This is a 16 minute read.

How We Got Here (in case you missed it…)

In Part 1 (What is Babylon?), I introduced the concept of Babylon as a spiritual world power, and a philosophy, and a system that is destined to suffer the full weight of God’s wrath at the end of the age. Like a giant hamster wheel, Babylon leverages the carrot of Satan’s original lie about the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to distract each one of us from discovering and pursuing our God-given birthright in Christ.

In Part 2 (Exposing the Root), we drilled down on the origin of the Babylonian system, exposing its root at work during the drama of the Tower of Babel. We saw how Nimrod leveraged his notoriety to build his own kingdom using the energy and resources of others. He created a system that fed into humanity’s insecurities, allowing people to feel like they were part of something special—some bigger cause—while they spent their lives building Nimrod’s kingdom rather than growing in their own authority and pursuing their own birthrights. The Babylonian system promised a shortcut to protection, enrichment, and power, while actually keeping them weaker and poorer and smaller than God intended.

If you missed Part 1 or Part 2, you may want to go read those now so that you get the full value out of Part 3. I’ll wait here for you…

Ready to proceed? Great. One more quick note. I originally intended this to be our first practical discussion about Babylon’s impact on our daily lives, but then the Holy Spirit led me in a completely different direction. As a result, we’re going to spend one more post unpacking the abstract system of Babylon from a slightly different angle that will better prepare us for a more practical discussion in the next post. Now let’s get down to business.

A City and a Tower

Babylon’s system has two primary manifestations. Two sides to the same coin. Two legs to both entice and teach its tantalizing tango to others. We can see this clearly with the original Babel:

They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

Genesis 11:4

A city and a tower. Both were named Babel, and both were part of the system intended to distract humanity from their divine calling by keeping them focused on lesser endeavors. And both can be seen in every subsequent manifestation of Babylon throughout history.

Original Lies and Rebellions

So what do the city and tower of Babel represent in the overall Babylonian system? Remember, in Part 1: What is Babylon?, when I described the serpent’s original lie about the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as the main tool that Babylon uses to influence humanity? Well, the dual nature of Babylon’s system can also be unpacked from that same story, especially in the dissimilar ways that Adam and Eve responded to the forbidden fruit.

Much of our Christian doctrine about original sin is oddly focused on Eve’s deception. Yes, Eve was deceived by the serpent’s gaslighting and half-truths, but it is important to understand her motivation. The Apostle Paul described it this way:

But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:3

Don’t miss the precision of Paul’s words. He doesn’t say Eve was led astray from devotion to Christ (or God, as it were). The parallel he draws suggests she was led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to God. As we discussed previously, the serpent deceived Eve into believing there was a better way to follow God than the simple and pure one that God had prescribed. In other words, her motivation was devotion to God… the enemy simply deceived her into reaching for a foolhardy shortcut to achieve that devotion. In a sense, you might say that she was tempted by the “good” side of the knowledge of good and evil.

Based on the serpent’s strategy (and Eve’s response), I suggest that Eve’s first mistake was feeling inferior to Adam. She wasn’t inferior, but the inception of the serpent’s words into her soul released that idea. Maybe she started questioning: What did God say? Why did He say it directly to Adam and not to me (see Genesis 2:16)? Was Adam more special for coming first? What is my role in God’s plan anyway? Maybe this fruit will help me understand…

Yes, I know this is all speculation, but it also fits perfectly with the resulting curse that God pronounced over the woman:

To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall deliver children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

Genesis 3:16

Eve’s greatest glory—the part of her design that was utterly beyond Adam’s ability—was her capacity for motherhood. That was definitely not all she was designed for, but it was the most magnificent part, and it represented the highest of honors bestowed upon womanhood. But then she allowed the serpent’s words to create a chasm between who she thought she was and who she thought God intended her to be. She underestimated the potential that God had already placed inside her and reached for a shortcut to maturity that didn’t require waiting on Him. The resulting curse was just the natural outworking of what she had chosen. She diminished God’s gift of motherhood, and therefore it would be much more difficult for her to access the grace of God during childbirth. She saw her gifts as inferior to Adam’s, and the forbidden fruit would only reinforce that lie in her soul.

What about Adam? What was his motivation, and what caused him to fall? Remember the scenario:

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Genesis 3:6 NIV

Adam was with Eve when she took and ate the forbidden fruit. So why didn’t he stop her? Why didn’t he protest? And why did he subsequently accept the fruit from her? Was it simply that he, too, was deceived by the serpent? No, Adam had no such excuse:

And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.

1 Timothy 2:14 NASV

Adam wasn’t deceived?! Can you see the implications? Adam knew the serpent was lying. Adam was under no delusion that eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would help them more easily and quickly fulfill God’s command to replicate the beauty and order of the Garden of Eden throughout the untamed world. We can only speculate how he saw through Satan’s lies when Eve could not, but we know Adam was not deceived. So, why did he willingly transgress God’s command and eat the fruit anyway? What the heck, Adam?!

