Revelation 12:1-2

A great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun.

The sign of the woman in heaven

Let us consider the scene. There is a woman clothed with the sun, crowned with stars, and having the moon under her feet. A woman has ever been the chief symbol of the Church. The relation between the Lord and the Church is most correctly represented by the relation between a true husband and a faithful wife. The husband is delighted to supply his wife with every comfort; his counsel guides, his strength defends her. So is the Lord to the whole universe, but especially to heaven and the Church. A wife, on the other hand, loves her husband, and him only, as a husband. She trusts in his judgment, she has confidence in his strength and protection, she delights in carrying out his views so far as she can see them to be right (Psalms 45:10). The Church, then, is the Lord’s wife: she loves Him--leans upon Him--confides in Him--is jealous for His honour, worship, and dignity, and clings fondly to Him in life, death, and eternity. She, therefore, is represented by this glorious woman. And the teachings of this chapter show us that when the Church would be manifested to the world, she would be a great wonder, she would startle and astonish mankind, and would have to encounter the fierce opposition of those who are meant by the dragon, which sends out floods from his mouth to destroy her and her man child. The Church, then, especially as to her love for the Lord, His law, His kingdom, and His children, is meant by this woman. And, in truth, it is this love which forms the very essence of the Church (John 13:34). No other qualifications have the Church in them if there be not charity in them. To be, then, in the love of truth and goodness, is to be in that blessed community, the Church, which is represented by the magnificent symbol presented to the spiritual sight of St. John, “a woman clothed with the sun.” The sun corresponds to the Divine love, and this all-essential source of blessedness appears to the angels of heaven as a sun immeasurably surpassing ours in splendour, and while its holy glow warms, it also blesses them. The Lord (Jehovah) is a sun and a shield, lie giveth grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly (Psalms 84:11). The sun is the centre of the solar system. Divine love is the centre of the spiritual system. The sun warms all nature, Divine love warms all heaven, and every heaven-seeking spirit in the world. The soul is cold, chilled, and barren, until Divine love cheers, encourages, and quickens the affections. The woman, then, was clothed with the sun, to teach us that the Church in her purity is filled, nourished, embosomed, and blessed, by the Divine love of the Lord. To be clothed with the sun is then the privilege of the Church, when she is single-hearted and true to the Saviour. She feels His presence cheering, purifying, exalting, and blessing her; He raising her up far above all that is low and sordid, with “healing in His wings.” The object next offering itself for our attention is the moon. “The moon was under her feet.” And when we remember the two great lights mentioned in Genesis, “the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night,” we shall readily perceive that the moon corresponds to the light which shines in the soul when we are in states of spiritual night. Our limited powers tire, and must have rest, variety, and restoration. In spiritual things the mind opens with delight to the beauties of the Divine Word. Worship is welcome, and we enjoy a delightful season of refreshing. There are showers of blessing, and, like the apostles of old, we exclaim, “It is good for us to be here! Let us make tabernacles and abide.” It is full day. But, after a season, we feel the necessity of a change. We have been hearing and enjoying, now we must go and act. We have had our spiritual day, now we must have night, and that is often the period of external activity. We are engaged in natural business, and our natural feelings and perceptions become dim. It is night; we are no longer conscious of the cheering presence of the light of love in which we formerly rejoiced, but we are not without light, we have the light of faith: this is the moon. Faith, like a beautiful moon, rules the night. Upon such a moon, then, the woman was observed to stand. And so it is with the true Church. She relies on an enlightened faith, not upon dark mysteries. The moon reflects light, and illuminates the darkness, and just in proportion as it faces and reflects the sun. Faith, in proportion as it perceives the Divine love prevalent in all things, affords light and comfort to its possessor. While, then, the sun of Divine love is described as embosoming the woman, the moon of faith is under her feet. The one affords nourishment, support, and joy, the other yields a firm foundation. Faith is a rock, derived from the Rock of Ages. And a clear, firm, heartfelt, rational, spiritual faith, will enable the members of the Church to stand firm under every trial, and to conquer in every conflict. “There was upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” The stars are used to represent the glorious possessions of this woman, because they correspond to the smaller lights of religion afforded by individual truths. When we clearly see and know the spiritual lesson afforded by each verse of the Holy Word, it becomes a star in the firmament of the soul. When the mind is well stored with the sacred knowledge of Divine things, it is like the heavens in the night-time, when the sky is radiant and robed with brilliancy. When the soul has no longer the bright manifest presence of the Sun of Righteousness, and shade and darkness come on, it is a blessed thing to have one and then another small but holy light breaking in upon us like star after star, which shows its lovely ray in the evening, until the whole gorgeous canopy is lighted up. The twelve stars represent all the knowledge of Divine things. The number twelve in the usage of the Divine Word represents all things both of goodness and truth: it is the compound of four and three multiplied together. The woman is said to have a diadem of twelve stars, to teach us that she loves and honours all the instructions that come from the Lord: all the knowledges of goodness and truth are to her as so many stars, and she makes them her glory and her crown. The head represents the highest intellectual faculty, and a diadem the wisdom which enriches and adorns that faculty in the Lord’s true servants. They do not esteem the knowledge of Him and His kingdom as things indifferent; they are the glories of their intellect: they do not wear them about their feet; they are their crown. “And she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.” The man child which she desired to bring forth represents the new system of doctrine and order and society, which she desired to initiate. Instead of the love of self which had so long desolated society, and made God’s earth a scene of turmoil, struggle, and distress, she desires to substitute the love of God, and love to one another. Instead of life’s business being regarded as a mere worldly pursuit, she would teach all men in all things to live the life of heaven. Such is the new system of doctrine and practice which the Lord’s new Church would fain engender. But ah! she cries, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. When society has been so long formed upon the two great sources of mischief, selfishness and mystery, as so-called Christendom has, we need not wonder that purer principles shored at first be received with difficulty. This difficulty arises from two causes, a contrary faith and a contrary life. Let it then be our first and chief aim to bring the rule of the man child fully into our daily conduct, and evincing an example in our lives of the blessedness of living for heaven and earth at the same time, we shall then be able to assist others in their life-work by encouragement and counsel, and that not only in private but in public matters. For surely the woman cries loudly that the earth is groaning from a thousand sorrows, which are but the results of ignorance, folly, and falsehood. (J. Bailey, Ph. D.)

