Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "حرب في السماء" in Arabic language version.
It is generally agreed by the most learned expositors that the narrative we have in this and the two following chapters, from the sounding of the seventh trumpet to the opening of the vials, is not a prediction of things to come, but rather a recapitulation and representation of things past, which, as God would have the apostle to foresee while future, he would have him to review now that they were passed, that he might have a more perfect idea of them in his mind, and might observe the agreement between the prophecy and that Providence that is always fulfilling the scriptures.
{{استشهاد ويب}}: صيانة الاستشهاد: الأرشيف كعنوان (link)It is generally agreed by the most learned expositors that the narrative we have in this and the two following chapters, from the sounding of the seventh trumpet to the opening of the vials, is not a prediction of things to come, but rather a recapitulation and representation of things past [...].
{{استشهاد ويب}}: صيانة الاستشهاد: الأرشيف كعنوان (link)12:7–11 The attempts of the dragon proved unsuccessful against the church, and fatal to his own interests. The seat of this war was in heaven; in the church of Christ, the kingdom of heaven on earth. The parties were Christ, the great Angel of the covenant, and his faithful followers; and Satan and his instruments. The strength of the church is in having the Lord Jesus for the Captain of their salvation. Pagan idolatry, which was the worship of devils, was cast out of the empire by the spreading of Christianity. [...] The servants of God overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb, as the cause. By the word of their testimony: the powerful preaching of the gospel is mighty, through God, to pull down strongholds. By their courage and patience in suffering: they loved not their lives so well but they could lay them down in Christ's cause. These were the warriors and the weapons by which Christianity overthrew the power of pagan idolatry; and if Christians had continued to fight with these weapons, and such as these, their victories would have been more numerous and glorious, and the effects more lasting. The redeemed overcame by a simple reliance on the blood of Christ, as the only ground of their hopes.
What, now, is the war in heaven? Of course not literal war, nor literally in heaven; not the actual clash of arms between Michael and his angels, and Satan and his wicked cohorts. But something on earth worthy to be represented by such a Titanic contest. What can that be, if not the contest in the visible church concerning true and false doctrine?
The ejection of the Accuser from heaven is not (as in Milton's Paradise Lost) the story of the origin of Satan as an angel who rebelled against God in primeval times. Neither here nor elsewhere do biblical authors give speculative 'explanations' about the origin of Satan or evil. Such a myth had developed in pre-Christian Judaism (1–2 En.), and there are fragmentary echoes of it in the New Testament (Jude 6; 2 Pet. 2:4). That is not the picture in this story, which does not take place in primeval times but at the eschatological time of the establishment of God's kingdom by the life, death, and exaltation of Jesus [...].
{{استشهاد ويب}}: الوسيط غير المعروف |موسوعة= تم تجاهله (مساعدة)[...] but not so wak'd / Satan, so call him now, his former name / Is heard no more [in] Heav'n; he of the first, / If not the first Arch-Angel, great in Power, / In favour and præeminence, yet fraught / With envie against the Son of God, that day / Honourd by his great Father, and proclaimd / Messiah King anointed, could not beare / Through pride that sight, and thought himself impaird. / Deep malice thence conceiving & disdain, / Soon as midnight brought on the duskie houre / Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolv'd / With all his Legions to dislodge, and leave / Unworshipt, unobey'd the Throne supream / Contemptuous [...].
{{استشهاد ويب}}: صيانة الاستشهاد: الأرشيف كعنوان (link)[...] but not so wak'd / Satan, so call him now, his former name / Is heard no more [in] Heav'n; he of the first, / If not the first Arch-Angel, great in Power, / In favour and præeminence, yet fraught / With envie against the Son of God, that day / Honourd by his great Father, and proclaimd / Messiah King anointed, could not beare / Through pride that sight, and thought himself impaird. / Deep malice thence conceiving & disdain, / Soon as midnight brought on the duskie houre / Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolv'd / With all his Legions to dislodge, and leave / Unworshipt, unobey'd the Throne supream / Contemptuous [...].
{{استشهاد ويب}}: صيانة الاستشهاد: الأرشيف كعنوان (link){{استشهاد ويب}}: الوسيط غير المعروف |موسوعة= تم تجاهله (مساعدة)What, now, is the war in heaven? Of course not literal war, nor literally in heaven; not the actual clash of arms between Michael and his angels, and Satan and his wicked cohorts. But something on earth worthy to be represented by such a Titanic contest. What can that be, if not the contest in the visible church concerning true and false doctrine?
12:7–11 The attempts of the dragon proved unsuccessful against the church, and fatal to his own interests. The seat of this war was in heaven; in the church of Christ, the kingdom of heaven on earth. The parties were Christ, the great Angel of the covenant, and his faithful followers; and Satan and his instruments. The strength of the church is in having the Lord Jesus for the Captain of their salvation. Pagan idolatry, which was the worship of devils, was cast out of the empire by the spreading of Christianity. [...] The servants of God overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb, as the cause. By the word of their testimony: the powerful preaching of the gospel is mighty, through God, to pull down strongholds. By their courage and patience in suffering: they loved not their lives so well but they could lay them down in Christ's cause. These were the warriors and the weapons by which Christianity overthrew the power of pagan idolatry; and if Christians had continued to fight with these weapons, and such as these, their victories would have been more numerous and glorious, and the effects more lasting. The redeemed overcame by a simple reliance on the blood of Christ, as the only ground of their hopes.
It is generally agreed by the most learned expositors that the narrative we have in this and the two following chapters, from the sounding of the seventh trumpet to the opening of the vials, is not a prediction of things to come, but rather a recapitulation and representation of things past, which, as God would have the apostle to foresee while future, he would have him to review now that they were passed, that he might have a more perfect idea of them in his mind, and might observe the agreement between the prophecy and that Providence that is always fulfilling the scriptures.
{{استشهاد ويب}}: صيانة الاستشهاد: الأرشيف كعنوان (link)It is generally agreed by the most learned expositors that the narrative we have in this and the two following chapters, from the sounding of the seventh trumpet to the opening of the vials, is not a prediction of things to come, but rather a recapitulation and representation of things past [...].
{{استشهاد ويب}}: صيانة الاستشهاد: الأرشيف كعنوان (link)The ejection of the Accuser from heaven is not (as in Milton's Paradise Lost) the story of the origin of Satan as an angel who rebelled against God in primeval times. Neither here nor elsewhere do biblical authors give speculative 'explanations' about the origin of Satan or evil. Such a myth had developed in pre-Christian Judaism (1–2 En.), and there are fragmentary echoes of it in the New Testament (Jude 6; 2 Pet. 2:4). That is not the picture in this story, which does not take place in primeval times but at the eschatological time of the establishment of God's kingdom by the life, death, and exaltation of Jesus [...].