We have seen, in some measure, the nature and unity of the Church of God, and her heavenly calling—the Church to which Christ has imparted the glory given to Him, as man, by God the Father. The glory was His by right as the eternal Son, as well as by creation. But the only way in which we could partake of His glory, was, by His becoming a man, and taking this glory, and headship over all things, through death and resurrection—thus accomplishing the redemption of His people. How little do they enter upon and realize, and walk in the power of their heavenly calling! Rather may it be said of many, “They mind earthly things.” They are engrossed and absorbed in the pursuits and aims of this world— “this present evil age;” from which He died to deliver them. (Gal. 1:44Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: (Galatians 1:4).) They are conformed to its ways, its vanities, its projects, rather than following a rejected Christ, whom the world united under its prince, to cast out of the world; and declaring plainly in their walk and ways that theirs is strangership on earth, and citizenship in heaven, and that they are of those of whom Christ said, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17); and of whom the apostle, “As is the heavenly, even so are they also that are heavenly.” Would that there were more of that intense personal devotedness amongst those who are Christ’s—amongst those to whom He has in His marvelous grace, taught the nature and meaning of this heavenly calling, and the truth of His Church, His Bride; who are in the place of the testimony of God just now, in His own sovereign goodness! Would that this testimony of God might press itself more deeply on our souls, and lead us to that intense separation from the world; and personal, individual devotedness, as witnesses, or servants, as it may please Him! Surely all may serve Him in the former capacity: all may be witnesses, if all are not laborers! And surely the corporate testimony without the personal devotedness—or the personal devotedness without the corporate testimony, is faulty: both must go together to be in accordance, in our little measure, with the mind and purposes of God.
For a little moment the desire of Christ, “That they all may be one.... that the world may believe” (John 17:2121That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 17:21)), came to pass at the first blush of the unselfish joy of the Church at Pentecost, when the world beheld with wonder the great multitude of one heart and soul, having all things in common. But we may remember in our former paper, when considering the testing of man from the garden of Eden to the cross, that we found that, tried in every way, he had failed; let us now see what man under grace will do—if such a position will succeed. It is just such another tale of sorrow, with this difference—that he has now failed in and corrupted, as to its testimony in the world, that which was best!
When the Church assumed fully her heavenly calling, after the persecution and dispersion which arose at the death of Stephen, we find Paul raised up of the Lord, that He might bring out by him the true heavenly calling and doctrine of the Church of God—the body of Christ. In the devoted labors of the apostle, and the scriptures given to us by his instrumentality, we find that it became necessary for the Holy Ghost to reveal the consequences which would result to the Church, from its witness on earth being entrusted into the bands of man. Evil had crept in from the very beginning, but as long as the apostolic energy was there it was kept from gaining head, and was judged. Judaism, and false brethren, and ungodly men crept in unawares, amongst those who were true disciples; and even those who were truly disciples, became impregnated with the spirit of the world, and with the evil. Witness those solemn words of Paul to the elders of the assembly at Ephesus, the scene where all they of Asia had heard the word of the Lord: “I know this, that after my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock: also of your own selves shall some arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” And in view of such a state of things, he directs the heart of the faithful disciple to “God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.” God and the Scriptures of His truth were to be his sure and never failing resource in the time of ruin, which was fast closing in. In Corinth we find schools of doctrine and human wisdom, taking the place of revelation and divine wisdom amongst them. (1 Corinthians. 1; 2) In the epistle to the Galatians, the influence of law teachers and Judaisers compelled the apostle to stand in doubt of them for the moment as to whether they had abandoned the ground of Christianity altogether or not; still he had confidence in them through the Lord. In Philippians “all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” (Chapters 12:21.) Again, “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” (Chapters 3:18, 19.) In Colossians, Satan had succeeded in introducing ordinances, and philosophy, and vain deceit after the tradition of men; meats and drinks, holy days, will-worship and neglecting of the body—between the Head and His members. 1 Timothy, law-teachers and Judaisers, “understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm;” and the warning of the apostasy of the latter times. 2 Timothy, the tide of evil came in with such a torrent, that the apostle sees the Church which he had labored for, and watched over, and builded, as a wise master-builder—that which the Spirit terms “the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:1515But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Timothy 3:15)), the house inhabited by the Holy Ghost—fallen into dilapidation and ruins, and transformed into “a great house,” with “vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor and some to dishonor.” In such a state of things, in the “perilous times” of the “last days,” the faithful disciple has but one pathway—not to be satisfied with such a state, nor to think of being able to mend the ruin, but—to purge himself from the vessels to dishonor, and to walk with the faithful, who “call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” (Chapters 2:20-22) And again does the apostle turn the heart of the faithful one to the Scriptures of God as profitable for all and every difficulty, that he might “be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” So deeply solemn is the warning here in chapter 3:1-5 that that which bears the name of Christianity, and which before men has the character of godliness, shelters all the worst features of the corrupt human heart, that the words are literally nearly the same, and morally the same, as those which the apostle uses in describing the corruption and moral degradation of the heathen world in the close of Romans 1. There is also the active energy of evil in those who, “reprobate concerning the faith,” are deceiving and being deceived; from such the man of God was to turn away, leaving them to the judgment of God. In Titus we find the unruly talkers and deceivers spreading their baneful influence around. 