Before departing on the journey the angel said he was going to show John a prostitute, and then upon arrival in the wilderness there is a woman, a drunk woman (we’ll see that she is drunk in a moment) riding on a weird beast. Before John tells us this beast had a bunch of heads and horns he mentioned its markings. See this beast had writing all over it. The words were anti-God type names. These names help us judge the beast by its nature rather than its appearance.
Blasphemy? Let’s briefly wade into that swamp
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines blasphemy in this way: “the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God.”
This beast, the one on whom the woman rides, has names on display that equate to such insults. Such markings develop their power from knowledge. This beast, who knows and had rejected God, purposefully inverts God’s traits to dishonor him. It is defiant in a way.
So blasphemy is born out of knowledge. The highest form of blasphemy is irreverence born out of insight. For this beast it is not mere words, but purposeful word choice advertising inner viewpoints. See words reveal the heart, the mind. Blasphemy is an act of putting on badges of a black heart.
Blasphemy badges are like:
- Anti-God bumper stickers
- Openly expressing disdain for God
- Being mad at God and choosing ways to express it.
- It is slander born from knowledge
- It is a crafting of understanding into specific anti-God barbs.
That is the mark of this beast.
Looping back to the woman
When God made humanity he offered to us a relationship with himself. When we rejected him he made a way back to himself at great cost. There are large swaths though of his creation which will have nothing to do with it preferring themselves, their own approach to God’s. That is the story of this woman. She has a relationship with a blasphemous beast and shares that with people. That is her immorality. Her intimacies are with God hostiles. Therein lies her sexual immorality.
4 The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. 5 And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” 6 And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. (Revelation 17:4-6–ESV)
Here is the portrait of Babylon as God paints her. Look first at the colors she sports: purple and scarlet. Remember that John was on the island of Patmos as a result of religious persecution delivered by authorities of the Roman Empire. The Roman experience was the experience which John’s imagery would have been crafted from. That empire used purple and scarlet to represent both religious and political power. Babylon has been acting as a stand in for what is to be God and God’s alone. In the vision given to John these traits are put on display.
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