(Ver 2.9)  This is Part 2 in a series of advanced Bible lessons on the essential subject of knowing and understanding “The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12”.  In the last lesson on this subject, we were introduced to several potentially new Biblical ideas and concepts.  One was the revelation of God’s usage of “dependent truths” in the Bible  This is where understanding one truth is completely dependent upon understanding one or more associated truths. This could also be viewed as a type of parent truth related to their child truths.  Without first understanding the identity of the parent truth the children truth is not easily found or understood.  We learned this was a type of inherited or passed down association of attributes from one generation to the next.  I believe in the concept of finding truth as learning from a paradigm of increasing layers of building blocks of truth.  The foundational layer of truth are the basic fundamental blocks that must be acquired and laid down, in order to build (grow) higher layers of more complex truths.  We will never understand the top layers of complex (meat) truths without first building up the essential elementary (milk) layers first.  That is what is meant by the label “Dependent Truth Relationships”.  The definition of the word “dependent” simply means something that is “determined”, “influenced” or controlled by something else.  Hopefully that brings us clarity to why there are so many different theories to who the woman in Revelation 12 represents.

A common error of many interpretations of the identity of the “Woman” in Revelation 12 is based upon a lack of first identifying the basic fundamental truths that are necessary for us to understand the identity of the higher level dependent truths.  These basics greatly change and influence our way of thinking to see things we had never seen before.   By not first understanding the very basic symbolic truths of what she is wearing, why she is wearing this, what she is standing upon, why she is standing upon it, what she is crowned with and what she is doing we will not understand correctly her identified name.   However, by understanding the correct meanings of these symbols, we can easily eliminate who she cannot represent which is helpful to change our focus upon who she actually must be.

Therefore we used this concept to begin to learn listing the main featured symbols associated with the woman.  We then began our search for these symbols using the crown of 12 stars from three perspectives.  These were the the number 12, the stars and the crown.  We then moved on to the most important symbol to identify the symbolic “Sun” as being the Lord Jesus Christ.  We learned the physical sun as being the closest star to our planet earth as well as the primary natural source of warmth, light and life.  We then used these natural qualities relate to spiritual Jesus.  There are an overwhelming number of confirming verses in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that called and described Jesus to be our spiritual Sun.  Sometimes He was called “the Sun of Righteousness”, the “Day Star”, “the Bright Morning Star”, the “Light” of the world and other similar descriptions, but all of these were synonymous terms for the sun.

The first lesson ended with verses confirming how we (the Church) are instructed by God to be clothed with “Christ Jesus”.  There are other verses that we did not go over that further this claim.  For example, without this spiritual clothing of Jesus we are spiritually uncovered and naked and could be viewed in an open state of shame (sin).  One great verse like this is found in 2 Corinthians 5:3.  I recommend that you go and study this part of the discussion for yourself.   What is essential to know beyond the identity of the Sun, is to next understand why the woman must be clothed with this symbol.  God could have selected and described the Sun’s relationship to the woman to be many things. But, He chose to select Him to be clothing.

Let us reverse two of the main symbols.  How would the viewpoint meaning change if the woman was standing on the sun and clothed with the moon?  As we gather knowledge on this subject we will begin to see how that change would cause the woman to be a completely different person.  In fact I believe Satan would love this woman and not be in a war with her if she was standing upon the Sun.  Remember what Lucifer said in Isaiah 14:13?  He said “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God”.  This statement contains many of the same elements found in Revelation 12:1.  For example, the mention of a throne implies a crown.  The mention of stars is a direct comparison and we know our sun is just the closest star.  The location in heaven is the exact same place where this woman in Revelation 12 appears in verse 1. Finally the term “above” is the identical concept of “standing on”.  We know the woman in Revelation 12 is “above” the moon. Therefore, it was Lucifer’s desire to be standing on all of God’s stars with their position being under him.  Wow, this is not how it is going to turn out as we will soon discover in Revelation 12.

If you have read through the first lesson you  already know where we are going next in the dependent symbolic truth relationships.  I realize that there are new readers constantly to this website.  Therefore if you have not read the first lesson in this series, I would strongly recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1“.  We will not be able to repeat that entire lesson again today.  So you need to understand foundational basic things from the beginning to better understand the new things that will be discussed today.

