Gospel Study

The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ

by John-Peter Gernaat

There is a reading from the Book of Revelation that we confront every Michaelmas season. In chapter 12 there are some mighty images that are presented. These imaginations may be understood in many ways, especially when seen in isolation. The woman who is described is seen by many as the Virgin Mary and the child is the Christ Child – the child who will bear the Christ. The woman may also be seen as Mother Church – the institution that is the church – which gives birth to the Church – ecclesia as the Community of the People of God – the congregation.

However, having studied the Book of Revelation as a journey of the development of the human being we have epistles written to each Age of Civilisation; we have understood the bursting open of each of the Seven Seals redeeming the human spirit, soul, body and death on the path to the development of Imagination; we have witnessed the letting go of a third of what is when the angels sound the Trumpets and we encounter the Strong Angel and studied the relationship to the Kabbalist Tree of Life and tenth and first angels that guard the sefirots of Heaven and Earth, providing a powerful imagination of the future human being; we have encountered what is necessary for the development of Inspiration. We have come through the two great Witnesses, the Law and the Prophets, and realise that we are now the bearers of the Law and the Prophets – the Transfiguration has come to being in the future human being. We are now working with a future picture. In this context we can recognise the Woman as the Spirit and in particular, the Spirit of the Earth – the Spirit that makes earth-existence the place where we as human beings come to birth, can be born in the future as a Son, a Son of the Human Being, a Son of Man. The real, true image of the Future Human Being is with God in Heaven, it is taken up in the Throne of God. That aspect of Spirit that gives birth to the human being must live on the earth, and the earth is a place of desolation. We are the offspring of the Spirit of the Divine for Earth Incarnation. It is against us that the dragon rails.

An image of the woman clothed with the solar winds emanating from the sun (that give us the northern and southern lights), with the moon beneath her feet (resting on the rhythms of the moon) and the stars of the zodiac as a crown about her head (the pathway of the sun).

The spiritual forces of the sun are Christ. The woman is not giving birth to Christ, she is giving birth to the human being, who can be clothed with the sun (in this case, the garment of the Christ). This is where we, the offspring of the woman, come to learn the lesson of Love.

The dragon has seven heads – seven times stubborn – he is present in all seven great cycles of Earthly Incarnation. He has ten horns – he has all the etheric organs he needs. He is fiery red; it is a dragon of illusion. The dragon wishes to drown out earthly life for the human being.

He replicates the Great Flood but not with the waters of life, but the waters of death. However, we were created to live on the earth to learn the lesson of love and so the earth swallows up the waters. Whereas the dragon’s existence is for all the cycles of time the woman’s existence is for only half a cycle of time (half the number of days as would occur in a seven-year period) until there is a turning-point in time. Later there is a reference to three-and-a-half cycles which is again half of seven. The experience of Lucifer spans the period from the Garden of Eden to Christ – half a cycle, half of Earth-existence. The birth of Jesus is a turning in time (Ch 12: 17c). The second half of the cycle of time is now no longer in Desolation but rather in hope, the hope of salvation (hoping to be made whole).

We can see this imagination as the Divine Sophia, clothed with the Christ Force, giving birth to the human being who will draw the power of the Sun (the Christ Force) into us.

The Book of Revelation proceeds and describes a first and a second beasts. The first beast has dominion for 42 months – three and half years, or half a cycle of time. The first half a cycle of time was given to the dragon while the second is given to the first beast. This beast is Ahriman. This is the beast that wishes to annihilate the spirit, to stop the human being from dying and moving forward through the spiritual worlds. This would make us permanent physical citizens of earth. The beast looks similar to the dragon: the dragon has seven heads and ten horns, and the beast has ten horns and seven heads. They both wear crowns that they claimed but have not been gained through their own endeavour. These crowns are not the victorious garland wreath that is given to those who have won through. The diadems set in these crowns are images of fixed thinking (bound thinking). The crowns with diadems are not set on their heads, but on the etheric sense organs.

The dragon realises its time is over and gives over power to the beast. The dragon does not go away but continues its activities in the background. The two beings of evil stand opposite each other. Evil does not stand opposite good, it stands opposite evil. Good is the ‘narrow way’ that Jesus describes, that lies between the evils. One may also describe this in the experience of Elijah on the mountain as the slender silence between the two loud noises.

All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast. Our ‘worship’ of earthly possessions and of money is the worship of the beast. Christ entered into the turning point of time, as proclaimed in our Christmas epistle, he chose the earthly body to dwell in, in order to save human beings from the “deceiving false light” and from the “senses unworthy craving”. Everything that makes us feel good in our bodily existence are unworthy cravings. We all enjoy our clothes, houses, cars, food, beds, coffee, etc. We are all subject to the worship of the beast, we are all consumers.

The dragon attempts to take away our capacity to live in an earthly body while the beast wishes to take away our capacity to experience ourselves as an essential spirit.

The second beast is the Great Evil who desires the death of the true, faithful human being. The second beast wishes to claim all those who do not worship the image of the first beast. It is far more insidious and difficult to identify. If we are not trapped in the worship of earthly things we are faithful human beings and become the prey of the second beast. The second beast wishes to leave its mark on the thinking (forehead) and willing (hand) of the human being. Essentially, we destroy ourselves through our thinking and willing. The beast has no access to our feeling, which is private to us alone and can be used to guide us on the true path. The danger lies in acting contrary to our feelings, to act in sympathy with others, or with a world trend.

We can consider the number that is a human number in different ways. One is that there are seven cycles of time to the Earth Incarnation, there are seven epochs within each of these cycles. We are in the fifth epoch of the post-Atlantean cycle. When we reach the sixth planetary cycle (Venus) and the sixth epoch within the sixth cycle humanity will reach a decisive point. At that time we need to act in accordance with our task for the future or we will lose our spiritual capacity. Six is one short of seven, it is the illusion that we have reached 777, it is the false end of time. 666 is the number of incompletion. This is why it is the number of a human being – the measure of what kind of human being we are to become. It is not yet the number of a human being which is the number of an angel that we will arrive at when the seed of the future, the New Jerusalem, descends from heaven. The number 666 can apply throughout the course of human evolution whenever we think we have made it on our own cognisance, when we think we have arrived. At that moment, we are inscribing ourselves with the number that is human.

We hear, when reading about the beast, that his name has not been written into the Book of Life which belongs to the new-born Lamb. The new-born Lamb has been sacrificing Himself since the foundation of the world. This line of scripture supports what Anthroposophy teaches that the deed and sacrifice of Christ on the cross was not the only or the first deed or sacrifice of Christ. It is the sacrifices of the Christ prior to earthly incarnation that have endowed the human being with the ability to walk upright, to speak, to comprehend the speech of others, and to manage an integrated soul life of willing, feeling and thinking. Every great step in the development of the human being has been a grace given to us for us to meet with our efforts.

The dragon and the beasts are on earth because we are the most interesting of all spiritual beings. We have been given the one great gift no other spiritual beings have yet experienced: freedom. And we have a creative capacity to become co-creators.