Theological Commentary: Click Here
Revelation
12 is an incredibly symbolic passage.
There are many ways that people interpret this passage. I tend to view it as a grand analogy for the
history of spiritual warfare. In this
passage, we have a dragon. The dragon
tries to destroy the woman because she is about to give birth to a very special
baby. That baby is taken up into heaven
and the dragon seeks instead to make war upon the followers of Jesus Christ.
Now, I
realize that I have over-simplified that a good bit. But in general, this is what is going
on. There was a spiritual people claimed
by God who would bring forth God’s Messiah.
That Messiah would save the world, re-forging the relationship between God
and mankind. Why wouldn’t the dragon
wage war against that when the dragon’s sole purpose is to drive a wedge
between humanity and God!
That really
gives us a great place to focus on today.
Satan, the dragon, isn’t looking for recruits. He isn’t looking for followers. He’s not trying to muster up a bigger army
than God has. He fell from heaven
because of his jealousy over God’s love for us.
He wants to break that relationship.
He wants to destroy that relationship.
He fell from heaven, fell from grace, because God loved us and he couldn’t
handle that fact. Of course he will want
to make war against Christ and the followers of Christ!
So what does
that really mean for us? It means that
there is a war to be waged. As Paul
tells us in 2 Corinthians 10, it is not a war against the power of this
world. It is a war against the power and
principalities of the evil one. We are
not at war with flesh and blood, we are at war with the dragon who wishes
nothing more than to separate us from God Himself.
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