And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
The War in Heaven, Rev 12:7-12
7. there was war in heaven ] This must refer to an event subsequent to the Incarnation not, therefore, to the “Fall of the Angels,” as readers of Paradise Lost are apt to assume. Milton may have been justified in using this description as illustrating or suggesting what may be supposed to have happened then: but we must not identify the two.
Michael ] Dan 10:13; Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1. The two latter passages seem to tell us that he is the special patron or guardian angel of the people of Israel: and it may be in that character that he is introduced here.
his angels ] He is called “the archangel” in Judges 9: the angels are “his,” as well as “angels of the Lord,” just as either a general or a king can talk of “ his soldiers.”
fought ] Apparently the right reading is to fight the sense is “there was war in Heaven, so that Michael and his angels made war with the Dragon.” R. V. “ going forth to war.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And there was war in heaven – There was a state of things existing in regard to the woman and the child – the church in the condition in which it would then be – which would be well represented by a war in heaven; that is, by a conflict between the powers of good and evil, of light and darkness. Of course it is not necessary to understand this literally, anymore than the other symbolical representations in the book. All that is meant is, that a vision passed before the mind of John as if there was a conflict, in regard to the church, between the angels in heaven and Satan. There is a vision of the persecuted church – of the woman fleeing into the desert – and the course of the narrative is here interrupted by going back Rev 12:7-13 to describe the conflict which led to this result, and the fact that Satan, as it were cast out of heaven, and unable to achieve a victory there, was suffered to vent his malice against the church on earth. The seat of this warfare is said to be heaven. This language sometimes refers to heaven as it appears to us – the sky – the upper regions of the atmosphere, and some have supposed that that was the place of the contest. But the language in Rev 11:19; Rev 12:1 (see the notes on those places), would rather lead us to refer it to heaven considered as lying beyond the sky. This accords, too, with other representations in the Bible, where Satan is described as appearing before God, and among the sons of God. See the notes on Job 1:6. Of course this is not to be understood as a real transaction, but as a symbolical representation of the contest between good and evil – as if there was a war waged in heaven between Satan and the leader of the heavenly hosts.
Michael – There have been very various opinions as to who Michael is. Many Protestant interpreters have supposed that Christ is meant. The reasons usually alleged for this opinion, many of which are very fanciful, may be seen in Hengstenberg (Die Offenbarung des heiliges Johannes), 1:611-622. The reference to Michael here is probably derived from Dan 10:13; Dan 12:1. In those places he is represented as the guardian angel of the people of God; and it is in this sense, I apprehend, that the passage is to be understood here. There is no evidence in the name itself, or in the circumstances referred to, that Christ is intended; and if he had been, it is inconceivable why he was not referred to by his own name, or by some of the usual appellations which John gives him. Michael, the archangel, is here represented as the guardian of the church, and as contending against Satan for its protection. Compare the notes on Dan 10:13. This representation accords with the usual statements in the Bible respecting the interposition of the angels in behalf of the church (see the notes on Heb 1:14), and is one which cannot be proved to be unfounded. All the analogies which throw any light on the subject, as well as the uniform statements of the Bible, lead us to suppose that good beings of other worlds feel an interest in the welfare of the redeemed church below.
And his angels – The angels under him. Michael is represented as the archangel, and all the statements in the Bible suppose that the heavenly hosts are distributed into different ranks and orders. See the Jud 1:9 note; Eph 1:21 note. If Satan is permitted to make war against the church, there is no improbability in supposing that, in those higher regions where the war is carried on, and in those aspects of it which lie beyond the power and the knowledge of man, good angels should be employed to defeat his plans.
Fought – See the notes on Jud 1:9.
Against the dragon – Against Satan. See the notes at Rev 12:3.
And the dragon fought and his angels – That is, the master-spirit – Satan, and those under him. See the notes on Mat 4:1. Of the nature of this warfare nothing is definitely stated. Its whole sphere lies beyond mortal vision, and is carried on in a manner of which we can have little conception. What weapons Satan may use to destroy the church, and in what way his efforts may be counteracted by holy angels, are points on which we can have little knowledge. It is sufficient to know that the fact of such a struggle is not improbable, and that Satan is successfully resisted by the leader of the heavenly host.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Rev 12:7-11
There was war in heaven.
War in heaven
I. The character of the war of rebel angels in heaven.
1. Wilful. They brought it on themselves.
2. Irreconcilable.
(1) On the part of God.
(2) This war is irreconcilable on the tart of rebel angels also, for when they sinned that moment their natures were changed. The passions of the soul, and the affections of the heart, which once so sweetly harmonised, were thrown into disorder and became as jarring elements, or as the troubled sea that cannot rest.
3. Unreasonable. It was a war of ingratitude, of folly, of madness–was a war against duty, against interest, against happiness itself; a war, in short, for which not only the justice of God must for ever condemn them, but the voice of reason, and the voice of the whole intelligent creation.
4. It was to rebel angels a most fatal and disastrous war. They gained nothing, but lost much.
(1) They lost the favour of God, even that favour which is life, and that lovingkindness which is better than life.
(2) They lost their own moral loveliness.
(3) They lost their seats in heaven.
II. Compare and contrast the war of rebel angels in heaven with the war of rebel men on earth.
1. Was the war of rebel angels a wilful war? So also is the war of rebel men.
2. Was the war of rebel angels an irreconcilable war? Thank God, here we can drop the comparison, and take up the contrast. Yes, on this theatre of war, in the midst of heaven-daring rebels, our blessed Redeemer has, by the shedding of His most precious blood, made the great atonement.
3. Was the war of rebel angels an unreasonable war? And what shall we say of the war of rebel men? Angels sinned against creating goodness–man against redeeming love. Angels warred under black despair–man under hope of heavenly grace. The sword of justice pursued revolting angels–the wings of mercy were outstretched to shelter revolting man. And yet man rebels!
4. Was the war of rebel angels fatal and disastrous? So, also, most assuredly, will be the continued war of rebel men. Millions have already fallen in the impious contest, and shall rise no more. (D. Baker, D. D.)
The heavenly and the earthly conflict
1. It is here indicated that we are members of a larger community than that which is apparent to our senses; a community which gathers into itself all intelligent souls, all spirits which God has made, all who at whatever distance can approach Him in adoration or prayer. You and I, busy as we are with our occupations, our human interests, our sympathies, more or less wide with politics and society, blind as we are to the eternity in which even now we move, are one in life and hope with sons and servants and ministers of God, whose number cannot be counted for multitude. Where they are and what they are, whether they be in our midst as we sit here, or whether they tenant yonder far-off stars; whether their shape be what Hebrew poets imagined, and Italian painters painted, or whether it be some new and to us unknown clothing of the spirit–are questions about which we may dream, but to which we can give no answer. It is sufficient for us to know that between us and God is not the deep void of an appalling nothingness, but beings who, like us, are conscious of His presence; and some at least of whom if, unlike us, they need not pray, can at least, like us, bow down their faces and adore.
2. The text implies also that in that larger community there is the same great conflict going on which is for ever raging here–the conflict for mastery between evil and good. This present world of human souls is not the only scene of strife. For back in the remote and incalculable past we read of angels who kept not their first estate; and far on in the perhaps still distant future we read of war in heaven. Stretched between the two is human history, and all the acted problems of which history is the sum. It is not given to us to fight the great battle which St. Michael is represented as fighting with the dragon; but it is given to us to fight a battle apparently smaller, but in fact as great, which involves the same principles, and which is only another form of the same universal struggle. What is it, for example, to tell a lie? It seems but a little thing: the yielding to a sudden impulse–the movement of a muscle or two–a faint vibration of the air–and the lie is told. We forget it, and all seems over. And what is it to tell the truth instead of a lie? Only a momentary resolution–the perhaps reluctant passing of a sentence in the judgment-hall of the conscience–a breath, and nothing more. And yet on these two courses depend issues which stretch out into illimitable space, and into endless time. As the balance of motives sways to truth or to falsehood the soul ranges itself in one of two great armies; it is one more victory or one more defeat for the cause of goodness and of God. The battlefield is not some vast interstellar space in which all the gathered spiritual hosts are massed in dense array, but the prosaic ground of our studies, our shops, and our dining-rooms. The battle is not waged so much at some supreme moments of mental struggle, when all the forces of our nature come into conscious play, but in the subtler form of the setting aside of plausible motives, and the struggling with apparently trivial sins. Do this–it is very pleasant, and will do no real harm. Do this–it is almost necessary, and the little wrong of it can soon be undone. Sometimes we listen and sometimes we refuse! and all our lives long, day by day and hour by hour, we alternate between victory and defeat, in a struggle which sometimes becomes a despair. For the path of holiness is not the calm ascent of a marble stairway; it is for all of us, for some no doubt more than for others, a life-long journey over a rugged and sometimes uncertain road, a stumbling over many stones, a wandering into many a by-path, a fall into many a snare; and when heavens gates open to us at last, they open to a tattered traveller with a worn and weary soul. But for all there need be no despair. The victory is slow to come, but it comes at last; and its coming, for this world at least, depends, in Gods providence, not on angels and archangels, but upon you and me and men like ourselves. It depends on our doing the best we individually can, with the help which is given to us from above, to crush in our own souls, and in the sphere in which we move, the daily and hourly temptations to selfishness, to injustice, to untruth, to uncharitableness, to indolence, and to irritability. Every dishonest act which we decline to perform, every falsehood which we refuse to utter, every uncharitable word which we leave unsaid, every sensual impulse which we crush, is for ourselves, for the world of men, for the world of spirits of which we are members, one more thwarting of the power of evil, one more victory of the power of good, one more step towards that consummation when the great choir of intelligent souls shall circle round the Father of spirits from whom both they and we derive our life, and to whom both we and they alike return. (Edwin Hatch, D. D.)
Hope of the final triumph of good
Looking at these words from a Christians point of view, we are reminded by them that whatever else was meant by the war in heaven of which they speak, they, at least, mean for us that the powers of evil have done their utmost to overcome Christ and the powers of good, and have failed–that Christ has proved good to be stronger than evil, and light than darkness. And the high hope is raised that He has done this for the whole universe, for the spirits in every other world-if such there be–as well as for the spirits of us poor men struggling with evil in this. That He has done it for us, is what His gospel tells us. The powers that are for us, we are taught, are greater than the powers that are against us. God the Father is for us. Christ the Son, the express image of His person and character, is for us. The Spirit which communes with our spirit, and stirs up conscience, and keeps it alert against the foe, and helps our weakness, and disturbs and tortures us with remorse when we yield to temptation–this Spirit is for us. All good influences are for us and help us against sin, and these influences begin early, and last while life lasts in some one or more of their manifold shapes–the words of our parents, the little prayers they taught us, the words and example of dear friends that are gone, the softening power of sorrow, the warnings of sickness and pain, the calm, peaceful face of the just man, the turbid complexion, the restless eye, and repulsive look of the wicked, the influence of a familiar friend, the influence of a good book, the influence of the best of books, the blessings of thought and labour, and of duty done, the power of prayer and communion with God, the power which words of truth, of charity, of wisdom have over us, the pleasure we draw from beauty, whether in poetry, in painting, or in music–these, and ten thousand other influences with which all of us may, in one way or other, surround ourselves, are all of them so many ministering angels which fight under Christs banner on our side against that which is false and evil, and for that which is good and true–and all proclaim a victory won elsewhere for good, which shall in the end be a victory here too–complete and final over evil. There is another spiritual and eternal truth here. We are told the good angels conquered the bad angels and their leader, and drove them out. Now, again, whatever we may choose to say of this account, at least it suggests a very plain and wholesome lesson. When we think of angels at all, we may imagine that the great difference between us and them is that they are strong and we are weak; but this festival warns us that this is not so. The great difference between us and them is, that they are obedient, and we are disobedient; they are humble, and we are proud. All other differences lie in that. The strong good angels beat the strong bad angels, because the one were obedient to Gods laws, the others were rebellious against them. Michael overcame the dragon, because Michael was Gods champion, and the dragon was his own. The one depended upon God, the other depended on himself. We may call this a story, an allegory, still there is an abiding truth in it. Say, for a moment, it is a story, then this is the moral of the tale. Obedience is strength; disobedience ensures defeat. In science, in knowledge, in conduct, in religion, obedience, humility, and trust in God, are qualities without which no discoveries are made, no advance accomplished, no virtue attained, no holiness perfected. They are qualities without which our characters are poor and weak, our ways unstable, and our thoughts and desires mainly selfish. (John Congreve, M. A.)
Michael and his angels fought.
Who is Michael?
It is 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 (Jud 1:9)–there seems to be only one, for we never read of archangels–and an archangel is again spoken of in circumstances that can hardly be associated with the thought of any one but God (1Th 4:16). 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 (Dan 10:13; Dan 10:21), and once at least in a connexion leading directly to the thought of our Lord Himself (Dan 12:1-3). These considerations justify the conclusion that the Michael now spoken of is the representative of Christ. (W. Milligan, D. D.)
St. Michael and all angels
We need only remark, with reference to the combatants whom we find engaged the one against the other, that they are undoubtedly good and evil angels, Michael the archangel being the leader of the first, and Satan, or the devil, the leader of the second. The battle is between those angels which have never swerved from allegiance to God, and mighty spirits that kept not their first estate. Now, though St. John may have intended to delineate a long subsequent struggle between evil and good, we can hardly doubt that he derived his figures from the first moment of apostasy, when rebellion brake out in the heavenly hosts, and evil appeared in the universe. There is often much said as to the mysteriousness of the entrance of evil, regard being had only to its entrance into the world which we inhabit. But in reality the mysteriousness belongs to an earlier stage. It is not very wonderful that man should fall when there was a devil to tempt him; the wonder is that there should have been a tempter. We may proceed from one order of being to another, and so observe the propagation of evil; but sooner or later we must come to a point at which evil commences spontaneously–at which, that is, it originates itself; for there is no way of explaining how, under the economy of God, any creature can be sinful, except by allowing that some creature made himself sinful. And Scripture confirms this conclusion. And it would appear to have been through pride that Satan originally transgressed. And it is further to be observed that idolatry has been the chief sin to which in all ages Satan has tempted mankind; as though his great aim was to attract to himself the worship due only to God, so that he might in a measure substitute himself for God, and thus be upon earth what, on the popular supposition, he had impiously and profanely attempted to be in heaven. But whatever may have been the precise object at which his pride moved Satan to aim, it is certain that it brought him into opposition to God, or placed him in a condition of revolt to His authority. And it is also certain that he was not solitary in rebellion. But legions there also were which stood faithful in the midst of the growing apostasy. And it would seem more than probable that what is delineated under the imagery of a battle is nothing but that contest between the evil and the good, which took place through temptation upon the one side and resistance upon the other. The battle was the battle of principle–apostate angels plying the unfallen with solicitations to rebellion, and the unfallen withstanding those temptations and maintaining their allegiance–certain squadrons of the heavenly hosts, with Satan at their head, endeavouring to draw into their own sinfulness the remainder who, with Michael as their leader, were still faithful to their God. And it gives us a very striking representation of the fury and the shock of temptation, that the effort on the part of angels to involve others in apostasy should be set forth as the assault of an army upon army–nothing less than the meeting torrents of hostile battalions being stern enough to express the fearful collision. Alas! it is not so with ourselves. We know little of what may be called the shock of being tempted. There must be the perfection of holiness in order to the perfection of this. It may help to satisfy us as to what our Redeemer endured from temptation in the struggle maintained with His repugnance to evil–it may help, we say, to satisfy us as to this, that what good angels endured while solicited to rebellion is like the crash when one belted squadron is sword to sword with another. But temptation was necessary; and then it was, according to the figurative representation, when good angels had been sufficiently exposed to the onslaught of evil, that God interfered as a God of judgment, and banished from His presence those who disputed His authority. The great dragon was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out of heaven. Neither was their place found any more in heaven. It was a final expulsion when Satan and his angels were cast out from heaven; there was no mercy, there was no plan of redemption, by which the apostate might regain their lost place. But though it was foreknown to God that Satan would prevail over man though he had not prevailed over Michael and his angels, it was also foreknown that a Mediator would interpose, and should finally destroy all the works of the devil. It was not to hold good of man, when banished from paradise, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And therefore there can be no ground for arraigning the goodness of God, in that the dragon and his angels were allowed to plant themselves there. There was to be provided immeasurably more than an equivalent to all the evil wrought; and what charge is there against mercy, when the gift of a Saviour in store is set against the allowance of a tempter? Now, hitherto we have confined ourselves to what may be called the literal interpretation of the passage under review. However figurative may be the mode of description, we are certified that there are orders of spiritual beings higher than our own, that a large section of those creatures apostatised from God, while others, though tempted to rebellion, continued faithful and were then confirmed in happiness, so as to be placed beyond the power of falling. It is not necessarily at all a metaphorical representation that Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and his angels, but this actual battle gave a metaphor expressive of other conflicts between evil and good. Other conflicts, in short, are likened to and shadowed forth by one of which heaven itself was the scene; but this obviously gives a literal character to the first battle, by which the imagery is supplied that is used in this passage. Our text most probably refers to the downfall of heathenism in the downfall of the Roman empire. The war in heaven is the contest between Christianity and paganism; the leading combatants are the Christian preachers, martyrs, and confessors on the one side, and persecuting emperors, magistrates, and priests on the other. The former are likened to Michael and his angels, because God and good spirits were on their side; the latter to Satan and his angels, because their cause was emphatically that of the devil, and all his powers were employed and exerted for it. And when Michael and his angels cast out the devil and his angels, the great revolution under Constantine is depicted, which deposed heathenism from all rule and authority, and advanced Christianity to dominion and empire. But we need not dwell longer on the prophetical import of our text, our object being answered, if we can make you see that there is so actual a conflict between evil angels and good as may furnish metaphor for any high contest which goes forward on the stage of this creation, when the cause of God and Christ is that which marshals to the fight. Ah! men and brethren, ye who have not cared anything for the soul, who through that carelessness have wrought the defeat of good angels and strengthened the devices of bad, be ye moved by the intense interest which mighty spirits take in you to take some interest in yourselves, and not to throw away that immortality which the unfallen cherubim would have you spend gloriously with them, and which fiends are plotting to involve in their own fearful anguish. Michael and his angels have fought against the dragon, and the dragon has fought and his angels; but the dragon has not prevailed; he has been overcome through the blood of the Lamb; and so thorough is the moral change, so complete the substitution of the soul now turned into a habitation of God–the dominion of righteousness for the dominion of evil, that we may say of the apostate crew, as was said of them when they were hurled from their original abode, Neither is their place found any more in him. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 7. There was war in heaven] In the same treatise, fol. 87, 2, on Ex 14:7, Pharaoh took six hundred chariots, we have these words: “There was war among those above and among those below, vehammilchamah hayethah chazakah bashshamayim, and there was great war in heaven.”
Of Michael the rabbins are full. See much in Schoettgen, and see the note on Jude, Jude 1:9.
The dragon-and his angels] The same as Rab. Sam. ben David, in Chasad Shimuel, calls Samael vechayilothaiv, “Samael and his troops;” fol. 28, 2.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII., BY J. E. C.
Ver. 7. And there was war in heaven] As heaven means here the throne of the Roman empire, the war in heaven consequently alludes to the breaking out of civil commotions among the governors of this empire.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon] Michael was the man child which the woman brought forth, as is evident from the context, and therefore signifies, as has been shown already, the dynasty of Christian Roman emperors. This dynasty is represented by Michael, because he is “the great prince which standeth for the children of God’s people.” Da 12:1.
And the dragon fought and his angels] Or ministers.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And there was war in heaven: by heaven, in this place, doubtless is meant the church of God; and supposing that the pagan emperors are to be understood by the dragon, ( which is pretty generally agreed), there can be no great doubt, but by this war in heaven, is to be understood those persecutions which the primitive church endured between the years 64 and 310.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels: the two parties were the pagan emperors, and their officers, and party, and Michael and his angels. But who is here meant by Michael and his angels? Some, by this Michael, understand a principal angel called the archangel, Jud 1:9, one of the chief princes, Dan 10:13. Others, by Michael here understand Christ himself, who, they think, is understood by Michael, Dan 12:1. The matter is not much; it is most certain that the battle is not ours, but Christs. It is as certain that Christ exerciseth his power by his angels, and that they have a ministration about his church. The meaning is no more than this, that Christ and his party opposed the pagan persecutors and their party.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. In Job 1:6-11;Job 2:1-6, Satan appearsamong the sons of God, presenting himself before God in heaven, asthe accuser of the saints: again in Zec 3:1;Zec 3:2. But at Christ’s comingas our Redeemer, he fell from heaven, especially when Christsuffered, rose again, and ascended to heaven. When Christ appearedbefore God as our Advocate, Satan, the accusing adversary, could nolonger appear before God against us, but was cast out judicially(Rom 8:33; Rom 8:34).He and his angels henceforth range through the air and the earth,after a time (namely, the interval between the ascension and thesecond advent) about to be cast hence also, and bound in hell. That”heaven” here does not mean merely the air, but the abodeof angels, appears from Rev 12:9;Rev 12:10; Rev 12:12;1Ki 22:19-22.
there wasGreek,“there came to pass,” or “arose.”
war in heavenWhat aseeming contradiction in terms, yet true! Contrast the blessed resultof Christ’s triumph, Lu 19:38,”peace in heaven.” Col1:20, “made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him toreconcile all things unto Himself; whether . . . things inearth, or things in heaven.”
