CHAPTER XII. The birth and ascension of 1-6 The woman the symbol of the Church. Christ. The great red serpent the symbol of Satan. 7-9 The victory of Christ over Satan. 10, 11 His saints conquer through faith. 12-14 The persecuted Church escapes destruction by her establishment in the Empire. 15-17 Satan tries to destroy Empire and Church together; then, ceasing from openly opposing her, becomes her corrupter by means of his agents. 1 AND (thus introduced) there appeared a great sign in the heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon was beneath her feet, and upon her head was a 1. We are taken back to the foundation of the Christian Church, the travail pains of Zion and the birth of her deliverer. We are in one sense taken back to the very beginning of things. for we have here the promised Seed of the woman, and His battle with the great deceiver of our first parents. If Moses teaches us how Paradise was lost; these visions reveal to us how Paradise is to be regained. This vision in the last book of Holy Scripture reveals the mystery of the earliest prophecy in the first. The Church and people of God are constantly represented in Scripture under the symbols of a city or a woman, and sometimes of both. The same is the case in a this prophecy. The Church in her purity is a pure woman, holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem; but when she is committing spiritual fornication by loving this world more than Christ, she is a wicked city, Christ-crucifyingJerusalem, Sodom, Egypt, or Babylon a harlot riding upon the great wild-beast. 'How is the faithful city become an harlot!' 1 : There is a peculiar fitness in the circumstances under which the woman, who represents the Church of God in every age, is here shown to the prophet. She is indeed a great sign to him and to us. Her clothing at once suggests her humble origin, and exhibits the future glory of her 1 Isai. i. 21. 2 crown of twelve stars, and she being with child and 3 travailing in pain cried to bring forth. And there appeared another sign in the heaven, and, behold, a great red serpent, having seven heads and ten horns, 4 and upon his heads seven regal diadems; and his 2. It was a time of trouble when Christ was born, and that trouble is here represented under the well-known Scriptural figure of the pains of childbirth. The woman clothed with the sun.. is the ancient Church of the fathers, and the prophets, and the saints, and the apostles, who felt the pains and torments of desire until she saw that Christ, the seed promised of old to come from her people according to the flesh, had taken a body out of that nation.' 2 3, 4, 5. Man's enemy here appears again under the form of a serpent. He is the natural enemy of the Christ, Who is come to destroy his power. But he appears here not only as a serpent, but with the same number of heads and horns as the great wild-beast, the symbol of the great power of this world, 1 St. Matt. xix. 28. especially as embodied in the Roman Empire. Satan is thus identified with the wicked world, being the prince of this world and the inspiring principle of its enmity to God and His people. And so the great Roman Empire, represented in this prophecy under a symbol borrowed from the prophet Daniel, is here shown to be the instrument prepared by Satan to destroy Christ. He also brought over to his side those Jews who ought to have been the lights of the world, the stars of heaven. He blinded their eyes, so that they could not see the beauty and holiness of the Son of God made man, but conspired to assist the great serpent to devour Him. It is of much importance to observe that this great red serpent has crowns upon his heads, whereas the great wildbeast of this prophecy has crowns not upon his heads but upon his horns. The cause of this will be explained in a subsequent vision, where the seven heads will be shown to mean seven successive developments of the worldpower embodied in seven suc cessive empires; but the ten horns 2 Victorinus in loc. tail swept away the third part of the stars of the sky, and cast them to the earth; and the serpent stood before the woman, who was about to be delivered, in order that he might devour her child when she brought 5 it forth. And she brought forth a son who is coming to rule (as a shepherd) all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to his throne. 6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she to signify those partly united, partly divided kingdoms, which succeeded, and in one sense comprised the Roman Empire; the nations of mediæval and modern Christendom, called by Gibbon 'the great Republic of the West.' The prophecy thus clearly distinguishes between the three great enemies of the Church: Satan, the powers of this world, and a false teacher. This distinction will be more clearly pointed out as we proceed; but it may be useful to state at once that the serpent is the symbol of Satan; the wildbeast is the symbol of the world; and another wild-beast with lamb's horns and the words of a serpent is the symbol of the false prophet. It is also very inportant to observe that for the greater part of a specified period of time called forty-two months,' ' twelve hundred and sixty days' and a time, times and half a time,' the great red serpent disappears from sight, and carries on his warfare against the faithful by means of the great wild-beast and the false prophet. It will be explained by-and-by that this period refers to the time of the complete supremacy of the great corrupt Hierarchy of mediæval and modern Christendom. Before the end of this time, the serpent appears again in his proper form, and in conjunction with the wildbeast and the false prophet brings about the great apostasy, during which the corrupt Church is judged, and also the faithful witnesses are slain and silenced, until the advent of Christ and the resurrection of the dead.1 He here appears standing ready to destroy Christ by the malice of the Jews and the Roman governor. But by His resurrection and ascension Jesus is delivered from his power, and is caught up to the throne of God. 6. The Messiah is taken from her, but the woman remains in the world, where she has to 1 Compare Rev. xii. 17, xiii. 1, with xvi. 13. hath a place prepared by God, in order that (men) may nourish her there for twelve hundred and sixty days. 7 And (as soon as her son had ascended to the throne of God) there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the serpent, and the serpent 8 fought and his angels, and prevailed not, neither 9 was their place found any longer in heaven; and the great serpent, the old snake, called the Devil (the accuser) and Satan (the enemy), who deceiveth the whole world (the oikoumenè), was thrown to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 And (then) I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, Even now the salvation and the strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ hath been brought about, because the accuser of our brethren hath been cast down, who accuseth them endure the persecutions of her great enemy the serpent. Eventually she reaches a position where she is established for an appointed period of twelve hundred and sixty days; signifying that number of years. 7-11. A fearful vision passes before the imagination of the seer; a death struggle between the hosts of heaven and the legions of the great red serpent. Michael's victory is complete, and man is taught how to conquer through faith in Christ's blood. Henceforth man's heavenly state is secure. The accuser is silenced; the deceiver is unmasked. The saints must still suffer, and conquer by suffering, in the wilderness of this world; but they reign with Christ, in suffering here for a little season, and then in glory for ever and ever. And in their warfare with the enemy, Michael himself and the angels of heaven are ever fighting on their side. Henceforth with the apostle we may boldly ask, 'Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?' And read the answer here, 'the accuser of our brethren is cast down.' Rom. viii. 33. 11 before our God day and night; and they (our brethren) have overcome him through the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and (because) they loved not their lives unto death (were willing to die rather than invalidate their witness to 12 the truth). Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them; woe to the earth and to the sea; for the devil hath come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he (still) hath a little time. 13 And when the serpent saw that he was cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who had brought 14 forth the man child; and the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, in order that she might fly into the wilderness into her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time 15 from the face of the serpent; and (seeing her thus escaping his persecutions) the serpent cast out of his 12. The wrath of the conquered serpent is fierce and cruel, the more fierce and cruel because he knows the limits of his power. He can torture and kill the body of the saint, but after that there is no more that he can do. 13. And so he fiercely persecutes the Church which has given birth to his destroyer. 14. But God bears her on eagle's wings to a place of comparative safety; to a position in the wilderness of this world, from which the serpent cannot wholly drive her, during the appointed time of her establishment as the |