What Is Spiritual Babylon?
By R. C. Porter
THE Bible is the one Book which stands apart from all others as a revelation of spiritual truth. It is the only book that reveals the mystery of godliness. Its presentation is original and its lessons are fundamental. Its Author is the source of all spiritual truth. His words are, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." His purpose in revealing Himself, thru His word, is the development of spiritual worshipers, who shall "worship Him in spirit and in truth." The Result of the Apostasy.
The book of Genesis opens with man standing in this relationship with God. The same book presents an apostasy, and a Babylon as the result of that apostasy. In the closing chapters of the book of Revelation, that Babylon of apostasy is still in operation. A warning is borne against it which is heeded by some. They are seen when the book closes, perfectly restored from sin to man's original spiritual relationship with God. The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus are presented as the only basis of perfect harmony in the universe. Rev. 14:12 and 22:14. Spiritual worship, then, consists in keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Paul says, "I know that the law is spiritual." Since keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus is the only spiritual worship, and this is the platform of all true Christian unity, it follows that an apostasy from this platform will develop confusion in the form and spirit of worship. It is shown in the article on page three that the terms confusion and Babylon are used synonymously in the Scriptures. Spiritual Babylon must, therefore, of necessity be composed of a class of worshipers who have fallen into confusion by an apostasy from the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Spiritual Babylon could not refer to the infidel world, who say in their heart "There is no God;" for the whole of chapters fourteen and seventeen of the book of Revelation, where spiritual Babylon is specifically mentioned, contrasts true worshipers with those composing Babylon. Paul says of those composing this Babylonian system that they are "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away." It is therefore very plain that the Bible recognizes two great systems of worship. In one class are true worshipers, keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus; and the other class, having apostatized from this platform, have drifted into formalism, and are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Sadly it is said of them that they have a form of godliness without the power. The Head of Babylon in All the Ages.
Each of these systems has a head which directs the movements of its body. Speaking of the Christian church, Paul says, "The head of every man is Christ," and "The head of Christ is God." Isaiah, in chapter fourteen, verses four to fourteen, represents Satan as the king, or head, of the Babylonian religious system. This is very fitting. Satan was once a follower of Christ in heaven. He became the first great apostate. It is perfectly natural that he should be the leader of the apostasy which he has created. Isaiah now says of him, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning." "Thou hast said in thine heart, . . . I will be like the Most High." It was not possible for him to take from Christ the leadership as head of the church, or he would have done that. Since he could not do that, he would take his place at the head of the great apostate religious system of Babylon, and thru it seek to direct civil governments to suppress Christianity. "How art thou cut down to the ground that didst weaken the nations!" The dragon of Revelation twelve represents this satanic power as manifest thru empires and covering the history of all nations. In verses twelve and thirteen of this chapter, his purpose in seeking control of the nations thru this religious apostasy is declared to be to seek revenge against God for having defeated him in his purposes, and cast him out of heaven. The last verse of the chapter states the fact that all of his bitter hate now is against Christians who are sufficiently loyal to keep all of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. It reads: "And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." This is what we might expect from one who had been disappointed in his plan to obtain the leadership of the worship of the universe. It is the spirit of apostasy always. Under the Symbol of a City.
