And I heard another voice out of the heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye have not fellowship in her sins, and that ye do not receive of her plagues
Heaven has just announced Babylon's fall, and now another voice calls God's own to get out before the blow lands. So who is Babylon, who are "my people" still inside her, and what does coming out mean?
Just before this, an angel comes down from heaven. The voice in verse 4 is a different thing:
An angel descending from heaven (v. 1), and a voice heard in heaven (v. 4), express different actions. The latter is the expression of the mind of God, in which all in heaven are in unison.
Believers have heard a "come out" call before. One writer sets the two calls side by side.
In the early days of Christianity, believers heard the call to "come out" from among the idolaters of the heathen world, and to be "separate" (2 Cor. 6:16-17). At the end of the Christian period — the time we live in — believers hear the call to "come out" of the corrupt Christian profession... We are not called to try to reform it, or overthrow it; but to come out of it, so that we do not share in its sins. Babylon means "confusion." No word could better express the terrible result when something that claims the name of Christ shows the marks of friendship with the world, and the world is at enmity with God.
The verse gives two reasons — sins and plagues — and they are not equal in weight.
Receiving her plagues is not the divine motive for separation. Men would be anxious enough about that. But the great thing God looks for from His people is this — that they should not share in her sins. I would put it to every Christian: how far is he in sympathy with God's mind about Babylon and its sins? How far does he feel the evil of it, and judge it?
The order of the sentence matters, and leaving late for the wrong reason is not obedience:
We come out of her because of her sins and so as not to share in them, not because her plagues have arrived.
Many assume that being present in an evil system is not the same as taking part in it. One writer answers that plainly.
Some may protest that an evil association does not defile you unless you are doing the same evil things. But this is not God's view. He commands us to come out of the association itself!
God still owns people inside the system He is about to destroy. One writer shows how truth can save souls in a false system without saving the system itself:
So even in Babylon, and even this late, there are people in her who belong to God. But God calls them to separation... Souls may be saved in it, but the truth it holds cannot save the false system in which it is found. Truth cannot save the error men would ally with it, nor can error destroy the truth.
Commentators differ on who the call reaches at that final hour. Another writer holds that the church is gone by then:
There can be no Christians in Babylon at this period, because the church is already in heaven. There will be Jewish saints on the earth, and, as Revelation 7 teaches, Gentile believers too. We do not know whether any of these, worn out by persecution, may seek shelter inside Babylon. If they do, the call reaches them too. But the main meaning of the cry is for all who may at any time have become mixed up with the principles that will finally concentrate and express themselves in Babylon.
Babylon is a set of principles before it is a finished system. So the call has force long before the vision comes true.
We believe the Spirit of God meant this call to weigh with the people of God at all times, not just when it all comes true. So wherever the saint's anointed eye sees any feature of Babylon, he must come out. Then he has no fellowship with her sins, and he is clear of her plagues. "Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. 2:19).
The danger shows up in something ordinary:
Babylon's present danger to every soul is this: Christians slowly come to care for and allow what man values on the earth... Man rising, progressing, exalting himself — man showing what he can do and how he can improve. And people try to tie all this to the name and approval of Christ!
- Out, not reform. We are not called to reform Babylon or to overthrow it. The one command about it is to come out.
- Out because of sins. Escaping the plagues is the lesser motive; God looks for people who share His judgment of the evil itself.
- Out of the association. Not doing her sins is not enough — remaining in the connection makes you a partaker.
- Out, though owned. God still calls people inside Babylon "my people" — and He calls them out before the blow falls.
- Out now. Wherever the marks of Babylon show up — man exalting himself under Christ's name — the call is already in force.
for her sins have been heaped on one another up to the heaven, and God has remembered her unrighteousnesses.
Babylon, in Revelation, is the name for a corrupt religious system that God is about to judge. This verse gives the reason behind both the call to leave her in verse 4 and the judgment that follows: her guilt has stacked up to the sky, and God has kept the record.
One writer sets the verse beside the tower of Babel, the first attempt to build up to the sky.
But why such severe judgment? Why such terrible treatment from both man and God? "For her sins are heaped high as heaven." Of the first Babel alliance formed without God we read, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens" (Gen. 11:4). They meant to build a lasting monument of their folly, one made of stone. But here the sins heaped up reach heaven, the monument of her shame if she only knew it. What a striking picture this is: a Babel tower, not of stones but of sins. This is not simply sin on earth calling for judgment. These sins are so serious, so many, so bold and godless, that heaven itself is outraged.
Older translations render the phrase as "joined together," which points to something worse than a pile:
Of Great Babylon, that city of religious evil and moral decay, we read: "her sins have been heaped on one another" or "joined together" (Revelation 18:5). It suggests a cancerous growth that ends in complete corruption. God Almighty will pour out His wrath on that wicked system. In the meantime God urges His people, "Come out of her, My people."
God's long silence was never approval. The judgment settles that:
The judgment of Babylon publicly proves that through the long ages God has not been indifferent — neither to the corruptions of this system nor to the persecution of His saints. The judgment will match the truth about every corruption and every persecution, exactly as God's all-searching eye has seen it. Because it matches the truth, it will be perfectly righteous. Heaven rejoices that it is so.
The judgment matches what she has done, and the record reaches back to the beginning:
God's judgment matches the iniquity of the people; He brings their own iniquity back on them. The Spirit of God applies this principle to Babylon in Revelation. All the blood shed on the earth is found in her. God's judgment holds her responsible for everything done from the beginning, and He calls the apostles and prophets to rejoice at the vengeance He takes on her.
Her piled-up sins are why verse 4 calls God's people out. But escape is not the main reason He gives them:
Escaping her plagues is not God's motive for separation. Men would be anxious enough about that. But the great thing that God looks for from His people is this — that they should not share in her sins. I would ask every Christian: how far do you agree with God's mind about Babylon and its sins? How far do you feel the evil of it, and judge it?
Two men saw the judgment on Sodom fall, and only one of them lost everything:
To man it often seems a small thing whether he is tied to evil or not, as long as he himself is safe. But such thoughts dishonour God! … How different Lot's end was from Abraham's. Lot was saved "as through fire," losing everything, while Abraham watched the judgment from the heights of Hebron. That is the difference between those who walk apart from evil and those who stay comfortably with it because they are sure of their own salvation. Like Sodom, the sins of this corrupt system have risen up to heaven, and God calls His people, like Lot, to save themselves by coming out of it.
This warning is not only for some future moment. Thyatira and Laodicea are two of the churches addressed earlier in Revelation:
Remember first that Babylon stands for a spiritual system, and that this system, in its main moral features, has existed ever since the days of John. Thyatira and Laodicea in fact held the root of all the evils later seen in full growth in Babylon. So the instruction is for every age. It calls God's people to come out, and to stay separate from whatever can be spiritually discerned as Babylon.
- Heaped — her sins are not scattered acts. They are joined together, a tower of sin reaching the sky.
- Seen — the long delay was never indifference. God's all-searching eye has watched every corruption and every persecution.
- Remembered — the account runs back to the beginning, and includes all the blood shed on the earth.
- Called — God calls His people out. He wants them to refuse her sins, not just escape her plagues.
- Separated — Lot got out with nothing; Abraham stood clear and watched. The call to come out stands in every age.