Apocalypse 12

THE WOMAN CLOTHED WITH THE SUN

A sermon by Rev. Michael Gladish

“Now 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.... And she bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up to God and His throne.” (Revelation 12:1 and 5)

I confess I don’t often preach on the book of Revelation because the symbolism is so deep and the subject matter so critical of contemporary Christian thinking that it is hard to cover even a short segment responsibly in 15 or 20 minutes. But the visions of that book are important, and they cry out to be understood, and when we do understand them we can see powerful lessons there for our spiritual lives. So today we are going to have a good look at one central vision as described in our lessons from chapter 12, see what it means on at least two different levels, and consider why this is in fact vitally important to us in our spiritual lives today.

To begin, here’s a brief summary of the story: a woman appears in heaven clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and with a crown of 12 stars on her head. She is in pain, about to give birth. Then a great, fiery red dragon also appears, and he has seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail drags a third of the stars from the sky and throws them to the earth. And he stands ready to devour the child as soon as it is born!

But the child is caught up to God and His throne and the woman flees into a wilderness where she is protected and nourished for a thousand, two hundred and sixty days. And then war breaks out in heaven, and Michael and his angels fight against the dragon and cast him out and down to the earth where he is referred to as “the devil.” Being filled with wrath, the dragon now finds and persecutes the woman who is given eagle’s wings to escape, and she flies again into a wilderness where she is further nourished for “a time and times and half a time,” after which she is not mentioned again!

Meanwhile the dragon-at this point called a serpent!-spews a flood of water out of his mouth after the woman in the hope that she will be engulfed or carried away by it. But, we read, the earth helps the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing up the flood. So the dragon, frustrated, goes to make war with the rest of the woman’s offspring, who are described as “those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” The end.

It is, in summary, a fantastic story, dreamlike in its quality and obviously symbolic, for what woman could ever be clothed with the sun, and what dragon, no matter how monstrous, could cast a third of the billions of stars in the sky down to a planet that is smaller than any one of them! On the other hand, as bizarre as the story is, much of the symbolism should be familiar to us from other parts of the Word. A woman, for example, very often very obviously represents the church, as for example in Jeremiah where Israel is referred to as a faithless wife, a woman given to harlotry, but to whom the Lord declares HIS faithfulness in any case, as He works to redeem and restore His relationship with her. And if the church is a mother her children are the members of the church, as clearly indicated in the end of our lesson today, where they are described as those who keep the commandments and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. The Lord said much the same thing when, during his life in the world He was told that his mother and brothers were looking for Him, wanting to see Him, and He replied “Whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother” (Mark 3:35).

The sun is a common symbol of the Lord’s love, and the moon, which reflects the sun’s light, is a symbol of our faith in the Lord. Stars also, which can guide us in the night, represent the spiritual insights or perceptions of truth that can guide us through our states of discouragement or doubt.

As for the dragon, he is specifically referred to in the story as “that serpent of old called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world,” and so is identified with the serpent in the Garden of Eden who deceived the woman so that she ate of the forbidden fruit. This dragon, or serpent, obviously represents something awful and dangerous in our spiritual lives, but what is that?

In the Garden of Eden it represents the sensual principle, that is, the tendency to see and judge everything according to the appearance to the physical senses. A classic example often given in the doctrines is the appearance that the sun revolves around the earth. Of course it is just the other way around, and we can be seriously misled if we believe the appearance. Another obvious example for us is to believe the appearance in the literal sense of the Word that God is angry or vengeful. Of course God is pure love and wisdom, so there can be no such qualities or traits in Him; but He can appear that way to us if we feel guilty or helpless and are fearful and think of Him that way.



In the same vein it certainly appears that to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would be a positive thing: shouldn’t we KNOW what is good and evil, after all? Well yes, of course we should, but the truth is that we cannot know this of or from ourselves; we have to be taught by a higher authority, in fact by God through revelation. So we are instructed by God to eat of the fruit of the tree of LIFE, in other words, to live as we are taught by God, and not think that we can know the truth of or from ourselves. In fact, when we start to think that we can know it all without doing what God teaches or commands, it is a short step to believing that we live or die through knowledge alone, and when that belief grows the serpent becomes a great, fiery red dragon which is identified in the book of Revelation as the insidious doctrine or belief that faith alone saves, apart from the works of the law or any other form of co-operation with God.

According to this doctrine in the traditional Christian world you just believe that Christ died for your sins and that’s it. You’re in. It doesn’t really matter what you do because the essence of salvation is to believe that God-or rather His Son-did it all for you.

But lest we become complacent, or even contemptuous as members of the New Church, consider that one reason our doctrines argue against this concept so adamantly is that of all the churches in history we are probably in the greatest danger from this dragon, simply because we have such a storehouse of information to read and learn. We may not think we’ll actually get to heaven because of our knowledge but it is a dreadful temptation to think we’re wiser and better than others because of it!

