8. the woman and the dragon
In Revelation 12, we meet a woman and a red dragon. This dragon was the little horn that cast the stars to the groundDan 8:10 in Daniel 8. John said the tail of the dragon swept away a third of the stars,Rev 12:4 a third of the angels. This dragon was Satan who worked through the power of Rome to persecute the woman.
The woman was clothed with the sun, had the moon under her feet, and was surrounded by twelve stars.Rev 12:1 In Chapter 21, she represents New Jerusalem, surrounded by twelve angels, twelve stars. In her, the light of God and Christ replace the light of the sun and the moon.Rev 21:23 Here, we understand that the sun represents God, and the moon represents Christ for Christ reflects the glory of God.
The woman, New Jerusalem, represents the saints “who dwell in heaven.”Rev 12:6 Those who worship the beast, the false Christ, are called “those who dwell on the Earth” throughout the Book of Revelation.Rev 11:10 Rev 13:14 Rev 17:2
It cast down some of the host of the stars to the ground
Daniel 8:10
The woman was in labor and in pain, about to give birth to her first child.Rev 12:2 Jesus described this pain before He went to the cross, saying, “Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.”John 16:21
New Jerusalem’s first Child was Christ. He became the first Son of God when He became the firstborn from the dead.Rev 1:5; 12:5; Acts 13:33; Rom 1:4
The red dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she had given birth, he could devour her first child.Rev 12:4 Satan used the power of Rome to crucify Christ.
But the Child ascended to God and His throne as soon as He was born.Rev 12:5 So, Paul said that He was “declared the Son of God … by the resurrection from the dead,”Rom 1:4 —“[God] raised up Jesus, as it is written in the second Psalm, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten you.’”Acts 13:33
9. satan is cast down
Dan 11:31, Luke 21:20, Rev 12:10-12
After Christ ascended to God, He was made the Lord of Heaven and Earth, and the Spirit of Christ, as the archangel Michael, cast down Satan and his angels.
This began the tribulation of the saints, the Great Tribulation. The Apostle John said, “The accuser of the brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God, day and night—woe to the EARTH and the SEA because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.”Rev 12:10-12
Some have misunderstood the coming of the Antichrist and the Great Tribulation to be a future event, but already, in his Epistles, John warned us that “the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard, is coming—is now already in the world.”1 John 4:3
Jesus said, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that her desolation is near.”Luke 21:20 The desolation He spoke of was the desolation of New Jerusalem.
When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that her desolation is near.
Luke 21:20
By the end of the second century, a false experience of the holy spirit, called Montanism, had spread throughout Asia. The chief spokesman of the Montanists was Tertullian, the father of Latin Christianity. The apostle Paul said that the coming of the lawless one would be “according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs and lying wonders.”2 Thess 2:9
Daniel told us that Satan was “given an army,”Dan 8:12 an army of demons: “Arms stand up from him and they pollute the sanctuary of strength.”Dan 11:31 The Hebrew word used for strength here was maoz; it is used in the Old Testament only to describe the refuge of God, as in “God is my strong fortress.”2 Sam 22:33
The army of Satan polluted the sanctuary of strength and ended the worship of God in the holy spirit. The apostle John said that the Woman flew “into the wilderness for a time, times, and half a time”Rev 12:14 away from the presence of the serpent.
10. The woman in the wilderness
The woman who flew “into the wilderness for a time, times, and half a time”Rev 12:14 was first described by King Solomon almost 1,000 years before the birth of Christ. King Solomon, as the Son of David, represents the future Christ in this story. His Song of Songs is an ancient and celebrated love story, in which he plays the part of a Bridegroom. In Chapter 3, his bride leaves “the Great City,”Rev 11:8 and she goes into the wilderness to find her lover.
John described the woman who went “into the wilderness to be nourished for 1,260 days.”Rev 12:6 The meaning of “into the wilderness” is that the saints were known only to God after the place of His sanctuary was cast to the ground. She was “a spring shut up.”
A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse
Song of Songs 4:12
A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
She was nurtured in the wilderness by her lover.
In Chapter 5, the watchmen of “the Great City” beat the bride and took her veil away.Song 5:7 The apostle John said, “The voice of the bride and bridegroom shall not be heard in you anymore.”Rev 18:23 In Chapter 6, the other virgins beg the bride to come out of the wilderness, but she replies:
What would you see in the Shulamite
Song of Songs 6:13
As it were, the dance of two camps?
This dance of two army camps prophesied the war of the end-time Sanctified Church and the kingdom of the beast. In the last chapter, the Bride comes out of the wilderness:
Who is this coming out of the wilderness,
Song of Songs 8:5
Leaning upon her beloved?
The kingdom of the beast is called “the sister who has no breasts,”Song 8:8 meaning she lacks the milk of the Word of God to nourish her children. So, her brothers reply, “We will enclose her with boards of cedar.”Song 8:9 The same metaphor is found in Zechariah. He saw a vision of a woman thrust into a basket, covered by lead, and flown by the saints into Babylon.Zech 5:5-11
11. on Eagle’s Wings
Exod 19:4, Song 3:6, Rev 12:14, Rev 13:6
Satan made himself the new Lord of the Church through the power of the bishop of Rome. He “destroyed the City and the Sanctuary” as recorded in Dan 9:26.
John told us that “two wings of the Great Eagle were given to the Woman.”Rev 12:14 The Great Eagle is the Griffon Vulture or Griffon Eagle, that once dominated the skies of Palestine. It has a wingspan up to 3 metres.
In the Book of Daniel, the kingdom of Babylon was described with the wings of the Great Eagle. They were the feathers of King Nebuchadnezzar, who became as a beast until seven times passed over him, a time, times, and a half a time.
The two wings of the Great Eagle were given to her that she might fly into the wilderness to her place.
Revelation 12:14
In Exod 19:4, God told the Israelites that He bore them on Eagle’s wings out of Egypt. He brought them into the Wilderness of Sin where they learned obedience to His law. In the Book of Revelation, He brings them out of the Great City, which John said was “mystically called Sodom and Egypt.”Rev 11:8 Once again, God brings His saints out of Egypt and into the wilderness on eagle’s wings.
The Woman is the bride of Christ. She was the bride described by Solomon in his Song of Songs. The bride that went out of the City, into the Wilderness to find her lover.
She is “given the two wings of the Great Eagle that she might fly into the wilderness to her place.”Rev 12:14 “Her place” is a place of sanctification, as Jesus described in the Gospel of John, “I go to prepare a place for you.”John 14:2
She is nurtured in the Wilderness by her lover, and worships God in the tabernacle in the wilderness, as John describes in Rev 13:6. She will continue to worship God in the tabernacle until the “temple of the tabernacle of testimony in heaven is opened.”Rev 15:5
She will be “nourished for a time, times and half a time, away from the presence of the serpent.”Rev 12:14
