Revelation 12 depicts a great conflict between a woman “with a crown of twelve stars on her head” and an enormous red dragon. The dragon explicitly represents Satan. Less obviously, the woman represents all people who are faithful to Jesus the Messiah, God’s anointed king. The dragon sought to devour the Christ child the moment he was born. But the child “was snatched up to God and to his throne.”
What John describes next severely challenges the Christian imagination: “Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” (Revelation 12:7-9)
Throughout the ages, Christians have struggled with the problem of evil. How can we reconcile an all-powerful & perfectly good God with the existence of evil & suffering in the world? This passage seems to take this problem to a whole new level. It’s difficult enough to contemplate evil on earth. But war in heaven? To many Christians, that sounds like a contradiction in terms. What’s going on here?
For many Christians, heaven is the place they hope to go after death. It’s an ethereal realm of perfect peace & joy where we shall enjoy the presence of God forever. This perspective contains a great deal of truth (peace & joy in God’s presence) but it’s also misleading. We must always remember that the true Christian hope is not to escape from this world, but to be raised to new life when God rescues & redeems his entire creation. The story of the Bible ends, not with us going to heaven, but with heaven (the reign of God) coming to earth.
It’s far better, then, to think of heaven, not so much as a fixed location, but as the sphere of God. And because God is the creator & sustainer of all things, heaven is the domain of ultimate reality. John the Seer has already given us a grand vision of heaven in Revelation 4. There we found that heaven’s central feature is God sitting upon his throne in glorious splendor. In other words, the most fundamental truth about our cosmos is that God reigns over all things. He possesses complete authority & unrivaled power.
Yet the story of the Bible documents how God’s power & authority have been challenged. Humanity tragically rebelled against God’s authority and sought to become gods themselves.
The scriptures also give us glimpses into the spiritual realm, where there are dark forces ranged in opposition to God and his good purposes. Chief among these is Satan, the enormous red dragon. But he is not alone. With his tail, the red dragon “swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.” (Revelation 12:4) Stars are consistently used in the book of Revelation to symbolize angels. So it seems that Satan has drawn an army of angelic beings into his rebellion.
The war in heaven pits Satan and his angels against Michael and his angels. This is the only place that Michael appears in the book of Revelation. (The only other place that Michael appears in the New Testament is the letter of Jude.) John is again drawing on the Old Testament book of Daniel, where Michael is described as “one of the chief princes” (Daniel 10:13) or “the great prince” (Daniel 12:1) who protects Israel, the people of God. In extra-Biblical Jewish literature, Michael was portrayed as the chief or archangel. Here in Revelation 12, Micheal is the commander-in-chief of the angelic forces who contend with Satan & his minions. Thankfully, the outcome is never in doubt. Satan and his angels lose their place in heaven and are hurled down to earth.
What does John intend for us to see in this account? When does this war transpire? John has just given us a crucial clue: “the child was snatched up to God and to this throne.” (v5)
The first Christians firmly believed that Jesus, by his death and resurrection, had inaugurated God’s kingdom – His sovereign rule over all creation. The Sanhedrin (the court of Israel) had condemned Jesus as a false Messiah. After his shameful execution, Jesus’ followers could only conclude that he was a complete failure. As Cleopas had forlornly said, “we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” (Luke 24:21)
But God had vindicated Jesus in the most spectacular way possible. By raising him from the dead, God had overruled the unjust conviction of the Sanhedrin. For the first Christians, then, the primary meaning of the resurrection was to confirm that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the king of Israel and the world’s true lord.
In the light of the resurrection, the crucifixion took on a whole new meaning. Instead of a humiliating defeat, Jesus, by his death on the cross, had achieved the decisive victory over sin, death and all the powers of darkness. It was the moment when Jesus had been enthroned as the world’s true lord and king.
Following his resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven. There he sits enthroned at God’s right hand. As Paul wrote, “… [God] raised the Messiah from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion…” (Ephesians 1:20-21) Likewise, Peter: “…Jesus the Messiah, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand – with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.” (I Peter 3:22)
Many other scriptures confirm this perspective. The gospel of Luke describes how Jesus sent out 72 disciples in order to announce the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom. Upon returning, they rejoiced that “the demons submit to us in your name.” Jesus responded by declaring, “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven.” (Luke 10:18) The 72 had been able to achieve remarkable feats of healing & exorcism. Inspired by these preliminary victories, Jesus prophetically foresees the moment when Satan will be conclusively vanquished.
Likewise, just before his suffering, Jesus announced, “Now the prince of this world will be driven out.” (John 12:30) This statement implicitly acknowledges that Satan really did hold the world captive under his baleful influence. But by his death & resurrection, Jesus had thereby stripped Satan of any claim over God’s creation. As the risen Jesus declared, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Therefore, we ought to see, standing behind John’s war in heaven, the amazing achievement of Jesus. Satan no longer has any place in heaven – the sphere of ultimate reality. The red dragon presumed to challenge God’s power & authority, but his rebellion is certainly doomed. The triumph of Jesus guarantees that God will reclaim his creation, and that one day evil will be totally destroyed.
However, even though their ultimate fate is sealed, the dragon and his allies can still cause trouble on earth. As we shall see, Satan is full of rage and hatred towards God’s people. He will do everything in his power to destroy them.
It might be asked why John portrays Michael and his angels as defeating Satan, rather than Jesus himself? John likely wanted to demonstrate the extreme imbalance between the forces of good and evil. The red dragon doesn’t even have the strength to oppose Michael, the servant of God and of the lamb. How much more does he lack the power to oppose Jesus himself, the “king of kings and lord of lords”!
This would have been a great encouragement to John’s readers, who were a tiny minority facing the might of the Roman Empire and pagan society. They needed to know that no matter how the world currently looked, Jesus had conquered and his faithful people would ultimately share in his victory.
