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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 7

Section 3

The Seal and the Foreheads Sealed


 
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John says, the angel who had ascended had a seal. It was a remarkable seal, and pertained to "the living Deity," as opposed to all other deities flourishing in those times which had no life in them. Of course, it was a symbolical seal he saw, and represented something capable of making an impression upon the sealed. Seals were anciently, as in modern times, engraved with devices, that when pressed upon a softened surface the device might be transferred thereto, as the mark of the owner of the seal. The Deity has a device which he has himself engraved upon his own seal, the counterpart or mark of which is transferred to the hearts of those who are impressible, and they become his sealed servants. It is written in Job xxxiii. 16, "The Deity openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction." From this we may learn that sealing has to do with teaching, and, consequently, as the seal of the Deity is applied to a surface capable of thinking, his seal is that which impresses his ideas, or "thoughts and ways," upon the brains of his creatures.

Now, all the true servants of the Deity are thus "sealed in their foreheads," which, hieroglyphically, are symbolical of their intellects and affections. The Chief of these servants, the Messiah or Christ, was himself to be sealed. This predetermination was revealed by the Spirit to Daniel the prophet, in ch. ix. 24. In that place we are informed that, within the Seventy Weeks, prophetic time, "the Vision and PROPHET" should be sealed, lakhtom khazon wenavi; and, besides this, "the Holy of holies" should be "anointed", limshoakh kodesh kodashim. Within the period prescribed, Jesus was manifested, and put in his claim to be THE PROPHET; and, from the New Testament, we learn that he was both anointed and sealed. "The Deity," says Peter, "anointed Jesus of Nazareth with holy spirit and power" -- pneumati hagio kai dunamei (Acts x. 38); and, speaking of the Son of Man, Jesus says, "him hath the Father, the Deity, sealed." Now, as sealing has to do with instruction, we find Jesus was not only able to do works of power, in "healing all that were oppressed of the devil," but he could speak words of spirit and life which the sealed only can do. "The words I speak unto you," said he, "are spirit and life." And, again, he said: "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me." "I have not spoken of myself; but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak." "I am in the Father and the Father in me. The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself." Hence, the discourses of Jesus must be received as the discourses of the Deity or Spirit in him. What he gave utterance to was "the word," or teaching of the Spirit -- the things sealed or impressed upon his brain by the Deity. To be sealed is, therefore, to be taught of the Deity; and, in regard to those who in very deed come to Christ, it is written in the prophets, "they shall be all taught of the Deity." "Every man, therefore," saith Jesus, "that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me." The Father teaches men by what he causes them to hear , that they may learn it. "I have told you the truth which I have heard of the Deity." "I speak to the world those things I have heard of him." These things spake Jesus. He was sealed by what he heard; and the things spoken to him were the seal of the Deity by which he was impressed.

The seal of the Deity, then, is divine teaching. This may be sealed or impressed upon the brains or "foreheads" of men directly or indirectly. Jesus was sealed directly. He heard in his sensorium what no one heard but himself. "How knoweth this man letters not having been taught?" said the Jews. "He knew what was in man," says John. This was inspiration. Select ones alone were sealed thus. "The Revelation of the Mystery" was sealed upon the foreheads of the apostles in the same way. "I have yet many things to say unto you," said Jesus to the apostles, "but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak from himself, but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak, and will declare to you the things coming. He shall glorify me." And, on another occasion, he said to them, "When they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given to you in that very time what ye shall speak: for it is not ye who are speaking, but the Spirit of your Father which is speaking by you." This was divine sealing direct, without the intervention of any human agency. The Father could have sealed or taught all men in this way. There can be no question of his ability so to do; but it did not so please him. It would have saved mankind a great deal of trouble, and might have saved them from much error. It would have been a system of infallible sealing or teaching, which would have left them nothing to think out; so that, for want of use, their brains might have become enervated and imbecile. Thus, extremes meet. Imbecility from knowing all the truth without mental effort, and imbecility from knowing nothing about it, as in the case of our contemporaries who have sold themselves to the clerical soul-merchants of the world (Apoc. xviii. 13). But except in the class of cases adduced, the Father requires men to use "their foreheads" upon what he causes to be presented to them for faith. He requires them to listen and to understand what the Spirit saith. He hath created them with ears for the purpose of hearing what he hath to say, that by the hearing they may learn the truth and believe it. "Faith comes by hearing the word of the Deity," says Paul; and it matters not how the hearing gets into our "foreheads" so that the word heard effects a lodgment there.

In the case of Jesus and the Apostles, there were no writings from which they could learn the mystery hidden from the ages and the generations. The knowledge of this had to come by direct sealing. There was ample material for them to exercise "their foreheads" upon in the scriptures of the prophets, so as to sharpen them by reason of use. But they had to speak things about which all antiquity was silent, and this required direct sealing or teaching by the Deity himself.