Michael and his angels . . .the dragon . . . and his angelsIt was fittingly ordered that,as the rebellion arose from unfaithful angels and their leader, sothey should be encountered and overcome by faithful angels and theirarchangel, in heaven. On earth they are fittingly encountered, andshall be overcome, as represented by the beast and false prophet, bythe Son of man and His armies of human saints (Re19:14-21). The conflict on earth, as in Da10:13, has its correspondent conflict of angels in heaven.Michael is peculiarly the prince, or presiding angel, of the Jewishnation. The conflict in heaven, though judicially decided alreadyagainst Satan from the time of Christ’s resurrection and ascension,receives its actual completion in the execution of judgment by theangels who cast out Satan from heaven. From Christ’s ascension he hasno standing-ground judicially against the believing elect. Lu10:18, “I beheld (in the earnest of the future fullfulfilment given in the subjection of the demons to the disciples)Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” As Michael fought beforewith Satan about the body of the mediator of the old covenant (Jude9), so now the mediator of the new covenant, by offering Hissinless body in sacrifice, arms Michael with power to renew andfinish the conflict by a complete victory. That Satan is not yetactually and finally cast out of heaven, though thejudicial sentence to that effect received its ratification atChrist’s ascension, appears from Eph6:12, “spiritual wickedness in high (Greek,‘heavenly‘) places.” This is the primaryChurch-historical sense here. But, through Israel’s unbelief, Satanhas had ground against that, the elect nation, appearing before Godas its accuser. At the eve of its restoration, in the ulterior sense,his standing-ground in heaven against Israel, too, shall be takenfrom him, “the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem” rebukinghim, and casting him out from heaven actually and for ever byMichael, the prince, or presiding angel of the Jews. Thus Zec3:1-9 is strictly parallel, Joshua, the high priest, beingrepresentative of his nation Israel, and Satan standing at God’sfight hand as adversary to resist Israel’s justification. Then, andnot till then, fully (Re 12:10,”NOW,” &c.)shall ALL things bereconciled unto Christ INHEAVEN (Col 1:20), andthere shall be peace in heaven (Lu19:38).
againstA, B, and Cread, “with.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And there was war in heaven,…. Not in the third heaven, the habitation of God, the seat of the angels and glorified saints, there is no discord, jars, and contentions there, nothing but peace, love, and joy; but in the church below, which is militant, and has in it as it were a company of two armies; or rather in the Roman empire, which was the heaven of Satan, the god of this world, and of his angels; and this war refers not to the dispute between Michael the archangel and the devil about the body of Moses, Jude 1:9; nor to the of the angels when they rebelled against God, left their first estate, and were cast down to hell, Jude 1:6; nor to that ancient and stated enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, Ge 3:15, which has appeared in all ages of time, more or less, since the fall of Adam; nor to the combats which Christ personally had with Satan and his powers when here on earth, as in the wilderness, immediately after his baptism, and in the garden, a little before his death, and on the cross, when he spoiled principalities and powers, and destroyed him that had the power of death, the devil; but rather to the conflict which Christ and his people had with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with the Roman powers, and with false teachers during the three first centuries; though it seems best to understand it of the war commenced by Constantine against Paganism, and which was finished by Theodosius, by whom Heathenism received its death wound, and was never restored since the phrase of war in heaven is not unknown to the Jews; they say i when Pharaoh pursued after Israel, there was war above and below, and there was a very fierce war , “in heaven”:
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon: by whom is meant not a created angel, with whom his name does not agree, it signifying “who is as God”; nor does it appear that there is anyone created angel that presides over the rest, and has them at his command; though the Jews seem to imagine as if the angels were ranged under several heads and governors, of whom they make Michael to be one; for they say k,
“when the holy blessed God descended on Mount Sinai, several companies of angels descended with him, , “Michael and his company”, and Gabriel and his company:”
“so kings armies”, in Ps 68:12; are by them interpreted of “kings of angels”; and it is asked who are these? and the answer is, Michael and Gabriel l. Lord Napier thinks that the Holy Ghost is designed, who is equally truly God as the Father and the Son, and who in the hearts of the saints opposes Satan and his temptations; but it seems best to interpret it of Jesus Christ, who is equal with God, is his fellow, is one with the Father, and in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily: he is the Archangel, the first of the chief princes, the head of all principality and power, who is on the side of the Lord’s people, pleads their cause, defends their persons, and saves them; see Jude 1:9; and by “his angels” may be meant either the good angels, literally understood, who are his creatures, his ministers, and whom he employs under him, in protecting his people, and in destroying his enemies; or else the ministers of the Gospel, who are called angels in this book, and who, under Christ, fight the good fight of faith, contend earnestly for it, being valiant for the truth upon earth; or rather the Christian emperors, particularly Constantine and Theodosius, and the Christians with them, who opposed Paganism in the empire, and at last subdued, and cast it out:
and the dragon fought, and his angels; there is such an order among the evil angels, as to have one of their own at the head of them, they having cast off their allegiance to God and Christ, who is styled the prince of devils, and his name is Beelzebub: hence we read of the devil and his angels; see Mt 12:24; and these may be intended here, unless false teachers, who transform themselves into angels of light, as their leader sometimes does, should be thought to be meant, who resist the truth and oppose themselves to the ministers of it; though rather, Satan as presiding over, and influencing the Roman Pagan empire, and the Roman emperors, who acted under him, are here designed; with whom Constantine and Theodosius, under Christ, combated, such as Maximinus, Maxentius, Licinius, Arbogastes, and Eugenius, and those that were with them. The Arabic version renders it, “the serpent with his soldiers”.
i Shaare Ora, fol. 26. 4. k Debarim, Rabba, fol. 237. 4. l Shirhashirim Rabba, fol. 14. 3. & 26. 3.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
There was war in heaven ( ). “There came to be war in heaven” (, not ). “Another , not a (vv. Rev 12:1; Rev 12:3), but consequent upon the two which precede it. The birth and rapture of the Woman’s Son issue in a war which invades the ” (Swete). The reference is not to the original rebellion of Satan, as Andreas held. As the coming of Christ brought on fresh manifestations of diabolic power (Mark 1:13; Luke 22:3; Luke 22:31; John 12:31; John 14:30; John 16:11), just so Christ’s return to heaven is pictured as being the occasion of renewed attacks there. We are not to visualize it too literally, but certainly modern airplanes help us to grasp the notion of battles in the sky even more than the phalanxes of storm-clouds (Swete). John even describes this last conflict as in heaven itself. Cf. Luke 10:18; 1Kgs 22:1; 1Kgs 22:1; 1Kgs 22:2; Zech 3:1.
Michael and his angels ( ). The nominative here may be in apposition with , but it is an abnormal construction with no verb, though (arose) can be understood as repeated. Michael is the champion of the Jewish people (Dan 10:13; Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1) and is called the archangel in Jude 9.
Going forth to war ( ). This genitive articular infinitive is another grammatical problem in this sentence. If (arose) is repeated as above, then we have the infinitive for purpose, a common enough idiom. Otherwise it is anomalous, not even like Ac 10:25.
With the dragon ( ). On the use of with see Rev 2:16; Rev 13:4; Rev 17:14 (nowhere else in N.T.). The devil has angels under his command (Mt 25:41) and preachers also (2Co 11:14f.).
Warred (). Constative aorist active indicative of , picturing the whole battle in one glimpse.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
There was [] . Lit., there arose.
War in heaven. Compare 1 Kings 22; Job 1, 2; Zechariah 3; Luk 10:18. Michael. See Dan 10:13, 21; Dan 12:1; and on Jude 1:9.
Fought [] . The correct reading is tou polemhsai to fight. So Rev., ” going forth to war against the dragon [ ] . The correct reading is meta with.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And there was war in heaven,” (kai egeneto polemos en to ourano) “and there occurred (developed or became) a was in heaven.” This was in the presence of and before the central throne of God.
2) “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon
(ho Michael kai hoi angeloi autou) “Michael and his angels,” the angels of his jurisdiction (polemesai meta tou drakontos) “entered into warfare (battle) with the dragon,” the Serpent, the Devil. Michael is revealed to be God’s chief defensive archangel who defends God’s properties, causes, and people against the Devil, Dan 10:11; Dan 10:21; Jud 1:9.
3) “And the dragon fought and his angels,” (kai ho drakon epolemesen kai hoi angeloi autou) “and the dragon warred, fought, or battled, and his angels,” with those, that is against those, of Michael and his angels. This passage certifies that the Dragon (the Devil) owns, has slave control over his angels or demon spirits who battle with him against God, Michael, and his host of angelic defenders of holy people and causes, Mat 24:41; Jud 1:6; Rev 9:11.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Strauss Comments
SECTION 36
Text Rev. 12:7-12
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels; 8 and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him. 10 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, who accuseth them before our God day and night. 11 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. 12 Therefore rejoice O heavens, and ye that dwell 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 time.
Initial Questions Rev. 12:7-12
1.
Read Dan. 10:13; Dan. 10:21; Dan. 12:1, and Jud. 1:9, then read Rev. 12:7.
2.
What was the outcome of the War Rev. 12:8?
3.
Discuss and compare your image of Satan with the biblical information about his person Rev. 12:9.
4.
Read Job. 1:6-12 and Rev. 12:10 discuss and compare.
5.
What enabled the saints to overcome Satan Rev. 12:11?
6.
Will the powers of darkness continue to tempt man Rev. 12:12?
Rev. 12:7
The grammar of this verse is difficult. There was a war in heaven (see Zec. 3:1 ff) between Michael and his angels, and The Dragon and his angels. The Dragon is Satan; but who is Michael? The Jehovahs Witnesses distort completely the person of Michael when they identify him as Jesus Christ (claiming as they do that Christ is a created being). We first meet Michael the Archangel in Dan. 10:13 (see Edward J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel, Eerdman, 1949, pp. 226227), and then in Jud. 1:9.
Negative critics attempt to ground Johns symbolism, etc. in the Apocrypha, i.e., The Book of Enoch, The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Apocalypse of Moses. This is absolutely unnecessary as the issues are already clearly mentioned in the Old Testament aspect of Gods Word. (For good discussion of Michael see Hastings Bible Dictionary, and Dictionary of the Apostolic Church for article Michael.) In Daniels great prophecy it is Michael the archangel who sustains the cause of Israel and spiritual Israel (or The Church) in The Revelation. This is especially his work at the time of the great tribulation and just before the resurrection of the dead. (See Dan. 12:1; 1Th. 4:16 Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, Eerdmans, 1952 reprint for learned but simple statement of this phrase of Pauls doctrine of the Last Things. The critical value of Vos work is vitiated, because he does not give usable bibliographical information. This practice is acceptable for popular works, but certainly not for seriously advanced studies.)
Rev. 12:8
Satan and his angels warred but prevailed not, neither (oude not even was their place found any more (eti still) in heaven. The power of darkness will not be victorious over the power of light. This is the Christians hope! (See Luk. 10:18; Joh. 12:31 for Christs assertion of His final victory over Satan.)
Rev. 12:9
The great dragon was cast (eblth 1st aor. pass. someone (God) threw Satan out in a single act. It was not a struggle which required a process of determining who was sovereign God or Satan). John describes Satan with further proper names. In Semitic thought names always stand for a characteristic of the person. The being called one (kaloumenos present-passive participle continually being called by others) Devil, and Satan, the deceiving one (ho plann present active participle the one continually deceiving it is not merely an erratic deception, but a perpetual, never ceasing program) the whole earth (holn oikoumenn whole populated earth (world in sense of people) this is one of ten or so times this word appears in the New Testament. We derive the word ecumenical from it, though it is not used in its biblical sense (necessarily) in contemporary ecumenical theology) was cast (same form as above) to the earth in a single act.
Rev. 12:10
Because Satan has been once for all cast down, John now reveals anew the message of our hope. The salvation, and the power, and the kingdom (reign) of our God (each of these nouns have a definite article), and the power (or authority same Greek term) of his Christ (anointed one Christ is Greek equivalent (?) of Hebrew term translated Messiah), because (hoti) the accuser of our brethren (this name for Satan is not used elsewhere in the New Testament) was cast down (1st aor. cast in a single act once for all same form as discussed in Rev. 12:9) the one accusing them before our God night and day.
Rev. 12:11
And they (our brethren or Christians onlythis vs. is eloquent testimony against contemporary universalism) over came (eniksesan 1st aor. act. ind. they overcame in a single act once and for all as a matter of fact) him (the accuser of the brethren), because of (the cause of the victory of the Saints) the blood of the Lamb. Here the vicarious atonement of Christ is once more asserted! (See appendix on The Blood.) And because of the Word of their witness (implying the necessity of being loyal to Christ in order to obtain victory). We see here the place of Christ in our redemption coupled with our faithfulness to the end. Both are essential for our salvation! And they loved not (ouk stands after kai and before gapesan for emphasis on the not absolutely not) their life until death. Jesus declared that whoever loves his life more than Him will surely lose life. Here we see an example of those who loved The Lord and His Word more than anything, even security, that this world could offer. Many Christians in non-western (some European countries too) have learned this same lesson.
Rev. 12:12
The transitional preposition Therefore means on account of the victory through Christ be glad (euphrainesthe present imperative middle voice heaven is commanded to express joy continually).
John then continues with a warning to the earth and sea because the devil came down to you having (constantly having) great anger, (thumon rage, boiling animosity) knowing that he has a short time. Satans time is limited by God; and Satan therefore takes full advantage of his permitted period to bring death, destruction, and temptation to the saints,
Review Questions Chapter 12
See Rev. 12:13-17.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
THE WAR IN HEAVEN.
(7) And there was war . . .Translate, And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels. This is one of those passages which has ever been regarded as more or less perplexing. It has afforded material for many poetic fancies, and has been the occasion of much speculative interpretation. We shall fail to catch the spirit of its meaning if we insist upon detaching the passage from its context; and the more so that the structure of the chapter seems to give an express warning against doing so. The narrative of the womans flight into the wilderness is suspended that this passage may be inserted. Could we have a clearer indication of the anxiety of the sacred writer to connect this war in heaven with the birth and rapture of the man child? The man child is born; born a conqueror. The dragon is His foe, and the powers of the foe are not confined to the material and historical world: he is a power in the world spiritual; but the man child is to be entirely a conqueror. His rapture into heaven is the announcement that there, in the very highest, He is acknowledged victor; and His victory is won over the power of the dragon, the old serpent, whose head is now bruised. The prince of this world cometh, said Jesus Christ, and hath nothing in Me. Now is the judgment of this world; now is the prince of this world cast out. And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me. Do we need more? There is mysteryunexplained mystery, perhapsabout this war in heaven, but there need be none about the general occasion referred to; it is the overthrow of the evil one by Christ: the death-blow given by the Lord of Life to him who had the power of death; it is the victory of Bethlehem, Calvary, and Olivet which is commemorated, and the effects of which are seen to transcend the sphere of the things seen. But why have we Michael and his angels introduced? This may be one of those unexplained mysteries referred to above. Some, indeed, think that this Michael is a designation of our Lord Himself, and of Him alone; but a consideration of the other passages in which Michael is mentioned (notably, Dan. 10:13, where Michael is called one of the chief princes) leaves this limited meaning doubtful, and almost suggests conflict among the spiritual hierarchies. It may, however, be the case that the name Michaelthe meaning of which is, who is like unto Godis a general name applied to any who for the moment represent the cause of God in the great conflict against evil. It may thus belong, not to any one angel being, but be a kind of type-name used for the champion and prince of Gods people, and so employed in this passage to denote Him who is the Captain of our salvation.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2. Firmamental war the dragon cast to earth, Rev 12:7-17.
7. War in heaven These symbols are, doubtless, drawn from the holy tradition so often alluded to in Scripture, that Satan was once a heavenly angel and fell from his first estate. (Jud 1:6.) The traditional account is, of course, modified to suit the symbolical purpose.
Michael Mentioned in Dan 10:13; Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1, as “one of the chief princes,” and champion for the Jewish people against adverse powers. And as in the apocalypse Jerusalem is the Christian Church, and Jews are Christians, so Michael, “the archangel,” (Jud 1:9,) is champion for Christ and Christianity. He is not, as Hengstenberg claims, Christ himself. For in this scene Christ is the man child on the throne, and overcoming his adversary through “the archangel,” the heroic general of his forces. The signification of Michael’s name ”Who is like God?” suggests, not that he is God, but the champion and challenger for God; just as the parody, “Who is like the beast?” is not uttered by the beast himself, but by his admirers. The forces on both sides are angels. The dragon’s being in the firmamental heaven, means that he was ruling over the Roman world as the impersonation of paganism.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels going forth to war with the monster, and the monster warred, and his angels. And they did not prevail neither was their place found any more in heaven.’
This occurs before the flight into the wilderness (Rev 12:13). Michael is the angelic Prince of the people of God and it is his duty to intervene directly because the people of God are going to be under attack, an attack which will eventually result in their fleeing into the wilderness (Dan 12:1). Michael and his angels are a comfort to the people of God, for they indicate that the supenatual powers that have previously been described do nto have it all their own way (compare Daniel 10). For the woman further travails will begin immediately on the taking away of the Son, resulting from renewed Satanic attack on God’s people. Behind the persecutions described in Acts and elsewhere are the activities of Satan seeking to destroy God’s remnant. So Michael goes into battle with him.
This battle commences even while Christ is on earth. Through the power of Christ, (we learn here with the able assistance of Michael and his angels), the strong man is bound and his house ransacked (Mat 12:29; Mar 3:27), and Jesus can state ‘I saw Satan as lightning fall from Heaven’ (Luk 10:18) as He contemplates the power of the Spirit at work victoriously through His disciples. Through His presence on earth, and His death and resurrection and exaltation to the throne, the principalities and powers are disarmed and led in a show of victory (Col 2:15). And now that Christ has won the victory over sin for His people the Accuser has no place before God. He will, of course, carry on with his accusations but from a far weaker base. The whole picture is presenting powerful spiritual activity in human terms and we need not press the detail.
We can compare how Elisha appeared to be alone with his servant in carrying forward God’s purposes on earth, but he was aware of the angel forces surrounding him and assisting with the carrying out of God’s purpose (2Ki 6:17).
This victory is of great importance for it prevents the direct access of Satan to God, which is a central thought in this passage. Because Michael triumphs through Christ’s strength (Jud 1:9), Satan no longer has direct entry to accuse God’s people as he did of old (Rev 12:10; see Zec 3:1; Job 1, 2). He will of course continue to accuse day and night, as he has always done, but he must do it indirectly. Along with that, of course, his final defeat is signalled, and his power is broken. There will be other battles but he is a defeated foe.
We must unquestionably link this victory of Michael with the fact that the woman’s son, the male child, has taken His place on the throne of God. Previously Michael himself has had to be wary in his dealings with Satan (Jud 1:9), saying “the Lord rebuke you”, but the presence of the Lord on earth, and His cross and resurrection, summed up in His sharing the throne of His Father in triumph, have broken Satan’s power. Incidentally, had He wanted them, these are some of the legions Jesus could have called on in His fatal hour (Mat 26:53), but their intervention on earth would have prevented God’s plan being fulfilled. They may fight in Heaven but He must endure His suffering on earth, for sin had to be dealt with and Michael and his angels could do nothing about that.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The dragon cast out of heaven:
v. 7. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
v. 8. and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven.
v. 9. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
v. 10. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
v. 11. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
v. 12. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. Here a strange scene is depicted: And there occurred a battle in heaven, Michael and his angels battling with the dragon; and the dragon battled and his angels, and were not able to prevail, neither was their place found any more in heaven; and there was thrown out the huge dragon, the old serpent, who is called devil and Satan, who seduces the whole world; he was thrown to the earth, and his angels were thrown with him. It seems that the dragon did not give up his attempts to destroy the believers as personified in the child that was caught up to heaven, but attempted to storm heaven itself. Even in the Old Testament the devil is pictured as being among the sons of God, the angels, as they came for their daily ministry, Job 1:6-12. But his attack proved a failure; for Michael, the archangel, Dan 10:13-21; Dan 12:1, summoned the hosts of heaven and gave battle so successfully that the dragon, or Satan, called the old serpent with reference to the fall of man, and the devil because his constant endeavor is to bring ignominy and shame upon all men, was cast out of heaven with his host. The devil, with the entire kingdom of Anti-Christ on his side, is not able to prevail against Christ. All his carnal, all his hellish weapons may, indeed, inflict wounds upon the believers, but the spiritual armor of the Christians, Eph 6:1-24, is so strong as to overcome all the attacks which Satan may launch. We tremble not, we fear no ill, they shall not overpower us; this world’s prince may still scowl fierce as he will; he can harm us none; he’s judged, the deed is done; one little word can fell him.
