John has already been able in short, sharp strokes to paint the fall of Babylon, the judgment that is about to be meted out1 on the ‘whore’, ‘harlot’. She is the spiritual / religious forces of the ‘end time’, the apostate church, the end-time religion of unity. She was present in a sense and has been working throughout all ages of human history, but now she has reached her climax. ‘Babylon’ is also the ‘city on the seven hills’ which, in fact, has kingship over the kings of the earth, the ‘beast’ with its ten horns, its ten kings, under the leadership of the satanic trinity of the dragon, the anti-Christ and the false prophet.
These political forces tear the spiritual/religious forces apart. Dictators often (ab)used the church and religion to come to power and to indoctrinate the people but once they have achieved their goals, they consider the church and religion to be a dangerous competitor that must be persecuted, subdued, and sometimes even destroyed. The treatment of the Christian Church and of other religions during the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution and Hitler’s evil empire of Nazism and Fascism bears this up. John is now going to see the fall of Babylon revealed in detail, and he will go on to describe it in words that strongly remind us of the fall of Tyre in Ezekiel 26–28 and that of Babylon in Isaiah 13–14, 21 and Jeremiah 50–51. The Words of God from the Old Testament, spoken by the mouths of the prophets, resound once again, loud and clear.
What happened to these historical cities near Israel will now be carried out on a world scale. Prophecy is like the ripples caused by throwing a stone in the water. Just as ever- increasing circles are created in the water until they reach the banks, prophecy is fulfilled in history in ever-wider circles, until it finds its ultimate fulfilment when it reaches the banks of eternity when eternity breaks through in time and ushers in a New World, the truly New Age. After the judgment of the old world, there will be true Peace and Righteousness upon planet earth in the ‘Kingdom of God’ to come. The image of the ‘whore’ is retained in the first eight verses of this chapter, after which the emphasis is gradually transferred from the whoring woman spiritual Babylon to the great city of commerce Babylon. The ‘timelessness, or above-time-ness’ of ‘principle Babylon’ is also gradually given up when that happens. Babylon becomes more and more the concrete end-time ‘city’, in which everything that is godless and anti-Christian is concentrated and brought down by God’s righteous judgement, as it is to take place on ‘the Lord’s Day’.2 John basically says: ‘After this I saw.” John sees a new scene, a new ‘slide’ from the slide box, indicating once again some distancing from what has gone before. John sees a new picture, a change of scene, or a look at the same scene but from a different angle. As we already heard, this does not necessarily have to refer to events that succeed one another in time.3 Each of the new prophetic ‘slides’ is introduced with: ‘I saw…’; ‘After which I saw…’; ‘And after this I heard…’ etc.
• ‘Prophecy’ is more than ‘predicting the future’.
• The Apostle Paul says: “Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. But one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation. One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself; but one who prophesies edifies the Church. Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more that you would prophesy; and greater is one who prophesies than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the Church may receive edifying.”4
• So besides speaking of future events, prophecy also contains great spiritual lessons for us today, while looking at God’s future.
• Getting stuck in drawing up ‘end-time diagrams’, eschatological ‘road-maps’ on the basis of ‘prophesies’ does not do justice to what true prophecy is meant to be. It can easily lead to ‘eschatological science fiction’.
Bible References:
1.Genesis 1:2; Isaiah 34:10; Jeremiah 4:23; Deuteronomy 32:10; Job 26:7, 6:18, 12:24; Isaiah 24:10; Psalm 107:40 2.Isaiah 45:18 3.2 Kings 9:30–37 4.Compare Psalm 27:2; Jeremiah 10:25; Micah 3:3; Zephaniah 3:3 5.Ezekiel 38:21 NIV 6.Haggai 2:22–23 NIV 7.Zechariah 14:13 NIV 8.Zechariah 1:12–15, 2:6–9 9.Revelation 19:19–21 10.John 13:2; Luke 22:3 11.Luke 17:1; Matthew 18:7, 26:24
