esus Christ said, "I will build my church; and the gates of hell [Gk. hades, "the grave"] shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18 KJV). What was the Church that Jesus built, and what happened to it?
When the Bible speaks of the Church, it is never speaking of a building or of a human organization incorporated under secular authority. The word in the Greek language which is translated "church" in English is ekklesia. It is derived from two root words in Greek and literally means "called out" or "called from." In secular usage, it referred to an assembly of citizens who were "called out" from the inhabitants of the city to consider some matter of importance. It was often used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to refer to the congregation of Israel or to the assembly of God's people. "Congregation" or "assembly" expresses the meaning in New Testament usage as well.
However, the "called out" aspect of ekklesia is fundamental to understanding the Church. In Genesis 12 we read that Abraham was "called out" by God from Ur of the Chaldees. In Exodus 12 we read of Abraham's descendants, the children of Israel, being "called out" by God from Eygyt. They then became the congregation of Israel or the "Church in the Wilderness" (Acts 7:38 KJV).
One of God's final warnings to His people consists of a call to "come out" of Babylon (Rev. 18:4). The saints of God are not to participate in that corrupt, endtime culture's sins so that they will not partake of the divine punishments that "Babylon" shall receive.
Jesus makes it plain that the only way someone can come to Him and be part of His Church is for the Father to call him (John 6:44). Only those who respond to the Father's call by repentance and baptism will receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), and it is only through the Holy Spirit of God that we become part of the Church that Jesus built (Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 12:13).
What happened to the Church that Jesus Christ proposed to build? Did it adapt and change with the times through progressive revelation? Did it get off the track and have to undergo a reformation at the hands of such men as Martin Luther and John Calvin? Or, has there been a body of believers down through the centuries that has continued to believe and practice the same doctrines Jesus Christ and the first-century apostles taught?
When we look at the story of the mainstream, professing Christian church throughout the centuries, it appears to be a vastly different church from the one described in the pages of your New Testament. In the book of Acts we find that God's Church celebrated "Jewish" holy days (Acts 2:1; 13:14, 42, 44; 18:21), talked about the return of Jesus Christ to judge the world (Acts 3:20-21; 17:31) and believed in the literal establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth (Acts 1:3, 6; 28:23).
Yet, less than 300 years later, we find a church claiming apostolic origination, but observing the "venerable day of the Sun" instead of the seventh-day Sabbath. When that church assembled its bishops to discuss doctrinal matters at the Council of Nicea, the meeting was presided over by, of all people, a Roman Emperor--Constantine! How could such an amazing transformation have taken place? What happened?
Protestant author Jesse Lyman Hurlbut acknowledged the dramatic change that took place in his book, The Story of the Christian Church. He wrote, "For fifty years after St. Paul's life a curtain hangs over the church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises, about 120 A.D. with the writings of the earliest church-fathers, we find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul" (p. 41).
The story of the Christian church between Pentecost of 31 A.D. and the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., almost 300 years later, is an amazing story. It is the story of how yesterday's orthodoxy became today's heresy and how old heresies came to be considered orthodox Christian doctrine. It is the story of how church tradition and the teaching of the bishops came to supersede the Word of God as a source of doctrine. It is a story that is stranger than fiction, yet is very much historically verifiable.
Acts 2:1 states: "Now when the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they [the disciples] were all with one accord in one place." God's Holy Spirit was poured upon them in power, just as Christ had predicted (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:5-8).
In the aftermath of that dramatic day, 3,000 people were baptized (Acts 2:41)! Within a matter of months, this number had multiplied several times over (Acts 6:1). It was a time of dramatic miracles and of incredible growth. It was also a time of doctrinal unity. The entire Church was composed of Jews who observed God's law. They kept the law (Acts 21:20) and anticipated the literal establishment of the Kingdom of God on this earth.
Simon and "Another Gospel"
However, when the sons of God gather together, Satan soon comes in among them as we can easily infer from Job 1. In Acts 8, we are introduced to a man who was greatly used of Satan to infiltrate and subvert God's Church. This man was Simon, the sorcerer from Samaria, better known in secular history as Simon Magus. Simon was considered by the Samaritans to be God's divinely chosen representative (Acts 8:9-10). Eduard Lohse, writing in The New Testament Environment, states that the expression, "the great power of God," represents Simon's "claim to be the bearer of divine revelation" (p. 269). Simon was baptized and became a nominal Christian, along with the rest of the Samaritans. However, the Apostle Peter recognized Simon's real motives. In Acts 8:22-23 Peter rebuked him in the strongest terms as being "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity" (KJV).
Who were the Samaritans? The book of Second Kings tells us that when the northern ten tribes of Israel were deported by the King of Assyria, Babylonians were settled in their place. These Babylonian Samaritans continued to practice their old Babylonian paganism, but with the added infusion of biblical terminology to obscure what they were doing (2 Kings 17:33, 41). Though they professed adherence to the God of Israel, they didn't really obey God's law (v. 34). In fact, as is made plain in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, they became enemies of the true Work of God.
The Samaritans, just as the Jews, had become dispersed throughout the known world in the aftermath of Alexander the Great's conquests. There were Samaritan colonies in several major centers of the Roman Empire, including Alexandria, Egypt and Rome. Simon had admirers and adherents among these people.
