Rev 12:1-17.
  Satan's Losing Battle.

American Journal of Biblical Theology
Copyright © 2007, J.W. Carter     Scripture quotes from KJV

What do you think of when you consider satan and evil? What kind of images come to mind. Most likely, we are overly, and falsely, influenced by images presented in American cinema, and in following such models over-personify satan. One gross example is the reduction of the spiritual forces that are in rebellion to God in the mortal creature, Darth Maul in the Star Wars episode 1. Movies like the Hellraiser series paint the conflict with evil as grossly physical and material using any means possible to scare audiences with images of exploding bodies, gross and ugly creatures, flying debris, etc. The truth is quite different from what these images describe. The scriptures describe satan no less than 120 times, using names such as satan, devil, serpent, evil one, etc. His nature and spiritual substance are quite clear, and though he has power to influence people, his power over Christians is quite limited.

Revelation Chapter-12 begins a two-chapter passage of scripture that introduces the seven great personages of the Revelation who interact in an allegory of the spiritual battle between satan and God, and satan’s ultimate demise. These allegorical personages include:

a. The Woman. 12:1 - 2
b. The Dragon. 12:3 - 4
c. The Man Child. 12:5-6
d. The Archangel Michael. 12:7-16
e. The Remnant. 12:17
f. The Beast out of the Sea. 13:1-8

Parenthesis. 13:9-10

g. The Beast out of the Earth. 13:11-18.

Chapter 12 deals with the first five of these personages, and as the revelation of these five unfolds, we will see a distinct and clear message of hope to those who are struggling in their faith. It is useful to review, at this point, who it is that this struggle is engaged with:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Eph. 6:12.

Though we may think our struggle in this life is against men, and things of this world, the real struggle that man is dealing with is sin and its power to destroy him for eternity. Satan is the author of sin, and in these verses we will receive a glimpse of his character, to whom he is directing his force, and his ultimate defeat. Satan certainly uses his influence upon those who would succumb to ungodly and even evil attitudes and actions, using them to kill, steal, and destroy. When this takes place so much in this world it is easy to conclude that the enemy is made up of those people who kill, steal, and destroy. As long as we engage men as the enemy, satan is unencumbered in his purpose of rebellion against God. Rather than expose the true enemy, and love and teach those whom he has led, Christians often engage in battle against other people, impeding the ministry of grace, forgiveness, and redemption to which Christians are called.

It is also a simple conclusion to miss this very important point when we seek to interpret John’s apocalyptic passages. The enemy is not the people or the physical things of this world, there is only one enemy, and that is the one enemy of God, the one that is personified as satan, the devil. Consequently, the conflict of the Revelation is one between the spiritual force of God and the dominion of the prince of this world. The pictorial vignettes of the Revelation personify the nature and character of the spiritual elements in this conflict as well as three groups of people who are impacted by that conflict. These groups include Israel, the Christian church, and those who are outside of these two groups.

A great and wondrous 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.

The first personage of the seven of chapters 12 and 13 is introduced here. The theological material behind this vision is a primitive myth of the conflict between light and darkness, order and disorder, under the figure of a child born of a sun-goddess, persecuted by a dragon and being finally overthrown. This had been spiritualized into an allegory of the religious history of the Jews and their expectation of a Savior.

This story is similar to a well-known pagan myth that derived from the mythologies of Babylon, Egypt, and Greece. One example of the application of this myth is the birth of the Greek god Apollo, who’s mother was a goddess, clothed with the sun, with her feet on the moon as her footstool, and her crown studded with the twelve signs of the zodiac. In its Jewish form the story is modified to represent the expected birth of the Messiah, the Christ child. The woman is therefore the true Israel. In the Old Testament the spiritual Israel is the spouse of God; in this book and elsewhere in the New Testament, she is the Church under the authority of Jesus Christ. She is the bride of Christ.

Remember that, as we approach the Revelation we are reading symbolic descriptions of the attributes of that which is described. We are not reading literal descriptions. What John understood he described as a great and wondrous sign. What is a sign? It is a pointer, that turns our attention to something else, usually something new. It will be clear from the context of the following verse that the woman represents Israel dating from God’s covenant with Abraham (also see Gen. 17:9-11). Knowing this, the symbolism of the sun, moon, and crown are not that difficult to deduce, particularly when we look at similar references in the Old Testament.

