Babylon is Fallen

Will a closer look at what the Bible says about Babylon change Seventh-day Adventist teachings?

Revelation presents a prophetic picture of the true church against the background of a fallen church. The remnant exists in a hostile world dominated by an ominous entity called variously “Babylon” and the “beast.”

What light can Bible study shed on the meaning of “Babylon,” and is Babylon the same as the beast?

Revelation introduces Babylon abruptly in the second of the three angel’s messages. An angel flying in the midst of heaven cryptically cries,
“Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries”
(Revelation 14:8 NIV).

To understand the role that Babylon plays here, we must examine the immediate context. Before hearing the three angels’ messages, John saw the redeemed in heaven. God the Father, and the Lamb, Jesus Christ, had written Their names in the foreheads of the redeemed, who “had no guile in their mouths” and were “undefiled with women.” Their loyalty and devotion to God were unquestionable.

In contrast, Babylon committed fornication with the nations and made them drunk with the wine of her adulteries. Thus Babylon stands in direct antithesis to the redeemed. If the redeemed are noted for their purity and their loyalty to the Father and the Lamb, Babylon is noted for her adulteries and for her disloyalty to the Father and the Lamb.

The three angels’ messages make up one warning message to the world. The first angel preaches the eternal gospel, announces the arrival of the judgment, and calls for the worship of God. The third angel also speaks of worship; however, the third angel’s message is a warning that those who worship the beast and its image will drink the wine of God’s fury.

We note that whereas the second angel speaks of Babylon, the third refers to the beast. Are the beast and Babylon two different entities or two names for the same entity?

Babylon and the Beast.
We turn to Revelation 17, where Babylon and the beast are closely associated. John here reports that he saw a woman wearing the title, “Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Prostitutes and of the Abominations of the Earth.” He describes the beast upon which she rides. It and the first beast of Revelation 13—the beast in respect to which the third angel issues its warning—are the same entity. They both head an unholy trinity and have seven heads and ten horns.

Babylon the prostitute is the power that guides the beast in its nefarious activities. Thus Babylon, like the beast, stands in stark contrast to the symbols of God’s true people. We are persuaded that Babylon and the beast are essentially the same entity.

Two Women, Two Cities.
Babylon the prostitute stands in contrast to the pure woman of Revelation 12 who, like the redeemed in Revelation 14, is identified with God and is loyal to Him.

The Babylon woman is actually a persecutor of God’s true people. John saw her, prophetically, “drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus” (Revelation 17:6).

The pure woman is the mother of the Manchild and of “the remnant of her seed”; she is also the bride of the Lamb and is the “holy city,” New Jerusalem, which is “beloved.” The scarlet woman is also a mother, the mother of harlots, and she is also a city, the “great city” Babylon, which one day will be “hated.” Whereas New Jerusalem is a symbol of the true Christian Church, which Christ loved and gave Himself up for (Ephesians 5:25), Babylon is a symbol of the vast conspiracy of those who hate good and love evil. (See C. Mervyn Maxwell, God Cares, 2:500, 501). Two women, two cities, two sides. Babylon is the sinful city, the fallen woman, the wrong side.

A Funeral Dirge.
Revelation 18 provides a funeral dirge for Babylon. Verses 10, 16, 18, 19, 21 describe Babylon as a great city that will receive her doom in a very short period, “in one hour.” She is accounted “fallen” and doomed for at least five reasons:
(1) She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit.
(2) The kings of the earth have committed adultery with her.
(3) She has boasted that she is a queen and will never be a widow.
(4) Her sins are piled up to heaven.
(5) She has persecuted God’s saints.

So far we have seen that in Revelation the city of Babylon is like a prostitute who has committed fornication with kings, who controls the beast that received its power from the dragon Satan, who opposes God’s people and, through them, opposes God and the Lamb.

Babylon in the Old Testament.
Further to understand the implications of Babylon in Revelation it is helpful to look at Babylon in the Old Testament.

Genesis, for instance, records the ancient founding of the literal city of Babylon. “Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth. . . . The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Calneh, in Shinar” (Gen 10:9, 10). The story is continued in chapter 11:3, 4. The founders “said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’”

Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 119, comments that “the dwellers on the plain of Shinar disbelieved God’s covenant that He would not again bring a flood upon the earth. Many of them denied the existence of God and attributed the Flood to the operation of natural causes. Others believed in a Supreme Being, and that it was He who had destroyed the antediluvian world; and their hearts, like that of Cain, rose up in rebellion against Him. One object before them in the erection of their tower was to secure their own safety in case of another deluge. By carrying the structure to a much greater height than was reached by the waters of the Flood, they thought to place themselves beyond all possibility of danger.”

The founders of ancient Babylon wanted fame and glory for themselves instead of giving glory and praise to God. Although God wanted the people to scatter over the earth, these people sinfully sought to build a city where they could remain together. But God came down and confused their languages and scattered them anyway.

