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Steve Wells ~

SW: ... "Unless it was: "Well, it is now, but it didn't use to be. You see, there was a war in heaven a long time ago. But that's all taken care of now. Now whatever God wants in heaven, God gets." Is that what you were saying?"

Yes, essentially. The simple solution here is to notice that Jesus Did Not Say, "Thy will be done on earth, as it /has always been done/ in heaven." His reference to the performance of God's will in heaven in no way posits or implies that God's will was always done in heaven. With or without positing "hyper-ethereal sub-accountability" -- um, thanks anyway Jeff -- it seems clear that the groundwork for this objection is just not found in the texts.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock

Greetings Sightseer ~

SS: "Before you can use Rev 12:7 as a standpoint to dispute a previous verse from the bible(Mt 6:10) you must first read the entire chapter which contains the verse to get the understanding of the verse."

Okay. Having done that, I interpret 12:1-2 as one part of the vision (representing the progress of the nation of Israel toward the arrival of the Messiah), and 12:3-4a as another part of the vision which represents events which chronologically preceded the events symbolized in 12:1-2 (namely, Satan's rebellion in heaven). The two scenes are presented in ch. 12 sort of like two TV-sets on two different channels side-by-side.

When we get to 12:7, we're looking at details of the event mentioned in 4a ("And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth"). Using this approach, when 12:9 mentions that the dragon ~ explicitly identified as Satan ~ was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him, it's re-stating in plain terms what was related symbolically in 12:4a; the "third of the stars of heaven" are visual proxies, in the vision, for the angels who joined Satan in his rebellion.

SS: ... "Rev 12:7 is a description of a sign that was seen and witnessed. Never once is it said to factually be an occurence of a situation in heaven."

??? The "stars of heaven" are mentioned in 12:4; 12:7 says "And there was war in heaven"; 12:8 says that the result of the conflict between Michael's hosts and the dragon's was that their (the dragon's and his angels') place was not found any more /"in heaven"/. While throughout the book of Revelation, visions appear "in heaven," i.e., in the sky or in the spiritual realm as perceived by the author, istm that it would be very hard for the author to communicate that he saw events that transpired in heaven if we do not so picture this account.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock