THE MYSTERY OF LAWLESSNESS AND THE TESTIMONY OF GOD
[p. 290] THE MYSTERY OF LAWLESSNESS AND THE TESTIMONY OF GOD
Many believers, instead of waiting for God’s Son from heaven, are looking for revivals and the conversion of the world. That our minds may be disabused of vain expectations in this direction, I desire to bring before you the fact that the prophetic future of the church, viewed as in responsibility upon earth, instead of being bright with increasing spiritual prosperity, is dark with abounding evil and final apostasy. I wish to trace in Scripture the history of christendom from the freshness of Pentecost through ages of decline and departure, to its certain future apostasy and fall.
In Acts 2: 42 - 47, we see the assembly as first formed on earth in the power of the Holy Spirit. Many fail to see the declension because they have no divine thought before their minds of what the assembly is according to God. The more we know of the assembly’s heavenly calling and character according to the purpose of God, the more conscious do we become of its present failure and ruin outwardly. When the foundation of the second temple was laid by the remnant of Jews who returned from captivity, there was a shout of joy and a noise of weeping. The young people shouted for joy because they had never seen anything better, but the old men who had seen Solomon’s temple in its beauty and glory wept much, because, as Haggai tells us, the second temple was as nothing in their eyes.
It is a great thing to see the house as originally set up, though the contemplation of it may constrain us to feel the present ruin as we have never felt it before. In Acts 2 we see the house in its original beauty. The Lord Jesus, having accomplished eternal redemption, has ascended on high and taken His seat at the right hand of God. There, as the exalted [p. 291] Man, He had received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, and had poured Him out to dwell in His saints, and to form them into a habitation for God. God desired to dwell in blessing and testimony among men, and thus to have His character expressed in this world. This is the true and proper character of God’s house viewed from the divine side, and as composed only of “living stones”. It is a spiritual house; a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ; and a royal priesthood to show forth God’s excellencies before men in this world (1 Peter 2).
But the assembly, viewed in its responsibility upon earth, has grievously failed to hold this ground, or to maintain this testimony. Man’s failure opened the way for Satan’s devices, and according to the parable, “While men slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel” (Matthew 13: 25), and the result has been that the church, instead of being composed only of “living stones”, is now a mixed mass of profession in which the human element vastly preponderates over the divine. It has become like “a great house” in which are vessels to dishonour as well as to honour. It is in this external aspect, as in responsibility upon earth, that we are now regarding the church, and we shall see that instead of extending the kingdom of Christ until the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, it is destined to close its career on earth in a condition of complete apostasy.
In Acts 2 we find the saints gathered together in divine simplicity. Driven from the world, and drawn to each other, by the constraint of common sorrows and joys, believers were found together in the blessed exercise and experience of brotherly love. The name of the Lord Jesus was the bond of their fellowship, and God dwelt in them by the Spirit.
Let us now read Matthew 13: 33. Most of us are aware that this parable is often brought forward as teaching that the gospel will spread until the whole world shall be filled with the knowledge of God. But the fact is that leaven in Scripture [p. 292] always represents something evil. In the sacrifices and offerings of the ceremonial law it was always typical of evil, and whenever the offering was typical of Christ — the Holy One of God — there must be no leaven. Leaven is mentioned thirteen times in the New Testament, and in eleven instances no one doubts that it is used in a bad sense — the leaven of the Pharisees, and of Herod, the leaven of malice and wickedness, etc. Can we suppose, if in eleven out of thirteen instances leaven refers to that which is evil, that in the two passages (Matthew 13: 33; Luke 13: 21) which contain this parable it means something good? None but those who are committed to the support of an unscriptural system of theology would entertain such a thought for a moment.
Then what do we learn from this parable? Certainly not the universal propagation and ultimate triumph of the gospel. No, we see the working and development of hidden wickedness. We thus learn that the professing church would be the scene of increasing, and finally universal, wickedness. I believe the woman represents the seductive power of evil in spiritual things. We shall see her again as we pursue our inquiry into these solemn matters. For the moment, let us seek to apprehend the significance of this prophetic picture. Taking this parable as our starting point, shall we not expect to find in the profession of christianity the introduction of a principle of evil that, hidden at first, will secretly extend its pernicious influence until the whole mass of profession shall be thoroughly corrupt? This is the only conclusion to which we can come, and we will now briefly trace the gradual extension of this corrupting influence to its final issue in the complete apostasy of that which has borne the name of Christ.
