When I have been reading and studying Revelation I fall into a bit of a trap. My mind tries to line up all the visions as a sequence meaning that the 17th chapter chronologically follows the 16th. While in certain cases this is fitting in others it is confusing. In moving from chapter 16 to 17 I think we do well to keep them distinct. These chapters tell separate parts of the end times story. It is almost like John pulled back some curtains and saw one event and then closed the curtains. When he opened them again it was time for the next story, the next vision. He would get another nugget of understanding to tell the world about. He has written these for us and by watching the semi-sequential plays we can put together some understandings of the future.
Our inquiring minds may wish to know. Those inquiring minds may struggle and juggle, fuss and fumble in the great chase to unravel God’s mysteries. Well, God gives us all we need…for life and godliness. We may figure we need more, but the best figuring is accepting.
With that let’s read a couple of verses…
1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” (Revelation 17:1-2)
Having watched the angels closely in the vision of chapter 15 and 16 John recognized one here in chapter 17. One of the players in the last vision beckons John along to see the judgment of Babylon whom the angel characterizes as a great prostitute.
As the scene will shift this angel says, “Come.” John will be carried away in spirit, but that is getting ahead of the story. That is for verse 3. Babylon is a city that will be compared with a woman and she is the nidus of great evil on the earth. The angel says she will be judged elaborating her wickedness in terms of sexual immorality.
It may seem that I have gone too far too quickly in tying together Babylon and the woman, but the end of this chapter unpacks that for us. The waters are the nations of the earth.
Who is judged in this future scene?
The Dragon and Beast One are not even raised in this scene. So the judgment is being poured out not on Satan or his angels. The judgment in on a city. It is on Babylon. That city whistled sweet nothings of her siren song on the nations sailing by her shores. The world rushed to what she spread before them. From heaven’s vantage point this was a most terrible prostitution.
A prostitute, harlot, whore, whichever word fits best in your mind is one who yields her body for the sake of gain or lust. Sexuality between a man and a woman is a God given and God designed thing which is to be part of a man-woman relationship. God intended the sexual aspect of human relations is to be an exclusive one. Humanity all too often ignores this exclusivity which God considers sinful. While God is not really using these visions to teach sexual morals he is calling upon it as an analogy to spiritual matters.
15 Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. 16 Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? 17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. (Proverbs 5:15-17–NIV)
Immorality is to human relationships as idolatry is to God relationship.
The analogy being shown to John is one of immorality. Infidelity strikes at the core of the man-woman relationship making it a fitting analogy. Idolatry, or serving something other than the one true God, strikes at the core of the creature-creator relationship.
In Psalm 50 we see that there is to be a certain set of behaviors and choices between man and God.
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
15 and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” (Psalm 50:14-15–ESV)
Thanksgiving, obedience, dependence: see those things in these verses? They are marks of the right relationship between creature and creator. Just as sexuality in human relationships is to be an expression of a deeper, longer, permanent relationship thanksgiving, obedience and dependence are expressions of a deeper, proper, God-human commitment. In a manner perhaps thankfulness, obedience and dependence are the intimacies, not duties.
The city of Babylon has volitionally taken her independence and offered it to the kings of the world. They have been enchanted by what she has seemed to them. She has been enchanted by what she has been able to do. There is an intimacy between her and the world which was never to have been shared with the world.
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