Thumbnail image

Last Updated on : Saturday, November 22, 2014

 


sp

DOWNLOAD EUREKA volumes in PDF: Eureka downloads page

Eureka vol. 1 TOC | Eureka vol. 2 TOC | Eureka vol 3 TOC

Previous section | Next section

 

Eureka

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

 

 

Chapter 5

Section 2 Subsection 2

The Writing Within and on the Outside


 
spacer

 

The scroll, then, is representative of the things rehearsed before John -- the things which were to be transacted by the performers indicated in our previous sectional remarks in the public audience of the world, until the establishment of the kingdom promised to the poor, who may be found rich in faith, and deemed worthy to possess it. It was "written within and on the outside." This was not stated without meaning. We have seen that it has reference to two general classes of actors in the drama; to those within the temple, and to those of the court without (xi. 2). "We were troubled on every side," saith Paul; "without were fightings, within were fears" (2 Cor. vii. 5). The outsiders are those who make war upon and persecute the saints, such as the beasts, the image of the beast, dragon, and so forth. The things of the scroll written concerning these, were the things written on the outside; while those written on the inside, are the things written about the remnant of the woman’s seed, the 144,000, the white robed palm bearers, the witnesses, the victorious harpists of the Deity, the Lamb’s wife, his followers in the war of the great day of Almighty Power, and so forth. So long as the scroll was rolled up, and the seals not loosed, what was written without and within would be unreadable, and unseen. Hence the unrolling of the scroll, and the loosing the seals, were indispensable to a practical knowledge of its contents. Suffice it then to say in the absence of a present acquaintance with their details, that whatever the writing within may be, it could only be lamentation and woe on the outside; inasmuch as those who are "without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and invents a lie" (xxii. 15). Such "in no wise enter into," or within "the city;" for no one that defiles is permitted to come in there. As it is written, "there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or inventeth a lie: save they who have been written in the Lamb’s roll of life" (xxi. 27). These only will be found therein; and to them only do the good things written within the scroll belong.

The things written on the outside pertain to the "dogs," against whom Paul cautioned those within, saying, "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision" (Phil. iii. 2). These were dogs who had got into the sheepfold unawares, and passed themselves off for sheep by a sheeplike demeanor. They were nothing but dogs, however, in the clothing of sheep. They were very pious; so much so, that in appearance they surpassed the sheep. They were righteous overmuch, and thereby destroyed themselves (Ecc. vii. 16). They were "evil workers" under pious pretenses, who seduced the faithful from "the simplicity which is in Christ," teaching for doctrine the traditions which in after years intoxicated all the nations of the Fourth Beast dominion.

These "dogs" without are commonly styled "the Fathers" by those who are without. These, in the estimation of the Gentiles of "the court which is without the temple," are of higher authority in all ecclesiastical or spiritual questions and "articles of faith" than all the prophets and apostles, or Jesus Christ himself. The Fathers of the Greek and Latin "Christendom" are the foundation upon which it is built for a habitation of the Satan, through the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. The spirituals of "the court of the Gentiles without the temple," in all "the times" allotted to the Gentiles to "tread under foot the Holy City," are the living incarnations, in all the ages and generations of those times, of the soul-destroying principles and practices of "the concision" -- loved and invented by the Nikolaitanes, Balaamites, children of Jezebel, and the Satan -- the Fathers of the Laodicean Apostasy. The priestly and ministerial incarnations of the principles of these Fathers in our day are "LEGION." They are blind leaders of the blind into the perdition that is yawning to engulf the Man of Sin-power and all his agents. Their admirers designate them as "reverend divines," "ambassadors of Jesus Christ," "successors of the apostles," "ministers of the gospel," called and sent of God, as Aaron was, to preach and administer ordinances, "holy men of God," clergy, or God’s lot, "holy orders," and so forth. They are the spiritual guides of the people in all the ways, the broad ways, of "the court without the temple of God." They are the learned and pious expositors of the traditions sanctioned by the innumerable "names and denominations," styled apocalyptically "names of blasphemy," of which the scarlet-colored beast of the "court without" is declared to be "full" (xvii. 3). These "dogs without" are they who "are of the world, who therefore speak of the world, and whom the world consequently hears." By this broad fact, patent to all who understand the truth, all apocalyptic "dogs" may be discerned, and the spirit by which they are inspired perceived (1 John iv. 1-6). They are, as the prophet said of the watchmen of Israel, "blind; they are all ignorant (of the truth); they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; dreamy, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all look to their own way (or sect), every one for his gain to his quarter" (Isa. lvi. 10,11). "They are shepherds that cannot understand," or "come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. iii. 7). They can understand, in some sort, the school divinity it is their business to grind for those who go "wondering after" them, and by whom they have their wealth; but to understand the gospel of the kingdom of Deity, and of the name of Jesus Christ, is too high for them, they cannot attain to it. Let any man, intelligent in the gospel, the preaching concerning Jesus, the revelation of the mystery and its fellowship, as set forth by the apostles (Rom. xvi. 25,26; Eph. iii. 9), take in hand a Greek priest, a Papist sin-pardoner, a Protestant State Church parson, or a Dissenting minister of any of the sects of "the court without the temple," and try his best to exorcise him of his Gentilism, and to substitute in his understanding "the truth as it is in Jesus," and he will find experimentally, that they are all shepherds that cannot understand. With much care the truth was communicated to their predecessors of the apostolic age, who received it, but not in the love of it that they might be saved. They held it in unrighteousness, having the form of godliness, but denying its power. For this cause, God, as Paul threatened, sent upon them strong delusion that they should believe the lie they had invented and to this day so dearly love (2 Thess. ii. 10-12). This "lie" is the matter of the pharmakeia, or poisoning by which all nations have been deceived (xviii. 23). Its effect is to delude strongly all that swallow it, so that it is hardly possible for the truth to enter in.

