Chapters 16,17 Revelation 11:14-12:12
CHAPTER XVI
THE SEVENTH TRUMPET (11.14-19)
11.14: The second woe is past: behold, the third woe cometh quickly. And the seventh angel sounded; and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ: and He shall reign for ever and ever. The four and twenty elders which sit before God on their thrones, fell on their faces and worshipped God, saying, We give Thee thanks 0 Lord God, the Almighty, which art and which wast, because Thou hast taken Thy great power and didst-reign. And the nations were angry and Thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their rewards to Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great, and to destroy them that destroy the earth (-11.18).
Of course, at the time when the words concerning the Third Woe are to be fulfilled, the kingdom of God will not yet have been set up: the words, "the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ" are spoken in confident prophecy of what is as good as accomplished, for we are now entering the last phase. It is like the Lord Jesus' "It is finished!" on the Cross (John 19.30), for nothing could now stand in the way of His triumph. There is little expressly about woe in the remaining verses of this chapter, which are almost entirely concerned with ends and not with means. The heavenly beings are already falling down in worship before God in readiness for the imminent victory, but the outline of the message of this Trumpet given here is evidently no more than a summary of what is to be given in more detail later. God has taken His power and assumed the kingdom, say the elders, but in fact this does not occur until the rout of the forces of the Beast in 19.19-20.4. The time for the dead to be judged has arrived, say the elders again, but no such judgement is described until 20.4. Those who destroy the earth are destroyed themselves, add the elders, but the picture of their destruction has to wait until the Seven Last Plagues are described in 15.8ff. We are led to conclude with near certainty that what is now to occur will occur very rapidly indeed, so near the end are we. The kingdom is just about to "break in pieces and consume all the kingdoms of men, that it may stand for ever" (Daniel 2.44). "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth are about to awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12.2). But the glorious event, so confidently spoken of here, is still round the corner.
11.19: There was opened the temple of God that is in heaven, and there was seen in the temple the ark of His covenant; and there followed lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and an earthquake, and great hail.
The description of the pending woe is awaited, but the signs of it are already plain. The nations are angry, in fulfilment of the second Psalm, of which the first fulfilment was announced by Peter after Pentecost (Acts 4.24-28; Psalm 2.1-3), and the second is awaited. It is the angry nations who will make war with the Lamb in 17.13, and the Beast which leads them which is to be overcome in 19.19. God's wrath is come, again in fulfilment of Psalm 2.4, when God will "speak to them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure." All this leads to the "winepress of the wrath of God" (14.19), and the "finishing of the wrath of God" in the Seven Vials (15.1), the "fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God" which is to destroy the Beast (19.15).
God is about to "destroy them that destroy the earth". This is the inevitable sequel to the clash of the two 'wraths'. But the word rendered 'destroy' is unusual. It is diaphtheiro, a word used of the decay of fabrics brought about by moths (Luke 12.33), and of the corruption of human flesh in death (2 Corinthians 4.16), as is the corresponding noun, diaphthora, in Acts 2.27, 31; 13.34-37). It is used of spiritual corruption in 1 Timothy 6.5, and the only occasion apart from the present one where it is translated "destroy" is also in Revelation, for the "destruction of the third part of the ships" in 8.9; and even there the idea is that of corruption or corrosion as the decaying blood brings death to fish and rotting to ships. Though no doubt the destruction wrought here will be violent, the idea is of the disintegration and dissolution of the enemies of God. Current concern about environmental pollution, and the possibility that the earth could be rendered uninhabitable by nuclear accident or nuclear war has given a new dimension to the words "them which destroy the earth", but there is no purpose in singling out any one element in the corruption of the earth brought about by our race of "men of corrupt minds".
So then, as this chapter ends, we see dark forebodings of the evil which is to come on the earth (chapters 16 to 19), the resurrection and judgement which will follow (20), and the kingdom of God which will supersede that of man. The fact that none of these things is specifically referred to in 12-15 should prepare us for the possibility that we have here some recapitulation, which is indeed perfectly plain when we remember that the Beast of which we heard in 11.7 (and perhaps also as Apolluon of the abyss in 9.11) does not actually make its debut until 13.1. The opening of the temple of God in heaven with which the present chapter closes (11.19) is to be the signal for the emergence of the angels carrying the Seven Last Plagues (15.1; 16.1). The revelation of the Ark or the Covenant speaks anew of God's covented care for His own people during this dark period (15.2-3); and the lightnings, thunder, and earthquake adumbrate the identical phenomena in 16.17 which introduce the "battle of the great day of God Almighty".
Note: A LITTLE MORE ABOUT TIME PERIODS
It is evident that the Book of Daniel sets the pattern for the time periods of the Book of Revelation. The relevant passages in Daniel are:
4.23: Hew down the tree and destroy it; nevertheless leave the stump of its roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field, and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till 7 times pass over him.... Thou shall be driven from men. . . . and 7 times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will (-4.25).
7.25: He (the little horn of the fourth beast) shall speak words against the Most High, and shall swear out the saints of the Most High; and he shall think to change the times and the law: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time. But the judgement shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it to the end (-7.26).
8.13: How long shall be the vision concerning the continual burnt offering, and the transgression that maketh desolate, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden underfoot"? And he said to me, To 2300 evenings and mornings, then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.
9.24: 70 weeks are determined on thy people and on thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Anointed One the Prince shall be 7 weeks, and 62 weeks.... and after the 62 weeks shall the Anointed One be cut off and shall have nothing. . . . and He shall make a firm covenant with many for 1 week; and for the }/2 of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. . . .
12.6: And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was above the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders'? And I heard the man clothed with linen, which was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and sware by him that livethfor ever that it shall be for 3 'A times; and when have made an end oj breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished ....12.11: From the time that the continual burnt offering shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be 1290 days. Blessed is he that cometh to the 1335 days. But go thy way
until the end be: for thou shall rest, and shalt stand in thy lot, at the end of the days (-12.13).
