The Judgment On Babylon

I. The Judgment On Babylon.

II. Introduction. Revelation 17 outlines the judgment on the great harlot, the apostate religious system, that exists in the tribulation period. The unbelieving professing church went into the tribulation period (Rev. 2:22; 3:10) and a great religious system, under the domination of the great harlot, arose.

A. The description of the harlot. John has given many details that furnish a description of this system.

1. The system bears the characterization of a harlot (Rev. 17:1-2, 15-16). It claimed to be Christ’s bride, but had fallen from its pure position and become a harlot.

2. The system is a leader in ecclesiastical affairs (Rev. 17:2, 5). Spiritual fornication in the Scripture has reference to adherence to a false system.

3. The system is a leader in political affairs (Rev. 17:3). It is seen to be controlling the Beast upon which it sits.

4. The system has become very rich and influential (Rev. 17:4).

5. The system represents a phase of the development of Christendom that was hitherto unrevealed (Rev. 17:5) in that it is called a “mystery.”

6. The system has been the great persecutor of the saints (Rev. 17:6).

7. The system is an organized system of worldwide scope (Rev. 17:15).

8. The system will be destroyed by the Beast, the head of the Roman coalition, so that his supremacy may not be threatened (Rev. 17:16-17).

B. The identity of the harlot.

1. Hislop, in his carefully documented book, “The Two Babylons,” has traced the relationship existing between ancient Babylon and the doctrine and practice of the harlot system. As opposed to the often mistranslated “MYSTERY BABYLON,” the NASB correctly translates Rev 17:5, “and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, ‘BABYLON THE GREAT,’ THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

2. The woman is a religious system, who dominates the civil power, at least for a time. The name upon her forehead should easily enable us to identify her. But in order to do that we will do well to go back to our Old Testament, and see what is there revealed concerning literal Babylon, for the one will surely throw light upon the other.

3. We learn that the founder of Bab-el, or Babylon, was Nimrod, of whose unholy achievements we read in the 10th chapter of Genesis. He was the archapostate of the partriarchal age. He persuaded his associates and followers to join together in “building a city and a tower which should reach unto heaven,” to be recognized as a temple or rallying center for those who did not walk in obedience to the word of the Lord. They called their city and tower Bab-El, the gate of God, but it was soon changed by divine judgment into Babel, Confusion. It bore the stamp of unreality from the first, for we are told “they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.” An imitation of that which is real and true has ever since characterized Babylon, in all ages.

4. Nimrod, or Nimrod-bar-Cush, was a grandson of Ham, the unworthy son of Noah. Noah had brought through the flood the revelation of the true God. Ham on the other hand, seems to have been all too readily affected by the apostasy that brought the flood, for he shows no evidence of self-judgment; his name means “swarthy,” “darkened,” or more literally, “the sunburnt.” And, the name indicates the state of the man’s soul, “darkened by light from heaven,” Ham begat a son named Cush, “the black one,” and he became the father of Nimrod, the apostate leader of his generation.

5. Ancient lore now comes to our assistance, and tells us that the wife of Nimrod-bar-Cush was the infamous Semiramis the First. She is reputed to have been the foundress of the Babylonian “mysteries” and the first high-priestess of idolatry. Thus, Babylon became the fountainhead of idolatry, and the mother of every heathen and pagan system in the world. The mystery-religion, that was there originated, spread in various forms throughout the whole earth, “and is with us today,” and shall have its fullest development when the Holy Spirit no longer dewells within mankind, and the Babylon of the Apocalypse holds sway.

6. Building on the primeval promise of the woman’s Seed (Gen 3::15) who was to come, Semiramis bore a son whom she declared was miraculously conceived, and when she presented him to the people, he was hailed as the promised deliverer. This was Tammuz, muz, whose worship Ezekiel protested against in the days of the captivity. Thus was introduced the mystery of the mother and the child, a form of idolatry that is older than any other known to man. The rites of this worship were secret. Only the initiated were permitted to know its mysteries. It was Satan’s effort to delude mankind with an imitation so like the truth of God that they would not know the true Seed of the woman when He came in the fullness of time.

