Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

14:8
message of the coming of the Kingdom, as John and
Jesus had announced from the beginning: “Now in
those days John the Baptizer came, preaching in the
wilderness of Judea, saying, Repent, for the Kingdom of
heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:1-2); “And after John had
been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee,
preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, and
saying, The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is
at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:14-
15). And this is the Gospel preached by the angel,
every element in it an aspect of the New Testament
message: Fear God (Luke 1:50; 12:5; Acts 10:35), and
give Him glory (Matt. 5:16; 9:8; 15:31), because the
hour of His judgment has come (John 12:23, 31-32;
16:8-11); and worship Him who made the heaven and
the earth and the sea (the world, Gen. 1) and springs
of waters (Paradise, Gen. 2). All this bears striking
resemblance to what is recorded of the apostolic Gospel
(cf. Acts 14:15; 17:24-31).
The angel preaches this Gospel to those who sit over
the Land. The usual expression for the Israelite
apostates is those who dwell in the Land (3:10; 13:8, 12,
14; 17:2, 8). This time, attention is focused on the
message to the authorities of Israel, those who are
seated or enthroned over the Land (the verb is the
same as that used in v. 14, of the Son of Man enthroned
on the Cloud). The Gospel message commanded the
rulers of Palestine to submit to the lordship of Christ, to
honor Him, rather than Caesar, as God. But the rulers
and authorities rejected Him, saying “We will not have
this Man to rule over us!” (Luke 19:14). The Lord
Himself proclaimed the glory and judgment of God to
the authorities of Israel (Matt. 26:64), and warned His
disciples that they would preach an unpopular Gospel
to the rulers: “But beware of men; for they will deliver
you up to the courts, and scourge you in their
synagogues; and you shall even be brought before
governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them
and to the Gentiles” (Matt. 10:17-18). Moreover, “this
Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole
world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end
shall come” (Matt. 24:14). And this was the Gospel
order – to the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles (Acts
3:26; 11:18; 13:46-48; 28:23-29; Rom. 1:16; 2:9): The
angel preaches to the rulers of Palestine, and then to
every nation and tribe and tongue and people. Before
the end came in A.D. 70, St. Paul tells us, the Gospel
was indeed preached to all the world (Rom. 1:8; 10:18;
Col. 1:5-6, 23). In spite of the attempts of the Dragon
and his two Beasts to thwart the progress of the Gospel,
the mission of the apostles, evangelists, martyrs, and
confessors of the early Church was successful. The
world was evangelized. 9
8 Another angel, a second one follows, presenting
another aspect of the early Church’s proclamation:
Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great! This is the first
mention of “Babylon” in Revelation, a proleptic
reference foreshadowing the full exposition to come in
later chapters (similar to the early reference to the
Beast in 11:7). It is certainly possible, however, that St.
John’s readers understood his meaning immediately. In
his first epistle, presumably written before the
Revelation, St. Peter described the local church from
which he wrote as “she who is in Babylon” (1 Pet.
5:13). Many have supposed this to be Rome, where St.
Peter was (according to tradition) later martyred; but it
is much more likely that the apostle was in Jerusalem
when he wrote these words. Based on data from the
New Testament itself, our natural assumption should be
that “Babylon” was Jerusalem, since that was where he
lived and exercised his ministry (Acts 8:1; 12:3; Gal.
1:18; 2:1-9; cf. 1 Pet. 4:17). Moreover, St. Peter’s first
epistle also sends greetings from Mark and Silas
[Silvanus] (1 Pet. 5:12-13), both of whom lived in
Jerusalem (Acts 12:12; 15:22-40). 10
In any case, the primary thrust of the prophecy has
been directed against Jerusalem; it has dealt with Rome
only insofar as Rome was related to Israel. John gives us
no indication that the subject has been changed. As we
shall see in Chapters 17 and 18, the evidence that the
prophetic Babylon was Jerusalem is nothing short of
overwhelming. The term is used of the apostate city
just as “Sodom” and “Egypt” were used in 11:8 to
describe “the Great City . . . where the Lord was
crucified” (note also that the same expression the Great
City is used in 16:19 to describe “Babylon”). St. John’s
reason for applying the word to Jerusalem is that
Jerusalem has become a Babylon, a replica of the proud,
idolatrous, persecuting oppressor of God’s people. Terry
rightly observes that “as Jesus in Matthew 24:14 said
that the end of this city and the pre-Messianic age
would follow the preaching of the Gospel among the
nations, so in this Apocalypse the proclamation of the
fall of Babylon the Great follows immediately after
that of the eternal Gospel.” 11
This great Harlot-City (17:1) has made all the nations
drink of the wine of the heat of her fornication (an
ironic contrast to the legitimate and blessed “wine of
love” celebrated by Solomon, Cant. 1:2-4; 4:10; 5:1;
7:2, 9). The word usually translated wrath (as in KJV)
basically means heat (NASV renders it as passion). In
verse 10 the idea is definitely one of wrath, but here
John is simply using the familiar Biblical picture of
apostate Israel as a harlot, inflaming men’s passions
with the heat of lust. Israel has abused her privileged
position as the divinely ordained “guide to the blind”
and “light to those in darkness” (Rom. 2:19). The
nations looked to her for instruction, yet ended up
blaspheming the name of God because of her
wickedness (Rom. 2:24). God had intended her to be
Lady Wisdom, summoning all men to eat of her food, to
drink of her wine, and to live in the way of
9. See David Chilton, Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1985), pp. 90f.
10. For further material on the meaning of St. Peter’s reference to “Babylon,” see J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia, pp. 346ff.
11. Terry, p. 407.
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