GOD’S SYMBOLIC MOON IDENTITY

The next focus will be to ask God to reveal to us who the identity of the symbolic moon in Revelation 12:1 represents.  We will also ask Him what it means to have this object under her feet.  We do this by allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us into the Bible to define and interpret itself on this subject.   This approach eliminates extra-Biblical bias, assumptions and prejudicial interpretations. But before we dig deep into the Bible to explore the moon’s identity, let’s begin to understand this subject with a general overview of our naturally created moon.  God teaches us in  Romans verse 20 that the invisible qualities of God can be known by observing things that were created, even these  declare His eternal power and Godhead.  Therefore by understanding naturally created realities we should be able to learn of hidden spiritual characteristics and truths.  This is true of the sun, the moon and the stars.   For example, notice the photograph in this paragraph of the moon.  This photograph shows us the ever changing phases of the moon.  The fact that the moon can be in a full visible phase and a completely invisible phase with varying stages in between is profound.  According to Malachi 3:6 God says “that He is the LORD and He does not ever change”.  Therefore the moon cannot represent a symbol of God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  The moon also has a dark side that is never seen from earth regardless of the phase revealed to our view.    These are just some of the basic natural facts concerning the moon.

Another basic fact is that the moon has NO light or life of its own production.  This is also very revealing to us.  This knowledge further confirms that the moon cannot represent God who is LIGHT (1 Jn 1:5) and LIFE (Jn 14:6).  We have just learn from features given to us by natural observation that it is impossible for the “moon” to be a symbol of God.  Therefore, we have eliminated one main Bible possibility.

I have heard more than one preacher claim that the moon represents the church in Bible symbolism.  They attempt to say a Christian in of themselves has no “light or life” apart from Jesus who represents the Sun.  Therefore, as long as a Christian stays in the light of Jesus they will be the Light within the Dark unsaved world.  While that logic could be viewed as partially correct, I do not believe we understand what it means for a woman to be standing on the “church” means. If the moon is a symbol of the church, we are in serious trouble in Revelation 12. We will find out more about it means to be “under foot” later to clear up and learn that the moon cannot be the representation of the church.

The fact that the moon primarily revolves around the earth monthly can also be a clue.  If the earth is a symbol of humans, God could never revolve around us.  The earth is a symbolic type of the human condition as we learned about in lesson 1.  If the earth represents humans we can turn towards God and allow Him to get brighter or by the same choice turn away from God to live apart from Him, on a daily basis.  When we turn away from God we are departing from the light and moving back into a realm of darkness where God is not seen.  When a Christians realizes their drifting away from God they can choose to repent and turn away from darkness and then move back towards the Light (Jesus).  Christians are the ones that must focus on Him (Jesus, our Sun, Light & Life).  These are just further confirmations to who the moon cannot represent.

The fact that the moon is normally only viewable at night is also an important fact of truth.  This is just another applicable fact that informs us the moon cannot represent God because God is Light and in Him is no darkness.  Also we learn from reading 1 John 2:8 that as long as a Christian remains in Him and Him in us we are in the True Light and the darkness has past.  Wow, that is an amazing conditional promise, but it is a daily choice to remain in Him and permit Him to be Lord in Us.    By us discovering who the moon is not this can greatly help us determine who the moon really represents.

SUN, MOON & STARS – LAW OF FIRST MENTION

Where in the Bible are the sun, the moon and the stars first mentioned?  This will help establish by God’s design what is needed to understand the subject of the sun, the moon and the stars found in Revelation 12:1.  God consistently reveals fundamental truths and definitions the first time a subject is mentioned in the Bible.  Many Bible teachers searched their Bibles and found the sun, moon and stars mentioned in Genesis 37:9.

This verse teaches us about a divinely inspired dream that was given to Joseph.  We were introduced to this dream in lesson 1.  In this dream many teachers believe that this verse in Genesis 37 proves and confirms that the woman in Revelation 12 must represent the natural nation of Israel using the 12 sons of Jacob.  This dream contains a symbolic sun, a symbolic moon and 11 symbolic stars that bow down to Joseph (the 12th Star of the family).  However, this interpretation is in error and does not fit the remaining patterns of descriptions for what the woman in Revelation 12 is doing with these objects on and around her body.  We have already seen several problems with this application.  There are only 11 stars bowing with the moon and the sun.  Jacob interpreted the dream and informed us that the sun represented him, the moon Joseph’s mother and the stars were Joseph’s brothers.  As we saw before, wearing Jacob, standing on Rachel and a missing star are three of the most profound conflicts.

