Scripture Reading: Rev. 17:1-6, 16; 14:8; Matt. 13:37-42; 1 Cor. 3:9-15; Rev. 21:1-11, 18-21
We need to see that there is not only an eschatology of the world, the study of the end of the world situation, but also an eschatology of the church. Our study of this crucial matter is according to the divine revelation of the Scriptures. We believers in Christ are not only in the world but also in the church. The genuine church exists within Christianity. Christianity has become very great and includes mainly the Catholic Church and the Protestant church. The Catholic Church and the Protestant church were not there at the time of the apostle Paul. What was there at his time was the original and recovered church. The recovered church refers to the original church. These two are one.
Paul rebuked the Corinthian believers in his first Epistle to them by telling them that they were trying to divide Christ. There were various parties in Corinth who were saying, “I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” and “I am of Cephas.” The self-supposed “spiritual” ones said, “I am of Christ” (1:12-13a). Thus, there were four divisions in Corinth. The church in Corinth was an original church, but it had degraded; it had lost something. At that juncture Paul wrote them. His Epistles to them were recovery books; they recovered the church in Corinth.
By reading Paul’s second Epistle to Timothy, we can also see that at Paul’s time the church had degraded. Some had left the Christian faith. Others, like Alexander the coppersmith, opposed Paul to the uttermost (4:14). But Paul himself declared that he had kept the faith (v. 7). Second Timothy is a book of recovery. The original church existed only for about half a century. The apostles established the original church within less than fifty years. But while Peter, John, and Paul were still living, the church fell from its original state to a degraded state, a deformed state, and even a transmuted state. This is why the Epistles were written. All the “second” letters of Peter, John, and Paul (e.g., 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, 2 Corinthians, etc.) were letters of recovery. All these letters were for recovering the lost church.
At John’s time, some even said that Christ never came in the flesh (1 John 4:2-3; 2 John 1:7). Others said that Christ was not the Son of God but eventually became the Son of God (1 John 2:22-23). The church had become deformed, changed in form, and transmuted, changed in nature. Thus, John wrote to the believers to recover them. At the time of the apostles we can see the original and recovered church.
The recovered church came into being just a little later than the original church. The original church lasted only for a short time. It was born into a sick situation, an unhealthy environment. When the apostle Paul was sent by the Holy Spirit from Antioch to Asia to preach the gospel and to set up churches, the opposing Jews came to frustrate him. After the churches were established, the Gnostics came in to make trouble. Thus, the church became sick either from Judaism or Gnosticism. The original church did not last too long, but God would not let the church be lost without any kind of recovery. This is why the Lord as the Head of the Body charged the apostles Peter, John, and Paul to write their later Epistles to recover the church. We have to realize that the Lord’s recovery began at the end of the first century. In every century afterward, the Lord raised up a number of “Ezras” and “Nehemiahs” to recover, to reconstitute, the church.
In the first five centuries, there was only the original and recovered church. Then near the end of the sixth century the Catholic Church came into existence. At that time the pope was recognized as the authority of the Catholic Church. The Protestant church came into existence at the time of Martin Luther during the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Today there are still these three kinds of churches.
The church of the recovery is always taking a narrow way. All of those who participate in the recovered church learn the special lessons in the Christian life. They learn to know Christ, to know themselves, and to know the flesh. They learn how to be crucified to live the God-man life. All the members of the church should be God-men because the church is formed with the deified man. The high truth of God becoming a man that man might become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead was discovered by the church fathers in the second century. This was something of the Lord’s recovery. With us the Lord’s recovery began in mainland China seventy-two years ago. Today there are mainly three kinds of churches on earth: the Catholic Church, the Protestant church, and the original and recovered church. We must choose the original and recovered church because it is genuine.