The sun symbolizes glory, and when applied to Israel, Isaiah 60:1-3,20 describes this light as her future glory that will be found in the coming of the Messiah. John sees this glory at a time when there is great conflict in Israel both within and without the body of Christ. The Genesis 17 reference uses the moon to symbolize Jacob and Rachel, the human vehicle through whom God would reveal that glory. From Jacob, who became Israel, came the twelve stars, the nation that came from the twelve sons of Israel who would be called to point the people of the nations to God, and deliver the Messiah to the world. The Messiah is the One who would provide a way to save all people from their true and ultimate defeat to satan and sin.

She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

In what way was the nation of Israel pregnant? The content of the following verses clearly describes the woman as giving birth to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. It was God’s plan that the Messiah would come through Israel, through the lineage of Abraham and King David. However, all the days of Israel, from Abraham to Jesus were filled with pain. Why so? Though loved of God, man was created by Him as a moral creature, with the ability to choose obedience to a God who has revealed Himself, or to rebel against God and follow his own path, the path of sin. God provided the Law to Israel to expose their bent to sin and illuminate their inability to be obedient to God on their own. Though God’s plan of salvation was always by grace through faith (Heb. 11), it was not until the birth of the child, the birth of Jesus, that the power of that law and the agony that accompanied it was ultimately nullified. The law no longer condemns the faithful followers of God, but still convicts those who have not come to God through faith in Jesus. Today they, the lost, still suffer the pain that Israel suffered.

Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads.

The second of the seven personages is introduced to us here. The seven-headed dragon is also familiar in Babylonian mythology, and is referred to as the chaos monster. From the references in Daniel 7:7-8,24 and Revelation 13:1 we see that this dragon represents satan’s control over the world empires. Daniel, in chapters 7 and 8 gives us a lot of help as he presents the same apocalyptic images that are recorded in John’s Revelation, but Daniel specifically describes the powers that these images represent. The heads of the red dragon refer to satans’ complete dominion over the world’s authorities that are firmly seated in his evil camp. The crowns on each of those heads defends his authority over the people of the world. Dan 7:7 and Revelation 13:1 use the number ten to refer to a group of ten world government leaders who, like horns, exercise satan’s power in this world. Finally, the color red is usually used to represent blood. In the context of Jesus it refers to His redemptive act on the cross that brings people to God for eternity. In reference to satan, it refers to his power to kill and destroy, separating people from God for eternity.

How, then, do these verses describe satan? He is a created being, traditionally a rebellious angel, who God has granted authority to exercise his rebellion in the world. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that we have a moral choice to follow God or rebel against Him. The curse is that, though satan only has the power to give us moral options, to follow satan is to spend eternity separated from God, making him the most devastating and insidiously evil power on earth.

His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.

The tail of the dragon casting the stars to earth was originally the explanation of falling stars or other phenomena in the heavens, but in the Jewish form of the myth it refers to the war in heaven (12:7) by which satan is cast down to earth where the woman is. When satan is cast to earth, he does not come alone. With him come the other angels, or demons, that side with him in this great spiritual battle. Hebrew thought is that the tail represents satan’s ability to attract a third of the stars, the league of angels, to come with him as he and they are cast to the earth where they will be able to exercise their rebellion.

The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.

The stage for the spiritual battle is now set. The woman (the church) is about to give birth to the child (the Messiah) after a period of great pain. Satan is now poised for the birth, one specific event in created world history where the greatest battle of satan’s existence would take place. It would be a battle that would determine who would be the champion of the human race. Satan was set to destroy Jesus.

She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.

The third personage is introduced here. The child is undoubtedly the Christ child. The power of darkness cannot destroy him, for he is caught up to God. Only his birth and ascension are mentioned. neither his life or death. But the point is that the dragon is foiled in his attack upon the woman. Some would argue that Herod’s attempt to destroy Jesus by the killing of all Jewish male babies and toddlers is described here. I would take the larger picture because satan was in conflict with Jesus for the entire period of Jesus’ life. We know that satan tried to exercise influence over Jesus in the wilderness immediately prior to Jesus’ period of ministry (Matt. 4:1-11). It was through the horns, the world powers of verse 3, that satan was able to successfully attack Jesus, experiencing what appeared to be for himself a victory in the battle when Jesus died on the cross. However, Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended (snatched up) into heaven at God’s “right hand” and given the authority (iron scepter) to rule all of the nations, an authority that satan was intending upon exercising for himself (as he was doing during the writing of the Revelation and still does today.)

