<< Back |
Chosen no: R-359 a, from: 1882 Year. |
Change lang
| |
The Seven Churches. The Message To Pergamos.
"And to the messenger of the Assembly at
Pergamos write." - Rev. 2:12.
Per is an article of emphasis, frequently equivalent to very. Ga or gee [g
hard] is earthy. Thus the name Perga [Acts 13:13] very earthy. Pergamos means
earthy height or elevation. It was the name given to the citadel of Troy.
The Pergamos of John's day, and to which literally the message is
addressed, was a celebrated city of the Roman province of Asia. Here parchment
was first perfected. It had a library of 200,000 volumes; also a famous temple
of Esculapius, the mythological deity who presided over medicine.
The Pergamos period dates from the time that Constantine professedly
embraced Christianity; which, being thus popularized, soon became the nominal
religion of the people. The church of this period was exceedingly exalted, but
only from an earthly point of view; she was "exalted in the earth."
Persecution having ceased, the policy of the Emperor became the policy
of both priests and people; and the nominal Christian church soon filled with
the popular time-serving crowd. Masheim tells us that while the great zeal of
many good men, the purity of their lives, the many translations and expositions
of the Scriptures made at this time, and the intrinsic beauty and value of
Christianity as contrasted with Paganism must have had their influence; yet it
is evident that a desire to please the great emperor and his successors, and to
be on the popular side, were the chief reasons for the sudden and great
increase of the nominal church.
Many pagan philosophers finding that it would be policy to join the
ranks of the rising religion, set about paving an easy way to it by trying to
discover correspondencies between Christianity and Paganism, and so to blend
the two together. They succeeded only too well. Many sought "to form to
themselves a middle kind of religion, between the ancient theology and the new
doctrine that was now propagated in the empire; and they persuaded themselves
that the same truths which Christ taught had been for a long time concealed by
the priests of the gods under the veil of ceremonies, fables, and allegorical
representations." [Masheim.] As the old theology had a number of chief
gods, with many demi-gods of both sexes, the Pago-christians [if we may coin a
word] set themselves to reconstruct the list for the new theology. At this
time, therefore, the doctrine of three Gods was invented --God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Also the Goddess Mary. To make the list as
respectable in numbers as the long line of pagan deities, they canonized the
dead apostles and an unlimited number of martyrs, angels, etc., real or
imaginary.
Masheim says of this period: "The public processions and
supplications by which the Pagans endeavored to appease their gods, were now
adopted into the Christian worship, and celebrated in many places with great
pomp and magnificence. The virtues which had formerly been ascribed to the
heathen temples, to their lustrations [ceremonial cleansings by water, etc.],
to the statues of their gods and heroes, were now attributed to Christian
churches--to water consecrated by certain forms of prayer, and to the images of
holy men."
"The propensity of rude and uneducated converts [?] from Paganism
to cling to the festal rites of their forefathers proved to be invincible, so
that it seemed to be necessary to adopt the old usages to the new worship,
rather than to abolish them altogether." [Encyc. Brit.]
We feel safe in asserting that all the vile doctrines that have
saturated the papal church, and that still permeate Protestantism had at least
their origin in this period.
The philosophy of Plato was engrafted, a parasite upon the Scriptural
stock. This vile fungus, planted by Satan in Eden [Gen. 3:4], watered by the
Egyptians, and brought to an increase by a pseudo-christianity, has borne an
abundant harvest of errors, and exhaled an influence more deadly than the repas
tree. Purgatory, Eternal Sin, Eternal Torment, Mariolatry, Saint Worship,
Transmigration, Mohammedanism, Swedenborgianism, and Mormonism are some of its
legitimate fruits, which could not have existed without it.
The Pergamos message opens in the words, "These things saith He who
hath the sharp sword with two edges." The speaker is Christ himself. It
seems as if the little company of faithful ones, beset on every side by the
enemy, were earnestly looking amid all the noise and strife for their Leader,
when, suddenly, the great Captain appears by their side, and waiving his sword
on high, shouts, Attention! Company!
The two-edged sword is the Word of God. [Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12.] This
weapon is formed both for offensive and defensive warfare. It is sharp, and
while one edge is presented toward the enemy, there is another toward him who
wields it. Christ has given it to the church to be used in his service: woe to
him who handles it unskillfully. Our Lord's words are a warning to those of
that age who were exercising this spiritual weapon.