However, this is one of the main reasons why Bible teachers believe the woman in Revelation 12 represents the natural nation of “Israel”.  Many people believe this way.  But before you pick up stones to cast at me for being a false teacher, realize that this dream to Joseph is NOT the first mention of the sun, moon and stars in one verse in the Bible and that disqualifies it for usage from the law of first mention interpretation rule.  Let’s explore the actual first mention of the sun, moon and stars and learn what God teaches us from it.

The very first mention from God of these created objects is found In the book of Genesis chapter 1 verses 13 through 18.  This is the account that describes the 4th day of creation.  We can learn some very important applicable truths to Revelation 12:1 by applying the interpretation law of first mention using Genesis 1 and not the assumed Genesis 37 reference.  When we do this we will discover that God gives us very specific information and clues to the spiritual identities of the symbolic sun, moon and stars.  Of course the first challenge is to realize that these heavenly objects are not called by the obvious names “sun” or “moon” like they are in Revelation chapter 12.  This fact has been the reason why so many Bible teachers, students and commentators have not seen these relationships before now.

In Genesis 1 the sun and the moon are hidden, by God by labeling them with alternative names of “the greater light” and “the lesser light”.  This was an intentionally designed method of God to conceal them and to reveal them to when He desired us to connect them to Revelation 12.   In Genesis 1:16 God declares the existence of two great lights.  The first He called the “Greater Light” and the second He called the “lesser light”.

We can all understand that the “greater light” represents another name for the sun and the lesser light represents another name for the moon because they are used with the direct named “stars” that are also heavenly created bodies.  But, through God’s usage of “greater” and “lesser” lights we get a direct comparison to hidden spiritual truths of the greater light is described as being much more significant and powerful than the other.  We can easily understand how this is found in the natural descriptions of the sun versus the moon.  The natural sun is a huge ball of consuming fire and the moon is a smaller object than the earth and is a pile of dead rocks.  Wow, that description should turn several lights on inside of our minds.

I believe this Greater and lesser light descriptions correspond to a verse of information given to us by God in 1 John 4:4. This verse is where God says to the church “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”.   This is another major corresponding parallel comparison of one spiritual person being on the inside of us that is called “greater” than another “lesser” spiritual being that is in the world.  That should begin to turn more lights on in our minds to see things that we may have never read in the Bible before from this perspective.

I am a firm believer that the Greater Light represents Jesus Christ as we learned in the first lesson.  As 1 John 4:4 teaches us this One that is called Greater is in a Christian.  However, there is someone else implied as the lesser light that we are told is in all the people in the world.  Wow, isn’t that amazing that this lesser light could be on the inside of someone?  This is definitely a New Covenant spiritual reality that must be understood.

Since we already have learned that the “Greater Light” = the “Sun” and these symbols represent “Jesus” who was, and is, and is to come (Rev 1:8). Ask yourself “who is greater than Jesus”?  The obvious answer is no one except God the Father.  Therefore, we have not narrowed the scope of the possible identity of the moon the lesser light, in the least.  Unless we know who God is speaking of in 1 John 4:4.  We learn this from reading the contextual verses.  There are two opposing spirits being described in verses 1 through 3.  One is the Spirit of Christ and the other is the spirit of “antichrist”.  These are opposites like the spirit of Christ whois Good and God and the spirit of antichrist is evil and the devil.  What we should begin to see is that the moon (lesser light) appears to represent Satan based upon 1 John 4:4.  But, let’s continue to study the rest of this subject in Genesis 1 to confirm these truths.

Remember that Genesis chapters 1 through 3 are vastly connected to the book of Revelation.  I like to call them the Book Ends of the entire Bible.  What God initiates in Genesis, He completes in Revelation.  Let us look at a Genesis 1 quick overview.  On Day 1 of creation God creates light to shine on the earth and establishes two separations or divisions of natural and spiritual opposition.  One He called “day” and the other He called “night”.  These are opposites just as we learned from 1 John 4.  We could call this “Day” and anti-day.

We can understand from this statement in Genesis 1:3-5 that the sun and moon must have already existed on Day 1 for any of these days and nights on earth to exist.  Think about this statement from God logically, the earth rotates completely every 24 hours to fulfill a one day cycle, that cycle consists of both daylight and darkness.  It takes approximately 365 of these revolutions to complete one complete cycle of the earth around the sun.  This completed cycle causes the fulfillment of one year.  Without the sun’s presence providing light and gravitational pull upon the earth it could not participate in a single day cycle.  Again it is the earth’s consistent rotation around the sun that causes each night and day to occur.