The most logical conclusion is that Adam, while listening to the serpent’s interaction with Eve, decided he didn’t want to fulfill God’s command. He didn’t want to leave the garden. He didn’t want to exercise the faith and patience necessary to engage with God in walking out his birthright. He didn’t want to embrace the challenge of unpacking the knowledge and wisdom needed to unleash the life of God throughout the rest of the earth. Eve reached for a “better” way to fulfill God’s command, but Adam reached for a way to escape the responsibility of that command altogether.

Maybe he became scared of the process. Maybe he was too comfortable in the garden. Or maybe he realized for the first time, after watching his wife eat the fruit and not immediately perish, that there was an alternative to God’s way that sounded more appealing than the servant leadership he was called to (more on that in a second). Or perhaps he simply chose Eve over the uncertainty of his call. Whatever the reason, he ate the fruit with no pretense about it helping him fulfill God’s purpose. He wasn’t led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to God as Eve was, he was just selfishly rebellious. Instead of stopping Eve, or offering wiser counsel, he passively allowed her to be deceived and then willingly took the fruit himself. In a sense, Adam was tempted by the “evil” side of the knowledge of good and evil.

To truly grasp Adam’s transgression, it is important to understand mankind’s original calling. Remember that God blessed Adam and Eve and commanded them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. To rule over it. To have dominion. Some refer to this as the Dominion Mandate. That’s a decent description, but, in my experience, many people have a warped view of dominion. Our perception of dominion is often more in line with the Babylonian system than the kind of dominion found in the Kingdom of God. Consider the words of Christ:

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Matthew 20:25-28 NKJV

Dominion in the kingdom of God flows out of sacrificial service. It is not about forcibly conforming others to our own will. Nor is it about coercing them to embrace our understanding of God’s will. It is about selflessly demonstrating God’s love in ways that connect people to the Father. Jesus exemplified this principle in His ministry. Godly dominion releases creation into the freedom they were originally designed for by drawing their hearts toward God, which connects them to the Source of everything so that the life of God can flow directly to them and out of them. And it always requires a level of selfless sacrifice to recognize the unique ways that God has designed any part of creation to connect to Him, and then more selflessness to find ways to help facilitate that connection.

The Dominion Mandate was no different. Adam and Eve were meant to observe how God designed things to function so perfectly in the garden and then figure out ways to draw the same level of life out of the rest of the earth. Subduing creation meant helping it reach its maximum potential based on God’s design. It meant partnering with God to empower and release all things to fulfill their purpose. And that is the selfless service against which Adam rebelled.

Adam’s curse supports this idea:

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; cursed is the ground because of you; with hard labor you shall eat from it all the days of your life.

Genesis 3:17

Adam rejected the selfless service of the Dominion Mandate, and as a result, he would forever struggle to partner with creation in the way God originally intended. Rather than spending his life helping creation reach the zenith of its potential, he would primarily take from it as a source of food, and it would no longer yield its treasures willingly to him.

Male and Female

How does this connect to the two sides of Babylon? Simply put, the nature of Eve’s temptation was the same root lie that inspired the construction of the Tower of Babel, while the nature of Adam’s temptation was the same root rebellion that inspired the construction of the City of Babel. Let’s tease that out a bit…

If you read my book Face to Face: The Unveiling of Jesus Christ, or if you are otherwise familiar with the concept of the fractal of two, then you may already recognize the biblical pattern involved here, enhancing the depth of your understanding. But even If you have no idea what that means, don’t worry. We’ll unpack these truths in a way that doesn’t require familiarity with biblical patterns (fractals).

Babylon’s two sides are a direct assault against the Divine nature embedded in the concepts of male and female. When God created mankind in His image, He created them male and female to visibly express deep truths about two sides of His invisible nature. The male body is primarily designed as an expression of the giving, the dominion, and the work aspects of God’s nature. The female body is primarily designed as an expression of the receiving, the intimacy, and the rest aspects of God’s nature. Notice that I didn’t say that men are designed for dominion while women are designed for intimacy. We are more than just physical bodies. We are all complex, multifaceted beings in the image of our Creator, and we are each designed to express some measure of both the male and female aspects of God regardless of our physical template. The physical template we are born with is merely how God has chosen to embed those expressions of His nature into the physical world. Moreover, male and female bodies both contain examples of giving and receiving. It’s just that on the whole, as a general template, the male body more exemplifies one side, while the female body more exemplifies the other.

