Revelation 17. To all who sit quietly with their Bibles and try to decipher Revelation with me, I proclaim to you that we are almost done – you are overcomers! We have arrived at the final visions. Here’s a quick glimpse of where we have been already:

Chapters 1-3 The Messages to the Seven Churches
Chapters 4-5 The Throne Room of God and the Slain Lamb
Chapters 6-8 The Seven Seals and the Army of All Nations (7) view from earth
Chapters 8-11 The Seven Trumpets and the Witnesses (11) view from earth
Chapters 12-14 The Seven Signs, Cosmic Battle (12), Earthly Battle (13), and the Reaper (14) view from heaven
Chapters 15-16 The Seven Bowls/Plagues of God’s Final Wrath view from heaven

Remember, these visions are symbolic, and they are not necessarily chronological; many of them present the same thing from different viewpoints. The view from heaven is not restricted by time. Some events have happened already, some we are living through, some are yet to appear. Which is which can be difficult to decipher; and there are things we simply do not know.

Here’s what John writes about next; three key themes in the whole of Revelation:
Chapters 17-19a The Fall of Babylon
Chapters 19b-20 The Final Battle
Chapters 21-22 The New Heaven and New Earth

Today in Revelation 17 we encounter the Great Prostitute in the form of a woman; the angel explains that the woman that you saw is the great city (Babylon) that has dominion over the kings of earth (17:18). Remember that the fall of Babylon was already described in 16:17-21, so it’s not chronological, we are simply seeing the fall of Babylon from a different vantage point.

Who is Babylon? John’s vision is of a stunning woman who is dressed like a queen but drunk with the blood of the martyrs and all innocent people. She is riding the dragon and using his power (Revelation 12-13) and is called Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations (17:5). All the detailed symbols of this vision were clear to John’s first readers because he was depicting the military and economic power of the Roman empire. But there’s more to it. The vision quotes language and imagery from every Old Testament passage about the downfall of other great kingdoms. John is showing that Rome is simply the newest version of that old archetype of humanity in rebellion against God. All the kingdoms of man became a type of Babylon – nations that exalt their own economic and military security to divine status are not limited to the past or the future. Babylons will come and go, leading up to the day when Jesus returns to replace them all with his kingdom.

More on the fall of Babylon tomorrow.