Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Revelation 12:15

Clarke's Commentary

NOTES ON CHAP. XII., BY J. E. C.

Verse Revelation 12:15. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood — The water here evidently means great multitudes of nations and peoples; for in Revelation 17:15, the interpreting angel says, The waters which thou sawest-are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. This water, then, which the dragon cast out of his mouth, must be an inundation of heathen barbarous nations upon the Roman empire; and the purpose which the dragon has in view by this inundation is, that he might cause the woman, or Christian Church:-

To be carried away of the flood. — Entirely swept away from the face of the earth. Dr. Mosheim, in the commencement of his second chapter upon the fifth century, observes "that the Goths, the Heruli, the Franks, the Huns, and the Vandals, with other fierce and warlike nations, for the most part strangers to Christianity, had invaded the Roman empire, and rent it asunder in the most deplorable manner. Amidst these calamities the Christians were grievous, nay, we may venture to say the principal, sufferers. It is true these savage nations were much more intent upon the acquisition of wealth and dominion than upon the propagation or support of the pagan superstitions, nor did their cruelty and opposition to the Christians arise from any religious principle, or from an enthusiastic desire to ruin the cause of Christianity; it was merely by the INSTIGATION of the pagans who remained yet in the empire, that they were excited to treat with such severity and violence the followers of Christ." Thus the wo which was denounced, Revelation 12:12, against the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea, came upon the whole Roman world; for, in consequence of the excitement and malicious misrepresentations of the pagans of the empire, "a transmigration of a great swarm of nations" came upon the Romans, and ceased not their ravages till they had desolated the eastern empire, even as far as the gates of Byzantium, and finally possessed themselves of the western empire. "If," says Dr. Robertson, in the introduction to his History of Charles V., vol. i., pp. 11, 12, edit. Lond. 1809, "a man was called to fix upon the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most calamitous and afflicted, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Theodosius the Great to the establishment of the Lombards in Italy, a period of one hundred and seventy-six years. The contemporary authors who beheld that scene of desolation, labour and are at a loss for expressions to describe the horror of it. The scourge of God, the destroyer of nations, are the dreadful epithets by which they distinguish the most noted of the barbarous leaders; and they compare the ruin which they had brought on the world to the havoc occasioned by earthquakes, conflagrations, or deluges, the most formidable and fatal calamities which the imagination of man can conceive." But the subtle design which the serpent or dragon had in view, when he vomited out of his mouth a flood of waters, was most providentially frustrated; for:-

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

12:1-14:20 PICTURES OF CONFLICT AND TRIUMPH

The woman, the child and the dragon (12:1-17)

In this vision the woman who gives birth to a son seems to symbolize Israel who produced the Messiah, Jesus. But it is the true Israel, the true people of God, who are pictured here. The faithful of old Israel were those who began the Christian church, and in the church there is no distinction on the basis of nationality. All Christians are now God’s people (12:1-2).
Then appears a dragon (identified in verse 9 as Satan) whose many heads, horns and crowns show his extraordinary power. He is hard to overcome. When apparently defeated in one place, he finds new energy in another. His conquest of a large portion of the angelic powers (‘a third of the stars of heaven’) is only a preparation for his main task, the conquest of the Messiah. He tried to destroy Jesus, from the day of his birth to the day of his death, but he never succeeded, not even at the crucifixion. Jesus Christ rose from the dead and returned in glory to his Father (3-5).

Unable to destroy Christ, Satan turns his attack on Christ’s people. But God has foreseen this and he specially protects them and provides for them during this time. Persecuted Christians need not fear Satan. Their time of greatest trial (again represented by the symbolic figure of three and a half years; cf. 11:2-3) is their time of greatest blessing. They may be killed but they are not destroyed, for God saves them for his heavenly kingdom (6; cf. 2 Timothy 4:6,2 Timothy 4:18).

The battle between good and evil is fought in heaven as well as on earth. Believers can take courage when they learn that God’s angels triumph, while the devil and his angels are thrown out of heaven (7-9). The heavenly conquest of Satan gives reassurance to Christ’s people on earth that they too are conquerors of Satan. They share in the glorious victory of Christ’s kingdom, and the basis of that victory is Christ’s death. He was victorious through death, and those who are killed for his sake are likewise victorious (10-11). Satan responds viciously. Knowing that little time remains before Christ returns and captures him, he intensifies his attacks on God’s people (12).
Returning to the picture of the woman, the revelation repeats that when Satan finds that he cannot destroy Christ, he tries to destroy Christ’s people (13). It repeats also that the time of the Christians’ intense suffering is the time of God’s special protection (14; cf. 11:2-3; 12:6; 13:5). (‘A time, times and half a time’ means ‘a year plus two years plus half a year’, or three and a half years.) Satan tries every method he knows to destroy Christ’s people but is not successful. God, by his supernatural power, preserves them (15-16). Unable to destroy them, Satan nevertheless does whatever he can to oppose and persecute them (17).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

And the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman water as a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the steam.

Water as a river … This flood is thought to represent "overwhelming misfortune, every form of destructive and bitter persecutions," A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 314. "all manner of delusions," R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 384. etc. Caird thought the river is "the river of lies which the serpent spewed out of his mouth." G. B. Caird, op. cit., p. 159. The fact of the serpent's mouth being mentioned here as the source of the river, and also the fact of his original deception of Eve with a base lie suggest that the river is indeed a great and never-ending stream of vicious and delusive lies. In ancient times, it was the lies of the Gnostics and various delusive heresies that rose from within the historical church herself; but the old serpent's falsehood business is a prolific and prosperous as ever. It is not difficult to cite examples. Lenski cited evolution; Pieters named:

Ebionism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Montanism, Arianism, and Pelagianism from early centuries, and Romanism, Socinianism, Unitarianism, Modernism, Russellism, Christian Science, Spiritualism, etc., from later and present times. Albertus Pieters, op. cit., p. 165.

For ourselves, we shall add Solifidianism, Materialism, Communism, and Humanism.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood - This is special and uncommon imagery, and it is not necessary to suppose that anything like this literally occurs in nature. Some serpents are indeed said to eject from their mouths poisonous bile when they are enraged, in order to annoy their pursuers; and some sea monsters, it is known, spout forth large quantities of water; but the representation here does not seem to be taken from either of those cases. It is the mere product of the imagination, but the sense is clear. The woman is represented as having wings, and as being able thus to escape from the serpent. But, as an expression of his wrath, and as if with the hope of destroying her in her flight by a deluge of water, he is represented as pouring a flood from his mouth, that he might, if possible, sweep her away. The figure here would well represent the continued malice of the papal body against the true church, in those dark ages when it was sunk in obscurity, and, as it were, driven out into the desert. That malice never slumbered, but was continually manifesting itself in some new form, as if it were the purpose of papal Rome to sweep it entirely away.

That he might cause her to be carried away of the flood - Might cause the church wholly to be destroyed. The truth taught is, that Satan leaves no effort untried to destroy the church.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 12

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head [the sun and the moon under her feet, and on her head] a crown of twelve stars ( Revelation 12:1 ):

The identity of the woman is found in Genesis as we read of the dream of Joseph, how the sun and the moon and the eleven stars bowed down to him and so the same figure here. We have the identity of the woman as the nation of Israel, those twelve tribes that came out of Jacob.

And she being great with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered ( Revelation 12:2 ).

So she was ready to give birth to the child.

You see the purposes of God for the nation of Israel was that they were to bring the Messiah into the world. He was to be of the seed of Abraham and of the seed of David. And so God was working with this nation preparing them as the instrument, the nation, by which His Son would come into the world. God had to choose some nation, so He chose the nation of Israel. And that is why they are the chosen people. Chosen for what? Chosen to be the instrument, the people, through which God would bring His Son into the world.

Now, the tragic thing is that when God used them for this purpose, then they rejected His Son that He sent. But they had rejected the prophets before they had rejected His Son. In fact, Jesus got them quite angry one time with a parable that he gave of a certain man who went away to a far country and left his fields in the charge of his servants. And he sent back a servant that he might collect the fruit from the field, but they beat the servant, mistreated him. So he sent other servants. They beat them and mistreated them. He said, "I will send my own son. Surely they will respect him." And when they saw his son coming, they said, "Here is the heir. Let's kill him." He said, "What will the master do when he comes?" They said, "He will utterly wipe them out." The Lord said, "That is right." But it was a parable really against the Jews who had persecuted the prophets. "Which of the prophets have you not slain? Have you not persecuted?" Stephen said ( Acts 7:52 ).

And so God chose this nation to bring forth the Messiah.

And [the nation] being with child, travailing in birth, and paining to be delivered. And there appeared [a second wonder in heaven] another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon [Satan], having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, to devour her child as soon as it was born ( Revelation 12:2-4 ).

So, the two wonders, the woman Israel ready to bring forth the Messiah, the Christ, and Satan ready to destroy it as soon as it was born.

You remember Herod, when the wisemen came to him and inquired where the king was to be born. Herod inquired of the Bible teachers. They said "Bethlehem". So Herod directed them to Bethlehem, but he said, "When you have found the child, come back and tell me about it, so I can come and worship him also." Herod was paranoid. He was fearful that someone was going to take his throne. He killed his wife. He killed his sons. In fact, they used to say it was safer to be Herod's pig than it is to be his son. He's paranoid. He felt people were plotting, trying to take his throne.

So when he heard that the king had been born, he was threatened. So he asked the wisemen to come back and tell me, but he intended to go and kill the child. And when the wisemen didn't come back, he then ordered that all the baby boys in Bethlehem area be killed that were two years and under. The dragon was ready to devour the child as soon as it was born.

Now, here an interesting thing with Satan. The stars of heaven, angels are often referred to as stars and this would indicate that when Satan rebelled, a third of the angels rebelled with him. That is why that I believe that there were probably three angels created in the highest order of angelic being, called the archangel. They were of the cherubim class of angels, but three special, and that was Gabriel, Lucifer and Michael. And that they each probably had under their authority a third of the angelic host. And those that were under Lucifer's authority, when he rebelled against God, joined in his rebellion. With his tail he drew a third part of the stars of heaven.

Now when this happened, we don't know. Where in prehistory this took place, we don't know. Before the world existed, no doubt, this rebellion took place of these angels. Prior to his rebellion, Satan was a perfect model. Ezekiel says he was perfect in wisdom, perfect in beauty, perfect in all of his ways, until the day that iniquity was found in him ( Ezekiel 28:17 ).

Isaiah fourteen tells us that pride filled his heart. He said, "I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven. I will sit in the congregation of the sides of the north. I will ascend above the clouds. I will be like the most High. I will be like God. And yet, art thou cast down"( Isaiah 14:14 ). There will come a time that you will see Satan one day, and you will be amazed. You'll say, "Is that the critter that caused us so much trouble?" Isaiah fourteen tells us that.

So, there appeared this other wonder in heaven, this red dragon with seven heads, ten horns and seven crowns upon his head. We are reminded of the description of the antichrist who is the embodiment of Satan. His tail drawing a third part of the stars.

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron ( Revelation 12:5 ):

When Jesus comes to establish His reign and kingdom, He will rule the world with a rod of iron.

and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne ( Revelation 12:5 ).

And that is where He is right now. Jesus has been caught up into heaven. He ascended into heaven. Luke records it in his gospel, as do other gospels. And He is there now sitting on His throne waiting for the Father to put all things in subjection unto Him. So the woman brought forth the child, he was caught up to God and to His throne.

So we move into the future.

And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and [sixty days] ( Revelation 12:6 ).

They asked Jesus what will be the sign of His coming, the end of the world. And Jesus began to give them the signs of His coming and of the end of the world. And He said, "Now when you see the abomination that was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, the abomination of desolation, then flee to the wilderness. If you are on your housetop, don't even bother to get your coat going through. Get out of there as quick as you can. If you're out in the field, don't even go home. Split. Get down to the wilderness"( Matthew 24:15 ).

The abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet; what is it? When the temple is rebuilt and the worship reestablished, after three and a half years, or three and a half years into the seven-year cycle, or in the midst of the seven-year cycle. Not three and a half years after the temple has been built and worship reestablished. That will happen. It may be just a very short time after worship is established. It could take them three years to rebuild it. The antichrist will come to Jerusalem and he will go into the Holy of Holies of this rebuilt temple and there he will proclaim that he is god and he will demand that they worship him as god. This is the abomination of desolation that Daniel speaks about.

Now Jesus said, "When you see this abomination of Desolation spoken about by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, let him who reads understand." That is what it is all about. The antichrist coming to the temple, stopping the worship, standing in the Holy of Holies proclaiming himself to be god, at that point Jesus said to flee and don't stop for anything. Get out of there.

