Put ‘em up!
Our son Tommy lol!
Imagine for a moment that you are a soldier on a mission behind enemy lines; in enemy territory. You’ve been in an intense battle with the enemy for some time and at the cost of several lives. As the enemy surrounds you, pressing in on all sides, you are exhausted, feeling defeated and feeling the increasing pain of injuries you’ve sustained. You now realize that unless you get some outside help you’ll be destroyed. In desperation, you call in for back up. As bullets are flying all around you, the voice from headquarters says, “Don’t you worry one bit. We’re sending you our very best and strongest fighter. The victory will be so complete, that you might as well consider the enemy defeated right now! You’ll probably notice the enemy falling back any moment, but just so you can identify him, we’re sending you this picture…
On a much grander, universal scale, this is the story you’re being invited into. It is an epic story that is very familiar to most of us. Yet we find it in, perhaps, an unexpected place. First we travel back to the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve fell into sin, thus giving dominion of the planet over to Satan. After questioning His children, Adam and Eve, God then pronounces judgment on Satan, the serpent, as we read it in Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” God in essence tells the Devil, “You’re not getting away with this! I’m going to crush your head!” And here is how He’s going to do it. As the descendants of Adam and Eve multiply on the earth, those who choose to follow Satan are considered his seed and those who choose to follow God are considered His seed, and they will be at enmity or in conflict with each other until the Seed (or Descendant) comes through the woman as a Baby and crushes the head of the serpent, delivering him a fatal blow! However this mysterious Seed will be wounded in the process. And here is where we find the first prophetic promise to humanity announcing the gospel or good news.
Yet also, wrapped in this one pregnant verse is a vivid summary of the rest of the unfolding storyline of Scripture! And grabbing the imagery and language from Genesis 3:15, the Apostle John, using an entire chapter, expounds on this same verse in Revelation chapter 12. Now to understand this chapter and the entire book of Revelation for that matter, you have to understand that John uses a repeat and enlarge looping cycle to explain what he’s seeing. He’ll tell you a story, then repeats the same story, enlarging it like a magnifying glass to give you more detail. So John tells us the story of the Seed or Baby coming through the woman’s descendants in order to crush the head of the serpent in Revelation 12:1-6, then repeats and enlarges the exact same story in verses 7 to 17. So come with me to Revelation 12 so we can discover how Satan gets crushed by a Baby. Now I can already hear you saying, “That’s nice CJ. I’m glad you know your Bible, but what does this have to do with me? How is the Devil being crushed by the Seed of the woman going to help me with the challenges I face in my everyday life starting Monday morning?” I’m glad you asked, because it has everything to do with your life right now.
First of all, when we put these two tellings of the story together in Revelation chapter 12, in their unfolding sequence, we discover that Satan started a war in heaven against Christ and gets kicked out with the 1/3 of the angelic host that he’s convinced to follow him. He couldn’t defeat Christ in heaven so he brings his war to earth. He lays claim to the earth by causing humanity to fall by deception. Then John begins to expound on Genesis 3:15 by first introducing us to a woman, who is a sign or symbol, initially of Eve. But then we realize she represents so much more as we read Revelation 12:1…
“Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.”
Here we see Eve’s descendants that follow the LORD, who eventually become known as God’s people, usher us right into the story of the children of Israel, whose 12 tribes are here represented by “a garland of 12 stars.” This same symbol will eventually lead us into the story of the church, represented by the 12 apostles. Together they constitute the “woman.” And as the old testament story comes to a close God’s people are suffering, as it were, in labor pains due to their ongoing conflict with the Enemy and are about ready to bring forth the Messiah. And as the New Testament breaks forth, in fulfillment of the promise made in Genesis 3:15, from which all the old testament promises flow, we read in the beginning of verse 5…
“She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.”
John just announced to you that God made a promise to us and He kept it! The Seed of the woman has been born. The male Child is the Messiah or Christ, which means the anointed King. And His rule of the nations with a rod of iron is speaking of His might and power, in defense of you, to crush the Enemy! This is the Christmas story of Revelation 12 and its not merely a cute story to sing songs about! Christmas was the Devil’s worst nightmare. It’s the story about the Baby born to crush his head! Satan being crushed by this Baby is letting you know that…
God’s Past Faithfulness Assures Your Victory
It spite of all that humanity, and Israel specifically went through, God was faithful to His covenant promise to bring forth the Christ Child, who guarantees your present and future victory. When I was 12 I got baptized, but it wasn’t until I was in college that I truly encountered Christ and began to taste of the amazing truth of the gospel. It was then that I began to trust in the salvation and victory that Jesus, in His faithfulness, has already secured for me at the cross. So therefore, when I was told by my high school guidance counselor that I wasn’t college material, I moved forward in faith and completed a bachelors degree and two masters degrees, because God’s been faithful. Then when my wife and I went through hard times in Atlanta and at one point came down to our last $1.75, we had to shed some tears, but we moved forward in faith, because God’s been faithful! And when we moved to Andrews University not knowing where we were going to live, we pressed forward in faith and God providentially made a university apartment available to us, when we were told none were available, because God’s been faithful! And after I had been pastoring for only a short while and Deedre had just finished her masters degree and we were nervous about starting a family on one income, we moved forward by faith, put on the baby making music and the Lord blessed us with two beautiful children, because God’s been faithful! It’s God’s past faithfulness that assures your present and future victory!
You see, the “serpent crushing” Baby comes in fulfillment of God’s covenant promise first given to us in Genesis 3:15. So what is a covenant? From God’s perspective, a Biblical covenant is a relationship based on faithful love. As a matter of fact, God is faithful love! He is faithful to His relationship with us, even when we’re not. And it’s out of His faithful love that He makes a promise to redeem humanity. This is what Revelation 12 is all about. This is what the whole Bible is all about! The Bible is the unfolding covenant story of God’s faithful love fulfilled through Jesus, for the redemption of humanity.
The word testament and covenant are synonymous in the Bible. So watch this! The Old Testament is a Promise Made and the New Testament a is Promise Kept. The promise of faithful love in the Old testament looked forward, in faith, to Jesus coming and keeping His promise in the New Testament. The imagery of the woman standing on the moon represents Israel standing on God’s Old Testament promises. Yet the moon doesn’t have any light of it’s own. It has to reflect the light shining from the sun and the sun in Scripture represents the righteousness of Christ. Therefore this woman was standing on God’s Old Covenant promises in anticipation of the righteousness of Christ to fulfill these promises in the New Covenant. Therefore she is depicted as clothed with the sun or the righteousness of Christ, because God is faithful!
Allow the faithfulness of God revealed in Christ, through Scripture, to daily anchor your faith in Him. Then go to Him in prayer and thank Him for His faithfulness in saving you through Christ’s victory. In Christ, your not working for victory; your working from victory. 1st John 5:4-5 says, “And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1st John 5:4-5 NKJV. Every other blessing He gives you flows from the victory accomplished for you in Christ. Some of us need to regularly due a Blessing Count. Make a list of all the blessings God has faithfully given you and begin to praise Him for His faithfulness! Because it’s God’s past faithfulness that assures your present and future victory!
Now the story of the “serpent crushing” Baby is about to rapidly unfold until our present time, as John continues in verse 5…
CJ Cousins
FOLLOWER OF JESUS, HUSBAND, FATHER, PASTOR, AUTHOR & LOVER OF PEOPLE.