Babylon Revived; The Antichrist and the Whore. Rev 17:6-12; Dan 7-7; Rev 13:1
When we look at a passage that has specific terminology, e.g. Babylon the great, one of the things that must be done in determining the meaning of a phrase like that is how it is used throughout the Bible. What we have in the Scripture is a consistent pattern from the time of Genesis 11 and the construction of the tower of Babel in the plain of Shinar, through the passages we studied in Isaiah 13 & 14, Jeremiah 51, Zechariah 5, is that these passages all view Babylon as being a literal location on the Euphrates River. We have seen that in the sixth trumpet judgment there is the release of this 200-million demon army from underneath the Euphrates, and that is where Babylon is located. Furthermore we have seen in the bowl judgments that the Euphrates River dries up so that the kings of the east are able to come across in their invasion of Israel. All of this terminology is related to that location. If Babylon is to be interpreted with a spiritual or allegorical meaning there is no basis for that. The historic site of Babylon on the Euphrates River in Iraq must be the location of this Babylon.
The great harlot in chapter seventeen is the system of infidelity to God that governs the affairs of man, the kingdom of man. It is what we call in some places human viewpoint, in others the worldly or cosmic thinking that governs the world, all of the thought systems that come together to give man the rationale for living life apart from God, rejecting God, ignoring God, and taking God out of his periphery. The focus is on infidelity, and that indicates the mentality of man, the religious-political system that man adopts in his thinking to try to justify his existence apart from God. The beast in Revelation 17:3 represents a kingdom, not a king, and it is under the influence of the great harlot.
The kingdom of man is expressing the thought system of Satan which is characterized by two things: arrogance and antagonism. Arrogance is when the creature asserts his authority, his ability over God. He thinks he knows more than God does. That leads to antagonism toward God and rejection of whatever God says and whatever God stands for. Anytime someone is operating in the cosmic system, the world system, and they are in complete arrogance then they will also be hostile to the truth and hostile to God. So whenever anyone comes along and says anything or does anything that emphasizes truth they are going to react in an extreme manner to that because they have been trying to stuff God into a corner or back into the deepest, darkest place in a closet in their brain, in their thinking, and as soon as anyone comes along and talks about God then they get all angry and upset. When we live in a culture that has become increasingly antagonistic to Christianity and the Bible then it doesn't take much for some people to get really irritated and hostile towards Christians.
Revelation 13:1 NASB "And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns {were} ten diadems, and on his heads {were} blasphemous names." Here the blasphemous names are on the heads. It depicts the Antichrist as the personification of the kingdom of man as historically against God. So when we begin to read here about this beast coming out of the sea, this is the time when this beast is coming forth. It sounds initially as though we are talking about the kingdom here, but when we start looking at what is described about the head wound. And there are those who teach that the head wound is the destruction of the kingdom, not a personal, fatal wound for the king himself. But that seems to run contrary to what is said about the false prophet who is described in 13:11ff where we are told that the second beast (the false prophet) causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. So that doesn't necessarily fit a kingdom. The focus in 13:3ff really seems to be on the beast as an individual. Revelation 13:1-10 depicts the Antichrist as the personification of the kingdom of man. He is the ruler, and the focus there is on an individual.
Revelation 13:7 NASB "It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him." That is a very strong statement because it comes after he comes out of the sea. The point is that the beast coming out of the sea is related to the second period of his career which is after the abomination of desolation, immediately after his being healed and restored after the fatal head wound.
We see four beasts described in Revelation. The first is the beast out of the abyss, mentioned in 11:17, the one responsible for killing the two witnesses. The second beast mentioned is the Antichrist as a personification of the final kingdom, 13:1-10. The third is the false prophet, 13:11-18. The fourth beast mentioned is the scarlet beast with the seven heads and ten horns which represents the kingdom, not the individual, chapter 17.
Revelation 17:3 NASB "And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns." Here the blasphemous names aren't on the horns, they just describe the beast in general. The woman is arrayed in purple and scarlet which indicates wealth, power, authority, prestige. [4] "The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality." The term "abomination" in Scripture is almost always associated with idolatry, and "the unclean things of her immorality" reinforces the infidelity of her religious loyalty. This is further explained in verse 12 NASB "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour [short time]." So the ten kings are distinct from the beast.
