Barclay Daily Study Bible (NT)

Revelation 18:4,5

I heard another voice from heaven saying: "Come out, my people, from her, lest you become partners in her sins, and lest you share in her plagues, because her sins are piled as high as heaven, and God has remembered her unrighteous deeds."

The Christians are bidden come out of Rome before the day of destruction comes, lest, sharing in her sins, they also share in her doom. H. B. Swete says that this call to come out rings through Hebrew history. God is always calling upon his people to cut their connection with sin and to stand with him and for him.

It was the call which came to Abraham: "Now the Lord said to Abraham, Go from your country, and your kindred, and your father's house, to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1). It was the call that came to Lot, before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: "Up, get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city" (Genesis 19:12-14). It was the call that came to Moses in the days of the wickedness of Korah, Dathan and Abiram: "Get away from about the dwelling of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.... Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men" (Numbers 16:23-26). "Go forth from Babylon, said Isaiah, "flee from Chaldea" (Isaiah 48:20). "Flee from the midst of Babylon, said Jeremiah, "and go out of the land of the Chaldeans" (Jeremiah 50:8). "Flee from the midst of Babylon, let every man save his life" (Jeremiah 51:6). "Go out of the midst of her people. Let every man save his life from the fierce anger of the Lord" (Jeremiah 51:45). It is a cry which finds its echo in the New Testament. Paul writes to the Corinthians: "Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial?" (2 Corinthians 6:14-15). "Do not participate in another man's sins; keep yourself pure" (1 Timothy 5:22).

Swete well points out that this cry and challenge do not involve a coming out at a definite moment. They imply a certain "aloofness of spirit maintained in the very heart of the world's traffic." They describe the essential apartness of the Christian from the world. The commonest word for the Christian in the New Testament is the Greek hagios (G40), whose basic meaning is different. The Christian is not conformed to the world but transformed from the world (Romans 12:2). It is not a question of retiring from the world; it is a question of living differently within the world.

THE DOOM OF PRIDE (Revelation 18:6-8)

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Barclay Daily Study Bible (NT)

Revelation 18:4,5

Old Testament

New Testament