R u i n o u s

"The woman you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth" Revelation 17:18.

I was asked an interesting question this week. What exactly is "Babylon"?

We're instantly itching to answer with a turning to the account of Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel or perhaps Nimrod's actions in the construction of the tower of Babel, but perhaps a better place to start is the book of Job.

This book commences with more than a record of worldly events (that follows), but a glimpse into what causes these events in the council of the most high (Job 1:6-12). We're informed that a being named Satan comes into the midst of these proceedings from 'viewing' the world, and God asks him to consider the nature and behaviour of Job.

Job is, in essence and in measure, an expression of the manner of righteousness that had been evidenced in Eden - his life speaks to something higher and better than himself (see verses 1-5), and God is therefore clearly pleased to 'hedge' him about, as he had that garden. Satan's response is telling. The immediate desire is to pierce and malign such godliness - to infer that there is, in truth, no genuine value or virtue in man - it is merely an act on Job's part to curry favour for himself from God, but if these benefits were removed, he would quickly become a renegade, and this would vindicate the view that God's creation of such creatures was a serious mistake.

We all know what transpires - Satan wastes no time ruining the man materially and socially so he is left with nothing. Job's response of repentance towards God and humility in respect to his value show just how wrong this fallen accuser and adversary was, which provides us with the insight necessary to understand the 'power' at work in our present evil age.

Job was probably a contemporary of some of the pre-flood or early post-flood Patriarchs, meaning he was certainly familiar with some of the early city-states (Teman was a city in Edom, and one of the group who seek to council him in the book came from there). These would have either been principally places of common wickedness (Genesis 6) or the 'fragments' which were established after events at Babel (Genesis 11) - in either case, they clearly would have been realms in which Satan's 'roaming' would have have witnessed all manner of corruption that had poisoned humanity as a consequence of its rebellion in Eden, due to the same malevolent being's influence.

This is the roots of Babylon - a world system which employs all of its realms of influence - social, moral, economic, spiritual, political - to usurp a knowledge of and an allegiance to the one true and most high God. What we see in those early chapters of Genesis, in the story of Job and later, in the inter-actions of Israel with the 'kings' of vast empires, is the rising of this power to hold sway over the vast mass of humanity. All would appear 'empty' and 'wasted' by such a malevolent control, but the story of Job, like many in scripture, shows this is not so.

It is with this context, then, that we can open up John's vast image of the eschaton and find, not surprisingly, that such a dark force has swollen into the principal material agency that Satan (that old serpent, also known as the Devil, notes John) has sought to wield against God's work here, both through secular (the sea Beast - Revelation 13:1-10) and spiritual (the land Beast - Revelation 13:11-18) means. As I've touched on in prior posts here, Revelation grants us a panoramic view of not merely 'what will be' but of world history itself, and the struggle that is continual between God and His people on the one side, and Satan and his domain on the other, only to be ended in the return of Christ (Revelation 12).

There have been times when the 'power' of this system has been 'weakened' (restrained) by God to allow the growth of the eternal kingdom. Revelation records, for example, how the first (political) beast is stuck with a seemingly fatal wound (13:3), but this is 'healed' and an "image" of this power is raised up by the second beast for the world to worship (13:14&15). The second beast is a "false Lamb" (a psuedo Christ). These statements refer to the demise of Imperial Rome and how its power was then renewed by ecclesiastical (Papal) Rome to replace this (see Jacques Ellul's work, 'The Subversion of Christianity' in respect to the means of this process). By such means, the world (system) is brought into subservience to the evil one.

The final act of this power is evidenced in Satan's "short" season (Revelation 20:7-10), where the nations of the world are deceived into one final cumaltive action against God. As I've previously noted, this last throw has probably been unfolding in our world for the last 300 years - the 'last' of the "last days" (Acts 2:14-21), and could well come to a head in this generation - the 'signs' certainly appear to be in place, and the next "step" into trans-humanism via the employment of A I will almost certainly amount to Babel being re-born.

Babylon is that which seeks to impose itself on the purposes of God to men and stain this with self-reliance and self-justification, to make dull what was intended for an eternal God. Thankfully, God is "all in" when it comes to His creation, and that means the end will not be spoiled by evil, but renewed by His redemption.