Revelation 12:7-11 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,… We need only remark, with reference to the combatants whom we find engaged the one against the other, that they are undoubtedly good and evil angels, Michael the archangel being the leader of the first, and Satan, or the devil, the leader of the second. The battle is between those angels which have never swerved from allegiance to God, and mighty spirits that "kept not their first estate." Now, though St. John may have intended to delineate a long subsequent struggle between evil and good, we can hardly doubt that he derived his figures from the first moment of apostasy, when rebellion brake out in the heavenly hosts, and evil appeared in the universe. There is often much said as to the mysteriousness of the entrance of evil, regard being had only to its entrance into the world which we inhabit. But in reality the mysteriousness belongs to an earlier stage. It is not very wonderful that man should fall when there was a devil to tempt him; the wonder is that there should have been a tempter. We may proceed from one order of being to another, and so observe the propagation of evil; but sooner or later we must come to a point at which evil commences spontaneously — at which, that is, it originates itself; for there is no way of explaining how, under the economy of God, any creature can be sinful, except by allowing that some creature made himself sinful. And Scripture confirms this conclusion. And it would appear to have been through pride that Satan originally transgressed. And it is further to be observed that idolatry has been the chief sin to which in all ages Satan has tempted mankind; as though his great aim was to attract to himself the worship due only to God, so that he might in a measure substitute himself for God, and thus be upon earth what, on the popular supposition, he had impiously and profanely attempted to be in heaven. But whatever may have been the precise object at which his pride moved Satan to aim, it is certain that it brought him into opposition to God, or placed him in a condition of revolt to His authority. And it is also certain that he was not solitary in rebellion. But legions there also were which stood faithful in the midst of the growing apostasy. And it would seem more than probable that what is delineated under the imagery of a battle is nothing but that contest between the evil and the good, which took place through temptation upon the one side and resistance upon the other. The battle was the battle of principle — apostate angels plying the unfallen with solicitations to rebellion, and the unfallen withstanding those temptations and maintaining their allegiance — certain squadrons of the heavenly hosts, with Satan at their head, endeavouring to draw into their own sinfulness the remainder who, with Michael as their leader, were still faithful to their God. And it gives us a very striking representation of the fury and the shock of temptation, that the effort on the part of angels to involve others in apostasy should be set forth as the assault of an army upon army — nothing less than the meeting torrents of hostile battalions being stern enough to express the fearful collision. Alas! it is not so with ourselves. We know little of what may be called the shock of being tempted. There must be the perfection of holiness in order to the perfection of this. It may help to satisfy us as to what our Redeemer endured from temptation in the struggle maintained with His repugnance to evil — it may help, we say, to satisfy us as to this, that what good angels endured while solicited to rebellion is like the crash when one belted squadron is sword to sword with another. But temptation was necessary; and then it was, according to the figurative representation, when good angels had been sufficiently exposed to the onslaught of evil, that God interfered as a God of judgment, and banished from His presence those who disputed His authority. The great dragon was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out of heaven. "Neither was their place found any more in heaven." It was a final expulsion when Satan and his angels were cast out from heaven; there was no mercy, there was no plan of redemption, by which the apostate might regain their lost place. But though it was foreknown to God that Satan would prevail over man though he had not prevailed over Michael and his angels, it was also foreknown that a Mediator would interpose, and should finally "destroy all the works of the devil." It was not to hold good of man, when banished from paradise, "neither was their place found any more in heaven." And therefore there can be no ground for arraigning the goodness of God, in that the dragon and his angels were allowed to plant themselves there. There was to be provided immeasurably more than an equivalent to all the evil wrought; and what charge is there against mercy, when the gift of a Saviour in store is set against the allowance of a tempter? Now, hitherto we have confined ourselves to what may be called the literal interpretation of the passage under review. However figurative may be the mode of description, we are certified that there are orders of spiritual beings higher than our own, that a large section of those creatures apostatised from God, while others, though tempted to rebellion, continued faithful and were then confirmed in happiness, so as to be placed beyond the power of falling. It is not necessarily at all a metaphorical representation that " Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and his angels," but this actual battle gave a metaphor expressive of other conflicts between evil and good. Other conflicts, in short, are likened to and shadowed forth by one of which heaven itself was the scene; but this obviously gives a literal character to the first battle, by which the imagery is supplied that is used in this passage. Our text most probably refers to the downfall of heathenism in the downfall of the Roman empire. The "war in heaven" is the contest between Christianity and paganism; the leading combatants are the Christian preachers, martyrs, and confessors on the one side, and persecuting emperors, magistrates, and priests on the other. The former are likened to Michael and his angels, because God and good spirits were on their side; the latter to Satan and his angels, because their cause was emphatically that of the devil, and all his powers were employed and exerted for it. And when Michael and his angels cast out the devil and his angels, the great revolution under Constantine is depicted, which deposed heathenism from all rule and authority, and advanced Christianity to dominion and empire. But we need not dwell longer on the prophetical import of our text, our object being answered, if we can make you see that there is so actual a conflict between evil angels and good as may furnish metaphor for any high contest which goes forward on the stage of this creation, when the cause of God and Christ is that which marshals to the fight. Ah! men and brethren, ye who have not cared anything for the soul, who through that carelessness have wrought the defeat of good angels and strengthened the devices of bad, be ye moved by the intense interest which mighty spirits take in you to take some interest in yourselves, and not to throw away that immortality which the unfallen cherubim would have you spend gloriously with them, and which fiends are plotting to involve in their own fearful anguish. "Michael and his angels have fought against the dragon, and the dragon has fought and his angels"; but the dragon has "not prevailed"; he has been" overcome through the blood of the Lamb"; and so thorough is the moral change, so complete the substitution of the soul now turned into a habitation of God — the dominion of righteousness for the dominion of evil, that we may say of the apostate crew, as was said of them when they were hurled from their original abode, "Neither is their place found any more" in him. (H. Melvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, |
    |