Babylon the Harlot

by Jerry Huerta

copyright 2020

The harlot Babylon, in Revelation 17, has been interpreted several ways since the earliest days of the church. It comes as no surprise that the early church interpreted the harlot as pagan Rome. In more recent times, preterists have attempted to interpret her as ancient Jerusalem, and the futurists harken back to the past in their assertion that she is the capital of a revived Roman empire, the worldly city of Augustine’s two cities. However, such interpretations do not exhaust the criteria concerning the prophecy and only convey some elements of truth in order to gain advocates. Presenting the elements of truth eliminate both the preterist and futurist interpretations and vindicate the historicist’s view, albeit with a refinement. The futurist’s view maintains the more excellent historical account that the Revelation was written around AD 96, which precludes the preterist interpretation. The preterist’s view maintains the criterion that the woman is fallen from grace, as did ancient Israel in such texts as Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 2:20; 3:1–11; Ezekiel 16:1–43; 23. The preterist’s element precludes the futurist’s interpretation, insomuch as Babylon’s fall is from grace, and neither a worldly kingdom or its capital can fall from grace, i.e., a revived Roman empire.

The element that the woman falls from grace conveys the Revelation concerns the church under the New Covenant and not Jerusalem in the first century. Jerusalem was ordained to refuse Christ (Psalms 118:22; Isaiah 8:14; 49:7; and John 1:11), which is confirmation of Jerusalem’s fall before the composition of Revelation. However, the Revelation conveys things that must shortly come to pass (Revelation 1:1), which represents prophecy (Revelation 1:3), and as such, cannot prophecy what had already come to pass. The preterist’s interpretation that identifies Babylon as Jerusalem is without historical correspondence even with their assertion that the composition of the Revelation occurred before AD 70. Babylon’s fall from grace must occur after the composition of the Revelation in order to agree with the element that the book conveys things that must come to pass and represents prophecy. Again, the element that the woman falls from grace conveys the Revelation concerns the church under the New Covenant, substantiated in such New Testament evidence as 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Timothy 4:1-4; 2 Timothy 3:1; Luke 8:11-13; Hebrews 3:12-14. Furthermore, the element that the woman falls from grace eliminates the futurist’s assertion that Babylon represents the capital of a revived Roman Empire, as such an entity has no grace from which to fall.

Revelation 18:23 promotes the rendering that mystery Babylon’s fall is from grace. The declaration that the candlelight and voice of the bridegroom and bride will cease in mystery Babylon establishes she was the source of these phenomena before her judgment. Christ’s revelation that his people are “the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill” in Matthew 5:14 deciphers the candlelight in Revelation 18 as grace. The indication that the woman sits on seven mountains in Revelation 17:9 that are developed further as “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” in verse 15 also sustains the application of Matthew 5:14 in interpreting the candlelight as grace. Texts such as Matthew 9:15; 25:1-10, Mark 2:19-20, Luke 5:34-35 and John 3:29 decipher the phenomenon of the voice of the bridegroom and the bride. The bridegroom is unquestionably Christ and the bride represents the remnant church who obeys the proclamation to come out of the fallen church in which the “tares” have become dominant, Babylon, so as not to receive of her plagues. The call to come out of Babylon is the commencement of the separation of the wheat from the tares.

As previously stated, the element that mystery Babylon falls from grace engenders a refinement of the historicist’s doctrine. In pursuit of this refinement, one must emphasize that the New Testament prophecies that the church apostatizes in the last days, heralding the return of Christ, and the exposure of the antichrist.

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3)

At the establishment of historicist’s school, its proponents interpreted mystery Babylon as the papacy. However, the criterion of the candlelight and voice of the bridegroom ever emanating from the little horn of Daniel, or sea beast of Revelation is without biblical warrant. The majority of historicists rightfully render the seven churches as prophetic and interpret Jezebel as the papacy during the middle ages. This establishes the papacy as the fifth kingdom in Daniel 7 and Revelation 17, one of the five that were fallen from the perspective in said chapter of Revelation. Historicists William J. Reid typically interprets Jezebel as the papacy.