"I know thy works." They were many. The faithful of this
period were very zealous, and were hard workers against much opposition. "And
where thou dwellest, where Satan's seat is." The home and stronghold of
Paganism; which, in course of time, with a change of little else than name and
names was rechristened Papacy. "Thou holdest fast MY NAME, and hast not
denied my faith." Their fidelity is more particularly noted because of their
adverse surroundings. At this time there were many teachers, and more
controversy than ever before. Light was darkened by words, and truth with
sophistry. During this period also arose the old dispute of "who should be
greatest?" The bishops, or Patriarchs, as they preferred to be called, of
Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, had acquired a degree of
pre-eminence over the others, and there was a long-continued rivalry between
them; the supremacy being finally divided between Rome and Constantinople. The
nominal church was split in two, chiefly over the question of image-worship;
the idolaters ranging under the bishop of Rome, who received the name of Pope
[Latin, papa--the father], while the image-breakers, as they were called,
formed the Greek Church under the Patriarch [chief father] of Constantinople. A
remembrance of this controversy will help us to understand the passage which
follows:
"Thou holdest fast MY NAME... even in those days in which ANTIPAS was
my faithful witness; who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth." Anti,
in Greek, means opposite or against; papas is father. In the usual manner of
forming words, Anti-pas would evidently mean against the father, or opposed to
the Pope or Patriarch; as we use the name anti-christ, the opponent of Christ. It
is clear, then, that our Lord here commends the faithful hand who,
"holding fast" the endearing name of our "Father," in
obedience to the command, "Call no man Father," opposed the
development and establishment of the Papacy, with its attendant heresies of a
class of holy [?] and Rev. [?] fathers [Matt. 23:9], who, being called by the
church--or the almighty dollar--or the love of honor and ease, as the case may be,
profess a superior sanctity, privilege, and authority for the exposition of
God's Word. "But I have a few things against thee. Thou hast there them
that hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block
before the children of Israel, to eat things offered to idols, and to commit fornication."
Num. 22and onward tells the story of Balaam. The kings of Midian and
Balak, king of Moab, found themselves unable by force of arms to subdue Israel.
They hired Balaam to curse God's people. He found it impossible, but knowing
why they had the Lord's favor and protection, he advised Balak to lead them
into sin; which succeeding, brought upon them a plague which destroyed 24,000
of them.
From what has been said, the spiritual meaning of the Balaam teaching
should be easily seen. The blasphemous doctrines of eternal torment, and the
endless existence of sin and sinners; also the fiction of the short line from
the death-bed to heaven, and kindred fancies, have always been a
"stumbling-block" to the church. The homage given to pagan rites,
ceremonies, festivals, etc., Christianized [?] such as prayers to the dead,
sacred places, days, and persons; union with earthly powers and with those who
do such things, would in our opinion be Baal-am service.
The doctrine of the Nicolaitans, noticed in the Ephesus message, found
its development in this age; and has been a burden to the church ever since. Nicolas
means a conqueror of the people. In the church of Rome the laity or people are
as much the subjects of the Pope, both in spiritual and temporal things, as any
of earth's conquerors ever dreamed of demanding. This, in the face of Christ's
plain statement that there is but one Lord, one Master, one Father, "and
all ye are brethren." [Matt. 23:8-12.] The command "Search the
Scriptures," was intended for every one; the commission to "preach
the good news" to all who have received the Spirit; and if any one has not
the Spirit of Christ he is none of His, and can only be a blind leader of the
blind. "Repent, or else I will come unto THEE quickly, and will fight
against THEM with the sword of my mouth." Notice thee and them in this
passage. The words are evidently used like you and them in 1 Thes. 5:1-4. The
Lord speaks directly to his church as thou or you; but of the world, as they or
them. He came to his own, and [R360 : page 3] in a
sense delivered them out of Babylon; bearing them up on eagles' wings [Rev.
12:14], and carrying them into the wilderness; "into her place, where she
is nourished."... from the face of the serpent, Satan. To them--Babylon,
he comes with the sword, and by the sword they are cut into two--the Roman and
Greek churches. "He that hath an ear, let HIM hear what the Spirit says to
the churches." "To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the
hidden manna." The manna recalls the story of Israel in the wilderness. Hidden
would point as an index finger to the golden bowl full of manna laid away in
the Ark of the Covenant as a memorial of the faithfulness of Jehovah, who led
and "nourished" his people in the wilderness. It is a pledge to the
Pergamos church that he who watched over literal Israel in their journeyings
would care for them in the weary march that was about to begin.
The manna, of course, typifies spiritual food, the word of God. Perhaps
some were enabled to see a deeper meaning, that it referred not only to the
written word, but to the living Word; the true Bread of Life who came down from
heaven to give life to the world. [John 6:47-51.]
It was a promise in the face of desolation and death, of a life that
should be hid--from all the power of persecution --with Christ, in God. "I
will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name engraved, which no
man knoweth but he that receiveth it."
What a blessed assurance to the church during those 1260 years of trial,
outcasts from the world, branded as heretics by the church, to realize that
God's seal was upon them; to remember that "the Lord knoweth them that are
his."
The signet or seal--evidently referred to--was the emblem of authority. See
Gen. 41:41-42; 1 Kings 21:8; Esther 3:10-12; 8:2-8, etc. To present any one
with the signet ring was to invest them with all the power and authority of him
who owned it. This is, therefore, one of the exceeding great and precious
promises of joint heirship with Christ, given only to the overcomers.
The color of the stone would indicate the purity of the reign. "A
sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom." However precious
the jewel, it was made much more so on account of its use; it was therefore the
symbol of that which was most highly esteemed. See Haggai 2:23; Sol. Song 8:5-6.
The name on the seal is significant. We believe it is the name assured
by our Lord on taking unto him his great power and beginning his reign. A name
now revealed to the members of his body, since the reign has begun. [See
article of Bro. Jones in March No. ZION'S WATCH TOWER, page 4.] A name
peculiarly comforting to the persecuted saints during the reign of
Anti-christ--the name of our beloved KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. W. I. M.
W.T. R-359 a : page 3 – 1882 r.