Traditionally the answer to this question has been Rome or the Roman Catholic Church or Rome as a symbol of present or future realities. However, I wonder if the beast is the figure related to Rome (Dan 9:26; Rev 17:9) while the woman represents apostate Jerusalem.

Observations in favor of the woman as apostate Jerusalem

• Elsewhere Revelation identifies “the great city” (16:19; 17:18; 18:10) as Jerusalem (11:8). The judgment on the great city Jerusalem in 11:13 is the same judgment that came upon the great city Babylon in 16:19. Note that in 16:19 the great city is distinguished from the cities of the nations (Tanner, “Apostate Jerusalem,” 16–17; Burns, “Marriage,” 291; Provan, “Revelation 18,” 93, 94).
• Note that in Revelation 11 the name Jerusalem is not used. Instead, the city is identified as “the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified” (11:8). So there is a similarity on obliquely naming Jerusalem (Tanner, “Apostate Jerusalem,” 16–17).
• The harlot metaphor is a dominant metaphor for unfaithful Israel in the OT. While twice it is used of other nations (Tyre in Isa 23:15-18, and Nineveh of Assyria in Nah 3:4), elsewhere it is used of Israel (Isa 1:21; 57:8; Jer 2:2, 20; 3:1, 6; Ezek 16:15, 26, 28, 29; 16:35-41; 23:1-21, 30; Micah 1:7; and Hos 4:12) (Tanner, “Apostate Jerusalem,” 17; Burns, “Marriage,” 288; Provan, “Revelation 18,” 92).
• The destruction of the woman by the Beast and the ten horns recalls the destruction of Jerusalem in Ezekiel 23:22–35 (cf. Eze 16:39) (Tanner, “Apostate Jerusalem,” 18; Burns, “Marriage,” 292).
• The name written on the forehead “seems to parody the golden plate on the high priest’s turban” (Burns, “Marriage,” 288).
• The judgment of burning with fire was the judgment on a priest’s daughter if she became a prostitute (Lev. 21:9) (Burns, “Marriage,” 289).
• “it is Jerusalem which is recalled by 18.1, alluding to the divine glory leaving the temple and city in Ezekiel, and by 18.2, with its language of religious defilement. It is Jerusalem which fits best the covenant language of 18.5, where the city’s sins, rather than her love, have cleaved to God; 18.23-24 is based on Jer. 25.10, which is an oracle against Judah and Jerusalem; and so on” (Provan, “Revelation 18,” 93–94).
• The items of the city’s trade are largely items used of the temple and temple service. Exceptions, such as chariots and horses, recall Solomon (the builder of the Temple with materials from Tyre), who acquired chariots and horses in violation of Dt 17 (Provan, “Revelation 18,” 95).
• Revelation 18:24 (cf. 17:6) alludes to Matthew 23:35–37, which identifies Jerusalem as “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it” (Provan, “Revelation 18,” 95).
• “It is certainly intriguing that passages like 18.22-23, with their picture of a city devoid of people and religious festivals, call to mind no book quite so much as the book of Lamentations, set in the period after Jerusalem has fallen and her people are in exile (cf., e.g., Lam. 1.1-5; 2.6-10; 5.14-18)” (Provan, “Revelation 18,” 95). Provan also notes the following:  “Jerusalem is the fallen princess (Lam. 1.1; Rev. 18.2, 7), burned with fire like Sodom (Lam. 2.1-4; Rev. 18.8, 18; and esp. cf. Lam. 4.6 with Rev. 11.8), a haunt for wild animals (Lam. 5.18; Rev. 18.2). She has known the reversal of God’s favour, especially symbolized in the use of vine and vineyard imagery to express God’s wrath rather than God’s blessing (Lam. 1.15; 2.6; Rev. 18.6; cf. Court, Myth, pp. 143-44); and her wealthy people have suffered disaster and deprivation (Lam. 4.5-9; Rev. 18.14-17)” (Provan, “Revelation 18,” 95–96, n. 49).
• I also find the relationship between the beast and the woman to make more sense if the beast is Rome (ruled by Antichrist) and the woman is Jerusalem. If the beast is Rome/Antichrist and the woman is the city of Rome, things get muddy. Revelation 17:16–17 especially get difficult. It is possible that the Roman Empire/Antichrist and the then horns turn on the city of Rome. But it makes much more sense for Rome/Antichrist and the ten kings to turn on Jerusalem and attack Jerusalem. There is also more biblical precedent for this latter view.
• Revelation 17 and 18 would thus stand in starker contrast with Revelation 19 and 21. Adulterous Jerusalem would be contrasted with new Jerusalem (Burns, “Marriage,” 293).

Objections and Responses

• Objection 1: Revelation 17:9 says that the women is seated on seven mountains. This clearly refers to Rome, which is known for being situation on seven hills.
  • Answer: The beast, which is correlated with Daniel’s fourth beast, does have a Rome connection. The seven mountains are related to the seven heads of the beast. The Antichrist is one of the heads of the beast. The woman is therefore distinct from, but related to, the Roman beast.
• Objection 2: Revelation 17:18 identifies the woman as “the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.” In John’s day, this would have been Rome.
  • Answer: In the future, it seems that the Antichrist will make Jerusalem his capital. In Scripture, it is Jerusalem (as the seat of the Davidic Messiah) that will have dominion over the kings of the earth. Antichrist will parody this.
• Objection 3: “The detailed picture in ch. 18 of a city at the center of the world’s commerce and (especially) maritime trade fails to fit even the most hyperbolic view that first-century Jerusalem could have had of itself” (Fanning, ZECNT, 449, n. 67).
  • Answer: This objection may be taking the maritime imagery too literally when there are textual indicators pointing in another direction. Some of this imagery is drawn from oracles against Tyre. Revelation 17:1 and 15 pictures the city as seated on many waters. The waters symbolize the peoples and nations (17:15), but they also evoke this Leviathan-beast who comes up from the waters. This imagery stands behind the maritime commerce imagery of chapter 18.
• Objection 4: The city can hardly be Jerusalem since Revelation 18:21 says this city “will be found no more.” The subsequent verses say that musicians, craftsmen, bridegrooms, merchants, and even lights and tools will be found in the city no more. Revelation 19:3 says, “The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”
  • Answer: Revelation 19:3 is poetic language to speak of the eternal destruction of the city; it perhaps even alludes to the eternal destruction of the inhabitants of this city in the lake of fire. Similarly, Revelation 18:21ff. indicates the complete destruction and removal of this city. Note, however, that the woman is not Jerusalem per se but apostate Jerusalem. Apostate Jerusalem will be entirely done away. A New Jerusalem will replace it.

Significance: By labeling apostate Jerusalem as Babylon, God would be indicating that his own chosen city has by the end become identified with the opposition to God that has been running through the biblical storyline from Genesis 11 onward.

The Options

Option 1: “The language of being “thrown to the earth” (v. 9) could suggest Satan’s primordial fall from heaven, as many Jewish and Christian interpreters understand to be portrayed at least typologically in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 (cf. LAE 12:1–16:3). However, the limits to Satan’s actions described in Revelation 12 (e.g., no access to heaven, intense anger because his time is short) have hardly characterized his career since that primeval event itself. Possibly this later expulsion repeats and intensifies key features of the pattern of that original fall” (Fanning, ZECNT, 356).

Option 2: “A second quite plausible option is the decisive defeat of Satan at the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ. Verse 5c in this vision focuses on the exaltation of the woman’s male child, and several references in John’s Gospel point to Jesus’s coming death as the decisive judgment of Satan (John 12:31; 16:11; Luke 10:17–18 is sometimes read this way). But it seems unlikely that Satan is understood to have no more access to accuse Christians before God (v. 10) for the entire period after the cross of Christ. It makes more sense to understand a decisive victory to have come at the cross, resurrection, and exaltation (Col 2:15), but that this victory awaits its full accomplishment in the end times (see comments on v. 5c; cf. 1 Cor 15:20–28; Heb 2:8–9, 14–15)” (Fanning, ZECNT, 356).

Option 3: “A third interpretation takes this expulsion as a yet-future event just prior to the arrival of “the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah” on the earth (Rev 11:15; cf. 12:10a), at the time of the seventh trumpet when God’s revealed plan for redemption is brought to completion without further delay (10:6–7). This coheres with the point that the devil’s brief remaining time to inflict his anger will bring great woes for the earth and sea (v. 12b), and that the woman will need protection from him for a period of three-and-a-half years in the future (vv. 6, 14; cf. 11:2–3; 13:5)” (Fanning, ZECNT, 356).

Further Arguments for Option 3: A Timing within the Final Day of the Lord

John 12:31–32 does not seem to be the most relevant text for understanding Revelation 12:7–12. First, Revelation 12 concerns the expulsion of Satan from heaven to earth. John 21:31–32 concerns an expulsion from earth. Alford’s interpretation of John 12:31–32 harmonizes well with the rest of the biblical data: “Observe it is ἐκβληθήσεται, not ἐκβάλλεται, because the casting out (ἔξω, ἐκτῆς ἀρχῆς, Euthym., Grot., or better perhaps, out of ὁ κόσμος οὗτος, his former place) shall be gradual, as the drawing in the next verse. But after the death of Christ the casting out began, and its first-fruits were, the coming in of the Gentiles into the Church” (Alford, 836). Raymond Brown posits much the same: “However, the ordinary reading of vs. 31 is not a reference to Satan’s expulsion from heaven but to his loss of authority over this world. This inference seems contrary to the statement of I John v 19: ‘The whole world is in the power of the Evil One.’ Perhaps we can say that the victorious hour of Jesus constitutes a victory over Satan in principle; yet the working out of this victory in time and place is the gradual work of believing Christians. Even in the Christian life there is a tension between a victory already won (I John ii 13) and a victory still to be won (I John v 4-5)” (Brown, AB, 1:477).

Luke 10:18–19 relates to the mission of the seventy-two in which even the demons were subject to them. What they experienced was a foreshadowing, an initial experience, of the ultimate downfall of Satan (cf. Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, 63–64). David Garland (Luke, ZECNT, 428–429) explains:

Gathercole argues that this is a vision of endtime events and the ultimate downfall of Satan.13 Nolland claims it is a vision of the future akin to those of the Old Testament prophets. The prophets did not have visions of what had happened or was happening in heaven but what would happen. Jesus “has seen the coming triumph of the kingdom of God over the rule of Satan and has identified this triumph as his own task. He sees this as what God intends to achieve through him.”

Jesus, therefore, can put his followers’ success in a heavenly perspective that is hidden from them. He projects the limited defeat of demons onto the broader screen of the cosmic conflict between God and the forces of evil. What is happening is not simply the expulsion of random demons that they might come across in their travels but the beginning of the complete overthrow of Satan’s rule.

Thus, Jesus in Luke 10:18–19 could be looking forward to the eschatological events of Revelation 12:7–12. There are exegetical and contextual reasons for an eschatological location of Revelation 12:7–12. First, 12:12 indicates that the throwing down of the devil from heaven to earth signal to him that his time is short. This results in intensified wrath on the part of the devil. In addition, Both Revelation 12:6 and 12:14 place these events in the context of Daniel’s seventieth seven. Jesus, in the Olivet Discourse, with his reference to the abomination of desolation, locates that seventieth seven is the eschatological day of the Lord.

