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The lie.
"All liars" (verse 8). "Whatsoever worketh abomination or a lie" (verse 27).
If we are to take the words "all liars" in an unrestricted sense, then the Editor must
confess that his place is herein indicated; but we rejoice in the forgiveness of sins, and
see in this statement something more specific. It is that system of which Satan is the
father:--
"He is a liar, and the father of IT" (John 8: 44).
This lie usurped the place of the truth of God, when the Gentile world became
submerged in idolatry (Rom. 1: 23-25), and will finally obsess the worshippers of the man
of sin and his "lying wonders" (II Thess. 2: 9-11). This basic lie is connected with
specific murder (John 8: 44; I John 3: 12), and with abominations (Rom. 1: 26;
Rev. 2: 20, etc.). With this dreadful company are joined "the fearful", and "the
unbelieving" (Rev. 21: 8), which we understand also in the same restricted sense,
otherwise the very apostles must come under this awful doom (see the same word used of
them, Matt. 8: 26).
Abraham looked for a "city which had foundations" and a "heavenly country", and
these are now to be described with a wealth of detail. One of the seven angels who had
been instrumental in the destruction of Babylon comes forward and says to John:--
"Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in
the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, holy Jerusalem,
descending out of heaven from God" (Rev. 21: 10).
There is an evident parallel with Rev. 17: here:--
"And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials and talked with
me, saying unto me, Come hither, I will show unto thee the judgment of the great
whore that sitteth upon many waters . . . . . . . so he carried me away in the spirit into
the wilderness, and I saw a woman . . . . . . . the woman which thou sawest is that great
city . . . . . . ." (Rev. 17: 1-18).
Once again we shall find that the millennial city foreshadows the heavenly Jerusalem:-
"In the visions of God brought He me unto the land of Israel, and set me upon a very
high mountain, by which was as the frame of a city on the south" (Ezek. 40: 2).
The Bride and the Wife.
Many expositors see a difference between "the bride" and "the wife", and teach that
Israel is the wife, whereas an elect remnant constitute the bride: the wife being earthly,
and the marriage taking place at the beginning of the millennium, whereas the bride being
heavenly, her marriage takes place after the millenniums. It appears to us that there are
several features of this subject that make it difficult to believe that this distinction is