Speaker: Dustin Scott

Passage: Revelation 12

WE ARE TO LIVE FROM THE VICTORY OF HEAVEN | REVELATION 12

So we’re going to be back in the Book of Revelation. We’re going to be in Revelation 12, and I’ll give us some fair warning: this is going to be another seemingly strange and controversial passage of Scripture. And you’re probably saying, Hasn’t all of Revelation been strange and controversial? Well, you can rest in the fact that we’re going to go out of our Revelation series for the month of December, go into some Christmas stories, because the Mark of the Beast is a strange place to land in the run-up to Christmas, isn’t it? 

As much as I might have been excited about that, we probably wouldn’t have. But I also want to give you some fair warning that I’ve kind of been wrestling with some emotions this week. There’s half of me that’s really excited for our teaching this morning; there’s some nerdy adventures to go on in chapter 12. But I’ve also been cut to the heart because there’s been some places where the Lord’s really been dealing with me and that I have quite a distorted heart. And so if it looks like I’m on an emotional roller coaster up here, just know that I am. I’ll try not to put you into it too, but we’ll make it there, won’t we? 

But before we get started, let’s pray. Holy Spirit, before we begin to even dive into interpretation and thought in relation to Revelation 12, would You just begin to focus our ears and our attention on You? Lord, before a single word of study our teaching is given, would You begin to teach our hearts Your nature and Your character?

I think about the warning in this book, and I think it’s a fair warning for the whole of our lives to anyone who adds or takes away. So Lord, would we not add or take away from Your Word this morning, but would You make Yourself preeminent, not just in our hearts, but in our lives? Would Your love, would Your forgiveness, would Your kingdom reign in us. And would our testimony, the way we live our lives, draw those who are still sinners, those who are still caught in addiction and wickedness, to You we ask this in Your name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And everyone said, Amen. 

LETO AND THE PYTHON

We’re entering into chapter 12. And I think that we, as twenty-first-century Christians, struggle to interpret passages like this because we’re not accustomed to the first-century world. We’re not necessarily familiar with the history, the cultures, or the stories of John’s day– what I would like to call the world behind the Bible. And John is going to frame his Heavenly vision within chapter 12 within the structure of a well-known Greek and Roman myth of the time called Leto and the Python. 

And I want us to read them side by side this morning. We’re going to begin with this myth because it’s honestly the less important part of where we’re going, and then we’re going to go to the Scriptures. But I want us to listen in for three figures: the first one is a woman, the second one is a child, and the third is a dragon. I’m going to begin by reading excerpts from Leto and the Python. 

It reads, “Python, Terra’s son, is a huge dragon…When Python realized that Latona was pregnant…he began to pursue her in order to kill her…Latona was carried away by the north wind…there Latona, holding oil, gave birth to Apollo…on the fourth day after he was born, Apollo executed his mother’s punishments for he came to Parnassus and killed Python.” 

REVELATION 12

Now, we’re going to dive into chapter 12, and I want us to listen in for those same three figures: a woman, a child, and a dragon. Would you stand with me for the reading of the Scriptures? You’re like, I knew he was going to make us do that. 

I’m going to read the whole chapter, exempting one verse for us; beginning in verse 1, it says, “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head, a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to deliver a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all nations with a scepter of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days. 

“And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 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. 

“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven proclaiming–” I love this part– “‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath because he knows his time is short!’

“So when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had delivered the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. Then from his mouth the serpent poured water like a river after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon was angry with the woman and went off to wage war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.”

THE FIGURES AND SCRIPTURES IN REVELATION 12

If your first reading of Revelation 12 was anything like mine, you probably responded, Huh, what is John talking about? We can recognize some biblical figures: we see a child who looks like Jesus; a woman who kind of looks like Mary, as she’s described in the Gospel of Matthew; we see this dragon who the Scriptures tell us is the ancient serpent, the enemy, the fallen angel Lucifer; and we even recognize biblical sources within this passage. 

