Realization of Prophetic Visions
By Philip Mark Ames
Chapter 4
THE GREAT FORNICATRIX
The most sacred of all human
relationships is marriage. It was arranged by God himself, and He is the one
who ordained that consummation of the marriage makes of the two persons one flesh.
Teaching the sanctity of marriage, Jesus quoted his Father's law, adding the
command: "So they are no longer two, but one flesh; therefore, what God
has yoked together, let not man put apart." (Matt. 19:3-9) When a man and
woman have sexual intercourse without the bond of marriage, they are committing
fornication.
The Greek word for
fornication is "pornea", which is also translated "prostitution."
So a fornicatrix is a prostitute, and vice versa. Fornication is a vile mockery
of a very sacred and holy union. It is one of the sins which condemn the
unrepentant practicer to the lake of fire, the second death. (Rev. 21:8; Heb.
13:4)
With this knowledge of how
God views fornication, turn to the seventeenth chapter of the Revelation. Here
John records his vision of a great fornicatrix. At the beginning of this
vision, John is approached by an angel, who says, "Come, I shall show to
you the judgment of the great harlot (pornes), the one sitting upon many
waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication; and those inhabiting
the earth were made drunk from the wine of her fornication."
John was aware of the
seriousness of the sin for which this woman was being judged. And he knew the
precedent God had set in the judging of prostitutes before. For example, the
people of Israel had
voluntarily entered into a marriage relationship with God, at the foot of Mount Sinai. They legally bound themselves and their
descendants to obey God's law. He was to be their one Husband; they as a people
were to be his faithful (though secondary) wife. But the nation of Israel
became unfaithful. She went after other gods, sold her favors to the kings of
other nations, and quit submitting herself to the law of her first and only
real Husband, Jehovah God.
The capital city of that
nation was Jerusalem.
As such, Jerusalem
represented the entire nation as God's holy city, His wife. The story of her
marriage to God, her adultery, her prostitution, and God's judgment of her is
told in the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel. Having aroused God's wrath by her
adulterous course, she was to be stripped naked, stoned, cut with swords, and
burned with fire. This judgment was executed by the kings with whom she had
committed fornication. (See also the book of Lamentations.)
Though in His anger, He
severely punished her, yet God still loved Jerusalem, and He promised to restore her as
His wife following her repentance. But, the great harlot seen by John in the
Revelation had never been God's wife, nor does she ever repent. So, her
punishment will not be followed by her restoration, but is final and complete.
Who, now, is this wicked
woman? The angel states that she is sitting on many waters. He later explains
that the waters are peoples and crowds and nations and tongues. (Verse 15) The
emotional thought waves of mankind appear spiritually as many waters, a vast
sea. Supported by these waters, the great harlot suppresses the masses of
humanity. We are also told that the kings of the earth have committed
fornication with her. She has also made the earth's inhabitants drunk with the
wine of her prostitution. How are these things fulfilled? Who is this great
fornicatrix? Though many Protestants would like to think so, she is not Rome or Vatican
City or the Catholic Church. There can be only one
true interpretation.
Written by: Philip Mark
Ames - - - © 1975 Philip Mark Ames. All rights reserved.