False Religion
Revelation 17: Mystery Babylon
by David Gooding
What happens when religion turns away from truth and becomes a counterfeit of God’s design? In this lecture, David Gooding explores Revelation 17’s portrayal of ‘Mystery Babylon’, exposing the dangers of false religion, deceptive unity, and compromise within Christendom. Studying Revelation 17 will help believers sharpen their discernment to distinguish genuine faith from imitation and remain steadfast in devotion to Christ.
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False Religion
Reading: Revelation Chapter 17
With our Bibles in hand, I would like you to follow me as we think together about the state of religion universally in that period just before the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, especially the end of false religion. I want to make it abundantly clear from the start that I do not wish to be disrespectful to any true religion; I am not here to throw stones. Far be it from me to discourage any true religion wherever it is found. But the very fact that the Bible talks of true religion, which is ‘to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world’ (Jas 1:27), shows that there is a religion that is not true. So we shall be thinking about the end of false religion.
The woman Babylon
In Revelation 17 we have, in symbolic form, a picture of false religion as it shall be at the end of this age. Perhaps I’d better justify this statement. How do I know that God means this filthy, unfaithful woman, called ‘Mystery, Babylon the Great’ (v. 5 NKJV), to be a picture of false religion? Well, there are many reasons.
First of all, this woman stands in vivid contrast to another woman who is mentioned in Revelation. In later chapters, we are introduced to the heavenly city called the new Jerusalem. As the city comes down out of heaven from God to men, it is specifically stated that this is ‘the Bride, the wife of the Lamb’ (21:2, 9)—the bride of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he loves. Just as husbands are to love their wives, so we read in Scripture that Christ himself also ‘loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word’ (see Eph 5:25–26).
When our Lord comes, he will remove all genuine Christians from this earth to heaven, whether they are still living or have died and been buried. In the presence of God, the ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’ shall take place, when all the redeemed from every country shall be united together to meet their Lord, and shall forever be with him (1 Thess 4:13–17; Rev 19:6–9).
But this other woman stands in vivid contrast to the genuine Christians: the holy church of our Lord Jesus Christ, his pure and undefiled bride. ‘Mystery Babylon’ is dirty and unfaithful. Indeed, it is evident that she is meant to stand as the complete opposite of everything that is genuine and true and holy. Instead of being ‘a pure virgin betrothed to Christ’ (see 2 Cor 11:2), she is an unfaithful woman who has granted her favours for her own present advantage.
It shouldn’t surprise us that false religion will become even more evident then than it is now. But perhaps, if we were thinking along the charitable side and how good it would be if there were no divergences of opinion in religion and everybody thought the same, we might be just a little reluctant to say that there are any false religions.
In fact, somebody may say to me, ‘But Mr Lecturer, isn’t it more Christian to think that everyone, whatever their religion, is trying to serve God in their own way? However much we may personally disagree with anyone’s religion, we shouldn’t call it false. We ought to think that we are all honestly trying to serve God, and because we are sincere all will be well in the end.’
I very strongly submit to you that we cannot possibly take that view. Our Lord himself spoke repeatedly and clearly on this very point, telling us beyond all doubt that there would be false religion. Not merely completely outside of Christianity, but there would be spurious elements, false professions within the kingdom of God.
I would remind you of the parable in which he likened the kingdom of heaven to a field in which a farmer sowed good seed; but while he slept his enemy sowed weeds among the wheat. As the seeds grew they were practically indistinguishable, but when the plants came up and bore grain, it slowly became obvious that there were counterfeits mixed in with the genuine wheat. As I say, this parable was given to us by the Lord Jesus to indicate that, even within the fold of the kingdom of God, all would not be well. It would not all be good; there would be the counterfeit as well as the true (see Matt 13:24–30).
We must brace our hearts and minds to face this unpleasant truth. I repeat, however, that we are not thinking now of people who are against the things of God and make no profession of Christianity or belief in God whatsoever. We are thinking of the kingdom of heaven itself, which our Lord Jesus said would be composed of part good and part evil, and the Bible is insistent upon this fact.
Three sources of deception in religion
Nowhere in human experience is deception more dangerous and more widespread than in the field of religion, and the Bible says that it can come from one or all of three sources.
Deception within the human heart
To start with, it reminds us that ‘the human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked’ (Jer 17:9 KJV). We have waited for the psychologists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to begin to point out to us how true those words are. It is possible for us to develop strong negative feelings or fears about God or sin, and then to smother them completely by rationalizing them and silencing the voice of conscience until we have convinced ourselves that all is well. The Bible unmasks this tendency and warns us that the human heart in us all is deceitful and we cannot trust its notions. We shall be deceived unless we bring them to the pure, holy, true word of God.
Deception by false prophets
Not only are our own hearts deceitful; but once more our Lord explicitly warns, ‘Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves’ (Matt 7:13–15). These words were not spoken by a religious quack, some soapbox parson or alarmist; they were spoken by our Lord himself.
I hope you see the connection between these remarks. ‘Beware of false prophets,’ said Christ—beware of imitations in the realm of religion. The true thing is marked by the entrance being narrow: the gate is narrow that leads to life; and thereafter by a path that is also narrow and hard. He warned us to be aware that there are false things around: false imitations of the true, which also have a gate and a path. There’s a way in through ceremonies and what have you, according to your choice; and it is followed by a way of life, a system of teaching. But the vital difference is that this false entrance is wide and the way that follows is also very broad and easy, but it leads to destruction, not to life.
Deception from Satan, the god of this world
The Bible consistently warns us that deception in the realm of religion can come not merely from the human heart and its deceitfulness, nor only from false prophets with their counterfeit conversions and religions, but it may come from Satan himself. It surprises many people when first they read it in the Bible that Satan, the devil, is described as ‘the god of this world’ (2 Cor 4:4). They are surprised to find out how intensely Satan is interested in religion. In many people’s minds, their conception of Satan is somewhat like the way he was depicted in the Middle Ages, a great dragon with horns and hoofs; and certainly in the Bible he is pictured in the form of a dragon (see Rev 20:2). But he has many characteristics, and he is also described as ‘an angel of light’, whose servants also disguise themselves as ‘servants of righteousness’ (2 Cor 11:14–15). It describes him as the god of this world, head of its religion: its false religion. He is busily engaging people with religion in order to satisfy their sense of need, and all the while it is false. The word of God explicitly says, ‘the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ’, and being saved (see 2 Cor 4:4).
Once again I wish to stress that I am not setting up Aunt Sallies so that I may knock them down; nor am I attempting to be alarmist or melancholy and lugubrious. I am merely repeating to you what Scripture itself says with a common and unanimous voice—that from three deadly sources it is possible for us to be deceived in the realm of religion.
A picture of false religion in the last days
Therefore, with the help of Scripture, we shall spend a few moments thinking together of that fearful state of affairs as pictured in this woman, Babylon, in which false religion shall end up just before our Lord Jesus comes again. But what right do we have to think that this description refers to that time?
You’ll remember that the international government shall make war against the Lamb and attempt by force to prevent his coming. Now I want to point out to you this woman who is found sitting on a scarlet beast, in an attempt to control him (17:3). Long forgetting her calling to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ, she is now dabbling in the affairs of politics and struggling to control this beast that represents an international government altogether hostile to God and to Christ. If this is the final form of government in the days prior to our Lord’s coming, at least in the West, then it must be evident that the woman who sits on that beast, and is eventually destroyed by him, depicts religion, not so much as it is now but as it shall be in those last days.
Babylon’s drive to unify religion
She is called Babylon. Her very name is significant; it indicates that the principles for which she stands did not originate in New Testament times. In fact, you can trace it way back into the remote parts of history described in the very first book of the Bible. Babylon is but another form of the name Babel. To get some idea of this religious system, we must follow the clue given in her name back to Babel, the city that men attempted to build in those far-off days. It was the first big effort at unification.