In Acts 2 the assembly’s principles and practice were as far removed from those of the world as heaven is from earth. Believers were linked together by a bond of holy love which made each one glad to forget himself in ministering to the need of others. The interests of Christ were pre-eminent in [p. 293] every heart, and in gladness and singleness of heart the disciples “persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers”.
But Satan, ever active in opposition to the work of God, soon found occasion to corrupt the saints from their simplicity. As early as Acts 6 the first indications of decline made their appearance; “There arose a murmuring”. The spirit of self-seeking began to replace that of self-sacrifice. The first sign of failure was a failure in love. I pass over the case of Ananias and Sapphira as being entirely an individual matter. In Acts 2 and 4 the disciples were all filled with the Holy Spirit, but in Acts 6 when seven deacons had to be appointed, the apostles told the disciples to look out from among themselves seven men full of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 6, men filled with the Holy Spirit had to be looked for. This is very significant.
Then when we come to the epistles what do we find? That one was written because the assemblies in Galatia were turning their backs upon Christ and going in for ritualism and law-keeping; that another was written because the assembly at Corinth was becoming a scene of licentiousness and sectarianism; that a third was written because the saints at Colosse were in danger of being drawn away by philosophy and vain deceit; in that to the Philippians, Paul had to say that all sought their own things, and not the things of Jesus Christ; and in that to Timothy he spoke of all in Asia having turned away from him. And we may notice in connection with the parable in Matthew 13 that in writing to Corinth and Galatia, Paul speaks of the evil that was among them as leaven. Is it too much to suppose that the parable was in the apostle’s mind as he penned or dictated the words?
Now turn a moment to 2 Thessalonians 2: 1 - 8. Some at Thessalonica were contending that the day of the Lord was then present. The saints were passing through much persecution, and some were leading them to think that their afflictions were judgments connected with the day of the Lord,
[p. 294] and consequently that the day of the Lord was then present. No, said the apostle, the day of the Lord shall not come “unless the apostasy have first come”. Let those who say that the day of the Lord shall be brought in by the spread of the gospel and the conversion of the world read this verse and cease to dream of a progressive and triumphant church. “It will not be unless the apostasy have first come”. It is a solemn fact of Scripture that the prophetic future of the church on earth is apostasy.
And mark what follows! “The mystery of lawlessness already works”. A mystery is a hidden thing. The woman hid the leaven. It was a “mystery of lawlessness” which in Paul’s day was already working; the leaven was spreading. I cannot enlarge on these deeply solemn and instructive statements of connected Scripture, but I commend them to your prayerful study.
Now turn for a moment to 2 Timothy 3: 1 - 5. The Holy Spirit gives here a prophetic picture of the last days. Strange that people should dream of a prosperous and progressive church, with such a passage before them. Many forms of wickedness are here named as being characteristic of those who, in the last days, have the form of godliness; that is, of the professing church. The increasing display of the working of the mystery of lawlessness, the further development and spread of the leaven, is thus clearly seen.
Let us now pass on to Revelation 2 and 3. Under figure of addresses to seven Asian assemblies, we have seven stages of the church’s history in view. In the address to Ephesus, the church in the apostolic age is contemplated. There was much faithfulness, energy, and devotedness, which the Lord owns and commends. Nevertheless He speaks to them as a “fallen” assembly because they had forsaken their first love. Christ no longer filled their hearts. This is the state of which the apostle complained when he said, “All seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 2: 21).
Then in the address to Smyrna, we get the Lord’s word of encouragement to the church in persecution and distress.
[p. 295] During the first three centuries the saints suffered much persecution which, for the time, cast them upon the Lord and stayed the progress of corruption within.
