A QUESTION ON BABYLON

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 29, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 5

A QUESTION ON BABYLON.

“Is it considered by S. D. Adventists that the term ‘Babylon’ includes the S. D. Baptists? By answering the foregoing, you will greatly oblige a lover of truth. N. W. Irish.”

Ans. We do not deem it desirable, perhaps not becoming, certainly not necessary, to draw any invidious distinctions between those denominations which are called evangelical, on this subject. Nor will we insist upon bounding the mystical city by these denominational lines. We prefer to seek for the true principles which underlie the subject, and then adopt such conclusions as necessarily result therefrom.

We read in Rev. 18:24, that in her (Babylon) was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth. On the strength of this testimony, the conclusion seems inevitable that Babylon, in the broadest acceptation of the term, includes everything which in any age has opposed itself to the truth and people of God; namely, all forms of false and apostate religions. The term must include the different forms of false religion, idolatry and paganism; for they have all along been instrumental in oppressing and destroying the people of God. For the same reason, it must include those organizations under Christian names which have so far ignored, or apostatized from, the principles and spirit of the gospel as to become the opposers and persecutors of true Christians.

Among these one is prominently set forth in Rev. 17, in terms that point unmistakably to the great Romish apostasy, the papal church, the woman who has on her forehead a name written, “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.” But this language obliges us to extend the application beyond the limits of that particular church; for this organization is set forth as the mother of others occupying a position almost equally obnoxious in the sight of Heaven; and what have we, this side the papal apostasy, to answer to these daughters, except the national establishments which have come out, but unfortunately have come only partially out, from the church of Rome! And with these national, or State churches, we are content to limit the application of the term Babylon, in the Christian world, so far as ecclesiastical organization and constitution are concerned.

But there are other respects in which religious bodies are compromised with great Babylon; and that is by following the corruptions in practice and the errors in doctrine which have come into Christendom from that source. Hence on this point we would say, without any reference to denominational lines, that any individuals, or any classes of individuals, are connected with Babylon just so far as they cherish Babylonish errors and practices.

But unfortunately the majority of Protestant churches have some of the more prominent of these very errors incorporated into their creed as constituting its fundamental principles. Perhaps the very chief of these is the practice by which the law of God is made void, by keeping a man-made institution for the Sabbath, instead of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. And whoever throws off this error in creed and practice, we regard as having taken a tremendous stride toward coming out of Babylon. Seventh-day Adventists have thus come out; and in this particular S. D. Baptists were never in.

Another great error in faith and practice in the Protestant world is sprinkling for baptism, a practice through which, perhaps more than any other, that unlawful connection between the church and the world has been formed, which constitutes so heinous a sin on the part of Babylon. In this particular both S. D. Baptists and S. D. Adventists stand clear.

These are sufficient to illustrate the principle, without specifying such doctrines as the temporal millennium, the spiritual coming of Christ, the mystical Heaven beyond the bounds of time or space, etc., on which we would fain believe that the S. D. Baptists, as a denomination, stand on Scriptural ground.

But there is another doctrine, which though not so important as those concerning the Sabbath and baptism, is nevertheless one of no ordinary interest, and that is the doctrine of the nature of man, a doctrine which determines our views of the state of the dead and the destiny of the wicked. The popular doctrine of the immortality of the soul we regard as having come, like the Sunday Sabbath, and sprinkling for baptism, from the errors of the Romish apostasy, and this doctrine we suppose the majority of S. D. Baptists still maintain.

Our answer, then, to the question above proposed, is, in the light of the foregoing propositions, simply this: that S. D. Adventists regard the S. D. Baptists not as included in Babylon, but as cherishing one, at least, of its errors, which it would be pleasing to the Lord, and beneficial to themselves, for them to expunge from their creed.