@Re 12:1-17. VISION OF THE WOMAN, HER CHILD, AND THE PERSECUTING DRAGON.
1. This episode (@Re 12:1-15:8) describes in detail the
persecution of Israel and the elect Church by the beast, which had been
summarily noticed, @Re 11:7-10, and the triumph of the faithful,
and torment of the unfaithful. So also the sixteenth through twentieth
chapters are the description in detail of the judgment on the beast,
&c., summarily noticed in @Re 11:13,18. The beast in @Re 12:3,
&c., is shown not to be alone, but to be the instrument in the hand of
a greater power of darkness, Satan. That this is so, appears from the
time of the eleventh chapter being the period also in which the events
of the twelfth and thirteenth chapters take place, namely, 1260 days
(@Re 12:6,14 Re 13:5; compare @Re 11:2,3).
great--in size and significance.
wonder--Greek, "sign": significant of momentous truths.
in heaven--not merely the sky, but the heaven beyond just
mentioned, @Re 11:19; compare @Re 12:7-9.
woman clothed with the sun . . . moon under her feet--the Church,
Israel first, and then the Gentile Church; clothed with Christ, "the Sun
of righteousness." "Fair as the moon, clear as the sun." Clothed with
the Sun, the Church is the bearer of divine supernatural light in the
world. So the seven churches (that is, the Church universal, the woman)
are represented as light-bearing candlesticks (@Re 1:12,20). On
the other hand, the moon, though standing above the sea and earth,
is altogether connected with them and is an earthly light: sea, earth, and moon represent the worldly element, in
opposition to the kingdom
of God--heaven, the sun. The moon cannot disperse the darkness and
change it into-day: thus she represents the world religion (heathenism)
in relation to the supernatural world. The Church has the moon,
therefore, under her feet; but the stars, as heavenly lights, on her
head. The devil directs his efforts against the stars, the angels of the
churches, about hereafter to shine for ever. The twelve stars, the
crown around her head, are the twelve tribes of Israel
[AUBERLEN]. The
allusions to Israel before accord with this: compare @Re 11:19.
"the temple of God"; "the ark of His testament." The ark lost at the
Babylonian captivity, and never since found, is seen in the "temple of
God opened in heaven," signifying that God now enters again into
covenant with His ancient people. The woman cannot mean, literally, the
virgin mother of Jesus, for she did not flee into the wilderness and
stay there for 1260 days, while the dragon persecuted the remnant of her
seed (@Re 12:13-17) [DE
BURGH]. The sun, moon, and
twelve stars, are emblematical of Jacob, Leah, or else Rachel, and
the twelve patriarchs, that is, the Jewish Church: secondarily, the
Church universal, having under her feet, in due subordination, the
ever changing moon, which shines with a borrowed light, emblem of
the Jewish dispensation, which is now in a position of inferiority,
though supporting the woman, and also of the changeful things of this
world, and having on her head the crown of twelve stars, the twelve
apostles, who, however, are related closely to Israel's twelve tribes.
The Church, in passing over into the Gentile world, is (1) persecuted;
(2) then seduced, as heathenism begins to react on her. This is the key
to the meaning of the symbolic woman, beast, harlot, and false prophet.
Woman and beast form the same contrast as the Son of man and
the beasts in Daniel. As the Son of man comes from heaven, so
the woman is seen in heaven (@Re 12:1). The two beasts arise
respectively out of the sea (compare @Da 7:3) and
the earth (@Re 13:1,11): their origin is not of heaven, but of earth earthy.
Daniel beholds the heavenly Bridegroom coming visibly to reign. John
sees the woman, the Bride, whose calling is heavenly, in the world,
before the Lord's coming again. The characteristic of woman, in
contradistinction to man, is her being subject, the surrendering of
herself, her being receptive. This similarly is man's relation to God,
to be subject to, and receive from, God. All autonomy of the human
spirit reverses man's relation to God. Woman-like receptivity towards
God constitutes faith. By it the individual becomes a child of
God; the children collectively are viewed as "the woman." Humanity,
in so far as it belongs to God, is the woman. Christ, the Son of the
woman, is in @Re 12:5 emphatically called "the
MAN-child"
(Greek, "huios arrheen," "male-child"). Though born of a woman, and under
the law for man's sake, He is also the Son of God, and so the
HUSBAND of
the Church. As Son of the woman, He is "'Son of man"; as male-child,
He is Son of God, and Husband of the Church. All who imagine to have
life in themselves are severed from Him, the Source of life, and,
standing in their own strength, sink to the level of senseless
beasts. Thus, the woman designates universally the kingdom of God;
the beast, the kingdom of the world. The woman of whom Jesus was born
represents the Old Testament congregation of God. The woman's
travail-pains (@Re 12:2) represent the Old Testament believers'
ardent longings for the promised Redeemer. Compare the joy at His birth
(@Isa 9:6). As new Jerusalem
(called also "the woman," or "wife," @Re 21:2,9-12), with
its twelve gates, is the exalted and transfigured Church, so the woman
with the twelve stars is the Church militant.
