Spiritual Adultery

When the church is unfaithful to Christ by allowing worldly things to fill the life, the Bible compares this to violation of the marriage vow. It uses this figure to represent the sin of Israel in straying from the Lord. “‘As a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have you dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel,’ says the LORD”; “an adulterous wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband” (Jeremiah 3:20; Ezekiel 16:32).LF 159.5

The apostle James says: “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).LF 159.6

The woman (Babylon) is “arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and ... filthiness.... And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS.” The prophet says, “I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” Babylon is “that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.” (Revelation 17:4-6, 18.)LF 159.7

The power that ruled over the monarchs of Christendom for centuries is Rome. The purple and scarlet color, gold, precious stones, and pearls, picture the magnificence that the haughty church of Rome paraded. No other power could be so truly declared “drunk with the blood of the saints” as the church that persecuted the followers of Christ so cruelly.LF 160.1

Babylon is also charged with an unlawful connection with the “kings of the earth.” By leaving the Lord behind and allying with the heathen, the Jewish church became a harlot, and Rome, seeking the support of worldly powers, receives the same condemnation.LF 160.2

Babylon is “the mother of harlots.” Her daughters must be churches that cling to her teachings and follow her example of sacrificing truth in order to form an alliance with the world. The message announcing the fall of Babylon must apply to religious organizations that were once pure and have become corrupt. Since this message comes after the warning of the judgment, it must be given in the last days. So it cannot refer to the Roman Catholic Church alone, because that church has been in a fallen condition for centuries.LF 160.3

Furthermore, the people of God are called to come out of Babylon. So according to this scripture, many of God's people must still be in Babylon. And in what religious organizations do we now find the majority of the followers of Christ? In churches professing the Protestant faith. When these churches began, they took a noble stand for truth, and God's blessing was with them. But they fell because of the same desire that ruined Israel—the desire to imitate the practices and court the friendship of the ungodly.LF 160.4