We have come to the last of the judgment-series: The bowls of the wrath of God. The seals represent the opening of God's secret purpose and counsels; the trumpets, signals of His judgment-acts; the bowls, the pouring out of His wrath. These are the last, for in them is finished the wrath of God.

      Our lesson begins with chapter 15. Yet the first four verses are still a part of the preceding section of that great parenthesis, consisting of special explanatory visions. Here (in 15:1-4) John sees the seven angels who are to execute the seven last plagues, standing ready. Of these he speaks (as in 12:1, etc.) as "a sign in heaven." He also beholds a vision of a redeemed company: "those that "come off victorious from the beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name." Standing by a "sea of glass mingled with fire," they sing again in higher key the old "song of Moses," which saved Israel sang on the shore of the Red Sea on the morning of their deliverance (Exod. 15). But into the old redemption song mingles also a new, and loftier strain, the "song of the Lamb."--This much more was needed to complete the picture of the situation described in chapters 12 and 13.

      Now, the fifth verse of Rev. 15 resumes the thread which was dropped at 11:19. For at the sounding of the seventh trumpet (11:15-19) there was no forward step taken; only a great announcement was made and the twenty-four elders gave thanks, and the temple of God, which was in heaven, was opened. So after the Great Parenthesis which interrupted the story, he now returns to that opened temple. "And after these things" (after the celestial "signs" and the other independent visions of chapters 12:1 to 15:4)--"I saw and the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened: and there came out from the Temple the seven angels that had the seven plagues." Out of the temple opened at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, come the seven angels who pour out the seven bowls of wrath. At the hands of one of the four Living Creatures (4:6) these seven angels receive "seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever." But these are the last: "in them is finished the wrath of God."

      A voice out of the Temple now gives the command, and the seven angels proceed to their task. The bowls are poured out in swift succession. The first pours out his bowl into the earth and there follows an evil sore upon all that have the mark of the Beast and that worship his image. The second bowl is poured into the sea, which became as the clotted blood of a dead man, and every living thing in it dies; the third, upon the rivers and fountains of waters, which become blood. "The angel of the waters" praises God for His just and righteous judgment in this matter, for the plague afflicted the men who (under the Beast's direction) had poured out the blood of God's saints and prophets, and this is their retribution: "blood hast thou given them to drink." The fourth [53] poured out his bowl upon the sun, and it received power to scorch men with fire. Men recognized the hand of God in these plagues; but far from repenting, they blaspheme the God who sent them.

      Although these first four bowls follow the line of the first four trumpets, they can not possibly be considered identical or parallel. Because the trumpet-judgments, though like the bowls they fall upon the earth, the sea, the fountains and rivers, the sun, moon, and stars, were limited, affecting only "the third part" in each case. But there is no limitation in the bowl-judgments: they make a clean sweep. The fourth bowl, moreover, is in contrast to the fourth trumpet, in its effects.

      In the fifth bowl the throne of the Beast (see 13:3) suffers a stroke that affects his whole kingdom, darkening it (comp. Exod. 10:21, 22); while the sixth bowl (like the sixth trumpet) has to do with the river Euphrates, drying it up. (Com. Isa. 11:15.)

      In the seal-judgments and the trumpets we noted a parenthesis between the sixth and the seventh. This is not missing between the sixth and seventh of the bowls, although it is very brief. It comprises four verses (16:13-16) and refers to a demon-inspired preparation of the whole world for Armageddon: and contains also a warning of Christ's near and unexpected coming to "judge and make war." We reserve the discussion of "Armageddon" till we get to chapter 19.

      Now pours the seventh, the last, angel his bowl out upon the air, and a great voice out of the temple cries "Done!"¹ This is the consummation of the judgments: the final overthrow of all opposition, the destruction of all the great works of man that have not been "wrought in God" (Isa. 2), "the judgment of Babylon the Great," and the "battle of Armageddon," with it the destruction of the Beast and his armies, and the False Prophet--all are comprehended in this concluding stroke of God's justice. Here strikes the little Stone upon the feet of the Image, and breaks it up into chaos. (Dan. 2.) So great an earthquake and so mighty, such a shake-up, had never before been experienced in the earth: mountains and islands flee away and cannot be found. God is now openly fighting from heaven against impenitent, rebellious humanity, who, though now forced to recognize His hand, blaspheme Him who inflicts these judgments on them. But with the work of judgment finished, every rebel is subdued, every enemy vanquished, and Jehovah alone is exalted in the earth (Ps. 46:10).

      The details of Babylon's overthrow follow in chapters 17 and 18; the final demolition of the world power at the hands of Christ descending with His saints is described in Rev. 19. But all this is included in the seventh bowl, in its immediate effect and as its necessary sequel and conclusion.

      "And there came one of the seven angels that had the seven bowls, and spake with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee [54] the judgment of the great harlot that sitteth upon many waters." The angel carries John away into a wilderness and there he sees "a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns"--manifestly the Beast of chapter 13. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations. Upon her forehead she has a name written: "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." The woman is "drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." At this vision John was greatly perplexed, and the angel offers to explain to him "the mystery of the woman and the beast that carrieth her."