Revelation 17:5 NASB "and on her forehead a name {was} written, a mystery, 'BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.'" This is the source of all infidelity toward God. There is something mysterious that will be revealed about Babylon—"mystery," musterion [musthrion], something previously unknown or unrevealed. This sign on her forehead says something about her intrinsic character. The unrevealed matter is that her intrinsic character and identity is not going to be known except by divine revelation. The world is going to fall in love with her and think that this is the most wonderful kingdom and political system that has ever existed. But that is not the case.
We get into new territory in verse 6 where John says, NASB "And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered greatly." The word "saints" doesn't indicate necessarily church age believers. A saint is a sanctified one, it refers to any believer. In the Old Testament there were saints who belonged to Israel. There were saints in the church age and there will be saints in the Tribulation period. The phrase "blood of the saints" indicates how the kingdom at the end time is going to make an enemy out of anyone who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and seeks to completely destroy them and seeks to murder anyone who is a Christian.
Verses 7 & 8 define for us what this mystery is a little further. NASB "And the angel said to me, 'Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.'" John is astounded. "The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come." So there is the future revival of the old Babylonian system as an interconnected political, social, economic and religious system. It is the finest expression of human rebellious thought ever to exist in history. They will have their golden age for an extremely short period of time.
When we stop and think about verse 8, what is the time reference? John is living in 95 AD, so present tense for John is 95 AD and "the beast that was" would indicate the past tense at John's time; "is not" would indicate that it didn't exist in John's time; "will ascend" would indicate a future resurrection of that kingdom. But that doesn't fit because the kingdom is the second stage of the fourth beast, the revived Roman empire, and so these tenses must be understood in reference to the time of the Tribulation itself. The angel is speaking from within the time framework of the Tribulation, saying that the beast had existence in past time, it is not up until it is revived in the Tribulation period, and then it will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. At this point the focus is not on the beast as the kingdom but now it is focusing on the beast as the person who personifies the beast, i.e. the Antichrist. This is a reference to the fact that this beast was and then lost its life, and then he ascends out of the bottomless pit. His destiny is to go to perdition.
The point here is that if verse 8 is referring to the career of the Antichrist and his resurrection or resuscitation occurs when the second beast brings him back to life then what this shows is that through demon possession there is a different aspect to his reign after the mid-point of the Tribulation. He is going to be personally empowered by either some demon or Abaddon who is the leader of those demons who were imprisoned in the abyss, according to chapter nine. Or he is going to be indwelt by Satan if indeed that is who that person is. Those who dwell on the earth will marvel. They are not going to marvel as John did; he was shocked at what happens on the earth and the hostility toward God. The earth dwellers marvel because they are so impressed by the miracle of the beast being brought back to life, and for them this means that he is the one who is really the Messiah. So it just reaffirms his credentials as a substitute Christ. The Greek anti means substitute. But we see that also in how there is the play-off for the title for God the Father that we see all through Revelation. God the Father is the one who is and who was and who is to come. But here the beast is the one who was and is not and will ascend out of the bottomless pit. So it is a play-off for the title for God because it shows that he is trying to be a substitute for God. That is the historic role of Satan. The earth dwellers will marvel when they see the beast coming back to life.
Revelation 17:9 NASB "Here is the mind which has wisdom…." The explanation of what is seen. "… The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits, [10] and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while." Here is the question: What do these seven hills refer to? Many people down through the ages thought that this relates to the seven hills of Rome because Rome was initially built on seven hills, although later on at the time of Christ there was an expansion and there were several other hills that Rome had expanded to cover. This can't be the hills of Rome at all; the seven heads aren't the seven hills of Rome, because verse 10 says that these seven heads are seven hills which are seven kings. It is clear from the identification that the seven hills represent seven historic kingdoms that have come down through the ages. The two terms, the seven heads and the seven kings, are equivalent to one another. We see that phraseology, "the seven heads," in other passages. For example, in Revelation 13:1 the beast that came out of the sea had ten horns and seven heads. The dragon has seven heads and ten horns in 12:1 and this represents seven different kingdoms described in verse 10 described as "five had fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come." So they are divided into three groups: five in the past tense, one in the present tense, and one on the future tense.