So, the woman flees to the wilderness that she should be taken care of, the place prepared of God, that they should feed her for a thousand, two hundred and sixty days or through the last three and a half years of the seven-year cycle.

Now this wilderness place is probably the Rock City of Petra, south and east of Dead Sea. For Isaiah in the sixteenth chapter, God says to Moab, which is present day Jordan, "Open up your borders and receive My people. Shelter them in Petra until the tribulation is complete." So, until the indignation be over passed; "indignation" is the Old Testament word for the Great Tribulation. So they will flee to the Rock City of Petra where God will take care of them for three and a half years.

Now, how could God take care of them there? Well, He took care of them for forty years in the wilderness before. He fed them manna. He could feed them manna again. God has no problem feeding people. He fed Elijah with ravens. Ravens brought his food. So, God will take care of them for three and a half years.

Now there was then war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels ( Revelation 12:7 ),

So, you see the dragon also has angels. The third part, so he has a great force of angels.

And they prevailed not [the dragon and his angels]; neither was their place found any more in heaven ( Revelation 12:8 ).

Now at the present time, Satan does have access to heaven. And he goes up there just to harass us before God. "Look at that fellow down there. He is supposed to be your servant. Did you see what he did last week?" No good. Accusing you before God. What a rascal.

We have a picture of it in the book of Job. The sons of God were presenting themselves to God and Satan also came with them and God said to Satan, "Where have you been?"

"I have been going up and down throughout the earth, to and fro through it."

"Hey, have you seen my servant Job? Have you considered my servant Job? He is a good man. He loves Me and hates evil."

"I seen that character. And I have also seen how you have blessed him. You have given that guy everything anybody could want. Who wouldn't serve you when you are blessed like that, you'd be a fool not to serve You. Let me take away those things that you have given him and he will curse You to Your face."

He accused Job of being a mercenary, serving God for the profit.

God said, "All right, go ahead, but don't touch him. Strip him if you want."

So, Satan began to strip Job until he wiped him out completely. Financially he was totally wiped out. And Job fell on his face and worshiped God and said, "I came into the world naked, looks like I am going out that way. The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." In all these things Job did not curse God or charge God foolishly.

So, the sons of God again were presenting themselves to God, and Satan came with them and God said, "Where have you been?" And he said, "Going around the earth, up and down, to and fro through it".

"Hey, have you considered My servant Job? He is a good man. In spite of all that you did, he maintained his integrity."

"Oh yeah, but You wouldn't let me touch him. Let me touch him? Skin for skin, all a man has will he give for his life."

God said, "All right you can afflict him, but don't kill him."

The limitation that God placed upon him. Job was afflicted with boils. He was covered and had to lie in the ashes. His wife saw his miserable condition and said, "Honey, why don't you just curse God and die?" Horrible. His friends came and they couldn't understand his plight. They began to accuse him falsely of all kinds of secret sins.

But Satan was accusing the brethren. That is what he is doing up there. He does have access into heaven, but here shortly he is going to get kicked out. Michael and his angels are going to fight against him and going to prevail against him and he is going to be cast out.

that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world ( Revelation 12:9 ):

And what a deceiver he is.

Now because man does not want the truth, God allows man to be deceived. God allows deception. You don't want to believe the truth, then don't. God will allow you to believe some crazy hair brain tale if you want too. If you don't want to believe that God created the earth. You don't want to believe that God created you. You don't want to believe that God designed your eyes in such a glorious way, the optic nerves and the whole system of sight. You don't want to believe that that is creation. Then all right, believe in wild yarn. That a worm coming out of the ooze got burned on the forehead with the sun-wasn't really the forehead then, just the upper part of the anatomy-and it formed a freckle, mutations, and over the process of millions of years this freckle formed into an eye with all the intricate aspects of an eye. The nerves transmitting the message of the vibrations into the brain able to interpret it, the movement and so forth. Marvelous. Yarn story that deluded men, called scientists believe. You tell that to your kids they won't believe it. So, if a person doesn't believe the truth, God let's them believe a lie as preposterous as the lie may be.

"Because they served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever more, God gave them over to reprobate minds" ( Romans 1:25 , Romans 1:28 ). They believe the lie rather than the truth. You don't want to retain God in your mind; God will give you over to a reprobate mind. You don't want to believe the truth; God will let you believe a lie. We read that the antichrist is going to bring a strong delusion on the people that those who did not want to believe the truth, and they will believe the great lie of the antichrist.

Jesus said, "I came in My Father's name and you didn't receive Me. Another is going to come in his own name, him you will receive"( John 5:43 ). You don't want to receive the truth, then you will receive the lie of the deceiver who has deceived the world. Make sure you haven't been deceived by Satan. Make sure that Satan hasn't deceived you in turning you away from God and the truth and the love of God that He has for you in Christ.

he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him [and heaven now being rid of this creature]. I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night ( Revelation 12:9-10 ).

He is continually accusing us.

And they overcame him [the brethren being accused] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death ( Revelation 12:11 ).

So, we have victory over Satan through the blood of Jesus Christ. The fact that we have been redeemed, purchased. "I am a debtor," Paul said, "not to live any longer after the flesh, not to the flesh to live after it, but to the Spirit." "Know ye not that you are a temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you. You have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and Spirit which are His. You are not your own. You have been bought with a price" ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ). The old nature, the old life was worthless. It is dead. We count it dead. We reckon it to be dead that we might live this new life after Christ in the Spirit. Our testimony is that of redemption through the blood of Jesus, the new life, the new nature that we have in Him. So, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, the testimony of that redemption, we overcome Satan.

Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. [Satan has been cast out.] Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea. for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knows he has but a short time ( Revelation 12:12 ).

In just about three and a half years he is going to get chained and placed in the abusso, so he is angry and upset. He has been defeated and he is going to take it out upon those that live upon the earth at that time.

Now, when the dragon saw that he was cast onto the earth, he persecuted the woman or Israel. So, Israel again is going to be facing a time of persecution. These people who have gone through historically such tremendous persecution, the inquisition in Spain, the slaughter by Hitler and now the persecution in Russia, these people have had such a tremendous share of persecution. There are people who hate them that don't even know why they hate them. Anti-Semitism is an evil, wicked thing, but it is so prevalent. The tragedy is that they have yet more persecution to go through. Satan is going to seek to persecute the woman which brought forth the man child.

And to the woman was 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 ( Revelation 12:13-14 ),

Time is a year. Times-two years, and half a time would be, of course, a half-year, so three and a half years; one thousand, two hundred and sixty-two days from the face of the serpent.

And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood (that is an army) after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth ( Revelation 12:15-16 ).

So the army that pursues after Israel will be destroyed as the earth opens up.

During the time of Moses when Korah came and said that you have taken too much on yourself making your brother the one who offers sacrifices, we are Levites and have just as much right as does Aaron, and Moses took the rods and set them before the Lord. And then the next day after Aaron's rod had budded said; "Okay, Korah, you and your buddies stand out there. If God is in this thing let the earth open up and swallow you guys whole right down into the pit." And the earth opened up and Korah and his buddies went on down. So, here again the earth will open up.

Actually this great rift of which they call the Jordan Valley, of which the Dead Sea is a part, and of course the city of Petra on the other side, this great rift they believe was caused by a tremendous earthquake, seismic movement and all, and of course it is the greatest rift in the world. The Dead Sea is thirteen hundred feet below sea level and it is called the Great African Rift. It goes from Syria down into Africa. So, it is a place of historic, cataclysmic earthquakes and fire and brimstone that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So again, even as Mount St. Helen's laid dormant for one hundred and thirty-seven years and then suddenly popped, this area is just going to open up and close up again, and the army that is pursuing Israel will be swallowed.

And the dragon was angry with the woman, and he went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ ( Revelation 12:17 ).

So, chapter twelve deals with these interesting little vignettes into aspects of the past and future.

As we get into chapter thirteen next week, we get into the antichrist and we will get some historic background on him, as we take a look at this man, who I believe to be alive in the world today. And I believe that he is about ready to take over, but the only thing that is keeping him from taking over is the presence of the church. But I believe the earth is ready for him and ready to receive him and that he is ready to establish his kingdom, his reign over the earth. And that he probably is already involved in world politics. I don't know who he is. I am not even going to guess who he is. But I do believe that we are at that time, that he does exist and probably is actively involved in world politics and will be taking over as soon as the church is gone.

We'll be dealing with that next week as we get into chapter thirteen.

May the Lord be with you and give you a beautiful week. May you enjoy His presence and His fellowship as you walk with Him. May the Spirit of God give you strength and power in your inner man. May He help you to begin to comprehend how much God does love you, how much God cares for each one of you. May you come to a new rich love relationship with Jesus Christ where your heart burns with passion for Him and for the things of the spirit. May you be enriched in His fullness. May the Lord watch over and keep you in Jesus' name. "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The dragon’s vengeance on the woman 12:13-17

The revelation of Satan’s activity, which the song of the martyrs (Revelation 12:10-12) interrupted, now resumes.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Perhaps Satan will use literal water to try to drown this group of Israelites. [Note: Düsterdieck, pp. 353-54; Bullinger, p. 416; Smith, A Revelation . . ., pp. 190-91.] If they take refuge in a place such as Petra this might seem to be a possibility. Another possibility is that he will pursue them with soldiers as a river (cf. Jeremiah 46:7-8; Jeremiah 47:2-3). [Note: Govett, 2:62-64.] A flood is also a biblical metaphor for overwhelming evil, persecution (Psalms 18:4; Psalms 124:2-4; Isaiah 43:2). Probably this is a picturesque way of describing Satan’s attempt to destroy the Jews who will have congregated in Palestine following the Antichrist’s covenant with them. He may seek to do it with deceptive false teaching, since the water comes out of his mouth. [Note: Beale, p. 673.] Both water and fire (cf. Revelation 9:17; Revelation 11:5) proceeding from the mouth picture punishment in Scripture.

Note the many parallels between Israel’s exodus from Egypt and her past preservation in the wilderness, including rescue from water (the Red Sea; cf. Revelation 12:15), and this future flight. The similarities have led some commentators to conclude that the 42 months refer to Israel’s 42 camping stations (Numbers 33) and that what John described was in the past. Yet it seems clear that John was describing a future exodus.

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 12

THE WOMAN AND THE BEAST ( Revelation 12:1-17 )

It is necessary to read this chapter as a whole before we examine it in detail.

12:1-17 A great sign appeared in the sky--a woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon beneath her feet, and with a crown of twelve stars on her head; and she was with child, and she cried aloud in her labour and in her agony to bear the child.

The Woman With Child ( Revelation 12:1-2)

John saw an amazing vision, like a tableau in the sky, whose details he draws from many sources. The woman is clothed with the sun; the moon is her footstool; and she has a crown of twelve stars. The Psalmist says of God that he covers himself with light as with a garment ( Psalms 104:2). In the Song of Solomon the poet describes his loved one as being fair as the moon and clear as the sun (SS 6:10). So John got part of his picture from the Old Testament. But he added something which the pagans of Asia Minor would well recognize as part of the old Babylonian picture of the divine. They frequently depicted their goddesses as crowned with the twelve signs of the zodiac and this also is in John's mind. It is as if he took all the signs of divinity and beauty which he could find and added them together.

This woman is in labour to bear a child who is undoubtedly the Messiah, Christ, compare Revelation 12:5 where he is said to be destined to rule the nations with a rod of iron. That is a quotation from Psalms 2:9 and was an accepted description of the Messiah. The woman, then, is the mother of the Messiah.

(i) If the woman is the "mother" of the Messiah, an obvious suggestion is that she should be identified with Mary; but she is so clearly a superhuman figure that she can hardly be identified with any single human being.

(ii) The persecution of the woman by the dragon suggests that she might be identified with the Christian Church. The objection is that the Christian Church could hardly be called the mother of the Messiah.

(iii) In the Old Testament the chosen people, the ideal Israel, the community of the people of God, is often called the Bride of God. "Your Maker is your husband" ( Isaiah 54:5). It is Jeremiah's sad complaint that Israel has played the harlot in disloyalty to God ( Jeremiah 3:6-10). Hosea hears God say: "I will betroth you to me for ever" ( Hosea 2:19-20). In the Revelation itself we hear of the marriage feast of the Lamb and the Bride of the Lamb ( Revelation 19:7; Revelation 21:9). "I betrothed you to Christ," writes Paul to the Corinthian Church, "to present you as a pure bride to her one husband" ( 2 Corinthians 11:2).

This will give us a line of approach. It was from the chosen people that Jesus Christ sprang in his human lineage. It is for the ideal community of the chosen ones of God that the woman stands. Out of that community Christ came and it was that community which underwent such terrible suffering at the hands of the hostile world. We may indeed call this the Church, if we remember that the Church is the community of God's people in every age.

