And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and had ornaments of gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and the unclean things of her fornication;
John is carried into the wilderness, where a woman sits on a scarlet beast, and now we see what she wears — her colours, her jewels, and the cup she holds out to the world. Every item is splendid, and every item is a warning: the outside is glorious, and what is inside is vile.
The two colours are not chosen for beauty alone. One writer reads them as a claim to rank, and sets this woman's dress against the bride's.
This is not the bride dressed in fine linen, white and clean. It is the showy splendour of the world, meant to attract the flesh. The colours are clearly royal — yes, imperial — so that her claims as a church rest first of all on a claim to supreme rank... But this woman, who wrongly takes that name, seeks nothing but pleasure for the flesh and worldly importance, all that people naturally want and prize on the earth.
Another writer ties the two colours to a double claim.
She is dressed in purple and scarlet, because she claims spiritual as well as earthly authority.
The jewels themselves stand for good things. That is what makes her use of them so serious: she turns them into decoration, and into bait.
She is also decorated with gold, precious stones and pearls. These stand for truths that are truly divine and spiritual. But she uses them only to adorn her outside, and to make the cup of her intoxication more tempting.
The whole picture works by surfaces. The gold goes no deeper than the skin, and one writer says the Pharisee's sin worked the same way.
Elsewhere gold, precious stones and pearls stand for all that is beautiful and of God. Here she is only "decked," or gilded, with them. It is all surface. These things are excellent in themselves, but she twists them to low uses. Her cup is golden too, as anyone can see from the outside, but inside it is full of filth. The Pharisee's sin was like this, as we see in Luke 11:39, but here it reaches its highest pitch of evil.
Two words name what is in the cup, and each has a settled sense in Scripture. One means false worship, the other a rotten life — and the shock is where both are found.
These two evils, idolatry and corruption, mark the last phase of the professing Church on earth. "Abominations" refers to idolatry (2 Kings 23:13; Isa. 44:19; Ezek. 16:36), and "fornication" to gross corruption (Rev. 2:21; Rev. 9:21). Idolatry and the worst forms of wickedness are what this woman is known for. Her cup is full of horrible evils. This is the climax. You might expect such things among pagan nations. But Christendom is now the scene of light, grace and truth, and for it to become the very hotbed and cesspool of all that is filthy and vile in religion is truly astonishing.
She holds the cup herself. One writer weighs what that means, and where it ends.
The golden cup was in the prostitute's hand; she was not herself a golden cup in the Lord's hand. She governed and rode the beast with ten horns. That was her general character for a long time, but not her final one. She became the prey and spoil of the kings who held their power along with the beast.
Set this woman next to the Lamb's wife and the two outfits explain each other. One dress wins the world's applause; God grants the other.
What a contrast! The prostitute dazzled the eyes of the world with scarlet and purple, with gold and precious stones and pearls. The wife is granted a white robe, the mark of God's approval, to wear when Jesus Christ is revealed. The splendour of the prostitute may be "exalted among men," but it is "an abomination in the sight of God." On the other hand, God owns the very deeds that brought down the scorn, the hatred and the persecution of the world, and gives them to adorn the Lamb's wife for ever.
- Gilded claim — Purple and scarlet are royal, even imperial colours: a bid for supreme rank, and a claim to spiritual as well as earthly power.
- Gilded gifts — Gold, jewels and pearls stand for divine and spiritual truths. She only wears them, and good things are put to low uses.
- Gilded cup — Gold on the outside, filthiness inside: the Pharisee's sin at its highest pitch.
- Gilded poison — "Abominations" means idolatry; "fornication" means corruption. The marvel is that this fills Christendom, where you would expect it among pagan nations.
- Gilded and doomed — She holds the cup herself; she is not a cup in the Lord's hand. She ends as the spoil of the kings who shared the beast's power, while the bride's white robe is granted by God.
and upon her forehead a name written, Mystery, great Babylon, the mother of the harlots, and of the abominations of the earth.