Therefore, the sun, moon and stars must have been created in Genesis 1:1 when God’s Word said “In the beginning the A-Z God created the heavens and the earth”.  The beginning represents the realm of created matter, space, and time.  It is very interesting to see what I just quoted from Genesis, that you may have missed.  Did you notice that I said the “A-Z” God created?  That is what the original Hebrew literally says using the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  When we go and read Revelation 1:8 we will find Jesus saying I am the Alpha and the Omega (A-Z) again.  God used the first and last Hebrew letters in Genesis and the first and last Greek letters in Revelation about the same person that we call Creator.  Again we discover more parallels within the bookends.

I also read in Genesis 1:5 “that there was evening and morning the first day”.   The fact that God specifically describes a dusk evening event occurrence and a dawn morning event occurrence proves the sun’s existence.  Without a physical sun with a turning earth evenings do not occur nor do sunrises in the morning .   There are other Bible lessons that are found on this website to learn more reasons from the Bible for why we should believe this way.

Now continue by reading Day 4 of creation and Genesis 1:16.  We can see that God introduces a new concept of “ruling” with two “rulers”.  In this verse God says that the created sun (the greater light) will rule the Day division and the created moon (the lesser light) will rule the night division that were previously established on Day 1 of creation.  It is very interesting to note that these two divisions can be further divided into 12 unique measurements of time commonly called hours.  I believe that it is not by accident or coincidence that God has done this.  I believe that this is a purposeful, intentional act of God that reveals some new hidden spiritual things to us.

In the last lesson on this subject I introduced you to a potential new controversial Bible topic division with there being the natural nation of Israel and the spiritual nation Israel (James 1:1, 1 Peter 2:9).  Each of these two nations also consist of twelve distinct divisions like day and night.  These 12 divisions or sub-divisions are called tribes (Gen 49:28, James 1:1).   There were 12 tribes which originated from the man Jacob renamed Israel and there were 12 apostles chosen by the man Jesus a type of Jacob. These are all prophetical patterns of night (darkness) and day (light).  Two nations one natural, and one spiritual with both having 12 divisions.  Adding them together we get 24, the total hours in one day which consists of the dark and light periods of a day.  Do you see how this might apply to the church?  Do you remember what Jesus said to the Jewish leaders of natural Israel?  He said “Search your scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life but these are they that testify of me”.  Wow, Jesus was informing them He was on every page of their scriptures but they could not see Him because they were in darkness.  But, we in the church if we have the Light of Jesus on the inside of us can find Him everywhere if we are looking in the same verses. This is probably something new to think about and where we go from here may be even a greater challenge for many to receive.

Day and night are natural symbolic references that present spiritual realities revealed to us in the New Testament.  Both of these conditions represent the spiritual state of the hearts of men and women on the earth.  Day and Night are two distinct and unique kingdom divisions, one of light and one of darkness.  The church is said to be in the day and the light and the rest of the world is said to be in darkness.  If you use your Bible search program you will find many references to these facts in both the Old and New Testaments.  Search for key words like night, day, light and darkness to start with.  I also have an entire Bible series on this specific subject called “Understanding Night and Day“.  I would highly recommend that you read and study this subject series to better understand the spiritual truths of the existence of two separate spiritual kingdom realities.  When you do this you will find that Jesus came into the dark world as a light to be the spiritual ruler of the spiritual day (Kingdom of Light) and Satan became the ruler of the night (kingdom of darkness) after Adam sinned.

There are two spiritual kingdoms and by default all humans are born in the darkness until the Light of God shines in their hearts.  Humans can’t be in both kingdoms at the same time.  By default we are all born into Satan’s kingdom of darkness until we receive Jesus to be our Lord and then we are translated and reborn spiritually into the Kingdom of Light (Col 1:13).  I will try to give you some of the key verses for those that want an overview or review of the subject:

1Th 5:5  Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

God informs the church that we are now of the Day and of the Light.  The church is actually called children of the Light.  We learned and should now know from other verses in the Bible that God is Light and in Him is no darkness (1 Jn 1:5).  Therefore, the saved members of the church are called the spiritual children of God.  Here in 1 Thes. 5:5 is a very clear reference that anyone that is not spiritually reborn into the church (not a child of God) is in the night and in the darkness.  We also can see that since God has no darkness in Him, these unsaved people in the darkness are completely separated from God.  Wow, by default we are not in God and God is not in us.  That should concern us if we have never invited Jesus into our heart.  

So again we see two parallel truths, one natural truth and one spiritual.  These truths represent divisions and separations.  Again we should call these divisions “two kingdoms”, one called day and one called night.  We also should learn that kingdoms normally have sovereign rulers.   Who are the rulers of day and night?  We know from studying the Bible that Night and Day are symbolic representations of the conditions of the hearts of men and women on the earth.  Therefore, who the ruler of the kingdom within our hearts is either the ruler of Light or the ruler of darkness depending upon who we allow in our heart. But by default it is Satan when no choice has been made.  Let’s go through the Genesis 1 day 4 account of creation and determine how this information fits into God’s spiritual pattern found within created natural truths of day and night:

Gen 1:14  And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

Gen 1:15  And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

Did you notice God said that there were lights, plural that were going to divide the day from the night?  What did Day and Night represent?  Day and night are symbolic states of the spiritual condition (kingdom) of the hearts of humans.  These lights were created to provide humans light and life upon the earth. Earth (soil) represents symbolically the spiritual hearts of men and women.  Earth is where the sun shines to cause plants, trees and fruit to grow.  The church is instructed to produce fruit (John 15).  Where does spiritual fruit grow in man and what causes it?

Here is a quick overview of the process taught by Jesus in the Parable of the sower.  Jesus taught us that spiritual fruit comes from spiritual trees and spiritual plants that grow in the spiritual ground (the hearts of mankind) by receiving spiritual Seed which is defined to be the Word of God (Mk 4, Lk 8).  I could spend a lot of time familiarizing us with these basic Bible concepts, but hopefully we understand them.  If not, please go read the Bible series dedicated to the subject of Understanding the Parable of the Sower.  Let us continue in Genesis and see what else God says about these two different dominate lights:

Gen 1:16  And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

We can clearly see that God declares two lights to be the rulers of these two divisions called day and night.  These represent exact times of personal choice. Either day or night, there is no third option or realm of existence.  If you are saved you are in the Day and if you reject Jesus not believing in Him you are automatically walking in the blindness of darkness.

The Hebrew word translated as “rule” is H4475 is defined to be someone who is in a state of powerful dominion to rule over a kingdom or a government.  This cannot be talking about created planetary bodies in the sky.  This is so important to understand the parallels being taught to us by the Holy Spirit.  These two ruling lights are representative and symbolical patterns of a much greater hidden spiritual truth.

Here again we can observe one of God’s methods of hiding truth being utilized.  In this verse God refers to the “sun” by a completely new and different name, called the “greater light” and the moon, He calls the “lesser light“.  This verse contains all of the essential elements found describing the symbolic woman in Revelation 12:1.  We can see the Sun, the moon and the stars all being mentioned for the very first time in the Bible.  Since it is the first time these celestial objects are all mentioned in the Bible, these verses will help us to understand what these objects represent in Revelation 12.  This spiritual law is called the law of first mention and is a common practice that God uses to establish and reveal truth to us.  So who rules the day, we found out in lesson 1 that it is Jesus Christ the Sun of Righteousness.

SATAN THE MOON/LESSER LIGHT RULER OF THE DARKNESS

We are now going to begin to search and find scriptures in the Bible related to the ruler of the kingdom of darkness.  God chose to conceal Satan as the moon ruler using different techniques in the Bible.  But, even if these do not use the literal name or title of the “moon” or “lesser light” that does not mean that we will be unable to see that this is what God is speaking of using different references both direct and indirect.  For example, here is a good scripture that is certainly related to our current moon subject indirectly using unstated antithesis truth laws:

1 Jn 2:8  Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.

John writing to the church tells them that the “true light” is now shining in them.  They have come out of the darkness and the night because they have seen the True Light (Jesus) in the internal spiritual realm.  But by the law of inverse truth, if there is a true light, then there is also an antithesis unstated “false light” truth.  This is an interesting consideration to ponder.  You see the moon who rules the darkness does not produce any light of itself or have any ability to shine light without the existence of the greater light called the sun.  The sun as we now know is Jesus Christ and we are beginning to learn the moon is the symbol of Satan the ruler of the spiritual darkness (a kingdom without God).   The moon is a false light and a lesser light and the Sun is the True Light and the Greater One.  Satan must be the ruler of the darkness; Satan must be the ruler of the night by inference.  The concepts of a True Light and a false light is very similar to the saying of the Christ and an antichrist.  Jesus is the Christ and Satan is the antichrist.  These are just basic Bible patterns and principles of opposites being demonstrated to us.  Jesus is good and Satan is evil.  But, let us confirm all of this in the Bible:

