A Woman & a Serpent
Notes
Transcript
When you read your Bible do you simply read, or do you read with questions? Our attitude when we’re reading makes a significant difference. If you’re just reading casually letting the words pass before your eyes, you’re likely missing much of the depth that is there.
Many of you, like me, continually to see the depths of the biblical story discovering new layers and connections as we continue to read it again and again. When I was in seminary Dr. Daniel Fuller, one of my professors had just published his book Unity of the Bible. Dan had developed an arcing system connecting themes within the Scriptures. In his book he defends his attempt to put an arc over the entire Bible from Genesis 1:1’s “In the beginning… to Revelation 22:21’s Amen.
We start with observation questions: Who? What? When? Where? How? and Why? We have to be careful with the How? and Why? questions. When we’re doing observation we can’t answer these unless the text specifically answers those quesitons. Otherwise it’s interpretation, in which case we might say, “It could be…”
Example: in our chapters today we might see the woman fled from the beast, and ask “How did the woman flee?” Then we read, Rev 12:14
But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent…
We don’t have a specific “Why” answered directly in our text. In the Gospels we see it many times when we read as we do in the Gospels, Matthew 8:17
This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”
Why? this was to fulfill…
All good interpretation is based on solid observation.
We get to this morning’s passage and we have to ask ourselves, where have we seen these characters before?
John begins sharing signs that he sees within his vision.
We begin with a woman - clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars. When we see twelve we immediately think of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the sun and moon might remind us of Joseph’s dream back in Genesis 37:9
“Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
Joseph and his brothers represented the twelve tribes of Israel.
This woman is in conflict with a dragon. Did you know we have dragons in the Bible! We read further and this dragon is thrown down and described as “that ancient serpent.” Hmmm….serpent.
Back in Genesis 3:1-2
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say…”
And we remember well how that turned out.
Our woman in Revelation gives birth, Rev 12:5
She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne,
We’re told specifically who this child is - the one who is to rule all the nations, caught up to God and to his throne.
Then, as we’ve seen throughout this book, we get a retelling of the same story from another perspective which we heard in our reading this morning.
We read in Rev 12:7-9
Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back,
but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Observations:
War in heaven.
Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and his angels!
The dragon is described as “ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan (which means accuser), the deceiver of the whole world.”
Again, symbols we’ve seen before. Do you remember Satan in the court with God at the beginning of the book of Job?
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.
“Sons of God” refers to heavenly beings gathered before God like a council beofre a king. The Hebrew idiom “sons of” can be used of a group that is led by a figure referred to as their “father”. For most of us it strikes us as odd that Satan was there.
Throughout the scripture we see Satan - the accuser - referred to as a serpent, a dragon, etc., he was in the garden. He was in the heavenly court described in Job. Now we see him and his angels engaged in battle with the heavenly angels.
Had we read the previous paragraph we would have read the description of the dragon as having 7 heads, 10 horns, and seven diadems. We would have read that Rev 12:4
His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.
Stars are often a symbol of angels throughout the Scripture. Some interpreters think this refers to the original fall of Satan, taking one third of the angels with him. This makes sense when we see the battle that is ensuing here in the vision.
The battle is real. Paul knew of it when he wrote to the Ephesians, Eph 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
John’s vision is powerful, and should bring us a sense of hope. We know that there is a battle going on. The theme is a powerful one that
Listen to the voice John hears, Rev 12:10-11
And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
The Bible begins in the beginning, and it’s not to long after that the humankind is confronted with the temptation of questioning what God really said. We heard God’s words to Cain, Gen 4:7
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
There is an underlying statement there that we can somehow rule over the sin in our lives. We read throughout the Old Testament as the people of Israel say they’ll follow the word of God and then do the opposite and we recognize the same thing in ourselves. Paul recognizes the struggle in his lament he shared with the church in Rome:
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
He concludes this lament with Rom 7:24-25
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
And ultimately with Rom 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
John’s vision reminds us that the battle has already been won.
Satan has been defeated.
We see it in our own observations of who?, what?, when?, where?, how? and why? The serpent that we first met in Genesis has been defeated. Sin, has been defeated. How? Through Jesus work on the cross, by the blood of the lamb.
And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb
Why? because of God’s great love for us.
Jesus crucifixion, where bled and died for you and me finished the battle over our sin. His resurrection conquers death.
Knowing Jesus has already overcome the accuser reminds us we don’t need to listen to Satan anymore. He accuses us of not being enough, of not doing enough. He reminds us again and again of past failures drawing our attention away from the King of glory and the conquering lamb.
The hymn speaks truth:
Jesus paid it all
All to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow
To the Glory of God. AMEN
