The attention of the Bible student should now be directed to the next event in connection with the manifestation of Christ’s Redemptive work.
During the tribulation period the world has passed through a series of unparalleled woes, the climax of which was the destruction of the Great Harlot, the antithesis of the Bride of the Lamb. Under the figure of a city, called Babylon-from Babel-meaning confusion, we find the world system of Satan in its comprehensive character, portrayed in Revelation 17 and 18.
The student should not think of this “Babylon” as a literal city. To do so would be to miss the symbolism. That a literal city is not indicated is proven by several phrases, particularly verse 24 of chapter 18. Here we read that “in her was found the blood of prophets, and of all that had been slain upon the earth.” This statement precludes the idea of the rebuilt city of literal Babylon. Besides, God had said that the literal city of Babylon should never be rebuilt. (See Isa. 13:20.) This direful prediction, however, does not apply to the province of Babylon or Babylonia. The province has not been without inhabitants since the fall of the city of Babylon, but the city proper remains to this day a heap of ruins concerning which one writer says, “More thorough destruction than that which has overtaken Babylon cannot well be conceived-even its site has been a subject of dispute.” The noted scholar, John Urquhart, in his comparatively recent book, The Wonders of Prophecy, devotes several pages to the present conditions of the ruins of the city of Babylon as a literal fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 13:20. Seiss speaks of this Satanic Bride-City as “the whole body of organized alienation from God.” This phrase gives us the key to the interpretation of the whole passage, and we are enabled to see that the Holy Spirit is portraying in a figurative, graphic manner the city built by Satan, of human beings who have deliberately refused to put faith in God’s Slain Lamb.
While the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is celebrated above, the Great Harlot meets her doom in the world below. In other words, the great world system of Satan comes to an end; and now Christ, with His glorified followers, returns to earth to “make His enemies the footstool of His feet” and to manifest His already existing but hitherto invisible Kingdom upon the earth.
The whole groaning creation is now “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (See Rom. 8:21.) The results of Adam’s loss of dominion through sin have caused that unutterable “groaning” in the animal and vegetable creation that has been heard through the centuries. But now all is changed; for the Last Adam and His “seed,” the host of the redeemed, now exercise dominion throughout the earth. Beasts no longer prey upon one another but return to their Edenic condition as described in Isaiah 11:6-9; 65:25. Thorns, briars, thistles, weeds, no longer encumber the ground; but vegetation once more rejoices in its normal, luxuriant beauty and fertility as created.
Those political, financial, social conditions, of which poets have dreamed, and concerning which statesmen and reformers have devoted much thought, are now realized, and the glorious Millennial Age manifests, as no previous dispensation could do, the fruits of Christ’s Redemptive Work at Calvary. The teacher should call attention to such passages as describe the ideal conditions of this blessed time when
His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
e.g., Isaiah 11:4-9; 35; 65:21-25; Micah 4:1-4.
However, glorious as is the Millennial Age, it will not prove to be the final manifestation of the results of Christ’s Redemptive Work. Not only has sin ruined the human race and wrought great changes in the animal and vegetable creation, but it has left great scars in the earth itself.
We have previously considered the chaotic condition of this planet which was the result of Satan’s sin, and we need to remember that the sin of man has brought about great topographical and meteorological changes upon our globe and conditions that again call for God’s work of reconstruction.
While it may not be wise to dwell upon this subject, yet the attention of the student may be directed to 2 Peter 3:5-13, where the analogy is shown between the watery baptism of “the world that then was,” and the fiery baptism that awaits the world that now is.
There are not wanting intimations of a conflagration of this kind, as students of natural science well know; and it has seemed as if this catastrophe were held back only by miraculous intervention. We know, however, that it cannot take place until after the Millennium, when God’s time will have arrived for the complete purging of this earth from every trace of sin. That the earth will not be destroyed, we know from God’s own declarations as found in Psalm 104:5; 119:90; Ecclesiastes 1:4, and other passages, and because we read of Nations upon the earth after this event has taken place. (See Rev. 21:24-26.)
Whatever new cataclysms or disasters are yet to befall this planet, we are assured that they will not be as disastrous even as Noah’s flood; for God covenanted then, and said: “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake, neither will I again smite any more every living thing as I have done” (Gen. 8:21-22). (from Lectures on the Apocalypse, by Seiss)
Note: If the student will carefully read the article on “Theory of the Deluge,” by Dr. A. T. Pierson in Many Infallible Proofs, this statement will be better understood and appreciated.
How God will care for the earthly creation during this time of the dissolving (or loosing) of the elements, we do not know; but He has promised to do so and He will.
In Revelation 21 we read of a new (or renewed) heaven and earth; and now we are permitted to gaze upon the final manifestation of God’s redeemed children, as shown upon the last page of the Written Word.
As the Great Harlot, “drunken with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus” (Rev. 17:5-6), was first shown us to reveal the character of “Babylon,” which is to be regarded as “organized alienation from God,” and then Babylon, the city, as this organized alienation in its complete and final manifestation, so the wife of the Lamb in her spotless robes and radiant beauty was first shown to reveal the love and devotion of the body of believers, and now the “Holy City” reveals the unification of believers in its organized and final manifestation.
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