Eph 6:12  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

What we see in this verse directed to the church is a fact that declares our enemy to be the rulers of the darkness of this world.  Remember that darkness is a spiritual condition of the hearts of unsaved people that are in the spiritual state of night without light (God).  This can only be Satan and his demonic cohorts.  Just note the direct reference to someone ruling and where they are said to be the ruler of; this of course is the darkness.  Also remember that darkness is simply the nonexistence of light (No God).  If we take light (God) away, people will be living in darkness.

It is very important to remember that darkness is a synonymous term for night.  If Jesus is the spiritual Light of the world, then those who do not know Christ are people that are in a state of spiritual darkness (night).  We should also consider the fact that night is the normal time for good people to rest and evil people to do evil.  According to Ephesian 6:12 Satan is the ruler of those individuals without Christ living in darkness.  If you noticed in Ephesians 6:12, it said the enemy of the church was a spiritual force that consisted of “principalities” and “powers”.  If we again go back to Genesis 1:16 and review the Hebrew word H4475 translated as “rule”, it means to govern and have power over.  So we can see that God has given Satan the legal right to seize power over everyone still living in his realm of the darkness.  But, then we could also say that for those who belong to Christ, they are now ruled by Jesus, the Light of Day and Satan does not have any legal power or authority over us unless we give it back to him and sometimes we do too easily.  Let’s look at another New Testament verse about Satan:

1Co 2:6  Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:

This verse is again speaking about Satan being called the “prince” of this world.  The Greek word translated as “prince” means “ruler”, the one that is above the rest.  This is not speaking of a natural or physical kingdom in this verse, but it is speaking of the order within the spiritual realm of darkness.  This world is a hidden reference to the spiritual dark world that we do not perceive with our 5 natural physical senses.  What we realize from this verse is that this present world is ruled by an unseen spiritual force that will come to nothing eventually.  So let’s expand our knowledge with another verse:

Eph 2:2  Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

Again we see a very clear reference to a “prince” as being a spiritual ruler of the dark world system.  Paul writes that we who are now in the church use to obey this prince, but now we should not.  The implication is given that we (the church) are now and should remain on the outside from under the control of this dark ruler of the dark world, even though he still is working in those who are not Christians.  This Greek word translated as “prince” or “ruler” is clearly stated to be a spiritual being that we cannot perceive with our 5 senses.  There is a clear division being stated between two groups of people; one group in the light and one group in the darkness.  Here is another witness to exactly what we need to learn today:

Col 1:13  Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

We can again clearly see a distinction and division being stated between two groups of people.  These are clearly stated to be two distinct and different kingdoms and the rulers of the kingdoms are stated to us indirectly and directly.  You can clearly see that it directly names Jesus the Son of God to be the ruler of the kingdom that the church now exists within.  Indirectly we have to make the association that the “power of darkness” is a reversed and opposite ruler to Jesus (True Light) and he must be the “false light” of the moon. This indirect ruler with  power reference can only be Satan the moon we learned in Genesis 1.

We need to understand a new quality of the moon light called deception.  The true light of the sun, is so intensely bright that we can see no other lights in the sky normally.  But at night the moon can be in any phase or totally dark.  This represents the concept of deception.  Since we can clearly see the moon at night and it does reflect a light that is not its own, that makes it a type of a deceiver.  We learn from reading Revelation 12:9 that Satan is described to be the one that has deceived the whole world.  How does he accomplish this?  He does it by presenting deceptive thoughts, ideas and suggestions into the human’s mind and if we believe them he has taken us captive.  We may talk more about this later.

