Revelation 17-18: The Slow Motion Michael Bay Explosion

This is the chandelier falling at the end of Phantom. Or the Death Star exploding in Return of the Jedi. This is the last scene of a Transformers movie. The giant robot is about to fall from a great height and hit the ground and explode. We’ve seen the depths of Babylon’s evil and over sixteen chapters John has teased us with the huge explosive downfall that’s coming. We are primed and ready. We have gone through our three cycles of seven and at last on our final seven the trigger is pulled.

This image of the woman is wanton, lascivious, brazen (enjoy your vocab for the day). Its crudely sexual and overly lush. The goddess Roma was a prim deity of honor and victory and respect. But John pulls back the curtain. He pulls no punches. She is the great whore. A harlot dressed like a queen, blood drenched and drunk.

This image isn’t an accident. John calls Rome the Great Whore because she is ultimately a seducer. Her first power isn’t the violence or oppression, its her siren-call, her ability to draw the people of the world to her with promises of power and riches and pleasure. This is what Revelation is warning against. The great sin in the mind of the Revelation communities is to give up and give in. Many Christians were making compromises with Rome that they felt were minor but ultimately amounted to idolatry.

This horrible ruler is propped up on a throne of evil. She literally sits on the Dragon/beasts. Their ten horns are their great power. Their seven heads are the seven hills of Rome and seven Caesars. The counting of caesars here gets a little wonky depending on how you interpret the history of the emperors. Some emperors ruled only very briefly which makes the number difficult to figure out precisely. The only two that are truly important are the 6^th head, which is likely a reference to Nero’s recovery from a near fatal wound, and the seventh which is likely Domitian. Both of them were responsible for the few periods of particularly harsh oppression of Christians and instituting official policies of violence against them. John was perfectly willing to fudge the numbers slightly to carry the numerology and image of the seven hills.

These kings are somehow interwoven with the beast and the Whore. They join together in violence against the world and for a tiny window they will be successful. But John reminds us that all such victories by evil are not held long. God is already coming to overturn their victories.

The many waters are all the peoples and nations of the world. It’s a mercantile image. It would have conjured the image of trading and traveling and getting very very rich moving things from one place to another. It’s the Kings and the Merchants who profit most from Rome but their relationship is not love or peace or justice but crude self-interest. But its also the image for destruction and chaos and death. When God’s indignation falls on Rome they will turn on her and take part in her destruction. The great sea of destruction she has ruled over will come crashing down on her and destroy her.

Chapter 18 could almost be called “Once more, with feeling.” Rome is fallen, the kings and merchants who profited from her mourn. The city is destroyed utterly, ruined and spoiled for all future use. The song reminds us that no matter how great she was, her violence and oppression and unrighteousness drew down God’s wrath on her. There is no Empire on earth great enough to outrun God and the consequences of their own actions.

This chapter is an exclamation point on John’s plea to the unfaithful churches. “Come out of her” is another crudely sexual image. John is saying, turn away from her blood-stained rewards before its too late. Don’t be an accomplice to this great evil. Return your heart to God before the sky comes crashing down and its all over.