's other offspring (the New Testament remnant, the saints). As we continue our study in the book of Revelation these saints are assured victory in Christ. We, too, can have victory through Christ (Rom. 8:31-39). DAVID RIGGS

5. JAMISON, “were given — by God’s determinate appointment, not by human chances (Act_9:11).two — Greek, “the two wings of the great eagle.” Alluding to Exo_19:4 : proving that the Old Testament Church, as well as the New Testament Church, is included in “the woman.” All believers are included (Isa_40:30, Isa_40:31). The great eagle is the world power; in Eze_17:3, Eze_17:7, Babylon and Egypt: in early Church history, Rome, whose standard was the eagle, turned by God’s providence from being hostile into a protector of the Christian Church. As “wings” express remote parts of the earth, the two wings may here mean the east and west divisions of the Roman empire.wilderness — the land of the heathen, the Gentiles: in contrast to Canaan, the pleasant and glorious land. God dwells in the glorious land; demons (the rulers of the heathen world, Rev_9:20; 1Co_10:20), in the wilderness. Hence Babylon is called the desert of the sea, Isa_21:1-10 (referred to also in Rev_14:8; Rev_18:2). Heathendom, in its essential nature, being without God, is a desolate wilderness. Thus, the woman’s flight into the wilderness is the passing of the kingdom of God from the Jews to be among the Gentiles (typified by Mary’s flight with her child from Judea into Egypt). The eagle flight is from Egypt into the wilderness. The Egypt meant is virtually stated (Rev_11:8) to be Jerusalem, which has become spiritually so by crucifying our Lord. Out of her the New Testament Church flees, as the Old Testament Church out of the literal Egypt; and as the true Church subsequently is called to flee out of Babylon (the woman become an harlot, that is, the Church become apostate) [Auberlen].her place — the chief seat of the then world empire, Rome. The Acts of the Apostles describe the passing of the Church from Jerusalem to Rome. The Roman protection was the eagle wing which often shielded Paul, the great instrument of this transmigration, and Christianity, from Jewish opponents who stirred up the heathen mobs. By degrees the Church had “her place” more and more secure, until, under Constantine, the empire became Christian. Still, all this Church-historical period is regarded as a wilderness time, wherein the Church is in part protected, in part oppressed, by the world power, until just before the end the enmity of the world power under Satan shall break out against the Church worse than ever. As Israel was in the wilderness forty years, and had forty-two stages in her journey, so the Church for forty-two months, three and a half years or times [literally, seasons, used for years in Hellenistic Greek (Moeris, the Atticist), Greek, “kairous,” Dan_7:25; Dan_12:7], or 1260 days (Rev_12:6) between the overthrow of Jerusalem and the coming again of Christ, shall be a wilderness sojourner before she reaches her millennial rest (answering to Canaan of old). It is possible that, besides this Church-historical fulfillment, there may be also an ulterior and narrower fulfillment in the restoration of Israel to Palestine, Antichrist for seven times (short periods analogical to the longer ones) having power there, for the former three and a half times keeping covenant with the Jews, then breaking it in the midst of the week, and the mass of the nation fleeing by a second Exodus into the wilderness, while a remnant remains in the land exposed to a fearful persecution (the “144,000 sealed of Israel,” Rev_7:1-8; Rev_14:1, standing with the Lamb, after the conflict is over, on Mount Zion: “the first-fruits” of a large company to be gathered to Him) [De Burgh]. These details are very conjectural. In Dan_7:25; Dan_12:7, the subject, as perhaps here, is the time of Israel’s calamity. That seven times do not necessarily mean seven years, in which each day is a year, that is, 2520 years, appears from Nebuchadnezzar’s seven times (Dan_4:23), answering to Antichrist, the beast’s duration.

6. PULPIT“And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle. "The two wings of the great

eagle" is found in most authorities, though à omits both the articles. The symbol of the eagle is a common one in the Old Testament, and this may account for the presence of the article. The escape of the Jewish Church from the power of Pharaoh, and her preservation in the wilderness, are referred to under a like figure (see Exo_19:4; Deu_32:11, "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself"). The natural enmity between the eagle and the serpent is alluded to by Wordsworth (Wordsworth, in loc., where see a full exposition of the symbolism here employed). "The two wings" may typify the Old and New Testaments, by the authority of which the Church convicts her adversaries, and by which she is supported during her period of conflict with the devil. That she might fly into the wilderness, into her place. The reference to the flight of Israel from Egypt is still carried on. "Her place" is the "place prepared of God" (Rev_12:6). The Church, though in the world, is not of the world (see on Rev_12:6). Where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. Still the history of Israel is borne in mind. As the chosen people were nourished in the wilderness, so the Church of God is sustained in her pilgrimage on earth. The redundant dp?? e??e?? , "where there," follows the analogy of the Hebrew (see on Rev_12:6). "The time, times, and half a time," is the period elsewhere described as 42 months, 1260 days, 3.5 years. It denotes the period of the existence of this world (see on Rev_11:2). The expression is taken from Dan_7:25; Dan_12:7. By this verse and Dan_12:6 is established the identity of the two expressions—1260 days, and the time, times, and half a time (i.e.one year + two years + half a year). The plural ?a????´ is used for "two times," as no dual occurs in the Greek of the New Testament. The construction, "nourished from the face" ( t?e´feta? a?p?` p??s?´p?? t??? ??´fe?? ), is built upon the analogy of the Hebrew. The "serpent" is the "dragon" of Dan_12:13 (cf. Dan_12:9, "the great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan"). The two words are used as convertible terms (cf. verse 17, where he is again called "the dragon").

15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water

like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her

away with the torrent.

1.BARNES, “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood - This is special and uncommon imagery, and it is not necessary to suppose that anything like this literally occurs in nature. Some serpents are indeed said to eject from their mouths poisonous bile when they are enraged, in order to annoy their pursuers; and some sea monsters, it is known, spout forth large quantities of water; but the representation here does not seem to be taken from either of those cases. It is the mere product of the imagination, but the sense is clear. The woman is represented as having wings, and as being able thus to escape from the serpent. But, as an expression of his wrath, and as if with the hope of destroying her in her flight by a deluge of water, he is represented as pouring a flood from his mouth, that he might, if possible, sweep her away. The figure here would well represent the continued malice of the papal body against the true church, in those dark ages when it was sunk in obscurity, and, as it were, driven out into the desert. That malice never slumbered, but was continually manifesting itself in some new form, as if it were the purpose of papal Rome to sweep it entirely away.That he might cause her to be carried away of the flood - Might cause the church wholly to be destroyed. The truth taught is, that Satan leaves no effort untried to destroy the church.

