Revelation 12:1-6
The Woman, the Child, and the Dragon
1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. 2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. 5 She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
A sign in heaven after the seventh trumpet proclaims the Kingdom of God was shown to the beloved apostle John in his spiritual vision of the end of time. It was of a woman wearing the brightness of the sun who stood on the moon and had a crown of eternal blessedness which was given as a prize to her by the Lord. This woman gave birth as she screamed in much pain as all women do since the curse first brought to women (Genesis 3:16) for Eve’s disobedience in Eden’s Garden. There is hope to follow as her offspring also would crush the deceiver in the end as this prophetic passage tells us later. This deceiver is the dragon of many heads and horns of power and influence with crowns of temporary temporal power bequeathed for a time until his defeat and judgment. This same dragon took a third of the stars of heaven, angelic beings, with his tail as the part of him they followed behind in heavenly exile for rebellion against their Lord God who created them all. This dragon then would wait by the woman to attempt destruction of her offspring to keep from being crushed under his heel as Genesis 3:15 warned him. This son of man would rule the world (Psalm 2:7, 9, Isaiah 7:14, 9:6-7, Revelation 2:27) with the absolute power and authority as with a symbolic rod of unbreakable iron. This child would be protected as Jesus was by going to Egypt while the babies were murdered by Herod who feared this ruler sent by God and who would return from our of Egypt as promised (Matthew 2:15) to bring the crushing blow on the cross to the devil and his angels (Revelation 12:9) and return to His throne of power in heaven in His ascension after the resurrection from the failed and futile attempt of the evil one to stop His everlasting work of the gospel. We now see how the promise is certain in Christ as the Son of God who defeated Satan the dragon in absolute victory (1 Corinthians 15:57) for us as His children redeemed as promised right after our curse of sin because Jesus became that curse on the tree of the cross of cursing (Galatians 3:13) to pay our price and crush the enemy and his attempts to stop us from redemption. We therefore daily celebrate our redemption by God’s work to crush our deceiving enemy and give saving grace as portrayed here in verbal pictures.
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