The Beast and Babylon the Great are Different Powers

 The Beast and Babylon the Great are Different Powers

 

As SDAs we don’t really pay much attention to details.  Traditionally, we have treated the beast, the little horn of Daniel 7:25, and Babylon the Great (the great prostitute) as one and the same power.  We basically say it is all the papacy.  Perhaps in the back of our mind we kind of know that they are different, but we do not really treat them as different powers.  We must once again turn to Revelation 17.  I will show here they are different powers and speak about the fall of Babylon and then later in subsequent posts, I will discuss who Babylon is and who the beast is.  I appreciate everyone’s patience.  I am trying to do this in small posts.

We first see the great prostitute, which I’ll simply call BtG from now on, sitting upon the heads of the beast.  See Revelation 17:9.  More on this at the end of this.  For now, please notice that the woman does not sit on the back of the beast, but on the heads.  Rome was universally known as the city of seven hills so while the beast is not Rome, this is a reference to Rome in my opinion and I believe this is because in John’s time, Rome was the 6^th head and BtG was definitely sitting on the head.  We can infer from this imagery that she controls the mind of the head, but as I will demonstrate shortly, BtG in the last days represents a literal geographic power.

While we must acknowledge that BtG controls the beast and its heads, we cannot escape the plain statement of Scripture that they are different as is obvious from this passage.

And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the whore; they will make her desolate and  naked; they will devour her flesh and burn her up with fire. (Revelation 17:16).

Please also note Revelation 17:12.

And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast.  (Revelation 17:12 emphasis is mine).

It is crystal clear that we are dealing with two powers.  The beast and the ten kings turn against BtG and destroy her.  Although I won’t go into it here, these verses are necessary to fully understand the trumpets and the 6^th trumpet and 6^th plague in detail.  For now, please note they are clearly different.  And with this knowledge, we can now make sense of passages in Revelation 18 which describes the fall of BtG.

Render to her as she herself has rendered,  and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double draught for her in the cup she mixed. (Revelation 18:6 emphasis is mine).

 

We now understand what this actually means.  We are told in Revelation 18 that BtG is burnt with fire.  Revelation 17 told us who did it.  When Babylon falls, she is hit twice.  Her first calamity comes at the hands of the beast and the ten kings.  By the way, I should point out here that Revelation 17 clearly says to John that the 10 kings have not yet received royal power.  If the present tense is in 1798 as the SDA church maintains, the ten divisions of Rome have already come on the scene.  This is yet another proof that the “is not” refers to the 1^st century CE.  But back to the main thread.  BtG’s second calamity comes courtesy of God during the 7^th plague.  This is why she gets double.

 

Notice also the merchants of the earth stand and watch her smoke.  They are not crying to the rocks and mountains to fall on them.  They stand and observe her smoke.  Might we say nuclear destruction?  One thing they say is particularly important for our discussion.

They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, “Alas, alas, the great city, Babylon, the mighty city!  For in one hour your judgment has come.” (Revelation 18:10 emphasis is mine).

Revelation 17 told us the beast and 10 kings would reign together for one hour and burn BtG with fire.  Stop and marvel at how unbelievably intricate and well structured the book of Revelation actually is if we but only read and pay attention.  We can read “one hour” is meaning a very short time, or say it refers to literally one hour.  I tend toward the former but note this is very specific.  I mentioned nuclear destruction because however the beast and 10 kings destroy BtG, fire and smoke result and it is a fast, sudden destruction.  We are told it happens in one day elsewhere in Revelation 18.

Revelation 18 then goes into great detail describing BtG.  What we see is a world economic power that uses shipping by sea as a main vehicle, a power that fornicates with the kings of the earth through trade and seduction.  But of primary importance here is the inescapable fact that when the merchants mourn for BtG, they mourn for a specific and known power that has fallen, one they identify as that great city.  This is not a nebulous spiritual veiled theological power we’re dealing with.  BtG is a specifically known entity mourned by real merchants who traded with her in the past.  And this power is destroyed by a beast with 10 horns who turns on this power that has been sitting on it.

Now, Revelation 18:4 takes on new meaning.  When the world is told to “come out of her my people” they are told to leave a specific, geographically known, economically known, world power, not some nebulous spiritual condition.  Revelation 18 has far too much detail. 

