Christ, Christianity and the Bible

by Isaac Massey Haldeman

The woman is called “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

In the twenty-fifth chapter of the book, the BRIDE OF THE LAMB, the true church of Christ, is symbolized by a city—THE NEW JERUSALEM. Babylon and Jerusalem stand always opposed to each other. Babylon is the centre of Satanic power and testimony—its name signifies mixture, confusion. Jerusalem is the centre of God’s dealings and testimony—it signifies peace and righteousness. If, therefore, the city of New Jerusalem is a symbol of the true church of Christ and the church of Christ is called a “mystery,” then this woman called Babylon, said to be a City and also called a “mystery,” is a symbol of the false church of Christ; and, being a harlot, and the mother of harlots, or churches like herself (and thus the Mother Church), and harlot signifying fornication, and fornication, idolatry—image worship—then a professed Church of Christ, which teaches and practises image worship.

The great city ruling over the kings of the earth in John’s day and situated on seven mountains, or “mounts,” is ROME; as the city represents the woman Babylon who is the symbol of the false Church of Christ, then you have a false church of Christ seated (and remember, the word is “seated”) in Rome. A Church seated in Rome is a Roman Church; and as the city rules over the earth, over the world; and a world-wide rule is a universal rule; and the word for universal, worldwide, is, also, “catholic,” you have a catholic church; and, seated in Rome (Rome its capital centre), THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

This Church is said to be drunken with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and the pages of history glued together with the blood of these same martyrs, and the burning, blistering record of the “Holy Inquisition,” affirm that the astounding picture is true in all its crimson and scarlet details.

But the striking feature in the picture, and the one that is first presented to us, is that the woman (the Church) is carried by a beast. This beast is a symbol of government and teaches that the Church “rules” over the governments of the world, is sustained by the State, has attained to “temporal power.” As the picture occurs in the third division of the book, and that division relates to things still future, we have here a distinct prophecy that this Apostate Roman Church shall again attain to temporal power, become a State Church, supported and carried officially by the nations of the earth.

The exactitude with which the picture has been painted, and that, too, at a time when Rome had not yet come into the place of full-blown apostasy and power; the startling way in which, step by step, the prophetic outlines have been fulfilled even in our day, are tremendously suggestive concerning the possibility of its complete and final fulfilment; and bid us ask most earnestly—whence came the mental eyesight which enabled the writer of the book to sketch out for us centuries ahead of time, that which the page of after history reveals to us as facts?

The social, financial, governmental, religious and moral condition of the present time have been portrayed in the book we call the Bible. The coming of a special class called “rich” men as a particular characteristic of this age, the revolt of labor, and its cry against the wrongs of capital, were all set forth in the epistle of James, nigh two thousand years ago, with an accuracy that is not to be explained on natural grounds. So absolutely unnatural is it, that it is perfectly safe to say—these things are not such as a man could write if he would.

That the book is not to be explained on natural grounds is evident from the fact that it is not a CONSTRUCTION, but a GROWTH; not an ORGANIZATION, but an ORGANISM, growing up from Genesis to Revelation like a tree from root through trunk and branch to leaf and fruit.

Each book of the Bible will be found on examination to stand related organically to one another; and that each occupies its necessary and sequential order.

In Genesis, you have the beginning of things, the germ and outline of everything afterwards revealed.