The Great Divorce: Fleeing the Harlot City Text: Revelation 18:4-8
Introduction: Two Women, Two Cities
The book of Revelation is a tale of two women, who are two cities, who represent two competing covenants. The first woman is the Harlot, Babylon the Great, drunk on the blood of the saints. The second is the Bride, the New Jerusalem, descending from Heaven adorned for her husband. You cannot understand this book, and you certainly cannot understand our text today, if you do not grasp this central conflict. This is the great divorce at the hinge of history, the final, legal separation between the Old Covenant community in its apostasy and the New Covenant church in its infancy.
Now, centuries of speculative foolishness have tried to identify this Harlot, this Babylon, with every bogeyman imaginable, from the papacy to the European Union to some future one-world government. But the text itself, interpreted by the rest of Scripture, points us to a much closer, much more tragic identification. Babylon the Great is first-century, apostate Jerusalem, the city that had been married to Jehovah and had played the whore with the nations. She was the city that killed the prophets and, ultimately, crucified the Lord of Glory. And in the logic of this book, she is riding the beast, which is to say, apostate Jerusalem was in bed with pagan Rome, relying on her power to persecute the saints, a cozy relationship that would soon turn deadly when the beast turned and devoured her.
The judgment described in Revelation 18 is therefore not some far-off event at the end of time. It is the prophesied destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, an event that Jesus Himself foretold in the Olivet Discourse. It was a historical, temporal, covenantal judgment that shook the world and established the kingdom of Christ as the new central reality on earth. The voice from heaven in our text is a summons, an urgent evacuation order given to the first-century Christians living in and around that doomed city. It is a call to separation, a warning against complicity, and a promise of righteous vengeance.
The Text
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Pay her back even as she paid, and give her back double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning, for she says in her heart, ‘I SIT as A QUEEN AND I AM NOT A WIDOW, and will never see mourning.’ For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.
(Revelation 18:4-8 LSB)
The Call to Covenantal Separation (vv. 4-5)
The first part of our text is a divine summons, an urgent plea from Heaven itself.
"And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, 'Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.'" (Revelation 18:4-5)
This is not a suggestion; it is a command with a reason attached. The command is "Come out of her, my people." This echoes the commands given to Lot to flee Sodom and to Israel to flee the literal Babylon of old. God always provides a way of escape for His faithful remnant before He pours out judgment. Jesus gave this same warning to His disciples concerning Jerusalem: "Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place... then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains" (Matt. 24:15-16). And we know from the historian Eusebius that the Christians in Jerusalem heeded this warning, fleeing to the city of Pella before the Roman armies surrounded the city. This was a literal, physical evacuation.
But it is more than just physical. It is a call to spiritual and covenantal separation. The reason for coming out is twofold: first, so that they would not "participate in her sins," and second, so that they would not "receive of her plagues." Sin and judgment are bound together. To remain entangled in the life of the Harlot city, to continue to identify with her corrupt worship and her persecution of the church, was to become complicit in her rebellion. You cannot remain in fellowship with a covenant-breaking institution without getting filth on you. The plagues, the judgments, are not arbitrary. They are the necessary consequences of the sins.
And what are those sins? Verse 5 tells us they have "piled up as high as heaven." This is the language of the Tower of Babel. It is a picture of corporate, architectural arrogance. The sins of apostate Jerusalem had become a monument of rebellion, reaching to the heavens, demanding a response. And God has "remembered her iniquities." In Scripture, when God "remembers," it is not that He had forgotten. It means He is now ready to act on what He knows. The time for patience has run out. The cup of wrath is full. Judgment is imminent.
The Law of Righteous Retribution (v. 6)
Next, the voice from heaven gives the basis for the coming judgment. It is not arbitrary vengeance, but strict, legal justice.
"Pay her back even as she paid, and give her back double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her." (Revelation 18:6 LSB)
This is the lex talionis, the law of retaliation: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. "Pay her back even as she paid." God's judgments are not disproportionate; they are fitting. The punishment fits the crime. Jerusalem had become a persecutor. She had filled a cup of suffering for the prophets and the apostles, and now she would be made to drink from a cup of her own mixing. This is a fundamental principle of justice woven into the fabric of the world.