Revelation 17 tells us that BtG as something written on her forehead (mind),

and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations (Revelation 17:5 emphasis is mine).

This is a mystery.  BtG’s mind is the source or root cause of all of earth’s abominations.  And what is Babylon known for?  Trade!  And what led Lucifer into sin according to Ezekiel 28?  Trade!  This brings me back to my very first point.  Tyre was the economic power in Ezekiel’s time.  Ironically, Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was the third head, but it was Tyre who sat on her and Nebuchadnezzar hated this and tried to destroy Tyre, but failed after a long siege collapsed.  Marvel at how intricate and well structured Bible prophecy is if we only read and pay attention.

I will end this post by reproducing a long comment I made in my previous post on this subject.  A question was posed that if Rome is not the 4^th beast of Daniel 7, and by extension not the beast of Revelation 13, what behaviors should we look for.  What follows is my answer to that question.

The behavior question is a good one and I believe there are two ways to approach this question based on the Bible.  The first is to look at 2 Thessalonians 2 in which Paul says that in his time, the mystery of iniquity was already present but would be fully revealed just before the second coming.  Paul then refers to Daniel 11:36-39.  So we can say that when the “man of lawlessness” is finally able to act in the open, he openly exhibits the behaviors Paul describes.  We can infer then that before this power is able to work openly, it exhibits similar characteristics but perhaps not as strongly because it has to work behind the scenes.  What we see then is someone who obviously hates God (Revelation 13 reveals this) controls through conquest, wants to control the economy through brute force, and what is important here, wants to set himself up as an alternative god.  Exalting himself above all other gods.

 

Throughout history, we see this manifested by the individual heads to greater or lesser degrees.  Egyptian pharaohs were the incarnation of Ra, the supreme deity so that’s pretty obvious.  Assyrian kings were not quite as bold, but they did say they had a special define connection with Assur, their chief deity not available to anyone else.  The Babylonians were similar.  We then have the story of Daniel 3.  Persia got worse as time passed but the Greeks were not so inclined seeing themselves as men.  This is until Alexander was exposed to Persian ways and he then became a god-king.  He even said he was a special son of Ra, the Egyptian god and there are stories to back this up.  Subsequent kings like Antiochus IV, for example, followed suit. 

 

Rome, like Greek started with mortal rulers but that changed with Julius Caesar who literally believed he was descended from Venus.  When he was assassinated, the senate was forced to declare Julius Caesar a god which helped Augustus immensely because as Julius Caesar’s adopted son, he became the son of a god and he milked that for all it was worth.  Then various emperors like Nero and Caligula joined the divine party.  In short, every head proclaimed the king or emperor as either a god straight out, or having a special unique relationship with the gods no one else had.  And while we speak of the known world, every oriental dynasty such as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese dynasties not to mention South American ones are exactly this way.

 

So what we need to look for is a power that introduces a new religion unknown to the ruler’s ancestors, and proclaims himself as chief deity.  This is why with all due respect to James, and I have a great deal of respect for him, we have to rule Islam out.  We are looking more along the lines of a traditional god-king with a brand new religion (See 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 and Daniel 11:36-39). 

 

A second approach is to contrast the beast to the great prostitute (Babylon the Great or BtG from now on).  They are two different powers (see my next post) but BtG does ride the beast.  Note that BtG sits on the heads of the beast, and not on the back, so her mindset holds the upper hand.

 

BtG is a prostitute.  She works behind closed doors, making deals behind closed doors.  Revelation 18 tells us she is an economic power so that when she falls, it is the merchants who mourn.  We all know of powers that have worked this way.  However, she is still full of violence.  That she sits on the heads shows that she manipulates brute force to do her will.  We see today, for example, America works through corporate elites, but still uses brute force to serve the rich elite, and so on.  Tyre was that power in Ezekiel’s time.  Meanwhile the beast is brutal and cruel.  When BtG rides on the heads, that brutality is curtailed, but the brutality is still there.  The beast conquers through brute force trampling all before it.  It is not subtle, but it too is interesting in controlling buying and selling.  In Revelation 13, we see it do so world-wide, but the individual heads use their military to control buying and selling as well.

 

So in summary, we can look forward to a brutal military dictatorship which exerts absolute control over the economy and is led by a god-king who introduces a new and hitherto unknown religion.