When men are sealed they are sanctified; and it is written "Sanctify them by thy truth; thy word is truth;" and John says: "to pneuma estin he aletheia, the Spirit is the truth." To be sealed, then, by the truth is to be sealed by the Spirit; and to be sealed by the Spirit is to be sealed by the truth; and he that is ignorant of the teaching of Jesus and the apostles, which was in strict harmony with the prophets, is not sealed at all, however pious or religious he may feel. The feelings are blind, and excitable by any and every kind of foolishness; so that pious and religious feeling may, and does, result from faith in the dogmas of Confucius, of Mohammed, and of all classes of so-called "divines" in all the realm of the catholic and protestant Laodicea. Hence, pious feeling is no evidence of a person being one of the sealed servants of the Deity. The New Man these sealed ones put on is "made new by exact knowledge -- eis epignosin -- after the likeness of him who created him;" for "they are the Deity’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works" (Col. iii. 10; Eph. ii. 10). Ignorance of the truth in its effects and consequences is the reverse of all this. Gentiles of mere pious and religious feeling "walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened (their foreheads, in other words, unsealed), being alienated from the life of the Deity through the ignorance that is in them, because of the insensibility of their heart" (Eph. iv. 17).

The symbolical seal of the Deity, then, John saw in the possession of the Angel-sealers who had ascended, was something to be exactly known; in other words, it represented the truth -- "the word of the truth of the Gospel." This is the seal of the Deity -- "his power for salvation to every one who believes: for therein is his righteousness by faith revealed for faith; as it has been written, The just shall live by faith" (Rom. i. 16); so that, in writing to Jews and Gentiles in Corinth, who, having heard from him "the Word of the Kingdom," "believed and were immersed" (Acts xviii. 8), Paul says to them, in 2 Cor. i. 21 "Now he who stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is Deity; who hath ALSO sealed us, AND given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." Here the sealing is additional to "the anointing" and "the earnest." The three thousand on the day of Pentecost were first "sealed in their foreheads," and when, as an evidence thereof, they inquired what they should do, they were commanded to "change their minds, and be immersed upon the Name of Jesus Christ into the remission of sins," and then promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, or "anointing" and "earnest." Where "the gift" was received (for it was not given to every one who was immersed, but only to such of certain qualifications, who were selected for "prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers" -- 1 Tim. iii. 1-7; Eph. iv. 11), they were sometimes said to be "sealed with the holy Spirit of the promise," as, "Ye trusted in Christ after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom, also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of the promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, for redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory." Here the sealing with Spirit is preceded by sealing with the gospel teaching. The power of the truth taught caused them to believe and trust; and after these results were evinced which showed that they had been "sealed in their foreheads," they were sealed with holy spirit, as promised, and could exercise gifts which none have had access to since the Apostasy was enthroned. They could use these sealed gifts or "spirits," or abuse them; for "the spirits of the prophets" were "subject to the prophets." They were, therefore, exhorted to "grieve not the Holy Spirit of the Deity by which they were sealed for a day of redemption" (1 Cor. xiv. 32; Eph. i. 13; iv. 30). The exhortation, however, was not generally heeded. They abused "the Spirits" or spiritual gifts, and therefore the consequences threatened were manifested in the withdrawal of the Spirit, or, symbolically speaking, on "removing the lightstand out of its place," by which they were left in the "outer darkness" of the kingdom of "the Spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies" of the world.

The reader will perceive from these premises, that the traditions of "the Church" (in which we include all "the Names and Denominations of Christendom" that practise baby-sprinkling; and all others which practise immersion of adults, without their being first "sealed in their foreheads" with the gospel Paul preached as "the seal of Deity") are altogether contrary to scripture. "The Church" has substituted sacramentalism for Christ. This was especially the feature of the times concurrent with the ministry of the Angel-Sealers. The Rev. Mr. Elliott, himself a baby sprinkler and signer of the cross upon their unsealed and unsealable foreheads, speaking of these times, says: "But what of the neophytes’ personal looking in faith to Jesus, as the soul’s life and light, whereby alone to secure the spiritual blessing shadowed out in the sacramental rite (baptism)? Of this and of the doctrine inculcating it, we read little. On the other hand, it is scarce possible for a student of the church history of the times not to be struck, as he reads, with the exaggerated and unscriptural notions then widely prevalent of the virtue attached to the outward baptismal rite as if in itself sufficient to secure them: that is, when duly performed by the ministering presbyter; or, as in Levitical phrase, and with Levitical functions attaching, he was now generally called, the ministering hiereus, sacerdos, or priest? Throughout the whole of the preceding (third) century, and even earlier, a preparation had been making for these views by the accumulation of titles of honor on it (baptism). Besides its earlier title of the loutron paliggenesias (laver of regeneration Tit. iii. 5) it was now denominated, as Bingham tells us, the sphragis seal, karakter kuriou, the Lord’s mark, photismos, the illumination, phulakterion, phylactery or preservative, aphtharsias enduma the investiture of incorruption, soterion, the salvation. In the language of an eminent (catholic) bishop of that day (Cyril): ‘It was the ransom to captives, the remission of offences, the death of sin, the regeneration of the soul, the garment of light, THE HOLY SEAL indissoluble, the chariot to heaven, the luxury of Paradise, the procuring of the kingdom, the gift of adoption.’ ... A magical virtue, as it has been expressed, was too generally thought to attach to the rite; and that not only were all sins ipso facto washed away by it, but all evils, as by an amulet, averted. The ceremonies now superadded to the simple form prescribed and practised at its original institution, added to this impression. The custom is recorded how the candidate turned to the West, while priestly words of exorcism were uttered, by which it was supposed that he was now at length delivered from the dominion of the Prince of Darkness; then to the East, as to receive, together with the baptismal immersion (Elliott’s own phrase, and equivalent to immersional immersion) the illumination of the Spirit. And then he was enrolled in the church-register, as being of the number of THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL. A crown was borne by him, in token of his victory over sin and the world; a white dress put upon him, as on one washed from sin, and robed for immortality: and moreover, as Gregory Nazianzen tells us, he was led up before the altar in token of the beatific vision of the life to come; and received with psalmody, as in foretaste of the hymnings of the blessed."

