What Does Revelation 14:8 Mean?

(8) **And there followed . . .**—The gospel angel is followed by *the* angel that proclaims the downfall of Babylon. Better, *And another, a second, angel followed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, who has given all the nations to drink of, *&c. The second angel follows on the first: the doom of the world-city, the metropolis of the empire of the world-power, follows the proclamation of the gospel. The principles of Christ’s gospel must undermine the world-power; the fall of some Babylon principle has almost always succeeded the age of spiritual revival. Pagan Rome goes down before the gospel. Civil freedom follows the wake of religious freedom, for Babylon belongs not to one age. Pagan Rome was Babylon to St. John; papal Rome was often Babylon to a later age. Dante, Savanarola, Tauler, Luther, felt her to be so in the days when their eyes were enlightened; but Babylon was not on the Euphrates alone: she has reared palaces on the Seine, and on the Thames, Tiber, and on the Bosphorus. She may yet erect her power in more imposing form; but faith in that gospel which is the power of God, will cast her down along with everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. The influence of Babylon is declared in this: that she has given all nations to drink of deadly wine—the wine alike of her sin and of her doom, of her fornication and of the wrath which will overtake it. Babylon, then, is clearly an emblem of some principles which have been more or less accepted by all nations, and which will more or less involve all in the consequences of her fall. (Comp. Revelation 16:19; Revelation 16:17, where the features of this Babylon are more fully developed.)