Overcome by Blood

There is war in heaven, Michael & Co. versus Dragon and angels. Michael wins and casts the dragon from heaven to earth, where he chases down the woman’s offspring (Revelation 12). Caird ( A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine , 155-7) draws from this an integrated theology of atonement.

The war in heaven, he argues, is a legal one. Satan is an accuser; Michael in Jewish thought was “counsel for the defence.” What happens in the vision is the heavenly counterpart to what happens on the cross. On earth, Jesus is falsely accused and though Satan “wins his case in the earthly court, loses it in the court of final appeal.” Because Jesus “is a representative figure, standing trial on behalf of those he represents” His exoneration in the heavenly court is also the exoneration of the saints. Satan “loses . . . his job” in heaven. The saints have suffered the death penalty in Jesus, share in Jesus’ heavenly acquittal, and hence the “ruler of this world is cast out” by the cross. On earth Jesus suffers as representative for His people. In heaven He and the saints are justified.

But though beaten in court, Satan isn’t finished. He starts attacking saints. For Satan’s power to be neutralized, it is not enough for God to grant “amnesty” on the cross. Satan’s power must also be overcome. This too happens on the cross, but it is witnessed by martyrs who testify to Jesus unto death.

Caird writes, “The cross is God’s cure for sin, both for its guilt and for its power. It is his declarative act of acquittal, grounded in Christ’s self-identification with sinful men, and needing for its completion only that they should accept in faith what he has offered in love. But it also shows how the power of evil may be absorbed by innocent suffering and neutralized by forgiving love. If the world is to hear and accept God’s amnesty, there must be witnesses; and if evil is to burn itself out to the bitter end, their testimony must be the testimony of suffering.”

I’m not convinced that Revelation 12 is the cross seen from heaven. Rather, the battle of Revelation 12 is premised on the exaltation of the seed of the woman. This is a battle between Jesus the advocate and Satan the accuser.

As a theological paradigm, though, Caird’s analysis is very useful. The cross and resurrection constitute, as he argues, God’s “amnesty” granted to sinners; this unified act is God’s declaration of justification in itself. But, and perhaps in a stronger way that Caird suggests, the suffering of the saints is an integral part of the accomplishment of salvation. It is not merely that God’s finished work is witnessed by the saints; until the saints – in union with Jesus, in the power of the Spirit – absorb the power of evil by their suffering, the power of Satan is not yet exhausted. Thus they “fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.”