Глава XII

Vision of a woman clothed with the sun and moon, adorned with a crown of 12 stars, and screaming in the throes of birth (verses 1–2); the appearance of a dragon with seven heads and ten horns (3–4), the birth of a baby and the flight of his wife into the desert for 1260 days (5–6). The struggle of good Angels with evil ones, the overthrow of the latter from heaven and heavenly joy on this occasion (7–11). A warning to those living on earth against the devil, who began to persecute the woman whom the earth saved (12–16); persecution of Christians by the dragon (Art. 17). Rev.12:1. And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun; under her feet is the moon, and on her head is a crown of twelve stars. Before the eyes of the seer, a great sign appeared in the sky. “Appeared” is used in the sense of “appeared before our eyes,” “suddenly became visible.” A sign is such a symbol, such a symbolic phenomenon that has a sign not only in relation to the purpose for which it is used, but also in itself and in itself (2 Cor. 12:12). The sign is of heavenly origin, and must be understood and accepted as a special way of revealing the Divine will. This sign is a woman. – The fairest opinion can be recognized as the one accepted by the majority of interpreters and which consists in understanding the image of the wife of the Christian Church and, moreover, throughout its history, from the first days of the apostles to the time of the reign of the Antichrist. The wife is precisely the holy and glorious Church of Christ, as it was from its very beginning and as it must remain until the end of the world - the victorious Church, the Church sanctifying everyone and everything with divine grace, the Church as a faithful wife, consisting in an indissoluble marriage union with the Lord Jesus Christ and constantly giving birth to new and new children not only through the conversion of unbelievers, but also through the sacraments baptism and repentance. – The wife’s robe in the sun is an expression of the highest glory, purity and perfection of the wife – the Church. The moon with a wife - for the same purpose, that is, to give her more light and more shine, to more clearly indicate her fame and proximity to the sky. The stars surrounding the wife’s head in the form of a crown (not a crown) also serve this purpose, indicating that her glory is a consequence of her victory, her personal dignity. And the fact that this crown consists of 12 stars clearly indicates that the Church of Christ is adorned with twelve apostles. Rev.12:2. She was pregnant, and screamed from the pain and pangs of birth. Rev.12:3. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns. Rev.12:4. His tail carried away a third of the stars from the sky and threw them to the ground. This dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth, he would devour her baby. The wife was pregnant and was screaming because the time had come for her to give birth. These torments are the torments and labors of the Christian Church, which it experiences at birth - at the acquisition of each new member, at the conversion of the erring, at the repentance of a sinner 61, and generally applies throughout the entire time of the existence of Christ. Churches. John also sees the sign of the dragon in the sky, which only means that his image was seen in the vault of heaven, where the image of his wife also appeared. The dragon, being a sea monster (Isaiah 27:1), turned into a symbol of the image of earthly power, the ruler of the world. Therefore, the devil, as the prince of this world, appears in the Apocalypse under the image of a dragon. This is confirmed by Rev. 12:9, where the great dragon is directly called by his name, like the devil and Satan 62. And further features with which John describes the dragon can only be applied to the devil and his struggle with the Christian Church. – The red, fiery color of the dragon indicates mainly that the devil is the common culprit of anger and evil on earth and will remain so until the end; the color of fire also signifies the power of the destructive and destructive properties of the devilish nature. - The heads of the devil - the dragon - mean his devilish wisdom, the wisdom of this age, and the ten horns - his power as the ruler of the whole world. The same thing is indicated by tiaras as a royal head adornment. – The tail of the devil is a revelation of his being and sinful will, an example of his sinful act. Therefore, the heavenly stars are the heavenly army, supermundane creatures, angels, whom the devil carried away with his example, and not only himself, due to his sinfulness and disobedience, falls away from God, but also encourages other Angels. They, following him, leave their heavenly home, their moral closeness to the Lord God and use all their strength to spread evil and sin on earth among people. The mention of the third part does not speak of an exact mathematical number, but of a sufficiently large number, although less than that which remained faithful to the Lord. – If by wife we ​​must understand the Christian Church in its ideal, then the position of the devil in front of her must be considered as his preparation to enter into open struggle with her; and his intention to devour the unborn child can be understood in the sense of causing corruption and moral ruin. Rev.12:5. And she gave birth to 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. The birth of a baby means the birth of Christ in the hearts of believers. The Church always experiences birth pangs in raising and creating saints. The Church gives birth, acquires this or that believer; it educates and guides the believer's heart. These faithful children of the Church have always been and will be, and the Church has always worked and, as it were, suffered in labor, building them up. But these children will be more perfect