From this picture we learn three great things about this community of God. First, it was out of it that Christ came; and out of it Christ has still to come for those who have never known him. Second, there are forces of evil, spiritual and human, which are set on the destruction of the community of God. Third, however strong the opposition against it and however sore its sufferings, the community of God is under the protection of God and, therefore, it can never be ultimately destroyed.

The Hatred Of The Dragon ( Revelation 12:3-4)

Here we have the picture of the great, flame-coloured dragon. In our study of the antecedents of Antichrist we saw that the eastern peoples regarded creation in the light of the struggle between the dragon of chaos and the creating God of order. In the Temple of Marduk, the creating god, in Babylon there was a great image of a "red-gleaming serpent" who stood for the defeated dragon of chaos. There can be little doubt that that is where John got his picture. This dragon appears in many forms in the Old Testament.

It appears as Rahab. "Was it not thou that didst cut Rahab in pieces, that didst pierce the dragon?" ( Isaiah 51:9). It appears as leviathan. "Thou didst break the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou didst crush the heads of leviathan" ( Psalms 74:12-14). In the day of the Lord, God with his sore and great and strong sword will punish leviathan ( Isaiah 27:1). It appears in the dramatic picture of behemoth ( H930) in Job 40:15-24. The dragon which is the arch-enemy of God is a common and terrible figure in the thought of the east. It is the connection of the dragon and the sea which explains the rivers of water which the dragon emits to overcome the woman ( Revelation 12:15).

The dragon has seven heads and ten horns. This signifies its mighty power. It has seven royal diadems. This signifies its complete power over the kingdoms of this world as opposed to the kingdom of God. The picture of the dragon sweeping the stars from the sky with its tail comes from the picture in Daniel of the little horn who cast the stars to the ground and trampled on them ( Daniel 8:10). The picture of the dragon waiting to devour the child comes from Jeremiah, in which it is said of Nebuchadnezzar that "he has swallowed me like a monster" ( Jeremiah 51:34).

H. B. Swete finds in this picture the symbolism of an eternal truth about the human situation. In the human situation, as Christian history sees it, there are two figures who occupy the centre of the scene. There is man, fallen, always under the attack of the powers of evil but always struggling towards the birth of a higher life. And there is the power of evil, ever watching for its opportunity to frustrate the upward reach of man. That struggle had its culmination on the Cross.

The Snatching Away Of The Child ( Revelation 12:5)

The child which the woman bore was destined to rule the nations with a rod of iron. As we have seen, this quotation from Psalms 2:9 indicates that the child was the Messiah.

When the child was born, he was rescued from the dragon by being snatched up to heaven, even to the throne of God. The word used here for the child being snatched up is the same as is used in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 to describe the Christian being caught up to meet the Lord in the air (compare 2 Corinthians 12:2 where Paul uses it to tell of himself being caught up into the third heaven).

In a sense this is a puzzling passage. As we have seen, the reference is to Jesus Christ as Messiah, and, as John tells it, the story goes straight from his Birth to his Ascension; the snatching up must refer to the Ascension. As the Acts has it: "He was lifted up" ( Acts 1:9). The strange thing is the total omission of the earthly life of Jesus. This is due to two things.

It is due to the fact that John is not at the moment interested in anything other than the fact that Jesus Christ was delivered by the direct action of God from the hostile powers which continually attacked him.

It is due also to the fact that all through the Revelation John's interest is not in the human Jesus but in the exalted Christ, who is able to rescue his people in the time of their distresses.

The Flight To The Desert ( Revelation 12:6)

Here we read of the woman escaping into the desert from the attack of the dragon. By the help of God she escaped into a place where she was nourished and which had been prepared for her.

There is no doubt that there are many pictures in John's mind. There is the picture of the escape of Elijah to the brook Cherith, where he was nourished by the ravens ( 1 Kings 17:1-7); and of his flight into the desert, when he was nourished by the angelic messenger ( 1 Kings 19:1-8). There is the picture of the flight of Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus into Egypt to escape the murderous intent of Herod ( Matthew 2:13). But two incidents are specially in John's mind.

(i) In the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, when it was death to keep the law and to worship the true God, many "who sought after justice and judgment went down to the wilderness to dwell there" ( 1Ma_2:29 ).

(ii) Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. The years immediately before that were terrible years of bloodshed and of revolution in which anyone with eyes to see and a mind to understand could forecast what was about to happen. Eusebius, the Christian historian, tells us that, before the final disaster came, the Christians in Jerusalem had been warned by a revelation given to approved men to leave Jerusalem and to cross the Jordan into Perea and to dwell there in a town called Pella (Eusebius: The Ecclesiastical History 3: 5). This is actually referred to in the account of Jesus' words to the disciples about the last times. When they saw the last terrors coming they were to flee to the mountains ( Mark 13:14); this is exactly what they did.

H. B. Swete again sees something symbolic here. The Church had to flee into the wilderness and the wilderness is lonely. For the early Christians life was lonely; they were isolated in a pagan world. There are times when Christian witness is bound to be a lonely thing--but even in human loneliness there is divine companionship.

The one thousand two hundred and sixty days are once again the standard period of distress.

Satan, The Enemy Of God ( Revelation 12:7-9)

Here we have the picture of war in heaven between the Dragon, the Ancient Serpent, the Devil, Satan--all these names describe the one evil being--and Michael and all his angels. The idea seems to be that, such was his hatred, the dragon pursued the Messiah even to heaven, where he was met by Michael with his heavenly legions and finally cast out. It will be convenient to gather together here what Scripture has to say about Satan; it presents a complicated picture.

(i) There is the echo of the ancient story of a primaeval war in heaven. Satan was an angel who conceived "the impossible thought" of placing his throne higher than that of God (2Enoch 29:4, 5) and was cast out of heaven. The Babylonians had a similar story of Ishtar, the god of the morning star. He, too, rebelled against God and was cast down from heaven. There is one definite reference to this old story in the Old Testament. In Isaiah we read: "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!" ( Isaiah 14:12). The sin which caused the fall from heaven was pride. There may be a reference to this in 1 Timothy 3:6, where it is urged that the Christian preacher must be kept from pride lest he fall into the same condemnation as the devil did. When Satan was cast out of heaven, his dwelling-place became the air in which he had to wander; that is why he is sometimes called The Prince of the Air ( Ephesians 2:2).

(ii) There is a strong line of thought in the Old Testament in which Satan is still an angel under God's command and with access to his presence. In Job we find Satan numbered amongst the sons of God and possessing access to his presence ( Job 1:6-9; Job 2:1-6); and in Zechariah we also find Satan in the presence of God ( Zechariah 3:1-2).

To understand this conception of Satan we must first understand what the word Satan means. Satan originally meant simply an adversary. Even the angel of the Lord who stood in the path of Balaam to stop him from his sinful intentions can be called a satan against him ( Numbers 22:22). The Philistines feared that David would be their satan ( 1 Samuel 29:4). When Solomon entered upon his kingdom, he was so blessed by God that he had no satan left ( 1 Kings 5:4). But later the foreign kings, Hadad and Rezon, were both to become his satans ( 1 Kings 11:14; 1 Kings 11:23).

In the Old Testament Satan was the angel who was the counsel for the prosecution against men in the presence of God, their Adversary. Thus he is the counsel for the prosecution against Job, cynically suggesting that Job serves God for what he can get out of it and that, if he is involved in disaster, his loyalty will soon cease ( Job 1:11-12), and he is given permission by God to use every weapon short of death to test Job ( Job 2:1-6). So in Zechariah Satan is the accuser of Joshua the High Priest ( Zechariah 3:1-2). In Psalms 109:6 the King James Version actually uses the word Satan in this sense: "Let Satan stand at the right hand of the wicked." The Revised Standard Version rightly alters the translation to: "Let an accuser bring him to trial."

So, in the Old Testament Satan was the angel who is the counsel for the prosecution when a man was on trial before God; while Michael was the counsel for the defence. Between the Testaments there seems to have been a belief that there was more than one Satan engaged in the task of bringing accusations against men and we read of the archangel whose duty it was to fend off the Satans (I Enoch 40:6).

For the most part in the Old Testament Satan was very much under the jurisdiction of God.

(iii) In the Old Testament we never read of the Devil, although sometimes we come across devils; but in the New Testament Satan becomes the Devil. The Greek is Diabolos ( G1228) , literally a slanderer. There is not a very great dividing line between being a prosecuting counsel who brings charges against men and inventing such charges and tempting men into actions where such charges will be forthcoming. So, then, in the New Testament Satan becomes the seducer of men. We find that in the story of the temptations of Jesus the three names are indiscriminately used. This power of evil is Satan ( Matthew 4:10; Mark 1:13); the Devil ( Matthew 4:1; Matthew 4:5; Matthew 4:8; Matthew 4:11; Luke 4:2-3; Luke 4:5; Luke 4:13); and the Tempter ( Matthew 4:3).

Since this is so, we find Satan engaged in certain nefarious purposes in the New Testament story. He seeks to seduce Jesus in his temptations. He puts the terrible scheme of betrayal into Judas' mind ( John 13:2; John 13:27; Luke 22:3). He is out to make Peter fall ( Luke 22:31). He persuades Ananias to keep back part of the price of the possession he had sold ( Acts 5:3). He uses every wile ( Ephesians 6:11) and every device ( 2 Corinthians 2:11) to achieve his seducing purposes. He is the cause of illness and pain ( Luke 13:16; Acts 10:38; 2 Corinthians 12:7). He hinders the work of the gospel by sowing the tares which choke the good seed ( Matthew 13:39), and by snatching away the seed of the word from the human heart before it can gain an entry ( Mark 4:15; Luke 8:12).

Thus Satan becomes the enemy of God and man, the Evil One par excellence, for we should probably translate in the Lord's Prayer: "Deliver us from the Evil One" ( Matthew 6:13).

He can be called the Ruler of this World ( John 12:31; John 14:30; John 16:11), for, having been cast out of heaven, he has to exert his evil influence among men. He comes to be identified with the serpent because of the story of the Fall in Genesis 3:1-24.

(iv) The strange thing is that the history of Satan is a tragedy, whatever version of the story we use. In one version, Satan is the angel of light, once the greatest of the angels, whose pride caused him to seek to be higher than God and who was cast out of heaven. In the other version, Satan was a real servant of God and perverted his service into an opportunity for sinning. Satan is the supreme example of that tragedy in which the best becomes the worst.

The Song Of The Martyrs In Glory ( Revelation 12:10-12)

In these verses we have the song of the glorified martyrs when Satan is cast out of heaven.

(i) Satan appears as the Accuser par excellence; Satan, as H. B. Swete put it, is "the cynical libeller of all that God has made." According to Renan he is "the malevolent critic of creation." Satan stands for the sleepless vigilance of evil against good.

The historical background of the age in which the Revelation was written lends sharpness to this picture of Satan. This was the great age of the informer, the delator. People were constantly being arrested, tortured, killed because someone had informed against them. Tacitus, writing some years before, had said: "He who had no foe was betrayed by his friend." That ancient world knew only too well what malevolent, cynical, venal accusers were like.

(ii) This picture, then, shows us what we might call the cleansing of heaven. Satan, the malevolent Accuser, is cast out for ever. It is for this reason that the martyrs in glory sing their song of triumph.

The martyrs are those who have overcome Satan.

(a) Martyrdom is itself a conquest of Satan. The martyr has proved superior to every seduction and to every threat and even to the violence of Satan. Here is a dramatic truth for life every time we choose to suffer rather than to be disloyal is the defeat of Satan.

(b) The victory of the martyrs is won through the blood of the Lamb. There are two meanings here. First, on his Cross and through his Resurrection Jesus overcame forever the worst that evil could do to him; and those who have entrusted their lives to him share in that victory. Second, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross sin is forgiven; when a man accepts in faith what Christ has done for him, his sins are wiped out. And when he is forgiven, there is nothing for which he can possibly be accused. As Charles Wesley put it:

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in him is mine!

Alive in him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach the eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

(c) The martyrs are victorious, because they lived the great principle of the gospel. They did not consider life more important than loyalty. "He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" ( John 12:25). This principle runs all through the gospel ( Matthew 10:39; Matthew 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; Luke 17:33). For us this is not necessarily a matter of dying for the faith but of setting loyalty to Jesus Christ before the comfortable way.

(iii) This passage finishes with the idea that Satan is cast out of heaven and has come down to earth. His power in heaven is broken, but he has still power on earth; and he rages ferociously because he knows that all that he has left is a short time upon this earth before he is finally destroyed.

