Revelation 17:3: And he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.
To John Gill, nearly everything wicked goes back to the popes. The pope controls the church in Rome. The church, in turn, exercises great influence over the city of Rome. Rome, in John’s day, held jurisdiction over (most of) the kings of the earth. It all traces back to the papal power.
To John Gill, nearly everything wicked goes back to the popes.
Revelation 17 depicts (1) a great prostitute seated over the nations and (2) a woman riding a beast. Both appear to be working in concert and, in Gill’s view, at the pope’s direction. Chapter 17 draws out some of the themes first introduced in Chapters 12 and 13, which I will spell out below. But first, who is the great prostitute? Who is the woman? And, who is the beast?
The Great Prostitute
Gill states the great…
