Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

12:1-2
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THE HOLY WAR
The Book of Revelation, we have noted, is organized in
terms of the five-part treaty structure of the Biblical
covenant. Chapter 12 falls into the fourth main series
of visions (Trumpets), proclaiming God’s judgment on
the false king and the false prophet (chapters 8-14).
But Chapter 12 also marks the intersection of this
fivefold structure with another overarching pattern of
the book: the theme of the Bridegroom and the Bride.
Chapters 1-11 deal with the victory of Christ over His
enemies, culminating in the glorious establishment of
the Church as His holy Temple. Chapters 12-22 deal
with the victory of the Church over her enemies,
ending with her glorious establishment as God’s holy
Temple. Thus the second half of the Book of
Revelation covers much the same ground as the first,
but from a different perspective. Milton S. Terry
comments: “Part First has revealed the Lamb of God
under various symbols, glorious in power, opening the
book of divine mysteries, avenging the martyred saints,
and exhibiting the fearful judgments destined to come
upon the enemies of God. Everything is viewed as from
the throne of the King of heaven, who sends forth his
armies and destroys the defiant murderers of his
prophets and burns up their city (comp. Matt. 22:7).
“Part Second reveals the Church in conflict with
infernal and worldly principalities and powers,
surviving all persecution, and triumphing by the word
of her testimony, and, after Babylon the harlot falls and
passes from view, appearing as the wife of the Lamb, the
tabernacle of God with men, glorious in her beauty and
imperishable as the throne of God.” 1
Thus, although there is a progressive development
toward a climax in the second half of Revelation, we
will also see both a repetition of familiar concepts and
a diversity in portraying them, a device often used by
the Biblical prophets (see examples of this in Gen.
37:5-11; 41:18-25, 32; Dan. 2, 7). “The great red
Dragon (12:3) is not to be regarded as different from
the angel of the abyss (9:11). The hundred and fortyfour
thousand on Mount Zion (14:1) are the same as
the sealed Israelites of 7:4-8. The seven last plagues
(chaps. 15 and 16) correspond noticeably to the seven
trumpets of doom. ‘Babylon the Great’ is the same as
the great city where the Lord was crucified (11:8), and
the new Jerusalem, filled with the glory of God and the
Lamb, is but another symbol of the temple of God in
the heaven (11: 19).” 2
This point in the prophecy, therefore, is something of a
new beginning; and to show the conflict between Satan
and the Church, St. John goes back to the beginning,
to the birth of Christ and to Satan’s unsuccessful
attempts to destroy Him, ending with Christ’s
victorious ascent into heaven. This sets the stage for,
and reveals the origin and meaning of, Satan’s
persecution of the Christian Church throughout the
world. The struggle will be fierce and bloody; but Satan
is already doomed, for Christ is reigning from His
heavenly throne, and His people are destined for
complete victory on the basis of His work and through
their own faithful and fearless proclamation of the
Gospel.
The Serpent and the Seed of the Woman (12:1-6)
1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a Woman clothed
with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her
head a crown of twelve stars;
2 and being with child she cried out, being in labor and in
pain to give birth.
3 And another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a
great red Dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and
on his heads were seven diadems.
4 And his tail sweeps away a third of the stars of heaven,
and threw them to the Land. And the Dragon stood
before the Woman who was about to give birth, so that
when she gave birth he might devour her Child.
5 And she gave birth to a Son, a male, who is to rule all
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 has a
place prepared by God, so that there they may nourish
her for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
1-2 St. John alerts us from the outset that we must give
careful attention to the subject of this vision, for the
symbol of the Woman here is a great sign. 3 “Literalists”
would have it that the use of this term implies that
“most of Revelation is to be taken literally.” 4 But this is
to miss the point. St. John is not saying that this
passage, in contrast to the rest of the book, is a “sign,”
for he has already told us that the entire book is composed
of “signs” (1: 1). The point here is that this is a great
sign, an important symbol, central to the interpretation
of the prophecy as a whole. St. John is telling his
readers to think carefully about the Biblical meaning of
the sign.
This central symbol is a Woman, 5 a familiar Biblical
image for the Church, the people of God. (Specifically,
1. Milton S. Terry, Biblical Apocalyptics: A Study of the Most Notable Revelations
of God and of Christ in the Canonical Scriptures (New York: Eaton & Mains,
1896), p. 381.
2. Ibid.
3. The word sign is used seven times in chapters 12-19; three are in heaven
(21:1, 3; 15:1), four are on earth (13:13, 14; 16:14; 19:20).
4. Henry M. Morris, The Revelation Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary
on the Book of Revelation (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.,
1983), p. 213.
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