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Mystery Babylon: Difference between revisions
→The Identity of the Woman
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:'' '''A woman in the Bible always represents the church.''' Christ is coming for an espoused virgin. The old prostitute of the Bible was called "the church setting on the seven hills," the Roman church. Oh, church... <ref>BUT.IT.WASN'T.SO.FROM.THE.BEGINNING BLOOMINGTON.IL 61-0411</ref> | :'' '''A woman in the Bible always represents the church.''' Christ is coming for an espoused virgin. The old prostitute of the Bible was called "the church setting on the seven hills," the Roman church. Oh, church... <ref>BUT.IT.WASN'T.SO.FROM.THE.BEGINNING BLOOMINGTON.IL 61-0411</ref> | ||
But contrary to what William Branham stated, the Bible does not | But contrary to what William Branham stated, the Bible does not always represent the woman as the church. The Bible also does not state that "the church setting on the seven hills" is a false church. What it does say is that "the woman which thou sawest '''is that great city'''..." | ||
Jerusalem itself had been pictured as a harlot by both Isaiah<ref> | Jerusalem itself had been pictured as a harlot by both Isaiah<ref>See how the faithful city has become a prostitute! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her — but now murderers! (The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Is 1:21.</ref> and Ezekiel<ref>The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised. “ ‘Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked. (The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Eze 16:1–7.)</ref>. Likewise Nahum describes Ninevah’s barbarities in terms of “the wanton lust of a harlot, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft”<ref>Nahum 3:4</ref>. Similarly Isaiah’s litany over Tyre<ref>Isaiah 23:15–18</ref> calls for her to “take up a harp, walk through the city, you forgotten prostitute; play the harp well, sing many a song, so that you will be remembered.”<ref>Gordon D. Fee, Revelation, New Covenant Commentary Series (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 242.</ref> Lamentations, a lament over the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, portrays the fallen city as a woman “who has become like a widow” (Lam 1:1).<ref>Philip D. Stern, “Ruth, Book Of, Critical Issues,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).</ref>The typing of the city of Rome to a woman and particularly a harlot is, therefore, imagery taken from the Old Testament, something that is common throughout the Book of Revelation. | ||
So William Branham was wrong. A woman in the Bible does not always represent a church - it often represents a city. | So William Branham was wrong. A woman in the Bible does not always represent a church - it often represents a city. | ||