Chapter 18.
Verse 1. The other angel is not the Lord.
Verse 2. Babylon is fallen, or morally sunk into the lowest state of degradation. The actual fall is narrated in chapter 19:2. The consummation is openly diabolical, because Satan is cast out of heaven.
Verse 4 is a cry to the people of the Lord to come out, &c. The mixture of Judaism and Christianity will be such as never was known before. Judaism, which is really heathenism, as in Gal. 4, where Paul calls observing days and years a turning back to the beggarly elements, being circumcised to keep the law, &c. It is the religion of the flesh. Up to the cross of Christ God was dealing with all this; but when Judaism is grafted on Christianity, it is hateful to Him. What are prayed to as Saint Peter and Saint Paul are demons. As they used to introduce false gods, so now they introduce false mediators.
Puseyism is heathenism. The shapes of evil, counterfeiting God, are Judaism, demonism, and heathenism. Infidel latitudinarianism is the character of evil in England, different from what it is in India.
Popery slurs over sin; no matter how they sin, an indulgence will atone for it.
Verse 4. It is a shame for His people to be there, but still He remembers them. People who are in the ark cannot be touched, but an apostate protection He will judge thoroughly.
Verses 12, 13. Everything not heavenly is mixed up with her.
“Souls of men.” “Through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.”
There are three cities specially mentioned in this book: the heavenly Jerusalem, Babylon, and the earthly Jerusalem. The two are contracted together.
There is a time to hate, and a time to love, and there are certain things which if a person does not hate, he has no right estimate of God. Some things ought to be hated—not the persons of course. “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” We must not confound natural kindness with grace; but it is easy to do it, and to be indifferent to God's honor. If my father is insulted, I cannot be indifferent about it; though I should not flog the man who did it, but I should wish him out of the house. The popish hierarchy has been guilty of shedding all the blood that has been shed upon earth. It is the centralization of all the wickedness that has been done on the earth from the time of Abel downwards, and Rome will be judged for it.
Chapters 17, 18 are a parenthesis in the history, which is continued from chapter 16 to 19. Chapters 17, 18 are descriptive, not historical.
In chapter 21:9 you get a description of the heavenly city after the Lamb is come, just as we get this description, in chapter 18, of this other city, the object of God's wrath; first that which is carnal; and afterward that which is spiritual. There is the false and the true, and it is after the false is set aside that the true is put in its place. The corrupt pretended to be the heavenly thing, but the Lord will take His bride, and produce her before the world in glory. (Chap. 19.)
Babylon is the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth. The whole character of it is idolatry and hostility to God. The Lamb does not execute judgment upon her, but the one true God executes the judgment upon that which had come in between Himself and the souls of men.
Mediatorship had been rejected, not the unity of the Godhead. When the calf was made, Israel held to the name of Jehovah, for they said, “To-morrow is a feast unto Jehovah.” So now it is not the name cast off, but the introduction of that which hides the truth. For “God is light,” and “God is love;” and Satan's aim is, by putting another object between, to hinder the love from reaching the heart, and the light from making manifest Him who alone can give peace to the conscience.
Chapter 19.
Protestantism is what Sardis characterizes, and it comes to nothingism—a name to live, but dead, &c.
In Thyatira it is positive, active corruption. Jezebel is a religions character or Babylon, the world-church system. Jezebel is popery, producing papists. Babylon is popery governing the world. Her final condemnation we have in chapter 19:2. The rule of God and the marriage of the Lamb are kept back until this great system is judged. No wonder there is the voice of much people heard, saying, Alleluia, &c. The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped. (Vers. 6, 7.) Verse 8 explains verse 7.
Verses 6, 7 are the song; the following verses are the history. It is necessary to see the distinction. The bride hath made herself ready by being faithful in what God had given her. The righteousness of Christ wrought in the individual saints that compose the bride—the righteousness of Christ that developed Christ risen, and the saints are one with Him. They were given to have resurrection-life with Him. What is produced is the saints, and seen before God in resurrection character; the display in glory of responsibility as to service done in the Holy ghost by us down here. The fine linen shows it is grace, after all.
The Lord is pleased to own the work wrought in us, and by us, in the Holy Ghost down here. In virtue of life in my Head I stand before God—in virtue of what He has done in me, the manifestation of that life, I stand before the saints—before man.
“These are the true sayings of God.” “Sayings” have a very large meaning. Christ is the Word of God, and His are the sayings of God.
The parable at the beginning of Matt. 25 is not Jewish, though the hidden bride is the earthly Jerusalem. The wise virgins are true Christians, and those profess who have only the name in this dispensation, going out to meet the Bridegroom. The Jewish remnant does not “go out,” but Christ comes to it. The figure of virgins characterizes them as individual saints, not in their corporate character as the church, though they are of the church (that is, the true and faithful virgins).
In the Gospels, when the bride is alluded to at all, it is usually in this way, (namely as individual saints). The difference between the wise and the foolish virgins is not in their watching, for they all go to sleep, but it rather consists in the reality of what they have got. If they were caring for Christ, they would be thinking of the light He would want to see, and would look to the oil; but if they only cared about the company of the other virgins, they would be thinking about their dress, and many other things, rather than the light.