It is supposed that the church of Rome is described in the epistle to the church of Thyatira, under the name of that woman, “Jezebel.” And it must be confessed, even by those who reject this theory, that the similarity is wonderful.[1]

Jezebel “was the daughter of the priest-king Ethbaal, ruler of the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon. When Jezebel married King Ahab of Israel (ruled c. 874–853 BCE), she persuaded him to introduce the worship of the Tyrian god Baal-Melkart, a nature god. Most of the prophets of Yahweh were killed at her command.”[2] Only Thyatira represents the body in that era that could fall from grace or lose its candlestick, as stated in Revelation 2:5. This is the aforesaid refinement to the historicist’s doctrine. In principle, there are two women to account for during that era: Thyatira and Jezebel. The church in the middle ages, Thyatira, maintained the candlelight and voice of the bridegroom, in resistance to Jezebel. Thyatira is the church in the wilderness. The interpretation that Jezebel was or is today a religious body that was once pure fails to conform to the Old Testament account of what Jezebel signified.

Progressive revelation has led many to view the little horn in Daniel as the same sea-beast in the Revelation, which is the fifth kingdom that has fallen from the perspective relayed in Revelation 17. The kingdom that “was” and “is not” during the reign of the sixth kingdom is the sea-beast of chapter 13. John was taken to the future “day of the Lord,” the judgment of the harlot Babylon. From this perspective, our time, it is easy to reconcile the sixth kingdom as the two-horned beast by the circumstances that it is instrumental in wounding the beast by separating church and state, which is why it is likened unto a lamb. Nevertheless, the two-horned beast is prophesied to speak as a dragon that ultimately “causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed” (Revelation 13:12).

From this future perspective, the harlot Babylon can no longer be construed as the papacy, as the traditionalists have in the past, but must represent apostate Protestantism, that is drunk with the blood of the saints. Contemporary historicists acknowledge that the souls of the fifth seal petition for retribution because of the torment by the horsemen of the previous seals. Traditional Hebraic scholars view God’s locust army, which has the appearance of horsemen (Joel 2:4), as the antitype of Rosh Hashanah. Contemporary historicists also acknowledge that Christ’s manifestation before the “Ancient of days” in Revelation 5 parallels his manifestation in Daniel 7:13. At the same time, the Hebraic scholars view the opening of the books as portraying Rosh Hashanah. It invariably follows that Christ’s voice signifies the trumpets that herald the new moons (days of darkness) that pertain to the seven months between the spring and fall festivals, announcing Rosh Hashana. Again, Christ's voice in Revelation 4:1 represents the antitypical trumpet that announces judgment at Rosh Hashana. The answer to the prayers of the fifth seal is witnessed in the scene of Revelation 8, which leads to the end of their torment by the horsemen/locusts, as they are sealed in chapter 7. This end is conveyed in the fifth trumpet (Revelation 9:7), which supports the unremitting advancement from the first partition of the typical sanctuary to the second, synchronizing the Hebraic feasts with Revelation 1 through 11.

The synchronization of the Hebraic festivals with Revelation 1 through 11, and the exposé that the first horseman was fulfilled by Protestant missionary imperialism at the time of the Laodicean church, Daniel’s “time of the end” and “cleansing of the sanctuary”, is the subject of the book, Thy Kingdom Come: Re-evaluating the Historicist’s Interpretation of the Revelation. The book documents the exploitation of the true church by apostate Protestantism, Babylon, that fulfills the denunciation that Babylon is “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,” and this is the source of the torment of the souls in the fifth seal. Historically, Protestant missionary imperialism, represented by the rider of the white horse, led to wars for the resources of the world at the first attempt at globalism (the red horseman), ending their churches’ intercession in commerce and the exploitation that ensued (the rider of the black horse), resulting in famines and death (the rider of the pale horse).

[1] William J. Reid, Lectures on the Revelation, (Stevenson, Foster & Co., No. 48 Fifth Avenue 1878), 87; see also John Darby’s Synopsis, Revelation 2: “In Thyatira the assembly reaches to the close. There was found, in what Christ owned in this state of things, increasing devotedness. But Jezebel was allowed; and both connection with the world, idolatry, and children begotten to it in the assembly itself… Thyatira may go on to the end, but does not characterise the witness of God to the end; other states must be brought in to do that. It is, I have no doubt, the Popery of the middle ages, say to the Reformation; Romanism itself goes on to the end. The judgment on Jezebel is final. The Lord had given her space to repent, and she had not repented. It would be a forced association with those whom she had once seduced to the ruin of them all.

