Sunday School Notes: Revelation 14:8-11
8 And another, a second angel, followed saying, “Fallen, fallen [has] Babylon the great. She has made all the nations drink from the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality. 9 And another angel, a third one, followed them, speaking in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the Beast and his image, and receives the mark upon his forehead or upon his hand, 10 also he will drink from the wine of God’s wrath poured out undiluted in the cup of His wrath, and he will be tormented by fire and by sulphur before [the] holy angels and before the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment rises up forever and ever, and they do not have relief day and night, those who worship the Beast and his image, and if anyone receives the mark of his name.”
John now sees a second angel following right on the heels of the previous one. The last angel proclaimed an “everlasting gospel,” which we said was the judgment side of the gospel message. The call to fear God and give Him glory is not restricted to Christians. It is the duty of all mankind to do that, and the depravity of the human heart is revealed in its refusal to obey this command. In verse 8, the second angel declares the fate of “Babylon the great”: she has fallen, having made all the nations drink “from the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.”
We first looked at that last line, because in the Greek it could be taken a couple of different ways. One way of understanding the grammar says that Babylon made the nations drink “from the wine consisting of the passion produced by her sexual immorality.” Another way says Babylon made the nations drink “from the wine leading to passion, or desire for sexual relations with her.” In the first sense, the wine is full of Babylon’s passion which comes from her sexual immorality. In the second sense, Babylon’s wine leads to a desire to have intimate relations with her. Do the nations drink in order to partake of the passions of Babylon, or does their drinking of the wine lead them to desire intimacy with Babylon?
A clue to our interpretation of this passage lies, perhaps, in Revelation 18:1-3. This passage seems to parallel 14:8, only with a bit more detail, and it includes this same line. We will study 18:1-3 in depth when we get there, but it says that the kings of the earth have committed porneia, sexual immorality, with Babylon. The way that is described in 18 supports the understanding that the wine the nations are made to drink causes them to desire “passionate relations” with Babylon.
It is good to note that while the 14:8 suggests the nations have been forced into drinking this wine, there is no hint of any objection. The nations are glad to drink Babylon’s wine, again, as chapter 18 makes clear.
Who is this “Babylon the great“? That phrase in the Greek is only found one time in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, Daniel 4:30, where Nebuchadnezzar is boasting about the great kingdom he has built. He did not fear God and give Him glory, and God humiliated him, driving him from the city, and reducing him to grazing in the fields like an animal. Given that we’re talking about the fall of Babylon in 14:8, “Babylon the great” is being used here, I think, sarcastically. Just as Nebuchadnezzar was humbled, so will be his great city.
I have little doubt that in John’s day, “Babylon” was code for Rome. In 1 Peter 5:13, Peter makes reference to “she who is in Babylon.” The “she” there is most likely a church (a possibility that the KJV translation takes for granted), and since there wasn’t a church in literal Babylon, it could only refer to another prominent city known as a center of oppressive power: Rome. The name is a symbol, so it can also be applied to any such city in any age. We understand “Babylon,” therefore, to be any city, or perhaps any world power, that hates God and persecutes His church. And maybe also the demonic forces at work behind that world power.
Looking ahead to chapter 17, there we see a prostitute holding in her hand a cup of “impurities of her sexual immorality.” On her head is written, “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes.” This, again, associates the city of Babylon with lustful, passionate immorality. Chapter 17 is, indeed, a very strong condemnation of the evil city, or evil empire. We’ll get to it eventually. 🙂
The imagery of wine is, no doubt, intended as a negative. Wine is not in itself a bad thing. The cup of the Lord’s Supper contained fruit of the vine, and Paul encouraged Timothy to drink a little wine for his stomach (1 Timothy 5:23). But in excess, wine becomes an intoxicant, something that dulls the senses and, perhaps, the conscience. Wine is also addictive. This is why, I think, the symbolism of wine is used here. Not only are the nations drunk on the power and pleasure that comes with intimacy with Babylon (18:3), but they are addicted to it. They are willing to turn against God and His people to hold on to all that Babylon offers. Which is why, when Babylon falls, the nations despair instead of repent. Their source of power has been removed, and all they see is emptiness and unfulfillment. This is the same difference we see between Judas and Peter after Jesus’s arrest. When Judas’s plans went awry, so consumed was he by his sin, he didn’t seek repentance. Instead, he despaired and hung himself. Peter, on the other hand, after betraying the Lord three times, felt convicted of his sin and repented. Those who belong to the Lord will never be intoxicated by Babylon’s wine, though the temptation to will be real. However, they know the way of true fulfillment and joy.
In verse 9, John receives the third of these three angelic visions. This angel declares what will happen to those who have the Beast’s mark and worship him, drawing a contrast with what we saw in 13:15-16, where we were told of the penalties for not worshiping the Beast and receiving his mark.
There seems to be a progression in the angelic messages, from the general to the specific. The first message was a call to fear God and worship Him, because judgment is coming. The second announced the fall of Babylon, the judgment of the evil city and those nations that likewise disobeyed the call. Finally, we have here the punishment of those people who ran after the Beast and received that mark.
