Revelation 18:1

REV:18

The relationship of this chapter to the preceding one is generally admitted, although there are several views with regard to the exact nature of that relationship. That the judgment of the great whore is still under consideration seems certain; but Criswell thought that Revelation 18 deals with the particular "judgment of God himself upon Babylon,"[1] as sharply distinguished from the judgment of Revelation 17, in which "the nations of earth, not by the intervention of heaven, but by something that mankind does, grow weary of her and destroy her."[2] As we see it, this is a distinction without a difference. "God puts into their hearts to do his mind" (Revelation 17:17); therefore, it is still God's judgment in both instances. The judgment of Jerusalem was nonetheless God's, because it was executed by Roman armies (Matthew 22:7); nor is the destruction of the harlot any less the judgment of God himself because it was effected by multiple kingdoms of the earth who finally had enough of her.

In the great judgment scene of Revelation 16:20, the final overthrow of "Babylon the great" was briefly mentioned; and both Revelation 17 and Revelation 18 are a double recapitulation of that same event, Revelation 17 being given over to the revelation of "Babylon's" identity, as indicated by the brief tie-in by another reference to her destruction in Revelation 17:17. Next, comes Revelation 18 with a particular close-up of conditions in Babylon on the eve of the final overthrow in the last judgment. One of the big expressions in this chapter is "one hour," that being the period of the ten kings (Revelation 17:12) who "burnt" the whore and ate her, not realizing in doing so that they also destroyed themselves. These are the mysteries cleared up in chapter 18. Thus it will be seen that the principal events here are what takes place against Apostate Christianity during the period of the ten kings and the eighth beast with whom they are surely identified and to whom they gave their mind and authority.

Ladd gave this analysis of Revelation 18:

After foretelling the destruction of Babylon by the beast (the ten kings) and his vassal kings, a long section on the same theme depicts in greater detail the destruction of the once proud city.[3]

Thus, both Revelation 17 and Revelation 18 are successive "close-ups" of the great judgment of Revelation 16:20. At the end of these (Revelation 18:21), the final judgment is again symbolized by the hurling of the mighty boulder into the sea, making both of these chapters another recapitulation ending in exactly the same place as the previous sections have ended; namely, in the final judgment of the last day. In our interpretation, the events of chapter 18 are future from our own times, because they belong to the period of the ten kings and the eighth beast which apparently have not yet been fully manifested upon earth. Still, there have been enough "partial" fulfillments to leave an element of uncertainty. Here is an outline of the chapter:

A CLOSE-UP OF BABYLON'S JUDGMENT

1. The announcement of her fall (Revelation 18:1-8).

2. Consequences of her fall for the world (Revelation 18:9-20).

3. The finality of her doom (Revelation 18:21-24).

THE IDENTITY OF THE HARLOT

Once more, it is incumbent upon us to explain our persistent identification of the harlot with Apostate Christianity, the great Roman Catholic Church itself being a conspicuous element of that apostasy, but by no means all of it. The extensive details in this chapter regarding business, commerce, merchandise, and trade have led some to make confident assertions limiting these references to pagan Rome, overlooking the fact, as Alford pointed out, that, "The difficulty of doing so is unsolved."[4] Whatever may be intended by these elaborate commercial symbols:

One thing cannot be denied: the muddy Tiber flowing through Rome could never carry the enormous maritime traffic portrayed here. Pagan Rome was never famous as a center of selling and exchanging merchandise.[5]

Despite all the insoluble problems of doing so, some scholars insist that the harlot is pagan Rome. "Babylon is a figure of the city of Rome."[6] "The great harlot symbolizes the city of Rome."[7] The destruction of the harlot is used here to picture "the destruction of the Babylon of the New Testament, Rome,"[8] etc. Nevertheless, we are certain that this view is incorrect and that the elaborate commercial symbols which in no sense can properly symbolize pagan Rome have a far more appropriate meaning.

There are some who cannot see anything here except Papal Rome as the harlot; and, as Smith said, "There is much here to support their view,"[9] but, as frequently noted in this commentary, we simply cannot thus limit it. Much more is involved than the Papacy, despite the undeniable truth that the Papacy must certainly be included in the meaning.

Morris rejected the inadequacy of applying this chapter merely to pagan Rome, thus:

John is thinking not of the fall of one city or empire but of the collapse of civilization. Final judgment means the overthrow of all that opposes itself to God.[10]

This is correct as far as it goes, but it falls short of including the religious situation as it must be related to all this. In short, it leaves out the Papacy (as so many do); and without that nothing is explained.

