Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

18:20-21
St. John has already spoken of the sea in relation to the
Great City: the waters, over which the Harlot is
straddled on the Beast, “are peoples and multitudes and
nations and tongues” (17:15). He has also listed three
classes of people affected by the Harlot’s destruction:
“the kings of the earth,” “the merchants of the Land,”
and “all who had ships at sea.” These seem to
correspond to the threefold designation of those who
had been corrupted by the Harlot, given in verse 3: all
the nations . . . the kings of the earth . . . the merchants of
the Land. “Those who go down to the sea in ships, who
do business on great waters” should have been
instructed in the ways of the Lord, that they might call
upon Him in their distress, that He might show them
His Covenant mercy (Ps. 107:23-32). And, indeed,
when Israel walked worthy of her calling, the whole
world was enriched by her wealth: she had been “a
guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, a
corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in
the Law the embodiment of knowledge and truth”
(Rom. 2:19-20). When Israel was in fellowship with
God and under His Spiritual and material blessing, the
nations had come to her both for wisdom and for trade
and commerce (Deut. 28:12; 1 Kings 10:23-25). In
apostasy, however, trade became a snare, a means of
committing fornication with idolaters, and Israel
corrupted not only her own children, but the nations of
the world as well. She had arrogated to herself the
honors of deity, so that the seafarers cried out: Who is
like the Great City? (cf. the cry of the worshipers in
13:4: “Who is like the Beast?”). But because she had
said in her heart, “I will ascend to heaven. . . . I will
make myself like the Most High,” Jerusalem was cast
down to hell (Isa. 14:13-15). In one hour she was laid
waste, desolate, never again to be the Great City.
20 There is a fourth response to Jerusalem’s downfall:
that of the Church. God’s people are instructed by the
angel to rejoice over her. The Church tabernacling in
heaven – saints and apostles and prophets – had
prayed for the destruction of the apostate, demonized
City that led the world in rebellion against God and
persecution of His children. As the smoke of the whole
burnt offering ascends to heaven, the saints are to
rejoice that their prayers have been answered: God has
judged your judgment against her! the angel
announces, employing a Hebraic pleonasm to express
the divine Court’s “double witness” against her. Again
we find that the Biblical image of the Church,
tabernacled in heaven, is firm in its opposition to evil,
praying for God to vindicate His people in the earth.
Note well: the judgment on the Harlot is called “your
judgment,” the Church’s judgment. It was the just
retribution to Israel for her oppression of saints,
apostles, and prophets throughout her history, and
culminating in the Last Days in her war against Christ
and His Church. It was she who had inspired the
Roman persecution of Christians; but the heathen
wrath which she had stoked up had been poured out on
her head instead. If the Church in our age is to proceed
from victory to victory as did the Church in the
apostolic age, she must recover the triumphalistic
perspective of the early saints. The Church must pray
for her enemies’ defeat – a defeat that must come either
by conversion or by destruction. We are at war, a war in
which the definitive victory has been won by our King.
All of history is now a mopping-up operation in terms
of that victory, looking forward to the conversion of the
world and the final overcoming of Death itself. Our
opposition is doomed to perish, and the Church is
called to rejoice in the certain knowledge of her earthly
vindication and ultimate triumph.
Babylon is Thrown Down (18:21-24)
21 And a strong angel took up a stone like a great
millstone and threw it into the sea, saying: Thus will
Babylon, the great City, be thrown down with
violence, and will not be found any longer.
22 And the sound of harpists and musicians and fluteplayers
and trumpeters will not be heard in you any
longer; and no craftsman of any craft will be found in
you any longer; and the sound of a mill will not be
heard in you any longer;
23 and the light of a lamp will not shine in you any
longer; and the Voice of Bridegroom and Bride will
not be heard in you any longer; for your merchants
were the great men of the earth, because all nations
were deceived by your sorcery.
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets and of
saints and of all who have been slain on the earth.
21 Jesus had instructed His disciples to pray for the
mountain of Jerusalem to be cast into the sea (Matt.
21:21); He had warned the Pharisees that the man who
opposed the Gospel and hindered the “little ones” from
receiving it would be better off “if he had a millstone
hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea”
(Luke 17:2; cf. Matt. 18:6; Mark 9:42). Here, in similar
language, Jerusalem’s destruction is symbolically
portrayed by the dramatic action of a strong angel, the
third and final occurrence of this expression in
Revelation. In the first (5:2), he is heard calling for
someone to open the scroll declaring God’s covenantal
judgments on Jerusalem; in the second (10:lff.), he is
seen as the Witness to the New Creation, holding the
“little scroll” which spoke of the New Covenant and of
the Church’s role in the history of redemption, in the
“finishing” of “the Mystery of God” in the Last Days. A
related expression is used in 18:1-2, in which an angel
with a “strong voice” announces the final doom of
Babylon. Now, in fulfillment of all of these, the strong
angel casts a great millstone . . . into the sea. All
productivity (the millstone) is gone (cf. v. 23); in
contrast to the Church (1 Cor. 15:58), Jerusalem’s labor
has been in vain. She and her works are hurled into the
Abyss. The Old Testament background of this image
comes from the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red
Sea, according to Moses’ song on the shore, echoed by
the song of the Levites at the return from the
Babylonian captivity:
The LORD is a warrior;
The LORD is His name.
Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea;
And the choicest of his officers are drowned in the Red Sea.
The deeps cover them;
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