But what about the command to give her back "double"? Does this violate the principle of strict justice? Not at all. This is covenantal language, drawn directly from the Old Testament law. When a thief was caught, he was often required to restore double what he had stolen (Ex. 22:4, 7). More than that, the language of "double" for sin is used by the prophets to describe the fullness of God's judgment against His own covenant-breaking people. Isaiah says that Jerusalem has "received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins" (Is. 40:2). Jeremiah prophesies, "I will first repay their iniquity and their sin double" (Jer. 16:18). This "double" is not a mathematical 2x. It signifies a full and complete payment, a judgment that perfectly corresponds to the gravity of the covenantal treason. She who was doubly blessed with revelation and promise would now receive a full portion of judgment for her apostasy.
The Sin of Arrogant Self-Sufficiency (vv. 7-8)
The final verses of our text diagnose the root sin of the Harlot city and pronounce the swiftness of her sentence.
"To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning, for she says in her heart, ‘I SIT as A QUEEN AND I AM NOT A WIDOW, and will never see mourning.’ For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong." (Revelation 18:7-8 LSB)
Here again, the justice is perfectly symmetrical. The measure of her self-glorification will be the measure of her torment. The measure of her luxury will be the measure of her mourning. Her central sin was pride. She said in her heart, "I sit as a queen and I am not a widow, and will never see mourning." This is a direct quote from Isaiah 47, where the prophet is condemning the original Babylon. By putting these words in the mouth of first-century Jerusalem, John is making the theological identification explicit. Jerusalem has become Babylon.
What does this boast mean? To "sit as a queen" is to claim sovereignty, security, and power. To say "I am not a widow" is to deny her true state. She had been married to Jehovah, but she had rejected and crucified His Son. She was, in fact, a widow. But she denied this. She believed her political alliance with Rome, the beast she was riding, made her secure. She thought she was in control of her own destiny and would "never see mourning." This is the essential lie of every secular, man-centered society. It is the belief that we can have security and prosperity apart from God. It is the boast of self-sufficiency.
Because of this pride, her judgment will be sudden and total. "For this reason in one day her plagues will come." The historical fulfillment of this was shockingly swift. The final siege of Jerusalem by Titus was brutal and relatively short. The plagues are listed: pestilence, mourning, and famine, all of which Josephus documents in horrific detail. And finally, "she will be burned up with fire," which is precisely what happened to the city and its glorious temple in A.D. 70.
And why will this happen? The final phrase gives the ultimate reason: "for the Lord God who judges her is strong." Her strength as a queen was an illusion. Rome's strength was temporary. The only true strength in the universe belongs to the Lord God, and when He rises to judge, no earthly power can stand against Him.
Conclusion: Fleeing Modern Babylons
The historical judgment on Jerusalem is a pattern. It is a warning to every city, every nation, and every institution that boasts in its own strength and persecutes the people of God. All humanistic systems are destined for the ash heap of history. They all say in their hearts, "I sit as a queen," and they will all, in one day, be overthrown.
The command, "Come out of her, my people," still rings true for us today. We are called to separate ourselves from the world's values, its corruptions, and its arrogant self-sufficiency. We are not to be entangled in the sins of our modern Babylons, whether they are found in a godless state, a corrupt academy, or a compromised church. We must be a distinct people, a holy nation, citizens of that other city, the New Jerusalem.
This requires discernment. It means we must identify the ways in which we are tempted to participate in the sins of our culture, to drink from the harlot's cup. It means refusing to bow to its idols, whether they be idols of sexual autonomy, material wealth, or political power. And it means being willing to be seen as outsiders, as exiles, because our true citizenship is in heaven.
The judgment on Jerusalem was a demonstration that the Lord God is strong. And the continued advance of His kingdom for two thousand years since that event is further proof. The Babylons of this world rise and fall, but the Church of Jesus Christ, the Bride, remains. Let us therefore heed the voice from heaven. Let us live as a separate people, not sharing in the sins of the world, so that we will not receive its plagues. For our King is on the throne, and He is a strong Lord, mighty to save and mighty to judge.