2. pained--Greek, "tormented" (basanizomene). DE BURGH explains this of the bringing in of the first-begotten into the world AGAIN, when Israel shall at last welcome Him, and when "the man-child shall rule all nations with the rod of iron." But there is a plain contrast between the painful travailing of the woman here, and Christ's second coming to the Jewish Church, the believing remnant of Israel, "Before she travailed she brought forth . . . a MAN-CHILD," that is, almost without travail-pangs, she receives (at His second advent), as if born to her, Messiah and a numerous seed.
3. appeared--"was seen."
wonder--Greek, "semeion," "sign."
red--So A and Vulgate read. But B, C, and Coptic read, "of
fire." In either case, the color of the dragon implies his fiery
rage as a murderer from the beginning. His representative,
the beast, corresponds, having seven heads and ten horns (the
number of horns on the fourth beast of @Da 7:7 Re 13:1). But there,
ten crowns are on the ten horns (for before the end, the fourth
empire is divided into ten kingdoms); here, seven crowns
(rather, "diadems," Greek, "diademata," not stephanoi,
"wreaths") are upon his seven heads. In @Da 7:4-7 the
Antichristian powers up to Christ's second coming are represented by
four beasts, which have among them seven heads, that is, the first,
second, and fourth beasts having one head each, the third, four
heads. His universal dominion as prince of this fallen world is implied
by the seven diadems (contrast the "many diadems on Christ's head,"
@Re 19:12, when coming to destroy him and his), the caricature of
the seven Spirits of God. His worldly instruments of power are
marked by the ten horns, ten being the number of the world. It marks
his self-contradictions that he and the beast bear both the number
seven (the divine number) and ten (the world number).
4. drew--Greek, present tense, "draweth," "drags down." His
dragging down the stars with his tail (lashed back and forward
in his fury) implies his persuading to apostatize, like himself, and to
become earthy, those angels and also once eminent human teachers who had
formerly been heavenly (compare @Re 12:1 1:20 Isa 14:12).
stood--"stands" [ALFORD]:
perfect tense, Greek, "hesteken."
ready to be delivered--"about to bring forth."
for to devour, &c.--"that when she brought forth, he might devour
her child." So the dragon, represented by his agent Pharaoh (a name
common to all the Egyptian kings, and meaning, according to some,
crocodile, a reptile like the dragon, and made an Egyptian idol),
was ready to devour Israel's males at the birth of the nation.
Antitypically the true Israel, Jesus, when born, was sought for
destruction by Herod, who slew all the males in and around
Bethlehem.
5. man-child--Greek, "a son, a male." On the deep significance
of this term,
see on Re 12:1,2.
rule--Greek, "poimainein," "tend as a shepherd";
(see on Re 2:27).
rod of iron--A rod is for long-continued obstinacy until they submit
themselves to obedience [BENGEL]:
@Re 2:27 Ps 2:9, which passages
prove the Lord Jesus to be meant. Any interpretation which ignores this
must be wrong. The male son's birth cannot be the origin of the
Christian state (Christianity triumphing over heathenism under
Constantine), which was not a divine child of the woman, but had many
impure worldly elements. In a secondary sense,
the ascending of the witnesses up to heaven answers to Christ's own
ascension, "caught up unto God, and unto His throne": as also His
ruling the nations with a rod of iron is to be shared in by believers
(@Re 2:27). What took place primarily in the case of the divine Son
of the woman, shall take place also in the case of those who are one
with Him, the sealed of Israel (@Re 7:1-8), and the elect of all
nations, about to be translated and to reign with Him over the earth at
His appearing.
6. woman fled--Mary's flight with Jesus into Egypt is a type of this.
where she hath--So C reads. But A and B add "there."
a place--that portion of the heathen world which has received
Christianity professedly, namely, mainly the fourth kingdom, having its
seat in the modern Babylon, Rome, implying that all the heathen
world would not be Christianized in the present order of things.
prepared of God--literally, "from God." Not by human caprice or
fear, but by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, the
woman, the Church, fled into the wilderness.
they should feed her--Greek, "nourish her." Indefinite for, "she
should be fed." The heathen world, the wilderness, could not nourish
the Church, but only afford her an outward shelter. Here, as in
@Da 4:26, and elsewhere, the third person plural refers to
the heavenly powers who minister from God nourishment to the
Church. As Israel had its time of first bridal love, on its first going
out of Egypt into the wilderness, so the Christian Church's
wilderness-time of first love was the apostolic age, when it was
separate from the Egypt of this world, having no city here, but
seeking one to come; having only a
place in the wilderness prepared of God (@Re 12:6,14). The
harlot takes the world city as her own, even as Cain was the first
builder of a city, whereas the believing patriarchs lived in
tents. Then apostate Israel was the harlot and the young Christian
Church the woman; but soon spiritual fornication crept in, and the
Church in the seventeenth chapter is no longer the woman, but
the harlot, the great Babylon, which, however, has in it hidden
the true people of God (@Re 18:4). The deeper the Church penetrated
into heathendom, the more she herself became heathenish. Instead of
overcoming, she was overcome by the world
[AUBERLEN]. Thus, the woman is "the one inseparable Church of
the Old and New Testament" [HENGSTENBERG],
the stock of the Christian Church being Israel (Christ
and His apostles being Jews), on which the Gentile believers have been
grafted, and into which Israel, on her conversion, shall be grafted,
as into her own olive tree. During the whole Church-historic period,
or "times of the Gentiles," wherein "Jerusalem is trodden down of the
Gentiles," there is no believing Jewish Church, and therefore, only the
Christian Church can be "the woman." At the same time there is meant,
secondarily, the preservation of the Jews during this Church-historic
period, in order that Israel, who was once "the woman," and of whom the
man-child was born, may become so again at the close of the Gentile
times, and stand at the head of the two elections, literal Israel, and
spiritual Israel, the Church elected from Jews and Gentiles without
distinction. @Eze 20:35,36, "I will bring you into
the wilderness of the people (Hebrew, 'peoples'), and there
will I plead with you . . . like as I pleaded with your fathers in the
wilderness of Egypt" (compare Notes,
see on Eze 20:35,36):
not a wilderness literally and locally,
but spiritually a state of discipline and trial among the Gentile
"peoples," during the long Gentile times, and one finally
consummated in the last time of unparalleled trouble under Antichrist,
in which the sealed remnant (@Re 7:1-8) who constitute "the woman,"
are nevertheless preserved "from the face of the serpent" (@Re 12:14).
thousand two hundred and threescore days--anticipatory of
@Re 12:14, where the persecution which caused her to flee is mentioned
in its place: @Re 13:11-18 gives the details of the persecution. It
is most unlikely that the transition should be made from the birth of
Christ to the last Antichrist, without notice of the long intervening
Church-historical period. Probably the 1260 days, or periods,
representing this long interval, are RECAPITULATED on a shorter scale
analogically during the last Antichrist's short reign. They are
equivalent to three and a half years, which, as half of the divine
number seven, symbolize the seeming victory of the world over the
Church. As they include the whole
Gentile times of Jerusalem's being trodden of the Gentiles, they
must be much longer than 1260 years; for, above several centuries more
than 1260 years have elapsed since Jerusalem fell.
7. In @Job 1:6-11 2:1-6, Satan appears among the sons of God,
presenting himself before God in heaven, as the accuser of the saints:
again in @Zec 3:1,2. But at Christ's coming as our Redeemer, he
fell from heaven, especially when Christ suffered, rose again, and
ascended to heaven. When Christ appeared before God as our Advocate,
Satan, the accusing adversary, could no longer appear before God against
us, but was cast out judicially (@Ro 8:33,34). He and his angels
henceforth range through the air and the earth, after a time (namely,
the interval between the ascension and the second advent) about to be
cast hence also, and bound in hell. That "heaven" here does not mean
merely the air, but the abode of angels, appears from
@Re 12:9,10,12 1Ki 22:19-22.
there was--Greek, "there came to pass," or "arose."
war in heaven--What a seeming contradiction in terms, yet true!
Contrast the blessed result of Christ's triumph, @Lu 19:38, "peace
in heaven." @Col 1:20, "made peace through the blood of His cross, by
Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; whether . . . things in
earth, or things in heaven."
