Where Does Revelation Mention Astronomy?
Revelation has several references to stars, planets, or other heavenly objects. Among others, Revelation mentions:
- A man appears to John, holding seven stars in his hand (Revelation 1)
- A “wormwood star” falls from the heavens (Revelation 8:11).
- Giving someone a morning star (Revelation 2:26)
- The sun turning black and the moon red (Revelation 6:12)
- “Something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea” (Revelation 8:8)
- “A great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood.” (Revelation 8:10-11)
- The new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21:1)
- Jesus, the bright morning star (Revelation 22:16)
Some Christians see these references as predictions of astronomical phenomena in the End Times. For example, the wormwood star and the great mountain landing in the sea could be meteors hitting the earth’s surface. The sun turning black and the moon red could be a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse (in many lunar eclipses, like the one that occurred in 2020, the moon looks red).
However, others argue that Revelation’s language makes it hard to say when these references refer to something that will literally happen. For example, Revelation 9:1-2 says, “I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace.” The star is described in an anthropomorphic way (given human qualities: having human hands and arms to take a key and turn it to unlock the Abyss). Does this mean God will direct the star to hit the earth in a way that opens the shaft of the Abyss? Is the star a person who will get permission to unleash something from the Abyss? Given that Jesus calls himself “the bright morning star” (Revelation 22:16), either option is possible.
Others have noted that John’s visions in Revelation don’t seem to all be about the future. This came up in September 2017, when multiple Christians observed Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter appearing together in the constellation Virgo, with Jupiter moving out of Virgo. They interpreted Jupiter exiting Virgo as the mother giving birth to a son mentioned in this passage:
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. (Revelation 12:3-5 NIV)
In other words, Jupiter was the son, Virgo the mother, as the great sign appeared in the heavens. However, there are flaws in this argument. First, as Christopher M. Graney observed in The Catholic Astronomer, the interpretation assumed this arrangement had never happened before. Research showed the same arrangement had occurred four times between 1017 and 2017 alone.
Furthermore, this Revelation 12 passage leads into a “war in heaven,” where the angel Michael fights the dragon and “the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him” (Revelation 12:9 NIV). As a result, this passage is often interpreted as describing something that predates Genesis 1:1 before moving forward to the New Testament’s key event. The war in heaven is taken to be a literal war that Satan fought against God, a third of the angels joining him. After the war ended with God victorious, Satan “fell like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18 NIV), his rebels following him. John Milton’s Paradise Lost picks up after this event, with Satan rallying his followers in their new home.
Following this interpretation, the son is not a planet but Jesus, who defeats the great dragon. The mother represents Israel, which experiences many trials (exiles, invasion by Rome, the 400 years of silence) before birthing the Messiah.
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7 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;
8 I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.
9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.
10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
13 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Those who are here at the time that these things in Revelation are really going to hold fast to God and His Word. It is not going to be easy. But if they overcome and stay close to Him, they will receive eternal life that no man or enemy can take from them.
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Thanks for coming by today, Friends.
May your blessings today be
rich and full in Jesus!
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