The Attack Of The Dragon ( Revelation 12:13-17)

The dragon, that is the Devil, on being cast out of heaven and descending to earth, attacked the woman who was the mother of the man child. We have seen that the woman stands for the Church in its widest sense of God's Chosen People from the midst of whom God's Anointed One came.

Here, then, is a certain symbolism. The dragon can injure the child by injuring the mother; that is to say, to injure the Church is to injure Jesus Christ. The words of the Risen Christ to Paul on the Damascus road were: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" ( Acts 9:4). Paul's persecution had been directed against the Church; but the Risen Christ makes it clear that persecution of his Church is persecution of himself. When we despoil the Church of the help we might have given it, we despoil Jesus of the help we might have given him; and when we serve the Church, we serve Jesus himself.

We have already seen ( Revelation 12:6) that the escape of the woman to the desert place comes from the escape of the Church to Pella on the other side of Jordan before the final destruction of Jerusalem. But in the escape of the woman and in the attack of the dragon John uses two pictures very familiar to those who knew the Old Testament.

The woman escaped on the two wings of the great eagle. Again and again in the Old Testament the eagle's wings are the symbol of the upbearing arms of God. "You have seen," God said to Israel, "what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to myself" ( Exodus 19:4). "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, the Lord alone did lead him (the people of Israel)" ( Deuteronomy 32:11-12). As the Scots paraphrase has it of Isaiah 40:31:

On eagles' wings they mount, they soar,

their wings are faith and love,

Till, past the cloudy regions here,

they rise to heav'n above.

We may note that, when men came to allegorize Scripture, Hippolytus saw in the eagles' wings the symbol of "the two holy arms of Christ outstretched upon the Cross."

The second picture is of the floods of water cast out by the serpent. We have seen how the old dragon of chaos was a sea dragon and, therefore, to connect the floods with him is quite natural. But again here we have an Old Testament picture. Again and again in the Old Testament tribulation and persecution are likened to an overwhelming flood. "All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me" ( Psalms 42:7). It is God's promise to the Psalmist that "the rush of great waters" shall not come near him ( Psalms 32:6). If the Lord had not helped him, the waters would have overwhelmed him and the streams would have gone over his soul ( Psalms 124:4). When he passes through the waters, God will be with him ( Isaiah 43:2).

The chapter finishes with two further pictures.

When the dragon ejected the floods of waters, the earth swallowed them up and so the woman was saved. It is not difficult to see where John got this picture. It quite often happened in Asia Minor that rivers were swallowed up in the sand only to reappear after travelling a distance underground. There was, for instance, a case of this near Colossae, an area which John must have known well.

But it is not so easy to see what the picture means. The symbolism is very likely this. Nature itself is on the side of the man who is faithful to Jesus Christ. As Froude the historian pointed out, in the world there is a moral order and in the long run it is well with the good and ill with the wicked.

Finally John has the picture of the dragon going to war with the rest of the family of the woman, with the rest of the Church. This tells of the coming spread of persecution all over the Church.

As John saw it, Satan cast down to earth is in his last terrible convulsion and that convulsion is going to involve the whole family of the Church in the agony of persecution.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Revelation 12:15

12:15–16 These verses describe the futile efforts of Satan to destroy the woman. These two verses should probably be understood as a metaphor for an attempted destruction of God’s people (compare note on Rev 12:1). - FSB

spewed water out . . Rivers of adversity - Psalms 124:4 This may be a metaphor connected to God’s wrath in Hosea 5:10.

flood . . We have not means for interpreting this description in detail. All we can say certainly is, that it describes the providential foiling of Satanic attempts at the destruction of Israel. Perhaps the most plausible suggestion of a definite meaning of the “flood” [better translated river] is that the Christians of Jerusalem, in their flight to “the mountains” (St Matthew 24:16 &c.) of Pella, were delivered by a miracle or special providence from the dangers of the passage of Jordan: - CBSC

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood,.... Which cannot design any persecution before the fall of Paganism, either of the Jews, or of the Romans; nor indeed the Arian persecution, since the casting out of this flood is distinguished from the above persecution, and was after the church began to flee upon that persecution; though it is not unusual for wicked persecutors, and violent persecutions, to be expressed by waters, and they are called proud waters, Psalms 124:1; and these may be said to be cast out of the mouth of the serpent, the devil, who was a persecutor and a murderer from the beginning, and by whom all persecutors and persecutions are instigated, moved, and carried on; but rather, as the words of a man's mouth are as deep waters,

Proverbs 18:4; and doctrines, good or bad, may be so called; that flood of errors and heresies, which were poured in between the times of Constantine and the rise of antichrist may be here intended; such as the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ; the Nestorian heresy, which divided his person; and the Eutychian heresy, which confounded the two natures in him; and the Macedonian heresy, which took away the deity of the Holy Ghost; and the Pelagian heresy, which destroyed the grace of God, and set up the power of man's free will: and this flood of errors and heresies may be truly said to be cast out of the serpent's mouth; since the old serpent, the devil, is the father of all lies, and errors: and the above heresies are the doctrines of devils, and damnable ones; and were designed by Satan to destroy the souls of men, and ruin the church: though since this flood followed upon the Arian persecution, and was after the church began to flee, being supported and secured by the two divisions of the empire, eastern and western, the wings of the Roman eagle, it seems best by this flood to understand the irruption of the barbarous nations, which quickly followed that division; the Goths, Huns, Vandals, Heruli, Alans, and Lombards, who were poured into the western empire, and overran, and at last destroyed it; so that this flood is contemporary with the first four trumpets; after which followed the swarms of locusts, the Saracens, which infested, teased, and tormented the "eastern" empire; and after them the Turks, the four angels bound at the great river Euphrates, were let loose, and like a mighty torrent overflowed, and utterly destroyed it; and all this was done at the instigation of Satan, he being filled with wrath, because the empire was become Christian, and his view was to destroy the church in it: for this flood was cast

after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood; along with the empire, and be no more; but his designs were frustrated, and he disappointed; so people, nations, and tongues, are compared to waters in Revelation 17:15; see Isaiah 8:7, which the Targum interprets of the armies of much people.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.   13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.   14 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.   15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.   16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.   17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

      We have here an account of this war, so happily finished in heaven, or in the church, as it was again renewed and carried on in the wilderness, the place to which the church had fled, and where she had been for some time secured by the special care of her God and Saviour. Observe,

      I. The warning given of the distress and calamity that should fall upon the inhabitants of the world in general, through the wrath and rage of the devil. For, though his malice is chiefly bent against the servants of God, yet he is an enemy and hater of mankind as such; and, being defeated in his designs against the church, he is resolved to give all the disturbance he can to the world in general: Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, and the sea,Revelation 12:12; Revelation 12:12. The rage of Satan grows so much the greater as he is limited both in place and time; when he was confined to the wilderness, and had but a short time to reign there, he comes with the greater wrath.

      II. His second attempt upon the church now in the wilderness: He persecuted the woman who brought forth the man-child,Revelation 12:13; Revelation 12:13. Observe, 1. The care that God had taken of his church. He had conveyed her as on eagles' wings, into a place of safety provided for her, where she was to continue for a certain space of time, couched in prophetic characters, taken from Daniel 7:25. 2. The continual malice of the dragon against the church. Her obscurity could not altogether protect her; the old subtle serpent, which at first lurked in paradise, now follows the church into the wilderness, and casts out a flood of water after her, to carry her away. This is thought to be meant of a flood of error and heresy, which was breathed by Arius, Nestorius, Pelagius, and many more, by which the church of God was in danger of being overwhelmed and carried away. The church of God is in more danger from heretics than from persecutors; and heresies are as certainly from the devil as open force and violence. 3. The seasonable help provided for the church in this dangerous juncture: The earth helped the woman, and opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood,Revelation 12:16; Revelation 12:16. Some think we are to understand the swarms of Goths and Vandals that invaded the Roman empire, and found work for the Arian rulers, who otherwise would have been as furious persecutors as the pagan had been, and had exercised great cruelties already; but God opened a breach of war, and the flood was in a manner swallowed up thereby, and the church enjoyed some respite. God often sends the sword to avenge the quarrel of his covenant; and, when men choose new gods, then there is danger of war in the gates; intestine broils and contentions often end in the invasions of a common enemy. 4. The devil, being thus defeated in his designs upon the universal church, now turns his rage against particular persons and places; his malice against the woman pushes him on to make war with the remnant of her seed. Some think hereby are meant the Albigenses, who were first by Dioclesian driven up into barren and mountainous places, and afterwards cruelly murdered by popish rage and power, for several generations; and for no other reason than because they kept the commandments of God and held the testimony of Jesus Christ. Their fidelity to God and Christ, in doctrine, worship, and practice, was that which exposed them to the rage of Satan and his instruments; and such fidelity will expose men still, less or more, to the end of the world, when the last enemy shall be destroyed.

Norris' Commentary on the Book of Revelation

Verses 13-17

THE ATTACK OF THE DRAGON ON THE CHURCH The dragon, cast out of heaven, attacked the woman (the church). The dragon can injure the child by injuring the woman. Here is the symbolism--TO INJURE THE CHURCH IS TO INJURE CHRIST--Note here the words of the risen Christ to Saul in Acts 9:4 "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" In attacking the church Saul had been attacking Christ. Ought we to reflect that when we injure our own church by our unlovely pettiness and un-Christlike attitudes even towards our fellow church members we are doing the devil’s work. We are not only injuring our church we are injuring Christ.

Verse 14

states that during the time of her persecution the church is given protection as on the strength of the eagle’s wings. The period of persecution for the church (the woman) is stated as "a time" (one year) "and times" (two years) "and half a time" (half a year). (This is ’1260 days,’ ’3½ years’). It should not be understood that we should seek some historical period of persecution of the church lasting exactly 3½ years. The number is SYMBOLICAL. It is the whole of the church’s persecution. It is not only in ONE age but in EVERY age that God provides in the day of adversity. It may be that in the future some striking fulfilment of this scripture may be seen. Meanwhile let us not overlook its promise for our own age. The enemy is described in verse 13 as "a dragon" because he is CRUEL. In verse 15 he is described as "a serpent," because he is CUNNING.

Verses 15, 16

The dragon having failed to destroy the church and Christ by fierce, cruel persecution, "the serpent" now seeks to destroy the church by a "flood," but the earth swallowed up the flood and helped the church ("the woman"). Invasion and hostile public opinion is often described in the Bible as "a flood", (e. g., Isaiah 59:19). It is common to find rivers which are swallowed up by the earth and taken underground (e. g., Australian inland rivers). Perhaps John’s picture is that the energy stirs up public hostility against the church which sweeps in like a destroying flood, as it certainly did when the Caesars of Rome inflamed public opinion against the church by lies about Christians setting fire to Rome, and public hostility swept in like a flood. "Yet the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river." This often happens. In spite of an infuriated population which has often hurled a flood of lies to destroy the church, still, in the main, "the earth comes to the help of the woman." The earth sees that the church is helping it to do its work for the good of the community, e. g., social work, caring for sick and aged, saving youth from delinquency. In a mysterious way, every devil-born flood of hostility and violence against the church sinks beneath the surface. These floods rise and then are absorbed. The universe is ultimately on the side of truth and right. It is not one nation, one age, which is described here: it is an eternal law.

Verse 17.

THE DRAGON STILL ATTACKS INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIANS He makes their lives uncomfortable, but the dragon cannot destroy the testimony of those who bring Christ to the world. David Livingstone said "A Christian is immortal until his work is done."

III. MEDITATION--Revelation 12:1-17

The devil lost the decisive battle to destroy Christ at the temptation in the wilderness and at Calvary; but the devil continues to attack Christ by conflict in the church, in the individual lives of Christians.

But the thrilling message of Revelation chapter 12 is that heaven is made secure by the sacrifice of Christ. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).

The devil still continues to attack Christ by attacking His church and her members but evil will have its end. The victories of evil are deceptive and temporary.

We have seen great evils rising "like a flood" in our own day, but they are "swallowed up"--Hitler came, but his time was short. Other evils come--and will go. In the long run the earth is on the side of goodness, this verifies Revelation 12:16. It may be a severe test of faith to believe in our atomic age that all nature ultimately turns against those who misuse goodness; but it is a faith worth maintaining, and it is the faith of Revelation chapter 12; which is also the faith and certainty of the whole of this book.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

We begin now what may be called the second volume of the Revelation. The prophetic part of the book divides into two portions at this point. This is another land-mark that cannot be despised, if we would acquaint ourselves with its structure and the bearing of its contents. And it is absolutely requisite to have, at any rate, a generally correct understanding of its outline; else we are in imminent risk of making confusion, the moment we venture to put the parts together, or to form anything like a connected view of that which it conveys to us. The meaning will be made plainer, if I repeat that the seventh trumpet, which was the closing scene before us, brings us down to the end in a general way.

This is constantly the habit of prophecy: take, for instance, our Lord's prophecy inMatthew 24:1-51; Matthew 24:1-51, where, first of all, we are given the broad outline as far as verse 14 the "gospel of the kingdom" preached in all the world for a testimony to all nations; and then the end comes. Having thus brought us down to the close in a comprehensive manner, the Lord turns back, and specifies a particular part of that history in a confined sphere, namely, from the time that the abomination of desolation is set up in the holy place. This clearly is some time before the end. It does not indeed go back absolutely to the beginning, but it returns a certain way, in order to set forth a far closer and more precise view of the appalling state of things that will be found in Jerusalem before the end comes.

Just so is it in the Revelation. The seals and the. trumpets which follow one another conduct us from the time that the church is seen in heaven glorified till judgment closes, i.e. "the time of the dead, even that they should be judged," and the day of wrath upon the earth. Evidently this is the end. Then, in the portion which begins with the last verse of Revelation 11:1-19, we return for a special prophecy. The prophet had been told that he must prophesy again before many people and kings; and I suppose that this is the prophesying again.

So the temple of God is now seen to be open. It is not a door opened in heaven to give us the general view of what was to take place on the earth as regarded in the mind of God. This John did see, the general view being now closed; and we enter on a narrower line of things. The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His covenant. It is the resumption therefore of the old links with His ancient people Israel. At the same time it is not yet the day of blessedness for the Jew. Nor is heaven itself opened for Jesus, attended by risen saints, to appear for the judgment of the beast and the false prophet with their train. It is a transition state of things. When God deigns to look upon and gives us to see the ark of His covenant, He is going to assert His fidelity to the people. Of old He gave promises, and will shortly accomplish all which had been assured to their fathers. The ark of His covenant is the sign of the unfailing certainty of that to which He bound Himself.

"And there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings," and besides not "an earthquake" only, but "great hail." In the first scene in the fourth chapter, when the door was seen open in heaven, there were "lightnings, and voices, and thunderings," but there was not even an earthquake. In Revelation 8:1-13 this addition appears. Now besides there is hail. Clearly, therefore, we are coming to far greater detail in the way of judgments from heaven on the earth.

Then the first sign was beheld above. "There appeared a great sign in heaven." We are not to suppose that when the prophecy is fulfilled, any woman will be seen either in heaven or elsewhere as its accomplishment. This is a fertile source of mistake in the interpretation of these visions. Her being seen in heaven shows that it is not a mere history of what is taking place on earth, but that it is all viewed in God's mind. Consequently it is seen above. In point of fact, what the woman represents will be Israel on the earth. The woman is a symbol of the chosen people viewed as a whole, for a future state of things that God means to establish here below. She was "clothed with the sun." Supreme authority is to be seen now connected with Israel, instead of her being in a state of desolation, down-trodden by the Gentiles. "And the moon under her feet" is an allusion, I suppose, to her old condition of legal ordinances, which, instead of governing her, are now subject to her under her feet. How aptly the moon sets forth the reflected light of the Mosaic system is evident to any thoughtful mind. In the millennium this will not be wholly out of sight as now under Christianity, but reappear only it will be in manifest subordination, as we may see in Ezekiel's prophecy. "And upon her head a crown of twelve stars." There is the evidence of human authority in the way of administration here below. In short, whether it be supreme, derivative, or subordinate authority, she is seen with all attached to her. Israel is therefore the manifest vessel of the mighty purposes of God for the earth; and God so looks at her and presents her to us. Thus it is as complete a chance as can be conceived for Israel. But this is not all. "She was with child, and crieth, travailing in birth, in pain to be delivered." It is not yet the day for joyous and triumphant accomplishment of the divine purpose, when before Zion travails she is to bring forth, and before her pain come she is to be delivered of a man-child. There is weakness and suffering yet, but all is secured, and the end is pledged.

Then there is another sign; namely, "a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads." It is Satan, but here invested with the form of the most determined and successful enemy that Israel ever had; for bad as was the tyranny of Nebuchadnezzar, it is evident that the Roman power trod down Jerusalem with a far more tremendous and permanent tyranny. This therefore makes the unfolding of this double sign so much the more striking. It is not that she is delivered yet; but she is seen by the prophet according to the mind of God. This is to be her place, a mighty encouragement, considering what she must pass through before it is all realized. Before this is effected, the enemy is shown in his character of rebellious apostate power. The dragon has seven heads i.e., the completeness of ruling authority; and ten horns, not exactly completeness, but at any rate a very large distribution approaching it, in the instruments of the power wielded in the west. Man is never thus complete. What God gave the woman we saw twelve stars. The dragon has only ten horns. There was a full succession of all the various forms of government, which I suppose to be referred to in the seven heads; but God would not give it that completeness of administrative power even in form which belonged to the woman. All will be in due order when the Lord Jesus takes the government of the earth into His hands in the age to come. "Verily I say unto you, That ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." The twelve apostles of the Lamb are destined to this special place of honourable trust.

"His tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven." Here is what seems to show that the third part has a distinct connection with the Roman empire. We saw the third part for the first time in the trumpets, both in the four earlier trumpets and also in the sixth. I have no doubt the Roman empire is particularly in view; and, by the Roman empire we are to understand what was properly Roman the western portion, not what the Romans actually possessed, because they conquered a great deal that belonged to Greece for instance, and Babylon, and Medo-Persia. This was far east; but the properly Roman part was western Europe. There the dragon's power was particularly felt. It "drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them unto the earth; and the dragon stands before the woman that was about to bring forth, that he might devour her child as soon as she should bring forth. And she brought forth a male son, who is about to shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and unto his throne."

There are some things that require explanation here. First of all, a notion prevails that the woman is the church. There may be some Christians now present who have been so taught. A few words, I think, are quite sufficient to dispel the illusion. The church is never represented as a mother in scripture: still less could it be the mother of Christ. Viewed as a woman, the church is the bride of Christ, not His mother; whereas the Jewish body may be truly represented as His mother in symbol. Christ, as man, came of the Jews after the flesh. Accordingly, it is very plain that He is the one here described as the male. The same truth is most evident from the scriptures, whether we take the psalms or the prophets. "Unto us," Isaiah says, "a child is born, a son is given." Again, in the second psalm, we find that the one who is not merely the child of Israel, but acknowledged and honoured by God Himself as the Son, was to rule the nations with a rod of iron. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the Lord Jesus is the one here prominent as the male child.

This, then, furnishes an unquestionable and important key to the meaning of the scene we are now entering upon. The woman represents Israel in the mind of God, Israel in its full corporate character.

Another remark seems to me just. Although Christ, I have no doubt, is referred to as the man-child born of Israel, it may be no small difficulty at first sight to, some minds how to bring in the birth of Christ in this chapter. Indeed, it is a very fair question, and ought to be met. Let it then be observed, that here the Spirit of God is not proceeding with the course of the prophecy. I have already explained that He goes back. Consequently, so far all is perfectly open as to the point of time to which He returns. And another thing should be taken into account that in this portion there is no date serving to fix the time when the birth of the man-child takes place. But then it may be asked, why should the birth of the man-child be introduced here, seeing that it was a patent fact that the Lord had been born, had lived, and died, and gone to heaven long before? There was nothing new to tell. All this was long and well known through the gospel, as well as in oral teaching to the Christians; why then should it be set forth so strangely in this prophecy? The reason I believe to be, that God desired in this very striking manner to rehearse it mystically, and not at all in full open statement, so as to combine it with His translation to heaven and to His own throne. There was a further link with the re-opening of God's dealings with the Jews, and the eventual restoration of the nation. All are introduced here together.

Thus it is plain that God is not at all disposing these matters now as a question of time, but of connection with Christ their centre. John is going to enter into the final scenes after this; but before this is done, we have God's counsel shown about Israel. This brings forward the devil in his evil opposition to that counsel; for it was surely what the adversary most of all feared. Satan invariably opposes Christ with greater tenacity of purpose and hatred and pride than any other. Recognizing in Him the bruiser of himself and the deliverer of man and creation, there is a constant antagonism between Satan and the Son of God that is familiar to us all. But there is more than this: Satan sets himself against His connection with the poor and despised people of Israel. Nevertheless, before God openly espouses the part of Israel, there is the remarkable fact that Christ is caught up to Him and to His throne. Not a word is said of His life; not a word even about His death and resurrection. As far as this passage goes, one might suppose the Lord caught up on high as soon as He was born. This shows us how remarkably mystical the statement is. It is history neither anticipated nor in fact. Had it been an historical summary, we must have had His life noticed with those mighty events on which all hopes for the universe depend. All this is entirely passed over. The reason, I think, is just this, that it intimates to us, as in Old Testament prophecy, how the Lord and His people are wrapped up, as it were, in the very same symbol; even as, in a yet more intimate way, what is said about Christ applies to the Christian.

On this principle then I cannot but consider that the rapture of the man-child to God and His throne involves the rapture of the church in itself. The explanation why it is thus introduced here depends on the truth that Christ and the church are one, and have a common destiny. Inasmuch as He went up to heaven, so also the church is to be caught up. "So also is Christ," says the apostle Paul, when speaking of the church; for we must naturally suppose the allusion is to the body rather than to the head. He does not say, so also is the church, but "so also is Christ." In a similar spirit St. John, in this prophecy, shows us first of all the male child taken to a place in heaven entirely outside the reach of Satan's malice. If this be so, and granted it has a remarkable bearing on what has been already asserted as to the book: we here begin over again, with a particular point of view as the object of the Holy Ghost in this latter portion. Before doing so, John gives us first the general purpose of God about the Jews.

This is strictly in order. We might have thought that the more natural way would be first of all to state the rapture of the man-child; but not so, God always does and describes things in the wisest and best method. The fact is that Christ being born of Israel, there is and ought to be first set forth the tracing of His connection with Israel. The next fact is the devil's opposition to the counsels of God, and hindrance for the time being, which gives occasion to the Lord Himself taking His place in heaven, and eventually to the church following Him into heaven, After this comes back on the scene the Lord's intention to make way for the effectuating of His counsels as to Israel and the earth. In short, therefore, the first portion of the chapter is distinctly a mystical representation of the Lord's relationship with Israel and of His removal out of the scene the effect of the antagonism of Satan; but it also gives room for God's binding up, as it were, with Christ's disappearance in heaven the church's following Him there in due time. For the church is united to Christ. In this way the rapture of the man-child is not a mere historical fact. Christ's ascension to heaven is brought in here because it contains as a consequence the church's subsequent removal to be with Him where He is, His body forming one and the same mystic man before God, "the fulness of him that filleth all in all."

If this then be borne in mind, the whole subject is considerably cleared. "She brought forth a male son, to rule all nations with a rod of iron." There is not the slightest difficulty in applying this to the man-child, viewed not personally and alone but mystically; and the less, because this very promise is made to the church in Thyatira, or rather to the faithful there. It will be remembered that at the end of Revelation 2:1-29 it was expressly said that the Lord would give to him that overcame power over the nations, and he should rule them with a rod of iron, just as He Himself received of His Father. Does not this most strongly confirm the same view? "And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should nourish her there a thousand two hundred [and] threescore days."

In verse 7 we have a new scene; and here we come much more to facts, not to counsels of God or to principles viewed in His mind, but to positive facts; and first of all from above, as later on we shall find effects and chancres on the earth. "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast [down], the ancient serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, who deceiveth the whole world, was cast unto the earth, and his angels were cast with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast [down], who accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by reason of the blood of the Lamb, and by reason of the word of their testimony, and loved not their life unto death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them." It is evident that at this time persons are spoken of as dwelling in heaven who sympathise deeply with their suffering brethren on earth. Such is the incontestable fact; and soon after Satan will have lost that access to the presence of God in the quality of accuser of the brethren that he had previously possessed; nor will he ever regain the highest seat of his power which is then lost. He is no longer able to fill heaven with his bitter taunts and accusations of the saints of God.

"Woe", however, it is added at this time, "to the earth and to the sea, for the devil has, come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath a short season." This clearly connects the dispossession of Satan from his heavenly seat with the last crisis of Jews and Gentiles at the end of the present age. We find here the hidden reason. Why should there be such an unwonted storm of persecution? why such tremendous doings of Satan here below for a short time, for three years and a half, before the close? The reason is here explained. Satan cannot longer accuse above; accordingly he does his worst below. He is cast down to earth, and never regains the heavens. Again, he will be banished from the earth, as we shall find, into the bottomless pit by and by; and then, although let loose thence for a short time, it is only for his irremediable ruin; for he is cast then (not merely into the pit or abyss, but) into the lake of fire, whence none ever comes back.