at the end of the world, during the Antichrist. Then these perfect members (children) of the Church will enjoy preferential Divine protection in their fight against the devil-dragon. The Lord will delight them to His throne, that is, He will bring them closer to His grace and mercy and help them not only to remain on a moral high ground, but also to influence other people through it. The moral strength of such holy people, both now and especially in the last days, will be so great that it can be likened to the iron rod of a shepherd shepherding the nations. And now, in our time, the Church gives birth to sons - husbands, but with an average level of piety they are not so noticeable. In recent times, with the increase in wickedness, with the strengthening of anti-Christianity, they will have to stand out not only before the wicked, but also before the pious, and as a result of intensified struggle they will especially improve and become glorified in virtues. Naturally, then the power of wickedness will fall upon the Church, seeking to stop the development and even the very existence of the Christian religion through the perversion of its dogmas and discipline through flattery, deception and violence. Rev.12:6. And the wife fled into the desert, where a place had been prepared for her by God, so that they would feed her there for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. From the fate of his son, John turns to the fate of his mother - his wife. Her flight into the desert must also be understood in a figurative sense. The desert, in accordance with the symbolic image of the wife depicting the Christian ideal Church, can be a symbol of the lack of favorable spiritual and physical living conditions. The Christian Church is a child of heaven; she has only a temporary residence on earth, and her fatherland is in heaven. However, she is doomed to live on earth. And since earthly conditions do not correspond to her being and cannot satisfy her needs, then, naturally, she must live among them, as if in a desert: she must seek for herself heavenly manna and miraculous water. The Church, if it wants to remain holy and glorious, must renounce temptations and flee from the devil, flee into the desert, that is, renouncing purely earthly pleasures and glory, living in this world as if in the desert. The Christian Church lives and, as it were, does not live on earth: it lives, as it were, in the desert, for it supports its existence not with bread alone, but also with the word coming from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). In this situation, the Christian Church, nourished and supported by God, must remain for 1260 days. This number can be considered both as an indication of the Divine determination, and as an indication of the days of the reign of the Antichrist, when the Christian Church in particular will have to be persecuted; then especially difficult times will come for her. Rev.12:7. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought against them, Rev.12:8. but they did not resist, and there was no longer a place for them in heaven. Immediately after the admiration of the son-husband to the Divine Throne, a struggle occurred between the dragon, angry at the failure, and the heavenly forces. It seemed to John as taking place in the vault of heaven and had the image of a battle between Michael and the Angels on the one hand and between the dragon and his angels on the other. Michael is an Angel, one of the created spirits close to the Lord God (Dan.10:13, 21, 12:1; Jude 1:9). Michael, as the archangel of the heavenly powers (cf. Joshua 5:13–16), as their leader, at their head is the defender of goodness, and truth, and the good of all mankind, especially Christians as spiritual Israel, the people of God par excellence 63. Thus, the struggle seems to be taking place between the heavenly forces, good and evil. It ended with the fact that the evil angels, together with their leader, the dragon, the devil, were defeated, and there was no longer a place for them in heaven. Since only the redemptive merits of Christ the Savior put an end to the devil’s previous access to heaven and some equal position among the good Angels, then both this struggle and victory must be attributed to the time when the shedding of Christ’s blood took place - to the time of the establishment of the New Testament. The angels in heaven, first of all, took advantage of the fruits of this sacrifice and finally drove out the devil from their midst, and after them and together with them these true Christians did and do the same (1 John 5:4). Rev.12:9. And the great dragon was cast out, that ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world, he was cast out to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Rev.12:10. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven: Now has come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ, because the slanderer of our brethren is cast out, who slandered them before our God day and night. The dragon is called an ancient serpent in the sense of indicating the first human sin, the culprit of which was the evil spirit that entered the serpent and seduced Eve. His further names - the devil and Satan - are synonymous and mean - slanderer and adversary. Previously, the dragon-devil, taking advantage of free access to the heavenly throne, slandered all people and deceived the entire universe. Now he has been cast out of heaven along with his angels and, therefore, has lost one of his former advantages. But he still had the ability to seduce the entire universe. – A loud voice is not a single voice, but, as it were, a united choir; and in this general glorification of God, Angels, elders, and glorified people took part. They glorify God for salvation, as a work of God’s mercy, for the establishment of the Kingdom of God and the power of Jesus Christ as the redeemer and God-man. The motivation for glorification is the overthrow of the slanderer, that is, the devil, when he no longer has the same access to the Lord and when people themselves feel the strength necessary in the fight against him. Rev.12:11. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and did not love their souls even to death. Now all people, or more correctly, all Christians, can defeat the devil. The blood of the Lamb is their weapon of victory. But Christians defeat the devil by the word of testimony, that is, by following the teachings of Jesus Christ, by a life in which their faith in Him is clearly expressed 64; they even neglect their earthly life (soul), preferring to die rather than renounce the faith. Rev.12:12. So rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! Woe to those who live on land and sea! because the devil has come down to you in great rage, knowing that he has little time left. Such a change in people’s attitudes towards the slanderer the devil filled the whole world with joy; and therefore the heavenly praise invites the heavens and those who live on them to rejoice and rejoice, that is, the inhabitants of heaven and true Christians who live in heavenly, and not earthly, interests. For those who live on earth solely with earthly interests, grief is announced. This grief lies in the fact that the devil, expelled from heaven, will now rage with special force, for, according to the signs of the times, he will realize the shortness of time remaining for his criminal activities. Rev.12:13. When the dragon saw that he had been thrown to the ground, he began to pursue the wife, who gave birth to a male child. Rev.12:14. And the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, so that she would fly into the desert to her place from the face of the serpent and there be fed for a time, times and half a time. Having described the heavenly defeat of the dragon-devil and the heavenly joy about this event, John (13th century) again returns to the flight of the wife (Rev. 12:6) and supplements his description with some new features. The wife escapes into the desert through the two wings of the great eagle. These wings, which the wife needs to quickly escape from the dragon, have as much symbolic meaning as the wife herself. The Lord God takes (cf. Exodus 19:4; Deut 32:11) His Church under His protection and gives it two wings of His omnipotence and goodness. The Christian Church, using the Old Testament law and New Testament grace, can achieve the perfection of its members. And in the desert of the world, amid the conditions of life, even in the time of the Antichrist, Christians can and must move away from the temptations of the world and strive for heavenly things. This means that the Church (Christians) flees into the desert to its place not so much in order to protect itself from the persecution of the dragon, but in order to eat for 3.5 years, live an exalted life, using the teachings and sacraments given from the Lord God. The period of 3.5 years (cf. Dan. 7:25, 12:7) most closely refers to the last time of the Antichrist, the time of the preaching activity of the two witnesses (Rev. 11:3), although the flight of the wife into the desert denotes her constant relationship to life on earth. This can be reasoned because the anti-Christian time of 3.5 years should be accepted as typical, when what is always happening on a larger scale will be especially noticeable. Rev.12:15. And the serpent sent water like a river out of his mouth after his wife, in order to carry her away with the river. Seeing his wife flying away, the dragon, in order to destroy her, released water from his mouth after her. The image is taken from nature: a snake, biting, emits poison. By water we must also understand military force in general, troops, as well as all violence and all flattery and cunning that have ever been and will be used by the enemies of the Church against it. Rev.12:16. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river that the dragon had let out of his mouth. It was not the sky that helped the wife, but the earth, which swallowed up the water. This indicates that the history of the Christian Church, despite all the efforts of its enemy the devil, will follow its own path, outlined for it by God. The very living conditions in which it will find itself at one time or another, these or other state and social revolutions will naturally and surely save the Church from the extremes of disaster, oppression and violence. The Christian Church has been and will be inaccessible to the devil, just as an apocalyptic wife who fled into the desert is inaccessible to the dragon. Rev.12:17. And the dragon was angry with the woman, and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. The rest, mentioned by the Apocalypse, being the seed of the woman, are, therefore, also children of the Christian Church, 65 but different from those of her children who are meant by the image of the son-husband, and are chosen and perfect, these same ordinary children, simple believers, people of the world and worldly activities. They may fall and sin, but they can repent and receive forgiveness of sins. It is revealed to John (1 Kings 19:18) that such believers exist, that not only God and the Church know them, but the devil also knows them, who did not leave them alone and arranges his machinations against them (Eph. 5:15). And the Church, being the common mother, should think equally about them; and if it itself is, as it were, supported by its perfect members in its purity, then it should not forget the imperfect ones, who need its support, for the devil’s malice is also directed against them. St. Hippolytus, Primasius, Kliefoth. St. Victorin, Andrei Kesar Hengstenberg, Kliefoth, etc. Andrey of Caesarea, Cornel and Lapid Yakovlev, Omerlen and others. You might be interested in: