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The Overcomers in the Seven Churches (6) The Overcomers in the Seven Churches (6) n the fourth epistle to the churches in Revelation 2:18 sits and are seven kings…And the ten horns which you Ithrough 29, the Son of God acknowledges, rebukes, saw are ten kings. (vv. 3, 9-10, 12) exhorts, and incites the church in Thyatira. He knows her works, love, faith, service, and endurance and that her n principle, the seven and ten kings represent godless, last works are more than the first. Moreover, to the over- ISatan-empowered human government that will culmi- comers in Thyatira He promises, nate in the revived Roman Empire under Antichrist, the final Caesar, near the end of this age. History shows that He who overcomes and he who keeps My works until the the Roman Catholic Church has been borne by human end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he empire and derives its secular and political power from will shepherd them with an iron rod, as vessels of pottery it. This has been the case since antiquity, and it will are broken in pieces, as I also have received from My continue to be so until the end of the age. Henry Alford Father. (vv. 26-27) writes, As I also have received from My Father recalls the prophecy By the woman sitting on the wild-beast, is signified that of the coming Christ in Psalm 2. Verses 6 through 9 say, superintending and guiding power which the rider pos- sesses over his beast: than which nothing could be chosen I have installed My King / Upon Zion, My holy moun- more apt to represent the superiority claimed and exer- tain. / I will recount the decree of Jehovah; / He said to cised by the See of Rome over the secular kingdoms of Me: You are My Son; / Today I have begotten You. / Ask Christendom. (706) of Me, / And I will give the nations as Your inheritance / And the limits of the earth as Your possession. / You will Verse 6 says, “I saw the woman drunk with the blood of break them with an iron rod; / You will shatter them like the saints and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” a potter’s vessel. As we shall see, in its recourse to and participation in sec- ular power, the apostate church inevitably persecuted The reign of Christ as King over the earth will take place teachers and practitioners of heterodoxy, until at last it in the thousand-year age of the kingdom. At this time the shed the blood even of saints and the true witnesses of overcomers in the church age will sit with Christ on His Jesus. The downward process that led the once-pure throne and reign with Him as co-kings over the nations of church into this wicked state under Roman Catholicism is the restored earth (Rev. 12:10; 20:4). the subject of this article.1 The Lord told the church in Thyatira that He has some- A Spirit of Meekness, Not Coercion, thing against her, because she tolerates the woman in Dealing with Believers Jezebel, the self-proclaimed prophetess. The church in Thyatira prefigures the apostate Roman Catholic Church The New Testament shows by word and example the way from the full establishment of the papal system at the to deal with erring believers and even teachers of heresy. end of the sixth century to the Lord’s second coming at The members of Christ’s Body are joined together by the the end of the present age. Jezebel, as a sign of the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace and authoritarian hierarchy of the apostate church with its love (Eph. 4:3; Col. 3:14), and it is in this Spirit that the teaching, is seen again in chapter 17. There, she is “the members minister to those who are weak or errant. Paul great harlot who sits upon the many waters, with whom writes, “Brothers, even if a man is overtaken in some the kings of the earth have committed fornication” offense, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit (vv. 1-2). John continues, of meekness, looking to yourself lest you also be tempted” (Gal. 6:1). A spirit of meekness is our regenerated human I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet beast, full of names spirit indwelt by and mingled with the Holy Spirit in of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns…The whom we live and walk (5:25; Rom. 8:16). In such a spirit seven heads are the seven mountains where the woman the believers contact one another and those outside the Volume XXII No. 1 Spring 2017 89 church in love and humility. John says, “If anyone sees his down the centuries, i.e. Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine (the brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask and he Church has a horror of bloodshed); and they declare faith will give life to him” (1 John 5:16). He refers to the one must be absolutely free, and conscience a domain wherein asking: violence must never enter. (7) It means that such an asker, who is abiding in the Lord, n the light of the examples in the New Testament and who is one with the Lord, and who is asking in one Ithe tradition of the early fathers, it is remarkable that spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), becomes the means by the church could plummet from faithful martyrdom in its which God’s life-giving Spirit can give life to the ones early centuries to the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. As for whom he is asking. (Lee, Recovery Version, 1 John in every case of degradation, though, the fall was gradual 5:16, note 3) and imperceptible to all but “Antipas” (Rev. 2:13), the overcoming anti-testimony against all that deviated from t is manifestly clear that in the New Testament no the pristine, unspoiled testimony of Jesus according to Iforceful penalties were ever enacted by the church the teaching of the apostles. against erring believers or even against heretics. Tem - poral, material, or physical judgment was the result only The First Persecution of Heretics of a direct act of governmental discipline, according to the wisdom of the Father and carried out by the Holy The church’s temptation and fall into political power, Spirit, for the spiritual health of a believer or of the along with its eventual use of coercive governmental power entire church (Acts 5:4-5; 1 Cor. 11:29-30). To be sure, to impose conformity to the teaching of the Roman in the years of persecution under the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, even to the point of “the blood of the church fostered no idea of discipline by force. Writing at saints,” began from the time of Constantine in the fourth the beginning of the third century, Tertullian says that century. His support for Christianity created a funda- obstinacy must be conquered by argument, not coaxed. mental confusion between the church and the secular He goes as far as saying that no Christian can be an exe- establishment. Constantine added, as it were, a new cutioner, jailor, or military commander that sits in branch to his government, composed of Christian bish- judgment of a man’s life. He asserts, “It is a fundamen- ops, and acted as the strong arm for enforcing its policies. tal human right, a privilege of nature, that every man Will Durant says of the emperor, “He became the most should worship according to his own convictions…It is persistent preacher in his realm, persecuted heretics assuredly no part of religion to compel religion—to faithfully…By his aid Christianity became a state as well which free-will and not force should lead us” (105). as a church” (664). This illicit duality of church and state Origen says likewise, became a damage to the Body of Christ, a damage that has persisted up to the present time. It must be impossible for the legislation of Moses, taken literally, to harmonize with the calling of the Gentiles… Philip Schaff writes, “An inevitable consequence of the For Christians could not slay their enemies, or condemn union of church and state was restriction of religious free- to be burned or stoned, as Moses commands, those who dom in faith and worship, and the civil punishment of had broken the law. (621) departure from the doctrine and discipline of the estab- lished church” (History 138). Paul Johnson notes, Lactantius, the last of the church fathers in the time of persecution, writes, The position adopted by Constantine, of general religious toleration, was not tenable for long…The empire, as it There is no occasion for violence and injury, for religion became less liberal, had found it impossible not to perse- cannot be imposed by force; the matter must be carried cute Christianity. Now, having accepted Christianity, it on by words rather than by blows, that the will may be found it increasingly difficult not to persecute its ene- affected…Torture and piety are widely different; nor is it mies, internal and external. (76) possible for truth to be united with violence, or justice with cruelty. (156) Henry Charles Lea3 tells us, The Catholic apologist Elphège Vacandard2 writes, The triumph of intolerance was inevitable when Chris - tianity became the religion of the State, yet the slowness As late as the middle of the fourth century and even later, of its progress shows the difficulty of overcoming the all the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers who discuss the incongruity between persecution and the gospel.
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