PART V
The Counterfeit of the Kingdom, or the False Church
The section of the Revelation which we now reach, and which extends from chapter xv to the close of chapter xix, may be called the judgment section. There is a striking parallelism between it and part iii, or the vision of the trumpets, which symbolizes the methods through which the kingdom of Christ is furthered. As that section divided itself into two parts—first, the natural agencies which divine Providence employs, and, next, the supernatural word—so, also, this sets before us what may be designated natural judgments, and then those special visitations of divine justice which await an apostate Christian or Church.
1. The Judgments of God. Vision of the Vials.—The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters need not detain us long, inasmuch as the resemblance between them and the visions of the trumpets is so great that much of what might be said has already been anticipated. Vials, or basins rather, were vessels used in the Mosaic ritual as receptacles. The term is used here to designate the judgments which must fall on men if the warnings and messages symbolized by the trumpets are unheeded. The Gospel, we are told by St. Paul, may be a savor of death unto death, as well as of life unto life. The words of the Lord Jesus will either become spirit and life to us, or they will judge us at the last day.
From “the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony” “seven angels” are seen issuing forth with vials containing “the seven last plagues.” The word for “plague” is the same used in chapter xiii, 3. It was there applied to a temporary wound which was quickly healed. Its connection here with the word “last” and with the number “seven” indicates that the wounds or blows are final and incurable. The judgments are not corrective and disciplinary, but retributive and irreversible.
The angels with the plagues issue from the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony. This name is that which is applied to the structure Moses erected in the wilderness and which contained the ark of the testimony. Its use here implies that the judgments that follow are to be found recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures. The old word is God’s faithful witness, bearing plain testimony to his righteousness and to his anger at sin and iniquity.
Still further, it was one of the four beasts, or living creatures, who put the vials into the hands of the angels; and, as the four beasts are supposed to be symbolical representations of the animate creation, the truth declared would seem to be that these judgments come as natural providences, or by the operation of laws which the divine Being has stamped on his creation.
The plagues fall successively upon the same places that are named in the parallel vision of the trumpets—the first upon the earth; the second, upon the sea; the third, upon the rivers and fountains of waters; the fourth, upon the sun; the fifth, upon the throne of the beast, darkening his kingdom; the sixth, upon the Euphrates.
It is very instructive to contrast these judgments with the beautiful figures by which John, in the last chapters of the Revelation, seeks to portray the glorious privileges and blessings of the perfected kingdom of Christ.
Thus, in opposition to the “noisome and grievous sore” that fell “upon the men which had the mark of the beast,” we have, in chapter xxii, 2, the declaration that “the leaves of the tree” of life “were for the healing of the nations.”
In opposition to “the sea” which “became as the blood of a dead man,” we are told, in chapter xxi, 1, that “there was no more sea.”
As a contrast to “the rivers and fountains of waters” which “became blood,” we are told in chapter xxii, 1, of “the pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal.”
Over against “the sun” which “scorched men with great heat,” the statement is made, in chapter xxi, 23, that “the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”
And, while judgment fell on the throne of the beast, “and his kingdom was full of darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain,” we learn of the new city that “the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him.” “And there shall be no night there; ... for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign forever and ever.” There seems to be in this a reminiscence of the plague of darkness with which the Almighty visited Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and which was the last one before the final stroke of his judgment upon the firstborn (Exodus x, 21–23).
The fifth trumpet was interpreted as a prophecy of the blindness, both of heart and mind, which comes upon men when faith declines and grace wanes. This interpretation appears to be confirmed by the judgment which the plague of the fifth vial inflicts.
The locality of the sixth plague is the Euphrates. This river, as has been previously said, was the boundary line between civilization and barbarism. The mention of it implies that the last conflict in which the kingdom of Christ shall engage will be waged to oppose an inroad or outburst of barbarism. But as John presents this matter with fuller details in chapter xx the discussion of it will be postponed until that part of the Revelation is reached.
