Read Revelation 17 at Bible Gateway.
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” Rev 17:1-2
And another angel followed, saying, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” Rev 14:8
The similar language is the Scripture’s way of showing us that these two passages are thematically connected and are talking about the same thing. Of Babylon, the charge against her is that she has made all nations drink the wine of her fornication. Babylon is introduced to us in Scripture in Gen 10:10 and 11:1-9, the Tower of Babel rebellion. Babel is the Hebrew name, Babylon is the Greek name, but they both refer to the same place. We see that in the Tower of Babel rebellion, all nations also participated. What is her great fornication? It is her ideology with which she made all nations drunk, of rebellion against God, expressed in paganism, the worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:18-32).
Reading the old historians, before the rejection of biblical authority in history, furthermore reveals that Nimrod, the king of Babel, established paganism and all its most depraved aspects: occultism, black magic, human sacrifice, and every perversion and immorality as an expression of worship of idols through the course of the natural year (lunar phases and solar soltices and equinoxes). Every nation, of the seventy nations which were founded by Noah’s grandsons and great- grandsons listed in Gen 10, participated in the rebellion at Babel.
The worldview of Babylon/ the Tower of Babel IS Mystery Babylon the Great. This is the head of gold (Dan 2:36-38) of the kingdoms of this world, and is still the prevalent worldview in the world today. That men must be ruled by lording over, rather than served, by their great men. The concept of empire, or lust for power, or refusal to be content with their natural power and authority. That God doesn’t exist, or is too distant to be involved in the affairs of men, so governments must act as god for the people (Nimrod, as king, was also the high priest of the sun god, and the embodiment of the sun god and its voice to the people. Babylonianism always seeks to add religious to political authority or vice versa). That God is not the Creator, and nature instead must be served and worshiped as god.
The judgment that John is about to see, is the result of the angel’s proclamation of the fall of Babylon in Rev 14:8, which, we have since learned, comes about by the pouring out of the seventh bowl of wrath as is revealed in Rev 16:19.
So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written:
MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. Rev 17:3-6
The woman is identified for us as Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and all the abominations of the earth. All those things that we learn about in Torah, that the LORD hates as abominations, Babylon is the mother of them.
She is arrayed in purple and scarlet, in other words, she is dressed in the color of royalty, or is expressed through political power of kings and kingdoms; and is dressed in the color of the senate of the Roman church, or is expressed through ecclesiastical power. She is adorned with gold and precious stones, in other words, she enjoys the world’s wealth. She is drunk with the blood of martyrs, in other words, she is the one who wages war against the saints and sheds their blood.
revelation 17, seven heads of the beast
revelation 17, ten horns of the beast
revelation 17, ten horns of the beast, part two
revelation 17, ten horns of the beast, part three
revelation 17, ten horns of the beast, part four
revelation 17, ten horns of the beast, part five
Return to revelation index of studies
Christine’s book The Revelation of Jesus Christ Revealed, based on these studies but greatly expanded, is now available at Revelation Revealed Online. You may also be interested in reading the Book Extras and joining in on the Discussion.
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