Babylon and the Judgment
After the combat comes the judgment. The last visions before the end set in opposition two cities that sum up all human history: Babylon, the city of pride and idolatry, and Jerusalem, the city of God. Two women personify them: the harlot and the Bride. This contrast illumines the whole book: at every moment, man ranges himself on the side of one or the other, of the city that rises against God or of the one that awaits him. Revelation announces the fall of the first and the triumph of the second, then the judgment that puts each thing in its definitive place.
Babylon the great
John sees a richly adorned woman, seated on a beast, holding a cup full of abominations: it is Babylon the great, the harlot, drunk on the blood of the martyrs. Beneath this name hides first Rome, the city that persecuted the Church and believed itself eternal. But Babylon overflows Rome: she is the symbol of every human power that makes itself an idol, of every civilization built on pride, wealth, and contempt of God. Now this power that seemed invincible collapses in a single hour. An angel proclaims its fall, and the merchants of the earth weep over its lost treasures. The message is clear: the empires that oppose God seem all-powerful, but they are fragile, and their glory passes like smoke. Nothing that rises against the Creator endures. In announcing the fall of Babylon, John takes up and fulfills the great oracles of the prophets against the proud cities. Isaiah and Jeremiah had sung the ruin of ancient Babylon, which had deported Israel; Ezekiel had wept over Tyre, the merchant city drunk on its riches. All these prophecies aimed at bottom at one same reality: human pride that believes itself eternal. Revelation gathers them and gives them their final meaning: every Babylon, of whatever century, will fall, for one City alone remains, that of God.
The wedding of the Lamb
To the fall of Babylon responds at once an explosion of joy in heaven. An immense crowd sings the Alleluia, for the reign of God has come, and an announcement rings out: “the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” Revelation 19:7 To the harlot is opposed the Bride; to the city of evil, the pure Church, prepared for her Lord. All the Bible thus ends on a nuptial image: the union of God and his people is compared to a marriage, where Christ is the bridegroom and the Church the bride he has won by his blood. What sin had broken, love ties again forever. The end of history is not first a tribunal, it is a wedding, the joy of a covenant at last consummated.
The combat and the reign
Before the fulfillment appears the faithful and true horseman, Christ, who comes to judge and to make war on evil. The dragon and his beasts are conquered and cast far from God. Then John sees Satan chained for a thousand years, while there reign with Christ those who remained faithful to him. These thousand years are not an earthly golden age to come, as some have wrongly believed; the Church understands them as the present time, the one in which Christ already reigns by his grace in the hearts of believers and in his saints, between his coming and his return. Satan is really chained, his power is broken, even if he is still permitted to harm for a time. The believer lives in this begun reign, sure of its victory, awaiting its full manifestation.
The last judgment
Comes finally the vision of the judgment. John sees a great white throne, and before it all the dead, great and small, gathered. Books are opened, in which the actions of each are written, and another book, that of life. “The dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds.” Revelation 20:12 This is the last judgment, where every human life is set in full light before God. Nothing is forgotten, nothing is lost: the hidden good is revealed, and evil too. Revelation thus recalls a truth man prefers to forget: our acts have an eternal weight, and we will answer for them. But this judgment is not the last page: it opens onto the new life, for beyond the definitive sorting of good and evil stretches the world God prepares for his own. This vision of the judgment fulfills what Daniel had announced: the multitude of those who sleep in the dust awaking, some to life, others to shame, and the books opened before the throne. What the prophets called the great day of the Lord, that day of light when God comes to render to each according to his deeds, finds here its definitive face. The expectation of Israel, long turned toward a justice that delayed, is fulfilled: nothing unjust will remain hidden, and the last word of history belongs to the justice and the mercy of God.