_THE FIRST GREAT ENEMY OF THE CHURCH._
REV. xii.
The twelfth chapter of the Revelation of St. John has been felt by
every commentator to be one more than usually difficult to interpret,
and that whether we look at it in relation to its special purpose, or
to its position in the structure of the book. If we can satisfy
ourselves as to the first of these two points, we shall be better able
to form correct notions as to the second.
Turning then for a moment to chap. xiii., we find it occupied with a
description of two of the great enemies with which the Church has to
contend. These are spoken of as "a beast" (ver. 1) and "another beast"
(ver. 11), the latter being obviously the same as that described in
chap. xix. 20 as "the false prophet that wrought the signs" in the
sight of the former. At the same time, it is evident that these two
beasts are regarded as enemies of the Church in a sense peculiar to
themselves, for the victorious Conqueror of chap. xix. makes war with
them, and "they twain are cast into the lake of fire that burneth with
brimstone."[285] This fate next overtakes, in chap. xx. 10, "the
dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan," so that no
doubt can rest upon the fact that to St. John's view the great enemies
of the Church are three in number. When, accordingly, we find two of
them described in chap. xiii., and chap. xii. occupied with the
description of another, we are warranted in concluding that the main
purpose of the chapter is to set before us a picture of this last.
Thus also we are led to understand the place of the chapter in the
structure of the book. We have already seen that the seven Trumpets
are occupied with judgments on the world. The seven Bowls, forming the
next and highest series of judgments, are to be occupied with
judgments on the degenerate members of the Church. It is a fitting
thing, therefore, that we should be able to form a clear idea of the
enemies by which these faithless disciples are subdued, and in
resisting whom the steadfastness of the faithful remnant shall be
proved. To describe them sooner was unnecessary. They are the friends,
not the enemies, of the world. They are the enemies only of the
Church. Hence the sudden transition made at the beginning of chap.
xii. There is no chronological relation between it and the chapters
which precede. The thoughts embodied in it refer only to what follows.
The chapter is obviously divided into three parts, and the bearing of
these parts upon one another will appear as we proceed.
And a great sign was seen in heaven; a woman arrayed with the sun,
and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve
stars: and she was with child; and she crieth out, travailing in
birth, and in pain to be delivered. And there was seen another
sign in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads
and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems. And his tail
draweth the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them
into the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman that was
about to be delivered, that when she was delivered he might
devour her child. And she was delivered of a son, a man-child, who
as a shepherd shall tend all the nations with a sceptre of iron:
and her child was caught up unto God, and unto His throne. And the
woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of
God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two hundred and
threescore days (xii. 1-6).
In the first chapter of the book of Genesis we read, "And God made two
great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light
to rule the night: He made the stars also."[286] Sun, and moon, and
stars exhaust the Biblical notion of the heavenly bodies which give
light upon the earth. They therefore, taken together, clothe this
woman; and there is no need to search for any recondite meaning in the
place which they severally occupy in her investiture. She is simply
arrayed in light from head to foot. In other words, she is the perfect
emblem of light in its brightness and purity. The use of the number
_twelve_ indeed suggests the thought of a bond of connexion between
this light and the Christian Church. The tribes of Israel, the type of
God's spiritual Israel, were in number twelve; our Lord chose to
Himself twelve Apostles; the new Jerusalem has "twelve gates, and at
the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the
names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel."[287]
But though the light is thus early connected with the thought of the
Christian Church, and though the subsequent portion of the chapter
confirms the connexion, the woman is not yet to be regarded as, in the
strictest sense, representative of that community or Body historically
viewed. By-and-by she will be so. In the meantime a comparison of
ver. 6 with ver. 14, where her fleeing into the wilderness and her
nourishment in it for precisely the same period of time as in ver. 6
are again mentioned, together with what we have already seen to be a
peculiarity of St. John's mode of thought, forbids the supposition.
