Revelation 12 On an examination of the predictions contained in the two or three succeeding chapters, which are those connected with the sounding of the seventh trumpet, it will be evident that they prefigure contests between the cause of Christ and the hostile influences to which it is exposed; the woman and the child representing the church, and the dragon her enemies. Some commentators consider these contests as the struggles of the early church against Jewish and pagan hostility; while others consider the dragon as the emblem of Popery, and of course they extend the period of this conflict down to much later times.