Wilbur M. Smith believed that the fall here presented is that of the "Apostate Christianity, the world religion that has betrayed Christ, and is interlocked with pagan, godless governments."[11] This too is correct as far as it goes, but it leaves unexplained the inconceivable grief in which the very people who destroyed the Apostate Christianity greeted the actual accomplishment of it. To understand this is to understand the passage. True, the destruction of the harlot was the destruction of Apostate Christianity; but that is not all it was. Merely getting rid of all religion would have been greeted with howls of glee all over the world if that had been all that the destruction of the harlot meant. We shall attempt to show the larger picture of what actually is prophesied as happening.

The limited views already noted, that "the great world-city," "cities everywhere," "urban civilization," etc., are what is meant by the harlot, is absolutely contradicted by one thing, the hatred of the ten kings (Revelation 17:17) who are the symbols of great world governments. We cannot imagine, nor can anyone else, that there can ever come a time when the great governments of the earth will "hate" urban civilization, the great world city, or cities everywhere, which have always been, are now, and shall ever continue to be the very essence and foundation of world governments. Could any government hate and willfully destroy its tax base? We cannot believe that Revelation prophesies any such thing. Is it not clear that it is the religious thing which will at last incur the wrath and hatred of the kings? This is the undeniable fact that absolutely requires that the Papacy and related phenomena be included in the understanding of who the whore is, and all that was involved in her destruction.

The ten kings, who are the executioners of God's wrath upon the whore, will hate her, not the great populous cities of the world, either singly or collectively; but what they will overlook in their terminal assault upon the whore is that the whore herself is the principal element of stability in the whole civilized world, and that her fall will have fatal repercussions for themselves. Christendom, in a remarkable degree, is an edifice constructed by the harlot; and this is as good a place as any to take a look at the harlot's contribution to the world structure in which she is yet the principal glue that holds the whole thing together.

ADMIRATION OF THE HARLOT

John himself wondered at the harlot "with great admiration" (Revelation 17:6 KJV), and there are ample reasons for our own very great admiration of her. Some of these are:

1. The stern, basic moralities advocated and taught by the Apostate Church are the principal foundation of all commerce, business, industry, and trade. Nearly half a billion Roman Catholics are basically honest, virtuous, sober, truthful, and diligent, opposed to violence, murder, theft, abortion, etc. Without such virtues, which the Apostate Church has effectively promulgated, no business, industry, or civilization can endure. To be sure, the Apostate Church has allowed, or even sold the right of violation of these principles, nevertheless her achievement in enforcing them generally cannot be denied.

2. The art, music, architecture, and culture of our whole civilization are, in large measure, the achievement of the harlot. Volumes could be written about any one of these.

3. The stability and sanctity of marriage and the home, which is the basic building block of all civilized order, are due, more than to any other single agency of their advocacy, to the accomplishments of the harlot. What will happen to any society when such things are no longer effectively advocated and promulgated? The incredibly dark scenes of this chapter which confounded the "smart" kings who decided to get rid of religion, with the sudden and unexpected result, when they had done so, of their glee being turned into howling misery - these scenes depict exactly what happened!

4. It is the Roman Catholic Church which alone is the worldwide Christianity, imperfect and apostate though it is; and there is not a church of any name on earth today that does not in some degree stand indebted to her accomplishments, which have been providentially used for the protection of the truly faithful. Nevertheless, "the true followers of Christ" on earth today are a dwindling minority with reference to the whole of mankind; and when the Apostate Christianity is destroyed, as it will be, that minority will either go underground or perish, thus reducing what little impact they have upon "all people" even further toward the vanishing point.

Here then, in Revelation 18, is the mystery of the ten kings hating the whore. They are blind to the truth that when they "burn her with fire" and destroy her, they will at the same time kindle the fires of their own destruction, remove the keystone from the arch of world order, and reduce the vaunted civilization of which they are a part to utter chaos and disorder. The foolish dream of modern humanist fools who vainly believe that they can produce a good society apart from its roots in the religion of Christ is an idiot's nightmare. The fruits of a Christian world (imperfect as they are) will not be kept alive apart from their roots in the word of God. When "the kings" shall see what follows their removal of the whore, that is when the howling, the wailing, the cries, the mourning, and the casting of dust on their heads will take place. In America today, there are at the top intellectual level a horde of humanistic atheists who are paving the way for the "ten kings." "The 1955 Harvard Report on Education claimed that Western Civilization would never again utilize Christianity as the foundation of our social structure."[12] This report rejected Christianity without ever knowing what it really is. The harlot has herself long resorted to war and cruelty as instruments of policy; and this fact colored their distorted view. They just overlooked other qualities of the harlot's work.

