Another scene is presented in the 13th chapter, where the rise of the papacy, or Roman Catholic power, is represented by a leopard beast having the same "mouth speaking great things" that appeared in the "little horn" of Daniel seven. "And power was given unto him to continue forty and two months" (v. 5), which is the same time-period, again, of twelve hundred and sixty years. Following this the period of Protestantism is represented by a beast "coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon" (v. 11). The length of the time-period of this second beast is here omitted, but the sphere of its activity is succeeded (in chap. 14) by a victorious church, the fall of Babylon, and the present reformation work in which the everlasting gospel, the gospel that really saves, is once more preached "unto them that dwell on the earth." In connection with this also is the judgment which Daniel says is "given to the saints of the Most High;" that is, the judgment against the false religions of spiritual Babylon.
In the 18th chapter, in connection with Babylon's fall, we have God's people called out of her. "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double" (vs. 4-6). Thus the time is come that 'judgment is given to the saints' and the 'saints possess the kingdom.'
Spiritual Babylon represents Rome first, and Protestantism second. In the Critical Commentary by Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, in the comments on Rev. 18:4, we have the following quoted from Hahn in Auberlen: "The harlot is not Rome alone (though she is preeminently so), but every Church that has not Christ's mind and spirit. False Christendom, divided into very many sects, is truly Babylon, i. e., confusion." The literal Babylon was an ancient city situated on the Euphrates River. In it God's people Israel were held captive for seventy years, or until liberated by the Persian king Cyrus. This is used as a figure of the captivity of God's spiritual Israel in spiritual Babylon. The word Babylon means confusion, and it is fittingly applied to the confused religion as represented by the whole picture of Roman Catholicism and the Protestant sects.
In the 34th chapter of Ezekiel the gathering of God's people and their deliverance from false relations is represented by a shepherd seeking out his flock and delivering them. "As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel" (vs. 12-14).
The cloudy and dark day of Protestantism, when the light of truth shines, not in its entire brightness, nor yet as entirely obscured, is also referred to in the 14th chapter of Zechariah. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light" (vs. 6, 7). Thank God, the day of mingled light is past, and we are in the full light of the evening, when the whole truth is once more preached in its fullness, without hypocrisy and without reserve.
Thus we see that the present movement among God's people toward holiness and unity, out of denominationalism, is prophetically represented as a new epoch for the church.