After the flood, God commanded Noah that they should ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’ (Gen 9:1). But certain very influential people said, ‘We will do nothing of the sort’. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth’. It was a tremendous get-together in defiance of God’s explicit command, and it would have been successful if God himself had not intervened, confused the language and dispersed them over the face of all the earth (Gen 11:1–9).
Babylon stands first of all for that great desire in the human heart to get big, organized togetherness, so that we might make a name for ourselves in the earth. It will lead us to scrutinize very carefully all movements aimed at the unification of religion that are becoming prominent nowadays. I hasten to make my meaning clear: I do not speak discouragingly of all those good people who are sincerely grieved at heart, as all Christians should be, at the shocking state of disunity in the Christian church. Let me take my blame—and you too, if you feel guilty—for anything we have done or are doing to perpetuate those sad divisions that dishonour the name of Christ and his church. May God encourage with his power all true peacemakers amongst his people, who have it in their hearts to see that the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ is fulfilled: ‘that [all his people] may be one’ (John 17:11). I mean that with utter sincerity, but I should be false to my charge if I did not warn of the dangers lurking just here. As it was in Old Testament times, so it is in the New; and it is possible to cry ‘“Peace, peace”, when there is no peace’ (see Jer 8:11).
True Christian unity
There is a true natural unity of Christians, which we see expressed clearly in that very prayer of our Lord that I have just quoted. He prayed that all who believe on him might be one. How shall they become one? He said that the purpose for which he had come was that he should give eternal life—the very life of God—to all whom the Father had given him. ‘And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (see John 17:2–3). ‘I in them and you [the Father] in me, that they become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me’ (John 17:23). This is Christianity:
to all who did receive [Christ], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12–13)
In other words, our Lord Jesus is talking about a unity that is achieved when people receive the very life of God. Even though we may never have met before, if you have eternal life within you and I have eternal life within me, we are truly and deeply one. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the only thing that can possibly produce true and genuine unity is the miracle of the new birth by which this life of God is imparted. Find me two people, be they ever so peaceable, so well-intentioned, so religious; if they do not possess this eternal life that Christ has come to give—in other words, if the life of God is not in them, then any unity they have is but a facade, a counterfeit of the real thing. Because the human heart is so ready to accept what is not good enough, our Lord himself constantly emphasized that it is in danger of being deceived by a counterfeit that does not come from God. Oh, how glorious it would be if all could be one; but let us see clearly that the only way this oneness can be achieved is by receiving the very life of God within.
Now let me put a blunt question to you, if I may. The Bible says, ‘to as many as received him and believed on his name, to them he gave this power to become children of God; to be born of God; to receive this common life’. You cannot become something that you already are, can you? When we receive him, we become what we never were before: we become children of God. And my blunt question is this: are we all satisfied that we have become what we were not to start with, and we have since become children of God?
You say, ‘Surely all humans are children of God; why should we fight amongst ourselves when are all his children?’
But I must bring you up there. We are not all God’s children in this sense, are we? I am not preaching party politics here; these are the words of Christ himself. Only those who receive him and believe on his name are given the right to become what they couldn’t have been before—to become children of God. In other words, our Lord is indicating that the basis of true Christian unity is this personal work of God in the heart, by which God imparts his spiritual life; and in so doing, all who have it are constituted one in Christ. I am happy to say that every person who has believed on Christ and received him has eternal life, and knows it. And every single one is in God’s true church; they are all one with an indestructible union.
May God help those of us who have eternal life and are united in this spiritual sense, to show that oneness to our fellow men and women. But if anyone is not sure or cannot honestly say, ‘I wasn’t born a child of God by my natural birth, but I’ve received Christ and I’ve become a child of God’, I beg you to notice that there can be no true Christian unity. Everything else is a horrid deception, and if unchanged it will separate you from God eternally.
