The Seven Mystic Figures — Part 2: Exodus

The Seven Mystic¹ Figures vision makes a slight change to the timeframe of the first two judgment visions. They concentrated on the “great tribulation” Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:1–3, 21, 34; Rev. 7:14). This vision focuses on the entire generation of Jesus’s life on earth. It begins with his birth and ascension (Rev. 12:1–5) and ends with Jesus coming, as the Son of Man, on a cloud to judge Israel (Rev. 14:14–20). Inmillennialism maintains this is the same cloud-coming Jesus described in the Olivet Discourse and linked to the destruction of the Temple (Matt. 24:1–3, 30). The vision covers the generation Jesus had in mind in Matt. 24:34.

We will apply inmillennialism to this vision using terms suggested by the Exodus typology we discussed in our Typology and Inmillennialism post. Here is our outline:

I. The Exodus (Rev. 12:1–12)

A. Events surrounding Jesus’s birth and ascension  (Rev. 12:1–6)

B. Events during Jesus’s lifetime (Rev. 12:7–12)

II. The wilderness journey² (Rev. 12:13–14:13)

III. The kingdom entrance (Rev. 14:14–20).

This post examines The Exodus.

Events Surrounding Jesus’s Birth and Ascension (Rev. 12:1–6)

We saw in our last post³ that the woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars represents Mosaic-Age Israel. Inmillennialism asserts that Israel’s prophets used cosmic imagery to describe the “universe” in which Israel exists.⁴ The collapse of this symbolic world represents the fall of the nation.⁵ These images can also represent individuals within the nation: Jacob is the sun, Rachel the moon, and their sons the stars (e.g., Gen. 37:9–11).

John sees Israel as she with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. In past generations, she had endured false labor pains. Isaiah said, “We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen” (Isa. 26:18). The labor John sees is different. Israel was about to bring forth a child—the Lord Jesus Christ—who would deliver the earth and overcome the inhabitants of the world.⁶

This childbirth has serious complications. John sees a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads ready to do mischief. This is Satan (Rev. 12:9) and he is not alone.

The Dragon’s tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth (or land).⁷ These stars represent Israelites after the flesh⁸ who join the Dragon before the woman ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

Satan used King Herod in his attempt to destroy the Man-Child. This wicked ruler sought “the young child to destroy him” (Matt. 2:13). He killed “all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under” (Matt. 2:16) in his deranged effort to devour this young King.

Many Jews joined the attack: “Herod . . . was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him” (Matt. 2:3; emphasis added). Jesus later told them, “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” (John 8:44). Israel’s stars had fallen under the influence of the Dragon.

John’s images are significant. “In ancient dream interpretation, seeing stars falling down to the earth meant that many people would die.”⁹ The last part of this vision (Rev. 14:14–20) will show the death of those who followed the Dragon against Christ.

The birth of the Man-Child is the typological fulfillment of Moses’s birth. The Egyptians had decreed the death of all males born to Jewish mothers, but God protected Moses. In an unusual turn of events, he became the adopted grandson of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The future leader of the Exodus was safe. Moses is the type (or “picture”), Jesus is the antitype (or “reality”). In both cases, God preserved the future leader from Satan’s death trap.

So, the Dragon’s efforts were in vain. Israel 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.

The vision delays mentioning events during the child’s lifetime. This emphasizes that the Man-Child was “about to (Gk. mellō) rule all the nations”¹⁰ and that he would do so from heaven (Rev. 12:5).

These symbols correspond to what happened after Jesus rose from the dead: “And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:51). The apostles understood this as the enthronement of Jesus as King. Peter said the resurrection and ascension fulfilled God’s promise to David “that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne” (Acts 2:30–31; emphasis added). The vision matches historic events.

We can use the language of the second Psalm here. God laughed at the Dragon and the stars with him and said, “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” He turned to the enthroned Man-Child and said, “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Psa. 2:6, 8). The Dragon’s efforts to destroy the Man-Child were in vain.

Scripture refers to Jesus’s crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension as his Exodus. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah talked with Jesus and spoke of the Exodus (Gk. exodos) “he was about to (Gk. mellō) fulfil in Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31 YLT). This Exodus is the fulfillment of the type (or “picture”) provided by Moses and his Exodus from Egypt.

This language opens the way for us to comment on the fact that 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. In the woman’s (Israel’s) flight “into the wilderness,” we see a “parallelism to the Exodus where the children of Israel fled from Pharaoh.”¹¹ The vision brings together Jesus’s Exodus—his ascension—and the woman’s wilderness journey. This reinforces the typology built into the inmillennial model.