Michael and his angels . . . the dragon . . . and his angels--It was
fittingly ordered that, as the rebellion arose from unfaithful angels
and their leader, so they should be encountered and overcome by faithful
angels and their archangel, in heaven. On earth they are fittingly
encountered, and shall be overcome, as represented by the beast and
false prophet, by the Son of man and His armies of human saints
(@Re 19:14-21). The conflict on earth, as in @Da 10:13, has its
correspondent conflict of angels in heaven. Michael is peculiarly the
prince, or presiding angel, of the Jewish nation. The conflict in
heaven, though judicially decided already against Satan from the time of
Christ's resurrection and ascension, receives its actual completion in
the execution of judgment by the angels who cast out Satan from heaven.
From Christ's ascension he has no standing-ground judicially against the
believing elect. @Lu 10:18, "I beheld (in the earnest of the future
full fulfilment given in the subjection of the demons to the disciples)
Satan as lightning fall from heaven." As Michael fought before with
Satan about the body of the mediator of the old covenant (@Jude 1:9),
so now the mediator of the new covenant, by offering His sinless body in
sacrifice, arms Michael with power to renew and finish the conflict by a
complete victory. That Satan is not yet actually and finally
cast out of heaven, though the judicial sentence to that effect
received its ratification at Christ's ascension, appears from
@Eph 6:12, "spiritual wickedness in high (Greek, 'heavenly')
places." This is the primary Church-historical sense here. But, through
Israel's unbelief, Satan has had ground against that, the elect nation,
appearing before God as its accuser. At the eve of its restoration, in
the ulterior sense, his standing-ground in heaven against Israel, too,
shall be taken from him, "the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem"
rebuking him, and casting him out from heaven actually and for ever
by Michael, the prince, or presiding angel of the Jews. Thus
@Zec 3:1-9 is strictly parallel, Joshua, the high priest, being
representative of his nation Israel, and Satan standing at God's fight
hand as adversary to resist Israel's justification. Then, and not till
then, fully (@Re 12:10, "NOW," &c.) shall
ALL things be reconciled unto Christ
IN HEAVEN (@Col 1:20), and
there shall be peace in heaven (@Lu 19:38).
against--A, B, and C read, "with."
8. prevailed not--A and Coptic read, "He prevailed not." But
B and C read as English Version.
neither--A, B, and C read, "not even" (Greek, "oude"): a
climax. Not only did they not prevail, but
not even their place was found any more in heaven. There are four
gradations in the ever deeper downfall of Satan: (1) He is deprived of
his heavenly excellency, though having still access to heaven as man's
accuser, up to Christ's first coming. As heaven was not fully yet
opened to man (@Joh 3:13), so it was not yet shut against Satan and
his demons. The Old Testament dispensation could not overcome him. (2)
From Christ, down to the millennium, he is judicially cast out of
heaven as the accuser of the elect, and shortly before the millennium
loses his power against Israel, and has sentence of expulsion fully
executed on him and his by Michael. His rage on earth is consequently
the greater, his power being concentrated on it, especially towards the
end, when "he knoweth that he hath but a short time" (@Re 12:12).
(3) He is bound during the millennium (@Re 20:1-3). (4) After
having been loosed for a while, he is cast for ever into the lake of
fire.
9. that old serpent--alluding to @Ge 3:1,4.
Devil--the Greek, for "accuser," or "slanderer."
Satan--the Hebrew for "adversary," especially in a court of
justice. The twofold designation, Greek and Hebrew, marks the
twofold objects of his accusations and temptations, the elect Gentiles
and the elect Jews.
world--Greek, "habitable world."
10. Now--Now that Satan has been cast out of heaven. Primarily
fulfilled in part at Jesus' resurrection and ascension, when He said
(@Mt 28:18), "All power
[Greek, 'exousia,' 'authority,' as
here; see below] is given unto Me in heaven and in earth"; connected
with @Re 12:5, "Her child was
caught up unto God and to His throne." In the ulterior sense, it
refers to the eve of Christ's second coming, when Israel is about to be
restored as mother-church of Christendom, Satan, who had resisted her
restoration on the ground of her unworthiness, having been cast out by
the instrumentality of Michael, Israel's angelic prince
(see on Re 12:7).
