The Harlot’s Name!
“The Revelation of our Lord to the Apostle John is a book of signs, in which the things stated symbolize the things meant. To illustrate: In this book a woman is used to represent a church—a pure woman, a pure church—a false woman, an apostate church. In Rev 17:1-6 a picture is given of a false woman, disloyal to her engagement, and therefore no longer worthy to be the bride of Messiah. This unfaithful woman is branded Babylon. We read that she sat upon a beast, a symbolic statement of her control of the power of Rome.
“In her hand this woman held a golden cup full of abominations, and thus symbolically she is represented as making all nations drunk with the wine of false doctrine. The cup suggests that the unfaithful church, symbolized by this woman, had once been the receptacle of divine truth—`Babylon HATH BEEN a golden cup in the Lord’s hands.’ (Jer 51:7) In Rev 17:5 she is called `The Mother of Harlots’—a term suggesting a mother church, and daughter churches which are said to closely resemble the mother. As the mother was called Babylon, the daughters—so like their mother—bear also the family name.” Likewise intimating that the whole brood is illegitimate in every sense of the word.”
Babylon the Great!
“The depravity attributed to `Babylon the Great,’ the peculiarly solemn adjuration to God’s people to come out of her, and the utter and awful destruction denounced against her, all combine to attach great practical importance to the inquiry,
What system is intended by this symbol?
“A perusal of the 17th and 18th Chapters of Revelation shows that Babylon the Great represents a system which should last long, exert a subtle and extensive influence, and be guilty of exceeding iniquity and cruelty. This system must still be in existence seeing its destruction takes place simultaneously with `the marriage of the Lamb,’ an event which we know to be still future; and seeing also that up to the moment of its destruction or very nearly so, children of God will be found more or less connected with it, so that a need will exist for the urgent call `Come out of her, my people.’ This system is prefigured as a cruelly persecuting one, as one that would 'shed the blood of saints and martyrs of Jesus,’ one on whom the Lord God would `avenge the blood of his servants’.”
Some Additional Thoughts on Babylon
“The history of the building of the city and its tower (Gen 11:1-11) called Babel (Akkad, Bibulu, `Gate of God’) is explained by popular etymology based on a similar Hebrew root Babal which means `to mix, confuse.’ Babel, therefore, became a synonym for the confusion caused by the language barriers which God imposed because of the human pride displayed in the building.”
According to Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible, Babylon is the Greek mode of spelling what in the Hebrew is uniformly Babel.
“The name Babylon originally signified God’s gateway; but afterward, in derision, it came to mean mixture or confusion. In the Book of Revelation this name is applied specifically to the church nominal, which, from being the gateway to glory, became a gateway to error and confusion, a miserable mixture composed chiefly of tares, hypocrites, a confused mass of worldly profession in which the Lord’s jewels are buried, and their true beauty and luster hidden.”
“It is clear, therefore, that while many faithful souls, ignorant of the real state of the case, have reverently and devoutly worshiped God within these— Babylon systems (both Catholic and Protestant), nevertheless, this does not alter the fact that they are, one and all, harlot systems. Confusion reigns in them all; and the name Babylon aptly fits the entire family—mother, daughters and accomplices, i.e., the nations styled Christendom. (Rev 18:7; 17:2-6, 18)”
“Come out of her, my people”
“Of this faithful Church the Lord declares, “My sheep know My Voice and they follow Me.” We hear His voice assuring us that it is His will that we who belong to His chaste, espoused virgin class should all be one—should no longer be separated into sects and parties by creedal fences. The Lord declares that He gave Babylon time for repentance and she repented not (There will be no revival or reformation of these systems as some wish). He declares that His sentence against the Babylonian system has already gone forth—that, from the Divine standpoint, already `Babylon is fallen is fallen!’ from Divine favor (Rev 18:2).
What would be the wish of our Beloved, to whom we are betrothed? What is His message to us?
It is written. “Come out of her, MY PEOPLE, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues”—the troubles coming upon her. (Rev. 18:4; John 10:27)
