We are finally up to Chapter 17. Remember that the premise for this class is that Revelation describes God’s judgment upon the unbelieving Jews, the apostate church and the Roman empire. We’ll see those put together pretty clearly here I think. We touched a little bit on it last week.

17:1And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I shall show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, (2) with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.” (3) And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. (4) And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality, (5) and upon her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” (6)And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered greatly. (7) And the angel said to me, “Why do you wonder? I shall tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. (8) “The beast that you saw was and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth will wonder, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come. (9) Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.” And he goes on.

The question is, who or what is Babylon the great? The mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth? Now I confess that my view has recently changed. If you look in my Bible you will see that I have written in that the harlot of Babylon is Rome. That is clearly wrong! When you actually read the passage, that is clearly wrong. But, let’s go back to verse 1 where one of the seven angels spoke with John and said: “Come here, I shall show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, The angel shows John what? Judgment upon the great harlot who sits upon many waters. So again, we’re talking here about God’s judgment upon the great harlot. This harlot, (2) …the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality with her. … and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.” What is Jesus through the angel through John telling us about this great harlot? What is he talking about, “her immorality?” She worships other gods. I think clearly when you look at the Old Testament, God speaks in terms of Israel in a marriage relationship with God. When they turn away from God, He speaks of Israel as immoral, as being adulterous, as cheating on her husband who is God. What you see here I think very clearly, is that the same kind of thing is going on with the great harlot. Notice in (3) And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. Where have we seen that before? Comment: Coming up out of the sea? Yes, if you go back a couple of chapters, in chapter 13:1 it says And he stood on the sand of the seashore. And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads,… So very clearly here, John is talking about the same beast. Who is the beast? The dragon we saw in chapter 12 was Satan. Very clearly it says 12:9 The great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan,… Then we see the beast come up; the beast to whom the dragon gives power. We said that the beast was Rome operating under the power of Satan. Then we saw the false prophet, and we said that the false prophets were the teachers of Israel. The ones who should have been teaching the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. Instead, they were preaching bow down to Caesar. That’s what was going on during this period of time.

Notice the woman is sitting on the beast, and she was (4) clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, What is the picture of this woman? Does the description of her clothing ring any bells with anybody? Back in the Old Testament God says to Israel, I found you when you were untimely born. You had been prematurely born and you were lying alongside the road, whoever bore you did not even stop to clean you off, you were still bloody, God says. And I picked you up and I wiped off your blood and I dressed you in scarlet and fine linen and jewels and all this. What is God saying to Israel in that passage? He is the bridegroom. He found the bride and she was nothing, she was cast off. She was dead, if someone didn’t do anything about it, in her sins and trespasses, her pollution. Remember that blood was pollution. Her pollution was on her and God cleaned her off and dressed her in His finest and made her His bride. Now what do we see here? We see this woman clothed in scarlet and fine jewels. We see the bride of Christ, Israel in the Old Testament sense, sitting on the back of the beast. And, (4) …having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality, Where have we seen this image of a name on the forehead before? Back in Ezekiel 9, where God says I’m going to mark my people, I’m going to put a mark on their forehead. Remember that word in the Old Testament in Hebrew is the Hebrew letter taw, which was initially in the form of the cross. It has changed over the years but the initial form of it was a cross.

Q: Going back to the imagery that you’re saying in verse 4, in Jeremiah he is speaking to Babylon and He says I will raise up again Babylon, all these bad things, then in 51:6 Flee from the midst of Babylon, and each of you save his life! Do not be cut off in her iniquity for this is the time for the Lord’s vengeance; He shall recompense her. (7) Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand that made all the nation drink the wine, therefore the nations are deranged, (8) Babylon has suddenly fallen and has been destroyed. Wail for her! Take balm for her pain; Is that literally Babylon that he’s saying?

A: Yes, in the Old Testament in Jeremiah he is talking about Babylon. He’s talking about Babylon in the sense of Babylon had the cup of immorality which was being given to the nations.

So what’s the connection here with the image of Israel dressed in finery with this golden cup of the abomination and her immorality? He’s comparing Israel to Babylon, mortal enemies of the church. So what you see here is that instead of complementing and speaking in glowing terms of the church, they’re apostate, they have turned away from God. So now they’re being compared to Babylon.

C: It’s interesting also that God in the Old Testament is concerned with these foreign nations and judging them for their lawlessness. The notion of many people today is that God didn’t care about those people, God didn’t have any feelings or concern about them.

R: Yes, the people that think that God didn’t have any concern for the other nations in the world have never read their Bible, because you’re absolutely right. Throughout the Old Testament you see this concern for all of the nations of the world, in that part of the near East that had a relationship of any kind with Israel.

Okay, so (5) and upon her forehead… Is there another place in the Bible, like in Revelation, where we see that? The mark of the beast is on the unbelievers forehead and on their right hand. Where else do we see that symbol of the mark? The mark of Cain, it goes all the way back that far, but in Revelation? What about the believers? Did they have a mark? Yes, they had the name of God on their forehead. They have a mark on their forehead which is the name of God. If you remember back that far.

Q: Was Cain’s mark on his forehead?

A: It doesn’t say. It just says that he had a mark. I wasn’t saying that he had the mark on his forehead, I’m just saying that the reference to the mark goes all the way back to Cain.

Here we see that same idea, and what does the mark on the forehead represent? Ownership! You either are holy to the Lord, remember the high priest had that golden crown it was called, it was like a plate that was on the miter, the hat that he wore, and on the front of it was a golden plate which said holy to YHWH, holy to God. Here is a very distinct difference between the people of God, they are holy to God, and those that are the property of the beast. They both are marked, and we see that constantly throughout here.

(5) and upon her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” Who are we talking about here? C: Really, if you think about it only Israel can be the mother of harlots, because they are the ones that God revealed His covenants to, that God gave so much attention to. In that respect, I would think that that would make them THE greatest harlot. R: Absolutely! This is Israel the apostate church who has turned away from her bridegroom and is running after the Roman state. Remember the Jewish leadership, when the crowds were following Christ, I believe it was in John, where the high priest prophesied under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; although he didn’t know it, and what did he say about Christ? It is better that one man may die rather than the many. What was his concern? It wasn’t Israel, it was political. He didn’t want to lose his position because the leadership of Israel had a special relationship with the Roman government.

C: It uses the terminology of fornication. Only Israel could be committing fornication, right? They’re the only ones that had a covenant with God. The rest of the pagan world was…

R: Exactly. They were not in a relationship with God. So we’re talking here about a marriage relationship, and we’re talking about the wife going out after other gods, other men, other nations, instead of being committed to God.

C: So when it says (2) with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication… their fornication is because of the thing being committed with Israel and Israel’s…

R: Yes. Remember, and we’ll get a little bit more into this is a couple of verses here, that Israel was in a special relationship to God, but instead of depending upon God, she’s sitting upon Rome. She’s depending upon Rome for her political power. Rome was subjugating the world. Rome had literally subjugated pretty much the known world of that time, except for China and the Mongols. All of that area around the Mediterranean Rome had subdued. In that sense, all the kings of the world were in a relationship with Israel.

(6)And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered greatly. Here is the great harlot, and she is doing what to the saints? Persecuting, murdering them. C: But Jesus also said the prophets they stoned, they killed. R: Absolutely. C: He said that when he was scolding the Pharisees. R: Right! And that’s exactly what we’re talking about here. Jesus says in Matthew 23:34: Therefore, behold I am sending you (He is speaking to the leadership of Israel… In verse 29: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, He’s talking to the religious leaders) prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city (35) that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the book of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. He’s saying that the religious leadership actually murdered Zechariah a prophet of God in the temple complex. Murdered him right in the temple. Very clearly what’s going on here is John is being told in Revelation that the woman is drunk with the blood of the saints. That then links back to Matthew 23 where Jesus is saying to the leadership of Israel YOU are the one who are killing the prophets. YOU are the ones who are killing the saints. YOU are the ones who are crucifying them.

Q: I want to know how you could have had to wrong for so long.

A: Because I didn’t read the Scriptures carefully. You hear me say look at the little words. This is something that is so important. We are dealing here with God’s revelation of Himself to man. Now if this is God’s revelation of himself to man, number 1, am I ever going to learn everything about it? No. I cannot because if I knew everything about God, if this is God’s revelation about Himself and I knew everything about the Bible and I knew everything about God, that would make me God. So, as we study Scripture, let us never get to the point where ‘I know it all, I don’t have to read it anymore,’

C: God wants us to learn at certain times and paces and you’re actually a witness to say ‘hey, that was wrong.’

R: You’re absolutely right. The first time I taught Revelation, if I’d have taught it from this position not only would I have been kicked out of the church, but they probably would have stoned my car and slashed my tires, because the church I was in would not have taken kindly to this. Looking back, I know that God was in control.

Q: You’ve taught through this course before and everything up to this point you pretty much teach the same, but during this one you’re saying you just realized that it’s different.

A: Yes, you’re absolutely right.

C: God reveals at different times.

R: Three times I’ve taught Revelation, and I’ve taught that Babylon the Great was Rome. But…

C: When I read it I figured it was Jerusalem, because you’ve hammered it into our heads, and every time we think it’s something else, it’s always Israel.

So the woman is drunk with the blood of the saints. The woman is Israel, the leadership of Israel, the apostate church. (7) And the angel said to me, “Why do you wonder? I shall tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, … Let me ask you a question. Is this something we cannot understand? C: I think a person could make a case that the city of Rome sits on the empire… R: Yes, we’re going to talk about that in just a couple of minutes. I’m building to that. C: I can see why a person would think that’s not so far fetched, and, they’re murdering Christians. So, it’s not like you’re completely out in left field all this time.

The question is, can we understand who the woman and who the beast is? Yes! Because he says I shall tell you the mystery. It’s not something that we can’t understand. I shall tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. (8) “The beast that you saw was and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth will wonder, whose name has not been written…  (9) Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads (on the beast) are seven mountains on which the woman sits.” The woman is sitting on the beast, and the beast is on seven mountains, which is Rome. Rome is built upon seven hills. That’s why the Reformers though the beast was the catholic church. There’s no doubt about it. They thought the Pope was the antichrist and that Rome was the beast. The point I want to make here is that the woman is sitting on the beast, and the seven heads on the beast are the seven mountains, which is the city of Rome. So what you see here again is this relationship, the woman is in a relationship with Rome which is built upon the seven hills, that’s the part I missed when I read it before.

Q: What are the seven heads and ten horns?

A: There’s a lot of controversy on that. The answer is we really don’t know. Most people think they are Roman Caesars. The beast (the Roman empire) was and is not but is to come.

Q: When we were in chapter 12, I asked you if the woman there is the same woman in chapter 17 and you said no. Is that pre-conversion?

A: That was pre-conversion.

(10) and they are seven kings; five have fallen, on is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. Chilton says “the angel turns to speak of the dragon’s incarnation in the beast from the sea. Here’s the mind which has wisdom, (quoting from Revelation), the seven heads of seven mountains on which the woman sits. The seven mountains again identify the beast as Rome, famous for its seven hills, but these also correspond to the line of the Caesars, for they are seven kings, five have fallen. The first five Caesars were Julius, Augustus, Tiberias, Caligula, and Claudius. One is, Nero the sixth Caesar, was on the throne as St. John was writing the Revelation. The other has not yet come and when he comes, he must remain a little while, Galba, the seventh Caesar reigned for less than seven months.” Chilton has a footnote and he says: This has been called into question by some (this progression of the Caesars). Since in a technical sense the empire began with Augustus, not Julius. Yet, that was a technicality which as far as the normal conversation and writing of the first century were concerned, was irrevelent. For all practical purposes, Julius Caesar was emperor. He claimed the title Imperitor. Most early Roman Christian and Jewish writers count him as the first Emperor. Sutonius begins his lives of the twelve Caesars with Julius as the first emperor, as does D.O. Casius in his Roman History. For our purposes, Josephus seems to provide the most convincing testimony since he wrote for both the Roman and a Jewish audience in the common parlance of the day. In his antiquities of the Jews, he clearly speaks of Augustus and Tiberias as the second and third emperors, of Caligula as the fourth and of Julius as the first. 

Q: How could they get that confused if Augustus followed Julius?

A: The confusion is that other historians wrote of Augustus as being the first Caesar.

Q: Well, if you’ve ever seen the Shakespeare play, Julius Caesar is killed when he was … (inaudible) so he wasn’t really emperor. He was more like the head of the Republic.

A: Right. He was initially…

Q: So they’re saying Augustus is 1, then …

A: Right. Julius was not, that the empire…

Q: …chronology of their lives, Julius lived first, died first.

A: Julius lived first, no question about that. But many historians believe that the Roman empire with the Caesar as god did not come into existence until Augustus. Remember that after Julius’ death, he was proclaimed to be a god. Then every Caesar after that during life became a god, according to the Roman culture.

C: I had a Roman empire class at school and she taught the class saying that that’s when it switched from being a republic to an empire, during Augustus.

R: Yes, and so you see a lot of people are steeped in that kind of tradition. If that’s true, then you can’t fit the Caesars in with what Revelation is saying. If you start with Augustus, then it won’t work.

C: This is a letter of comfort to the first century Christians, so therefore they’d be using what they understood. They wouldn’t be as worried about whether Julius was first emperor or not. That’s what everybody assumed, one would think that’s how they would write.

R: Yes and I think that Chilton has a very good point that Josephus, since he was writing for both the Jews and the Romans, and very clearly as Chilton points out and he quotes the page in the writings here that Augustus and Tiberias were the second and third emperors, Caligula was the fourth and Julius was the first. If you start with that premise, then the seven kings, five have fallen. They are dead. Whose the sixth? The sixth is another has yet to come… Five have fallen, five have died, one is. Who is the emperor? When John was writing, Nero was in charge.

Q: Isn’t that who he refers to back in with the 666?

A: Yes. When we went through the mark of the beast, 666, remember that we said that in Hebrew, Kaiser Neron works out to 666.

Q: 666 – in the previous chapter when you talk about that, you mean the person in charge at the time?

A: No. He’s being referred to as the one who is persecuting…

Q: Presently?

A: Yes.

Q: So then that would correlate?

A: There’s correlation, I’m not saying there’s not. I’m not saying there’s any confusion, I’m just saying that this verse, 17:10 doesn’t refer to the mark of the beast. It’s the same person.

Q: So who is the one to come?

A: Galba. The one has not yet come and when he comes he must remain a little while. He was only emperor for seven months.

Q: Then what happened?

A: He was killed and then somebody else took over, I don’t remember who.

            (8) “The beast that you saw was and is not is himself also an eighth, and one of the seven and he goes to destruction. What are we talking about there? (inaudible) Chilton says: “But the thought of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the severe political chaos attending it must not be interpreted to mean the end of troubles. For the real enemy is the beast (the empire-not a man, not a king) who will become incarnated in other Caesars as well. He is also an eighth king yet is of the seven. The anti-Christian brutality of succeeding tyrants will mark them as being of the same stripe of their predecessors.” Now here, I confess I don’t really comprehend what Chilton is saying and I don’t necessarily agree with it, but let me go on. “Eight is the number of resurrection in the Bible. St. John is warning that even though the empire will seem to disintegrate after the rule of the seven kings, it will be resurrected again to live on in other persecutors of the church. Yet the empire’s comeback will not result in victory for the beast, for even the eighth, the resurrected beast, goes to destruction. The church will have to exercise patience during the period of the beast’s ascendency but she has the assurance that her enemies will not succeed. Their king will be victorious. His servants have been predestined to share in His triumph.”

Q: I’m mixed up. Does it say that these are mortal wounds that he suffers?

A: It does, and what you see in history, what Chilton is pointing out, is that after the death of Nero, Nero committed suicide apparently, Galba became Caesar and I’m stretching here because I really haven’t studied my Roman history lately, but there was a tremendous chaos in the Roman empire, to the extent that some thought the empire would fall, that it would not survive. Then another Caesar came along, I confess I don’t know his name, and the empire continued and was resurrected as it were, and became even stronger under the succeeding Caesars, at least until the Visigoths came in and the barbarians and wiped them out. But that’s what Chilton is talking about here and he sees this as a prophecy that this is going to happen. The Roman empire was going to seem to fall, but, it will be resurrected.

Q: Was Constantine considered a Caesar?

A: Yes. Constantine was the head of the holy Roman empire. In fact at the time of Constantine, the empire was divided. The western empire in Rome and the eastern empire in whatever the city name was before it was Constantinople, but ultimately in Constantinople. Constantine remember defeated the forces of the west and united the Roman empire and became head of the holy Roman empire. The city was then named after him.

C: And later converted to Christianity.

R: Actually he converted during that battle. The writing was that he prayed for success and he had a vision that if his forces were marked with the sign of the cross, that he would win the battle. He was totally out numbered. So he had all of his soldiers put crosses on their shields and on their helmets also I believe, and they wiped out a vastly superior force. He took it as a sign of God’s leading and from that point on, the soldiers had the crosses and that’s why you see them on the knights. Then he said everybody in the Roman empire is a Christian by decree.

Q: It says, the beast was and is not yet is and all that, my study notes talk about the next two points say it’s a counterfeit of the sovereignty of God and then it also says that it makes a point of a rise in power then a completion then a future rise up again.

A: Right and that’s what we’re talking about here and I agree with that part of it. That we’re talking about the beast was, is, but appeared to suffer a mortal blow with the death of Nero and Galba was only there seven months and there was great chaos in the empire, but the empire rose again, it appeared to be resurrected so that the Caesar after Galba, the empire came together again and was resurrected to its former glory, as it were.

Q: So where are we at in that progression right now? As far as the beast rising…

A: Right now John is prophesying that this is going to happen. Remember Nero was in power, one is, the sixth is and that’s Nero, and the empire is going to seem to fall but it will be resurrected with the eighth.