Revelation 12:3; A Great Red Dragon

Revelation 12:3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 

In graphic description, the conflict between the nation of Israel and Satan is now set forth. The appearance of the dragon is one that captured immediate attention.

Without doubt, this great red dragon represents Satan in his worst character. John expresses the devil as the dragon in Revelation 20:2. Both Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar are spoken of as great dragons because of their cruelty and haughty independence.

Ezekiel 29:3 Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. 

Jeremiah 51:34 Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out. 

Perhaps recalling the Old Testament crocodile or Leviathan. “Dragon” appears ten times in Revelation and is a fitting symbol of God’s chief adversary in his role as the relentless persecutor and murderer of multitudes of saints and sinners. Job gives us a most remarkable description of a dragon, “he is king over all that are proud” (Job 41:1-34; Isaiah 27:1).

Isaiah 27:1 In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that isin the sea. 

The term is used of Satan only in the book of Revelation. It suggests the hideousness and horror of his rule, the insatiable violence represented by the dragon.

Red, being a blood colour, indicates the devil’s murderous nature, for he has been a murderer from the beginning – John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Red also represent pseudo-sanctity – “Why are your garments red?”

Isaiah 63:2 Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? 

Once the most beautiful of angelic beings, Satan is now the object of abhorrence. Copying Christ, who as the Conqueror will wear many diadems, Satan is adorned with his crowns or diadems. The seven crowned heads signify the cruel and despotic exercise of earthly power and authority will the ten uncrowned horns can stand the future limits of the empire as distributed into ten kingdoms (The rule of Satan is in a ten-kingdom form.) Satan delegates power and authority to the first beast, who is similarly described in Revelation 13:1.

Revelation 13:1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. 

[Herbert Lockyer, All About the Second Coming, Hendrickson, 2007, 98-99]

Daniel 7:7-8 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. 

Daniel 7:20 And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. 

Daniel 7:24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. 

Amen.