Afterwards the church became worldly, and is viewed in the address to Pergamos as dwelling where Satan’s throne was. Satan is the prince of this world. About the beginning of the fourth century the church became a great power in the world. The emperor Constantine assumed the profession of christianity, and promulgated his new religion by imperial edict through every part of the vast empire. For the first time, also, we first find the doctrine of Balaam in the church, and the running greedily after error for reward has been the blight and bane of the church ever since. Thenceforward the church entirely departed from the place of strangership and pilgrimage here, and became a dweller on the earth.
Then in Thyatira, popery is in view. Read verse 20; “the woman Jezebel”. It was a woman who hid the leaven; here we meet with her again, and shall see more of her presently. She is carrying on her corrupting work, as in Matthew 13, teaching the servants of God to commit fornication, and to eat things offered to idols. The leaven spread until that which bore the name of Christ became a corrupt and idolatrous system. It is a matter of common notoriety that for hundreds of years the public church was the foulest blot of moral pollution that could be found on earth. Under the cloak of religion every conceivable iniquity was practised. In saying this, it must not be forgotten that God had His chosen ones all along — “the rest who are in Thyatira” — but the church as a whole was the home of gross iniquity, and, as a rule, as men advanced in ecclesiastical position, they became more and more unscrupulous.
Passing on to Sardis (Revelation 3: 1 - 6), I have no doubt we see the Lord’s mind as to Protestantism. The Reformation was, in many respects, a great work of God. By its means the Scriptures were spread abroad, and along with the opening up of Scripture came light from God as to the sinful condition of man, and the necessity for justification by faith. This broke [p. 296] the power of priestcraft and superstition by exposing the worthlessness of masses, penances, indulgences, and all the cunning devices by which the church held the consciences of men in bondage, and secured their money and lands for herself. But Protestantism soon degenerated into little more than a great political movement. Its principles and faith were widely professed by people and nations who for personal or political reasons desired to escape from the thraldom of Rome. Consequently, though much divine light had been vouchsafed and “received and heard”, the works of Protestantism were not found “complete before my God”. “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead”. These words too truly describe the vast majority of Protestants today, though “thou hast a few names in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, because they are worthy”.
In Philadelphia we see a company of saints for whom the Lord has no word of censure. They have kept His word, and have not denied His name; they have kept the word of His patience. The fact that they thus stand true to what is of Christ shows that they have a “little power”. It may be little, nothing to make any show, or to be of any account in the religious world, but there is power to maintain what is of God. Thus amid the deepening shades of the mystery of iniquity, we find a remnant identified with the testimony of God.
The Son of God has brought a most blessed testimony into this world: the revelation of God in supreme grace and love — the Father. His “word” is the revelation of Himself and of the Father. Blessed, indeed, is the portion of those who keep that word! The obligation to be true to His name comes in in a special way because of His rejection. God would have His saints to maintain, by the Holy Spirit, what is due to the One who is holy and true.
It is well that we should bear in mind the character of holiness which pertains to Christ as the risen and glorified One. He has laid down the life which He had as a Man upon [p. 297] earth, closing up in death before God the life of flesh and blood, to which in us sin attached. Personally He “knew not sin”, but sacrificially He was made sin for us. Now He has taken His life again in a condition to which sin never did, or could, attach. He is now “separated from sinners”, and entirely apart from the life of flesh and blood. Risen and glorified, He is the Holy One, the Sanctifier, and the Firstborn of a company of holy brethren, who derive from Him and are “all of one” with Him, in new creation. He has sanctified Himself for us, that we may also be sanctified by truth (John 17: 19).
He is “the holy, the true”. There is in Him the complete setting forth of God. He is the “image of the invisible God”, and “in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 1: 15; Colossians 2: 9). We do not need to go outside that blessed Person for anything. It is He who has accomplished all that was needed that we might lift up our hearts in righteousness and joy before the Father’s face. If we would learn the measure of our sanctification and acceptance we can only learn it in Him, and if we would know God, it is in the face of Jesus Christ that all His glory shines. The whole testimony of what God has brought to pass for His own pleasure in the blessing of His chosen saints is set forth in that risen and glorified One. And the complete revelation of God in His blessed nature and attributes is also set forth in Him. So that to keep His word, and not deny His name, is really to stand in the full grace and blessing of christianity.
