01.02.02. The Fall of the Church

Part II Chapter II. THE FALL OF THE CHURCH When the Church under Constantine became enthroned in the world, she began to be de­throned from her seat “in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” For then did she forget her high calling, and become enamored of earthly rule and dominion. This, let us not forget, was the fatal temptation through which the Church lost her primitive purity, and brought upon herself all manner of dishonor and apostasy. What a ten­der prophetic warning of such temptation is con­tained in that saying of Paul to the Corinthian Christians: “I have espoused you to one hus­band that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ,” (2 Corinthians 11:2). In the world, but not of it, the Church, the Bride of Christ, was to await the return of her Betrothed Hus­band from heaven, that, arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of saints, she might be presented to Him “a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” If, during the time of her espousal, Satan could only alienate her affections by get­ting her enamored with the kings of the earth, so that she should accept their dowries instead of her heavenly inheritance, and put on their royal purple instead of her virgin white, his triumph would be assured. And this is literally what he did.

Observe how the temptation was presented first to the Lord Himself by Satan, to seduce Him from His love for the Church, that He should not redeem her with His own blood. “All the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them,” was the alluring prize which the Tempter set before our Bridegroom. “All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and wor­ship me,” (Matthew 4:9), was the alluring promise held out to Him. Have we understood the deep reality and significance of this temptation in the wilderness?

Precisely what Satan, “the Prince of this world,” proffered—all the kingdoms of the earth—had long ago been pledged to Christ by the Father. But before this inheritance could be realized, He must be despised and rejected of men, crucified and buried, and then raised up to wait an unknown time upon His Father’s throne “till His enemies be made His footstool.” The Tempter would say, “Why not take the kingdoms of the world at once, foregoing the humiliation and the cross and the long rejection by the world? “But the Saviour’s resistance of the temptation was prompt and final: “Get thee be­hind Me, Satan.” And when, afterwards, Simon Peter, preoccupied no doubt with the idea of an immediate temporal kingdom for his Lord, re­pelled Christ’s announcement of His approach­ing crucifixion, saying, “Far be it from Thee, Lord; this shall not be unto thee,” Jesus recog­nized it as the old wilderness temptation reap­pearing, and met it with the same rebuke: “Get thee behind Me, Satan,” (Matthew 16:23). Thus the Son of God, true to His Father’s commission and to His plighted affection for His Bride, whom He must purchase with His own blood, stood firm against this great temptation, accepting a present cross and rejection, instead of a present crown and dominion; choosing to be cast out by a world that knew Him not, until after “the times or seasons which the Father hath put in His own power” should be fulfilled, and the announcement be made, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.” The second Adam had thus steadfastly resisted the solicitations of the old serpent. Would the second Eve, His Bride, do likewise? For more than two hundred years the Church did remain true to her heavenly citizenship, counting herself a stranger in the earth and looking for her Lord from Heaven. Her uplifted gaze and unworldly attitude were such conspicuous features of the early Church that even unbelieving historians like Gibbon have noted them, and dwelt upon them with a kind of suppressed admiration, that author conceding that, while the hope of Christ’s imminent return remained universal, “it was pro­ductive of the most salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who lived in the awful expectation of that moment when the globe itself and all the various races of mankind should trem­ble at the appearance of their divine Judge.” The bloody persecutions which reigned from Nero to Diocletian only confirmed this hope, —earthly disenfranchisement making heavenly citi­zenship more real and dear. But now the perilous trial of peace was to be encountered. Will the Church endure the test of imperial patronage as she has borne the test of imperial persecution? O Bride of Immanuel, made “dead to the law by the body of Christ that ye should be married to another, even to Him who was raised from the dead,” (Romans 7:4), alas for the day when thou didst receive the kings of the earth for thy lovers, and, forgetful of thy Lord’s promise, “I appoint unto you a kingdom as My Father hath appointed unto Me,” didst accept a throne from the princes of this world! Earth’s sovereignty had long since been pledged to the Church as well as to Christ: “And the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High,” (Daniel 7:27). But the time for its acquisition was definitely fixed at the coming of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven. For the Church to accept it in the present age was to fall before the very temptation where her Lord had stood firm.