Such is the revealed course of the dealings of God with the great enemy of men from first to last.

From verse 13 the history is pursued not from the heavens, but on the earth. "And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the male [child]. And to the woman were given two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished there a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." Thus power is given to escape, rapid means of flight from Satan's persecution. It is not power to withstand Satan, and fight the battle out with him, but the facility given to flee from his violence. This seems to be what is meant by the two wings of the great eagle a figure of vigorous means of escape. That which is in nature the most energetic image of flight is vividly applied to the case before us.

Then we find the enemy, baffled by God's provision, using other efforts. "And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood." That is, he here endeavours to stir up the nations (such as are, I suppose, in a state of disorganisation) to overwhelm the Jews. In vain; for "the earth" what was under settled government at this time "helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, that keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus." By these are meant such of the Jews as will be remarkable for their power of testimony. The woman represents the more general idea of that people. The remnant of her seed are the witnessing portion. You must bear in mind that all the Jews of that day will by no means have the same spiritual power. There will be differences. Some will be much more energetic and intelligent than others. Satan hastens therefore, and endeavours to put down those that seem most useful as the vessels of the testimony of Jesus.

This accordingly leads to the plans that Satan sets up for the purpose of accomplishing his long-cherished design of supplanting not only gospel and law, but the testimony to the kingdom of God in the world. And there are two especial methods which Satan will adopt, suited to catch a twofold class of men who are never wanting in this world natural men, some of Whom like power, as others like religion. I am not now speaking of any who are born of God; but it is clear that man's heart runs either after intellect and power, or into religious formality. The devil will therefore put forward two main instruments as leaders of systems that express human nature on either side, exactly suiting what the heart of man seeks and will have. Thus Satan has designed from the beginning to set up himself in man as God. For he too will work by man, as God Himself is pleased to develop all His wondrous ways and counsels in man. As the Lord Jesus is not only a divine person but the expression of the divine glory no less than of His grace; and as the church is the object of His love in heavenly blessedness, and Israel for the earth; so the enemy (who cannot originate but only corrupt the truth, and lie by a sort of profane imitation of the counsels of God) will have his beasts no less certainly than God has His Lamb. In Revelation 13:1-18 this is made plain. There are these two beasts; the first civil power, the second religion, and both apostate.

"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns." The beast that emerges from the revolutionary Roman world is just adapted for the dragon to fill with opposition to the purposes of God. In Revelation 12:1-17 the dragon was seen similarly characterized as the beast. Both have the forms of power peculiar to the Roman empire. But there is a difference also: "And upon his horns ten diadems, and upon his beads names of blasphemy." The dragon has the diadems on his heads; the beast shows us more the actual facts the horns crowned. The dragon represents the enemy of Christ in his political employment of the Roman empire, and this from first to last; so that the heads or successive forms of power are said to be crowned, not the horns, which were only as a fact to be developed before the close of its history at the earliest not before the Gothic barbarians broke up the empire of the west. On the other hand, in the beast ofRevelation 13:1-18; Revelation 13:1-18 we see, not merely the hidden spirit of evil making use of the power of Rome in its various changes, but the empire in its final state when the deadly wound done to the imperial head was healed, and Satan shall have given to it thus revived his power, his throne, and great authority. Now this is the very time when the ten horns receive authority as kings; it is simultaneously and continuously with the beast, as Revelation 17:1-18 informs us; and hence the horns of the beast are seen crowned (not merely the heads, as in the dragon's case previously).

Further, the beast is described afterwards in remarkable terms, which allude to the beasts so well known in Daniel 7:1-28. "And the beast which I saw was like a leopardess, and its feet were as of a bear, and its mouth as a lion's." Here we have certain qualities that resemble the three first-named beasts of the prophet Daniel. Though Satan does not originate, he adopts whatever will suit of that which has been, and endeavours by this most singular combination to bring out the beast or fourth empire (for there is none to succeed) so as to surpass for the last days everything known of old.

What is meant by a beast? An imperial system or empire, but withal refusing to recognize God above. Man was made to own Him, and alone does, as taught of God. Man alone of all beings in the earth was made to look up to One above, and is responsible to do the will of God. The beast does not look up but down; it has no sense of an unseen superior. "The fool hath said in his heart that there is no God." In principle this is true of every unrenewed man; but here it is the more tremendous, because an empire ought to be the reflection of the authority that God in His providence has conferred on it. No empire has avoided the moral sentence implied in the symbols, but this beast will go beyond all that have ever arisen. At the time that the prophecy was given the fourth beast was in existence; but the prophet was given to see that out of a state of political convulsion, just before the last three years and a half, and connected with Satan's expulsion from heaven by the power of God, this beast rises up out of the sea. That is, there will be a state of total confusion in the west, and an imperial power will rise up. This is the one here described: "And I saw one of its heads as it were wounded to death; and its deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." It is not hard to see sufficient grounds for gathering that the wounded head was the imperial form of power. The empire of the west will have been long extinct, when, strange to say, it reappears in the latter day. But there is a great deal more than simply the revival of imperialism, which draws out the astonishment of the world. They had thought it all over with the Roman empire. They could easily understand a new empire; they could readily conceive a Teutonic kingdom, or a Muscovite dominion, or any other of large space and population; but the revival of the Roman empire will take the world by surprise. This is a part of what is here referred to. The grounds of this assertion, however, depend on Revelation 17:1-18, so that I cannot now enter into minute evidence, nor do I wish to anticipate what will come before us in the next lecture. Let it suffice to give what I believe to be the truth revealed about it as we pass onward.

But then it is not simply that this empire had qualities of power that belonged to more than one of the previous empires, and that it had its own peculiarity in that it was marked by the revival of imperialism at the close. We are told that "they worshipped the dragon, because he gave authority to the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast? and who is able to make war with him?" It is evident, therefore, that we have here an apostate and idolatrous state of the world. The dragon is worshipped, as is the beast; and2 Thessalonians 2:1-17; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 is plain that worship is paid to another personage connected with, but distinct from, these both, called "the man of sin," which is much more a religious power. The first beast is a political body; the religious chief will not be in the west at all, but in Jerusalem, and a very special object of worship in the temple of God there at the close.

This is a difficulty to some, because it is distinctly said that this man of sin will not tolerate any other object of worship. But then you must remember that they are all the same firm. Therefore to worship the one is pretty much to worship the other; just as in regard to the true God, there is no worship of one person in the Godhead without the same homage to the others. It is in vain for any to pretend to worship the Father without worshipping the Son, and he that worships the Father and the Son can only worship in the power of the Holy Ghost. When we worship God as such, when we say "God," we do not mean Father only, but Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. So precisely in this awful counterpart, the fruit of the energy of satanic craft and power at the close. The worshipping of the dragon and of the beast seems therefore quite consistent with divine worship paid to the man of sin. The fact is, they are, as often remarked with justice, the great counter-trinity the trinity of evil as opposed to the Trinity of the Godhead. The devil is clearly the source of it all; but then the public leader of his power politically is the beast; and the grand religious agent, who works out all plans and even miracles in its support, is the second beast or man of sin.

This appears to be the true and mutual bearing of all, if we bow to all these scriptures. I am aware that differences of thought exist here as in almost everything else. But this objection has no force at all. The only question is, what best satisfies the word of God, what most faithfully answers not merely to the letter of it, but to its grand principles? I am persuaded, therefore, that far from any real obstacle in the fact of these three different objects being combined in worship, on the contrary the force and nature of the case cannot well be understood unless this is seen.

Let us pursue the other points which the scriptures set before us. "And there was given him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given him to continue [or act] forty-two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that tabernacle in heaven." Here again it seems evident that there is a people in heaven removed from exposure to the power either of Satan or of the public instruments of his malice in the world. There are also saints here below. The tabernacle above may be blasphemed, and those that dwell there Satan may revile, but he cannot touch cannot even accuse longer before God. He turns therefore all his power to deal with man on the earth.

"And it was given him to make war with the saints" (clearly those that are not in heaven), "and to overcome them: and authority was liven him over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him." It will be seen that there is an invariable distinction between the crowd of the Gentiles scattered over the world, and "those that dwell on the earth." The difference is that the former class is a larger term, embracing the world at large; whereas by the latter is meant a considerably narrower sphere, whose character of earthliness is the more decided, because it had known the heavenly testimony of Christ and the church. The name might be still held; but apostate hearts deliberately preferred earth to heaven, and would surely have their portion in neither, but in the lake of fire.

It is solemn to see that this is what Christendom hastens to become: infidelity and superstition are rapidly forming it now. All that is at work is bringing about this earthly and godless state of things. Never since the gospel was preached were men more thoroughly settling down in the endeavour to improve the earth, and consequently to forget heaven day by day, only thinking of it as a dismal necessity when they die, and cannot avoid leaving the world. But as to turning to heaven, both as a hope full of joy and as a home for the affections, whenever was it more thoroughly kept out of the minds of men? All this then prepares us for the designation given to the people that did hear of heaven but deliberately gave up all the hopes connected with it to settle down on the earth. They were dwellers on the earth. The others are "every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation," that have heard comparatively little about the gospel. But he will endeavour to deal with both; and more particularly "all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose name is not written in the book of life of the slain Lamb from the foundation of the world."

Carefully bear in mind that "from the foundation of the world" belongs not to "slain," but to the writing of the name. John does not mean that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, but that the name was not written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. Compare Revelation 17:8.

"If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity." The importance of this statement was to guard the saints themselves from taking power peremptorily into their own hands. They might cry to God, they might ask Him to arise and judge the earth, but they were not to fight themselves. As the beast would take power, so should he suffer the consequence. He might lead into captivity, but into captivity he must go. He might kill with the sword, but he must be killed himself: indeed, his would be a still more awful doom. At the same time patience, with this retributive sanction annexed, is put in as a general principle, and stated in such a form as to apply to any one. It was surely and particularly meant to guard the saints from mistake and wrong. I do not think the direct application is to the beast, but rather warning to the saints of God. "Here is the patience and faith of the saints." This gives the application.

In the latter part of the chapter we have a second beast. This calls for more attention, because there has been and there is a danger of some confusion and difficulty on this subject. Let it be observed that the second beast it is which more particularly resembles in wickedness what the Lord Jesus was in goodness. It is indeed a "beast;" that is, it has a kind of imperial power, though very likely on a far smaller scale than the first beast. Still it has the character of empire attached to it. It is a beast, and not merely a horn. Then the horns that it has have a peculiar character. "He had two horns like a lamb." There was the pretence of resembling the Messiah. But "he spake as a dragon." It was really the expression of Satan. "And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence." It is, therefore, plain that the second beast is really the more energetic of the two, and the active instrument of evil.

And this is always the case in every form of wickedness that has ever been forged for this world. The promoters of it the persons that exercise the influence, sometimes unseen, sometimes publicly are as a rule those that put religion forward. The religion of the earth is the prolific source of all the worst evil that is done under the sun. The devil could not accomplish his plans if there was not such a thing as earthly religion. Is not this an awful thing to think of, and a solemn thing, too, for those that have the smallest connection with it?

Accordingly in this case, observe, the second beast which resembles Christ, and takes that place, does not come out of the sea, or the turbulent state of the nations, but out of the earth. It is a more settled state of things when this beast appears, who exercises all the authority of the first beast before him (that is, in his presence, with his full sanction: it is not usurpation; it is not in any sense something done without him; but it is done in his presence, as is here said); "and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast" (there is an understanding between them), "whose deadly wound was healed." It is remarkable that in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 we do not hear of his causing the world to worship the first beast; but that he compels or at any rate claims worship, and is himself worshipped as God. For he arrogates divine worship to himself.

It makes the whole matter plain, if we remember that the first beast means the Roman empire, and, consequently, its seat is the west. The second beast, on the contrary, is in the land of Palestine, and has a Jewish form. Any one who looks at2 Thessalonians 2:1-17; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 can see that we are in view of what will be in the land of Judea, and not in Rome. It is the temple of God that is particularly seen, where the man of sin sets himself up as an object of worship. Only we must remember that we must read scripture with scripture. Supposing I treat the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians as giving me all that the Bible tells about the man of sin, I foreclose scripture, and must have an imperfect account. On the other hand, if we take only what we have inRevelation 13:1-18; Revelation 13:1-18, we shall want certain elements necessary for completing the sketch. I believe that all this is arranged with consummate wisdom by God, because He does not want us to read only one part of His word; He wishes us thoroughly to search into all His word. He will not give a proper understanding of holy writ, unless there be a real confidence in and value for all that He has given us. Consequently it is only by putting together these scriptures, as to which there is ample light to show what is referred to, that we can really understand the subject.

Now it is quite plain in the first part of the chapter that we have before us a mighty political power. It is equally certain that 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 describes not a vast imperial system so much as a religious power. An utterly lawless personage is the man of sin, but still essentially a religious power. It claims to itself what belongs to God; and this is precisely what we find connected with the second beast.

We may remark another feature in the symbol here. It had two horns. The reason, as I suppose, is connected with the whole testimony of John. Any one who has looked into it will see that even as to our blessed Lord Himself, the general bent is to show what He was on earth not what He is in heaven. I admit there are exceptional passages in John; but while Paul's object is to direct us to Christ in heaven, as the characteristic point of his witness, John on the contrary draws particular attention to what He was on earth.

This seems to me of importance for the meaning of these two horns. The Lord Jesus, as all are aware, was a prophet on earth; and assuredly, as we know, He will reign as king over the earth. But what lies between? He is priest; but He is priest in heaven. Accordingly it is not the place of John but of Paul to bring out the heavenly priesthood of Christ. John never, as far as I know, develops the offices of Christ above. Not but that he points out what connects itself with them, as for instance, inJohn 13:1-38; John 13:1-38, and again inJohn 14:1-31; John 14:1-31, as well as inJohn 17:1-26; John 17:1-26 and John 20:1-31. But these are quite exceptions. The general strain of John is to dwell on Christ manifesting God here below. Paul's doctrine is man glorified in heaven.

Accordingly this I believe to be the key to the two horns of the beast. When the Antichrist appears, he will not take the place of being a priest; far higher will be his assumption. He will set up to be a prophet, and a king, yea, a king imitating what Christ will be to Israel. We have two horns, not seven; it is an imitation, but not of the full power of Christ. In the Lord we see perfection of power, just as could be said of the Holy Ghost in His fulness of power for government. In the Antichrist there is the pretension to what belonged to Christ connected with the earth, and with the most marked absence of what pertains to Him in heaven.

This is no mean evidence by the way, that the idea of applying all this to the papacy as its full meaning is a mistake; for the essential feature of the papacy lies in its assumption to be a living earthly representative of Christ's priesthood. It is precisely the corruption of what is heavenly and not Messianic. Popery is much more antichurch than antichrist. Such is the difference.

But when Revelation 13:1-18 is fulfilled, there is no question of the church any longer. The Christian body will be no more seen on earth. the saints of the high places are on high. Accordingly it is not a mere sham clothing with the priestly power of Christ which the antichrist makes, but a false assumption of His prophetical place which was on the earth, and of His kingly sphere which will be on the earth. This personage claims both powers. He has two horns like a lamb, and is active in the performance of great signs and wonders. He has a double activity. First of all, he borrows the controlling influence of the Roman empire, he exercises all the authority of the first beast. Besides this, he does a vast deal on his own account which the Roman emperor could not do. "And he worketh great signs, that he should even make fire to come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men." That is, he imitates the power not only of Christ but of God. He claims to be the Jehovah God of Israel. Just as Jesus is Jehovah as well as Messiah, so this vessel of Satan's power in Jerusalem will emulate what God did by Elijah to disprove the claims of Baal. Fire, we know, came down and consumed the sacrifice of old, and God demonstrated as clearly that Baal was not God, as that Jehovah was. So the second beast will do wonders, not really, but in appearance. "He worketh great signs that he should even make fire to come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by reason of those signs which it was given him to work in the sight of the beast."

All shows that this is the antichrist. The first beast does not work any miracles whatever. He astonishes the world by reviving imperialism; but this is a very different thing and cannot properly be called a sign. It may and will amaze men, but is not a miracle. But the beast out of the earth or land, which is incomparably more active and energetic than the first, does work great signs (no doubt by Satan's energy, but still he works them); and the consequence is that he "deceiveth them that dwell on the earth," saying to them especially "to make an image to the beast, which had the stroke of the sword, and lived." I am not prepared to say whether this is or is not the abomination of desolation set up in the holy place. It seems to resemble that idol, and may probably be the same thing.

"And it was given him to give life to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark on their right hand, or on their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast. for it is a man's number; and his number [is] six hundred threescore [and] six."

The various guesses that have been made respecting this number are most inadequate. It may be that it is one of those secrets that cannot be unravelled until the person appears, when we may be sure that at least the wise will understand it. That we are to understand it now is, I think, more than we ought to assume. To what moral profit could it possibly serve? Assuredly everything that can edify and refresh the soul, and that can be used by the Holy Ghost for real blessing in separating us from the world and attaching us to heaven, and, above all, to Christ, we may gather from the Revelation rightly understood now. Indeed, I believe we can gather a great deal more than those who are to be in the circumstances will be able to reap in their day. But there may be points of minute application kept back by the wise reserve of God, who does not indulge mere curiosity, as this would be. Such knowledge will be of practical importance only when the time comes; and therefore I do not doubt that this is just one of those points in which the Lord does not gratify men's minds now. I have heard no explanation that carries any force along with it. Many of those which have been offered entirely and obviously fail for instance, "apostacy" and such like explanations. "Apostacy" is not the number of a man; nor for similar reasons can "apostate" stand, nor, perhaps, "the Latin man" or kingdom, though certainly entitled to attention. Further, it does not seem, as generally thought, to be the number of antichrist, the second beast, but of the Roman empire, or rather Emperor, in final antagonism to Jehovah and His anointed.

Next we come to Revelation 14:1-20, where we have neither the counsels of God as opposed by Satan, first in heaven and then in earth; nor the plan and instruments by which Satan gives battle to those counsels. All this we have had in chapters 12 and 13. But now we enter on another line of things. What is God doing with His own? Nothing? Impossible! All must be active and good. God, therefore, is pleased to reveal to us a variety of ways in which He will put forth His power, and send both testimony and warning suited to the crisis; and this is given with remarkable completeness throughout the seven divisions into which this chapter naturally divides itself.

The first is a certain numbered multitude separated to the Lamb on mount Zion. The Lord Jesus is about to insist on His rights in the midst of Israel; and Zion is the known centre of royal grace. Royal, I say, because it is Christ asserting His title as Son of David; but it is also royal grace., because it supposes the total ruin of Israel, and that the Lord in pure favour begins there to gather round Himself once more. This accordingly is the first form in which God displays His action for the last days. The devil may have his beasts and horns; God has His Lamb; and the Lamb now is not seen on the throne in heaven, or taking a book. He stands on mount Zion. It is a notable point of progress toward the kingdom that is clearly brought before us before the close.

"And I looked, and, lo, the Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred and forty-four thousand, having his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads." They are not spoken of as conscious of any such relationship, as it is not a question of their Father, not of His Father and their Father. Nothing of the kind is ever found in the Apocalypse but "his Father's name on their foreheads." "And I heard a voice from heaven, as a voice of many waters, and as a voice of great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: and they sing [as it were] a new song in presence of the throne, and in presence of the four living creatures and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand, which were bought from the earth. These are they who were not defiled with women; for they are virgins."

These saints had not corrupted themselves; and the name of the Lamb is coupled with them. With Babylonish wickedness here below they had nothing to do; they were pure, and are associated with the holy Sufferer. "These are they that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were bought from among men, first-fruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault" ["before the throne of God" is spurious]. Such is the first action of God. It is a complete remnant, not said to be from the twelve tribes of Israel, such as we saw inRevelation 7:1-17; Revelation 7:1-17; but this is particularly of the Jews. They were gathered out from those guilty of rejecting the Lamb. And now. God answers all that and other wickedness by this merciful and honourable separation to the Lamb, who is now about to be installed in His royal seat on mount Zion.

The next scene gives us an angel flying. "And I saw," it is said, "another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having [the] everlasting gospel to preach unto those that sit on the earth, and unto every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people." Why is it called "everlasting"? We must remember that the gospel which is being preached now is a very special gospel, and in no way an everlasting gospel. Nobody ever heard the gospel that is preached now till Jesus died and rose and even went to heaven. That is to say, the gospel as it should be preached in and out of Christendom depends on the most stupendous facts ever accomplished here below, for which God waited more than four thousand years even of man's dwelling on the earth before He would or could righteously send it forth. Consequently the gospel of the grace of God, as we know, is not properly (never in scripture) called the "everlasting gospel." I suspect that most use these terms without thinking what is really meant. When they call the gospel now the "everlasting gospel," they have probably some vague notion that it connects us with eternity. They think it a fine-sounding epithet, conveying I really do not know what; but at any rate it is to be supposed that there is some idea in the mind of those that so characterize "the gospel of God." It is certainly a mistake, if scripture is to decide.

"Everlasting gospel" means what it says. It means those glad tidings that always have been and always will be true: whatever else God has made known to man, this has always abode unchanging. What is it then? The glad tidings of God always were that He purposes to bless man by the promised seed Christ Jesus, to set him up over the rest of creation, to have dominion as His image and glory. At the very beginning the first chapter of Genesis proves that this is God's mind for man here below. The end of all things will proclaim the selfsame thing. The millennium will be a grand demonstrative testimony to it. In the new heavens and the new earth man will be thoroughly and for ever blest.

The declaration of this I believe to be the everlasting gospel. In the latter day it will act as the setting aside of the lie of Satan, who puts and would fain keep man in a position of estrangement from God, who is morally forced to be the judge of man instead of being the blesser of all upon the earth, and consequently to cast him into hell. All this, it is plain, is the fruit of Satan's wiles; but the everlasting gospel presents God as the blesser of man and creation, as it always was in His mind, and as He will certainly bring it to pass; not, of course, for every individual man, because those who despise His mercy in Christ, and those especially who having heard despise the gospel of His grace, must be lost for ever. I am speaking now of what always was before Him, and always kept before man in His word.

The way in which the subject is spoken of here confirms this. "Fear God," is the message, "and give glory to him" (there is thus the evident contradiction of idolatry); "for the hour of his judgment is come." Then will be the downfall of all those that oppose God, not only of all the vanities of the nations, but of all those that heed or sustain them against God. "Worship him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Clearly therefore it is the universal message of God to man, and connected with His creation glory. The solemn threat of His speedy judgments is a ground of pressing on the blinded consciences of man the claim of the honour solely due to Him.

There are no doubt many who think it an extraordinary circumstance that God should send out such a message as this in days rapidly approaching. Let me say why such a difficulty is felt. It is because men conjecture and judge out of their own position and their own relationships. But never earl we understand anything aright as long as we reason and conclude thus. It is not the way to understand any part of the Bible, least of all perhaps prophecy. If it be a question of our conduct or duty, it is indispensable to stand on our proper relationship; we must abide carefully in the place that God has given us, while bowing to the word of God that applies to us there. How can we act intelligently or rightly as Christians unless we, knowing what it means, believe we are Christians? We only glorify our God and Father just so far as we look up as children to Him as our Father, and as saints own Him as our God. This is surely true. But here no Christians are said to be on earth: we have elect Jews; we have nations, along with "those that sit upon the earth." That is, there are men, apparently apostates, under the latter designation, as well as the general mass of mere nations, tribes, tongues, and peoples. It seems then that God comes down, as it were, to meet them on the lowest possible ground of His own truth. And what is that? They are called to fear God and give glory to Him; and this is on the ground that He is Judge, just about to deal with His own world. He calls upon them to abandon all that idolatry into which they will have fallen, particularly in those days.

And I have not the slightest question myself that at this present moment there is the working of a leaven that will end in idolatry, especially (if there be in this a difference) for the higher orders of this country, who will drag in the lower also. In the humbler classes there is in another way that grossness of love for sensible objects and show that will prepare them for idolatry. But I repeat that there is the active instilling of a spirit, no doubt more subtle and refined in the educated classes, which, in my judgment, will infallibly school them into naturalistic idolatry before many years are over. There is, on the one hand, the material tendency of modern science and literature; there is, on the other, the condescending patronage of times that are past. On these dangerous tracks all that is now energetically leavening the world tends to bring man back to heathenism again; i.e., the apostacy.

However this may be judged by those who hear it, we must remember that there will be also another cause of a most solemn nature, which is plainly revealed: God is going to pour out a judicial delusion on Christendom. It is certain that He will not only inflict severe blows of judgment, but give men up to believe a lie the great lie of the devil. Here is the great truth of all times: that God, the God who has now revealed Himself in Christ and by redemption, alone is the due object of worship. So far then is this message, to my mind, from being a strange thing that it appears exactly suitable to man as then situated, and no less to God's wisdom and goodness.

