<p>12:9 <em>And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him</em>- The conflict between God and the persecuting coalition of the last days will be the final manifestation of God's battle with sin and evil. He will finally be revealed as triumphant. Perhaps the symbology of a woman is chosen in :1 exactly so as to point up this allusion to the battle between the women and the serpent which began in Gen. 3:15. Eden is now about to be restored. This latter day entity will have deceived the world- perhaps a reference to an influence larger than over the earth / land promised to Abraham. For the coalition of evil will have deceived people worldwide to support their mania against Israel and Christians. It is hard not to see reference here to radical Islam. The same word for 'deceit' is often used in the Olivet prophecy. There would be 'deceit' associated with false prophets (and &quot;the false prophet&quot; is associated with the beast in Revelation- a likely reference to some incarnation of Mohammed, some jihadist imams claiming to be God's prophets on earth). This will &quot;deceive many&quot;, here called &quot;the whole world&quot; (Mt. 24:4,5,11,24), &quot;the nations&quot; (20:3), especially those in the corners of the land promised to Abraham (20:8). The deceit will involve claims that the Christ has come (Mt. 24:5)- perhaps a reference to some jihadist claim about the Mahdi. This deception will be given surface level credibility by false miracles performed by &quot;the false prophet&quot; (13:14; 19:20), which are in fact performed by magic (18:23). The deceitful coalition is cast from heaven to earth; this is figurative for a loss of power, but this entity is now pictures as angry and desperate on the earth / land promised to Abraham.</p><p>The Greek word <em>ballo</em> translated &ldquo;cast out&rdquo; doesn&rsquo;t necessarily mean to throw <em>down &ndash; </em>Greek has words for this specific idea and it&rsquo;s significant that they&rsquo;re not used here. Here are a few examples of the usage of <em>ballo</em>, showing that it really means to expel or re-place:</p><p>&ndash; A wind &ldquo;arose&rdquo; (Acts 27:14); a crowd &ldquo;threw&rdquo; dust <em>up</em> into the air (Acts 22:23); a sword is &ldquo;put <em>up</em>&rdquo; into a sheath (Jn. 18:11) imply the word can mean to throw <em>up</em> as well as to throw <em>down</em>.<br />&ndash; Men &ldquo;cast&rdquo; stones (Jn. 8:7,59), &ldquo;strike&rdquo; another man on the face (Mk. 14:65), &ldquo;put&rdquo; fingers in the ear (Mk. 7:33), people &ldquo;lay&rdquo; upon a bed (Mt. 8:6,14; 9:2; Mk. 7:30) &ndash; horizontal movement.<br />&ndash; We &ldquo;put&rdquo; bits into the mouths of horses (James 3:3) &ndash; no vertical movement there. Thomas &ldquo;thrust&rdquo; his hand into the Lord&rsquo;s side (Jn. 20:27).<br />&ndash; Believers were &ldquo;cast&rdquo; into prison (Acts 16:24,37; Rev. 2:10) &ndash; the idea of vertical movement isn&rsquo;t there. Likewise love &ldquo;casts out&rdquo; fear (1 Jn. 4:18).<br />&ndash; The dragon casts water out of his mouth (Rev. 12:15,16), horizontally along the ground. Here the word clearly doesn&rsquo;t mean to throw <em>down</em> from a height &ndash; and the same word is used in that context for the Devil being &ldquo;cast out&rdquo;, i.e. ejected, from Heaven.<br />&ndash; Men &ldquo;cast&rdquo; dust on their own heads (Rev. 18:19).</p><p>The serpent is cast out of heaven, implying it was originally there. But the literal serpent in Eden was created by God out of the dust of the earth (Gen. 1:24&ndash;25). There is no implication that the Devil came down from heaven and got inside the serpent. The language of &ldquo;cast down&rdquo; and &ldquo;cast out&rdquo; does not require literal downwards movement &ndash; Babylon is &ldquo;thrown down&rdquo; in Rev. 18:21. The O.T. basis of &ldquo;cast out&rdquo; is in the nations / beasts being cast out from God&rsquo;s presence in the land of Israel. In Rev. 12 we have another woman in the wilderness, who enters the Kingdom cp. the land once the beast is cast out. In Dan. 7:9 the thrones of the beast / kingdoms are &ldquo;cast down&rdquo; before God&rsquo;s Kingdom is established on earth, just as the beast is cast down before the establishment of the Kingdom in Rev. 12. The idea of being cast out of Heaven was and is common in Semitic languages and even wider culture for a loss of power &ndash; thus Cicero comments about Mark Anthony: &ldquo;You have hurled your colleagues down from heaven&rdquo;.