We find a psalm from Psalm 2, a messianic prophecy, where Jesus is described as the coming Messiah, the Son of the Father Who shall inherit all nations and rule them with a scepter of iron. We find a birth account taken from Matthew 2, where Joseph and Mary and Jesus are fleeing from the envious Herod into the wilderness of Egypt. And we find a cosmic event– a historic cosmic event– that’s already happened. Jesus describes it to the disciples in Luke 10 when He says, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.” 

And in Revelation 12, John is framing his Heavenly vision within these Scriptures, but he’s also using a mythic narrative to frame his vision, this story Leto and the Python. This was a popular Greco-Roman myth, and the historical record indicates that John, who is a prisoner of Patmos and a pastor within Asia Minor, would have been familiar with it. Can we bring up that map? 

This particular version of Leto and the Python takes place on the island of Delos, and for our visual reference, there’s Patmos. It’s only seventy-two miles away. To put that in perspective, that’s just about the same distance between Fort Collins and Denver. 

WHY DOES JOHN COMBINE SCRIPTURE AND MYTH?

So why is John doing this? What is he seeking to accomplish in fusing together Scripture and mythic narrative in his vision account? Well, here’s where it can get a little exciting for me. As a pastor, one of the gifts I have is overseeing our kids’ ministry. I want you to imagine that on a Sunday morning, just like this, there’s a volunteer teacher, and she’s teaching two-year-olds how to learn about God’s eternal victory over the enemy. It’s actually quite a challenge. And she’s trying to communicate this truth in a way that these young believers will understand. 

And so our teacher adopts a familiar English folk tale to illustrate Biblical truth. She says to our children, “Three little pigs lived in a house, and the house is the church, the house of God. Out from the woods came a big bad wolf, and he huffed, and he puffed, and he did his best to blow the house down, but at the crucial moment when all hope looked like it was lost, out came a strong shepherd who chased the wolf away.” 

If you want to know what John is doing in Revelation 12, it’s precisely that. He’s framing his vision in a narrative which his readers, the seven churches of Asia Minor, would have readily known, recognized, and understood. We see that the dragon who seeks to destroy the child isn’t Python, it’s Lucifer, this fallen angel, our enemy. We find that the divine infant who conquers the dragon isn’t Apollo, it’s Jesus. 

WHO IS THE WOMAN?

And this is where we get into theological controversy, because who’s the woman? This is a debate within the Christian world. Some older traditions, like the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, will, in a certain sense, go for the obvious and say it’s a depiction of Mary as she’s found in Matthew 2, fleeing with Joseph and Jesus into the wilderness of Egypt, an ancient Christian iconography. If you grew up in a church with stained glass, you probably saw Mary depicted this way, with a crown on her head with twelve stars. 

Now, a more modern interpretation that comes from dispensationalism believes that this woman indicates and signifies ethnic Israel, the nation of Israel. And they do that with evidence. If you look at the description of the woman in this vision, you see this crown of twelve stars, she’s clothed in the sun, her feet are upon the moon. That’s Biblical language, and it comes from Genesis 37:9, where Joseph has a vision. 

Everyone knows young Joseph was a little bit prideful, wasn’t he? And so he goes to his family and says, Hey, I had a vision. You, Jacob, my father, were the sun. My mother was the moon. My eleven brothers were the stars, and they were all bowing down to me. And who were those brothers? They were the forebearers of the Israelite tribes. 

Now another theological school will see this woman as an illustration of the people of God, the church. That comes from the book of Isaiah, where God’s people are described as being pregnant with birth pangs, with Yahweh dwelling within them. It also comes from the New Testament, where Paul says to the church at Galatia, “My little children for whom I am in the pain of childbirth until Christ be formed within you.” 

