Revelation Pt. 4: How to Defeat the Dragon

Revelation 4 How to Defeat the Dragon

For our Bible Studies on the Book of Revelation, I’ve recommended people read a book titled Revelation for Everyone by NT Wright.

Of course, I don’t agree with everything Wright says, but when it comes to the New Testament’s critique of oppressive Governments, and specifically the Book of Revelation’s critique of Empire, I think there are few who explain it better than NT Wright.

Our Bible Studies this last week went over chapters 11-16 in Revelation. I appreciated what Wright had to say in his commentary on chapter 11. He wrote this,

People find many books puzzling, but the Bible is often the most puzzling of all. People find many parts of the Bible puzzling, but Revelation is often the most puzzling of all. And people find Revelation puzzling, but the first half of chapter 11 … is, for many, the most puzzling of all.

So we’re not going to talk about chapter 11 today. Haha!

Indeed, Revelation is a very strange and puzzling book. But there are some major hints and interpretive keys that Revelation provides us to decipher this strange book.

The Slain Lamb

You may remember when we started this series that we talked about the throne room of God in chapter 5. There John saw a scroll that had seven seals that needed to be opened, but no one was found worthy enough to open the scroll. Then John looked and he saw a lamb that looked like it had been slain. The Lamb was the only creature worthy to open the scroll, and it turns out that the Lamb is the Lamb of God, who sits on the throne with God and is the full revelation of who God is.

I want you to listen very carefully to this because when I first heard this, it changed everything that I thought about God. First, when I was younger, if I were to describe God with an animal, I would pick something strong and powerful, like a lion. To say that God is like a Lamb would have seemed ridiculous. And I think to many Christians today, in fact, to say that God is like a Lamb is quite ridiculous.

But Revelation, and the Gospels, say that God is like a Lamb. But God is not just like a Lamb. God is like a Lamb who was slain. That is – a Lamb who was killed. That’s what God is like.

But wait. Isn’t God supposed to kill, not be killed? God does a lot of killing in the Bible, right? 

Well, maybe the Bible doesn’t always get God right. After all, the Book of Revelation does not say that the Bible was worthy to open the scroll and sit on the throne with God. It says that the slaughtered Lamb was worthy to open the scroll and sit on the throne with God.

That’s because the slain Lamb in Revelation reveals that God would rather be killed than to kill anyone. 

That’s the story of Jesus on the cross. If the Incarnation is true, then Jesus revealed the radical love and nonviolence of God on the cross because Jesus didn’t live by the sword, not even to protect himself. Instead, he lived by nonviolent love and even forgave those who killed him when he prayed, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

God’s Nonviolent Love

Revelation reveals God as a nonviolent love, but God’s love isn’t passive. It’s a love that seeks to transform oppressive political systems. 

Those who benefit from those oppressive political systems don’t want that transformation, and so they will experience that radical transformation as violent and coming from a place of wrath as God seeks to defeat these oppressive systems.

We see this in our culture with white supremacy. White supremacy is a force in the United States that benefits white people at the expense of our black and brown siblings. When we seek to change policies resulting from white supremacy and seek to educate folks, many who benefit from white supremacy strike back, labeling us Marxist or racist against white people. In part, they don’t want to change white supremacy because they are afraid that the tables will turn and white folks will lose power and privileges of being white. But the people under the spell of white supremacy aren’t the real problem. The real problem are the forces in our culture that lead to white supremacy. Revelation associates those forces with a Dragon.

Revelation Chapters 12 and 13

This leads us to Revelation chapters 12 and 13. While Revelation 4 and 5 reveal who God is, our passages today from chapters 12 and 13, reveal what evil is, where it comes from, and how we can defeat it. 

When we were talking about these passages in our Zoom Bible study last week, one person said that these are some very scary chapters. I asked her what was scary about these passages for her. She spoke specifically about chapter 12, where the dragon is defeated in heaven by the archangel Michael. The dragon and his angels were then thrown down to earth, where they deceived human beings with lies. The dragon’s job was to accuse people and get people to accuse one another. 

She then told us that when the dragon first realized he had been cast down from heaven and was now on earth, he chased after a woman who had just given birth to a baby boy. This was scary, she told us, as she held her newborn baby boy in her lap.

She told the story with such vivid imagery, and the scariness of the dragon was made all the more vivid as she held her baby in her arms.

After listening to her, another person raised her hand and said that part of the reason Revelation so scary is likely that these kinds of story were educational, but were also for entertainment, because, of course, they didn’t have movies back then, so they told stories like this partly as entertainment.

This conversation about the Bible makes a pastor very happy.

There is something about the Book of Revelation that is similar to a suspense or horror movie.

Is the dragon going to catch the woman? How is she going to escape?

In the story, the dragon spits a large river towards the woman and her boy to try to drown them. But the earth is on her side, so the earth opens up and swallows the river as the woman and child run to safety in the desert.

The book of Revelation is a narrative. It’s a story full of symbolism. It’s a narrative and symbolic retelling of the Christ story. 

We see this in the story of the Dragon. The Dragon is cast down from heaven to the earth and chases after a woman and her child. 

