She Wore Power Like a Crown and Confusion Like Perfume
Revelation 17 has unsettled readers for centuries not because it is vague, but because it is piercing. It refuses to stay safely locked in the ancient past, and it refuses to let modern readers remain neutral. The imagery is striking, even uncomfortable: a woman clothed in luxury, drunk on power, riding a beast that terrifies nations. Many people rush to decode her identity as quickly as possible, hoping that once a name is assigned, the tension will disappear. But Revelation does not offer itself as a puzzle to be solved and then discarded. It presents a mirror. And Revelation 17, more than most chapters, forces us to look into that mirror and ask what kind of power we trust, what kind of beauty we admire, and what kind of systems we quietly depend on while telling ourselves we are faithful.
John is not merely seeing a vision of a future tyrant or a long-dead empire. He is being shown how corruption wears makeup, how seduction borrows the language of stability, and how evil rarely announces itself as evil. This chapter is about deception that feels safe, influence that feels respectable, and authority that feels inevitable. It is about how nations fall not only by violence, but by desire. Revelation 17 does not begin with horns and fire; it begins with allure.
The angel tells John, “Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.” Even before we unpack the symbolism, the tone is unmistakable. This is judgment, not curiosity. And yet, the woman is not introduced through terror but through prominence. She sits upon many waters, a biblical phrase that later is explained as peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. Her power is not limited or regional. It is global. She does not rule by force alone, but by reach. She is everywhere. She is normalized.
This matters deeply for modern readers because the most dangerous systems are not those that openly oppose God, but those that quietly replace Him. The woman in Revelation 17 is not portrayed as an obvious enemy of faith. She is portrayed as a counterfeit source of security, identity, and meaning. She offers what God offers, but without holiness. She offers belonging without repentance, power without accountability, and beauty without truth. That is why kings commit fornication with her. They are not forced. They are enticed.
The language of fornication here is not primarily sexual. It is covenantal. Throughout Scripture, spiritual unfaithfulness is described as adultery because it represents a breach of loyalty. Kings aligning themselves with Babylon are not simply making political deals; they are surrendering moral authority. They are choosing influence over integrity. They are trading long-term faithfulness for short-term dominance. This is why Revelation 17 feels so uncomfortably relevant. It describes a world where leaders know the cost of righteousness and decide it is too expensive.
The woman is clothed in purple and scarlet, colors of royalty and wealth. She is adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls. On the surface, she looks successful. She looks blessed. She looks like the kind of power that gets invited to conferences and praised in headlines. But in her hand is a golden cup full of abominations and filthiness. This is one of the great ironies of Revelation 17: the cup looks holy, but its contents are poison. It is not that evil disguises itself as neutral; it disguises itself as sacred.
This should sober anyone who believes faith is protected by appearances. The chapter is not warning against obvious immorality; it is warning against impressive immorality. The woman’s name is written on her forehead: “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.” Mystery here does not mean unknowable. It means hidden in plain sight. Babylon is not merely a city; it is a system. It is a way of organizing the world that prioritizes consumption over compassion, power over humility, and spectacle over truth.
When John sees that the woman is drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus, he marvels with great admiration. This reaction is often misunderstood. John is not impressed in a positive sense; he is stunned. He is trying to reconcile the beauty of what he sees with the horror of what it produces. How can something so refined be so cruel? How can something so celebrated be so lethal to holiness? That question has echoed through every generation of the church.
The angel’s response is instructive. Instead of immediately identifying the woman, he explains the beast she rides. This tells us something crucial: systems of corruption are not self-sustaining. They are carried by something darker beneath them. The beast was, is not, and yet is. This paradoxical language points to counterfeit resurrection, imitation eternity, and false permanence. Evil loves to present itself as inevitable. It wants to be seen as the only viable option. The beast offers continuity without life, power without righteousness, and history without redemption.
The seven heads represent seven mountains and seven kings. Interpretations of these symbols vary, and history offers multiple layers of fulfillment. But Revelation is not written to satisfy speculation; it is written to cultivate discernment. The consistent message is this: earthly power rises and falls, but spiritual deception persists. The woman adapts. The beast shifts forms. The danger is not in identifying the correct empire; the danger is in assuming Babylon is only ever external.
