15-16 St. John continues his Exodus imagery,reminding us of when the children of Israel had been trapped “between the devil and the deep Red Sea”:
And the Serpent threw water like a river out of hismouth after the Woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. The dragon’s pursuit of her by throwing a waterflood after her is a generalized image
for the action of Pharaoh, who (1) commands Israelite children and especially Moses to be washed down the Nile, (2) comes out after escaping Israel with a host,and (3) counts on the Red Sea to shut Israel in.”40 TheBiblical imagery was familiar: a menacing river seeking to overwhelm God’s people, flowing from the mouth of
her enemies (Ps. 18:4, 16; 124:3-6; Isa. 8:5-8; 59:19; Jer.
46:7-8; 47:2; Hos. 5:10).
But again, as in the Exodus, the Dragon’s plan is foiled:The Land helped the Woman, and the Land opened
its mouth and drank up the river which the Dragon threw out of his mouth.41 The picture is partially based on the incident recorded in Numbers 16:28-33,when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the instigators of a rebellion against Moses.“The great thought in all these images is that divine power is put forth to deliver and sustain the New Testament Church of God in the day
of her persecution – the same power that of old wrought the miracles of Egypt, and of the Red Sea, and of the wilderness.”42 That is indeed St. John’s emphasis here.
The Church is divinely protected and preserved through all her tribulations. . By the time Rome attacks, the Woman is long gone; the Land ofIsrael swallows up the river of wrath, absorbing the blow in her place. The destruction of Jerusalem left the true City and Temple unharmed, for they were safe with the Woman under the shadow of the Almighty.
17 The Dragon had only “a short time” (v. 12) to destroy the Church, and he failed again. Frustrated in his attempt to destroy the Mother Church, he was enraged with the Woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her seed, the Christians who were
unharmed by the Dragon’s war with the Woman. How is the Church symbolized by both the Woman and her
children? “These distinctions are easily made and maintained. The Church, considered as an institution and an organic body, is distinguishable from her children, as Isaiah 66:7-8 and Galatians 4:22-26 clearly show. . . .Having been thwarted in his designs to destroy both the Mother and her Seed, the Dragon turns in rage against the rest of her seed, the (predominantly Gentile) Christian Church throughout the Empire. Let us note well St. John’s description of these brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ: They keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. (1 John 2:3-4)
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
(1 John 5:3)
As St. John has already informed us, the saints overcome the Dragon through the word of their testimony and their faithful obedience, even unto death (v. 11). The following chapters will detail several crucial stages in the continuing war between the seed of the Serpent and the seed of the Woman. The passage is not meant to be chronologically accurate, as if the Dragon turns against the rest of the Church only after the failure of the Jewish War. Rather, the flight of the Judean Church is only the culmination of a series of deliverances throughout the Last Days, symbolized by the flight of the Woman. St. John is describing in images the various stratagems devised by Satan for destroying the Church, and he shows them all to becomplete failures. The Dragon is fighting a losing
battle, for he has already been defeated at the Cross anat the Tomb. There is not a square inch of ground inheaven or on earth or under the earth where there is peace between the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman, and Christ has already won overwhelmingly,
on every front. Ever since Christ’s ascension, world history has been a mopping-up operation. The Church Militant, so long as she is the Church Obedient, will be the Church Triumphant as well. Zion and Daughter of Zion (cf. Ps. 9:11, 14; Cant. 3:11) and children of Zion (cf. ps. 149:2).12:17
The Book of Revelation is a Covenant document. It is a prophecy, like the prophecies of the Old Testament.This means that it is not concerned with making “predictions” of astonishing events as such. As prophecy, its focus is redemptive and ethical. Its concern is with the Covenant. The Bible is God’srevelation about His Covenant with His people. It was written to show what God has done to save His people and glorify Himself through them.
Therefore, when God speaks of the Roman Empire in the Book of Revelation, His purpose is not to tell ustitillating bits of gossip about life at Nero’s court. He speaks of Rome only in relation to the Covenant and the history of redemption. “We should keep in
mind that in all this prophetic symbolism we have before us the Roman empire as a persecuting power. This Apocalypse is not concerned with the history of Rome.
. . . The Beast is not a symbol of Rome, but of the great Roman world-power, conceived as the organ of the old
serpent, the Devil, to persecute the scattered saints of God.”1 The most important fact about Rome, from the
viewpoint of Revelation, is not that it is a powerful state, but that it is Beast, in opposition to the God of
the Covenant; the issue is not essentially political but religious (cf. comments on 11:7). The Roman Empire is
not seen in terms of itself, but solely in terms of 1) theLand (Israel), and 2) the Church.
The Beast from the Sea (13:1-10)
1 And I was stationed on the sand of the sea. And I saw a Beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and onhis heads were blasphemous names.
2 And the Beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth
of a lion. And the Dragon gave him his power and his throne and his great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been smitten to death, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole
Land wondered after the Beast;
4 and they worshiped the Dragon, because he gave his authority to the Beast; and they worshiped the Beast,
saying: Who is like the Beast, and who is able to wage war with him?
5 And there was given to him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and authority to make war for
forty-two months was given to him.
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His Name and His Tabernacle, those who
tabernacle in heaven.
7 And it was given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them; and authority over every tribe and
people and tongue and nation was given to him.
8 And all who dwell on the Land will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the
foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who has been slain.
9 If anyone has an ear, let him hear.
10 If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be
killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of thesaints.
1-2 St. John tells us that, just as he had ascended to God’s Throneroom in order to behold the heavenly
world (4:1; cf. Ezek. 3:14; 8:3), the Spirit now stationed him on the sand of the sea, the vantage point from
which he is able to view the Beast coming up out ofthe sea. In a visual, dramatic sense, the mighty Roman
Empire did seem to arise out of the sea, from the Italian peninsula across the ocean from the Land. More than
this, however, the Biblical symbolism of the sea is in view here. The sea is, as we saw in 9:1-3, associated
with the Abyss, the abode of the demons, who were imprisoned there after having been expelled from the
Garden. The Abyss is the “Deep” of Genesis 1:2,“without form and void,” uninhabitable by man. It is
away from the dry land of human environment, and is the place where the demons are kept imprisoned as
long as men are faithful to God. When men apostatize, the demons are released; as man is progressively
restored, the evil spirits are sent back into the Abyss (Luke 8:26-33). Here we see the ultimate source of the
“beastliness” of the Beast: In essence, he comes from the sea, from the chaotic deep-and-darkness of the
Abyss, which had to be conquered, formed, and filled by the light of the Spirit (Gen. 1:2; John 1:5). This is
not to suggest that there was any real conflict between
God and His creation; in the beginning, everything was “very good.” The sea is most fundamentally an image of
life. But after the Fall, the picture of the raging deep is used and developed in Scripture as a symbol of the
world in chaos through the rebellion of men and nations against God: “The wicked are like the tossing
sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud” (Isa. 57:20; cf. Isa. 17: 12). St. John is told
later that “the waters which you saw . . . are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues” (17: 15). Out of
this chaotic, rebellious mass of humanity emerged Rome, an entire empire founded on the premise of
opposition to God.
The Beast has ten horns and seven heads, a mirrorimage (cf. Gen. 1:26) of the Dragon (12:3), who gives
the Beast his power and his throne and great authority. The ten crowned horns (powers)2 of the
Beast are explained in 17:12 in terms of the governors
david chilton