And where does this belief come from? Certainly not from Scripture, where the Lord repeatedly teaches that we must do as He commands, nor from the doctrines, which are all about love and charity, but mainly from the basic human wish to avoid taking personal responsibility for anything-possibly along with a selfish arrogance that enjoys telling others what to do or how to think! The dragon is said to be fiery red because red is the color of love, and this particular red suggests the love of self, and pride in one’s own intelligence. The fact that it has seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns on his heads represents the total confusion-the Writings say the insanity-of the situation when first principles of the Lord’s authority are denied and instead we go to any lengths, and use any number of different arguments arising out of our own clever reasoning to justify the concept of salvation by faith-or knowledge-alone.

Seven in the Word is a number that signifies holiness and so the seven heads of the dragon and his seven crowns or diadems represent the holy things of the Word, especially the teachings of the literal sense of the Word that are in this case perverted and abused in order to excuse church members from any responsibility for a charitable life. That word, “crown” is interesting because in fact it means a sort of headband with a gemstone that in turn signifies the hard, clear truth of the literal sense of the Word. One way to picture it would be as a turban with the gemstone on the front, almost as Aladdin’s genie might appear in a cartoon. The focus, however, is on the stone, and the point is that those who are dragons, or who have this draconian belief system, are not pagans or atheists or humanists, typically they are Christians who KNOW the literal sense of the Word, more or less, but who use that knowledge to promote and justify the false idea that the way you live in this world has no bearing on your eternal life.

Do you know anybody like this? Have you ever had an argument with someone who claims to be saved solely because he or she accepts the fact that Christ died for our sins? If so you know that they can quote the Scripture; indeed, they can quote it this way and that, up one side and down the other, so that you may feel as though you really are being threatened by a dragon with seven heads darting in and out and all around you.

But remember, this is not just a problem we encounter “out there” among people of other churches or persuasions, it is also a problem we face within ourselves as we tend to rationalize some lazy or inconsiderate behavior by bringing up all sorts of arguments and reasons why we shouldn’t have to be kind or take any serious responsibility. After all, if God can be angry and condemn people, so can we, based on His Word. If God demands a sacrifice in order to appease His sense of justice, so can we, based on His Word.-But deep down, we know this is wrong.

At this point it is important to note that the birth of the man-child in this story is reminiscent of the prophecy in Isaiah 9:6, where we read, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This Child in Revelation also was “to rule all nations with a rod of iron,” which means with the power of truth on the level of the natural mind-logical, rational, reasonable, intellectually compelling truth based on a real understanding of the spiritual sense of the Word. In fact this is the Lord Himself in the doctrine revealed at His second coming through the books we know as Arcana Caelestia, Heaven and Hell, Divine Providence, The Four Doctrines, Apocalypse Revealed, and so on. Note, the Child is not a set of books, it is the Divinely Human Love and Wisdom revealed through the books, and also present in the faith of those who think and live accordingly, whether they know Mr. Swedenborg directly or not.

In any case this is not wisdom that is readily accepted in a “faith alone” culture, or in a cynical, agnostic culture for that matter. And so this little Child, this nascent doctrine, is “caught up to God and His throne,” meaning that it is withdrawn from public scrutiny, protected by the Lord from the attack of those who will despise it, and held interiorly within the hearts and minds of those who can accept it. At the same time the woman, who represents the New Church that will nurture and support this doctrine, flees into a wilderness where she herself is nurtured for 1,260 days. What is this?

Well, a wilderness is a barren place, that is, a state of mind without much goodness or truth. And the 1,260 days work out to roughly 3-_ years, thus a completed period (since “three” signifies what is complete) and the beginning of a new state (represented by the _). The whole idea refers to the fact that there are very few who can receive this new doctrine, and so the church is in a wilderness until the end of the age of faith alone. On a deeper level, too, it may mean that it exists among us and within us as love and wisdom that even we don’t appreciate as much as we should, because we are caught up in the fascination with all that is written and forget to DO the things that are taught!

So we read, there is war in heaven! War in heaven? It seems preposterous, but then again, what is war in a spiritual sense except the conflict of wills or affections and thoughts? The point here is that heaven is made up of those who love and honor what the Lord teaches in His Word (whether they learn about that here or in the here-after), but when the Word is not clearly understood there are differences of opinion about what it means, and these differences can lead to conflict. That conflict is then aggravated by people who know the Scriptures but use them to confirm and insist upon their warped interpretation of them. As you know, it can be hard to resist these arguments, and so, in the story, Michael and his angels come to the rescue!

Michael specifically represents those who do understand the doctrine, especially the doctrine of the Lord as the one God personified in Jesus Christ, and who do have the ability to fight on behalf of the church and to “cast out” the monster of justification by faith alone.

But the war isn’t over yet. The dragon being cast down to the earth represents this doctrine of salvation by faith alone-_or by commitment to mere knowledge-_still being accepted by many in the church, especially those who in simplicity of heart do not realize how hurtful it can be. So there is a continuing persecution of the church that teaches life according to the doctrine-_and a continuing battle within ourselves to resist a merely intellectual faith, by living as we should.

And the dragon spews out a flood of water, which, like the flood that covered the earth in the story of Noah’s ark, or the floods mentioned frequently in the Prophets and Psalms, represents the torrent of falsity-_really, truth falsified-_that pours forth from those who insist upon this totally dysfunctional belief.

