The Harlot Bride

Revelation 17

Immanuel – 6/26/22

Revelation is a book concerned with the covenantal and religious. It is not political, though there are political effects/consequences. When we think kingdoms, we tend to think politically. In fact, we live in a society where identity and politics is nearly inseparable. But in reading revelation, we must separate its primary meaning from the political. It is primarily a book about covenants.

Today’s passage will use the symbolism of a harlot that has violated her covenant of marriage.

GRAPHIC DISCLAIMER – PG

The final bowl has been poured upon Jerusalem. God was destroying Apostate Israel and the covenant they had abominated. And all that divine anger was poured out physically during the siege of Jerusalem; a siege that ended when Rome burned the city, killed its inhabitants, and tore down every stone of the temple.

The destruction of Jerusalem was the spending of God’s wrath towards that city, it was the pouring out of the seventh bowl.

In Chapter 17, it is as if one of the seven angels takes us inside the events of that final bowl of wrath.

Purpose

Open the symbolism of chapter 17.

May it be an encouragement and a warning to us.

Read Revelation 17

Right off the bat I want to identify the two main figures in this chapter: the great prostitute and the beast. The prostitute is Jerusalem, and the beast is Rome.

But it is the prostitute that comes into view first.

Read vs 1-2

The angel tells John that he will see the great prostitute, and she is seated on many waters. This is all deeply symbolic, as this whole chapter, as this whole book, is deeply symbolic. The symbols of verse 1 will become clear soon.

The Harlot Bride

Let’s open this first symbol: the symbol of “the great prostitute.” And to do this, we are going to think of the old covenant like a marriage covenant. We need to trace a thread through Scripture; a thread that began with the Exodus.

God loved Israel. And in Israel’s youth, she loved Him too. He rescued her, He washed her, He took her into the wilderness, and there He married her.

“I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of His harvest.” -Jeremiah 2:2-3

Despite such hopeful beginnings, again and again and again, Israel wandered into unfaithfulness. Scripture symbolizes this unfaithfulness as adultery and prostitution. The entire book of Hosea is wrapped in this imagery. All over the Old Testament, God calls unfaithful Israel a whore.

Among many other places, the imagery of the harlot bride, kicks off the two largest prophetic books in the Bible.

How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. -Isaiah 1:21

“For long ago I broke your yoke and burst your bonds; but you said ,‘I will not serve.’ Yes, on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed down like a whore.”

-Jeremiah 2:20

Another prophetic book takes this symbolic language to a whole new level: Ezekiel. Dare I say that the most sexually explicit and crude chapters in the whole Bible are Ezekiel 16 and 23, both focused on depicting Jerusalem as a harlot. Those chapters are so graphic that most English translations mask the crude language to make it more palpable. Trust me, it would make anyone in this room squirm; and I am sure it offended the original hearers.

Ezekiel 16, especially, will be very important for our understanding of Revelation 17.

While avoiding some of the more explicit elements, here is a snippet that is helpful for understanding Revelation 17.

“How sick is your heart, declares the Lord God, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute…Yet you were not like a prostitute, because you scorned payment. Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come after you from every side with your whorings…No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you.” -Ezekiel 16:30-34

Unlike all other prostitutes, Israel, God’s harlot bride, was paying strangers for their passions. The imagery is disturbing and heartbreaking: she is God’s beloved wife that cannot give herself away fast enough.

From Sinai to Armageddon, here’s the summary.

God rescued Israel in her youth, a young and beautiful woman, and she was faithful to Him. Once God gives her a home in the Promised Land, she becomes restless; she begins to take other lovers. A gut-wrenching pattern emerges of wandering and return, wandering and return. Centuries later, as the armies of Babylon gather against Jerusalem, it is as if the harlot bride is lost in her depravity, desperate and delusional. Picture a beautiful woman in her late 20s, a complete trainwreck.

In Revelation things have dramatically progressed. The harlot bride has long been away from her Husband, and she has become quite successful in her craft. Though it appears she has entirely embraced the darkness of her trade, she hasn’t lost a bit of her stunning beauty. Imagine her now in her mid-thirties.

The picture in Revelation is God’s harlot bride, a happy prostitute to kings – as verse 2 says. She is a glorified leech. Not only is Jerusalem unwilling to come home, she has killed God’s messengers and she has killed His one and only Son. God’s patience has ended. This is the symbolic picture of God’s divorce.