      That the Beast upon which the Harlot rides is identical with the great Beast of Rev. 13 is quite obvious. Here, however, we learn several facts additional concerning the Beast. In the first, there is his career in brief summary: he "was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss, and to go into perdition." These are his four stages: (1) a period of existence; (2) a period of abeyance; (3) a return out of the abyss; (4) his final doom.² This Beast, seen here shortly before its own final doom, supports the Harlot and is dominated by her for a season. But only up to a limit; then the Beast and his federated kings shall turn against that harlot-mistress and make her desolate and naked and "shall eat her flesh and shall burn her utterly with fire." Such is the end of Mystery Babylon the Great.

      In answer to the question who or what this harlot is I can find no expression so good as the following masterful sum-up of the matter by Prof. W. G. Moorehead. (The emphasizing mine.)

      But as the Beast--the great, final, consolidated world-power, headed up by Satan's great king, has not yet come, so does the Harlot await her full and final manifestation. As the writer above quoted points out, the Roman church answers amazingly to the Harlot's description, and she has more nearly than any other [56] realized that pattern. But federated with her and around her will be all apostate Christendom. The betrothed Bride (comp. 2 Cor. 11:2) maintains her purity toward Christ under every test, in poverty, in suffering, in privation and persecution (for as He is so are we in the world); but the apostate ecclesiastical system has usurped the throne, the world's wealth and power, its honor and its sword, and exalted herself in the earth. This is the Harlot. The Dragon, the Beast, and the Harlot are all three of the same hue--scarlet, the color of sin.

      The chapter which follows (chapter 18) seems to cover in yet fuller detail the doom of the Harlot Babylon. There are, however, several peculiar features in the fall of Babylon which are not applicable to the doom of the Harlot, and have therefore led to distinctions (whether justified or not, let the reader judge). Some careful students of the Apocalypse regard that the event of chapter 18, though closely related to and connected with the matter of chapter 17, is a distinct and different catastrophe--resulting from the judgment of the Harlot, no doubt, but not the same judgment upon the same thing. The Harlot Babylon, and the City Babylon, are very closely related, just as the Bride and the city of the New Jerusalem. But Babylon, the city, is the home and center, the metropolis, visible symbol and embodiment of the Harlot's dominant spirit (just as Jerusalem of Paul's day was the emblem and product of the spirit of Judaism, Gal. 4:25). Thus the Harlot, as well as the Bride, has her city; and this city, her home and center the embodiment of her ideal, is Babylon.³

      The student of the old prophecies concerning Babylon may have been impressed by the actual nonfulfillment of some of the predictions concerning Babylon's sudden, utter, and eternal overthrow; and by the peculiar fact that in every case the prophecy of Babylon's final destruction is directly connected with the final and everlasting restoration of Israel--a restoration of which the return in Ezra and Nehemiah was but a faint type. (See, for example, Isa. 14:1-20; Jer. 50, 51.) This has led many, and not without some grounds, to expect the rebuilding of Babylon as the actual world-city and center of the civil and ecclesiastical government of the world (either or both) in the period of the last fearful rebellion against God. Others maintain that this Babylon is Rome symbolically designated. The question is a very interesting one, but not one of vital importance to the interpretation of the book of Revelation. It is certain, however, that whether it be old Babylon rebuilt or the equivalent of it that figures here, this is a city. In her live some of God's people, who, however, must come out, lest they share her judgments. She is wealthy, proud, a great commercial center: a market for all wares. Not only the merchants but apparently the very kings who themselves destroyed the [57] "Mystery Babylon" (17:12, 16), perhaps not having anticipated the grave consequences that would follow, stand weeping at the awful downfall of the city. (18:9.) Thus passes Babylon; even thus the glory of the world, the world itself, with all its works and all its religion, and with all that is in it: "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life," which certainly find their full expression in this great Babylon, built in the proud might of man. (Comp. Dan. 4:30.) A strong angel takes up a stone, as it were a great mill-stone, and "cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with a mighty fall shall Babylon, the great city, be cast down and shall be found no more at all." (Isa. 21:9; Jer. 51:63, 64; Rev. 14:8; 16:29.) And he sings her dirge with the mournful refrain. "No more at all," six times repeated.

      But in heaven breaks forth a hallelujah of rejoicing: "Hallelujah; Salvation and glory and power be to our God: for true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great harlot, her that corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand." And a voice--as of a great multitude, as of many waters, as of mighty thunders--announces the celestial wedding--the Marriage of the Lamb. (19:1-10.)

      So wondrous was the vision, so glorious the prospect, that John, overwhelmed, fell down at the feet of the angel that showed him these things. But he said, "Do thou do it not! I am a follow-servant with thee, and with thy brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus: WORSHIP GOD: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

      Yea; for in Him all God's purposes and promises are fulfilled: He is the Amen, the First and the Last. [58]

[TR3A 53-58]