Biblion Bible Commentary
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They Overcame Him by the Blood
Revelation 12:10-12
10 I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, the power, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ has come; for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night. · WEB
The victory hymn names the accuser disbarred and gives the saints' three-part means of overcoming — blood, testimony, and life not loved to death.
I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, the power, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ has come; for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night."
The hymn interprets the war Revelation 12:7–9, and its now is anchored where the vision anchored it — at the child's enthronement: the cross and its sequel. What the expulsion means is stated as a courtroom event: the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down. Satan's one legal function — the prosecution he ran day and night, Job's accuser and Joshua's Job 1:9–11 Zechariah 3:1 — is abolished: disbarred, his standing gone, because the blood has answered every charge on the docket Romans 8:33–34. Heaven's celebration is specific: the courtroom is cleansed of the prosecutor.
They overcame him because of the Lamb's blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn't love their life, even to death Revelation 12:11.
The verse is the book's whole doctrine of victory, and the letters' conquering verb Revelation 3:21 finally receives its means — three, in order. The Lamb's blood — the objective ground: the saints' victory over the accuser is the cross applied; they win with a verdict already won Revelation 5:9. The word of their testimony — the blood believed becomes the blood spoken: confession as combat, the martyr-word as the church's one weapon in a war it fights unarmed Revelation 1:9 Revelation 6:9. And the third clause, which no triumphalism survives: they didn't love their life, even to death. The saints overcome the dragon by being killable — holding testimony above survival, the Lamb's own method Revelation 5:6: the dragon has no purchase on people who cannot be threatened with the loss of what they have already laid down.
Therefore rejoice, heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has gone down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time Revelation 12:12.
One event, two proclamations: heaven's joy and earth's woe — the eagle's third woe Revelation 11:14 revealed as the devil's own descent. And the verse ends with the book's deepest insight into the enemy's psychology: great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time. The dragon's fury is not confidence; it is the rage of a defeated litigant against a clock. The violence of history's last era is eschatology in the enemy's own calendar — he has read the verdict, and the reader is told so.
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