The first of these is introduced at chap. xi., in connection with the sixth trumpet, and is presented under the image that had been previously used by the apostle Paul (2 Thess. ii. 4), that of the temple of God. "There was given me," it is said, "a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months." We can regard this remarkable passage in no other light than as an expansion of St Paul's description, indicating more particularly how the antichristian power was to sit in the temple of God, and the relation in which it should stand to the true church. Romish writers, and latterly, also some Protestants, have laboured hard to impose the same interpretation upon this, as upon the passage in the Thessalonians, and to understand by the two parties described, the Christian church, on the one side, and on the other, the opposing and persecuting power of heathen Rome. But the attempt must ever appear fruitless to those who understand the symbolical language of Scripture, and would give it a consistent and impartial application. The words manifestly delineate, not merely two different and opposing parties, but two classes of worshippers—parties alike professing to belong to the same visible temple of God, though one of them alone really and properly abiding in it. This latter class are those who are symbolized by what was to be measured, as that which had its appointment of God, and was under His careful guardianship—"the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein." They are, in a word, God's living temple—his "spiritual house," or "holy priesthood," whose duty and calling it is to "offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." The other portion, though also, in a sense, belonging to the same sacred building, only lying outside the strictly sacred territory, was to be left unmeasured, as wanting the right connection with God, and a real interest in His faithful keeping. It is called "the court without the temple," and is represented as "being given to the Gentiles," with reference to the uncircumcised condition of those who of old worshipped in such a court, and, without doubt, to indicate the uncircumcised, or really unsanctified state, of those whom it imaged, however holy they might externally seem. That they were to have, more or less, the semblance of this, their position in the temple-court clearly denotes; but that it was to be only a semblance, that it was to want the reality of divine grace and life, the merely external, essentially heathenish or worldly nature of the position, not less clearly demonstrates. The characters indicated, therefore, were of necessity to form a church party, but the false as contra-distinguished from the true—the world in the church; and so, coinciding in character with the apostacy of Paul, and the spirit of antichrist in the epistles of John. And when it is said of this corrupt party that they should "tread the holy city under foot forty and two months," we are plainly informed, that they were, notwithstanding the false position they occupied, to have the ascendency in the professing church of God; nay, and should trample on and oppress those who alone rightfully belonged to it. The "holy city" is but another name for the church, the true members of which are said to have their names written among the living in Jerusalem; and to tread down the city is, in other words, to rule with proud domination over the sincere people of God, and treat them with persecuting violence. The period during which this unnatural state of things was to last is described by the mystical term of "forty and two months," which, whether it may be capable or not of being definitely determined, must have been meant to comprehend a period of some continuance. For, in another place, it denotes the time during which the church was to be in the wilderness (chap. xii. 6), that is, in a tried, humbled, and afflicted condition; a state, into which she began to enter, shortly after the Lord's ascension to the heavenly places, and out of which she is only to come to possess with him the inheritance. Here also it embraces the whole time between the rise of the corrupt and apostate party in the church, and their complete overthrow, which takes place at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, when the kingdoms of this world are declared to have become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ (ver. 15). During this time the real church is represented as occupying chiefly a witnessing condition. Precluded from outwardly ruling in the things of God, she can only deliver a testimony—and is, therefore, symbolized by two witnesses, the legal number for such a purpose; implying that God would still continue a succession of faithful persons, adequate, though but barely adequate, it may be, to such a purpose. And as the testimony they should utter was that of God's own word, it could not be without effect; the protest it delivered against reigning error and corruption, and in behalf of the truth of Christ, must make itself heard, like the testimony of old on the tables of the covenant, alike in the ear of Heaven and in the consciences of men. It is on this word, which is the expression of God's mind and will, that all blessing and cursing is found to turn; by it the windows of heaven are shut or opened, and life and death (spiritually) are administered among men (ver. 5, 6). No wonder, therefore, that the ungodly dominant party, who are said to have their dwelling upon the earth (ver. 10), because they belonged entirely to the earthly sphere, should seek to stop the mouths of those who had such a testimony to deliver, and even proceed to the last extremities against them, by utterly silencing them, or, as it is called, putting them to death, killing them as witnesses. To make it more apparent, how, and by whom this should be effected, it is said to take place "in the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified;" that is, it was to be done by an apostate church that had formally joined hands with the world, as when the Jewish church combined with Pilate and Herod to destroy Jesus, and had become like the most reprobate portions of the world itself. But still it does not succeed in its object; the tormenting testimony cannot so be quenched; it revives again, all the louder and more impressive in its utterances for the violence that has been done to it; the old saying is anew verified, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church; and thus, by striving unto blood, and holding fast the word of her testimony, the cause represented by her faithful children grows and prospers by means of suffering, and after it they rise, like their Divine head, to the higher region of power and influence, until at length the system of antichristian error they opposed falls under the doom of heaven, and the world in the church comes to be exchanged for the church in the world.
