“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, 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, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. 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 threescore days. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Re 12:1-9) KJV ….. “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. 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. 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. 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. 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.” (Rev 12:13-17) KJV

All of this week, observant Jews all over the world have been observing the Passover. Houses have been cleaned, utensils set aside, leaven removed – all as per the instructions given by God through Moses (Dt 16:1-8) – so that they would remember the month and the day the Lord delivered them out of Egypt always - throughout their generations. It is interesting that we find ourselves at a similar juncture in our study of the Book of Revelation. We are going to see (and be reminded of) some history, at a point in time where the 7th and final trumpet blast has signaled the completion of God’s plan and purpose.

Rev 12:1 begins with the highly significant words, - “there appeared a great wonder” (or sign) in Heaven. Thus far, we have been interpreting the events that have unfolded extremely literally. We have made some allowances for them being seen through a Spiritual lens (for e.g. we see Christ as a Lamb that has been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes), but for the most part – have been very careful to take our Lord at His Word. The Apostle John is functioning as a person with a video camera, faithfully recording all that he sees. (Facebook Live as it were :-)). At this point in the narrative however, the camera now moves from capturing events as they happen – to a recording a sign/symbol/wonder. A Movie within a movie – or looking at a presentation projected on a screen. We do not mean to be irreverent, but are using modern language to express this idea. The book of Revelation is to be interpreted literally EXCEPT where it explicitly indicates that what we are seeing is symbolic – as it does so very clearly here. We are going to see a highly compressed recap of human history now.

It begins in Genesis – where we see the players for the first time. “And I will put enmity, between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (Ge 3:15). Here we see both a woman and the dragon (or serpent) for the first time. [The serpent is the one being addressed in 3:15] This begins the war (check out our video on Spiritual Warfare) between Gods elect (seed of the Woman – not the man(!)) and the serpent [ the last verse of our first text this week explicitly connects dragon, serpent, devil and satan to mean one and the same thing ].

The woman is clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and crowned with twelve stars. There are echoes here of a dream Joseph has in Genesis 37:9, where the sun, moon and eleven stars bow down to him. That dream foretold Joseph’s exaltation in the land of Egypt, and the fact that his father, mother, and eleven brothers would bow to him. It helps us understand this sign a little better, but there are some key differences.

The Woman here is clothed with the sun, and has the moon under her feet. She is wrapped in light! This Woman is true religion. (We shall see false religion also symbolized by a woman later in this book). She is crowned with 12 stars – these could represent the 12 tribes of Israel – the people who knew the one true God most High from the days of Abraham.

The Messiah of true religion comes from Israel – the child that is brought forth through much pain and labor. This child who is going to shepherd the nations with a rod of iron is Jesus Christ. (see Rev 19:15 where this connection is explicitly made). Satan looked to kill Christ as soon as He was born (Herod’s slaughter of the innocents - Matt 2:16) but was not able to. After Christ’s mission on earth, He ascended to heaven (was caught up in a cloud) and sat down at the right hand of God (Mark 16:19, Eph 1:20, Heb 12:2, 1 Pet 3:22). We are seeing time compressed here!

Once Christ is caught up, two events take place.

First, True religion flees into the wilderness – she is not to be found in ornate palaces, places of power, temples, and mighty monuments, but in the household churches in Acts, and in the hearts of true believers everywhere in the world. This is her place till she is exalted once again as His Bride. (We will speak of the 1260 days, and time/times etc. a little later.)

The second event is the expulsion of Satan and his angels from heaven that will kick off a mighty struggle between His seed, and her seed – as it is said in the last verse of our second text, “which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ”. The devil opens his mouth and casts out deception as a flood but God shelters and prevails against it. “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.” (Is 59:19).

Let us briefly discuss timing. As we have shown, the symbol/sign shows us events in a highly compressed timeline starting from the Garden, moving to the birth of Christ, and His Ascension. The dragon has been shown to be opposed to God from the beginning. It is interesting to note that the tail of the dragon sweeps a third of the stars of heaven (angels) to earth -right at the beginning – it is only after Christs final victory and ascension that he and they are denied access to heaven forever.

That is not the end of the story however, because we see the present tense used of his activities (“which –deceiveth- the whole world: he was cast out into the earth”, “-went to make war- with the remnant of her seed”) even after he is cast out. This is what Christ describes in the Olivet discourse in Matt 24 (for eg.) – the rise of false christs and the tribulation that the church will experience before He comes again. The war against true religion is being waged even today.

What about the 1260 days, and a time/times/dividing of time? This is difficult for all commentators.

Some have theorized that casting out of the dragon is at the end of the Church age and at the last trumpet. This begins the start of the last 3 ½ years of tribulation, and harmonizes with the fleeing of the church/Israel into a wilderness area where they are protected till the tribulation ends. The difficulty with this interpretation is as follows – if the woman has fled into the wilderness, who are the remnant/rest of her seed that dragon is making war against? Do you see the problem? This CAN be explained by restricting the definition of Woman to be Israel in particular which flee Jerusalem, and the rest of the saints that resist the worship of the beast. This is the most generally accepted view.

Other commentators have used a “day for a year” principle (Num 14:34, Eze 4:5-6, Dan 9:24-27, Gen 29:27) to understand that where day is mentioned, we are to understand that time as being a year. In this context, the 1260 years of the Womans flight into the wilderness reflects the time the church was not officially recognized. The problem here is that we are now 2000-some years past the date Christ ascended!

What should we make of this? It’s a question of perspective.

From our modern standpoint, we can look back at the history of the church and see this prophecy (Revelation) fulfilled locally in the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. This is the view of “Historicists” who hold that the book of Revelation was given to warn the early church, Christ’s conquest/coming is a spiritual event, and we are now in the millennial age (Satan has been bound).

Adopting a different interpretation (as we have done), we see the book being fulfilled over the modern age (5 seals have been broken already) – and we are waiting for events beyond the 5th seal to unfold. In this context, we have no difficulty with recognizing the flight of the woman into the wilderness as an event that occurred after Christ’s ascension, followed by the serpent’s expulsion, deception of false religion and creation of fanatics that persecute and are opposed to Israel and Christianity over a period of time.

We DO recognize the 1260 days as being literal days, that will see a –further- -literal- fulfilment of this prophecy in terms of the flight of Jews (as prophesied in Matt 24) when the antichrist sits in the temple of God, and the subsequent persecution of saints that will not worship him in the last 3.5 years of the serpents time on earth.

Shabbat Shalom – Chag kasher v’sam’each – and we look forward to when this will be celebrated again in the Temple in Jerusalem!