Revelation 12 describes a heavenly sign of a ’woman clothed with the sun’ at the time of Jesus’ birth. An earlier theory gaining popularity states that the same constellation sign is coming Sept 23, 2017 and not ever again for a hundreds of years. Is it right? What does it mean – the rapture, the Great Tribulation, or abomination of desolation or what? Let’s examine the evidence and understand an epidemic of theories like this better…

Revelation 12 In The Sky Again?

I decided to write this article after several people asked me regarding speculation that September 23, 2017 is prophetically significant. For example, one person sent me a link to an article entitled, “What Is The Revelation 12 Sign In 2017 Telling Us?” with the following question:

In two years, there will be what seems to be exactly what Revelation 12 is picturing in the constellations. This is extremely rare, even more rare than the blood moon tetrads. I think this has only happened one other time in history, which is at the birth of Jesus. What do you think this says, if it’s too late for the 70th week to have started?

Ahh, the “it’s very rare” card… It’s fitting he mentions the four blood moons/tetrads theory because rarity was the main argument of legitimacy for that theory, too. Many people believed in the four blood moons based on that rarity rationale. However, once the last blood moon passed, the theory was relegated to the same trash heap that all invented prophecy theories do. They all fail to predict anything specific in any specific timeframe because men cannot accurately predict the future, even when improvising from a Biblical basis.

What about this one? Is it being “even more rare” rare enough to make it significant and worthy of belief? Let’s take a look.

Revelation 12 – September 2017 Theory

Although it does not give credit, the article referenced above is just another take on previous Revelation 12 speculation. I first saw it in a Scottie Clarke video in 2013 on his “Eternal Rhythm and Flow” YouTube channel and website. (I was informed by Mark Chiswell that Luis Vega put out the theory earlier.)

Whoever originated the theory, what it gets right is that the constellation of Virgo (the virgin) fits the heavenly woman spoken of in Revelation 12:1:

Revelation 12:1 — And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

The woman being clothed by the sun with the moon at her feet makes sense literally when you understand the woman as Virgo the constellation. Every year somewhere from mid-August through mid-September the sun is mid-body to Virgo and the new crescent moon is at the bottom of Virgo. It literally happens in the sky just as Revelation 12 depicts.

But what about her “crown of twelve stars?” According to Clarke there are nine stars from the constellation Leo above. The other three stars are supplied by a conjunction in Leo of Venus, Mars, and Mercury, aligned with Regulus. And “Scott has looked for this formation in other years and cannot find it”(!).

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Problem #1: Ignoring The Very Next Verse

There are many problems with this theory we can discuss. The very first one is typical to these theories and another one it has in common with the blood moon and shemitah theories of 2015: It’s ignoring the context. Look at the very next verse tying the Woman sign to a birth:

Revelation 12:1-2 — 1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pain
s and the agony of giving birth.

If we doubt that the birth is meant literally, the next few verses dispel that. They show Satan wants to kill the son who is clearly identified as a very well-known person:

Revelation 12:4-5 — 4…And the dragon [Satan] stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne

This “male child” that comes from the woman is depicting the birth of Jesus. Who is also the one person in history destined to rule all nations (Mt 28:18; Rev 19:16; Eph 1:21) and who has ascended to heaven (Jn 3:13) as verse 5 also says.

“Caught Up” vs “Ascended?”

If you want to reject this idea because Revelation says the male was “caught up to heaven” not “ascended” like Jesus predicted of himself, then don’t stop there. Consider the actual gospel record of the event Jesus referred to beforehand in John 3:13 above:

Luke 24:50-51 — When Jesus had led them out as far as Bethany, He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.

Mark 16:19 — After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God

Acts 1:9 — After He had said this, they watched as He was taken up, and a cloud hid Him from their sight

As you can see, Jesus really was “taken up” just like it says the male child was (even if different Greek words are used by the different authors, the meaning is the same). Jesus was the male child of Mary who was taken up to Heaven. It fits.

