The following excerpt is taken from What Every Christian Should Know About Satan. Order your copy in print, Kindle, or Audible versions here.

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The dragon thrown out of heaven (Rev. 12:7-12)

Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was thrown out ​— ​the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him. 

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have now come, because the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been thrown down. They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; for they did not love their lives to the point of death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you with great fury, because he knows his time is short (emphasis added).

Revelation 12:7-12

We are spirited away from the pregnant woman and the fiery red dragon (vv. 1-6) to a cosmic battle between Michael and the dragon involving holy and evil angels. The conflict is severe. Michael and his angels prevail. Satan and his angels are cast down to earth. No longer does “the accuser of our brothers and sisters” have access to the throne in heaven. While the battle is won in the unseen spiritual realm, John is careful to record that it is the blood of the Lamb and the testimony of Christian martyrs that deliver the knock-out punches. The heavens rejoice, but the earth and sea brace themselves for a furious dragon onslaught.

We should note that Satan has been falling ever since he first opposed God. After successfully tempting Eve, the serpent is cursed to inhabit the underworld. He tries, unsuccessfully, to regain his footing. His persecution of Job fails to bring a curse against God (Job 2:10), and his accusations against the high priest Joshua are met with the Lord’s rebuke (Zech. 3:2). With Christ’s victory at Calvary, the dragon loses the last of his judicial ground against believers. After his battle with Michael, he is cast to earth. In the last days, he is confined to the abyss. And on the cusp of new heavens and a new earth, he is sent to the eternal fire prepared for him and his angels (Matt. 25:41; Rev. 20:10). 

So, here we turn our attention to the names by which the evil one is called in this passage. John makes it clear that the dragon is a sign, or symbol, of Satan. The apostle is not given to pagan myths and legends. Rather, he uses the imagery of a vile, dangerous, and wicked beast to describe the one who so often appears to humans as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14). John rips away the evil one’s mask and exposes him for who he is.

The ancient serpent

In Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth, he draws our attention back to the garden of Eden: “But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3). Paul warns us about self-proclaimed “super apostles” who infiltrate an unsuspecting body of believers and lead them astray (v. 5; 12:11). These leaders are, in fact, “false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (11:13). This should not astonish us, Paul writes, “For Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no great surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will be according to their works” (11:14-15). 

In Revelation 20, John sees the serpent’s future confinement in the abyss, which in this context likely refers to a deep and inescapable prison for evil spirits (cf. Luke 8:31). As the apostle describes it, an angel coming down from heaven “seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the abyss, closed it, and put a seal on it …” (vv. 2-3).

It may help to keep in mind that the serpent is an unclean animal (Lev. 11:42), who often symbolizes God’s enemies (e.g., Isa. 14:29). As the serpent, Satan is the Lord’s arch-enemy, and the final destination in his quest to displace his creator is the eternal fire (Matt. 25:41). Just as the apostle Paul flicks a poisonous snake off his hand into the fire (Acts 28:5), Christ one day dispenses with the serpent in a similar manner (Rev. 20:10).

The devil

The name comes from the Greek diabolos, meaning “accuser” or “slanderer.” Translators of the Septuagint used diabolos to render the Hebrew satan. Matthew uses “the devil” to introduce us to Jesus’ tempter in the wilderness, and Jesus calls him “the devil” to reveal that the evil one commands a demonic host for whom hell is created (Matt. 25:41). 

This may be the same accuser (Heb. satan) who cries foul for the protective hedge God allegedly has placed around Job, and who slanders Job for a presumed motive behind his righteous deeds (Job 1-2). He also may be the prosecutor who points an accusing finger at the high priest Joshua before the angel of the LORD (Zech. 3:1-2).

Satan

The Hebrew word satan means “accuser” or “adversary.” While satan in the Old Testament may apply to people, angelic beings, or even God himself as individuals who bring accusations, the clearest reference to a supernatural evil being known by the name Satan appears in 1 Chronicles 21:1. Here, he incites King David to take a census, which results in God’s divine retribution. The New Testament clearly depicts Satan as head of demons and as the chief opponent of God and humans, particularly those who belong to Christ. 

“Satan has a two-fold mission: to oppose God and to destroy humanity,” according to one Bible dictionary. “Just as Satan tempted Adam and Eve to sin (Gen. 3), so he tempted Jesus to sin in hopes of destroying God’s rescue mission (Matt. 4). Satan is the source of sin and the chief tempter. He was a murderer and liar from the beginning (John 8:44).”

The one who deceives the whole world

This describes a broad range of the dragon’s destructive activities. He blinds the minds of unbelievers (2 Cor. 4:4); influences people’s thinking (Matt. 16:23); tempts them to sin (Acts 5:3; 1 Cor. 7:5); deceives through false teaching (2 Cor. 11:4); disguises himself as an angel of light, thus setting the bar for counterfeit “servants of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:14-15); attacks Christ’s followers (Luke 22:31); hinders God’s work (1 Thess. 2:18); and works through enemies of the gospel (John 8:44; 2 Thess. 2:9; Rev. 2:9, 13; 13:2). 

The accuser of our brothers and sisters

The dragon has been an accuser from the beginning. His first recorded words to humans are intended to cast doubt on their understanding of God’s commands, and then to charge the Lord with lying (Gen. 3:1, 4-5). It gets worse as we progress through Scripture. Today, while the dragon may accurately charge followers of Jesus with sin, we have an advocate in Jesus Christ, who stands at the Father’s right hand to plead his shed blood as the reason for our justification (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 8:1-2; 1 John 2:1). 

Through this litany of descriptive terms for the dragon, John steps forward as an eyewitness of Christ. In the process, John becomes an accuser himself. He rises on the witness stand, bears testimony of the dragon’s destructive powers, and points a finger at the evil one, identifying him as the guilty party.

The dragon and the persecuted woman (Rev. 12:13-17)

When the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given two wings of a great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent’s presence to her place in the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, times, and half a time. From his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river flowing after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth helped the woman. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river that the dragon had spewed from his mouth. So the dragon was furious with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring ​— ​those who keep the commands of God and hold firmly to the testimony about Jesus (emphasis added).

Revelation 12:13-17

John uses the dragon and the serpent interchangeably in this passage to capture the evil one’s tireless pursuit of God’s people. We now see what happens when Satan is banished from heaven and cast down to earth. Furious, and well aware of his fleeting days as the “god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4), the dragon relentlessly pursues the people from whom Messiah came: the Jews. 

But God thwarts his efforts, extending protection and provision to Israel. Satan uses the elements of the earth in an effort to destroy God’s people, but the earth – which is the Lord’s, along with everything in it (Ps. 24:1) – protects them. Now even more frenzied, Satan lays aside his anti-Semitism and turns his attack on “the rest of” the woman’s offspring.

We must note that anti-Semitism is rooted in the dragon and always has been a satanically inspired assault on God’s people. It is true in the land of Goshen when a pharaoh comes to power who does not remember Joseph, and who sees the prosperous sons of Jacob as a threat requiring enslavement and population control via infanticide. It is true in the king’s cabinet in the days of Queen Esther, whose bold intervention on behalf of fellow Jews staves off Haman’s plot to exterminate them. 

Further, it is true in the palaces of King Herod, who feels so threatened by news of a newly born Jewish king that he orders the murder of all infant boys in and around Bethlehem. It is true on the cross, where the King of the Jews hangs naked, bloody, beaten, and mocked. It is true in the Nazi concentration camps, where Hitler’s dream of a master race necessitates the Holocaust. And it is true today in Islamic rhetoric that calls for Israel to be driven into the sea. But God does not permit anti-Semitism to stand or Satan to succeed.

If Satan were human, one might charge him with insanity, for he does the same thing over and over – persecute the people of God – while expecting different results. But in each case, God continues to direct the course of human history, in which Israel and the church play leading roles. 

Bible commentators offer various views of the eagle’s wings given to the woman, and by which she escapes the serpent’s presence. For example, some see the wings as a symbol of a Christianized Roman Empire under Constantine. Others see the allusion to eagle’s wings as prophetic language for a massive airlift of Jewish believers out of Israel and into a safe place, perhaps Petra in Jordan, in the last days; the U.S., whose emblem is the eagle, could lead this rescue mission. 

Still other views abound. In any case, it appears John is drawing from the same imagery used of Israel escaping the Egyptian army. In Exodus 19:4, the Lord tells Moses, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” And in the song of Moses we read, “He watches over his nest like an eagle and hovers over his young; he spreads his wings, catches him, and carries him on his feathers” (Deut. 32:11).

As with the identity of the eagle, John does not reveal the location of the wilderness. However, Scripture often depicts the wilderness as a place of safety from pursuers. King David flees from Saul into the wilderness (1 Sam. 23:14-15). Elijah runs there as well to escape Jezebel (1 Kings 19:4). 

Yahweh protects and provides for his people during forty years in the wilderness following their escape from Egypt. He preserves a remnant in Babylon – which in Isaiah 21 is called “the desert by the sea” – during seventy years of exile. And he sends angels to minister to Jesus after forty days in the wilderness. 

The wilderness itself is not necessarily a place of comfort; it can be desolate and dangerous, with extreme temperatures, renegade thieves, and wild animals. But it is a place where frail people clearly see the sovereign hand of God to meet their every need.

The “time, times, and half a time” generally are understood as a period of three and a half years (cf. Dan. 7:25; 12:7; Luke 4:25; Rev. 11:2-3; 13:5). Interpreters argue either that this is the span of Nero’s persecution, which ended with his suicide (AD 64-68); or the length of the Jewish War (AD 66-70); or perhaps one-half of a future seven-year tribulation. Other commentators avoid specific time frames, positing that John simply means to assure Christians their trials are of finite length and end with the coming of the Lord. 

Perhaps it’s best not to be dogmatic about a particular view of these three and a half years. Rather, we should grasp the clear message in John’s apocalyptic words: The Lord preserves a believing remnant. He makes sure there is a faithful testimony to counter the false prophets of the age. He limits Satan’s power to deceive and persecute. And he provides for his own when times of hardship come; some are delivered from death, and some through death. 

The serpent / dragon spews water like a river from his mouth, seeking to sweep the woman away with a flood. But the earth opens its mouth and swallows the river. While it’s certainly possible that Satan aims to destroy a believing remnant with rapidly rising flood waters, it seems more in keeping with the text to view this passage figuratively. But how, exactly, should we understand the symbolism?

Some interpreters see this river as Germanic tribes pouring into the Roman Empire to destroy Christianity. Others view the river as a torrent of false teaching, featuring such heretics as Arius, Nestorius, and Pelagius. Still others understand the flood waters to be Satan’s effort to exterminate Israel, or as an outpouring of hatred and anti-Semitic propaganda. Perhaps there are parallels in all of these with Psalm 124, in which the Lord saves Israel from attacking armies depicted as “the torrent” and “raging water.”

Whichever view is correct – and there are plenty of others from which to choose – we can be confident the Lord always is ahead of the evil one, who attacks believers only with God’s permission and within the divinely set bounds for his wicked works. Satan indeed inflicts damage on both Israel and the church, but he cannot destroy them or prevent the Lord’s purposes in human history from being fulfilled. Put another way, the dragon’s floodwaters never rise above the Lord’s levees. 

Finally in this passage, the dragon wages war against the rest of the woman’s offspring – “those who keep the commands of God and hold firmly to the testimony about Jesus” (12:17). If the woman is Israel, the rest of her seed must be the church, or some portion of it, although there are at least three schools of thought concerning this. 

One school sees the woman’s offspring as the entire church, made up of Jewish and Gentile believers, as distinguished from the woman, or ethnic Israel. A second perspective sees the offspring as the Gentile church. According to this view, the Gentiles are Jesus’ “other sheep that are not from this sheep pen” (John 10:16). A third camp sees both the woman and her offspring as Jews, with the woman being ethnic Israel and her offspring being Jewish Christians.

If the dragon wages war against the rest of the woman’s offspring, who are the initial offspring? If ethnic Jews, then it makes sense either to see the rest of the woman’s offspring as the church made up of Jewish and Gentile believers (first school of thought), or as Jewish Christians (third school of thought). If the initial offspring are Jewish Christians, then it follows that the rest of the woman’s seed are Gentile followers of Christ (second school of thought).

However, it’s possible to read the text with Jesus – the Son / male child of the woman – as the initial offspring. In Scripture’s first messianic prophecy, we are promised that the offspring of woman will strike Satan’s head (Gen. 3:15). And Paul clearly ties other Old Testament passages to Christ as Abraham’s “seed” or “offspring” (e.g., Gal. 3:16). If Jesus is the woman’s initial offspring in Revelation 12:17, then the rest of her offspring are Christians. This is a simple and straightforward reading of John’s words and may be what the writer intended us to know.

In summary, God has given us victory over the dragon. The dragon has lost the war but continues to pursue a scorched-earth policy as he retreats. When we endure persecution, submit ourselves to God, and resist the devil, we share in the victory Christ won for us on the cross. Satan will leave us – for a time – and pursue lower-hanging fruit in his futile campaign against the Lord and his people.

Summary of Chapter 2: The Serpent and the Dragon

Key takeaways about the serpent and the dragon (Part 1):

(1) While slithery serpents and fire-breathing dragons lavish the pages of fairy tales, it’s an injustice to Scripture to write off its accounts of the serpent and the dragon so quickly. In fact, when applied to the evil one, the names serpent and dragon more aptly describe what Satan is like rather than how he appears. 

(2) Occasionally in Scripture, serpents symbolize good rather than evil. Mostly, however, serpents represent evil – and in the ultimate sense, the evil one. This is true in Satan’s first appearance in Scripture as the serpent (Heb. nachash) in Genesis 3.

(3) When writers of Scripture depict the evil one as the serpent, they are not describing his appearance; rather they are describing his character. He is an alluring, intelligent, shrewd, and attractive creature whose entire being is poised to deliver lethal poison. His smooth-talking deception of Eve illustrates both his beauty and his vileness, which remain as twin attributes throughout Scripture until he is cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10). 

(4) Just as conquered kings are made to lie on the ground with the feet of their conquerors on their necks (Josh. 10:24), Satan is surely a defeated foe whom Paul says God promises to crush beneath our feet (Rom. 16:20).

(5) Because Jesus has been lifted up on the cross, those who look to him in faith are restored to a right relationship with God. Just as Moses made a bronze serpent to replicate the real thing (Num. 21:4-9), God “made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

(6) In the Book of Revelation, the dragon is the chief enemy of Christ and his church. The dragon uses human and demonic forces to advance his purposes on earth.

(7) Jesus and Satan have diametrically opposed purposes, and yet they share a common means to these purposes: death. Satan seeks to kill Jesus and thus devour him. Jesus seeks to be killed in order to deliver sinful people from the wages of sin: death and hell. Jesus does in fact die. But he does so on his terms, in the Father’s perfect timing, and by the Spirit’s power.

(8) The Lord always preserves a believing remnant. He makes sure there is a faithful testimony to counter the false prophets of the age. He limits Satan’s power to deceive and persecute. And he provides for his own when times of hardship come; some are delivered from death, and some through death. 

Next: Satan as the dragon – continued (3)