The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

272 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
apostle John saw “in heaven” a pregnant woman, “arrayed with the
sun, and the moon was under her feet, and on her head was a
crown of twelve stars.” A great seven-headed dragon, later
identified as “the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan,”
was seen standing before the woman ready to devour her child.
The woman “gave birth to a son, a male, who is to shepherd all the
nations with an iron rod. And her child was caught away to God and to
his throne.”—Revelation 12:1–5, NW.
This cannot possibly picture the setting up of Christ’s kingdom
in heaven in 1914, as the Watch Tower Society holds. How could
Christ’s kingdom have been so weak in 1914 that it ran the risk of
being devoured by Satan and therefore had to be “caught away”
from his gaping jaws to God’s throne? Such a view is in the most
pointed contrast to the New Testament teaching that Christ ever
since his resurrection is in possession of “all authority in heaven
and on earth” and is exalted “far above every government and
authority and power and lordship.”—Matthew 28:18; Ephesians
1:21, NW.
There was only one time when Jesus Christ apparently was in
such a vulnerable situation that Satan felt he could “devour” him,
and that was during his earthly life. It was during this period that
Satan attempted to thwart the “birth” of Christ as the ruler of the
world. From the child-murders in Bethlehem to Jesus’ final
execution under Pontius Pilate, Jesus was his chief target. Satan did
not succeed, however, as Christ was resurrected and “caught away
to God and to his throne.”
As has often been noticed, the presentation of Christ’s
enthronement as a “birth” at Revelation 12:5 is an allusion to
Psalm 2:6–9:
”I, even I, have installed my king upon Zion, my holy
mountain.” Let me refer to the decree of Jehovah; He has said to
me: “You are my son; I, today, I have become your father. Ask of
me, that I may give nations as your inheritance and the end of the
earth as your own possession. You will break them with an iron
scepter, as though a potter’s vessel you will dash them to pieces.”
(NW)
The New Testament writers repeatedly apply this psalm to
Christ’s exaltation to the right hand of God. (Acts 13:32–33;
64 Notice also how the “wrath” of “the kings of the earth” against “Jehovah and
against his anointed one” at Psalm 2:1–3 is directly applied by the apostle Peter at
Acts 4:25–28 to the actions taken against Jesus by the Jewish and Roman
authorities. The same passage is also alluded to at Revelation 11:15–18, which
first refers to the beginning of Christ’s universal reign in the midst of his wrathful
enemies and then about God’s “wrath” upon these enemies.