</p><p>&ldquo;That old serpent&rdquo; (Rev. 12:9) is often misread to mean that the original serpent in the Garden of Eden is now a dragon in the sky. But care in thought and Biblical exposition is lacking in such a view. The orthodox understanding is that Satan sinned in Heaven, and was thrown down to earth, where he tempted Eve in the form of a serpent. But Rev. 12:9 is a prophecy of the <em>future</em>, just prior to the return of Christ to earth, saying that <em>then</em> there will be a conflict &ldquo;in heaven&rdquo; &ndash; which we understand to be figurative language. The orthodox interpretation does violence to the obvious chronology, and is evidently an opportunistic grabbing hold of Biblical phrases with no attention at all to their context, and stringing them together to justify popular Christianity&rsquo;s adoption of Jewish and pagan myths about the Devil. In passing, note how Gen. 3:15 prophesies that God <em>will </em>put hostility between the serpent and the woman. This is not what we would expect to hear if this were indeed speaking of a pre-existent Christ and Satan. According to the orthodox understanding, the enmity between them occurred in Heaven <em>before</em> Satan supposedly came down to earth. Notice, too, that according to the Biblical record in Gen. 3:15 it is God who created this hostility, whereas the common view implies it was Satan&rsquo;s hatred of God which was the original enmity. We read that the dragon / serpent&rsquo;s &ldquo;place&rdquo; was not &ldquo;found&rdquo; in Heaven as a result of the final struggle (Rev. 12:8). The same term is to be found in Rev. 20:11, where we read that the &lsquo;Heaven and earth&rsquo; had no place found for them in Heaven as a result of Christ&rsquo;s final sitting in judgment. Clearly, &lsquo;Heaven and earth&rsquo; are figurative &ndash; used here, as so often in the Bible, to refer to a system of things. Notice how the Devil / dragon / serpent are thus paralleled with the &lsquo;Heaven and earth&rsquo;. This worldly system of things in the last days, the dragon / serpent power, will be no more after the final judgment seat of Christ. We see all this prefigured in how the rejected Esau came before his father Isaac, typical of the rejection of the wicked at the final judgment, and &ldquo;found no place&rdquo;, despite his tears and gnashing of teeth (Heb. 12:17). The rejected <em>people </em>at the final judgment will &ldquo;not be able&rdquo; to enter God&rsquo;s Kingdom then (Lk. 13:24) &ndash; and the same Greek word is used in Rev. 12:8 to describe how the serpent / Devil system of people will not &ldquo;prevail&rdquo;. Clearly the reference of Rev. 12 is to the very last day, when Christ returns to earth in judgment. The serpent &lsquo;not prevailing&rsquo; and &lsquo;finding no place&rsquo; with God in &lsquo;Heaven&rsquo; refers in the light of the same terms used in other Bible passages to what happens at the final judgment, at Christ&rsquo;s second coming, and it is therefore <em>not</em> descriptive of some past events in Eden. It&rsquo;s also noteworthy that the serpent / Devil is &lsquo;cast down&rsquo; from Heaven to make &ldquo;woe&rdquo; for &ldquo;the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea&rdquo; (Rev. 12:12). This hardly sounds like the orthodox Satan of <em>Paradise Lost</em> being thrown down to earth to make trouble for just Adam and Eve. The people who inhabit &ldquo;the sea&rdquo; rather than the earth surely indicates that we are to understand all this literally. And it is &ldquo;the serpent&rdquo; who is thrown down from Heaven to the earth / sea. Orthodox thinking holds that Satan was cast down and became a serpent here on earth rather than being a serpent &ldquo;in Heaven&rdquo; as Rev. 12 requires. In any case, the woman in Rev. 12 is persecuted by the serpent rather than being charmed and tempted by him; and she escapes from him by fleeing into &ldquo;the wilderness&rdquo;, which makes the serpent mad with her (Rev. 12:13&ndash;17). None of this Biblical testimony fits the orthodox interpretation of the passage &ndash; it directly contradicts it.</p><p>When we read that the Devil&ndash;dragon &ldquo;deceives&rdquo; people, this is defined more specifically in Rev. 19:20 as referring to deceiving people in the very last days by false miracles worked in conjunction with the &ldquo;false prophet&rdquo;. Thus the deceit is not to be understood as a general inciting of humanity to sin in their hearts &ndash; the deceit is specified as occurring only in the last days, immediately prior to the Kingdom of God being established. <br clear=all /><br />The &ldquo;old serpent&rdquo; may be a reference to the characteristics of the serpent whom we meet in Genesis. The serpent&ndash;Eve incident played itself out in history, and still does, in that the children of the woman God&rsquo;s people are tempted and now threatened by the powers of sin and sinful organizations. Thus Paul could say that in the same way as the serpent tempted Eve, so Jewish false teachers in the early church were tempting the true bride of Christ (2 Cor. 11:3). So it was again in the persecution of true Christians by the Roman empire, which Rev. 12 initially refers to; so it was throughout history; and so it will be in the time of the final tribulation before the second coming of Christ. My specific suggestions as to the fulfilment of Rev. 12 in the latter day tribulation can be found in <em>The Last Days</em> Chapter 12&ndash;7.</p><p>The dragon power is associated with &ldquo;the false prophet&rdquo; and the doing of fake miracles (Rev. 13:14; 19:20) &ndash; this is the basis upon which the dragon / Satan / adversary of God&rsquo;s people &ldquo;deceives&rdquo; the world (Rev. 12:9). There are multiple connections between the Lord&rsquo;s Olivet prophecy and the prophecy of the book of Revelation. Almost every commentary on Revelation brings these out, and I have listed many of them in <em>The Last Days</em> Chapter 12. The Lord Jesus repeatedly warned His followers not to be &ldquo;deceived&rdquo; &ndash; using the same Greek word as in Rev. 12:9 about the dragon / Devil &lsquo;deceiving&rsquo; unbelievers. But He warns time and again that the source of this deception will be from &ldquo;<em>men</em>... false prophets... false Christs... false prophets&rdquo; doing false miracles (Mt. 24:4,5,11,24). Jesus says nothing about some fallen&ndash;Angel &lsquo;Satan&rsquo; being behind these men. He simply warns His followers to beware of <em>human</em> deceivers &ndash; and Rev. 12 fills out the picture by specifically painting these <em>men</em> as part of a massive <em>human</em> system called Satan, the adversary, who would have all the characteristics of the serpent in Eden, just as the adversaries of God&rsquo;s people always have had. This system of opposition, in the first century context, was both Jewish and Roman &ndash; hence the dragon is called both &ldquo;the Devil and Satan&rdquo; in Rev. 12:9 &ndash; <em>diabolos</em> being the Greek term for the Hebrew <em>Satan</em>. They are practically interchangeable &ndash; but both terms occur here, I suggest, in order to show that the opposition to Christianity was coming from both Jewish and Gentile sources. Time and again the New Testament writers warn the Christians of both Jews and Gentiles, <em>men</em> not demons, spirits, fallen Angels, Satan etc. &ndash; but <em>men</em> who &ldquo;seek to deceive you&rdquo; (1 Jn. 2:26; 3:7; James 1:16). &ldquo;Be not deceived&rdquo; is a watchword of Paul (1 Cor. 6:9; 15:33; Gal. 6:7). It is the <em>world</em> which is deceived by wicked men (1 Tim. 3:13; Tit. 3:3; 1 Pet. 2:25) &ndash; just as Rev. 12:9 says that the dragon / Satan system will deceived &ldquo;the whole world&rdquo;. That system was thus composed of wicked <em>men</em>. In all these passages, the very same Greek word occurs which is translated &ldquo;deceive&rdquo; in Rev. 12:9. Again we have to ask &ndash; why did Jesus, Paul, Peter, James and John not spell out to their converts that it was really <em>Satan</em> who was tempting them and likely to deceive them? Why do they repeatedly stress that it is <em>men</em> and the human heart (Heb. 3:10; 1 Jn. 1:8) who are the deceivers? Why do we have to wait until the very last book of the Bible to be told that actually, it&rsquo;s Satan who&rsquo;s doing this? How can belief in a personal Satan be so crucial to many churches, when the earliest Christian converts made before Revelation was given had been taught nothing about any Angel falling from Heaven and being responsible for temptation? Was there one Gospel for them, but another for the 21st century church?