The Revelation of St. John the Divine

by A. H. Ames

The Babylon which John saw and whose rise and fall he predicts was one that embraced in itself the unbounded pride, the self-sufficingness, the love of sorceries and dark arts of magic, along with the demoralizing practices of a great mart of commerce—a mongrel figure into which all forms of evil and sin were woven.

The probability, therefore, is that John meant to describe, not any individual or definite city or Church, but the incarnation of a spurious and apostate Christianity which, assuming the appearance of the true, is animated by principles wholly destitute of and antagonistic to the power and life of Christianity, and thus deludes only to destroy.

This opinion derives confirmation from the connection in which the section stands. Up to this point the writer of the Revelation has been collecting his data, so to speak, summing up the elementary forces, friendly and hostile, which have to do with the success or failure of the kingdom of Christ. He has announced its fundamental principles, the means by which it is to be carried forward, the enemies which must be encountered. It now remains for him to show in a concrete form the results. At the close of the Revelation he shows us the result of success in that exquisite picture of the ideal true Christianity. But before doing this he also shows the result of failure in the picture of the ideal false Christianity. The antitheses between the two are drawn out in sharp contrasts.

In chapter xxi, 9, it is said to him, “Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” Here (xvii, 1) it is said to him, “Come hither: I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.”

In chapter xxi, 6, it is written, “He said unto me, It is done.” So here (chapter xvi, 17), when the seventh angel poured out his vial a voice was heard crying, “It is done.”

In chapter xii, where for the first time the field of battle is described and the enumeration of the hostile forces is begun, religion is presented to us under the figure of a woman who has fled to the wilderness. Since then the trial is supposed to have been gone through with, the long war has been fought, the varying moments of the struggle have been detailed, and we are now brought to the summing up of the issue.

In chapter xxi, 10, John is carried away “in the spirit to a great and high mountain,” and there is shown him the woman in the form of “that great city,” “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (verse 2). Here (xvii, 3, 4) he is carried away “in the spirit into the wilderness,” and he sees the woman; but now she is sitting “upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, ... arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold.” She has failed in the conflict. She has not come victorious out of the wilderness, as Christ did after his temptation. She has made peace with her enemies. She has joined with the flesh, the world, and the devil. She is no longer spotless and pure, ready for her bridal with the Lamb, but has become a harlot.

Thus, once, Orpah and Ruth stood together by the side of Naomi, while the Holy Land beckoned them all toward it. Ruth chose that better part and, sheltered beneath the hovering wings of the God of Israel, found peace and rest and an eternal portion with the saints; but Orpah loved the blue hills of Moab and, though sadly and reluctantly, turned back to idolatry and oblivion and spiritual death.

Such a conflict awaits us all; and the issue must be, either that happy one hereafter to be more accurately described under the figure of the New Jerusalem, or else that alliance with the powers of darkness which John records in the emblem of Babylon.

The details of the description given of Babylon add further confirmation to the explanation offered above. In chapters xii and xiii the three great enemies of the kingdom of Christ were enumerated—the dragon and his emissaries, the two beasts. In the present chapter (xvii) they are represented as combined. The woman is seen sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast. She is arrayed in purple and scarlet, but not in “fine linen,” which is “the righteousness of saints.” She has in her hand a cup, but instead of the sacramental blood of the Lamb, it is full of “abominations and filthiness of her fornication.” She is not “filled with the Spirit,” but “drunken with the blood of the saints,” for “she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many strong men have been slain by her” (Proverbs vii, 26).