But then a great thing happens! The earth helps the woman by swallowing up the flood, rendering it harmless. And here, in this image, we see the great hope of the New Church. For as the Writings point out, it is not the “average member” of the church who believes this doctrine, but the scholars and academics, the vested interests who are in positions of leadership and wish to uphold this view for various personal, philosophical and organizational reasons. The average members of the Christian Church know perfectly well that it is how you live that determines your eternal life, and most of them also think of Jesus Christ as God in human form teaching us, not just laying down His life as a sacrificial atonement for our sins. So for many in the church (New and old) the flood of doctrinal arguments about faith alone is rendered harmless, the dragon is frustrated, and in fact those who actually read and consider the doctrine of the New Church generally find it very acceptable!

So then, in the closing scene of the vision, the dragon goes to make war with other offspring of the woman, namely “those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Who are these people? And what do they represent?

More specifically or accurately, these are said to be “the remnant” of the woman’s “seed,” which is a reference to those remaining within the old (traditional) church who have the truths (seeds) of the Word growing in their lives-_much like those in the parable of the Sower, who received the seed in good ground and bore fruit. Quite simply these are the people in the churches around us who are doing their best to understand the Word and live a good life according to it. They are wonderful people and they deserve our admiration and support, not to mention the fact that we can learn a lot from them! But they do not have an easy time of it, as they are told constantly based on passages from the Scripture and other arguments that they cannot make any judgments about the lives or beliefs of others, that they cannot hold even their own leaders to the standards of the Word, that the Lord loves all who profess a belief in Him, no matter how they live, and so on. They are therefore limited in what they can say and do to make a real difference in the world. Yet they hang on to their beliefs, and they maintain high standards in their own lives.

What can we learn, then, about our own lives from these people? And what can we learn from this conclusion of the vision in this chapter of the book of Revelation?

Here are just a few thoughts: first, that we ought to expect difficulty, and even persecution over the doctrines of the New Church when we try to share them in a world that is so hooked on salvation by mere knowledge or faith. Second, that we should not be deterred by this, as the Lord has foreseen it all, He has provided for the preservation and protection of this new understanding and He will help those who do their best to live according to it. Third, that there are in fact countless people who are ready and eager to receive the truth that the Lord has now revealed, and who will welcome it in their fight against the arrogance and condemnation that is characteristic of faith alone.

Finally, I think, we can learn and understand what a privilege it is to be living in the age of the fulfillment of this whole prophecy of the beginning of a New Christian Church, the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, protected while it is among a few until it grows and the world is ready to receive its love and wisdom. And what a challenge for us, as well, to remain faithful to the task at hand-_not just to learn the things the Lord has now revealed to us, but to make them work in our daily lives, that we may be acceptable as members of this heavenly body seen in John’s vision. Amen.

Lessons: Revelation 12; Revelation 21:1_8; Apocalypse Explained 737 (or 764:2)


Apocalypse Explained 737

It is said in verse 3 that the dragon was seen “in heaven;” and now that war was made with him “in heaven;” and afterwards no place for him and his angels was found “in

heaven;” and yet he is called in verse 9 “that old serpent,” also “the devil” and “Satan;” and some may wonder how the dragon, who is the devil, could be in heaven and could have a place there until he was cast down; and yet there is never any place for the devil in heaven, but in hell. But the matter is thus: “the dragon” does not mean those who have denied God and the Lord, and have rejected the Word, and made no account of the church and its doctrine, for those who are such and who do this are cast into hell immediately after death, and never appear in heaven, much less have any place there. “The dragon and his angels” mean those who acknowledge God and the Lord, and declare the Word to be holy, and also stand for the church and its doctrine, but only with the mouth and not with the heart. They do not do this in heart because they make no account of life, and those who make no account of life are interiorly devils, however much they may exteriorly appear like angels. Thence it can be seen that by the acknowledgment of God and the Lord, and by reading the Word and preaching it, they were exteriorly conjoined with heaven; but because their lives have not been at all in accord with anything of the Lord in the Word, interiorly they were conjoined with hell. Such are called “devil” and “Satan,” because they have defiled the truths of the Word by a life of the love of self and the love of the world, and by evils that have gushed forth from those loves, like bubbling waters from their fountains, and because they have applied the literal sense of the Word to confirm such a life. Such persons, more than all others, are serpents, since they are more noxious than others; for they can draw over to their side the simple good, who are in the lowest heaven, especially by means of such things as they take from the sense of the letter of the Word and pervert. It is said that “they were seen in heaven,” and there “fought with Michael and his angels,” because the Word conjoined them with the heavens; for men are conjoined with the heavens by means of the Word; but when it was ascertained that they were in other than heavenly affections they were cast down out of heaven. Nevertheless, after the Last Judgment was accomplished it was provided and ordained by the Lord that henceforth no others but those who are in spiritual faith should have conjunction with heaven, and spiritual faith is acquired by a life according to the truths of the Word, which life is called charity. This, then, is what is signified by “the dragon with his angels was cast unto the earth,” and “their place was not found any more in heaven.”