Picking Up Where We Left Off
This is the final message in the series on the great whore of Revelation 17, and how clearly God’s prophetic word reveals her identity. In verses 1 through 3, already abundant evidence conclusively identified the religion of the Pope of Rome as the harlot religion of this chapter. By the end of this message, even more solid proof will be added to what has already been seen.
Arrayed in Purple and Scarlet
Verse 4 begins with the woman arrayed in purple and scarlet — and to understand why that matters, compare the great whore with the virgin bride of Christ in chapter 19. There the true Church is granted to be arrayed “not… in purple and scarlet, but in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints” (Revelation 19:8). That linen is not a physical garment but Christ’s own perfect righteousness, imputed — reckoned to the believer’s account — in justification, received by grace through faith. Left to ourselves, “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6); dressed instead in Christ’s righteousness, the believer is viewed by God as clean and holy, though in himself still entirely unrighteous.
Set that beside the counterfeit church of chapter 17, dressed in purple and scarlet — hardly the same picture. The Holy Spirit is teaching that this religious institution is no part of the true Church; its people, not dressed in Christ’s imputed righteousness, are not justified, and are therefore not Christians in the biblical sense, however sincerely they use the name. And the choice of colors is not arbitrary. Purple and scarlet are, to this day, the recognized ceremonial colors of the popes and cardinals of Rome — visible in any photograph of the College of Cardinals gathered together, dominating the scene.
Decked with Gold: The Wealthiest System on Earth
The true Church’s treasures, Christ taught, are laid up in heaven, not counted in money (Matthew 6:20; 1 Timothy 6:10). The false church, by contrast, is described as decked — adorned, ornamented — with gold, precious stones, and pearls, and the description fits. By any reasonable estimate the Roman hierarchy is among the wealthiest institutions on earth, richer than oil-wealthy monarchies or any individual billionaire, the fruit of roughly sixteen centuries of continuous accumulation — a striking contrast with the Lord Jesus, who said of Himself that “the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).
A Golden Cup Full of Abominations
Verse 4 continues: she holds “a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.” Ancient literal Babylon is described the same way — “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’s hand, that made all the earth drunken” (Jeremiah 51:7) — a wealthy empire the Lord used as an instrument of judgment, intoxicating the nations with idolatry. Mystical Babylon does the same, enticing the world with an outwardly beautiful golden cup whose contents are poison. The cup is full of abominations — a word Scripture regularly ties to idolatry — and Rome is saturated with it: images, statues of Mary and the saints, and, in Willcock’s own words, the highest form of idolatry conceivable, the veneration of bread and wine as the literal body and blood of Christ. Christ’s own words to the Pharisees describe the same pattern of hidden corruption behind an attractive exterior:
The Name Written: Mystery Babylon the Great
Verse 5 records the name written on her forehead — visible, in the ancient world, in exactly the brazen way a harlot displayed herself, unashamed, just as Jeremiah 3 describes Israel’s own spiritual harlotry as having “a whore’s forehead” that “refused to be ashamed” (Jeremiah 3:3). The title itself repays close study. “Mystery” cannot refer to pagan imperial Rome of Caesar’s own day — there was nothing hidden or mysterious about open, acknowledged paganism. It fits, instead, a religious system claiming to be Christian while secretly carrying forward the rites of ancient Babylonian paganism — rites which Willcock notes were themselves historically called “the Babylonian mysteries” by their own adherents. Paul had already used the same word for this same system: “the mystery of iniquity doth already work” (2 Thessalonians 2:7), a system already developing in embryonic form in the first century — false doctrine about Christ, idolatry, the worship of angels, human tradition, heathen festivals — and above all the very doctrine 2 Thessalonians 2 goes on to describe: a man exalting himself to the place of God. That stands in deliberate contrast to Paul’s own phrase for the truth: “the mystery of godliness… God manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16) — God humbling Himself to become man, set against Antichrist exalting himself to become god.