The real condition and end of the Catholic Church are clearly unveiled in Revelation 17. The first six verses tell us the condition, and the last three verses tell us the end. The condition is illustrated in a figure of speech by a golden cup (v. 4). A cup signifies something that is presented to a person for him to drink to meet his need. The golden cup signifies that in outward appearance the apostate church does have something of God. The Catholic Church believes that Christ is God, that He was born of a virgin, and that He died for the sins of sinners and resurrected. In their recent catechism, they also pointed out that God became a man that man might become God. In today’s Protestant churches, on the other hand, there are modernists who do not believe that Christ is God, that He was born of a virgin, and that He died on the cross as the Redeemer. They consider that Christ was a martyr and do not believe that He resurrected.
In Revelation 17 the Roman Catholic Church is called “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT” (v. 5). There are even some Catholic scholars who have recognized that the Great Babylon in Revelation 17 refers to the Catholic Church. In Matthew 13 the Lord likened the Roman Catholic Church to a woman who took leaven and put it into fine flour (v. 33). Most fundamental expositors of the Bible say that the fine flour refers to Christ as food to both God and man. Leaven signifies evil things (1 Cor. 5:6, 8) and evil doctrines (Matt. 16:6, 11-12). It includes all evil things such as heresy, idolatry, and adultery. Thus, the Catholic Church is a mixture.
The cup which the woman has in her hand is golden, but it is full of abominations and the unclean things of her fornication (Rev. 17:4). In figure, gold signifies the divine nature of God. Hence, the apostate church does have something of God, but she is full of evil things such as heresies, idolatry, pagan practices, spiritual fornication, and even physical fornication. For a woman to practice fornication means that she has many husbands. The church should be married to Christ and to the truth of the Bible. Not only is Christ the Husband, but also the truth, the Word of God, is the Husband. The Word of God and Christ are one. The Catholic Church has accepted Christ and the Word of God, yet it has also received many heresies and idols. This has made her a spiritual fornicator.
The Catholic cathedrals are full of idols. G. H. Pember pointed out that one of the saints in the Roman Catholic Church is actually Buddha (see the Life-study of Revelation, Message 51, p. 585). In Manila there is a statue of a so-called Jesus at the entrance of a certain cathedral. The feet of this statue have been touched and even kissed by people so many times that there is a hole there. This is idolatry, but it is in a “golden cup.”
One young person from a Catholic family received the Lord Jesus and then went to his parents to tell them that he had the Lord Jesus in him. His parents responded by saying that they already had Jesus, and they pointed to a picture of the so-called Jesus hanging on the wall. Because they had such a picture, they thought they had Jesus.
In 1937 when I was traveling in the interior of China, a case of demon possession was brought to my attention. I said that in principle either sin or some idols or images in that woman’s home would give the ground for demon possession. Eventually, I learned that on her wall was a picture of the so-called Jesus, and I told her to burn it. From the moment she burned that picture, the demon departed. The Catholic Church is full of idols, heresy, and all kinds of pagan and heathen practices. This is the real condition of today’s Catholic Church.
Revelation 17 also tells us the end of the Catholic Church. At the end of this age, the Antichrist will make a covenant with the Jews for seven years. In the middle part of this seven-year period, he will break this covenant (Dan. 9:27) and exalt “himself above all that is called God or an object of worship” (2 Thes. 2:4). He will persecute all religions, and the first religion persecuted by him will be that of the Catholic Church. This is because both Antichrist and the Catholic Church will be centered in Rome. Revelation 17:16 says, “And the ten horns which you saw and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked and will eat her flesh and burn her utterly with fire.” This means that Antichrist and his ten kings will persecute the Great Babylon and burn her. That will be the end of the Catholic Church.
The Protestant church is full of false believers (Matt. 13:37-42). In Matthew 13 the Lord told us that the kingdom of the heavens is like a man who sowed good seed of wheat in his field, but his enemy then came and sowed tares in the midst of the wheat. His slaves then asked if they should go to collect these tares. But the man’s response was, “Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Collect first the tares and bind them into bundles to burn them up, but the wheat gather into my barn” (v. 30). The Lord said that at the consummation of this age, He will send His angels to collect all these tares, signifying all the false, nominal Christians in any kind of church, and will cast them into the lake of fire (vv. 40-42). They will be thrown directly into the lake of fire, having no need to pass through the formality of any judgment. Their end will be the same as Antichrist and the false prophet. Both of them will also be thrown into the lake of fire directly, without any formal judgment (Rev. 19:20).
