A Commentary in Simple English on Revelation

CHAPTER 12

We have already said that there are seven 'visions' in these chapters. These take us from Chapter 12 to Chapter 15:2-4. Let us list them first of all.

1. The Woman and the 'Dragon' Chapter 12

2. The Wild Animal from the Sea Chapter 13:1-10

3. The Wild Animal from the Earth Chapter 13: 11-18

4. The Lamb on Zion Chapter 14: 1-5

5. The three angels Chapter 14: 6-11

Break Chapter 14:12 and 13

6. The two harvests Chapter 14: 14-20

Break: The Seven Bowls Chapter 15:1

7. The Sea of Glass Chapter 15:2-4

Then from 15:5, John writes about the seven bowls.

There are two things we must say about this,

1. By now, we know how John writes. We know the shape of the book. So we are not surprised that he starts to write down the seven bowls before he has finished with the seven 'visions'. And we are not surprised that the seventh 'vision' brings us right up to the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus. But John then does not tell us here about the Second Coming. We have to wait until Chapter 19 for that.

2. Look at the first three 'visions'. The 'dragon' is the devil himself (12:9). The first wild animal is the Roman Empire. The second wild animal is the false worship of the Empire and of Caesar. Now:

a) The two wild animals of Chapter 13 are doing the devil's work for him. That is why they are so bad. So John teaches us about the badness of the devil in Chapter 12. Then he can show us just how bad the other two wild animals are.

b) The devil does his best to be like God. Look at 17:8 and 11, for example. He 'was, is not, and will come'. Our God 'was, is and is to come'. Many things in these chapters will show us this. But notice that our God, the Living God, is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is One God in Three Persons. He is a 'Trinity' - full of love, grace, power and goodness. So the devil sets to work the two wild animals. The three of them are a 'trinity' of hate and all that is bad.

c) We say that the wild animal from the sea in Chapter 13 is the Roman Empire. But this is not all that it means. It is a picture of any government that wants to be worshipped. It is any government that claims the rights of God. In any age, a government, which does not leave people free to worship God, is the same as this wild animal from the sea.

In the same way, the second wild animal is the high priest of the Roman state religion in the province of Asia. [12.1]. But this is not all. Whenever false religion is used by the state, that is the second wild animal. When false religion and the government make use of each other, this is the second wild animal. So all this does not belong only to the past. It still happens in many places today. And it brings suffering to Christians now, just as it did then.

Verses 1-6: The Woman and the Dragon

In verse 1, John says that there was a great sign that appeared in heaven, or the sky. Perhaps 'sky' is better here. The sign is a woman. A sign always points to something. The sign is in the sky; what it means is on the earth. So we should not try too hard to decide who the woman is. Some people say it is Eve; others, that it is Israel. Some say Mary, the Lord's mother; others the Christian Church. [12.2]. She is really a sign of God's light in the world. This is why sun, moon and stars gather round her. All the light that the world has is there. Once, the Jewish people were God's light in the world. (See Genesis 37:9.) Then Mary, the Lord's mother, became the mother of Jesus, who is the Light of the World. And now, God calls His people to be light in the world's darkness. The sign of the Woman, then, means that God always has His people in the world. They share His light.

The woman has a 'crown'. This is not a king's 'royal' crown. It is the kind of crown that was given to someone who had won a war or a race; it was a 'victor's' crown. In verse 2, we learn that the woman was about to give birth to a baby. Already the pain was so bad that it made her cry.

We have to remember that John could see pictures like this in the temples of the cities like Ephesus. And Daniel, who uses pictures like these too, lived and worked in old Babylon. Around him were temples and great figures of heathen 'gods' and pictures of the strange stories that were told about them. There were pictures, too, of strange animals, which only had a place in a bad dream.

John tells us about one of them in verse 3. This is the second 'sign'. It is a 'dragon'. Now there is no such animal as a 'dragon'. If you can find a picture of a 'dinosaur', that may help you to understand what a 'dragon' was. Or a 'dragon' may really have been a 'crocodile' (Job 41). Crocodiles lived in the river Nile in Egypt, and they are still found in some parts of the world. They are a great danger to men.

