And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a manchild, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. 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. 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. 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. 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. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.—Rev. xii.
In the last vision the earthly temple disappeared, a temple in heaven was opened. The first sight presented to the spirit of the prophet in that higher region, is a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.
It must have been indeed a wonder to him. There could have been no more striking discovery of the contrast between the old world which was passing away, and the new world which was commencing. That old world has often been called in praise or in disparagement a male world. The epithet applies at least as forcibly to the Jew as to the Roman. It would be the greatest injustice to either to say that the reverence for women was wanting in them. It was cultivated in the Jew by all his institutions, by all his prophecies; it gives a colouring to some of the most striking legends, as well as to some of the most unquestioned records which the Roman republican cherished. But the man was called out to be the servant and witness of Jehovah, especially by those acts in which the woman could not share. The dread lest some other than a male standard of worth should creep into the State and destroy its nerve, was a chief reason why the elder Romans dreaded the incursion of the art and learning of Greece. For there had been in that land a floating vision of transcendent beauty, which could not be embodied merely in an Apollo. Pallas and Aphrodite had disputed the supremacy with him, though the sternness of the first, and the merely passive grace of the second, had shown how difficult it was, and how dangerous, to lose sight of the other ideal.
What the change means, whether it has necessarily involved the growth of effeminacy, whether it implies progress or declension, are questions which have occupied thinkers much in all times, never more than in this time. This heavenly vision, connected as it is with the whole purpose of the Apocalypse—beginning, as it does, a series of visions—may, I believe, throw a light upon this subject which we want scarcely more for the study of history, than for our own daily and practical guidance.
I. The wonder which the Apostle saw is exactly the wonder which has accompanied Christendom through all the different stages of its life and growth. The mother and the child, under one aspect or another, have been present to all who have tried to satisfy themselves what the human is, and how it is related to the Divine. All have felt more or less distinctly, “What we are seeking for is there; how, we cannot tell. Perhaps it cannot be put into words at all. Perhaps the symbol is itself all that we need.” Romanists and Protestants have felt their difference, their intense opposition, nowhere more strongly than when this subject forces itself—as it is always forcing itself upon them. They are conscious that there must lie the very secret of their dissensions. And yet they have a dim feeling that there also, if they could penetrate a little deeper, might lie the secret of reconciliation. May not some neglect or inversion of the law which binds this mother to this child, explain a number of corruptions which have made men in the new world sigh for what seemed to them the simpler and manlier glories of the old? May not the true perception of that law vindicate both the old and the new, and prove that the latter is indeed a blessed unfolding of that which was hidden or imperfect in the former? May not the book which professes to be a revelation of Jesus Christ, give us that unfolding?
The woman is clothed with the sun. She has no brightness or glory in herself. Yet she is covered with a brightness and glory. She dwells in the perfect light. She is able to look up to the source of light. The crown of twelve stars on her head distinguishes the brightness which is about herself, which to those who contemplate her from beneath seems to be hers, from that which she herself perceives, from that true Divinity which she confesses and worships. The moon at her feet shows that there is a reflection of this Divinity coming from herself, but of which she must not become enamoured. If that image attracts her, the fate of Narcissus will be hers: her self-love will be her destruction.
Here is a very striking symbol of humanity. No one which is derived from the old world is anything like so complete. That male ideal of which I spoke struggles in vain to be more than national. In aspiring to be more in the Greek, it sank into effeminacy and slavery. In aspiring to be more in the Roman, it passed into imperialism. In aspiring to be more in the Jew, it was either changed into the narrowest sectarianism, or else burst forth into this very type of humanity that we are contemplating.