And so the voice of victory is heard: And I heard a great voice in heaven saying, Now has come salvation and power and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is thrown down, he that accuses them before God day and night. Here is a further explanation of the manner in which the devil and his angels attacked the believers, namely, by accusing them before God day and night, by carefully keeping an account of every failing and of every transgression that may be charged to their account, and then dinning this in the ears of the Lord continually. But here the anthem of victory arises, giving all honor to God the Father, the Author of our salvation, and to His Son, Jesus Christ, who wrought a complete salvation for us. His kingdom is established forever, and all the subjects of this kingdom, all true believers, are safe in His power. All the accusations of the devil, true and weighty as they would be in themselves, have lost their strength in view of the fact that the atonement of Christ has covered all these sins and their guilt, that the redemption which He effected has brought a full reconciliation with God.
Therefore the hymn of victory continues: And they conquered him through the blood of the Lamb, and through the word of their witness, and they did not love their soul unto death. For this reason rejoice, heavens, and those that dwell in them. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has come down to you having a great rage, knowing that he has little time. And they, the believers themselves, won the victory over Satan; they are always winners, in the fight against him, through the power of Christ, through the fact that His blood was shed for their redemption, and through the fact that they bear witness of this salvation and thus conquer the enemies with the Gospel. In the Gospel, in the testimony of salvation, there is a mighty, a world-conquering power, for the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit is present in it. Therefore not only the believers on earth are filled with the exultation of triumph, but the dwellers in the heavens are also called upon to rejoice with the Church in its victory; even the angels take part in the triumph over the powers of darkness. Outwardly it may seem as though the Christians were forced to submit; in reality, however, the martyrs who had to die for their faith, but did not cling to life, are the victors, and their victory will be revealed before the eyes of all men on the last day. Fearful times, indeed, we may expect after the fruitless attempt of Satan to storm heaven, for he is now enraged more than ever, and he means to make the most of the short time still remaining to him before the last day comes. Let him storm and rage; we Christians are safe in the protecting hands of the Lamb.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Rev 12:7-12. And there was war in heaven, &c. It might reasonably be presumed, that all the powers of idolatry would be strenuously exerted against the establishment of Christianity, and especially against the establishment of a Christian on the imperial throne; and the struggles and contentions between the Heathen and Christian religions are represented by war in heaven, between the angels of darkness and the angels of light, Michael the archangel being at the head of the latter. Michael and the good angels were the invisible agents, under the great Jehovah, on one side, and the devil and his angels were on the other. The visible actors in the cause of Christianity, were the believing emperors and the ministers of the word,the martyrs and confessors; and the supporters of idolatry were the persecuting emperors and heathen magistrates, together with the whole train of priests and sophists. This contest lasted several years, and the final issue of it was, (Rev 12:8-9.) that the Christian religion prevailed over the Heathen. Our Saviour said, upon his disciples casting devils out of the bodies of men, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven, Luk 10:18. In the same figure Satan fell from heaven, and was cast out into the earth, when he was thrust out of the imperial throne: and his angels were cast out with him, Rev 12:9. Not only all the heathen priests and officers, civil and military, were cashiered; but their very gods and demons, who before were adored, became the subjects of contempt and execration. It is very remarkable, that Constantine himself, and the Christians of his time, described his conquest under the same image; as if they had understood that this prophesy had received its accomplishment in him. Moreover, the picture of Constantine was set up over the palace-gate with the cross over his head; and under his feet the great enemy of mankind, who persecuted the church by the means of impious tyrants, in the form of a dragon, transfixed with a dart through the midst of his body, and falling headlong into the midst of the sea; in allusion, as it is said expressly, to the divine oracles in the books of the prophets, where the evil spirit is called the dragon, and the crooked serpent. Upon this victory of the church, there is introduced, Rev 12:10, a triumphant hymn of thanksgiving for the depression of idolatry, and the exaltation of the true religion. It was not by temporal means of arms that the Christians obtained this victory, (Rev 12:11.) but by spiritual; by the death of their Redeemer; by their constant profession of the truth, and by their patient suffering of all kinds of tortures, even unto death; and the blood of the martyrs has been often called the seed of the church. This victory is matter of joy and triumph to the blessed angels and glorified saints in heaven (Rev 12:12.): but still new woes are threatened to the inhabitants of the earth. For though the dragon was deposed, yet was he not destroyed; though idolatry was depressed, yet was it not wholly overthrown: there were still many Pagans intermixed with the Christians, and the devil would excite fresh troubles; because he knoweth that he hath but a short time; that is, it would not belongbeforethepaganreligionwouldbetotally abolished, and the Christian religion prevail in all the Roman empire. The expression, Rev 12:10 of the accuser of the brethren, &c. is taken from Job and Zechariah; where the scriptures, speaking after the manner of men, represent Satan as accusing good and pious men before God. This he does by aggravating their faults and imperfections, and by exciting wicked men to raise false accusations against them; as was notoriously done against the primitive Christians. Mr. Daubuz observes, that the accuser, according to the custom of the Eastern nations, and in some cases by the law of Moses, was appointed to be the executioner. See Deu 13:9. So that when the church is no longer in danger of persecution for the profession of Christianity, Satan is said to be thrown down, as having lost the power of accusing and executing such as make open profession of it.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Rev 12:7-12 . Not only is it in vain that the dragon lays snares for the child (Rev 12:5 ), but he is now cast down to earth by Michael and his angels, who begin a battle with him and his angels, a crisis which, in its salutary significance for believers, is celebrated by a loud voice in heaven giving praise, but which also, as the cry of woe indicates, makes the whole earth the scene for the rage of the dragon cast upon it.
. . The conception that the dragon pursued the child even to the throne of God (Rev 12:5 ), and that this is the cause of the struggle which arose, [3082] not only has no foundation in the context, but is also inconsistent with what is said in Rev 12:5 , because the . declares that the child, by its being caught up to God and God’s throne, is completely secured from any further pursuit on the part of the dragon. The idea, also, that the dragon also made only the attempt to seize the child from God’s own hand, is in itself not possible. But in the struggle which now arises, it is not Satan, but Michael, who appears as taking the offensive. After the dragon did what is described in Rev 12:3-4 , and after the child was in complete security, not only the dragon who had attempted the attack on the child, but also his angels, are driven out of heaven. The very circumstance that in Rev 12:7 the discourse is not only concerning the dragon, but also concerning his adherents, points to the fact, that the bold undertaking of the dragon (Rev 12:3 sq.), the most extreme to which his antichristian nature brings him, furnishes Michael and his army of angels the immediate occasion, on their part, for laying hold upon the dragon and all his angels, and casting them out of heaven.
. For at this place the dragon is; cf. Rev 12:3 . Every allegorical interpretation [3083] brings with it a confusion of the context in details, and as a whole. Cf. also Rev 12:8 .
. The opinion of Vitringa, urgently advocated by Hengstenb., that Michael is not an angel (according to Dan 10:13 ; Dan 12:1 , the guardian angel of the O. T. people of God, according to Jud 1:9 an archangel), but Christ himself, or, as Hengstenb. prefers to say, the Logos, miscarries even apart from Jud 1:9 , where the express designation, , according to Hengstenb., is as little a proof against the divinity of Michael, as the declaration of the Lord (Joh 14:28 ) testifies against the homoousia of the Son by its being altogether impossible to regard Michael (Rev 12:7 ) and the child (Rev 12:5 ) as one and the same person. In this passage, also, Michael the archangel [3084] appears as the leader of the angelic army ( . ), with which he contends for the Messiah and his kingdom.
. ., . . . Just as undoubted as is this reading according to the MSS. at hand, is its obscurity in a grammatical respect; since the gen. infinitive , in connection with the words . . , is without all analogy in the Greek of the LXX. and the N. T. The seeming parallel, Act 10:25 , is distinguished from this passage by the very fact that there a proper grammatical reason is present, [3085] while in this passage the connection of the gen. infinitive with the subj. ., . . ., admits of no grammatical explanation whatever; for neither the analogy of passages like Isa 44:14 , Jos 2:5 , is applicable where the inf., introduced by , stands in definite dependence upon a preceding idea, and where the LXX. also place a finite tense, [3086] nor is the supplying of the words “had war,” upon which, then, the . is regarded as dependent, [3087] allowable. If it were possible from the to supply an before . . ., [3088] or if the dare be regarded as extending to ., [3089] the would then be correctly added. [3090] But that twofold conception is so doubtful as to constrain us to the opinion that our text is defective or corrupt. [3091] As a sensible conjecture, the Elz. reading, , commends itself, since the before the infin. may be repeated from the preceding , and the change of the into the form of a finite tense is without difficulty; but if the of the MSS. be correct, and its difficulty favors it, a finite tense immediately before, upon which this . depends, may have fallen out, possibly or , or the like, since the essential meaning is manifestly that which the versions express. [3092] The conjecture is most probable, that the words are nothing but a marginal note that has entered into the text, made in order to mark the noteworthy contents of the passage; [3093] if these words be regarded as absent, the connection of the . with the . . . does not seem difficult, since the genitive of the telic infinitive [3094] correctly depends upon the idea of the movement lying in the . [3095] This conjecture has in its favor, that the reception into the text of the doubtful words is incomparably more probable than the falling-out of a finite tense before . ; it is also to be considered, that, as in what follows, the is formed only according to the chief subject . , the same phraseology is probable also in the first clause. Moreover, while it would have been difficult for John to have written . . , for the sing., after had preceded, would have been unallowable in the style of the Apoc., and besides, in connection with the following, appears to be still more monotonous than the even of the Rec., the , on the other hand, in immediate connection with . . meets all requirements, and commends itself especially by the fact that it gives the meaning that the attack proceeded from Michael and his angels.
[3082] Eichh., Herd., De Wette, Stern.
[3083] Beda: “In the Church , in which he says that Michael with his angels fights against the devil, because, by praying and ministering his aid, he contends, according to God’s will, for the wandering Church.”
[3084] Beng., Ew., De Wette, Hofm., Ebrard, Auberlen, etc.
[3085] As the genitive infinitive clause, in which the subject enters as an accus. ( ), depends upon the expressly impersonal .
[3086] Against Ew.: “It must be fought by them.” Bleek, Zll.
[3087] Hengstenb.
[3088] Cf. Meyer on Act 10:25 .
[3089] Cf. Lcke, p. 454.
[3090] Cf. Winer, p. 304.
[3091] Lcke, De Wette, Winer, p. 307.
[3092] Vulg.: Praeliabantur.
[3093] Nevertheless, e.g., Andreas who, moreover, has the suspicious words in the text gives the section (Rev 12:7-12 ), the title: , . . . How very usual were brief declarations in the MSS. concerning the contents, is extraordinarily manifest if the long series of lists of contents be read which occur in cod. in the Book of Acts. Cf. Nov. Text. Gr. ex Sin. Cod., ed. Tischendorf, Lips., 1865; P., lxxxii. A similar annotation is, e.g., Isa 30:6 .
[3094] Cf. Act 3:2 ; Act 3:12 .
[3095] Cf. Act 20:16 ; Act 21:17 ; Act 25:15 ; Luk 10:32 ; Joh 6:25 ; Joh 6:19 .
NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR
LXVIII. ( b .) Rev 12:7 .
Philippi ( Kirch. Glaubenslehre , III. 321 sq.): “In the N. T. there seem to be contradictory expressions. For while, according to Rev 12:7 sqq., Satan still dwells in heaven, according to Luk 10:18 he has already fallen from heaven like lightning; and while, according to Eph 2:2 , the power of the prince of darkness prevails in the air, according to 2Pe 2:4 God has cast the fallen angels into the abyss, and delivered them unto chains of darkness as those who are to be kept for judgment, and in Jude, Rev 12:6 , they are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. On the other hand, they pray (Luk 8:31 ; cf. Mat 8:29 ; Mat 8:31 ) not to be cast into the abyss before the time, as also, according to Mat 25:41 , Rev 20:10 , only at the final judgment shall they be handed over to eternal fire with its pain. The seeming contradiction of these different forms of statement is explained only by the distinction between the literal and the figurative modes of expression. The dwelling in heaven as the superterrestrial region is a figure, partly of qualification for superterrestrial exercise of power, partly of participation in superterrestrial, blessed life. Since Satan employs the former, even until the day of judgment, he is still up to that time in heaven; but when Christ, as the stronger, came upon him, and despoiled him of his power (Mat 12:29 ), he saw him, like lightning, fall from heaven. As long as the kingdom of Satan continues among unbelievers on earth, and his power to tempt believers remains, so also does he still continue to be in heaven; and not until the parousia of the Lord shall he be cast out, and divested of his own power. But, on the other hand, in so far as Satan, with his angels, is excluded from the communion of the superterrestrial blessed life of God, is he from the very beginning at the moment of his fall, no longer in heaven, but in the abyss.”
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
(7) And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, (8) And prevailed not; neither was their place found anymore in heaven. (9) And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (10) And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. (11) And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. (12) Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Let the Reader keep in remembrance, that, for the most part, when heaven is spoken of in this book of God is meant the Church. Indeed, it can hardly be necessary to observe, that when it is said there was war in heaven, it could not be supposed is meant, that blessed place, where God dwells, where all is peace, and holiness, and joy. But, the war here mentioned, was, and still is in the Church. Michael by whom is meant Christ, is opposed by Satan, and the conflict must be as is here stated, in the ultimate termination. But during the contest God’s dear children, though sure of victory, have many an hard skirmish to sustain from day to day, neither doth the faithful soldier in Christ’s army, unbuckle his armor, until the Lord undresseth him for the grave.
But if we consider what is here said, with an especial eye to the Church, at the period Christ had in view, when instructing his servant John, and this also, as leading on by a spirit of prophecy, to the great events then to take place in his Church; and from thence to the end of all things, we must call to remembrance, that this was the period of the Church, after Christ’s return to glory, and under the time of the Empire, being heathen, to the time when the Empire professed Christianity, including a space of about three hundred years. And this brings down the history in this Chapter, to the time of the Arian heresy.
So wonderful an event, as that of an whole Empire becoming Christian, (that is professing Christianity, and, no doubt, though multitudes under that character were no other than summer flies basking in the sun-shine of prosperity, yet many of God’s dear children being now no longer terrified with the threats and persecutions of their pagan neighbors, were enabled to boast aloud in the God of their salvation,) might well be supposed to celebrate the Lord’s glory in the change. Hence, the loud voice of John in vision heard in heaven, that is in the Church; Now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ. And let the Reader observe no less, how the faithful as with one voice, attributed all their victory to the Lord Jesus Christ. So is it now, and so must it be forever, during the whole time-state of the Church upon earth. No victory, but in and by Christ. No washing from sin, but in his blood. No righteousness but his, to justify before God!
And well may the Church rejoice, while the devil grows more and more angry, in the consciousness of the shortness of his triumphs over the Church. For what is the whole of his reign, from the fall of Adam, to the time of his being cast into hell forever. What is six thousand years to eternity? It is no more than a single grain of sand, compared to the globe! I have often thought, if a child of God could but, keep this always in remembrance, every exercise would be as nothing. Day by day lessens all our sorrows. The one of yesterday is gone to be numbered with the years beyond the flood, never more to return. Like boys at school we may cut off the daily notch, which makes the number to the holidays. Shortly; the last will come to be cut off, and then the child of God, hears the chariot wheels of Jesus come to take him home to his Father’s house.
While, on the contrary, I have as often thought, how short-lived, the triumphs or the pleasures of the ungodly! How most the man of earth, I mean the christless sinner, ingulphed like Korah and his company in earthly concerns, begrudge every day that passeth. Each night he might say, as the knell of day tolls for its funeral, there’s another day gone of my comforts upon earth, and when the last comes, where am I departing? Hence, it is the world dreads to be told of their age, because they dread to die. Reader! with which class are you standing? If new born in Christ, (for that is the only real standard of character,) look out, with holy confidence and joy, for the chariot wheels of Jesus! If unawakened, unregenerated, unrenewed in soul, death cannot but be dreadful!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
Ver. 7. And there was war ] viz. While the woman was bringing forth; and after that her son was advanced to the empire.
Michael and his angels ] Constantine and his armies.
Against the dragon ] Maximinus, Maxentius, Licinius, and other tyrants, acted and agitated by the devil.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
7 ff.] And there was war in heaven (we now enter upon a mysterious series of events in the world of spirits, with regard to which merely fragmentary hints are given us in the Scriptures. In the O. T. we find the adversary Satan in heaven. In Job 1:2 , he appears before God as the Tempter of His saints: in Zec 3 we have him accusing Joshua the High-priest in God’s presence. Again our Lord in Luk 10:18 exclaims, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven,” where see note. Cf. also Joh 12:31 . So that this casting down of Satan from the office of accuser in heaven was evidently connected with the great justifying work of redemption. His voice is heard before God no more: the day of acceptance in Christ Jesus has dawned. And his angels, those rebel spirits whom he led away, are cast down with him, into the earth, where now the conflict is waging during the short time which shall elapse between the Ascension and the second Advent, when he shall be bound. All this harmonizes together: and though we know no more of the matter, we have at least this sign that our knowledge, as far as it goes, is sound, that the few hints given us do not, when thus interpreted, contradict one another, but agree as portions of one whole.
The war here spoken of appears in some of its features in the book of Daniel, ch. Dan 10:13 ; Dan 10:21 , Dan 12:1 . In Jud 1:9 also we find Michael the adversary of the devil in the matter of the saints of God): Michael (“one of the chief princes,” Dan 10:13 ; “your prince,” i. e. of the Jewish nation, Dan 10:21 ; “the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people,” Dan 12:1 ; “the archangel,” Jud 1:9 ; not to be identified with Christ, any more than any other of the great angels in this book. Such identification here would confuse hopelessly the actors in this heavenly scene. Satan’s being cast out of heaven to the earth is the result not of his contest with the Lord Himself, of which it is only an incident leading to a new phase, but of the appointed conflict with his faithful fellow-angels led on by the archangel Michael. The in both cases requires a nearer correspondence in the two chiefs than is found between Satan and the Son of God) and his angels to war (the construction is remarkable, but may easily be explained as one compounded of ( ) . . (in which case the depends on the , as in ref.) and . . . In the next clause, it passes into this latter) with the dragon, and the dragon warred and his angels, and they prevailed not, nor was even ( brings in a climax) their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent (in allusion to the history in Gen 3 . Remember also that St. John had related the saying of our Lord, that the devil was ), he who is called the devil and Satan, he who deceiveth the whole inhabited world, was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast with him (I would appeal in passing to the solemnity of the terms here used, and the particularity of the designation, and ask whether it is possible to understand this of the mere casting down of paganism from the throne of the Roman empire? whether the words themselves do not vindicate their plain literal sense, as further illustrated by the song of rejoicing which follows?). And I heard a great voice in heaven (proceeding apparently from the elders, representing the church (cf. ): but it is left uncertain) saying, Now is come (it is impossible in English to join to a particle of present time, such as , a verb in aoristic time. We are driven to the perfect in such cases) the salvation and the might and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ (i. e. the realization of all these: being, as so often, that salvation which belongs to God as its Author: see reff. and cf. Luk 3:6 ): because the accuser (the form , instead of , is rabbinical, . They had also a corresponding term, , , = , to designate Michael, the advocate of God’s people. See Schttgen, vol. i. p. 1119 ff., where he accumulates extracts of some interest from the rabbinical books) of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth (the pres. part. of the usual habit, though that his office was now at an end) them before our God by day and by night (see, as above, the passage cited in Schttgen). And they conquered him on account of the blood of the Lamb (i. e. by virtue of that blood having been shed: not as in E. V., “ by the blood,” as if had been with the genitive. The meaning is far more significant; their victory over Satan was grounded in, was a consequence of, His having shed his precious blood: without that, the adversary’s charges against them would have been unanswerable. It is remarkable, that the rabbinical books give a tradition that Satan accuses men all the days of the year, except on the Day of Atonement . Vajikra Rabba, 21, fol. 164. 3, in Schttgen) and on account of the word of their testimony (the strict sense of with an accus. must again be kept. It is because they have given a faithful testimony, even unto death, that they are victorious: this is their part, their appropriation of and standing in the virtue of that blood of the Lamb. Without both these, victory would not have been theirs: both together form its ground): and they loved not their life unto death (i. e. they carried their not-love of their life even unto death: see reff.). For this cause (viz., because the dragon is cast down: as is shewn by the contrast below) rejoice, ye heavens and they that dwell (there is no sense of transitoriness in St. John’s use of : rather, one of repose and tranquillity (reff.)) in them. Woe to the earth and the sea (the construction is a combination of the usual accus. in exclamations, with , which takes a dative), because the devil is come down (see above on , Rev 12:10 , on the impossibility of expressing the aor. in such connexions) to you (the earth and sea) having great wrath (the enmity, which was manifested as his natural state towards Christ, Rev 12:4 , being now kindled into wrath), because he knoweth (so E. V., rightly, the participle carrying with it this ratiocinative force) that he hath but (in our language this “ but ” is necessary to shew that it is not the but the which excites his wrath. In Greek this is made clear by the position of ) a short season (i. e. because the Lord cometh quickly, and then the period of his active hostility against the church and the race whom Christ has redeemed will be at an end: he will be bound and cast into the pit. Until then, he is carrying it on, in ways which the prophecy goes on to detail). And when the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the male child (the narrative at Rev 12:6 is again taken up and given more in detail. There, the reason of the woman’s flight is matter of inference: here, it is plainly expressed, and the manner of the flight also is related. is not to be taken as pluperfect, still less as pointing to what was yet to take place; but is the simple historic tense, used for identification in again taking up the narrative). And there were given (in the usual apocalyptic sense of , to be granted by God for His purposes) to the woman [ the ] two wings of the great eagle (the figure is taken from O. T. expressions used by God in reference to the flight of Israel from Egypt. The most remarkable of these is in ref. Exod., . So also in ref. Deut. But the articles are not to be taken as identifying the eagle with the figure used in those places, which would be most unnatural: much less must they, with Ebrard, be supposed to identify this eagle with that in ch. Rev 8:13 , with which it has no connexion. The articles are simply generic, as in , Lev 11:29 .
