The Dragon Wars on Heaven and Earth

Revelation 12:7-17

John gives a dramatic portrayal of redemptive history. (12:1-6)

Rev 12:1-5 gives us a dramatic portrayal of God’s redemptive plan in a symbolic format, a portrayal that features three primary characters: a woman, a child, and a dragon.

• The woman represents either the people of God in general or the nation of Israel in particular. She reminds us of God’s promise to the first woman, Eve, whose offspring would eventually crush the offspring of Satan in history future (Gen 3:15).
• The child is Christ, the offspring God promised Eve in Eden. By the time John saw this vision, the Messiah had already come, died, resurrected, and ascended to the heavenly throne of God awaiting his return to establish God’s kingdom forever.
• The dragon represents Satan and brings to a climax the serpent/dragon theme that began in Eden when Satan lured mankind away from God. Throughout history, Satan has attempted to deceive God’s people and destroy the Messiah.

John fast-forwards from the Christ's ascension to the Tribulation in Revelation 12:5-6. Rev 12:6 fast-forwards from Christ’s ascension (when he evaded Satan’s effort to destroy him) to a future time of trouble for God’s people, esp. the nation of Israel. The 1,260 days likely refers to the second half of the 7-yr. tribulation period, after which Christ will return to Earth to inaugurate God’s kingdom, conquering and reigning over the nations.

During this 3.5-yr. span, Satan will unleash his fury on God’s people, though God will provide them with a place of shelter and safety in the wilderness outside Palestine (cf. 12:14; Matt 24:15-21). Rev 12:7-17 tells us more about what will happen at this time.

Satan will be expelled from heaven completely. (12:7-12)

This expulsion will be the outcome of an angelic battle, but the question is when this battle will occur.

• Some suggest that this battle describes Satan’s original fall from heaven when he rebelled against God before his temptation of Eve in Eden.
• Others suggest that it occurred in conjunction with Christ’s crucifixion.

The difficulty with both interpretations is that they require Satan to be expelled from any access to heaven afterward.

• Yet Satan appeared in heaven to accuse Job of disloyalty to God sometime after the Garden of Eden (Job 1:6; 2:1).
• The voice John heard from heaven further indicates that Satan has continued this practice of accusing God’s people thru the midpoint of the tribulation period (Rev 12:10).

Furthermore, the OT prophet Daniel identified Michael the archangel as one who watches over Israel and prophesied that he would especially do so during the climactic tribulation period (Dan 12:1). With these key indicators in mind, it seems best to understand this battle as a future occurrence, a clash between angels that will occur in the future.

Satan and his fallen angels will stage a final battle against God’s holy angels, who will be led by Michael. Satan and his angels will lose and will be expelled from heaven permanently as a result. In John’s vision, this expulsion was followed by a loud voice from heaven announcing that Christ’s kingdom had come by removing all of Satan’s accusatory, prosecutorial activity from the heavenly realm. Not only had God’s holy angels won this victory, but the victory was somehow affected by the triumphant testimony of Christ’s sacrificial death for sins and the spoken testimony of his followers on earth who lived out their faith in the face of persecution.

Though the expulsion of Satan will be a moment of celebratory “good riddance” to Satan in the heavenly realm, it will signal a moment of increased trouble for people in the earthly realm, esp. God’s people, and esp. Israel. This “woe” will be for two reasons:

• Since Satan will be banished to earth, he will concentrate there the full strength of his efforts at overthrowing God’s kingdom.
• He will know that his window of time is shrinking fast to accomplish his goal of derailing God’s kingdom.

Satan will intensify his persecution of God’s people on earth. (7:13-17)

Since Satan will have no access to God in heaven, he’ll concentrate his fury against God on “the woman who gave birth to the male child,” which either refers to the people of God in general or – most likely – the nation of Israel in particular (Rev 12:13).

As John has already foreshadowed (cf. Rev 12:6), God will provide his people with a place of protection and provision in the wilderness outside Palestine for “a time and times and half a time,” which is another way to say 3.5 yrs. (cf. Dan 7:25). Some feel that Petra, “the ruins of an ancient city of Edom carved out of rock and protected by high mountain walls and with a narrow access,” will be the place that Israel hides, but there is no way to be sure.[1] We only know that God will provide a safe place for his people.

To further describe God’s care for his people during this time, John reuses some beautiful OT imagery of an eagle’s wings (Rev 12:14).

• It echoes how God describes his deliverance of Israel from Egypt (Exo 19:4).
• It also echoes God’s promise to empower and strengthen his people in the face of future world empires that would threaten their existence (Isa 40:31).