II. But though more perfect than anything that the world had yet seen, it is still imperfect. Another element is wanting. “And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.” Something is needed to connect this female ideal with the male ideal of the former ages. That must be expanded as well as this. That must be brought into closest harmony with this. The woman is not merely looking up to a light above her. She is struggling with a birth. The Divine must be above the human; but it must also come forth from the human. There must be a man-child. All the struggles and conflicts in society and in the individual man are throes preceding that birth. All the conflicts which the individual man or society has undergone, are conflicts whether that child shall live or die. For—
III. “There appeared another wonder in heaven. And behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.” I must again remind you that the last vision of the Apocalypse—if we interpret it as I try to interpret it, strictly—points to a certain critical moment in the world’s history; as I think, to that period of three or four years in which Jerusalem was threatened by the Roman armies, and in which Rome herself was passing through what looked like a death-struggle. Seen from above, what does this crisis signify? It signifies the struggle whether humanity shall have its true and righteous king, or whether another power shall rule over it, and receive its homage. That power is represented as a bloody dragon. The Lamb, you will remember, had the seven horns and the seven eyes that are the seven Spirits of God going forth in all the earth. There we have the symbol of concentrated harmonised power, proceeding from one loving Will, directed to one loving end. There we have the symbol of life in all its various measures and forms, proceeding from the Source of life, to quicken, renovate, unite. Here we have the antagonist symbol. Seven heads and ten horns. Powers intellectual and physical, going forth not from one creative mind, to accomplish in divers ways a blessed result; but going forth from a destructive mind destructive, and therefore broken into different shapes to spread death. This is the dragon who has been fighting in all generations of the world with man; fighting to separate him from the loving and eternal God; fighting that he may see that God under divided forms, that he may mistake and pervert His purposes, that he may frame the Divine Spirit out of his own thoughts and conceptions, instead of suffering those thoughts and conceptions to be moulded and re-formed by the Divine Spirit. This is the dragon, therefore, who sought to tempt the Divine Son while He was upon earth into a distrust and denial of His Father, into separating Himself from the creatures whose nature He had taken. And that same dragon is represented here as struggling that men may not confess the Conqueror of the evil spirit as at once the Son of Man and the Son of God.
This dragon is said to draw the third part of the stars of heaven, and to cast them to the earth. Whenever spiritual beings are led to worship themselves, to glory in their own power, to reverence power for its own sake, they are drawn down from heaven to the earth. Being stars meant to diffuse light, they become powers of darkness. All creation suffers a blight from their influence. That there has been such a fall of spirits, men have believed. If you ask me how many texts of Scripture they have had to sustain their belief, I should be disposed to answer, “If they had but this one, it would be all the more remarkable that the faith should have such prevalency, that it should have exercised dominion over so many different ages, have penetrated so deeply into the heart of nations, have embodied itself in so many various forms of art and literature, have defied so much scorn and incredulity.” And this faith, though it may have various anticipations and foretastes in the ancient world, is strictly a Christendom faith. The revelation of our own spiritual capacities and temptations has shown us how the tail of the dragon might sweep down the stars of heaven. Every man has known at some crisis or other of his life aspirations, intuitions, hopes, which could not have belonged to an animal, which must belong to a spirit. He has felt that these were emphatically human aspirations, intuitions, hopes. They were not his. They raised him above himself. They made him understand what other men and other ages had felt. They found their utterance in cries for deliverance, in acts of thanksgiving. He knew that he had something in him which was capable of communion with that which he could not comprehend. It is possible, we all know it is, to fall from this state of mind; to treat it as utterly fantastical and ridiculous; to hate it at the same time, as if the sense of it were haunting us and we could not send it away. And so the thought how spirits may have fallen connects itself with that resistance which we are conscious of when our own are trying to rise. Is there not One who knows all our wants, is helping us against our enemies, is offering Himself to us as the Divine man, the Lord of our spirits? Is not that the Man-child feeble, yet mighty? Is not the dragon seeking to slay Him as soon as He is born?
IV. “And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to his throne.” We shall be celebrating this week the mystery of our Lord’s ascension. Has that mystery anything to do with the words I have just read to you? It seems to me, my brethren, that all the acts of our Lord’s life, His Birth of the Virgin, His Cross, and Passion, and Resurrection, have to do with them. All were steps in the manifestation of the true King and Conqueror of men. All were steps in the redemption of humanity. And the act of ascension was, if we believe St. Paul, the highest of these acts; the leading of man’s captivity captive, the declaration of Christ’s royalty. I would never separate that ascension from the one which is spoken of here. The very effect and worth of heavenly visions is to bring under one law and principle events which in the records of time are divided. In this case I do not think they are divided by any wide interval. The words, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled,” are words which I have accepted throughout these Lectures in their literal force. At that moment, when the kingdom of God upon earth was apparently ceasing to be, when the pledges of any union between heaven and earth were departing, then is the kingdom of heaven, which Christ had preached, actually inaugurated, then the pledges of union are substantiated. That disappearance of signs is itself the sign that the representative of humanity is caught up to God and His Throne.
