With the destruction of the City of Man in the last chapter, John now begins a whole new vision. Here we take a moment to examine the major players, the primary roles from Heaven's point of view. Again, we do well to recall a precise one-for-one reading of the symbols as representing some discrete earthly entity is foreign to the Hebrew mindset from which the Bible was written. These are conceptual roles, not necessarily clearly identified persons or entities.
The Woman is clearly Israel. Not the earthly nation, this is Israel as she should have been -- the wife of Jehovah. As Eastern potentates often did, He chose her while still a child, and groomed her for the role in ways not always pleasant. We know the real Nation of Israel was hardly faithful and seemed mostly unwilling to accept the requirements for her election. Thus, John does not paint her as the harlot she was, but as the chaste bride she should have been. We see in the image echoes of Joseph's dreams (Genesis 37:9-10).
Her primary function within her role as the Bride of God was to bring forth the royal heir, Christ. We see her on the verge of doing so. Opposing this event was the Great Dragon, so obviously Satan. From here we get the mythical assertion his fall from Heaven brought with him a third of all the angels. Again, while the basic principle is true -- those angels under his authority fell with him, becoming demons -- the numerical portion is not meant literally. This is another "rabbinical third." The point is, Lucifer began his existence as the Covering Cherub, the robe God wore between His utter holiness and all Creation, to protect that Creation (Ezekiel 28:11ff). A part of the judgment against him was restricting him to human space. After bringing about the Fall, Satan's goal was to prevent redemption by having the Messiah killed before His time, as we recall from the Christmas accounts in the Gospels. Thus, the image of him waiting to devour the Son at birth.
However, the Lord frustrated these plans. And while the rejection by the Jews ultimately resulted in their destruction as a literal nation, and the loss of their homeland, the conceptual Israel was not lost. She was preserved in the wilderness, the way God preserved His purpose in that literal nation by killing off the whiny generation in the Wilderness Wandering. Again we note the time amounts to 3½ years -- a period of tribulation. In a certain sense, the conceptual Bride of God is yet waiting to be brought forth at the final revelation, the redemption of all things when Christ returns.
It becomes rather obvious this is not a chronology of events, but an abstraction of things which took place outside time and space. There was in a sense a war in heaven, with Lucifer attempting to retain his status after his rejection by God for sin. The conflict has echoes and implications throughout the History of Redemption as recorded in the Bible. Daniel's prophecy mentions this as a real-time event in chapters 10 and 12. All those under Lucifer's authority lost the fight, and were condemned to the limits of human space.
We can participate in this victory over the Kingdom of Darkness. The loud voice in Heaven declares this accuser has no authority, nor credibility, before the Throne of God. However, that victory comes at great cost: We must exchange clinging to this life for clinging to the heavenly Life. Our power over the false Accuser is in the Blood of the Lamb, the spiritual DNA from rebirth; in the Word incarnated in our beings, expressed in our words and actions; and in our allegiance first to the Kingdom of Heaven over any other kingdom, and a willingness to face all manner of suffering here as the price of that choice. These are the parameters of victory, the holy trinity of following Christ on earth.
This defeats Satan's claim to our souls, depriving him of total victory. In his prison here, Satan is determined to vent his wrath on all who share that confinement. Our flesh remains subject to this woe, even while our spirits are free, beyond his grasp. So our Enemy sets about persecuting the Spiritual Israel, a phrase now meaning all true believers in Christ. To keep the conceptual Israel safe, the Lord has carried her away on eagle's wings (Exodus 19:4) to wait out the time of tribulation. Satan can touch our flesh, take our very lives, but he cannot change what we are. The spewing of water is a flood of false human religions, all the world offering everything except the genuine faith in God. As with the fake priests in the Wilderness (Numbers 16), these are devoured by the earth, because the ground upon which they pretend to stand is unstable.
Satan is left with little he can do. What lies within his power -- those humans who remain fallen sinners -- will be used against the tangible representations of the Kingdom of Heaven. Not simply the human flesh, nor the worldly possessions, but the very act of human organization around our pursuit of the Word on earth will face his wrath. Once our souls leave this flesh, we are utterly safe, as a part of the Bride of Christ. For so long as we keep a foot in this Vale of Sorrow, we will suffer for that identity. Expect it; be surprised and fearful when it does not happen. Such suffering here is the primary mark of His Servants.
For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the message remains a call to that other-worldly perspective. We must see the world through the eyes of faith in order to understand what God is doing. For John's flock, this was clearly not a call to disregard their suffering on the human level, but instead to turn it on its head to become the mark of God's love.
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Ed Hurst
20 September 2007
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