Revelation 6

Chapter 6. The Mother Church and the ManchildA great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. (Revelation 12:1-2)The prophetic cycle was completed with our last subject. The panorama led up to the climax, the very coming of the Lord Jesus, and so far as the sequence is concerned, the Apocalypse might have closed at that point, and we should have had a complete vision of the age in its general outline up to the point where the story is resumed in the 19th chapter of Revelation, and carried on through the millennium and the new heavens and earth in the last three chapters. But the survey has been a hurried one and now the vision pauses for a little and goes back over the period that has been swiftly traversed, and draws a number of special pictures of scenes and incidents which had been rapidly passed over. To illustrate it perfectly, it is like the insertion of a number of vignette pictures around a great central picture—the central picture representing the principal scene and the others a number of minute details. The chapters which follow, from the 12th to the 18th inclusive, give us a number of special pictures of important characters and scenes throughout the Christian age. Chief among these is the Church of Christ and her counterfeits, especially the systems of worldly power and ecclesiastical corruption that have risen up during the age and been channels and special instrumentalities for the corruption or destruction of the true Church of Christ. These systems of evil are described by a number of striking figures; such as “the seven-headed beast,” the other beast with “two horns like a lamb” (Revelation 13:11), “Babylon” (Revelation 14:8), “the woman sitting on a scarlet beast” (Revelation 17:3), and the special judgments and plagues by which this system of iniquity is at last to be scorched and destroyed.

The Mother Church

The Mother ChurchIn this beautiful picture the whole body of God’s people in every age is set forth. This woman represents the great invisible Church of God from the first believer down to the latest age. The figure of the woman leads on later to the figure of the Bride. This woman is clothed with the sun, the imagery representing her as illumined by the light of God, the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, the light and beauty of holiness. All the sources of her light are heavenly and she shines in the reflected light of God Himself. This is but an adaption of an Old Testament figure. This is but the response of the Church to the summons of Isaiah: “Arise, shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you” (Isaiah 60:1). Again, the moon is under her feet. The moon represents the lesser light of earth and night. She has been lifted above the need of earthly light. She had put her feet upon the pride of intellect, the wisdom of man, the self-sufficiency and self-consciousness of earthly culture and human agencies or virtues. Like the tabernacle of old, which had no windows but received its light from the sevenfold lamp, so her light is all divine and her glory the reflection of her God. Again, she is crowned with 12 stars. These stars represent, as we are taught in the previous chapters, the men and women who have adorned the pages of her history and reflected the light of holy character and heavenly power.

The Dragon

The DragonOver against this beautiful figure of the woman stands the impious form of the seven-headed Dragon. He is introduced to us in this message by many reputations and many names. There is no doubt about his identity. He is called “the Devil,” and “Satan,” “that ancient serpent… who leads the whole world astray” (Revelation 12:9). It is the great ruler of the underworld and the head of the principalities and powers of the kingdom of darkness. Of his greatness there can be no doubt. He apes the sovereignty and authority of God Himself. He has seven heads corresponding to the earthly powers which represent him. He has 10 horns, the instruments and agencies by which he strikes and pushes his assaults and advances. The numbers seven and 10 are symbolic of perfection and they represent the completeness of his resources and equipment. He is not almighty or infinite; but he is only less than God. He has seven crowns upon his seven heads and he claims universal empire and even presumes to defy the very throne of heaven itself. It is added that his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth. Surely this describes the fall of the angels who were swept from their high estate to follow in the track of this mighty rebel and to share his everlasting doom. Of his wickedness there can also be no doubt. He stands before us in this picture ready to destroy and devour. He refuses to be expelled from the holy presence of heaven. He is the great adversary, who deceives the whole world; and the same subtle serpent who represents all the depths of malignity and treachery. It is the great enemy of God and man—Satan, whose existence and reality no one can doubt who has ever rebelled against his authority and refused to obey his wicked will.

