Revelation 14:8; Wine of the Wrath of Her Fornication

Revelation 14:8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. 

Babylon is God’s enemy that as a world power oppresses the saints. Hence the name symbolizes the rule of the Antichrist that endures until the end of cosmic time. John is so sure of its downfall that, looking into the future, he writes the past tense: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great.”

 Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Vol. 20, p. 410). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

The reason for Babylon’s fall was spiritual adultery.

The second part of this verse, “which made all the nations drink the wrathful wine of her fornication,” alludes to Jeremiah 51:7, “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.”

The wording of this second part, which is the same as in 18:3, causes perplexity because John appears to mix the concepts of drinking wine and wrath.

Revelation 18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 

I suggest that John speaks symbolically and puts together two pictures in one clause; they are the pictures of wine and the wrath of God combined in the phrase “the wrathful wine.” Look at these two pictures! Wine when imbibed in quantity distorts one’s capability to think soberly and rationally, and fornication in God’s sight is wickedness and an offense against him. To put the pictures in an everyday context, the nations of the world are intoxicated with their rejection of God and His revelation and have turned to the worship of power dominating all areas of life. What does all this mean? It points first to the potent influence evil has on the nations of the world so that people are numbed by it. And next, it points to the wrath of God people incur when they rebel against God. The second picture is the consequence of the first and therefore is the more awesome. God’s wrath inevitably leads to the Judgment Day at which time his enemies will be cut off and cast into a place of torment.

 Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Vol. 20, p. 410). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.