Babylon, the Great Prostitute – Revelation 17

I want to highlight a few things from this chapter that will help in understanding it and the entire vision that John saw.

Babylon is an icon.  For Jewish believers, it is a “lead pipe cinch” to figure out that when John says “Babylon,” he is referring to Rome.  At the time of John’s vision, Rome was all the things attributed to Babylon in this chapter.

• Rome was situated on seven hills.
• The kings of the earth kowtowed to Rome in order to survive.
• The inhabitants of the earth were all partaking of whatever Rome dished out - culture, religion, money, language, etc.
• Rome was drunk with the blood of the martyrs.
• Rome eventually fell.

For John’s readers, it is crystal clear that when his vision talks about Babylon, it is a code word for Rome.  That said, the Babylons of history have appeared and been conquered many times.  The martyrs during the Inquisition of the Roman church certainly felt like they were being persecuted by a great prostitute who had almost a stranglehold on many kings of the Medieval world.  Church and state were marching in lock step together and anyone who challenged them was dealt with cruelly.  The corruption in the Roman church at that time was palpable and its power over Medieval kingdoms unchallenged.  The Reformation fathers saw the Roman Church as the Scarlet Woman in John’s vision and the pope as the Beast.  I am not trying to demonize believers in the Catholic church, I’m simply pointing out the parallels between John’s vision and a very dark time in the history of that institution.
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I could give many more examples of this throughout history, but you get the point.  At the end of it all, we will see the same story played out.  Undoubtedly you can see signs of the emergence of the Scarlet Woman, the Great Prostitute, in the events of our world today.  That’s why John says in verse 8, “The beast which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come out of the Abyss and go to its destruction.”  In other words, John is telling his readers that this story will play out many times.