Divines have a technical way of treating this subject. They speak of an actual Christ who was born into the world, and of a mystical Christ who is born in the hearts of some men. Philosophical students of history have profited by this distinction, and have represented the Christian idea as merely an idea, and have shewn how such an idea had been floating in the minds of men in all different countries and ages of the world. It seems to me that St. John the divine understood the whole matter better than later divines, and that by him the actual Christ and the mystical Christ are never separated. No one is so careful to set forth the Man who sat by the well, who ate the Passover supper, whose soul was troubled, whose feet and hands were pierced with the nails. No one is so certain that this was the Word, who had been the light of every man, made flesh. So when He had died for the sheep, and risen again, He does but return to His natural state, to the glory which He had with the Father before the worlds were. But He returned after having made it known to His disciples that He is the Vine and they the branches; that all their life is from Him and in Him; that apart from Him they are nothing, and can do nothing. What He had taught them, He sent them to teach the world. Each man who received the message, discovered Christ to be the teacher of his spirit, the source of his life. His conscience had told him of such an one before; now he knew His name. The Jewish prophecies, heathen traditions, had said that the world must have a Divine king, who was also a human king. When the Jewish world passed away, He is revealed as Lord of the universe. The woman has brought forth the Man-child. He is to rule the nations with a rod of iron. Humanity is not commencing a feminine age; though, contemplated in its earthly condition merely, that is the highest and the most universal symbol under which it can be represented. There is to be dominion and government; the Man-child is to rule the nations. There is to be no lazy tenderness. With the rod of His wrath He is to slay the wicked. It is the rod of a shepherd; but a rod of iron too; let the tyrants of the earth know it and tremble.
V. “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days.” Can all commentators have been mistaken in supposing that the woman here must mean the Church? If not, must I not change the force which I gave to the symbol in the previous passage? I cannot doubt that the commentators are right, and that this vision does describe the condition of the Church during a period of peculiar desolation. But since the Apostle does not use those images which he used before, I think we are bound to ask the reason of the change, and to learn the new lesson which it must be meant to teach us. When he spoke of six candlesticks, and said that the candlesticks were Churches, I took it for granted that he intended to speak of the Churches as lights of the world; when he speaks of a woman without saying that he intends the Church, I cannot merely substitute one name for the other; I must ascertain from the context and the analogy of Scripture what the natural force of the symbol is, and then, if the occasion appears to demand it, apply the discovery to the Church. So doing, we may hope to arrive at the idea of the Church in the mind of St. John, instead of forcing one of our own upon him.
Supposing the twelve hundred and sixty days to be that period of darkness when the old witnesses of law and priesthood were prophesying in sackcloth and were about for a time to be destroyed,—supposing that to have been the crisis in which humanity was translated to a new glory, her Divine representative being caught up to the throne of God; where shall we seek for the representative of her new condition upon earth? Not in the city of Jerusalem; that has been denying this glory of man, that is to perish in its denial. But those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that He does stand at the right hand of God, their Mediator and Advocate—they, banished from the city, with no country they can properly call their home, with no visible fellowship or unity, are nevertheless maintaining the true greatness of the race; they are claiming the rights of spirits, they overlook the boundaries of space and time; they have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
The records of the Church during those particular years, even during all the latter years of the first century, are especially scanty and bewildering. Its numbers must have been greatly diminished; the love of many, as our Lord foretold, must have waxed cold. Hints are given by Eusebius which seem to reflect the confusion of the time in the Church—of a declension which soon after took place, especially in Palestine. In them are dim records of a flight to Pella. Bishops are said to have succeeded one another with incredible rapidity; often they bear heathen names. That the Church should have survived at all through such a time was altogether wonderful in mortal eyes. No more perfect account of the preservation can be given than that which is contained in the text. “She had a place prepared by God;” she was kept alive in the wilderness for twelve hundred and sixty days.
