64. Revelation 13 - Bible Study - Part 1

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A GUIDED BIBLE STUDY OF REVELATION 13

Part 1 - Preparatory: Symbolic? Literal?
What's the difference? And which is best?

This is the first guided Bible study** on this blog, and I have selected Revelation 13 because it is a particularly important and interesting chapter, which we can use as an anchor for the chapters both preceding and following. (**This means go get your Bible and open it)

One of the reasons that Bible readers often stop when they get to Revelation, is because of the great use of symbols which start immediately in Chapter One, and often the reader doesn't know whether to take a word or phrase literally or symbolically. For example, in Rev 1:7 it says about Jesus, "Behold he is coming with clouds...". So should the word 'clouds' be taken literally (real clouds) or symbolically, where the word 'clouds' stands for something else, like a cloud of people or angels (or both) returning with Jesus?

We must answer this question first: "Should the Bible be read literally or symbolically?"

The answer is ... YES! The Bible should be read literally when called for, and symbolically when called for. But keep this in mind: more often than not, the symbol stands for something literal, and we are called to determine what the symbol stands for. Sometimes that is difficult, and sometimes it is easy -- like when the interpretation of the symbol is written somewhere nearby in the Bible text.

To understand what two important symbols mean in chapter 13, we are going to have to slip backwards and look at chapter 12, where we have an illustration of an easily understood interpretation of a symbol, and a more difficult one.

First, the difficult one:

12:1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth... 4b. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour the child as soon as it was born. 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, where she is to be taken care of for 1,260 days.

Who is this woman? It is not universally agreed. We must use the text surrounding (the context) to help us determine this. The three most important clues are (1) this child was important enough that the dragon (identification yet to come) wanted to kill the child, (2) this woman gave birth to a male child who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and (3) her child was caught up to God and to his throne.

Does any of this sound familiar? Almost everyone agrees that this is speaking about Jesus, the baby and then the adult. (1) Certain leaders wanted Jesus killed at the very beginning of his life, (2) the one who is to "rule all nations with a rod of iron" is the Messiah, and (3) it was Jesus who was caught up to God and to his throne.

But what woman was it that gave birth to Jesus? The easy and quick answer is Mary, the mother of Jesus. This, I believe, is the position of the Roman Catholic church. But while Mary may fit some of the characteristics of the woman, she does not seem to fit the last part, where the "woman" flees into the wilderness, the desert, where she is taken care of and nourished for 1,260 days. Elsewhere in this blog I have endeavored to show that the 1,260 days mentioned here seems to be a real period of time, the last 3 1/2 years of the Great Tribulation. That being so, Mary does not fit.

Another possibility is that the woman is the church. There is a sense that the church can be considered to have started when Israel began as a nation, and Israel in one verse is called the church in the wilderness. In that sense, the church could be considered as having given birth to Jesus Christ. But this view is less 'popular', less favored than it was many years ago. In the usual sense of the word church, Jesus says "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." In this sense, Jesus gave birth to the church, not the other way around.

And so, the general position of those who are premillennialists is that the woman is Israel. Israel gave birth to the Christ, who was eventually taken up to God and to His throne, and it is Israel herself that will flee into the wilderness during the Great Tribulation and receive protection by God.

But notice that we never could point to a verse that made it quite clear that the woman is a symbol for Israel. It just seemed to be the most reasonable -- and most favored -- conclusion.

And now, for the second symbol, whose activity is interwoven closely with the woman:

3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born.

Now we have a great red dragon to decode. We could guess about this, but with the great dragon we do not need to guess! All we need to do is look down a few verses, where it continues,

7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 But he was defeated, and there was no longer any place found for them in heaven. 9 So the great dragon was cast down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world -- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

So in this case, we have scripture interpreting scripture, telling us that the dragon is literally Satan, the devil. While the dragon is truly a symbol, it still stands for something or someone literal, namely Satan.

The best principle of interpreting the Bible, is to interpret in the normal, usual sense of the language when it makes sense. And while something is obviously a symbol, it will normally stand for something literal: Israel, Satan, Jesus (a lamb, a lion), the cross (Christ's substitutionary death) and rarely will the symbol remain just a symbol and stay uninterpreted when the whole of scripture is taken into consideration.

So now, as we approach chapter 13, we have some general rules and guidelines to help us understand who is involved, and what is happening in this Bible passage.

Next Lesson:
Part 2. Rev 13:1-2 : Introduction to the Antichrist (Post #66 Link)

(And in subsequent posts, we will go back and look more closely at Chapter 12)
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