The Apostle would not thus repeat himself. We are entitled therefore
to infer that at the opening of the chapter he deals less with actual
history than with the "pattern" of that history which had existed from
all eternity in the mount. Hence also it would seem that the birth of
the child, though undoubtedly referring to the birth of Jesus, is not
the actual birth. It, too, is rather the eternal "pattern" of that
event. Similar remarks apply to the _dragon_, who is not yet the
historical Satan, and will only be so in the second paragraph, at ver.
9. The whole picture, in short, of these verses is one of the _ideal_
which precedes the actual, and of which the actual is the counterpart
and realization.
The resemblance, accordingly, borne by the first paragraph of this
chapter (vers. 1-6) to the first paragraph of the fourth Gospel (vers.
1-5), is of the most striking kind. In neither is there any account of
the actual birth of our Lord. In both (and we shall immediately see
this still more fully brought out in the apocalyptic vision) we are
introduced to Him at once, not as growing up to be the Light of the
world, but as already grown up and as perfect light. In both we have
the same light and the same darkness, and in both the same contrariety
and struggle between the two. Nor does the comparison end here. We
have also the same singular method of expressing the deliverance of
the light from the enmity of the darkness. In John i. 5, correctly
translated, we read "The light shineth in the darkness, and the
darkness _overcame_ it not," the thought being rather negative than
positive, rather that of preservation than of victory. In the
Apocalypse we read, _And her child was caught up unto God, and unto
His throne_, the idea being again that of preservation rather than of
victory.
Such is the general conception of the first paragraph of this chapter.
The individual expressions need not detain us long. The woman's raiment
of light has been already spoken of. Passing therefore from that, it
need occasion no surprise that He who is Himself the Giver of light
should be represented as the _Son_ of light. God "is light, and in Him
is no darkness at all."[288] Jesus, as the Son of God, is thus also the
Son of light. No doubt the conception is continued even after we behold
the woman in her actual, not her ideal, state. Jesus is still her
Son.[289] Yet there is a true sense in which we may describe our Lord
not only as the Foundation, but also as the Son, of the Church. He is
"the First-born among many brethren,"[290] the elder Brother in a common
Father's house. He is begotten by the power of the Holy Spirit[291]; and
they that believe in His name are "born, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."[292] So close indeed
in the teaching of St. John is the identification of Christ and His
people, that whatever is said of Him may be said of them, and what is
said of them may be said of Him. Human thought and language fail to do
justice to a relation so profound and mysterious. But it is everywhere
the teaching of the beloved disciple--in his Gospel, in his Epistles,
in his Revelation--although the Church may not fully understand it until
she has lived herself more into it than she has done. Her "life" will
then bring her "light."[293]
The dragon of the passage is _great_ and _red_: "great" because of the
power which he possesses; "red," the colour of blood, because of the
ferocity with which he destroys men: "He was a murderer from the
beginning;" "Cain was of the evil one, and slew his brother;" "And I saw
the woman" (that is, the woman who rode upon the scarlet-coloured beast)
"drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs
of Jesus."[294] The dragon has further _seven heads_,--seven, the number
of completeness, so that he possesses everything to enable him to
execute his plans; and _ten horns_, the emblem at once of his strength
and of his rule over all the kingdoms of the world. Upon the heads, too,
are _seven diadems_, a word different from that which had been employed
for the woman's "crown" in the first verse of the chapter. Hers is a
crown of victory; the diadems of the dragon are only marks of royalty,
and may be worn, as they will be worn, in defeat. The dragon's _tail_,
again, like the tails of the locusts of the fifth Trumpet and of the
horses of the sixth, is the instrument with which he destroys[295]; and
_the third part of the stars of heaven_ corresponds to "the third part"
mentioned in each of the first four Trumpets. The figure of _casting the
stars into the earth_ is taken from the prophecy of Daniel, in which it
is said of the "little horn" that "it waxed great, even to the host of
heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the
ground, and stamped upon them."[296]
The dragon next takes up his position _before the woman which was
about to be delivered, that when she was delivered he might devour her
child_; and the first historical circumstances to which the idea
corresponds, and in which it is realized, may be found in the effort
of Pharaoh to destroy the infant Moses. Pharaoh is indeed often
compared in the Old Testament to a dragon: "Thou didst divide the sea