Another consideration perhaps may help some as connected with this, and confirmatory of it, founded on Matthew 25:1-46, where the nations are called up before the Son of man when He sits as King upon the throne. It will be remembered that he tells those whom He designates as the sheep that, inasmuch as they did what they had done to His brethren, it was really to Him; as, on the other hand, the insults fell on Him which were aimed at them. These acts of kindness, or the contrary, will be owned by the Lord here. It is no use for people to call it the general judgment, or the judgment of our works. It is not. The one principle before us in this scripture is His dealing with the living Gentiles, or the nations according to their ways with His brethren; and it will require real power of God to act aright then. The pressure against His messengers will be enormous. If any receive them well, it will be from faith. I grant that the measure of their faith is small. That to honour His brethren is virtually to honour Himself, they do not themselves know. When they stand in presence of the King, how astonished they are that He should regard what was done to the messengers of His gospel in the last days as if done to His own.

Certainly these Gentiles were wrought in by divine grace, yet very evidently they will not be what you would call "intelligent." But then how often must we beware of making too much of this! What a constant snare it is to slip into an unconscious criticism! Men are apt to give themselves an exaggerated importance on the score of their knowledge. God, I am sure, always attaches a far higher value to the heed paid to the Lord Himself, and this too in those that He sends out. It is always a crucial test. It will be so then most of all, because these messages will go forth to the nations on the earth when, growingly lifted up and self-satisfied, they are summoned by messengers, poor and contemptible in their eyes, who will solemnly proclaim the kingdom just coming the King who is coming in person to judge the quick apart from and before the judgment of the dead. But some souls here and there will receive them, not only treating them kindly, but this because they receive the message. The power of the Spirit of God alone will give them this faith. None less than God Himself will incline their heart. Accordingly the Lord will refer to this reception, or the kindness that accompanied it, as an evidence of their heeding Himself in the persons of His messengers.

This I consider to be similar, if not the same, as the everlasting gospel; indeed it is called by Matthew the "gospel of the kingdom." I am inclined to infer that the "gospel of the kingdom" and the "everlasting gospel" are substantially identical; and that it was thus described because it was always in the purpose of God to establish this kingdom over the world, and to bless man himself here below. This Matthew, in accordance with his design, calls rather the "gospel of the kingdom," because Christ is going to be King. John, it would seem, calls it the "everlasting gospel," because it is in contrast with special messages from time to time, as well as with all that bad to do with man as he is here below. At this most corrupt time, then, the message will be sent forth, and certain souls will receive it by God's grace.

Thus the second scene in the chapter is the proclamation of the everlasting gospel unto those settled down on the earth, and to the nations, etc., as the first section was the separation of a remnant of Jews to the Lamb on mount Zion.

The third section, which may be passed over with comparatively few words, is a warning respecting the fall of Babylon. An angel comes forth, saying, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, the great city, which made all the nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication."

The fourth is a warning about the beast. "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark on his forehead, or on his hand, he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mingled without mixture in the cup of his anger; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up unto ages of ages: and they. have no rest day and night, who worship the beast and his image, and if any one receiveth the mark of his name." So far these divine dealings all go in pairs: as the work among the Jews, and then a final testimony to the Gentiles; then the warning about Babylon, and another about the beast. "Here is the endurance of the saints, that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."

Then we come to the fifth, which is rather different. It is a declaration, that "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth." From this time nobody that belongs to the Lord is going to die, and those that die in the Lord ( i.e. in fact all who have thus died) are just on the point of blessedness, not by personal exemption but by the first resurrection and the reign with the Lord, which will terminate all further persecution and death for His name. The wicked must pay the wages of sin, and be destroyed by the judgments of God; but there shall be no more dying in the Lord after this. As a class these are to be blessed (not to die) henceforth. "And I heard a voice out of heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed [are] the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they shall rest from their labours; for their works do follow with them." There is an end of such sorrow and labour: the Lord is going to take the world and all things in hand.

Accordingly in the next scene "I saw, and, behold, a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sitting like unto [the] Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Send thy sickle, and reap; for the hour is come to reap; for the harvest of the earth is dried. And he that sat on the cloud thrust his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped." It is not here a question of gathering in. The Son of man is seen with the crown of gold, King of righteousness, not yet manifested as King of peace.

And then the close of all the scenes comes. "And another angel came out of the temple that is in heaven, having himself also a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, that had authority over the fire; and called with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Send thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripened." This goes farther. For the harvest the call was out of the temple; here it is out of the temple that is in heaven. It is not only wrath on earth but from heaven. And another angel comes out from the altar ( i.e., the place of human responsibility, where God manifests Himself to sinners in the sacrifice of Christ, judging sins but in grace). So much the more tremendous His vengeance on the earthly religionists who despise Christ and the cross in deed if not in word. This angel has authority over the fire, the sign of detective and consuming judgment. In short, we have here the harvest and the vintage, the two great forms of the judgment at the close; the harvest being that judgment that discerns between the just and the unjust, and the vintage being the infliction of unmingled wrath on apostate religion, "the vine of the earth," which is the object of God's special abhorrence.

It is plain, therefore, that here we have seven distinct acts in which God will interfere in the way of forming a testimony, of warnings to the world and comfort to His people, and finally of judging the results as far as the quick are concerned.

But a very peculiar scene is described in Revelation 15:1-8, and Revelation 16:1-21. On this one need not now bestow more than a few words. "I saw another sign in heaven." It is clearly connected with what we have had inRevelation 12:1-17; Revelation 12:1-17. "And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having seven plagues, the last; for in them is filled up the wrath of God." You will observe that it is not yet the coming of Christ. This is of importance to show the structure of this portion of the book. We must carefully beware of supposing that the seven bowls are after the Son of man is come for the harvest and the vintage of the earth. We shall find, so far from this being the case, that the vision must go back, I do not say to the beginning ofRevelation 14:1-20; Revelation 14:1-20, but before the end of it. The very last of the bowls, the seventh, is the fall of Babylon. Now that act of judgment would correspond to the third dealing of God in chapter 14. The first was the separation of the Jews; the second the everlasting gospel to the Gentiles; and the third the fall of Babylon. Thus the last bowl only brings us up to the same point. Hence the bowls must not in any way be supposed to follow after chapter 14, but only after its earlier part at the utmost. This is important, because it may help some to gather a juster idea how to place chronologically the various portions of the book. The last bowl is also the last outpouring of God's wrath before the Lord Jesus Christ comes. Consequently it must precede the latter part of that chapter. It synchronizes, we have seen, with the third out of its seven consecutive sections. The end of chapter 16 does not in point of time fall lower than the third step in those of chapter 14. The fourth probably, but certainly the fifth, sixth, and seventh are events necessarily subsequent to all the bowls.

Let us look then a little into the subject. "I saw as it were a sea of glass." but here it is distinguished in its accompaniments from the description inRevelation 4:1-11; Revelation 4:1-11. There the elders were seen on thrones, with the sea of glass bearing its silent but strong testimony that these saints had done with earthly need and danger, that those who required the washing of water by the word are not contemplated in this scene. This is all intelligible and even plain. When the glorified saints are caught up to heaven, they no longer require what was set forth by the laver and its water to purify; for the sea of glass attests that the purity was fixed. The fact is, that they were beyond the scene where water was needed to cleanse their daily defilements.

Here it is not merely a sea of glass, but mingled with fire. What does this teach? It declares, in my opinion, that these saints passed through a time of fearful fiery tribulation, as did not the elders. The absence of the fire in connection with the elders is just as significant as the presence of fire in connection with the saints in collision with the beast and the false prophet, of whom we are now speaking. If people ask you, "Are the saints to pass through the time of tribulation? The right answer is, What saints do you mean? If you mean those that are presented by the elders caught up at Christ's coming, clearly they will not. Scripture is positive. If you only mean that some saints are to pass through that tremendous time, it is unquestionable. In short, we have only to distinguish, and all becomes perfectly plain: by confounding the two classes all is made a mass of obscurity. But scripture cannot be broken.

Here then we find a sea of glass mingled with fire. "And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and those that have gained the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God." The victory over the beast is never predicated of the elders in any sort; nor is there any connection with the elders here. It is a closing scene of fearful trial. This is important. The victories here are confined to the time when Satan's last plans become consummated. These were delivered from them probably before the beast falls. At any rate, the time does not seem of prime importance, but the fact is undeniable that these conquerors belong exclusively to the time of the last efforts of the devil through the beast and the false prophet. They are strictly speaking therefore Apocalyptic saints, and the final company of them. It will be recollected that in our last lecture we saw the first sufferers. Although these may have fallen under the hand of the Roman Empire, they really got the victory over it, and are here seen standing on the sea of glass having harps of God. Their melody in praise of the Lord was none the worse for the sea of tribulation through which they had passed into His presence.

"And they sing the song of Moses, servant of God, and the song of the Lamb." Thus it is plain that they are not Christians in the strict sense of the word. Assuredly they are saints in the most real sense, but not standing in the relations which now subsist; they are not to have that sort of bond which is made good by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in those who are now in association with Christ. So exclusive is it that those who may have been under Moses are under him no more; they own no master or head save Christ, Whereas the souls of whom we read here still retain their link with Jewish things, though beyond a doubt they serve God and the Lamb. Hence we hear of them "saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, O King" not "of saints," but "of nations." There is no such thing in scripture as "King of saints." This is one of the worst readings of the vicious received text of the Revelation. I do not hesitate to say, both that it is against the best witnesses, and that it conveys a heterodox meaning, and is consequently mischievous. For what can go more practically to destroy the proper relationship of the saints of the Lord? Elsewhere we never hear of such a thing as "King of saints," nor has it any just sense. To the saints the Lord Jesus stands undoubtedly as their Lord and master; but king is a relationship with a nation living on the earth. It is not at all a connection that pertains to the new man. Besides, these if martyred belong actually to heaven, where such a relationship would be strange indeed. Thus it is strange doctrine as well as a fictitious reading. The allusion is toJeremiah 10:7; Jeremiah 10:7. There you will find "king of nations," with other words which are cited here. If these saints were not exclusively Gentiles, at least they comprehended such; and this has to be borne in mind in reading the passage. The true title then is "king of Gentiles" or of "nations." No doubt King of the Jews He is; but those in particular who were Gentiles themselves would and ought to rejoice in being able to praise Him as the King of nations.

"Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee" (here again it is not Israel, but all nations shall come); "for thy judgments are made manifest." They are anticipating the triumph that is reserved for God in the day of the glory of Christ's coming.

"And after that I saw, and there was opened the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven: and the seven angels came out of the temple, that had the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles. And one of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who liveth unto the ages of the ages. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no one was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled." It is not now the ark of God's covenant seen in the opened temple. It is characterised as the tabernacle of the testimony, and judgments follow on apostate Gentiles, not the revelation of the divine counsels touching Israel.

Then (Revelation 16:1-21) we have these seven bowls poured out. It is not now "the third" as under the trumpets, with which the analogy is close; there is no restriction to the western empire of Rome. The whole apostate sphere is smitten, and with yet more severity. The first, as we know, was on the earth; the second on the sea; the third on the rivers and fountains of waters; and the fourth on the sun. Thus all the different departments of nature, whatever may be symbolized by them (and their meaning seems to me neither indeterminate 'nor obscure), were visited by the bowls of God's wrath.

The three later bowls, like the three woe trumpets, come to closer quarters with men.

The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast. It is clear therefore that we have here a Gentile sphere before us, which fits in with the prefatory scene. "The fifth angel poured out his bowl upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. And the sixth angel poured out his bowl upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings that are from the sun-rising might be prepared." The Euphrates was the boundary that separated the empire on its oriental frontiers from the vast hordes of uncivilized north-eastern nations destined to come into conflict with the powers of the west in the latter day. Thus the way is made plain for them to come forward and enter into the final struggle. This seems the meaning of the drying up of the great river. "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of demons, working signs, which go forth unto the kings of the whole habitable earth, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God the Almighty." This gives proof of what I have just now referred to. There is about to be a universal uprising and fight to the death between the east and the west. But the Lord has designs which neither side knows nor regards, and He is no indifferent spectator. "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And they" (for I take it so) "gathered them together unto the place called in the Hebrew tongue Armagedon."

Lastly comes the seventh angel, who deals with the world still more decidedly and universally by pouring on the air. "And the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake" and not only great but unexampled "such as was not since men were upon the earth, such an earthquake, so great." Clearly, therefore, judgment from heaven becomes yet more unsparing in its blows on man here below. "And the great city came ( ἐγένετο ) into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon was remembered before God." This accounts for the warning of the fall of Babylon referred to in the complete series of God's dealings inRevelation 14:1-20; Revelation 14:1-20. To that Revelation 16:1-21 now brings us up in point of time.

This must suffice for tonight, though no more than a sketch of the general bearing of this part of the prophecy.