So we have seen several good Bible references for Satan being called the prince, ruler and power of this present spiritual world of darkness.  But, we will see another related scripture found in 2 Corinthians:

 2Co 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Both an explicit and an implied truth is given to us in this verse.  We should be able to see that Jesus Christ is recognized to be the spiritual (implied Sun) light, that is trying to shine into the darkened hearts of men and women who believe not the truth.   We can logically deduce from this verse that those who believe, are those who the Light of Christ has risen within their spirits and those who are not saved are those that don’t believe in the Light thus still remaining in darkness.  This verse implies that those who do not see the light (Jesus) of truth do not see either by 1) their own choice or 2) they have been blocked from seeing the light by Satan’s choice.  This inability to see the light can be caused by Satan due to an implied cloud like situation, shadow or other type of blockage within the human mind that causes Jesus (The Word) not to be received internally.  These unseeing people are literally spiritually blinded by their own carnal thoughts, ideas or mental distractions.  There is an implied spiritual reality that must be casting a shadow internally so that they are unable to see His glorious light.  This verse is describing two contrasting spiritual kingdom views between those who are in the darkness versus those that can begin to see daylight.

God also reveals who is blinding those who do no believe in Christ and he is called the “god of this world”, who is again Satan.  It is Satan that has blinded their minds so that they cannot see (which literally means to perceive or understand) the light (Word of God) Jesus Christ.  Physical blindness is the inability to see natural light clearly, spiritual blindness is the inability to see and understand the spiritual Word of God internally.  Blindness can be external or internal according to this verse.  Remember Satan who rules the night is said to be the one that keeps the light from shinning into their hearts and he uses thoughts placed in their mind to defeat them.

We are learning that Satan is the symbolic moon who rules those in the darkness and keeps men and women from seeing the True Light through a concept of blocking the light.  Because some people see a little false light named Satan (moon) they believe his lies, tricks and deceptions.  Our physical moon in the night sky has no life or light in itself.  So it is analogous to Satan who is a deceiver with no life or light in him.  But do not forget about the natural concept of eclipses that do occur in our natural realm.  When this happens the sun’s light can be partially or completely covered or blocked by the moon.  This causes humans not to be able to see the true light of the sun for a duration.  This happens even though the moon is significantly smaller than the sun. But, since the moon is so much closer to the earth it does not take an object as great as the sun to block the sun.  We can learn this by holding up our hand in front of our eyes while looking at the sun.  The light from the sun can by blocked by our hand the same as the much larger moon.   I hope and pray that you understand these simple natural truths and are transferring this information into the parallels and patterns of the spiritual realm correctly.  It would be very helpful to read these lesson more than once.

CONCLUSION

Gen 1:18  And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

You see in Genesis 1:17 and 18 the reiteration of the truth of God’s word, the sun will rule the day and the moon will rule the night.  God prophesies that He will cause two separate spiritual divisions to manifest and one will be called the kingdom of light and the other will be called the kingdom of darkness.  Within these kingdoms they will be ruled by two different rulers, one significantly greater than the other.  We know that God is light and in Him is no darkness.  Therefore we know that God is of the day and that is where the true church now is also, because He is inside of us.  These are very powerful spiritual truths that every Christian needs to thoroughly understand and I hope I have helped you to see them.

I’ll leave you in this lesson, with this final bit of information.  The fourth day of creation was a prophetic event within human history.   God declares that a day with the LORD is as a 1000 years and a 1000 years are even as one day (2 Peter 3:8).  If you do the math you will find that Jesus was born 4000 years after Adam was created.  In other words Jesus came to the earth on the 4th day of creation as foretold by Genesis 1:16 to bring a spiritual Light to rule men and women and to provide an option out of Satan’s kingdom of darkness.  When Jesus came into the dark world as a light He established a spiritual division of rulership that God called Day, meaning He left Satan out in the darkness.  This is why the Bible says if Satan would have known what was going to happen, he would not have crucified the LORD of Glory.

Now we have established the identity of two of the major key dependent symbols in the book of Revelation and we should now be able to see clearer the identity of the woman suspect being described causing the other women suspects to move further away from clear focused possibility.

Rev 12:1  And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman (????) clothed with the sun (Jesus Christ), and the moon (Satan) under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

Are you becoming a great detective and seeing the clues provided by God?  So far I have just filled in two of the main dependent symbolic clues and already we have a greatly reduced set of possible suspect candidates for the true identity of the woman in Revelation12.  In fact in my mind she can only be one woman in the list of suspect candidates.  But, we will continue the study of the identity of the woman in Revelation 12 and hopefully we can all be united and all come to the same conclusion after viewing all of the facts of evidence provided by the Word of God.   In my next lesson I will explore further evidence in the Bible for who the moon represents and we will hopefully begin to understand why the woman in Revelation 12 is standing on this moon symbol.  We will learn that this is a major clue establishing the moon’s (Satan’s) prophesied position to be under the feet of the Church.

If you want to continue reading this series go to Part 3.