With these O. T. references before us, we can hardly be justified in pressing the figure of the eagle’s wings to an interpretation in the fulfilment of the prophecy, or in making it mean that the flight took place under the protection of the Roman eagles, as some have done), that she might fly into the wilderness (the flight of Israel out of Egypt is still borne in mind) to her place (prepared of God, Rev 12:6 ; so also in Exo 23:20 , ), where she is nourished ( there ) (as God nourished Israel with manna in the wilderness, see Deu 8:3 ; Deu 8:16 , where is used) a time and times and half a time (i. e. 3 years = 42 months, ch. Rev 11:2 = 1260 days, Rev 11:6 and ch. Rev 11:3 ) from the face of the serpent ( must not be joined, as some texts are punctuated, with , but belongs, as in ref., ., to the last verb, : importing “safe from,” “far from,” “hidden from”). And the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman water as a river, that he might make her to be borne away by the river. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth (reff.) and swallowed down the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth (in passing to the interpretation, we cannot help being struck with the continued analogy between this prophecy and the history of the Exodus. There we have the flight into the wilderness, there the feeding in the wilderness, as already remarked: there again the forty-two stations, corresponding to the forty-two months of the three years and half of this prophecy: there too the miraculous passage of the Red Sea, not indeed in strict correspondence with this last feature, but at least suggestive of it. These analogies themselves suggest caution in the application of the words of the prophecy; and in this direction. The church in the wilderness of old was not, as some expositors would represent this woman, the pure church of God: His veritable servants were hidden in the midst of that church, as much as that church itself was withdrawn from the enmity of Pharaoh. And, it is to be noted, it was that very church herself which afterwards, when seated at Jerusalem, forsook her Lord and Husband, and committed adultery with the kings of the earth, and became drunk with the blood of the saints. It would seem then that we must not understand the woman of the invisible spiritual church of Christ, nor her flight into the wilderness of the withdrawal of God’s true servants from the eyes of the world. They indeed have been just as much withdrawn from the eyes of the world at all times, and will continue so till the great manifestation of the sons of God. I own that, considering the analogies and the language used, I am much more disposed to interpret the persecution of the woman by the dragon of the various persecutions by Jews which followed the Ascension, and her flight into the wilderness of the gradual withdrawal of the church and her agency from Jerusalem and Juda, finally consummated by the flight to the mountains on the approaching siege, commanded by our Lord Himself. And then the river which the dragon sent out of his mouth after the woman might be variously understood, of the Roman armies which threatened to sweep away Christianity in the wreck of the Jewish nation, or of the persecutions which followed the church into her retreats, but eventually became absorbed by the civil power turning Christian, or of the Jewish nation itself, banded together against Christianity wherever it appeared, but eventually itself becoming powerless against it by its dispersion and ruin, or again, of the influx of heretical opinions from the Pagan philosophies which tended to swamp the true faith. I confess that not one of these seems to me satisfactorily to answer the conditions: nor do we gain any thing by their combination. But any thing within reasonable regard for the analogies and symbolism of the text seems better than the now too commonly received historical interpretation, with its wild fancies and arbitrary assignment of words and figures. As to the time indicated by the 1260 days or 3 years, the interpretations given have not been convincing, nor even specious. We may observe thus much in this place: that if we regard this prophecy as including long historic periods, we are driven to one of two resources with regard to these numbers: either we must adopt the year-day theory (that which reckons a day for a year, and consequently a month for thirty years, and should reckon a year for 360 years), or we must believe the numbers to have merely a symbolical and mystical, not a chronological force. If (and this second alternative is best stated in an inverse form) we regard the periods mentioned as to be literally accepted, then the prophecy cannot refer to long historic periods, but must be limited to a succession of incidents concentrated in one place and lustrum either in the far past or in the far future. Of all prophecies about which these questions can be raised, the present is the one which least satisfactorily admits of such literal interpretation and its consequences. Its actors, the woman and the dragon, are beyond all controversy mystical personages: one of them is expressly interpreted for us to be the devil: respecting the other there can be little doubt that she is the Church of God: her seed being, as expressly interpreted to be, God’s Christian people. The conflict then is that between Satan and the church. Its first great incident is the birth and triumph of the Son of God and of man. Is it likely that a few days or years will limit the duration of a prophecy confessedly of such wide import? I own it seems to me that this vision, even if it stood alone, is decisive against the literal acceptation of the stated periods. Rejecting that, how do we stand with regard to the other alternative in its two forms? Granting for the moment the year-day principle, will it help us here? If we take the flight into the wilderness as happening at any time between the Ascension, A.D. 30, and the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, 1260 years will bring us to some time between A.D. 1290 and 1330: a period during which no event can be pointed out as putting an end to the wilderness-state of the church. If again we enlarge our limit for the former event, and bring it down as late as Elliott does, i. e. to the period between the fourth and seventh centuries, we fall into all the difficulties which beset his most unsatisfactory explanation of the man-child and his being caught up to God’s throne, and besides into this one: that if the occultation of true religion (= the condition of the invisible Church) was the beginning of the wilderness-state, then either the open establishment of the Protestant churches was the end of the wilderness-state of concealment, or those churches are no true churches: either of which alternatives would hardly be allowed by that author. And if on the other hand we desert the year day principle, and say that these defined and constantly recurring periods are not to be pressed, but indicate only long spaces of time thus pointed out mystically or analogically, we seem to incur danger of missing the prophetic sense, and leaving unfixed that which apparently the Spirit of God intended us to ascertain). And the dragon was wroth at the woman (on with a dat. as applied to the object of mental affections, see ref. and note) and departed (from his pursuit of her) to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus ( . as in ch. Rev 6:9 ; see note there. Notice as important elements for the interpretation, 1) that the woman has seed besides the Man-child who was caught up to God’s throne (for this is the reference of ), who are not only distinct from herself, but who do not accompany her in her flight into the wilderness: 2) that those persons are described as being they who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus: 3) that during the woman’s time of her being fed in the wilderness, the dragon is making war, not against her, but against this remnant of her seed: 4) that by the form of expression here, these present participles descriptive of habit, and occurring at the breaking off of the vision as regards the general description of the dragon’s agency, it is almost necessarily implied, that the woman, while hidden in the wilderness from the dragon’s wrath, goes on bringing forth sons and daughters thus described.
If I mistake not, the above considerations are fatal to the view which makes the flight of the woman into the wilderness consist in the withdrawal of God’s true servants from the world and from open recognition. For thus she must be identical with this remnant of her seed, and would herself be the object of the dragon’s hostile warfare, at the very time when, by the terms of the prophecy, she is safely hidden from it. I own that I have been led by these circumstances to think whether after all the woman may represent, not the invisible church of God’s true people which under all conditions of the world must be known only to Him, but the true visible Church : that Church which in its divinely prescribed form as existing at Jerusalem was the mother of our Lord according to the flesh, and which continued as established by our Lord and His Apostles, in unbroken unity during the first centuries, but which as time went on was broken up by evil men and evil doctrines, and has remained, unseen, unrealized, her unity an article of faith, not of sight, but still multiplying her seed, those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus, in various sects and distant countries, waiting the day for her comely order and oneness again to be manifested the day when she shall “come up out of the wilderness, leaning on her Beloved:” when our Lord’s prayer for the unity of His being accomplished, the world shall believe that the Father has sent Him. If we are disposed to carry out this idea, we might see the great realization of the flight into the wilderness in the final severance of the Eastern and Western churches in the seventh century, and the flood cast after the woman by the dragon in the irruption of the Mahometan armies. But this, though not less satisfactory than the other interpretations, is as unsatisfactory. The latter part of the vision yet waits its clearing up).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rev 12:7 . . (= ), the nomin. makes this rare use of the genit. infin. even more clumsy and irregular than the similar constr. with accus. in Act 10:25 (where see note). The sense is plain, and it is better to put the constr. down to syntactical laxity than to conjecture subtle reasons for the blunder or to suggest emendations such as the addition of to (Vit. i. 168), or of or before . . . (Ws., Bousset), the latter being an irregular nomin., or the alteration of . to (Dst.) or the simple omission of . For . cf. Thumb 125 (a Copticism?). In the present form of the oracle, the rapture of messiah seems to have stimulated the devil to fresh efforts, unless we are meant to understand that the initiative came from Michael and his allies. The devil, as the opponent of mankind had access to the Semitic heaven, but his role here recalls the primitive mythological conception of the dragon storming heaven ( A. C. 146 150). Michael had been for over two centuries the patron-angel or princely champion of Israel ( , En. Rev 20:5 ; cf. A. C. 227 f.; Lueken 15 f.; Volz 195; R. J. 320 f., and Dieterich’s Abraxas , 122 f.). As the protector of Israel’s interests he was assigned a prominent rle by Jewish and even Christian eschatology in the final conflict ( cf. Ass. Mos. x. 2). For the theory that he was the prince-angel, like a son of man (Dan 7:13 ) who subdued the world-powers, cf. Grill 55 and Cheyne 215 f. More generally, a celestial battle, as the prelude of messiah’s triumph on earth, forms an independent Jewish tradition which can be traced to the second century B.C. ( cf. Sibyll. iii. 795 807, 2Ma 5:2-4 ; Jos. Bell . vi. 5, 3). The only allusion in the Apocalypse ( cf. even Rev 20:11 with Mat 25:41 ) to the double hierarchy of angels, which post-exilic Judaism took over from Persia (Bund, iii. 11). In the Leto-myth, Pytho returns to Parnassus after being baffled in his pursuit of the pregnant Leto.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Rev 12:7-10 a
7And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, 8and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. 9And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying,
Rev 12:7 “there was war in heaven”
SPECIAL TOPIC: WAR IN HEAVEN
“Michael” There are only two named angels in the Bible (i.e., Michael, Gabriel). This angel is named as the angel of the nation of Israel in Dan 10:13; Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1. He is called an archangel in Jud 1:9. His name means “who is like God.” Some see this as another name for Christ, but this seems to be going too far. God is not threatened by the rebellion of the evil one. The Bible is not a dualism, like Persian Zoroastrianism. God defeats the evil one by the use of an angel (although in reality it was the redemptive work of Christ).
In legal metaphor, Michael is the defense attorney, while Satan acts as the prosecution attorney and YHWH is the Judge! Michael wins the case through
1. the sacrificial death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ (cf. Rev 12:16)
2. the faithful witness of the church (cf. Rev 12:11 b)
3. the perseverance of the church (cf. Rev 12:11 c)
“the dragon and his angels waged war” Exactly who Satan’s angels are is hard to describe biblically. Many see them as demonic (cf. Mat 25:41; Eph 6:10 ff). But there is always the nagging question of the angels in Tartarus (cf. 2Pe 2:4), and the angels mentioned in Rev 9:14, who are obviously controlled by God but are apparently evil angels. Much of the conflict in the angelic world is simply unexplained (cf. Daniel 10).
There is also an ongoing discussion related to the relationship between the fallen angels of the OT and the demons of the NT. The Bible is silent on this subject. Interbiblical apocalyptic literature (specifically I Enoch) asserts that the half-angel, half- human offspring of Gen 6:1-4 are NT demons seeking human bodies to re-inhabit. This is just speculation, but it does reveal what some of the first century Jews thought about this subject.
The aorist infinitive does not seem to fit this context. It is possibly a Semitism and might be translated “had to fight” (cf. The Expositor’s Bible commentary, vol. 12, “Revelation” by Alan Johnson, p. 519, footnote #7. This is one of my favorite commentators on Revelation).
Rev 12:8 This is the first in a series of encouraging words to a persecuted Church. Rev 12:8; Rev 12:11; Rev 12:14 give great comfort to the people of God who were undergoing persecution in the first century and in every century. Satan has already been defeated twice: once in his attempt to kill the Child (cf. Rev 12:4) and now in his attempt to storm the throne of God (cf. Rev 12:7-9); he will also be defeated in his attempt to wipe out the people of God on earth.
“there was no longer a place found for them in heaven” This implies that Satan has been in heaven for some time (cf. Job 1-2; Zechariah 3; and 1Ki 22:21). Notice the plural pronoun, which implies other angels in league with Satan.
Rev 12:9 “the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan” Here and Rev 20:2 (cf. The Wisdom of Solomon Rev 2:24), are the only places where Satan is explicitly identified with the serpent of Genesis 3 and implicitly in 2Co 11:3. The term “devil” is the Greek term for “slanderer,” while the term “Satan” is the Hebrew word for “adversary” (cf. 2Sa 19:22; 1Ki 11:14). They both emphasize the function of the evil one as the accuser of the brethren (cf. Rev 12:10). The term “Satan” in the OT (see Special Topic at Rev 12:3) is not usually a proper noun, but it is in three specific occurrences: (1) Job 1-2; (2) Zec 3:1-3; and (3) 1Ch 21:1. For “was thrown down” see full note at Rev 12:4; Rev 12:7.
SPECIAL TOPIC: PERSONAL EVIL
“who deceives the whole world” This describes the mission of the evil one. As the gospel is universal (cf. Mat 28:18-20; Luk 24:47; Act 1:8), so too the antigospel! The best book that I have read on the development of Satan in the Bible, from servant to enemy, is A. B. Davidson’s A Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 300-306. Satan’s mission is described in 2Co 4:4; 1Pe 5:8; Rev 13:14; Rev 19:20; Rev 20:3; Rev 20:8; Rev 20:10; 2Jn 1:7. It is hard to conceive of Satan as a servant of God but compare 2Sa 24:1 with 1Ch 21:1.
“he was thrown down to the earth” The term “thrown down” is used several times in this context: twice in Rev 12:9; in Rev 12:10, and Rev 12:13. It is also used in Rev 19:20; Rev 20:3; Rev 20:10; Rev 20:14-15 and is possibly an allusion to Isa 14:12 or Luk 10:18; and possibly Joh 12:31.
The earth becomes the realm of Satan’s activities. See fuller notes on Satan’s fall at Rev 12:4; Rev 12:7.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
was = came to be.
heaven = the heaven. See Rev 3:12. A particular sphere above earth which is dwelt in by, or accessible to, the dragon and his evil powers. Compare Job 1and Job 2. Zec 3:6. See Luk 10:18.
Michael. See Dan 10:13, Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1. Jud 1:9, and App-179.
fought against. The texts read “(going forth) to war with”.
against. Greek. meta. App-104.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
7 ff.] And there was war in heaven (we now enter upon a mysterious series of events in the world of spirits, with regard to which merely fragmentary hints are given us in the Scriptures. In the O. T. we find the adversary Satan in heaven. In Job 1, 2, he appears before God as the Tempter of His saints: in Zechariah 3 we have him accusing Joshua the High-priest in Gods presence. Again our Lord in Luk 10:18 exclaims, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven, where see note. Cf. also Joh 12:31. So that this casting down of Satan from the office of accuser in heaven was evidently connected with the great justifying work of redemption. His voice is heard before God no more: the day of acceptance in Christ Jesus has dawned. And his angels, those rebel spirits whom he led away, are cast down with him, into the earth, where now the conflict is waging during the short time which shall elapse between the Ascension and the second Advent, when he shall be bound. All this harmonizes together: and though we know no more of the matter, we have at least this sign that our knowledge, as far as it goes, is sound,-that the few hints given us do not, when thus interpreted, contradict one another, but agree as portions of one whole.
The war here spoken of appears in some of its features in the book of Daniel, ch. Dan 10:13; Dan 10:21, Dan 12:1. In Jud 1:9 also we find Michael the adversary of the devil in the matter of the saints of God): Michael (one of the chief princes, Dan 10:13; your prince, i. e. of the Jewish nation, Dan 10:21; the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people, Dan 12:1; the archangel, Jud 1:9; not to be identified with Christ, any more than any other of the great angels in this book. Such identification here would confuse hopelessly the actors in this heavenly scene. Satans being cast out of heaven to the earth is the result not of his contest with the Lord Himself, of which it is only an incident leading to a new phase, but of the appointed conflict with his faithful fellow-angels led on by the archangel Michael. The in both cases requires a nearer correspondence in the two chiefs than is found between Satan and the Son of God) and his angels to war (the construction is remarkable, but may easily be explained as one compounded of () . . (in which case the depends on the , as in ref.) and . . . In the next clause, it passes into this latter) with the dragon, and the dragon warred and his angels, and they prevailed not, nor was even ( brings in a climax) their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent (in allusion to the history in Genesis 3. Remember also that St. John had related the saying of our Lord, that the devil was ), he who is called the devil and Satan, he who deceiveth the whole inhabited world, was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast with him (I would appeal in passing to the solemnity of the terms here used, and the particularity of the designation, and ask whether it is possible to understand this of the mere casting down of paganism from the throne of the Roman empire? whether the words themselves do not vindicate their plain literal sense, as further illustrated by the song of rejoicing which follows?). And I heard a great voice in heaven (proceeding apparently from the elders, representing the church (cf. ): but it is left uncertain) saying, Now is come (it is impossible in English to join to a particle of present time, such as , a verb in aoristic time. We are driven to the perfect in such cases) the salvation and the might and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ (i. e. the realization of all these: being, as so often, that salvation which belongs to God as its Author: see reff. and cf. Luk 3:6): because the accuser (the form , instead of , is rabbinical, . They had also a corresponding term, , , = , to designate Michael, the advocate of Gods people. See Schttgen, vol. i. p. 1119 ff., where he accumulates extracts of some interest from the rabbinical books) of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth (the pres. part. of the usual habit, though that his office was now at an end) them before our God by day and by night (see, as above, the passage cited in Schttgen). And they conquered him on account of the blood of the Lamb (i. e. by virtue of that blood having been shed: not as in E. V., by the blood, as if had been with the genitive. The meaning is far more significant; their victory over Satan was grounded in, was a consequence of, His having shed his precious blood: without that, the adversarys charges against them would have been unanswerable. It is remarkable, that the rabbinical books give a tradition that Satan accuses men all the days of the year, except on the Day of Atonement. Vajikra Rabba, 21, fol. 164. 3, in Schttgen) and on account of the word of their testimony (the strict sense of with an accus. must again be kept. It is because they have given a faithful testimony, even unto death, that they are victorious: this is their part, their appropriation of and standing in the virtue of that blood of the Lamb. Without both these, victory would not have been theirs: both together form its ground): and they loved not their life unto death (i. e. they carried their not-love of their life even unto death: see reff.). For this cause (viz., because the dragon is cast down: as is shewn by the contrast below) rejoice, ye heavens and they that dwell (there is no sense of transitoriness in St. Johns use of : rather, one of repose and tranquillity (reff.)) in them. Woe to the earth and the sea (the construction is a combination of the usual accus. in exclamations, with , which takes a dative), because the devil is come down (see above on , Rev 12:10, on the impossibility of expressing the aor. in such connexions) to you (the earth and sea) having great wrath (the enmity, which was manifested as his natural state towards Christ, Rev 12:4, being now kindled into wrath), because he knoweth (so E. V., rightly, the participle carrying with it this ratiocinative force) that he hath but (in our language this but is necessary to shew that it is not the but the which excites his wrath. In Greek this is made clear by the position of ) a short season (i. e. because the Lord cometh quickly, and then the period of his active hostility against the church and the race whom Christ has redeemed will be at an end: he will be bound and cast into the pit. Until then, he is carrying it on, in ways which the prophecy goes on to detail). And when the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the male child (the narrative at Rev 12:6 is again taken up and given more in detail. There, the reason of the womans flight is matter of inference: here, it is plainly expressed, and the manner of the flight also is related. is not to be taken as pluperfect, still less as pointing to what was yet to take place; but is the simple historic tense, used for identification in again taking up the narrative). And there were given (in the usual apocalyptic sense of , to be granted by God for His purposes) to the woman [the] two wings of the great eagle (the figure is taken from O. T. expressions used by God in reference to the flight of Israel from Egypt. The most remarkable of these is in ref. Exod., . So also in ref. Deut. But the articles are not to be taken as identifying the eagle with the figure used in those places, which would be most unnatural: much less must they, with Ebrard, be supposed to identify this eagle with that in ch. Rev 8:13, with which it has no connexion. The articles are simply generic, as in , Lev 11:29.
