Reflections on God and Money: Babylon and the Beast (9)

You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

Daniel 2: 31-35

I ended last weekend asking to what extent we live in the Babylon symbolised in Revelation: a prostitute dressed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of immorality; a woman who represents the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth?

Babylon has exercised its influence over world history in two ways: first, as the first great world empire influencing the thinking of all the empires that follow; second, as a lifestyle of immorality that manifests itself in different ways at different times.

Babel was the city where people began to build a great tower to reach even to heave in order to make a name for themselves. Although God halted that ambition, Babel flourished into Babylon and ever since it has epitomised the place where people meet their needs and fulfil their ambitions relying on themselves and using material wealth.

King Nebuchadnezzar was the most famous of Babylon’s rulers and is remembered as the one who did the most to expand and beautify the city and secure its reputation as a place of splendour and extravagance. He had a dream but demanded his magicians, enchanters and sorcerers to tell him both the dream and its interpretation, so he could be confident the interpretation was genuine. Only Daniel was able to do that and the above passage is his description of the dream.

Daniel’s interpretation was that Nebuchadnezzar and his empire was the golden head and that three kingdoms would arise later in history: these were, almost certainly, the Persian, Greek and Roman Empires, the last of which divided as represented by the feet made of iron and clay. The great rock that smashes into the feet of the statue is the Kingdom of God striking the Roman Empire, when Jesus of Nazareth announced that it had come. The rock grinds the entire statue to dust that is blown away.

I believe we can see two things in this. First, as the golden head, Babylon stimulated and inspired the materialism of all the succeeding empires; second, as the top of the statue, the golden head was the last to be ground to dust. I think it significant that the focus on Babylon, and its fall, in Revelation 17:1-19:10 comes not long before the return of Jesus Christ.

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Friday 28 June 2013

Babylon and the Beast (9)