An Easter Season message from an Anti-Catholic Protestant:
“The Roman Catholic Church is the pagan Whore of Babylon! She is the idolatrous harlot who speaks blasphemies and persecutes the 'real' Christians!”
“The Roman Catholic Church is the pagan Whore of Babylon! She is the idolatrous harlot who speaks blasphemies and persecutes the 'real' Christians!”
I’m pretty sure that a lot of us have heard this phrase in
our lifetime, it is usually exclaimed by an anti-Catholic Protestant who has
been force fed a diet of lies and twisting of Sacred Scripture. How can someone
make such a claim you may ask? Well, let’s go through some Scripture verses and
flesh out these Protestant claim. I will break up each argument into 3 sections:
1) Claim = What the Protestant believes.
2) Conclusion = “Proof” for the Protestant claim.
3) Rebuttal = Demonstrating how the claim and the conclusion
are wrongfully arrived at.
As usual, unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references
come from the KJV.
CLAIM #1: Rome is
Babylon. How can this statement be justified? To the mind of a Roman
Catholic, this is impossible: Rome is where the Vatican is and where St. Peter
and St. Paul got martyred, whereas Babylon is where the Jews were exiled to for
70 years before being restored to the Promised Land. How can an anti-Catholic
make this claim? Well, in the first Epistle of Peter, written by St. Peter
around 65 A.D. while he was in Rome and held the bishopric there, he closes out
by sending some final greetings from Rome; he states the following in 1Peter
5:13:
The church that is at Babylon, elected
together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.
CONCLUSION: St.
Peter was martyred in Rome around 67 A.D. and all Catholics state that he was
the first Bishop of Rome, i.e., the Pope. Therefore, when Peter wrote his 1st
Epistle, he was writing from Rome and, towards the end of his letter, explicitly
sends regards from “the church at Babylon.” Hence, Rome is Babylon.
REBUTTAL: Why did
St. Peter refer to Rome as Babylon? Because, from a historical perspective,
Babylon was the home of the pagans that persecuted the Jews for over 70 years during
their Babylonian captivity from 535 B.C. to 610 B.C.; it was during this time
the First Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Fast-forward 680 years later to 70
A.D. and, by this time, the pagan Romans are in charge of the Holy Land and
they have destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Additionally, in the same manner
that Babylon persecuted the Jews, now it is the Romans who are persecuting the
new People of God, namely, the Christians. Therefore, when St. Peter refers to
Rome as Babylon, he is referring to the pagan Roman’s oppression of the Church.
What we need to remember is when Rome is referred to as Babylon,
it is EXPLICITLY referring to the ancient pagan Roman Empire AND NOT
modern day Rome nor is it referring to the Vatican or Roman Catholicism; to
take St. Peter’s word’s out of their historical context in order to prove a
false and deceptive presumption is not only disingenuous but, at the very
least, immoral.
CLAIM #2: ROME IS THE
“GREAT CITY” SET ON 7 HILLS UPON WHICH THE WHORE IS SEATED. All
anti-Catholics who subscribe to this ill-formed schema, cite Revelation 17 as
their source for justifying the idiotic notion that the RCC = The Whore of
Babylon. In Revelation 17, the
first 8 verses depict a harlot who rides atop a scarlett beast with 7 heads
and 10 horns but, in verse
9, we read the following:
And here is the mind which hath wisdom.
The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth…
So, what we have
here is the fact that the woman/whore sits atop seven hills. This has to be the
Roman Catholic Church because the Vatican is one of the 7 primary hills of
Rome!
 |
| Note the 7 hills of Rome and how close the Vatican is to those hills! Coincidence? |
Additionally, we
see that the woman/whore sits next to the water, in Revelation 17:1 we read in
part:
…saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew
unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
 |
| Less than 2,000 feet away we find water! |
It should also be
noted that Rev. 17:1 is referring directly to the Roman Catholic Church because
no other Christian religion has been able to penetrate all of the parts of the
world like the Roman Catholic Church, thereby sitting upon many waters! Lastly,
we read in Revelation 17:18 that the woman/whore is a “great city,” this is also
a direct reference to Rome because the only great city at the time the Book of
Revelation was being written was the city of Rome itself:
And the woman which thou sawest is that
great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
CONCLUSION: Therefore, we have here clear evidence
that Rome is the Whore because: 1) She sits atop 7 hills, 2) she sits upon the
waters as well as many parts of the world and, 3) she is the “great city” to
which St. John refers to in his Apocalypse.
