Revelation 12:2: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

God the Father convened the grand council on Kolob to implement the plan of salvation among his spirit children and, as part of this process, he organized the premortal church of God.¹ In John's vision, the pregnant woman in Revelation 12:2 symbolizes this formative event in heaven before the foundations of the earth were laid.² The woman's painful travailing in birth³ is a symbol for Lucifer's rebellion during the grand council.⁴ His fall caused the heavens (God's faithful spirit children)⁵ to weep in anguish.⁶

The symbol of the pregnant woman in Revelation 12:2 has been interpreted in many different ways.⁷ Most interpretations focus on earthly events such as the mortal birth of Jesus Christ,⁸ the growth of Christ's ancient earthly church through conversions,⁹ the persecutions of the earthly church after Christ's death,¹⁰ and even the trials of the earthly church prior to the Second Coming.¹¹ These events are only earthly likenesses¹² of the travail experienced by the premortal church (the woman) that literally occurred in heaven when Lucifer rebelled during the grand council on Kolob.¹³

Some scholars also believe the image of the woman in travail represents the pains of the latter-day church of Christ at the time of his Second Coming.¹⁴ That cannot be the case. When Christ comes again he will destroy all corruption and wickedness without travail.¹⁵ Furthermore, and in symbolic terms, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will give birth to the man child representing Jesus Christ¹⁶ without travail as he begins to rule all nations with a rod of iron.¹⁷ That is, the latter-day church will coronate Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords at Adam-ondi-Ahman without any travail of the kind that existed in heaven during the grand council.¹⁸ After the man child's painless birth (coronation) at Adam-ondi-Ahman there will be much travail in the world during the next 3½ years of the Great Tribulation before the Second Coming.¹⁹ However, this worldly travail will not afflict the church located safely in Zion at the New Jerusalem in Missouri.²⁰