VI. And is that all? Have we only an account of a few scattered Christians without a visible refuge or home for three or four years? It is not quite all. We have another record besides this.
“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. 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. 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. 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.”
That insignificant spectacle of a set of poor men, exiles from cities, unrecognised upon earth, is suddenly changed for this wonderful spectacle of the hosts of heaven, pouring forth their shouts and congratulations for the greatest victory that had ever been won. What was the victory? The words describe it clearly enough if we will give heed to them. There had been a tremendous barrier between man and God. An enemy was every moment arraigning man as a rebel, ever arraigning God as a tyrant. And now the Manchild presented men to God as redeemed, justified, perfected in Him; God to men as their loving Father who had given up His only Son for them. The battle in heaven had this subject and this issue, no other. Was there indeed a bond of peace and fellowship between it and earth? Was it indeed possible for man to meet God, and God to meet man? Was there One in whom both could be well pleased? Was God drawing men to Him or putting them from Him?—seeking to save them or to damn them?
Whatever other dreams we may have dreamt of the casting of the Devil and his angels out of heaven, this is St. John’s account of it. The accuser of the brethren is no longer able to tear the creature from the Creator. They are made one in the well-beloved Son. “And now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.” The two are inseparably, eternally linked together. Christ has not put forth any power to change the will of the Father. His power has been manifested in fulfilling that will, in making it effectual. It is not God who has been keeping men at a distance from Him; it is the foe of God. He is the condemner; God is the Justifier.
These are not principles, my brethren, that lasted twelve hundred and sixty days. They were proved in those twelve hundred and sixty days; they were established in those days when the world looked most dreary and hopeless, as the principles upon which Christendom and the whole world were standing. For the men in those days overcame the dragon by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of His testimony. The blood of the Lamb was a perpetual witness to them that God had reconciled the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. The blood of the Lamb was a living sacrament of a perpetual and living union between the children on earth and their Father in heaven. And the word of this testimony was, that God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son for it. These were the answers to the accuser, which rose above all the arguments and subtleties with which he would persuade men that they are an accursed, and not a redeemed and blessed race; that death is a sign of separation from God, and from each other, as it must be when we contemplate it in any individual case, not a bond of reconciliation and atonement to God, and to each other, as it must be when we contemplate it in the death of Christ, the Head, and Representative, and Redeemer, of the whole race. Therefore, these witnesses did not love their lives unto the death; they could throw away their lives as witnesses for the truth, knowing that the truth was worth more than their lives, and that they might trust their lives with the God of Truth. The male courage of the old time had not departed. The Christian martyrs were to be the guardians and transmitters of it.
VII. “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and the seas, for the devil is come down to you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”
The dragon was cast down from heaven. Those who claimed their portion in God saw an unclouded face. Those who looked into the eternal world, which had been so full of dark shadows, perceived that it was full of light. This vision was not for angels, but for sinful, dying men. The kingdom of heaven had been opened to them by Him who had borne sin and overcome the sharpness of death; in the midst of torments they might dwell in it. The woe and trouble were for those who inhabited the earth and the sea; for those who could not look beyond the visible and temporal. These had been redeemed; these had been united to the other world. But if they did not own the reconciliation, if they tried to interpret the universe by the events which were passing in it, they could find no excuse for hope; everything was a reason for despair. It was a time of devil ascendancy over the world;—a short time, for whatever our unbelief may pretend, the times of such ascendancy are short; they wind up long periods of indifference and heartlessness; they act as cures for Atheism; they drive men, in spite of themselves, to a good God. But who can tell how fearful they are while they last! Who can measure the anguish of them by minutes or by years!
VIII. “And when the dragon saw that he was cast upon the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man-child. And to her were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, to her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.”
