Resisting Trump with Revelation (20)
The Dragon and Two
Beasts: The First Two Portents 1 (chs.12-13)
Three Portents
Within
this seventh trumpet blast, with heaven opened and the Ark of the Covenant in
full view and attended by a panoply of divine fireworks (11:19), something new
and significant is at hand. That something Jesus unfolds in terms of three
portents (12:1,3; 15:1). The judgment introduced in 11:18 has the dual purpose of
rewarding faithful servants (those who practice “endurance”) and “destroying
those who destroy the earth.” The faithful are rewarded with the Kingdom's
arrival and establishment. The destruction of the destroyers of the earth is
the subject up next in Jesus' sermon.
The Dragon, the Woman,
and the Child (12:1-6)
Surprisingly, the next
scene in Jesus' sermon is a Christmas story! The Seal and Trumpet cycles have
laid a framework for understanding the destiny of the world and the character
of the vocation God has called them to enact. And right at the center we find
this part of the vision.
It would be easy for
the church to assume that the Empire itself was the church's enemy and that
some sort of political revolution to oust the Romans would be both a tactic and
a goal the church might pursue (when possible). But that would to mistake who
our enemy really is!
Jesus spends the next
two chapters giving us a taxonomy of the powers that truly lie behind the
churches distress and are actively working to thwart it ministry. He starts at
the top (or the bottom, if you prefer), with the Dragon. Under the fifth
Trumpet we saw a “star fallen from heaven” who loosed terrible scourges on the
earth from a “bottomless pit” he is given the key to (by God). Here we meet a dragon
who is identified later as the “Devil and Satan” (12:9; 20:2). These are likely
the same figure. Jesus shows us in vivid terms here that the church's true
enemy is this malignant spiritual power (see esp. Ephesians 6:10-12). Emperors,
empire, and the entire machinery of its political, social, economic, and
military infrastructure, even when it seeks to kill Christians, are but slaves
and dupes of the dragon and his minions (the “beasts” of ch.13).
John uses stories
well-known to his hearers (though not to us) to tell his story here including:
-The Greeks who have Leto
birthing the God Apollo contested by Python, a dragon, who Apollo s subsequently slays.
-The Egyptians who have Isis
birthing the Sun God Horus pursued by a red dragon Typhon whom Horus subsequently kills.[1]
This story line would
have been familiar and immediately communicate to them John's meaning about
malevolent spiritual opposition here. Likewise, he packs a number of familiar
ideas into the symbol of the woman (first portent). But the sun, moon, and
stars is a clear allusion to Genesis 37:9 and identifies thus figure as the
people of Israel, God's people. The people of Israel, Eve, Mary are likely all compacted
into the woman here. She is in the throes of giving birth to a child.
At this moment the
great red dragon appears to take away her child (second portent). Mesopotamian
and Canaanite mythology talks about a dragon of darkness who attempted to kill
the sun god but was itself slain by the rising sun of a new day.[2]
This dragon has “seven heads, ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads” (v.3).
Obviously, this is not literal. But what does it symbolize? The number seven
intends completeness or fullness. Heads and diadems suggest authority and rule.
Ten also intends fullness while horns point to strength. This dragon has full
authority, power, and strength. So much so that though he is not God he is able
to raid heaven and knock 1/3 of its stars to earth. Whether this is a symbolic
portrayal of an event (an angelic revolt or fall) or of the power and reach of
the dragon is hard to say.
With the dragon
eagerly waiting to seize and destroy the child, he comes. Jesus identifies this
child, himself, by an allusion to Psalm 2:9, a royal psalm. A king is
born! Somehow this baby is snatched away
and delivered to God's throne before the dragon can lay a paw on him.
Right here we get
Jesus' perspective, the biblical view, on what power and victory look like. His
hearers well know, of course, that Jesus was crucified. Yet no mention or
allusion to that is found here. He's born and then off to God's throne (a
symbol of rule and authority), a victor. From Revelation 5 we know this Jesus
appears to John as a slaughtered Lamb. That the vision here moves right from
birth to enthronement without so much as a side glance at Jesus' suffering and
death signals that in his slaughter divine power was loosed. Power able to best
the dragon and invest this Jesus as the one with power and authority to rule
the world!
The woman too is
protected from the frustrated dragon's wrath. God has prepared a wilderness
refuge for her. There he will sustain and strengthen her for 1,260 days (= 3½
years, 42 months), the period between Jesus' resurrection and return.
In this richly
dramatic and symbolic episode Jesus gets to “the” point of his sermon. The “point” of the world's being and reality.
The cross and resurrection of Jesus as that Archimedean point from which one
can change the world. Jesus highlights it by not mentioning it (as we saw) but
swallowing it up in the victory of the child removed to the throne of the
Almighty. That victory also shelters and sustains his people for their journey
through the world.
The woman, the child,
and the dragon: the three key players in the great cosmic drama are on scene
now in dramatic point-counterpoint. Jesus has been digging beneath the surface
in this sermon to unveil the dynamics and their meaning that constitute time
and eternity. He has probed what it is that is really happening in the world
(Seals) and how all this responds to the cry of the martyrs “How long?”
