Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

17:1
17
THE FALSE BRIDE
While some in recent years have attempted to see the
Great Harlot of Revelation as the City of Rome, the
Church throughout Christian history has generally
understood that she is in some sense a False Bride, a
demonic parody of the True Bride, the Church. The
Biblical motif of the Bride falling into adultery
(apostasy) is so well-known that such an identification
is all but inescapable. The metaphor of harlotry is
exclusively used in the Old Testament for a city or
nation that has abandoned the Covenant and turned
toward false gods; and, with only two exceptions (see
on v. 1-2, below), the term is always used for faithless
Israel. The Harlot is, clearly, the False Church. At this
point, however, agreement shatters into factionalism.
To the Donatist heretics of the fourth century, the
Catholic Church was the Whore. Some Greek
Orthodox and Protestant theologians have seen her in
the Roman papacy, while many fundamentalists have
spotted her tinsel charms in the World Council of
Churches. Although it is true that there may be (and
certainly have been) false churches in the image of the
Harlot, we must remember the historical context of the
Revelation and the preterist demands it makes upon its
interpreters. Merely to find some example of a false
church and identify her as the Whore is not faithful
exegesis. St. John has set our hermeneutical boundaries
firmly within his own contemporary situation, in the
first century. He has, in fact, stated definitely that the
Harlot was a current phenomenon (17: 18), from which
he expects his current readers to separate themselves.
Whatever modern applications are made of this
passage, we must see them as just that: applications. The
primary significance of the vision must refer to the False
Church of St. John’s day.
We have seen that the Book of Revelation presents us
with two great cities, set in antithesis to each other:
Babylon and New Jerusalem. As we shall see in a later
chapter, the New Jerusalem is Paradise Consummated,
the community of the saints, the City of God. The
other city, which is continually contrasted to the New
Jerusalem, is the old Jerusalem, which has become
unfaithful to God. Another way to view this is to
understand that Jerusalem was intended from the
beginning to be the true fulfillment of Babylon, a word
meaning “Gate of God.” The place of God’s gracious
revelation of Himself and of His covenant should be a
true Babylon, a true “Gate of Heaven” and “House of
God,” as Jacob understood when he saw God’s staircase
to heaven, the true Tower of Babel, the true pyramid
which foretold of Jesus Christ (Gen. 28:10-22; cf. John
1:51). But Jerusalem did not walk worthy of the calling
with which it had been called. Like the original
Babylon, Jerusalem turned its back on the true God and
sought autonomous glory and dominion; like the
original Babylon, it was apostate; and thus the “Gate of
God” became “Confusion” instead (Gen. 11:9).
How did the faithful City become a Harlot? It began
with the apostasy of the priesthood in Israel. The
primary responsibility of the priest (God’s
representative), is to re-present the Bridegroom to the
Bride, and to guard her from danger. Instead, the
priesthood led the people in apostasy from their Lord
(Matt. 26:14-15, 47, 57-68; 27:1-2, 20-25,41-43, 62-
66). Because of the priesthood’s failure to bring the
Bridegroom to Israel, the Bride became a Harlot, in
search of other husbands. The apostasy of the
priesthood is described in 13:11-17, under the figure of
the Beast from the Land. But the False Bride is not
absolved of responsibility. She is guilty as well, and St.
John’s prophecy rightly turns now to consider her
judgment and destruction. 1
The symbolic “Babylon” was destroyed when the
seventh angel poured out his Chalice, the drinkoffering
of annihilation (16:17-21). As we have seen,
this vision is part of the fourth Seven of Revelation –
the Seven Chalices containing the seven plagues. The
connection is provided in 17:1 (cf. 21:9), which tells us
that it is one of the seven Chalice-angels who gives St.
John the vision of the judgment of the Great Harlot.
This vision, therefore, opens up the meaning of the
Seventh Chalice, the destruction of Jerusalem.
The Identity of the Harlot (17:1-7)
1 And one of the seven angels who had the Seven Chalices
came and spoke with me, saying: Come here, I will show
you the judgment of the great Harlot who sits on many
waters,
2 with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication,
and those who dwell on the Land were made drunk with
the wine of her fornication.
3 And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness;
and I saw a Woman sitting on a scarlet Beast, full of
blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.
4 And the Woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and
adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having
in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the
unclean things of her fornication,
5 and upon her forehead a name written: MYSTERY,
BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE
HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE
LAND.
6 And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints,
and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. And when I
saw her, I wondered with great wonder.
7 And the angel said to me, Why do you wonder? I will tell
1. The failure of the priesthood, and the consequences of this for the Bride, are recurring themes in Scripture. See James B. Jordan, Judges: God’s War Against
Humanism (Tyler, TX: Geneva Ministries, 1985).
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