So, in that frame, Eve’s temptation was a direct assault on mankind’s ability to receive from God, because it suggested that God didn’t give us enough, and it offered an alternative source of wisdom and knowledge outside of our relationship with the Creator. In other words, it was Satan’s attempt to pervert the intimacy of humanity’s female relationship with God, also known as our role as the Bride of Christ.

Likewise, the Tower of Babel attacked humanity’s ability to receive from God by offering its alternate path to wisdom and knowledge. Ancient historians believe the Tower of Babel was likely a religious temple to the Mesopotamian diety Marduk, and it was used to unite the various streams of pagan worship around a single false-diety while also acting as a high platform from which to study the stars for mystical knowledge about the spiritual realm. In every way, it was mankind’s attempt to reach for a shortcut to divinity, and it was the downstream result of Eve’s transgression.

On the other hand, Adam’s temptation was a direct assault on mankind’s ability to give away what we receive from God, because it offered a selfish alternative to the Dominion Mandate that didn’t require sacrificial service to God and His creation. In other words, it was Satan’s attempt to pervert the male side of humanity’s relationship with God and our ability to bring the kingdom of God to earth as His sons.

In the same way, the City of Babel attacked humanity’s ability to fulfill our original birthright. It offered an alternate focus for mankind. One that enslaved them in the distracted selfishness of building human kingdoms. One that kept them smaller and weaker than God intended. Instead of growing in divine authority by working with God to unleash creation into the fullness of His rest, humanity began devoting their time and energy to the Babylonian hamster wheel, selfishly subjugating each other and the rest of God’s creation in service to the system. They traded their divine mandate for the false promise of comfort, protection, and enrichment offered by a city built in their own fallen image. This was the downstream result of Adam’s rebellion.

Humanism Exposed

Let’s pull all of this together. One easy way to summarize everything we’ve discussed so far about the Babylonian system is through the concept of humanism. I didn’t start with the idea of humanism because it carries too much baggage that camouflages its true nature. But now that we’ve unpacked the main characteristics of Babylon, we can see that humanism is just another name for the same philosophy. Oxford Languages provides a concise definition to start with:

Humanism: an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters.

Said another way, humanism is any attempt to replace God with humanity. And just like the forbidden fruit, it comes in two main flavors: religious humanism and secular humanism.

The female side of Babylon is religious humanism. It is exemplified in the “good” of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, revealed in Eve’s transgression, and demonstrated in the Tower of Babel. Despite our good intentions, we prostitute ourselves with this aspect of Babylon whenever we seek shortcuts to goodness that circumvent the faith and patience necessary to receive directly from God or rest in the finished work of Christ’s righteousness.

Religious humanism leads to subtle forms of idol worship because it places something other than the true Jesus Christ on the throne of our hearts. The ultimate manifestation of religious humanism at the end of the age will be the abomination of desolation prophesied in the Book of Daniel. But that’s a topic for another time.

The male side of Babylon is secular humanism. It is exemplified in the “evil” of the fruit of the forbidden tree, revealed in Adam’s transgression, and demonstrated in the City of Babel. Secular humanism directly opposes God. We submit to secular humanism whenever we abdicate our responsibility to unpack the uniqueness of our God-given birthright to build the kingdom of God. Secular humanism offers many forms of comfort, protection, and enrichment as alternatives to Godly sonship, but it always requires us to submit to its version of dominion instead of growing in the Godly dominion exemplified by Christ’s sacrificial service.

Secular humanism leads to the sacrifice of innocence, and ultimately to the remorseless killing of innocent life to advance one’s selfish agenda. The final manifestation of secular humanism will be on full display during the great tribulation at the end of the age, but that, too, is a topic for another time.

What’s Next?

These two legs of the system are visible almost every time Babylon appears in the Bible. They are obvious in the Book of Revelation (the woman who was both a harlot and a city), and their influence can also be discerned in many other places, including Jerusalem during the time of the prophet Jeremiah, and again during the time of Christ. But I think we’ve already spent enough time staring at the defiling form of Babylon’s twisted dance. It’s time to turn our gaze and look closer to home.

In the next post, I intend to apply all that we’ve learned to one or two contemporary examples of Babylon at work in our midst today, especially as it relates to the Body of Christ. But don’t worry, I won’t leave it there. My ultimate goal is to present a better way. Because the prophecies about Babylon in Revelation chapters 17 and 18 are not the end of the story. There is a counterpoint to Babylon the Great found in Revelation chapters 21 and 22. There is a Bride and a City built by God that demonstrates how this whole thing is meant to work. Now that we’ve done the dirty work to uncover the foundational principles that Babylon has defiled, perhaps we are ready to finally start moving away from the counterfeit toward the genuine with some wisdom and direction for the journey.

Go to Part 4: American Idol Christianity to read the next post in my “Time to Leave Babylon” series.

Also, please use the comments section below to let me know what you think so far, or ask questions if you have them.

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