We know that this 'great red dragon' is the devil (verse 9). It has seven heads and ten horns. Its seven heads make it hard to kill (13:3). 'Heads' speaks of the mind. 'Horns' speak of strength. So this dragon has more strength than power to think. The crowns on the heads show that the devil claims that he is king (Daniel 7:7). All ten horns may have been on one of the heads. Jesus wears 'many crowns' on His head. (19:12). For verse 4, see Daniel 8:10. The dragon tries to kill the child as soon as it is born. We remember how Herod the Great tried to kill Jesus (Matthew 2:13-16).

In verse 5 the Woman gives birth to ' a male Son'. It is clear that this is Jesus. There is no one else who will be a shepherd to all the nations. But a shepherd looks after his sheep with special pieces of wood. He uses a 'crook' and also a 'club'. Shepherds do not use iron rods to look after their sheep. What those words teach is that Jesus will rule all men. He will be kind and gentle. But He will be very firm. (See Psalm 2:8,9.)

John does not say anything here about the life or the death of Jesus. He goes straight on to the time when God took Jesus up into heaven (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9). Verse 5 tells us that God did not just take Jesus up. He took Jesus to His 'throne'. Jesus shares all the honour of God, and He now shares in God's rule over the world.

The 'Woman' now (verse 6) means the Jerusalem church, which we read about in the first chapters of the Book of Acts. That church was God's light in the world. But when the war between the Romans and the Jews broke out, the church left Jerusalem. The Christians were not in Jerusalem when the Romans destroyed the city. They had escaped over the River Jordan to a place called Pella. There they were safe for three and a half years (or 1260 days.) This was how long the war lasted until Jerusalem fell.

So from this first part of the chapter we learn: -

1. That God always has His light in the world.

2. That the devil hates this light and he tries to destroy it.

Verses 7-12: War in heaven

Now John gives us a rather different picture of the devil. The Bible teaches us that God made the world, and that the world was good. (See Genesis 1; especially verse 31.) But now we can see that there is also much that is bad in the world. The Bible does not explain to us why this is so. It does promise that in the end God will destroy all that is bad. And He sent His Own Son into the world to live where there was sin and suffering. Jesus saw what our life is like. But the picture John now gives us is of the devil in heaven. (Job 1: 6; 2:1. You will not find the devil in Job 42.).

We can see from verse 10 that the devil tells lies to God about His people. There is war in heaven. (For Michael, see Jude: 9 and Daniel 10:13,21; 12:1.) The 'dragon' is thrown out of heaven. (See 13:4.)

Now we need to be very careful about such matters but there may be other verses in the Bible which talk about this. 9:1 is one of them. Isaiah 14:12-15 is another place. The one that we know best is Luke 10:18 [12.3]. Ezekiel 28:12-17 may only speak about the 'Prince of Tyre'. See also John 12:31.

Verse 9 makes it very clear who the 'dragon' is. He is the same as the 'snake' in Genesis 3:1-4. There the 'snake' led Adam and Eve to sin against God.

The names 'devil' and 'Satan' both mean that his work was to tell lies to God about His people. And he tries to lead people everywhere into wrong ways, so that they do not listen to the Good News or try to find God. Verse 12 tells us that the devil is very angry. But in heaven it is different. There is joy in heaven because God has thrown the devil out. Heaven has won an important fight. It is not yet the end of the war. Verse 10 tells us that God's salvation, power and kingdom have come. The power of man has been seen. So has the power of Satan, the 'dragon'. Until now, God's power has been hidden. Now it is seen. The word 'salvation' is also used in 7:10 and 19:1 [12.4].

The Christians of those days knew what an 'accuser' was. There were no 'police' in those times. But if some one did not like you, he might go to the Romans and tell them that you were a Christian. He would become a 'delator' or 'informer'. He might be paid. And you may be sure he would add all sorts of bad lies about you. Then he would be your 'accuser' in the law court.

