A Powerful Parody.
The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls, holding in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her sexual immorality, and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery: “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” – Revelation 17:5-6 NASB
Verse 5 announces here four titles; the first is “mystery” a word repeatedly used in the Bible in association with the character of God and of salvation. It refers to a sacred secret, which is both revealed to God’s people and yet simultaneously beyond their comprehension – that God has redeemed them (see for example Luke 18:31-34; Ephesians 3:2-9, Colossians 4:3)
“… that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before briefly. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which in other generations was not made known to mankind, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, …To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to enlighten all people as to what the plan of the mystery is which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things;” – Eph 3:2-9 NASB
Her second name is “Babylon the great,” the third “The mother of prostitutes” and the fourth “the mother of the abominations of the earth.” All her names reveal her character as a spiritual force that adopts the forms of true faith but twists and corrupts them. Remember that in the Bible, prostitution symbolises the union of two things that do not belong together, in this instance religion and worldly power, a notion that is reinforced by the woman’s close connection to the beast, or temporal power. Worldly power was offered to Jesus as one of His temptations by satan. (Matt. 4:8-11.) A temptation He rejected was taken up by the church centuries later.
And unlike Jesus who shed His own blood for His people, this woman sheds the blood of God’s people for her own satisfaction, to such a degree that she is “drunk” on this exhibition of her power.
Here we are seeing that everything is in ironic imitation of – or truly in opposition to – Christ, the Lamb of God. Everything that describes the woman is about the terrible character / nature of satan and his imitation of all that is pure and righteous about the Lamb. This woman is sitting on the beast, meaning she is in league with the beast and is carried and supported by it, but maintains a measure of control over it.
As previously noted, the clothing of the woman parodies the adornments of the high priests of the earthly sanctuary, who wore purple and scarlet, as well as gold and precious stones on their breast plate as described in Exodus 28. The evil impersonation of Jesus continues in V8 “the beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the abyss and go to destruction.” This is an imitation of the description of Jesus found in Revelation 1:18: “I am the Living one; I was dead, and now look, I am alive forever and ever!” That fact that this image is repeated gives it additional strength: the imitation of Jesus will be powerful and convincing. Revelation 13:3,13-17 had previously declared that the whole (unsaved) world will follow the beast with wonder. No wonder John was astonished, considering his understanding of the ‘woman’ term, he understood what he was seeing.
This is the worldwide religious movement that controls the people of the earth through miraculous manifestations, persecution, and economic control (Revelation 13:13-18).
There are some similarities between the women of Revelation 12 and 17. Both are religious in nature (harlot Babylon symbolizes a false form of Christianity). But the woman of chapter 12 is God’s faithful church throughout history, including the period of Christian history during the 1,260 days/years and thereafter known as the remnant of the woman’s seed. What causes John amazement (Rev. 17:6) is that the end-time opponent of God and His people also is a woman and thereby wears a Christian face! Individually, this fact should sober all who follow Jesus. Pride and stubbornness can lead any of us to destruction, even when we think we are following God (John 16:2).