2. CLARKE, “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood - The water here evidently means great multitudes of nations and peoples; for in Rev_17:15, the interpreting angel says, The waters which thou sawest - are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. This water, then, which the dragon cast out of his mouth, must be an inundation of heathen barbarous nations

upon the Roman empire; and the purpose which the dragon has in view by this inundation is, that he might cause the woman, or Christian Church: - To be carried away of the flood - Entirely swept away from the face of the earth. Dr. Mosheim, in the commencement of his second chapter upon the fifth century, observes “that the Goths, the Heruli, the Franks, the Huns, and the Vandals, with other fierce and warlike nations, for the most part strangers to Christianity, had invaded the Roman empire, and rent it asunder in the most deplorable manner. Amidst these calamities the Christians were grievous, nay, we may venture to say the principal, sufferers. It is true these savage nations were much more intent upon the acquisition of wealth and dominion than upon the propagation or support of the pagan superstitions, nor did their cruelty and opposition to the Christians arise from any religious principle, or from an enthusiastic desire to ruin the cause of Christianity; it was merely by the Instigation of the pagans who remained yet in the empire, that they were excited to treat with such severity and violence the followers of Christ.” Thus the wo which was denounced, Rev_12:12, against the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea, came upon the whole Roman world; for, in consequence of the excitement and malicious misrepresentations of the pagans of the empire, “a transmigration of a great swarm of nations” came upon the Romans, and ceased not their ravages till they had desolated the eastern empire, even as far as the gates of Byzantium, and finally possessed themselves of the western empire. “If,” says Dr. Robertson, in the introduction to his History of Charles V., vol. i., pp. 11, 12, edit. Lond. 1809, “a man was called to fix upon the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most calamitous and afflicted, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Theodosius the Great to the establishment of the Lombards in Italy, a period of one hundred and seventy-six years. The contemporary authors who beheld that scene of desolation, labor and are at a loss for expressions to describe the horror of it. The scourge of God, the destroyer of nations, are the dreadful epithets by which they distinguish the most noted of the barbarous leaders; and they compare the ruin which they had brought on the world to the havoc occasioned by earthquakes, conflagrations, or deluges, the most formidable and fatal calamities which the imagination of man can conceive.” But the subtle design which the serpent or dragon had in view, when he vomited out of his mouth a flood of waters, was most providentially frustrated; for: -

3. GILL, “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood,.... Which cannot design any persecution before the fall of Paganism, either of the Jews, or of the Romans; nor indeed the Arian persecution, since the casting out of this flood is distinguished from the above persecution, and was after the church began to flee upon that persecution; though it is not unusual for wicked persecutors, and violent persecutions, to be expressed by waters, and they are called proud waters, Psa_124:1; and these may be said to be cast out of the mouth of the serpent, the devil, who was a persecutor and a murderer from the beginning, and by whom all persecutors and persecutions are instigated, moved, and carried on; but rather, as the words of a man's mouth are as deep waters, Pro_18:4; and doctrines, good or bad, may be so called; that flood of errors and heresies, which were poured in between the times of Constantine and the rise of antichrist may be here intended; such as the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ; the Nestorian heresy, which divided his person; and the Eutychian heresy, which confounded the two natures in him; and the Macedonian heresy, which took away the deity of the Holy Ghost; and the Pelagian heresy, which destroyed the grace of God, and set up the power of man's free will: and this flood of errors and heresies may be truly said to be cast out of the serpent's mouth; since the old serpent, the devil, is the father of all lies, and errors: and the above heresies are the doctrines of devils, and damnable ones; and were designed by Satan to destroy the souls of men, and ruin the church: though since this flood followed upon the Arian persecution, and was after the church began to flee, being supported and secured by the two divisions of the empire, eastern and western, the wings of the Roman eagle, it seems best by this flood to understand the irruption of the barbarous nations, which quickly followed that division; the Goths, Huns, Vandals, Heruli, Alans, and Lombards, who were poured into the western empire, and overran, and at last destroyed it; so that this flood is contemporary with the first four trumpets; after which followed the swarms of locusts, the Saracens, which infested, teased, and tormented the "eastern" empire; and after them the Turks, the four angels bound at the great river Euphrates, were let loose, and like a mighty torrent overflowed, and utterly destroyed it; and all this was done at the instigation of Satan, he being filled with wrath, because the empire was become Christian, and his view was to

destroy the church in it: for this flood was cast

after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood; along with the empire, and be no more; but his designs were frustrated, and he disappointed; so people, nations, and tongues, are compared to waters in Rev_17:15; see Isa_8:7, which the Targum interprets of the armies of much people.

4. GLENN, “God once took out the evil people with a flood and now the devil is going to try it against God's people. He vomits a raging river to sweep the church away. This is a river of malicious accusation and destructive teaching that has flooded the world from the very beginning and does to this day. Satan tries to destroy the church by means of slander and false doctrine.