How fitting, then, that Revelation will end with a marriage and a new bride.

Indictments

In verse 2 we learn that Jerusalem is guilty of two separate, but related, evils.

She has committed sexual immorality with the kings of the earth.

She made the inhabitants of the land drunk with her sexual immorality.

Let’s unpack these one a time. It will help us understand the rest of the chapter.

She has committed sexual immorality with the kings of the earth. These kings will be described later in the chapter. Submitting to the laws and customs of pagan nations for commercial and political gains was forbidden for Israel.

“You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God.” -Leviticus 18:2-4

The highly explicit language of Ezekiel 16 and 23 is used to symbolize how Jerusalem had done this very thing. Rather than faithfulness to God, Israel had chosen political expediency.

When we come to the first century, the Jewish religious establishment was in bed with their political overlords. They happily accepted a massive temple restoration from wicked Herod. They received temple donations from Rome. They even chose Caesar, who called himself the son of God, over the true and eternal Son of God.

[Pilate] said to the Jews, “Behold, your King!” They cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” So he delivered Him over to be crucified.

-John 19:14-16

The chief priests of the temple wanted Caesar for their king. As Jerusalem’s Husband stood before her, ready to die for her, she chose a foreign lover. Indeed, Jerusalem was committing sexual immorality with the kings of the earth.

The Greek word “ge” is used twice in verse 2. As you know, it can be translated either as “earth” or as “land”; and the way it is translated is based on the context around it. I think verse 2 should read “the kings of the earth” the first time, and “those who dwell on the land” the second time.

It’s a matter of context. The kings came from abroad. Those who fell under the sway of the prostitute, most profoundly, were those who lived under the Jewish religious establishment.

The second accusation in verse 2 is that Jerusalem made the inhabitants of the land drunk with her sexual immorality. You can see an example of this at Jesus’ crucifixion. It was the religious leaders that stirred up the Jews against Jesus. They wanted the people intoxicated on rituals and laws and whatever they said, rather than worship God truly.

Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single [convert], and when he does become a [convert], you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” -Matthew 23:13-15

Yes, not only had Jerusalem committed sexual immorality with the kings of the earth, but she has also made the inhabitants of the land drunk with her sexual immorality.

Read vs 3

One of the seven angels who held one of the seven bowls, tells John he wants to show him something, and then he takes John – in the Spirit – to a place where he sees. This same sequence of events will happen again in chapter 21, when John is shown the Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem.

Symbols of Seeing

This time, John is taken to the wilderness. Through Scripture, the wilderness is the haunt of demons and the condemned. When Satan tempted Jesus, it was in the wilderness. When Israel failed to trust God, she was condemned to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Here she is again, in the wilderness, where the demons live.

In verse 1 the harlot was seated on many waters. Now she sits on the beast. Remember the beast from chapter 13? This beast is described in the exact same way, except this time the beast is given a color: scarlet. The beast looks even more like the great red dragon – the dragon that is a symbol for Satan.

In chapter 13, the beast rose out of the sea.

Read vs 15

The sea is a symbol for the Gentile world. Rome controlled the Gentile world. The more control, the more power, Rome gained over the world, the more it merged with the practices and purposes of Satan. Satan and Caesar and Rome were engaged in a dangerous mind-meld.

As Jerusalem prospered because of her relationship to Rome, it was as if she rode upon the back of the beast – the beast that rose from the many waters.

Read vs 4

The harlot is dressed like a queen. But this is not meant to symbolize decadence. These are the very clothes that were given to her by her Husband.

“I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring in your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver…You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty…[your beauty] was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declared the Lord God.” -Ezekiel 16:10-14

You can see in Revelation 17’s imagery that this harlot bride, Jerusalem, is twisted. In a way, she is proud of her marriage, yet there is no shame in seducing lovers while adorned in God’s gifts. She has turned her relationship with God into her own vanity.

So do any of us when we use our relationship with God to boost our reputation. We become self-righteous hypocrites and we need to return to our first love! Such was Christ’s rebuke of the Ephesian Church in chapter 2.

Notice also how the harlot drinks from a golden cup filled with her sexual immorality. This should also remind you of Jesus’ words.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”

-Matthew 23:25

Read vs 5-6

Jerusalem, the harlot, is named Babylon. As we have seen in chapters earlier, Jerusalem has also been given the symbolic names of Egypt and Sodom (Revelation 11:8) because she is cursed. Babylon is similar, but Babylon means more.

After God cleansed the earth with a flood, an evil cancer came bursting out of the hearts of men. For the first time in human history, humanity organized itself against God.

As people migrated from the east…they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its tops in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” -Genesis 11:2,4

The name of this city was Babel. Babylon was built upon ancient Babel. Unlike any other city, Scripture depicts Babylon as a city in rebellion against God.

“Repay [Babylon] according to her deeds; do to her according to all that she has done. For she has proudly defied the Lord, the Holy One of Israel…Behold, I am against you, O proud one; declares the Lord God of Hosts, for your day has come, the time when I will punish you.” -Jeremiah 50:29,31

Jerusalem, given the symbolic name Babylon, has become drunk on the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. But she had been drunk long before; for when she was about to tasted the first blood of a Christian, Stephen cried out,

“Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.” Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.

-Acts 7:52-54

Jerusalem was Babylon, openly defiant against God, drunk on the blood of the saints. According to the Mosaic Law, blood was the epitome of unclean drinks.

Amazingly, verse 6 ends with John marveling at the harlot. This could accurately be translated: “When I saw her, I was amazed at how attractive she was.” It is as if, for a moment, despite all the dangers, John is drawn in by her beauty. He quickly understands the reason she has so many lovers.

And it takes an angel to wake him up.

Read vs 7

John sees her seductions, and it pulls at him. Whenever we look with the eyes of the flesh, we too can be deceived. And if we are not alert, we would join ourselves with demons. But the angel is there to remind John – and us – of the terrible spiritual ugliness that devours. He will show John what all of this means.

Read vs 8

The angel further depicts the beast as having merged with the dragon; for the beast has become a mockery of God – an anti-god.

Remember who sends this Revelation to the churches.

Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come…

-Revelation 1:4

Twice verse 8 employs similar language. The primary reason such phrasing is employed is to show us that the beast is a mockery of God. It was and is not and was to come; or, it goes to destruction. In verse 11, we will see another layer to this phrasing.

Everyone not found in the book of life will marvel at the beast. These people are in the same category as those Jews who have taken the beast’s mark. They will look Jesus in the face, and call Caesar their king.

Only the elect will truly recognize the King of all kings, in the face of Jesus Christ. God wrote their names in the book of life even before He began creation. If you obey Jesus as King, then your name is there too!

Read vs 9-10

We have looked at these two verses a number of times during this sermon series. The seven mountains were the seven hills that the city of Rome was built upon. As we might call New York City the “Big Apple,” or New Orleans the “Big Easy,” the ancient world commonly called Rome “The City of Seven Hills.”

The seven kings are the Roman Caesars.

Julius Caesar - fallen

Caesar Augustus - fallen

Tiberius - fallen

Caligula - fallen

Claudius - fallen

Nero – The one that “is.” Reigned from 54-68 AD.

Galba – The one that “must remain only a little while.” Was Caesar for 7 months and 7 days.

Not only does this show us that John writes Revelation during the reign of Nero, but it makes clear that the beast is Rome.

Read vs 11

Kings

When we studied chapter 13 we read that the beast received a mortal wound but was healed.

We saw this fulfilled in the end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and the establishment of the Flavian Dynasty. The Julio-Claudian Dynasty ended with Nero’s suicide. As civil war erupted in Rome, different men tried to establish peace. Galba, and two others, rapidly ascended and were quickly killed. All this until Vespasian became Caesar. He brought peace and established a new dynasty.

The mortal wound was healed. Or, adding another layer to verse 8, the beast was and is not and is to come.

Vespasian is the eighth king in verse 11. Vespasian was separate, because he did not descend from Julius Caesar. But, he belonged to the seven because he governed Rome just like the Caesars before him.

And he goes to destruction. This may have multiple layers of fulfillment. Vespasian himself is damned. The Flavian Dynasty, which he established, will end when his second son, Domitian, was murdered. Or, Rome, the beast, would eventually come to an end – and in no small part, because of its Christianization.

Read vs 12-13

Interestingly, when John wrote Revelation there were 10 Roman Senatorial Provinces. These provinces were the core of the empire. They were so secure that Rome did not permanently stationed legions there, as was true in the Imperial Provinces – which needed a heavier hand of governance. The Senatorial Provinces were all governed by proconsuls; something like an appointed king.

