Synopsis: The
saints overcome the Dragon and his forces through the death of the Lamb and
their faithful witness, “even unto death” – Revelation 12:11.
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In Chapter
12 of the book of Revelation, the “sign of the Great Red Dragon” appears,
a sign that war has commenced “in heaven,” the battle between the Dragon
and Michael the Archangel.
This “war”
is the heavenly counterpart to the earthly events described in the passage: The
Dragon’s attempt to devour the Son at his birth from the Woman “clothed with
the Sun.” The “son” is a messianic figure destined to “shepherd”
the nations. But the Dragon fails when the Son is exalted to God’s Throne (Revelation 12:1-12.
Compare - Revelation 5:5-12, Psalm 2:7-9).
The image
of a “war” between the Dragon and Michael uses language from the prophet
Daniel’s vision of Michael standing firm in his fight on behalf of God’s
people. The victory of the Son by means of his death on the earth has its
heavenly counterpart (Daniel 12:1).
Having
failed in the attempt, no place remains for the Dragon in the courts of heaven,
an allusion to the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar about a great image
comprised of multiple materials. Daniel interpreted the image to represent four
“kingdoms” symbolized by its four components. At the end of the vision, a
“stone cut out without hands” smote the image and, thereby, the four kingdoms
that it represented, crushing them into dust; thereafter, “No place
was found for them” and the stone became a great mountain that
filled the whole earth (Daniel 2:35).
The book
of Revelation pictures the commencement of the fulfillment of Nebuchadnezzar’s
dream in the exaltation of the Son after his “birth” from the “Woman clothed
with the sun.” But first, the Dragon and his army must be defeated and
expelled from heaven. The Dragon is “the Ancient Serpent,” an identification
that links him to the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Like Eve, the Woman
Clothed with the Sun is the mortal enemy of the Ancient “Serpent” (Genesis
3:1, 3:14).
The Dragon
is also the “Devil and Satan.” The terms mean “slanderer” and
“adversary,” respectively. The Serpent claimed that God’s command to Adam was
untrue and, thus, slandered Him by insinuating that He had ulterior motives and
spoke falsely (Genesis 3:1-5).
The Devil
is described as the one who “is deceiving the whole habitable
earth.” This, likewise, echoes the Genesis story where Eve excused her
disobedience by blaming the Serpent; “the Serpent deceived me,
and I ate” (Genesis 3:13).
The
reference to the “habitable earth” demonstrates that humanity is the target
of the Dragon’s deceptive activities, not the planet itself (Greek – oikumené)
Satan is called
the “Great Red Dragon,” an echo of Ezekiel 29:1-3 where
the king of Egypt was compared to a “Great Dragon.” This is an example
of the book of Revelation’s technique of folding imagery from a story of
ancient Israel into its narrative about the Lamb and his people.
The expulsion of Satan did not occur at a point in the remote past nor is it still waiting for a future event. In Revelation, as elsewhere in the New Testament, the defeat of the Devil is the result of the past Death and Exaltation of the Son (Luke 10:18, Colossians 2:14-15, Hebrews 2:14).
The “casting”
of the Dragon from heaven parallels the earlier image of a “great mountain
burning with fire being cast into the sea,” the later picture of the “casting”
of the Great Harlot, Babylon, and the “casting” of Satan into the Abyss.
The description of a burning mountain cast into the sea when the second trumpet
sounds borrows language from Jeremiah’s long judicial pronouncement against
ancient Babylon. In each of these three instances in Revelation, the Greek verb
used for “cast” is ballō (Jeremiah 51:25, Revelation 8:8,
18:21, 20:3).
The “loud
voice heard in heaven” interprets the vision as it breaks into a hymn of
praise, an interpretive pattern found elsewhere in the book (e.g., Revelation 1:10,
5:6-14, 7:9-17,14:2-5, 15:3-4).
The hymn
declares the defeat of the Dragon in “heaven” and reflects the victory of
the Lamb on the earth. The Devil lost his legal basis to accuse the saints
before God; they are now declared “not guilty” in the heavenly court and
exempt from the “second death” (Revelation 2:11, 20:6).
With the
victory of the Lamb, the Devil’s role under the Old Covenant of ‘accuser’ has
come to an end. However, though knocked down, he is not yet out of the fight.
Following his expulsion, he assumes the role of the deceiver of the “whole
habitable earth” (Job 1:9, 2:5, Zechariah 3:1-2, Luke
10:18).
-
Satan’s
defeat means the inauguration of the “kingdom of our God” and the start
of the reign of the Messiah (“Now, has come the salvation, the power, and
the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ”).
This
language echoes the messianic promises from Psalm 2:6-10 and reiterates
words heard earlier when the seventh trumpet sounded: “The kingdom
of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and
he shall reign unto the ages of ages.”
While the
kingdom of God may wait until the end of the age for its consummation, its
commencement began with the Death and Resurrection of the Lamb.
The martyrs
of the fifth seal were told that they must wait for vindication “a
little while until the number should be made full of their
fellow-servants also…who were going to be slain as even they.” The “little
time” allotted to the Dragon refers to this same period, as do the twelve
hundred and sixty days, the forty-two months, and the “time, times and half
a time.” As he persecutes the “seed of the woman,” the Dragon only
succeeds in sealing his own doom (Revelation 6:9, 11:2-3, 12:6-14, 13:5-6).
“You
who are tabernacling in heaven." This group is contrasted with the
ungodly, “those who dwell on the earth.” The language is not about
geographic location; it does not refer to angels or disembodied spirits.
Instead, the saints who follow the Lamb are those “who tabernacle in heaven”;
their lives are oriented toward God, not the fallen world order. They belong to
the realm from which Satan was ejected and they are no longer under his legal
jurisdiction. (Revelation 7:15, 11:1-2, 13:6).
“Woe to
the earth and the sea, because the Devil has come down to you having
great fury.” This warning concerns the attacks of the Dragon against
the “seed of the woman, not the “inhabitants of the earth.” In
Revelation, “wrath” and punitive judgments are directed against the “inhabitants
of the earth” at the instigation of God, not the Devil. In contrast,
Satan’s attacks always target the saints (Revelation 11:7, 13:7-10,
20:7-10).
Finally, the declaration of victory for
the saints by the “great voice in heaven” provides a clear explanation for how they
overcame the Dragon: “They overcame
him by the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and
they loved not their life even unto death” (Revelation 12:10-11).
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