Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus..."
(Revelation 12:17)
The relation of verse 17 to the preceding verses is one of the most challenging interpretive problems in the book. The difficulty focuses on the nature of the difference, if any, between the woman and her offspring, and how they are respectively depicted. The woman in (Rev. 12:6,13-16) depicts the church (and the suffering she undergoes) as she is seen from the ideal, eternal, or heavenly perspective, and her offspring in (verse 17) depict the multitude of individual believers (and the suffering they experience) as seen from an earthly or historical perspective. The woman is presented in (Rev. 12:1) as "in heaven" and in heavenly attire, and the same woman is also presented as suffering on earth (Rev. 12:6,13-16). She continues to be viewed from a heavenly, ideal perspective even in the consideration of her sufferings on earth. In verse 17, however, the same suffering is portrayed from an earthly perspective as the suffering of individual believers. This simply represents two different ways of viewing the church: as a corporate or "ideal" body, the way God sees it from His perspective, and as a community of individuals, which is the way we experience it on earth.
Consequently, the point of (Rev. 12:13-17), taken together, would be that the one heavenly church being persecuted on earth cannot be destroyed (God's perspective) because it is heavenly and ultimately inviolable spiritually, but the many who individually compose the church can suffer physically from earthly dangers (our perspective), but not be destroyed spiritually.
(G.K. Beale)
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