Now careful comparison of these passages establishes something about the principles governing the interpretation of the time-periods. The following conclusions offer themselves:
1: The "seven times" of 4.23 are seven years, during which Nebuchadnezzar suffered from his madness. That a time is a year is not in dispute, and is in any case confirmed by the fact that 3'/2 times, 42 months, and 1260 days appear to be corresponding intervals in the Apocalypse.
2: There is no hint in 4.23ff that Nebuchadnezzar's madness is typical of anything else, or that his 7 years would, if the type did exist, correspond to 7 x 360 = 2520 years. This chapter in no way suggests that the madness corresponds to the "times of the gentiles" (Luke 21.24); and it is hard to make any sense of the suggestion that the period when a Gentile prince has been driven out corresponds to one when the Gentiles are in control of Jerusalem; or that the time when the same prince is restored to his throne, prefigures Jerusalem's deliverance. If, nevertheless, we look at the postulated period, Jerusalem fell finally under Nebuchadnezzar's power in -587, and if we add 2520 years to that we get 1934, certainly not later, and nothing happened in that year which corresponds to the end of Gentile dominion. We have nothing here but literal years.
3: Taking this through into 12.6ff, 3'/2 times there would be 1260 days, which corresponds well with the fact that 1290 and 1335 are both somewhat larger, but strictly comparable periods. Whatever are the events referred to, there is nothing in the language of the chapter which would make the days into anything else but days.
4: Then if this is accepted of chapter 12, it must also be accepted of chapter 7 of the period of the persecution and blasphemy by the "little horn" and (whatever the meaning may be) of the 2300 days of 8.13ff. While we may think that long periods have passed, and therefore long periods must be invoked in all these places, there is nothing in the internal examination of the chapters which suggests this biblically.
5: There is, however a real long period in Daniel 9.24ff. Daniel had been praying, on the very eve of the due date, for the fulfilment of the promise of restoration after 70 years; but is told that God will accomplish an even greater deliverance in "seventy sevens" (9.24). The context is eloquent that here we are talking of seventy sevens of years, not because of any principle, but because Daniel is being instructed about events greater, and taking longer, than the one on which he had set his heart: Jews do not deserve the fulfilment of Jeremiah's prophecy (Daniel 9.2; Jeremiah 25.12; Ezra 1.1). This would be fulfilled indeed, and Daniel doubtless saw it (6.28; 10.1), but the whole problem of sin in its very essence would be dealt with when Messiah came in broadly speaking seven times this period of 70 years. It is true that the word shabhua is always translated 'weeks', but it is the context here which decides that it is a term for weeks of years.
6: The recognition that Daniel 9 deals with a total period of 490 years also involves the fact that the time up to the coming of Messiah should be 69 of these weeks, or 483 of these years (9.25). Since the Lord Jesus began His public work around 26, this would mean that the period began around -457, which is believed to be the time when Ezra went from Persia to Jerusalem in the 7th year of Artaxerxes I Longimanus (Ezra 7.1-10), an exciting and convincing fulfilment of prophecy. The First seven sevens of this period would terminate in -457 49 = -408, which could well correspond to the period of rebuilding the city "in troublous times" (9.25). What is important is that the last or 70th 'week' has a special status. Messiah will be "cut off after the 62 weeks and shall have nothing" (9.26). He will "make a firm covenant with many for one week" (9.28), and "for the half of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease", while "on the wing of desolations a desolator shall come" and do his desolating work, suffering the wrath of God for doing so.
7: Though the pass has its difficulties, its importance in evalaating the time periods is that it divides the last 'week' into two halves, each therefore of 3'/2 years, which takes us back to the 3'X> times of 7.25 and on to those of 12.6, and then to the corresponding periods in Revelation, and once more asks for a brief rather than an expanded period. If the ministry of Jesus lasted for 3'/i years (though this precise period is not stated in Scripture, but depends on enumerating the Passovers in John's Gospel, one of which is inferential), at the end of which He offered His "one sacrifice for sins for ever", this could answer to the first 3 '/2-year period, but this would require that "after 62 weeks shall Messiah be cut off be understood as "3'/2 years after the 62 weeks". If this is accepted it would leave one further period of 3'/2 years in which the "firm covenant" would be made with many. This would be completed around 30, which is a likely date for the death of Stepehn, and the resulting transfer of emphasis in the preaching of the gospel away from Israel and towards the Gentile world (Acts 8.1-4; 11.19). This is acceptabal chronologically, but it has no firm Scriptural basis. An alternative view puts either the second half, or the whole, of the 70th week in the same position as the gap in the Okivet prophecy, leaving either one or two 3 '/2-year periods to be covered in the Book of Revelation in the last days.
8: That there is a real gap in the fulfilment of the 70 weeks prophecy is made likely by comparing its words in 9.26-27, which speaks of an indefinite period of desolations, with the words of the Lord that "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled" (Luke 21.24).
This note is not, of course, intended to offer an exposition of Daniel's prophecies. It is designed only to show the effect of studying the time periods there given on our understanding of those in Revelation. And the evidence points clearly to the brevity of the periods of 3'/2 years, or the equivalent, in the latter book, and clearly against their interpretation as corresponding to 1260 years.
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER 12: THE WOMAN, THE MANCHILD, AND THE
DRAGON
12.1: A great sign was seen in heaven; a woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And she was with child, and she cried out, travailing in birth and in pain to be delivered (-12.2).
Throughout all that has passed since 4.1, John has been in his heavenly vantage point, and he remains there still. Yet there are at least three levels at which the activities of this chapter take place. We know that John is close to the heavenly throne (4.2, etc.); yet the woman with her yet unborn Child, though described as being in heaven (12.1) cannot be in the most exalted heights, since the Child when He is born is "caught up to God and to His throne" (12.5). The dragon which menaces the child (12.3) is in heaven too (12.7), and is subsequently cast down to the earth (12.8). Evidently, therefore, the heaven which houses the woman and the dragon is some theatre in which are enacted scenes which actually occur on our earth; and, no less evidently, the place called "God and His throne" to which the Child is elevated is the highest position to which He could attain: a fact which should already prepare us for rejecting any interpretation which finds in this Child a mortal and sinful man, however exalted such a man may be.
The woman here depicted is adorned with sun, moon, and twelve stars, and the only place in Scripture where these precise symbols are combined is in Joseph's Dream (Genesis 37.9-11), where the sun is Jacob, the moon Leah, and the twelve stars are Jacob and his brothers. The woman is therefore the ideal Israel, at this stage — despite aspersions sometimes gratuitously cast on her character by those who wish to present her as a harlot community giving birth to an apostate quasi- Christian ruler, — glorious in appearance and about to give birth to a glorious Child. Though we have doubted earlier whether the sun, moon, and stars need on every occasion refer to Israel, the number 12 of the stars, associated with the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel, removes that doubt in the present context, as does what follows.
The woman was with child. While we must reject any personal identification of her with the Virgin Mary (which is made in some Roman Catholic interpretations of this passage), the parallel between this verse and the prophecy, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son" (Isaiah 7.17; Matthew 1.23) is not to be
despised. In neither the prophecy nor this passage is the father of the Child named, which is so very remarkable that we are led a little further on the road of identification. The thought is at least provoked: is "that which is conceived in her of the Holy Spirit"? (Matthew 1.20).
Neither, though, do the birth narratives make any reference to the travail. The Annunciation is received with humility, and the Birth proclaimed with joy. (Luke 1.38, 2.8-14); we know that at the time of the census Mary was great with child." (Luke 2.5), which bears some parallel to Revelation 12.2, but of the birth-pangs themselves we learn, and would expect to learn, nothing. Why then is the point emphasized here that this woman was "traveling in birth, and in paan to be delivered"? It is a fitting picture of the long travail of the chosen people, waiting for Messiah to be brought to the birth: of the times of exile, the afflictions, the bondages, and the many sufferings which must be endured before the Redeemer could be born. It is true that much of this was brought on the people by its own perversity, but, for whatever reason, the whole creation had since the Fall "groaned and travailed in pain" (Romans 8.22). In that sense the woman of this chapter is older than Mary, older than Israel, and finds her being in Eve; especially because of what follows, we hear here the primeval voice seying, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel" (Genesis 3.15, 16). How remarkable it is that the Serpent stands before this woman, ready to devour her Seed as soon as it is born!
12.3: There was seen another sign in heaven; and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems. And his tail draweth the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was about to be delivered, that when she was delivered he might devour her shild (-12.4).
We are shortly to meet again a wild animal which, like the dragon, has seven heads and ten horns (13.1; 17.3), and this Beast also is scarlet (17.3), (though the kokkinos of the Beast is not the same as the firey red puros of the Dragon); and so it might be tempting to identify the one with the other, were it not completely ruled out by the Book itself, which distinguishes sharply between the two in 13.2,4; 16.13; 19.20; 20.2,10. The Dragon is plainly marked out as the superior power giving its power and authority to the subordinate Beast. If we find it necessary to identify the Beast with some vast world power which will marshall the nations against the Lord when He comes and so be overcome (17.13-14; 19.19-21), then the Dragon must be some even higher power,
transcending earthly political authority.
We are given further characteristics of this Dragon to help us in the identification. It is "the accuser of our brethren, which accuseth them before our God day and night" (12.10), and it is "the old serpent, he that is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world" (12.9). The compilers of our marginal references could hardly have avoided referring us to Job 1.9; 2.5 (where Job is accused before God by The Satan), and Zechariah 3.1 (where Joshua ben Josedech is similarly accused by The Satan). What the Satan of Job and Zechariah did in specific cases, is done by the Satan of Revelation 12 to all the brethren until he is "cast down" (12.7). The power in question represents universal hostility to godly people, and if in this chapter his special hostility is directed against the Son of this woman, we are given increasing certainty as to Who this Manchild will turn out to be.
As to "the third part of the stars of heaven" (12.4) which this dragon casts down, we have met "the third part" so often in the Trumpets (8.7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 12, 12, 12; 9.15, 18) as to feel familiar with it. It is a large proportion, but less than half, very significant, but not preponderant: it is the greatest simple fraction one could think of which still represents a minority. So this Dragon is a significant power in the world, comparable in its influence among men with the Almighty Himself (for does not "the whole world lie in the evil one" (1 John 5.19)?), though even so less powerful than He. But the figure is plainly drawn from Daniel 8.10 in which, after the he-goat of Alexander's Macedonian Greece (8.5,21) has conquered the ram of the Medo-Persian Empire (8.3,10), there arises from one of the quarters of the divided Greek Empire a "little horn", which "grew great, even to the host of heaven; and some of the stars of heaven it cast down to the ground and trampled on them". Here the reference is obviously to the persecution of the people of God (8.24 and though a first application to the evil done by Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century B.C. is plain enough, the ultimate destruction of the persecuting power "by no human hand" (8.25, R.S.V.) points to the likelihood that the vision there, which "pertains to many days hence", has a latter-day import as well. This factor may help with some difficulties to come, for if Daniel's prophecy can bridge the period from -150 to our own day with a laconic "many days hence", it is reasonable to suppose that the Apocalypse may do the same, as we have aleady seen in Chapter 6. We see then that the Dragon is a persecuting power, even though in its capacity as "the Old Serpent" it represents the sum total of human sinfulness, for that evil may well express itself through the actions of human authorities. The Dragon gives authority to the Beast (13.2), which is a similar thought to that which earlier led the centres of authority of persecuting powers to be described as "Satan's seat" (2.13), and Jewish persecutors as "the synagogue of Satan" (2.9; 3.9). The fact that the Dragon operates through human powers provides a good reason why it should be depicted in the shape of the latest and last of these, with heads and horns like those of the Beast it empowers. This "old Serpent" has, then, already wrought great evil among the people of God before th time in this chapter when it seeks to "devour her Child when she is delivered".
12.5; She was delivered of a Son, a man Child, Who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron: and her Child was caught up to God and to His throne.
In addition to the indications we have already had, the "rod of iron" well-nigh identifies positively this Manchild with the Lord Jesus Christ, in the light of Psalm 2.9; 110.2; Isaiah 11.1,4. It is true that the Lord promises similar authority to His saints (2.27), but this is to be in the Kingdom where He will exercise the same authority as their Leader (19.15). This last reference, in fact, makes the identification even more certain, for the Manchild is caught up to God's throne, and it is from heaven that the Conqueror will emerge.
We have previously had occasion to stress the importance of accepting the clues of interpretation which the Apocalypse itself provides: and there is never to be a clearer instance than this of how important that principle is. It is to this writer inconveivable that any interpretation could ever have gained credence which applies the terms of this verse to a mere human ruler.
The attempts of the Dragon to devour the Manchild (12.4) certainly began as soon as His birth was known, for Herod was prepared to massacre the innocents of Bethleham rather than tolerate competition from Him "that was born King of the Jews" (Matthew 2.1-16). But physical attempts on the life of Jesus, whether in His infancy or in His manhood (John 5.18; 7.1, 10, etc.) were only a minor part of the Dragon's assault, and it was in fact when the power of evil had apparently succeeded in eliminating Jesus from the scene, at the crucifixion, that it suffered its greatest setback and became certain of ultimate defeat. After being "tempted of the devil" in the wilderness (Matthew 4.1-11 ) and subsequently during a life of spotless sinlessness, the Lord Jesus "cast out the prince of this world" (John 12.31; 14.30; 16.11). It was when Jesus was "lifted up", like the serpent in the wilderness by Moses, that He brought to nought "him that hath
the power of death, that is the devil" (John 3.14; Numbers 21.9; Hebrews 2.14). Even though the power of sin is still strong in the world (1 John 5.19), its ultimate destruction is now certain, and finally the Dragon influence, the old source of temptation which found its origin in Eden, will be "the devil that deceived them which will be cast into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20.10; Matthew 25.41; 1 Corinthians 15.26-28).
From His birth to His crucifixion, then, the Lord was subjected to the assaults of the Dragon, and His ascension marked His final triumph. He has already been caught up to God and His throne (3.21), and it is only a matter of time before He will exercise to the full the "power which is given Him in heaven and earth", and rule all nations indeed.
12.6: The woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared by God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
The movements from now on of this woman are not without considerable difficulties of interpretation. Her flight into the wilderness seems to have occurred in stages: first it involved persecution by the Dragon which had failed to devour her child (12.13), and continued with her flight into the wilderness (12.6, 14) by means of the two wings of the great eagle (12.14), to a place prepared by God (12.6), but with the help of the earth, which swallowed the flood with which the Dragon thought to overwhelm her (12.16). When she is safely in the wilderness, the Dragon turns its attentions to the persecution of "her seed, which keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus" (12.17), which might suggest that she herself no longer kept these commandments.
Omitting the time periods (1260 days, or 3.5 times, (12.6,14), it is easy to fit some of these events into history. When all assaults against the Manchild Jesus had failed, and He had ascended to the throne of God (12.5), the nation of Israel from whose womb He was born was subjected to grievous oppression by the Romans, and with the desolation of Palestine from 70 onwards was indeed exiled into the wilderness (12.6,14), where, in spite of all the nation's tribulations, it was preserved by God from extinction (12.6), in fulfilment of the promise that God would not "make a full end of the nation" (Jeremiah 30.11; 46.26). That same protection has persisted through the centuries, and even the worst pogroms have failed either to extinguish or to absorb the nation.
The term "wilderness" is particularly appropriate for a people in their period of disgrace before God. "Sharon is like a wilderness" (Isaiah 33.9) when the Lord rejects the people of Zion. Both literally and spiritually it was in the wilderness that John the Baptist preached, and in the desert that he made straight the highway for the Son of God (Isaiah 40.3; Matthew 3.1-3 ). Both in Babylonian and in Roman times "thy holy cities are become a wilderness, Zion is become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation" (Isaiah 64.10). It was in the wilderness that Israel remained for 40 years when it refused the message of the faithful spies (Exodus 20.10-36). These are but a few passages among many. For the sins of Israel, the prophet said, "I will bring her into the wilderness, and will speak comfortably to her, and will give her her vineyards from thence, and speak comfortably to her" (Hosea 2.14-15), a passage which speaks hopefully of ultimate restoration.
12.7: There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels. 12.8: and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. 12.9: And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the devil, and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world: he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.
The clue to the meaning of this event is found in the vivid words of the Lord Jesus Himself to His disciples, when they returned from their successful preaching errand: "Even the demons are subject to us through Thy name," they said, to which the Lord replied: I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven" (Luke 10.17-18); which may be linked with His words just before the crucifixion, "Now is the judgement of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out" (John 12.31). The record of Genesis, too, which is certainly in mind in this chapter, has its own picture of the destruction of the power of sin in 3.15, where the Seed of the woman wounds the serpent in the head. Even the language used of the downfall of the power of Babylon in Isaiah 14.12, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning . . . Thou saidst in thine heart, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God ... yet thou shalt be brought down to oh: Swl" must have made its contribution to the language used. The ascent of the Lord to heaven after His crucifixion effectively brought the power of sin to an end. Hitherto sin had reigned unto death, but now all who profit from the work of the Lord Jesus may be delivered from it.
