Stacked Up to Heaven

Sin is mentioned by name (hamartia) three times in the book of Revelation. The first is in the first chapter, where we are told that Jesus Christ is the first begotten from the dead, and is the prince over all kings. He is the one who loved us, and washed us from our sins with His own blood (1:5). In chapter 18, Christians are told to “come out of” Babylon, and not to be partakers of her sins (18:4). In the next verse we are told that the sins of Babylon, a figure for the old Jerusalem are sins that have stacked up to heaven (18:5), and which are about to receive judgment. The Lord Himself had said the same thing — the sins of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from Abel on down, would come down upon Jerusalem, which is what happened in the destruction of that city in 70 A.D.