What John describes next is clear and vivid from a visual standpoint, yet elusive from an interpretational standpoint since there’s no way to be sure what he describes beyond the imagery itself. The dragon will spew out water like a river rushing from his mouth in hopes of drowning or washing away God’s people, but the earth will open up and swallow the river – removing the threat against God’s people.

• This may describe an actual attempt to somehow “flood out” God’s people from their hiding place with water, and then the earth opening up to diffuse this water instead.
• This may also describe through figurative language an assault or campaign by a powerful army, similar to how Jeremiah and Daniel describe OT military forces (Jer. 46:8; 47:2; Dan 11:26).

Both options or even some combination of them would be a reasonable way to interpret this part of John’s vision. What’s clear in any case is the point of what John is saying – that Satan will attempt a forceful assault on God’s people in hiding but will be hindered by circumstances outside his control.

There does seem to be some irony here (or a dramatic reversal) in the circumstances as John portrays them when compared to God’s destruction of the Egyptian armies pursuing Israel from Egypt. In both cases, God let his people out to the wilderness to protect them. But when Pharaoh pursued them, God swallowed up or drowned his armies with water. Here God will swallow up Satan’s assault (or his armies) with the dry land.

Whatever the details of this clash between Satan and God’s people in hiding will be, the event (or campaign) will be extraordinarily intense yet ultimately ineffective. This failure will only enrage Satan against God’s people even more, so he will “make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Who are these people?

• Other believing Jews outside the hiding place?
• Remaining Gentile believers?
• Some combination of both?

Though these people may be either Jews or Gentiles who will remain outside the hiding place in the wilderness, the description God gives may just as easily apply to both at once, so this is the “safest” answer (pun intended). Since Satan will be unable to attack the believing Jews in hiding, he’ll shift his efforts towards persecuting whatever other believers he can find elsewhere.

In the next chapter, Rev 13, we’ll learn more about this future time period, only we’ll focus less on Satan and more on two of his delegated, human actors – the antichrist and the false prophet.

Key Takeaways

Since the events John describes in Rev 12 will occur in the future and focus especially on the nation of Israel, how does this material and message help followers of Christ to persevere through our own suffering today? Here are three truths to consider:

Compared to future suffering, our suffering is small.

When a father asks his elementary-aged son to carry a bag of groceries upstairs to the kitchen, the boy might say halfway up the flight of steps, “It’s too hard – my arm hurts.” Then the father might say, “If you think that hurts, then just wait till you grow up and have to do a lot harder things than carry a bag of groceries up the stairs!”

The Book of Revelation has a similar message. We look at how we suffer today as Christians and feel overwhelmed. Then we read about the tribulation period and realize that people who follow Christ will suffer a lot more difficult and painful things than we’re experiencing today. We complain about carrying groceries up the stairs, but tribulation believers will carry a much greater load. This makes our present suffering more bearable.

When we suffer, we suffer for Christ.

When we read a passage like Rev 12, we realize that the only reason Satan comes after us is that we’ve identified ourselves with Jesus Christ. He attempts to deceive and destroy us because he intends to destroy Jesus. We may even consider backing away from our association with and loyalty to Christ for this very reason – that those who don’t follow him receive better treatment in this world.

Don’t be fooled. Though we suffer for following Jesus, the suffering will be short-lived. Would you rather “live it up” now and suffer forever or suffer a little now but live well forever in God’s kingdom? Who you rather take sides with Satan who is a killer and liar or with Christ who is the Lamb slain for your sins and the Lion coming to conquer? It is an honorable and noble thing to suffer when you’re suffering for Christ.

We overcome Satan’s accusations through our testimony for Christ.

Today Satan comes and goes between heaven and earth, looking for reasons and ways to accuse us before God, just as he did with Job (Job 1:6) and Peter (Lk 22:31). What evidence of disloyalty or disobedience have you added to his case file against you? In the end, we will overcome his accusations not because we’re innocent, but because Christ’s blood has been applied to our lives, atoning for and covering over our sins before God. Then we live out and speak out about him through our lifestyle choices and spoken words so that God can say:

• First and most importantly, “See here? The blood of Christ has been applied to his/her record. I see no sin there.”
• Second and as a result, “See here? Their words and actions demonstrate a genuine faith in Christ, despite whatever suffering and persecution they endured.

If you have believed on Christ as God and Savior, then give serious attention to your personal testimony for the sake of Jesus Christ. Are you living out your loyalty to the Lamb who was slain or are you giving Satan more evidence with which to accuse you before God and impugn the name and sacrifice of Jesus?

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[1] Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8-22: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody, 1995), 139.