The sun-clothed woman

1. We have the image of a “woman.” Woman was made out of Adam. Adam was “the figure of Him that was to come.” Christ is “the second Adam.” And the wife of the second Adam is the Church, made out of Him by the hand and Spirit of God from that deep sleep of His for the sins of the world.

2. This woman is in the way of motherhood. This is the characteristic of the Church in every period of its existence. The Church is meant for the work of begetting and bearing saints. It is not for show but for fruitfulness--for the bringing forth of a royal seed of God, to inherit His kingdom, and to rule and reign in the ages of eternity.

3. This woman is magnificently arrayed. Of course, no mere creature, or any number of creatures, can be literally dressed with the sun. It is only a pictorial representation, which is to be figuratively understood. The sun is the fairest and most brilliant thing our eyes have ever seen. It is the great orb of brightness. To be clothed with it, one would needs be clothed with light. And so it is with the Church and the people of God. Jesus says, they are “the children of light” (Luke 16:8). It is the office and end of all God’s merciful appointments “to turn men from darkness to light” (Acts 26:18). The Church has ever been an illuminated body. Its children are not of darkness, but of the day. While others grope in darkness they are arrayed in light. The sun is at the same time the great lightgiver. It radiates brightness as well as possesses it. And to be clothed with the sun, one must necessarily be a glorious dispenser of illumination. And such is the Church. Its members and ministers have been the brightest lights of the ages. It is constituted and ordained for the teaching of the nations, and the bearing of the light of heaven to the benighted souls of men. The sun is likewise an orb of great excellence and purity. Nothing can diminish its glory, or taint its rays. To be clothed with it is to be clothed with unsullied excellency. And so it is with the Church. It may have shabby members, but they are not really of it. Light is the garment of God. It is the symbol of His own nature. And as all true people of His are “partakers of the Divine nature,” being begotten unto Him from above, they enter also into the same clothing. The Church is robed with the sun.

4. This woman is victorious in her position. She has “the moon under her feet.” As the sun is the king of day, so the moon is the empress of night, and is a fit picture of the kingdom of darkness. And as to be clothed with the sun is to be “light in the Lord,” so to tread the moon under foot is the image of victory over the powers of darkness, whether of nature, or aught else. And this is a blessed characteristic and honour of the Church. All her true members are conquerors. They have subdued their prejudices, and brought their bodies and passions under the sway of another and better dominion and discipline. The moon is under their feet. And the same is equally true of the Church as a body. She is the hero of battles and victories. Kings have combined to exterminate her, tyrants haw oppressed her, children have betrayed her, friends have deserted her, but still she has lived on. The moon is under her feet.

5. Still further: this woman is royal in rank and dignity. Regal gems glitter about her brow. There is “on her head a crown “--a crown “of stars.” Whatever the particular allusion may be, whether to patriarchs, or tribes, or apostles, or all of these, or to the totality of her teaching agency, there flashes forth from this the unmistakable idea of kinghood and authority; yea, of celestial royalty and dominion (1 Peter 2:9). People look with contempt upon the Church. They think her mean among the majesties of this world. They esteem her manner of life a letting down of man’s proper dignity and consequence. They scorn her modesty and humility as effeminacy. But the Church is a royal woman, crowned with the stars of heaven.

6. And she is ha travail to bring forth. She is persecuted; but these are not so much pains of persecution. Persecution has its spring in hall’s malignity; this agonising has its origin in the love, and faith, and hope of a pious maternity. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)

Social Christhood and social fiendhood

I. Social Christhood.

1. It is glorious. Encircled with the solar beams of Divine truth. Treads down all worldliness in its spirit and aims.

2. It is multiplying.

(1) Its offspring is brought forth in pain. Who knows the anguish of those earnestly engaged in endeavouring to form Christ in men, and to bring Him forth?

(2) It is brought forth to govern. Every Christly convert is a king, as well as a priest unto God.

(3) It is destined for a Divine fellowship. Sublime destiny.

II. Social fiendhood. The “great red dragon,” the old serpent, the prince of the power of the air, works in the children of disobedience everywhere.

1. His possession of enormous power.

(1) Of intellect. “Seven heads.”

(2) Of execution. “Seven horns.”

(3) Of empire. “Seven crowns.”

(4) Of mischief (verse 4).

2. His determined antagonism to Christhood. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The Church a woman

1. Where John says, there appeared a great wonder in heaven, this shows us that God’s works for His Church, and against her enemies, are most part wonderful.

2. In the comparing the Church to a woman, we see that of herself she is but weak, but strong is He who owns her.

3. By her description, we see that all her decking and ornaments are heavenly and spiritual.

4. More particularly, she is clothed with the sun: herewith should we likewise be clothed, to make us glorious before God, and acceptable.

5. She has the moon under her feet, which teaches all her true members in like manner to tread upon the world in affection, and never to let it have place, either in heart or head.

6. It is first said that she was clothed with the sun, and then that she trod on the moon, to show us that we will never despise the world till we put on Christ, and know the excellence of Christ and of heavenly things. (Wm. Guild, D. D.)