ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

REVELATION 12

Revelation 12 introduces us to ‘a great and wondrous sign … a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head’. The fact that this woman is called ‘a sign’ indicates that she is not a real woman, but a symbol for some greater reality.

As we read this vision it is obvious that ‘the woman’ represents the people of God in both the Old and New Testaments. She is the Old Testament people who believed in God (verses 2-5), and who like Anna and Simeon (Luke 2:25-38) were waiting in faith for the birth of the promised Saviour. She is the New Testament believers, both Jew and Gentile, who have acknowledged and received Jesus Christ (verses 6 & 13 to 17).

By this symbolic woman, we are given insight into the perennial antagonism of the enemy against the people of God. By this woman we are also given insight into strong and unassailable position of the redeemed, the Church, from all generations.

[1] She is ‘clothed with the sun …’ This immediately tells us that she has some close association with Jesus Christ – because he is elsewhere described as being radiant like the sun; indeed, he is the light of the world (Matthew 17:2; John 1:4-9; 8:12; Acts 26:13; Revelation 1:16).

In addition, Jesus is referred to as the ‘sun of righteousness’ who rises ‘with healing in his wings’ for those who revere God’s name (Malachi 4:2). The whole Bible teaches that those who believe are credited with ‘righteousness’, clothed with garments of righteousness (Genesis 15:6; Psalm 132:9; Isaiah 61:10; 62:1-3; Jeremiah 23:5,6; Romans 1:17; 3:21-24; 4:1-8; Galatians 3:8-9; Philippians 3:9; Hebrews 11:7).

We learn here that ‘the woman’ represents all from both the Old and New Testaments who are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. This is not a personal righteousness, as his is, but an imputed, given righteousness, a gift, a grace. It is this clothing, this gift of righteousness, of acquittal, that makes it impossible for the dragon’s accusations against ‘the woman’ to succeed. Because she is clothed in the righteousness of Christ those accusations cannot touch her. God has acquitted her on the basis of Christ’s righteousness; there is therefore no one who has any right to accuse and condemn. (Read Romans 8:31-34.) The redeemed are beyond the legal reach of the accusations of Satan which would otherwise disqualify them from life with God.

But there is another aspect to this being ‘clothed with the sun’. Both Israel and the Church are referred to as being ‘light’. Because they belong to God who is Light, and to Jesus who is Light, believers bear that light of God into and in the world (Genesis 12:3;1Chronicles 16:24; Matthew 5:14-16; Acts 14:37; 1Peter 2:9).

Again, clothed in the sun, clothed in light, clothed with Christ, ‘the woman’ is secure against the prince of darkness. The darkness cannot put out the light.

[2] She has ‘the moon under her feet’. In the Scripture the sun and the moon are referred to together as a guarantee of God’s covenant faithfulness (Jeremiah 31:30-37). The permanence of the moon is used to guarantee God’s covenant with David and his line (Psalm 89:35-37). An exceptional brightness of the sun and the moon depict the ultimate salvation brought by the Lord (Isaiah 30:26). Indeed, the Lord himself is both the sun and the moon of the redeemed, a sun that never sets, a moon that never wanes, the everlasting light of his people (Isaiah 60:19,20; compare Revelation 21:22-25).

The redeemed stand on this secure and permanent foundation: the Lord is faithful. The Lord is their light and their salvation, no one, nothing, can sever them from God (Psalm 27:1-3; Romans 8:35-39).

[3] ‘… and a crown of twelve stars on her head.’ The reference to ‘stars’ completes this trilogy of assurance – sun, moon and stars together bear witness to the covenant faithfulness of God (Jeremiah 31:35). Together they also encompass and characterize the woman with light.

The saints, the redeemed, the people belonging to God, the Church, are ‘the children of light’ (Luke 16:8; John 12:36; Ephesians 5:8; 1Thessalonians 5:5). Although this makes their position with God absolutely secure it also attracts the hatred of all who hate the light (John 3:19,20). However, this attack of the darkness against the redeemed is pointless. It can and does hurt, but it can never succeed in extinguishing the light, or in severing the redeemed from God and from salvation.

The crown of twelve stars worn by the woman is a ‘crown’ of victory – not a crown of royalty or authority, but the victor’s wreath (the Greek word is stephanos). The Church is already victorious; she already wears a crown of victory. Christ has already conquered, and the Church is already clothed with the light of his righteousness, stands on the light of his promise, and crowned with the light of his victory.

From this symbol of ‘the woman’ we learn that the Church (those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ) is the target of the devil and his destructive intent. He did not want the long-expected child to live; he does not want the testimony of the child to survive. His vicious hatred is focused on the Church: those who have the testimony of Jesus.

Here in Revelation 12, this symbol of the ‘woman’ is a message to the suffering Church: not through all the generations of waiting was Satan able to destroy the faithful in Israel; never in all of those centuries was he able to abort the holy child of promise and so dissolve the purpose of God; and even though he waited vigilantly, poised in aggressive readiness, he was not able to destroy the child when he was born. The same God who in faithfulness to his purpose and to his promise preserved the faithful and preserved the child is well able to preserve his people today. The Church, ‘the woman’, lives under his sovereign protection. God is working his purpose out and no one, not even the ultimate enemy, can prevent him. For the same period of time in which the Church is persecuted, for that same period of time in which the Church witnesses, for that same period of time God preserves the Church.