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Eureka

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

 

 

Chapter 11

Section 2  Subsection 1

4. All not of the "One Body" Excommunicate

 
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John’s measuring was restricted to the One Body, the mystical body of Christ, the saints. He was expressly commanded to excommunicate all the Gentiles not of the One Body. "The Court," said the Spirit-Voice, "that is outside of the nave, ekbale exo, cast away out, and measure it not;" and the reason given for this excommunication is, "because it hath been given to the nations." Hence, the apocalyptic court is the Court of the Gentiles; and the antitype of the Court of the Gentiles under the Mosaic constitution. It may be remarked here, that in Solomon’s building there were three courts; first, the outmost court of all, into which the Gentiles might enter; next, the Court of Israel, for native Israelites, if clean according to the law, otherwise admission was denied even to them. Between these two courts, there was a "middle wall of partition," upon which were notices forbidding Gentiles to pass beyond it on pain of death; and, third, the Court of the Priests, where the brazen altar of burnt-offerings, and the brazen laver for washings, stood, and where the priests and Levites exercised their ministry. Israelites, who offered sacrifices, might bring their victims to the inner part of this court, but could not pass a certain separation which divided it; they withdrew as soon as they had delivered their sacrifices and offerings to the priest, or had made their confession, with laying their hand upon the head of the victim, if it were a sin-offering. Beyond the Court of the Priests was the temple proper, subdivided within into the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place, or Nave. These two Holies were divided from each other by the Veil or curtain. In the Holy Place were the golden altar of incense, the show-bread table, and the seven-branched lightstand, in whose seven burners was consumed the light-giving golden oil of olives. Into this place, the priests, if purified by blood and water, and invested with the holy garments, might enter at all times; but were forbidden to enter into the Most Holy beyond the Veil. Into this, the Aaronic High Priest alone could enter, but not at all times, nor without blood, on pain of death. When within the nave, he stood, as "the angel stood" (xi. 1), before the throne of Yahweh, whose power dwelt in a cloud between the Cherubim, made of the Olive Tree, and overlaid with pure gold; and above the propitiatory, or mercy-seat, or coverlid of the ark, styled the Ark of the Covenant, because it was a chest containing the stone tables of the law, cut and engraved in heaven, and delivered thence by angels to Moses on the mount. Within were also contained the pot of manna, the bread that came down from heaven, and Aaron’s dead rod that budded into life and bore fruit. Such was "the House made with hands" -- an interesting fabric of the Mosaic parable foreshadowing certain "things of the kingdom of the Deity, and of the name of Jesus Christ."

As we have seen elsewhere, these temple arrangements have been incorporated into the structure of the Apocalypse. The text before us appropriates the apocalyptic outside court to the Gentiles. "The middle wall of partition" having been broken down, by nailing the threatening handwriting of ordinances to the cross (Eph. ii. 14; Col. ii. 14); no Court of Israel is introduced into the apocalypse. Israelites and Gentiles not of the One Body, are constituents simply of the unmeasured court. Their position in relation to the Nave and the Golden Altar, and the Altar of Sacrifice, is that of excommunicate outsiders. In the aggregate, they are "the court outside of the nave cast away out, and not measured." They are therefore, without remission of sins, and consequent right to the tree of life; they cannot offer acceptable prayer and praise to the Deity; nor have they any intercessor within the veil. Their court is wholly occupied by Daniel’s Fourth Beast. There is not a foot of its area which is not so occupied; so that there is room within its limits for no other beast; for this beast is resolved, apocalyptically, into the dragon, the beast of the sea, the beast of the earth, the image of the beast, and the scarlet colored beast and its rider. In other words, the Unmeasured Court is Christendom, so called, in its civil and ecclesiastical constitution "Babylon the Great."

The altar, which in the first verse includes the Court of the Priests, and the Holy place, because the constituents of the altar are constituents also of the court and the holy, is surrounded by the Court of the Gentiles; that is to say, the One Body in the present evil world, is a pilgrim and a sojourner in the midst of its enemies. It is surrounded on every side by the children of "the Great Harlot;" whose ecclesiastical institutions are apocalyptically labelled, "the Mother of Harlots, and of all the Abominations of the Earth." This ecclesiastical family of adulteresses belong especially to "the beast that ascendeth out of the abyss, and makes war upon the saints, and overcomes, and kills them" (ver. 7; xiii. 7). They are the defiling women of ch. xiv. 4; with whom "the Virgins," or Altar-worshippers, have nothing to do, except to prophesy against them, and to torment them with their testimony.

