Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

18:3-5
people. This “scapegoat” was, literally, said to be sent to
or for “Azazel” (Lev. 16:8, 10, 26), 1 a name for the
“goat-demon” who lived in the wilderness. 2 Isaiah had
prophesied about the desolation of Babylon:
Desert creatures will lie down there,
And their houses will be full of owls,
Ostriches also will live there,
And goat-demons will frolic there. (Isa. 13:21)
God’s wrath against Edom was phrased in much the
same language:
It shall not be quenched night or day;
Its smoke shall go up forever;
From generation to generation it shall be desolate;
None shall pass through it forever and ever.
But pelican and hedgehog shall possess it,
And owl and raven shall dwell in it;
And He shall stretch over it the measuring line of
desolation and the plumb line of void. . . .
And thorns shall come up on its fortified towers,
Nettles and thistles in its fortified cities;
It shall also be a haunt of jackals
And an abode of ostriches.
And the desert creatures shall meet with the wolves,
The goat-demon also shall cry to its kind;
Yes, the night demon [Lilith] shall settle there
And shall find herself a resting place. (Isa. 34:10-14)
Now the Angel’s decree applies the ancient curses to
the rebellious Jews of the first century. Because Israel
rejected Christ, the entire nation becomes demonpossessed,
utterly beyond hope of reformation (cf. Matt.
12:38-45; Rev. 9:1-11). Underscoring the tragedy of
this is John’s use of the term dwelling place
(katoike – te – rion), a word elsewhere used for the place of
God’s special Presence, in heaven, in the holy city, in
the Temple, and in the Church; “the Place
(katoike – te – rion) O LORD, which Thou hast made for Thy
dwelling, the sanctuary, O LORD, which Thy hands
have established” (Ex. 15:17; cf. 1 Kings 8:39,43, 49; 2
Chron. 30:27; Ps. 33:14; 76:2; 107:7; Eph. 2:22).
Jerusalem, which had been God’s dwelling place, has
now become the unclean dwelling place of demons.
3 Israel’s abandonment and perversion of her calling as
teacher-priest to the nations is again stated to be the
reason for her destruction (cf. 14:8; 17:2, 4). She has
committed fornication with the nations, with the
kings, and with the merchants, prostituting her gifts
instead of leading the nations to the Kingdom, joining
with them in the attempted overthrow of the King.
The stress on the merchants is most likely related to the
commercial activities around the Temple (see below,
on 18:11-17a). The corruption of Temple commerce
affected the liturgy of the nation. All of life flows from
the religious center of culture; 3 if the core is rotten, the
fruit is worthless. This is why Jesus came into conflict
with the Temple moneychangers (Matt. 21:12-13; John
2:13-22). Observing that many of the shops belonged
to the family of the high priest, Ford cites Josephus’
characterization of the high priest Ananias as “the great
procurer of money.” In particular, “the court of the
Gentiles appears to have been the scene of a flourishing
trade in animal sacrifice, perhaps supported by the high
priestly family.” 4 This would agree with the observation
already made, that Babylon is no ordinary prostitute:
Her punishment by fire indicates that she is of the
priestly class (see on 17:16).
4-5 Since Israel was to be destroyed, the apostles spent
much of their time during the Last Days summoning
God’s people to a religious separation from her, urging
them to align themselves instead with the Church (cf.
Acts 2:37-40; 3:19-26; 4:8-12; 5:27-32). This is St.
John’s message in Revelation. God’s people must not
seek to reform Israel, with its new religion of Judaism,
but must abandon her to her fate. The Jews had “tasted
the good Word of God and the powers of the Age to
come” – the Age brought in by Christ’s redemptive act
– and had fallen away. It would be “impossible to renew
them again to repentance.” Judaism – the vain attempt
to continue the Old Covenant while rejecting Christ
“is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up
being burned” (Heb. 6:4-8). Old Covenant religion
cannot be revivified; it is impossible to have the
Covenant without Christ. There can be no turning
“back” to something which never existed, for even the
fathers under the Old Covenant worshiped Christ
under the signs and seals of the provisional age (1 Cor.
10:1-4). Now that “the Age to come” has arrived,
salvation is with Christ and the Church. Only
destruction awaits those who are identified with the
Harlot: Come out of her, My people, that you may not
participate in her sins and that you may not receive
of her plagues (cf. Heb. 10:19-39; 12:15-29; 13:10-14).
Time for Israel’s repentance has run out, and by now
her sins have piled up [literally, have adhered] to
heaven (cf. Gen. 19:13; 2 Chron. 28:9; Ezra 9:6; Jer.
51:9; Jon. 1:2). Jesus had foretold that this crucifying
generation would “fill up the measure of the guilt” of
their rebellious fathers, and thus that upon them would
fall “all the righteous blood shed on earth” (Matt.
23:32-35). This prophecy was fulfilled within the first
century, as St. Paul observed: “They are not pleasing to
God, but hostile to all men, hindering us from speaking
to the Gentiles that they might be saved; with the
result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But
wrath has come upon them to the uttermost” (1 Thess.
2:15-16).
Therefore, not only religious separation was demanded
– that you may not participate in her sins – but
physical, geographical separation was necessary as well
(cf. Matt. 24:16-21), that you may not receive of her
plagues. The language is reminiscent of God’s call to
1. See the discussion of this point in Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979), pp. 231, 234f., 243.
2. This was not to be interpreted as a sacrifice to the demon himself (Lev. 17:7). Centuries later, the apostate Northern Israelites under Jeroboam did in fact offer
worship to this goat-demon (2 Chron. 11:15).
3. See Henry R. Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1959); Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on
Calvinism (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1931).
4. J. Massyngberde Ford, Revelation: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Garden City: Doubleday and Co., 1975), pp. 301f.
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