What is Babylon in the book of Revelation?

Question one: I don't know, and anyone who says they do is mistaken. My opinion is that it is a political entity of some kind - not, as some Fundies put it, the Catholi Church.

Question two: I don't know, and the Scriptures don't say. I have no opinion.

 

“In Revelation 14, the first angel is followed by a second, proclaiming, ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.’ The term Babylon comes from the term Babel, and signifies confusion. It is used in the Scriptures to designate the various forms of false or apostate religion. In Revelation 17, Babylon is represented as a woman, used in the Bible as the symbol of a church, a virtuous woman representing a pure church, a vile woman an apostate church.

“The woman, Babylon, of Revelation 17, is described as ‘arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness…. And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots.’ The prophet says ‘I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.’ Babylon is further said to be ‘that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.’

The power that for many centuries held despotic sway over the monarchs of Christendom, is Rome. The purple and scarlet color, the gold and precious stones and pearls, picture the kingly pomp affected by the haughty see of Rome. And Rome could be truly declared to be ‘drunken with the blood of the saints’ because it has so cruelly persecuted the followers of Christ. Babylon is also accused of the sin of unlawful connection with ‘the kings of the earth.’ It was through departure from God, and alliance with the heathen, that the Jewish church became a harlot; and Rome, corrupting herself in like manner by seeking the support of worldly powers, receives the same condemnation.

“Babylon is said to be ‘the mother of harlots.’ This means that her daughters must be symbolized churches that cling to her doctrines and traditions, and follow her example of sacrificing the truth and the approval of God, in order to form that same unlawful alliance with the world. The message of Revelation 14 telling of the fall of Babylon, must apply to religious bodies that were at one time pure and have since become corrupt. Since this message follows the warning of the Judgment [that is, the first angel's message], it must begin in the last days, therefore it cannot refer to the Romish Church, for that church has been in a fallen condition for many centuries.

 

Question 1: It could be a political entity based on the new one world religion.

Question 2: Some say he had brothers to take out, also. It may be that he thought he would need that many stones to knock Goliath down. Let's ask David when we get there.

 

Unless you're wrong.

 

One or two Reformed folks put it this way as well. Men such as...

• Huss
• Wycliffe
• Luther
• Melancthon
• Zwingli
• Calvin
• Beza
• Bucer
• Knox
• Ferrar
• Hooper
• Latimer
• Ridley
• Cranmer
• Ussher
• Firth
• Barnes
• Philpot
• Becon
• Turner
• Cartwright
• Barrow
• Jewel
• Coverdale
• Lord Cobham
• Hooker
• Ainsworth
• Dent
• Foxe
• Fulke
• Bradford
• Bullinger
• Rogers
• Hutchinson
• Whitgift
• Sir Francis Drake

As well as Post-Reformation folks like...

• Sir Isaac Newton
• Milton
• John Bunyan
• Wesley
• Matthew Henry
• Jonathan Edwards
• Spurgeon

And even more listed at the great reformed preacher Ian Paisley's site, who also believes that the whore of Babylon is Rome... http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=antichrist_2

However, those men, according to some new "reformers" are mistaken.

Btw...The Vatican is a political entity. The Vatican is one of the member states of the European Union and the EU has a rotating presidency. The Pope as the head of the Vatican will, at some point in the future, be the president of the EU for at least a 6 month term.

 

OK, whatever. I'm not fighting the "O TEH KATHERLICKS ARE TEH DEBBIL" crowd on two fronts at once.

 

A noble defender of the Roman Catholic faith should not have difficulty with one, two, or three fronts...if truth is on his side. Why don't you pick the front you think you'll have the easiest time with?

 

Nope, I know too much about Bible Prophecy, its the only thing that fits into every slot.

 

I'm not a defender of Catholicism. I am only interested in sanity and truth, two things which are vacuously absent in these kinds of "discussions."

 

Sure, providing you've decided what the slots are ahead of time.

 

Most every time someone speaks critically of the Catholic church you come to her rescue. You defame Christians who hold to this belief system by calling them names such as "fundies" or "fundicons". You are a greater defender of Catholicism than you are of the Reformationists who made the Reformation possible and still you call yourself Reformed.

As someone interested in truth, and in light of the information presented in this thread, do you now agree that the Roman Catholic Church is both a religious and political entity? Do you further agree that most of the reformationists held to the view that the Roman Catholic Church was/is the whore of Babylon?

 

Answer me this first: Is it even remotely possible that you are wrong about the Catholic Church? Your answer will guide me in mine.

 

It is remotely possible. I believe it to be one of two possibilities. However, the RCC fits all the prophecy and no entity has spilled more blood of the saints.

 

OK, I would opine that if you combine the Protestants and Muslims, the Catholic Church wuld be a distant second, but they had a 1200-year head start.

Most folks like to piint fingers, but ignore the fact that when people get power they abuse that power almost without exception.

I don't see the Reformed tradition being attacked nearly as desperately and illogically as I see the Catholic Chruch being attacked. Honestly, the only reason the SDA's get more attention these days is that they will still reply to the allegations and vitriol.

Though the Vatican is a sovereign nation, I think insisting it is a political entity is a stretch. Its authority is theological in nature. People choose to either convert to or remain Catholic, and the Catholic Church can impose discipline only in ecclesiastical forms (excommunication, etc.).

One may argue, accurately, that in times past the Catholic Church was more a political than a religious entity; however to argue history would be for you to acknowledge that the Book of Revelation, as a historical work written to people in a specific geographical and historical location, would have seen Rome as a solely political entity.

So if we are limiting ourselves to a discussion of modern realities, the Catholic Church is primarily a Christian sect which enjoys a few, and honorary, political honors.

"A text without a context is a pretext to a prooftext."

Yes, they did; given the historical context of the times in which they lived one could scarcely have expected less from them.

I no longer watch a television that I have to be in physical contact with to change stations. I no longer use a computer which requires two 5.5 inch floppy drives to function. We have automobiles now instead of horses; electric lights instead of gaslights; printing presses rather than hand-copied codices.

In other words, times change, and instead of insisting that those in sixteenth-century Switzerland and Germany conform to our ideologies and preconceptions, we should understand theirs.

 

Peter makes it clear that it is Rome 1Pet 3:15.

She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings, and so does my son, Mark

In his day that would be pagan Rome.

John makes it clear in Rev 17 "the city of seven hills" that it is Rome --

The reason many see it primarily Papal Rome in it's latest incarnation is due to the dark ages span of 1260 years of persecution mentioned in Dan 7 as something that takes place after the "split into ten" seen in Dan 7 for Rome and the rise of the great horn that happens after that split of pagan Rome .

In Rev 13 it is a "composit" of all the false religious systems seen in Dan 7 as all 4 beasts are given in composit form at the start of the chapter.

in Christ,

Bob