The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

The fulfillment of this vision recorded in Rev. 14:8, as we have before seen, is simply that
of an announcement, a proclamation of Babylon's fall, that is her fall from favor. This
announcement has been having its fulfillment for many years. Her fall (destruction) is
portrayed in chapter 18. Mr. Russell has frequently in his writings given this as his
understanding of the meaning of this vision. In 1900 he said:
"More evident does it become, daily, that our Lord's declaration, 'Babylon is fallen!' does
not signify the outward collapse of 'Churchianity'; but that nominal 'Christendom' has
fallen from Divine favor; just as the fall of national Judaism from Divine favor, at the
rejection and crucifixion of Messiah at His first presence, meant not the collapse at the
moment of that religio-political system. . . . The collapse will be sudden and awful when it
does come; and while only the few realize the fallen-from-grace condition of Babylon in
the present, none will be ignorant of her collapse when it comes.
"But when we say that nearly all will fall--'a thousand shall fall at thy side'--we do not
mean that they will all fall into open immorality; nor that they will abandon church
organizations, nor that the fallen ones will even know that they have fallen. On the
contrary, the fallen ones as usual will think that they are rising higher and higher--getting
rid of error, etc. They will be thoroughly blind to the fact that with the errors and
superstitions they are getting rid also of the truths and the faith which alone constituted
them Christians in God's sight. This is the sense in which Babylon is falling, . . . and hence
God's call, 'Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye
receive not of her plagues.'--Rev. 18:4."
The next clause in the vision gives a reason why Babylon has utterly fallen from favor,
become apostate, rejected. It is because she "has given all the nations to drink of the wine
of the wrath of her fornication." This statement expressed in different forms is found
several times in the subsequent visions. In chapter 17, the woman upon whose forehead
the name Babylon is written, holds in her hand a golden cup, full of abominations and
filthiness of her fornication (ver. 4); and St. John was told that the "inhabitants of the earth
had been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." (Ver. 2.) Again, St. John saw the
woman, the mother of harlots, "drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of
the witnesses of Jesus." (Ver. 6.) Briefly stated, the meaning of the expression in the vision
we are considering is that the great harlot, the mother system, had at the time the vision
meets its fulfillment, succeeded in causing so-called Christendom to drink and become
stupefied with false religious doctrines and was on this account ripe for judgment. The
Reformation Movement exposed to view some of these false doctrines, and caused many
to see the apostate mother system in its true light. The failure of the Reformation
Movement, by the formation of sects, gradually brought in the present apostate condition.
Those represented in this movement by the angel crying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon," are
those who in the last half century have been proclaiming this fact. The expression "the
wine of the wrath of God," is interpreted in two ways. As given by some:
"The meaning here is, that the nations had drunk of that cup which brought on the wrath
of God on account of her 'fornication.' . . . The word 'fornication' here is used to denote