The Manchild

The ManchildThere now appears upon the scene a figure that engrosses much of the interest of the whole scene. It is the Firstborn of this glorious woman, her illustrious Seed. He is here described by a peculiar Greek word which literally means a “male son.” It is not an ordinary son nor an ordinary man but it is a man representing in a peculiar sense the qualities of manhood and in some sense a representative man, the Man of men. Does it not at once recall the expression which our blessed Lord so often used about Himself, the Son of man, the representative Man, the One who crystallized and summed up in Himself the race? We know there have been many theories about this Manchild, and perhaps the most plausible is that which applies the figure to a special company of holy men and women who are to be separated unto God in the last days and specially called to be the Bride, the firstfruits, the called-out ones, who will be the first to go up to meet the Lord in the air. The first impression which this interpretation gives to the average mind is one of strain and repulsion. It is not easy to think of the great plan of God and the stupendous prophecies of Himself, for whose fulfillment the ages have waited, being monopolized by a little company of self-constituted elect ones in the very last days of the Christian age. God’s plan is too large and His thought too great for this. The interpretation is unworthy of the character of the description. Surely no one else than Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God and the Son of man, is worthy of all that is predicted of this wondrous Child. Let us assume this application first and not take a less one, so long as it satisfies the description and prediction of this chapter. How perfectly the first description applies to Him! He is to rule all nations with a rod of iron. This is the very promise of the second Psalm which is strictly Messianic. “You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery” (Psalms 2:9). Next, He is born of the Church of God, the first great issue of the glorious Woman. At first it may seem a little strained to represent Jesus Christ as at once born of the Church and yet the Husband of the Church. But there is a very real sense in which Christ was the outcome and issue of the Old Testament Church. He is distinctly called the “Seed of the woman,” and He was born of the faith, love and hope of the whole body of the Old Testament saints. It is no more strained to apply this to Christ than to speak of Him as at once “The Root and the Offspring of David” (Revelation 22:16). It is a very true and beautiful figure to think of the Old Testament Church as receiving from God the conception of the coming Redeemer, cherishing, nurturing, maturing the thought, the hope, the promise of the coming Savior until at last it ripened into fullness and was born into the Incarnate One. In a very real sense the Lord Jesus Christ was given to the faith of the mother that bore Him, and the little flock that waited for redemption in Jerusalem. Then, again, the “rest of her offspring” (Revelation 12:17) are spoken of later in the passage and we know that these mean the brethren of the Lord Jesus, the other members and children of the mother Church who will be added in due time down to the end of the age. The figure becomes symmetrical and complete when we think of Him as the Elder Brother and these as the “rest of her offspring.” Still further notice that the Dragon was waiting to devour this Child as soon as He should be born. How literally this was fulfilled in the cruel purpose of Herod as He waited for the life of Jesus at Bethlehem, and, when he failed to find Him, massacred all the little ones in Bethlehem in the hope of destroying Christ also. Notice again that the Manchild is caught up to God and His throne. This is applied by our friends, who hold the view above referred to, to the translation of this little company of saints just before the Lord’s coming. But the translation of the saints will not take them up to the throne of God. It will only take them into the air where Christ will meet them. But Christ was literally caught up to God and to His throne and ever since has been sitting there at the right hand of God. Notice again how perfectly the account of the war in heaven, which we will refer to later, agrees with the facts that immediately followed Christ’s ascension. That glorious ascension settled all claims against the believer, silenced the adversary and accuser, and led to his expulsion from heaven to the lower earth where he has ever since been seeking to destroy the Woman and her seed.