With these O. T. references before us, we can hardly be justified in pressing the figure of the eagles wings to an interpretation in the fulfilment of the prophecy, or in making it mean that the flight took place under the protection of the Roman eagles, as some have done), that she might fly into the wilderness (the flight of Israel out of Egypt is still borne in mind) to her place (prepared of God, Rev 12:6; so also in Exo 23:20, ), where she is nourished (there) (as God nourished Israel with manna in the wilderness, see Deu 8:3; Deu 8:16, where is used) a time and times and half a time (i. e. 3 years = 42 months, ch. Rev 11:2 = 1260 days, Rev 11:6 and ch. Rev 11:3) from the face of the serpent ( must not be joined, as some texts are punctuated, with , but belongs, as in ref., ., to the last verb, : importing safe from, far from, hidden from). And the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman water as a river, that he might make her to be borne away by the river. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth (reff.) and swallowed down the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth (in passing to the interpretation, we cannot help being struck with the continued analogy between this prophecy and the history of the Exodus. There we have the flight into the wilderness, there the feeding in the wilderness, as already remarked: there again the forty-two stations, corresponding to the forty-two months of the three years and half of this prophecy: there too the miraculous passage of the Red Sea, not indeed in strict correspondence with this last feature, but at least suggestive of it. These analogies themselves suggest caution in the application of the words of the prophecy; and in this direction. The church in the wilderness of old was not, as some expositors would represent this woman, the pure church of God: His veritable servants were hidden in the midst of that church, as much as that church itself was withdrawn from the enmity of Pharaoh. And, it is to be noted, it was that very church herself which afterwards, when seated at Jerusalem, forsook her Lord and Husband, and committed adultery with the kings of the earth, and became drunk with the blood of the saints. It would seem then that we must not understand the woman of the invisible spiritual church of Christ, nor her flight into the wilderness of the withdrawal of Gods true servants from the eyes of the world. They indeed have been just as much withdrawn from the eyes of the world at all times, and will continue so till the great manifestation of the sons of God. I own that, considering the analogies and the language used, I am much more disposed to interpret the persecution of the woman by the dragon of the various persecutions by Jews which followed the Ascension, and her flight into the wilderness of the gradual withdrawal of the church and her agency from Jerusalem and Juda, finally consummated by the flight to the mountains on the approaching siege, commanded by our Lord Himself. And then the river which the dragon sent out of his mouth after the woman might be variously understood,-of the Roman armies which threatened to sweep away Christianity in the wreck of the Jewish nation,-or of the persecutions which followed the church into her retreats, but eventually became absorbed by the civil power turning Christian,-or of the Jewish nation itself, banded together against Christianity wherever it appeared, but eventually itself becoming powerless against it by its dispersion and ruin,-or again, of the influx of heretical opinions from the Pagan philosophies which tended to swamp the true faith. I confess that not one of these seems to me satisfactorily to answer the conditions: nor do we gain any thing by their combination. But any thing within reasonable regard for the analogies and symbolism of the text seems better than the now too commonly received historical interpretation, with its wild fancies and arbitrary assignment of words and figures. As to the time indicated by the 1260 days or 3 years, the interpretations given have not been convincing, nor even specious. We may observe thus much in this place: that if we regard this prophecy as including long historic periods, we are driven to one of two resources with regard to these numbers: either we must adopt the year-day theory (that which reckons a day for a year, and consequently a month for thirty years,-and should reckon a year for 360 years), or we must believe the numbers to have merely a symbolical and mystical, not a chronological force. If (and this second alternative is best stated in an inverse form) we regard the periods mentioned as to be literally accepted, then the prophecy cannot refer to long historic periods, but must be limited to a succession of incidents concentrated in one place and lustrum either in the far past or in the far future. Of all prophecies about which these questions can be raised, the present is the one which least satisfactorily admits of such literal interpretation and its consequences. Its actors, the woman and the dragon, are beyond all controversy mystical personages: one of them is expressly interpreted for us to be the devil: respecting the other there can be little doubt that she is the Church of God: her seed being, as expressly interpreted to be, Gods Christian people. The conflict then is that between Satan and the church. Its first great incident is the birth and triumph of the Son of God and of man. Is it likely that a few days or years will limit the duration of a prophecy confessedly of such wide import? I own it seems to me that this vision, even if it stood alone, is decisive against the literal acceptation of the stated periods. Rejecting that, how do we stand with regard to the other alternative in its two forms? Granting for the moment the year-day principle, will it help us here? If we take the flight into the wilderness as happening at any time between the Ascension, A.D. 30, and the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, 1260 years will bring us to some time between A.D. 1290 and 1330: a period during which no event can be pointed out as putting an end to the wilderness-state of the church. If again we enlarge our limit for the former event, and bring it down as late as Elliott does, i. e. to the period between the fourth and seventh centuries, we fall into all the difficulties which beset his most unsatisfactory explanation of the man-child and his being caught up to Gods throne, and besides into this one: that if the occultation of true religion (= the condition of the invisible Church) was the beginning of the wilderness-state, then either the open establishment of the Protestant churches was the end of the wilderness-state of concealment, or those churches are no true churches: either of which alternatives would hardly be allowed by that author. And if on the other hand we desert the year day principle, and say that these defined and constantly recurring periods are not to be pressed, but indicate only long spaces of time thus pointed out mystically or analogically, we seem to incur danger of missing the prophetic sense, and leaving unfixed that which apparently the Spirit of God intended us to ascertain). And the dragon was wroth at the woman (on with a dat. as applied to the object of mental affections, see ref. and note) and departed (from his pursuit of her) to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus ( . as in ch. Rev 6:9; see note there. Notice as important elements for the interpretation, 1) that the woman has seed besides the Man-child who was caught up to Gods throne (for this is the reference of ), who are not only distinct from herself, but who do not accompany her in her flight into the wilderness: 2) that those persons are described as being they who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus: 3) that during the womans time of her being fed in the wilderness, the dragon is making war, not against her, but against this remnant of her seed: 4) that by the form of expression here, these present participles descriptive of habit, and occurring at the breaking off of the vision as regards the general description of the dragons agency, it is almost necessarily implied, that the woman, while hidden in the wilderness from the dragons wrath, goes on bringing forth sons and daughters thus described.
If I mistake not, the above considerations are fatal to the view which makes the flight of the woman into the wilderness consist in the withdrawal of Gods true servants from the world and from open recognition. For thus she must be identical with this remnant of her seed, and would herself be the object of the dragons hostile warfare, at the very time when, by the terms of the prophecy, she is safely hidden from it. I own that I have been led by these circumstances to think whether after all the woman may represent, not the invisible church of Gods true people which under all conditions of the world must be known only to Him, but the true visible Church: that Church which in its divinely prescribed form as existing at Jerusalem was the mother of our Lord according to the flesh, and which continued as established by our Lord and His Apostles, in unbroken unity during the first centuries, but which as time went on was broken up by evil men and evil doctrines, and has remained, unseen, unrealized, her unity an article of faith, not of sight, but still multiplying her seed, those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus, in various sects and distant countries, waiting the day for her comely order and oneness again to be manifested-the day when she shall come up out of the wilderness, leaning on her Beloved: when our Lords prayer for the unity of His being accomplished, the world shall believe that the Father has sent Him. If we are disposed to carry out this idea, we might see the great realization of the flight into the wilderness in the final severance of the Eastern and Western churches in the seventh century, and the flood cast after the woman by the dragon in the irruption of the Mahometan armies. But this, though not less satisfactory than the other interpretations, is as unsatisfactory. The latter part of the vision yet waits its clearing up).
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rev 12:7. , Michal) The archangel, but still, a created angel. Dan 10:13; Jud 1:9. Nic. Collado, Raph. Eglinus, Jonas Le Buy, Grotius, Cluver, Mede, Dimpelius, and others, recognise a created angel.- [125]) that is, . An elegant expression. Thus Basil of Seleucia says of Abel, , altogether intent upon that which he was offering. Comp. 2Ch 26:5, in the Hebrew. The war was occasioned by the , with which the whole world was carried away.-) together with, that is, against. So , Rev 12:17; Rev 2:16; Rev 11:7; Rev 13:4; Rev 13:7; Rev 17:14; Rev 19:19.
[125] So AB (omitting ) Syr. But Rec. Text, ; Vulg. prliabantur.-E.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rev 12:7-12
3. THE WAR IN HEAVEN
Rev 12:7-12
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels; –After mentioning the flight of the woman, we have in this paragraph a statement of the sources of power, both wicked and good, with which this war was to be carried on. The words describe what John saw in the picture; they symbolically represent the efforts to destroy the true church. According to Dan 10:13; Dan 12:1, Michael is an angel of heaven that assists the righteous. Symbolically this indicates that in the struggles the church would be under the providence of God and led by those holding the testimony or words of Jesus. This evidently was designed to encourage the Christians to endure faithfully in spite of all persecutions. Verse 9 plainly says the dragon is the devil or Satan. Just as Jesus operates through his followers, so Satan operates through human agents. In this case pagan Rome is the instrumental dragon, the devil the influencing dragon. Hence, the visible war refers to the conflict between pagan Rome and the church.
8 and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven.–This means that pagan Rome was to fail in her war on the church. In spite of bloody persecutions and a multitude of martyrs, the church still survived and won imperial recognition early in the fourth century. The decrees by Roman emperors to banish the Christian name from the earth had failed, as we have already seen. The devil through paganism continued to war against the church. Some forty years after Constantine recognized Christianity as the true religion, the Roman Emperor Julian withdrew privileges conferred by Constantine and was considered by the church as a tyrant. Gibbon says that “the genius of Paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts of Julian, sunk irrevocably in the dust” under his successor Jovian; that under Jovian’s reign “Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory.” (Vol. II, p. 521.)
9 And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.–Here we have the direct statement that the devil is the indirect but real power that operated through paganism. John in the vision sees him and his angels cast down from heaven to earth. That represents the fact that paganism, which formerly ruled in the Roman Empire, had lost its seat of authority; Christianity had so prevailed as to overcome that influence. When the Christian religion became so influential as to affect the ruling house, all the agencies that were angels or helpers of paganism also lost place and power.
10 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:–John heard a great voice coming from the place where he saw the dragon cast down. Verses 10-12 are a song of thanksgiving for the victory the saints gained over the pagan enemies. The word “brethren” in the next clause probably indicates that the rejoicing was done by the martyrs who had, under the fifth seal, inquired how long they must wait. See notes on 6 :9-11. Those exalted sing a song in celebration of victory. For other examples, see Exodus 15 and Judges 5. The victory over paganism was enough to cause rejoicing by the spirits of the martyrs as well as living saints.
The expression now is come “the kingdom” does not mean that the kingdom had not existed before that time. It can only be that it had come in the sense of prevailing over its enemies–come to its rightful position of authority to exist by permission of the empire. The saints had been saved a tong time, yet the text speaks of salvation coining. Their Christianity had been preserved through persecutions. The authority; of Christ had existed since Pentecost (Mat 28:18 Act 1:6-8), yet the passage says it now is come. These blessings had all come in the sense they were permitted to enjoy them in spite of all sacrifices they had made.
for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night.–Satan is here called an accuser of the brethren. This shows that through his agents he makes false charges against the true people of God. Seeing the dragon cast down indicates that paganism as the devil’s agency lost its authority to persecute the church because Rome became, at least, nominally Christian. Day and night shows that Satan’s work against righteousness is constant
11 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.–Clearly this refers to a time of martyrs. “Our brethren” who were accused by Satan are the ones indicated. The blood of Christ was not only the ground of their justification, but that which stimulated them to a victorious struggle. The victory of Jesus even in giving his life was, by their faithfulness, made their victory. The word of their testimony means that in spite of their persecutions their testimony to Christ’s words had not failed. They had not loved their lives so much that they would refuse to die for the truth. The supreme sacrifice was made for the church.
12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell 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 time.–The great voice in heaven which John heard was exhorting those who dwell in the heavens to rejoice. It is true that “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God” even over one that repents (Luk 15:10), but another application seems more probable for the verse iii hand. The preceding facts represented by the woman-dragon symbols indicate things that happened to the church and pagan Rome. This is presumptive evidence that this part of the symbol should be so applied. In verse 5 the man-child (seed of the woman, verse 17) was caught up to God. This occurred when the church gained recognition from the Roman Empire. This was the “heavens” to which the church was exalted and furnished to them the occasion for the rejoicing here mentioned. Elliott (Vol. III, p. 33) quotes from Eusebius as follows: “Formerly we used to sing, ‘We have heard what thou didst in our fathers’ day.’ But now we have to sing a second song of victory; our own eyes have seen his salvation.” This is almost the language of verse 10.
Woe for earth and sea is what the voice announced would take place, not that it was asking for a woe to fall upon them. In these visions the world probably means the Roman world ; earth and sea would mean the woe would come upon the whole Roman Empire. It would happen because the devil had come down–that is, paganism was operating under his influence. Satan was wroth–instigating the Roman Empire to engage in the most cruel measures–because he knew that his time was limited. There are three ways in which he knew his time for action was limited: He would soon cease to operate, primarily through pagan Rome; under the reign of the beast his power was to he restrained for a thousand years ; and at the judgment his influence over the righteous is to end. His career, then, is strictly a limited one.
Commentary on Rev 12:7-12 by Foy E. Wallace
THE WAR IN HEAVEN (Rev 12:7-17)
There are several words in the general vocabulary of Revelation, the connotations of which must be understood. These are the words: air, earth, sea, quake, heaven, stars and war. The symbols are employed in the following meaning : air, the sphere of life and influence; earth, the place of the nations; sea, society described as either troubled and tossed or placid and peaceful; quake, the political shaking of the nations; heaven, the governments, authorities and dominions; stars, the rulers and officials of governments; war, the upheavals in the governments and among inhabitants of the earth (various provinces of the empire); and the conflicts between the heathen authorities and the church in the waging of the persecutions of the saints. With this nomenclature defined, the various facets of the phraseology employed in the next few verses can be explained.
(1) The War with Michael and His Angels-Rev 12:7-8.
1. There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels. The war in heaven meant the hostilities which developed with the tributary governments of Rome. Two classes were here placed in opposition–Michael and his angels are put in opposition to the dragon and his angels.
The dragon and his angels represented all of the powers of paganism and darkness. Conversely, Michael and his angels were representative of the truth and the light of Christianity. Michael was represented in Dan 12:1-13 as defender and guardian of Israel. So Michael and his angels were the representatives and protectors of the woman-the persecuted church. They fought against the dragon and his evil angels by the means of the war between the satellites of Rome, because these conflicts within the Roman empire diverted the emperors attention from the persecutions of the woman and gave respite to the church. History verifies this outbreak of wars within the Roman empire during this period of persecution; and in Mat 24:1-51 Jesus foretold that such wars would exist to shorten these days.
2. And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven- – Rev 12:8. The almost universal belief that Satan originated in heaven with God and Christ, apostatized from his created angelic state, caused war among the sinless world of Gods own heaven, and because he could not be tolerated there, he was expelled to this mundane sphere to trouble and torment all humanity for all time-that is an inherited belief or notion completely out of harmony with the character of heaven. It is a great incongruity. Heaven, where God dwells, is the divine domain of light, where is no darkness, no evil, no apostasy. Hell is the diabolical realm of darkness, where there is no purity, no good, and where light cannot penetrate. The generally accepted view that Satan became a wicked angel in heaven where God dwells, and that he corrupted and recruited other angels for his revolution, puts apostasy in heaven and is incompatible with the nature of the angels of God in heaven.
If apostasy can befall the inhabitants of heaven, in consequence it would render insecure all who obtain that world, in that being subject to apostasy they, too, might be expelled. No sin, nothing evil, can enter or prevail in the abode of the pure and holy in the eternal mansions of Gods habitation.
The passage in Isa 14:12 was descriptive of the degeneration of the king: How art thou fallen from heaven, 0 Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations. In his degeneracy this wicked king of ancient history, whose depravity weakened the nations, was cut down; he fell from his high place of dominion. The meaning of the heaven from which the Satanic dragon was cast is the same as the heaven from which fell Lucifer, the wicked Babylonian king.
When Jesus said to the disciples (Luk 10:18) that he beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven, he did not mean that with physical sight he had seen the devil as a physical object fall-it was rather the Lords forecast that he had foreseen Satans complete defeat and downfall from his throne of evil dominion. It was Satans own heaven or domain of rulership from which he would fall, and it would come soon and as swiftly as lightning–and it did.
When Peter mentioned (2Pe 2:4) the angels that sinned, and were cast down to hell, and delivered to chains of darkness, and reserved to judgment–it was undoubtedly in reference to the downfall of certain representatives of the human race in high estate, the era and details of which the apostle left unmentioned and therefore remains unrevealed.
It is more reasonable to theorize that Satan and his devils originated in this manner than to hypothesize that he inhabited and corrupted heaven, the abode of God.
[See notes on Rev 12:8 for discussion of the fall of Satan]
3. And the great dragon was cast out . . . which deceiveth the whole world . . . he was cast out into the earth-Rev 12:9. The dragon and his evil agents prevailed not against Michaels protection of the woman, which he accomplished by the diversion of the emperors diplomacy to employ his armies to quell the revolutions in many parts of the imperial world.
The context of this section was a diversion from the main scene due to the side effects of the involvement of the Roman rulers in the revolutions in their far-flung tributaries.
So the statement neither was their place found any more in heaven was a reference to the final outcome, and is not chronological, or in the order of sequence here. The dragon prevailed not–the cause of the woman (the church) which Michael represented triumphed, in the war with heathenism which the dragon represented, and he eventually prevailed not but lost his own place in heaven –that is, in the governments which had been used to persecute the church. And, he was cast down to the earth–that is, Satan was cast out of his sphere of influence through the government authorities against the church. He was cast down to the earth–the place of the inhabitants of the nations as distinguished from the children of the woman, the church. The woman had appeared in the same sphere with the dragon in the war in heaven, as antagonists and was represented by Michael against the dragon. In the final outcome of this struggle the dragon lost his place of power and influence–hence, cast down from his high position in which he had been able to deceive the world. Dethroned from his dominion he went in search of other prey, as mentioned in 1Pe 5:8 –“the devil as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
The dragon in the end was seen as having lost the war in heaven against the woman. Jesus anticipated this defeat of Satan in Joh 12:31 : Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. This judgment was pronounced upon the dragon in the war against the woman. He lost his place of dominion, but continued to deceive the world, as declared by Paul in Eph 2:2 : According to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. The phrase prince of the power of the air denotes a sphere of influence only. Satan has no longer a dominion of power. He is only an influent being who exerts a deceptive influence, an infiltration insensibily affecting the mind and conscience –an inflow of evil.
In Revelation the term earth, as previously stated, designated the place of nations, distinguished from the realm of the church. And air refers to the sphere of life and influence.
Thus having lost his power of dominion, he is now prince of the power of the air–that is, having only an exercise of influence which only operates throughthe spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
Jesus Christ through the gospel destroyed Satans power –he holds no power of dominion over any one. He can operate only through the sphere of influence. The one who serves Satan is a willing servant through the spirit of disobedience. God has the power to destroy both soul and body of one who refuses to serve him (Mat 10:28), but Satan has no power over any one (Heb 2:14); if one does not choose to follow Satan, he can do nothing; he has no power to conscript, and no power to punish.
And the great dragon was cast out into the earth. Satan prevailed not against the woman, the church, and was cast out into the earth, the place of the nations, where he would again in a broader effort seek to deceive the whole world, as distinguished from the church.
And his angels were cast out with him. These Satanic angels included all of the combined forces of heathenism which he had employed against the church, and as prince of the power of the air, he continued to operate in the sphere of life and influence through the spirit of disobedience.
(2) The victory of the woman-Rev 12:10-17.
It should be remembered that with the twelfth chapter there is the beginning of the recapitulation of all the events depicted in the first series of visions from chapter four to eleven. The first series of symbols surrounded Christ the conqueror; the second series encompassed the same events in a new set of symbols and surrounded the woman, the church in the midst of that period of trial. The verses now under consideration set forth the womans victory over the dragon and parallels the triumph of the Rider of the white horse of the sixth chapter who was the conquering Christ of the closing verses of chapter eleven.
