BABYLON IS FALLEN by A. R. Bell

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 4, 1916

BABYLON IS FALLEN

By A. R. Bell

The Apostasy of the Church Foretold — The Mighty Call from God to Escape Her Pollution — How Protestantism Has Drifted, and What It Portends

By A. R. BELL

This sixth article of A. R. Bell’s on the book of Revelation, as promised in our last issue, continues the study of the fourteenth chapter of Revelation. His article last week called attention to the message in the sixth and seventh verses, which make the announcement of the hour of God’s Judgment. The article this week deals with the apostasy that is spoken of in the eighth verse as the fall of Babylon.

The article next week will present the stirring warning in verses nine to twelve, that God sends to the world against the great apostasy which reproduces the beast power and which develops the image to the beast. EDITOR.

“AND there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” Rev. 14: 8.

Under the symbol of the woman “Babylon,” an organization is brought to view in which are found many of God’s children; and the cry of the Lord to His people in Babylon is, “Come out of her, My people.” Rev. 18: 4.

The church is symbolized in Scripture under the figure of a woman. In 2 Cor. 11: 2, the true church is called “a chaste virgin.” Also in Revelation 17, under the figure of a woman, the great apostasy is brought to view, called “Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” Verses 1-5.

In the text before us, a fallen church is seen. She has committed fornication, and makes all nations drunk with the wine of the wrath of it.

As Jehovah said of Israel of old, so can it be said of her: “As a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel.” “As a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband.” Jer. 3: 20; Ezek. 16: 32.

Illicit intercourse with the world — a church unlawfully united to the state — is set before us in this figure, making the world drunken with her false doctrines.

APPLIES AT THE JUDGMENT HOUR

Notice that this is said in the time of the Judgment. It has its application in the last days. It is a message that follows the message of the Judgment, and is sounded just before the coming of the Lord. Rev. 14: 6-16.

This makes clear that the Babylon here noted is not alone the Church of Rome, for Rome has been fallen hundreds of years. Of great Babylon it is written that she is “the mother of harlots.” Where are her daughters? Who can they be but those churches which follow her in doctrines, traditions, and practices? It must be those churches which follow the example of Rome, putting tradition before the word of God, the commandments of men before the commandments of God, and that, like Rome, make flesh their arm.

WORLD-WIDE PROTESTANT APOSTASY

Now while this is a message that applies to the apostasy of Protestantism world-wide — for Babylon is to make all nations drunk — it can easily be seen that all the foregoing conclusions apply naturally to conditions here in our own land. In the study of Revelation 13, we saw that an image of the beast will be made — an exact likeness of the papacy, in all that the papacy is, in the United States. That condition never can be reached except by departing from the living God, and by denying the word of God.

It is not necessary for an organization to proclaim, in so many words, that it has departed from God, and that it denies God’s word. Its position and work prove this. Rome herself is an example. She proclaims herself the only true church, all-powerful, in constant, vital connection with God, and the defender of His word. Yet, in both teaching and practice, she exalts herself far above God; and when it comes to a question between tradition and the Bible, why, to her, “tradition is more clear and safe.”

Protestantism, with all its conflicting theories, creeds, dogmas, and sects, and seeking the help of human laws, and the co-operation and service of the state, for the furtherance of her aims, is fittingly symbolized in the Babylon we are studying — the fallen daughters of the mother harlot.

HAVING BUT A “FORM OF GODLINESS”

The apostle Paul, in his last-day prophecy — 2 Timothy 3 — sums up the matter in regard to the professed church, in the words, “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof;” and his counsel is, “From such turn away.” Verse 5.

Coming back now to the application of the prophecy under consideration, we see another message following the Judgment message, and declaring that the church “is fallen.” We ask, From what can the church fall? and how can she fall?

THE PROTESTANTISM OF THE REFORMATION

Of Protestantism in the days of the Reformation, the historian says it “proclaimed for its teacher, the word of God; for salvation, faith; for King, Jesus Christ; for arms, the Holy Ghost. The gospel of the Reformers had nothing to do with the world nor with politics.” And of the “celebrated protest of April 19, 1529,” the principles of which “constitute the very essence of Protestantism,” the same historian says: “Now this protest opposes two abuses of man in matters of faith: the first is the intrusion of the civil magistrate; and the second, the arbitrary authority of the church. Instead of these abuses, Protestantism sets the power of conscience above the magistrate, and the authority of the word of God above the visible church. In the first place, it rejects the civil power in divine things, and says, with the prophets and apostles, We must obey God rather than man. In the presence of the crown of Charles the Fifth, it uplifts the crown of Jesus Christ. But it goes further: it lays down the principle, that all human teaching should be subordinate to the oracles of God.”—“History of the Reformation,” D’Aubigné, volume 4, pages 103, 104, 60, 61.

