Revelation 12:4, commentary and pictures

The tail drawing a third of the stars means Satan drew away one-third of the heavenly host who joined him and were cast down with him to the earth, though those who held the variant account taught that nearly one half followed him. The dragon is Satan himself, the real personal instigator of rebellion, once the exalted covering cherub next to Christ, who in a secondary sense also stands for earthly powers under his control, chiefly pagan Rome moving to destroy Christ at His birth. The woman ready to be delivered is God's holy people, and the dragon standing before her is Satan seeking to devour her child as soon as born, afterward meeting Christ in person in the wilderness to overcome Him and secure his claim to the world. He won angels not as a hideous monster but as a beautiful angel of light, by misrepresentation, lies, accusations, flattery and deceptive reasoning, promising a new and better government with freedom under himself until rebellion spread from angel to angel. The same seducing power still works on earth by jealousy, ambition, self-justification and deceptive science, so the warning remains to close the ears to deceptive reasonings, confess wrong to God, and stand for truth from His Word lest men be taken captive as a third of heaven was.

Symbols and Identities

The stars are the angels who joined Satan, and the third part means one-third of the heavenly host was drawn away and cast down with him to the earth. He misrepresented God's choice of Christ and persuaded them to sympathize with him, deceived them and drew them from loyalty to the Father and the Son, so that they joined the instigator of the rebellion. A third of the loyal angels sided with the great deceiver because they believed he was being wronged, though he himself was the source of rebellion in heaven. In losing heaven they lost their innocence, their high position, and their home.

Those who held the variant account teach that his sympathizers comprised nearly one half of the angels. They teach that it took place when all the heavenly host were summoned to appear before the Father to have each case determined, when Satan unblushingly made known his dissatisfaction that Christ was preferred before him. He stood up proudly and urged that he should be equal with God and be taken into conference with the Father to understand His purposes, and when God answered that to His Son alone He would reveal His secret purposes and required all the family in heaven, even Satan, to yield Him implicit unquestioned obedience, and that Satan had proved himself unworthy of a place in heaven, Satan exultingly pointed to his sympathizers. He exclaimed, These are with me, will You expel these also and make such a void in heaven, and declared he was prepared to resist the authority of Christ and to defend his place in heaven by force of might, strength against strength, having rejected the authority of God's Son and sought equality with God.

The dragon is Satan himself, a real personal being and the instigator of the great rebellion, the first great rebel. He is an apostate angel who fell from heaven, once the exalted covering cherub next to Christ, who refused to yield his will to God and was expelled from heaven after his apostasy had spread and drawn many of heaven's angels and one-third of the heavenly family with him to the earth. The dragon's rebellion drew one-third of the heavenly family with him, and the dragon is that fallen covering cherub cast out.

In a secondary sense the dragon also represents earthly powers controlled by Satan that trample God's law and persecute His people. Chiefly it represents pagan Rome, the chief earthly power and agent Satan used to make war on Christ and His people during the first centuries of the Christian era, moving Herod to try to kill Jesus at His birth and beginning a line of prophecy with the dragon seeking to destroy Christ. It includes paganism and the papacy, and the great red dragon is earthly governments carrying on war against them till the close of time, arising from the union of church and state that becomes deadly and crushes those who oppose it.

The woman ready to be delivered and her children are God's holy people. They are greatly outnumbered and greatly in the minority, with only a remnant still existing and remaining in the last days. War is carried on against them till the close of time.

Rebellion in Heaven

Sin began with self-seeking disloyalty to God's law when Lucifer, the covering cherub highly honored for beauty and wisdom, wanted supremacy, to be first, to be equal with God and to take Christ's place and control heavenly beings and win their homage from the Creator to himself. His heart was lifted up because of his beauty and his wisdom was corrupted by reason of his brightness, and though highly honored he refused correction even from God. In his rebellion he carried a third part of heaven with him to his side to give strength to his position, drawing many angels away into rebellion with him. Those who held that his sympathizers comprised nearly one half of the angels set that number beside the third part.

He drew angels by misrepresentation, criticism, lies, accusations and self-justification, misrepresenting God's choice of Christ and misrepresenting the law of God. He cast the blame for his defection upon God and upon Jesus Christ, saying that if they had not so firmly resisted his plans he would not have gone on doing as he did, charging the loving Creator with his own desire for self-exaltation. By insinuations he led them to believe that God and Christ were their enemies and that he was their benefactor, making good appear evil and leading angels to doubt God's word and distrust His goodness and to view a just and majestic God as severe and unforgiving. By mourning and complaining he aroused sympathy among the angelic host, and so many viewed the matter as he did and accepted him as leader and joined his rebellion against God. They became disaffected through his insinuations and took the same position as Satan and took his side in apostasy and rebellion.

He promised his followers a new and better government under himself in which all would enjoy freedom, having determined to claim the honor which should have been given him and take command of all who would become his followers. Seeing his advances met with success, he flattered himself that he would yet win all the angels to his side and be equal with God himself, with his voice of authority commanding the entire host of heaven. At the solemn summons of all the heavenly host before the Father to have each case determined, he unblushingly made known his dissatisfaction that Christ was preferred before him, stood up proudly and urged that he should be equal with God and be taken into conference with the Father to understand His purposes. When answered that to His Son alone would be revealed His secret purposes and that all the family in heaven, even Satan, must yield Him implicit unquestioned obedience, and that Satan had proved himself unworthy of a place in heaven, he exultingly pointed to his sympathizers and exclaimed that these were with him, asking if these also would be expelled and such a void made in heaven. He declared the preference shown to Christ an act of injustice to himself and to all the heavenly host, announced he would no longer submit to this invasion of his rights and theirs and would never again acknowledge the supremacy of Christ, and declared he was prepared to resist the authority of Christ and defend his place in heaven by force of might, strength against strength.

He worked by deceptive reasoning, sophistry, deceptive scientific problems and artful suggestions, making darkness seem light and light darkness until he believed his own lies. He presented deceptive scientific problems to deceive them, sowing seed that would bear the fruit of rebellion while working with such apparent innocence that when the seed he himself had sown had taken root, he drew expressions of disaffection from the angels and then reported the result of his own seed-sowing as sentiments held by them. He planted thoughts in minds, planting his ideas in their minds then leading them to voice those ideas as their own and using their expressed views to influence other angels, so that rebellion spread from angel to angel. This work could not be dealt with until the results of his artful suggestions had fully developed, and he gained their sympathy through self-justification, deceptive misrepresentations and accusations against those who would not join him.

His deceiving power was so great because he was not a hideous monster with bat's wings and cloven feet but a beautiful angel of light apparently just from the presence of God. By that deceptive influence he induced a third of the heavenly angels to believe he was right and to unite with him against God and His Son Jesus Christ. That same seducing power led them to think he was right, and their choice to follow him brought its fateful result in their fall.

He refused to listen to the loyal and true angels, rejecting with disdain their arguments, entreaties and warnings of terrible consequences. He turned from them and denounced them as deluded slaves, declaring they had more than their match when put on a bold front under reproof. When light shone from the throne of God showing His will and truth, those angels who sinned with him refused to see the light and began to oppose the truth, separated themselves from God and went over to the ranks of the enemy, while unbelief set aside the warning and Satan triumphed in supposed superiority while concealing his real character and purpose. His crooked course was allowed to continue because he could not be presented at once in his real character until he revealed himself as an accuser, a deceiver, a liar and a murderer.

The rebels lost their innocence, high position and home, were cast out of heaven to the earth with discord, loss and separation from God. Satan's rebellion drew a third part of the angels from loyalty to the Father and the Son; they joined the instigator of the rebellion and were cast out of heaven, having not questioned God's will or refused His law before he persuaded them that disobedience would bring greater good and liberty. Together they continually oppose God's work to save humanity, continuing on earth the jealousy and suspicion and self-seeking begun in heaven, using self-indulgence and ambition to bring about the fall of humanity, preparing temptations for Adam and Eve and spreading sin through generations. The same deceiver who seduced angels in the heavenly courts and cast them down later spoke with Eve.

He boasted of leading a portion of heaven's angels into rebellion against God and of overcoming Adam and Eve, claiming that their home and the world were now his dominion. In the death of the Son of God the deceiver was unmasked and uprooted from the affection of the loyal universe as an accuser, a deceiver, a liar and a murderer.

Dragon Against Christ

The verse opens a line of prophecy in which the dragon seeks to destroy Christ at His birth. The dragon is Satan, who moved Herod to try to kill Jesus. In a secondary sense the dragon is pagan Rome, the chief earthly power Satan used as his agent to make war on Christ and His people during the first centuries of the Christian era.

The same dragon afterward met Christ in person in this world in the wilderness with most determined effort to overcome Him. He is not a hideous monster with bat's wings and cloven feet, but a beautiful angel of light as if just from the presence of God, whose deceiving power was so great that he had already drawn a third part of the heavenly angels to believe he was right and unite with him against God and His Son. He knew his false claims to the kingdoms of the world could not stand unless he overcame Christ, and that success there would make him conqueror and prince of the world. His fallen leadership was defeated when Christ resisted every temptation.

Prophecy for Last Days

Revelation 12:4 stands at the opening of the prophecies of Revelation 12 to 18, which are being fulfilled now and must be heard by all as the last message of warning. Revelation 12 portrays in this verse the last great conflict between the obedient and the disobedient. In that conflict there are only two parties on earth, those who stand under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ and bear the sign of obedience, and those who stand under the black banner of rebellion.

