John Gill points out the apostate church (the woman in scarlet & purple) in cludes Protestant churches, and as well points out that the invisible church has members in both sects.
This from John Gill commentaries available at "crosswalk"
http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/JamiesonFaussetBrown/jfb.cgi?book=re&chapter=017
1. unto me--A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic omit.
many--So A. But B, "the many waters" (Jeremiah 51:13); Revelation 17:15, below, explains the sense. The harlot is the apostate Church, just as "the woman" (Revelation 12:1-6) is the Church while faithful. Satan having failed by violence, tries too successfully to seduce her by the allurements of the world; unlike her Lord, she was overcome by this temptation; hence she is seen sitting on the scarlet-colored beast, no longer the wife, but the harlot; no longer Jerusalem, but spiritually Sodom (Revelation 11:8).
2. drunk with--
Greek, "owing to." It cannot be pagan Rome, but papal Rome, if a particular seat of error be meant, but I incline to think that the judgment (
Revelation 18:2) and the spiritual fornication (
Revelation 18:3), though finding their culmination in Rome, are not restricted to it, but comprise the whole apostate Church, Roman, Greek, and even Protestant, so far as it has been seduced from its "first love" (
Revelation 2:4) to Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom, and given its affections to worldly pomps and idols. The
woman (
Revelation 12:1) is the congregation of God in its purity under the Old and New Testament, and appears again as the Bride of the Lamb, the transfigured Church prepared for the marriage feast. The woman, the invisible Church, is latent in the apostate Church, and is the Church militant; the Bride is the Church triumphant.
3. the wilderness--Contrast her in
Revelation 12:6,14, having
a place in the wilderness-world, but not a home; a sojourner here, looking for the city to come. Now, on the contrary, she is contented to have her portion in this moral wilderness.
upon a scarlet . . . beast--The same as in
Revelation 13:1, who there is described as here, "having seven heads and ten horns (therein betraying that he is representative of the dragon,
Revelation 12:3), and upon his heads names (so the oldest manuscripts read) of blasphemy"; compare also
Revelation 17:12-14, below, with
Revelation 19:19,20, and
Revelation 17:13,14,16. Rome, resting on the world power and ruling it by the claim of supremacy, is the chief, though not the exclusive, representative of this symbol. As the dragon is fiery-
red, so the beast is blood-red in color; implying its
blood-guiltiness, and also deep-dyed sin. The
scarlet is also the symbol of kingly authority.
full--all over; not merely "on his heads," as in
Revelation 13:1, for its opposition to God is now about to develop itself in all its intensity. Under the harlot's superintendence, the world power puts forth blasphemous pretensions worse than in pagan days. So the Pope is placed by the cardinals
in God's temple on the altar to sit there, and the cardinals
kiss the feet of the Pope. This ceremony is called in Romish writers "the adoration." [
Historie de Clerge, Amsterd., 1716; and LETTENBURGH'S
Notitia Curiæ Romanæ, 1683, p. 125; HEIDEGGER,
Myst. Bab., 1, 511, 514, 537]; a papal coin [
Numismata Pontificum, Paris, 1679, p. 5] has the
blasphemous legend, "
Quem creant, adorant."
Kneeling and
kissing are the worship meant by John's word nine times used in respect to the rival of God (
Greek, "
proskunein").
Abomination, too, is the scriptural term for an idol, or any creature worshipped with the homage due to the Creator. Still, there is some check on the God-opposed world power while ridden by the harlot; the consummated Antichrist will be when, having destroyed her, the beast shall be revealed as the concentration and incarnation of all the self-deifying God-opposed principles which have appeared in various forms and degrees heretofore. "The Church has gained outward recognition by leaning on the world power which in its turn uses the Church for its own objects; such is the picture here of Christendom ripe for judgment" [AUBERLEN]. The seven heads in the view of many are the seven successive forms of government of Rome: kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, military tribunes, emperors, the German emperors [WORDSWORTH], of whom Napoleon is the successor (
Revelation 17:11). But see the view given, which I prefer. The crowns formerly on the ten horns (
Revelation 13:1) have now disappeared, perhaps an indication that the ten kingdoms into which the Germanic-Slavonic world [
the old Roman empire, including the East as well as the West, the two legs of the image with five toes on each, that is, ten in all] is to be divided, will lose their monarchical form in the end [AUBERLEN]; but see
Revelation 17:12, which seems to imply crowned
kings.
4. The color scarlet, it is remarkable, is that reserved for popes and cardinals. Paul II made it penal for anyone but cardinals to wear hats of scarlet; compare
Roman Ceremonial [3.5.5]. This book was compiled several centuries ago by MARCELLUS, a Romish archbishop, and dedicated to Leo X. In it are enumerated five different articles of dress of
scarlet color. A vest is mentioned studded with
pearls. The Pope's miter is of
gold and
precious stones. These are the very characteristics outwardly which Revelation thrice assigns to the harlot or Babylon. So Joachim an abbot from Calabria, about A.D. 1200, when asked by Richard of England, who had summoned him to Palestine, concerning Antichrist, replied that "he was born long ago at Rome, and is now exalting himself above all that is called God." ROGER HOVEDEN [
Annals, 1.2], and elsewhere, wrote, "The harlot arrayed in gold is the Church of Rome." Whenever and wherever (not in Rome alone) the Church, instead of being "clothed (as at first,
Revelation 12:1) with the sun" of heaven, is arrayed in earthly meretricious gauds, compromising the truth of God through fear, or flattery, of the world's power, science, or wealth, she becomes the harlot seated on the beast, and doomed in righteous retribution to be judged by the beast (
Revelation 17:16). Soon, like Rome, and like the Jews of Christ's and the apostles' time leagued with the heathen Rome, she will then become the persecutor of the saints (
Revelation 17:6). Instead of drinking her Lord's "cup" of suffering, she has "a cup full of abominations and filthinesses." Rome, in her medals, represents herself holding a cup with the self-condemning inscription, "
Sedet super universum." Meanwhile the world power gives up its hostility and accepts Christianity externally; the beast gives up its God-opposed character, the woman gives up her divine one. They meet halfway by mutual concessions; Christianity becomes worldly, the world becomes Christianized. The gainer is the world; the loser is the Church. The beast for a time receives a
deadly wound (
Revelation 13:3), but is not really transfigured; he will return worse than ever (
Revelation 17:11-14). The Lord alone by His coming can make the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ. The "purple" is the badge of empire; even as in mockery it was put on our Lord.
decked--literally, "gilded."
stones--
Greek, "stone."
filthiness--A, B, and ANDREAS read, "the filthy (impure) things."