Therefore, this all connects the Woman directly to the birth of Jesus in the first century. Jesus’ mother was Mary, a righteous woman of Israel. This is what the Woman fully represents, the faithful church, founded through Israel in 30 AD.

“Revelation Can Only Cover Things ‘After This’, Not In the Past” / Revelation 4:1!

Some doubt that Mary is the woman giving birth, confused over a past event being found in a prophecy book like Revelation. They often note how John records early on in the book that an angel told him would be shown things “that must happen after this” (Rev 4:1). They expect this rules out anything in Revelation happening before John’s time (90AD), such as Mary giving birth to Jesus (1 B.C. supposedly).

My response to that is twofold. First, it does not say “I will ONLY show you things coming after.” The exciting part to mention is of course the future things, but it does not preclude showing other things, too. Secondly, the Book is a Book of revelation, not “future prophecy.” There is much in the past that is a mystery which humanity needs revelation on, including the key players of the righteous vs Satan and the work of Christ. This revelation from the past establishes the characters for the future part of the revelation. In other words, for John to be shown the key things in the future, some explanatory revelation of the past is appropriate and reasonable to facilitate that.

Anyway, scholars have found that the sky on September 11, 3 BC to show the exact picture of Revelation 12:1, pointing to the birth of Christ on that day:

Jesus Birth 9-11-3BC (Credit: AskElm.com)

The Star of Bethlehem conjunctions before 3 BC led the Magi to depart in time to come see the baby Jesus. For more on Jesus birth in Rev 12 and the Star of Bethlehem before that, see Ernest Martin’s excellent free book on the.

Clarke’s theory, like all invented prophecy theories, depends on taking a verse out of its context and re-purposing it to serve some new theory. When you ignore the context of a verse, you are set up to misinterpret it. That’s how you turn a solid reliable Bible prophecy into an unreliable quasi-biblical man-made prophecy interpretation.

Is it any wonder that all predictions based on this approach fail?

Could Revelation 2:26 Indicate the Church is the Male Child?

I’m adding this section after a couple of people raised an objection to the above identification of Jesus as the male child of the Woman who rules all nations with an iron scepter. The following passage made them doubt this:

Revelation 2:26-27 — And to the one who is victorious and continues in My work until the end, I will give authority over the nations. 27 He will rule them with an iron scepter …—just as I have received authority from My Father

The confusion comes from how it says the saints will rule with “iron scepters” over “nations” making Jesus not the only one to fit the scepter-wielding aspect the male child’s profile in Rev 12:5.

But if the church is what is intended, why does the Greek go out of its way to say the child is “male?” The church in other human metaphors is given a female se
x, as in the “bride of Christ,” right in Revelation itself (Rev 21:2). For this to be clear and defensible, it should have left it as “child” of unspecified sex. The male adjective clashes with the church interpretation, directing you to look elsewhere for the identity (call me crazy…but how about a male person like a man?).

Another issue is that there is no rapture in the Bible before the Great Tribulation. Therefore Rev 12:5 cannot be the rapture (of anyone) when the 3½ year Great Tribulation (Rev 12:14) during which Satan tries to attack the church (Rev 12:13-16), comes later chronologically in the narrative.

The other conflict in this interpretation is what to make of the Woman who continues on after the supposed rapture of the “male child church.” How does the male child “church” go on to heaven and then this righteous faithful Woman continue on earth to receive the favor of protection during the 3½ year Great Tribulation (Rev 12:14)…unless the Woman is actually the faithful church? The church giving birth to the church and splitting between heaven and earth makes no sense.

The most natural explanation for all this is that the Woman is the faithful church of God among and from whom Jesus, a male person, was born (through blessed Mary). Jesus ascends to heaven and the faithful continue on the earth through the Great Tribulation.

Of course, the church later does receive the promise of glory with him “ruling the nations” (Rev 2:26) which is why Jesus is “King of kings and Lord of  lords” (Rev 19:16). We are the kings and lords that he is King and Lord over once he returns from his throne in heaven (Rev 12:5) he is still on to this day (Acts 3:20-21).