If we look upon that famous assembly, the Council of Nicea, A. D. 325, what a clear dividing line does it present between the old and the new, between the Church heavenly that had been, and the Church earthly that was to be! Here on the one hand were the true successors of the apos­tles, bearing in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus; their maimed limbs, and sightless eyes, and marred visages telling most expres­sively how, up to this time, the servants of Jesus had been “filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in the flesh for His body’s sake, which is the Church.” But here, on the other hand, in strange con­trast with these, was that central figure, arrayed in rich robes and seated on a golden chair in the midst of the assembly, —Constantine, the head of the Church. “What gain to our cause,” whispered ambitious bishops, “that now we have a Christian emperor who will throw over us the shield of his protection and defend the orthodox faith with the sword!” “Alas, what loss!” might have sighed the angels, as they witnessed the nuptials of the Bride of Christ with the kings of the earth. But did not Constantine have a su­pernatural seal set upon his imperial patronage of the Church in that vision of the flaming cross displayed in the heavens with its motto, IN THIS SIGN CONQUER? Considering the real character of the emperor, as afterwards unfolded, a faith which should credit the alleged vision as from God would be far more difficult than a credulity which should ascribe it to the arch-tempter. For what was that cross by which the Church was henceforth to seek her conquests? An eminent historian has described the startling impression made upon his mind by the sight of a crucifix which was shown him in Italy, —a crucifix ex­quisitely carved, and studded with the rarest jewels, but which at the touch of a secret spring flew open, and proved itself to be a case for hold­ing a keen-edged and glittering Roman dagger.

There is a cross in which an apostle was wont to glory as that whereby the world was cruci­fied unto him, and he unto the world; there is a cross concerning which our Lord spake, say­ing: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” But how utterly remote from these that cross which began to sway the Church from the age of Constantine, —that cross which carried the dagger of persecution in the crucifix of super­stition, thus supplanting “the sword of the Spirit “by “the sword of the magistrate,” in order to further the gospel of peace! This fall from heavenly to earthly citizenship was accompanied, moreover, by a gradual ex­change of spiritual worship for carnal supersti­tions. Worse than carnal, indeed! Satan, who had tempted the Church into accepting earthly dominion from his hands, now seduced her into mixing his own ritual with her simple, primitive services. For we must not forget that, accord­ing to the explicit teaching of Scripture, pagan­ism is really demonism. “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God,” (1 Corinthians 10:20), says the apostle. Whether the deluded votaries of Jupiter and Mars knew it or not, it was really true that de­mons were the instigators and recipients of their worship. Idolatry is always and everywhere the religion of Satan, ordained for stealing from God the homage of human hearts and turning it to himself. And so, little by little, the elements of paganism began to mingle with the worship of Christ, —holy water, candles, the wafer, images, processions, the adoration, of saints and relics, the idolatry of the cross, and much more, —of all which we may assert confidently what Car­dinal Newman concedes concerning the first, that they were originally “the very instruments and appendages of demon-worship.” 1 But though the Church has thus been cor­rupted, out of it a faithful number has been pre­served to constitute the hidden Bride of Christ. Observe how graphically this is shown in the seal­ing of the one hundred and forty-four thousand in the seventh chapter of Revelation, —a passage not hard to understand if we bear in mind, as always in studying the Apocalypse, that Scrip­ture explains Scripture, and that history repeats history. In the eighth chapter of Ezekiel we find God denouncing the heathen abominations which have been mixed with the worship of His sanctuary, —“the image of jealousy,” the “weeping for Tammuz,” and the eastward posture in which men “worshipped the sun towards the East.” On account of these pollutions the Lord com­mands fearful judgments upon His people. But, before these judgments commence, He bids His messengers: “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.” As the destroyers go forth the injunc­tion is: “But come not near any man upon whom is the mark.” Here is a sealed and spared rem­nant in the midst of the prevailing Jewish apos­tasy. Turn now to the corresponding story in the Apocalypse (Revelation 7:1-17). The prophetic drama opens with the Church in her primitive exalta­tion, seated with Christ in heavenly places; then the seals are unloosed, unfolding the successive chapters of Christian history, —conquest, conflict, famine, and pestilence; the “Come!” “Come!” “Come!” “Come!” is heard breaking in before each opening era, answering in majestic antiphon the Lord’s “Behold, I come quickly,” and showing the Church still true to her ancient hope; the martyrs, “slain for the word of God and the testimony which they held,” invoke their Redeemer, “How long, O Lord? “Then comes the crash of falling paganism, with the affrighted cry of the heathen before “the wrath of the Lamb,” and Christianity, that was so long upon the scaffold and at the stake, is now upon the throne of the Caesars.

But, alas, as we have seen, the Church, that has been “more than conqueror” through defeat, is now more than vanquished through victory! For, having overthrown paganism, she became herself gradually paganized, and her worship cor­rupted with mixtures of heathen religion which the Scriptures call the worship of demons, —the employment of images and pictures, which of old provoked the Lord to jealousy; the turning to­wards the east, after the manner of the Babylo­nish sun-worshippers; the signing with the cross, 2 which was long connected with the sensual wor­ship of Tammuz. In fine, the identical abomina­tions which God had denounced in the Jewish sanctuary were now found in the Christian Church. And once more avenging scourges are let loose on Christendom—Saracen and Turkish invasions—to punish its inhabitants, “that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood,” (Revelation 9:20). But before judgment begins, God’s sealing and separation again take place: “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees, till we have sealed the ser­vants of God in their foreheads.” 3 The sealed company whose description follows is an elect company out of the tribes of spiritual Israel; a small company compared with the great mass of nominal Christians; a perfect company, “one hun­dred and forty-four thousand.” It is the four­square multitude, identical with the four-square city, which appears in the twentieth chapter, coming down from God out of Heaven, and which is explained to be “the Bride, the Lamb’s wife.” It is a company “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,” in contrast with the vast throngs of unconverted heathen who have been sealed with the sign of the cross; and as chosen and faithful, it exhibits the twofold signature of the seal of God, — “The Lord knoweth them that are His,” and “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity,” (2 Timothy 2:19). This true and unseduced Bride of Christ we meet through­out the Apocalypse, as we do throughout the whole course of Christian history. Whether as Waldensian, or Huguenot, or Lollard, she is ever hated by the apostate Church. But she preserves her virginity unstained, keeps herself undefiled from the harlot Church and her daughters, and when all Christendom has become earthly she maintains her heavenly citizenship; now hidden out of sight, and now seen standing with the Lamb upon Mount Zion. So that to the end, as in the beginning, we greet her with the divine salutation, “But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”

We shall meet her again in her final presenta­tion to the Bridegroom; but for the present we must further trace the fortunes of her fallen sister.

Endnotes:

1 Development, pp. 359, 360.

2 Julian, the emperor (361 A. D.), taunts the Christians with their idolatry, saying, “Ye worship the wood of the cross, mak­ing shadowy figures of it in the forehead, and painting it at the entrance of your houses.” — See Note B.

3 Revelation 7:2-3. In the Apocalypse, where Jewish people, Jewish temple, and Jewish rites stand for corresponding Chris­tian facts, we have no doubt that this sealed company represents spiritual Israel, —real Christians out of the great multitude of nominal Christians. Dean Alford’s challenge, to those who hold that literal Israel is here meant, is decisive. He asks whether “the Holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,” (Revelation 21:10), must be taken to be the residence of literal Jews, because it bears the names of “the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.” Few would admit this inference, we believe.