Revelation Chapter 17

VERSES 4 AND 5 continued “The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication, and on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

VERSE 5 — AND UPON HER FOREHEAD: — written into her very character and plain to see for all who are looking with wisdom and understanding.

A NAME: — a character

WRITTEN: — inscribed indelibly into her every deed and word.

MYSTERY: What a well-kept secret! Here in the name of CHRIST is the ANTICHRIST! How could it happen? Mystery of mysteries!

BABYLON: – originally meaning “Gateway to God,” but coming to mean “Confusion.” — This is part of the mystery.

THE GREAT: The implication is clear: there are lesser Babylon’s, and the rest of this verse says so. They are all clearly typed by that evil empire of old.

MOTHER OF HARLOTS: There are others! — Lesser Babylon’s; but they all have THIS one as their ancestry. (Daughters)

AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH: She is not only “mother” of the harlot daughters, she is the one who gave birth to society’s aberrations, abominations, and disgusting defects. This places much that is wrong with society directly at her doorstep. It is a weighty load.

The term “Abominations”: is a very good description of the various nations styling themselves Christendom. (N.A.N.O.R. Page 133)

“Jeremiah’s defamation “thou has a whore’s forehead; thou refuses to be ashamed” (Jer 3:3) is equally applicable to the “MOTHER OF HARLOTS” in Verse 5.

The purpose of this description (“MOTHER OF HARLOTS”) is to identify and include the daughter systems in the judgment, Catholicism being the “MOTHER” of harlot daughters (the various Protestant denominations).

Rev 14:4 contained a clue of this nature in the statement “These are they which were not defiled WITH WOMEN; for they are virgins . . . which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes.” In Verse 5 the women are called “HARLOTS.”

“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” (1 Cor 6:15, 16)

The name upon the whore’s forehead is in plain sight of all the spiritually minded (Luke 8:10). How strange then that everyone does not see the association!

Indeed, it is a mystery.

The Church of Christ (the True Church) is called the “MYSTERY OF GOD,” the “mystery of godliness,” and “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Rev 10:7; 1 Tim 3:16; Col 1:27) because, contrary to expectation, the Church is to be the Messianic body, which, under its anointed Head, Jesus, shall rule and bless the world.

The false Church or Babylon, a counterfeit system of mother and daughters (some more or less corrupt), is designated the “MYSTERY OF INIQUITY” (2 Thess 2:7). It is Satan who is credited with having deceived the whole world on this subject, putting evil for good and good for evil, light for darkness and darkness for light (Rev 12:9; Isa 5:20).

Since the Roman Church is not a single individual but a great religious system, the symbolism indicates that there will be daughter religious systems of similar character (“Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin [?] Daughter of Babylon…” Isa 47:1). To this description the various Protestant organizations fully correspond. However, since the daughter systems parted from the mother under circumstances of travail and were born virgins, some sincere Christians may anxiously inquire,

If all Christendom is to be involved in the doom of Babylon, what will become of Protestantism, the result of the Reformation?

This is an important question, but Protestantism, as it exists today, is the result not of the great Reformation but of its decline.

The claims of apostolic succession and clerical authority are set forth almost as presumptuously by some of the Protestant clergy as by the papal priesthood. And the right of private, individual judgment (interpretation)—the fundamental principle of the protest against Papacy that led to the Reformation—is now opposed almost as strenuously by Protestants as it is by Papists. Protestants seem to have forgotten—for they truly ignore—the very grounds of the original protest; as systems, they are fast drifting back toward the open arms of the Holy (?) Mother Church. As Catholics would say, “Long has our common mother called you to her breast.” (“The Keys of Revelation”, Pages 441, 442)

We will take a look at Verses 6 and 7 next time.