They thought it was a good idea, building a tower to the heavens. They had the will, the manpower and the materials. What could go wrong? Brick after brick, layer after layer went up, up, up to the clouds. Nothing man had done could compare with this. Using language reminiscent of Genesis 1, they said let us make, let us build, but they ignored God’s command to Noah to multiply and fill the earth. Instead, they turned inward, desiring to concentrate their power and make a name for themselves. But God was not ignorant of their plans. As they laid each layer of bricks higher than anyone had ever seen, God was higher still, and he came down to assess their work. The result was Babel, the city where languages were confused and man was dispersed throughout the earth. Man’s attempt to be God was thwarted, at least for now.

Centuries later another building project reached its zenith. Nebuchadnazzar, the king of Babylon, believed in the lie of his own greatness even despite the warnings God gave him in his dreams. One day, twelve months after the Jewish exile Daniel had given him the interpretation of his second dream and warned him to repent, the king found himself walking on the roof of his palace, surveying the majesty of what he thought belonged to him. He said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” Though God had given him time to repent, that time was up and immediately the judgment came down from heaven. The kingdom would depart from Nebuchadnezzar and he would lose his faculties, dwelling with the beasts of the earth, and eating grass like the oxen until he recognized that the Most High rules over all.

Nebuchadnezzar died and the kingdom of Babylon was replaced by another, but the spirit of Babylon endures. It has been a subtext in the story of redemption all along. Any time man turns inward, exalting himself and believing in his own greatness, Babylon is there. Many themes in the Bible find their full flowering in Revelation, and in Revelation 17 we get a full picture of how God sees Babylon and her relationship with those who dwell on earth and the saints of God:

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.’ And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. — Revelation 17:1-6 (ESV)

Notice the contrasts in the description we’re given above. An alluring and beautiful woman dressed in royal attire and yet she is called a prostitute, one who traffics in sexual immorality and leads the people on earth astray with her abominations. The last line emphasizes her deadly intentions – she desires to destroy the saints and is drunk with their blood. Is Babylon a real woman? Technically no. But what John is doing here, and what all apocalyptic literature does is use symbols to represent real things. Babylon then is the embodiment of the spirit of the age concentrated in the image of a worldly city, attractive and beautiful on the outside, promising all kinds of wealth and prestige and power but ultimately bringing her worshipers down to death. According to Vern Poythress, “Babylon sums up in herself the worship of the godless world.”

As you look at the whole book, you see there are two women portrayed in Revelation. We have Babylon, the prostitute, arrayed in costly attire and jewels, riding the beast who represents worldly power, intent on the destruction of the saints. In contrast, we have the Bride of Christ, the faithful ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes, the ones who have washed their robes white in his blood and will rejoice in the consummation of their relationship with him at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

This is powerful imagery, and I’m convinced it’s meant to shake us out of our spiritual lethargy. As you go about your ordinary day, doing your ordinary things, remind yourself of Babylon. Be alert and watchful for signs of her seduction. We (in the comparatively free and relatively peaceful West) may not be experiencing the kind of suffering and persecution that our brothers and sisters in North Korea or Nigeria are experiencing, but that doesn’t mean Satan has left us alone. In his commentary, Dennis Johnson differentiates between three kinds of Satanic attacks. Satan can attack with head-on persecution, by slow infection, or with insidious temptations to compromise. I believe that Babylon the prostitute is meant to represent that insidious kind of seduction that’s presented to us every day, an attraction to worldly power and success that seems good at first but will eventually cause us to compromise. The way of the world is so alluring! Thankfully, we are given a clear picture here in Revelation of what it really is, and what will become of it in the end.

We are also given a clear warning as God prepares to exact judgment on Babylon.

Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.” — Revelation 18:4 (ESV)

The Bible gives us language and imagery to help us grasp spiritual truth. To pull back the curtain on what reality actually is. The next time you read Revelation try to trace the imagery backward. Where have you seen it before? How has it been developing? What may seem strange to us at first may actually be the culmination of a theme that began in seed form long ago. The Bible is the true story of the world and acts as a corrective lens through which to understand what is really going on around us. What began on the plains of Shinar in Genesis 11 will experience a great and mighty fall as described in Revelation 18 but the saints of God will find their rest in the New Jerusalem.