Preliminary Thoughts on Babylon in the Book of Revelation

I think this is a vital topic for these days, and so I will introduce a number of amillennial commentators and their views. I favor the amil school over its rivals – Dispensationalists, Historic Premillennialists, Preterists, Historicists, and Postmillennialists – because it makes more sense to me and is accord with both a sound Biblical hermeneutic (method of interpretation) and the data of the Holy Scriptures themselves.

I’m assuming some knowledge of the subject in my readers, though I will try to accommodate those new to this area of inquiry with running brief intros along the way. I will also be generating some podcasts (from the parent Lightning Sword Journal site) to help further clarify these things. Of course readers and listeners may leave comments and questions, which I will try to respond to. I intend this to be educational.

I won’t engage in debates on the supposed merits of the other eschatological (end time) schools vis-à-vis the amil, as there are other forums for such discussions. This blog will remain highly focused, and will not meander in those realms.

One brief definition of eschatology is the study of “the final destiny of the soul and of humankind”, and an area of knowledge that purports to deal with such is Biblical prophecy. The basic presuppositions (things tacitly assumed beforehand) in all that I write is that there is a God – a Supreme Being – and He has spoken to humankind in a book He had His prophets put together, the Bible, comprised of the Old and New Testaments. In this Book He has revealed His character, His divine purposes, and all things pertaining to our creation and existence. It is also assumed that this entire piece of writing – the Bible – was inspired by God and is infallible in all the things it speaks of, and that God, through His wise and mighty providence, preserved it intact up through the ages. I not only assume these things, but defend them.

The value of Biblical prophecy is that we can see (looking backwards) that God often foretold things that were going to happen way before they did happen. Many prophecies are already fulfilled – especially those pertaining to the coming of Jesus Christ into the world, His life, death, resurrection, ascension into Heaven, and His everlasting reign over His glorious universal kingdom. Some of the things that have not been fulfilled yet are His return to intervene in the persecution of His beloved people at the end of this age – when the persecution will be world-wide, severe, and ghastly – and the soon-following day of judgment of all humans who have ever lived, and the subsequent consignment to the respective destinies the lives of those humans warranted, whether it be to the heavenly life on a renewed earth or the infernal existence in a place of torment. Granted, this latter is a horrific prospect, and one clear goal in my writings is to persuade men and women to avoid that destiny and choose the former, which will be a place of everlasting joy.

I am preparing writings in this vein which are to appear in the “21st Century Babylon” section (see Directory in the left sidebar) of Lightning Sword Journal. I focus on Babylon in Revelation because this end-time entity pertains to the world culture we live in and the nation we live in (if we are Americans), although I will refer to Revelation in its entirety as well, for the whole book is immensely relevant for our time.