Such briefly, and without reference to explicit times or periods (of which we may afterwards speak), is the tenor and import of this first symbolical representation in the Apocalypse of an apostatizing and corrupt, as contra-distinguished from the true church. So closely does it join itself to earlier revelations upon the subject, especially to the passage in the second epistle to the Thessalonians, that it seems much like the turning of what had been there written into a parable, or presenting it in the form of a symbolical narrative—only with less regard, than in St Paul's description, to the means by which the antichristian usurpation was to be effected, more to the manner in which it should be met and overcome by the remnant of a faithful church. And it should be well noted in respect to this latter point, which is here, for the first time, distinctly exhibited, that no mention is made of any instrumentality on the part of the church, or in behalf of the cause of righteousness, but the unswerving and devoted use of the testimony of God's word. The operation and effects of this are described (in accordance with the general character of the vision), under material imagery, such as the power of the witnesses in opening and shutting up heaven, fire going out of their mouth, and latterly the occurrence of an earthquake, shaking, to its foundations, the corrupt city, and partly destroying, partly leading to the conversion of its inhabitants. But all these are manifestly images, not of agencies employed, but rather of effects produced, by the one grand agency of a living church, plying the mighty weapon of God's testimony. As the result of her doing this, undoubtedly, many external and even political changes must ensue, such as cannot but carry the aspect of woes and judgments to the apostate and worldly power. But the primary and fundamental result—that also which carries all else in its train, is the success of the testimony itself; it is this alone which can secure a moral victory, and, in such a case, nothing but a moral victory can be either adequate or permanent; it, and nothing else, lays the axe to the root of the tree, and cuts it down for ever. Apart from this, outward calamities or temporal judgments, at most effect but the removal of a few branches.
The other formal representation given of this subject in the Apocalypse is founded upon a different image; upon the Church's relation to Christ as His bride or spouse. It was especially for the purpose (as noticed in last section) of obtaining a symbolical foundation for unfolding the false and unfaithful part, which so large a portion of the professing church was to play in the future, that the symbolical representations of St John, while coinciding so much with those of Daniel, split here into the two parts of humanity, what in the former case had been preserved in its unity. With John as well as with Daniel, the Divine kingdom as a whole, in its ideal grandeur and perfection, has its representation in one, who had the appearance of a Son of man, and that irradiated with a brightness and glory altogether divine. But since this representation had been embodied, before the writing of the Apocalypse, in a living personality, and the idea involved in it was there realized in all its completeness, it became necessary, when tracing out the perspective of the church's history amid the imperfections of a present life, and the defections of an unfaithful and apostate spirit, to divide between the head and the members. This was done by choosing the female side of humanity for the symbol of the church, viewed in connection with the bonds, obligations, and prospects of the marriage vow. The real church, therefore, is the woman clothed with the sun—the chaste virgin without spot or wrinkle, pure and glorious, therefore fit to be the Lamb's wife, and to share with him in the blessings and honours of His kingdom. But there is another woman, a harlot, who stands related to the true church precisely as an unfaithful and profligate spouse to one of unshaken probity and worth: not, therefore, a simply unrighteous and wicked party, but such a party with a Christian profession; a church degenerate, faithless, sunk in the mire of worldliness and sin. Such, precisely, is the sense in which this symbol is employed in Old Testament prophecy; and in designating the false and corrupt church a harlot, or mother of abominations, St John only followed a precedent that had been given in a multitude of prophetical passages (Isa. Ivii. 3-5; Jer. ii., iii.; Ezek. xvi., xxiii.; Hos. L, ii., etc.) There the terms adulteress, harlot, or whore, with scarcely an exception, denote the backslidden and apostate community of Israel. Our Lord also makes a similar use of the image (Matth. xii. 39, xvi. 4; Mark viii. 38). And in the earlier part of the Apocalypse, the incipient evil in this respect, the declension that had begun in certain churches, by falling into the corrupt ways and practices of the world, is characterized as whoredom and the committing of fornication (chap. ii. 14, 20, 22); as, on the other hand, the true and faithful church is afterwards represented as a company, who retained their virgin-purity (chap. xiv. 4), while immediately in contrast to them, the faithless portion is brought into view as the great whore (ver. 8). So that both the general usage in prophecy, and the usage in particular portions of this book, can leave no reasonable ground to doubt as to the sense meant to be conveyed by the figurative expression. [19]