1. And I heard a loud voice saying, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ-Rev 12:10. This loud voice of victory reverted to the chorus of great voices in Rev 11:15; and the exclamation now is come salvation . . . and the kingdom of our God was repetitive of the refrain of Rev 11:15, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ. The meaning is that the kingdoms of the world became the kingdoms of the Lord by the conversion of its citizens. It was the anticipation of the world-wide expansion of Christianity through the gospel, after the destruction of Jerusalem, as forecast by the Lord in Mat 24:31 –and that is the meaning of the statement, now is come salvation . . . and the kingdom of our God.
The salvation here meant deliverance of the woman (the church) from the dragon; and strength referred to the source of endurance; and the power of his Christ referred to that authority higher than Romes emperor, that divine rod of iron by which the power of Satan, personified in the persecutor, had been broken and by which his diabolical character had been exposed.
2. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down-Rev 12:10. In Rev 12:9 it states that the dragon was cast out into the earth–the place of the nations, or the political society. This was not the positions of government authority included within the sphere of the phrase in heaven. In verse 10 the dragon (the persecutor) was called the accuser of our brethren. This referred to that part of the offspring of the woman who were not martyrs, but were like the seer of the apocalypse on Patmos: I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. The emphasis put on the accuser of our brethren by the additional statement, which accused them before our God day and night, indicated the habitual character of the dragon-accuser, that the oppositions of the persecutor would be persistent and continuous.
3. But they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives untodeath-Rev 12:11.
The victors here are not the same company as Michael and his hosts of Rev 12:7. The dragon had lost that war and had been cast out of that sphere of conflict but continued his opposition to the brethren of those of whom Michael was defender and protector– he extended his persecutions to the womans offspring, or the church beyond the region of Jerusalem and Judea. But as Michael and his hosts had prevailed against him in Judea so did the brethren elsewhere who became the objects of the dragons extended persecutions. And this verse commemorates by anticipations the victory which the saints had won on the ground or cause and by the means of the blood of the Lamb, the shed blood of Christ. The further reason for their victory was the word of their testimony– because of the faithful testimony which they had borne in oral declarations. The high tribute in the praise that they loved not their lives unto death meant that these persecuted saints had disregarded their lives for the sake of their cause; in the willingness to join the martyrs they displayed the fidelity that brought them victory over their accuser and persecutor.
4. Therefore, rejoice ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them-Rev 12:12. The power of the persecutors broken, and the accuser of the brethren exposed, was here the cause for this rejoicing of the heavens–because it had been delivered from the evil spirit of the accuser. The heavens here meant that spiritual realm referred to in Eph 1:3 as the heavenly places. The phrase and ye that dwell in them meant that these heavens are the spiritual abode of every faithful soul. (Eph 2:6) It is that spiritual sphere of the church in which He dwells to lead and instruct his followers, and in which his power had kept them through their faith in Him and their fidelity to His cause. (Eph 3:17)
This benedictory is comparable to the prophets song of rejoicing for Israel in Isa 49:13 : Sing 0 heavens; and be joyful 0 earth . . . ` for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. The Isaiah passage referred to Israel of the Old Testament in exile, and this Revelation text refers to the church of the New Testament in their period of persecution.
5. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time-Rev 12:12. The persecutions which had been focused on one sphere of the dragons activity in the realm of governments against Jerusalem were not expanded to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea. The word earth here was used to denote the land of Palestine–as the reference to the beast of the land designated the Palestinian persecutor. The word sea indicated the regions of the empire beyond the land of Israel.
The dragons defeat in the first sphere of his war against the woman intensified the activities of his persecutions, and having great wrath he transferred his oppositions and expanded them to the earth and the sea–to all regions where the children of the woman, the objects of his wrath, could be found.
The statement because he knoweth that he hath but a short time was based on the fundamental principle pervading the apocalypse–which things must shortly come to pass (Rev 1:1); and the time is at hand (Rev 1:3).The binding of Satan, the dragon, and casting him into the bottomless pit were included in the things which in the first chapter of the Revelation the seer announced as at hand, and must shortly come to pass; which things in the last chapter he declared must shortly be done (Rev 22:6); and quickly to occur (Rev 22:7); and, once more, at hand (Rev 22:10). From the first chapter to the last the Revelation repeatedly emphasized the immediacy of the events, removing them from remote fulfillment. It forms a solid argument for the fulfillment of the symbols of Revelation in the experiences of the churches addressed.
The extension of the apocalypse to the medieval centuries, to the dark ages, to the present day, and to the end of time is the greatest anachronism in all history.
Commentary on Rev 12:7-12 by Walter Scott
WAR IN HEAVEN.
Rev 12:7-9. – And there was war in the Heaven: Michael and his angels went to war with the dragon. And the dragon fought, and his angels; and he prevailed not, nor was their place found any more in the Heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, the ancient serpent, he who is called Devil and Satan, he who deceives the whole habitable world, he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. The scene described in these verses is not spoken of as a sign. The presence of Satan in Heaven is a reality. A war there between the hosts of good and evil under their respective leaders, Michael and the Dragon, is most sure. The statement that Satan has a place in the Heaven, not in the immediate presence of God, is received with surprise by many and with incredulity by others; and it is deemed stranger still to speak of actual conflict in the place beyond all others of peace and rest, in the place of
No midnight shade, no clouded sun,
But sacred, high, eternal noon.
But when the vastness of the heavens is considered we cease to wonder. No child in the Fathers house, no saint there, need ever fear the conflict of contending hosts. But sin was conceived in the heart of Satan. Not content to occupy a creatures place, although probably the highest of spiritual intelligences (Eze 28:12-17), he aspired to the throne itself. He sinned. He morally fell from his exalted position. But he was not then cast down from the heavens. Other spirits are associated with him in his moral degradation. The blessings of saints are in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3), there also they sit, but in Christ (Eph 2:6). Others besides saints are in the heavenlies (Eph 3:10); and there our Christian conflict is carried on now (not after death or the Coming – no warfare then) against wicked spirits (Eph 6:12). Now, however, the moment has come for his final expulsion from the Heaven, and the hosts of evil with him. He has to be cast down to the earth, then into the abyss, and finally into the lake of fire, not to reign, but to suffer eternally, the most abject and degraded of beings. The first step in the execution of judgment upon Satan is his forced dislodgment from above. It is the time and occasion referred to by the prophet Isaiah. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth (Isa 24:21). Jehovah will mete out punishment to the sinning angels in their place on high, and to the mighty on earth as well. None, however exalted in rank and position, can escape.
MICHAEL.
But who is Michael (who is like unto God)? This distinguished angel is named five times in the Scriptures (Dan 10:13; Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1; Jud 1:9; Rev 12:7). He seems to be the leader of the angelic hierarchy, as he is termed by Jude the archangel, (Scripture does not speak of archangels, only of one, and that in two passages in the New Testament (1Th 4:16; Jud 1:9). The Pauline reference is to Christ, the true, real head of angelic power; the other by Jude speaks of that angelic created being who presides over the destinies of Israel. The only two angels who are specifically named are Michael and Gabriel.) and in Dan 10:13, where Michael is first named, he is spoken of as first of the chief princes (see margin). In each of the five passages where his name occurs, and in their several contexts, the Jewish people are in question. Evidently he is the angel to whose guardian care the interests of Israel are committed. And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of Thy people, i.e., the Jewish people (Dan 12:1). The period referred to by the prophet is the same time beheld in vision by the Seer of Patmos. The Great Tribulation is to be entered upon. But Michael makes it his business to see that Israel does not perish. He (Jacob) shall be saved out of it (Jer 30:7). Michael is a militant angel. The contests between Persia and Babylon were to all appearance decided by the generalship and force of arms of the renowned Persian, Cyrus, the prophetically designated over thrower of the Babylonian monarchy and the deliverer of the Jewish people from their lengthened exile of seventy years (Isa 44:28; Isa 45:1-4), but it was not really so. The movements of nations, their wars, politics, and social policy are shaped and directed by higher and spiritual powers. There are angels, good and bad, who are constantly influencing men and governments, and of this chapter 10 of Daniel is a conspicuous example. Wars and strife on earth are but the reflex of opposing spiritual powers in the lower heavens. The invisible struggles between the powers of light and the forces of darkness are real and earnest (1Sa 16:13-15; 1Ki 22:19-23), and by the influence of these spiritual beings the world is providentially governed. Angelic agency toward the saints of God on earth (Heb 1:14; Act 12:1-25) is a generally admitted truth, but their action in determining the issue of battles and shaping national policy, and human interests generally, is not recognised as it ought to be. Of course all is under the wise, strong, and controlling hand of God. He is the supreme Arbiter in human life and history. In the chapter referred to (Dan 10:1-21) Michael goes to the help of an unnamed angel who had wrought at the court of Persia for twenty-one days (v. 13). With the assistance of the archangel the destinies of Persia were directed, resulting in the two associated facts: Babylon the oppressor overthrown, and Judah the oppressed delivered. Michael, too, figures in the contest about the body of Moses. Satan sought possession of the body no doubt to ensnare Israel to worship it, as they did the brazen serpent (2Ki 18:4). But no human hand dug the grave of Moses. Jehovah buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day (Deu 34:6). Jude in a few energetic sentences informs us of the cause of dispute between Satan and Michael. Now the contest in our chapter in the Apocalypse is not one between two chiefs simply, as mentioned by Jude, but here the respective forces gather under their distinguished leaders. Michael and his angels went to war with the dragon. And the dragon fought, and his angels.
THE HEAVENS CLEARED.
The issue of the war between the contending spiritual hosts is in no wise a doubtful one. Satan and his angels are overthrown.
Rev 12:8. – He prevailed not, nor was their place found any more in the Heaven. The dragon personally suffered an ignominious defeat, while the whole company of sinful angelic intelligences is for ever banished from the Heaven. On the return of the seventy disciples from their mission they tell their Lord, and that with joy, how even the devils (demons) are subject to us through Thy Name. That, however, was but the germ of full and final victory over the enemy and his power, and this the Lord prophetically announced when He immediately added, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from Heaven (Luk 10:17-18). Whatever the resistance offered to his expulsion from Heaven, his downfall will be effected completely and instantaneously like a flash of lightning. From the day that pride and lofty ambition entered his heart, for then he sinned, he has not only a place in Heaven, where he unceasingly accuses Gods saints, but He traverses the earth as well on his mission of mischief. He is the leader of the demon host, and of every form and kind of sinful, spiritual agency. The devil is a real person, not an influence, but a living spiritual being. The vision before us has its actual fulfilment in the midst of the prophetic week – about the close of the first half. The treaty made between the Roman prince and the restored nation, or the many, i.e., the mass of the people, is respected, and its terms observed for the half of the stipulated period of seven years (Dan 9:27). But instigated by Satan, the Roman prince breaks the covenant in the midst of the week. The scene before us is preparatory to it, and, in fact, accounts for the last uprising of evil, civil and religious, on the earth. Cast down from Heaven, Satan takes possession of the doomed scene, and exerts his untiring energy in the ruin and destruction of all then standing for God. The war in Heaven results in the victory of Michael and his associated angels. The dragon and his angels are cast down, never to regain a heavenly position. Then Satan turns his baffled rage against the woman, or what represents her before God in testimony, i.e., the Jewish remnant on the earth. The Tribulation (which in its range covers the whole prophetic area, but in its worst and severest forms of suffering especially affects Palestine) lasts the exactly defined period of 1260 days. We consider it clear, therefore, that the expulsion of Satan from Heaven and his downfall to the earth is on the eve of the Tribulation, and is really the procuring cause of it.
JUDGMENT ON SATAN.
There are three distinct stages in the judgment on Satan. First, he is cast down from Heaven to earth with his associated angels (v. 9); second, he is confined as a prisoner in the abyss for one thousand years (Rev 20:3); third, he is consigned to eternal torment in the lake of fire (v. 10). The first two acts of judgment are executed by the instrumentality of angels; the third and final one is an exhibition of divine power irrespective of the agency employed to execute it, which is not named, The lake of fire! There the wail of anguish is never hushed, and the tear is never dry. No ray of light nor gleam of hope ever enters those caverns of eternal despair. Mind cannot conceive nor pen trace the horror of such a doom. Satans reign in the lake of fire is but the dream of the poet, and is without a shred of Scripture to support it. There he suffers – not reigns – the most degraded and abject of Gods creatures. How patient is our God, but how sure His threatened judgments! Satan after seven thousand years of active hatred against God, and of hostility to those who are His, is at length crushed, shorn of power and ability to work further mischief, and shut up with his angels to his and their prepared doom, everlasting fire (Mat 25:41).
NAMES AND WORK OF SATAN.
The dragon is here viewed in relation to earth and the human race; hence these four names, as also in Rev 20:2, in the same order.
(1) The great dragon, so termed because of his remorseless cruelty. Legend and hieroglyphic paint the dragon as a monster in form and appearance outside the pale of the animal kingdom, a combination of superhuman craft and cruelty.
(2) The ancient serpent reminds us of his first and successful attempt to effect the ruin of the happy and innocent pair in Eden (Gen 3:1-24). Subtlety, craft, deep cunning are characteristic features of Satan from the beginning of his history in connection with the race. He has ever been a murderer and a liar (Joh 8:44; 1Jn 3:8). The ancient serpent refers to his first historical connection with the race, and the title serpent (We are satisfied that Gen 3:1-24 is a true and historical account of what actually took place. That Satan spoke through a real serpent seems unquestionable. There is no need of supposing, with Josephus and his learned translator, Whiston, that serpents along with other reptiles of a similar species had the faculty of speech before the Fall, but lost it consequent on its wicked misuse under the dominion of Satan. There are three remarkable instances in the Old Testament of the miraculous use of the lower animals: (1) Speech given to the serpent (Gen 3:1-24); (2) a certain intelligence and speech granted to the ass ridden by Balaam (Num 22:21-30); (3) The great fish which swallowed up Jonah, answering to the voice of Jehovah in throwing up the repentant prophet on dry land (Jon 2:10). We firmly believe in the exact historical accuracy of these narratives, which, moreover, are vouched for in the New Testament (see 2Co 11:3; 2Pe 2:15-16; Mat 12:40). The stater or piece of money in the mouth of the first fish caught by the hook (Mat 17:27) is another instance of divine power and foreknowledge in support of the claim of the Creator over the works of His hands. The creation of the serpent species is stated in Gen 1:24-25; Gen 3:1. The governmental curse pronounced on the reptile is noted in Gen 3:14. Its degradation even in millennial days is stated in Isa 65:25.) to his subtlety (2Co 11:3). Satan, needless to say, is a spirit and a real person.
He who is called, referring now to personal names, (1) Devil, and (2) Satan. The two former titles are descriptive of character – cruelty and subtlety; the two latter names, Devil and Satan, refer to the dragon as a person. The devil is an actual historical being, and in the Greek of the New Testament is used only in the singular. Devils should be demons (R.V.). As the devil, he is the accuser, the traducer, and tempter. As Satan, he is the open and declared adversary of Christ, the public enemy of God and of His people (see Job 1:1-22; Job 2:1-13; Zec 3:1-10; Mat 4:1-25; Eph 6:11; 1Pe 5:8).
The special work of Satan is next stated, and one to which his untiring energy is directed. He deceives the whole habitable world. The human instruments in effecting his purpose (Rev 13:1-18), and Gods judicial judgment upon Christendom, i.e., the habitable earth, are not here named. The prime mover in all is alone before us. By Gods permission Satan deceives all embraced within the prophetic scene (2Th 2:7-12), whoever may be the persons employed, or whatever the means used, Satan himself is the leader in luring on the world to its moral ruin. Christianity having been abandoned, God gives up in retributive justice the guilty and apostate Church, and the mass of Judah as well, to believe the lie of Satan, in presenting the Antichrist as Israels promised Messiah and king, backed up by signs of a miraculous character. The bait is eagerly swallowed. The whole habitable world is deceived thereby. Then, however, Satan keeps in the background; here in the light of Heaven he stands fully exposed. He was the unseen but spiritual and personal power behind Herod (compare v. 4 with Mat 2:16). He is equally so in the judicial blinding of Christendom by his great satellite, the Antichrist, or second Beast of Rev 13:1-18.
Rev 12:9. – He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. The threefold repetition of the verb cast out is meant to emphasise the fact of the ignominious expulsion of Satan and his angels from Heaven. Who these angels are is a question shrouded in mystery. All we know is that they constitute Satans militant host, and are cast out of Heaven with their distinguished chief. Satan can then no more enter Gods presence and accuse the saints to Him, nor can his poisonous breath ever again infect the holy atmosphere of the heavenly places. The heavens have to be cleared of evil as well as the earth, and the ground on which both spheres are to be purified and reconciled (Col 1:20) is the sacrifice of Christ (Heb 9:23). How complete, therefore, and far-reaching in its results is the blood of Christ!
TRIUMPH – WOE.
Rev 12:10-12. – And I heard a great voice in the 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 has been cast out, who accused them before our God day and night; and they have overcome him by reason of the blood of the Lamb, and by reason of the word of their testimony, and have not loved their life even unto death. Therefore be full of delight, ye heavens, and ye that dwell (or tabernacle) in them. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great rage, knowing he has a short time. A great voice in the Heaven heard by the Seer is that of the already risen (1Co 15:1-58; 1Th 4:1-18) and glorified saints. In a subsequent vision an angel addressing John says thy brethren (Rev 19:10); whereas it is here our brethren, language unsuitable in the lips of an angelic being. In the doxology which follows the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom are announced as come. But that is as yet in anticipation. As a necessary and preliminary step to the accomplishment of the kingdom set up in displayed power Satan has been cast out of the heavenlies. The prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2) is a title henceforth lost to him for ever. The power of the kingdom having been so gloriously vindicated in Heaven all is announced there as come, although not actually so on earth.
The insertion of the definite article before each of the subjects named gives definiteness and force. The salvation is not that of the soul now, nor even of the body at the Coming, but is a wide and comprehensive thought embracing the overthrow of the enemy and the deliverance of creation from its present thralldom and agony (Rom 8:21). The power refers to the irresistible might which shall crush and grind to atoms all opposing authority whether satanic in the Heavens or human on the earth. Now it is the kingdom in patience, then it will be the kingdom in power. The kingdom must be understood here in its largest extent, as embracing the heavens and the earth. The kingdom of the Father, and the kingdom of the Son (Mat 13:41-43), respectively set forth the two main departments, heavenly and earthly, of the vast and universal kingdom of our God and of His Christ (see Psa 2:1-12).
The casting out of Satan is an event almost second to none in those coming days of stirring interest. The ceaseless activity of the accuser of our brethren in denouncing the saints to God, whose ways afford him abundant cause of complaint and ground of accusation, is a solemn feature of what goes on above unseen by mortal eye. Thank God, we have in Christ, the Righteous One, an Advocate with the Father (1Jn 2:1-2), whose all-powerful intercession, founded on His sacrifice, maintains us ever before God, and renders the charges of the enemy nugatory and powerless. The accuser of our brethren has been cast out. Satan is completely vanquished and overthrown in the scene and seat of his power. Never again shall his accusations, just or unjust, be listened to in the court of Heaven.
We take it, therefore, that, as a result of the war in Heaven, the celestial regions are for ever freed from the presence of Satan and wicked spirits against whom our conflict, as Christians, is carried on (Eph 6:12, R.V.). (It may not be in every ones mind that the aerial regions, the air, the cloud-heavens, the spaces above the earth, are now the chief lurking places of evil spirits. But so the Bible teaches. Paul says we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, with wicked spirits in high places, literally, in the heavens, in the aerial regions (Eph 6:12). Hence also Satan is called the prince of the power of the air, more literally, the prince of the aerial host, meaning wicked spiritual powers dwelling in the aerial heavens (Eph 2:2). Thus the satanic confederation has its seat in the upper air, in the atmospheric heaven, in the spaces above and around our world. There they are permitted to have place up to the time of this war. – Lectures on the Apocalypse. Dr. Seiss, vol. 2, page 362.) The prince of the power of the air must not be confounded with the title The prince of this world. As the former he heads the spiritual powers above, as the latter he heads the temporal powers on earth. The Lord having judged the host of the high ones that are on high it only remains to fulfil the second part of the prophetic utterance, and the kings of the earth upon the earth (Isa 24:21).
Rev 12:10 – Our brethren. Who are they? If the voice in Heaven is that of the heavenly saints, then the brethren referred to would be saints on earth whom Satan accuses, fellow-saints with those in Heaven. These saints were overcomers in their severe conflict with evil. The machinations of Antichrist, and the wiles and even open hostility of the devil were powerless against men whose consciences had been purged by the blood of the Lamb, the holy and righteous ground, moreover, of their standing before God, and in virtue of which the accusations of Satan could not be entertained nor even listened to. There are two grounds stated for their victory over Satan. First, the blood of the Lamb which gave them boldness before God; second, their testimony to men. In this case it would be, of course, of a prophetic character. A third and supplementary statement is added, which shows that the martyr spirit was mighty in them, and have not loved their life even unto death. As partakers of the heavenly calling resurrection is assured them, for all saints who have died, or shall die, share in the blessedness of the first resurrection. The company here referred to are not yet seen raised, but wait for it. These martyrs are distinct from those who subsequently suffer under the Beast, i.e., revived Rome.