Even still, it is not necessary for these 10 proconsuls to be the 10 kings of Revelation. By now we are well acquainted with symbolic numbers in Revelation. 10 symbolizes many, just as 1000 symbolizes an enormous quantity. 10 kings are a symbol for any and all vassal kings of the Roman Empire, all of them subject to Caesar. Such is the meaning of verse 13, handing over their authority to the beast that is Rome.

And yet these kings do have a power, a power that comes from the beast. But the power they receive is not political, it is power as it interacts with the covenants – because the whole book of Revelation is concerned with covenants, not with politics. These kings will be given power to persecute the church, keepers of the new covenant; and they will be given power to destroy Apostate Israel, the old covenant keepers.

This power will be elaborated upon in the following verses. But their power is just for an hour. It is only a short time.

Read vs 14

Though the kings will be given power to persecute the church, they will never be victorious. The Christians they kill will live forever and the Christ they war against will stand victorious. How true it is! For here we are in 2022 worshiping Jesus, the true and living King; while Rome, and all her kings, have been collecting dust for some 1,500 years.

Today, the ruins of these two cities – Jerusalem and Rome – stand as enduring monuments: the word of God does not fail!

Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are those who take refuge in Him.

-Psalm 2:10-12

Read vs 16-17

In 70 AD the beast, and its 10 kings, turned against the harlot. They made her an absolute desolation.

“When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near…for these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written…and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” -Luke 21:20,22,24

Jerusalem’s former lovers gathered around and burned her to the ground.

The comment about devouring her flesh is yet another layer. It is a reference to Jezebel. Jezebel was one of the most wicked figures in Israel’s history, and she gloried in idolatry and sexual immorality. But when Jezebel finally came to an end, she had her flesh devoured by dogs. The Jews, not afraid to be racist, called the Gentiles “dogs.” With the Roman armies, the dogs came to devour Jerusalem. Symbolically, Jerusalem has become Jezebel; for they are united in their sexual immorality, idolatry, and demise.

God

And all of this was entirely according to the purposes of God. Rome and its allies may have thought they were acting on their own. Satan may have thought is was he who brought the armies to Jerusalem. But the greatest reality is that it was God who drove them all to the great city.

He declared it and it would be so. Jerusalem, that abominable prostitute, was being divorced. Hers were the covenant curses.

“The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young…They shall besiege you in all of your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout the land, which the Lord your God has given you.”

-Deuteronomy 28:49-50,52

Rome was a hammer in the divine hand. With it He crushed Jerusalem.

From this vantage point we can gaze into a profoundly a deep truth. God uses the evil of men to accomplish His good purposes, and He does this without ever sinning.

As Joseph famously said, You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

-Genesis 50:20

Or, as the first church prayed, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them…truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. -Acts 4:24,27-28

The crucifixion was the greatest evil humanity ever perpetrated. Yet it was planned by God. Here is a depth of God we humans are unable to fully plumb, and God does not invite us to. Instead, He invites us to trust Him.

Even when night falls, it is not outside of His control. His plans will be accomplished, and that is unfathomably good news for all those that love Him; because it means that His promises will never fail! He is working all things together for our good!

Read vs 18

Throughout this Revelation, John uses the phrase “the great city” exclusively for Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the great prostitute. Her dominion over the kings of the earth is not a political dominion, it is a covenantal and religious one.

In fact, this dominion was her greatest wedding gift.

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” -Exodus 19:5-6

Israel was to lead the nations of the world to God. This was her global dominion. But she had taken this gift and fashioned it into an idol. In highly explicit terms, Ezekiel 16 describes what she did with such an idol. She had turned her gift into an abomination, and now she led the world in blaspheming God.

As Paul wrote: You say that one must not commit adultery, do you not commit adultery? You abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” -Romans 2:22-24

Revelation is God’s certificate of divorce. Though He hates divorce, He is finished with this harlot bride. Not only does she refuse to return to Him, she has killed His servants and she has killed His one and only Son.

The kingdom of God will never against be possessed by geopolitical Israel. Instead, they were made to drink a bowl of wrath.

Revelation will end with the cup of a better covenant; with a wedding and a new bride. The covenant has passed to another people, a people of faith, and people who – through Christ – love God with heart, mind, and soul.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of the darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

-1 Peter 2:9-10

May we be tremendously encouraged by this!

And may we see the warning, as the Ephesian Church saw, and never leave our first love! Only emptiness will be found in wandering from Christ.