This view is also confirmed by the descriptive signature emblazoned on the forehead of this mystical woman : "Upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." The designation of Babylon points to the essentially heathen, ungodly character of the power represented, and its hostile relation to the true church of God; with the further indication (which is more expressly brought out in ver. 18), that it was to have a seat and concentration of influence in a modern city (that, namely, of Rome) similar to what the Chaldean monarchy once had in Babylon. If this, however, had stood alone, we should only have had presented to us the antichristian and worldly character of the power, without anything to imply that it had become such by a process of declension and apostacy. But a single word, and that the very first in the inscription, proclaims this; it intimates that the really Babylonish character of the power was so far from being the ostensible one, that a spiritual discernment should be needed to perceive it. The term mystery, in the quite uniform usage of Scripture, denotes something which lies beyond the ken of the merely natural apprehension, and is revealed only to such as have the mind and Spirit of God. So it is used frequently by the apostle Paul (Rom. xvi. 25; 1 Cor. ii. 7-10; Eph. iii. 3, 5; 1 Cor. xv. 51; and by St John himself, first at the commencement of this book, chap. i. 20, where the explanation of the seven candlesticks and the seven stars is called a mystery, because disclosing in connection with them something greater and deeper than the bodily eye perceived; and again at chap. x. 7, where the work of God's providence towards the church and the world is styled a mystery, plainly from its containing so much that lay above and beyond the reach of the natural understanding, and which could only be learned by special revelation from above. Now, there had been no mystery in this sense, had the power here referred to been merely a worldly kingdom, opposing and persecuting the church of God, and as such called Babylon from its resemblance to the old heathen power of that name; the commonest understanding might have perceived the meaning and the propriety of the designation. But there was a mystery in the strictest sense, if the power so designated professed to be the very reverse of what the designation implied; if by a spirit of degeneracy and unfaithfulness it had, while still retaining its claim to spirituality, sunk into a condition of the grossest earthliness and corruption. In that case there would be needed the wisdom that comes from above, the hidden wisdom of God's Spirit, to look through the external appearance, and discern the real state and character underneath. To call this power, therefore, in connection with the appellation Babylon, a mystery, was quite of a piece with calling Jerusalem in our Lord's time, and in after times the corrupt and apostate church spiritually, Sodom and Egypt (chap. xi. 8): it denoted a character the reverse to the spiritual mind that it should seem to the carnal. And when along with this indication of a reality contrary to the appearance and profession, we find coupled the epithet of "mother of harlots and abominations," the evidence is complete, that a degenerate power of the worst description, a false, apostate, corrupt and worldly church, must have been the kind of power represented in the image.
Very striking, also, and still farther confirmatory of what has been said, is the manner in which the image is introduced, and the place and appearance ascribed to it. The apocalyptist represents himself as carried in the spirit, for the purpose of beholding this sight, into a wilderness (ver. 3). Had it been the worldly dominant monarchy of Rome, which was to be exhibited in vision, this had certainly been a strange place to be taken to see it; the marts of commerce or the conspicuous heights would have been the more fitting scenes. But it perfectly accords with the view we have given of the subject, and is no doubtful link of connection between the present representation and a former one. The prophet had left the true church, as symbolized by the woman that was clothed with the sun, in the wilderness, whither she had fled for safety, and whither, also, she was followed by the dragon with his flood-like hordes. We already saw, in what is said at chap. xii. 17, of a remnant only of her seed being said to keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus, evidence of a certain success having been won by the adversary in the efforts he was thus going to put forth against her. And now, when the prophet is again borne in the Spirit to a wilderness, instead of seeing the woman he had seen in such a place before, he beholds a woman, indeed (there is no article), but one so unlike the former, that the name only remained: one so far from being all radiant with celestial brightness and glory, like the other, that she was immersed in the foulness and degradation of earth; sitting on a scarlet-coloured beast, and herself arrayed in purple and scarlet-colour, decked with gold and precious stones and pearls—the best, no doubt, of a worldly attire, but still all of the earth, earthy. While the woman is so different, the beast is the same as before—the same seven-headed, ten-horned monster, full of a spirit of blasphemy (ver. 3, comp. with chap. xiii. 1); in plain terms, the worldly antichristian power in its last great embodiment; so that a woman sitting on this, must be a church sunk in spirit to the world's level, yet in power rising to the ascendant over it, and having it for her leading ambition to direct and rule in the worldly sphere. But of necessity she could only do this by entering into the beast's hostility to the kingdom of God, and warring with the real members of that kingdom, who should hold the faith and testimony of Jesus. Hence the woman appeared also "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus" (ver. 6). This explains why the prophet wondered at the spectacle, even with a great admiration! Had it been merely a heathen power, or one that stood altogether apart from the things of God's kingdom which he saw thus represented before him, there had been no great reason for astonishment; the ungodliness, corruption, and persecuting violence exhibited were precisely what might have been expected. But such a transformation—a power spiritual in its origin, and claiming by its appearance still to possess a spiritual character—for such a power to have sunk so low, and come to act so atrocious a part, might well awake the most profound astonishment. It was the same thing substantially, but with far greater aggravations, which, in Old Testament times, led the prophets to call both upon heaven and earth to express amazement as at an unheard-of enormity (Isa. i. 2; Jer. ii. 10, xvii. 13). [20]
