The Identity of Revelation's "Babylon," part 3 [conclusion]

Below is the 31st of multiple excerpts of commentary on the Book of Revelation from The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell. In this excerpt, Russell concludes his explanation of why Revelation's "Babylon" represents 1st-century Jerusalem, not Rome.

[THE HARLOT CITY]

[TRUE MEANING OF 'KINGS OF THE EARTH' APPLIES TO JERUSALEM]

"11. Thus interpreted [i.e., that the 'kings of the earth' is equivalent to 'the ruling authorities in the land' of 1st-century Israel], the description of Babylon the great as ‘reigning over the rulers of the land’ becomes perfectly appropriate to Jerusalem. This appears from the language in which both the Scriptures [such as Lamentations 1:1] and other Hebrew writings speak of the authority and pre-eminence enjoyed by that city. ... [JERUSALEM'S APOSTASY EVIDENT IN ITS REJECTION OF THE MESSIAH] "12. It may possibly be felt to be a difficulty that the Jerusalem of the apostolic age could not with propriety be styled ‘the harlot city,’ since that name implies idolatry, i.e. spiritual adultery; whereas the Jews of that period were intensely monotheistic, and actually threatened to rise in rebellion rather than permit the temple to be desecrated by the introduction of the statue of the emperor. This is undoubtedly true in the letter; yet, as St. Paul intimates (Rom. ii. 22), the Jews of his time, while abhorring idols, were guilty of sacrilege [Rom. 2:22: "...You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?"]. "They had as truly apostatised from God as if they had set up the worship of Baal or of Jupiter. In rejecting the Messiah they had definitively broken the covenant of their God. Our Lord expressly declared that that generation summed up in itself the crimes and guilt of all its predecessors. It was the child and heir of all the evil generations that had gone before, and filled up the measure of its ancestors:---‘That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the land,’ etc. ‘Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation’ (Matt. xxiii. 35, 36 [Matt. 23:35-36]). [JERUSALEM WAS PERSECUTOR AND MURDERER OF PROPHETS AND SAINTS] "13. One more argument for the identity of [1st-century] Jerusalem with the apocalyptic Babylon, and one which we consider conclusive, is to be found in the character ascribed to the city as the persecutor and murderer of the prophets and saints: ‘I beheld the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus’ (chap. xvii. 6 [Rev. 17:6]); ‘And in her was found the blood of the prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain in the land’ (chap. xviii. 24 [Rev. 18:24]); ‘Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her’ (chap. xviii. 20 [Rev. 18:20]). Who can fail to recognise in this description the distinctive characteristics of the Jerusalem of ‘that generation’? [Matt. 23:37-39; Luke 11:50-51, 13:34-35] "Can any proof be more conclusive that it is Jerusalem, the murderess of the prophets, which is here described---that [1st-century] Jerusalem is the Babylon of the Apocalypse [Book of Revelation]? ..."

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Note: Text placed in brackets [such as this] has been added for clarity by the editor of this blog. Text placed in bold reflects the emphasis of the blog editor.
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