REBUTTAL: Above all other “reasons” for the Catholic
Church to be the Whore of Babylon, these are usually cited the most because
they can easily be used to draw an observers attention away from the truth and
towards a more misconstrued view of what is factual. First, let’s deal with the
“7 hills” argument.
Saying that the
Vatican, which is in Rome and sit’s 130 feet above sea level, is the woman
spoken of in Revelation 17 - because it is situated among 7 hills - is simply an
attempt at trying to take a verse of Scripture and twisting it to be something
it is not. If the “7 hills” argument is to be taken seriously then why not
state that the 7 hills are the 7 hills of Edinburgh, Scotland? Or, why not the 7 hills of Istanbul, Turkey? Or, how about Kampala, Uganda, since it too was founded on 7 hills? We can add Lynchburg, Virginia to that list, as well as: Seattle, Washington; Moscow, Russia; Prague, Czech Republic; Lisbon, Portugal; Brussels, Belgium; and, Isai, Romania. Or, how about the fact that our
country’s Capital has seven hills, those being, Capitol Hill, Meridian Hill,
Floral Hills, Forest Hills, Hillbrook, Hillcrest and, Knox Hill?
Even more
disturbing, the fact that the birthplace of Islam’s prophet and it’s most holy
city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia WAS BUILT AROUND 7 HILLS! Gee, you’d think that an anti-Catholic
Protestant would be more inclined to take St. John’s vision of a blasphemous
and diabolical city situated among 7 hills and equate it with Mecca but, no.
Instead it is much easier for the anti-Catholic to look at Rome with more
disdain then a religion that, quite frankly, only spread via the sword. Kinda
goes to show you the lengths that some will go to in order to deny Rome of her
primacy.
So, the “7 hills
argument” can be easily refuted by noting that there are MANY major cities
around the world that could be the so-called “great city” situated on seven
hills – if all we had was Revelation 17 then a strong contention could be made
for Rome being the “great city” as well as the whore. But, there are 4 reasons
as to why Rome cannot be the pagan, idolatrous and abominable Whore of Babylon
but, instead, as I will show, it is referring to Jerusalem, that is, Jerusalem IS the Whore of Babylon.
Reason #1, St. John tells us explicitly
that it is NOT Rome but Jerusalem.
That’s right, St.
John EXPLICITLY states that the “great city” is Jerusalem. The “great city” is
first mentioned in Revelation 11 when St. John is ordered to measure out the
Temple, Revelation 11:1-3,7-8 reads (my emphasis):
And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel
stood, saying, Rise, and measure the
temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the
court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is
given unto the Gentiles: and the holy
city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. And I will
give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two
hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth…
…And when
they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the
bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill
them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
St. John tells us
here that the “great city” is allegorically referred to as Sodom and Egypt AND it is also where
Jesus was crucified. Jesus was not crucified in Rome but, in Jerusalem! And, to
a first century Jew, referring to Jerusalem as Sodom and Egypt denoted that the
great city of Jerusalem had become a mere shadow of its former self and had
slipped into sinful habits. St. John is showing us in these passages that, in
the first century A.D., Jerusalem had become so wicked and so evil that this is
why the Lord met his death there; so bad was Jerusalem at that time that they
not only missed the promised Messiah but, they imitated the deplorable acts of
Sodom and Egypt!
Reason #2, Jerusalem is called a Harlot/Whore/Prostitute
various times in the Old Testament.
