Revelation 12:1-5 describes a woman, a dragon, and the woman’s “male child.” This article identifies the woman and her child.
The Child
For the following reasons, this “male child” is Jesus Christ:
1. He stands out above her other children.
The mother, represented as clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet (Rev 12:1), has many other children (Rev 12:17), but this “male child” stands out far above them all because the woman was expecting him “in pain to give birth” (Rev 12:2), symbolizing her intensely longing for his arrival.
2. He was caught up to God’s throne.
The dragon, identified as Satan (Rev 12:9), stood ready to devour him as soon as he was born (Rev 12:3-4), but the male child “was caught up to God and to His throne” (Rev 12:5). Who else could this be, other than Jesus Christ? For example, as Mark 16:19 states, “The Lord Jesus … was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.”
3. He is the Seed promised in Eden.
The dragon that attempted to devour the Child is also called “the serpent of old” (Rev 12:9), which refers to the serpent in the garden of Eden (Gen 3:1). This identification with a woman and her child in the context implies that this “male child” is the Seed of the Woman whom God promised would bruise the head of the serpent (Gen 3:15).
4. He will rule the nations with a rod of iron.
This “male child” will “rule all the nations with a rod of iron” (Rev 12:5). That identifies Him as Jesus because Revelation says that the Father gave Jesus the authority to rule the nations with “a rod of iron” (Rev 2:27). Furthermore, when Christ returns (Rev 19:11-21), “the Word of God” (Rev 19:13) – a title which the writer of Revelation also elsewhere uses for Jesus (John 1:1, 14) – will rule the nations with a rod of iron (Rev 19:15).
Conclusion
Revelation 12:5 describes the entire period from Christ’s birth to His ascension. For that reason, the preceding verses must describe the time before Christ, and the subsequent verses describe the time immediately after His ascension.
The Woman
The Alternative Views
The alternative views of the identity of the woman include:
1) Mary: The Catholic Church identifies the woman as Mary, the literal mother of Jesus. [Show More]
| That Church refers to her as the Mother of God (Theotokos), “the All-Holy,” who lived a perfectly sinless life (Catechism 411, 493) and as the co-mediator to whom people can entrust all their cares and petitions (Catechism 968-970, 2677). See Worship of Mary. |
2) The formal church;
3) Literal Israel, i.e., the nation of Israel; both before and after Christ; and
4) God’s People, meaning the true believers from all times, nations, and denominations, both before and after Christ.
Indications of her Identity
The following identifies her:
1. She existed both before and after Christ.
Before Christ was born, the dragon stood before the woman (12:4).
After the Child was born “was caught up to God and to His throne,” the dragon “persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child” (Rev 12:5, 13).
2. Her other children are Christians.
“The rest of her children … hold to the testimony of Jesus” (Rev 12:17). Therefore, after Christ, she represents God’s New Testament people. [Show More]
| Revelation 12 presents a war between the Dragon and the Woman, but the rest of the book explains the war in more detail. In that explanation, the Dragon works through the Sea Beast and the Land Beast, who “make war with the saints and to overcome them” (Rev 13:7), confirming that the woman represents God’s true people. |
3. She is not a literal woman.
The entire Revelation is a book of symbols. [Show More]
| The safer approach to interpreting the Book of Revelation is to assume that everything is symbolic unless it is clearly literal. |
The immediate context also indicates that she is a symbol. For example:
Both the woman and the dragon are described as signs in heaven (Rev 12:1, 3). The word “sign” (sémainó) means “to give a sign” and implies that the thing seen is not literal.
The woman is clothed with the sun and stands on the moon. [Show More]
| The woman’s clothes might relate to Jesus’ face, which “was like the sun shining in its strength” (Rev 1:16).
Her description seems to be an allusion to Joseph’s dream in which his father Jacob (renamed as Israel) is represented as the sun, his mother as the moon, and the twelve sons of Israel as twelve stars (Gen 37:9-11). |
She is confronted by a symbolic “great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns” (Rev 12:1-3). [Show More]
| It is not a literal dragon. For example, its tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth (Rev 12:4). These are not literal stars or a literal tail. The stars symbolize angels or people, and the tail might be interpreted based as “the prophet who teaches falsehood” (Isaiah 9:15).
The dragon intended to “devour her child” (Rev 12:4), but not literally. It symbolizes Satan (see Rev 12:9), who was expecting the Messiah and knew that the Messiah was promised to crush his head (Gen 3:15). Therefore, his purpose was to cause the Messiah’s mission to fail in any way possible. |
4. She is beautiful.
The woman is beautiful in God’s sight. For example, she is “clothed with the sun” (Rev 12:1). Neither literal Israel nor the formal Church was always beautiful. Israel killed the Son of God, and during the Middle Ages, the church killed countless numbers of God’s people.