In Rev. 14:8, this Babylonian system is represented by the symbol, "that great city." And it is said that "she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." That is, she compelled all nations to accept her false doctrines. In chapter seventeen, verses five and six, "Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth" is seen "drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." And verse eighteen says: "And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth." This war is no pretense. It is its purpose to exterminate the saints of Christ. It is not local. It operates to persecute all Christians in all nations during all time. 2 Tim. 3:2. The last verse of Revelation eighteen says of Babylon, "And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth."5This Babylonian religious system can therefore be easily traced thru all history by her bloody trail of religious persecution. She always seeks to reign over earthly kings and control earthly governments. Another point of identity is the city of ancient Babylon, used by the prophet to represent this great religious system. Its religion was pagan. History and Scripture agree that the religion of Babylon was forced upon the world by legislative enactments. Satan was back of the whole scheme with all his cunning and deception. This was Babylon in her early history. The Scriptures sum up the history of this Babylonian apostasy briefly in Rev. 16:19, 20. It reads: "And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found." The scene closes with the coming of Christ. His fierce wrath is then visited upon this Babylonish system. Before that time it must have presented itself to the world in three divisions, three great religious movements which are apostate. Paganism is easily recognized as the first division of this great apostate system. It operated thru empires compelling false worship and persecuting true worshipers. The prophet Elijah was among those who met this pagan division, as recorded in 1 Kings 18:17-21. Because he was loyal to God and His law, he was accused of being a troubler in Israel. He denied the charge, and severely arraigned the pagan worshipers for following Baal in sun-worship, in place of adhering to the law and worship of God. Ezekiel was brought in the visions of God to see this division of Babylon leading prominent men of Israel into the worship of Tammuz in the very temple of God. With their backs to the temple of the Lord, they worshiped the sun toward the east. Ezekiel 8. Chapters 18 and 22 declare that the priests of Israel had been so far carried away by this pagan apostasy as to violate God's law and profane His Sabbath day. It is easy to account for this. Sun-worship brought with it Sunday as its worship-day in place of the Sabbath of Jehovah. Webster voices the testimony of history in thus defining Sunday: "So called because anciently dedicated to the sun and its worship." This system was a complete rival of the Christian system. It had its priests, its temples, its forms of worship, and its worship day. To be wholly identified as a division of Babylon, it must persecute. Did Paganism persecute?—Ask Elijah as he flees before it three and a half years for his life. Ask Jeremiah and hear his lamentable answer in the fiftieth and fifty-first chapters of his prophecy. Ask Isaiah and read the forty-seventh and forty-eighth chapters for reply. Ask Mordecai and his people, Daniel and the three Hebrew worthies, and, last of all, ask the Master and His disciples. Kingly decrees, the fiery furnace, the lions' den, the gallows, the prison, the judgment hall, and the cross of Calvary are their answers. Paganism clearly bears all of the marks of the first division of Babylon. Our inquiry after the second division needs only to be brief. The Papacy is the next great apostate religious movement this side of Paganism. It adopted almost bodily all of her forms and ceremonies of worship. It accepted and enforced the pagan Sunday as its day of worship and repudiated the Sabbath of Jehovah. Fifty millions of martyrs in mute silence witness that she was the most terrible persecuting movement the world has ever known. Revelation seventeen almost calls her by name while giving her photograph for her identification. The likeness is complete. Her name is "Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." No one will question but that the Papacy is the second division of Babylon. Her identity is unmistakable. Apostatized Protestantism the Third.
What, then, is the third division? The Papacy is called "Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots." Who are her daughters?—They are the harlot daughters and must form the third division of Babylon. Lorenzo Dow answers: "It must be the corrupt national churches that came out of her." His answer is logical. Paganism, the first division, was a union of Church and State. The Papacy was emphatically the same. The third division must bear this union of Church-and-State stamp of its identity. The Protestant Reformation was the world's third great religious movement. It came out of the Papacy. Dr. Guthrie, Baptist, says, "Three hundred years ago our church, with an open Bible on her banner, and this motto, 'Search the Scriptures,' on her scroll, marched out from the gates of Rome." He then asks, "Did they come clean out of Babylon?—No, they did not. Sprinkling for baptism was retained. Sunday as the rival worship-day of Paganism and the Papacy was brought over in place of accepting the Bible Sabbath, and in some Protestant nations a union of Church and State was retained. These distinctly Babylonian features identify the daughters as a part of the Babylonian system tho they be found in Protestantism. These Babylonian seeds are germinating in retrograding Protestant countries. Who are leaders in a demand for the enforcement of a Sunday sabbath?—Nominal Protestants. Who are demanding enforced teaching of the Christian religion in the public schools?—Nominal Protestants. Who are seeking to unite with Rome in Christian unity?—Misguided clergymen. Who are seeking to control legislation in the interests of religion, and thus unite Church and State?—The Protestant clergy and their membership. Revelation thirteen declares plainly that Protestants will apostatize and make an image to the beast, the Papacy, and the nineteenth chapter says she will unite with the Papacy in her closing opposition to the work of Christ. Protestantism, apostate, forming a union of Church and State, will form the third division. These three form spiritual Babylon, and unite to oppose the closing work of God. Loyalty will be tested now as ever by our relation to the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. How shall we stand?