In Matt. 24 Christ was giving instruction to those who inquired of Him about Jewish things, down to verse 44. Next, from verse 45 down to verse 31 of chapter 25, He applies to His disciples while He is away. Then, to the end, He takes up earthly things which will be known in reference to the Gentiles.
The bride in Rev. 19; 21, is the church. The symbol, of the “city,” in chapter 21, shows the glorious character of the saints. The heavenly people have more enjoyment than the earthly, in the same way that I get more happiness than the poor family I go to visit. They may enjoy the thing, but I enjoy something quite different. The heavenly people will be a medium of communicating blessing to the earthly.
Verse 10. The fellow-servant, is an angel. All that John is here is as a prophet, a servant, not as one of the church, indwelt by the Holy Ghost.
Verse 9. The marriage supper introduces the millennium.
Verses 11, 12. There is a difference between warlike and sessional judgment. This is, of course, the first.
Two words are used in Revelation generally, “diadems,” and “crowns.” Here it is “diadems.” If they gain a victory, they put on a crown; if one signify royal power and authority, it is a diadem.
Verse 14 is character, not action; verse 18 is the reverse.
“The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.” This is distinct from the gospel—His prophetic testimony, and the people are named “servants” rather than sons.
Verse 11. The Lord is coming out to execute judgment on the beast, who took the character of the false prophet, and was cast alive into a lake of fire, whilst Babylon was burnt with fire.
“Heaven opened.” This expression occurs four times in scripture connected with the person of the Lord: first, in Matt. 3, the Holy Ghost descends, and bears record that God's object of delight being on earth, heaven is open upon Him. The Spirit, as a dove, rests upon Him, and bears witness to Him as the Son of God.
Secondly, in the end of John 1, the Lord says to Nathanael, “Ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” It is not the Holy Ghost here, but the angels, and if those around had had their eyes opened, they might perhaps have seen them, for after His temptation angels came and ministered unto Him, and in the garden of Gethsemane one “strengthened” Him.
The third time there is a difference, for the Son of man is gone up—God has taken to Himself the Object of His delight. Then the Holy Ghost fills the saint on earth. He looks up, seeing the heaven opened and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. The link is broken with earth, and the heart of the saint is taken up to heaven. The testimony of this is corrupted and lost, and we have now a great tree instead.
Then here, for the fourth time, heaven is opened again, and Christ comes forth in judgment against hostile power; and, when thus opened, it is for us as well as for Himself, for we belong to Him, and come with Him.
“The armies in heaven follow.” The white horse is the symbol of triumph, and He who sits upon him is called “Faithful and True,” the same character in which He is presented to the church of Laodicea, though there He is the “Witness” and the “Amen.” Here it is not as a “Witness,” but as a Judge, and as executing judgment in the character of God, and He is always the “Amen” to that. His eyes are as a flaming fire, showing how piercing the judgment is; and then “many crowns” —or royal glories.
His name none knew but Himself. This is Christ's consciousness of what He is. So, in Matt. 11, He says, “No man knoweth the Son but the Father.” And why? Because no man can fathom incarnate God; and the way He maintains it is by going down and down and down, for “He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death,” &c. But He is exalted, and “His name is called the Word of God,” the Revealer of God. He appears in a “vesture dipped in blood,” significant of His coming forth as a warrior.
Isa. 63 is the same scene. There He is described as treading the “winepress of Almighty God” —executing judgment indeed as Son of man, but He could not tread the winepress of God if He were not God. In His lowest services He was still God. None could have put his hand upon the leper but He, without being defiled. The priest was only able to look, not to touch the leper; but here is One who could touch. It is sweet to know how near He is to us; and yet how great—His name is publicly written; “on his vesture, and on his thigh he hath a name written, King of kings,” &c.
How Paul to Timothy rests upon the glory of His person, when he says, “the only Potentate, King of kings, and Lord of lords,” &c., “the same yesterday,” &c.
And Christ comes forth here to judge quick and dead. The subjects of His judgments are not the nations which are connected with the throne, or sessional judgment: but here it is the horse. This is judgment on hostile power, the place where light has been—the Gentile and the Jewish power, given to them by Satan—the Roman emperor, and the false or pretended Christ.
God sends His Son to get men out of heathenism, idolatry, &c., and they turn that into idolatry. There may well be joy in heaven when there is an end to it; for Christ now sets it all aside—judgment on the earth—but as come down from heaven. The kings and their armies gather together; but all ministers to the setting up of the Lord Jesus Christ as Prince of Peace, and we have our position with Him, and come out with Him.
Beloved friends, it is very important to see the solemnity of the judgment about to be executed on Babylon. The effect will be to separate our hearts from all around, and keep us looking for that glorious hope and appearing, &c., keeping our garments white. It will be a struggle; but now are we the sons of God, and “when he shall appear, we shall be like him” —He will come out with us. May we seek to realize it even here, keeping ourselves distinct from everything that is to be judged; and our heart's desire be to see His face with joy, to be with Him who has given Himself for our portion now and to all eternity!