NOTES for Rev 12:1-6

The history of creation and its meaning are shown in the Book of Revelation from several different points of view. This is hardly surprising, for it is a vision, a picture unfolding before the apostle's spiritual sight. And it changes depending on the point from which he looks at what is happening. The same processes may look different when viewed from different points in spiritual space. So it is in the book: at first John is shown historical events as they are seen by a person from within the fallen world. The spectacle, of course, remains symbolic. What is shown here is not historical realities as such, but symbols disclosing the spiritual meaning of events to come. Yet what is happening is presented as though seen by a person of this world, a world not yet transformed or made part of the Kingdom.

Now the apostle is shown the same thing as seen from the Throne of Glory, from the perspective of God's eternity. And here, as one would expect, the Messiah and His path stand at the centre of everything. Even before Christ's coming, believing Jews were certain that the Messiah, His coming and everything connected with Him had been conceived by God before the creation of the world. And this conviction is confirmed by the picture disclosed to the apostle. He sees the birth of Christ as the centre of history, not only the history of humanity, but of creation as a whole. The image of the Virgin Mary, “the woman clothed with the sun,” giving birth to Christ, stands at the centre of the spiritual cosmos that John sees when he finds himself at the Throne of Glory.

The entire meaning of world history, not only in its universal human but also in its cosmic dimension, comes down to the confrontation between God and the devil, who is represented here as a dragon with seven heads and ten horns. In the Bible, heads usually symbolize knowledge and authority, while horns symbolize strength. The seven heads indicate a claim to omniscience, to knowledge of everything that exists in the world, for the number seven in biblical books usually symbolizes the fullness of the created world, while the ten horns indicate superhuman and supernatural strength. This strength and this omniscience naturally oppose God's authority, God's power and God's plans for creation, including everything connected with the coming of Christ, Whom the dragon seeks to devour as soon as He is born.

As for a third of the stars which the dragon casts down from heaven with himself, commentators often see in them the angels carried away by the fallen spirit at the moment of his fall. But it is also possible that what is meant here is the damage inflicted by the devil upon creation itself in the course of that fall. It is no accident that, at the end of time, catastrophes and cataclysms strike a third of nature: it suffers to exactly the extent to which it was damaged at that moment.