Christianity and Anti-Christianity in Their Final Conflict. Samuel J. Andrews
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Название: Christianity and Anti-Christianity in Their Final Conflict
Автор: Samuel J. Andrews
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Религия: прочее
isbn: 9781647982300
isbn:
8. The Apostles agree in teaching that Satan is "the prince of this world," and that he will continue to show to the Church the same hostility that He showed to the Lord. He will remain to the end the enemy and tempter. St. Paul says: "The God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not." "I fear lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtility, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." "The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." "Put
THE TEACHINGS OF THE APOSTLES COLLECTIVELY. 27
on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." St. Peter says: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adver- sary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." St. John says: "He that is begotten of God, keepeth himself, . . and the evil one tempteth him not." "The whole world lieth in the evil one." (R. V.) "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil."
The supremacy of Satan as the prince and god of this world continuing to the end, the Church must expect to be tempted as the Lord was tempted, and to meet with every form of subtle deception as well as of open opposition. He would come in "the guise of an angel of light." He would even suffer himself to be scoffed at as a nonentity. He would make use of all devices to deceive and to destroy. The Church, therefore, must never think herself secure, but be always on the watch, "putting on the whole armour of God." (Eph. vi, 11 —.)
ST. PAUL AND HIS TEACHINGS.
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Having briefly examined the teachings of the Apostles collectively as to the religious character of the last days, we proceed to examine those passages in each where mention is made of an individual man as the great enemy of God and of His Son at the time of the end. And, as St. Paul speaks most fully and distinctly on this point, we begin with him.
This Apostle, in his second Epistle to the Thessa- lonians (written about 54 or 55 A. D.), speaks of the apostasy or falling away, out of which would come "the man of sin," "the son of perdition," "that wicked." This man, it is said by Prof. Eadie, "the fathers as a body identified with Antichrist." (Com. on Thessalonians.) As a chief source of our knowl- edge respecting him, the right understanding of St. Paul's words is of the highest importance in our enquiry.
It is not necessary here to go into exegetical details, we need note only the chief points of the Apostle's statement: These are. First, The working of the mystery of iniquity in his day. Secondly, The apostasy, or falling away. Thirdly, The coming of the man of Sin, or of the lawless one. Fourthly, The hindrance to his revelation. Fifthly, His destruction at the Lord's coming.
First, "The mystery of iniquity," or, as in the R. V., "the mystery of lawlessness." (2d Thess. ii, 7.)
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ST. PAUL AND HIS TEACHINGS. 29
Here two things are affirmed by the Apostle, the fact of a lawless spirit already working in the Church, and that this working was "a mystery." A mystery is not a thing in itself unknowable, but something hidden from the general knowledge and revealed only to the initiated. (Arcanum iniquitatis Tertul.) Thus the Lord spoke of "the mysteries of the kingdom" which His disciples alone could know; from others they were hidden. (Matt, xiii, 11, Eph. iii, 3.) It is said by Campbell ("Four Gospels"), "The spirit of antichrist hath begun to operate, but the operation is latent and unperceived." And it is said by Bishop Wordsworth in loco," What St. Paul was thus describing was then a mystery, and not as yet revealed, but working inwardly." It was made known to the Apostle by the Holy Ghost because of his position as a ruler under Christ over the Church. In like manner the Apostle John saw the spirit of antichrist already active. (1 John iv, 8.) Both discerned, what was hidden from others, that there was already working a spirit of lawlessness, a rejec- tion of apostolic authority, which, if fully developed, would set aside the rule of the Head, and make the Church her own lawgiver and ruler; and in its last manifestation would reject not only Christ's authority, but all authority of God over men. Out of it would come "the lawless one," who would make his own will the supreme law of his action. As said by Bishop Ellicott: " In the apostasy of the present, the inspired apostle sees the commencement of the fuller apostasy of the future."
But, in what form did this incipient lawlessness so early manifest itself? We have only to read St.
30 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.
Paul's Epistles to find the answer.* In almost all of them we find complaints that his apostolic authority was not recognized, and that he could not effectually fulfill his ministry. As the fundamental condition of all true obedience in the Church there must be love. The Lord said: "If ye love Me, keep my command- ments." Obedience based on any other motive was seeming, not real. And St. Paul himself speaks of the ministers of the Church as able to build it up only in gr through love. (Eph. iv, 16.) As this point will again meet us, we need not dwell upon it here. It is sufficient to say that in the loss of "the first love," we find the hidden root of the lawlessness, the first workings of which the apostles saw.
Secondly. The apostasy, or falling away.
This means, generally, a falling away from some given standard ; a defection; Here it means a falling away from the true standing of the Church as ap- pointed by Ood. This meaning is confirmed by the use of the word elsewhere (Acts xxi, 21), "thou teachest the Jews to forsake Moses"; literally, "apos- tasy from Moses.'' The word is used by St. Paul (1st Tim. iv. 1), "Some shall depart from the faith," "shall apostatize from the faith." This general mean- ing leaves undetermined the degree of the apostasy or
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*See Bernard, "Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament," Lecture viii: "In the Epistles we seem, as it were, not to witness some passing storms which clear the air, but to feel the whole atmosphere charged with the elements of future tempest and death. Every moment the forces of evil shew themselves more plainly. . . New assaults are being prepared, new tactics will be tried, new enemies pour on, the distant hills are black with gathering multitudes."
As to the meaning of this term in the Fathers, see Todd's note, p. 206 ; in Vul. discessio; Tertullian, abscessio.
ST. PAUL AND HIS TEACHINGS. 31
falling away, whether a total or partial denial of the truth. In its culmination, as represented in the man of sin and in his adherents, it is undoubtedly a total denial of the Christian faith. He denies both the Father and the Son. The Apostle distinguishes two forms of the apostasy, one being the corruption of Christianity, the other its absolute rejection. At the first, the working of evil was rather in the heart than in the intellect; and was seen not so much in the loss of truth as in the loss of love. The great Creeds of the Church, and their continued repetition in the past, are the witness that "the Spirit of truth " has worked powerfully in it, preserving the form of sound words, and true rites of worship. But fulness of truth can be held only where is fulness of love; and Church history teaches us that many were early in- fected with doctrinal error, and rejected more or less of the truth without absolutely denying the Father or the Son. But any falsehood cherished, like the un- clean spirit of the Lord's parable, soon takes to itself seven other falsehoods; and thus it is that at the end, when the development of truth and falsehood is com- pleted, we have the absolute truth and the absolute lie standing face to face. Antichrist and his adherents will contemptuously reject whatever the Church has believed respecting the Father and the Son, and all the articles of her faith.
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