This chapter presses the reader to ask uncomfortable questions. Where have I confused success with blessing? Where have I admired influence without examining fruit? Where have I tolerated injustice because it came wrapped in prosperity? Babylon thrives wherever people believe they can enjoy the benefits of corruption without sharing in its guilt. Kings believe they are using her, but in reality, she is shaping them.
One of the most striking moments in Revelation 17 comes when the angel explains that the very powers who supported the woman will eventually hate her, make her desolate, and burn her with fire. Evil consumes itself. Systems built on exploitation eventually turn inward. What was once useful becomes disposable. Babylon promises loyalty but delivers betrayal. This is not just a future prophecy; it is a pattern repeated throughout history. Empires collapse not only because of external enemies, but because of internal rot.
The chapter ends not with triumph, but with exposure. “The woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” The language is deliberately present tense. She reigneth. Not she reigned. Not she will reign. She reigneth. Revelation 17 is not simply about a final confrontation at the end of time; it is about a present reality that demands vigilance. Babylon is not waiting to appear. She is already at work.
This realization should not lead to fear, but to clarity. The purpose of Revelation is not to paralyze believers with anxiety, but to anchor them in truth. John is shown these things not so he will despair, but so he will see clearly. Revelation 17 strips the mask from systems that claim neutrality but demand allegiance. It reminds the church that faithfulness will always look strange in a world intoxicated by power.
There is something deeply pastoral about this chapter when read carefully. It acknowledges how tempting Babylon is. It does not shame believers for feeling the pull; it warns them not to surrender to it. It recognizes that beauty, influence, and stability are not inherently evil, but they become dangerous when detached from holiness. The woman’s greatest weapon is not persecution, but persuasion.
As we pause at this point in the chapter, before moving further into its implications, it is worth sitting with the discomfort it creates. Revelation 17 does not allow believers to retreat into simplistic narratives of good versus evil that ignore complexity. It calls for discernment that goes deeper than slogans. It asks whether our loyalty is shaped more by convenience than conviction, more by comfort than by the cross.
In the next part, we will move beyond description into confrontation. We will explore what it means to “come out of Babylon” not as an act of isolation, but as an act of allegiance. We will wrestle with how believers live faithfully within systems they cannot fully escape, and how hope survives in a world that often rewards compromise. Revelation 17 is not a chapter meant to be decoded and set aside. It is meant to be lived against.
To see Babylon clearly is the first step toward refusing her. And refusal, in Scripture, is always an act of worship.
Revelation 17 does not end with a call to panic, but it does demand a decision. Once Babylon is revealed for what she truly is, neutrality becomes impossible. The chapter leaves the reader standing in a place of clarity that feels uncomfortable because clarity always does. You can no longer claim ignorance once the mask is removed. The question is no longer what is Babylon, but how will I respond to her presence.
The temptation when reading apocalyptic literature is to treat it like a distant forecast, something meant for another generation or a final dramatic moment far removed from daily life. But Revelation was written to churches already living under pressure, already navigating compromised systems, already wrestling with how to remain faithful without withdrawing from the world entirely. Revelation 17 belongs in that same lived tension. It is not an escape fantasy; it is a formation document.
One of the most misunderstood ideas in Scripture is the call to “come out” from corrupt systems. Many hear that language and assume isolation, retreat, or abandonment of culture altogether. But Scripture never calls God’s people to disengage from the world in fear. It calls them to disengage from allegiance. There is a difference between presence and participation, between influence and intimacy. Babylon does not require believers to live in her streets to claim them; she requires only their consent.
Coming out of Babylon, then, is not a geographic movement. It is a reordering of loves. It is the refusal to let any system define identity, worth, or hope apart from God. Babylon collapses when people stop needing her. She loses power when her promises are no longer believed.
This is why Revelation 17 is followed by Revelation 18, which issues the explicit command to come out of her. The exposure must come before the exit. People rarely leave systems they still admire. They leave when they see clearly what those systems cost. Revelation 17 shows us the cost in slow, deliberate detail. It reveals the price paid by the saints, the martyrs, and the faithful whose lives were treated as expendable by a system that worshiped its own survival.
The woman’s drunkenness with the blood of the saints is not accidental. It tells us something sobering: Babylon thrives on silencing voices that threaten her illusion. She does not merely oppose faith; she repurposes it. She tolerates religion as long as it remains decorative, inspirational, and harmless. But when faith becomes prophetic, when it confronts injustice or exposes hypocrisy, it becomes dangerous. Babylon cannot afford truth-tellers.
