Life # 79
79. The following passages show that spiritually understood, "adultery" means polluting what is good in the Word and distorting what is true in it:
Babylon has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. (Revelation 14:8)
An angel said, "I will show you the judgment of the great whore who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication." (Revelation 17:1-2)
Babylon has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her. (Revelation 18:3)
God has judged the great whore who corrupted the earth with her fornication. (Revelation 19:2)
Fornication is associated with Babylon because Babylon means people who claim the Lord's divine power for themselves and profane the Word by polluting and distorting it. That is why Babylon is called "the Mother of Fornications and of the Abominations of the Earth" in Revelation 17:5.
[2] Fornication means much the same in the prophets - in Jeremiah, for example:
In the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen appalling obstinacy; they commit adultery and walk in a lie. (Jeremiah 23:14)
In Ezekiel:
Two women, daughters of one mother, played the whore in Egypt; in their youth they behaved wantonly. The first was unfaithful to me and took delight in lovers from neighboring Assyria. Upon them, too, she bestowed her acts of whoredom, but without giving up her wantonness in Egypt. The second became more corrupt in her love than the first, and her acts of whoredom were worse than her sister's. She increased her whoredom and made love to Chaldeans; sons of Babel came to her, into the bed of love, and defiled her with their debauchery. (Ezekiel 23:2-17)
This is about the church of Israel and Judah, who are the "daughters of one mother" in this passage. Their acts of whoredom mean their pollutions and distortions of the Word, and since in the Word Egypt means factual knowledge, Assyria reasoning, Chaldea the profanation of what is true, and Babel the profanation of what is good, it says that they committed acts of whoredom with those countries.
[3] Much the same is said in Ezekiel of Jerusalem, meaning the church in respect to its teachings:
Jerusalem, you trusted in your own beauty, and played the whore because of your fame, even to the point that you poured out your whoredom on everyone who passed by. You played the whore with the Egyptians, your very fleshly neighbors, and increased your acts of whoredom. You played the whore with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; indeed you played the whore with them. You multiplied your acts of whoredom as far as the land of the trader, Chaldea. An adulterous wife takes strangers instead of her husband. All make payment to their whores, but you made payments to all your lovers to come to you from all around for your whoredom. Now then, O whore, hear the Word of Jehovah. (Ezekiel 16:15, 26, 28-29, 32-33, 35, and following)
On Jerusalem meaning the church, see Teachings on the Lord 62-63. Fornication means much the same in Isaiah 23:17-18; 57:3; Jeremiah 3:2, 6, 8-9; 5:7; 13:27; 29:23; Micah 1:7; Nahum 3:4; Hosea 4:7, 10-11; also Leviticus 20:5; Numbers 14:33; 15:39; and elsewhere.
That is why the Lord called the Jewish nation "an adulterous generation" (Matthew 12:39; 16:4; Mark 8:38).
Ezekiel 23:2-17
2
Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother:
3
And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.
4
And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.
5
And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours,
6
Which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses.
7
Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria, and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself.
8
Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her.
9
Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted.
10
These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women; for they had executed judgment upon her.
11
And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms.
12
She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.
13
Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way,
14
And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion,
15
Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity:
16
And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.
17
And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them.