Thus this is parallel, and the necessary
preliminary to the glorious event similarly expressed, @Re 11:15,
"The kingdom of this world is become (the very word here, Greek,
'egeneto,' 'is come,' 'hath come to pass') our Lord's and His
Christ's," the result of Israel's resuming her place.
salvation, &c.--Greek, "the salvation (namely, fully, finally,
and victoriously accomplished, @Heb 9:28; compare @Lu 3:6, yet
future; hence, not till now do the blessed raise the fullest
hallelujah for salvation to the Lamb, @Re 7:10 19:1)
the power (Greek, 'dunamis'), and the authority
(Greek, 'exousia'; 'legitimate power';
see above) of His Christ."
accused them before our God day and night--Hence the need that the
oppressed Church, God's own elect (like the widow,
continually coming, so as even to weary the unjust judge), should
cry day and night unto Him.
11. they--emphatic in the Greek. "They" in particular. They and
they alone. They were the persons who overcame.
overcame--(@Ro 8:33,34,37 16:20).
him--(@1Jo 2:14,15). It is the same victory
(a peculiarly Johannean phrase)
over Satan and the world which the Gospel of John
describes in the life of Jesus, his Epistle in the life of each
believer, and his Apocalypse in the life of the Church.
by, &c.--Greek (dia to haima; accusative, not genitive case,
as English Version would require, compare @Heb 9:12),
"on account of (on the ground of) the blood of the Lamb"; "because
of"; on account of and by virtue of its having been shed. Had that blood
not been shed, Satan's accusations would have been unanswerable; as it
is, that blood meets every charge. SCHOTTGEN mentions the Rabbinical
tradition that Satan accuses men all days of the year, except the day of
atonement. TITTMANN
takes the Greek "dia," as it often means,
out of regard to the blood of the Lamb; this was the impelling cause
which induced them to undertake the contest for the sake of it;
but the view given above is good Greek, and more in accordance with
the general sense of Scripture.
by the word of their testimony--Greek, "on account of the word
of their testimony." On the ground of their faithful testimony, even
unto death, they are constituted victors. Their testimony evinced their
victory over him by virtue of the blood of the Lamb. Hereby they confess
themselves worshippers of the slain Lamb and overcome the beast, Satan's
representative; an anticipation of @Re 15:2, "them that had gotten
the victory over the beast" (compare @Re 13:15,16).
unto--Greek, "achri," "even as far as." They carried their
not-love of life as far as even unto death.
12. Therefore--because Satan is cast out of heaven (@Re 12:9).
dwell--literally, "tabernacle." Not only angels and the souls of the
just with God, but also the faithful militant on earth, who already in
spirit tabernacle in heaven, having their home and citizenship there,
rejoice that Satan is cast out of their home. "Tabernacle" for
dwell is used to mark that, though still on the earth, they in
spirit are hidden "in the secret of God's tabernacle." They belong
not to the world, and, therefore, exult in judgment having been passed
on the prince of this world.
the inhabiters of--So ANDREAS reads. But A, B, and C omit. The words
probably, were inserted from @Re 8:13.
is come down--rather as Greek, "catebee," "is gone down";
John regarding the heaven as his standing-point of view whence he looks
down on the earth.
unto you--earth and sea, with their inhabitants; those who lean
upon, and essentially belong to, the earth (contrast @Joh 3:7,
Margin, with @Joh 3:31 8:23 Php 3:19, end; @1Jo 4:5) and its
sea-like troubled politics. Furious at his expulsion from heaven,
and knowing that his time on earth is short until he shall be cast down
lower, when Christ shall come to set up His kingdom (@Re 20:1,2),
Satan concentrates all his power to destroy as many souls as he can.
Though no longer able to accuse the elect in heaven, he can tempt and
persecute on earth. The more light becomes victorious, the greater will
be the struggles of the powers of darkness; whence, at the last crisis,
Antichrist will manifest himself with an intensity of iniquity greater
than ever before.
short time--Greek, "kairon," "season": opportunity for his
assaults.
13. Resuming from @Re 12:6 the thread of the discourse, which had been interrupted by the episode, @Re 12:7-12 (giving in the invisible world the ground of the corresponding conflict between light and darkness in the visible world), this verse accounts for her flight into the wilderness (@Re 12:6).
