Church History

Much like the history of the people of Israel, Church history is a tale of failure, met by grace upon grace of the Lord, to give his erring people a new start, again and again, until He will come to bring them into their eternal home, the house of the Father. We expect this moment to be very near.

But besides failure there are also praises from the mouth of the Lord towards those that fought hard to be victorious and towards churches that withstood the most evil whiles of the world.

 

We hold the firm belief that the 7 churches of Asia are not just local churches in former Turkey in the first century AD but that they are most of all the 7 phases of church history. There are many arguments to back up this notion. We name two. (1) The first chapter states that 'the time is near'. This implies that the prophetic character of the book also applies to the chapters 2 and 3, the church being already in her first phase. (2) The descriptions of the 7 churches meticulously follow church history, a clear sign of the Lord's prophetic words.

 

That the great Lord of the universe it interested in small congregations of peoples, even individual believers, is a great wonder in itself. Greater even is the longing of his heart to the love and admiration for Him in the hearts of his followers - as seen in the message to those that were part of the first phase of church history: 'Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.' Not our works, words or witnessing is what He is most interested in. It is the love of our hearts to his eternal Being, that He is craving for.

 

When looking at church history through the message of the 7 epistles to the 7 churches, we see the history of Israel repeat itself. Once having become a mighty institute with much power over earthly matters, the attention shifts from the service of the Lord to the continuity of power. Eventually this leads to the demise of God's people. A minority in the church, called the victorious ones, cling to the principles once given by their Lord and Savior whereas most Christians follow the leaders of their church into the wrong direction. It is in times of persecution and suffering that hearts are again drawn to the right place: to the only One that can deliver from earthly quagmires.

 

Typical is also the smallness of the deviation from the right path in the beginning. It never starts with enormous sins. It was the listening ear to the words of satan that finally led to 'Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.' (Gen.6:11) The small deviations from the will of the Lord are the most dangerous, as David wrote: 'But who can discern their own errors Forgive my hidden faults.' (Psalm 19:12)

If we look at the regress in the church we see the following:

1.    Ephesus

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. (2:4)

3.    Pergamum

I know where you live—where Satan has his throne (2:13)Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans (2:15) - (the Nicaolaitans were still hated by the Ephesus church)

4.   Thyatira

By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.

5.   Sardis

You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

7.   Laodicea

You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked

 

The two churches, Jesus has no complaints about are Smyrna and Philidelphia. The first was 'poor' but in fact rich (in the Lord) and the second hat little strength, but was given an opened door (by the Lord). It is only in Him and through Him that the Christian can accomplish something in life, as Paul stated: 'That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong'. (2 Cor.12:10).

 

How great a God we have, that He was willing to give his Son for people so far off, so stubborn, so selfish, so easily mislead. It is exactly as stated in Isaiah 53: 'We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.'

 

The going astray of the sheep is clearly seen in church history. Starting with leaving the 'first love', finding it again through the sufferings of persecution, suddenly shifting to a position of influence because of the political choice of the emperor to make Christianity the state religion. What happened to Constantine the Great in 312 eventually brings the christian very close to the throne of the one who still hasn't relinquished his power to the victorious Son of man. Christianity. Being mislead by their position of power, Christians start to believe that the realm of satan had somehow changed in the reign of Christ, without Christ's return, throwing out of the window the complete prophetic word. One sentence in Paul's letters would have been enough to correct the honest soul: 'Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you!' (1 Cor.4:8). The influence of world politics on the Church is devastating. The truth is being sacrificed on the altar of power, visualized by the Lord in the actions of Izebel. The spiritual immorality of cooperating with an evil world eventually leads to practical immorality - as the history of the Catholic church so clearly testifies. 

 

In Thyatira we find an important link to Revelation 17, where the Roman Catholic church is seen on the back of a beast, representing the world empire. The strange circumstance, that has lasted for ages, was that the empire, that had gone down in the peoples and nations of Europe, was under full control of 'the woman' - the church. Her position in the world had made her very wealthy and very cruel towards the true saints, that dared to criticize her behavior - seen in the golden cup in her hand, filled with the blood of martyrs. And whereas Sardis (Protestantism) started with honest criticism on Roman Catholicism and sound Biblical principles, it ended up much in the same position of close connections with earthly governments, even growing into 'state churches' - thus the Lord's harsh words: 'You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.'

 

The opening by the Lord of the door to a clear understanding of Bible prophecy gave Philadelphia (1750-1900) the strength to keep the word of the Lord and to hold on to his name. But from the year 1900 onward, the situation of the church sharply deteriorated. It was not the secularization of the world that was the cause of the spiritual condition in the church. It was her own perception of being rich, while in fact being poor. The clear understanding of bible prophecy was blurred by the rise of Zionism, the belief that the state of Israel was the great fulfillment of God's promises to his earthly people and that the christian had to be part in it. Combined with the enormous rise in technology and welfare, it resulted in the situation of the world being in the church while Christ was standing outside, knocking on the door.

 

An important difference between the first 3 and the last 4 messages is the place of the sentence: ' Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.' In the first 3 this sentence separates the message to the church as a whole from the message to  victorious ones in the church, with promises about the future with the Lord. The meaning could be that these three church phases would cease to exist before the rapture of the church. In the last 4 messages, the sentence about the Spirit comes last, leaving the promise of the future glory to be united with the actual situation then and there in the church. It seems to mean that these church phases would last until the return of the Lord and that the last Christians belonging to these church phases would go up in the rapture. Indeed from Thyatira onward the church phases that came into existence are still present - Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Spiritual churches with full expectation of the Lord's coming, Evangelicals that expect more from the state of Israel than from the Lord's return.

 

In all but one of the 7 messages the Lord refers to his coming. His coming to Ephesus and Pergamum is conditional and punitive and meant as a warning - if they would not repent. Therefore his coming is left out in the case of Smyrna, the persecuted church that remained loyal to Him. His coming to the last four churches is unconditional. In the case of Sardis the condition applies not to his coming but to their awareness of his coming: ' if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you'. In the case of Philidelphia the Lord even promises to come soon. In the case of Laodicea, the Lord's promise to come has a very individual character: only for those that open the door to Him: 'Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with Me.'

 

In the 'they with Me' we see the great marriage supper of the Lamb once the victorious ones in the churches have been called up to heaven in the rapture.

 

Amen, come Lord Jesus!