The Christian Religion and Babylon
Through the prophet Jeremiah the Lord utters this warning concerning Babylon: “Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; be not cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of Jehovah’s vengeance; he will render unto her a recompense. Babylon hath been a golden cup in Jehovah’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad. Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country; for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.” Jer. 51: 6-9. Through the apostle John the Lord again declares this warning, and it becomes the last call to his people to gather them out in preparation for the coming of the Son of man on the white cloud. And “after these things I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and is become a habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird. For by the wine of the wrath of her fornication all the nations are fallen; and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth waxed rich by the power of her wantonness. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues: for her sins have reached even unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” Rev. 18: 1-5. “All who have paid the least attention to the literature of Greece, Egypt, Phenicia, or Rome, are aware of the place which the ‘mysteries’ occupied in these countries, and that, whatever circumstantial diversities there might be, in all essential respects these ‘mysteries’ in the different countries were the same. Now, as the language of Jeremiah, already quoted, would indicate that Babylon was the primal source from which all these systems of idolatry flowed, so the deductions of the most learned historians, on mere historical grounds, have led to the same conclusions.” “But the language applied to the New Testament Babylon, as the reader can not fail to see, naturally leads us back to the Babylon of the ancient world. As the Apocalyptic woman has in her hand a cup, wherewith she intoxicates the nations, so was it with the Babylon of old. . . . Why this exact similarity of language in regard to the two systems? The natural inference surely is that the one stands to the other in the relation of type and antitype.” Now just as the message of warning against the worship of the beast (modern Babylon) and his image is going forth to the world, and is to swell to its loud cry in the proclamation of the fall of Babylon and the final call to come out of her, it is certainly a striking thing that there should arise a school of teachers, pretended believers in the Christian religion, who put forth the claim that Christianity in its essential features is derived from Babylonian sources. The “Babel-Bibel” addresses of Professor Delitzsch, the German theologian, which were given to the public last year, attempted to show the parallel between the teachings of the Babylonish system and those of the Old Testament, and “a systematic attempt,” says the Literary Digest, “is now being made to apply the same methods to the New Testament, and to find in the teachings of Christ and the apostles in the Gospels and Acts adaptations of Babylonian views.” In proof of this statement the Digest presents the following translation of a paragraph from the latest German views on this subject: — A careful examination of the mythology of the Babylonians goes to show that it abounds in parallels to both Old and New Testament conceptions. Not only is this true of the contents of the historical books, but also of the epistles and the doctrinal teachings of the New Testament writers; especially does the book of Revelation demonstrate this theory. Babylonian elements can be traced in the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ and of his wonderful birth from a virgin; in the glorification of the Christ child by the chorus of heavenly singers; in the miracles of the Lord, especially those that demonstrate his power over devils, even to the extent of expelling them; and in his descent to the lower world and his ascension to heaven. To Babylonian sources may also be traced the Christian mysteries of baptism and the Lord’s supper, church doctrines concerning angels and devils, and eschatological beliefs regarding the region of the dead, life beyond the tomb, and kindred matters. Nowhere else are the Babylonian elements more readily detected than in the Apocalypse, where the seven spirits, the twenty-four elders, the four heavenly visions of animals, the two witnesses, the book with the seven seals, the heavenly Jerusalem, the marriage of the Lamb, and many other details are to be attributed to Babylonian teachings. Another German theologian, however, with more evident regard for revealed and historic truth, characterizes this theory as follows. “At bottom it is nothing else than the evolutionary theory run to seed. It represents the complete triumph of evolutionary philosophy in the researches of scholars over the real principles and canons of scientific investigation.” In the light of the third angel’s message it is not difficult to interpret the meaning of this latest attempt to pervert the truth. It is simply a bold stroke of the enemy to discredit the warning against the corruptions of a pure Christianity which have been imported from Babylon. It is another variation of the one general effort to destroy a simple faith in the plain teaching of the Scripture by a method of scientific interpretation of Scripture which distorts and misapplies it. It only emphasizes the need for a message which shall make clear the real nature of the teaching which has come down to us from Babylon.