Revelation Episode 14: Babylon and 666
Today we see the final conflict between the Kingdom of God and the Babylonian system. The final conflict is deeper than a
struggle between individual nations or political rulers. Revelation presents a profound conflict about who has the right to define
humanity, receive its worship and determine its ultimate destiny. On one side stands the Kingdom of God, a covenantal reality
established through humility and truth; on the other stands Babylon, humanity's attempt to construct an identity and establish
security entirely independent of God. (Camera angle 5)
Revelation 17:1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, "Come, I will
show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication,
and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication."
Babylon is more than just an ancient city. In Revelation it becomes the final expression of a system involving religion, politics,
economics, commerce, human power, spiritual deception and rebellion against God.
The story of Babylon begins in Genesis and develops progressively through Scripture.
Its pattern can be traced from the Tower of Babel to ancient Babylon with Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, to the Beast of
Revelation chapter 13, and finally to the worldwide Babylon of Revelation 17-18. At the heart of this system is the declaration in
Genesis 11:4: 'Let us make us a name.'
God creates humanity in His image and gives humanity identity in relationship with Himself. Babylon reverses that order.
Humanity attempts to create itself in its own image, establish its own identity and authority, and construct its own system of
worship.
The fundamental contrast between God's Kingdom and Babylon can be mapped as follows:
God's Kingdom — Babylon
Hallowed be His name — Let us make us a name
God's glory — Human glory
Dependence upon God — Independence from God
Servanthood — Power
The Lamb — The Beast
The Bride — The Harlot
The Origin of Babylon and Let Us Make Us a Name
The roots of Babylon reach back to the tower of Babel after the Flood in Genesis 11, with humanity gathering to build a city and
a tower reaching toward heaven. Their stated purpose was: 'Let us make us a name.' Humanity's identity becomes its own image.
The "Babylonian Principle" operates as a threefold structure of independence that seeks to occupy every sphere of human life:
• Religion: The use of spiritual language and ritual to serve human pride, authority, and institutional glory.
• Politics/Power: The establishment of universal systems of control and authority that demand absolute allegiance.
• Economics: A structure of commerce and prosperity where wealth is the ultimate measure of success, detached from divine
stewardship.
Babylon Is Not Merely a False Church
It is a comprehensive world system capable of incorporating religion, politics, economics, culture and commerce into a structure
of human self-exaltation.
Revelation does not identify Babylon as 'the apostate Christian church' or as any Christian denomination or organisation. It is
reconnecting people's souls to a primal darkness.
John describes Babylon as the great harlot, a centre of spiritual corruption, a persecutor of God's people, a power intertwined
with kings and merchants, and a system ultimately destroyed by the Beast and the final ten kings. Therefore we should
distinguish between the actual prophetic Babylon of Revelation and essential Babylonian characteristics.
A Christian organisation can display Babylonian tendencies if it becomes dominated by wealth, prestige, political power,
institutional ambition, manipulation, celebrity status, control, religious performance, empire-building and spiritual exploitation.
But even that still does not provide sufficient biblical grounds to declare any one Christian organisation to be the prophetic
Harlot.
The better question is: What does Babylon represent, and are any of us participating in its values?
This is particularly important because Revelation 18:4 declares, "Come out of her, my people." The presence of 'my people'
within Babylon indicates that God's people can become entangled with Babylonian values and must respond to God's call to
separate themselves from her ungodly culture and behaviour before that culture claims them.
Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon's First Great End Time Pattern
In Daniel chapter 3, the historical Babylonian kingdom provides a remarkable prophetic pattern. Nebuchadnezzar erects a great
golden image and commands the peoples, nations and languages of his empire to worship it. Political authority, religious
authority and enforced worship become united.
The pattern is striking: a powerful ruler, a humanly constructed image, universal political authority, religious worship,
governmental enforcement, economic and social consequences, and death in a fiery furnace being threatened for those who
refuse.
The Babylon of Daniel 3, and the demand of Nebuchadnezzar to worship his image gives us a model of Revelation chapter 13 for
the image of the Beast.