4B. Rev. Michael Furey, "Here Satan spews floods of lies against God's people. The big lie is one of the main concerns of philosophy called theodicy. The spirit of the antichrist is already in control of many with this strategy based on the wisdom of the senses. Satan loves to make God look bad and logic is one of the tools from his warchest. He casts doubt on the goodness of God. After all if God is almighty and good, why should there be suffering at all? Why doesn't the loving and powerful God as claimed by religion stop the starvation of infants and other insane injustices around us? This is the hardest question ever asked. It is based on reason, logic, and the senses. We need a revelation from above, from beyond our intellectual capacity to understand the answer. We need faith that God is good. The world is full of pain and suffering, and it is because of evil. I do not have to prove to you that evil exists. The Bible doesn't even try to prove that. What the Bible does show us is that good and evil are diametrically opposite. But they are not equal at all. The devil is not the opposite of God. The devil is not a god, although scripture may refer to him as the god of this world in the sense that he has a lot of worshippers called the children of darkness and in the sense that scripture calls a human "god" because he or she has reasoning faculties like God. The devil is not a god, but a leech. He is a parasite that sucks the good out of living things. The devil and evil could not exist on their own. They can only destroy and tear down. Evil can build no kingdom, but only latch on to one that already exists. Again, one question that disturbs thinking people is how could an almighty and good God give room to such an evil devil if he is truly the Almighty Lord? Incredibly, John doesn't even consider the question. Instead, he begins with the reality that faith is necessary in this world. Yes, this world is evil. Somehow we find a serpentine satan in the garden of Eden. How did he get there? The Bible does not say. The creep is just there. And we can't explain why bad things happen to us except to say that these bad things are just there. The devil pops up on a tree in Genesis and we find the war of good and evil beginning in primal history. As far back as humanity goes, the holy war goes. Revelation tells us that the reality of antigodly power and might exists, but that this power will end in Jesus Christ. God is waging a war against evil. He could end it now, but his purposes are beyond our knowing, except that evil will end and the future is clear. We are struggling and that struggle will not last forever. Before the struggles end, things will get worse. The holy war isn't over. Be ready to stay faithful when evil pursues you. It will pursue you. But, so will God's grace. Maintain this perspective in escaping the clutches of the pursuing dragon. Satan's primary weapon has always been slandering reputations and dividing relationships. The root of all the evil that exists is a lie that twists relationships among persons and their relationship with God. Satan is all out to destroy those who obey God's commandments, a technical term for Jewish Christians, and those who hold to the testimony of Jesus, a technical term for Gentile Christians. Satan the slanderer is not only busy making God look bad, he is trying to destroy any witness we have as believers. The devil loves to chew us up in the grinds of gossip, so Christians live right and don't give the wicked one any thing to use. Here the earth swallows up the flood of lies. There is no basis for Satan's lies and God disposes them into the belly of the earth where they fall into the abyss of hell where they belong."

5. JAMISON, “flood — Greek, “river” (compare Exo_2:3; Mat_2:20; and especially Exo_14:1-31). The flood, or river, is the stream of Germanic tribes which, pouring on Rome, threatened to destroy Christianity. But the earth helped the woman, by swallowing up the flood. The earth, as contradistinguished from water, is the world consolidated and civilized. The German masses were brought under the influence of Roman civilization and Christianity [Auberlen]. Perhaps it includes also, generally, the help given by earthly powers (those least likely, yet led by God’s overruling

providence to give help) to the Church against persecutions and also heresies, by which she has been at various times assailed.

6. PULPIT, “And the serpent cast out of his month water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood; cast out of his mouth after the woman water as a river \ carried away by the river. A flood, in the Old Testament, has several significations. It frequently expresses overwhelming misfortune. Thus Psa_69:15, "Let not the waterflood overflow me;" Psa_90:5, "Thou carriest them away as with a flood" (cf. also Dan_9:26; Dan_11:22;Isa_59:19; Jer_46:7; Amo_9:5, etc.). The flood is typical of every form of destruction with which the devil seeks to overwhelm the Church of God. At the period of the writing of the Apocalypse, it plainly symbolized the bitter persecutions to which Christians were subjected; but its meaning need not be limited to this one form of destruction. Thus all those writers are correct, so far as they go, who interpret the flood of the Mohammedan power, of heresy, of the Gothic invasion, etc.

7. BURKITT, “Two things are here observable: a new danger, Rev_12:15 a renewed succour, Rev_12:16.

Observe, 1. A new danger; this is set forth, 1. By the author of it, the serpent; the former attempt against the church was managed by the wrathful dragon, this is contrived by the subtle serpent: open cruelty is more dreadful, but subtle policy is more dangerous: the cunning devil is a more dangerous: the cunning devil is a more mischievous enemy to the church of Christ than the raging devil; subtle Julian did the church more mischief than bloody Nero or Dioclesian.

Learn hence, That what mischief Satan cannot effect by open curelty, he will attempt against the church by subtle policy; when he fails as a dragon, he will try what he can do as a serpent.

2. Observe the matter as well as the author of this danger: The serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood, that is, a flood of errors, heresies, false doctrines, and corrupt opinions, cast out of the mouth of the corrupting seducers, endangering the very essence and being of the church of Christ, particularly the Arian heresy, which prodigiously overspread the world in its time. Heresy may fitly be compared to a flood; it is a corrupting and defiling flood, it is a swelling and increasing flood, it is a drowning and overwhelming flood.

Learn hence, That the serpent's flood of errors and false doctrines, is the worst and chiefest of the church's dangers. The serpent cast out a flood to carry away the woman.

Observe, 3. The church's seasonable relief and succour: The earth helped the woman by opening her mouth, and swallowing up the flood, which the dragon cast out of his mouth; by the earth some understand earthly ones, wicked men, who are said to help the woman, not intentionally, but eventually, by their greedy swallowing down those errors which come out of the dragon's mouth, hearkening to his lies, and believing his errors for truth's; others by the earth understand the kings and rulers of the earth understand the kings and rulers of the earth, helping the woman, by calling synods and councils to stem the tide, to dam this flood, and to condemn these errors and heresies, which by their overflowing endangered the church's ruin: the devil raised four abominable errors presently after the church had obtained peace, and there was a great concurrence of magistrates and ministers in confuting, censuring, and condemning the same, in and by their councils and synods.

1. The heresy of Arius, who denied the divinity of Christ, this was condemned by the council of Nice, called by Constantine.

2. The heresy of Macedonius, who denied the personality of the Holy Ghost, condemned by a council at Constantinople, called by Theodosius the First.

3. The heresy of Nestorius, who asserted that Christ had two persons, as well as two natures, condemned by a council at Ephesus, called by Theodosius the Second.

4. The heresy of Eutyches, who confounded Christ's natures, making him to have but one nature, as well as to be but one person; this was condemned by the council of Chalcedon: thus the earth helped the woman; these four councils tended very much to the maintaining of the truth, and preserving the church from that flood of error and heresy which the dragon cast out of his mouth.

Observe lastly, The dragon's rage, Rev_12:17. He was wroth with the woman, and made war with the remnant of her seed, that is, he was greatly enraged because the woman was extraordinarily helped, and his designs wonderfully disappointed: and when he saw he could not ruin the whole church, he resolves to attack some particular members of it, even such as keep the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Christ; that is, those who kept close to the scriptures, which contain the doctrine of faith, and testify that Christ is the only Saviour of the world.

Now from the dragon's making war with the remnant of the woman's seed, we learn how insatiable the blood-thirstiness of Satan and his instruments is, who when they had killed the witnesses before, and many others, yet can they not rest until they have killed this little remnant, and made themselves drunk with the blood of the saints; and never let Protestants expect any other or any better usage at the hands of Romanists, with whom this is a certain principle, that heretics in a nation are to be extirpated, root and branch, where it may safely be done; that is, when they are not too numerous, and the loss of one of our lives may not cost two of their own.

If any say that Papists are now become better natured, by being under the restraint of our laws, I wish them that they may never be tempted out of their humanity by advantages of power; and as Almighty God has once more delivered the neck of this nation from the pinchings of the Anti-christian yoke, may our sins never provoke him more to deliver us into the hands of those men, whose tender mercies are cruel. Amen.

16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its

mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon

had spewed out of his mouth.

1.BARNES, “And the earth helped the woman - The earth seemed to sympathize with the woman in her persecutions, and to interpose to save her. The meaning is, that a state of things would exist in regard to the church thus driven into obscurity, which would be well represented by what is here said to occur. It was cut off from human aid. It was still in danger; still persecuted. In this state it was nourished from some unseen source. It was enabled to avoid the direct attacks of the enemy, and when he attacked it in a new form, a new mode of intervention in its behalf was granted, as if the earth should open and swallow up a flood of water. We are not, therefore, to look for any literal fulfillment of this, as if the earth interposed in some marvelous way to aid the church. The sense is, that, in that state of obscurity and solitude, the divine interposition was manifested, in an unexpected manner, as if, when an impetuous stream was rolling along that threatened to sweep everything away, a chasm should suddenly open in the earth and absorb it. During the dark ages many such interventions occurred, saving the church from utter destruction. Overflowing waters are often in the Scriptures an emblem of mighty enemies. Psa_124:2-5, “if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us; then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: then the waters had

overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul: then the proud waters had gone over our soul.” Psa_18:16, “he sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.” Jer_47:2, “behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land,” etc. Compare Jer_46:7-8, and notes on Isa_8:7-8.And the earth opened her mouth - A chasm was made sufficient to absorb the waters. That is, John saw that the church was safe from this attack, and that, in order to preserve it, there was an interposition as marked and wonderful as if the earth should suddenly open and swallow up a mighty flood.

2. CLARKE, “The earth helped the woman - “Nothing, and indeed,” as Bishop Newton excellently observes, “was more likely to produce the ruin and utter subversion of the Christian Church than the irruptions of so many barbarous nations into the Roman empire. But the event proved contrary to human appearance and expectation: the earth swallowed up the flood; the barbarians were rather swallowed up by the Romans, than the Romans by the barbarians; the heathen conquerors,instead of imposing their own, submitted to the religion of the conquered Christians; and they not only embraced the religion, but affected even the laws, the manners, the customs, the language, and the very name, of Romans, so that the victors were in a manner absorbed and lost among the vanquished.” See his Dissertations on the Prophecies, in loc.

3. GILL, “And the earth helped the woman,.... By opening itself, and taking in what the serpent cast out, so that it could not reach the woman, and annoy her, as follows:

and the earth opened her mouth; as it did when it swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Num_16:30; to which history this may have some respect:

and swallowed up the flood which the dragon east out of his mouth; if the flood refers to the Arian persecution, then the earth helping the woman, the church, and swallowing up this flood, may respect the Goths, who broke into the Roman provinces, under their king, Athanaricus, and fell upon the Arians, with great rage and cruelty, and infested the Roman provinces, which were nearer; they seized upon Thrace, which was the occasion of tranquillity to the orthodox; for Valens being moved by these things, desisted from persecuting them, and, leaving Antioch, he went to Constantinople to form measures for the carrying on of the war against the Goths (a); and thus the earth helped the woman. But if, by the flood, the errors and heresies of those times are meant, then the councils may be intended by the earth; which, though they consisted of men that were earthly, and greatly apostatized in other things, yet opposed, refuted, and condemned these heresies and errors, and so were the means of preserving the church from them, as some think; though others are of opinion that the barbarous nations are in this also designed, who embracing Arianism, and the corrupt religion, where they came, by which they were, in, some measure, mollified and reconciled to the Christians, did not seek to root them out, and destroy them, as Satan hoped they would; but since they themselves, with the Mahometans, are meant by the flood, the earth must be interpreted of the corrupt and antichristian church, the idolaters which sustained the force of this inundation, and for some time repelled it, and so secured the true church; and when the western empire was overrun by it, as by the Goths, &c. idolaters, earthly minded men, and carnal professors, were the sufferers, and bore the shock of it; and when the eastern empire was overrun by the Saracens, the tormenting locusts, the green things, grass and trees, were not hurt by them; none of the sealed ones, only those who were not sealed, Rev_9:4; and the Turkish inundation was a scourge upon the antichristian party: so that it was the earth, or earthly part of professors, the idolaters, that bore the fury and force of this flood, and broke it off from the church. And so sometimes wicked men are helpful to the saints, as the Philistines were serviceable to David, to screen him from the fury of Saul; and Lysias, the chief captain, and Felix and Festus, Roman governors, were instruments of preserving the Apostle Paul from falling into the hands of the Jews, his enemies; and the Christians that were scattered by the persecution at Jerusalem found refuge and safety among the Gentiles.

4. HENRY, “. The seasonable help provided for the church in this dangerous juncture: The earth

helped the woman, and opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood, Rev_12:16. Some think we are to understand the swarms of Goths and Vandals that invaded the Roman empire, and found work for the Arian rulers, who otherwise would have been as furious persecutors as the pagan had been, and had exercised great cruelties already; but God opened a breach of war, and the flood was in a manner swallowed up thereby, and the church enjoyed some respite. God often sends the sword to avenge the quarrel of his covenant; and, when men choose new gods, then there is danger of war in the gates; intestine broils and contentions often end in the invasions of a common enemy. 4. The devil, being thus defeated in his designs upon the universal church, now turns his rage against particular persons and places; his malice against the woman pushes him on to make war with the remnant of her seed. Some think hereby are meant the Albigenses, who were first by Dioclesian driven up into barren and mountainous places, and afterwards cruelly murdered by popish rage and power, for several generations; and for no other reason than because they kept the commandments of God and held the testimony of Jesus Christ. Their fidelity to God and Christ, in doctrine, worship, and practice, was that which exposed them to the rage of Satan and his instruments; and such fidelity will expose men still, less or more, to the end of the world, when the last enemy shall be destroyed.