by Thy strength: Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters;"
"Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee,
Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his
rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for
myself."[297] The power, and craft, and cruelty of the Egyptian king
could hardly have been absent from the Seer's mind when he employed
the figure of the text. But he was certainly not thinking of Pharaoh
alone. He remembered also the plot of Herod to destroy the Child
Jesus.[298] Pharaoh and Herod--men quailed before them; yet both were
no more than instruments in the hands of God. Both worked out His
"determinate counsel and foreknowledge."[299]
The child is born, and is described in language worthy of our notice. He
is _a son, a man-child_; and the at first sight tautological information
appears to hint at more than the mere sex of the child. He is already
more than a child: he is a man. There is a similar emphasis in the words
of our Lord when He said to His disciples in His last consolatory
discourse, "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her
hour is come: but when she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no
more the anguish, for the joy that _a man_ is born into the world."[300]
From the first the child is less a child than a man, strong, muscular,
and vigorous, who _as a shepherd shall tend all the nations with a
sceptre of iron_. Strange that we should be invited to dwell on this
ideal aspect of the Son's work rather than any other! No doubt the words
are quoted from the second Psalm. This, however, only removes the
difficulty a step further back. Why either there or here should the
shepherd work of the Messiah be connected with an iron sceptre rather
than a peaceful crook? The explanation is not difficult. Both the Psalm
and the Apocalypse are occupied mainly with the victory of Christ over
His adversaries. His friends have already been secured in the possession
of a complete salvation. It remains only that His foes shall be finally
put down. Hence the "sceptre of iron." Strange also, it may be thought,
that in this ideal picture we should find no "pattern" of the life of
our Lord on earth, of His labours, or sufferings, or death; and that we
should only be invited to behold Him in His incarnation and ascension
into heaven! But again the explanation is not difficult. Over against
Satan stands, not a humbled merely, but a risen and glorified, Redeemer.
The process by which He conquered it is unnecessary to dwell upon.
Enough that we know the fact.
The woman's child being thus safe, _the woman_ herself _fled into the
wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God_, and where she shall
be nourished by heavenly sustenance. Thus Israel wandered forty years,
fed with the manna that fell from heaven and the water that flowed from
the smitten rock.[301] Thus Elijah fled to the brook Cherith, and
afterwards to the wilderness, where his wants were supplied in the one
case by the ravens, in the other by an angel.[302] And thus was our Lord
upheld for forty days by the words that proceeded out of the mouth of
God.[303] This wilderness life of the Church, too, continues during the
whole Christian era, during the whole period of witnessing.[304] Always
in the wilderness so long as her Lord is personally absent, she eats
heavenly food and drinks living water.
Such is the first scene of this chapter; and, glancing once more over
it, it would seem as if its chief purpose were to present to us the
two great opposing forces of light and darkness, of the Son and the
dragon, considered in themselves.
The second scene follows:--
And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels going forth to
war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels: and
they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in
heaven. And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he
that is called the devil, and Satan, the deceiver of the whole
inhabited earth: he was cast down into the earth, and his angels
were cast down with him. And I heard a great voice in heaven,
saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom
of our God, and the authority of His Christ: for the accuser of
our brethren is cast down, which accuseth them before our God day
and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb,
and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not
their life even unto death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye
that tabernacle in them. Woe for the earth and for the sea!
because the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath,
knowing that he hath but a short season (xii. 7-12).
If our conception of the first six verses of the chapter be correct,
it will be evident that the idea often entertained, that the verses
following them form a break in the narrative which is only resumed at
ver. 13, is wrong. There is no break. The progress of the thought is
continuous. The combatants have been set before us, and we have now
the contest in which they are engaged. This consideration also helps
us to understand the personality of Michael and the particular
conflict in the Seer's view.