The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

John’s contemporary church is very familiar with the concept of being cared for in the desert. Following the exodus out of Egypt, God cared for the wandering nation as he led them to the promised land. The period of 1260 days, or “time, times, and half a time” (Revelation 12:14), is a Hebrew idiom that refers to a period of three and one-half years, half of seven. This also refers to a period of time that will be comparatively short, and will end before God completes His purpose. During this time, God will care for her. The first-century church considered its own experience of persecution as taking place during this time. Though the church is still experiencing difficulties, God is taking care of it Consequently, any argue that we are still in that 1,260 days today. The point of the idiom is that this period will not last forever, and it will end before God has fully completed His purpose for it.

And there was war in heaven.

The stage for this conflict was set up in verses 1 through 4 as the evil one is poised to destroy the influence of the Messiah among the spirits of men. The concept of war in heaven sounds contradictory to our concepts of what heaven is, but we may not really give a lot of consideration of what heaven was like prior to the rapture and the end of the age of grace. We may even recall that the Ephesian battle lines drawn in 6:12 include “heavenly places” as part of the current battlefield. This passage does not speak of war in the terms of weapons and violence. It is referring to the epic struggle of ideologies as they refer to allegiance to God. However, this is not to say that collateral damage in this war does not take place on this physical earth, as the exercise of evil on this earth is the basis and motive for all of its hatred and violence. The ideological conflict in heaven translates to physical war on this earth. This physical, earthly influence for chaos and war is described by the metaphor of the horns of the dragon (Daniel 7) as world governments lead its people to war and death. It is interesting to observe who the real participants are in this conflict.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. ⁸But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. ⁹The 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.

The fourth personage is identified here. Michael was the patron angel of Israel and so of the true Israel. (see Dan 10:13, 21, 12:1). There were two traditions about satan: one that he had been hurled from heaven at the beginning as Lucifer (Enoth 29:4-5), the other that he had his place in heaven in historic times (Job 1:6-7). This latter view presupposes God’s ability to communicate with satan while on earth, and leads to the belief that satan's overthrow from heaven is the first of the last great struggles between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of satan. The fact that he has been cast down from heaven (vs. 9) identifies that evil is already defeated; the most important and first stage in satan's conquest as been already achieved (Lk 18:18, John 12:31).

Note that the conflict is described as taking place between angels. This fuels the Frank Paretti novels that describe angels and demons in mortal combat (a bit inconsistent with their immortal properties. Also Paretti’s angels are empowered by the prayers of the people rather than the power of God.) If satan had been taking on God Himself, there would have been no conflict since satan is powerless to defeat God. Satan can be defeated in the life of a Christian simply by a Spirit-led rebuke. Satan is powerless when confronted with the Holy Spirit. He only has power over people when they give it to him. When they do, they are led astray of God’s purpose.

We see that satan and his angels (or demons) are cast out of heaven where they now exercise their schemes in the world, the cosmos. Though the English word, earth, is used here, it could just as accurately translated as the created universe, the cosmos. If humans were to get in a spaceship and produce a colony on another planet, the same conflict and need for redemption would be found there. (Consider the thesis of M. Night Shyamalan’s film, “The Village.”)

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

The dragon and the serpent and satan are all identical here, described as the “accuser of our brothers.” Originally the serpent was personified as a dragon that is hostile to God and man. As an angel, satan was one of God's regents who's duty it was to act the part of a public prosecutor (Zech 3:1-2) or of a heavenly detective (Job 1:6-2:10). Gradually the idea of the tempter and enemy of man developed, partly through Persian influence (1 Cor 21:1), and in the New Testament it is satan's very personage.

It is implied here that Christ’s authority is established throughout all heaven when satan was expelled, setting up the ultimate conflict for the souls of man that would follow. Therefore, as John’s readers are themselves experiencing persecution, they are reminded that Christ is still the One in authority. The currency of this message is clear by the use of “our brothers.” Satan may have the power to act through ungodly people to make their lives miserable, but he is powerless to impact the eternal soul of the faithful believer. That security is one that no man nor demon can ever take away (John 10:24 ff).

They overcame 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. ¹²Therefore 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."

What is it that empowers the Christian to overcome satan, according to these verses? (1) The blood of the Lamb. Without Jesus’ sacrifice for their sins, satan would still have that hold over those who have “washed their robes and made them white.” (Revelation 7:14). (2) The word of their testimony: faithfulness, exercised in courage and patience. The faithful believers exercised that faith through those times of persecution, and in some cases even to the point of martyrdom. Even those of us who do not experience significant persecution at the hands of other people are still called upon by God to exercise integrity in our faith. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us to stand in God’s power against the one enemy, satan. We are always engaged in the conflict if we are faithful and obedient to God’s call. Therefore, the heavens rejoice for the victory that is already won. The Christian has a home in heaven, and that rejoicing is shared not only by God and his heavenly beings, but also all by those who have faith in Him. Though we still suffer; we can rejoice in our suffering with the peace of knowing that Jesus is the Champion of our faith.