In this Court of the Gentiles, "the spirituals of the wickedness in their high places" are rampant revellers in tradition and blasphemy. Their court is illustrated by one great "Name of Blasphemy" (xiii. 1); which towers in pride and arrogance ("its look more stout than his fellows", Dan. vii. 20) above all the other blasphemous "Names and Denominations," of which it is so "full" as scarcely to afford space for novelty in this department of iniquity, transgression, and sin (xvii. 3). These Names and Denominations of Blasphemy fill up the Court; a fact expressed in the text quoted, by the words, "a scarlet-colored beast, full of the Names of Blasphemy." Those of them in alliance with the civil powers of the court, are styled "Harlots;" these can be counted upon the fingers; as, the Church of England and Ireland, the Church of Scotland, the Lutheran Church, the Calvinian Church of Switzerland, and the Gallican* Church. These are the Harlots, who have sold themselves for gain to work the will of them who keep them. They are ecclesiastical incorporations of "all that is in the world, the" sanctimonious "lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life;" and therefore "not of the Father" (1 Jno. ii. 16). Their diversities are but the diversities of mere human speculation and views of expediency. The same substratum of blasphemy and scripture-nullifying tradition, pervades them all. They teach nothing aright; for their divinities and theologies, are the mere fleshly thinkings of the natural man. Though their spirituals claim to be "ministers of the gospel," and "ambassadors of Jesus Christ," and "successors of the apostles;" their claims are stamped spurious and their high pretensions ignored, by the command given to John not to measure their court, but to "cast it away out." They are a denounced apostasy, as far removed from the One Body as the east from the west. Ministers of the gospel indeed! How can men minister that of which they are profoundly ignorant in letter and spirit. If ministers of anything, it is of "the wisdom from beneath; which is earthly, soulish, and demoniac." By their fruits they are known to the One Body which alone has spiritual intelligence to discern their true character. This measured community knows, that they are a base counterfeit that can only be made to pass current among those who are ignorant; and who mistake brass for the fine gold of the temple. The spiritual institutions of their unmeasured and excluded court, have no vitality in them; and can therefore save no one. Their way is the way of death -- the wide gate and the broad way leading to destruction.

These Harlot-Churches of the Court are the leading novelties of modern times. They had no place in the Court four hundred years ago. Then the court was wholly occupied by Greek and Latin catholic idolatry; the Latin section of which they ignorantly acknowledge as the true church; and the common "Mother of All Churches." This is true. The state churches are all her bastard progeny, begotten of her adulteries with the kings of the earth (xviii. 3). Hence, her apocalyptic name, "MOTHER OF HARLOTS."

But, besides these harlot daughters, whose presence in the court she is too drunk and feeble to prevent -- "drunk," not so much with wine as with folly, and "with the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus" (xvii. 6) she has a multitudinous brood of young serpents, styled "All the Abominations of the Earth." These are the Anti-State churches of the Court -- churches, not allied to the state, but holding dogmas, which are a mere dilution of the traditions of the Harlot Mother of Christendom. They pervade all the British isles and possessions, under the general denomination of "Protestant Dissenters;" and all the original United States, north and south. In the American section of the Court of the Gentiles, as there is no Harlot "by law established" with privileges from which her sister-prostitutes are excluded, "the Abominations" are not styled "Dissenters" and "Nonconformists." In this section of the court they are all equal before the world’s law; but not equally respectable and orthodox in the world’s esteem. Wealth, classical (or pagan) scholarship, and numbers are the criteria of their relative respectability and orthodoxy. The rulers and politicians of the "Model Republic," players all upon the world’s boards, are the honored members or patrons of "all the Abominations of the Earth;" so that from the stage to the pulpit, and from the pulpit to "the floor of the House," there is no wider step than from the sublime to the ridiculous and profane. The legislators and executives of the protestant sections of the Court are the incarnations of the profanities and blasphemies inculcated by the spiritual craftsmen who live by "the Abominations," or "Denominations" of the earth. Hence, their legislation and rule are devilish and oppressive; and calculated to bring down upon them catastrophe and judgment, as at this day, but more intensely and generally hereafter.