Apocalyptically, "the dogs without" who administer this poison to the people are styled in the common version "sorcerers," i.e. pharmakoi, poisoners. They poison the people with their soul-medicines; and so having bewitched them, make merchandise of them from the cradle to the grave. It is evident from Acts xiii. 6, that a sorcerer is a false prophet or teacher. All, therefore who do not teach the truth are scripturally designated "sorcerers," poisoners, or false prophets, and are classed with the "filthy" and the "unjust," and are obnoxious to all the judgments written upon the scroll on the outside. It was for them, "those men who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads," that the scorpion-torment and the woe that followed were prepared. These judgments overwhelmed them with calamity, and reduced them to the basest servitude under which they groan until this day. Nevertheless, the rest of their class, upon which the ruin did not come, "repented not of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts" (Apoc. ix). From the Chief Sorcerer in Rome to the meanest poisoner among the western nations, this unrepentant state of mind is their characteristic. They still cling tenaciously to their superstitions, and are as murderously disposed towards all that oppose them as of old. On the side of the oppressor is power; and, wherever that power is, there are the priests, clergy, and ministers of the apostasy to be found sanctifying tyranny, and dividing with the plunderer the gains of extortion and the profits accruing from popular ignorance and folly. Because as murderers, they have shed the blood of saints and prophets; blood has been given them to drink; they have been scorched with fire and have been made to gnaw their tongues with pain (xvi. 6,8,10). Yet "they repented not of their deeds." The judgments that have been poured out upon them, and which have ensanguined the page of history to this present, have failed to bring them to repentance. The things written on the outside of the scroll speak only of the fullness of wrath for such. As they will not repent, utter destruction is written against them in their being made to "drink of the wine of the wrath of Deity, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation," and in being "tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb" (xiv. 10). When this consummation shall have been developed, the saints’ war, which pertains to the great and dreadful day of Yahweh (Apoc. xvi. 14; Joel ii. 31) will have expended itself in the conquest of the Ten Horns, or "kingdoms of the world" (Apoc. xi. 15; xvii. 14), the utter and fiery consumption of the ecclesiastical system of the Greco-Latin habitable (xviii. 4-8), the extinction of the beast and false prophet power in the lake of fire, and the binding of the Dragon in the bottomless abyss. These results belong to the things written on the outside of the scroll, and were a rehearsal before John of the finishing of the mystery of the Deity as he had already declared the glad tidings to his servants the prophets (x. 7). All orders in the states and "churches" of the world, symbolized by the fourth beast of Daniel, will then have been judicially abolished, and the spiritual and temporal destroyers of the people will have been themselves retributively destroyed (xi. 18). There will then be no more any priests, parsons, or preachers, ministering to the ignorance and superstition and sensuality of the multitude and their own especial gain and glorification. The influence of these "sorcerers" over the public conscience will have been reduced to zero. The blasphemous names and denominations which fill the eight-headed scarlet-colored beast will have been dissipated, and mankind will have at length attained to that unity of faith and practice so amply foretold in the writings of the holy prophets. Then, when the clergy and ministers of the Laodicean Apostasy shall have been thrust out of the way (for they, as upheld by the civil power and ignorance of their devotees, are the Babylonian hindrance to the Millennium), the denouement of the things written on the outside of the scroll will stand out in bold relief before all nations, which will then have learned obedience to God and his saints by the things they shall have suffered; and they will say --

"To Him that sitteth on the throne,

And to the Lamb the blessing be,

The honor, glory and the pow’r,

The Aions of the Aions for!" (v. 13).
 
 

And then, in the language of Apoc. v. 14, the victorious "kings of the east," standing upon the sea of glass no longer mingled with fire (xv. 2), shall joyously approbate the benediction, and proclaim the loud and mighty apocalyptic AMEN! So let it be for the thousand years," until he has put all enemies under his feet" (1 Cor. xv. 25). Then will the "royal priesthood" of the heavens, being at that time in those heavenlies (1 Pet. ii. 9; Matt. v. 12), rejoice with the subject nations, upon whom the blessing of Abraham will have come, with loud acclamation, saying, "We give thee thanks, O Yahweh Ail-Shaddai, the Being, and the Was, and the Being Come, because thou takest to thee thy great power, and reignest" (xi. 17). "Great and marvellous are thy works, Yahweh Ail-Shaddai; just and true thy ways, thou King of Saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Yahweh, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and do homage before thee: for thy judgments are made manifest" (xv. 3,4). "Hallelu-Yah, salvation, and glory, and honor, and power unto Yahweh our Elohim; for true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the Great Harlot, which corrupted the earth with her prostitution, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. Hallelu-Yah! Amen! Hallelu-Yah! Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. Hallelu-Yah! for Yahweh Elohim omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready" (xix. 1-7).

Such was the end of the matter written within the scroll, and rehearsed before John as inaugurative of the reign of the Great and Holy City, New Jerusalem, over the healed nations for a thousand years (xx. 1-6; xxi. 2,10,24; xxii. 2) in all which the world is possessed by the city, the saint-city, the Royal and Priestly Municipality of Deity; and all nations are blessed with faithful Abraham and his seed (1 Cor. iii. 21,22; Gal. iii. 9).

 

 


spacer
spacer
spacer

Eureka Diary -- reading plan for Eureka

spacer