The child is beyond the dragon’s reach. He has triumphed. The mother of the child is still open to his violence. That is the formula for the history of the modern world; for the history of Humanity since the manifestation of the Son of Man. Part of the battle, and that the most tremendous part, which St. John calls the battle in heaven, had been fought. But the battle of the woman, a battle with the dragon in his various aspects; now tempting by prosperity, now by adversity; now one head and one horn prominent, now another; this had to be fought; this is the subject of all records from the days of St. John to our own.
I do not, however, extend the direct application of this passage beyond the crisis to which I have alluded already. The expression “time, and times, and half a time,” is no doubt chosen for some reason; perhaps to indicate that events are spoken of which do belong to a definite period, but which have a meaning and significance that stretches into other periods. But the period itself would seem to be identical with the 1260 days; the flight into the wilderness in the sixth verse cannot be distinguished from the one in the fourteenth. What is said further about it is, that the woman is borne into her hiding place on the wings of a great eagle. The great eagle would be more literal: one reading is, the two wings of the great eagle. The ordinary emblem of the conquering city as well as the usage of the Apocalypse justifies us in assuming Rome to be the protectress in this instance. The eagle which was about to descend on the Jerusalem carcase rescued the witnesses for mankind—for the redemption of both Jew and Gentile—from the oppressions of the Jewish sects, as well as from their own false position in the midst of those sects. The dwelling in the wilderness appears to imply a suspension of all visible ordinances, of all outward fellowship. It was a necessary transition; a period in which the Church was to know herself before she entered upon her new vocation as the herald of a Divine kingdom to the imperial world. But there were dangers besetting her in the solitude.
IX. “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.”
Jerusalem had been a hot-bed of sects or heresies. We think we exhaust the description of them when we speak of Pharisees, Sadducees, and perhaps Essenes. There must have been many more within these great political divisions, many outside of them. The Samaritans constituted another element; they had been always more prone than their neighbours to spiritual impostures; less tied down by orthodox formalities. The Judaism of Alexandria standing in close affinity with the Gentile philosophy, was rich in all conceptions and imaginations. These turned especially upon the nature of the Divine Word who had spoken to the fathers; upon the relation in which He would stand to the Messiah that was to come; upon the offices and powers of Angels; upon their relations to God and men. What waters were these for the Church to float in after she was loosed from her old moorings! All simple faith, in a time when faith was most needed, must have been threatened, if not lost in them. But there was a merciful deliverance from this evil then, as there has been since. The Apostle’s words very strikingly indicate it. The arguments of doctors go very little way in settling controversies; generally increase them, and add to the perplexities of those who are suffering from them. But the earth swallows them up. They may be exceedingly sublime, heavenly speculations; who knows? But they do not meet the daily necessities, business, sufferings of earth. And after all, what we ask for is that which will do this. Opinions with the clearest warrants of antiquity, with the finest gloss of novelty, must be brought to this test. What can they do for us? You say they are very probable: there is great evidence for them. No doubt; but I want something that I can rest upon; not something that is very likely, but something that is. Thanks to the good honest earth, which in due time sucks up all watery notions, and only leaves that which has proved itself to be substantial.
X. “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
Good reason the dragon had for wrath. He had trusted the earth as his friend, and it had proved his foe. The plain solid work and the hard suffering which he thought would make men forget the Divine kingdom have really obliged them to break through the mists which were hiding the Divine kingdom from them. Other means than these must be tried. What means the next vision will tell us. But that we may know why they are used, what the dragon seeks to destroy, this great simple lesson is left with us which we may all lay to heart. The battle is not with those who hold some system which they call Christianity. It is with those who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ—with those who hold fast the commandment that bids them love God with their hearts and souls and strength, and their neighbours as themselves—with those who hold fast the testimony of Jesus Christ, that God who commands us to love Him, has first loved us, and has given His Son for us all, and has justified and glorified that Son as our Mediator and Advocate at His right hand, and has sent His Spirit of Love to form us after His image. With these the Spirit of Evil fought in the old time, fights now, and will fight till he or they be vanquished. We have declared this day at God’s altar that we are engaged in that strife, that we have failed in it, that there is only one strength which can enable us to prevail in it. And He has said to us this day: You may be more than conquerors through the might of Him who loved you. By the blood of the Lamb the weakest of you may overcome.