"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. 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. 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."
Revelation 12:1-6
This pictorial representation cannot be confined to the Incarnation. The being 'caught up' unto God surely refers to the Ascension of our Lord. It is the whole of Christ's redemptive work, from His Incarnation to His exaltation and enthronement, that is envisaged. This reminds us that there lies at the heart of history a victory - Christ's triumph over the powers of darkness - the virtue of which reaches out into all the ages until His return to consummate it at the end. We are all too prone to forget this and to labour and wrestle as if the ultimate issue of our strivings were still in doubt. It cannot be too often or too emphatically asserted that the most important thing the Scriptures have to say about Satan is that Jesus Christ has conquered him, and that he is a defeated foe to the people of God. Every attempt by the dragon to beleaguer the saints and to foil the work of the kingdom must be offset by this basic truth revealed to us here. And even when the Church is harried and persecuted most bitterly - as she often has been, and may often yet be - the virtue of that victory is experienced in the provision God makes for His own (6). This is a dramatic application of the Psalmist's words 'Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies' (Psalm 23:5). But how indeed could this be, except He were in a position of undisputed authority and victory over them? This is a chapter to revert to constantly, for the much needed reassurance that the final issue in the kingdom of God is no longer in doubt!