John sees a name on the woman's forehead, and the name tells us what she is. Commentators read it as the exposure of a religious system that wears Christ's name yet is false to Him.
The first word of the title has a precise sense in Scripture.
In Scripture the word "Mystery" does not mean something mysterious. As has been said, it "points to something the natural mind of man cannot discover, a secret that needs the distinct and fresh light of God to unravel." Without this revelation, John would never have imagined that a great system would grow up in the Christian world that professes the name of Christ, claims to be the church, and yet becomes completely corrupt.
God had already revealed one mystery: Christ and the church. This woman is the counterfeit of it.
There was a great claim to truth — the enemy's masterpiece of counterfeiting the revealed ways of God. God had revealed the mystery of Christ and the church. Now there is the mystery of this anti-church. It is not the mystery of faith and godliness, but of lawlessness — Babylon the great seated on the beast, the terrible opposite of the church, which is subject to Christ. Here she rules the beast.
The name looks back to the Babylon that once enslaved God's people.
The old Babylon was great and evil. It enslaved God's people long ago, and its doom can never be reversed. Yet its spiritual counterpart, the great Babylon of Revelation, goes far beyond it. In Babylon the Great we see one vast system gathering up all the evils that have wrecked the church in past times. This is the peak. Every evil that has ever troubled the Christian world comes to a focus here. The last days of the church on earth are her worst.
The charge goes past her own unfaithfulness: she has children, and resemblance is the test of kinship.
Every system that copies the ways of the woman and imitates her actions, takes in her doctrines, adopts her forms of worship, and generally borrows from or conforms to the Church of Rome, now or then, counts as her offspring. She is the mother, or source, of every evil religious system.
Commentators name Rome here, but the likeness reaches wider. It shows in what a system does to the heart. Any system "that tends in any measure to lead souls away from Christ, to engage their affections with objects that come between the heart and the Man in the glory, is related to this great parent of spiritual iniquity" (Church History).
The last word of the title is a specific charge, and Scripture fixes its meaning.
She also produces "abominations." Now, "abominations" is a well-known scriptural word for "idols," so Rome is a parent of idolatry. Who does not know it? And yet people are willing to be blinded, to listen to her claims of innocence, and to accept her embrace.
A name on the forehead marks who someone belongs to. Revelation uses the same picture for God's own people.
The terrible name written on the woman's forehead for all to see stands in contrast to the 144,000 in Revelation 14:1, who have the Father's name on their foreheads, and to the saints of the heavenly city in Revelation 22:4, who have the Lamb's name on their foreheads. Great Babylon advertises herself, not the Lord. "Mystery" tells us how she hides her real character: she keeps her victims ignorant of the Word of God and in bondage to mysterious rituals and man-made teachings.
If the name is that public, missing it says something about the reader.
Her name was written on her forehead. A drunken world does not see it, but a believer should not mistake it. We should judge it from outside it. If we are in our right place, in the Spirit, in the wilderness, we will not mistake it. But if we tamper with it, we have lost the sense of it: if we do not see it for what it is, we have drunk some of her wine.
Given such a name, the response Scripture calls for is not repair work.
Babylon means "confusion," and no word could better describe the result. Something that professes the name of Christ has taken up friendship with the world, and the world is at enmity with God. It ends with the outward form of religion used as a cloak to cover "the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life." We are not called to reform it or to overthrow it, but to come out of it, so that we do not share in its sins.
- Mystery — the name begins with a secret only God could reveal: a system that claims to be the church and is corrupt to the core.
- Counterfeit — against the true mystery of Christ and the church stands this anti-church: not subject to Christ, but riding the beast.
- Babylon — the name means confusion. It gathers into one system every evil that ever wrecked the church, and the last days are the worst.
- Mother — her guilt spreads through her children: every system that copies her ways, and idolatry too, since "abominations" means idols.
- Forehead — she advertises her own name where God's people bear the Lamb's. A drunken world misses it, and a believer who cannot read it has already drunk her wine. The call is to come out, not to reform.