5.SBC, “Science and the Church.The "woman" mentioned here is a symbol of the New Testament Church. She is represented as pursued by the devil, who ejects from his mouth a river of water after her. Just then the earth opens; the deluge is swallowed up, so the woman is saved. Hence we can catch from so rapidly flitting a vision at least as much as this welcome proposition: nature is on the side of genuine religion; science is ready now to be helpful to the Church when it needs succour.I. Note the somewhat ungenerous way in which the woman has been treating the earth in modern times. There is a violence of prejudice in the minds of many of God’s people which is almost inexplicable. God is not going to suffer the kingdom of grace to be overthrown by contradictions that men will discover in the kingdom of nature; He is King in both kingdoms, and Christ once said that even Beelzebub could not stand divided against himself.II. Note a few of the forms of actual help which natural science of every sort has already furnished, thus exhibiting its real friendliness. We notice (1) its answer to what have been termed the unconscious prophecies of the Bible. (2) Science gives a constant rebuke to impertinent cavils which petulant objectors are in the habit of urging. (3) Science exemplifies its friendship for the Church in the illustration of difficult doctrines which it furnishes. (4) Science offers a reconciliation of the paradoxes of reason and faith in the Scriptures. (5) Science offers positive help in the interpretation of obscure passages in the word itself.C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts, p. 35.

6. PULPIT, “And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth; swallowed up the river (Revised Version). "The earth" frequently, but not invariably, in the Revelation signifies "the wicked." It is doubtful, therefore, how far the figure here employed should be pressed. What is certain is that the writer intends to express the idea that the Church is preserved in a wonderful and even miraculous way from the efforts of the devil. Further than this we cannot proceed safely. Possibly we may see in the passage an allusion to the world embracing Christianity, by which the instrument of Satan's ill will became a defence to the Church; though an earlier period and earlier deliverances seem more likely to be intended (such as the conversion of St. Paul); for after endeavouring to destroy the woman at one stroke, the dragon proceeds to war with her seed. The words recall another incident in the history of the Israelitish flight from Egypt and sojourn in the wilderness, viz. that of the destruction of Korah and his company; though, of course, the nature of the incidents is not the same in both cases.

7. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “The earth helped the woman.

The help of the earth

I. Some illustrations of this help. How the earth has rendered help to God’s people sometimes by--

1. Its wide extent. The primeval going forth of Abram, the father of the faithful, from Ur of the Chaldees, was in all probability owing to the discomfort, distress, and may be actual danger, for one who had renounced idolatry as he had, should he live any longer in an idolatrous land. And so he went far away westward into the land God showed him. And the Exodus was another going forth into a far-off land, that the people might worship God as they could not do in Egypt. Pharaoh would not let the people go, but God compelled him, and the colonisation of Palestine by Israel, and all that followed from that, was the result.

2. The division of the earth into separate states and kingdoms has been another great help to the Church of God in her days of distress. Egypt was a refuge for the infant Christ when Herod would have put Him to death. One of the most awful results of the wide-spread Roman Empire was that its law--which in its evil days was but the will of the reigning emperor, and he too often one of the vilest of men--ran everywhere, and shut off all retreat from its oppression. Its agents met the fugitive on every shore, till the world became one vast prison-house for the oppressed. The shattering, therefore, of that empire, and its division into separate states, were a vast relief for mankind, of which the Church of God often took advantage in her days of trouble. That the rule of that red dragon, like Herod, could not pass beyond the limits of Judaea, was a blessing that Joseph and the mother of our Lord were quick to avail themselves of by fleeing into Egypt. And what a thrilling story of the earth’s helping the people of God has been the result of--

3. The earth’s varied surface and form. From the days when David clambered up the rocky steeps of the mountains of Judea, and hid himself from Saul in inaccessible caves and fastnesses, in secret places on the mountain sides, and amid their frost-covered summits--places known only to himself and his trusty followers--from those days right down to the days when the Waldenses and the Christians of Piedmont found shelter from the murderous might of Papal Rome--more fierce and dragon-like than even Pagan Rome--amid Alpine snows and crags and cliffs, whither the blood-stained hand of their adversaries could not reach them, though they often tried. Well did the earth’s mountain fortresses help God’s people then. Nor may we overlook--

4. The earth’s natural phenomena. The ten plagues of Egypt were but intensified forms of such phenomena, as any one resident long enough in that ancient land will know. The dividing of the Red Sea was by “a strong east wind.” The defeat of the Spanish Armada, like the pestilence which slew the Assyrian army that threatened Hezekiah and his city and people--what were these but earth’s phenomena, bidden of God to go to the help of His people, as assuredly they did? And how often have--

5. The politics of earth been Used in a similar way. In 303 a.d., an edict was passed, requiring Christians to deliver up their sacred books under pain of death. This was speedily followed by another, dooming all Christian ministers to prison. And that was immediately followed by a third, authorising the inflicting on them the most savage tortures, unless they would sacrifice to the heathen gods. In the year 304, a fourth edict was issued, ordering the magistrates to force all Christians to offer sacrifices to the gods, and to employ all sorts of torment if they refused. But relief was at hand. In the year 306 Constantine rose to power, and soon after to imperial power. In the year 313 liberty was proclaimed to the Christians, “and in the year 324 the Emperor publicly declared himself a Christian.” Thus did the great earthly power of Rome help the people of God by swallowing up for ever the pagan and long-persisted-in persecution, which had been designed to overwhelm them in its full, fierce-flowing flood.

6. Nor have the passions of earth played an unimportant part in this same helping of God’s people. God “maketh the wrath of man to praise Him”; and not man’s wrath only, but his avarice, and at times even baser passions still. As when that sensual Persian tyrant, for the sake of Esther, hurled down the party of Haman and exalted that of Mordecai. And our own English Henry the Eighth leaned not a little towards the reformed faith because by means of it the beautiful woman he desired might more readily become his. And what a sad and deplorable part did the lust after the Church lands play in persuading the peerage and gentry of that age to pull down the

old Church and put up the new. Granted well-nigh all that can be said against that old Church and for the new, still the dark fact remains that avarice and greed were the governing motives of not a few. And that wild outburst of a nation’s rage, known as the French Revolution, how that availed to put down the cruelties of the Inquisition, and all those tortures whereby the Church of Rome had been wont to force men to acknowledge her sway. And finally--

7. The men of this world--such as the apostle speaks of as “earthly” and worse--then the very children of earth have once and again helped the children of God, the chosen of the Lord. Even Pilate wanted to. And what a list of like unspiritual, worldly men, who yet have proved friends of Christ, the apostolic records furnish--Gallio, Lysias, Festus, Felix, Agrippa, and the centurions and officers of the guard, who were kind to Paul, and stood between him and his enemies. And it has been so ever since. In the life of Lord Shaftesbury, we find him frequently telling how, in one and another of his benevolent but at that time most difficult enterprises, he was helped far more by those who made no profession of religion at all than by not a few of those who did. And to-day, do we not know many who refuse the Christian creed but who will yet do Christian deeds and help Christians therein? And the reason is that God has implanted in man Conscience, the instinctive love of justice and goodness, and hatred of injustice and oppression; and because the Church appeals to these principles she often gets the good will of worldly men, and their practical help and sympathy.