One new feature, which is introduced for the first time in connection with the sixth vial, is the singular sentence, “That the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” The origin of this expression is to be found in Isaiah xli, 2, to which it has doubtless a reference. In that passage, “the righteous man from the east” to whom is given “rule over kings” is, undoubtedly, Cyrus, whose advent and success are thus foretold. And the meaning is that, as out of heathenism God raised up that marvelous man as an instrument to accomplish his purposes in the deliverance of his people, so there is such fullness of resources in the reach of divine power that in any emergency or peril he is able to find, anywhere, means to rescue his followers or his Church out of danger.
Moreover, the apostle saw coming “out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet” “three unclean spirits like frogs.” Over against the divine Trinity, the kingdom of darkness and sin has its counterfeit trinity. Each of its component persons has its emissaries and messengers. For the final conflict all these will summon their entire resources. Behind all attempts to foil and defeat the development and perfection of the kingdom of Christ lie these evil powers. But their efforts will be futile; inevitable destruction and doom await them; and the inspired seer here merely suggests the judgment of which full particulars are to be subsequently given.
2. Babylon and its Doom.—No part of the Apocalypse has given rise to so much controversy as that which now engages our attention; and as, unhappily, the controversies have often originated in denominational prejudices and intensified denominational bitterness, this section has been made a shibboleth by which to test conflicting creeds. Truth is, indeed, of paramount obligation. We have no right to accept or reject interpretations of the Scriptures simply on the ground that they accord with or are repugnant to our beliefs. It is no part of our prerogative to sit in judgment upon the word of God or to force it to speak according to our mind. And nothing is ever really consistent with love which is not consistent with truth. If, however, the purpose of this remarkable book is to set before us those spiritual forces which work in the heart of every individual, as well as in collective masses, there seems no valid reason why we should in this part of it depart from those general principles upon which it is elsewhere framed, or seek for latent meanings when one which lies on the surface is capable of explaining and harmonizing its mysteries.
Are we to understand by Babylon the Church of Rome, or the Roman Empire, or any specific body or association of men, religious or secular? Is the revelation here given us an anticipatory epitome of history, a foreshadowing of events that have already transpired and are now recorded among the annals of the race? Is it a prophecy the fulfillment of which can be known only by learned scholars acquainted with history, upon whose information the wayfaring man and the untutored disciple of Christ must depend? Is it a portion of Holy Writ whose best commentators must be found in Gibbon and Hume and such like unbelievers? Truly, then, Saul is “among the prophets;” and this book is singular and anomalous among the revelations of God, whose purpose has ever been to make wise the simple, who else would be cut off from access to the sources of truth and light.
If any of the prophecies of this book can be proven to find their exhaustive fulfillment in any particular and definite body, individual, or event, so that when we have identified the body or individual or event we have reached the whole purpose of the writer, then, of course, its value as inspiration ceases or, at least, is materially diminished. It may have an archæological interest as a record of past conditions, but its influence upon the present and future is somewhat like that of a fossil upon living types.
When the prophets of the old dispensation uttered their denunciations of the luxuries, the sensualism, the cruelty, the gilded vices, or the coarser sins of the cities and empires of the ancient world their purpose was not to vent vindictiveness against conquerors under whose might the Israel of God was oppressed and trampled down, but to direct thought and attention to a spirit of evil, a principle of the kingdom of darkness, which for a while found an embodiment therein, yet was not wholly comprehended in it. The empires crumbled into dust, the great capitals became masses of decaying ruins, but the spirit which animated them lived on, surviving their destruction.
Such was, doubtless, the design of this Apocalyptic vision. Babylon is a symbol of something that has its fulfillment again and again, but is never exhausted in any manifestation. The generations of men, down to the close of time, must watch for and be warned against the spirit which it embodied, and every individual Christian, as well as the Church at large, needs the caution which is here given him against such forms of it as are likely to tempt him from the path of duty or safety.
Of all the hostile powers with which the Hebrew people were brought into contact and from whom they suffered Babylon seems to have been the most dreaded, and the animosity expressed toward it by the prophets was emphatic and marked. Its approaching doom evoked no sentiment of pity, but was hailed with unmingled satisfaction. What there was about Babylon which justified such exceptional fear and dislike it is, perhaps, not possible for us fully to understand, although we may attain some appreciation of it.
