The judgment of “Great Babylon” is announced in the nineteenth verse of the sixteenth chapter; the execution of this judgment is given in the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of the seventeenth chapter. In the eighteenth chapter we have a retrospective view of the sins that brought the judgment, and the world-wide effect of it. That a whole chapter should be entirely devoted to this subject shows its importance, all Scripture being given by inspiration of God. In His own time, God remembers her sins which reach up to heaven. Her judgment proceeds from Himself, for “strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.” Not only so, but in the twentieth verse we see that He has given effect to the righteous judgment of the suffering saints with respect to the persecuting harlot. Brief comment may be made on the salient features of the chapter.
Of God’s angels it is written—“bless the Lord, ye His angels, that excel in strength, that do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word” (Psa. 103:2020Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. (Psalm 103:20)). Here we have one of these angels who “excel in strength” announcing mightily, with a strong voice, the fall of Babylon. It would appear this angel was not only a servant of God to do His will but also the first instrument in the work of Babylon’s ruin, wrought out on earth by the ten kings and the Beast. The outward profession of Christ, and Christianity, is then non-existent, and in its place among men there is nothing but what lies in the power of Satan—“habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” The loud voice of the angel calls attention to Babylon’s long, seductive history, and its effect on men, great and small, many of whom had enriched themselves in the earth by her patronage. No heavenly blessings could she give—her sphere was earth.
“Come out of her, My people” (v. 4). Sad, but true, the Lord has had many people who in their whole lifetime violated their conscience by remaining in the fold of Rome. Some even accepted great ecclesiastical honors from the Pope. Others again were only stripped of priests’ garments before being led to the stake where they nobly laid down their lives in protest against the false doctrines of the church which they would not leave. “Come out of her, My people.” How many ever read it? Rome kept the Scriptures from the people, and small wonder, for “the entrance of Thy words giveth light” (Psa. 119:130130The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple. (Psalm 119:130)). Many, however, must have read it, and heeded the call. A Christian once told me that a priest had admitted to him that the eighteenth chapter of Revelation undoubtedly referred to the Roman Catholic Church.
The word in verse six is solemn—“reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works.” For her slaughter of saints she is to be rewarded “double.” In my view this means the violent extermination of the brood of vipers from the Pope down. This is no way foreseen by the Vatican today. Rather they boast of their solidarity and world-wide unity of “faith,” as it is written—“I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” But her end will be like an unexpected, devastating earthquake. Her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine, “and she shall be utterly burned with fire.” As “the smoke of her burning” ascends, can we wonder the world stands aghast? No Pope, no cardinals, no archbishops or bishops or priests or nuns, no cathedrals, or at least only empty ones. No sound of “sacred” music, no crosiers or crucifixes, no mass, in which they have “crucified the Son of God afresh” for over a thousand years. One can visualize the effect on those priest-ridden countries far removed geographically from the seat of papal rule when they hear of the Roman church’s destruction. Suddenly the religious life which was the core of their national and social existence has died. They will stand “afar off for fear of her torment” dreading lest the same calamity overtake them. “No man buyeth their merchandise any more”—the unholy market and its merchandise have both disappeared. Her trade so graphically described in the twelfth and thirteenth verses was wholly of this present evil world. At the same time, awful thought, she traded with the souls of men. From the cradle to the grave—births, marriages and deaths—she owned them, only promising purgatory when all was over here. The “great city” with which the erstwhile merchants of the earth traded, is described as having been clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet.” She made a pretense of holiness (fine linen) but combined with this the garments of purple (royalty) and scarlet (human glory). Not only the merchants of earth mourn, but “all the company in ships.” Their grief is that “in one hour so great riches is come to naught.” So great riches indeed! As I write, a newspaper carries an article with a headline—“Vatican the richest world economic empire?”
But if on earth sorrow and consternation prevail, there is the call to heaven’s inhabitants—“rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you of her.” All heaven will assuredly rejoice, and surely especially those who on earth had suffered at her hands.
If one threw “a great millstone” into the sea, one certainly would never expect to see it again. We then understand the action of the angel. Babylon was violently cast down—“and shall be found no more at all.”
In the twenty-second and twenty-third verses we have a looking back to what she was. There is also a vivid bringing before the mind of the fact that God’s judgment has written an everlasting “finis” (“the end”) to all.
The last verse is the most solemn in the chapter. Regardless of her pretended succession to “the chair of Peter”—at times there were two or three successors including a woman—and regardless of her garments of “fine linen,” she stands condemned by God’s own word as the murderess of God’s beloved saints. Yea, as we saw in the seventeenth chapter, she was “drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” In God’s righteous judgment of her we learn the truth of that word—“God requireth that which is past” (Eccl. 3:1515That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past. (Ecclesiastes 3:15)).