The result, then, which must here be arrived at is manifest; every essential feature in the symbolical delineation forces on us the conclusion, that it is a fallen and degenerate church which is delineated—a power claiming the character, but opposed to the spirit and interests of the real church—worldly, temporising, persecuting. Nor only so; but it was to be also a power most extensive in its dominion, and preponderating in its influence; for the woman appeared sitting on many waters, which are explained to mean "peoples and multitudes, and nations and tongues" (ver. 15); so that she should seem to want little of a complete universality. It is the great apostacy of St Paul come to its perfection, the antichrist in its full development, and well-nigh in total possession of the earth which is the inheritance of Christ and his church. It is itself the church become worldly, promising to those who imbibe its spirit a crown without a cross, a pathway to glory without suffering in the flesh and ceasing from sin; presenting to them, not the Lord's cup of manifold temptations and resistance unto blood against sin; but the golden cup of fleshly indulgence and foul abominations (ver. 4); not operating as the light of the world, and making itself felt throughout the earth as a preserving salt, but, on the contrary, corrupting it by the teaching of false doctrines, the sanctification of abuses, and the hatred and scorn exhibited toward the faith and purity of the saints (xix. 2). If it is asked, where such a church is to be found? we cannot hesitate to reply, In that church, which in the nature and extent of its power and influence became in the course of a few generations after the apostle's time the city in another form which reigned over the kings of the earth (chap. xvii. 18)—in the church pre-eminently of Papal Rome. For there it is that the essential elements of the antichristian apostacy, worldliness of spirit, corruption of doctrine, licentiousness of manners, hatred and oppression of the truth, have had, not as by stealth, or in spite of a better faith, but formally and on principle, their great and most systematic operation: there, that the queen-like elevation of Babylonish pride and security has been most conspicuously manifested: there, in a word, that the more distinctive characteristics of the Apocalyptic whore have found their most complete and palpable exemplification. When inquisition is made for the blood of saints and for those who have the mark of the beast, there can be no doubt, among such as know the mind of God, that they will be found in the communion of Rome.
But while we thus hold the charge to be applicable to the Romish church, primarily and peculiarly, we by no means think it should be laid there, as it too commonly is, exclusively. The Eastern church, which does not differ essentially from that of Rome, must also be included; and much, too, that is to be found under the name of Protestantism. This Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, like the book of God's revelation generally, is pregnant with great principles of good and evil, which were to find their application far and wide in the coming future; and no more in regard to the antichrist, than to Christ Himself, is it to be said, Lo, here he is, or, Lo, there, as if he were to be confined within some local territory, or pent up in the forms of an external worship. God is no respecter of persons, nor a creator of artificial distinctions. Wherever the symptoms of an antichristian spirit, or of a grovelling and worldly condition, discover themselves in the church, there, we say with our Lord, in a like case, the carcase is, and there, also, the eagles shall be gathered together. The assurances which are sometimes held out to the Protestants of this land and America, of safety from the doom of antichrist—because, forsooth, "we never formed, or do not now form, a street of the mystical Babylon," or because we never actually "shed the blood of the martyrs"—sound to our ears very much like the flattering unction of those of old, who deemed that, as they had not themselves killed the prophets, so they should not inherit the condemnation of them who did, or of those who sheltered themselves under the thought of being Abraham's seed, as enough to screen them from the judgments denounced against their sins. Our Lord showed himself to be of a different mind when he charged the one class with being children of the devil and the other with being in danger of the accumulated retribution due for all the righteous blood that had been shed in bygone generations of the world; and of like mind also were the ancient prophets, who so often identified the condition and doom of Israel with those of the heathen (Ezek. xvi.; Amos ix. 7, 8, etc.) In the realities of the world's history, as in the visions of the Divine seer, there are two, and only two, kinds of Christianity—the false and the true, the worldly and the spiritual. The one is found in those who, in their state and character, correspond essentially with the symbol of the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, or, which is all one, possess what is commended in the seven Asiatic churches; the other is found in the merely outer court worshippers, who have not the faith that overcomes the world, whose citizenship is not in heaven, who mind earthly things. All who are not of the Lamb's wife, and related to the New Jerusalem, are necessarily of Babylon, and must share in her inheritance of evil.
From Prophecy by Patrick Fairbairn (1865)
