Pastor Tom Hughes of Hope for Our Times recently sat down with Dr. Andy Woods, pastor of Sugar Land Bible Church and president of Schaefer Theological Seminary, for a wide-ranging conversation on Bible prophecy. One topic kept coming back into focus: the future of Babylon.
“Is Babylon going to be rebuilt? Is New York City Babylon? Is Rome Babylon? Lots to talk about there,” Hughes said as the two launched into the subject.
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Dr. Woods made the case that Revelation is pointing to both a spiritual system and a physical city. “Revelation 17 to me is … a spiritual dynamic that’s been here since the beginning and has infected all of humanity. But 18 is a city,” he explained. “Chapter 17 is more religious, 18 is more commercial, but it’s the same destruction at the same time.”
For Woods, there’s no reason to treat Babylon as symbolic when the rest of Scripture uses the name literally. “The word Babylon is used about 300 times in the Bible and it always means Babylon,” he said. “Even in First Peter 5, that everybody says that really means Rome. Well, that doesn’t mean Rome. That means Babylon.”
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Hughes nodded to the dramatic way prophecy describes the city’s fall. “You’re also saying then that prophets say when Babylon falls, she’s going to fall just like Sodom and Gomorrah, which was instantaneous,” he added.
Tracing Babylon’s roots back to the Tower of Babel, Woods pointed to the city’s role as the fountainhead of false religion. “She’s called in chapter 17 verse 5, ‘the mother of harlots,’ not a mother—the mother. And mother is your source. It’s where you come from,” he said. “There’s only one city that’s ever existed in all of humanity that’s the mother of all harlotry. Rome doesn’t qualify. Rome absorbed the system, but she didn’t export it.”
And according to Woods, the prophecy of Babylon’s final destruction hasn’t yet been fulfilled. “Isaiah 13–14 says, ‘When Babylon falls, she will never again be rebuilt,’ which has never happened in history,” he explained.
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For both Hughes and Woods, the rise and fall of Babylon isn’t just ancient history, it’s a reminder that the Bible’s prophecies are still unfolding. “With all of these things, of course, they point to the soon coming of Jesus Christ,” Hughes said.
James Lasher is staff writer for Charisma Media.
Mystery Babylon…the World church that works along with the World Government. There has long time been religious spirits ..starting with Cain that have persecuted God’s people…and in the last days…they will all ban together against Christians who will be hated of all men….but God will judge that system. Then the Man of Sin will come forth..to heal the beast….