In my last post I argued that Revelation 12 lies at the very center of the book, and that that central location commends it also as the crux of Revelation’s message. Furthermore, it was the recurrence of “three sevens” in the middle section of Revelation and another “three”—three “woes”—which pinpointed chapter 12 as the locus of meaning which draws together the threads of Revelation.
Immediately after the announcement that “the second woe has passed” and “the third woe is coming very soon” (11:14), John hears “loud voices in heaven, saying,”
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord , and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever” (11:15).
A parallel announcement comes a few verses later, in 12:10:
“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming,
Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah.”
The second announcement, quite obviously, is of one piece with the first, for both speak of the arrival of God’s reign which is likewise the rule of the Messiah. As one, therefore, the two statements act as a frame around yet more material. In this case, that material is the appearance to John of two “great signs (“portents” NRSV) in heaven” and the interaction of these signs.
The first sign is “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (12:1). Moreover, the woman was “pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth” (12:2).
Immediately following is the second sign. John sees “a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads” (12:3). Like the woman, stars also figure in John’s vision of the dragon, though in this case they are not part of a crown but those which the dragon sweeps down to earth with his tail (12:4). Though the dragon “swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to earth”, the “twelve stars” in the crown of the woman were not among these.
Now comes the interaction of the two, the woman and the dragon.
“The dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born” (12:4).
The interaction of the dragon and the woman is one of enmity. The dragon crouches before the woman with his sights set on her offspring. As for her offspring, the woman “gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron” (12:5).
Now that the child has been born, and is to rule the nations, one wonders how—for the presence of a large, red, seven-headed dragon hell-bent on the child’s destruction does not hold out much hope for a helpless baby’s survival. At that very moment, however, from the very claws of death, “her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne” (12:5). As for the woman, she also met with God’s provision: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days” (12:6).
The woman’s having “a place prepared by God” is in direct contrast to the predicament of the dragon, described in the next scene. For with the outbreak of “war in heaven” between “Michael and his angels” and “the dragon and his angels”, the “great dragon and his angels” are found “no longer'” to have “any place in heaven” (12:8). Having “no place” in heaven by heaven’s decree, they are “cast down to earth” (12:9).
The expulsion of the dragon and his cohort from heaven to earth is cause for the earth’s lament—for the third “woe” of Revelation’s large middle section. “But woe to the earth and the sea,” cries the “loud voice in heaven”, “for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (12:12b).
Even though he has come down to earth with “great wrath”, however, the devil with “no place” is not allowed to harm the woman who “has a place prepared by God.” For now that the dragon was found powerless against her male child, he fixes his evil intent upon the woman—but to no avail. First, she “was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time” (12:14). When the dragon tried again, casting a flood of water from his mouth to drown the woman, “the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth” (12:16). Powerless, in succession, against the woman’s child and the woman herself, the dragon, “angry with the woman”, “went off to make war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus” (12:17).
The woman’s “other children”, as Revelation calls them, bear a remarkable similarity to the “comrades" (Greek: “brothers”) acclaimed a few verses earlier by the great voice in heaven. For just as the brothers “conquered [the dragon/serpent/devil/Satan/deceiver of the whole world] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony,” so the woman’s “other children” “keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus” (12:11, 17). Moreover, if the brothers “have conquered”, if their victory is already complete, then the woman’s other children will also conquer. As the dragon did not prevail against the comrades, so he will not conquer the children.
Why will the dragon not prevail against the woman’s children? It is for the same reason that he did not prevail against the woman and the son born to her. For the male child, taken to the very throne, into the very power of God, as “the Lamb that was slaughtered” has “ransomed for God from every tribe and language and people and nation . . . a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth” (Rev 5:9-10). The first “kingdom and priests serving God” on earth, was, of course, those whom God ransomed from slavery in Egypt—Israel his prized possession (Ex 19:5-6). This is the woman, she who wears the twelve-starred crown for the twelve sons of Jacob. This is she through whom came her deliverer, the Messiah who shepherds his people from every nation with a rod of iron against the adversary. This is she who has other children, those who, by virtue of their faith in her God and of his Messiah, have become God’s people. These children are the church, they who, like the faithful before them, “conquered by the word of their testimony” (12:11 compared with 12:17).
It is this church, a Jewish-Gentile body of Christ-followers in first-century Asia Minor, with which John shared his revelation of Jesus. This was the church which the dragon was persecuting, against which the dragon waged his war. That war undoubtedly shook their confidence, for otherwise it would not have been necessary for John to remind them that their Lamb “has conquered.” Nor would it have been necessary to urge them on, as John does, in the way of “the Lamb who was slain.” For indeed, it was not just the “word of their testimony” or “the testimony of Jesus”, or “the blood of the Lamb” or “keeping the commandments of God” which unites the children and the comrades. These actions of the whole people of God—“conquering by the blood of the Lamb”, “conquering by the word of their testimony”, “keeping the commandments of God”, and “holding to the testimony of Jesus”—are but four ways of saying what the voice in heaven proclaimed in one further description applied to the activity of the comrades.
“For they did not cling to life even in the face of death” (12:11b).
It is this elaboration of conquering by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony which is missing from the parallel statement applied to the woman’s other children a few verses later (12:11, 17). It was this—not clinging to life in the face of death—which was yet to be completed by the persecuted church to whom John wrote. Unlike their comrades, the children had not all yet “resisted to the point of shedding their blood” (Heb 12:4). Yet this was the ultimate test of obedience to God, and that which was needed to conquer as Jesus had conquered. Only the church which is willing “to lose its life in order to save it” is the faithful church (Mk 8:35). Only the church which takes up the cross, not as Rome to crucify its enemies, but as Jesus to love its enemies—even unto death—is the faithful church (Mk 8:34).
This, I submit, is the call buried deep within the heart of Revelation for God’s people. It is a call which entails suffering amidst the woes and suffering of our world, but it leads on to “the crown of life” (see Rev 2:10).
-Joe
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