Revelation 12 The Woman and the Dragon

The Woman with the Dragon Problem Suddenly, John sees an omen—it's a woman. She is clothed with sun, the moon is under her feet, and she wears a crown of 12 stars. The woman is in the middle of giving birth and she's screaming in pain. Or she may be screaming at the sight of a huge red dragon—it appears with seven heads with crowns on each of them and ten horns. The Dragon heads over to the woman. He's planning to gobble up her child once she finishes giving birth. The woman delivers a baby boy and it just so happens that he's going to rule all the nations of the world. He is promptly taken up into Heaven and the woman runs away before the Dragon can get his teeth around her. Close call. This Means War Then war breaks out in Heaven. Michael the Archangel and his band of angel soldiers attack the Dragon and manage to throw him out of Heaven. So Heaven is good… But the Earth isn't so lucky. The Dragon lands down there and decides to wreak a little havoc. He finds the woman who gave birth to the son and chases after her. But she sprouts wings and flies away. Then he opens his mouth and floods the Earth, trying to drown her. But the Earth comes to her rescue and swallows up the water. Thanks, Earth. Okay, now the Dragon is really ticked. He decides to go off and attack and persecute the woman's other children—the followers of Jesus. Yikes. Watch out, guys! The three principal objects of this vision are the woman clothed with the sun, the man-child born of her, and a red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. These, being drawn from nature and human life, would point us both to the church and to the state for their fulfilment. The symbols, also, are living agents, and we should expect the objects they represent to be such. This woman is an appropriate symbol of the church of God, which is composed of living, intelligent beings; and that it is the true and not an apostate one, is shown by the fact that upon her flight into the wilderness she had a place prepared of God where she was nourished for twelve hundred and sixty days. In a subsequent portion of the Apocalypse a vile harlot is taken as the representative of the church apostate. In this way a proper correspondence of character and quality is kept up. This woman appeared, not in the temple above, but in the firmament of heaven, where she was clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. Thus the brightest luminaries of heaven were gathered around her. Arrayed in this splendid manner, she is easily distinguished from an apostate church, which would not be so highly favored with such attire in this exalted position. Doubtless the objects with which she is adorned have some special signification. 


The moon is a fit symbol of the old covenant, above which the church had just risen, only to be clothed in the superior brightness and glory of the new covenant. According to the explanation given of the seven stars in the right hand of Jesus (chap. 1:19), we are authorized to regard stars as a symbol of Christian ministers, and the twelve that appear most prominently in the first history of the church are the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The dragon, a beast from the natural world, would properly symbolize a tyrannical, persecuting government. This was a red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. In the following chapter we read that John saw a beast rising up out of the sea with the same number of heads and horns, but ten crowns on his horns. And the dragon gave him (the beast) "his power, and his seat, and great authority." Verse 2. So far as the heads and horns are concerned, the only difference between the two is that the crowns--a symbol of supreme authority and power--have been transferred from the heads to the horns. In chapter 17 John saw the same beast again and there received the following explanation of the seven heads: "And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh he must continue a short space." Verse 10. Concerning the horns, he was told, "The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet." Verse 12. With this explanation before us it will be easy to identify the dragon of chapter 12 and the beast of chapters 13 and 17 as the Roman empire, the first under the Pagan and the second under the Papal form. The seven heads signify the seven distinct forms of supreme government that ruled successively in the empire. The ten horns, or kingdoms, which had not yet arisen when the Revelation was given, were the ten minor kingdoms that grew out of the Western Roman empire during its decline and fall.