So there’s the debate: who’s the woman? I’m going to submit to us a bit of a radical perspective this morning: maybe these interpretations could all be right. What do I mean by that? I don’t see a problem with any of them. If we go to Galatians 4:4, Mary was the woman from whom Jesus received His human nature. If we go to Luke 3, where we find what appears to be Mary’s genealogy, she is born, she is conceived within ethnic Israel. Therefore, it would be right and proper to say that Jesus was conceived both within Mary and within the nation of Israel. If we go elsewhere in the New Testament, we find in Matthew 1 and Luke 1, that Mary literally receives Jesus through the conceiving of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus dwells and grows within her.

Well, Paul will pick up that imagery in Galatians 2 and say, Isn’t that a foreshadowing of the spiritual process that happens in all of us? We receive Jesus by the Holy Spirit, and He comes and He grows within us? I don’t think these interpretations are as hostile to each other as they think they are. 

And here’s the bigger problem: I really think they missed the point. Chapter 12 isn’t about Mary. Chapter 12 isn’t about Israel. Chapter 12 isn’t really about the church. Chapter 12 is a revelation of Jesus, the incarnate God, the Divine Child who conquers evil; He is the center of chapter 12. Makes it simple for us, doesn’t it? 

JOHN USES MYTH TO TELL WHO JESUS IS

So why is John doing this? Why is he using the mythic, what would have been in the time period, a pagan narrative, to communicate God’s truth? Well, Paul will do this when he quotes the poet Eratis in Acts 17, or Euripides in 1 Corinthians 15, or Epimides in Titus 3:2. They are just using the stories and the languages of the day to communicate the truth of Who Jesus is. 

And if you want to dive into the Leto and the Python myth more because you’re a nerd like me, you can hang out with me and Ian Paul, either through the QR code or through this week’s newsletter, where we do a bit of a deep dive on this story. 

THE VICTORY OF HEAVEN

But I want to take us back to Revelation 1:3, where we’re told that the Book of Revelation contains practical truth and blessing for whoever reads and whoever hears and obeys the words of this prophecy. So it’s my belief that John isn’t being coy, he isn’t being mystical, he isn’t being strange. He’s doing what all of us do. We speak to our audience in language and stories they understand so that they can come to the knowledge of who Jesus is. And what’s the punchline? Jesus has defeated the dragon. We are to live from His victory. That victory is already accomplished. 

So if I were to draw a practical application from Revelation 12– you guys are like Practical application?— I think there is some: Heaven has already won. Look at verse 10, “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom.” So if Jesus has already accomplished Heaven’s victory, if Jesus has already conquered the powers of darkness through His incarnation, through His obedient life, through His death and resurrection, what should that victory look like in our daily lives as believers? I think Revelation 12 gives us a handful of clues. 

Let’s look at verse 10: for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown where? Down. Who accuses them day and night before our God. The name for the enemy in Scripture is Ha-Satan or, in Greek, Hasatanos. What does that mean? Means the accuser. The fundamental attribute of our enemy is that he accuses and slanders. So, if we are to live from the victory of Heaven, doesn’t that mean we must refuse to partner with a defeated accuser? 

WHICH KINGDOM ARE WE SERVING?

If I look at Revelation 8 and 9, we learn that bitterness was the language, was the culture of the Abyss. And this prompts several questions for me and for us: where am I inadvertently serving the accuser’s kingdom? Am I slandering another’s character? Am I gossiping about others’ failures? Am I envying others’ accomplishments? Am I accusing others of their mistakes? Am I rejoicing at the humiliations and defeats of those I know? I would never do that, would I? Most importantly, am I expecting leniency for myself, but severity for others? 

Because if those things are true of us or of me, it means I’ve neglected Jesus’ Kingdom, which is defined by what? His blood, His forgiveness. Accusation and forgiveness don’t live in the same kingdom. So where does His forgiveness require that I repent and take upon myself His generosity, His patience, His endurance, His steadfast love? You guys are like He planned this for Thanksgiving week, didn’t he? 

But less humorously, it’s been wrecking me all week. How many lives, how many hearts, have I damaged through my own accusation and my own bitterness? I’ve been forgiven. Revelation 1 tells us that He’s loosed us from our sins. And we’ve been forgiven if we’re followers of Him. But if I look at the commandments of the Lord and the Gospels where Jesus says things like “if you do not forgive your brother, my Father will not forgive you,” that means the Lord requires that His forgiveness defines how I live and how I forgive, because the taking of His forgiveness for granted is the very undoing of salvation.

Am I partnering with forgiveness or with accusation? If I were to take an inventory of my own heart, the numbers haven’t been very good lately. If I go to verse 11, it says, “They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.” If we are to live from Heaven’s accomplished victory, it means we cannot allow our seeming earthly defeats to discredit the reality of Heaven’s victory. 

HEAVEN’S VICTORY IS ASSURED

What do I mean by that? When Jesus declares from the cross, “It is finished,” He wasn’t just writing poetry from the cross. He meant the statement, it is finished. Darkness was dethroned forever in that moment. And Hebrews 2 will say that in this, Jesus destroyed the one who has the power of death. And Paul will say in 1 Corinthians 15 that death has lost its sting. 

And the Scriptures teach us that Jesus’ visible return and the dawn of new creation is delayed for one and only one reason: it wasn’t so that we could have nice family lives; it wasn’t so that we could retire and have some fun recreation time; it wasn’t so that we could enjoy our days in peace and have a generally nice life that looks good on one of those corny magazines you find in the dentist’s office. No. 

Peter tells us the only reason why Jesus’s second coming is delayed is this: “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” If you’re wondering why you’re here, it’s because not enough sinners, not enough unrepentant persons, not enough of the lost have found Jesus yet. So He left us here so we could reflect His nature and the lost could be found again. And if we really think about God’s sovereignty and right perspective, imagine a lottery number where any number you drew, even if it was a stupid number, you still got the winning prize because the end was already set. The victory of Heaven is that inevitable. 

Yet we, as faithful followers of Jesus, have been left in a world which is under judgment, which is full of suffering, which is packed with unfairness and the lack of mercy and love and forgiveness. Why? What are we to do with that? In those moments where we feel the agony of this world under judgment, we are being invited by Heaven to adjust our perspective because His cross didn’t miss the big picture. But sometimes we do. 

So even in moments where there’s seemingly no answer, where the agony and suffering is too great, where the pain doesn’t make sense, can we settle in just trusting His sovereign answer and victory even when earthly circumstances are vying for our attention, our emotions, and we’re tempted to despair? Because if we’re looking for answers on this side, we’re not going to find them outside of the death and resurrection of Jesus because one thing conquered the power of death: one person– it was Him. 

And if we go to verse 14, it says, “The woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness to her place where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time.” This flight of the woman, this being taken up on the wings like eagles, is drawn from Isaiah 40, and maybe some of you memorized this with your parents when you were a kid: “But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not grow faint. They shall walk and not grow weary.” 

If we’re to be a people who live from the victory of Heaven, it must mean that we’re a people who wait upon the Lord, who hear His voice when life doesn’t make sense, and even when we can’t find strength in the things around us, we go to Him and find our strength in Him. 

WE LIVE IN THE WILDERNESS

If I look at the cycle of time, found in the Book of Revelation, and then in Daniel, these strange numbers like three and a half, forty-two months, 1260 days, I know the math nerds in us are like, Aren’t all those the same increment of time? Good job. And you’re not going to be surprised where they come from. They come from the Book of Numbers. You see what I did there? And with great deference to our Sunday school teachers, they were wrong when they told us that the Israelites were in the wilderness for forty years. Because when you go to the Book of Numbers, you find that they weren’t in the wilderness for forty years; they were in the wilderness for forty-two. And to push that point home, they stop at exactly forty-two geographic markers on the way, which means that these increments of time– three and a half, forty-two, 1260– they mark the space between slavery and the promised land. 

