Wow! has it really been over a year since I stopped working on this series. I quit mostly because I am now even more convinced that to understand it fully we need to know what the seven churches knew as far as symbolism and some of that has been lost.Revelation 12 has three symbolic characters and reports a war between them.
The Woman is not identified and theories abound as to whether she represents Israel, the church or Mary or whatever. The best guess I can give is Israel seems best based on what the seven churches would have known. The twelve stars representing the twelve tribes seems likely. Out of Israel comes Christ.
The Dragon is identified in the chapter itself: it is Satan.
The Man Child being Christ is most likely given the context of 'ruling with a rod of iron' which is mentioned of Christ earlier and later in the book. The child is caught up to heaven to be with God while the woman is left to face the dragon.
This vision is complicated further by the fact it seems to be an interruption to what had been going on up to this point.
What seems to be symbolized is the war between Satan, Israel (as the bride of God) and Christ and it may be a symbolic representation of Israel's history, not a future action. Taking the real events of Israel producing Christ by God's power and the war over it with Satan and putting it in symbolic form to conceal to readers what is being talked about except those who understand the symbolism is a hallmark of apocalyptic literature.
Michael and the angels drive the devil to earth and then the devil tries to kill the woman -- every attempt fails and the woman is both preserved and unharmed. The the vision abruptly stops.
Next: Two Beasts
No comments:
Post a Comment