12.10: They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even to death.
12.12: Therefore rejoice O heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe
for the earth and for the sea: because the devil is gone down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time.
The power of sin to hinder access to God has been frustrated by the victory of the Lord Jesus and by His heavenly mediation: we have access with boldness before the throne of grace, to obtain mercy, and grace to help in time of need. It is in the heavenly places now that the saints wage their war against the rulers of the darkness of this world (Hebrews 2.14-18; 4.14-16; Ephesians 6.12). Only on earth, that is, only on the physical lives of the saints, does the power of sin any longer rule. For those who trust in the Lord and maintain that trust after their obedient baptism, "there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus . . . Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth: who is he that condemneth. It is Christ Jesus that died, yea, rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?. . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us" (Romans 8.1, 33-39).
The "short time" presents the same problems as before. The matter is neither more nor less difficult to resolve because it reappears here. It is inescapable that the New Testament deliberately foreshortens the interval between the first and second comings of the Lord.
It should be noted that the saint and the dragon are never represented as coming into face-to-face conflict. The dragon wages its war through its agents, the Beast and the False Prophet of whom we are shortly to read. This serpent, this devil, this Satan, only takes shape in sinful people and sin-dominated organizations. Even when the Lord Jesus consigns it to the abyss, He is not pictured as waging war against it, but only against the Beasts (20.2; 19.20), and when it finally deceives the nations and brings them to the battle which destroys the power of sin, it is against them, and not physically against it, that the battle is fought (20.9). This devil is as intangible as the hades to which sinners go when they die, and the death they die too, both of which are cast with it into the Lake of Fire when all the nonconcrete but terrible manifestations of the fruits of sin are abolished.
Revelation 12.14: There were given to the woman the two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place (prepared by God, 12.6), where she is nourished 3 '/2 times from the face of the serpent.
The woman was given two wings, by means of which to flee into her wilderness (12.14), and it is quite plain that the imagery is once more drawn from the Old Testament:
Zechariah 5.7: This is a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah . . . Behold there came forth two women . . . (who) had wings like those of a stork. . . Whither do these bear the ephah ?... To build an house in the land ofShinar: and when it is prepared she shall be set there in her own place.
In both cases we have a woman originating in Israel. In both she is borne away with wings. In Revelation she is taken to the wilderness, and in Zechariah to Shinar (5.10), and there is no doubt what Shinar means: It is the land where they built the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11.2), the territory of Nimrod (10.9-10), the seat of that Amraphel whom some have identified with Hamurabi (14.1). It is one of the places to which Israel was taken captive, and from which it was to return (Isaiah 11.11). It was the place to which Nebuchadnezzar took the vessels of the house of God (Daniel 1.2). In short, it is a synonym for Babylon. And if we ask in what sense a symbolic woman, in the days of the restoration from Persian captivity (for that is the time of Zechariah's prophecy) could be said to be about to fly to Babylon, the answer can only be apostacy. And if there could be any doubt it is set at rest by the description of the woman in Zechariah: "This is wickedness: and he cast her down into the midst of the ephah, and he cast the weight of lead on the mouth thereof (5.8).
The interpretation has to be pieced carefully together. We denied that there was anything wicked about the woman of the Apocalypse when we met her in 12.1, where she was about to give birth to the Son of God. But it has already been hinted that all did not remain well with her: when persecuted by the dragon she received and accepted the help of the earth (12.16); and although this preserved her from its vengeance, it seems that it also caused her to leave to "the remnant of her seed" the duty of continuing to keep the commands of God and the testimony of Jesus (12.17). She did not first appear as an apostate, but it seems that she became so before the story ends.
Though she is preserved by God from destruction (12.6,14), she is established in a position where her apostacy can take root and flourish. If we combine together the description of her as 'Wickedness' in Zechariah, and the fact that her sojourn in the wilderness is limited to a period (called here 1260 days and 3 Vs times), it appears that we are to expect two things: one is her emergence from the wilderness when this time has expired, and the other is that she will be seen in her new, true character, fully
justifying the name of Wickedness given her by the prophet.
At this point we have to take a leap to chapter 17 to continue her history. In the intervening chapters John describes the uprise of the Beast (13.1) to be destroyed by the Lord Jesus when He returns (17.14; 19.20), and details the absolute power it will assume over all unregenerate mankind (13.16), and the persecutions it will promote against those who do not accept its yoke (13.7, 17). The saints are assured that God will be with them in their trials (14.1-5), and that during this period a last, urgent call will be made to obey the gospel, before the final judgements of God are poured out on the world (14.6-7). From these judgements when they are poured out no one who has not now accepted the gospel will be able to claim relief (15.1-8), and the earth must endure the pains which come to it when it is ripe for the reaping of God's harvest (16.1-21).
It is in chapters 17-19 that one particular aspect of these judgements is elaborated, described in terms of the fall and destruction of "Babylon the great" (17.5; 18.2, 10), already adumbrated in 14.8. Who or what, then, is this Babylon the great? And what connection can she have with the woman clothed with the sun whom we are considering in chapter 12? The answer is provided in 17.1:
17.1: There came one of the seven angels that had the seven bowls, and spoke with me, saying: Come hither. I will show thee the judgement of the great harlot that sitteth on many waters.
17.3: He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness: and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet coloured Beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stone, and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her fornication, and on her forehead a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH (-17.5).