</p><p>&ldquo;The great dragon was... that old serpent&rdquo; (Rev. 12:9). The dragon had &ldquo;seven heads and ten horns&rdquo; (v. 3), therefore it was not literally the serpent. It being called &ldquo;that old serpent&rdquo; shows that it had the characteristics of that serpent in Eden, in the sense of being a deceiver, as the serpent was. Thus the Devil is not literally the serpent. If it is, then the dragon is the snake. But the dragon is a political power, manifesting sin 9satan). Pharaoh is likened to a great dragon (Ez. 32:2) but we can&rsquo;t reason that therefore he was a literal dragon. Similarly, &ldquo;the sting of death is sin&rdquo; (1 Cor. 15:56), but that does not mean that death is a literal snake. It has the characteristics of the snake, through its association with sin. How could the Devil have deceived &ldquo;the whole world&rdquo; (v. 9) before he was thrown out of heaven seeing that there was no one in the world before Adam?</p><p>The Greek <em>archaios</em>, translated &ldquo;old&rdquo; in Rev. 12:9 and Rev. 20:2, can easily be misread as meaning simply &lsquo;the archaic / very old&rsquo; serpent. But <em>archaios</em> is a form of the Greek root <em>arche</em> &ndash; the dragon power of Rev. 12 is the arch&ndash;serpent, the archetypical serpent. It doesn&rsquo;t necessarily mean that the serpent is very old. For the serpent who tempted Eve suffered from the curse which came upon all other &ldquo;beasts of the field&rdquo; (Gen. 3:1), and died. We see serpents today eating dust and crawling on their bellies, living and dying like any other creature. The <em>arche</em> serpent doesn&rsquo;t therefore mean &lsquo;the extremely old serpent, the animal who tempted Eve, is still actually alive&rsquo;. We meet the word <em>arche</em> elsewhere in the context of meaning &lsquo;archetype&rsquo; rather than &lsquo;having been in existence from the beginning of Biblical history&rsquo;: &ldquo;The <em>principles</em> (Gk. <em>arche</em>) of Christ&rdquo; (Heb. 6:1); &ldquo;the first (Gk. <em>arche</em>) principles of the oracles of God&rdquo; (Heb. 5:12); and quite commonly <em>arche</em> is simply translated as &ldquo;magistrates&rdquo;, &ldquo;rulers&rdquo;, &ldquo;principalities&rdquo; &ndash; the ordering, <em>arch</em>&ndash;principles and foundations of society (Lk. 12:11; 20:20; Rom. 8:38; 1 Cor. 15:24; Eph. 1:21; 3:10; 6:12; Col. 1:16; 2:10,15; Tit. 3:1). In line with this understanding, I think we could fairly paraphrase Rev. 12:9 as: &ldquo;The great dragon, the classic, typical serpent, the thinking and behaviour of Eden&rsquo;s snake played out all over again in classic role, the Gentile / Roman Devil and the Jewish Satan, an evil system adversarial to God&rsquo;s true people&rdquo;.</p><p>Austin Farrar coined the term &ldquo;a rebirth of images&rdquo; (Austin Farrar,<em> A Rebirth of Images </em>(Boston: Beacon Press, 1963)) to describe what&rsquo;s going on in Revelation. Old Testament images are taken up and given a new focus; and this is what&rsquo;s happened with the image of the serpent. It&rsquo;s not a reference to <em>the same</em> serpent as was in Eden &ndash; but a rebirth of that image. G.B. Caird has commented on the very common error of interpretation made with Rev. 12: &ldquo;Later Christian tradition, by the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, treated this as a precosmic event... quite failing to recognize that John&rsquo;s imagery had an earthly referent&rdquo; (G.B. Caird, <em>The Language and Imagery of the Bible</em> (London: Duckworth, 1988) p. 55). What Caird is saying, in dense theological language, is that Christian folk have over literally interpreted the reference to the serpent, assuming that Rev. 12 is talking about something happening before creation, when in fact it is referring to things happening on earth in John&rsquo;s own generation.</p>