The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

"'Liberty being now restored, and that 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 even to all.'"
Mr. Newton informs us (deriving his knowledge from the ecclesiastical historian,
Eusebius):
"A picture of Constantine was set up over the palace gate, with the cross over his head and
under his feet, and 'the great enemy of mankind who persecuted the Church by the 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 depths of the sea; in allusion, as it is said expressly, to
the Divine oracles in the books of the Prophets, where that evil spirit is called the dragon
and the crooked serpent."
This expositor further says:
"For now it was no longer in the power of the heathen persecutors, as Satan accused holy
Job before God, to accuse the innocent Christians before the Roman governors, as the
perpetrators of all crimes and the causes of all calamities. It was not by temporal means or
arms that the [true] Christians obtained this victory (ver. 11), but by spiritual, by the merits
and death of their Redeemer, by their constant profession of the truth, and by their patient
suffering of all kinds of torture even unto death; and the blood of the martyrs hath been
often called the 'seed of the Church.'"
The victory of the true followers of the Lamb at this time was not that of establishing
Christianity as the national religion, but rather that of their triumph in being faithful unto
death. This triumph or victory was manifested in their maintenance of a Christ-like
conduct in all their sufferings, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer for His
name. There can be no doubt that they rejoiced when their persecutions ceased, but they
did not count it a triumph for the cause of their Master to have a mere professor
(Constantine) elevated to the throne of the empire, only in as far as it released them from
persecution. They doubtless knew that the time of their rejoicing over the triumph of their
Master's cause would be when they would be united to their Lord at His coming
enthronement in glory and power. On the other hand there can be no doubt (because the
historian has so recorded it) that professed Christians in general, whose understanding of
the Word of God was very deficient, believed that Christianity had received a wonderful
impetus when Constantine was elevated to be the sole ruler of the Roman Empire; and the
supporters of the Papacy, as well as many nominal Protestant believers, entertain the same
thought today.
"And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman
which brought forth the man child. 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 half a time, from the face of the serpent."--Rev. 12:13,14.