Rev 12:1-6, Part 1 – The Woman And The Manchild

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Rev 12:1-6, Part 1 – The Woman And The Manchild

[Study Aired Nov 17, 2024]

As we continue our study we must remember that chapters 11-16 are all part of the work of the seventh trumpet within our lives, which work begins to finish within us the mystery of God:

Rev 10:7  But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

The seventh angel begins to sound in:

Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Rev 11:16  And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
Rev 11:17  Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.

The words “art, was, and art to come” and the words “hast reigned” are all in the aorist tense signifying that what follows has begun to happen in our lives in every generation of the lives of the Lord’s elect:

Rev 11:18  And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
Rev 11:19  And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

The hail shall wipe away the refuge of [all the] lies of our Babylonian past and it is a traumatic earthquake in our lives when this seventh trumpet “begins to sound”:

Isa 28:17  Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
Isa 28:18  And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.

We are commissioned to “read, hear, and keep the things written in the prophesy of this book” (Rev 1:3), because we are thismanchild”, and we are the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of God, and [who] have the testimony of Jesus Christ”:

Rev 12:17  And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seedwhich keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. [‘The man child’, God’s elect].

The Lord and His Christ both are “in heaven” even while being on this earth:

Joh 3:13  And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down [Greek, aorist tense] from heaven, even the Son of man which is [Greek, present tense] in heaven.

The “appearance” of the woman, and the “appearance” of the “great red dragon”, are both in the Greek aorist tense, signifying the ongoing fulfillment of this prophecy in every generation since Christ. The pain of the woman and the casting of the stars of heaven to the earth, are also both in the aorist tense and are being fulfilled in this very generation in the heavens of the hearts and minds of the Lord’s Christ:

Rev 12:1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
Rev 12:2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
Rev 12:3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
Rev 12:4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
Rev 12:5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
Rev 12:6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred [and] threescore days.

Introduction

Chapter 11 deals with those who bear witness to this revelation of Jesus Christ within each of God’s elect. It details, in signs and symbols, the experience our Lord foretold us we would have as those who bear witness to His Words. So the hatred and death of those witnesses is nothing less than fulfilling of Christ’s prophecy that we shall be hated of all men for my names sake…

Mat 10:22 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

This “hatred of all men” is signified and symbolized by these words:

Rev 11:8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Rev 11:9 And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.

This rejection by all of our families and friends and “all men” is “they of the people and kindreds and tongues, and nations”. It is this rejection of all men which the scriptures refer to as being ‘dead and crucified with our Lord’, and “lying dead in the streets of the great city… where also our Lord was crucified”. This symbolic ‘death’ is central to the revealing of our Lord within us thoughout the New Testament:

Joh 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Rom 6:3  Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Rom 6:4  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Gal 2:19  For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christnevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Both phrases, “I… am dead to the law”, and “that I might live unto Christ” are in the aorist tense, signifying that this is taking place in every generation of the Lord and His Christ since the death and resurrection of Christ.

Col 3:3  For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

All those verses describe the “life” we have when we “fall into the ground and die”. All those verses and many others reveal that life comes only “through death”. All these verses reveal the blessing of being found “dead in the streets of that great city… where also our Lord was crucified”:

Rev 11:8  And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

It is after this symbolic death and crucifixion “in the streets of that great city” that we are raised up from the dead just at the time “when the seventh angels begins to sound his trumpet”. This is what Paul was speaking of when he wrote: “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live… [when] the seventh angel sounded”. This is a process that takes many “days”.

Rev 10:7  But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

Rev 11:11  And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
Rev 11:12  And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.
Rev 11:13  And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
Rev 11:14  The second woe is past; [and], behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

It is after we are told that the seventh angel sounded that we find this twelfth chapter, with all that is revealed in it. It is followed by chapter thirteen, which deals with the beast in all of his manifestations, followed by the fourteenth chapter dealing with the revelation of the 144,000 firstfruits of God, followed by another grand introduction in chapter 15 of the seven angels who are given seven vials, or bowls, in which are filled up the wrath of God under which we are all born and live our entire lives, until we are brought to cry out to the rocks to fall on us and hide us from the face of the lamb.

Joh 3:36  He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Eph 2:2  Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Eph 2:3  Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

Col 3:3  For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Col 3:4  When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Col 3:5  Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Col 3:6  For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Col 3:7  In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.

In other words, we have a complete summary of story of Adam before we are introduced to the actual event that is this seventh trumpet in chapter 16.

When is this chapter fulfilled?

Rev 12:1  And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

The woman, the manchild and the great red dragon, are the three main principles in this twelfth chapter of Revelation. This is a chapter which we will see makes very clear the absolute necessity of God’s elect “keeping of the things written therein” in every generation since Christ. This woman is the same woman who says:

Rev 18:7  How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

This is the same woman who says of herself:

Rev 3:17  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

This is the great harlot of Revelation 17 and 18. Christ was born of this harlot, and each of us “come out of her”:

Gal 4:4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

It is this seventh trumpet which is fulfilling this verse in the lives of God’s 144,000 firstfruit elect who are:

Rev 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written thereinfor the time is at hand.

When we forget this admonition, we inevitably are forced to apply these words to someone else at some time other than “the time [which] is at hand”.

“Another wonder in heaven” means another miraculous revelation of what it means for Christ to be revealed in our heavens. The point is that this is just one part of an ongoing process that is being read, heard and kept by those to whom it is addressed.

The spiritual meaning of the woman, the sun and the moon in this verse is explained to us in the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis, where a woman and the sun and the moon are all mentioned. Let’s let the scriptures themselves show us what these symbols signify.

Gen 37:3  Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.
Gen 37:4  And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Gen 37:5  And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.
Gen 37:6  And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:
Gen 37:7  For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.
Gen 37:8  And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.
Gen 37:9  And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
Gen 37:10  And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?

While it is true that there is no indication that Jacob or Rachel ever hated Joseph, they are nevertheless used in this instance as the types of “your father the devil” and of our mother when we were “the children of the bondwoman”. What we are told in this story of Joseph’s relations with his own family members is that we too, “shall be hated of all men”, especially of our own flesh and blood and especially by those of our own household, and we will, in the end, bear rule over our own flesh and over all those of our own household.

Rev 3:9  Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feetand to know that I have loved thee.

Gen 37:4  And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.

Gen 37:9  And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
Gen 37:10  And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?

The ‘sun’ is Jacob, and the ‘moon’ is Rachel. These are Joseph’s physical parents, just as the the devil and his doctrines and the bondwoman and her doctrines are our first physical parents in this world.

Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Gal 4:21 Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
Gal 4:22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sonsthe one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
Gal 4:23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Gal 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Gal 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now isand is in bondage with her children.

Sinai, where the law was given, “answers to Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children”. Who was the apostle Paul before he was struck down on the road to Damascus? He was Saul of Tarsus, the son of the bondwoman, persecuting Jesus of Nazareth, the son of the freewoman, the manchild who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.

Act 9:1  And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord [son of the freewoman], went unto the high priest,
Act 9:2  And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

Hagar and her son, Esau, “answers to [physical] Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children”. Saul of Tarsus, spiritually speaking, was ‘of the son of the bondwoman’, before he became the ‘son of the free woman’. We all have to fall into the ground and die before we can be “resurrected in newness of life” as “the son of the freewoman”, and before we can say that, we “were in time past children of wrath, even as others.

Joh 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

But just as the last Adam is of the first Adam, and just as the eighth is of the seven, so also does Saul of Tarsus, this manchild, and all who are in Christ, come first through this woman who is first a harlot before she is destroyed and is resurrected with Christ to become the bride of Christ, and “Jerusalem above, the mother of us all”. The church is her doctrines, more than she is those who are in her. The reason those who are in her are there, is because they believe her doctrines. Abraham had two wives, and it is true that we are not the children of the bondwoman, but of the free. But when we are granted to understand that there is one event to all men (Ecc 9:2), that mankind must all live by every word of God (Mat 4:4), that this generation will not pass away until all these things are fulfilled (Mat 24:34-35), and that all things are ours, life and death, the world, and things present and things to come (1Co 3:21-22), only then we will understand that we are the “manchild who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron”, and we are the children of the freewoman only because we were first “in bondage” with our old mother as “the children of the bondwoman”.

What this all tells us is that “I, and your mother and your brothers” in Gen 37:10, are the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and that even that the ‘sun’ and ‘stars’ of Rev 12:1 are symbols of our first parents, who we once considered to be the source of all light and sight and understanding and knowledge. We now see them revealed as nothing less than our first father, the devil, and his wife, the bondwoman, and now even he, along with our bondwoman mother and our first physical brothers in Christ, are now all bowing down to us and being made subject to us. This must all be done within before it will be seen without.

That we are all first “carnal… in Christ” is made clear in these verses:

1Co 3:1  And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
1Co 3:2  I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
1Co 3:3  For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
1Co 3:4  For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I [am] of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

Who is the woman, the twelve stars, and the manchild?

Rev 12:2  And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

Who is this woman and who are these 12 stars? They are of course, primarily within us, and secondarily they are round about us in the form of all who are the “first man Adam”. They are primarily each of us as we sit in the temple of God, proclaiming ourselves to be God, and demanding the complete and total dedication of our flesh to the service of the pleasures of our flesh. That is why her manchild son is caught up to God’s throne, while the woman herself goes into the wilderness. Here is another symbol of this woman and her sons who will bow down Joseph as the symbol of God’s elect.

2Th 2:3  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
2Th 2:4  Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

We have already demonstrated with the scriptures that each of us is that “temple of God”, and each of us is that “man of sin [who] sits in the temple of God showing ourselves to be God”.

The “woman clothed with the sun” signifies the church out of which the manchild must come:

Rev 18:4  And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Rev 18:5  For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

The ‘sun’ signifies the light of the fading law of Moses. The Pharisees in that sense were “clothed with the sun”:

Mat 23:1  Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,
Mat 23:2  Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:
Mat 23:3  All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

The twelve stars signify Joseph and his brothers who one and all signify outward Christians claiming to be the “one seed… the [spiritual] seed of Abraham” even as they hate God’s elect just like Joseph’s brothers who hated their own brother, Joseph, and wanted to kill him. The hatred of Joseph by his brothers signifes the Old Testament shadow of these verses:

Joh 8:37  I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.

Rev 12:4  And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

The woman’s ‘child’ signifies “the Lord and His Christ”. Here is this spiritual truth in the form of its old Testament shadow:

Gen 37:18  And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.
Gen 37:19  And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.
Gen 37:20  Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.

They certainly were right about the “evil beast” part, but not as they meant those words.

Christ Himself “was made of a woman, made under the law”, and just as Christ came out of “the church in the wilderness”, so we also, must we come out of the church that is in the wilderness, where she is fed by God for the exact same period of time that we spent in the wilderness wanting our Lord and His doctrines dead.

Act 7:38  This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:

Rev 17:1  And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

Isa 1:21  How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it [she was “clothed with the sun”]; but now murderers.

Rev 17:2  With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
Rev 17:3  So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

Gal 4:1  Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;
Gal 4:2  But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
Gal 4:3  Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:
Gal 4:4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
Gal 4:5  To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

We will pause our study at this point and resume it in our next gathering.

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