Revelation 17:2, commentary and pictures

The verse pictures an unfaithful church that breaks its covenant belonging to Christ alone and turns its trust and affection to the world in unlawful alliance with worldly powers, as Israel departed from the Lord. Babylon is that apostate church, a vile woman whose name means confusion, representing Rome and the churches and daughters that follow her doctrines, traditions and worldly practices. Her wine is the influence of false religion, doctrines of error and spiritual poison given in place of truth that make the nations stray. The kings of the earth and inhabitants of the earth are the ruling powers of the world and false religionists, whose union of church and state produces persecuting powers that harm both church and state. That intoxicating cup is drunk especially by accepting that God's law has been changed, above all changing the Sabbath to Sunday, and by the false doctrine of eternal torment that misrepresents God's character and turns hearts from allegiance to Him.

Symbols of Unfaithful Church

Sexual unfaithfulness in the verse pictures the corruption of an apostate church that turns its trust, confidence and affection away from Christ toward worldly things and forms an unlawful alliance with worldly powers. The marriage figure means the church belongs to Christ by covenant and is bound to be faithful to Him alone, so that its betrayal is like Israel's departure from the Lord. Babylon is that apostate church pictured as a vile woman, representing Rome and the churches and daughters that follow Rome's doctrines, traditions and worldly practices in shared corruption, and her very name signifies confusion. The same picture applies to Protestant churches that once professed the Bible alone but, after rejecting the Advent message, became divided into conflicting creeds.

The wine is the influence of false or apostate religion that leads the nations astray, meaning doctrines of error and spiritual poison presented in place of truth. That cup of error dealt out to the kings of the earth stands opposite the cup full of the precious truths of redemption and the Holy Spirit given through faithful Christian work. Drinking the wine means committing spiritual fornication by divorcing from God and trampling on His commandments. It spreads when unfaithful watchmen cease to receive God's Word and give warning, range themselves with the enemies of God under the power of darkness, and speak false words that the people receive and repeat to others until all nations become drunk with it, while those who will not receive truth refuse to be recast in faith and character and remodeled in the image of Christ.

The wine is also confusion spread among the nations by departing from God's commandments and tampering with His standard of righteousness, so that drinkers are misled from the divine path to heaven and fail to recognize rejection of His law as rebellion. The kings of the earth and inhabitants of the earth are the ruling powers of the world and false religionists. Joined with false religion in union of church and state they produce apocalyptic beast powers that persecute and crush opposers, bringing harm to both church and state, and as time closes they bind themselves into secret societies and confederacies that do not honor God's law and display heathen power and evil with greater outward parade.

Specific Deceptions of Babylon

The wine of her fornication includes the false doctrine of eternal torment, which misrepresents God's character and draws minds away from allegiance to Him into fear and dread and even hatred. To receive such handed-down falsehood instead of walking in the light available in one's own time is to drink that wine and to come under Babylon's condemnation. The Christian world drinks this intoxicating cup by accepting the falsehood that God's law has been changed, above all the changing of the fourth commandment from Sabbath to Sunday, which makes the whole law appear without force and makes truth itself appear changeable.

The wine is also the mixing of pure silver truth with dross in practice and the diluting of wine with water in education, centered on Battle Creek. Its effect is intoxicating and corrupting like strong drink, raising exalted false expectations that end in disappointment and murmuring and in forgetting God rather than remembering Him, and carrying a misleading example to other countries. To persist in that mixture and in enlarging and centralizing the work brings a scattering and humbling judgment, in order that the light may be spread and the standard of truth lifted in many places. Babylon's wickedness is likewise bound up with gluttony and drunkenness, for indulgence of appetite enslaves men and dulls the mind until God's sacred claims can no longer be discerned, and in this the inhabitants of the earth are made drunk by her wine.

The woman is the papal power, which with all deceivableness of unrighteousness deceives all nations by outward attraction and gorgeous display. The power with the deepest inward corruption makes the greatest display and clothes itself with the most elaborate signs of power to cover corrupt and deceiving wickedness. It promises all good to those who receive its mark and all harm to those who oppose its fallacies, as Satan promised to the first parents, while Protestantism gives its kingdom to this power, professing the temper and spirit of a lamb and alliance with heaven yet speaking with the voice of a dragon, moved by a power from beneath. The verse shows a vast multitude made drunk and intensely active, bowing before Satan's miracle-working claim to be God confirmed through every object in earth and air and water. Made eager and raging, they stimulate one another and surge together in religious enthusiasm in determined rebellion to take and occupy the place of God's throne and to make war against their Creator and Redeemer, thinking themselves mighty in their countless numbers, while over them hangs a cloud of judicial wrath containing the elements that destroyed Sodom.

Prophetic Warning and Call

This verse belongs to the prophecies of Revelation 12 to 18 that are being fulfilled, and its warning is part of the last message of warning that all are now to hear. It is God's warning of the perils before His people in the last days, revealing things that will be. What is shown is a people working counter to God, a deceived company that has rejected truth and from whom the light of God has departed. It is to be read with Revelation 12:17, Revelation 14:10-13, and Revelation 13. It foretells the destruction of all the churches that corrupt themselves by idolatrous devotion to the service of the Papacy, those who have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

Protestantism gives its kingdom to this power, professing to have the temper and spirit of a lamb and to be allied to heaven, while speaking with the voice of a dragon and moved by a power from beneath. The kings of the earth and inhabitants of the earth are the ruling powers of the world and false religionists, who bind themselves into secret societies and confederacies that do not honor God's law. As time closes they manifest with greater outward parade the power and evil doings of heathenism. Their work is the mystery of iniquity figuring largely in the winding up of this earth's history, and there are only two parties, those who keep God's commandments and those who war against His holy law.

The presentation is given so that those who have the light of truth will keep clear of these evils. Babylon's wine is doctrines of error dealt to the kings of the earth, leading them into spiritual fornication. In contrast to that cup of error stands the cup full of the precious truths of redemption, the preciousness of God, which is the Holy Spirit given to save souls. Those who carry books of truth are presenting the cup of redemption, not the cup of Babylon.