The reference to Michael also points in an eschatological direction. The angel Michael is mentioned only in Daniel 10:13, 21; 12:1; Jude 9. The Daniel 10 verses and Jude 9 refer to past events. However, Daniel 12:1 occurs in the midst of a section (Dan 11:36–12:13) that deals with Antichrist (11:36) during the last half of Daniel’s 70th seven (12:1, 7). Daniel 10 had already indicated that in world affairs there are angelic battles behind the scenes. Revelation 12:7–12 would be an example of that in relation to Daniel’s seventieth seven. In fact, it would appear both from Daniel 12:1 and from Revelation 12:6, 14 that this battle in heaven results in the final expulsion of Satan from heaven just before the middle of the 70th seven.

“Most attempts to discern the structure of Revelation have found it particularly difficult to see how chapters 12-14 fit into the overall structure. The beginning of chapter 12 seems an uncharacteristically abrupt fresh start, devoid of literary links with anything that precedes. The formula used in 12:1 and 12:3 (καὶ σημεῖον μέγα ὤφθη ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ…καὶ ὤφθη ἀλλο σημεῖον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ…) is a quite fresh introductory formula, unlike any John has used before, and the two protagonists it introduces, the woman and the dragon, have not been mentioned in the book hitherto. Chapter 12 cannot be read as a continuation of the account of the seventh trumpet (11:15-19) because we know that the imagery of 11:19b describes the final judgment and concluded the account of the seventh seal in 8:1-5. There are not even the kinds of literary links backwards to preceding sections of the book which John provides elsewhere at major transitions which might otherwise seem like entirely fresh beginnings (4:1; 17:1; 21:9). It seems we must accept that the abrupt transition is intentional. John has made it abrupt precisely in order to create the impression of a fresh start. ¶The fresh start is required because the narrative of the woman and the dragon begins chronologically earlier than any previous part of his visionary narrative. It recalls the enmity between the woman and the serpent (Gen 3:15) and portrays the people of God (Israel) as mother of the Messiah. The story of the conflict between the dragon and the woman leads into an account of the contemporary conflict between the people of God (the church) and the enemies of God. This account ends with the vision of the conquerors of the beast triumphant in heaven (15:2-4), which is the upshot of the confrontation between the beast (chapter 13) and the followers of the Lamb (14:1-5). But if John has not integrated this section into the rest of his book at the beginning of the section, he has done so at its end. He links it to the account of the seven bowls which follows by the same technique of overlapping or interweaving as he had used to link the series of seal judgments to the series of trumpet judgments. He vision of the people of God triumphant over the beast in heaven (15:2-4) is sandwiched between the introduction of the seven angels with the seven last plagues (15:1) and the account of their preparation for pouring out the bowls on the earth (15:5-8). Moreover, the seven angels are introduced by a variation of the formula which has previously been used only to introduce the dragon and the woman at the beginning of chapter 12: καὶ εἰδον ἀλλο σημεῖον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ μέγα καί θαυμαστόν (15:1). This clearly makes the series of seven bowls a continuation of the narrative begun at the beginning of chapter 12. We have already noticed how 15:5 echoes 11:19a and 16:17-20 expands 11:19b, making the seven bowls a fuller version of the seventh trumpet. This means that chapter 15 is the point where the narrative begun in chapter 12 with the dragon’s threat to the pregnant woman converges with the narrative begun in chapter 5 with the Lamb receiving the scroll in order ot open it. Both narratives reach a provisional conclusion in the sequence of seven bowls (pending a further conclusion in 19:11-21:8). The convergence of the two narratives is shown by the fact that the seven bowls, a sequence of judgments which continues and completes the two previous sequences of seven judgments, refers as the previous sequences had not, to the forces of opposition to God in the terms which have been introduced in chapters 12-14: those who had the mark of the beast and worshipped its image (16:2), the throne and the kingdom of the beast (16:10), the dragon, the beast and the false prophet (16:13), Babylon the great (16:19).

The main function of chapters 12-15 is to deal much more fully with the subject that was adumbrated in the two intercalations (7:1-17; 10:1-11:13): the people of God in their conflict with the forces opposed to God. The links with the two intercalations are thematic rather than structural, but it is worth noting the most important: the 144,000 (7:4) reappear in 14:1, the apocalyptic period of the church’s suffering and witness (11:2-3) appears in 12:6, 14; 13:5, the beast who appears very enigmatically in 11:7 is properly introduced in chapter 13, where he makes war on the saints and conquers them (13:7) as he had already in 11:7.”

Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, 15-17.

What is the identity of the ἄγγελοι of the seven churches?

Possible Interpretations

1. The ἄγγελοι are angels (Oecumenius, Caesarius of Arles [as an option]), Alford, Charles, Thomas, Michaels, Beale, Osborne, Hamilton, Koester, Fanning)

a. Elsewhere in Revelation ἄγγελος is only used of angels (Alford, 4:560; Charles, ICC, 34; Michaels, IVPNTC; Beale, NIGTC, 217; Hamilton, PtW, 51, Koester, 60–61).

b. Stars are a common symbol for angels (Osborne, BECNT, 99; Beale, NIGTC, 218).

c. In the NT there seem to be angels who “are allotted to persons, and are regarded as representing them” (Mt 18:10; Acts 12:15) (Alford, 4:560, Charles, ICC, 34).

d. In Daniel there are angels who represent nations, making it reasonable that there could be angels that represent churches (Alford, 4:560, Charles, ICC, 34; cf. Beale, NIGTC, 217).

e. Church leaders are not addressed in these letters; churches as a whole are addressed through the angel (Alford, 4:560).

f. Oecumenius, acknowledging the absurdity of a letter being written to an angel in the presence of God and of rebukes to a holy angel regarding sin, concludes that Christ “speaks periphrastically of the church” when he references its angel (Greek Commentaries, ACC, 10; cf. Caesarius of Arles, Latin Commentaries, ACC 66; Charles, ICC, 34).

g. Another option is that the angels are held culpable for the failures of the churches due to “corporate representation” (Beale, NIGTC, 217–18).

2. The ἄγγελοι are  church leaders (Caeasarius of Arles [as an option]; Perkins; Gerhard; Dabney, Bavinck, de Burgh, Elliott, Tenney, Leithart)

a. The term ἄγγελος can be used of human preachers (Mt. 11:10; 1 Cor 11:10) (Perkins, Works, 4:441; cf. Leithart, ITC, 122).

b. The letters are addressed to them (Bavinck, RD, 2:467). “If Jesus actually appeared to John, dictated the actual words we read in the text, and expected John actually to send the messages to the churches, then the notion that the recipients are angel-spirits makes little sense. … To put it provocatively, or snarkily: Where do angels receive their mail? And, how does John know the addresses?” (Leithart, ITC, 123).

c. The ἄγγελοι are held responsible for for the conduct of the churches (de Burgh, 23). Notably, “in Greek most of the exhortations of the messages are explicitly addressed to a single person—the angel. … Now, as difficult as it might be to imagine that Jesus holds the some human leader of a city church responsible for the condition of his flock, it is far more difficult to determine what these charges and exhortations mean when addressed to an angel-spirit” (Leithart, ITC, 123–24).

d. Since holy angels have no need to repent, church leaders are in view (Caesarius of Arles, Latin Commentaries, ACC 66).

e. “Jesus threatens to remove the lampstand (the church, 1:20) from Ephesus if the angel fails to repent. That leaves the future of the Ephesian church dependent not on the repentance of the community or its leader, but on the repentance of his spiritual guardian, over whom the community can exert no influence” (Leithart, ITC, 124).

3. A “symbol to represent the heavenly or supernatural character of the church” (Ladd, 35; cf. Oecumenius under 1.g.).

a. The pastor interpretation is ruled out since the term ἄγγελος is not used of pastors in the NT.

b. The pastor interpretation is ruled out since the letters rebuke the whole church rather than a church leader.

c. The angel interpretation is ruled out because apocalyptic literature never has angels representing men.

d. Ladd reaches his conclusion by process of elimination.