[2] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jezebel-queen-of-Israel

This post is a postscript to the book above, which is available here.

The Harlot Babylon part 2

by Jerry Huerta

copyright 2020

In part one, the identity of Babylon in Revelation 17 was revealed as the apostate church in the last days that is supported in New Testament texts such as 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Timothy 4:1-4; 2 Timothy 3:1; Luke 8:11-13; Hebrews 3:12-14. In this interpretation, Babylon’s fall or judgment runs parallel with the prophetic and illustrated history of the seven churches and the continuing judgment of their covenant relationship with God, which is precedented in Old Testament text such as Jeremiah 3 and Ezekiel 16 (1 Peter 4:17). Seventh-day Adventist Hans K. LaRondelle maintains this view of Babylon in Revelation 17,

The symbolic language of Babylon as the great ‘prostitute’ in Revelation 17 is covenantal language that continues the framework of the covenant of the OT prophets. . . . Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah, and especially Ezekiel, described apostate Israel and Jerusalem as the wife of Yahweh who had become in their time the greatest prostitute on earth. She would not escape her judgment, the covenant wrath of God.[1]

The seating of the woman during the reign of the sixth king is significant to her identity. Adventism has been somewhat indecisive and confused about this issue. Concerning the criterion that “five are fallen” in Revelation 17:10, the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary presents three conflicting views on the issue, the first, with a taint of Idealism, suggest the heads are,

Representative of all powers that oppose God’s people and work on earth, irrespective of number, the statement would simply mean that a majority of the powers so represented had already passed off the stage of history.[2]

The second view they cite enumerates the fallen heads as Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and the Papacy.[3] The third alternative harkens back to the traditional view that Babylon is the papacy, in which the heads represent Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece.[4] The ramification of these different identities affects the sixth king that reigns. In speculating on the identity of the sixth head, the commentary conspicuously drops the first view. It presents the second view’s ramification that the sixth head is either France or the United States, while the third view demands the traditional interpretation that it is Rome in John’s time.[5] The first view has no credibility and neither does the third, insomuch that it forces the view that the 6th-century papacy is seated on the beast during the reign of the sixth head in their scheme, the 1st-century Roman Empire, which is fallacious and leads to scriptural and historical hyperbole.

If the papacy represents Babylon, it renders her one of the heads, the fifth in the commentary’s second view and the seventh in the third. Since the papacy has existed for over a thousand years, it does not agree with the short span of the seventh (verse 10). It renders the woman as a head seated on a beast with seven heads by any view. In order to avoid such a dilemma, the Revelation relates the heads, mountains, and kings as appositives, nouns that rename nouns, just as in Revelation 20:2. The heads are specific kingdoms in relation to Daniel 7. The KJV is an inadequate translation of Revelation 17:10. What is translated, “And there are seven kings,” is best rendered, “and they are seven kings,” as in the NASB and many other translations. The woman sits upon seven heads that are seven kingdoms. Furthermore, since the kings are sequential, so are the mountain kingdoms; five are fallen, and one is (it reigns). One must note, Babylon is not a harlot until she fornicates with kings of the earth, before her judgment and during the reign of the sixth king. Mountains and hills are commonly used as symbols of kingdoms in prophecy (Psalms 30:7; Isaiah 2:2, 41:15, 68:15-16; Jeremiah 51:25; Ezekiel 35:3; Daniel 2:35; Habakkuk 3:11; Zechariah 4:7). Christ’s declaration that his covenant people are “the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill,” in Matthew 5:14, supports the woman is not one of the heads but the great city in question. The great city does not sit on the seven mountains all at once, but consecutively, starting when his people were taken captive to Babylon. God used his covenant people to be a light to ancient Babylon, then Medo-Persia, then the Greek Empire and after that the Roman Empire and then the fifth kingdom, the papacy. John was taken to the future to witness that the judgment of God’s fallen covenant people, prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Timothy 4:1-4; 2 Timothy 3:1; Luke 8:11-13; Hebrews 3:12-14. Apostate Protestantism sits upon the beast with seven heads during the reign of the sixth head/mountain/kingdom, the beast that rises out of the earth, that appears as a lamb, but enviably speaks as a dragon.

