Monday
Monday
The Dragon and His Allies
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.
Revelation 12:11
In the opening vision of Revelation 12 there are three actors—a pregnant woman about to give birth, the male child she bears, and an enormous red dragon poised to devour the child at birth. The dragon is plainly the devil. The child is the Messiah, whose destiny is to rule the nations. And the woman is a symbol of the people of Israel from whose twelve patriarchs the human ancestry of the Christ is traced. But when the boy was born, he was snatched up to God, and the woman fled to the desert for protection. More visions follow, which celebrate the victory of the Messiah. Indeed, the dominant theme of Revelation 12 is the decisive overthrow of the devil. He was foiled in his malicious attempts to devour the Christ and destroy the church.
The devil’s allies are now introduced to us one by one. They are called the beast out of the sea; the beast out of the earth; and Babylon, a gaudy prostitute. They seem to masquerade as a diabolical parody of the Trinity. All three also represent the city and empire of Rome, though from different points of view. Firstly, the beast out of the sea represented Rome as a persecuting power. The Jews were always afraid of the sea. So a monster emerging out of the sea would be a particular horror to them. Secondly, the beast out of the earth represented Rome as an idolatrous system, with special reference to the imperial cult. This beast had no independent role. Instead, his ministry related wholly to the first beast, to whom he was subservient. He made people worship the first beast.
Thirdly, Babylon the prostitute represented Rome as a corrupting influence: she “made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries” (14:8). The dragon’s three allies, then, when John was writing, were Rome the persecutor (the first beast), Rome the idolater (the second beast or false prophet), and Rome the seductress (Babylon the harlot).
All over the world today the same threefold assault on the church is being mounted by the devil, as we saw in the early chapters of the Acts—physical (persecution), moral (compromise), and intellectual (false teaching). The devil’s three allies are still very active.
For further reading: Revelation 12:1–12