II. Some teachings of this help.

1. How inevitably it will be needed. God’s faithful people being what they are, and Satan being what he is, how can it but be that he should persecute the Church of God?

2. It will surely be forthcoming. All men and all material agencies are ministers of God for good to His people, if He pleases to make them so. And He will do this if need arise.

3. How blessed to be of the number of those for whom God will do this. It is His faithful Church, His true people, for whom He will do this. Are we of their number? (S. Conway, B. A.)

Nature serving Christianity

I. By its grand revelations.

1. There is God. All nature proclaims not only His existence, but His personality, unity, spirituality, wisdom, goodness, power.

2. There is law.

3. There is mediation.

4. There is responsibility.

5. There is mystery.

II. By its moral impressions.

1. Sense of dependence.

2. Reverence.

3. Contrition.

4. Worship.

III. By its multiplied inventions.

1. Merchandise.

2. Press.

3. Painting.

4. Music.

5. Government. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Science and the Church

The “woman” mentioned here is a symbol of the New Testament Church. She is represented as pursued by the devil, who ejects from his mouth a river of water after her. Just then the earth opens; the deluge is swallowed up; so the woman is saved. Hence we catch from so rapidly flitting a vision at least as much as this welcome proposition: Nature is on the side of genuine religion; science is ready now to be helpful to the Church when it needs succour.

I. Hence it might be wise for us, in the first place, to allude to the somewhat ungenerous way in which the woman has been treating the earth in modern times. There is a violence of prejudice in the minds of a great many of God’s people which is almost inexplicable. From the outset they suspect all offers of help from the world of natural research. Now the day has passed for a mere show of bigotry. Whoever considers that his opinions are settled beyond modification is simply a conceited or obstinate debater. Now if skilled philosophers have to be modest in dealing with each other, how much more wary ought the rank and file of mere theologians to be! For they are a class of scholars who do not claim to be experts in the details of the material sciences. Is it not time that religious people recognise the lapse of time and the growth of ages? Some things have come to light which Turretin and Luther and Calvin did not know, or they very likely would never have written what they did. The true prudence for us all would be to welcome aid in any difficult field of labour, no matter whence it comes. A fact is a fact, as a diamond is a diamond, and both are valuable; and it would be sheer waste of time to inquire jealously the colour of the first searcher who found either. There was a day when the gold and silver of Pharaoh’s people went into the heaps of money contributed for building the tabernacle of God in the wilderness; there need be no fear but that all the discoveries of every science in turn, as soon as they have become fixed and tabulated by scientists themselves, will range their valuable brightness where they can best beautify the temple of God’s Word.

II. Now let us seek some few of the forms of actual help which natural science of every sort has already furnished, thus exhibiting its real friendliness.

1. To begin with, let us consider its answer to what have beech termed the “unconscious prophecies” of the Bible.

2. In the second place, the Church has occasion to thank science for its help in giving a constant rebuke to impertinent cavils which petulant objectors are in the habit of urging. Voltaire founded an argument against the truthfulness of the Old Testament upon what he termed the ignorant mistakes of the writer who composed the various books. Among these he instanced the expression of Solomon in the Proverbs, “Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the glass.” Now, said this witty Frenchman, Solomon could not have been the wise man he was reputed to be, or else he would have been fully informed that glass was not known as a substance until long after he was dead; it was invented subsequent to the date of his somewhat fragmentary book. Now science stepped into the controversy, not precisely for the Bible’s sake in that sceptical age, but for its own. Chronology settled that Solomon lived about 1004 B.C. Then a historian proved that glass was in use among the Egyptians far before that time, for he had found pictures of glass-blowing in the ruins of the temples sculptured on the stone slabs. Archaeology followed with an exhibition of a glass signet engraved with a monarch’s name, and dated 1500 b.c.; this was discovered in ancient Thebes. And to this there was added the fact, announced by the expedition just returning from Egypt, that there were glass beads buried with the mummies they began to unroll. At this moment also came in philology to say that Solomon had not in fact mentioned the name of glass at all in his proverb; the original Hebrew word meant “cup,” a mere drinking-vessel of any material; the wise man had warned against wine “when it giveth its colour in the cup.” Thus, again, four distinct sciences in turn took up the contemptible little cavil and silenced it. It seems a waste of energy; but this has often been the result of such a demonstration.

3. Once more: consider science as exemplifying its friendliness for the Church in the illustration of difficult doctrines which it furnishes. It does not matter where we seek for examples. The resurrection of the body, perhaps one of the doctrines of the New Testament the most mysterious, was quite a fresh revelation to the world at large. It is a hard matter of belief to many a perplexed mind now. But it is no harder than the mystery of a tree’s growth from the seed; and this is the figure which the Apostle Paul used for his help in explaining it. There are reserves in science into which the all-wise Creator retires as He does in revelation.

4. In the fourth place, let us be ready to acknowledge the help we receive in the reconciliation which science offers concerning the paradoxes of reason and faith in the Scriptures. We find in the revealed Word the statement that our Maker is “the Light of the world.” Vivid indeed is the illustration offered by optical science just at this point. Here are three primary colours entering in to produce perfect white--the blue, the yellow, and the red. The natural philosopher places before our eyes a broad disk of metal; he paints on it segments of colour in due proportion, running from circumference to centre and ending at a point; then he whirls the disk like a wheel on its axis; the colours disappear, and the metal shines whiter than a silver shield. We cannot understand it; but the fact is the three elements have blended into one whole: three are one, and one is three. Then the lecturer tells us that the red gives off all the heat in the sun’s ray, the yellow spreads all the illumination, the blue effects the chemical changes in living organisms. He says we read by the yellow ray, but we should shiver without the red, and we should wither and die without the blue. They are all needed as colours, and they all work together as one beam of sunlight. Now it is not contended that this is an explanation of the Scriptural doctrine of the trinity of God’s being; but this we do insist upon: whenever cavillers demand scientific reasoning, because they cannot believe what they do not understand, R does seem as if we might wait for them to play their little arithmetical puzzles about three are one and one is three off upon the spectrum before they try them on the Trinity. And we go a single step farther. We cannot help thinking, in view of such astonishing analogies, that it must have been infinite wisdom which said, “God is light.”