For, as to the first of these two points, it is even in itself
probable that the Leader of the hosts of light will be no other than
the Captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The
dragon leads the hosts of darkness. The Son has been described as the
opponent against whom the enmity of the dragon is especially directed.
When the war begins, we have every reason to expect that as the one
leader takes the command, so also will the other. There is much to
confirm this conclusion. The name Michael leads to it, for that word
signifies, "Who is like God?" and such a name is at least more
appropriate to a Divine than to a created being. In the New Testament,
too, we read of "Michael the archangel"[305]--there seems to be only
one, for we never read of archangels[306]--and an archangel is again
spoken of in circumstances that can hardly be associated with the
thought of any one but God: "The Lord Himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the
trump of God."[307] Above all, the prophecies of Daniel, in which the
name Michael first occurs, may be said to decide the point. A person
named Michael there appears on different occasions as the defender of
the Church against her enemies,[308] and once at least in a connexion
leading directly to the thought of our Lord Himself: "And at that
time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the
children of Thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as
never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that
time Thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found
written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the
earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and
everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the
brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness
as the stars for ever and ever."[309] These considerations justify the
conclusion that the Michael now spoken of is the representative of
Christ; and we have already seen, in examining the vision of the
"strong angel" in chap. x., that such a mode of speaking is in perfect
harmony with the general method of St. John.
Light is thus thrown also upon the second point above mentioned: the
particular conflict referred to in these verses. The statement that
_there was war in heaven_, and that when the dragon was defeated he
was _cast down into the earth_, might lead us to think of an earlier
conflict between good and evil than any in which man has part: of that
mentioned by St. Peter and St. Jude, when the former consoles the
righteous by the thought that "God spared not angels when they sinned,
but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to
be reserved unto judgment,"[310] and when the latter warns sinners to
remember that "angels which kept not their own principality, but left
their proper habitation, He hath kept in everlasting bonds under
darkness unto the judgment of the great day."[311] The circumstances,
however, of the war, lead rather to the thought of a conflict in
which the Son, incarnate and glorified, takes His part. For _this_
"Son" is the opponent of the dragon introduced to us in the first
paragraph of the chapter. "Heaven" is not so much a premundane or
supramundane locality as the spiritual sphere within which believers
dwell even during their earthly pilgrimage, when that pilgrimage is
viewed upon its higher side. And the means by which the victory is
gained--for the victors _overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the
word of their testimony_--distinctly indicate that the struggle
referred to took place after the work of redemption had been
completed, not before it was begun.
Several other passages of the New Testament are in harmony with this
supposition. Thus it was that when the seventy returned to our Lord with
joy after their mission, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject unto
us in Thy name," He, beholding in this the pledge of His completed
victory, exclaimed, "I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from
heaven."[312] Thus it was that when charged with casting out demons by
Beelzebub, the prince of the demons, our Lord pointed out to His
accusers that His actions proved Him to be the Conqueror, and that the
kingdom of God was come unto them: "When the strong man fully armed
guardeth his own court, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than
he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him his whole
armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils."[313] To the same
effect are all those passages where our Lord or His Apostles speak, not
of a partial, but of a complete, victory over Satan, so that for His
people the great enemy of man is already judged, and overthrown, and
bruised beneath their feet: "Now is a judgment of this world: now shall
the prince of this world be cast out;" "And when He" (the Advocate) "is
come, He will convince the world of judgment, because the prince of this
world hath been judged;" "Since then the children are sharers in flesh
and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that
through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil; and might deliver all them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage;" "Whatsoever is begotten of
God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the
world, even our faith;" "We know that whosoever is begotten of God
sinneth not; but He that was begotten of God keepeth him, and the evil
one toucheth him not."[314]
In passages such as these we have the same thought as that before us
in this vision. Satan has been cast out of heaven; that is, _in his
warfare against the children of God he has been completely
overthrown_. Over their higher life, their life in a risen and
glorified Redeemer, he has no power. They are for ever escaped from
his bondage, and are free. But he has been _cast down into the earth,
and his angels with him_; that is, over the _men of the world_ he
still exerts his power, and they are led captive by him at his will.