Rev 12:12. – Therefore be full of delight, ye heavens, that is for this cause, that Satan and his angels have been for ever ejected from Heaven. Rejoice, let gladness reign throughout the whole of the heavenly spheres. This is the only instance in the Apocalypse of the word heavens, otherwise it is invariably employed in the singular. But not the heavens alone are to share in the joy consequent on the victory of Michael, for it is added, and ye that dwell (or tabernacle) in them. The whole company of the redeemed and angels as well (for the heavens are their native region) are embraced in the call to rejoice. The word dwell or tabernacle is the same as in Rev 7:15; Rev 13:6; Rev 21:3.
Rev 12:12 – Woe to the earth and to the sea. The Authorized Version wrongly inserts the inhabiters of the earth. The interpolation is uncalled for. This is not a denunciation of wrath, but a prophetic announcement of coming judgment on the earth, i.e., on all settled and stable governments and peoples; also on the sea, i.e., the restless and revolutionary part of the world. We have already referred more than once to the symbolic representation of earth and sea.(*See remarks on Rev 7:1; and on Rev 8:7.) The former denoting what is fixed, the latter what is unstable. These terms may be used of either things, persons, or governments.
The cause of the prophetic woe on the world at large is next stated, the devil has come down to you. His expulsion from the heavens is a matter of jubilant praise above, his deportation to the earth will fill the whole scene under Heaven with sorrow, wickedness, and woe.
Rev 12:12 – The great rage, or wrath, of Satan exceeds that of the nations (Rev 11:18), inasmuch as the former is the prime mover and invisible leader. His rage in being for ever exiled from his heavenly place is intensified by the knowledge that he has before him but a short career on earth. Whether the devil knows the exact period allotted him before he is banished to the abyss we know not. This, however, Christians know, or at least should know, that Satan, when cast down, is permitted to rage against and persecute Gods saints on earth for 1260 literal days; after this a breathing space is granted, a lull in the storm which lasts for seventeen days and a half, the time during which the Beast, the apostate civil and imperial power, is itself the subject of special judgment under the Vials (Rev 16:1-21), and therefore cannot persecute. These two denominations of time added make up exactly three years and a half, at the close of which the Lord appears, and Satan is confined in the abyss for a thousand years. This is the second stage in the judgment of the devil. The first was his casting down from the heavens. It only remains to execute the third, which is accomplished at the close of the kingdom reign, cast into the lake of fire, his eternal doom. Since the sphere of his operation is restricted to the earth, and Satan knows that his brief career must soon end in utter disaster to himself and his followers, spiritual and human, he gives himself in untiring determination to wreak his vengeance on the woman (Judah), the mother of the Man-Child, and this he is permitted to do during the last half of Daniels future prophetic week, less seventeen and a half days. This shortening of the days is what the Lord prophetically referred to in His Mount Olivet Discourse (Mat 24:22).
Commentary on Rev 12:7-12 by E.M. Zerr
Rev 12:7. War in heaven. We must keep in mind that everything being described is symbolic and shown to John right there on that isle of Pat-mos. But also we should not forget that inspired symbols stand for actual facts and truths. This war was not the first conflict that the forces of heaven had had with Satan for Jesus said he saw him fall from heaven (Luk 10:18). And Paul tells us what was the cause of the first conflict, namely, his pride (1Ti 3:6). Ever since that event he has been the bitter enemy of heaven and all that pertains thereto, never losing an opportunity of getting in his evil work. Now when he sees this expectant mother in heaven (verse 1) he is determined to start a war over it. Just why or how the devil could be present in the vicinity of the angels is not told us in detail, but we know from Job 1:6 Job 2:1 that he has been suffered in the past to be present at gatherings of the angels before God. But the time Jesus saw him fall as cited in Luke was not on the occasion of this war, for the angels who won in the war ascribed the victory to the blood of the Lamb, and when Jesus said he saw Satan fall from heaven was before He had shed his blood. Hence this war was just another attempt of Satan to get in his wicked work and head off the plan of the Lord to give to the world a religion free from the entanglements of worldly despotism, and the selfish ambition of wicked men. It was fitting that Michael should be the angel to lead the forces of heaven against Satan, for he is called “one of the chief princes” in Dan 10:13, and chapter 12:1 of that same book says that he is the prince that “standeth for the children of thy people.”
Rev 12:8. Satan was defeated and neither was their place found any more in heaven. This means that the enemy not only was vanquished but driven from the field.
Rev 12:9. Satan was cast out and his angels were cast out with him. This agrees with 2Pe 2:4 and Jud 1:6, and also explains why Jesus speaks of the devil’s angels in Mat 25:41. Satan is called that old serpent because he used that beast as his agent in Gen 3:1-4. Deceiveth the whole world does not mean that every person in the world is deceived for there are exceptions. The thought is that all deception that is in the world is to be attributed to him.
Rev 12:10. It was perfectly logical that the righteous persons should rejoice over the defeat of Satan. Nov is come is their way of saying that the kingdom of our God was given another victory through the power of his Christ. Accuser of our brethren. The specific accusation is not stated, but since it was a daily performance we may conclude that it refers to the general opposition that Satan has always waged against the Lord and his faithful servants.
Rev 12:11. The pronoun they stands for “our brethren” in the preceding verse, who are said to have overcome Satan in the war that was fought in heaven. Verse 7 says that Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. There is no conflict in the statements which show that the forces of heaven are always ready to join in any battle with the forces of evil. This recalls the statement of Paul in Heb 1:14 that the angels are “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.” Overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. The blood had brought them the hope of salvation and that hope gave them the courage to fight Satan. By the word of their testimony. They persisted in their defence of the testimony of Jesus and that helped to put Satan to flight. Jas 4:7 says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Loved not their lives unto death. Their faith in the righteousness of their Master’s cause was so strong that even the threat or presence of death could not dampen their zeal. (See Mat 10:28.) An army of such soldiers canrout the fiercest attacks of Satan.
Rev 12:12. These happy victors are bidding all the domain of intelligent creatures to rejoice over the situation. However, while the devil has lost this battle, he has not been put out of existence but will use every opportunity that appears for opposing the friends of truth. For this reason the inhabitants of earth and sea are given warning of what to expect. There are literally no creatures in the sea in which Satan is interested. The phrase is a figure of speech that means all creatures everywhere will be the victims of Satan’s hatred. Hath but a short time. Whatever Satan accomplishes against the spiritual interests of mankind must be done while the world stands. After that he and his angels will be cast into the lake of eternal fire from which they will never escape even temporarily.
Commentary on Rev 12:7-12 by Burton Coffman
Rev 12:7-9
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 world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.
It is important to note why this episode was included:
The war and its issue are introduced as an explanation of Satan’s fury in these last times and a prediction of his final overthrow.[46]
This war does not merely explain Satan’s fury during “these last times” as apparently limited by Beckwith, but also the fury of Satan from the garden of Eden until the end of time, thus providing the true key to the problem of just “when” this conflict occurred. The events of this encounter lie totally outside the perimeter of the Judeo-Christian religion. The Bible reveals very little with reference to it, except a few references here and there. It is an amazing folly indulged by some Christian scholars who fancy they can find out all about this war from pagan mythology, such mythology itself, in all probability, having been concocted from perverted and corrupted “versions” of a truth evidently known by the early patriarchs. That these verses concern a past event, prior to all history, and perhaps even prior to the human creation itself, is absolutely certain. No other possible understanding of it is either intellectually or theologically tenable. As Beckwith affirmed, “That the Apocalyptist thinks of it as past is evident.”[47]
It (Rev 12:7-8) is included here to account for the relentless hostility of the devil towards God and his church. It relates to the period anterior to the Creation, concerning which we have a slight hint in Jud 1:6.[48]
Inasmuch as this interpretation is rejected by some, a glance at the reasons for its adoption here is appropriate.
(1) It explains the reason for the passage’s appearance in this context.
(2) The war is between the devil and Michael, not between the devil and Christ.
(3) This removes it from the period of the Incarnation, during which the war is between Christ and Satan.
(4) Spiritualizing this passage to make the war a post-resurrection conflict contradicts Mat 28:18-20. This device is also ridiculous in other ways. “These verses require a much more literal interpretation.”[49]
(5) The transfer of Satan’s activities to earth did not occur either during Christ’s ministry, nor after his resurrection. It existed before the birth of Christ (Rev 12:4), and for ages prior thereto. See comment above on Rev 12:4.
(6) The heavenly doxology in Rev 12:10; Rev 12:12, is at once both proleptic and retrospective, a common feature in this prophecy, and makes no sense at all unless it is so understood. Furthermore, this doxology begins with Rev 12:10, and should be separated from the account of the war and made the beginning of a new paragraph, as in Wilcock’s translation of this chapter.[50]
(7) Plummer noted that the “strongest argument”[51] opposed to this view is based on Luk 10:18, where Jesus said, “I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven,” a statement made by our Lord upon the return of the seventy; but that verse is a reference to a past event, not to a future one; and it is inconceivable that Jesus meant the casting out of a few demons by the seventy was the equivalent of Satan’s being thrown out of heaven! What Jesus meant by such a remark was that, just as Satan had indeed already been thrown out of heaven, Christ was about to throw him out of the earth also! As proof that he would indeed do this, the good report of the seventy had made it certain.
When Jesus said, “Now shall the prince of this world (Satan) be cast out” (Joh 12:31), he did not mean, nor did he say, “out of heaven.” Satan was about to be cast out of the earth, not in the final sense, but in the sense of the enabling victory of the Cross about to be consummated. This apocalyptic account of Satan’s being thrown out of heaven has absolutely nothing to do with the passages in the gospel.
Two different wars are in view: (1) that of Michael and Satan which issued in Satan’s being thrown out of heaven, and (2) that of Christ and Satan with the final result of Satan’s being thrown out of the earth and into the lake of fire.
(8) Advocates of other views are not easily dissuaded, attempting to show that in the Old Testament Satan is represented as having access to the presence of God (in the sense of heaven, of course)[52] quoting Job 1:6-9; Job 2:1-6 and Zec 3:1-2. The inference drawn from such passages is that Satan was “still in heaven” during Old Testament times, and that the war in this passage had not yet occurred. Such a view would require us to believe that when Satan inspired Haman to kill all the Jews on earth, he was still in heaven. Who could believe such a thing?
But what about those passages in Job? There is no hint whatever of the events there being “in heaven.” Twice in that passage Satan confessed that he was “walking up and down in the earth” (Job 1:7; Job 2:2). Job was a citizen of the earth at the time of those events; and the access that Satan had to God in that passage was exactly that of “the sons of God” who were also living on the earth.
The same truth is evident in Zechariah where Satan was in the presence of the high priest (during the high priest’s lifetime on earth). But were they not also standing before the angel of the Lord? Indeed they were; but the ministry of angels itself is for the saints on the earth (Heb 1:14). Scholars who wish to place Satan in heaven during the Old Testament period will have to come up with something a lot better than arguments like these in order to do so.
Returning again to Luk 10:18, if Jesus meant that Satan had only recently been cast out of heaven, what possible event in the ministry of Jesus was the occasion of it? No! Jesus definitely referred to the event related in these verses, and for exactly the same purpose, that of encouraging his followers. Satan’s being cast out of heaven was the prophecy of his final overthrow in the lake of fire.
(9) The name Michael can hardly be construed as a “figure” of anything. To do so would send us in search of figurative meanings for hundreds of Biblical names. Michael stands in the Old Testament as a mighty angel, the prince of God’s Israel (Dan 10:13), and in the New Testament as the archangel (Jud 1:9). We should not dare to spiritualize this and refer it to another. In this connection, it is appropriate to observe that Christian Science (so-called) has spiritualized a whole dictionary of Bible names, indicating the folly of spiritualizing any name that is clearly a name.
War … Michael and his angels … and the dragon … and his angels … Morris noted that, “Michael appears as the leader of the heavenly host … his angels. This accords with his description as archangel (Jud 1:9).”[53] The dragon also leads a band of angels, spoken of in Mat 25:41. Presumably, these angels who followed Satan are the same as those of Jud 1:6,2Pe 2:4. We consider these verses historical, despite the objections of some scholars who go out of their way to deny it.
This paragraph must be interpreted in its context in Revelation rather than in relation to obscure Old Testament passages, or Milton’s Paradise Lost. This is not a historical account of the original state of the devil and his fall from that state.[54]
John Milton was a better Bible commentator than some of the modern interpreters. There is no reason whatever for not receiving this passage as historical, despite arbitrary, unproved, and unprovable denials of it.
As for the conceit that this prophecy must be interpreted without benefit of the light shed upon it from other passages of the word of God, such notions should be rejected. What kind of nonsense is it that would deny the light shed by other passages in the Bible, while at the same time dragging in every old pagan myth ever heard of and basing a so-called interpretation on that! The apostles and the Lord himself appealed to the holy Scriptures as supplying enlightenment upon what they discussed; and Christian scholars should do likewise.
We cannot tell who the original author of Ray Summers’ comment, above, may be; but, amazingly, some ten or twelve of the scholars we have consulted on this passage have almost identical, verbatim language used to downgrade any historical view of this passage; but, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks!”[55] Michael is a valid, historical name of the archangel, used in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Also, there are clearly historical references to fallen angels in both 2Peter and Jude, which leads us to inquire, why this prejudice against the historical understanding of this? Besides that, any figurative interpretation winds up in all kinds of insoluble difficulties. For example, if it is supposed that this “war” came after the resurrection and enthronement of Christ, and that, “It was an effect of Christ’s resurrection and enthronement,”[56] how can the previous verses here be true; for this chapter clearly reveals that Satan’s being on earth and hating and persecuting the radiant woman was already a fact long before the birth of Christ. This battle which issued in Satan’s being cast down to earth from heaven took place at a time at least prior to the history of the old Israel. Some of the interpretations even bring in angels as mediators!
And they prevailed not … Nothing is revealed to us of this cosmic struggle; but the implication of the great power, daring, and ability of the evil one are evident. Sufficient to us is the truth that he could not win.
Neither was their place found any more in heaven … The implications are here, likewise, profound. This says that Satan once had a place in heaven and provides the clue to understanding Eze 28:12-19 as a description of Satan in his heavenly abode. Furthermore this passage reveals Satan already to have been at the time of Ezekiel’s prophecy a fallen being utterly under the condemnation of God, adding another prophecy of his ultimate overthrow in the lake of fire. It is impossible to suppose that, when Ezekiel wrote, Satan was still in heaven.
And the great dragon was cast down … he was cast down to earth … It is important to note the difference in being “cast down to earth,” which occurred in the “war” of this passage, and in being “cast out” of the earth, as in Joh 12:31. The first means that Satan’s base of operations was removed to the earth; and the second means that, at last, Satan’s base of operations will be destroyed in the lake of fire. The names of the dragon are next given, making his identity certain.
The old serpent … “This word carries us back to the garden of Eden, where Satan, under the guise of a serpent, successfully tempted Eve to disobey God’s command.”[57]
That is called the devil … There is only one devil, namely Satan. The word “devil” means “slanderous one, false accuser.”[58]
And Satan … “This is a Grecized transliteration of the Aramaic [~Satana], which originally meant one lying in ambush for.”[59]
The deceiver of the whole world … “This means the one continually deceiving, not merely an erratic deception, but a perpetual, never ceasing program.”[60] This is one of ten times that this expression occurs in the New Testament.
This fourfold name of the evil one is a full description of his nature. The reality of Satan as the person who organizes the totality of evil on earth is either forgotten, ignored, or disbelieved by many today; but the perpetual witness of his true existence is in the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from the evil one.” No one who actually believes the Lord Jesus Christ and the New Testament can deny it.
After the victory of Christ on the cross, and subsequent to his glorification, resurrection, and ascension to heaven, no further victories were needed, whether by the archangel Michael or any other being in heaven or upon earth. Therefore, it is theologically impossible to make this war, or battle, in heaven a post-resurrection event. The mingling of the victory of Michael and that of Christ in the following doxology should not be allowed to obscure this fact.
[46] Isbon T. Beckwith, op. cit., p. 618.
[47] Ibid.
[48] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 312.
[49] Ibid.
[50] Michael Wilcock, op. cit., p. 119.
[51] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 311.
[52] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 81.
[53] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 160.
[54] Ray Summers, op. cit., p. 170.
[55] William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2, line 242.
[56] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 373.
[57] Ralph Earle, op. cit., p. 570.
[58] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 377.
[59] Ibid.
[60] James D. Strauss, op. cit., p. 164.
Rev 12:10
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, who accuseth them before our God day and night.
I heard a voice in heaven … We do not need to identify the voice as being either that of the martyrs or other deceased Christians.
The singers are heavenly beings, but are not designated more precisely. They are not saints, for these are not represented by the book as being in heaven before the end.[61]
This doxology, beginning with this verse, should be separated in a new paragraph to set it off from the “war,” as in Wilcock’s translation mentioned above. Many scholars suppose that this doxology was “sung” despite there being no mention of singing. See under Rev 5:9.
Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ … There can hardly be any doubt that Beckwith’s comment here is correct:
The expulsion of Satan from the seat of his dominion in the heavens assures his complete overthrow in the end, and calls forth one of those outbursts of praise common in the book, celebrating the future triumph as if present. The hymn is anticipatory. The kingdom of God and the Messiah is not yet established.[62]
Since the kingdom of God and the Messiah and the establishment of the “authority” of Christ mentioned here took place at the very beginning of the Christian dispensation (Mat 28:18-20), this doxology has the quality of being proleptic at the time it was spoken in heaven by the angels, and from the standpoint of the apocalyptist the quality of being retrospective! Thus, this indicates that the victory celebrated took place long before Christianity began.
For the accuser of our brethren is cast down … Some have thought that the use of “our brethren” here meant that “the voice” was that of deceased Christians; but that is not correct. Angels might very properly refer to God’s people on earth as their “brethren,” for an angel so referred to John himself in Rev 19:10. This brotherhood between earthly beings and heavenly beings fits beautifully into the purpose here of providing encouragement to suffering and persecuted saints. The fact of the doxology being spoken in heaven “is unsuited to the martyrs beneath the altar,”[63] or any other earthly followers of the Lord. They are not yet in heaven. Ladd also agreed that, “This verse is proleptic and looks forward to the consummation which has not yet occurred.”[64] However, the rejoicing angels properly understood that the “casting down” of Satan meant that the ultimate establishment of Christ’s kingdom (the church) was a certainty, for the “casting down” was a prophetic token of what would follow. This simply cannot mean that after the atonement, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, then Satan would have to be thrown down to earth before the kingdom and authority of Christ could be established. No indeed! Satan had already been operating upon the earth ever since the garden of Eden. Thus this passage regarding the heavenly “war” refers to an episode as old as the race of man upon the earth. Barclay misunderstood this passage to refer to “the song of the glorified martyrs when Satan was cast out of heaven.”[65] This would require the view that Satan was operating in heaven when the martyrs died for their faith in Christ and would also make the achievement of Michael and his angels to be some kind of great victory beyond and in addition to what Christ had already achieved upon the cross; and, to us, such views are absolutely untenable. Such interpretations derive from mythology, not from the word of God.
[61] Isbon T. Beckwith, op. cit., p. 626.
[62] Ibid., p. 625.
[63] Ibid.
[64] George Eldon Ladd, op. cit., p. 172.
[65] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 83.
Rev 12:11
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.
This portion of the proleptic doxology, still being spoken by the angels of heaven, takes a still greater leap into the future and rejoices at the salvation of saints who would overcome by the blood of the Lamb and love the Lord even unto death. The big point of this doxology which John placed in the mouths of the angels is that Michael’s victory had no saving power whatever. As a matter of fact it only resulted in Satan’s being cast down to earth where his hatred of God was only multiplied, a hatred which he vented against God’s human creation. Moffatt here probably understood this:
The author by a characteristic and dramatic prolepsis, anticipates the triumph of martyrs and confessors.[66]
This verse proves that the overthrow of Satan, as it regards human salvation, “has actually taken place, not through Michael, but through the power of the sacrifice of Christ.”[67] Cox analyzed the things that would enter into the salvation of people thus: “the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and their self-sacrificing love.”[68] It is clear that the event of Satan’s being thrown down to earth was an ancient thing that did not enter at all into the procurement of salvation, except in the sense of being a feeble type of it. That is the way it is used in this passage.
[66] James Moffatt, Expositor’s Greek New Testament, Vol. V (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967), p. 427.
[67] G. R. Beasley-Murray, op. cit., p. 203.
[68] Frank L. Cox, According to John (Austin, Texas: Firm Foundation Publishing House, 1948), p. 81.
Rev 12:12
Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell 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 time.
Rejoice, O ye heavens … The mention of sea and earth in the same verse seems to suggest that “heavens” here is used in the sense of “sky”; but its being used in the plural demands, in context, that it be understood as a reference to the dwelling place of the heavenly host.
Woe for the earth and for the sea … The great significance in both the war episode and in this doxology is that human sorrows have implications far beyond life on earth. Why are there sufferings, persecutions, hatred, tribulations, doubts, and fears? Long, long ago, there was a war in heaven; and the defeated party was cast down to earth where we live. Satan hates God and all goodness, but he cannot attack God; therefore, he turns his malignant rage against the race of man. The quibbler may ask, Why does not God go ahead and destroy Satan at once in order to save all this? But the purpose of God requires that people be tested, and Satan is used of God for that purpose until all of the Father’s designs are accomplished. Sometimes a dog when being punished will bite the stick through anger at the one using it; and people also have been known to wreck a room or a house through anger and frustration at something else. In a similar way, people are a tempting target for the rage of Satan because of the love lavished upon mankind by the Father. In this appears the explanation of all the woes of earth. Our conflict is not merely ours alone.
Angelic forces are also engaged. Our struggles are not to be shrugged off as insignificant. They are part of the great conflict between good and evil.[69]
Human woes and misfortunes are related to that cosmic struggle going on in a theater of far greater dimensions than those of mortal life alone. They are part of what Barclay called the “sleepless vigil of evil against good.”[70] The vision of Rev 12:7-12 was given to afford Christians a glance of the broader conflict of which their own trials are a part.
Because the devil is gone down unto you … Here is the explanation of the whole phenomenon of evil, and we might add that this is the only true explanation. Several very important considerations appear in this: (1) the kingdom of evil is ruled and directed by an enemy of tremendous strength, energy, intelligence, and hatred; (2) his devices against people are motivated by satanic purposes of the utmost cruelty, savage hatred, and insane wrath; (3) this enemy is personal, Satan being a person of the magnitude of the archangel himself; and (4) he is aided in his nefarious designs by a host of angels constituting, before their fall, a heavenly host of a third of the angels in glory (Rev 12:4), best understood as meaning a significant part, but a minority, of the heavenly host.
Having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time … It is vital to understand the “short time” or “little time” mentioned here. The temptation to literalize everything in the book leads to some bizarre conclusions. Some see this as a very few years, months, or even days, just prior to the Second Advent, as Satan “sees his time running out.” This has to be wrong, because Satan is not going to see his time running out. No angel of God, much less Satan, knows the day nor the hour of the Second Advent (Mat 24:35). Beckwith spoke of the time when Satan would see that “he had but a little time before his overthrow”;[71] but the maximum intensity of Satan’s wrath crested to its full tide on Calvary, where it contained and defeated, where its fullest fury was spent and beyond which there could never be any greater intensification, just as no army deploying its maximum force and suffering a disastrous defeat can ever regain its original effectiveness. “From the moment Satan was cast down to earth, the moment of his defeat, the short time begins.”[72] “This short time is the period of the world’s existence from the advent of Satan until the final judgment.”[73] As for the exact time of Satan’s advent on earth, how could we know that? He was certainly in Eden where the great progenitors of the human race were attacked and defeated by him.
There may possibly be another thing intended by a subsequent mention of the “loosing of Satan” in Rev 20:7 ff, at a time when the dispensation is coming to a close, when the human race in large part shall have finally and irrevocably chosen to serve the devil. The disastrous consequences of that event shall usher in the end itself; but the wrath of Satan shall be no greater than it already is.
[69] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 160.
[70] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 83.
[71] Isbon T. Beckwith, op. cit., p. 619.
[72] Charles H. Roberson, op. cit., p. 87.
[73] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 314.
Commentary on Rev 12:7-12 by Manly Luscombe
7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, War in heaven – As Satan tried to invade heaven and destroy Christ; Michael and his angels meet him. Michael is the fighting archangel. This is not a historical account of the origin of Satan. There are several theories about where Satan came from. This text does not deal with the origin. The war described here is the time that Satan lost power over people. He could no longer posses people as he did during the ministry of Christ. Until Jesus death on the cross there was no forgiveness of sins. Now that Jesus died for all men, Satan lost his control over us. Does Satan still have power? Yes. He still is active. He still seeks to tempt, lead into sin, and cause us to lose faith. But, we have the power to resist. We can resist Satan and he will flee from us. (Jas 4:7) Satan seeks to devour us but we can resist. (1Pe 5:8-9)
8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. Satan did not win. He was not given any power to control people. The devil no longer has control over us. This does not mean that we will never be tempted. It does mean that as long as we remain faithful to our Lord and follow His teachings and commands, the devil cannot touch us.
9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. This verse makes clear that the dragon in this vision is Satan. He and his angels are now limited in what they can do, where they can go, and what power they can exercise. The earth is not the planet earth, the physical earth. Earth is used as opposite of heaven. If one is not in heaven, he is on the earth. The earth represents the dwelling place of sin, Satan and his followers. Heaven is the dwelling place of Christians, the location of Jesus and His followers.
10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. The time that Satan is cast out of heaven is the time that salvation came to humanity. This is the death on the cross. Christ now has the power. (Mat 28:18; Rom 1:4) Christ overcame all enemies, including death. The last enemy was Satan, himself. (1Jn 3:8). Satan has been limited in his power. Do not be afraid. Satan can kill your body, but he cant harm your soul. (Mat 10:28) Those being accused night and day by Satan are referred to as our brethren.
11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. These brethren have overcome Satan. How is this possible? It is possible by three things: (1) By the blood of the Lamb, (2) By faithfulness in their testimony, and (3) By putting Christ above their personal safety. You will remember the letters to the seven churches gave promises to those who overcome. The word overcome means, do not give in, or give up. Remain faithful to Christ and His church. Do not abandon the faith even if it means your death. (Rev 2:10)
12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time. All the church should rejoice that Satan has been restricted. We can win. Satan cannot defeat us without our consent and approval. There is also a warning. Satan comes to attack the church because: 1. He is angry. He has been defeated and is upset. 2. He knows that his time is short. We, from our viewpoint, have a hard time seeing the shortness of time. However, in the eternal plan of God, the time is short.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Satan Cast Down from Heaven
Rev 12:7-17
The spirit of evil waits to destroy each birth of good in our world. As soon as Mary had given birth to our Lord, Herod sought to destroy Him, and this is characteristic of all the ages. But Gods care is always at hand to deliver His own. He has His prepared places, where He hides those who trust in Him. He keeps them in the secret of His pavilion from the strife of men.
Sin has brought conflict, not on our earth only, but throughout the universe; but from the heavenly places it has been driven, and the last stand is made on our earth. Is it not possible that the awful war which has desolated mankind may be one of the last phases of this age-long conflict? There is but one talisman of victory. We overcome only in so far as we take shelter in the blood of the Lamb and wield as our weapon the Word of God. As darkness cannot resist the light, so evil cannot exist before the witness of the Church and the child of God, if only we care more for the honor and glory of Christ than for our own lives. To the end there must be war between the seed of the woman and the dragon, and there must be bruising. But the final outcome is sure. As Satan was cast out of heaven, so he shall be cast out of earth, and Christ shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
angels
(See Scofield “Heb 1:4”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
war: Rev 13:7, Rev 19:11-20, Isa 34:5, Eph 6:12,*Gr.
Michael: Isa 55:4, Dan 10:13, Dan 10:21, Dan 12:1, Heb 2:10, Jud 1:9
and his: Mat 13:41, Mat 16:27, Mat 24:31, Mat 26:53, 2Th 1:7
the dragon: Rev 12:3, Rev 12:4, Rev 20:2
his angels: Rev 12:9, Psa 78:49, Mat 25:41, 2Co 12:7,*Gr: 2Pe 2:4
Reciprocal: Gen 3:15 – it shall Num 33:4 – upon their gods Jos 5:14 – but as captain Psa 27:3 – war Isa 14:12 – How art thou fallen Isa 65:25 – dust Lam 2:1 – and cast Dan 11:32 – shall be Mat 12:29 – General Mar 3:27 – General Luk 10:18 – I beheld Satan Joh 16:11 – the 1Ti 5:21 – the elect 2Ti 3:12 – shall
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
CHRISTIANITY AND WAR
There was war in heaven.
Rev 12:7
And if in heaven, where the Lord Almighty works His plans of goodness and love, then, without surprise, on earth, with its fallen passions and selfish, unholy ambitions.
I. But what has the gospel of Christ to say to the whole question?How does Christianity speak with regard to the right and wrong of war? Certainly there is an answer. The spirit of Christianity, the ethics of the gospel, the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ are opposed, absolutely, to the spirit of war in itself. In old days, in the times before Christ, war nearly always, on one side or the other, and not infrequently on both, represented the savage instincts and rude elements of human character and infirmity. And war was lightly entered upon, even within our own history, in a spirit of pride and cruelty, hate and revenge. And war, as hate, is wrong, absolutely. And only gradually, as the spirit of Christianity is better loved and understood, are the evil springs of war abandoned and its selfish cruelties put away. And at least we must admit that in these days the brighter the light of Christianity is, in any nation, the more wonderfully are all these features changed even in the very conduct of war itself.
II. We, a great Christian empire, have frequently had thrown upon our hands the unwilling, painful task of rising up to defend by force our dependent peoples from evils under which they cried. Our very Christianity calls us to the terrible conflict of war sometimes. And if war were always and inevitably wrong, then the greatest empire in the world ought to exist without an army and without a fleet. And the most peace-loving Christian man could not contemplate that, with the world as it is, as a sane or even a possible situation.
III. Again, war is Gods scourge for many things that are more deadly wrong than war.In a fallen and struggling world the Almighty uses war as a drastic remedy for many a slow and cankering poison. He makes even the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain. War has its terrible mercies and its grim healing. We can look back on our own civil wars and learn that. We can read it in the lurid glare of the French Revolution. We can unearth it in many an ancient story of a decaying nation and a corrupt people. A new race of unselfish and devoted men, of pure and noble women, of high and worthy ideals, can come in only by war sometimes, and in a baptism of grief and blood.
Rev. Dr. E. Hicks.
ST.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Rev 12:7. War in heaven. We must keep in mind that everything being described is symbolic and shown to John right there on that isle of Pat-mos. But also we should not forget that inspired symbols stand for actual facts and truths. This war was not the first conflict that the forces of heaven had had with Satan for Jesus said he saw him fall from heaven (Luk 10:18). And Paul tells us what was the cause of the first conflict, namely, his pride (1Ti 3:6). Ever since that event he has been the bitter enemy of heaven and all that pertains thereto, never losing an opportunity of getting in his evil work. Now when he sees this expectant mother in heaven (verse 1) he is determined to start a war over it. Just why or how the devil could be present in the vicinity of the angels is not told us in detail, but we know from Job 1:6 Job 2:1 that he has been suffered in the past to be present at gatherings of the angels before God. But the time Jesus saw him fall as cited in Luke was not on the occasion of this war, for the angels who won in the war ascribed the victory to the blood of the Lamb, and when Jesus said he saw Satan fall from heaven was before He had shed his blood. Hence this war was just another attempt of Satan to get in his wicked work and head off the plan of the Lord to give to the world a religion free from the entanglements of worldly despotism, and the selfish ambition of wicked men. It was fitting that Michael should be the angel to lead the forces of heaven against Satan, for he is called “one of the chief princes” in Dan 10:13, and chapter 12:1 of that same book says that he is the prince that “standeth for the children of thy people.”
Comments by Foy E.Wallace
Verse 7.
THE WAR IN HEAVEN (Rev 12:7-17)
There are several words in the general vocabulary of Revelation, the connotations of which must be understood. These are the words: air, earth, sea, quake, heaven, stars and war. The symbols are employed in the following meaning : air, the sphere of life and influence; earth, the place of the nations; sea, society described as either troubled and tossed or placid and peaceful; quake, the political shaking of the nations; heaven, the governments, authorities and dominions; stars, the rulers and officials of governments; war, the upheavals in the governments and among inhabitants of the earth (various provinces of the empire); and the conflicts between the heathen authorities and the church in the waging of the persecutions of the saints. With this nomenclature defined, the various facets of the phraseology employed in the next few verses can be explained.
(1) The War with Michael and His Angels–Rev 12:7-8.
1. There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels. The war in heaven meant the hostilities which developed with the tributary governments of Rome. Two classes were here placed in opposition–Michael and his angels are put in opposition to the dragon and his angels.
The dragon and his angels represented all of the powers of paganism and darkness. Conversely, Michael and his angels were representative of the truth and the light of Christianity. Michael was represented in Dan 12:1-13 as defender and guardian of Israel. So Michael and his angels were the representatives and protectors of the woman-the persecuted church. They fought against the dragon and his evil angels by the means of the war between the satellites of Rome, because these conflicts within the Roman empire diverted the emperor’s attention from the persecutions of the woman and gave respite to the church. History verifies this outbreak of wars within the Roman empire during this period of persecution; and in Mat 24:1-51 Jesus foretold that such wars would exist to “shorten these days.”
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rev 12:7-9. With the words of Rev 12:7 the second scene of the chapter opens, and the transition from the ideal to the actual begins. As the first scene, too, corresponded to the first paragraph of the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel (Rev 12:1-5), so this scene corresponds to its second paragraph (Rev 12:6-13). It is not enough that the light shall withstand the darkness. It has also to assault and overcome it. Hence it is that Michael and his angels are the first to move; and hence in all probability the remarkable grammatical construction of Rev 12:7 in the original,a construction which seems intended to bring out this thought.
The war opens in heaven. No explanation is afforded of our finding evil there; nor is there greater difficulty in conceiving of evil in heaven than in admitting its existence upon earth. All things are primarily good and pure and holy. Such is the fundamental idea of existence; but this idea is disturbed by sin. The good is not perfectly unmixed; and, without knowing how the evil originated, we are compelled to acknowledge that it exists. Traces of the same teaching as that found here are to be seen in 1 Kings 22; Job 1, 2; Zechariah 3; and in the words of Jesus, of which this whole scene is a symbolical representation, I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven (Luk 10:18). The war begun is conducted on the one side by Michael and his angels, on the other by the dragon and his angels. The mention of Michael is taken from Dan 10:13; Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1; comp. Jud 1:9. He is certainly not Jesus Himself, nor is he merely a created angel to whose guardianship the Church is committed. He is rather an expression of Jesus, an aspect (if we may so speak), a representation, of the Divine good embodied in Him; and His angels are the varied agencies belonging to that good and executing its designs.The dragon is next more completely identified by a description consisting of three particulars. First, he is the old serpent, a reference to the history of the fall. Secondly, he is he that is called the devil and Satan, the former of these terms denoting the deceiver (chap. Rev 20:8), the second the accuser (Rev 12:10), of the saints. Thirdly, he is he that deceiveth the whole inhabited world, the world with all its inhabitants, and not simply them that dwell upon the earth. Not that he succeeds in eventually betraying all. But even the saints he endeavours to deceive. He tempts them as he tempted our Lord in the wilderness.When the war has been continued for a time, the dragon is not only defeated, but no place is found for him any more in heaven. He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. The victory of good over evil is complete. It may be well to notice that, if the devil is thus cast out of heaven, out of the assembly of the saints, he must have been originally good. Had he not been so he would never have been in heaven, but would have ruled from a past eternity in some realm of his own.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
By Michael and his angels, understand Christ, whose the angels are, and so much the name imports, Michael, that is, who like God; Christ is the likeness of his Father, his essential likeness. St. John in a vision beholds Michael and his angels combating with the dragon and his angels; yea, vanquishing and overcoming them. This may comfort the church under all her conflicts, that at length her Michael will finally prevail, and she in him.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the powerful preaching of the gospel, has weakened the kingdom of sin, Satan, and antichrist. His angels are his ministers, martyrs, and confessors; those particularly of the first ages, who, by their cries to God, and apologies to their rulers, by their holy lives, and patient deaths, did overcome their enemies. And thus Michael and his angels, Christ and his ministers, fought against the dragon and his angels, against Satan and his cruel instruments, who were so far from prevailing, that they lost ground continually; the Christians overcame them by their faith and patience. And the great dragon was cast down, he was by the preaching of the gospel deposed from being worshipped as a god, and his power was taken away.
From the whole note, 1. That though Michael, Christ alone, be able to overcome the dragon and all his angelic powers, yet for his own greater honour, and their greater confusion, he overcomes him and them by his ministers and faithful servants.
Note, 2. If Michael our prince be with us, Christ Jesus, the captain of our salvation, our leader, then, though the combat may be sharp, yet the victory is sure; for if he be for us, who can (successfully) be against us?
Note, 3. That Satan and his angels were cast out together; for of the devil and his instruments the lot shall be alike; they sin together, and they shall suffer together, and shall never be parted.
Lord, how dreadful will an imprisonment with devils and damned spirits be to eternal ages! To lie for ever with Satan in that mysterious fire of hell, whose strange property it is always to torture, but never to kill; or always to kill, but never to consume. The dragon was not only cast out of heaven with his angels, but both were cast down into hell, even into that lake which burns with fire and brimstone.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
If the details of this vision are chronological, then the devil stormed heaven after the great defeat he suffered at Christ’s resurrection. Michael, the archangel, called in Jud 1:9 , and his angels oppose them in battle. Satan and his forces are defeated and thrown down to earth. There was no place in heaven for him to hide, indeed all heaven was now secured against him.
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Rev 12:7-12. And there was war in heaven, &c. It might reasonably be presumed that all the powers of idolatry would be strenuously exerted against the establishment of Christianity, and especially against the establishment of a Christian on the imperial throne: and these struggles and contentions between the heathen and the Christian religions are here represented by war in heaven, between the angels of darkness and angels of light. Michael was (Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1) the tutelar angel and protector of the Jewish Church. He performs here the same office for the Christian Church. He and the good angels, who are sent forth (Heb 1:14) to minister to the heirs of salvation, were the invisible agents on one side, as the devil and his evil agents were on the other. The visible actors in the cause of Christianity were the believing emperors and ministers of the word, the martyrs and confessors; and in support of idolatry, were the persecuting emperors and heathen magistrates, together with the whole train of priests and sophists. This contest lasted several years, and the final issue of it was, (Rev 12:8-9,) that the Christian prevailed over the heathen religion; the heathen were deposed from all rule and authority, and the Christians were advanced to dominion and empire in their stead. Our Saviour said unto his disciples casting devils out of the bodies of men, (Luk 10:18,) I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. In the same figure Satan fell from heaven: and was cast out into the earth When he was thrust out of the imperial throne; and his angels were cast out with him Not only all the heathen priests and officers, civil and military, were cashiered, but their very gods and demons, who before were adored, became the subjects of contempt and execration. It is very remarkable that Constantine himself, and the Christians of his time, described his conquests under the same image, as if they had understood that this prophecy had received its accomplishment in him. Moreover, a picture of Constantine was set up over the palace gate, with the cross over his head, and under his feet the great enemy of mankind, who persecuted the church by the means of impious tyrants, in the form of a dragon, transfixed with a dart through the midst of his body, and falling headlong into the depth of the sea: in allusion, it is said expressly, to the divine oracles in the books of the prophets, where that evil spirit is called the dragon, and the crooked serpent. Upon this victory of the church there is introduced (Rev 12:10) a triumphant hymn of thanksgiving for the depression of idolatry and exaltation of true religion. It was not by temporal means or arms that the Christians obtained this victory, (Rev 12:11,) but by spiritual; by the merits and death of their Redeemer, by their constant profession of the truth, and by their patient suffering of all kinds of tortures, even unto death: and the blood of the martyrs hath been often called the seed of the church. This victory was indeed matter of joy and triumph to the blessed angels and glorified saints in heaven, (Rev 12:12,) by whose sufferings it was in great measure obtained; but still new woes are threatened to the inhabiters of the earth; for, though the dragon was deposed, yet was he not destroyed; though idolatry was depressed, yet was it not wholly suppressed; there were still many pagans intermixed with the Christians, and the devil would incite fresh troubles and disturbances on earth, because he knew that he had but a short time That is, it would not be long before the pagan religion should be totally abolished, and the Christian religion prevail in all the Roman empire.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Verse 7
And there was; that is, there had been previously for the passage Revelation 12:7-12, seems introduced as a narrative of the origin of the hostility manifested by the dragon against the woman and her son.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
12:7 And there was war in heaven: {14} Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
(14) Christ is the Prince of angels and head of the Church, who bears that iron rod Rev 12:5 . Also see Geneva “Dan 12:1”. In this verse a description of the battle and of the victory in the two verses following Rev 12:8-9 . The psalmist noted this battle as did Paul; Psa 68:9 Eph 4:8 Col 2:15 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The dragon’s expulsion from heaven 12:7-12
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Michael the archangel (Jud 1:9) is the leader of God’s angelic army. He is Israel’s special patron (Dan 10:13; Dan 10:21; Dan 12:1). He evidently holds high rank among unfallen angels as Satan does among the fallen. John saw him engaged in battle with Satan and his angels, the demons. Michael battled with Satan in the past (Jud 1:9), but the conflict in view here evidently takes place just before the last part of the Tribulation.