2 Peter also testifies as to these evil influences at work amongst the saints. Jude traces the apostasy from the time when “certain ungodly men crept in unawares” until the Lord comes with His saints to execute judgment upon such. In verse 11 we have a summary of the apostasy of the natural man: “the way of Cain;” teaching error for reward, and using truth for corrupt ends, “the error of Balaam;” and lastly, where the apostasy ends, “the gainsaying of Core.” This, it will be remembered, was the revolt of the Israelites, instigated by the Levite Korah, against the authority of Christ, in His royalty, represented by Moses, and His priesthood, represented by Aaron. The Levites sought the priesthood (“Seek ye the priesthood also?” Numbers 16), and were the moving spring of the revolt of the simple Israelites. And thus it has been ever, the ecclesiastical evil urging the civil power on to rebellion. See the revolt of Absalom against David: the moving power was Absalom’s counselor, Ahithophel, who was a priest. (See 2 Samuel 15:1212And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's counsellor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he offered sacrifices. And the conspiracy was strong; for the people increased continually with Absalom. (2 Samuel 15:12).) And so it is in the end, a beast, and a false prophet who urges on the former, and “exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. (Revelation 13) Such has been the corruption from the beginning of Christianity. Those who ought to have occupied the position of the Levite, that is, those who were sent into the Church to labor for the Lord, instead of retaining the Levite place, recognizing that all the people of the Lord are priests, and thus entitled to enter into the holiest (see 1 Peter 2:5, 95Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)
9But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: (1 Peter 2:9)); the ecclesiastical, or priestly, position has been assumed as the medium between Christ and His people; and this is not confined to the grosser evil and corruptions of Rome, but it is the same in principle throughout Christendom, although not developed in the same measure. Both these epistles— 2 Peter and Jude—testify of the rejection of the Lordship of Christ. Revelation 2, 3, give us in successive stages the different phases in which the evil would be developed in the Church, looked at in her place of testimony here below, from her departure from her first love, till threatened with full rejection, as something loathsome to Him—a false witness in the world. “I will spue thee out of my mouth.” We have also the testimony in Matthew 13 from the Lord Himself in the parable of the tares, by which we see that the evil produced at the beginning by the introduction of the tares amongst the wheat, goes on till the harvest, when the righteous are gathered into the garner, and the tares bound in bundles and then cast into the fire and burned; thus cleansing the kingdom of the Son of man. Instead of a change, such as men think, coming over the world; and, by the gospel, the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth as the waters cover the sea, the evil increases till the harvest. How do the thoughts of men who look for a millennium brought in by the preaching of the gospel, fall in with this? Properly Matthew 13 including the parable of the tares and the wheat, is a similitude of the kingdom of heaven, in the phase it would assume when the King would be fully rejected, not the Church, which had no existence; in a subsequent chapter (16) the Lord speaks of it as a future thing. He came as their Messiah, to His people Israel—His vineyard—to seek for fruit, and He found none. He then sowed in the world (“the field is the world”) that which was to produce fruit— “the word.”
I have purposely passed over 2 Thessalonians and the Epistles of John, for in them we find the personage named who shall consummate all this wickedness in himself— “the man of sin” — “the Antichrist.” In the former epistle, given to us on the occasion of a spurious epistle having been received by the Thessalonians as if from Paul (Chapters 2:2), telling them that the “day” of Christ was there, the apostle (ver. 1) beseeches them by their proper hope, which he had taught them in the first epistle, that of the coming of Christ, and their being gathered together unto Him, that they would not be shaken with the thought conveyed by the false epistle, that the “day,” or manifestation, was then present (ενεστηκε). The apostle clearly distinguishes the “coming” from the “appearing,” or “day,” which is to bring rest to them from the trials and tribulations of the world, and judgments on their enemies; for, when the “day” of His manifestation would come, the saints would be manifested with Him in glory. He goes on to show that before the “day” would come there would be, there is, “the mystery of lawlessness,” or iniquity, which already worked; secondly, the apostasy from Christianity (ver. 3); thirdly, the revelation of the man of sin. (Ver. 3, 4, 8.) The judgment executed by Christ Himself would be the “day” in which the false epistle told them they were. We have seen before that in this He will be accompanied by His saints, previously gathered to Him. We have seen some of the testimony of Scripture as to the mystery of lawlessness, and also of the apostasy from Christendom; but there was a good hindering power (ver. 7), which, when removed, then would the lawless one be revealed. The principles were all at work, but the Holy Ghost was in the Church, the power of God was here below, and the unbridled self-will of man, exalting himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, was still restrained, till the fitting time was come; then the evil would assume its definite shape in “the man of sin.”