Hence, accordingly, the words of the _great voice_ heard in heaven
which occupy all the latter part of the vision, words which distinctly
bring out the difference between the two aspects of Satan now adverted
to,--(1) his impotence as regards the disciples of Jesus who are
faithful unto death: _Rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them_;
(2) his mastery over the ungodly: _Woe for the earth and for the sea!
for the devil is gone down unto you in great wrath, knowing that he
hath but a short season._ Although, therefore, the fall of the angels
from their first estate may be remotely hinted at, the vision refers
to the spiritual contest begun after the resurrection of Jesus; and we
ask our readers only to pay particular regard to the double relation
of Satan to mankind which is referred to in it: his subjection to the
righteous and the subjection of the wicked to him. One phrase only may
seem inconsistent with this view. In ver. 9 Satan is described as _the
deceiver of the whole inhabited earth_, for that, and not "the whole
world," is the true rendering of the original.[315] "The whole
inhabited earth" cannot be the same as "the earth." The latter is
simply the wicked; the former includes all men. But the words describe
a characteristic of Satan in himself, and not what he actually
effects. He _is_ the deceiver of the whole inhabited earth. He lays
his snares for all. He tempted Jesus Himself in the wilderness, and
many a time thereafter during His labours and His sufferings. The
vision gives no ground for the supposition that God's children are not
_attacked_ by him. It assures us only that when the attack is made it
is at the same instant foiled. There is a battle, but Christians
advance to it as conquerors; before it begins victory is theirs.[316]
One other expression of these verses may be noted: the _short season_
spoken of in ver. 12. This period of time is not to be looked at as if
it were a brief special season at the close of the Christian age,
when the wrath of Satan is aroused to a greater than ordinary degree
because the last hour is about to strike. The _great wrath_ with which
he goes forth is that stirred in him by his defeat through the death,
resurrection, and ascension of our Lord. It was roused in him when he
was "cast into the earth," and from that moment of defeat therefore
the "short season" begins.
The third paragraph of the chapter follows:--
And when the dragon saw that he was cast down into the earth, he
persecuted the woman which brought forth the man-child. And there
were given to the woman the two wings of the great eagle, that she
might fly into the wilderness, unto her place, where she is
nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of
the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman
water as a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by
the stream. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened
her mouth, and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of
his mouth. And the dragon waxed wroth with the woman, and went
away to make war with the rest of her seed, which keep the
commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus; and he stood
upon the sand of the sea (xii. 13-xiii. 1_a_).
We have already seen that the woman introduced to us in the first
paragraph of this chapter is the embodiment and the bearer of light.
She is there indeed set before us in her ideal aspect, in what she is
in herself, rather than in her historical position. Now we meet her in
actual history, or, in other words, she is the historical Church of
God in the New Testament phase of her development. As such she has a
mission to the world. She is "the sent" of Christ, as Christ was "the
sent" of the Father.[317] In witnessing for Christ, she has to reveal
to the children of men what Divine love is. But she has to do this in
the midst of trouble. This world is not her rest; and she must bear
the Saviour's cross if she would afterwards wear His crown.
Persecuted, however, she is not forsaken. She had given her _the two
wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, unto
her place_--the place prepared of God for her protection. There can be
little doubt as to the allusion. The "great eagle" is that of which
God Himself spoke to Moses in the mount: "Ye have seen what I did unto
the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you
unto Myself;"[318] and that alluded to by Moses in the last song
taught by him to the people: "As an eagle stirreth up her nest,
fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them,
beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there
was no strange god with him."[319] The same eagle was probably in view
of David when he sang, "How excellent is Thy lovingkindness, O God!
therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy
wings;"[320] while it was also that on the wings of which the members
of the Church draw continually nearer God: "They mount up with wings
as eagles."[321] To the woman then there was given a "refuge from the
storm," a "covert from the heat," of trial, that she might abide in
it, nourished with her heavenly food, _for a time, and times, and half
a time_. Of this period we have already spoken. It is the same as that
of the three and a half years, the "forty-two months," the "thousand
two hundred and threescore days." It is thus the whole period of the
Church's militant history upon earth. During all of it she is
persecuted by Satan; during all of it she is preserved and nourished
by the care of God. At first sight indeed it may seem as if this
shelter in the wilderness were incompatible with the task of
witnessing assigned to her. But it is one of the paradoxes of the
position of the children of God in this present world that while they
are above it they are yet in it; that while they are seated "in the
heavenly places" they are exposed to the storms of earth; that while
their life is hid with Christ in God they witness and war before the
eyes of men. The persecution and the nourishment, the suffering and
the glory, run parallel with each other. One other remark may be made.
There is obviously an emphasis upon the word "two" prefixed to
"wings." Though founded upon the fact that the wings of the bird are
two in number, a deeper meaning would seem to be intended; and that
meaning is suggested by the fact that the witnesses of chap. xi. were
also two. The protection extended corresponds exactly to the need for
it. The "grace" of God is in all circumstances "sufficient" for His
people.[322] No temptation can assail them which He will not enable
them to endure, or out of which He will not provide for them a way of
escape.[323] Therefore may they always take up the language of the
Apostle and say, "Most gladly will I rather glory in my weaknesses,
that the strength of Christ may spread a tabernacle over me. Wherefore
I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in
persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak,
then am I strong."[324]
The woman fled into the wilderness, but she was not permitted to flee
thither without a final effort of Satan to overwhelm her; and in the
manner in which this effort is made we again recognise the language of
the Old Testament. There the assaults of the ungodly upon Israel are
frequently compared to those floods of waters which, owing to the
sudden risings of the streams, are in the East so common and so
disastrous. Isaiah describes the enemy as coming in "like a
flood."[325] Of the floods of the Euphrates and the destruction which
they symbolized we have already spoken[326]; and in hours of
deliverance from trouble the Church has found the song of triumph most
suitable to her condition in the words of the Psalmist, "If it had not
been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us: then
they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against
us: then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our
soul: then the proud waters had gone over our soul. Blessed be the
Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth."[327] The main
reference is, however, in all probability to the passage of Israel
across the Red Sea, for then, says David, calling to mind that great
deliverance in the history of his people, and finding in it the type
of deliverances so often experienced by himself, "the sorrows of death
compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.... In my
distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God.... He sent
from above, He took me. He drew me out of many waters."[328]
The most remarkable point to be noticed here is, however, not the
deliverance itself, but the method by which it is accomplished. To
understand this, as well as the wrath of Satan immediately afterwards
described, it is necessary to bear in mind that twofold element in the
Church the existence of which is the key to so many of the most
intricate problems of the Apocalypse. The Church embraces both true and
false members within her pale. She is the "vine" of our Lord's last
discourse to His disciples, some of the branches of which bear much
fruit, while others are only fit to be cast into the fire and
burned.[329] The thought of these latter members is in the mind of St.
John when he tells us, in a manner so totally unexpected, that _the
earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up
the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth_. He is thinking of the
nominal members of the Church, of the merely nominal Christianity which
she has so often exhibited to the world. That Christianity the world
loves. When the Church's tone and life are lowered by her yielding to
the influence of the things of time, then the world, "the earth," is
ready to hasten to her side. It offers her its friendship, courts
alliance with her, praises her for the good order which she introduces,
by arguments drawn from eternity, into the things of time, and swallows
up the river which the dragon casts out of his mouth against her. When
Christ's disciples are of the world, the world loves its own.[330] They
are helping "the earth" to do its work. Why should the earth not
recognise and welcome the assistance given it by foolish foes as well as
friends? Therefore it helps the woman.
But side by side with this aspect of the Church which met the
approbation of "the earth," the dragon saw that she had another aspect
of determined hostility to his claims; and he _waxed wroth_ with her.