Regarding Nineveh, we have reason to conjecture that its peculiarity was intense and supreme secularism. No temple has been found amid its ruins that was not merely the adjunct of a palace. The priest was the servant of the king. All religious instincts and institutions were simply tools which the haughty monarch unscrupulously used to carry out his cruel and ambitious projects. Such a condition of things can never endure long. It works its own destruction, finding its cure within itself. It was the demoralization resulting from a similar condition which sapped the strength of the Greek Empire of Byzantium and, by isolating it from all allies or sympathy, led to its overthrow.
In Egypt the spheres of the State and of the Church maintained some independence of each other. Vast as was the sovereignty of the Pharaohs, it was not such as to encroach upon or absorb the functions of the priestly caste.
In Babylon, however, still another condition prevailed. Here the priesthood was the ruling order; the religious element dominated the secular. The palace was a part of the temple. It is noticeable how strongly in the prophetic descriptions of Babylon the Chaldean element is emphasized. It is styled “the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency,” “the land of the Chaldeans,” marking thus the supremacy of that order of soothsayers, sorcerers, and professors of magic and occult science. Babylon was a theocracy, but the god who ruled it was the prince of darkness, not Jehovah. The Church governed the State, but the Church was one that incarnated the spirit of worldly-mindedness, not heavenly-mindedness. So that, in an altogether peculiar and special sense, it was the rival and counterfeit of the true Church of God, giving exercise to the religious instincts of men sufficient to satisfy conviction and quiet conscience, while debasing them by turning them into the channels of lust and sensual gratification.
Yet, as a matter of fact, the domination of Babylon proved less hurtful to the Jewish nation than did the hostility of any other of their great enemies. The form of worldliness which the Israelites encountered in Egypt was such as almost to make them forget their bondage in remembering the enjoyments they had found there. Their actual experience in Babylon during the years of their captivity, the lessons they learned and the comparisons they drew when brought into personal relationship with its life, left no lingering love of idolatry and cured them forever of any desire to worship its gods.
But the Babylon of the book of Revelation comprehends more than the Babylon of the Hebrew prophets. The dangers which beset the Christian would be far less than they are if the Babylon of this world, which opposes itself as a rival to the kingdom of Christ, had no fascinations beyond those which the great city by the Euphrates could offer. The wily enemy of mankind is too subtle to depend upon any such powers of attractiveness as were embodied in the capital of the Chaldean Empire. And in describing the counterfeit of the kingdom of Christ the writer of the Apocalypse adds to his portrait of Babylon features which are used by Ezekiel as characteristic of another great capital, Tyre. Babylon was never a center of commerce; in no sense could it be described as a city whose merchants were princes. The same is also true of Rome, and is thus adverse to the opinion that John meant to describe the city of the Cæsars and of the popes. His delineation of Babylon would apply to Corinth or Carthage in ancient times, and to Venice or Amsterdam or London in more modern days, with greater aptness than to the metropolis on the Tiber. In this alteration of the emblem in which the writer of the Revelation indulges, in the blending and interweaving of details descriptive of both the Babylon and the Tyre of the Old Testament into the composite figure of the Apocalyptic Babylon, in the transition from Isaiah’s sublimely ironical shout of triumph over the metropolis by the Euphrates to Ezekiel’s sad and pathetic dirge over the fall of the commercial emporium of Phœnicia, a clew is given us to the interpretation of his meaning.
The influence of Tyre upon the Hebrew people and religion was always deleterious, almost disastrous. The intercourse which began in the magnificent Solomon’s love of show and splendid state and luxury, and which was increased by the intermarriage of the royal houses of Ahab and Jehoshaphat with Tyrian princesses, was fruitful of moral degeneration. From the spiritual pesthouse upon the Mediterranean came, first, Tyrian art, then, Tyrian wares, then, Tyrian idols, and, then, the unbridled and lawless sensualities for which Tyre was notorious, until Baal had displaced the golden calves set up by Jeroboam in Bethel and had well-nigh overthrown the altars of Jehovah in the city of the great King.
The Babylon which John saw and whose rise and fall he predicts was one that embraced in itself the unbounded pride, the self-sufficingness, the love of sorceries and dark arts of magic, along with the demoralizing practices of a great mart of commerce—a mongrel figure into which all forms of evil and sin were woven.
The probability, therefore, is that John meant to describe, not any individual or definite city or Church, but the incarnation of a spurious and apostate Christianity which, assuming the appearance of the true, is animated by principles wholly destitute of and antagonistic to the power and life of Christianity, and thus deludes only to destroy.
This opinion derives confirmation from the connection in which the section stands. Up to this point the writer of the Revelation has been collecting his data, so to speak, summing up the elementary forces, friendly and hostile, which have to do with the success or failure of the kingdom of Christ. He has announced its fundamental principles, the means by which it is to be carried forward, the enemies which must be encountered. It now remains for him to show in a concrete form the results. At the close of the Revelation he shows us the result of success in that exquisite picture of the ideal true Christianity. But before doing this he also shows the result of failure in the picture of the ideal false Christianity. The antitheses between the two are drawn out in sharp contrasts.
In chapter xxi, 9, it is said to him, “Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” Here (xvii, 1) it is said to him, “Come hither: I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.”
In chapter xxi, 6, it is written, “He said unto me, It is done.” So here (chapter xvi, 17), when the seventh angel poured out his vial a voice was heard crying, “It is done.”
In chapter xii, where for the first time the field of battle is described and the enumeration of the hostile forces is begun, religion is presented to us under the figure of a woman who has fled to the wilderness. Since then the trial is supposed to have been gone through with, the long war has been fought, the varying moments of the struggle have been detailed, and we are now brought to the summing up of the issue.
In chapter xxi, 10, John is carried away “in the spirit to a great and high mountain,” and there is shown him the woman in the form of “that great city,” “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (verse 2). Here (xvii, 3, 4) he is carried away “in the spirit into the wilderness,” and he sees the woman; but now she is sitting “upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, ... arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold.” She has failed in the conflict. She has not come victorious out of the wilderness, as Christ did after his temptation. She has made peace with her enemies. She has joined with the flesh, the world, and the devil. She is no longer spotless and pure, ready for her bridal with the Lamb, but has become a harlot.
Thus, once, Orpah and Ruth stood together by the side of Naomi, while the Holy Land beckoned them all toward it. Ruth chose that better part and, sheltered beneath the hovering wings of the God of Israel, found peace and rest and an eternal portion with the saints; but Orpah loved the blue hills of Moab and, though sadly and reluctantly, turned back to idolatry and oblivion and spiritual death.
Such a conflict awaits us all; and the issue must be, either that happy one hereafter to be more accurately described under the figure of the New Jerusalem, or else that alliance with the powers of darkness which John records in the emblem of Babylon.
The details of the description given of Babylon add further confirmation to the explanation offered above. In chapters xii and xiii the three great enemies of the kingdom of Christ were enumerated—the dragon and his emissaries, the two beasts. In the present chapter (xvii) they are represented as combined. The woman is seen sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast. She is arrayed in purple and scarlet, but not in “fine linen,” which is “the righteousness of saints.” She has in her hand a cup, but instead of the sacramental blood of the Lamb, it is full of “abominations and filthiness of her fornication.” She is not “filled with the Spirit,” but “drunken with the blood of the saints,” for “she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many strong men have been slain by her” (Proverbs vii, 26).
It will be remembered that, in the description of the first wild beast, it is said that when the deadly wound which it had received was healed the whole world wondered after it in astonishment at the recuperative power which it exhibited. But, at this vision of the woman allied with the beast, with a commingling of the influence of the second wild beast, even John himself wondered with great wonder at a corruption of religion so complete and yet so enticing, a perversion so unexpected and yet so alluring, a transformation so plausibly and artfully accomplished. There seems to have been awakened in him something of the perplexity he had experienced in looking at the second wild beast, as if its duplicity were a mystery of iniquity beyond his power to fathom. Once one of the psalmists wondered, as he tells us, at the prosperity of the wicked, until he entered the sanctuary and there saw their latter end foreshadowed. So, likewise, was the mind of John relieved by the angel who came to him and said, “I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her;” for as the curtain was lifted the doom of Babylon was revealed to him and the mystery was solved.
But, however plain the mystery was to him, it is assuredly not equally so to us. The explanation which suggests itself to us the most readily is not necessarily the most correct one; indeed, the words, “Here is the mind which hath wisdom,” seem to indicate otherwise and to force us to seek some meaning deeper than that which is most obvious. Although, therefore, the expression, “The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth,” apparently identifies Babylon with Rome, either imperial or papal, it would satisfy all the conditions of the problem as well, and be more in harmony with the principles on which the Revelation is constructed, to interpret the expression as referring to the great world empires which have successively dominated the human race and cast their shadows across the path of centuries, and in which John saw the embodiment of the world-principle, essentially and perpetually antagonistic to the kingdom of Christ.
Of these world empires five had already fallen—Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Macedonia, and the empire of Alexander’s successors. The empire of Rome, which was the one existent in John’s days and the most compact and formidable of them all, was the sixth. “The other,” he says, “is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.” Of this difficult passage many explanations have been offered, but it cannot be said that they are satisfactory. Whether John anticipated the fall of the Roman Empire and the establishment of another world empire to succeed it for a brief period of time we are not able to say.
It would not be any impeachment of the inspiration of the apostles to admit that upon matters relating to the time of our Lord’s coming they were not able to predict with certainty. Christ himself said that “of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father;” and we cannot concede that his disciples were more fully enlightened than he. There are indications that the apostles anticipated the personal manifestation of the Master at a date earlier than has proven to be the fact, because, looking through the ages, mountains appeared in their vision to blend into one which we have found by experience to be separated by valleys deep and wide.
But, inasmuch as it was revealed to John that prior to the realization of the ideal kingdom of Christ there is to be a decisive conflict with the combined powers of evil, as will be more fully discussed when we shall have reached the twentieth chapter of the book, may it not be that it is that final embodiment of the world-principle which he here foretells as the seventh antagonistic kingdom?
“And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” These words seem to imply that this “eighth” is not a separate and distinct empire, but is that common principle of worldliness which finds its embodiment in all the seven and yet is distinct and separable from them. It is both immanent in them and transcendental to them.
And there is, perhaps, here an intended and striking contrast between this evil principle and the divine Being with whom it assumes to contest supremacy. It was said of the Lord God Almighty, in the adoration of the living creatures (Revelation iv, 8), that he “was, and is, and is to come.” Of this counterfeit principle of evil it must be said, “It was, and is not.” God is true, real, the same to-day as yesterday and forever. He that hath received Christ’s testimony can set his seal to this assured and blessed certainty. Of the evil principle it can only be said that it is always vanity, falsehood, a lie. Its past is all a bitter remembrance; its future a shadow, a deception, a dream; and he that trusts it is a fool mocked with illusions that are never realized and cheated with hopes that forever disappoint.
It is not likely that any world-kingdom comparable in extent and power with those which in ancient times subjugated mankind will ever be seen again. Christianity develops and cultivates a spirit of individualism which is inimical to their recurrence. Since the disappearance of the Roman Empire no successor to it has arisen. The empires of Charlemagne and Napoleon were narrow and petty in comparison with that of the Cæsars. Some such thought appears to have been in the mind of John when he foretold that there shall be “ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.”
But the spirit of evil which finds temporary embodiment in these worldly sovereignties does not disappear with their overthrow. It incarnates itself in other and more dangerous forms. There are subtle and cunning manifestations of this spirit which, by plausible and enticing imitations of the religion of Christ, do far more than any worldly kingdom can to overthrow true Christianity and substitute in its place the counterfeit kingdom, the deadly rival which is designated by the emblem of Babylon.
Without violating the spirit of charity, and in fealty to the obligation of truth, it must be confessed that the history of the Church of Rome has too often furnished just occasion for its identification with the Babylon of the Apocalypse. Its worldliness, its unscrupulous alliances with kings and princes to carry out its ambitious projects, its disregard of moral obligations in the pursuit of its policy, its ignoring of the demands of justice, honor, truth and mercy, its persistent struggle to achieve and maintain temporal supremacy, its awful claim of present and eternal mastery over the bodies, minds, and souls of men, its luxury and wantonness, its bloody spirit of persecution on the one hand, and, on the other, the duplicity, the false asceticism, the assumption of the appearance of the Lamb while animated by the spirit of the dragon, the substitution of its own codes and edicts and ethics for the word of God, which have specially characterized its religious orders and confraternities, are sufficiently like the adversary of true religion delineated by St. John to excite thought and induce self-examination.
But it would be unjust to charge to the account of systems imperfections and errors which spring out of the inherent frailty of human nature. And the spirit of evil against which the apostle warns us has had unhappily a range wider than pagan or papal Rome or any organization yet witnessed on earth. If that Church has too often carried upon her forehead the title, “Mother of harlots,” instead of the motto, “Holiness unto the Lord,” she has many a sister who must sit beside her as of kindred spirit; and, if the one has been “Aholah,” the other has been “Aholibah.” If, among her followers, she has numbered both some of the purest saints who have trodden this earth and some of the vilest sinners, and these, too, in her loftiest places, she is not alone in the distinction.
There have been individuals and Churches calling themselves Christians and Protestants that, like veritable Messalinas, have burned with incessant lust after every form and fashion of worldliness, and whose lovers, as Jeremiah says, have not had need to weary themselves in seeking for them. There is too much truth in the biting sarcasm of Heine: “Christianity was once based on blood; it now rests on another basis—money. Wafers of silver and gold are the only ones that work miracles in modern days.” When the solemn services of the holy sacraments lose their attraction and are accounted dull and pale when compared with the brighter light of social festivities; when prayer meetings are sparsely attended, while glittering parlors are crowded with guests; when the shouting of souls newly born into the kingdom is drowned by the “chant to the sound of the viol;” when grief over “the affliction of Joseph” is far less than the sorrow for the loss of worldly prestige or patronage; when religion is used simply as an adjunct to the social propensities or a synonym for liberality in promoting financial enterprises—then there is need that we read again the apocalyptic vision of Babylon, that we may avert the doom that is certain otherwise to come. Destruction must surely be the end of those “whose god is their belly, and whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things.” The vials of divine anger must sooner or later empty their plagues upon all such.
In the selection and introduction of Tyre as the representative of a worldly Church the apostle indicates the source from which danger is to be apprehended. Tyre was a mart of commerce. Upon her ships the merchandise of the world was transported, and it was sold in her markets. Her trade extended to the ends of the earth, and by her mercantile transactions she was brought into contact with the whole circle of known nations. The close acquaintance and fellowship thereby wrought with all religions, races, and customs produced its customary result of lowering the standard of morals and, under the specious plea of encouraging liberalism of opinion, led to apathy toward all religion; while, at the same time, the increase of wealth, art, and refinement created a love for luxury and worldly good. Corrupted herself, she became in turn a source of corruption to others, and her intercourse with Israel had a disastrous effect upon the chosen people.
In this lies the peril of contact with the world. It is the scene of conflict; it may be the field either of defeat or victory. The Lord Jesus prayed, not that his disciples should be taken out of the world, but that they should be preserved from its evil. We are placed in it that we may transform it. It is possible that all beauty, art, wealth, culture, and commerce may be sanctified and made to contribute to the redemption of the world. Every thought may be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
But it may, on the contrary, transform and corrupt us. Without the aid of supernatural grace the influence of the world upon the Christian is demoralizing and destructive. Whatever is without God is equally without hope. Art, for instance, separated from its mission as an auxiliary to morals and religion and made independent, becomes artificial, and then degenerates into artifice. The world, instead of being lifted to a higher plane, drags the Christian to its own level. It is remarkable that Paul, whose facilities of observation were large and powers of perception keen, when writing to the Romans, the people of the eternal city, whose one dream and ambition in all her history had been power, commended the Gospel of Christ as “the power of God unto salvation;” but, when writing to Corinth, the busy center of commerce and merchandise, full of wealth, luxury, and corruption, he presented as the only influence which could correct these evils this profound truth: “Know ye not that ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God.”