We will follow to its close the mystery of iniquity. We turn to Revelation 17 and find the fourth Beast, or Latin empire, in his revived state, ridden upon by a false woman, “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” Imperially and gloriously arrayed, and her cup full of idolatry and fornication, drunken with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus, and the blood of saints. The prophet wonders at the end of what was once so precious, so beautiful—the work of grace at Pentecost! She overrides the peoples, nations, and tongues, and their kings, who have been intoxicated with the wine of her fornication; until at last, tired with her oppression, the ten horns and the Beast, “these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.” She waits not for the appearing of Christ for judgment, but suffers it at the hands of those over whom she exercised her pernicious influence so long. Chapter 18 gives her judgment, and the lamentation of the kings of the earth, and those who had profited by her traffic and rewards, for her overthrow. Such is the end of corrupt Christianity in Rome, and wherever it is found; for she is the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, In considering the history of the Gentile powers, from its beginning to its close in judgment, and that of the Beast, who represents it, urged on by Satan in the end, we also saw his connection with the false Messiah, whom the Jews would receive in the end of the age, and his judgment under the character of the false prophet with the first Beast: we desired to show how this personage forms the link between their history and that of false, professing Christendom in the end. We saw from 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4, 83Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3‑4)
8And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: (2 Thessalonians 2:8), that that wicked one would not be revealed till the good restraining power was removed: the mystery of iniquity worked, and the apostasy would come; this we traced to its end in the judgment of the corrupt woman of Revelation 17, but the day of Christ’s manifestation in judgment would not come till the man of sin was revealed, the good restraining power having first been removed. Revelation 13 showed us also that it is during the revived form of the Latin empire, at the close of the existence of the fourth beast, that this man should be fully revealed. He who has title of king amongst the Jews, the second Beast ministers to the power of the first Beast (not being able to set aside the Gentile power) during the short period before the close, when Satan shall have given him his power, and seat, and great authority. We also saw that it was after the taking up of the saints, that Satan was cast out of the heavenlies (Revelation 12); so putting all these things together, we find that it is between the coming of Christ for His saints, and His appearance in judgment with them, that the man of sin, the lawless one, is revealed. As described in 2 Thessalonians 2, he does similar things to those attributed to him in Daniel 11:36-3836And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done. 37Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all. 38But in his estate shall he honor the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honor with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things. (Daniel 11:36‑38): he “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped: so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders:” even as Christ, as the Man of righteousness, was “approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him.” (Acts 2:2222Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: (Acts 2:22)—see Greek.) The attainment of this position—i.e., of God—was the first suggestion of Satan to Adam. Here we find it is Adam fallen, fully developed and filed with the energy of Satan, in this man of sin, who opposes the Lord Jesus—Man in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2)
When examining Revelation 13 with regard to this personage, we saw that the miracles he performs have, in the apprehension of men, the appearance of divine energy, and they are mostly of a Jewish character. In 2 Thessalonians 2 They are more an imitation of Christ. With regard to those in Revelation 13, we may remember that when Elijah was raised up to witness for the name of Jehovah, before the apostate tribes of Israel (1 Kings 19), the question whether Jehovah or Baal was God, was decided by fire, which came down and consumed the sacrifice, and that the people then fell on their faces crying, “Jehovah, he is the God.” In 2 Thessalonians 2, as we have seen in quoting Acts 2, it is more an imitation of Christ, though of Satanic origin.
In the First Epistle of John he is termed “The Antichrist,” who denies the Father and the Son; or, the revelation of Christianity. Thus it is plain that in these days of strong delusion—when men, not having received the love of the truth that they might be saved, will be given up to believe a lie—he forms the connecting link between apostate Christianity, and apostate Judaism, and the apostasy of the fourth beast or Gentile power, and is in himself the expression of the apostasy of man, claiming to be God. Judaism, for he sits in the temple of God (I need hardly add, in Jerusalem)—Christianity, as we have seen. And we find him coming to his end, with his coadjutor in evil, in Revelation 19:2020And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. (Revelation 19:20), under the title of the “false prophet,” which is more his Jewish character; the false woman or ecclesiastical corruption having been destroyed, not by the Lord, but by those she had overridden.
We have now traced to their end the different agents in evil in the apostasy of the natural man entrusted with power, personified by the beast, the Antichrist to his end, and false Christianity to her end. Deeply solemn subjects, and yet needful (or God would not have warned us about these things), they affect not ourselves as to their judgment and their end, but we are in the midst of, and have to do with, the principles which are fast ripening up around us. Ours is a calling out of, and above, the world; and we shall be with the Lord, when the evils are fully manifested, and the world carried away in delusion by them. Our citizenship is in heaven, where these evils cannot come. Blessed be our God! Evil is fast ripening to its head and the minds of men more blinded, and there are many antichrists. May the consideration of these things lead us into a more growing separation in all our pursuits and ways from that which ends so sorrowfully. And may we with greater earnestness long for the coming of Him who will put an end to the evil, and fill the world with blessing under Himself.
Our considerations have led us thus far. We see that the three great systems (1 Corinthians. 10:32) set up in the world for the display of God’s government and His grace (viz., the Jew, under law; the Gentile, without law, and entrusted with universal dominion; and the Church, as Christ’s epistle in the world—His witness for grace and truth, and under grace) have all, as far as man’s responsibility reaches, been a scene of ruin and failure and corruption—the ruin of that which was most excellent proving the worst of corruptions.