Wow, it's been a while since we had this discussion.
I just noticed that I said something incorrectly in my last statement. I, like Ellis, believe that this "mystery Babylon" is a symbol representing everyone that is not saved (the world at large whom is in rebellion to God), and the leader of this people is Satan. That's why it says:
Rev 18
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
I'll explain it in chiasm form so that you will relate better:
Here is how I see those symbols, in my opinion:
A) God - Our Fiancee
B) His Bride (the saved) - His Fiancee
C) New Jerusalem - Symbolically God's city for His bride, comprised of the people whom make up His bride, and located in heaven (the kingdom of God/heaven)
C) Mystery Babylon - Symbolically Satan's city for his whore, comprised of the people whom make up his "whore of mystery Babylon" (located on earth, because the earth is fully in sin)
B) The Whore (the unsaved) - Those whom are rebelling against the bridegroom by figuratively "sleeping" with Satan by sinning/selfishness.
A)Satan - The guy trying to steal God's bride away
This makes the most logical sense to me. All of the symbols fit into this chiasm well. We "come out" of the kingdom of the earth, mystery Babylon, and "into" the kingdom of heaven when we're saved. And then, notice how God's vision in Revelation shows the New Jerusalem decending from the clouds. That's God bringing His heaven located kingdom into the earth, merging it with the earth. How can He do that with sin in the earth? He can't. So He has to separate Satan and his mistress (the whore) from earth first. So God judges and casts them all into hell, fully separating sin from His creation. That's when the heavens and earth are made "new" again, being without sin, just like in the beginning, when no sin had been commited in any way yet. That was when heaven and earth were connected more closely, and that is when God and man were connected spiritually (before sin severed the original connection). God will reconnect the earth fully with Him in the end, in my opinion, by separating the evil completely.
God seems to identify His own people in the Old Testament as being "whores" when they leave Him and go commit adultry with false religion (or for some, no religion at all... just sheer resistance of God). Keep this in mind.
When I was more saturated with religion, I saw the parables the way religion sees them: in a self-centered way, as if the parables are about the church. When God pulled me out of religion and showed me how to trust Him to teach me, He showed me that the parables are about everyone, saved and unsaved. The parables suddenly made a WHOLE lot more sense to me and they fit into the rest of the Bible and into the prophetic symbols as well. Never before was that all connected. Now, for me anyway, it is.
I think the big picture is that God looks at humans, as a whole, as His people whom He created (either His children or His bride, because that's what all people were originally intended for). We see that in His parables quite a bit. And his prophecies also seem to be the same way. I believe He's looking at all humans and saying that this whore represents all in resistance to Him, because they're basically selfishly fulfilling their lusts with Satan rather than connecting with God and denying their selfishness and lusts. Since we all basically are born into this world (this city, mystery Babylon), into sin, we basically all start out as this whore. And He says, "come out of her, my people". He's asking the ones whom He knows will choose salvation to come out of her, which represents the passages and parables where the shepard calls His sheep and they know His voice and they come follow Him. So that is a picture of us coming out of mystery Babylon, the earth which is ruled by sinful man, whom are controlled by their sin nature (and we know Satan is the ruler of this sin nature), and so they, in a sense, are ensnared to Satan, to some extent, in their sins.
I can't say if I'm right or not, of course. This is only my view & opinion. I'm basically wanting to share our views with each other. Hopefully, we will both figure out the truth in our views and that will help us construct the correct picture of how God has painted all of this for us in scripture. While I know a decent amount about prophecy, it is not my calling. It would seem my calling is to help multiples for the time being.
