A Tale of Two Cities, Part 2: Archetypal and Ectypal Babylon

Let’s start with the ectypal, in history. Since we have already spoken of Cain and the days of Noah, we must begin a concrete treatment of collective Babylon with Babel and its characteristics. It is often asked, “What was so bad about the Tower?” We can list four discernible features from the text.

To reach the heavens (v. 4a): alternative religion.

To make a name for themselves (v. 4b): they were created for God's name’s sake.

To collect together (v. 4c): when they were to fill the earth and subdue it. 

And “nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (v. 6)

This last feature suggests a deluded sense of reversing the curse by their own means instead of God’s gospel promise. 

In short, Babel is, first of all, an “anti-Eden,” in that it attempts to replace God’s means and ends for glory in this world; and second of all, Babel becomes a type and shadow of those later antichrist utopian schemes against God’s program and God’s people. So, God judged this utopian spirit, and He did so through the good of cultural barriers. Our pietistic sensibilities are very hesitant to take either of these lessons from the text of Genesis 11, but so it is.

The Babylonian Empire

A distinction must be made so that one is not confused on the widest history timelines: An earlier Babylonia was the major power in the Fertile Cresent under Hammurabi (c. 1792–1752 BC / 1696–1654 BC)1 replacing the earlier Akkadian Empire. For perspective, this would be in the early portion of the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt. Even before and after this time, the city of Babylon was regarded by the whole region to be the place where any ruler would have to be crowned. It was its spiritual center. So this sense does not go away with the dispersing of nations from the Tower. This was the same spot.

The Hittites and then Assyrians from the north, took turns dominating the region. In 612, the new rising power in Babylon sacked Nineveh. Nebuchadnezzar the Great reiged from 605 to 562 B.C. He plays an interesting role in the flow of history as recorded in Scripture. In a defining narrative text we read,

“the king answered and said, ‘Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Dan. 4:30)

Babylon fell in 539 B.C. to Cyrus. The upshot, however, is that in the bulk of the Prophets, it is Babylon who is the antithesis and oppressor to Jerusalem, and specifically to the remnant in the holy city.

First Century Babylon — Rome or Jerusalem?

Arguments for Rome. “Babylon the great … But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you othe mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her … This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated” (17:1, 7, 9).

Arguments for Jerusalem. “and their dead bodies [i.e. of the two witnesses] will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified” (11:8).

But if the Realist model is correct, then Babylon in Revelation is, first, spiritual Babylon, running its course not only through time, but exactly in those places that have made a claim (or will make a claim) to being the center of God’s world. And consequently it follows by resistless logic, that Babylon in Revelation is both old Jerusalem and Rome.

What Then is “Spiritual (or Mystical) Babylon”?

To put it simply, in the words of Hendriksen, “Babylon thus viewed is past, present, and future. Its form changes; its essence remains.”2

Here I am not going to address matters which I realize many biblical scholars have addressed, such as a hierarchy among demons, or other related things. It is only necessary to start with the language that the Scriptures use: “whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities” (Col. 1:16), or in a more famous passage for spiritual warfare. Scripture does not create a two-tiered hardened dualism, where you acknowledge that angels and demons are fighting “up there,” “above the line,” as Schaeffer used to say, and then you and I are “down here,” at most praying about it. No—all that we are and all that we do, are engaged in the thick of it. 

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).

What matters is that there is a hierachy of these spiritual forces moving the human forces—the heavely moving the historical. This is true both about the realm of power and the realm of thought. 

First, to the realm of power, that the Bible speaks about these beings in terms of authority and rank, such as in human governments, makes the point that this is ultimately a coordinated operation of their one city, or “domain of darkness” (Col. 1:13). Now there is debate about whether the “gods” mentioned in Psalm 82 are supernatural beings or earthly kings. The notion that it could be both is often not considered. Some commentators have even seen the same about the “authorities” in Romans 13:1. 

Second, to the realm of thought, consider the ‘elemental spirits’. One possible reading of “elemental spirits” (Col. 2:8) would be consistent with Paul’s other expression: “deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1). So, if someone asks: is it ‘worldly philosophy’ or ‘doctrines of demons’? This is a false dilemma. Another place where Paul discusses spiritual warfare brings these together:

“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-5).

So, in summary, Babylon is both a system of power and of thought. When a social order and a system of thought come together and seem to dominate in a time and place, we call that a “spirit of the age” (zeitgeist). That Daniel’s visions were from Babylon—from within the Babylonian court, speaking ultimate truth to ultimate power, no less!—is significant. Here we have a scriptural model that coming out of Babylon is never set against prophecying to Babylon. And what does he see? Does he see a spiritual war or human empires? False. It is always both.

So, There are Many Babylons

We are going to see this pattern with all of the types, moving through history. Sometimes it is not “Many x’s,” but rather many manifestations of one x. Jonathan Edwards preached, “How many Babels has [Satan] built up to heaven in his opposition to the Son of God!”3

Bavinck seems to stress that the Babylon of Revelation is Rome; and yet he utilizes the “two phase” victory over Satan in Revelation 20 to begin revealing multiple beasts, antichrists, and therefore manifestations of Babylon.4

What Then is Final Babylon?

As it all historical types, this one seeks the whole world.

It is finally a “city” that encompasses or upholds many cities or nations: “The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath” (16:19).

Remember how Babel functioned as an anti-Eden? It attempted to supplant God’s creation mandate and end. Final Babylon functions as an antichrist world order. Let’s compare two more verses in Revelation:

“and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth” (1:5).

“And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth” (17:18).

Hendriksen has a helpful summary, focusing on the central texts in Revelation 17 and 18.

“The harlot … is Babylon (17:5, 18; 19:23). The question is, what does Babylon represent? In order to arrive at the correct view with respect to the symbolic meaning of this figure, we must bear in mind, first of all, that Babylon is called the great harlot. In other words, the symbol indicates that which allures, tempts, seduces and draws people away from God. Secondly, we must remember that this harlot is a worldly city, namely, Babylon. It reminds us of a pleasure-mad, arrogant, presumptuous Babylon of old. The description of this Babylon in Revelation 17-19 also recalls to our mind that heathen center of wickedness and seduction, Tyre. Observe the striking similarity between Revelation 17-19 and Ezekiel 27, 28. Moreover, when we study the catalogue of goods found in Babylon (18:11ff.) it becomes evident that the symbol has reference to a great industrial and commercial metropolis.”5

Global dominion requires a narrative to match.

If the pax romana was the “gospel” of that preterist Babylon, there will be a similar anti-gospel of the futurist Babylon. It will naturally promise world peace and prosperity. 

While we will wait to get into the specifics, this is why there must be more than one beast. There must be both a political component and a religious component. To conquer the world, one must first conquer the mind and heart. To make slaves is to make worshipers. So the early principle feature of the coming of the final Babylon must be ideology. Ideology reduces religion and worldview to the justification for violence and total commitment to the reductionism.

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1. These two ranges are “early” and “late” chronologies for the era of Hammurabi. 

2. William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors, 168.

3. Jonathan Edwards, “Christ Exalted” in Altogether Lovely (Orlando: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997), 78.

4. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, IV:676, 677.

5. Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors, 167-168.