Revelation of John 18:4

Come out of her, my people - These words appear to be taken from Isa 48:20; Jer 1:8; Jer 51:6, Jer 51:45. The poet Mantuanus expresses this thought well: - Vivere qui sancte cupitis, discelite; Romae Omnia quum liceant, non licet esse bonum. "Ye who desire to live a godly life, depart; for, although all things are lawful at Rome, yet to be godly is unlawful.

Come out of her, my people--quoted from Jer 50:8; Jer 51:6, Jer 51:45. Even in the Romish Church God has a people: but they are in great danger; their only safety is in coming out of her at once. So also in every apostate or world-conforming church there are some of God's invisible and true Church, who, if they would be safe, must come out. Especially at the eve of God's judgment on apostate Christendom: as Lot was warned to come out of Sodom just before its destruction, and Israel to come from about the tents of Dathan and Abiram. So the first Christians came out of Jerusalem when the apostate Jewish Church was judged. "State and Church are precious gifts of God. But the State being desecrated to a different end from what God designed it, namely. to govern for, and as under, God, becomes beast-like; the Church apostatizing becomes the harlot. The true woman is the kernel: beast and harlot are the shell: whenever the kernel is mature, the shell is thrown away" [AUBERLEN]. "The harlot is not Rome alone (though she is pre-eminently so), but every Church that has not Christ's mind and spirit. False Christendom, divided into very many sects, is truly Babylon, that is, confusion. However, in all Christendom the true Jesus-congregation, the woman clothed with the sun, lives and is hidden. Corrupt, lifeless Christendom is the harlot, whose great aim is the pleasure of the flesh, and which is governed by the spirit of nature and the world" [HAHN in AUBERLEN]. The first justification of the woman is in her being called out of Babylon the harlot, as the culminating stage of the latter's sin, when judgment is about to fall: for apostate Christendom, Babylon, is not to be converted, but to be destroyed. Secondly, she has to pass through an ordeal of persecution from the beast, whic…

And I heard another voice from heaven,.... Either of another, or of the same angel, or rather of God, or Christ himself, since the persons addressed are called his people: saying, come out of her, my people; meaning either his elect ones, till now uncalled, being such whom God had chosen for his people, and were so by virtue of the covenant of grace, were given to Christ as his people, and were redeemed by him, though, till this call, in an unconverted state; or else such who had been secretly called by the grace of God, but had not made a public profession of the Gospel, nor bore an open testimony against the Romish idolatry; for as the Lord had a righteous Lot in Sodom, and saints where Satan's seat was, Rome Pagan, so he will have a people in Rome Papal, at the time when its destruction draws near; and these wilt be called out, not only in a spiritual sense, to quit the communion of the church, to forsake its idolatries, and not touch the unclean thing, separate themselves from her, and bear a testimony against her doctrines and worship, but in a literal sense, locally; they shall be bid to come out of her, as Lot was ordered to go out of Sodom before its burning, and the people of the Jews out of Babylon before the taking of it, Jer 50:8 to which reference is here had: and as the Christians were called out of Jerusalem before the destruction of it: this shows the particular knowledge the Lord has of his people, be they where they will, and the gracious care he takes of them, that they perish not with others; and that it is his will they should be a separate people from the rest of the world; and this call of his sufficiently justifies the Protestants in their separation from the church of Rome, and every separation from any apostate church; that ye be not partakers…

We have here, I. An angel proclaiming the fall of Babylon (Rev 18:1, Rev 18:2). II. Assigning the reasons of her fall (Rev 18:3). III. Giving warning to all who belonged to God to come out of her (Rev 18:4, Rev 18:5), and to assist in her destruction (Rev 18:6-8). IV. The great lamentation made for her by those who had been large sharers in her sinful pleasures and profits (Rev 18:9-19). V. The great joy that there would be among others at the sight of her irrecoverable ruin (Rev 18:20, etc.).

18:4-8 This second poetic response (see study note on 18:1-24) is a warning from heaven to flee the doomed city. 18:4 Do not take part in her sins: Association with the evil city could lead to being identified with it in punishment and even involved with it in its sins (see Gen 13:8-13; 19:1-29; cp. Jer 51:6, 45).