The original and recovered church is the genuine church. The church in Corinth was a genuine church. Paul told them, “You are God’s cultivated land, God’s building” (1 Cor. 3:9). He was telling them that they were the genuine believers, the real ones who had received the Lord Jesus, who had been regenerated, and who were going to be sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glorified. On the one hand, they were God’s farm to grow Christ. On the other hand, they had to be transformed from plant life to minerals. They had to grow so that they could be transformed to become gold, silver, and precious stones, the material for God’s building. Paul laid the unique foundation of Christ, but the believers’ progress would depend upon how they grew and how they built upon this foundation. If they built with wood, grass, and stubble, these materials would be burned (vv. 10-13).
At His coming back, the Lord will judge and deal with not only the Catholic Church and the Protestant church but also the original and recovered church. He will summon all His genuine believers in any kind of church to His judgment seat (2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 14:10; 1 Cor. 4:5) to be judged and dealt with by Him. In that judgment He will discern whether they have built with gold, silver, and precious stones or with wood, grass, and stubble. The work of wood, grass, and stubble will be consumed, and those who have worked with these worthless materials “will be saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15). On the other hand, those who have built with gold, silver, and precious stones will be the materials for the constitution of the New Jerusalem in the millennium and be consummated in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth.
At the Lord’s coming back, the overcomers who are transformed into gold, silver, and precious stones will be awarded to be in the New Jerusalem in the thousand years of the kingdom. Revelation shows us that the New Jerusalem will be the Paradise of God in the thousand years for the overcomers (2:7). But those who produce wood, grass, and stubble will have their work burned at the Lord’s coming back, and they will be saved as through fire. They will be disciplined by the Lord for one thousand years. Eventually, through the Lord’s patience, they will be perfected and transformed also into precious material for God’s building. At the end of the thousand years, they will also join and participate in the New Jerusalem in its consummation. This is the genuine condition and end of the original and recovered church.
Today we have a choice as to which way we will take. Will we take the Catholic way, the Protestant way, or the original and recovered way? If we take the original and recovered way, how will we take it? Will we take it in a condition of idleness? Revelation shows us that among all the genuine believers, only those who are like Paul in struggling to pursue Christ will gain and enjoy Christ. They will be the overcomers. We may be in the original and recovered church, but what kind of condition are we in? Are we endeavoring to be the overcomers to close this age? In other words, are we endeavoring to live a God-man life with ourselves and our flesh always being crucified on the cross that we may live by His divine life to express Christ? If so, we will be able to proclaim, “For to me to live is Christ. I live to magnify Christ whether through life or death by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”
We should be such overcomers who are living and magnifying Christ day by day. We should be constituted as those who pursue Christ at any cost, always forgetting the past and going forward to gain Christ. To gain Christ actually means to live and magnify Christ. We can live and magnify Christ by living a crucified life toward ourselves, our flesh, our natural life, and everything other than Christ. We are crucified in every way to live Christ by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Then we not only live Him but also magnify Him. How much we gain Him depends upon how much we magnify Him. This is the living of the God-men, who are the overcomers.
We should not say in a light way that we are God-men. This is not a light matter. We may praise the Lord for the highest peak of the divine revelation that God has become a man that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. But we should say, “Lord, I need Your mercy. I need Your abounding grace. Otherwise, how could I become God in life and in nature? Every day I need to live a crucified life to gain Christ, to magnify Christ.”
Eventually, we will be in the ultimate consummation of God’s purpose, the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1-11). The New Jerusalem is constituted with three kinds of materials: gold, pearl, and precious stones (vv. 18-21). Gold signifies God in His divine nature, pearl signifies the redeeming and regenerating Christ, and precious stones signify the transforming Spirit. This is the consummated Divine Trinity constituting Himself into our being to make us gold, pearl, and precious stones that He may have an enlargement for His eternal expression, the New Jerusalem.