Rejected Interpretations

 1. The ἄγγελοι are angels

a. This is the strongest argument for this position. However, chapters 2-3 connect to the rest of the book in an interesting way. For instance, the coming of Christ in these chapters refers to a coming in judgment on individual churches during the present age whereas the coming later in the book refers to the coming in final judgment on the whole earth. Thus, for terms to be used somewhat differently in chapters 2-3 is not surprising.

b. The term star is used variously in Revelation of actual stars (6:13; 8:12; 9:1), of angels (8:10–11), of the patriarchs (12:1), of Israel (12:4), and of Christ (2:28; 22:16). It is not inconceivable then that it is here used of pastors.

c. I reject (along with most Reformed interpreters) the interpretation that sees these texts as teaching the existence of guardian angels. For instance, Turretin rejects Matt. 18:10 as a prooftext on the grounds that “it cannot be gathered from this that a certain particular and peculiar angel is granted to individual infants for a perpetual guard” (Institutes, 7.8.9-14 [1:558-59]; cf. Hodge, ST, 1:640; Bavinck, RD, 2:467; Erickson, CT, 2nd ed., 469; McCune, STBC, 1:371–72). Regarding Acts 12:15, Turretin notes, “Nothing prevents us from taking the word angelou here for ‘messenger (a frequent use of the word, Mt. 11:10; Lk. 7:24, 27; 9:52), for ‘it is a messenger sent by him’ to announce something concerning him (as they who are in chains are accustomed to use messengers to report their condition)” (Turretin, Institutes, 7.8.9-14 [1:558-59]; cf. Peterson, PNTC, 365–66).

d. The angels in Daniel 10 are not territorial spirits or representatives of particular nations but demonic spirits seeking to influence those nations. J. Paul Tanner notes with regard to Daniel 10:13, “Care should be taken here, however, not to label this a “territorial spirit,” as though a geographical assignment is the issue. More accurately, the stress is on sociopolitical structure, meaning that this demon was targeting the empire and the human authorities behind that empire” (Tanner, EEC, 635–36).

e. This seems factually inaccurate. The address in the letters is in the singular, not plural. In other words, the messengers are singularly addressed by Christ. To be sure, they are addressed as representatives of the churches, but they are also addressed in such a way that they bear responsibility for the churches. It seems unlikely that unfallen angels can be held responsible for the straying and sinning of churches (cf. Bavinck, RD, 2:467; de Burgh, 23; Leithart, ITC, 1:123).

f. Fanning notes the difficulty with this view:  “But such a sequence of images seems too convoluted to follow (star in his hand equals an angel over the church equals the ethos of the church addressed as a person). Moreover, it is hard to see how “angel” could represent such a meaning” (ZECNT, 107–8).

g. It seems difficult to see how unfallen angels could be held responsible for sin.

3. A “symbol to represent the heavenly or supernatural character of the church”

a. The stars are already a symbol of the angels. To make the angels a symbol of the church means to have a symbol symbolize a symbol. See also the quotation from Fanning under 1.g.

b. Ladd does not offer positive argumentation for this view.

Accepted Interpretations

2. The ἄγγελοι are church leaders

a. There is precedent for this term to be applied to human messengers (Mt 11:10).

b. If John were to obey, he would of necessity be writing to other humans because he could not send what he wrote  to a heavenly angel. As Leithart notes, “The more we try to imagine a set of letters sent to angel-spirits, the more implausible it becomes. And then we are left with the unhappy (perhaps unfair) suspicion that commentators do not think Jesus really intended John to write to the angels at all” (Leithart, ITC, 1:123).

c. The ἄγγελοι are held responsible for for the conduct of the churches.

d. A call to repent (2:5, 16) can only be addressed to a human. Even if this is understood as a call for the whole church to repent, as I think it should be, it would be hard to exclude the messenger from the call to repentance since it is addressed to him. It would seem inappropriate to command an unfallen angel to repent (cf. Caesarius of Arles in Latin Commentaries on Revelation, ACC, 66; Leithart, ITC, 1:123).

e. It would be difficult to imagine a church being judged for the failure of its representative angel.