The Cosmic Scope of the Conflict The conflict is cosmic because it involves all things and all of history. The signs John sees in heaven are further visions to help us make sense of the time of the end.
Revelation 12 The Final Conflict
The description of the woman is quite clearly a reference to the nation of Israel. Then Joseph dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, "Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me." So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, "What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?" (Gen 37:9-10) V2 Israel is here seen as being caught up in a cosmic conflict, which is connected with the plan God formed for mankind before the creation of the world. Israel travailed to bring forth a child - a person born into her sorrows, acquainted with her suffering, and obviously a Jew by birth. God’s plan for mankind is bound up with the nation of Israel in as much as this child was to be born through that nation. Victory not only for the nation but the human race depended on her offspring, who was to be God’s champion in the conflict. Born of a woman, born under the law, this man-child is not 9
only a Saviour for Israel, but the Saviour of the world. He is the seed of the woman that would bruise the serpent’s head. The corresponding sign appears. Satan appears as a fiery red dragon, an evil beast enflamed by his pride and his lust for power as well as by his hatred and anger against God. He had been created as Lucifer, the brightest and most beautiful of all God’s angels - who being lifted up in pride thought to make himself as great as God and led 1/3 of the angelic host in his futile rebellion. He - and they - were cast out of heaven - as Jesus said (Luke 10.8) “I beheld Satan fall as lightening from heaven.” Seeing that he had failed in his effort to oust God from his throne, Satan next attempted the ruin of God’s creation, by seducing Eve and leading mankind into sin. God’s sentence was that the seed of the woman would be his final undoing, which explains his eagerness to do all in his power to destroy this infant as soon as he is born. In every way, as he moved on the murderous Herod, roused the anger of the men of Nazareth, possessed Judas to betray God’s Son and stirred up the crowd to shout for his crucifixion, Satan tried every means to destroy the Son of God - without any success.
The Certain Victor in the Conflict v5, where in a moment the narrative sweeps through the