Problem #2: Adding to the Bible

For me the next problem is how Clarke has added elements to the biblical text that are not there, allowed for by problem #1 in ignoring verse 2 and 5.

When he says this may be the rapture or second coming you would rightly ask, where does it say this in Revelation 12? Nowhere. It’s added.

Why do we tolerate people adding to the Bible? Especially when it plainly warns in the same book against doing that (Rev 22:18-19). I understand why. It’s mainly because they sound authoritative. Appearing on video helps. Putting your ideas in images helps. Also we assume they know more than us and who are we to disagree with someone who studies more than us?

It would do us well to remember that we’re called in NT to question and judge what those in the church proclaim, even when prophets (1 Cor 14:29), proving or disproving them by Scripture (Acts 17:11). This is what I did above with my first objection to the theory.

Problem #3: The Woman’s Crown Already Has 12 Stars

I think Scottie Clarke was so excited to find something “extremely rare” to combine with a Bible prophecy (namely, those three planets appearing in Virgo) that he missed something huge. There are already always twelve stars crowning Virgo, depending who you ask it is either the constellation called “Berenice’s hair”.

Ernest Martin in his book The Star That Astonished the World cites the twelve stars as follows:

And note: Professor Thorley who reviewed the first edition of my work has shown that there are exactly twelve stars surrounding the head of Virgo as we see them from earth. And indeed there are. If one will look at Norton’s Star Atlas, twelve visible stars will be seen around Virgo’s head. They are (according to astronomical terminology): (1) Pi, (2) Nu, (3) Beta (near the ecliptic), (4) Sigma, (5) Chi, (6) Iota — these six stars form the southern hemisphere around the head of Virgo. Then there are (7) Theta, (8) Star 60, (9) Delta, (10) Star 93, (11) Beta (the 2nd magnitude star) and (12) Omicron — these last six form the northern hemisphere around the head of Virgo. All these stars are visible and could have been witnessed by observers on earth

Either way, there is no need for a “rare” conjunction of three planets to fill out the crown of twelve stars.

Problem #4: “It’s Extremely Rare” Is Not Scriptural

It’s worth noting that something being rare does not make it miraculous or divine or prophetically significant. Yes, miracles are rare and sometimes rare events are significant. But rare events like conjunctions are not miraculous or supernatural. They happen quite naturally, as rare as they are.

The Bible does not tell us to look for rare events or rare signs in the heavens or rare signs of the rapture in the heavens. Some will say in response “what about the Star of Bethlehem? Wasn’t that a unique event they spotted in the sky and acted on?”

It’s true that the Star of Bethlehem must have been a rare event. It had to be for the Magi to see it and know it was the time to pick up and travel hundreds of miles to meet Jesus. But I can assure you they did not travel all that way because they saw something rare or unique in the sky and decided what it meant like our modern Christian prophecy speculators do (justifying this by taking Genesis 1:14 out of its “day, month, year/calendar signals” context to make it about a “heavenly billboard of prophetic signs”).

They must have had some authentic prophet tell them exactly what to look for in the sky and exactly what it meant: the Messiah’s birth. If I knew a sign in the sky meant the Son of God was on earth, I’d make the trek to meet him, too.

To be sure, the Magi had much more revelation about Christ’s birth sign in the sky than we have recorded in Revelation 12 written after the fact, coupled with some kind of weird speculation like this Rev 12 – Sept 2017 theory offers.

Let’s not fall for the unscriptural rarity argument for a prophecy theory.

Problem #5: The Sun Does Not “Clothe the Woman” on Sept 23, 2017

As the picture above shows, the position of the sun does not match Rev 12:1 which says the sun clothes the woman. As the image above shows, the sun is over her left shoulder. For the sun to clothe the woman, it would be on her body. Not at her head like the crown; not at her feet like the moon. In the middle where her body is; where clothing goes.

