Theology Thursday: The Whore of Babylon

Welcome to Theology Thursday! Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him. I hope these newsletters help enhance your faith and deepen your love for God and his people, the church.

Today's question:
Who was the prostitute/harlot in Revelation? Who or what is this Whore of Babylon?

Pastor Brady’s thoughts:
A few weeks ago I concluded our sermon series walking through the New Testament in chronological order with a sermon on Revelation. After service, an MCCer asked me who the “prostitute” is that John references in chapter 17.

Here’s Revelation 17:1-6: One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.”

Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries.

The name written on her forehead was a mystery: Babylon the Great, The Mother of Prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth.

I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.

Some translations call her a “harlot.” This being has been referred to as the “Whore of Babylon” for centuries.

Weird stuff, right? You come to the Bible for “A new command I give you, love one another” and you find the Whore of Babylon drunk on the blood of God’s people.

Bible readers have pondered John’s vision basically since it was first written down.

The beast mentioned in this passage is probably the same beast in Revelation 13, verse 1:
The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.

Most scholars believe this beast is best understood to symbolize the antichrist. Assuming that’s accurate, this would mean the Whore of Babylon is a close associate or somehow related to or affiliated with the antichrist. (We’ll do another Theology Thursday on the antichrist sometime, but the term literally means “against Christ,” and biblically speaking it likely indicates not just a singular figure but the combined forces of evil that oppose the Kingdom of God.)

Referring to this person or entity as a “mystery” seems to indicate that we aren’t necessarily supposed to have a full, certain understanding of what’s going on here. But we learn a little more from Revelation 17:9: This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits.

John and his early readers may have understandably seen the Roman empire - which at the time was actively persecuting Christians - as the natural manifestation of these visions, but the whole of the text suggests that it is unlikely that this being represents one specific person, organization, or nation that will rise up against God in fulfillment of this prophecy, but rather that it represents a broader, perhaps global, system or systems of evil (perhaps governmental), its leaders, and perhaps its followers. These evil efforts will be led by the antichrist.

From the picture these verses are painting, we can infer that this “mother of prostitutes” will gain and exercise significant worldwide influence over people and nations. Revelation 17:10-14 depicts kings who affiliate with the beast. This evil woman will have control over these kings for a time (17:18), but ultimately the kings will turn on her and destroy her (17:16).

As for the inclusion of “adulteries” on the list of her transgressions, the prostitute has abandoned relationship with and fealty to God and given herself to another lover and lord: evil.

Toward the end of Revelation, John records an angel communicating the words of the Lord: “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done” (22:12). Those of us in the family of God have no cause to fear the beast or his adulterous rider.

We may not know exactly what form the antichrist and the harlot will take, but we do know what opposition to God looks like. And we know believers will be rescued from its grasp.

To know God and make Him known!
- Pastor Brady

Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to minierccstaff@gmail.com and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.