“The conquests of the Church are won over the graves of many of its members …”
—Dr. Ludwig Krapf
When Ludwig Krapf’s wife died in Mombasa in July 1844, he told his friend Richard Waters, that his “heart and body wept for many days.”1 In the midst of the grief, and recovering from malarial fever, he wrote home to his mission in England, explaining the need to push forward despite the setback. He wrote, “Think not of the victims who in this glorious warfare may suffer or fall; only press forward …”
In the letter, Krapf continued, “the conquests of the Church are won over the graves of many of its members.” What did he mean by this? And, what is the relationship between the “conquests of the Church” and “many of its members?”
The New Testament has a lot to say about spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6:10-20; 2 Corinthians 10:4-5; 1 Peter 5:8), but Revelation 12:10-17 helps us understand the broader context of spiritual warfare.
The Conquests of the Church
In the vision of Revelation 12, John saw the conquest of the dragon against the woman as she waited for the birth of her child. This was a vision of Satan, waiting as Israel (the pregnant woman) was expecting the coming of the Christ (the male child). Satan was waiting to destroy and devour the child, but all his attempts failed. The story truncates the life, sacrificial death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and jumps to the point where he was “taken up to God” (Acts 1:9), and the scene changes to heaven, where Michael and the angels were fighting with the dragon and his angels. Satan, and his angels were thrown down. Salvation, and the power and kingdom of God, and the authority of his Christ have come (Revelation 12:10, see also John 12:31; Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14-15).
But Satan is not through, and the conquests of the Church now become very personal. He could not topple the throne of Christ, nor destroy the Body of Christ (either on earth or in heaven). His realm of warfare is now limited to earth—“for the devil has come down to you in great wrath” (vs. 12). In a final frenzied attack—for he knows that “his time is short”—Satan now focuses on the individual members of Christ’s body, the remainder of the offspring of the woman (vs. 17).
Many of its members
The fiery darts of the wicked one is the lot of every Christian, and we need to be sober and able to stand against the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:11-16, 1 Peter 5:8). There are some, however, who are called to “resist unto blood” (Hebrews 12:4) in the conquests of the Church—to give their lives for the sake of the gospel. Krapf evidently saw his wife in that category.
While Rosine Krapf was not a martyr in the normal sense (Revelation 6:10; 17:6), yet she is among the “many” who “loved not their lives even unto death” (Revelation 12:11). Lord, help us to live in the spirit of Rosine Krapf!
- Aaron Dunlop, Johann Ludwig Krapf: His Life and Legacy, (Peterborough: Joshua Press, 2022), 49. ↩︎