She had within her not only degenerate but true members, not only
worldly professors, but those who were one with her Divine and
glorified Lord. These were _the rest of her seed, which keep the
commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus_. They were the "few
names in Sardis which did not defile their garments,"[331] "the
remnant according to the election of grace,"[332] "the seed which the
Lord hath blessed."[333] Such disciples of Jesus the dragon could not
tolerate, and he _went away to make war_ with them. Thus is the
painful distinction still kept up which marks all the later part of
the Apocalypse. The spectacle was one over which St. John had mourned
as he beheld it in the Church of his own day: "They went out from us,
but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have
continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest
that not all are of us. Little children, it is the last hour."[334] It
was a spectacle which he knew would be repeated so long as the Church
of Christ was in contact with the world; and he notes it now.
One other point ought to be noticed in connexion with these verses. The
helping of the woman by the earth seems to be the Scripture parallel to
the difficult words of St. Paul when he says in writing to the
Thessalonians, "And now ye know that which restraineth to the end that
he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness
doth already work: only there is one that restraineth now, until he be
taken out of the way."[335] This "restraining" power, generally, and in
all probability correctly, understood of the Roman State, is "the
earth" of St. John helping the woman because it is helped by her.
We have been introduced to the first great enemy of the Church of
Christ. It remains only that he shall take up his position on the field.
The next clause therefore which meets us, and which ought to be read,
not as the first clause of chap. xiii., but as the last of chap. xii.,
and in which the third person ought to be substituted for the first,
describes him as doing so: _And he stood upon the sand of the sea_, upon
the shore between the earth and the sea, where he could so command them
both as to justify the "Woe" already uttered over both in the twelfth
verse of the chapter. There we leave him for a time, only remarking that
we are not to think of ocean lying before us in a calm, but of the
restless and troubled sea, raised into huge waves by the storm-winds
contending upon it for the mastery and dashing its waves upon the beach.
FOOTNOTES:
[285] Chap. xix. 20.
[286] Gen. i. 16.
[287] Chap. xxi. 12.
[288] 1 John i. 5.
[289] Comp. ver. 17.
[290] Rom. viii. 29.
[291] Matt. i. 20.
[292] John i. 13.
[293] Comp. John i. 4.
[294] John viii. 44; 1 John iii. 12; Rev. xvii. 6
[295] Chap. ix. 10, 19.
[296] Dan. viii. 10.
[297] Ps. lxxiv. 13; Ezek. xxix. 3.
[298] Matt. ii. 16.
[299] Acts ii. 23.
[300] John xvi. 21.
[301] 1 Cor. x. 3, 4.
[302] 1 Kings xvii. 6; xix. 5.
[303] Matt. iv. 4.
[304] Chap. xi. 3.
[305] Jude 9.
[306] Brown, _The Book of Revelation_, p. 69.
[307] 1 Thess. iv. 16.
[308] Dan. x. 13, 21.
[309] Dan. xii. 1-3.
[310] 2 Pet. ii. 4.
[311] Jude 6.
[312] Luke x. 17, 18.
[313] Luke xi. 21, 22.
[314] John xii. 31; xvi. 11; Heb. ii. 14, 15; 1 John v. 4, 18.
[315] Comp. R.V. (margin).
[316] Comp. 1 John v. 4.
[317] John xx. 21.
[318] Exod. xix. 3, 4.
[319] Deut. xxxii. 11, 12.
[320] Ps. xxxvi. 7.
[321] Isa. xl. 31.
[322] 2 Cor. xii. 9.
[323] 1 Cor. x. 13.
[324] 2 Cor. xii. 9, 10.
[325] Isa. lix. 19.
[326] Comp. p. 150.
[327] Ps. cxxiv. 2-6.
[328] Ps. xviii. 4-16.
[329] John xv. 5, 6.
[330] John xv. 19.
[331] Chap. iii. 4.
[332] Isa. lxi. 9.
[333] Rom. xi. 5.
[334] 1 John ii. 18, 19.
[335] 2 Thess. ii. 6, 7.