Mystery Babylon in the New Testament (1)

The New Testament writers reference Babylon 11 times. The first four mentions are purely historical, denoting the ancient city and its empire. My interest today is in the final seven, which talk about a Babylon that has endured throughout history. Six of these are in Revelation.

Few attentive readers of scripture doubt that John’s usage of “Babylon” in Revelation is primarily or exclusively symbolic. It has to be. The city was a ruin then and remains one today, buried under millennia of dirt. The empire is long gone. To the extent that Babylon continues to be a factor in our world, it is primarily a spiritual and philosophical influence rather than a visible political entity. I’ve been calling her “mystery Babylon”, not least because interpreters of scripture struggle to determine exactly where and how the Babylonian spirit currently manifests and how it will manifest in the end times. That is certainly mysterious.

Of course, there are always opinions about it. One favorite speculation over the centuries has been that Roman Catholicism is mystery Babylon.

Two Main Contenders

That idea started early. Several church fathers — Tertullian, Jerome, Augustine — identified Babylon as a metaphor for Rome. That’s understandable. When mystery Babylon first appears in Revelation, she is a great prostitute seated on a scarlet beast with seven heads. An angel tells John that the seven heads represent both seven mountains and seven kings. The city of Rome sprawls over seven hills. Bingo!

Modern writers picked this idea up and expanded on it. In 1966, Ralph Woodrow published Babylon Mystery Religion, which traced the practices and teachings of ancient Babylon through to Romanism and institutional Protestantism, which sadly never entirely shook off the Babylonian influence. Woodrow said these practices include Mariolatry, prayers to “saints”, accumulation of wealth, opulence in architecture, and so on. In the seventies, Hal Lindsey popularized Woodrow’s views in The Late Great Planet Earth.

Covenant Theologians disagreed. Cornelius Vanderwaal identified the seven heads of Revelation 17 with the city of Jerusalem and apostate Judaism, pointing out that Jerusalem too sits on seven hills.

1 Peter 5:13

The first reference to mystery Babylon (and the only one outside Revelation) strengthens the identification with Rome. In closing his first epistle, Peter writes, “She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings.” We can be quite confident there was no church in the city of Babylon in those days: Alexander the Great had destroyed it more than 300 years prior. The city was as ruined then as it is today. Peter is definitely using a metaphor, and the question is what he means. BibleRef speculates this was probably the Christian church in Rome:

“Why Rome? For one thing, it is unlikely there was any church in the historical city of Babylon at this time. And, it is very likely Peter was writing this letter from Rome. Also, Peter’s Jewish readers would recognize ‘Babylon’ as the traditional metaphor for those opposed to God’s people. [We looked at where that OT tradition came from in an earlier post.] Rome, in that time, was the geographical and political source of that opposition. Peter may have been protecting the Christians in Rome by using Babylon as a stand-in.”

That seems reasonable, but as far as we know, when Peter wrote there was still a church in Jerusalem, with which he was almost surely in contact. Speculating that apostate Judaism is mystery Babylon is hardly a bridge too far; after all, scripture also uses Sodom and Egypt as symbols for unrepentant Judaism headquartered in Jerusalem. Mystery Babylon is in appropriate company with those two.

Identifying Mystery Babylon

I’m not going to attempt to identify mystery Babylon, except to say that I believe its manifestation in the world absolutely has to be more extensive and pervasive than that of either Catholicism or apostate Judaism. Tertullian and the other church fathers lived in the days of Daniel’s kingdom of iron, when Rome was at the peak of its powers. For people of that era, the empire would have been a natural fit for the great whore. Modern interpreters, however, are not living in and under the kingdom of iron, but in the divided kingdom of the latter days, the feet and toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue with the firmness of iron and the brittleness of clay. We are watching in real time the adulteration of the Western culture with elements foreign to it. In such a context, identifying mystery Babylon with either Roman Catholicism or apostate Judaism seems somehow … well, insufficient, to say the least. I’m not alone in feeling that way.

Moreover, we have already pointed out that mystery Babylon had its origins in Israelite idolatry, and its future leadership in the (Jewish) second beast of Revelation who arises out of the land rather than the sea. So there is an undeniably Jewish component to the religion of the last days. In the wake of the heavenly departure of the real Church that Christ is presently building, it’s far from impossible that the abandoned and institutional vestiges of Christendom may find compelling reasons to unite with apostate Judaism. The Christian faith focuses uniquely on Jesus Christ, a fundamental point of division between the two entities, but with the real Church (not to mention the Holy Spirit) in heaven and out of the way, that issue may no longer be any serious point of contention.

Revelation 14:8

In Revelation, angels announce the fall of mystery Babylon as early as chapter 14. The first of three angels proclaims an “eternal gospel” in a world without the Church. “Fear God and give him glory,” he cries, “because the hour of his judgment has come.” The second angel proclaims the fall of mystery Babylon:

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.”

The phrase “Fallen, fallen is Babylon” is not new. Isaiah used it to describe the fall of the city to the Medes and Persians. Here, Babylon is about to fall again, and there is no question that it is not the ancient city in view. This mystery Babylon, this humanistic spirit, has not just outlived the Neo-Babylonian Empire, but has become a pervasive influence right to the end of our present age.

I discussed the “wine of the passion of her sexual immorality” in Sunday’s post. But looking at the verse in context highlights a couple of points: (1) However we may identify mystery Babylon, it has to be big enough and pervasive enough to have impacted, tempted and corrupted “all nations”. That’s a big ask for either Romanism or apostate Judaism. (2) Her fall is a huge spiritual event. Its declaration is on a level of importance with the promise of coming judgment and the message of the third angel, which is a warning against worshiping the beast, a heaven-or-hell choice.

Revelation 16:19-20

Where Revelation 14 proclaims God’s imminent judgment and reveals the extent of mystery Babylon’s influence on the nations, Revelation 16 gives us the precise timing of Babylon’s destruction. It comes at the height of the great tribulation:

“The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found.”

Mystery Babylon will fall when “the great city” is split into three parts. Most commentators believe that great city is Jerusalem, pointing to Zechariah’s prophecy that the Mount of Olives will split in two when the Lord Jesus returns to save Israel. I tend to agree. How many different ways can you split a city? Moreover, the timing is a good fit. This happens right at the eleventh hour.

In this very same context mystery Babylon will fall. On the one hand, that strengthens the possible identification with Jerusalem and apostate Judaism. On the other, at the exact same time, the cities of the nations fall too, Rome and the cities of the Roman-influenced West surely among them. No help there.

In tomorrow’s post, we’ll examine scripture’s final four references to mystery Babylon and try to sum up what Revelation has to say about her fate.