This explains why genuine faith often feels out of step with the age. It is not because believers are called to be contrarian for its own sake. It is because truth destabilizes systems built on illusion. Revelation 17 reassures believers that this tension is not a sign of failure; it is evidence of faithfulness. The world does not resist faith because it is weak, but because it is disruptive.
There is also a warning here for the church itself. Babylon is not only external. When the church adopts the metrics, methods, and motivations of the systems around it, it risks becoming indistinguishable from what it was meant to confront. Revelation 17 should provoke deep self-examination. Where has the church traded prophetic courage for cultural relevance? Where has it polished the cup while ignoring what it contains? Where has it confused visibility with vitality?
The chapter reminds us that beauty divorced from holiness becomes seduction. Influence divorced from truth becomes manipulation. Unity divorced from righteousness becomes coercion. Babylon offers all of these things, but she demands silence in return. The church’s calling is not to compete with Babylon’s spectacle, but to embody an alternative that cannot be purchased, coerced, or consumed.
The eventual destruction of the woman by the very powers that once supported her reveals another hard truth: worldly systems are never loyal. They reward usefulness, not faithfulness. They celebrate alignment, not conviction. The same kings who benefited from Babylon’s influence turn against her when she becomes inconvenient. This pattern should caution anyone tempted to believe that compromise secures long-term safety. It does not. Compromise only delays conflict; it never prevents it.
For believers, this is both a warning and a comfort. It warns against placing hope in alliances that require silence about truth. And it comforts those who feel marginalized or dismissed for refusing to play along. Revelation 17 assures us that Babylon’s dominance is temporary, no matter how permanent it appears. Her downfall is built into her design. A system fueled by exploitation eventually devours itself.
The challenge, then, is not merely to survive Babylon, but to remain spiritually awake within her influence. Discernment is the quiet discipline Revelation calls for again and again. Not paranoia. Not obsession. Discernment. The ability to recognize when something that looks good is actually shaping us away from God. The courage to ask whether our choices are being guided by convenience or conviction.
This kind of discernment is cultivated slowly. It grows through prayer, Scripture, humility, and community. Babylon thrives on distraction. Faithfulness thrives on attentiveness. Revelation 17 slows the reader down, forcing us to look closely at what we might otherwise admire uncritically. It trains the eye to see beneath the surface.
There is also hope woven into this chapter, even if it is not immediately obvious. The Lamb is not absent from Revelation 17, even though He is not the central image. He is mentioned as the one the beast will ultimately make war against and lose. This matters. Babylon may dominate the stage for a time, but she is not the final authority. Her power is derivative. The Lamb’s power is inherent.
This shifts the posture of the believer from fear to faithfulness. You are not called to defeat Babylon through force or strategy. You are called to bear witness to a different kingdom through endurance. Revelation consistently portrays victory not as domination, but as faithfulness unto death. The saints overcome not by becoming more powerful than the beast, but by refusing to worship it.
This is where Revelation 17 meets everyday life. Most believers will never face dramatic persecution. But they will face quieter pressures: the pressure to stay silent, to blend in, to avoid discomfort, to accept half-truths for the sake of peace. Babylon rarely asks for open denial; she prefers gradual accommodation. She is patient. She knows erosion takes time.
Revelation 17 invites believers to resist that erosion. Not with anger, but with clarity. Not with withdrawal, but with rootedness. Not with despair, but with hope anchored beyond the systems of this world. It reminds us that the story does not end with Babylon on the throne. It ends with the Lamb.
To read this chapter faithfully is to accept that allegiance to Christ will sometimes cost comfort, status, or approval. But it also brings freedom. Babylon’s promises always come with strings. Christ’s lordship, though demanding, leads to life. The contrast could not be sharper once it is seen.
As we move forward through Revelation, the fall of Babylon will be made explicit. But Revelation 17 prepares the heart for that fall by loosening its grip now. It teaches believers how to live before collapse comes, how to remain steady while others are intoxicated by power, and how to hope without illusion.
Babylon thrives on admiration. She weakens under discernment. She collapses when exposed. And she is already judged, even while she appears victorious.
The quiet courage to remain faithful in such a world is not dramatic, but it is revolutionary. It is the courage Revelation has been forming all along.
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Douglas Vandergraph
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