Revelation 11:8

8. The great city In opposition to the holy city of Revelation 11:2; and so identical with the Babylon of Revelation 14:9, the antichristic capital.

Lie in the street Picture of most dishonouring exposure. The defeat of the reformation is in its hour of defeat the object of derision through all the ranks of the apostasy.

Spiritually called The word figurative is the opposite to literal, and the word spiritual, as an epithet for language, is opposed to secular. Secularly the great city is called Babylon, but in the dialect of the spirit it is a Sodom, an Egypt. Babylon is called Sodom as the seat of licentiousness, whose end was to be burned. Revelation 19:3, compared with Genesis 19:28. And is called Egypt, as the cruel oppressor of God’s people, from which they were called to come out, Revelation 18:4.

Where… crucified Stuart, Gebhardt, and others, consider this clause as demonstrating that Jerusalem is the great city. But, 1. All the references to Jerusalem in the Apocalypse make her a symbol of the holy. She is “the city of God,” Revelation 3:12; “the holy city,”

Revelation 11:2; the “beloved city,” Revelation 20:9; the “holy city,”

Revelation 22:19. And so, also, the Jews and Israel are throughout a type of the true Church. 2. On the other hand, in every case the “great city” is Babylon, Revelation 14:8; Revelation 17:18; Revelation 18:16; see also, Revelation 16:19; Revelation 18:10; Revelation 18:19. So uniform a use, in both cases, cannot but be decisive. 3. Our Lord was truly crucified, not indeed in the literal and local, but in the mystical or spiritual, “Babylon.” Literal and fallen Jerusalem was within the limits, and part of, that Babylon, as being part of the Roman Empire as belonging to antichrist, and as where Roman hands crucified the Saviour. The also implies that our Lord’s being crucified is viewed as a martyrdom in addition to that of the saints slain in the great city.