At first sight there is nothing to connect a glorious personage such as the woman of 12.1 with the abomination disclosed in 17.3. That woman was clothed with the sun: this one is arrayed in purple and scarlet; that one used the moon as her footstool: this one is seated on a scarlet Beast, the persecutor of the saints of God (11.7; 13.1). That one gave birth to Messiah, Who is to rule all nations with His iron rod: this one makes the nations drunk from the golden cup of her fornications (17.2, 4). Yet the two chapters themselves provide the link: that woman was carried into a wilderness for a period of time, and would therefore be expected
to return; this one is found in a wilderness, in the only other place in the Apocalypse where such a thing is referred to at all. Couple that with the fact that the place of sojourn of the woman in Zechariah 5.11 is identified as Shinar or Babylon, the name which this woman now bears, and it becomes nearly impossible to dismiss the parallels as accidental.
If we are not absolutely compelled to identify the two figures as belonging to different stages of development of a single entity, it is hard to see a reasonable alternative. We repeat: if the woman of 12.14 is to remain in the wilderness for a finite period, whatever its length may be, must we not expect her to emerge at the end of it, and where else is her emergence spoken of if it be not here?
Isaiah 1.21: How is the faithful city become an harlot, she that was full of judgement; righteousness lodged in her, but now murders.
If it is still not easy to accept the identification of two such contrasted characters, we have to remember that a harlot is by definition a once-pure woman who has fallen from her purity. There is a passage in Isaiah which seems to describe the very process we are considering. The woman of 12.1, 17.17 suffered persecution by the power of evil: she of 17.1 has embraced evil, leaving to the remnant of her seed the keeping of God's commandments (12.17), and has become the persecutor of that very seed (17.6). This view is strengthened by the fact that the term 'harlot' is frequently used in the Old Testament of the apostacy of the people of the Old Covenant: Israel after the flesh.
We have already referred to the use of the term for Jerusalem in Isaiah 1.21. It is used of Tyre in 23.15, 16; of Jerusalem again in Ezekiel 16.31,35; of Samaria in Micah 1.7. The same Hebrew word, zanah, translated in various ways, is also used of the chosen people in Exodus 34.15,16; Deuteronomy 31.16; Judges 2.17; Jeremiah 3.1; Ezekiel 23.3, 19; Hosea 2.5; 9.1, and other places. It is rarely used in any other sense. This leaves no reasonable doubt that the term is used to describe the apostacy of a chosen people.
But this does not fully resolve the problem. In the Old Testament there is only one chosen race, the natural seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but in the New Testament there is another, for to the natural race the Lord Jesus had said, "The kingdom of heaven shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof (Matthew 21.43). This new chosen people is the spiritual seed of Abraham, drawn from all nations, "which aforetime were not a people, but are now the people of God" (1 Peter 2.10); and if it was possible for natural Israel to stray from the true way, it is no less possible for their
successors. Against such apostacy they are repeatedly warned, as by Paul in Acts 20.28-30; and many times the faithful in the New Te tament are bidden take warning from those who fell and were panished before (1 Corinthians 10.1-13; 1 Timothy 4.1; 2 Timothy 3.1-8).
The same figure is used of this apostacy against the new covenant as was used of the old. We are not to "take the
members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot" (1 Corinthians 6.15, 16), and if this is the only occasion when the actual Greek nounporrie, is so used, the use of the related word porneia, fornication or apostacy within the church in Revelation 2.21 (and of the world which rejects the gospel in 9.21), is adequate preparation for the possibility that the harlot of 17.3, and her fornication of 17.2,4; 18.3; 19.2, could refer to an apostate, once Christian, community. Neither the possibility that natural Israel is still intended, nor the possibility that an apostate degeneration of Christian, spiritual Israel, is meant, is automatically excluded by the figure employed.
It would be possible to understand Revelation 12 and 17 as saying that is was from the natural Israel that the Lord Jesus took His birth, and this Israel suffered in part grievous persecution afterwards, but was nevertheless also befriended by the world and afforded refuge (as has intermittently occurred throughout history). Under these conditions the nation apostatized and so (it could be said) became a spiritual Babylon. In this event it would be the same nation which emerges in chapter 17 as restored to power, once again persecuting the saints of God as it did throughout the apostolic period during a period of authority over the nations, only to find itself ruined by those same nations in a disaster from which only the Lord Jesus Christ will be able to deliver it (so linking together 17.16 and such passages as Zechar-iah 12.6 and 14.1-4).
But it would also be possible to understand the same passage as saying that it is the faithful in Israel which gave spiritual birth to the Lord Jesus Christ; that it is the community which He founded on the rock of His own resurrection which then bears His name; that this community endured grievous persecution from the pagan world until it was befriended by Christendom and became corrupted; and that it is this apostate Christianity which rises to the seat of power over the nations, resumes persecution of the saints, is destroyed by the nations it rides, and is thus betrayed and overcome.
At the present time there are difficulties in accepting either alternative. To take the idea of apostate Christendom first, at the time when these words are written and revised, the world's most
powerful church and its sister-churches are apparently in no. persecuting mood. Compromize and toleration are in the air, and the ecumenical movement does not seem, on the surface, likely to lead to the intolerance and cruelty which characterized the churches of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. But this is not decisive. If all churches were to come together in a mutual compromize which left the true teaching of the Scriptures to be maintained by an unco-operative minority (which would be the inevitable result of such a union), who can say what fury might be directed against those who declined to participate in this betrayal of the gospel? And if this unity should also carry with it apparent influence in the monolithic international secular power of which Revelation seems to speak, would not a revived persecution of the saints, of which this chapter speaks, become perilously possible?
The possibility that literal, restored natural Israel might be involved in this harlot figure is more difficult to assess. During preparation and revision of this work Israel, the nation founded so precariously in 1948, remains a nation rich in military successes, but still under enormous pressure from her near Arab neighbours and more distant Russian one. The western thirst for Arab oil makes Israel's friends reluctant to commit themselves to her in a way which might provoke economic reprisal, and the fact that at the time of this revision Egypt has formed a precarious affinity with Israel and is looking to the west for its friends has not sifnificantly improved the western position. To see this belea-gured Israel, therefore, in the potential role of a possible rider of the international Beast and persecutor of the saints would seem to surpass all reasonable expecctations.