And guess what? What is that reality called? What is that place between slavery and promised land called? It’s called the wilderness. And Peter tells us in the New Testament that we live in a wilderness. He says, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.” As God’s people, we live in a wilderness between slavery and promise. 

If we go back to Revelation 1, it says He’s loosed us from our sins. But yet we live in this place of tension because we still see suffering, we still see pain, we still see the consequences of sin in our life, because we have not yet reached the promised land of new creation. We are an exiled people in wilderness. 

WE ARE TO LIVE FROM THE VICTORY OF HEAVEN

So what are we to do? How are we to live from the victory of Heaven in the midst of the wilderness of a world under judgment? We must refuse to give into the temptations of the Israelite wanders, who replaced the Lord with idols, who found themselves distracted, who found themselves murmuring and complaining about the wilderness they were placed within. Because what did that do? That elongated the journey, didn’t it? 

But if we’re to live from Heaven’s victory, it means we have to adopt the culture of Heaven, which means we live in selfless love rather than selfish accusation. It means that we live with the perspective of heaven, looking to eternity rather than just the present moment. And most importantly, if we remember the picture of the manna given by the Lord through the exile trial, we must live from the nourishment of Heaven, which means we choose daily encounter with Him, the one who is called the bread of life, instead of focusing on the idols and the distractions of this world under judgment. That’s how we live from the victory of Heaven. 

And it’s hard, isn’t it? A few months ago, Kelly and I were at the store. Do any of your salvations get tested sometimes at the store? If I think about the painful things which have happened in my life, it’s like, Why is it always the little stupid moments that cause so much damage? We’re in line, there’s someone in front of us. They’re tempting us to react in wrath and anger in a way which is unbecoming to the nature of Jesus. And I’m about to lash out. Kelly’s about to lash out. We’re about to join together in this effort of accusation. And thank God that He intervened and said, Wait, I’m watching. And here’s the other thing we heard: She’s going to show up at church tomorrow. And guess who my wife and I saw walk into church the next morning? 

That’s one example of victory and many examples of failures. But if I look at Revelation 12, we’re not a hopeless people, we’re not desperate or despairing, we’re not hoping that maybe God is going to win this fight. The enemy is a creature; he cannot compete with the God Who has no needs, Who never changes, Who has no limit to His power, Who is the author of all things. That means we’re a victorious people, but not because of anything we did; We’re victorious because He’s victorious. 

So, as we live in the wilderness of this world, as we carry the Kingdom of Heaven, I think the church has become so distracted because we think it’s all about social movements and big changes and crazy things we’re going to do, which flash before the eyes of the world. Do you know what the craziest thing we can do is? Live like Jesus. Because peace only comes from one place: from the Prince of Peace. 

Which means if we want to change the world, let’s put to death our flesh, let’s walk in maturity as Paul says, let’s not do those things which grieve the Spirit like accusation and bitterness. That’s the list that Paul gives. But instead, let’s live from the victory of Heaven and walk as Jesus walks in the midst of this wilderness because it’s not if we reach the promised land, it’s when. 

Can I pray for you and for myself? Lord, I just have come to realize the older I get, and I’m sure it’s going to get worse because I’ve got a little bit of older to go, that when Paul says, “I’ve come to realize that there’s nothing good within me that is my flesh,” there really is nothing good within me without You. And so, Lord, would You come make yourself preeminent in our hearts? Would You make me and us a people of peace, a people who carry Your nature, a people who reflect You? If I look at this word, “they overcame by their testimony,” it means that their lives were exuding You, Lord, the things they spoke, the way they acted, it was a kingdom not from this world. 

And so, Lord, we pray all the time that Your prayer would be answered on earth as it is in Heaven. But if we want on earth as it is in Heaven, the only one on earth from Heaven is You. So, would you make Yourself manifest in our lives? Would You help us change this world under judgment in the small ways which make a massive difference? And would You make us a people who live for eternity? Give us Your grace and Your Mercy, fill us with the strength we don’t have, be preeminent in our lives. We ask this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.