It must be noted that the original view of the seven heads in Adventism is conspicuously absent in the Adventist’s Commentary. Adventist Uriah Smith, whose work was endorsed by Ellen G. White,[6] held that the heads of the beast in Revelation 13 and 17 were, “seven forms of government that have existed in the Roman Empire,” namely, “Kings, Consuls, Decemvirs, Dictators, Triumvirs, Emperors, and Popes.”[7] The citation is from a track published by Smith to quash the rising interpretation that the heads,

were to take in the great governments of the earth, which had been already symbolized in prophecy, some of them three times over, and which had passed away centuries before, never again to appear or to have any influence among men. Such kingdoms as these, it is contended, are included among the heads of the dragon, the new enumeration being given as follows: 1. Babylon; 2. Medo-Persia; 3. Grecia; 4. Rome pagan; 5. Rome papal; 6. United Italy; 7. A future head yet unknown; 8. The papacy restored.[8]

Since White endorsed Smith's work, it is evident that she was in accord with Smith's rejection that the heads were the same as the beasts in Daniel 7. Smith added a footnote that held the new view as "calculated to work mischief by confusing and unsettling the mind of the reader in regard to prophetic applications."[9] Even so, by 1980, the Adventist Commentary presented the view as a viable interpretation of the heads in Revelation 17, while Smith’s view disappears altogether. While proponents of White might hold doggedly to Smith’s rendition and condemn the Commentaries as revisionism, it is untenable to hold that the kingdoms in Daniel 7 were to “never again to appear or to have any influence among men.” Smith’s comment conflicts with John's use of the same beasts in Daniel 7 for the beast that rises out of the sea. Daniel 7:11-12 states that the little horn endures until it is committed to the burning flames, which is easily exegeted as referring to Revelation 19:20. At the same time, the other beasts have their dominions taken, but their lives “prolonged for a season and time.” The prolonging of their lives is easily exegeted as the absorption of various attributes from one kingdom to the next. No doubt, the papacy absorbed the attribute of the marriage of state and religion from the other beasts, including the Roman Empire. This absorption is easily supported in Revelation 13:2. The sea beast is a composite of a leopard, bear, lion, as well as the ten-horned beast. The ten horns on the sea beast in Revelation 13 indicate the western Roman Empire’s dominion was taken, but lived on through the sea beast, just as the other beasts in Daniel 7:12. Here we have a definite indication that the heads are kingdoms, as in the second and third views of the Commentary and not the “seven forms of government that have existed in the Roman Empire” held by earlier expositors. It certainly does not have the dilemma of holding the papacy is Babylon, which would have the 8th head seated upon the beast during the reign of imperial Rome, the 6th head, as in the scheme of the earlier expositors.  

In returning to the Commentaries three views, the ramifications of the second and third hold that the perspectives are either our time or John’s, respectively. If the sixth head is either the United States or France, then the perspective of Revelation 17 is our time, but if it represents Imperial Rome, it has to be John’s time. One cannot render Babylon as the papacy seated on the beast during the reign of pagan, Imperial Rome, without making the connection between the sixth head and Babylon lack synchronization. In essence, under the Commentary’s third view that Babylon is the papacy, the sixth head’s reign has already passed. The flaw in the connection might be the reasoning behind the early Adventists’ need to see the heads as seven forms of government of Rome, even as it still has the papacy as Babylon, seated at the time Imperial, pagan Rome reigns. No such lack in synchronization occurs under the second view in the Commentary, as the papacy is rendered one of the five kings that have fallen, while the sixth king reigns. However, the second view does require LaRondelle’s view of Babylon, which cannot apply to the heads, insomuch as the beasts in Daniel and Revelation cannot be held to a covenant relationship with God and fallen from moral rectitude in any sense. The second view requires that Babylon be a contemporary entity in our time, in fulfillment of 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Timothy 4:1-4; 2 Timothy 3:1; Luke 8:11-13; Hebrews 3:12-14.

What is lacking in the Commentary’s second view is a correlation between the imagery in the book. As revealed, the heads in Revelation and the beasts in Daniel are connected and acknowledged in the Commentary. Nevertheless, the authors were at a loss for the precise identity of the sixth head under the second view, dismissing the correlation with chapter 13 that if the first beast correlates with the fifth head, then the sixth head has to correlate to the two-horned beast. Furthermore, the image made to the first beast must be the seventh head in Revelation 17. This view accounts for all the beasts in Revelation. The sea beast in Revelation 13:1 is the fifth kingdom that has fallen, that “was, and is not” at the time of the sixth head/kingdom rules. This view renders the beast from the earth in Revelation, 13:11, the sixth kingdom that reigns while the fifth head “is not.” The only beast to account for is the seventh, which is the “image” made to the fifth beast by the two-horned beast in Revelation 13:14-15. The seventh reigns for only a short time before the healing of papacy is complete in the historicist’s perspective. From the future perspective in Revelation 17, the harlot Babylon can no longer be construed as the papacy, as the traditionalists have in the past, but must represent apostate Protestantism that is drunk with the blood of the saints.

Protestant missionary imperialism at the time of the Laodicean church, Daniel’s “time of the end” and “cleansing of the sanctuary,” is the object of this work. Further evidence and documentation of the exploitation of the true church by apostate Protestantism, Babylon can be located in the book below, Thy Kingdom Come: Re-evaluating the Historicist's Interpretation of the Revelation. When the Protestants wrought a secular society, it stripped society of the protections in the scriptures against exploitation.

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. (James 5:1-7)

Again, the object of this work is to correlate the imagery in Revelation with the Hebraic cultic calendar. The book below reveals the source of the torment of the souls in the fifth seal are the horsemen in the previous seals. Traditional Hebraic scholars view God’s locust army, which has the appearance of horsemen (Joel 2:4), as the antitype of Rosh Hashanah. Contemporary historicists also acknowledge that Christ’s manifestation before the “Ancient of days” in Revelation 5 parallels his manifestation in Daniel 7:13. At the same time, the Hebraic scholars view the opening of the books as portraying Rosh Hashanah. It invariably follows that Christ’s voice signifies the trumpets that herald the new moons (days of darkness) that pertain to the seven months between the spring and fall festivals, announcing Rosh Hashana. Again, Christ’s voice in Revelation 4:1 represents the antitypical trumpet that announces judgment at Rosh Hashana. The prayers of the fifth seal are answered in Revelation 8, which leads to the end of the torment by the horsemen/locusts, as they are sealed in chapter 7. This end is conveyed in the fifth trumpet (Revelation 9:7), which supports the unremitting advancement from the first partition of the typical sanctuary to the second, synchronizing the Hebraic feasts with Revelation 1 through 11. The denunciation Babylon is drunk with the blood of the saints is seen in apostate Protestantism. This exploitation is the source of the torment of the souls in the fifth seal. Historically, Protestant missionary imperialism represented the rider of the white horse that led to wars for the resources of the world at the first attempt at globalism. The wars fulfilled the imagery of the rider of the red horse. Contemporaneously, the Protestants ended their churches’ intercession in commerce and exploitation ensued (the rider of the black horse), resulting in famines and death (the rider of the pale horse).

[1] Hans K. LaRondelle, Babylon: Anti-Christian Empire, in Symposium on Revelation—Book II, DARCOM 7, ed. Frank B. Holbrook (Silver Springs, MD: Biblical Research Institute, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1992), 158-158

[2] The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, s.v. “five are fallen,” (Review and Herald Pub. Ass., 1980), 855-856.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.

[6] “At the 1881 General Conference session, King urged those assembled to carry out the council given by Mrs. White in 1879 that SDA books should be sold widely among the public, and forcefully argued that two small books written by Uriah Smith, Thoughts on Daniel and Thoughts on the Revelation, could be published together in an attractive form for sale by canvassers to the public” Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopaedia, Volume 10, page 660, King, George Albert (1847-1906)
[7] The Seven Heads Of Revelation 12, 13, and 17 by Uriah Smith, 1896, https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1411.2

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

This post is a postscript to the book above, which is available here.