This may prove to be the case, and it is no part of the purpose of this work to advocate this possibility as the more likely. Yet the political situation outlined in the last paragraph certainly does not represent the whole truth of the present position. For one thing Israel's victories since 1948 may not yet be exhausted should there come another conflict: there is as yet no evidence that the Arab nations alone could do much to reverse the trend. Israel's strength might yet increase still further. For another, we know enough of international finance to know that it can powerfully influence the course of world affairs, and even the conduct of its wars. Currently we hear much of Arab financial dominance as a result of the enormous increase in the revenues from oil; we hear currently very little of the vast financial resources of the Catholic Church, or of the strings which might be manipulated by Jewish-controlled banking houses. Evidence is not easily available to the lay person, so the possibility, say, that Jewish financial pressure and Israel's military potential might create a situation of Israeli world dominance can only be named, without evaluating its likelihood. What is certain, though, is that the downfall of "Babylon the great", spoken of here, is elaborated in great detail in chapter 18, where a nation once bereaved of its possessions comes back into its own, and thinks of itself as in possession of all riches until it is destroyed, after which the nations mourn because the financial and commercial world has collapsed because of her fall (18.10-20). Finally, that Israel might be involved in this harlot figure is left within the bounds of possibility from the fact that the Biblical persecuter of the faithful was always primarily Israel. True, there was no apostate church in Bible times to take on the role, yet the fact that, throughout the Acts and Epistles, and in the early part of Revelation itself, the prime enemies of the gospel were found within the nation which engineered the crucifixion of the Lord, should not be treated as unimportant. We have already noted that the Two Witnesses of chapter 11 are left lying dead in the city "where also our Lord was crucified" (11.8).
18.7: How much soever she glorified herself and waxed wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourning.
If one were obliged to choose in advance whether natural Israel, or apostate Christianity, best fitted all the facts of Revelation 12-17, the choice would, so it is felt here, have to fall on apostate Christianity. This is for the following reasons: (i) the persecution of the woman by the dragon in 12.6,13 appears in the first instance to be the affliction of a faithful people, who only later become apostate. But Israel was an unfaithful nation throughout th ''entire period at issue; (ii) the picture of Babylon the great formed from the Old Testament is that of an international system, with many nations taking their shelter beneath its shade (Daniel 4.10-12; Jeremiah 25.14), which is better represented by an international apostate Christendom than by an isolated and isolationist Israel assuming the suggested power over the nations.
But surprising things have already happened in current developments, for which students of prophecy were quite unprepared. There is no reason to think that we are at the end of the surprises. One has only to think of the possibility that there could come about some sort of rapprochement between Judaism and apostate Christianity to see that a great religious brotherhood could be in the making, which would prepare for its apparent takeover for a brief moment of power of the realm of Big Brother himself, followed quickly by its demolition by that same realm. It is wise to keep all possibilities in mind and hold our minds open to evaluate them as events unfold. We are not telling God what His revelation means. We are waiting humbly to find out.
One thing is necessary to put this subject in perspective. Whatever may prove to be the composition of the harlot-power in the events to come, she is but one — and that a temporary — aspect of the forces to be arrayed against the Lord Jesus, and as a persecuter of His saints, as the time of the Second Advent approaches. We have already seen a power called the Dragon in effective control of the rebellious operations (12.3-5); we have briefly met, and shall meet again, a Beast modelled on all the four world empires of Daniel 7; we find in chapter 17 a group of subordinate powers called "ten kings" (17.12), who associate themselves with the Beast in the destruction of the harlot and the war against the Lamb; and the Beast (in chapter 13 which we have temporarily by-passed) is aided by a second Beast arising from the earth, later to be called the False Prophet (13.11-17; 16.13; 19.20). In this vast and complex array of powers the Harlot plays a part which for one brief moment appears to be dominant, but she is gone before the Lamb takes control. There is no harlot in command when the Lord Jesus finally overcomes the Beast (19.19-21).
APOSTACY AND PERSECUTION IN NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING
It may help to lay the foundation for some later discussion on the identity of the powers opposing the Lord and His followers at this late stage of the world's history, if some general points are made on the predictions in the New Testament of apostacy, which is spiritual harlotry, and on the sources and periods for the persecution of the people of God. We do this under the following heads:
1. THE APOSTACY OF THE CHURCH IS PLAINLY FORETOLD
See Acts 20.29-32; 2 Peter 2.1-22; Jude 4-16; 1 Timothy 4.1-5; 2 Timothy 3.1-9; 4.3-4; 2 Thessalonians 2.1-12, and other places. These passages, though (not all of which apply to the very last days) speak in the main of falling away from the faith only. Most of them contain no suggestion that those who fall away will persecute those who do not. The exception is 2 Thessalonians 2, which does couple the "falling away" with the uprise of a "man of sin", whose characteristics are closely paralleled in the present section of Revelation, and whose persecuting activities are at least implied in the fact that "he opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped" (2.4). The "falling away" of 2.3, actually uses the Greek original of our word 'apostacy', apostasia; even if it has to be said that the word conveys rather a different meaning from that we commonly understand as apostacy, being rather revolting or defecting than holding false
teaching (as in Acts 21.21, the only other occurrence, where Paul is accused of teaching the Jews to forsake Moses), it does imply plainly that the Man of Sin arises as a result of a defection from the true church of God. Some will depart from the faith, and as a result a Man of Sin will arise: this would appear to indicate that whoever is intended finds his historical origin in the body of the church.
2. OPPOSITION OF JEWS TO THE FAITH, FROM WITHOUT AND WITHIN, IS PLAINLY FORETOLD
This is not merely a matter of prophecy. It was a living reality at the time the New Testament was written. The Letter to the Galatians was written to meet opposition to the faith by Judaizers insisting on circumcision. Acts 15 meets the same challenge in the Council at Jerusalem. The Letter to the Hebrews meets it at a different level, showing the vanity of present insistence on an outmoded Mosaic system, so defending believing Jews in Judaea against pressures to return to Temple worship. The persecution met by Paul was usually either directly from the Jews, or by Gentiles at Jewish instigation (Acts 13.44-51; 14.2-7, 19; 17.5-9,13; 18.6, 12-17; 19.9; 21.11, 27ff). Such persecutions and afflictions are also referred to in the Epistles (1 Thessalonians 2.14-16, linked with the fulfilment of the Lord Jesus' words in Matthew 23.32; 2 Corinthians 11.24-33). It is remarkable, and a point in favour of Israeli involvement in the harlot of Revelation 17, that the shedding of the blood of the prophets in the Thessalonians passage should also be the charge against the Babylon of the Apocalypse (Revelation 18.24). There is no doubt about the strong scriptural emphasis on the persecution of the spiritual seeri, of Abraham by the natural (Galatians 4.29). It is primarily Israel's changed position politically, and the fact that for long ages it has been the victim, rather than the agent, of persecution, that makes a fulfilment of this kind seem in our day unlikely. We need to ask whether, though, if the political situation were to change temporarily in Israel's favour, its attitude to the Lord Jesus and His followers would be kinder than before. And there is little to suggest that modern Jewry is as yet prepared or preparing to submit to the claims of its crucified Christ.
3. OPPOSITION BY GENTILE AUTHORITIES IS ALSO FOUND AND PREDICTED
Though the Romans were sometimes egged on against the Christians by reprobate Jews, as we have seen, there is no doubt that purely secular persecutions of the early church also occurred. "Ye shall be hated of all nations for My name's sake," the Lord had said (Matthew 24.9). "Your adversary the devil" (1 Peter 5.8) was apparently Nero's Rome. Revelation itself, without
mitigating its attack on "those who say they are Jews but are not" (2.9; 3.9), also speaks of Gentile attacks on the faithful, as in Pergamon "where Satan's throne is" (2.13), and the nations of the world are plainly incriminated in the sufferings referred to in 11.9-10, 13.7-18, and elsewhere.
What we have learned from this study of the woman of chapters 12 and 17 is that there is in this Book and elsewhere in Scripture plain evidence that corruption of the faith will take place from within, that the Jewish nation is regarded as being in unrelieved opposition to the faith, and that the world as a whole will also prove hostile to the gospel. But the identification of the harlot is not as unequivocally related to the apostate church of Christendom as we might have been disposed to think. We need to keep a watchful eye both on Christendom and on Jewry in relation to the developing alignment of the nations. There are, of course, other factors in Revelation 17 when we resume its study in the proper sequence of this Book, and these may influence the way we look on the revolting apostacy there described.
THE CONTINUOUS-HISTORIC INTERPRETATION OF CHAPTER 12
In this interpretation the woman is taken to be the Christian Church, now basking in the sun of royal recognition and favour, the now-subject pagan priesthood being represented by the moon, and the twelve stars standing for the twelve Caesars between Augustus and Domitian. R.R. writes of these twelve, but in fact there were only eleven. J.T. and C.C.W. amend the list by including Nerva, successor of Domitian. But since John received the Revelation in the reign of either Domitian or Nero (depending which view one holds of its dating), and since the vision is supposed to concern a period more than 200 years later, it is hard to see why such a list should be presupposed in any case. By the time of Constantine there had been nearly 40 Caesars. The identification of the moon as the prostrate pagan priesthood is also unacceptable, for paganism still continued, and its priests were in no way under the control of the church at this time: they were simply not allowed to persecute their Christian rivals.
As for the identification of the sun as the possession of political power by the church, this might have been more reasonable were it the fact. But it is not. Persecution ceased, and bishops had certain generaljudicial powers. Christians were exempted from attending pagan festivals, and property confiscated during the persecutions under Diocletian and Licinius was restored, while in the later part of Constantine's reign many pagan festivals were suppressed. But the figure under the interpretation considered is far too strong to fit the circumstances of the Church at this time. Moreover, the woman is pictured as clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet, before giving birth to Constantine (sic), when her circumstances would not have corresponded to this picture at all,
for never was the situation worse than under the terrible persecutions under Diocletian before 303.
The 280-day period of human gestation is held to represent the time from the beginning of the Christian church ( 32) to Con-stantine (312). But Pentecost was two or three years earlier than the former, and Constantine became Caesar in 306. By 312 only one of his rivals had been eliminated; another was swept aside in 313, andLicinius eliminated in 324. The correspondence is at best approximate, even if the chapter made any use of the period of pregnancy, which it does not.
The picture of Constantine as ruling all nations with a rod of iron is not a good one. It is true that he was sole Emperor for the last 13 years, and powerful too, but his relationship was not of the "rod of iron" type. In any case he did not rule all nations, for his eastern border extended only to Armenia and Mesopotamia, and his Empire was nothing like as extensive as Alexander's had been. He did not rule over the powerful Persian kingdom; in Africa his kingdom covered only the north coast and in Egypt, while his northern frontier was limited by the Rhine and the Danube, while Ireland and most of Scotland were not under Roman rule. To speak of Constantine as being "caught up to God and His throne" as though it meant "ordained by God" is a poor understanding of the symbolism. To interpret 12.6 as meaning the exile of the woman in the wilderness from 312 to 1572, 1260 years later, yields a beginning which is inconsistent with her glory in 12.1 at the same time, while the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day at the end is hardly a deliverance from exile.
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