Revelation 18:4

4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying: "Come out of that city, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive the disasters that will come to her.

Revelation 18:4 Meaning and Commentary

Revelation 18:4

And I heard another voice from heaven
Either of another, or of the same angel, or rather of God, or Christ himself, since the persons addressed are called his people:

saying, come out of her, my people;
meaning either his elect ones, till now uncalled, being such whom God had chosen for his people, and were so by virtue of the covenant of grace, were given to Christ as his people, and were redeemed by him, though, till this call, in an unconverted state; or else such who had been secretly called by the grace of God, but had not made a public profession of the Gospel, nor bore an open testimony against the Romish idolatry; for as the Lord had a righteous Lot in Sodom, and saints where Satan's seat was, Rome Pagan, so he will have a people in Rome Papal, at the time when its destruction draws near; and these wilt be called out, not only in a spiritual sense, to quit the communion of the church, to forsake its idolatries, and not touch the unclean thing, separate themselves from her, and bear a testimony against her doctrines and worship, but in a literal sense, locally; they shall be bid to come out of her, as Lot was ordered to go out of Sodom before its burning, and the people of the Jews out of Babylon before the taking of it, ( Jeremiah 50:8 ) ( 51:45 ) to which reference is here had: and as the Christians were called out of Jerusalem before the destruction of it: this shows the particular knowledge the Lord has of his people, be they where they will, and the gracious care he takes of them, that they perish not with others; and that it is his will they should be a separate people from the rest of the world; and this call of his sufficiently justifies the Protestants in their separation from the church of Rome, and every separation from any apostate church;

that ye be not partakers of her sins:
by conniving at them, or committing the same; and all such are partakers of them, and have fellowship with these unfruitful works of darkness, that are in the communion of that church; and those that dwell at Rome are in great danger of being so, and cannot well avoid it: yea, even those that only go to see it, and stay but for a time in it, and that not only through the strength and influence of example, but through the force of power and authority:

and that ye receive not of her plagues;
or punishments; the seven last plagues, which belong to her, the vials of which will be poured out upon one or other of the antichristian states, and the fifth particularly will fall upon Rome, the seat of the beast, and is what is here referred to.

Revelation 18:4 In-Context

2 He shouted in a powerful voice: "Ruined, ruined is the great city of Babylon! She has become a home for demons and a prison for every evil spirit, and a prison for every unclean bird and unclean beast.
3 She has been ruined, because all the peoples of the earth have drunk the wine of the desire of her sexual sin. She has been ruined also because the kings of the earth have sinned sexually with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the great wealth of her luxury."
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying: "Come out of that city, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive the disasters that will come to her.
5 Her sins have piled up as high as the sky, and God has not forgotten the wrongs she has done.
6 Give that city the same as she gave to others. Pay her back twice as much as she did. Prepare wine for her that is twice as strong as the wine she prepared for others.
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.