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 played the prostitute in Egypt; they played the prostitute in their youth; there were their breasts pressed, and there was handled the bosom of their virginity.
4
The names of them were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister: and they became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.
5
Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians [her] neighbors,
6
who were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses.
7
She bestowed her prostitution on them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself.
8
Neither has she left her prostitution since [the days of] Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their prostitution on her.
9
Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, on whom she doted.
10
These uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters; and her they killed with the sword: and she became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her.
11
Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her prostitution which were more than the prostitution of her sister.
12
She doted on the Assyrians, governors and rulers, [her] neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men.
13
I saw that she was defiled; they both took one way.
14
She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,
15
dressed with girdles on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them princes to look on, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth.
16
As soon as she saw them she doted on them, and sent messengers to them into Chaldea.
17
The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them.
