MYSTERY
BABYLON THE GREAT
THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. Revelation17:3-5
The next section in Revelation tells the story of the corrupting and oppressive world systems that have been a snare for God's people. The section is about Babylon the Whore (17:1-19:10). There are Seven Words/Poems/Songs and these are marked by the clear rhythmic poetry of funeral dirges.
As we have seen before, God's people have suffered under the cruel and polluting influence of great world systems in their histories. (Egypt, Babylon and Rome.)
John cannot name Rome as the enemy directly: so he alludes to her by telling us the name on her forehead. The first word, "MYSTERY" is our clue that this is a puzzle to be solved. He's telling us that he is writing in code. Babylon is John's code-word for Rome. A few verses later he makes it clear: "This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits..." (v.9) This is a clear reference to Rome as her designation as the city on seven hills is commonplace among Roman writers (e.g., Virgil, Martial, Cicero).
In this section he describes how Babylon corrupts the world in terms of greed, blasphemy, sensuality, corruption, materialism and gross abuses of power.
He goes on to compose a number of "doom songs" which catalogue what will be the destruction Rome and is in fact applicable to many other corrupt regimes throughout history.
The point of this section? To describe evil systems as seductive and corrupting. We should not gloss over this point too quickly. Just one simple example will suffice: Have you noticed how commonplace blasphemy has become in Hollywood's movies? And we pay money to watch movies where the name of Jesus is used as a cuss-word!! (But we don't "make waves" because Babylon has infected our society and people will think us weird)
The doom songs we see in this section indicate that Babylon has extended her seductive claws into the echelons of trade, commerce and power. When she is destroyed some will cheer but many, who have been beguiled by her materialism will weep. Evil can be very seductive and like a drug, we can become addicted to the systems of the world.
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
