The Revelation of St. John the Divine

by A. H. Ames

1. The Dragon, or Satan.—The first of the adversaries with whom the kingdom of Christ has to dispute supremacy is the devil, the archfiend and enemy of God and man.

That Satan, the evil one, is referred to in the description of the great red dragon having seven heads, ten horns, and seven diadems seems an interpretation so natural that it is hardly worth while to seek for far-fetched meanings when so plausible an explanation lies near at hand. The ten horns (Zechariah saw but four—Zechariah i, 18) are the instruments with which he seeks to scatter and destroy the sheep of God. The seven heads with diadems represent the pride and haughtiness of spirit in which he boasts that the power and glory of all kingdoms have been delivered to him and that he gives them to whom he will. It is a struggle for life and death between him and the Christ. If Paul, the man of affairs, with his practical conception of things in their concrete relations, says, “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Revised Version), much more strongly does John, with his intuition of abstract principles, recognize and emphasize the power and working of the dark spirit whose names are Satan and “destroyer.” No writer of the New Testament speaks oftener or more clearly of the evil spirit than does John. In vivid imagery and with graphic condensation he sums up the history of the kingdom of darkness, the long record of Satan’s undying antagonism to the kingdom of Christ.

The woman arrayed “with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” (see Genesis xxxvii, 9), represents the Church collectively and in its most general expression; primarily, the Jewish Church, inasmuch as Christianity had just begun its mission; but not confined thereto. Against the Church, against every individual of it, this murderer and liar from the beginning wages relentless warfare. His is the power behind all other antagonisms. To devour the child of the woman in the hour of its birth, to destroy humanity itself if he can, seems to be the aim of his being. Not a soul is now born into the kingdom of Christ by regenerating grace but Satan is there to crush the newly-given life, if possible, in its inception.

When the first gospel of salvation and victory was given to Eve, “Thy seed shall bruise the serpent’s head,” Satan began his machinations to defeat the prophecy, even though he knew that he could do no more than bruise the heel of the promised seed.

When the promise given to Abraham of a posterity countless as the stars of heaven was about to receive its fulfillment in the extraordinary fertility of the sons of Jacob in Egypt, it was Satan who inspired Pharaoh to issue the cruel edict commanding the death of every Hebrew male child.

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea it was the same dragon that urged Herod to his mad purpose of slaying every young child throughout its coasts. “This is the heir; let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.”

And it is against this wily foe, “the prince of the power of the air,” “the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,” that we all have continually to struggle.

For protection against such an adversary there is certainly need of divine aid. And that help has never been withheld. “There were given to the woman the two wings of a great eagle.” Is not this an echo of Exodus xix, 4, “I bare you on eagles’ wings,” and also of Psalm xci, 4, “And under his wings shalt thou trust”? And in addition to this we are told that God prepared “a place” in the wilderness where the woman might fly and be nourished. Does not this refer to Palestine, that quiet, secluded land, nigh the great highways of the world and yet aloof from them, where in comparative isolation Israel might develop her own resources and grow in strength until she should be ready for her broader mission? If the purpose of the divine Being fell short of full realization the fault was not his, but hers, through her lust to be like the surrounding nations.

The numbers, too, representing the period of this seclusion, “twelve hundred and sixty days,” and “a time, times, and half a time,” are forms of three and a half, which, as has been said in the Introduction, symbolizes Judaism, or any cycle with a definite purpose which is, however, only a half period.

And further confirmation of the reference to the Church of Israel is found in the allusion to the archangel Michael, who is always represented in the Scriptures as sustaining some special relation to Israel (Daniel x, 21; xii, 1).