14. were given--by God's determinate appointment, not by human chances
(@Ac 9:11).
two--Greek, "the two wings of the great eagle." Alluding
to @Ex 19:4: proving that the Old Testament Church, as well as the
New Testament Church, is included in "the woman." All believers are
included (@Isa 40:30,31). The great eagle is the world power;
in @Eze 17:3,7, Babylon and Egypt: in early Church history,
Rome, whose standard was the eagle, turned by God's providence
from being hostile into a protector of the Christian Church. As "wings"
express remote parts of the earth, the two wings may here mean the
east and west divisions of the Roman empire.
wilderness--the land of the heathen, the Gentiles: in contrast to
Canaan, the pleasant and glorious land. God dwells in the
glorious land; demons (the rulers of the heathen world,
@Re 9:20 1Co 10:20), in the wilderness. Hence Babylon is called
the desert of the sea, @Isa 21:1-10 (referred to also in
@Re 14:8 18:2). Heathendom, in its essential nature, being without
God, is a desolate wilderness. Thus, the woman's flight into the
wilderness is the passing of the kingdom of God from the Jews to be
among the Gentiles (typified by Mary's flight with her child from Judea
into Egypt). The eagle flight is from Egypt into the wilderness. The
Egypt meant is virtually stated (@Re 11:8) to be Jerusalem,
which has become spiritually so by crucifying our Lord. Out of her
the New Testament Church flees, as the Old Testament Church out of the
literal Egypt; and as the true Church subsequently is called to flee out
of Babylon (the woman become an harlot, that is, the Church become
apostate) [AUBERLEN].
her place--the chief seat of the then world empire, Rome. The Acts
of the Apostles describe the passing of the Church from Jerusalem to
Rome. The Roman protection was the eagle wing which often shielded Paul,
the great instrument of this transmigration, and Christianity, from
Jewish opponents who stirred up the heathen mobs. By degrees the Church
had "her place" more and more secure, until, under Constantine, the
empire became Christian. Still, all this Church-historical period is
regarded as a wilderness time, wherein the Church is in part protected,
in part oppressed, by the world power, until just before the end the
enmity of the world power under Satan shall break out against the Church
worse than ever. As Israel was in the wilderness forty years, and had
forty-two stages in her journey, so the Church for forty-two months,
three and a half years or times [literally, seasons, used for
years in Hellenistic Greek (MOERIS, the Atticist),
Greek, "kairous," @Da 7:25 12:7],
or 1260 days (@Re 12:6) between
the overthrow of Jerusalem and the coming again of Christ, shall be a
wilderness sojourner before she reaches her millennial rest (answering
to Canaan of old). It is possible that, besides this Church-historical
fulfilment, there may be also an ulterior and narrower fulfilment in the
restoration of Israel to Palestine, Antichrist for seven times (short
periods analogical to the longer ones) having power there, for the
former three and a half times keeping covenant with the Jews, then
breaking it in the midst of the week, and the mass of the nation fleeing
by a second Exodus into the wilderness, while a remnant remains in
the land exposed to a fearful persecution (the "144,000 sealed of
Israel," @Re 7:1-8 14:1, standing with the Lamb, after the
conflict is over, on Mount Zion: "the first-fruits" of a large
company to be gathered to Him) [DE
BURGH]. These details are very
conjectural. In @Da 7:25 12:7, the subject, as perhaps here, is the
time of Israel's calamity. That seven times do not necessarily mean
seven years, in which each day is a year, that is, 2520 years, appears
from Nebuchadnezzar's seven times (@Da 4:23), answering to
Antichrist, the beast's duration.
15, 16. flood--Greek, "river" (compare @Ex 2:3 Mt 2:20; and especially @Ex 14:1-31). The flood, or river, is the stream of Germanic tribes which, pouring on Rome, threatened to destroy Christianity. But the earth helped the woman, by swallowing up the flood. The earth, as contradistinguished from water, is the world consolidated and civilized. The German masses were brought under the influence of Roman civilization and Christianity [AUBERLEN]. Perhaps it includes also, generally, the help given by earthly powers (those least likely, yet led by God's overruling providence to give help) to the Church against persecutions and also heresies, by which she has been at various times assailed.
17. wroth with--Greek, "at."
went--Greek, "went away."
the remnant of her seed--distinct in some sense from the woman
herself. Satan's first effort was to root out the Christian Church, so
that there should be no visible profession of Christianity. Foiled in
this, he wars (@Re 11:7 13:7) against the invisible Church,
namely, "those who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony
of Jesus" (A, B, and C omit "Christ"). These are "the remnant," or
rest of her seed, as distinguished from her seed, "the man-child"
(@Re 12:5), on one hand, and from mere professors on the other. The
Church, in her beauty and unity (Israel at the head of Christendom, the
whole forming one perfect Church), is now not manifested, but awaiting
the manifestations of the sons of God at Christ's coming. Unable to
destroy Christianity and the Church as a whole, Satan directs his enmity
against true Christians, the elect remnant: the others he leaves
unmolested.