If you want to see what it should look like, compare that to the picture of the sky on September 11, 3 BC when (I and many think) Jesus was born:

Jesus Birth 9-11-3BC (Credit: AskElm.com)

How could Scott Clarke miss this? I think the proximity of the timing of the conjunction of those planets to the Jewish holiday of Rosh HaShanah was too tempting to pass up. He stretched the definition of “clothed with the sun” to include Rosh Hashanah in his rapture theory, a huge rapture magnet always.

Problem #6: Rosh HaShanah Is Not Biblical
By doing so, Clarke makes the same mistake that Jonathan Cahn, Mark Biltz, John Hagee and so many pretrib rapture theorists have made. They take Rosh HaShanah to be significant prophetically when it’s just as much a manmade invention as their own theories are.

Rosh HaShanah means literally “head of the year” in Hebrew. It’s a two day holiday celebrated by the Jews on the first and second day of the 7th lunar month as their new year’s day.

It’s not found in the Bible, except where it informs Israel that another month six months earlier (Aviv 1) shall be the “head of the months” (Rosh Chodashim) (Ex 12:2). In other words, the Jewish Rosh HaShanah breaks Scripture by declaring a New Year’s day in the Fall.

Worse, this invented holy day masks the real holy day of start of the 7th month: Yom Teruah/Day of Trumpets. Despite having the same date, these days hardly ever coincide. That’s because they use different calendars. The Jewish calendar is based on precalculated starts to the months, much like the Gregorian calendar. The Biblical calendar uses the sighting of the crescent moon to determine months and leap months added when the barley is still not mature at the end of the 12th month. (The first month of the year requires ripe barley for the wave sheaf ceremony mentioned in Leviticus 23:11-12). This results in the true first day of the 7th month (Day of Trumpets) coming in most years a day or two after Rosh HaShanah is celebrated as the first day of the 7th month.

In other words, when the rapture really does come on Day of Trumpets (1Cor 15:52=Rev 11:14-19) it will be a day or two past when people watching Rosh HaShanah are looking.

So you see, Rosh HaShanah is certainly not worthy of adjusting ones prophecy theories to. But I will grant that it sounds good to most people who have not studied how the Jewish calendar has corrupted the biblical calendar.

So…What Does It Mean?
In the end, what does this September, 2017 sign tell us? If this event is only a sign because a Christian says so, then it tells us more about Christians than it does about when to expect the rapture or anything else prophetic.

What we have is once again is another example of how Christian prophecy students can’t seem to resist taking something from Scripture and combining it with something extra-biblical they subjectively and/or arbitrarily view as significant. A Jewish holiday. A (brief) historical pattern of economic downturns. A rare conjunction. Or three more blood moons. =)

Speaking of the four blood moons, if you get nothing else from this article, the one point I want you to take away is the same point I made about that prophecy theory. The demonstrable rarity of an event does not equate with divinity or prophetic significance! That is the underlying false assumption of both the failed four blood moons theory of 2015 and this Revelation 12 theory for 2017. Nowhere does the Bible tell us to look for rare events for signs of the end. Instead, it tells us specific events that will start the end, which have nothing to do with Revelation 12 showing us only events from the latter half of the 70th week (Satan coming down and chasing the saints who God gathers to a place prepared for 3½ years).

Therefore, what this Sept 2017 “sign” tells us is that the speculation engine of Christianity is still alive and well, learning nothing from the failed speculation just two years earlier. In fact, as someone who has been interested in prophecy since before the Internet broke out in 1995, I can tell you that speculation is increasing. More theories catch on, spread and worry people than ever before. (September 2015 even saw two different biblical prophecy theories converge, a first in my recollection.)

It will either make you fed up with prophecy or make you wiser–in both cases faster than ever before. =)

Oh, and by the way, several people have mentioned a fear of dismissing rapture dates, citing the Parable of the Ten Virgins and the desire to have “oil in their lamps” when the time came. However, as this article on the Ten Virgin Parable shows, it has nothing to do with being ready by being open minded to prophecy date setting!

Now, if you want to know what Revelation is really predicting through the woman, see my article on the 144,000 and the Woman.

Source:https://escapeallthesethings.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC_W273I2CU