Revelation 12: War in Heaven

Revelation 1-11 gives us an apocalyptic prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70. Revelation 13-19 will again prophesy about the destruction of Jerusalem, but it will do so with an ear towards the Romans: they won’t escape judgment for their part in the affair. Revelation 12 serves as a sort of intermission, highlighting some of what’s going on ‘behind-the-scenes’ in the heavenly realm. Revelation 12 looks at Christ’s birth, the defeat and demise of the forces of evil, and the persecution of the early church from a ‘heavenly lens.’ It presents the Roman onslaught against Jerusalem as a Satanic ploy to exterminate the early Christians, and it shows how the devil is warring against Christians to this very day. We learn in this chapter that we as Christians have an enemy who is set against us; we also learn that God used Satan’s machinations to bring about the destruction of Jerusalem, much to Satan’s fury. God’s orchestration of judgment against Jerusalem and the vindication of Jesus utilized the devil’s schemes against the early church; this, of course, pissed him off. 

Revelation 6-19 forms a poetic structure called a ‘chiasm,’ in which two subjects serve as bookends to a second subject:

  Revelation 6-11: The Destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70

      Revelation 12: A Look Behind the Curtain

  Revelation 13-19: The Destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70

In chiasms, the most important point is what’s found in the middle. In this case, it is Revelation 12, which we will look at today. Remember that the Book of Revelation was written to the churches of Asia Minor; many of them were experiencing persecution, and more persecution was coming. Revelation is written to strengthen and comfort those undergoing persecution, and Revelation 12 frames the Christian experience of persecution – as well as Jerusalem’s fall – in light of a cosmic war between the forces of good and evil. The Christians to whom Revelation is written are strengthened and comforted by this knowledge, and Revelation prompts them to ‘open their eyes’ to what’s going on behind the scenes. Much of what we experience in life is the consequence of this cosmic battle between good and evil that continues to this day. 

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days. [Rev 12.1-6]

THE WOMAN represents the faithful remnant of Israel, she who was to give birth to the Christ, but who did so in travail and pain (Isaiah 26.17-21). We know she’s Israel because of the dream given to Joseph – ‘And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars were bowing down to me.’ (Gen 37.9) Joseph himself would’ve been the twelfth star, and there is no doubt significance to the fact that the woman has the moon under her feet, the sun in her midriff, and a crown of stars on her head.

THE DRAGON represents the devil, as is stated in verse 9. This dragon is a combination of the characteristics of the pagan beasts in the Book of Daniel, emphasizing how each pagan empire was simply the tool of Satan in a new guise. This was no less true of the Roman period, during which he sought to devour the Christ child through the agency of Herod the Great (remember how he attempted to kill off Christ by massacring all the male infants two years of age and below? That was the devil working through Herod the Great). The dragon’s seven heads represent Rome, as we’ll see in the next chapter, underscoring how the Beast is merely a tool of the Dragon. 

The text tells us that the dragon’s tail swept down a third of the stars in heaven and cast them to the earth. In apocalyptic literature, ‘stars’ often refer to angelic beings. Interpreters are divided on how to understand this, and there are two primary theories. The first is that this text refers to the Diviner’s rebellion in Genesis 3; the other is that this text refers to a ‘heavenly battle’ that sought to extinguish Christ after he was born. 

The First Theory: Genesis 3. The Genesis text doesn’t state that the Diviner acted in concert with anyone else; it’s implied he acted alone. The rest of the Bible doesn’t imply that he led a host of rogue angelic beings in his rebellion against the Creator. We know that demons come from the dead Nephilim of Genesis 6 and that the ‘gods’ of the Old Testament are rogue angelic beings whom God set over the nations after the Tower of Babel. We know that by the time of the New Testament, these evil beings had created some sort of confederation with the original Diviner leading them all (when this confederation was sealed is unknown). It’s possible that in Genesis 3 the Diviner didn’t act alone, and that a third of Yahweh’s angelic beings turned against him and were, like the devil, cast out of heaven.

The Second Theory: A Christmas Battle. Many interpreters believe this isn’t a flashback to Genesis 3 but a revelation of another ‘heavenly battle’ that was fought at Christ’s birth. Upon learning that Christ was born, the Diviner – knowing that his demise was tied to the work of the Christ-child – launched an attack on God’s throne room. This ‘attack’ manifested itself in the earthly realm with Herod the Great seeking to extinguish the infant Christ; the failure of the attack manifested with Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus escaping Herod by fleeing to Egypt. According to this theory, the ‘third of the stars of heaven’ refer not to fallen angels but to loyal angelic beings who were slain by the Diviner and his army sometime around the birth of Christ. 

The dragon (the devil) sought to devour the child born from faithful Israel. We know that the woman’s child is Christ because the text says that he was destined to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, which references the messianic prophecy in Psalm 2.9 and is applied to Christ in Revelation 19.15. Remember that an angel loyal to God warned Joseph of Herod’s coming slaughter, and they fled to Egypt until Herod the Great died and the threat had passed. The text then jumps to Jesus’ ascension (the child being ‘caught up’ to God’s throne), and then it fast-forwards to the three and a half years (1260 days) that the woman (now identified as Jewish Christians) fled to the wilderness. As we’ve seen, the Jewish Christians fled Judea at the outbreak of the First Jewish War, and for three and a half years they sought sanctuary in the wilderness and, specifically, in the Jordanian city of Pella. 

