ALSO “power over the heathen” (Rev. 2, 26, Dutch ver.), which Christ promises the victor, does not refer to this life, but to that glorious future, when once eternity begins.
To prevent misunderstanding, it is even expressly added: He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end. For “to the end” can not mean anything else, than “to the end of his life,” or “to My return upon the clouds,” and thus in any case excludes the struggle in this life, the battle which still continues. There is no victor, until the battle has been fought to the finish, and the decision is rendered. This does not mean, that the Church, that Christian nations, already now, by way of prelude to the final act, may not in part obtain power over the Heathen. All splendor and glory which is once to come in eternity, sheds already in advance its brightness abroad in this life.
Christians received in part power over the Heathen, when Constantine put away the idols, and planted the Cross in his palace. The Church received in part power over the Heathen, when the peoples of Northern and Western Europe were converted to Christ. Even now Christian Nations exercise in part power over the Heathen in their colonial struggle. Asia and Africa have become tributary to them.
All this, however, is not yet the power over the Heathen, when Constantine overcame Heathendom, a part of the heathen nature entered into Jesus’ church. Baptized Europe sanctioned heathen things in Christian forms. Even now it is not the Christian-powers which won Asia and Africa for Christ, but which in their colonies make Christian-colonists drink heathen venom; and let all their politics be dominated by greed and heathen ideas of might.
Therefore the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise on Patmos, must not be sought in this provisional play.
Also this promise of Jesus, even as all the other promises of Patmos, does not refer to the present, but to the eternity to come, and to the glory that shall once be manifest.
And with respect to that future we are promised by Jesus: To him that overcometh, and keepeth my works (not those of the heathen) unto the end, will I give power over the heathen, and he shall shepherd them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken in shivers, even as I received of my Father.
IN the church of Thyatira the condition was bewildering. A condition as under Ahab and Jezebel in Israel. A group of confessors, under the lead of a woman of influence and prominence, introduced into the Church of Christ the abominations of Baal-Peor. Under the mask of piety the grossest sensuality. The real heathen nature, from the days when Phineas with his javelin thrust through Zimri the adulterer and Cozbi, the Midianitish woman, had already now, while the apostles were still alive, entered into Christ’s church. And such not as an hidden evil, but as an openly advocated system, had been adopted as a part of the ceremonial itself. Something which later on repeated itself among Baptist sects, and in the circles of Mysticism often yet works out its aftermath, but from the Nicolaitanes, in the second century of Christ’s church, first turned into Manicheanism.
You do not understand it, and yet so it was, the most abominable service of the flesh mingled in veneration and worship of Him, Who counted the looking upon a woman to desire her, as already adultery in the heart.
From two sides the heathen nature entered the heart of the Christian religion. From without and from within. From without by oppression, persecution and effort to eradication. And from within by poisoning with heathen sin and sensuality.
The hangman by order of Heathendom raged with the sword. The woman, as bearer of heathen poison, charmed with her enticements. Always again Ahab who murdered the prophets, and Jezebel who tempted the people to sin.
The heathen nature which, realizing that, if Christ triumphs, it itself must go to the death, applies all its power and sensual beguilement, if possible, to destroy the Christian nature.
Here, every time, conditions, as though the heathen nature prevails, and Christ is worsted. And therefore Christ on Patmos, at the beginning of the contest, saying to His churches: Provided ye persevere and overcome, absolute triumph over the heathen nature once awaits you.
AND here also the promise proceeds from fellowship with Christ. It always is the key-note of the High-priestly prayer: “I have given them the glory which Thou gavest me” (John 17, 22). If they suffer with me, they shall also be glorified with me. As Christ is, so also shall those be that are His in His glory.
What was promised Him in Psalm 2, that He would shepherd the heathen with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel, that same promise Jesus here takes and applies to those that are His. As long as here on earth they wander as pilgrims, constant danger from the side of the heathen nature, both to be oppressed, and to be poisoned by it. But in the future of the Lord also in this respect glory for oppression, glory for disdain. They will then have dominion with Christ over that heathen nature, and feel that before their scepter it falls back, and as before their feet is broken in pieces.
Thus everything harmonizes, and the interpretation leaves no room for doubt.
In Psalm 2 it says, that the heathen rage against God’s anointed King, saying: “Let us break His bands asunder and cast His cords from us”; and the Decree narrates of a future, in which God’s anointed King shall dash that heathen nature in pieces before His feet.
In the church of Thyatira that heathen nature with its deadly poison entered by sensual worship. Instead of raging malice there was enticement. And now also Jesus stimulates to resistance, by giving a unisonous promise to all that are His.
If they persevere that heathen nature shall once be brought to nought, and as now they suffer under it, they who hold fast to Jesus, shall then triumph over it.
HE does not appreciate this promise in the least, who never thinks of this heathen nature, except when there is mention of Caffres and Dyaks, and flatters himself that his contribution of some ten dollars a year for Missions quite covers all his responsibility with respect to the heathen world.
To such shallow natures and superficial religious people Jesus on Patmos had nothing to say. What Jesus there says, is for him that hath ears to hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. They are promises for His prophets, for His earnest believers, for His choice companies, for those who go under in the fight, and in the battle of the Lord find the task of their life.
And then from the nature of the case it is altogether different.
Then the heathen nature is not gone from Europe and banished to Asia and Africa, but in Christianized Europe it is still in all sorts of ways undermining, threatening, oppressing, poisoning, the Christian nature, and scheming its destruction.
All the clamor that “Clericalism” must be resisted, that “Clericalism” is the enemy, and that the nation must be delivered from “Clericalism,” is nothing but the ancient emancipation-fever, in Psalm 2, which is ever yet instigated and fed by the heathen nature in our Christian nations.
All that is called “modern Christendom,” one part faith mingled with nine parts philosophy, is nothing but that old heathen nature, which in the name of Christ is brought into the church of Christ and destroys her.
And also, everything that is said, to make the material triumph over the spiritual, to make stern morals looser, to introduce heartless dissoluteness, to crown free love, and to repress all count with guilt by the cowardice of irresponsibility, is nothing else than that same old heathen nature, which poisons our Christian society.
Of this they who are “at ease in Zion” feel nothing. But the faithful witnesses of the Lord suffer under it. His prophets avert the poisoned arrows of this evil with the shield of faith. Life oppresses them, harrows their soul. And these are they, who in their moaning heart fight the deadly danger of the poisoning of this heathen nature.
For them it is constant depression, on one hand, with their whole soul to believe in Jesus, and yet on the other hand again and every time again to perceive, that the heathen nature spreads like a cancer, represses the Christian element, gains triumph upon triumph, and with wild laughter as that of demons rejoices over their defeat and anguish.
Under it the very elect would succumb; and that they might not succumb, Jesus on Patmos revealed to them His decree, that it can not be otherwise, that the heathen nature must continue to vex them till the end.
But also, that this is merely for a time.
That once the triumph over that heathen nature shall be entire. And that in that day God’s anointed King shall not tread the wine-press alone, but that He will give His redeemed people full fellowship in so glorious a result.
How? Jesus does not say.
But this guarantees His promise to us: If we overcome to the end, we shall ourselves have part in the complete subjection of the heathen nature.
Not Christ alone shall do it, but we with Him.
SOMETIMES it seems, that to seek honor were sin. Accustomed to being oppressed and defeated, one imagines, that to be willing to suffer, to be willing to be oppressed, to be willing to bend the head, were the highest.
And this must not be. This is to violate our nature, as man to cast away our highness and our holy character.
For this reason Jesus stimulates in us the opposite feeling.
What He promises us is the crown, is the dominion, is the sitting on a throne, is the triumph over our enemies.
And that exalted sense Jesus stimulates and makes keen in us, not that here we should swell the breast or assert ourselves against our humbler fellowmen. No, but that we should understand, that in the midst of his oppression only then a king’s child does not dishonor himself, when in the face of his oppression he restlessly puts the protest of the certainty of his future exaltation.
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