(Trumpets). Now Jesus deepens each of those scenes rooting them within this primal scene.
War in Heaven
(12:7-12)
With
the dragon left clawing at empty air as the child eludes his death-dealing
grasp a melee breaks out in heaven. It
is not God who fights the dragon and his minions, however. Instead Michael the
Archangel (Israel's Guardian angel,Da.10:13,21; 12:1) and his angelic host take
the battle to them. God's power and sovereignty are such that this task can be
delegated to his underlings.
So
thoroughly routed are this demonic horde that Jesus five times intones their
defeat as their being “thrown down” (12:9 [3x],10,13) and once as “has come
down” (involuntarily; 12:12). Notice the past tense of these verbs. This war is
over and won!
Jesus,
in his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, has won it. And he won
it, of course by living and dying in sacrificial non-violent servanthood. In
spite of appearances - hanging on a Roman gibbet – Jesus' way of being Messiah
triumphs over the Emperor's way. Victory through defeat, resurrection following
death, as mind-bending as it is, is God's way to victory.
In
John's gospel Jesus articulates this truth when looking ahead to his death he
announces: “Now the ruler of this world will be driven out” (12:31). And Paul
echoes this in his reflection on the effect of
the cross in Col.2:15: “ (Christ) disarmed the rulers and authorities
and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.” Here is the
slaughtered Lamb again (Rev.5)!
So Jesus can now (12:10) announce that the
kingdom seen as fulfilled as human destiny in the Trumpet cycle retroject that kingdom back to
his earthly ministry. “Now” Jesus cries. Now in the midst of life his victory and
authority have come (12:10).
The
devil (v.12:9) is named the Accuser.
That's what “Satan” means. Apparently this figure was originally a
member of God's court and his job was to test the faithfulness of God's people
(see the book of Job). He gradually morphed into the full blown opponent of all
things God we meet in the New Testament (as here).[3]
At any rate, at this point he is declared to be the Accuser of God's people.
The
Accuser attacks us at our greatest points of vulnerability. Similar, I suspect,
to how he tested Jesus in the wilderness. It's probably not coincidental that
the people attacked are also in the wilderness (12:6,14). The wilderness, in
the Bible is both a place of peril and a place where God woos (Hos.2:14),
tests, and nurtures his people. This people, called to be God's Messianic
people and continue the fight with the enemy. In Jesus' case, this Accuser
attacked his commitment to be Messiah in God's way. Not a social welfare kind.
Nor a religious leader kind. And not a “big man in the White House” kind
either. But a sacrificial, suffering-servant kind. It would not be surprising
if the Accuser didn't try to derail Messiah's people by accusing them over
their failures and follies in faithfully embodying Messiah's way.
But
this Accuser and his incessant accusations has been ousted from heaven. And the
church, living out of Jesus' victory over him, plies its faithfulness on three
warrants (12:11):
-the blood of
the Lamb (here more likely a reference to his self-giving, sacrificial way of
life than his atoning death)
-the word of
their testimony
-they were
willing to be martyrs for Jesus' sake
Or,
to put it more colloquially, Jesus did it right, we're going to witness to it,
and we're betting our lives on it.
Heaven,
God's place, is cleansed of the dragon's contagion and stench. But the “earth
and the sea,” whoa! The Dragon has come down to you and he is pi***d! He's defeated but not destroyed. That is
coming. But in the meantime, as Jesus' victory is implemented and extended
throughout the earth, he can still thrash about in his death throes (v.12).
The Dragon and the
Woman (12:13-17)
The
image of the woman is a bit fluid in this section. She appears first as the
source of the Dragon's defeat (12:13), the child, whom he seeks to destroy. But
after she gives him the slip into the wilderness, the woman becomes the child's
people, the object of his venomous hatred (12:17). Creation and exodus themes
interplay here. God gifts the woman with “eagle wings” (Ex.19:4; Dt. 32:11) and
promise to shelter them under his wings (Ps.17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 61:4; Jer.49:22.
The river spewing from the mouth of the Dragon is both anti-creational and
anti-exodus.
-anti-creational
: (see :flood” in .15); “It is an attempt by the dragon to return the world to
the primordial chaos of Gen.1:2.”[4]
Creation “fights back”
(as it were) by swallowing up the Dragon's deluge and protects God's people.
The rivers coming forth from Eden (Gen.2) and
that flowing through the middle of the New Jerusalem (Rev.22) are life-giving
while this parody is death-dealing.
-anti-Exodus: it
seeks to destroy God's people by water even as God saved the people through
water.
The
Dragon's fury , having failed to destroy the woman, turns against her children
those who “keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus”
(12:17). Remember the fluidity of the imagery!
This,
at the deepest level, is the fundamental dynamic driving history and human
experience. God's people are well served to know and internalize this truth.
We'll
pick up at this point in the next post.
[1] Keener, IVP
Background Commentary to the New Testament on Revelation 12:1..
[2] Spilsbury, The
Throne, 90-91.
[3] See the entry “Satan”
in The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery edited by Leland Ryken and James
C. Wilhoit (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010).
[4] Kraybill, Apocalypse
and Allegiance, 74.
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