An enlightened spectator, contemplating the festering abominations of the European and American papal and sectarian sections of the Court of the Gentiles, might wonder at the long suffering and forbearance of the Deity, whose Name and Tabernacle they so grievously blaspheme. He might exclaim, "How long, O Yahweh, wilt thou not avenge thine own cause!" But, to him it might be replied, that the Deity remains silent, not because he is not indignant at the blasphemies, corruptions, and cruelties perpetrated against his dignity, and the well-being of his two witnesses or prophets; but because the Antichristian Court is "cast away out, and not measured." For this reason, the Gentiles have liberty to set up any, and all kinds of abominations in their court, or area of operation, without being subjected to immediate judgment for their crimes. Hence, polygamous Mormonism, and adulterous Romanism, courtezan state-churchism, and hypocritical sectarianism, all flourish in their several spheres of abomination. They are permitted to do as they please, until the measure or limit of the One Body’s sackcloth probation is attained -- a measure indicated by John’s symbolic resurrection from the death-sleep. John’s rising up measured the altar worshipping of the nave, or saints of Deity. When these rise from the dust, and he with them, "the Angel stands" prepared to "finish the mystery of the Deity as he hath announced the good to his servants the prophets" -- to break up the court, and to level the Great Mountain of human dominion and corruption, with which it is filled. There will then be no more Court of the Gentiles, and no more apocalyptic altar-worshipping for the One Body. All "the Abominations of the Earth," mere lies, vanities, and "things which are of no profit," will then be swept away with the besom of destruction; and nothing will survive, but the victorious and glorified community, symbolized by Zechariah as the Seven Branched Lightstand, and Olive trees. These will then burn the golden oil in the kingdom of their Father; and enlighten the subject nations with their glory.

Such is the position of the One Body in the present altar-worshipping state. It is down-trodden -- trampled upon by the "miserable sinners" of the Court of the Gentiles -- "the Holy City," said the Spirit-Voice, "shall they tread under foot." This is their present fate, in common with Israel after the flesh, who, for an evening-morning of 2400 years past, according to the LXX, have also been trodden under foot by the Gentiles of the Court (Dan. viii. 13,14). The One Body, or "Holy City" is essentially antagonistic to the Sin-Powers of the Court, by what symbol or names soever they may be represented; for it is the Woman and her Seed in opposition to the Serpent and his Seed; two parties between whom there is irreconcilable hostility, which can only cease with the utter destruction of the Serpent-Powers of the Court (Gen. iii. 15).

In the apocalypse, the Holy City occupies a conspicuous and interesting position. The Holy City measured by John, and the Holy City measured by the Angel, are the same Holy City in two different states in the pre-resurrectional; and in the post-resurrectional, states. Every immersed believer of the gospel of the kingdom and name, is an adopted citizen of the Holy City. Paul writing to such believers says: "Ye are come to Mount Zion, and unto the City of the Living Deity, the Heavenly Jerusalem," "the Mother of us all" (Heb. xii. 22; Gal. vi. 26). "Ye are come;" that is, not personally; but by faith; because "we walk by faith, not by sight." All that is promised concerning the future glory of the "barren Jerusalem that beareth not," and is now trampled upon by the Fourth Euphratean, or Ottoman, Angel-power, they heartily and affectionately believe: and believing these "exceeding great and precious promises," together with the things concerning Jesus, and the apostolic revelation of the mystery, they are reckoned by adoption through immersion into Christ, as if they had been royally born in the Asiatic city; and consequently entitled to share officially in all its good fortune when it shall break forth into singing, because her light is come, and the glory of Yahweh is risen upon her (Psa. lxxxvii. 5,6; Gal. iv. 27; Isa. liv. 1; lx. 1). The true believers in the present altar-worshipping state are collectively the Holy City, the Municipality elect, and divinely appointed to rule in the restored Jerusalem, when it shall have been delivered by the Angel of the Bow from the Serpent-Power of the unmeasured court by which it is now "trodden under foot."

 

 


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