5. She is the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
The second half of Revelation (Rev 12-22) begins with the war between the Dragon and the Woman (Rev 12). It also ends with the Dragon and the Woman. While the Dragon (Satan) is thrown in “the lake of fire and brimstone” (Rev 20:10), “the bride, the wife of the Lamb” is received in “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 19:7; 21:9, 1). By implication, it is the same woman at both the beginning and the end, meaning that the woman in Revelation 12 is Christ’s bride. [Show More]
| This “bride” is a familiar concept referring to Christ’s followers (e.g., 2 Cor 11:2; John 3:29; Luke 5:35). |
There is also another woman in Revelation. The woman sitting on a scarlet beast (Rev 17:3) is Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth (Rev 17:5) The symbol of two women is based on the Old Testament, which symbolizes the relationship between God and His people as a marriage; God is the husband, and Israel is His “wife.” (e.g., Isa 54:5-6; Ezek 16:8; Hos 2:14-20) And, when Israelites are unfaithful to Him, Israel is called an adulteress (e.g., Jer 3:8; Hos 2:1-13; Jer 3:6-10; Ezek 16 and 23). [Show More]
| Therefore, the Old Testament refers to the worship of false gods as playing the harlot. (e.g., Exo 34:15; Deut 31:16). The New Testament describes the relationship between Christ and His church also as a marriage (e.g., 2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:25-32; Rev 19:7-8). |
Therefore, while the pure woman is a symbol of God’s true people, the harlot is a symbol of God’s unfaithful people. [Show More]
| “The great harlot” and “acts of immorality” (Rev 17:1-2, 5; 18:3) are not a literal harlot or immorality but symbolize people and organizations who claim to obey God but who are unfaithful to Him. |
6. She longed for the Messiah promised in Genesis 3.
The woman’s description in Revelation 12:1-5 contains several allusions to God’s promise of a redeemer after Adam’s sin (Gen 3:14-16):
1) Both mention a woman bearing a child in the agony of giving birth. Eve’s punishment was essentially the pain of delivering children (Gen 3:16). [Show More]
| If we had only been told that she was crying out in birth pangs, we would have had enough to make the link, yet Revelation adds that she was in the agony of giving birth. It is as if we are invited to make a connection with Genesis 3. |
2) The dragon of 12:3 is explained as “the serpent of old” (Rev 12:9), which refers to the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:14).
3) “The dragon (the serpent) stood before the woman” (Rev 12:4), reminding us that God said that there would be “enmity” between the woman and the serpent.
4) Both passages refer to Jesus Christ; In Genesis 3:15, He is the seed promised to Eve. In Revelation 12:5, He is the “male child.”
In other words, Revelation 12 converts the woman of Genesis 3 into a symbol of all people before the time of Christ who have been eagerly waiting for the savior promised in Genesis 3:15. This would also include all such people who lived before Israel existed and all such people outside Israel after it came into existence. But it would not include unbelieving Israelites.
Conclusions
She is not Mary.
Based on the above analysis, the woman is not Mary because:
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- She is not a literal woman but a symbol,
- She is the bride, the wife of the Lamb, and
- She symbolizes all who longed for the Messiah promised in Genesis 3.
She is not the Church.
The woman is also not the formal Christian Church because:
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- She existed before the Church,
- She is beautiful, while the church of the Middle Ages killed countless numbers of God’s people, and
- She symbolizes all who, before Christ was born, longed for the Messiah promised in Genesis 3.
She is not Israel.
The woman is also not literal Israel because:
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- Her other children are Christians,
- She is beautiful, while Israel killed the Son of God, and
- She symbolizes all who longed for the Messiah promised in Genesis 3, inside, outside, and before Israel, but excluding unbelieving Israelites.
Revelation merges the Church into Israel.
Another important argument against the notion that the woman of Revelation 12 symbolizes literal Israel is that the Book of Revelation does not distinguish between Israel and the church but merges the church into Israel. (Read Article) [Show More]
| For example:
Revelation uses one of the things in the Jewish temple, namely, the seven-fold lampstands, as a symbol for the seven churches (Rev 1:20).
“The New Jerusalem” – a symbol of God’s people (Rev 21:9-10) – has written on it the names of both the 12 apostles and the 12 tribes of Israel (Rev 21:12, 14).
“Those who had been victorious over the beast … sang the song” of both Moses and the Lamb (Rev 15:3), the two main characters in the Old and New Testaments.
In the seven letters, there are people “who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Rev 2:9; 3:9). In this context, to claim to be a Jew is a claim to be a true Christian (cf. Rom 2:28-29). What value would a claim to be a literal Jew have in a Christian context?
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Revelation, therefore, is consistent with Paul’s analogy of the olive tree, from which some natural Jewish branches were cut off, and some wild Gentile branches were grafted (Rom 11:16-24). Consequently, the many references to Jewish things in the Book of Revelation, such as the 144,000 from the tribes of Israel, must be understood as referring to Christians.
She symbolizes God’s true people from all ages.
As discussed above:
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- She existed both before and after Christ,
- Her other children are Christians,
- She is not a literal woman but a symbol,
- She is beautiful,
- She is the bride, the wife of the Lamb, and
- She symbolizes all who longed for the Messiah promised in Genesis 3.
Other Articles
Revelation 12 begins with “a woman clothed with the sun” who is expecting a child (Rev 12:1-2). The next verses describe “a great red dragon.” Its “tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth” (Rev 12:3-4).