Verse 10 is another contrast, this time with verse 8. Instead of Babylon’s wine of passion, we have here the wine of God’s wrath. The same word is used for “wrath” as for “passion” in verse 8. That Greek word, thumos, refers to strong feeling, and takes its specific nuance from the context. “Wrath” would not fit the context of verse 8, so “passion” is a better translation. In verse 10, it isn’t God’s passion that’s on display, but his intense displeasure manifest in His judgment, which is why “wrath” is the better translation there. By using the same word in these different contexts, the angel is drawing our attention to the parallel. Babylon’s cup is full of wine that leads to desire for her, by which she leads the nations into idolatry and greed. The Lord’s cup, however, is full of the wine of his wrath, which leads to punishment upon those who deny Him, who prefer Beast-worship. It is those who received the mark of the Beast on their foreheads (and not the mark of the Lord) who will drink the wine of God’s wrath.
The angel says God’s wine is poured out–literally, having been poured out, poured out in the past but with lasting effect–and is “undiluted,” i.e., full-strength. These words are used in the Old Testament also within judgment contexts. Jeremiah 25:15 (32:15 in the LXX) uses the term “cup of the wine of wrath” in the context of God’s judgment on the nations, including Jerusalem and Judah because of their disobedience. He promises to send Babylon against them, and will then punish Babylon. The Greek translation of this verse uses the word for “undiluted” instead of the word for “wrath” (i.e., “the cup of this undiluted wine”). It’s possible that by using both “wrath” and “undiluted” in Revelation 14:10, the angel is drawing our attention to Jeremiah 25, and the cup of God’s wrath that he promised to make all the unfaithful, sinful nations drink.
Psalm 75:8 (74:9 in the LXX) speaks of how God will bring judgment upon all the wicked of the earth. The Hebrew says that the wine in the cup which is in God’s hand “foams,” is fully mixed, and he pours it out so the nations can drink it down to the dregs. The Greek, however, uses “undiluted” instead of “foams,” no doubt intending the same understanding–God’s anger, which he pours out on the nations.
The judgment proclaimed by the angel isn’t, therefore, simply something that God is doing in reaction to the latter-day rebellion of the nations. This is something that God has been doing from Old Testament times, and has promised from of old to do finally on all the wicked of the Earth.
The torment of God’s wrath will be by means of fire and sulfur. These two elements have a long history as instruments of judgment, going all the way back to Genesis 19:24 and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Psalm 11:5-6 says that the Lord hates the wicked and the one who loves violence, and “fire and sulfur and scorching wind will be the portion of their cup.” Perhaps most significantly, we saw fire and sulfur used to describe the color of the breastplates worn by the horse riders in Revelation 9:17-18. Also, their horses breathed fire, smoke, and sulfur. This was the sixth trumpet, which takes place directly before the Lord’s return, and resulted in the death of one-third of the people of Earth. The rest refuse to repent of their idolatry, murders, sorceries, immorality, and thefts. (SPOILER! We will see the Beast and the false prophet thrown into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur in 19:20. See 20:10 and 21:8 for other judgments to come involving fire and sulfur.)
The sentence structure of verse 11 is a little awkward in the Greek, because it puts the judgment itself ahead of naming the recipients of that judgment. This is a common literary device in languages like Greek and Latin, where word order is flexible, to draw attention to the most important part of the sentence by putting it first. In this case, we understand that those who received the mark of the Beast, and worshiped him and his image, will suffer torment, and the smoke of their torment will rise up forever. They will have no relief, or rest, day or night.
Once again, we have Old Testament background to this picture of the smoke of judgment rising forever in Isaiah 34:10, and mentioned also in Joel 3, Obadiah, and Malachi. The image is of total destruction, as God intended to do to Edom. Verse 9 of Isaiah 34 says that streams will be turned to pitch, soil to sulfur, and the land will be like burning pitch. There we have sulfur and fire, and verse 10 says the smoke from Edom will go up forever.
In Revelation 8:3-4, we saw the smoke of incense rising with the prayers of the saints, which we took to be a symbol of the fragrant prayer offerings of God’s people. The smoke in 14:11 is similar in that it rises up, but it is not the prayers of the saints. Rather, it’s the torment of the unbelievers, the earth-dwellers. I think this is another deliberate contrast.
We recalled the locusts in Revelation 9:1-12, the fifth trumpet, that looked like horses with women’s hair and lion’s teeth, and tails and stings like scorpions. These locusts rose up from the bottomless pit, out of the smoke from that pit, and were directed to damage only “those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.” Another use of smoke in the context of judgment, perhaps pointing to what we see in 14:11.
The angel says that those receiving judgment will have no rest “day and night.” The use of this phrase underscores relentless restlessness. In other contexts, “day and night” is used to indicate on-going, perpetual activity. The proclamation of the four living creatures in 4:8, for example, or the ministry of the multitudes before God’s throne in 7:15. Even the work of the Accuser of the saints before God’s throne in 12:10.
The idea of “rest” makes us think, perhaps, of spiritual, salvific rest in Christ (e.g., Matthew 11:28, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” or the Sabbath rest spoken of in Hebrews 3:7-4:11 that is the reward of those who are in Christ). The lack of such a rest for the earth-dwellers is in contrast to the rest that is promised to the heaven-dwellers in verse 13. There it speaks of them having “rest from their labors,” which makes it sound like a physical, not a spiritual rest. Indeed, it goes on to say that “their works will follow them.” However, if we understand these “labors” in terms of gospel faithfulness, then their works do indeed follow them, in the sense that God’s people are known for their faithfulness (they are the “overcomers” of the seven letters), and those works which they do because Christ redeemed them and enabled them, qualify them to enter into the rest and joy of their Master (Matthew 25:21-23).