5. Finally, let us consider the friendliness of science as manifested in the positive help which it offers in the interpretation of obscure passages in the Word itself. Think of the helpfulness of Layard’s discoveries at Nineveh to the students in explaining the books of Jonah and Nahum. So of the other forgotten cities and empires; we are to read concerning the fall of Tyre, the overthrow of Egypt, the extinction of Edom, the destruction of Babylon, in the light of late investigations of the ruins in those lands, all made in the interest of science. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

The earth helps the woman

The names of worldly-minded subscribers to religious societies prove how greatly the earth helps the woman. (W. Wayte Andrew, M. A.)

The dragon \ went to make war with the remnant.

War against the remnant

1. We see that the dragon’s wrath against the woman breaks out in war: which shows us, that even so wrath or any sin harboured in the heart, will at last break forth in action. Cain.

2. We see who is the principal author of the bloody wars and massacres that have been in sundry nations.

3. It is said that he went to make war with the remnant of her seed: to show us hereby the insatiable blood-thirstiness of Satan and his instruments: who, when they had killed the Lord’s witnesses and so many more, yet cannot rest till in like manner they have killed the remnant.

4. This seed of the woman is described from keeping of the commandments of God, and having the testimony of Jesus Christ: by this mark, therefore, let us try ourselves if we be of this number who are the members of Christ’s true Church; to wit, if we hold fast, the profession of the truth constantly, and make our practice or conversation conform thereunto. (Wm. Guild, D. D.)

.

17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman

and went off to wage war against the rest of her

offspring—those who keep God’s commands and

hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

1.BARNES, “Science and the Church.The "woman" mentioned here is a symbol of the New Testament Church. She is represented as pursued by the devil, who ejects from his mouth a river of water after her. Just then the earth opens; the deluge is swallowed up, so the woman is saved. Hence we can catch from so rapidly flitting a vision at least as much as this welcome proposition: nature is on the side of genuine religion; science is ready now to be helpful to the Church when it needs succour.I. Note the somewhat ungenerous way in which the woman has been treating the earth in modern times. There is a violence of prejudice in the minds of many of God’s people which is almost inexplicable. God is not going to suffer the kingdom of grace to be overthrown by contradictions that men will discover in the kingdom of nature; He is King in both kingdoms, and Christ once said that even Beelzebub could not stand divided against himself.II. Note a few of the forms of actual help which natural science of every sort has already furnished,

thus exhibiting its real friendliness. We notice (1) its answer to what have been termed the unconscious prophecies of the Bible. (2) Science gives a constant rebuke to impertinent cavils which petulant objectors are in the habit of urging. (3) Science exemplifies its friendship for the Church in the illustration of difficult doctrines which it furnishes. (4) Science offers a reconciliation of the paradoxes of reason and faith in the Scriptures. (5) Science offers positive help in the interpretation of obscure passages in the word itself.C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts, p. 35.

2. CLARKE, “The earth helped the woman - “Nothing, and indeed,” as Bishop Newton excellently observes, “was more likely to produce the ruin and utter subversion of the Christian Church than the irruptions of so many barbarous nations into the Roman empire. But the event proved contrary to human appearance and expectation: the earth swallowed up the flood; the barbarians were rather swallowed up by the Romans, than the Romans by the barbarians; the heathen conquerors,instead of imposing their own, submitted to the religion of the conquered Christians; and they not only embraced the religion, but affected even the laws, the manners, the customs, the language, and the very name, of Romans, so that the victors were in a manner absorbed and lost among the vanquished.” See his Dissertations on the Prophecies, in loc.

3. GILL, “And the earth helped the woman,.... By opening itself, and taking in what the serpent cast out, so that it could not reach the woman, and annoy her, as follows:

and the earth opened her mouth; as it did when it swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Num_16:30; to which history this may have some respect:

and swallowed up the flood which the dragon east out of his mouth; if the flood refers to the Arian persecution, then the earth helping the woman, the church, and swallowing up this flood, may respect the Goths, who broke into the Roman provinces, under their king, Athanaricus, and fell upon the Arians, with great rage and cruelty, and infested the Roman provinces, which were nearer; they seized upon Thrace, which was the occasion of tranquillity to the orthodox; for Valens being moved by these things, desisted from persecuting them, and, leaving Antioch, he went to Constantinople to form measures for the carrying on of the war against the Goths (a); and thus the earth helped the woman. But if, by the flood, the errors and heresies of those times are meant, then the councils may be intended by the earth; which, though they consisted of men that were earthly, and greatly apostatized in other things, yet opposed, refuted, and condemned these heresies and errors, and so were the means of preserving the church from them, as some think; though others are of opinion that the barbarous nations are in this also designed, who embracing Arianism, and the corrupt religion, where they came, by which they were, in, some measure, mollified and reconciled to the Christians, did not seek to root them out, and destroy them, as Satan hoped they would; but since they themselves, with the Mahometans, are meant by the flood, the earth must be interpreted of the corrupt and antichristian church, the idolaters which sustained the force of this inundation, and for some time repelled it, and so secured the true church; and when the western empire was overrun by it, as by the Goths, &c. idolaters, earthly minded men, and carnal professors, were the sufferers, and bore the shock of it; and when the eastern empire was overrun by the Saracens, the tormenting locusts, the green things, grass and trees, were not hurt by them; none of the sealed ones, only those who were not sealed, Rev_9:4; and the Turkish inundation was a scourge upon the antichristian party: so that it was the earth, or earthly part of professors, the idolaters, that bore the fury and force of this flood, and broke it off from the church. And so sometimes wicked men are helpful to the saints, as the Philistines were serviceable to David, to screen him from the fury of Saul; and Lysias, the chief captain, and Felix and Festus, Roman governors, were instruments of preserving the Apostle Paul from falling into the hands of the Jews, his enemies; and the Christians that were scattered by the persecution at Jerusalem found refuge and safety among the Gentiles.

4. HENRY, “The seasonable help provided for the church in this dangerous juncture: The earth helped the woman, and opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood, Rev_12:16. Some think we are to understand the swarms of Goths and Vandals that invaded the Roman empire, and

found work for the Arian rulers, who otherwise would have been as furious persecutors as the pagan had been, and had exercised great cruelties already; but God opened a breach of war, and the flood was in a manner swallowed up thereby, and the church enjoyed some respite. God often sends the sword to avenge the quarrel of his covenant; and, when men choose new gods, then there is danger of war in the gates; intestine broils and contentions often end in the invasions of a common enemy. 4. The devil, being thus defeated in his designs upon the universal church, now turns his rage against particular persons and places; his malice against the woman pushes him on to make war with the remnant of her seed. Some think hereby are meant the Albigenses, who were first by Dioclesian driven up into barren and mountainous places, and afterwards cruelly murdered by popish rage and power, for several generations; and for no other reason than because they kept the commandments of God and held the testimony of Jesus Christ. Their fidelity to God and Christ, in doctrine, worship, and practice, was that which exposed them to the rage of Satan and his instruments; and such fidelity will expose men still, less or more, to the end of the world, when the last enemy shall be destroyed.

5. JAMISON, “wroth with — Greek, “at.”went — Greek, “went away.”the remnant of her seed — distinct in some sense from the woman herself. Satan’s first effort was to root out the Christian Church, so that there should be no visible profession of Christianity. Foiled in this, he wars (Rev_11:7; Rev_13:7) against the invisible Church, namely, “those who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus” (A, B, and C omit “Christ”). These are “the remnant,” or rest of her seed, as distinguished from her seed, “the man-child” (Rev_12:5), on one hand, and from mere professors on the other. The Church, in her beauty and unity (Israel at the head of Christendom, the whole forming one perfect Church), is now not manifested, but awaiting the manifestations of the sons of God at Christ’s coming. Unable to destroy Christianity and the Church as a whole, Satan directs his enmity against true Christians, the elect remnant: the others he leaves unmolested.

6. PULPIT, “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed; waxed wroth \ went away to make, etc. (Revised Version). Having failed to prevent the mission of' the man child—Christ Jesus—and having been foiled in his attempts to overwhelm the Church of God, Satan proceeds to attack the individual members of the Church—the seed of the woman. The method by which he endeavours to do this is related in the following chapters. Wordsworth points out an analogy between the means which Satan employs to destroy the Church as described here, and those described in the seals. The "rest of her seed" (Revised Version) signifies all the children of the woman, excluding the man child of Rev_12:5. All members of the Church of God are thus referred to, those who are brethren of Christ (cf. Heb_2:11, "For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren"). Which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (nearly all manuscripts omit "Christ"); hold the testimony (Revised Version). This plainly points out who are the "rest of the seed"—they are those who are God's faithful servants. We may see in the description a reference to the Church of God, both Jewish and Christian. The members of the Jewish Church were they to whom "the commandments of God" were specially revealed, and Christians are they who specially "hold the testimony of Jesus." (For an explanation of the latter phrase, see on Rev_1:2.)

We have now reached another stage in the history of the warfare carried on by the devil against God. Rev_12:7-12 of this chapter describe the origin of the hostility of Satan towards God; Rev_12:4 and Rev_12:5 relate the attempts of the devil to destroy Christ and to thwart his mission; Rev_12:13-16 refer to the attacks of Satan upon the Church of God, by which he hoped to destroy it as a whole, before there was time for the "seed" to spring up. Having failed in every attempt, the dragon now sends other agents by whom he hopes to destroy the individual members of the Church—the other seed of the woman—the brethren of Christ.

7. GLENN, “ The devil is no quitter. He is determined and persistent in his revenge. The church can never rest, but ever be on the alert for the enemy is never far away seeking to reek havoc on the body of Christ.

8. Rev. Michael Furey, "Krodel teaches that the message of Revelation is to surrender to the throne of God and not to the throne of evil. To survive any evil that befalls us, we must surrender it to God, especially before the great tribulation breaks out. Many commentaries on Revelation soon fade as their interpretations are made "silly" by hindsight. This commentary will stand the test of time and be applicable a thousand years from now, if the Lord tarries. For instance, sensationalist and popularist Hal Lindsey has had to re-write his intrepretation after twenty years. I recommend studying Hal Lindsey and others like him (Jack Van Impe); their method is to read the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other and make interpretations based on current movements in history. Of course, this interpretive style will date itself rather quickly. Unfortunately, when the audience hears such prophetic preaching it is exciting for them, but sooner or later it is depressing for them when "God's Word" doesn't occur according to the "time table" as so "clearly" stated."

9. God has been very systematic in relating the events concerning the Christian dispensational guidance through this prophecy. We must use His Divine key of symbolic language, if we are to receive the truth of this message. A brief introduction of the events that would come to pass were related through the symbols of the four horsemen. We now receive a more detailed account of these events through the continuing parallel themes of this prophecy. Let us view the connecting link to the White horse of the 1st Sealed Scroll. The Woman in this scene travailing in pain to be delivered is symbolizing the New Testament church. The child represents the new converts to Christ that were birthed by the woman. Isaiah prophesied of this event as he wrote: "Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." (Isa.66:7-8) A holy nation was truly brought forth in a day! The book of Acts records that five thousand people were saved at one time by the preaching of the gospel! The Dragon symbolizes the Pagan Roman Empire ready to devour her child. Paganism killed Christians for their faith as soon as they were "Spiritually born" into the Kingdom of God. The 2nd Scroll told us that the Rider of the Red Horse took peace from the earth and killed with the sword. History has related the severe persecutions that Paganism brought against the Christians in that 1st century. The entire 12th chapter of Revelation is speaking of the "Spiritual" conflict that took place between Christ's people and the Pagan religions of the Roman Empire. The "War in heaven" symbolizes that which is taking place on earth in the church realm. There has never been nor ever will be a war in the Holy Heaven where God dwells! This is a "Spiritual warfare" between Michael (symbolizing Christ's ministry) and the Dragon (symbolizing Pagan forces of Rome) spoken of here in the prophecy. It was the "Word of God" that changed that Pagan society, not a physical war! The scriptures confirm this truth. "And they overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their loved(Rev.12:11) "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And she being great with child, cried, travailing in birth and pain to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born." (Rev.12:1-4) The woman symbolizes the church, which is said to be the Mother of all believers. She is clothed with the sun,which symbolizes the greater light of the New Covenant. Malachi wrote of "The Sun of righteousness that would arise with healing in his wings." This also affirms Christ's ministry through His Bride, the church. She is standing on the moon symbolizing the lesser light of the Old Covenant. The twelve stars in her crown represent the twelve chosen apostles. These symbols complete the Spiritual picture of the birth of Christianity. "Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone."

Footnotes:a. Revelation 12:5 Psalm 2:9New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.