There has not been a period since the days of John when the lesson which he wished to enforce in this vision of apostate and fallen Babylon was more important than now. Between the age of the apostles and the times in which we live a stronger resemblance exists than between any epochs in the annals of man. The rapid increase of means of transportation by which the ends of the earth are drawn together is effecting that state of things which the consolidation of the civilized world under the control of the Roman Empire produced. The boundaries between nations are being effaced; and their easy communication with each other makes possible an exceptional intermingling of languages, usages, moral codes, and religion. There is the same tendency toward the denial of all supernaturalism, on one side, and, at the opposite extreme, toward an eclecticism which concedes some truth to all forms of religion, while questioning the absolute truth of any, as that with which the apostolic Church was confronted. There is an excessive liberalism which, in its aversion to narrowness and under the plea of enlightened culture, would abandon all that specifically differentiates Christianity. But we will have read the records of the ante-Nicene period in vain if we have not learned from them that an imperfect Christianity, while it does not gain the world, does lose its own soul, and that the regeneration of mankind keeps exact pace with the measure of spirituality and purity which prevails in the Church of Christ.
Babylon, the counterfeit of the kingdom, is doomed to inevitable destruction. Over the sad end of a Church dominated by the spirit of the world and which has finally apostatized from Christ the worldly may say, in regretful lament, “Alas, alas, that great city;” the “merchants of the earth” may “weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more;” but the heavens rejoice. For where there is permanent alienation from God no real life can survive: “The voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee.” There can be no fruitful activity or profitable labor, for “the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee.” There can be no inward illumination or safe walking, for “the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee.”
3. Methods of Success Reiterated.—After a few words of exultant triumph over the fall of Babylon, and the bright hopes for the future of Christ’s kingdom opened up thereby, in which heaven and earth unite, the apostle, before finally leaving the subject, points us again (in chapter xix) to the weapons by which victory must be won. Repeating what has been so often said by him that the impression is made on us that herein lies the central thought of the book, but with a fullness of detail not previously equaled and with a stress of emphasis which guarantees the importance of the truth, he asserts again that the conquering weapons are “the blood of the Lamb” and “the word of their testimony” (Revelation xii, 11; xix, 15). The cross and the Bible—these are the means by which the world is to be overcome, these are the instruments through which the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost work, and with these the Christian and the Church are sufficiently armed for any conflict or adversary.
John saw “heaven opened (verse 11), and behold a white horse.” Thus does the Christ appear at the close of the conflict, sitting upon the white horse of victory, just as he appeared at the beginning when, armed with the bow, “he went forth conquering, and to conquer” (chapter vi, 2). He is described by the titles which he had attributed to himself in his letters to the seven churches of Asia. He is here the “Faithful and True;” so had he written of himself to Laodicea. “In righteousness he doth judge and make war;” to Philadelphia he had called himself “he that is holy, he that is true.” “His eyes were as a flame of fire;” these very words he had written to Thyatira. “Out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp sword;” to Pergamos he had spoken of himself as the one having “the sharp sword.” To Ephesus he had described himself as the one that “walketh in the midst of the golden candlesticks [or churches];” and here he is seen in company with the armies of his followers. He had promised Sardis that the faithful should walk with him “in white;” here the saints with him are “clothed in fine linen, white and clean.” To Smyrna he had said, “I will give thee a crown of life;” and here upon his head are “many crowns.” He has a name which all can read, “King of kings, and Lord of lords,” ruling (shepherding) the nations with the iron staff of his power. But he has also a name that no man knoweth; for he had himself said, “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father.” He is the Word of God, the embodiment and utterance of the Godhead’s deepest thought and being, the “brightness” of the Father’s glory, “and the express image of his person.”
The weapons which he employs are distinctly said to be the “sharp sword” that goeth “out of his mouth,” and the blood by which he atoned for sin. The “sharp sword” means, unquestionably, “the sword of the Spirit,” the word inspired by the Spirit of truth, the Scriptures which testify of him (John v, 39), the word by which we are sanctified (John xvii, 17), the Bible of revelation. By this word, “the breath of his lips,” he slays the wicked (Isaiah xi, 4). With this, “the spirit of his mouth,” he consumes the wicked one (2 Thessalonians ii, 8).
And the other weapon is his blood. He is “clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.” “He treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” In no way could the cross be more explicitly indicated. Lifted up from the earth upon it, he draws all men unto himself. It is “Christ crucified” who is the “power” and “wisdom” of God. No weapons more carnal than these does he employ; none other do we need. By them the beast and the false prophet are overcome, and both are “cast alive into a lake of fire.”