Historically there have been seven kingdoms that have had power over Israel. One thing that is focused on here is this historic antagonism to the nation Israel, to God's people. The five nation group—Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and the Greek empires—were all past tense in AD 90 when John was writing. Then there is one that is, a present tense, and this is Rome in its first manifestation. Then there is one other kingdom that is yet future and that is the revival of the Roman empire, Rome # 2, a future revived kingdom. We get a little more information about this kingdom in the eleventh verse. NASB "The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is {one} of the seven, and he goes to destruction." His destiny is destruction but how is he both the seventh and the eighth. It seems difficult to understand that in one sense he is one of the seven heads. The seven heads are the historic manifestations of the kingdom and in one sense he represents the seventh manifestation of the kingdom of man in its hostility to God, the revived Roman empire. But also he represents something new that transpires. After he has his fatal head wound and he is brought back to life he is now Satanically empowered and is going to rule over the final form of the kingdom in some new sense. In one form, the seventh, he is the kingdom but as the eighth he is the king of that kingdom. He sustains that wound, seems to die, ascends from the abyss after his wound is healed, but his destiny is the lake of fire.
Daniel 17:23, 24 NASB "Thus he said: 'The fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which will be different from all the {other} kingdoms and will devour the whole earth and tread it down and crush it.
Revelation 17:12 NASB "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour." So we have gotten an understanding of what all these images represent. The beast represents the fourth kingdom and the king in the end time of that kingdom that was and is not and will ascend from the abyss. The seven heads on the beast represent seven mountains or seven historical manifestations of the kingdom of man. The beast that was and is not is the eighth king but he comes out of one of the seven heads/kingdoms. The ten horns then equal ten kings that will get their kingdoms in the future, the waters are the peoples, the multitudes, the nations and tongues—representing the gentiles. Then in the last verse we are going to be told that the woman equals the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth. This is something that unifies all of the kingdoms of man. What is it that is the same for all these kingdoms from the ancient Egyptians right up to the future revived Roman empire? The one thing that they all have in common is their assertion of their power and ability to make life work apart from God and to bring in a kingdom on earth that is totally independent of God. We see from this that the woman represents the religious-political-economic philosophy of the cosmic system that unifies all of these different kingdoms down through history.
When we get into the Tribulation verse 13 says, "These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast." They are unanimous in their support for the Antichrist. The beast is such a powerful charismatic figure that they are just going to indiscriminately give over to him all of their power and authority and let him rule the world. As part of that they are going to be in complete antagonism to all Christians and Christianity in the end times. Revelation 17:14 NASB "These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him {are the} called and chosen and faithful." The words "chosen and faithful" are titles related to every believer.
Revelation 17:15 NASB "And he said to me, 'The waters which you saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. [16] And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire." This is what happens in arrogance. When people get into arrogance and start getting so full of themselves, and so absorbed with their own importance, that anything that contradicts them they are going to hate, so the kings eventually are going to turn against the harlot and she becomes self-destructive. Arrogance always ends up being self-destructive. As we will see in the next verse God is going to remove all restraints on evil so that the arrogance of man is going to be able to pursue its ends without any restraints whatsoever and the result is that the whole kingdom enterprise of the Antichrist is going to begin to unravel and fall in upon itself because it is so divorced from reality. Whenever people are operating in arrogance they are operating on a fantasy understanding of the world. The more arrogant people are the more unreal their view of life is, and when they start making all of their decisions related to life, economics, national policy, individual policy or business policy based on a fantasy construct of reality then sooner or later it will collapse. This is what God does. He allows them to push their rebellion to its fullest extent and then everything begins to collapse, which causes them to hate the system. They are miserable. Arrogance will always lead to misery. Self-absorption will always lead to great misery and this is just taking all of that to a broader international scale.
In verse 17 we are given the divine viewpoint of God and what He is doing in the end time scenario. Revelation 17:17 NASB "For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled." God has so removed the restraint of evil that they are going to now demonstrate to its fullest extent that the creature cannot be successful when he is living independently of the creator. When he does it will always eventuate in the self-destruction of the creature. Here God is allowing them in His permissive will to push their evil desires to the fullest extent and the result is that the kingdom of the beast utterly collapses. This will bring to completion all of the prophecies that God has given down through the ages.
Revelation 17:18 NASB "The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth." When we put it all together here this goes back to Babylon. The thought system that was inherent to Nimrod when he established the city of Babylon and brought everyone together to build the tower to the heavens to make a name for themselves are inherent in every religious system and it influences every culture down through the ages. There is nothing new under the sun. All religious systems are based upon some kind of human effort and human endeavor and they all will lead to the same collapse. So it is the woman who represents the religious, philosophical, economic system that man generates in independence of God and in antagonism to God, and the kings of the earth try to establish their own kingdom, their own happiness and prosperity completely apart from God.
Illustrations