An important change to Israel occurred between the birth and ascension of the Man-Child King. We provided a diagram in our last post (here) that showed how God reconstituted “Israel” during Christ’s lifetime. After considering some excellent feedback, I have revised that diagram as shown here:

The woman John sees fleeing into the wilderness after Christ’s ascension is the “Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16). We have referred to this nation as Israel after the Spirit, or Messianic-Age Israel. During the earthly ministry of Christ, Israel after the flesh aligned itself with the Dragon. From John’s perspective, that part of Israel would soon perish in the fires of God’s judgment (Luke 23:2; John 19:12, 15; Acts 17:7; Matt. 3:12; John 15:6; 1 Thess. 2:16).

The vision linked the beginning and ending points of Christ’s life on earth without showing intervening events (Rev. 12:5). It does the same for the woman’s wilderness experience. John sees Israel after the Spirit follow Christ in his Exodus—she flees into the wilderness. He then sees her at the end of her wilderness period when God’s agents feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. They care for her during the 3-1/2 years of “great tribulation” at the end of the Mosaic Age (Matt. 24:21; Rev. 7:14).

Events During Jesus’s Lifetime (Rev. 12:7–12) 

G. K. Beale says, “Verses 7–12 are a narration of the defeat of the devil and his angels by Michael and his angels in heavenly combat. The actions described are the heavenly counterpart of earthly events recorded in vv 1–6.”¹² Therefore, the following symbols show events during the life of Christ on earth.

Christ survived the Dragon’s attack at his birth. He began his ministry about thirty years later. Amazing things happened in the spirit-realm during that ministry. John says, there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Michael and his angels removed Satan from his previous position as “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2) to establish the Messianic-Age kingdom of God on earth.

The Gospels record this dethroning. When Jesus’s disciples preached the kingdom to Israel (Luke 10:1–17), they returned and said, “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name” (Luke 10:17). Jesus responded: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18).

Speaking of Satan on other occasions Jesus said, “now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31) and “the prince of this world is judged” (Jn 16:11). John’s symbols may represent Christ as “Michael . . . the great prince” whose wise followers are like “stars” (Dan. 12:1, 3). If so, through his death and resurrection he “spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:15). The wise in Israel shone as “stars” in heaven as Christ ascended to his throne after defeating Satan and his fallen “stars.” Now, the Dragon could not defeat them or prevent the spread of God’s kingdom.

Jesus now waits for his enemies to become his footstool (Psa. 110:1). So, John heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. The Dragon’s defeat allows Jesus’s followers to expand the kingdom. The vision shows their method: they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

John looks up and shouts: Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. “Christ’s kingdom has been established, the devil has lost his accusatorial position in heaven, and the saints can overcome his accusations (Rev. 12:7–11).”¹³

But the coming of the kingdom will bring Woe to the inhabiters of the [land¹⁴] and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. This is the same “little time” of Rev. 6:9–11, the time during which Satan caused Israel after the flesh to kill Christ’s messengers just as Jesus foretold (Matt. 23:34–39). When this “little time” passed, God judged apostate Israel as the vision will show in its closing scene (Rev. 14:14–20): their house was left unto them desolate (Matt. 23:38).

Conclusion

Our model defines the “last days” (Heb. 1:2) as the period from the birth of Christ to his cloud-coming in AD 70. This makes it unique: no other prophetic framework defines the “last days” as the last generation of the Mosaic Age.¹⁵ Our model also stresses typology, as seen in our Typology and Inmillennialism post. The Exodus events in Moses’s generation were pictures (i.e., types) of spiritual truths in Jesus’s generation. That our framework produces a natural and unforced interpretation of the symbols in the first part of the Seven Mystic Figures vision tends to validate these concepts.

We believe the same will be true in the remaining parts of this vision.

1. Meaning “symbolic,” not “occult” throughout this post.
2. The image at the beginning of this post is from a Russian Old Believers illuminated manuscript. The digital file (here) is in the public domain (PD-1923).
3. The Seven Mystic Figures — Part 1: Identities.
4. They used this imagery for other nations as well: Babylon (Isa. 13:10), Idumea (Isa. 34:4), et al.
5. As seen in Matt. 24:29.
6. This agrees with Rev. 12:5 below. For discussions on this point, click on the tag “optimism” at the bottom of this post.
7. Gk gē. See Land or Earth?
8. Dan. 12:3 uses this imagery in a positive sense. More below.
9. David E. Aune, Revelation 6–16, Vol. 52B, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1998), 415.
10. Young’s Literal Translation.
11. Alan F. Johnson, “Revelation,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews Through Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1981), 516.
12. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1999), 650. Emphasis added.
13. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, 666. The page number is a pure coincidence! Or, is it?
14. YLT. Gk. gē.
15. For how other prophetic systems treat the “last days,” see the charts here.