Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #2 of Revelation, chapter 12, and we are going to be looking at Revelation 12:1-2:

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

We mentioned in our last study that the woman is a picture of the true believers of the Old Testament who “brought forth” the Lord Jesus Christ – that is the ‘figure’ that God is using when He speaks of this “woman.”  There is no question that the man child typifies Jesus and that makes us wonder who the “woman” is.  When we see that she is clothed with the sun and the moon is under her feet and she wears a crown of twelve stars, we know it can only be a picture of the elect.  It would be the elect of the Old Testament because Jesus came after 11,000 years of history; He entered into the human race and walked among men, as a living tableau of the things He had done in His atoning work from the foundation of the world.  So this “woman” is said to be a great “wonder” or great “sign” in heaven, and we looked in our last study at the Greek word translated as “sign.”

We are now going to continue on to the next phrase in Revelation 12:1:

…a woman clothed with the sun…     

This is one of the statements that prove the “woman” is a picture of those God has saved, His elect, because she is “clothed with the sun.”  First of all, we read a statement that helps us to understand what God means when He says that someone is “clothed with the sun.”  We read in Isaiah 61:10:

I will greatly rejoice in JEHOVAH, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

This is the spiritual picture: “For he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation.”  The pronoun “He” is referring to God and He is the one that has “clothed” the people He saved: He has taken their sins upon Him and died for them, purging them from the sinner and making the sinner righteous in the eyes of God.  It is the same picture we find in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, where it describes the time when the Son of man comes in His glory (Judgment Day) and He sits upon the throne of glory and before Him all the nations are gathered and He separates the sheep from the goats.  The Lord says of those that are blessed, the sheep on His right hand, in Matthew 25:35-36:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

All these statements refer to someone in their sins and the Gospel, the Word of God, was brought to them and they were brought into the presence of the Bible; the Bible has the power to save: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  Christ is commending the blessed ones on His right hand and He is saying that He was the one that was “naked,” because He is speaking of all those that were to be saved as part of His spiritual body.  When these were “naked” and then covered, it was as though Christ was naked and then clothed.  In the Bible, to be “naked” points to having one’s sins exposed and open before the eyes of God.  That is why at the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, what is the first sin that they realized about themselves?  They realized they were naked – they had no clothing.  Then God paid them a visit and they hid themselves because they were naked; then God said, “Who told you that you were naked?” 

Sin is what makes us “naked” before God.  God’s searching eyes see everything.  He sees our outward actions and He sees the inward “thoughts of the heart.”  God’s piercing gaze is able to go into the deep recesses of our very being and He sees sin and iniquity in places we never even imagine – in our deep-down thoughts we may not even be aware of, but God sees it all.  All sin is “naked” before Him and that is why we desperately needed a covering, or “clothing.”  That is why as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, they made themselves aprons to cover their nakedness, but that was not sufficient.   And this is what mankind has been doing throughout time with various religions and gospels, as they attempt to manufacture their own “clothing” to cover their sins, but not with the acceptable robe of Christ’s righteousness.  The “clothing” of God’s salvation is only wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ as He died for this individual or that individual.  But man attempts to do it on his own and manufacture his own covering.  That is why we have about two billion professing Christians, about a billion Muslims and hundreds of other religions.  Man is constantly seeking to cover his sins.

Now the “secular” man is far more advanced and he has evolved (he thinks) beyond “religious superstition,” and he has gotten rid of God; he does not need God.  He says, “There is no God.  Here is what happened from the beginning: we have just evolved over billions of years to the point where we are now.”  What has this secular man done?  He has developed his own ideology and his own philosophy that has covered his sin, because he has done away with God; if you do away with God, then you have done away with the Law of God; if there is no law, there is no sin and there is no “nakedness” before God, so there is no guilt, or shame, or worry of judgment.  So the secular individual who disdains those that seek to cover their guilt through religion have done exactly the same thing, but they are just going about it in a different manner.  In doing away with God, they are “covering” over their sin, just like Adam and Eve.  It is just another variation of the same theme. 

Every human being knows deep-down that there is a God and knows deep-down he is in trouble with God and he attempts to cover over his sin and the problem of being under the wrath of God.  People do this in a variety of ways, but it all results in the same thing – it is knitting together some “fig leaves” and attempting to cover our sins so that they cannot be seen by the infinite eyes of the all-seeing God.  So, here, we find that the only solution and the only real covering the Bible speaks of is the covering that God Himself provides.  Remember, in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve had sinned, they made the fig leaves, and it says in Genesis 3:21:

Unto Adam also and to his wife did JEHOVAH God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

God is the one that worked out that covering for Adam and Eve.  Of course, that does not mean they were saved.  They could have been, but this is just an historical parable or historical picture, as Adam is a picture of Christ at times and Eve is a picture of the believers.  So, here, God made “coats of skins, and clothed them.”  In order to make those coats, God first had to kill the animals, shed their blood, and then take their skins to cover Adam and Eve.  This portrays what happened to Christ: He first had to be slain and His blood shed and then sufficient covering was provided for God’s elect.

This is the picture we find in Revelation 12 of this woman that appears as a “great wonder” or “great sign” in heaven and she is clothed with the sun.  The sun is “s-u-n,” like the sun in the sky, and we have gone over this in our studies, so we are not going to go to the many verses that prove this.  We will just go to one verse to prove who the “sun” represents.  This is always very helpful when God provides a single verse that offers definition for a spiritual term.  That is why we search the Scriptures and we look up every place were “sun” is found and we ask, “Does this help us in understanding our verse?”  Then we go to the next place where the word is found and see if that helps us.  Normally, when we are diligent and we search all the instances in which the word is found, there will be a helpful verse, or two, (and sometimes more) that provide a Biblical definition for the “type and figure” God is using.  In Psalm 84:11, we have one verse that does that for the word “sun.”  It says in Psalm 84:11:

For JEHOVAH God is a sun and shield…

JEHOVAH is a “sun,” and there we have our Biblical definition and we see very well why the “woman,” who represents the true believers, is clothed (which has to do with the salvation that covers our sins) with the “sun.”  This is because Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.  Jesus Christ is the Light of the world.  The sun in the sky, the brilliant light that enlightens the entire earth, is a beautiful figure of Christ Himself and He is our covering; He is our salvation; He is the Saviour; He is our righteousness; He is our faith – we are saved by the faith of Christ.  So salvation is completely wrapped up in the Person of Jesus Christ, Eternal God, and He has become our covering.  That is why God looks upon the “woman” (that great multitude He has saved from every tongue and tribe and nation) and since He has “clothed” her He sees her differently than all the billions of other people of the earth that are not “clothed.”  God sees a world of spiritually naked people and scattered among them is the remnant, numbering in the tens of millions, “clothed with the sun.”  These have the covering of the Lord Jesus Christ over all their sins and God sees no sin; He sees no nakedness.  He sees people that are properly attired.  Remember that parable in the Gospel of Matthew about the wedding feast.  The king came in to inspect the guests and it says in Matthew 22:11-14:

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.

What is all this about?  We would think, “What a cruel king.  Just because a man does not have a wedding garment, he casts him into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  It just seems like an over-reaction, until we realize that the king is God and He is coming to inspect the guests and sees all His people properly attired with the “clothing” of God’s salvation – they are covered “with the sun,” the Lord Jesus Christ.   But here is this man without a “wedding garment,” which means that all God sees is that man’s sin.  He only sees every sin committed in thought, word and deed in all his life, from his conception, as he was conceived in sin and born “speaking lies,” and all the days of his life as he committed sin, after sin, after sin, until it was a mountain of sin.  Here is the glorious King of Heaven and He sees this individual with all of his sins upon him and, of course, the King is full of wrath.  Of course, He will cast that individual out of the wedding.  The wedding is only for those properly attired with the clothing of the “sun,” the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us go back to our verse and read the next part of the verse, in Revelation 12:1:

…a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet…

This is still speaking of the same woman that was “clothed with the sun” and, therefore, it is still speaking of the elect.  She has “the moon under her feet.”  Now the “moon” is not easy to understand in the Bible, but we do know that in the natural world, the moon has no ability to shine light of itself; it simply reflects the light of the sun.  So it shines at night from the reflective light of the sun. 

When we look at all the verses in the Bible that speak of the moon, we are able to determine that the moon is a figure of the Law of God.  The Law of God condemns the sinner.  The Law of God is over and above the sinner and the sinner is “under the Law,” and the weight of the Law comes down upon the sinner because we are in our sins, if we are not saved and God’s wrath is upon us.  So the Law of God is normally typified as being “above” us.  Yet, when we become saved and God has wash away all our iniquity and clothed us with the “sun” to cover our nakedness, then the Law is no longer above us to condemn us to death, but the Law has come under our feet and it has no more condemnation to pronounce against the child of God.  So this is actually a wonderful figure God is giving us to illustrate that the Law of God (and the whole Bible is a Law Book) no longer demands our death and no longer pronounces condemnation upon us.  We are free from the Law and it is under our feet.

A verse that helps us see that the “moon” represents the Law of God is found in speaking of Christ, in Psalm 89:36:

His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.

We see Christ, once again, as the “sun,” as Psalm 84 said: “JEHOVAH God is a sun and shield.”

Then it says of the throne of Christ, in Psalm 89:37:

It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.

This is God’s throne, representing the reign of the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is seated in that high and lofty throne in the heaven.  He is the Eternal God that inhabits eternity and His throne is “established for ever as the moon.”  Obviously, the physical moon is not going to last forever; the physical moon will be destroyed with this creation – the literal sun, moon and stars and all the celestial bodies that occupy the heavens above us.  This whole creation that God spoke into existence will be destroyed on the last day and God will create a new heaven and a new earth, so this present “moon” is certainly not going to endure forever.  But it refers to the “moon” that relates to the Law of God, or the Word of God, the Bible.  We read that the Word of the Lord endureth forever.  The “moon” endureth forever.  I think this is a key verse to help us understand that the “moon” is pointing to the Law of God.

Going back to our verse, it goes on to say, in Revelation 1:12:

…and upon her head a crown of twelve stars…

Everything about her description identifies with the elect.  The Bible speaks of crowns in relationship to salvation and the number “twelve” has to do with “fullness,” the fullness of God’s elect that are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. 

We will just look at one more verse before we close our study and maybe we will pick this up in our next study.  It says in Daniel 12:2-3:

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

As God promised Abraham, his seed would be as the stars of the heaven for multitude.  All God saves are likened to the stars that light up our night sky.  Think about that the next time you are outside on a clear night.  You look up into heaven and you see all those stars.  If you had a telescope, you could see many, many more, but no one has ever been able to count them all.  As you look at all those stars across the sky, just think that God has said that his seed, through the Lord Jesus Christ, will be like the stars of the heaven for multitude.  That is a wonderful statement regarding the great salvation God has granted to so many and not one has deserved it.