MODERN PROTESTANTISM AND THE ORIGINAL

As shown in a previous article, we have only to look about us to see how far professed Protestantism has departed from these principles. Everywhere she proclaims her right to enter politics. Everywhere she is seeking help from the state. Federations and confederations are forming everywhere in an unholy alliance to force the state to yield to their demands, and to compel men to be under the jurisdiction of the magistrate in matters of conscience; and they are pressing with might and main, as regards not only the obedience of individual men and women, but also the obedience of the state, the authority of the “visible church,” not only above “the authority of the word of God,” but altogether at variance with it. Jesus said, “If any man hear My words, and believe not,

I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” John 12: 47.

But these confederations of the church today say of men who will not conform to their methods, “If they do not see fit to fall in with the majority, they must abide the consequences.” In their complete denial of the principles of Protestantism, through unholy alliance with the state, they will incorporate religion into civil law, and then have “the government” lay its hand on any religion that does not conform to it.

These are the conditions we face everywhere about us; and God declares: “Babylon is fallen. . . . Come out of her, My people.”

This religious combination has put on record that this country “will not allow those who want to keep the seventh day . . . and do secular work on the first day of the week, . . . to do that in the name of conscience, and this because the conscience of the American people is Christian.”

Notwithstanding that a man may conscientiously, and in harmony with the Bible and the God of the Bible, keep the seventh-day Sabbath, and in this very thing follow the example set by Jesus Christ Himself, the Lord of the Sabbath, thereby proving himself a true follower of Christ, yet these misguided men imply that the man who keeps the Bible Sabbath is not a Christian.

Such utterances hark back to the day when the leaders of a church “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof,” said of the Christ of God, “This Man is not of God, because He keepeth not the Sabbath day.” Because He uncovered “the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord” from the rubbish of tradition, the accumulation of Pharisaism, and offered it to men, in the providence and purpose of God, “a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable,” and not as they had made it, a burden grievous to be borne, they declared that Jesus was an impostor, and that He had a devil. So to-day, when men drawn by the Spirit of God, through the teaching of the word of God, are led to see the truth concerning all the rubbish of tradition and the “commandments of men” that have forced Sunday keeping upon them, and to turn their feet into the pathway of God’s commandments, and keep His Sabbath, the implication is that they are not Christians.

THE CHURCH AND THE AMUSEMENT CRAZE

In departing from the living God through their departure from the truth, His word, the professed people of God as a body have lost their bearings, and are become a church whose “beautiful and glorious life is shorn of its spiritual power.” In their alliance with the state, the halls of legislation have become more to them for their petitions than the throne of God; and in their union with the world, they are “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”

In their mad hunt after the things that please, the professed church to-day is giving the world a great chase. The theater, the dance, the races, cards, and entertainments that sometimes make even the world cry shame, are all found within her borders. And on the part of her ministry, “a minister may teach that ‘the Bible is an obsolete book, and no longer authority,’ and we must recognize him as a gospel preacher. He may teach that Christ was only the best of men, and only divine in the sense that all men are, only more so, perhaps, but not at all to be worshiped as Deity, and we must admit such a minister into our pulpits as a gospel preacher. He may teach that the atonement is only an example of devotion on Christ’s part, and in no sense a ransom for our sins, and we must fellowship him as a gospel minister. He may teach that the miracles were but myths, with no historic value, yea, that there is no special supernatural in the Bible, and we must fellowship him. He may teach that regeneration is but the natural evolution of the higher nature in man, and in no sense a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, and we must recognize him as a gospel minister. He may teach that Christ never founded a church, or commanded baptism, or established the Lord’s Supper, that these are only human institutions of man’s creation, and we must fellowship him as a religious leader.”—Smith Baker, D. D., Bible Student and Teacher, April, 1909.

To such an extent has this gone that even Rome relates herself to the matter as follows: “It is not a question now of quoting the Bible, but of contradicting it. As long as Protestantism held to the Bible, it retained something of Christianity; but now that it is ever flirting with infidelity, it has only one means of living — sensationalism.”—The New World (Roman Catholic), Chicago, July 24, 1909.

Surely is Babylon fallen; and the cry of the Almighty is, “Come out of her, My people.”