How is the faithful city become an harlot!
it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. (Isaiah
1:21)
And I saw, when for all the causes whereby
backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill
of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played
the harlot also. (Jeremiah
3:8)
Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know
her abominations, And say,
Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem…And
when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto
thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in
thy blood, Live…Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy
time was the time of love…yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant
with thee…And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it
was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God. But thou
didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown,
and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was…Thou
hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to
be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and
multiplied thy whoredoms. Thou hast also
committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh…Thou
hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable;
yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied.
Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of
Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied therewith. How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing
thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman; In
that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest
thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou
scornest hire; But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh
strangers instead of her husband! (Ezekiel
16:1-32)
The beginning of the word of the Lord by
Hosea. And the Lord said
to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for
the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord. (Hosea
1:2)
Whoredom and
wine and new wine take away the heart. My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their
staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err,
and they have gone a whoring from under their God. They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon
the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good:
therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit
adultery. (Hosea
4:11-13)
Reason #3, The Beast in Revelation 17
destroys the whore.
Yet another
reason that the woman/whore cannot be Rome is because the Beast she rides upon
eventually devours her! In other words, pagan Rome = Beast and the Whore =
Jerusalem. This is exactly in line with what happened in 70 A.D. when the Roman
Empire sacked the great city and demolished the Jewish Temple. We see this
stated in Revelation
17:16:
And the ten horns which thou sawest upon
the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked,
and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
Thus, the Beast
and the Whore are two different things but, if the Whore is Jerusalem, how do
we know that the Beast is the pagan Roman Empire? If we read through Revelation
13:18, we get a clue that the Beast has a mark with a numerical value of
666. Then, if we then look at Revelation
17:9-10, we see that the Beast is compromised of 7 heads which represent 7
kings: 5 of the kings have fallen, there is a current king upon a throne and,
the final king has not yet come but, when the final one arrives he will be king
for a short time.
What does all of
this mean? Well, if in fact the Beast is to be understood as the pagan Romans,
then – historically speaking – it makes perfect sense when we look at the 7
Caesars that ruled the Roman Empire during the great persecution of the
Christians:
Here we see that
St. John is relating the 7 heads of the Beast (pagan Rome) to it’s 7 kings
(Caesars). Note at how the last king only reigned for a short time as stated in
Rev. 17:10 and once we analyze Nero’s title in Greek and transliterate it into
Hebrew, we arrive at the number 666:
ר – Resh
= 200
ס – Samekh = 60
ק – Qoph = 100
נ – Nun = 50
ו – Vav = 6
ר – Resh = 200
נ – Nun = 50
Total for Nero
Caesar = 666. Hence, St. John speaks of the first
huge wave of Christian persecution that started under Nero and not in
anyway shape or form to the Pope, Roman Catholicism or the Vatican.
 |
| The twisting of Scripture in order to derive a non-historical and non-Catholic meaning, is the epitome of Anti-Catholic Protestantism. |
Reason #4, The “great city” is replaced by
the “New Jerusalem,” or, the Bride.
In Revelation
18:5-8, we read that God will indeed cast his judgment upon Jerusalem:
…or her sins
have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double
unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill
to her double…so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, “I
sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning,
and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord
God who judgeth her.
After God is done judging the Whore and the Beast, we read about
the New Jerusalem prepared by God for His People in Revelation
21:9-22 (my emphasis):
…And there came unto me one
of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues,
and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I
will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great
and high mountain, and shewed me that
great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a
jasper stone, clear as crystal; And had a wall
great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names
written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of
Israel…And I saw no temple therein: for
the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
For all of these
reasons, the Roman Catholic Church CANNOT be the Whore of Babylon. When we
analyze what Scripture is trying to tell us and when we interpret Scripture
within its historical context, we see that the only way one can come to such an
erroneous and delusory conclusion is either through pure ignorance or
deliberate blindness.
No comments:
Post a Comment