Revelation 17:3

‘And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.’

John is carried ‘in the Spirit’. Comparison with Revelation 1:10 shows that this means that time is irrelevant. He is carried back and forward in time to see what he sees. He observes a prominent prostitute sitting on a scarlet coloured Beast, which is the ultimate Blasphemy. The colour of the beast suggests that this beast is closely related to the red monster of Revelation 12:3, for he alone of beasts and monsters is described as red (possibly as the colour of blood because of his murderous intentions) Thus the woman is borne and supported by Satan’s beast himself who is at the back of what she propagates. This beast is full of the names of blasphemy and therefore transcends the one who had names of blasphemy only on his heads (Revelation 13:1). There it referred to the claims of Roman emperors to divinity, but here it refers to all the blasphemies of the ages. This beast is far more sinister than the beast of Rome, which was merely a temporary copy of the scarlet beast.

‘Into a wilderness’. The prostitute is aping the people of God, and especially the woman of Revelation 12:14, by false professions of piety. Seemingly like the woman in chapter 12 she is found in the wilderness. But that it is all a pretence comes out in the next verse. The very reason that the wilderness was seen as a place where men could meet God was because it was away from the great cities with their pernicious influence. But her very dress proclaims that influence.