After this conflict the dragon, the instigator of the great rebellion against heaven, is to be bound and cast into the bottomless pit for a thousand years. Then will follow the resurrection of the wicked and the final destruction of Satan and all the wicked. Then will come the final triumph and reign of Christ on this earth.

Warnings and Applications

The drawing of the third part of heaven shows disloyalty to God's law carrying a third of heaven to strengthen rebellion, and that same work continues still as Satan seeks subjects to join him on earth. The jealousy and suspicion begun in heaven are continued on earth, where self-indulgence and ambition brought the fall of humanity and where human ambition and selfish desires still bring ruin. What was self-seeking in heaven remains self-seeking on earth, gaining adherents by the same means.

The same spiritualistic schooling by evil angels still takes minds captive through seducing spirits and teachings of demons. Speakers and hearers receive with enthusiasm pantheistic theories about life and God's relation to living things, while false conceptions of God bring in idolatry as once among Abraham's father's kindred and now work in churches with powerful deceiving temptations to unsettle faith in present truth. The same deceiving influence that led angels into disloyalty seeks especially to turn those with great responsibilities from loyalty to God, and its subtle reasoning imperils God's people. Ingenious misrepresentation through false sentiments and sophistries first drew angels, then deceived Adam and Eve with the promise of a higher education making them as gods, and now endangers ministers and medical workers until listeners become filled with the popular religious idea of developing into gods with no place for God or Christ, the seductive theories weaving into the mind and poisoning all who listen like a deadly viper.

The same pattern appears in efforts to bind others together under human control and turn them from proper allegiance. Angels looked to rebellious Lucifer in confidence in his greatness and lost the sense of the presence of Christ and God, so confidence is never to be placed in human greatness as some have done in looking to man as those angels looked to Lucifer. Trusting human greatness repeats the fall of the third part of the stars, and the false sentiments involved will have to be met.

The fall gives the first instance that those who are wrong and work with Satan always find sympathizers when reproved, from fear of hurting feelings. No claimant of supremacy and infallibility falls alone, for a portion of heaven fell with him. The drawing of a third of the angels from loyalty to the Father and Son to join the instigator warns the church to act with great care in dealing with division and sympathizers with wrongdoing. Under reproof he put on a bold front as if his reprovers had more than their match, and that bold justification of wrongdoing encouraged in others is doing the devil's work.

Sympathy was gained by self-justification, deceptive misrepresentation, and accusation against those who would not unite with him. By misrepresentations and artful power of accusing the unyielding he deceived angels into sympathy, and he has kept up that same work ever since, leading multitudes to follow his very steps in justifying themselves, covering up and making light of errors and grievous transgressions, misrepresenting reprovers, and becoming accusers and critics of others until they fall from truth, give up steadfastness, and stand on his side while thinking their ways hidden from the Lord.

Warfare against the law of God began in heaven through misrepresentations of the law and continues on earth with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, by the same method securing the world and even the largest share of the professed Christian church in enmity against the law of Jehovah. Those pouring bitterness against the law follow his leadership with another spirit, in contrast to every truly obedient and sanctified heart that loves, keeps, and delights in the law, and numbers on his side never make truth error or error truth, for sin remains transgression of God's law. His pretense of sanctified purity, held in heaven while exalting himself above God and corrupting many angels into selfish sympathy, continued when he met Christ claiming to be a pure sanctified angel from the heavenly courts, but Jesus was not deceived, and those living by every word from God's mouth will likewise not be deceived by false claims to sanctification. True sanctification obeys God's law, while those claiming sanctification yet turning from hearing the law prove themselves children of disobedience with carnal hearts not subject to God's law, and willful imperfect obedience God will not accept. Angels once good and great refused light shining from God's throne showing His will and truth, opposed the truth, separated from God, and went to the enemy, and the same end comes to all choosing their own way contrary to the divine will; learned men and false teachers exalting the first day as the Sabbath and denying Christ's coming are not greater than those fallen angels, so learning and greatness will not keep them from falling with him.

The loyal angels warned that He who created angels can by power overturn all their authority and punish audacity and terrible rebellion, for resistance to God's law which is as sacred as Himself demands closing the ears to deceptive reasonings and going to God to confess wrong in even admitting a thought of questioning His authority. The deceptive power that made angels think he was right brought their fall, and that same seducing power and rebellion still seeks to draw God's people into supporting rebellion, so they must be warned and stand for truth from the Word of God. Even loyal agencies were exposed to the great deceiver's influence and could be turned by believing his claims, as the dragon, a real personal being, seduced a third of heaven from allegiance. That same seducing power now takes control of men who depart from faith to follow ambition and worldly alliance.