Revelation 21:9 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Revelation 21:9

Comments

It says here ‘one of the seven angels’, but there are many who think that this is the key angel, the chief angel, of the seven. In chapter 17:1 this very same angel of the vials is the one who introduces the revelation of the great whore, the adulterer, who by her seduction ensnares the people of God. She has another name too, another symbol representing her: Babylon. So the angel which introduced and warned about, and announced the destruction, the fall, of Babylon, is the very same one who now comes into the picture saying, ‘Come hither, I will show you the bride,’ – the new Jerusalem that is – ‘the Lamb's wife.’ We ask, why the angel of the seven plagues? Because he was the angel who declared the fall of Babylon. Now he declares the setting up and the institution of the new Jerusalem. There is a deliberate contrast there; that's why the angel of the last plagues is brought in. Babylon: new Jerusalem. Babylon – that's the world, the woman who seduces people. To become worldly, to be lovers of self, lovers of sin, fornicators, unclean; to love luxury and fame and fortune; to love the pleasures of this world and the distinctive produce of this world; to love the rock scene and the culture of this world with all its emphasis on illicit sex, and its emphasis on me, me, me, and its use of intoxicating rhythms to brainwash, to drive the message of the lyrics home, deep into the brain and into the heart. Babylon is the city of decadence and self-pampering and self-indulgence. And then the new Jerusalem – total opposites. The one is destroyed, the other is the eternal future.

Application

It helps us to see the folly and the sinfulness and the madness of Christian people trying in any degree to be in both cities at once. You can't be in Babylon and the new Jerusalem, or the church of Christ – which is in embryo the new Jerusalem on earth, seeking to manifest its characteristics by God's grace – at the same time. There are churches here in London, all around us, where a Sunday service is all pop and rock, imitating the world. All with DJ type of introductions and entertainment; churches trying to be in the world, in Babylon, and in the new Jerusalem at the same time. It’s sinful; it's madness, and it's sickening. In the USA where there have been so many mega-churches –Charismatic or semi-Charismatic, seeker sensitive churches – the founding church of the seeker sensitive movement, a church near Chicago, is beginning to fold. It’s just closed a big campus; it’s shrinking in size; its income has gone plunging down. Why? Because the man at the top who founded the whole movement was found to be deeply immoral. So many of these mega-churches have fallen, their pastors caught out for indecency, immorality, or fraud. This is the consequence of trying to be in Babylon and in the church at the same time. One of the grand things to see is when the Lord saves people, young people in particular, and changes them, and one of the first things they do is destroy all the collections they have of their own old sinful culture, worldly music. That’s a real mark of grace.

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Revelation 21:9 Commentary and Bible Study