Revelation 12

Time-frame of Revelation 12:

600 BC - shortly before the Endtime of 3.5 years a total of about 2,600 years

 

In short - Interpretation of Revelation 12

Great sign in heaven = Revelation-12 sign of September 23, 2017 - Virgo and Leo (9 stars), Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, the sun and the moon

Woman = Faithful part of Israel, dressed with God's glory (sun) but on a dark path (dark moon at her feet), its main leaders as twelve stars

Dragon = Satan, seen in his rule of 7 successive empires

Third of stars fallen = Attacks of the empire against the leaders of faithful Israel - On September 23, 2017 seen in 3 comets at the serpent's tail

The Child = Jesus Christ, the Seed of the woman, the Only One that poses a threat to the dragon

Caught up to God = Christ accomplishing his work and ascension - Seen in Venus approaching the sun at the beginning of 2018

Flight of the woman = Jewish Christians fleeing to Jordan from 66-70 AD

War in heaven = Shorty before the Endtime, the dragon will be cast to earth - seen in 12P/Pons-Brooks falling from Northern to Southern sky in 2024

Persecution of the woman = Attack on Palestinians by the last empire, USA

Wings of great eagle = God's provision, possibly through legions of angels

Flood of water = Military power of the US and Israel 

Earth coming to help = Split of the mount of Olives for the flight of the people followed by earthquakes destroying the chasing armies

 

In short - Explanation of Revelation 12

The world empire, in all of its stages, had become an instrument of satan to attack God's holy people, the people of Israel. For out of them, the Seed of the woman, Messiah, would come, that would bruise the serpent's head. There were 7 parts of empire through which satan attacked Israel's faithful - Babel - Mede - Persia - Greek Seleucid - Greek Ptolemy - Rome - the USA. Therefore satan is presented as a seven-headed dragon with crowns on the seven heads, denoting him as their controller.

Nonetheless, Messiah came, completed his work on the cross and ascended to God. Having failed to destroy Christ, satan starts to viciously attack the woman who gave birth to Him. She (the Christian Jews) fled for 1,260 days during the siege of Jerusalem from 66 - 70 AD. Slowly but surely a long period would start during which the empire would be submitted to the Christian church - a period not described in Revelation 12 but described in Revelation 17 - the Church, seen as prostitute for her cooperation with worldly powers, in full control of the 7-headed scarlet beast upon which she sits.

Shortly before the start of the Endtime, with the Christian church ousted from world power, a war in heaven between Archangel Michael and the dragon would rage ending with the casting out of the dragon from heaven. Through the last empire on the stage, the USA, the dragon would again start to wage war on God's people, the Palestinians, which are most directly linked to old Israel - not by religion or language but by DNA. Only a supernatural intervention from God, in the form of 2 wings of the great eagle (Michael's legions?) is capable to rescue God's people from total destruction by the empire. A flood of armies, sent behind the fleeing people, is swallowed by the earth, the rocks of a newly formed valley within the Mount of Olives, through which God's people had fled shortly before. Here Revelation 12 is probably connected to Zechariah 14.  

 

The Woman and the Dragon

“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant appeared in his temple. There were lightnings, voices, thunders, an earthquake, and a great hailstorm.

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and cried out in labor and in the agony of giving birth.

Another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.”

 

1. What is the meaning of the ark of the covenant?

2. Who is represented by the woman?

3. Who is represented by the dragon?

 

1. What is the meaning of the ark of the covenant?

As we have shown under the 'Israel' menu, Revelation 11:19 places us at the moment that the earthly ark was replaced by a heavenly one, when God gave up his earthly throne because of the sins of his earthly people, Israel. At that moment, the temple and the city were destroyed and the people were led into exile in Babylon. This is where Revelation 12 starts, with God's earthly people removed from their central place on the world stage. They were replaced by world empires, that all came under control of the dragon.

 

2. Who is represented by the woman?

The woman illustrates the channel of God's people through which Messiah came to the earth. In Genesis 3:15, God told the snake that the Seed of the woman would bruise its head and that the snake would bruise his heel. This prophecy was fulfilled in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus in which Jesus took from satan all his judicial and legal power against humanity. He thereby also took away from satan the 'keys of death and hades' (Hebrews 2:14, Revelation 1:18) and laid the foundation for the casting out of the devil from heaven to earth (Rev.12:7-11), the defeat of satan's kingdom of the empire (Revelation 19), the imprisonment and finally his eternal fate in the lake of fire (Revelation 20).

 

The woman is an earthly people, that is characterized by DNA, not by language or religion. That makes the situation in the Endtime confusing. For the people have rejected Messiah. The faithful Israeli's that accepted Messiah have become part of the Christian church. Those that didn't accept Christ are no longer deemed to be God's people, as indicated in multiple places in the Bible (Hosea 1:9, Romans 11:7-10, Mathew 23:38,39). That holds for European Jews that are partly atheists and partly religious fanatics. That also holds for Palestinians that are mostly Muslims, even though they are most directly in line with old Israel. The prophetic word indicates that it is mainly the Palestinians that will repent and then be again be God's people. There are two reasons:

(1) By remaining in the land during all those ages since the Roman empire faded, they preserved most of the DNA, while those that emigrated to other parts of the world were much more assimilated with other peoples.

(2) They are the ones that are fiercely persecuted by the empire, which is stated about 'the saints of the most high' (Daniel 7:21) and about 'the woman' in Revelation 12 and about 'the house of Judea', 'the house of Israel' and 'the sons of Zion' in the book of Zechariah (9: 11,12 - 13:8,9 - 14:1,2).

 

3. Who is represented by the dragon?

The identity of the dragon is clearly indicated in the text of verse 9: 'And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world' (Revelation 12:9). The 'old serpent' is a reference to the garden of Eden where the devil started his work of deception. But it didn't stop there. The old serpent became the Devil and the Satan, the great enemy of Christ, that could say that all kingdoms of the empire were given to him (Luke 4:6). The last reference 'which deceives the whole world' points to the Endtime deception, which is performed through Satan's Endtime instruments, the beast out of the sea (the USA) and the beast out of the earth (Zionism), which are described in next chapter, Revelation 13. For 250 years, humanity had been subjected to this deception, the most brutal forms of barbarism portrayed as civilization.