7. From Babylon this mystery-religion spread to all the surrounding nations. Everywhere the symbols were the same, and everywhere the cult of the mother and the child became the popular system, their worship was celebrated with the most disgusting and immoral practices. The image of the queen of heaven with the babe in her arms was seen everywhere, though the names might differ as languages differed. It became the mystery-religion of Phoenicia, and by the Phoenicians was carried to the ends of the earth. Astoreth and Tammuz, the mother and child of these hardy adventurers, became Isis and Horus in Egypt, Aphrodite and Eros in Greece, Venus and Cupid in Italy, and bore many other names in more distant places. Within 1000 years Babylonianism had become the religion of the world, which had rejected the Divine revelation.

8. Linked with this central mystery were countless lesser mysteries. Among these were the doctrines of purgatorial purification after death, salvation by countless sacraments such as priestly absolution, sprinkling with holy water, the offering of round cakes to the queen of heaven as mentioned in the book of Jeremiah, dedication of virgins to the gods, which was literally sanctified prostitution, weeping for Tammuz for a period of 40 days, prior to the great festival of Istar, who was said to have received her son back from the dead; for it was taught that Tammuz was slain by a wild boar and afterwards brought back to life. To him the egg was sacred, as depicting the mystery of his resurrection, even as the evergreen was his chosen symbol and was set up in honor of his birth at the winter solstice, when a boar’s head was eaten in memory of his conflict and a yulelog burned with many mysterious observances. The sign of the cross was sacred to Tammuz, as symbolizing the life-giving principle and as the first letter of his name. It is represented upon vast numbers of the most ancient altars and temples, and did not, as many have supposed, originate with Christianity.

9. From this mystery-religion, the patriarch Abraham was separated by divine call; and with this same evil cult the nation that sprang from him was in constant conflict, until under Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, it was grafted onto what was left of the religion of Israel in the northern kingdom in the day of Ahab, and was the cause of their captivity at last. Judah was polluted by it, for Baal-worship was but the Canaanitish form of the Babylonian mysteries, and only by being sent into captivity to Babylon itself did Judah become cured of her fondness for idolatry. Baal was the Sun-God, the Life-giving One, identical with Tammuz.

10. Though Babylon as a city had long been but a memory, her mysteries had not died with her. When the city and temples were destroyed, the high-priest fled with a company of initiates and their sacred vessels and images to Pergamos, where the symbol of the serpent was set up as the emblem of the hidden wisdom. From there, they afterwards crossed the sea and emigrated to Italy. There the ancient cult was propagated under the name of the Etruscan Mysteries, and eventually Rome became the headquarters of Babylonianism. The chief priests wore mitres shaped like the head of a fish, in honor of Dagon, the fish-god, the Lord of life, another form of the Tammuz mystery, as developed among Israel’s old enemies, the Philistines. The chief priest when established in Rome took the title Pontifex Maximus, and this was imprinted on his mitre. When Julius Caesar (who, like all young Romans of good family, was an initiate) had become the head of the State, he was elected Pontifex Maximum, and this title was held henceforth by all the Roman emperors down to Constantine the Great, who was, at one and the same time, head of the church and high priest of the heathen! The title was afterwards conferred upon the bishops of Rome, and is borne by the pope today, who is thus declared to be, not the successor of the fisherman-apostle Peter, but the direct successor of the high priest of the Babylonian mysteries, and the servant of the fish-god Dagon, for whom he wears, like his idolatrous predecessors, the fisherman’s ring.

11. During the early centuries of the church’s history, the mystery of iniquity had wrought with such astounding effect, and Babylonian practices and teachings had been so largely absorbed by that which bore the name of the church of Christ, that the truth of the Holy Scriptures on many points had been wholly obscured, while idolatrous practices had been foisted upon the people as Christian sacraments, and heathen philosophies took the place of gospel instruction. Thus was developed that amazing system which for a thousand years dominated Europe and trafficked in the bodies and souls of men, until the great Reformation of the 16th century brought in a measure of deliverance.

12. It is not too much to say that the false doctrines and practices found within Romanism are directly attributable to the union of this paganism with Christianity when Constantine declared Rome to be a Christian empire. It is thus concluded that the harlot represents all professing Christendom united in a single system under one head.

C. The judgment on the harlot.

1. John clearly depicts the judgment upon this corrupt system when he says: “And the ten horns which thou saw upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled” [Rev. 17:16-17].

2. The Beast, who was dominated by the harlot system (Rev. 17:3), rises against her and destroys her and her system completely. Without doubt the harlot system was in competition with the religious worship of the Beast, promoted by the False Prophet, and her destruction is brought about so that the Beast may be the sole object of false worship as he claims to be God.

III. Study References.

All of my study references are listed in my Page, About My References.