CHAPTER XII.

    And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed
    with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a
    crown of twelve stars: 

    2.  And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and
    pained to be delivered.

    3.  And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a
    great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven
    crowns upon his heads.

4.  And his tail drew the third part of the stars of Heaven, and did cast them to the earth:  and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

    5.  And she 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.

    6.  And 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.

The three principal objects of this vision are the woman clothed with the sun, the man-child born of her, and a red dragon with seven heads and ten horns.  These, being drawn from nature and human life, would point us both to the church and to the state for their fulfilment.  The symbols, also, are living agents, and we should expect the objects they represent to be such.

This woman is an appropriate symbol of the church of God, which is composed of living, intelligent beings; and that it is the true and not an apostate one, is shown by the fact that upon her flight into the wilderness she had a place prepared of God where she was nourished for twelve hundred and sixty days.  In a subsequent portion of the Apocalypse a vile harlot is taken as the representative of the church apostate.  In this way a proper correspondence of character and quality is kept up.  This woman appeared, not in the temple above, but in the firmament of heaven, where she was clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.  Thus the brightest luminaries of heaven were gathered around her.  Arrayed in this splendid manner, she is easily distinguished from an apostate church, which would not be so highly favored with such attire in this exalted position.  Doubtless the objects with which she is adorned have some special signification.  The moon is a fit symbol of the old covenant, above which the church had just risen, only to be clothed in the superior brightness and glory of the new covenant.  And as the moon shines only with a borrowed light, obtaining its illumination from the sun; so, also, the old covenant was only a shadow of the good things to come and now stands eclipsed in the brightness and transcendant glory of that new and better dispensation.  According to the explanation given of the seven stars in the right hand of Jesus (chap. 1:19), we are authorized to regard stars as a symbol of Christian ministers, and the twelve that appear most prominently in the first history of the church are the twelve apostles of the Lamb.