Babylon’s false unity
The name ‘Babylon’ does not only remind us that this woman represents a very big join-up of false religion; it reminds us of what that famous Chaldean city came to be in ancient times. When Nebuchadnezzar was king, it was the most idolatrous city par excellence, where black magic and occult science were practised so widely that the Gentile name Chaldean came to mean soothsayer.
For the most part, idolatry is a perversion of something that is basically true. For instance, if you research the idols and mythologies of ancient times, you will frequently come across the motif of a mother and child. You don’t have to wait until the Christian era to find statues of the mother and child; they were sprinkled about history long before Christ ever came— before Christianity. Where does it come from? Surely it comes from the original promise of God to Adam and Eve, that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head (see Gen 3:15)? It was a glorious promise given to our first parents after the fall but gradually perverted by means of idolatry, until its original significance was completely lost and it descended to something exceedingly unworthy.
Babylon stands for idolatry: for perversion of the truth of God. Once more, I stress that we need to think very, very carefully about the unification of religions. There can be no true religion based on anything but God’s holy word. There are movements telling us that there is good in all religions and Christians should not exclude all the others. ‘Can we not take the good out of all religions?’, they say.
I say that such unity would be disastrous in the extreme, for central to Christianity is the claim that Jesus is not a Son of God, but the unique Son of God. ‘No one comes to the Father except through me’, he said (John 14:6). If you find fault with the exclusiveness of Christianity, then surely you must find fault with its founder himself. This is not some narrow-minded interpretation; it was the very head of Christianity who claimed, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me’.
Babylon’s infiltration of Christendom
I must ask you as Christian people, do you think that you can keep Christianity and contradict the basic claim of Christ himself? Oh, it sounds so charitable, but it’s a false charity. It’s the kind of thing Babylon shall do in the end. Instead of being ‘a pure virgin betrothed to Christ’, she shall compromise his interests.
I remind you that the great Apostle Paul used this same figure: ‘I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ’ (2 Cor 11:2–3). Before she is betrothed a young woman may keep her heart open, but once she gives her word of betrothal it becomes immoral for her to entertain other possibilities. Christ’s claim is unique because there is only one Son of God. The Bible calls it spiritual fornication to compromise with religion that undermines his exclusive claim (1 Cor 6:15). Let us not be softly sentimental, for all the value of true devotion to God is involved here. If we claim the name Christian, we must be true to his person.
But let me speak sympathetically as a Christian. It has not just been outside Christendom that we have heard these kinds of claims. In the last one hundred and fifty years Christendom has lived to see people who profess Christianity, and profess to teach it, denying practically all the basic facts about our Lord Jesus. In many a theological seminary nowadays, it is commonplace that his virgin birth is denied. Again, I am not throwing stones; I am quoting you plain facts. It is also commonly taught that our Lord’s views about the Old Testament were only the views of the people of his day, and in some particulars quite mistaken. If anyone were to challenge that our Lord Jesus was mistaken, they would be told in these quarters, ‘If he couldn’t make mistakes, he wouldn’t have been human’, which is utter nonsense. It is a part of fallen humanity, sinful humanity, to make mistakes; but it is not a part of unfallen humanity to make mistakes. To suggest that our Lord Jesus made mistakes in the important realm of the revelation of God to mankind, is to suggest that he is a fallible and erring guide in that very particular in which he came to speak to men and women.
In my short life, I have known prominent Christian leaders to tell us that, to be a Christian, it is not necessary to believe in the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is room within the Christian church for people who refuse to believe that he rose from the dead. Yet God’s own word tells us plainly that if Christ did not rise from the dead, our faith is futile, we are still in our sins and there is no hope. If Christ did not rise from the dead, we are found to be liars (see 1 Cor 15:15–17). We have lived to see it taught in many a pulpit and classroom that the Old Testament is now seen to have been mistaken, false and untrue. It is a patchwork of myth and primitive pagan ideas witnessing to the gradual evolution of religion, much of it being unworthy of God.
I am not wanting to foster party strife in the church of God, but what Paul warned the Corinthian Christians about has in fact come true. Even now there is an outlook abroad that would claim to be Christian and yet deny these fundamental things. That is unfaithfulness and spiritual uncleanness, which is precisely what the description of this woman is calculated to teach us. She has forgotten her absent Lord and is trying to control the political government of the day by allowing her great authority and fascination over men to be used by them to gain their political ends.
If we profess allegiance to a Christ who is still rejected, let us watch that we do not compromise his claims, nor become guilty of what the Apostle Paul warned the Corinthian believers about. ‘Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!’ (see 1 Cor 4:8).
There’s coming a time when the Christians shall reign. When Christ returns and Jesus himself shall reign from shore to shore, then we shall reign with him. Let us remember what Paul said: ‘If we endure, we will also reign with him’ (2 Tim 2:12). And the professing kingdom of God that is unfaithful to his character and person, is herself reigning as a queen in the very world in which he was and still is rejected. That ‘woman’, I say it advisedly, will never reign with Christ. Her fall is depicted here. While being unfaithful to her Lord and dallying with powers hostile to Christ, in the end she is used by them for their convenience, and when it suits them they tear her to pieces (Rev 17:16).
Her worldwide false religion shall meet its end at the hands of ungodly men who have nothing but utter contempt for religion that professes the name but dilly-dallies with those who quite freely confess they’ve no interest in God or Christ. My dear Christian friend, you gain nothing in the respect of this world if you compromise the claims of your Lord in an attempt to spread your influence for good.
Babylon as a warning to believers today
While we have been thinking so much about the final doom that shall overtake such an unpleasant state of false religion, we should be unwise merely to pass an hour thinking of those future things without perceiving that they have an exceedingly eloquent voice for ourselves. We may not live to see those times, and I have no authority to say when these things shall take place. I cannot tell you when Babylon shall be judged or when our Lord shall come, but that same false thing that shall be seen in full then has already been working for centuries.
If it is the fact that humans can be deceived, it would surely be exceedingly pharisaical and foolish of us if we didn’t own the possibility that we too could be deceived. Are we somehow special? Are we so much cleverer than all the rest of humanity that we should never be deceived, and they would? Surely none of us would be so proud to think like that. In the face of the clear, positive warnings of God, Christ and his apostles, it behoves us all to ask ourselves, ‘Am I sure that what I have is the right thing?’ After all, Scripture is given to us to examine ourselves; not to throw stones at somebody else, nor attempt to cast beams out of other people’s eyes. And I propose to lead us in such an examination.
A warning against spurious forms of religion
Have we the real thing? This is such a vital question, and as I’ve said, you will find our Lord and his apostles constantly talking about it. Several of the letters that the apostles wrote to Christians in those early days were aimed at warning people against false religion.
For instance, the letter that the great Apostle Paul wrote to Christians at Colossae was aimed at holding them back from three spurious forms of religion.
- There were those who observed days and months, as though there was some special value in observing feast days and fast days and other days.
- Some thought there was value in penance, as though rigorous treatment of the body made them holy.
- There were others who went in for the worship of angels and saints; and those on the other hand who felt that they could not be complete without philosophy.
The letter to the Colossians is the inspired warning that all these things are will-o’-the-wisps: they are of no use when it comes to the human heart finding God and being saved. ‘They are of no value,’ says Paul (Col 2:23). Of no value! Let us be warned, there is no value in your penance; no value in your feast or fast days; and your philosophy will lead you into the dark. There is salvation only in Christ.
But Paul had to write even to those who professed faith in Christ. He also wrote a letter to the Ephesians. May I remind you that from the very first word in that epistle to the last, the whole argument is directed to warning time and time again that when God talks of being ‘saved through faith’, he means that we are saved by grace through faith, plus nothing (Eph 2:8–9). Oh, how we need to preach that to a Christendom that somehow has it at heart that works contribute to our salvation. Ask many men and women as courteously as you care, ‘Are you saved?’, and they will say, ‘Well, I do my best, and I really hope so’, which is clear evidence that they think salvation depends on what they do. That is a fatal error, so eternally injurious to the human soul that the inspired Apostle Paul called down two anathemas upon the heads of anybody who dared to tell people that they were saved by any observance, any ritual or any work that they did themselves (Gal 1:7–9).
This is not bigotry, my dear people; it is the warning of a heart that loves. God would never have given Christ to the cross if we could be saved by our own efforts or rituals. It calls for faithful men to preach that there is no salvation in ritual, not even if it is a Christian ritual. There is no salvation in works. There is salvation only for those who abandon faith in all else and trust only and personally in our living Lord Jesus Christ; in his death on the cross, his sacrifice for sin and his resurrection to God’s right hand.
The parable of ten virgins
This was not only a constant theme with the apostles, but as I close I remind you once more of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. No one loves us more than he does. These are the words of him who died for us to make it possible for us to be saved, and I say again, no one has loved your soul more than he.
He said that in the last times the kingdom of heaven would be like ten virgins, five of whom were wise and five were foolish. I could hope that his proportions were wrong, but he said five wise and five foolish. Outwardly, they all looked and dressed the same. They all knew that the bridegroom was coming and they all went out to meet him. They all had lamps and oil in their lamps, but only five had flasks full of oil ready to refill their lamps. The rest had no other supply and in the moment that he came they were not prepared, and the door was shut against them (Matt 25:1–13).
I suppose all of us would like to be thought of as decent characters, ‘virgins’ in the spiritual sense, and we well may be. All of us have some kind of lamp of profession. Haven’t you, sir? Do you not profess to be decent? And you, madam? Oh, yes, you have some light. Have you not read the Bible frequently? Are you not to be seen carrying it sometimes? Have you not sung those delightful Christian hymns, full of Christian truth and light? Yes, you have some little light. But oh, may I plead with you to make sure that you are personally linked with the great supply—you personally have the Holy Spirit of God and have received his eternal life. Before your life ends or the Lord comes, unless you have received eternal life, the very life of God within, I must tell you that the little flicker of light you may have will go out in utter darkness, and the door will be shut against you. ‘When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door,’ said Christ, ‘people shall stand outside, knocking the door, saying, “But, look, we ought to be inside”’ (see Luke 13:25–27). They honestly thought they were qualified to be in heaven, but find out too late that they were never qualified at all. Christ was no scaremonger; he told the truth.
HOW CAN WE BE SURE THAT WE ARE READY TO MEET HIM?
Shall we not ask ourselves now clearly and plainly, ‘Do I have that oil? Have I eternal life? Am I right with God? Have I received the Saviour? Have I become what I never was before? Have I become a child of God? Am I a member of his body, or am I just religious?’ I ask myself those questions as I ask you, and I have no desire to make any Christian unsettled. Do not think that this is such a difficult thing in which deception is so easy that none of us can be sure. I would be doing you a wrong if I were to say so.
I must point out that it is the birthright of everyone who trusts the Saviour to be sure, and it is the hallmark of all genuine children of God that they are sure. Says the Apostle John in his Gospel, ‘These [things] are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name’—eternal life (John 20:31). Yes, and more than that: ‘I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life’ (1 John 5:13). Not only that you may have eternal life, but, thank God, that you may know that you have it. And I must freely confess that if you don’t know you have it, it is quite possible that you don’t have the real thing at all.
Perhaps to use as one kind of test as to whether you’ve got the real thing, may I ask you in God’s presence now, Do you know that you have passed from death to life? Do you know that you have become what you were never before—a child of God? Do you know, without any fear of contradiction, that you are ready for Christ’s coming? Do you know it?
If you don’t know it for certain, I pray that you will take the steps to get that knowledge as soon as ever you can. The glorious thing is that you can have it. Yes, even you could have it this very night because God says it to you with unshakeable certainty. And then you would have the wonderful experience of going in peace: the very peace of God within you and peace between you and God. Because it is such a great and real possibility, these warnings are given so that none of us might rest short of getting the real thing and, being deceived with mere religion, eventually find ourselves unprepared and shut out from heaven.