REVELATION 18
In chapter 17 we get the prophetic history of Babylon, and her doom. The historical facts are stated. In chapter 18 her moral state is enlarged upon, and the effect of her downfall. The announcement by an angel out of heaven that “Great Babylon has fallen, has fallen”, is anticipatory of her actual fall. It is to bring about that the whole system which Babylon stands for shall be “fallen” in the estimation of the saints before it actually falls. It is to be a judged thing for the people of God even now. Hence there is a call to “Come out of her, my people, that ye have not fellowship in her sins, and that ye do not receive of her plagues”.
It is her moral fall that is spoken of in verse 2. She has become “the habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hated bird”. What a contrast to being “built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”! There is a structure formed of spiritual material where God dwells. In the assembly, according to the truth, there is no place for the glory of man; God dwells there. But when the Holy Spirit lost His place, and the Headship of Christ was no longer held in spiritual power, the mind of man began to work in connection with divine things. But the mind of man is essentially unholy, and this prepared the way for what was idolatrous. We only preserve holiness by giving place to the Spirit. Babylon becomes “the habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit”. Instead of the holy influences which are found where God dwells, and where His Spirit is ungrieved, all becomes unclean.
“Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control” are the fruit of the Spirit. Paul spoke much of the cross and the Spirit to the Corinthians because the cross shuts out man after the flesh, and the Spirit brings God in. Man after the flesh has no place in God’s assembly; his mind and his manners must be excluded, or he will only open the door for what is idolatrous, and that lets in demons. But if God has His place by the Spirit, there is power to edify because love is there. The house of God is the assembly of the living God; it is where God dwells, and where He moves; His activities are known there. I trust we covet to know more of this. What is of man and of demons can only be kept out by giving place to God and to His Spirit.
I am anxious that as we read this chapter we should get the truth of the assembly before us in its positive [p. 189] blessedness. That will preserve us from Babylon, and nothing else will. The fact that there is a call to come out of Babylon in this chapter confirms the thought that things are looked at morally here. At Corinth it was the beginning of Christianity, and the world was full of idolatry. The saints were called to come out of it, and be separate (2 Corinthians 6). But in Revelation 18 saints are called to come out of what is corrupt and idolatrous in the Christian profession.
Israel’s first unfaithfulness in the land was that Achan saw among the spoils of Jericho “a beautiful mantle of Shinar”, and he coveted it and took it. It was of Babylonish origin. What answers to that in the New Testament is the sin of Ananias and Sapphira. They did not do wrong in keeping back the money. Their sin was that they wanted to have a reputation amongst the brethren of being more devoted than they were, and to secure this they lied to the Holy Spirit. It was a Babylonish garment which they coveted. Achan would have adorned himself with a beautiful mantle; Ananias and Sapphira would have clothed themselves in the glory of spurious devotedness. That was the beginning of Babylon in the assembly. I know that there is vanity and vain-glory in my flesh; but if I judge it there, and refuse it, I can go on serving Christ, and receive honour from His Father. But if I allow it, and minister to it, I fall under the influence of what is Babylonish.
We are called to the fellowship of God’s Son, to the fellowship of the body and blood of Christ, to the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and the fellowship of the brethren “one with another”. What is Babylonish strikes at the very root of all this; it entangles one in a fellowship which is opposed to all that is [p. 190] spiritual. The sin of Achan and the sin of Ananias both met with signal judgment, as though God would warn His people at the very outset in the most solemn way against the Babylonish intrusion. We have to judge Babylon morally now wherever we find it — in ourselves or in the christian profession. The desire for a glory that is not divinely conferred is the root principle of Babylon. The germ of it appeared in the assembly in Acts 5; the full development appears in Revelation 17 and 18.
Babylon glorifies herself, and lives luxuriously. Christ glorifies the assembly; she has no need to glorify herself. He has given her His Spirit so that she might answer to His mind and heart, and be His counterpart, that she might be formed in every quality that is glorious in His eyes. It should be our great desire to answer to what the assembly is in the thought of Christ. Her delight is to glorify Him. The more she learns the thoughts of His love the more she covets to correspond with them. It is because the glory that Christ has put on the church is not known that the spirit of Babylon comes in. The false church glorifies herself in the place where He is not. She sits a queen, and is no widow; she does not feel bereft of Christ at all.
The assembly has been left here to be the companion of Christ’s rejection, and to witness to a suffering Christ until He returns in glory. She is to be a “widow indeed” as feeling that Christ has died here, and that He is not here, and that He is not wanted here. As our souls are nourished upon what comes from the Head we shall instinctively turn from that which carries the glory of man and ministers to it. It comes simply to this, Have we affection for Christ? The bride’s thoughts and affections are bound up with Christ; she measures everything by Him; she is devoted in heart to Him and for His interests. Every time the Lord brings us together to eat His supper it is to bring us afresh under the influence of His love, and to teach us the place the assembly has in His heart. So that each time we may go out into the world with a deeper sense of being there in true widow character.
Rebecca took a veil and covered herself. The church covers herself as conscious of what she is to Christ; she only wants Him to be seen and glorified. In that way she appears in the true character of the bride. She holds Christ as Head; she looks up to Him with reverence and affection; she derives from Him, and she answers in mind and affection to Him. God can look down and see hearts in this world that treasure Christ, that are exercised to give Him pre-eminence, to answer to Him, to express in some feeble measure what is of Him. May each one of us be more set than ever to be here in the true character of the bride. Soon Christ will present her to Himself a glorious assembly without “spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things”. And after the marriage of the Lamb she will descend from God as “the holy city, Jerusalem” having the glory of God, to be the light of the millennial earth. This we shall see in chapter 21.
A great part of chapter 18 is taken up with the lamentations of the kings of the earth, and the merchants, and those who trade by sea, over the fall of Babylon. It may seem strange that the secular power should destroy her, and yet that there should be such general grief over her fall. I suppose that [p. 192] the consequences of her overthrow will not be realized until the deed is done. She has appropriated to herself all the glory and luxury of the world, and has ministered in an immense degree to the commercial prosperity of the world. Men will not realize how deeply she has become part of the whole system of the world, socially and commercially, until they have destroyed her. Think what the effect would be of the destruction of all the religious buildings of Europe, the spoliation of all church property, and the complete ruin of all who have had their part and living in connection with the religious world! It will be found that a fatal blow has been struck at the very life of the world, but it will be impossible to undo what has been done. Men will have been the instruments of the action, but the destruction of Babylon will be the irreversible judgment of God. “Rejoice over her, heaven, and ye saints and apostles and prophets; for God has judged your judgment upon her”.