The Lord says also to Philadelphia, “Thou hast kept the word of my patience”. I think this comes in by way of contrast to that which has been characteristic of both popery and Protestantism. Both the latter have striven to have a place and name on earth. They have sought to connect themselves with the world powers; either, on the one hand, to control those powers, or, on the other, to be supported by them. But the christian company approved by the Lord, in contrast to this, keeps the word of His patience. I understand this to be the recognition of the fact that Christ is rejected [p. 298] from the earth, and has no place here except in the hearts of His saints. He has right to everything, but possession of nothing. He sits in patience at God’s right hand until the hour when His foes will be made His footstool. The Christian cannot be asserting his rights, or making himself prominent, or seeking place and honour in the scene of Christ’s rejection. He must be consistent with “the patience of the Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3: 5).
For such, and these are the characteristics of the whole company of saints on earth, viewed according to God, deliverance is promised “out of the hour of trial, which is about to come upon the whole habitable world, to try them that dwell upon the earth”. Before the seals are broken, the trumpets sounded, or the vials poured out, the Lord will remove His own from the earth. No infliction of wrath from God can come upon those composing the assembly. “Having been now justified in the power of his blood, we shall be saved by him from wrath” (Romans 5: 9). Before any infliction of wrath from heaven, the assembly will be translated to heaven. See 1 Thessalonians 4: 13 - 18. There is no prophetic event, no long or short interval of prophetic time, to come before the rapture of the assembly. It is immediately in view; and hence the Lord says, “I come quickly: hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”.
Are we conscious of having received from God the light and joy of what He has established in Christ? Have we received of the fulness, and contemplated the glory, of that blessed One? Have we seen in His face the glory of God? Have we known what it was to be taken in spirit out of the world, and away from self, and from the influences which emanate from man here, by the attractiveness and blessedness of that One in glory? Have we tasted and known “the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3: 19)? If so, then, “hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”.
God would have every saint on earth to be a Philadelphian. He would have all His children separate from the world, and [p. 299] in the intelligence of His mind and pleasure. He would make Christ everything to us, so that we might be delivered from every kind of evil, and from every variety of religious flesh. And His love is good to the feeblest heart. If we desire to know His mind, and to stand perfect and complete in all His will, He will not fail to strengthen us, and make us divinely competent to receive what is of Himself. In Christendom there is much strength for display on earth, and for religious activity, but where do we see the knowledge and maintenance of God’s purpose and grace as set forth in Christ risen and glorified? Indeed, in Christendom, man in the flesh is more important and prominent than anywhere else. How good it is, that by divine grace we may have “a little power”, and thus be enabled to keep the word, and not deny the name of the One who is “the holy, the true”! May God grant this grace to each one of us!
Laodicea presents the final aspect of things before the Lord spues the whole corrupted profession of Christianity out of His mouth. Boastfulness and self-satisfaction characterise this church, of which the Lord says, “Thou art the wretched and the miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”. It is full of man’s pretension and assumption, and Christ is outside. We cannot look abroad today without seeing the marks of Laodicea on every hand. Everything divine reduced to man’s level, or to a level where man supposes he can reach it. Higher criticism (to its own satisfaction) has pretty well disposed of the miraculous element in Scripture. Men are encouraged to think for themselves. Anything in Scripture which the natural man can adopt, or adapt to himself in any way, may be allowed to claim a certain kind of inspiration. But everything outside this — that is, everything distinctively of God — is swept aside as purely mythical or figurative, or as only attributable to the ignorance of an unenlightened age.
But where is Christ in all this man-exalting system? Where is the cross? Where the recognition that man in the flesh in his best form, educated, cultivated, moral, or religious, is offensive to God? Where is it proclaimed that Christ alone,
[p. 300] the second Man, out of heaven, fills the eye and heart of God with pleasure, and that all other men present before God the utter moral ruin of fallen and lost creatures? These divine thoughts and realities are totally unknown in Laodicea, or only known as subjects of derision. Man is everything in Laodicea; Christ, the Christ of God, is nothing.
