Bloodlust:  The Woman’s Appetite

Verse 6,  And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. 

Knowing now as we do that certain particulars relative to the identity of the woman point clearly, unequivocally to Rome, we may now rest assured that (thanks to the benefit of ‘hindsight’, whereupon we can see what John could not) the “Great Whore” can be none other than Vatican City and the Roman Catholic Church.  Paul labored and invested heavily to keep the church at Rome on track, only to have it survive for centuries—albeit, only after having succumb to the unrelenting allure and the vise-like grip of a hellish apostasy.

Parenthetically, one supposes that it should be pointed out, at this juncture, that the religious system here portrayed for us by John is not to be construed with the religious system that will be associated with the worship of the beast.  The Great Whore’s religion is a blasphemous institution steeped in apostasy insofar as it presents itself as one associated with the worship of the God of the Bible.  That system is one in existence as we speak and it has been since before the fall of the Roman Empire.  The beast’s worship system, on the other hand, will portend that the beast himself is “God”, so that all worship is to, and it will be directed to, him, and him alone.

As John observed and watched further, he saw that the woman was drunk, but not with wine.  Rather, this woman had her innards saturated, so that she was (metaphorically speaking) drunk “as a skunk”, on blood!  Specifically, in diametrical, diabolical opposition to her outward profession, and her apparent preoccupation, that blood (God tells John, by way of His angel) is the blood of His saints and of the witnesses for Jesus Christ.  The stipulation here then is such that she is not only guilty, she will kill any true servant of God in a heartbeat.  Like the modern-day mother who slaughters her own flesh and blood—unborn and toddlers—to protect, preserve and to prolong the life she feels she deserves to lead, so likewise this woman (Rome) is guilty of the slaughter of Christians and Jews alike (or, she would be, looking at her future from John’s point of view). God knows and history affirms that Rome is notorious for her murders of both Jews and of Christians, under the leadership of both her secular, purely political persona as well as during the years she was led by the popes—following the collapse of her beast and the death of any kind of secular leadership.  Her papacy-led killings were committed often in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—to clear the deck, so as to make room for her brand of religious life, among the living dead (unbelievers; and in this end-times scenario, left-behind church rejects who have no desire for a right relationship to God—dead in their trespasses and sins.).