1. Revelation 14:8 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

What does "fallen" communicate?

Revelation 14:8 (ESV)

8 Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.”

The angel announces to the same audience the first angel addressed that Babylon, great though she is, is fallen, fallen! The repetition of the word “fallen” captures the element of surprise that this actually happened to her. The tense used in the Greek to portray her fall describes completed action, thereby indicating that her collapse is certain and thorough. Given that Satan has been expelled from heaven (one part of God’s creation, Revelation 14:7), any city or civilization or culture on earth that celebrates his power is in principle a lost cause, fallen. In our twenty-first century world, Babylon-style civilizations or cultures may look solid and lasting, but these civilizations are in fact so rotted and tottering that they can already be described as fallen. All then who celebrate what Babylon stands for do well to repent and “fear God and give him glory…and worship him” (Revelation 14:7). “Babylon” has no future.