"The mystery of iniquity" is in this (2 Thessalonians 2:7), and other theological questions of the utmost significance are also present.

When every church on earth has lost its tax status and the Christian religion is outlawed everywhere as it already is in Russia, the situation will be the beginning of what Revelation 18 describes. All enterprise, business, commerce, industry, trade, etc., will be slowed down, thwarted and halted, because the basic morality upon which such enterprise rests will have been destroyed. Human rights will no longer exist. The basic ethics of the harlot are Christian in many particulars; and when she falls, the disaster will be sudden, complete, and final. The sacred virtues of the holy faith in Christ will be unable to prevail afterwards, except in a beleaguered remnant. The reason for this is that the harlot taught such basic virtues as hers, existing through her authority, and enforced through her power, and not as Christ's requirements. This was the fatal error. When she falls, as far as the world as a whole is concerned, all the hoops will be removed from the barrel of the world's morality and order.

For these, and a multitude of other considerations, we must, through our tears, see the harlot as Apostate Christianity, most conspicuously represented by that form of it known all over the world in every village and hamlet of it, and the sole historical figure large enough to fit the description of it; namely, the Papal system and its derivatives.

And what are those derivatives? Practically all of Protestantism is included in this. What church is free of the guilt? This writer has experienced in his own ministry bulls of excommunication, anathemas, and denunciations just as bitter as any ever issued by any Pope, and which came from little popes and agents of Diotrephes from within his own communion. Where is the church that does not have its synod, conference, presbyter, president, moderator, chairman, or some other substitute for a pope? And if these are not found, some college, publication, preacher, or other functionary is allowed to serve the same end. Christendom itself is apostate; and we freely confess that we do not know any patent solution of the problem. Freely admitting this still leaves us no escape from reading the harlot as the one most conspicuously identified as the historical church and its papal apparatus. If there is any solution of the apostasy, it must be allowed as the one proposed by Reuel Lemmons, distinguished editor of the Firm Foundation: "Let us be sure that those whom we convert are truly converted to Christ."[13]

When God used Rome to destroy apostate Israel (Jerusalem), as revealed in Matthew 22:7, the true Israel (the church) was also nearly annihilated at the same time; and from this we may suppose that when the new Israel turned harlot receives the wrath of God from the "ten kings," that the righteous remnant of the true faith will suffer their greatest test. We pray that in our understanding Roman Catholicism as the harlot, that this extended explanation and definition of it will also be considered. There is nothing narrow, sectional, denominational, or vindictive in this. It is a tragedy that reaches all the way to heaven, and the shadow of the apostasy, in one form or another, falls upon every Christian upon earth. For some, it is in the innovations with which they worship God; for others it is the totalitarian organization of their church; for some it is the perverted form of the baptism they receive; for many it is the secularization of their faith; for yet others it is the false idea that the church is the dispenser of salvation; for still others it is their acceptance of tradition instead of the word of God; and many have elevated a "priesthood" between themselves and the Lord, etc.

[1] W. A. Criswell, Expository Sermons on Revelation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1962), IV, p. 16.

[2] Ibid.

[3] George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972), p. 235.

[4] Alford as quoted by Wilbur M. Smith, Wycliffe Bible Commentary, New Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), p. 1089.

[5] Ibid.

[6] J. W. Roberts, The Revelation of John (Austin, Texas: R. B. Sweet Company, 1974), p. 145.

[7] Albertus Pieters, Studies in the Revelation of St. John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1954), p. 250.

[8] Ray Summers, Worthy is the Lamb (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1961), p. 193.

[9] Wilbur M. Smith, op. cit., p. 1089.

[10] Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Vol. 20, Revelation Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969), p. 214.

[11] Wilbur M. Smith, op. cit., p. 1089.

[12] James D. Strauss, The Seer, the Saviour and the Saved (Joplin, Missouri: College Press, 1972), p. 225.

[13] Reuel Lemmons, Editorial, Firm Foundation (Austin, Texas: Firm Foundation Publishing House, 1978), Dec. 12,1978.

After these things, I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was lightened with his glory. (Revelation 18:1)

Another angel coming down out of heaven ... This angel does not mean that another vision is being introduced. "The Babylon of Revelation 18 is identical with the Babylon of Revelation 17 ... the theme of great Babylon's downfall is continued."[14]

Having great authority ... This together with the glorious appearance of the angels emphasizes the eternal truth of what would be revealed.