Such was the ritualistic initiation of crowds renouncing idolatry into the catholic church in the days of Constantine, who figured in all the sixth seal, and in the half hour silence of the seventh. They claimed to have been marked with the Lord’s Seal and Mark upon their foreheads. But it was Mother Church’s seal, "impressed on them," says Elliott, "by the officiating presbyter, and perfected by the chrism of the confirming bishop; this last being deemed an essential point:" and he might have added, constituting "the mark" which "the Beast" afterwards required all to receive upon pain of death if refused (Apoc. xiii. 16). The presbyter only baptized by permission of the bishop. The bishop’s confirmation, of which anointing was the sign, was then administered soon after baptism, or immersion; but now years after sprinkling, but without the oil. This was the origin of the idea of baptism being a christening, or anointing.

Thus, the sealed foreheads of the Church, were foreheads wetted with water, and greased with oil, by presbyters and bishops. This sealing, however, did not get below the skin. It did not reach the intellect and affections; and therefore effected no spiritual good. The Laodiceans thought otherwise. "The neophyte emerged from the waters of baptism," say they, "in a state of perfect innocence. The dove (Holy Spirit) was constantly hovering over the font, and sanctifying the waters to the mysterious ablution of the sins of the past life. The water itself became, in the vivid language of the church, the blood of Christ" -- Milman, Hist. Christ. With such "Holy Water" what need of understanding and belief? The church administers to its devotees its "sacraments" without regard to their quality. Though the seal of the Living one teaches, that "without faith it is impossible to please Him," the Church pays no regard to the principle; but sacramentalizes all sorts, the only disqualification being, to be "sealed in the forehead by the seal of the living Deity," which all her officials denounce as heresy not to be tolerated or endured. Thus, sacramentalism substitutes mere water, oil, bread, wine, and priestly ministration, for the faith that comes by hearing and understanding the gospel Paul preached. According to the Church, a babe, or an idiot, is regenerated by sprinkling its face with sanctified water. The spirit held in solution by the water mysteriously ablutes original and actual sin. Hence, faith is superfluous; and if babes and idiots may be regenerated by sanctified water, and saved from the flames of hell, why may not benevolent and well meaning people, go up to heaven at death, who, like the quaker pietists, make no use of water at all? Yes, why not? And because the Church sees no valid objection, it recognizes these pious deists as christians! Thus, the Church having lost sight of the faith; having transmuted baptism of believing adults into rhantism of unconscious babes; and substituted priestism for the word; she was repudiated by the Spirit as an unbaptized apostate, "wretched, and pitiable, and poor, and blind, and naked." As, therefore, she was no longer competent to teach "the words of eternal life;" and that He might still have a light in the world -- a "name" and a "tabernacle," in which heavenly place his sealed ones might dwell (Apoc. xiii. 6); and that an enlightened agency might be organized for the developing from succeeding ages and generations those, "whose names had been written (gegrammenoi) in the book of life" -- He stirred up faithful men to an active and energetic testimony against "the Church," who unveiled its imbecility and folly; and showed their contemporaries of the fourth century a more excellent way. They went forth mighty in the word with their faces westward, convincing and converting catholics from the error of their superstition; teaching them "the things concerning the kingdom of the Deity, and the name of Jesus Christ;" and then immersing the taught "both men and women" (Acts viii. 12). Thus, many Laodiceans bought gold tried in the fire, and white raiment, and anointed their eyes with eyesalve, and became rich, clothed, and seeing; they heard the voice of the spirit in having the word preached, and opened to them, and "he dwelt in their hearts by faith" (Eph. iii. 17); and thus, with this potent seal, they were sealed in their foreheads as the servants of the Deity to the number, symbolically expressed, of "144,000 of all the tribes of the sons of Israel."

Between "the Church," then, and the Ecclesia, an antagonism was established by the sealing, direct, uncompromising, and irreconcilable, on all points of faith, practice, discipline and policy, which has continued to this day; and will continue till "the Church" is abolished by the Ecclesia; and the homage of emancipated and enlightened nations be willingly and joyfully given to Jesus and the sealed. Had it not been for the sealing of the 144,000, at the period under consideration, real christianity would have soon become extinct. But by this divine interposition, the Ecclesia was extricated from her great peril; and enabled to maintain a testimony for the truth for many ages after.

 

 


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