When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

Woe is placed upon the earth and the sea because it is in this battlefield that satan wages his war. It is in this battlefield that man becomes the collaterally damaged. Satan is already defeated, and his eternal character makes him well-aware of that. His time of influence is short, represented as the idiomatic 1260 days of Revelation 12:6, the period during which God is protecting and preserving His remnant, the church. Consequently, satan is active in the lives of all people. He is pursuing the woman, Israel in his quest to distract the remnant from the faith, creating as much chaos, conflict, and death as he possibly can. Is it any wonder that faithful believers are engaged in that struggle? John’s purpose in writing is that we would understand the nature of the conflict and that we would be encouraged to know, among other things, that the time of satan’s reign is short.

The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent's reach. ¹⁵Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.

God gave to Israel and the church wings, like an eagle, to fly away from satan’s dominion. The concept of taking flight to avoid capture is written in Exodus 19:4 and Deuteronomy 32:11-12. The flight of Israel to a place of safety was also indicated in Matthew 24:16; Mark 13:14; and Luke 21:21. What power is it that protects us against satan’s power? God acts through the power of the Holy Spirit to work for His purposes in our lives. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is described as a dove (Matt. 3) Here the Holy Spirit takes on the attributes of eagle’s wings as He cares for Israel for the period of 1260 days.

Wings give a bird (or plane) all of the lift that is necessary for flight. Likewise, God’s Holy Spirit likewise gives the faithful all of their power to take flight. Without the power of the Holy Spirit Israel, the Christian Church, or the Christian individual can do nothing for God, and is left totally unprotected against the wiles of the evil one. Wings make an appropriate metaphor for the Holy Spirit.

From the mouth of satan flows a torrent. We might pause for a moment and consider what John described as coming from the mouth of the LORD: a sword, that He later refers to as representing the word of God. We see a similar metaphor here, but instead of a sword, what is it that spews from the mouth of satan? Satan produces an endless flood of lies that mislead and misdirect those over whom he has influence, including both the lost and the faithful believers. It is satan’s plan to mislead people, and by so doing mislead the church itself, pulling the church away from its intended purpose by the force of the current of his lies. Satan seeks to draw people away from God and towards himself and his own evil purposes. By yielding to satan, a man empowers satan to take on a role similar to God, a role that satan wants. Consequently, we may herein see the foundation of the need for repentance when we consider the torrent that spews from the mouth of the evil one, and the power that torrent has to sweep us along its own direction. Repentance is characterized by the single act of turning around … it is changing the direction of one’s travel from the current that would draw us away from God. That change of direction turns us around, enabling us to focus on the kingdom of God, making God’s purposes the mark toward which we press.

But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.

God provided, here on this physical earth, steeped in the dominion of satan, a word that swallows up satan’s lies. What is that word that stopped the river? It is Truth, revealed in the holy scriptures; it is God’s word. One might argue that since the metaphor of “earth” is used, this refers to the physical, written word as recorded in Holy scripture. God communicated with us through men who were inspired to write the scriptures. We have God’s word in written form that has served as the plumb-line of truth. In its law it exposes and convicts satan of his lies. In the writings of its prophets, it illustrates satan’s defeat, and in the new covenant, satan is stripped of his power to destroy millions upon millions of faithful Christians. While the rest of the world is swept away by the torrent of satan’s lies, God’s word serves to protect the church and keep it from becoming overwhelmed.

Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring--those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

We have seen a lot of imagery in this chapter of Revelation, imagery that is intended to illustrate some encouraging and simple truths. Satan set himself up as the enemy of Christ, and the offspring of the woman (the Christian church), drawing battle lines that he cannot ultimately defend. He is being defeated in stages as human history unfolds, and currently God is protecting his elect by the power of His Holy Spirit until that final day when God ends this age and sentences satan to his eternal destiny separated from Him and from His church. The disorder of this world is only a part of the disorder that affects the whole spiritual world. The final issue does not depend upon the result of the conflict on this earth. The war has already been won in heaven, and the war for ultimate power over this earth was won at the Cross of Calvary. God's sovereignty has been vindicated. Jesus’ power and authority has been proved. Satan has been hurled to earth. That means an increase in the malignity of evil forces here, an apparent victory of satan that will involve the universal martyrdom of the saints. But in reality, this is satan's last struggle: he has been decisively beaten: his time of seeming triumph is short. Those who are faithful to the end will realize the victory on earth that has already been won in heaven.