718. 17:1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me. This symbolizes influx now and a revelation from the Lord from the inmost of heaven about the Roman Catholic religion.

Up to this point the subject has been the state of the Protestant Reformed church at its end. Now the subject is the state of the Roman Catholic religion at its end. This also follows in order, as mentioned in the introduction [no. 717].

We do not call it the Roman Catholic Church, but the Roman Catholic religion, because Roman Catholics do not turn to the Lord or read the Word, and because they invoke the dead, and yet it is the Lord and the Word that make the church a church, and its perfection depends on its acknowledgment of the Lord and on its understanding of the Word.

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with John, because the seven angels who had the seven bowls symbolize an influx from the Lord from the inmost of the Christian heaven into the church in order to expose the evils and falsities in it (see nos. 672, 676, 677, 683, 690, 691, 699, 700 above). Therefore those seven angels here symbolize the Lord speaking from the inmost of heaven and revealing the state in which the Roman Catholic religion would be at its end.

That is also why one of the seven angels took John onto a high mountain and showed him the Lamb's wife, which is the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:9-10).

733. 17:8 "The beast that you saw was, and is not." This symbolizes the Word among them acknowledged as holy, and yet really not acknowledged.

The beast symbolizes the Word (see no. 723 above). That it was and is not means symbolically that it is acknowledged, and yet really not acknowledged.

That the Word existed among Roman Catholics, and still does, and yet does not, is something people know. Roman Catholics acknowledge the Word, indeed, as holy, because it tells about the Lord and about His authority over the church and heaven, and about Peter and his keys. ¹ But still they do not acknowledge it, for the people do not read it, because they are kept from reading it, and monks by various fictions withhold it. Indeed even reading it is prohibited, and it is preserved only in libraries and monasteries, where also few read it, much less attend to any truth in it. They attend instead only to papal decrees, which they say possess the same holiness. In fact, when they speak from the heart, they find fault with the Word and blaspheme it.

It can be seen from this that the beast which was and is not symbolizes the Word among Roman Catholics, acknowledged as holy, and yet really not acknowledged.

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