The three Jewish men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego demonstrate that God's people can exist within Babylon without
belonging to Babylon. They were physically within Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, but Babylon could not possess their worship.
They were thrown into the furnace, and while the attendants were consumed by fire, the king's aide said, 'Look! I see four men
loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth man is like the Son of God.'
This becomes an important principle for God's people in the final conflict: Babylon may surround God's people, threaten God's
people and try to destroy their bodies, but it cannot possess those who belong to God. The conflict is therefore not merely
political. Behind the visible structures of the final world system stands a spiritual power seeking to destroy God's purposes and
God's people.
The Woman, the Church, is found in the midst of this conflict, yet she is preserved by God. Revelation chapter 12 does not
portray the Church simply disappearing from the earth. The Woman is given the two wings of the great eagle and carried into a
'wilderness' - a prepared, vacant and 'marked out' place (topos), out of the way of danger but still in the midst - where she is
nourished for three and a half years. That is an important parallel with Daniel chapter 3: in the fire but unharmed. The central
question becomes: Can Babylon penetrate and possess the people of God? The answer is ultimately no. God preserves His people
even as the Babylonian system develops around them.
Revelation 13 and the Beast the Image and the Mark
Revelation 13 now brings the political manifestation of this system into view. The First Beast rises from the sea and receives
authority over the nations. The Dragon gives him his power, throne and great authority.
The second Beast, as the false prophet, exercises religious influence and directs humanity toward worship of the first Beast.
Here in Revelation, what we saw in Daniel 3 is brought to a final expression:
Beast -> image -> religious worship -> universal authority -> economic control -> persecution -> death for refusal. The Beast is
therefore not merely a political ruler. His system demands allegiance, worship and economic control (the two horns of the false
prophet). The mark of the Beast, 666, is associated with the right hand or forehead - what you do and what you think. We now
have two competing identities: the Beast's name, mark and number versus the name of God and the Lamb.
Babylon 66 and 666 and the Completion of Human Autonomy
This is where the connection between Daniel 3 and Revelation 13 becomes especially significant. Nebuchadnezzar's golden
image was sixty cubits high and six cubits wide: 6 and 6, or 66. Revelation 13 brings the pattern to its ultimate expression in 666.
Revelation 13:18 666 is "the number of a man."
Six can be understood symbolically as falling short of seven, the number associated with divine fullness and completion.
Within this theological framework, the three sixes can be viewed as representing humanity's attempt to occupy the whole field of
existence apart from God.
Humanity is tripartite, spirit, soul and body, so the Beast's system seeks total control:
• The Babylonian spirit says: "I will establish my own identity."
• The Beast says: "I will establish my own authority."
• The image says: "I will establish my own object of worship."
666 represents the culmination of that human-centred system in spirit, soul and body.
The Lamb as God's Answer to the Beast
Revelation presents the Lamb and His people as the true answer to the Beast's counterfeit kingdom, but this has wider scope than
the polarities of the two marks on the forehead that we saw in the study of the 144,000.
The issue is therefore not simply who controls the world politically. It is whose image and whose name humanity will carry.
Revelation 17 and the Harlot and the Beast
Revelation 17:15 Then he said to me, "The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are the people, multitudes, nations,
and different languages."
Only after the Beast's system has been established does Revelation 17 unveil Babylon in its fullest prophetic form - a woman
sitting upon a scarlet Beast having seven heads and ten horns.
The Beast represents the political and imperial power. The harlot woman represents Babylon's religious, spiritual, economic and
seductive dimension, and initially they cooperate. The woman, Babylon, rides on the Beast, showing that religious and spiritual
influence becomes joined to political authority. Babylon gives the Beast legitimacy and influence, while the Beast provides the
power by which Babylon operates. Yet this relationship is temporary and the very political powers supporting Babylon will
ultimately turn against her.
The Seven Heads the Seventh Kingdom and the Eighth
Revelation 17:9-11 Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.
There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a
short time. The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition (lake of
fire).
This explains the mystery of the seven heads. The seven heads are associated with seven mountains and seven kings, which
represent successive world kingdoms associated with the Babylonian-Beast system.
These are Egypt, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome (the one 'that is' for John). Then there is the one to come who
continues for a short time: the Beast who has the likeness of the lion, bear and leopard, is of the seven geopolitical rulers, suffers
a mortal wound that is healed in a counterfeit resurrection, and is also the eighth who goes into the lake of fire.
The Ten Horns and the Final Coalition
Revelation 17:12 identifies the ten horns as ten kings who receive authority for a limited period with the Beast. They represent a
final political coalition united around the Beast. These are the ten toes of another image in Daniel chapter 7, which we will
consider in the next episode (15).
Revelation 17:13 These have one mind and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
This apparent unity is temporary.
The Great Reversal and Babylon Destroyed
The alliance between Babylon and the Beast eventually collapses.
Revelation 17:16 declares that the Beast and the ten horns will hate the Harlot, make her desolate and burn her with fire. The
political system that once supported Babylon eventually destroys her, and God has sovereignly permitted this to accomplish His
purposes.
The Final Contrast Between Babylon and the Bride
The destruction of Babylon prepares the way for the final revelation of the Bride.
Revelation chapters 17-19 establishes a profound contrast between two women.
The Harlot — The Bride
Seductive, wealthy, politically powerful, materially magnificent, spiritually corrupt, intoxicated with influence, practising persecution and finally destroyed — Prepared for Christ, faithful, clothed in righteousness, united with the Lamb and ultimately revealed in glory
Babylon can operate through religion, politics, economics and culture, but the final issue is not politics. It is religion and worship,
identity and allegiance. It is the question of whether humanity will receive its identity from God or create its own.
Religion Bonding and Allegiance
I have been mentioning Religion quite a lot today, and I'd like to end with a few words about what religion means. Religion
comes from the Latin word religio (root word religare). Ligare means ligament. A ligament binds bone to bone and bone to
muscle. It allows bodily movement and it allows the inner bone and inner physical bodily framework to move into action and
strength.
Just as biological ligaments serve as the connective bonding that holds the body's framework together, true religion is a relational
bonding that ensures a person is anchored in belief and truth. Therefore, re-ligio is the re-bonding that occurs when the binding
has been lost, damaged or neglected.
When people get a revelation of the goodness and grace of God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, they get re-ligamented, re-
connected to life and truth.
But when Babylon seduces people into a false belief that declares it will assure their spiritual and social and financial survival
and security they get reconnected to spiritual deception and darkness.
Babylon exploits the fundamental human needs for belonging, security, and identity to create a structure of personal bondage and
participation in something larger than themselves.
• Babylon says: Bind yourself to this system so that you may belong and survive.
• Jesus said: Take My yoke upon you, bonding you to Himself so that you may live.
The religious aspect of Babylon in the end times is reconnecting people's souls to a primal darkness that is beginning to exercise
its utmost destructive power.
The Holy Spirit in these days is reconnecting people's souls to Himself as our new Helper and giving us an abundance of grace to
become one with Jesus and with one another in the Spirit.
Dimension — God's intention — Babylonian corruption
Spirit — Relationship with God — Independence from God
Soul — Mind, will and identity — Ideological conformity
Body — Life belonging to God — Instrument of allegiance to the Beast
The Seven Kingdoms and the Beast
Head — Kingdom/system — Daniel/Revelation relationship
1 — Egypt — Early persecuting empire opposing God's covenant people
2 — Babylon — Daniel's first great imperial kingdom; archetype of Babylonian system
3 — Medo-Persia — Daniel's second kingdom
4 — Greece — Daniel's third kingdom
5 — Rome — Daniel's fourth kingdom; rules in John's era. Two legs of iron - East and West
6 — Final revived/composite Beast system — An emerging future manifestation
7 — Beast/Antichrist manifestation — Final geopolitical seven-ruler system
8 — The Beast himself — "Of the seven"; receives a mortal head wound and is healed in a counterfeit resurrection, then is destined for the lake of fire
