The Woman, the Serpent, and the Flood

"And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman; and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth." - Apoc. 12:15-16


This verse is of course not to be interpreted literally but metaphorically. The woman is a symbol of the Church, according to St. Andrew of Caesarea ( Ancient Christian Commentary on the Scripture: Revelation, p.191) Of course we need not guess at whom the serpent represents, the devil, who has been at war with the church for ages and has been bested by Christ. What is meant by this flood from the mouth of the serpent? There is a great parallel here in scripture, in Num. 16 Korah and 250 others rebel against Moses and Aaron. Korah states to Moses and Aaron: "You take too much upon yourselves, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: why then to you exalt yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?" Korah is rebelling against the priesthood, an office which God Himself established, which still exists today. Korah is telling Moses and Aaron that everyone is the same and then accuses them of self exaltation, a sin which they themselves were committing through their lack of humility, pride. God gave a response to Korahs inquiry, and it was a swift one, he opened up the earth and swallowed him whole and he went straight down to Hades alive.
Moses had said before that in Num. 16:30 that: "Then you shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord."

How does this pertain to the serpent and the flood which came from his mouth? In the 16th century came a flood of heresy. The protestant reformation came about which resulted, and still results to this day, in schism upon schism and a multitude of denominations (38,000 to be exact, World Christian Encyclopedia, 2001.) with all kinds of varieties of heresy within them. Not only have the majority of these attacked the church openly or inadvertently, but the multitude of these denominations have seemed to drown out the true church. Worse yet, these denominations hinder the minds of their adherents by demonizing the true church and brainwashing them with the two pillars of protestantism, sola scriptura and sola fide. Sola scriptura, the bible as sole authority, gives people the false impression that they can read scripture and interpret for themselves what it says. even though this is condemned in scripture: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation." 2 Pet. 1:20 Yet this verse is ignored and instead they choose to be empowered by themselves and their own desires and this causes them to pervert scriptures and has resulted in hundreds of thousands of denominations.

This is the flood coming from the mouth of the serpent. So this verse is a double entendre in that it refers to Korahs rebellion and protestantism. In the same way God answered Korah, and saved the church from his corruption, He will do also with protestantism. Does this mean that the ground will literally open up and swallow all protestants? Many will be deceived in the end times because of the antichrist, and this is when the ground starts to open up and upon Christ's return all evil will be swallowed up. The protestants, for their willful ignorance, those who believe in the rapture will be deceived by the antichrist. For the simple fact that the antichrist will proclaim himself to be the messiah, therefore they will believe that this is the rapture and he is Christ come to whisk them away to avoid suffering. And those who believe in chilliams or millenialism will think that this is Christ's reign on earth for 1000 years. Those who are smart enough will turn from their stupidity and become Orthodox.

Amen.