{"collection":"Bible & Christianity","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bib/cmt/pnt/rev018.htm","path":"bib/cmt/pnt/rev018.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/pnt/rev018.htm","text":"The People's New Testament, B.W. Johnson, [1891]\nAfter these things. Those described in chapter 17.\nAnother angel. Some have urged that this is Christ. There is no proof of their correctness.\nHaving great power. There was assigned to him great authority.\nAnd the earth was lightened with his glory. This was a proof of power proceeding from God.\nAnd he cried . . . Babylon the great is fallen. Compare this description with Isa 21:9; Isa 14:23 and Isa 13:21. The fall of Babylon has been already declared (Rev 16:19; Rev 17:16) but now it is developed. This picture is intended to portray her utter desolation.\nFor all the nations have drunk. Partaken with her in her sins.\nFornication. See note on Rev 17:5.\nMerchants of the earth are waxed rich. Her luxurious living had made great markets.\nCome out of her, my people. This invitation is given to the people of God yet in captivity, lest by remaining they should be involved in her destruction. As God once had a captive people in the old Mesopotamian Babylon, so he has a people in the spiritual Babylon. Ever since the Reformation began his voice has called on them to come out of her. Nor can it be doubted that he has many true and earnest worshipers still who have found enough of Christ in the mazes of the Papacy to have given him their hearts. The condemnation of the great spiritual despotism is not a declaration that all whom she has enslaved are the children of the devil.\nHer sins have reached unto heaven. They call therefore for God's remembrance of her iniquities in judgments.\nReward her even as she has rewarded you. This is addressed to those who have meted out her judgments. The divine principle of judgments is that every one shall be rewarded according to his works. What they sow, that shall they reap. This power shall have returned upon it in double portion what it has meted out to others.\nI sit as a queen. This verse describes her former pride. Compare Isa 47:8-9.\nTherefore shall her plagues come. Notwithstanding her pride and exultation.\nBurned with fire. See Isa 17:16. When an ancient city was taken and destroyed it was burned with fire.\nThe kings . . . shall bewail her. There will be mourners. Those who have sinned with her, or profited by her will bewail her fall.\nStanding afar off. The picture represents these mourners looking from a great distance, afraid to approach nearer.\nFor in one hour is thy judgment come. It has come suddenly.\nAnd the merchants of the earth shall weep. All who had made gain in any way from the sins or the luxury of Babylon shall mourn. There follows, then, an enumeration of the articles in which there was traffic.\nSlaves and souls of men. The Greek reads, \"the bodies and souls of men.\" The first seems to refer to the traffic in slaves, a common traffic until modern times and sanctioned by the Papacy. The latter expression seems to me to refer to a spiritual traffic. What is the whole system of masses for the dead, paid for out of the money drawn from mourning relatives, but a traffic in the souls of men?\nThe fruits. These things for which Babylon so lusted are all gone from her forever.\nThe merchants of these things . . . shall stand afar off. The lamentation of the kings over the fall of the city has been given in Rev 18:9-14. The lamentation of the merchants is now given. They are also represented as standing afar off. With them join the shipmasters and mariners who have been engaged in her trade. These all mourn because their profits from her are brought to an end.\nRejoice over her, thou heaven. While there are mourners, another company is called upon to rejoice. She had exalted herself against God. All who have been for God, and who have suffered from her, are called to rejoice.\nAnd a strong angel took up a millstone. See Jer 51:61-64. This symbolical act implies an utter destruction. In Jeremiah the stone is cast into the Euphrates. Now it is cast into the sea, because another Babylon is designed.\nAnd the voice of harpers. It is this third angel who declares the silence and desolation of the city now.\nAnd the sound of the millstone. In the mills grinding food for the people. The mills were hand-mills, usually worked by women as a domestic duty.\nFor with thy sorcery were all the nations deceived. This accounts for the fact that all nations poured their treasures into her lap.\nAnd in her was found the blood of the prophets. It is because she has slain the saints of the Most High that these judgments come upon her. As Jerusalem in the time of Christ filled up the measure of the sins of Israel (see Mat 23:29, Mat 23:35-36; Luk 11:51; Luk 13:33), so the spiritual Babylon, the great persecutor, fills up the measure of the sins of the beast and false prophet, and is required to account for the blood of slaughtered prophets and saints of all ages.","title":"The People's New Testament: Revelation: Revelation Chapter 18","type":"page"}