Yet still He stands at the door and knocks. There may be an aching and unsatisfied heart somewhere in that circle where self-complacency and pride predominate. So He will knock at the door which excludes Him, and He will speak in grace even to Laodicea. “If any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me”.
It is instructive to observe that the course of apostasy divides itself into two great streams. Thyatira represents one of those streams, and Laodicea the other. One is the vast current of superstition, idolatry, and fleshly religion which we see full-blown in popery, and which is known in this country as ritualism. The other is rationalism, which assumes the competency of the human mind to investigate, and to pronounce upon, the things of God. Both agree to exclude Christ. Ritualism makes much of man in the flesh as a religious being. Rationalism makes much of him as an intellectual being. The truth of christianity is that man in both aspects is under death and judgment as offensive to God, and that nothing avails before God but a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Every professed Christian is either on the line that man in the flesh can be something for God, or on the line that Christ is everything, and that man in the flesh is nothing. That is, every professed Christian is either identified with Thyatira or Laodicea on the one hand, or with Philadelphia on the other.
Sardis may be regarded as an intermediate state, but practically Protestantism as we see it today partakes of the character of either Thyatira or Laodicea. Protestantism was produced by the introduction of a measure of divine light, and also by the revolt of natural conscience against the errors [p. 301] and enormities of Rome. But in Protestantism generally there was no recognition of the fact that man in the flesh was entirely set aside for God in the death of Christ, and that saints were before God for His pleasure only as being “in Christ Jesus”, in new creation. Hence in the reformed churches generally the sacramental system was retained, the distinction between clergy and laity was still recognised, and provision was made for the mass of the people, whether converted or not, to take part in the worship. Man in the flesh was still recognised as having status before God, and the result of this has been that Protestantism generally has either fallen back in the direction of ritual and popery, or it has moved forward into rationalism. It has become assimilated in character either to Thyatira or to Laodicea.
What gives peculiar and distinctive character to Philadelphia is that God’s mind is known there. It is composed of those who stand in the true grace and blessing of christianity. According to the divine mind, every true saint belongs to Philadelphia. Alas! as a matter of fact, many converted persons are still entangled with that in which God finds no pleasure. They have not reached, in the apprehension of their souls, a circle where “Christ is everything, and in all” (Colossians 3: 11). God cares for such and feeds them, but they are babes having need of milk. They have not reached christian maturity. Their knowledge of the grace of God is imperfect, and they are not at all acquainted with His purposes as established and set forth in Christ risen and glorified. Every full-grown Christian is a Philadelphian. Of course, one who had touched it might be diverted from it. Hence the warning, “Hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”.
As to the course of the apostasy after the rapture of the church my remarks must necessarily be brief. Deprived of every true member of the body of Christ, and spued out of His mouth as nauseous to Him, the history and doom of the apostate church is seen in Revelation 17 and 18. Here we see the woman again. She has at last brought her corrupting [p. 302] influence to a successful climax. She rides upon a scarlet-coloured beast which represents the temporal and imperial power; see verses 12, 13. “And upon her forehead a name written, Mystery”. Here we see the full result of the working of the hidden leaven, the mystery of lawlessness. The woman, typical of the seductive power of evil in connection with spiritual things, has succeeded in so corrupting christianity that it retains no trace of its divine origin, but becomes the masterpiece of abomination. Then in consummated apostasy she exclaims, “I sit a queen, and I am not a widow, and I shall in no wise see grief” (Revelation 18: 7). Brief will be the hour of her triumph, and terrible her overthrow. God has decreed that as she loved to lord it over the temporal powers, those powers shall be the means of her destruction. “The ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her with fire”. “For this reason in one day shall her plagues come, death and grief and famine, and she shall be burnt with fire; for strong is the Lord God who has judged her” (Revelation 18: 8).
So far as real Christians are concerned, the effect of seeing this should be to separate us more distinctly from the course of things which tends to apostasy. And we shall only be preserved from the influences which tend in that direction as we stand in the grace and power of christianity according to the mind of God. May we be found keeping the word of Christ, and not denying His name, and keeping the word of His patience! Thus shall we be preserved from the influences which tend in the direction of apostasy.