Context No. 3599 of 4322 · Revelation

Revelation 18:1-8: in context

1After these things, I saw another angel coming down out of the sky, having great authority. The earth was illuminated with his glory. 2He cried with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and she has become a habitation of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hated bird! 3For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality, the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from the abundance of her luxury.” 4I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don’t receive of her plagues, 5for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities. 6Return to her just as she returned, and repay her double as she did, and according to her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her double. 7However much she glorified herself and grew wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, ‘I sit a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see mourning.’ 8Therefore in one day her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire, for the Lord God who has judged her is strong.

An angel announces the fall of Babylon the great, the symbol of a whole world system built on pride, luxury, and rebellion against God. And amid the pronouncement of judgment comes a call to God's people: come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, and lest you share in her plagues.

The call is to separation, not to be so entangled in a corrupt system that we share both its guilt and its judgment. Babylon's whole confidence was pride: she says in her heart, I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see. But her judgment comes in a single day. There is a warning here about the corrupting pull of a world that glories in itself and forgets God, and a call to God's people to live distinct from it, not sharing in its sins. We are to be in the world but not entangled in its pride and corruption, lest, clinging too tightly to it, we share in its fall.

Am I living distinct from the pride and corruption of a world that forgets God, heeding the call to "come out," rather than becoming so entangled that I share its sins?

Sources

Revelation 18:4: "Come out of her, my people, that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don't receive of her plagues."
Revelation 18:7: "For she says in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see mourning."
Revelation 18:5: "For her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities."