That Revelation Sign Thingy
Okay, so I titled it this way to catch your eye. If you are reading this, it worked. So, there is a good deal of bad information from "both sides" on what this means and far too much presumption for good exegesis of scripture.
Notice I did not refer to this as the September 23rd sign. They may be the same thing, but we cannot be dogmatic. Here is my take on this and I will try to be "fair and balanced" like that network news station claims they are (but probably are not). So we begin:
12 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. (Rev. 12:1-2 ESV)
This is the now familiar to many controversial passage. I read one blog where a fellow wished to maintain that this was a sign in heaven as in Heaven, the 3rd Heaven where God has His throne. That's novel. But we have no precedence for supposing there are celestial bodies that match ours in Heaven elsewhere in scripture. Notice John recognized them as "THE sun" and "THE moon." It is safe to say that if John found celestial doppelgangers in the 3rd Heaven he would have remarked upon them or at least called them "another" rather than "the." Let us dispense with this notion and move on. Moving forward with the, we think, safe assumption we are discussing our own celestial bodies, in the interest of time, we will not even debate who the woman is and that meaning, but just go back to Genesis and look at Joseph's youthful dream vision and you have your answer. I will not even debate the identity of the "male child." What I wish to look at is whether this sign is the same as the September 23rd alignment and what it means. That's pretty much all in the space we have here. There have been a couple of articles written by self-styled Debunkers, scientists, etc. who have been claiming that there have been "similar" alignments in the past. As one who has used two different software programs I can attest that this is the case; Similar. However, these same or other Debunkers will say that the September alignment is not close enough and they will mock the planets and scattered stars from Leo over her head as one tall and silly crown, hardy-har-har. I find it ironic that they will mock the stars as not dead-on enough over her head to be a crown, yet "Similar" alignments in the past are close enough to make the alignment not so unusual. Get my meaning? It is disingenuous to say the past alignments are close enough to be cigar but the crown over her head is close but NO cigar. !?
"So, Dave, it reads here like you think they are the same." All I am saying so far as most of the debunkers have been less than honest in their assessment. Another such example was that Pliney or whomever else said Leo has (pick a number) 10 or 12 stars in it, not nine. Or that Saturn to the Romans represents Zeus or Satan to the Greeks so the planet Jupiter cannot represent the male child or Jesus or some such. Well, no wait... Do we throw Jesus out because the Mormons say he is the brother of Lucifer and the Jehovah Witnesses say Jesus is Michael the Archangel? My point is, these are straw man arguments. Who Cares what false systems say. What do we know of the background of the Mazzoroth? "Aaahhh! My hair's on fire! Astrology!" Uh, no. Ask yourself if John was engaging in astrological forecasting when he was gazing at that celestial sign. Or when Jesus told us "Watch therefore" and included various signs in the heavens, is he asking us to sin by gazing at the Zodiac? Of course not! Astronomy is not Astrology. Genesis 1:14 tells us God put them there to mark out "signs" or 'moadim' which are Divine Appointments, such as this or His feast days (Lev. 23). Astrology is Satan's counterfeit to deceive. The stars do not tell us or determine our future or whether it is a good day to go job looking.
Look at this passage from Job and see what the Lord tells him:
31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? 32 Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? 33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? (Job 38)
The Mazzaroth are a series of constellations that Satan corrupts to be the Zodiac, but which lined up give us the story of Redemption that the Jews used to point out and teach their children. Not to read the future or predict their day. But notice it is a term the Lord Himself claims for His celestial creations. It is not "star gazing." Give me a break.
The Mazzaroth tradition has the Lion now known as Judah (again, Joseph's dream) made up of nine stars, with all do respect to other culture's notions, and Jupiter in the Hebrew tradition as the "King Planet." The Bible is centered around Israel, YHWH's program, not the Greek or Roman traditions and what they believe, nor other western ideas particularly.
On the other side
The pro-Revelation 12/September 23 sign folks, some of them, will tell us this means the Rapture. Honest ones will say they do not think it is the day, but that the time is short. This may be true as we know the time is short in either case. The passage does NOT expressly say it is Rapture or second coming or anything.
Also, the sign is not necessarily fixed to events for that day. It is a very good likelihood that it marks off the soon beginning of all these events, without being a date that some major thing happens that we see right away. I like to give the example of a Freeway Sign. It tells us there is a turn-off coming soon that gives us our destination, but the sign itself is not what we are driving to. A sign is a sign and not the destination.
So why does the Lord show this to John? Why is it here? It has echos of Joseph's vision in Genesis but for context, let us look a little further:
3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.
Let's pause here a moment. Nothing is in there by accident. In John's narrative of Revelation he tells us what is happening in Heaven, then he backs up and catches us up with what has been going on, on earth; or at least in our unheavenly realm, if I can put it that way. John gives as a sign, a picture written in the stars, of what is happening or coming soon. So what event are the stars pointing to?
Well, in part WE HAVE THE ANSWER in the context. Jump ahead in Revelation 12 with me a couple verses:
5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
Notice the players now. We have the woman giving birth to a child and a great dragon (or serpent) and the woman fleeing for a period that makes up 3.5 years. To exegete the meaning, let us continue in the context. It is a long piece left, but you can do it:
7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
13 And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. 15 The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. 16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. 17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.
Is this not clear? The sign represents the woman, Israel and that serpent, the dragon Satan out to destroy her and her offspring. Who are her offspring? Frankly, it does say in verse 17 they are "those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus."
So is the Revelation 12 sign about the 2nd Coming? Ultimately, in the end this is how it will be, but that is not the sign. How about the Rapture? Many maintain it is so in that the child is taken up into Heaven. The word there is 'harpazo' which is the word we use for Rapture, so there is that.
My Take: Is September 23rd the Revelation 12 Sign?
For what it is worth, my take on whether this is the case is, maybe. Maybe not. Stick with me here a minute. What we DO know is the Revelation 12 sign backs up and gives us the Backstory on the history between Messiah coming from the nation Israel and the hatred Satan has toward he and his people. Then we are "brought up to speed" on where we are as of John's entry into the Book of Revelation in his timeline. He is catching us up to his mid-trib narrative.
Therefore, what we see is a sign John sees in the heavens that the Lord shows him. But notice the break, if you will, in verse 3, "Now I saw another sign." Then similar in verse 7, "Now war arose in heaven..." This then is the crux of it all. This sign is about the war in heaven that wraps up history on earth and kicks off the final 3.5 years of Great Tribulation Jesus spoke of. Antichrist has been at work up till this time, but now Michael and the Lord's angels make war with Satan and his fallen angels to kick them out.
We do not know the duration of this war. Years? But it ends with Satan defeated and angry, pouring his own wrath now against the people of the Lord.
There is not a timeline we can stick a pin in!
If the September 23 sign is the one John saw, it may mean rapture or not. In other words, nothing changes because we cannot know for certain, so we live holy and wait. September 23 may mark off when Michael begins his war with Satan! This is likely! Is it a 3.5 year war? Four year? Five? Or, are we raptured out this year during the Feast of Trumpets (21st and 22nd this year) and the war begins the 23rd but the Tribulation begins then or later?
See, there is not timeline for which to be dogmatic either way. So if you are one who follows the notion that Jesus fulfilled the Spring Feast Days in order, and to the very day, Jesus should do the same in the future with the Fall Feast Days. So why is this sign after Yom Teruah by a day? How can it be fulfilled as Rapture after the "last trump" of that feast? The answer may be it kicks off the tribulation, which is fine, because Rapture happens before the tribulation. But the answer, I believe, is right there in the rest of the chapter, although it cannot rightly fix a date either.
With respect to whether or not September 23rd is the sign John writes about in the middle of the book of Revelation in telling us how Satan jumps in with both feet to pour out his own wrath in the end, let's flip that coin over and look at it another way.
If September 23rd 2017 is not the Revelation 12 sign, then what is? Seriously. What will that look like, in your mind? And if the same God Who planned redemption, as Paul and Peter wrote about, before the very Foundation of the World, and who set up the cosmos to mark out His divine appointments, set up this sign, would He not set that up in advance? Do we expect God will rearrange the cosmos at the last minute to give us some other sign? He is powerful enough to, but why would he? To confuse us? Poor planning? Just to be funny?
And if the September 23rd sign is not it, when is it? Has anyone seen anything that could be more dead-on accurate in the future? The software, thanks to Copernicus and Kepler, is out there. As many times as this question has been asked, all I get back is cricket sounds.
In summation, my take is that the September 23rd sign that can be seen in the early pre-dawn hours over Jerusalem is very likely the same thing John saw. I do not tend to think it is rapture, although that would be fine with me! I would prefer sooner, however. But it would take place a full day AFTER the Last Trump, the tekiah gedolah of the Feast of Trumpets, right? In my opinion, this sign is a harbinger, a warning, that the events described in Revelation are soon upon us, perhaps at that time beginning (war in heaven, I mean). Whether rapture happens before or after the sign we cannot say for certain with any dogma.
Many have criticized those who have been Watching. Jesus said "Watch therefore" as a command. "Lift up your heads for your redemption draws near." Lift up your head for what if not to look up? Look up for him at the 2nd Coming? We are out seven years too early for that! Paul describes "looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" in Titus 2:13.
So you tell me. Is it a sin to be hopeful and looking? Is it a sin to hope the September 23rd sign means the rapture will happen? How can that hope ever be a sin? Jesus castigated those around him who could look at the sky and the clouds but were clueless about the times in which they lived. I would maintain NOT looking is a sin. Setting a date is not what we are saying here. But there is NOTHING wrong with seeing an event or chain of events and looking up, watching, for signs of our deliverance! Not for anyone with a pulse!