Willcock adds one further, more speculative historical note worth flagging as his own argument rather than settled fact: that the word “Mystery” is recorded as having appeared on the papal tiara itself until Protestant exposure of the fact reportedly led to its removal after the Reformation.
Mother of Harlots — and Her Daughters
“Babylon” itself means confusion, tracing back to Babel and the confusion of tongues (Genesis 11), a fitting name for a system Willcock describes as a confused mixture of paganism, Judaism, and corrupted Christianity presented to the world as the Church of Christ. Strikingly, this identification of Rome with Babylon is not only a Protestant claim. Willcock cites the Jesuit priest Sylvester Hunter as having written that there is “no room for doubt that by the Babylon of Revelation is meant the city of Rome,” and the Catholic Cardinal Bellarmine as having stated plainly, “John calls Rome Babylon.”
The title “Mother of Harlots” raises the natural question of who her daughters are. Rome herself claims the title “Holy Mother Church” — a title Scripture answers, by contrast, with “Mother of Harlots.” Her harlot daughters, on Willcock’s reading, are those Protestant bodies that copied her core sin — entering the same unholy alliance with worldly, state power that verse 2 already condemned — state churches such as the Anglican Institution (headed by the English monarch) or Lutheranism in its historic alliance with the German state, and more broadly any professing church that lets the world, rather than Scripture, set its terms.
Drunken With the Blood of the Saints
Verse 6 describes her drunken with the blood of the saints and the martyrs — the word “martyr” originally simply meaning witness, so that saints and witnesses for Christ are one and the same here. Willcock notes, without claiming precision, one Protestant author’s estimate that the toll of this system’s persecution across its history runs into many millions of true believers — a figure this article repeats only as an attributed claim, not an independently verified count. What is beyond dispute is the historical record of the Inquisition, the Counter-Reformation, and continued persecution of genuine Christians down to the present. Even Rome’s own annotated Rheims New Testament, cited by Willcock, tries to argue in a marginal note on this very verse that the blood in question belongs only to “heretics,” not saints — missing, as Willcock points out, that those Rome calls heretics are, on Scripture’s own terms, the true saints, and those Rome calls saints are not.
John’s own reaction — he “wondered with great admiration” — does not mean he was impressed; the word means he was filled with astonishment. He would not have been amazed by pagan Rome persecuting Christians; that was expected. What amazed him was a professing church doing the very same thing.
Come Out of Her: What This Means in Practice
Willcock takes this command with real practical seriousness, applying Christ’s own regulative principle for worship — “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20), meaning that whatever Scripture does not command in worship is not to be kept — to a specific list of what he calls “trappings of popery” that true believers should reject, wherever they came from Rome rather than Scripture: pictures or images of Christ, infant baptism, repetitive memorized prayers, the festivals of Christmas and Easter, participation in the ecumenical movement, calling ministers “Father” or using special clerical dress, the sign of the cross, and wearing crosses as ornaments. He includes in this same list what he calls two specific doctrinal “trappings” traceable to Rome rather than Scripture: the corrupted modern Bible versions, and the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture. These are presented here as Willcock’s own stated convictions and applications in this sermon, offered for the reader’s own careful weighing against Scripture, rather than as claims this article independently adjudicates point by point.
“Come out of her, my people” addresses, on this reading, both the Lord’s elect not yet saved who remain within the Roman system — who need the gospel preached to them that they might be saved and then leave — and genuine believers outside Rome who have nonetheless retained some of her trappings without realizing their origin.
Closing
The whole chapter brims over with evidence identifying this system, more than could be covered even across three messages. To know the truth of these things is, in itself, the Lord’s own stated will — “I will tell thee the mystery” (Revelation 17:7) — not something believers are meant to remain ignorant of. Never view this system, or treat its adherents, as part of the true Church of Christ, however much the language may sound the same at times. But the point of knowing all this is never merely to catalogue an enemy. Expose it for what it is, preach the gospel to any caught up in it in any way, and above all, never take your eyes off the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who has promised never to leave His true Church but to preserve it and be glorified through it.