Now verse 10 says that the devil did this to God's people. But because he has been thrown out of heaven, he cannot do it any more. 'Day and night' here means 'all the time'.

So in verse 11 we read that the Christians won their fight against the devil. 'They overcame him'. Now there is something fresh in these words. In the messages to the seven churches in Chapters 2 and 3 Jesus gives promises to those who 'overcome' (2:7,11,17 and 26 and 3:5,12 and 21). [12.5]. There was nothing there to say who or what they would 'overcome'. See Romans 8:37.

In time of war, the soldier often can not see the enemy. The Christian 'soldier' is like that (Ephesians 6: 12). Then in 11:7 the wild beast, which is the devil 'overcame' the two 'witnesses'. Now for the first time, we learn who it is that Christians 'overcome'. It is the devil himself. It is not just the Romans. It is not just their heathen neighbours. In 13:7 they are 'overcome'. But in 15:2 we find that they have 'overcome' after all. (See 21:7.) The voice from heaven then tells us how these Christians 'overcome' when they suffer. It is not that they are brave. There are three reasons: -

1. The blood of the Lamb. They know that Jesus died on the cross for them. His blood makes them clean from sin. And it is our sin that makes us frightened to die.

2. 'The word of their testimony' is what they said about their faith in the Lord Jesus. Probably they spoke about their faith in the Roman law courts. (See Mark 13:11.)

3. Every man and woman loves life. The Christian trusts God, and he has faith that death will not be the end. God will give us glory after this life. So a Christian does not love this life in the same way that other people do. (See Philippians 1: 21-24.) We do not wish to die. But we do not draw back from death. We believe that God will give to us a far better life.

In verse 12, John says 'heavens', not just 'heaven'. Heaven might only mean 'the sky'.' Heavens' must mean the place where God lives. And He is not alone. There are those who shelter under His tent! We read about them in 7:15-17. So the ' heavens' are full of joy. Earth is full of fear. It is the fear of what an angry devil will do.

So in this second part of the chapter, verses 7-12, John says to us: -

a). The troubles of Christian people do not come to them because the devil is strong. They come because he has been beaten and he is angry.

b). The devil will tell lies about Christians. Other people may listen to them.

c). Our fight is not just with the state or false religion. It is with the devil himself.

There is one problem with these verses. We would like to know when it was that Michael and his angels fought and drove the devil out of heaven. Now I do not think we can safely answer that. It is a question that cannot be answered while we live on this earth. It can only be answered when it is looked at from heaven.

Verses 13-17 The Woman escapes

In these verses John tells us more about the Woman. John left her story off at verse 6. Now John tells us again (in verses 13 and 14) how she escapes from the 'dragon'. The 'dragon' tried to sweep away the woman with a flood of water from his mouth (Psalm 32: 6). The devil is still busy. He still tries to sweep away the Church of Jesus with a flood not of water but of lies!

The picture in verse 16 may be of a river that goes down a hole in the ground. There are rivers that do this both in Asia Minor and also in other parts of the world. The river then flows under the ground for some way before it comes out above ground again.

In verse 17, the devil finds that he has failed. He cannot destroy the Woman. This makes him angry all over again! So he turns his hate somewhere else. So it is not only the Jewish Christians who suffer now. 'The rest of her offspring' means those Christians who are not Jews. By the time of the Jewish War, there were Christians in many other nations. So the devil goes off to make trouble for them. Chapter 13 will tell us how he does this.

John says two things about these people.

a) They do the things which God tells them to do in His Word; and

b) they pass on to other people the Good News about Jesus.

We think that this is the end of the story of the Woman. But there is a woman in 17:3. She too is in 'the wilderness'. But she is very bad. John was very surprised when he saw her (17:7). We shall have to look at that later. But there are some people who think that it is the same Woman.

We do not know whether at the end of the chapter it is John or the 'dragon' who stands on the sand at the edge of the sea. Either makes good sense. But it is probably best to think of the dragon. (We shall see why when we look at 14:1.)