X THE HARLOT WOMAN ON THE SCARLET BEAST (Chapter 17) The contents of this chapter comprised the announcement of the angel to reveal to John the judgment to have been passed upon the harlot city. Before performing the announcement, however, the angel carried John away into a wilderness for a visional description of this harlot. These remaining chapters of the apocalypse surrounded only two opposite figures--the old apostate Jerusalem in contrast with the New Jerusalem, the Victorious Church of Christ. The old Judaistic Jerusalem with all of her apostasies must have been removed in order for the New Jerusalem, the church--or kingdom of Christ--to have come into world-wide sway. Hence, symbolic Babylon the Harlot and figurative New Jerusalem, the Bride (the church), were the center of the remaining apocalypses. Later, John was transported in vision to a mountain where he was allowed to view the Bride, the wife of the Lamb (the church of Christ)--but before doing so, the first angel summoned the Seer in spirit to appropriate surroundings to reveal the identity and character of Babylon, the great, the mother of the harlots, and abominations of the earth, and to visualize the judgment that was to come upon her--for the destruction of the Harlot must precede the victory of the Bride. The seventeenth and eighteenth chapters must be considered as one--for the announced judgment upon the Harlot by the angel at the beginning of chapter seventeen was suspended by the vision of the Harlot; and another angel descended in chapter eighteen to explain the mystery of Babylon the great, and to reveal the judgment against her in the overthrow and destruction of the city which the Harlot represented. There are numerous reasons why the Harlot could not have been the city of Rome. It is stated in this chapter that the beast hated the Harlot. But the beast admittedly was the Roman Empire, and if Rome was the Harlot, the Roman Empire hated the city of Rome. The beast being the empire, the Harlot was of necessity some other than Rome. First: The hatred of the beast for the Harlot harmonized with the animosity of both the Roman Empire and of Rome, its capitol city, toward Jerusalem. Second: The latter half of Revelation beginning with chapter twelve was recapitulatory of the first half ending with chapter eleven, under another and different set of symbols. In chapter 11:8 the names Sodom and Egypt were symbolically applied to apostate Jerusalem, and thus identified by the descriptive clause where also our Lord was crucified. It was because of these apostasies and abominations that the symbolic name Babylon in chapter 14:8 was applied to the fallen city of Jerusalem. Third: There was no basis for a symbol or an analogy in which Rome could have been depicted as having become a harlot, for Rome never stood in the spiritual relation to God as a faithful city, turned to harlotry. The Harlot was a city once faithful to God, and only Jerusalem can fulfill the symbolic descriptions. Fourth: The apocalypse was not directly concerned with Rome, or the Roman Empire; rather, they were envisioned only as the instrument in the execution of judgment on Jerusalem, which in her multiplied apostasies had come to be symbolized as the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, i. e. Judea and Palestine. All of this was in direct fulfillment of the things Jesus foretold in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of Matthew and the twenty-first chapter of Luke concerning the apostasies and abominations which would bring doom to the city of Jerusalem. For example read Matthew 23:34-37 : “ Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not !" The words of Stephen in denunciation of Jerusalem’ s abominations in Acts 7:52-53 were predictive of this doom: “ Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.” The culmination of the Lord’ s upbraidings and Stephen’ s denunciation of Jerusalem were reached in John’ s visions of Jerusalem as Sodom, Egypt and Babylon, with her abominations and harlotry. There are other such portents of the downfall and doom of Jerusalem in the discourses of Christ and in the apostolic epistles, all of which come within the scope of John’ s visions. In chapter seventeen two chief figures were introduced: First, the old Jerusalem as the Harlot; and the persecuting power of Rome as the beast upon which the Harlot sat. Corollary to these two symbolic characters were the two judgments, one against the woman, the other against the beast in the form of the announced destruction of both. However, as the beast symbolized the Roman Empire, it was only as the persecuting instrument; hence, the destruction of the beast which should be accomplished was not the empire itself but the persecuting power which the beast embodied and personified. Seeing that chapters seventeen and eighteen deal with Jerusalem as the Harlot, and the persecuting power of the beast as the Roman Empire, the verses of the two chapters fall into an orderly sequence. (1) The harlot sitting upon the waters--17:1-2. (2) The woman on the scarlet coloured beast--17:3-8. (3) The great wonder comprehended--17:9-11. (4) The coordination of the ten kings--17:12-18: