Revelation 17:3 Commentary and Bible Study

We read again of the ‘beast, full of the names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.’ We know what that is (Revelation 13:1): the beast out of the sea, world government representing international control and power and coercion, and opposition to Christ. This beast is described here as scarlet coloured, but riding the beast is a woman, who is also identified later as Babylon. The woman is as old as the beast and has been seated on it throughout the history of the world, during which the various heads of the beast have come to power, including the five that are now fallen (Revelation 17:10). What we are being taught is that there are two great principles at work. There are governments – that is, power and force. In different degrees governments legislate in the interests of materialism and against spiritual things, and to a greater or lesser extent in different periods of history they are against the true church, and they legislate against her and persecute her. Now, towards the end of time in our age, they even legislate in favour of moral corruption and sin, and make things legal which are against the law of God; they begin to criminalise any disfavour towards these things. But the woman represents an opposite force, not coercion, but seduction. It's a pincer movement on society and within society. On the one hand the devil uses force, on the other hand he uses the power of attraction and seduction. So evil is made attractive and enjoyable and rewarding, and it is promoted and called good. It is presented as necessary and essential to us. The woman is all the forces of luxury, immorality for pleasure, sensation, experience, wealth – everything which involves self-indulgence and trust in this world. But she rides world governments. She uses their influence to pursue her schemes. They help her by honouring her before the people, by defending her right to operate, and they too yield to her seductions. You can see this in many ways. You see it sometimes in pathetic and small ways. You notice that most of the government honours go to representatives of the woman, the seductress, the one who is Satan's agent, drawing people by alluring means into sin. Many of them are show-business people. Whatever their morality and whatever they represent, they get a significant share of the honours; the government kowtows to them; it's the beast and the woman together. Why is she in the wilderness? This is either because this is how God sees her: as dwelling in a place where there is no sustenance for the soul, a place of barrenness. Or it is because that is where the church has fled (Revelation 12:6) and she intends to seduce them also. This would be consistent with Revelation 12:15 where, knowing that the woman has fled to the wilderness, the serpent [Satan] cast out of his mouth water as a flood to drown her. This policy failed because the ground helped her and swallowed up the flood – a flood, surely, of temptations of the world.The beast on which she sits is full of the names of blasphemy of the Lord. It is not afraid to contemn the name of God. In its self-confidence, it feels that it is beyond the reach of his judgment. It despises God and his holy standards, and his love of righteousness. It lives by deception and cunning, enforces loyalty to itself. Thus every moment it lives is an act of blasphemy against the Lord. Its very existence is blasphemy, for it claims the right to be what it is in direct contradiction to the Lord.