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” [Rev 12.7-12]

While our first instinct is to assume that this ‘war in heaven’ is what took place in Genesis 3, a better reading may of a cosmic battleground taking place in the first century against the early church. Here the devil and his angels – referring to the confederacy between the Diviner and the rogue elohim – make war against heaven. By this point Christ has ascended to God’s right hand following his death and resurrection. This text tells us that the devil and his angels made war against heaven and that they were thrown down to earth. In this cosmic war, the archangel Michael fought against the devil directly; we know from Jude 9 that Michael knew the devil personally, for they wrangled over Moses’ body; but here they aren’t wrangling with words but in a feat of arms. This is a struggle on an altogether greater scale. The text tells us that the devil and his angels were thrown down to earth; this echoes what happened in Genesis 3, but here it has more significance: this ‘casting down’ takes place in the first century AD and refers to the fact that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, the devil has been defeated and crippled. Jesus spoke of this when he told the seventy disciples, after they reported successful healings and demonic exorcisms, that he saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven: Satan’s period of rule was coming to an end. 

John 12.31 tells us that through Jesus’ work ‘the prince of this world shall be cast out.’ The devil was already cast down, exiled from God’s heavenly throne room, but he still had power to deceive the nations – but because of Christ, this power was broken, too. Colossians 2.15 tells us, ‘And having spoiled principalities and powers, [Jesus] made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in the cross.’ Hebrews 2.14-15 reads, ‘Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, [Jesus] also likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.’ Jesus’ victory in his death and resurrection broke Satan’s power: no longer can he deceive the nations like he used to (Rev 20.3) and he has lost all ability to accuse God’s people of sin because their sins have been fully and finally dealt with (Rev 12.10). The devil’s time ‘remains short’: though he’s been defeated and crippled, he has yet to be completely destroyed, and he still ‘prowls around like a roaring lion’ (1 Peter 5.8). 

That the devil has been thrown down and cast out is great news for God’s people. This is a real victory, not just something in the metaphysical realm that doesn’t touch on our lives. Because of what Christ has done, Christians no longer live under the shame of their sin, for they have been cleansed and forgiven. God’s people are no longer trapped in bodies that want to do good but cannot, for God has broken the power of sin over our lives and empowered us to live holy lives through His Spirit who dwells in us. God’s people don’t need to tremble in God’s presence because of their sin, for that sin has been forgiven and we are invited to come boldly before God’s throne. Christians no longer have an accuser in the devil but an advocate in Jesus Christ. For Jewish people hearing these things, accustomed as they were to Old Covenant laws and rituals, this new reality was ground-breaking and jaw-dropping; unfortunately, we have lost sight of just how powerful all this really is. John says that the saints – those who belong to Christ – have conquered not by their own will but by Jesus’ sacrifice and by the ‘word of their testimony,’ i.e. the gospel. Because Satan is no longer able to deceive the nations, the gospel advances, winning ground formerly occupied by rogue angels. The devil once had sway over all the earth except for a strip of land in Palestine, but he’s been defeated and crippled, and the gospel advances across the globe. The devil strives to stop it through deception and persecution, but he’s impotent to curb the gospel’s advance. Nevertheless he will strive to do all he can to oppose God’s growing kingdom, because he knows that when God’s kingdom envelops the earth, Jesus will return and execute final judgment against him.

And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. [Rev 12.13-17a]

In the preceding verses, we’ve seen the devil’s botched attempts to kill the infant Christ; we’ve seen Christ’s ascension and the defeat and crippling of the devil and his minions. We know that he hasn’t yet been eradicated, and he continues to war against the saints, desperate to prolong his time, for he knows it’s short. In these verses, we come to the devil’s attacks against the early church. Satan is furious with the faithful remnant from whom came the Messiah, and he throws himself against that faithful remnant, now identified as Jewish Christians. John is seeing the persecution of the early church prior to AD 70 from a heavenly perspective. 

We read that when the Jewish Christians fled Judea for ‘a time, and times, and half a time’ (another way of saying three and a half years), it was Satan they were fleeing; but we know that they were fleeing the Roman armies descending like vultures upon Jerusalem. Again, we see that Satan lie behind the pagan nation of Rome. Historically we know that the Romans descended upon Judea to stamp out the Jewish rebels, but their power came from Satan who had ulterior motives: his ambition wasn’t against the Jewish rebels (for they were in his camp) but against the early Christians. The flood of violence that engulfed Jerusalem was, from Satan’s point-of-view, intended for the Jewish Christians; but ‘the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth’: it wasn’t the early Christians who suffered the devil’s machinations but the Jewish rebels. In this way, Satan’s attempts to stamp out the church were used by God to vindicate Jesus and execute judgment against the apostate Jewish nation. It’s no surprise, then, that the devil is pissed. He doesn’t relent, and he devotes himself to making war on the early church and the rest of her offspring; her offspring are those who will, over the ages, become Christians – they’re the ones ‘who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.’ Satan’s war against the early church in Revelation 12 continues to the present day.