The Conflict

The ConflictThe conflict begins on earth with the attempt of the Dragon to destroy the Manchild. This may well represent Satan’s attack upon the Lord Jesus Christ personally from His cradle to His cross. It next appears in the heavens after Christ’s ascension when the Dragon and his angels are cast out by Michael and his angels, and a loud voice is heard proclaiming: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down” (Revelation 12:10). This picture is very real and in perfect harmony with Christ’s ascension as given in other parts of the New Testament. Up to the time of Christ’s ascension Satan had access to heaven as the accuser of the brethren. Their debt was still recorded against them, the redemption price had not been paid and Satan had grounds for his assaults. But when Christ ascended and presented the ransom and claimed the discharge of all the liabilities of His people on account of His finished work, then Satan was silenced, his case was gone, there was nothing more that he could say against the brethren and so he was dismissed from the heavenly court; and when he refused to leave, the heavenly armies were turned upon him and he and his followers were hurled from the skies and cast out into the earth. Since that day no voice has dared to speak a word of accusation against any believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are without fault before the throne and our glorious commendation is this, “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). This passage is almost a parallel passage to the present chapter, and presents exactly the same view of the effect of Christ’s ascension in the vindication of His people. The scene of the conflict now shifts to the earth, and it is turned against the Woman, the Church. The Dragon persecutes the Woman and she flees into the wilderness from the face of the serpent. He pursues her and casts out of his mouth a flood of waters that he might sweep her away. This represents the floods of barbarous nations always represented by the troubled waters of the sea, who came up against civilization and Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries, and for a time threatened to sweep away from earth the last vestige of true religion. The wild myriads that swept down upon the plains of Italy, and the Muslim hordes that rolled across the plains of Asia obliterating churches, Christian institutions and every vestige of the religion of Jesus Christ, may well be represented by those floods of waters that the Dragon poured out against the Woman. But we are told that the earth helped the Woman. This represents some national and political agency employed by God to counteract these wild invasions. While the waters represent the disorganized people, the earth represents the stable nations. God used these nations as a bulwark against the incursions of wild fanaticism. As a single example we have but to recall the crisis hour in Europe when the Muslims had swept across from Africa and the armies of Europe and Asia met on the plains of France and the victory of Charles Mattel practically saved Christianity from extinction. The earth helped the Woman. The organized Christian nations were God’s bulwark against the wild waves of Satan’s rage and earth’s convulsions. Then we are told the Dragon, unable to destroy the Woman, went forth to make war with the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of God and have the testimonies of Jesus Christ. The remnant of her seed are individual Christians who stand true to God amid the hate of Satan and the oppositions of the world. The scene of the battle now is this earth, and as the heavens behold this battlefield a great cry goes up: “Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short” (Revelation 12:12). This is the battle that is raging today and every man and woman that stands true to the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ will feel its terrible force. The weapons of our warfare in this terrible conflict are shown in the 11th verse: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (Revelation 12:11). There are three weapons in this warfare. The first is the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, which we can never compromise or dishonor if we would expect victory in the crisis of these last days. The second is the Word of God, believed and witnessed to—the Word as a personal experience and the testimony of one that has proved it and knows it to be true. The third weapon is the spirit of self-sacrifice. This is but another name for love. It is the fire of heroism, the ardor that consumes the life of self and makes the heart a living sacrifice for the cause to which it is devoted. It is this that gives victory in earthly conflicts. It is the hero who wins, the man who stakes all upon his venture and flings himself headlong into the depths of danger and the jaws of destruction. And in the battle of the Lord nothing can conquer but heroic self-sacrifice, Christlike love—the love that, if it were the call today, could die for Christ, the love which not being called to die can live for Christ and put our life into the cause He has put into our hands. It is the holy man, the holy woman, the holy heart poured out for our trust and our testimony. It is earnestness. It is sacrifice. This is the secret that explains every glorious and glorified life. Back of the story of achievement and success there is an altar fire where a heart has been consumed and gone up as an odor of sweet-smelling savor to God and for mankind. It is the old story of the Scottish girl who had been so strangely changed from a selfish belle of society, the butterfly of fashion, the queen of her little circle of folly, admired and worshiped by her votaries and living only for herself, suddenly transformed into an angel of love and a messenger of blessing, forgetting herself and living for others, bearing upon her face the light that never shone on earthly skies. No wonder people wondered and the old women said she had given her heart to some noble missionary, and this was the secret of the change. They were doubly sure because she wore upon her breast a little locket whose secret no one had ever seen. At last her devoted life burned itself out, and the hectic flush told of the sacrifice that should soon be finished. Before she died she called her bosom friend to her side and handing her the sacred locket she charged her to keep it sealed until she closed her eyes in death and laid her dust to rest, and then, she said, “Go alone to your room, open it upon your knees and may it mean as much to you as it has meant to me.” The tender charge was faithfully fulfilled, the last offices of affection and sorrow were finished, and home from the city of the dead that lone and broken-hearted one came to her little room, and after a flood of tears had subsided she threw herself upon her knees and opened the sacred jewel. There was no face within that golden frame; there was no human name; but printed in golden letters on a little band of satin were the words, “Whom having not seen we love.” That was all and—that was everything. That was the hero that had won her heart. That was the glorious attraction that had lifted her from selfishness to loving sacrifice, from a fluttering summer flower to an angel of love and a saint in glory. God gives to us all, if we will dare to have it, the heavenly talisman, the passion sign of the cross, the love of Christ. May it be true of us, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (Revelation 12:11).