<p>12:10 <em>And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying: Now has come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers is cast down, who accuses them before our God day and night</em>- The great voice is presumably from the Angels representing the faithful. Not that the faithful personally are in Heaven, for there is no conscious survival of death. But their representative Angels are there, who look upon those persecuted by the dragon as their &quot;brothers&quot;. The dragon is a veritable <em>diabolos</em>, a false accuser. In Jewish thought, one can be accused before God, in the heavenly throne room, without personally being there. Within John's writings we have a classic example in Jn. 5:45, where the same word is again used of how Moses who was dead accused the Jews before God. Our own thoughts accuse us to God (Rom. 2:15). The dragon entity had representation before the throne of God, falsely accusing &quot;our brothers&quot;. The reference would presumably be to the Jewish Christian remnant, rather than to Jewish people generally. The accusation was in the sense that the Islamists consider Jews and Christians to be especially worthy of Divine condemnation; they justify their extreme judgment against Jews and Christians on the basis that they say God has spoken harshly against them. The Koran is full of this kind of thing. God is not unmindful of it.</p><p>There are copious links between Rev. 12 and Mt. 24. This chapter therefore has reference to the last days as well as AD70, bearing in mind the reference of the Olivet prophecy to these two periods. What proves this beyond doubt is that as soon as the dragon is cast out we are told &quot;<em>Now</em> is come salvation... the Kingdom of our God... for the accuser of our brethren is cast down&quot; (12:10). Neither salvation nor the Kingdom of God can fully come without the second coming. If Scripture interprets Scripture, then the dragon being cast out must refer to the events of the second coming. There is rejoicing because the believers were no longer being accused (Greek 'seized upon' or accused in a law court), implying that this will be going on until the dragon/beast is cast out by Michael, the Angel who acts for God's people in the last days (Dan. 12:1). The dragon accusing them before God sounds like Job's satan- as if the supreme intensity of suffering brought upon a materialistic, self-justifying Job to make him fit for God's full fellowship points forward to our tribulation to come. As Job was brought to say that he had heard of God by the hearing of the ear (theoretically), but now, through his sufferings, &quot;my eye sees You&quot; (Job 42:5), so the latter day tribulation will develop God's people.</p><p>The &lsquo;accusation&rsquo; of God&rsquo;s people &ldquo;before God&rdquo; by the serpent / Devil doesn&rsquo;t mean he has to be literally in Heaven (Rev. 12:10). The same term is found in Jn. 5:45 where the Lord Jesus states that the long&ndash;dead Moses &lsquo;accuses&rsquo; the Jews to God. Our own thoughts accuse us to God (Rom. 2:15). What all this surely means is that things done on earth, good and bad, even thoughts and feelings, are somehow represented before the throne of God, perhaps by representative Angels there, and God to continue the figure &lsquo;judges&rsquo; those reported accusations. But this doesn&rsquo;t require our literal presence in Heaven to do this. The first century mind, especially those from a Jewish background, would likely have picked all this up with no problem; it is the European insistence on literalism in semantics which has led to so many of the problems in interpretation which these verses have given rise to. We have to somehow shed our slowness and hesitancy to accept that figures e.g. of a judgment court replete with literal books, throne, accusers, witnesses are just that&ndash; figures.</p><p>The 'coming' of salvation and the public assumption on earth of the power, authority etc. which the Lord already has in Heaven can only fully speak of the second coming. Any application to any other events are mere shadows and unworthy of much attention compared to the obvious application to the second coming.</p>