Herod and The Dragon

Do you remember from the Christmas story what happened when Jesus was born?

King Herod heard from the Magi that a boy had been born king of the Jews. Of course, Herod didn’t really like that someone else had been born king of the Jews because that was a threat to his rule as king. Herod told the Magi to find the boy, pay him homage, and then come back to Herod so that he could go pay the boy homage, too.

But the Magi were told by an angel in a dream that Herod had evil plans, so they went home another way. Another angel told Joseph to take Mary and Jesus and travel to Egypt so they could find refuge from Herod. When Herod discovered he had been tricked, he tried to kill the baby by killing all the babies under two years old in and around Bethlehem.

This is how we know that Jesus and his parents were indeed immigrants who sought refuge in another land.

The story about King Herod chasing after the baby boy Jesus and killing all of the children is indeed a scary story.

And Revelation is telling that same story in symbolic, narrative form.

The dragon in the story can represent Herod. The woman can represent Mary. And the child can represent Jesus.

But the dragon, the woman, and the child are symbolic. That means that while they can represent Herod, Mary, and Jesus, they can represent many other things, too.

In fact, the Dragon represents something much bigger than Herod. 

The Dragon Revealed

Revelation tells us that the Dragon is Satan. And Satan is the deceiver of the world. Satan, or the Dragon, is the spirit of lies and accusations. The Dragon is the spirit of lies and violence that has plagued humans from the beginning of our history.

Satan’s lies are meant to dehumanize other people and in Revelation, it’s typically the political leaders who are most under the Dragon’s spell. They see the Dragon’s lies as the quickest way to gain and to keep power.

Herod was under the Dragon’s spell when he chased after the boy Jesus. But Revelation also says that the Roman Empire was under the dragon’s spell when it conquered other people with the sword.

You may see the dragon’s lies that lead to violence alive today, as we have seen it throughout human history.

I think of two of the most disturbing lies I’ve heard recently coming from politicians. The first was made about a month ago against Haitian immigrants in Ohio. The politician accused Haitian immigrants of eating cats and dogs. Those accusations were shown to be flat-out lies by the mayor of the town and by the Ohio Governor, yet these two politicians continued to spread lies about vulnerable people. They also lied in accusing the Haitian immigrants of being in the US illegally. The immigrants are not here illegally and they are not eating cats and dogs. Those lies put Haitian immigrants at risk and also put the people of Springfield at risk, as bomb threats and other violent threats were made against schools and other places. 

As the Dragon chased after the woman and her child, the dragon today is chasing after Haitian immigrants, which not only harms Haitian immigrants but everyone else, too.

The other lie is the statement from a politician that our biggest enemy is the enemy from within. He makes that accusation against his political opponents. And that is a big accusation. It was used by the Nazis against the Jews and it was used by McCarthy to scapegoat his political enemies. This is such dangerous rhetoric and it’s the rhetoric and action that the Book of Revelation says comes from the Dragon.

I don’t know about you, but I am tempted to fight fire with fire. To make accusations in return. But that’s just playing by the dragon’s rules.

The Defeat of the Dragon

Revelation says that Christ and his followers have already defeated the dragon. They conquered him with “the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony…”

Notice that Christ and his followers did not conquer the dragon by bringing their swords and slaying the dragon with violence. No. They didn’t fight the dragon on the dragon’s terms. They conquered the dragon with the blood of the lamb, in other words, with nonviolence. They refused to fight violence with violence because violence only strengthens the Dragon. 

Instead, they used nonviolence and the word of their testimony to defeat the Dragon. Nonviolence doesn’t just sit back and let evil run amock. Instead, nonviolence, in the way of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Gandhi, confronts evil and injustice with action and words.

But when people like Jesus, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, John Lewis, and Gandhi used nonviolence, that nonviolence provoked the dragon to violence. That’s what good trouble does. It calls out the lies of the dragon. And the Dragon doesn’t like that. 

But nonviolence also recognizes that those doing the dragon’s bidding are under the spell of the dragon. Those who propagate the dragon’s lies are not the dragon. They are still human beings who need to be loved even as we call out their lies. 

And as we call out lies, it’s also good to recognize how the dragon might even be affecting us, because the dragon’s ways of lies and accusations are very seductive. It’s easy for anyone, including us, to start using the Dragon’s methods to gain power, thus we risk becoming like the dragon. As Nietzsche warned, “Be careful of fighting monsters, lest you become one.” 

That’s why Jesus makes all the difference when he says to love our neighbors, who include even our enemies, as we love ourselves.

Because love is the way to conquer the dragon. Love is the way to destroy evil. Love is the way to heal ourselves and our world. Amen.

Picture of Adam Ericksen

Adam Ericksen

Get a Free copy of "Unlearn the Bible"

Subscribe to receive thought provoking updates and a free copy of “Unlearn the Bible” by Pastor Adam Ericksen in your inbox.

You might also like...

What To Do After the Election
Featured

What To Do After the Election

The outcome of the US Presidential election has been determined. Pastor Adam offers advice regarding what to do after an election.