From its earliest reference in the Old Testament, “Babylon” connotes confusion, organized rebellion, and willful distrust of God.

Moving on to 2 Kings 17:24-40 we read of Babylon’s relationship to the northern kingdom, Israel. The Assyrians scattered the Israelites to various places including Babylon and replaced them with people from other places. Subsequently, the Assyrians brought an Israelite priest back from Babylon to teach the settlers in Samaria how to worship God. The settlers responded by worshiping God while continuing to worship their native gods. Babylon became associated with an amalgamation of worship.

In Judah, the southern kingdom, the first recorded contact with Babylon took place after the miraculous healing of Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:1-19). The Babylonians noted the backward movement of the sun which God associated with His promise to heal Hezekiah, and they sent envoys with gifts. Dazzled, and failing to understand that their visit was a test from God, Hezekiah showed the envoys everything in his treasury. “When envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart” (2 Chronicles 32:31). In course of time, the Babylonians returned to take the treasure for themselves and to destroy the entire city of Jerusalem. Ever after, many Jews would associate “Babylon” with the way the envoys seduced Hezekiah into revealing his secrets and then with the way Nebuchadnezzar destroyed their kingdom, looted their treasure, and dragged most of their people into exile.

But God wanted His people to know that the Babylonians were not to have the last word. Because of pride, arrogance, and cruelty, Babylon itself would one day be destroyed. “An oracle concerning Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw,”wrote Isaiah at the beginning of one of his prophecies given when Hezekiah was still alive (chaps. 13, 14). “Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Babylonians’ pride, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah. She will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations” (13:19, 20). “How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended” (14:4).

Cosmic Conflict.
One of the most striking features of Isaiah 13-14 is its description of a cosmic conflict between God and Babylon. Isaiah quotes God as saying, “I have commanded my holy ones; I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath—those who rejoice in my triumph. Listen, a noise on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations massing together! The Lord Almighty is mustering an army for war” (13:3-4).

Much more than Babylon is the target of God’s army. “See, the day of the Lord is coming. . . . I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins” (13:9-11). The SDA Bible Commentary observes in reference to this passage, “the day of the Lord,” upon Babylon, as described in Isa. 13 is, in many respects, also descriptive of ‘the great day of the Lord’ at the end of time.” Even more is also involved! Isaiah 14 points to the real source of power behind Babylon. It is the “morning star” (“Lucifer” in the King James Version), who is now “fallen from heaven,” the one who said in his heart, “I will raise my throne above the stars of God, . . . I will make myself like the Most High” (verses 12-14).

Jeremiah, who wrote when Judah was conquered by Babylon more than a hundred years after Isaiah, asked Shemaiah to take a message to the exiles. We find it today in Jeremiah 50 and 51. Babylon’s harsh treatment of God’s people would bring about her fall. “Because you rejoice and are glad, you who pillage my inheritance, because you frolic like a heifer threshing grain and neigh like stallions,” Babylon will become “a wilderness, a dry land, a desert.” Babylon has “sinned against the Lord” and “defied the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.” and will be repaid accordingly.

The Old Testament shows that historic Babylon originated in rebellion against God (a result of choosing not to believe God’s covenant with Noah) and later tormented God’s people, defying God, until the sentence was pronounced that Babylon should be utterly and permanently destroyed. The Old Testament prophecies further intimate that Babylon was a symbol for end-time developments.

Back to Revelation.
Many of the phrases and concepts found in Isaiah and Jeremiah appear in Revelation applied to the Babylon of the last days. For a sampling, see the side bar, “Some Parallels between Ancient and Symbolic Babylon.”

Revelation confirms what Isaiah 14 said about the power operating behind Babylon, that it is Satan, “the great dragon and the ancient serpent.” Satan worked through the Roman Empire at the birth of Jesus, when he sought to destroy the Saviour, and he continues to work through Rome and all the rest of Babylon down to the end. The rest of Babylon includes not only the beast itself but also the “false prophet,” who is the two-horned beast of Revelation 13:11-17 (the churches of “apostate Protestantism” led by “the USA in prophecy”; see also Rev 16:19, 13, where the city is composed of three parts, the beast, the dragon, and the false prophet).

John was shown that the beast was to receive a wound so severe that the beast would appear to die, but that it would recover. In the end, *“all the inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast”—*all, that is, “whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev 13:8). Those whose names are found in the book of life will be bitterly persecuted by Babylon, that is, by the beast supported by the two-horned beast (the false prophet) and the dragon.

Revelation does not provide a full picture of the steps by which the beast was to recover its health or of the means by which the two-horned beast was to sponsor it, but events in current history show that the Roman Church is firming its position. Visits by the pope to numerous countries have sought to preserve the “faithful” and to win the approval of even evangelicals. In the case of non-Catholics, the pope is said to have promised that even voodoo believers would not be required to compromise their traditions by converting to Christianity. In the political arena the pope has become a major player. The prophecies of Revelation concerning the end-time Babylon are being fulfilled.