MONDAY
This week we come to the descriptions of Babylon. In chapter 17 (we will talk about this in a couple of days) John sees a vision of a woman riding on a beast.
Revelation 17:5 5 And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.”
We see Babylon in a few other places as well. Chapter 18, which we will talk about next week, is all about the fall of Babylon.
This may seem strange at first since John hasn’t mentioned Babylon yet and in John’s day the Babylonian empire was no more, and an insignificant empire. So, why Babylon? You’ll remember from Genesis 11 the tower of Babel. You’ll also remember that the people of Israel were exiled into Babylon in 587 BC. The book of Daniel mostly takes part in Babylon, which provides the backdrop for much of what John sees in these visions. From Israel’s time in exile, Babylon became a figure that symbolized societal and governmental evil.
“Babylon became for Jews and early Christians the most graphic image, metaphor, or trope for a city filled with arrogance, sin, injustice, oppression of God’s people, and idolatry.” (McKnight, Matchett. Revelation for the Rest of Us, p. 44)
In John’s day, Babylon was the Roman Empire. We will see this connection all throughout the next couple of weeks. By using the Babylon trope instead of just saying “Rome” John is reminding his audience, and us today, that the same evils exist in empires throughout the history of the world.
“The moral pretenses of Imperial Rome, the millennial claims of Nazism, the arrogance of Marxist dogma, the anxious insistence that America be ‘number one’ among the nations are all versions of Babylon’s idolatry.” - William Stringfellow
When John writes “Babylon,” he thinks of Rome; yet finally, Babylon should not be limited to Rome. “All the proud, God-defying, tyrannical and oppressive cities and states of the Old Testament contribute to the picture: Babel, Sodom, Egypt, Tyre, Babylon, Edom” (Bauckham 1993b: 130). And all the cities of the future that become tyrannical and oppressive repristinate Rome—the Babylon of John’s day. - Thomas R. Schreiner, Revelation, 579.
Therefore, by using Babylon John is beckoning us today to look for the same aspects of Babylon that he mentions here in our societies and systems of government. The evils of Babylon and Rome are not limited to those two empires. The call of this book for Christians today is to discern the elements of Babylon in our society and our government.
Rather, it calls readers to do, in their present contexts, precisely what John sought to do in his own: to discern what is Babylonish about the domination systems in the midst of which they live . . . and then to discover the ways in which they can both divest themselves of participating in and bear prophetic witness against the same. - David deSilva, Discovering Revelation, 166
This may be one of the most difficult topics in the book of Revelation for me to teach on and for all of us to hear and discern. For much of my life, I have viewed America more as Jerusalem and less as Babylon. What I mean is that I have only perceived God’s hand of blessing and goodness behind our systems and our nation’s history and failed to see the devil’s work in it as well. I have viewed myself as citizen in this country rather than an exile, one whose primary citizenship is in God’s Kingdom. This posture led me to be blind to much evil and excusing even the evil that I saw.
Now, it must be said that empires and systems of government are all a mixture of Babylon and Jerusalem. Even Rome was in the first century. The Roman empire allowed for a common language and a system of roads and safety that allowed the gospel to spread. However, the peace (the Pax Romana) was attained by brutal, military defeat and the subsequent subjugation and oppression of other nations and peoples. Rome’s religious tolerance allowed for Christianity at the beginning, but its imperial cult didn’t allow for the Christian declaration that only Christ is King.
There are some who only see the aspects of Babylon in American and fail to see the aspects of Jerusalem. However, it seems to me very few of them are in churches like LifeBridge. My posture that I explained above is far more common in churches like ours. So my comments will mostly be reserved for that perspective. So as you’re reading the next two week, you may find yourself saying, “Yeah, but the other side is just as bad.” I agree and I know they exist. I am merely speaking to my audience and encouraging them to live as faithful witnesses to Christ in our culture.
So, as we embark on the next two weeks, I invite you to process your perception of America and your dual citizenship. I invite you to give an honest assessment of our country and critically examine it. Without this posture, we cannot be a prophetic witness as we are intended to be. If Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel found aspects of Israel’s culture and government to prophecy against, I’m sure we will find some in American culture and government.