Handout - Western Christadelphian Bible School

The evidence cited in this review is not particularly comprehensive, but will suffice for the
present. The important conclusion being suggested is that the two time periods appearing in
Revelation 11:2 and 3 (42 months and 1260 days) are one and the same.
6 Revelation 12:6
In Revelation 12:6 a woman who had previously given birth to "a man child who was to rule
all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne" (Rev
12:5), is caused to flee into the wilderness for fear of persecution by "a great red dragon,
having seven heads and ten horns" (Rev 12:3). The duration of her protection is said to be
1260 days (Rev 12:6). There are a couple of questions:
Who Is the Woman?
(a) Whoever she is, the woman is being persecuted for the specified 1260 days. In the
context of prophecy, this should cause us immediately to suspect that she is Israel in
one manifestation or another.
(b) Then we notice that she has given birth to a man child who is to rule over all the
nations with a rod of iron (Rev 12:5). This is a direct reference to Psalm 2. He who
exercises the iron rod is Christ:
"Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the
heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's
vessel" (Psa 2:7-9).
This is taken up in Revelation 19:
"And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations:
and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the
fierceness and wrath of Almighty God" (Rev 19:15).
Without doubt this is a right that the Lord Jesus Christ has received from His father, as
the context makes abundantly clear (Rev 19:11-16).
But the figure is extended to His followers:
"And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power
over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter
shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father" (Rev 2:26, 27).
So the man child to whom the woman in Revelation 12 gives birth is the Lord Jesus
Christ, and also His disciples. The idea of the man child being caught up to heaven and
the throne of God includes the saints - it is figurative of the exaltation to which they
will ultimately rise.
We have been engendered by Israel. Jesus said that "salvation is of the Jews" (John
4:22). But there is another sense in which we have been born of the "woman":
"Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all" (Gal 4:26). These
themes may be further developed. We should also take into account the many
prophetic allusions to Israel as “the virgin daughter of Israel” in one form or another
(Isa 1:8, 10:32, 22:4, 5, 37:22, 52:2, 62:11, Jer 4:31, 6:2, 23 etc).
(c) And finally, the woman is clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon
her head a crown of twelve stars" (Rev 12:1). This is as clear an allusion to the family
of Jacob as could be found:
"… the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to
his father… and his father rebuked him … Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren
indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?" (Gen 37:9, 10)
Page 50