Samaritanism, with its foundation of Babylonian paganism and lip service to the God of Israel, was also heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. Now to this, Simon Magus added an acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of mankind. However, as Jesus explained, "Not every one who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven" (Matt. 7:21). Simon used the name of Jesus, but substituted a different message--a message that did away with the need to really obey God and keep His commandments!
Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity notes, "Early Christian writers regarded Simon as the fount of all heresies" (p. 100). The Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.) in its article on Simon Magus identifies him as the "founder of a school of Gnostics and as a father of heresy." Noted historian Edward Gibbon says the Gnostics "blended with the faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets which they derived from oriental philosophy" (The Triumph of Christendom in the Roman Empire, p. 15).
Gnosticism (the term is derived from the Greek word for knowledge) was a highly intellectual way of life. It represented a blending of Babylonian mystery religion, Greek philosophical speculation and an overlay of biblical terminology. Among the Gnostics, biblical accounts weren't taken literally but were treated as allegories used to teach deeper "truths." "The Mosaic account of the creation... was treated with profound derision by the Gnostics" (Gibbon, p. 13). Gnosticism stressed pagan dualism with its emphasis on the immortality of the soul and the inherent evil of matter. It also introduced much vain speculation on the nature of God and the spirit realm. Several New Testament books, including Colossians, the gospel of John and First John, spend much time refuting the Gnostic heresies that Simon Magus and many others began to spread.
Hellenistic culture, which pervaded the Middle East and Mediterranean regions, was an alternative worldview--a competitor to the perspective and values of the Bible. It stressed the supremacy of reason and logic rather than divine revelation. The later Greeks, embarrassed by the ribald antics of their ancient gods and heroes in the writings of Homer and Hesiod, sought to explain them away as profound allegories. This approach to their "inspired" writings was picked up by Hellenistic Jews, such as Philo of Alexandria, and applied to the Bible. This treatment of the Old Testament as an allegory was a handy tool for Gnostics and others who wanted to evade obedience to plain commands.
Since this was the "scholarly" approach of the day, it was thought necessary to use allegory in order to gain approval from the trendsetters of "educated" opinion in the first and second centuries.
About 15 years after the baptism of Simon Magus, the Apostle Paul found it necessary to warn the Church in Thessalonica, "The mystery of iniquity [lawlessness] doth already work" (2 Thess. 2:7 KJV). About five years later Paul warned the Corinthians that they were in danger of being corrupted by false apostles teaching "another Jesus" and "another gospel." Simon and his followers were, in reality, ministers of Satan masquerading as ministers of Christ (2 Cor. 11:3-4, 13-15).
By the mid-60s A.D., the Apostle Jude, brother to James and Jesus Christ, exhorted Christians of the necessity to "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). He went on to warn that there were certain men who had stealthily crept into the church organization, trying to turn grace into lawlessness by teaching that God's law was no longer necessary (v. 4). By Jude's time the true faith had already been once and for all delivered. Modern scholars who claim that it remained for second and third century theologians to begin to formulate an accurate understanding of God's nature would do well to reread Jude 3. It is clear that Jude does not allow for "progressive revelation"!
Writing at the close of the first century, almost 30 years after the rest of the New Testament was completed, the aged Apostle John had to contend with heresies that were far more widespread than those of the days of Paul and Jude. John repeatedly emphasized the necessity of keeping God's commandments (1 John 2:3; 3:4, 22; 5:3). He stressed in 2 John 7, "Many deceivers have gone out into the world." In 3 John 9-10, a leader by the name of Diotrephes had gained control of some congregations in Asia Minor and was actually putting out of the Church true Christians that remained loyal to the aged Apostle John and his teachings.
The Church in Transition
An event of far-reaching implications for the New Testament Church had occurred about 25 years prior to John's writing. This event was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman legions under Titus in 70 A.D. The Jerusalem Church of God, under the leadership of James' successor, Simeon (first cousin of James and Christ), fled Jerusalem shortly before 70 A.D. and went to Pella, a remote desert community. After the Roman conquest of Masada in 73 A.D., Simeon returned the exiled Jerusalem Church to Jerusalem. But, just as the war had turned the magnificent Temple into heaps of rubble, so it also destroyed most of Jerusalem's prestige, status and wealth. The reestablished Church in Jerusalem languished in poverty and relative isolation. It never regained uncontested authority to influence and lead the Christian movement. Simeon lived to the age of 120 and was martyred under the Emperor Trajan in about 107 A.D. Following Simeon's death, the Jerusalem Church of God experienced great instability, having 13 leaders in the next 28 years.
Many previously promulgated heresies now emerged in full bloom. In addition, many in the Church were discouraged and confused. Events had not gone as had been generally expected. The Church was increasingly becoming a mix of new Gentile converts and second or even third generation members.
During the last part of the first century and the beginning of the second, the Roman world became increasingly hostile to the Jews. Extremely oppressive laws and heavy taxes were directed against them by the Roman Empire as punishment. Between the first (66-73 A.D.) and second (132-135 A.D.) Jewish revolts, there were many violent anti-Jewish pogroms in places such as Alexandria and Antioch. Reacting to this, the Jews rioted in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt.
Frequently, Christians suffered as victims of these outbursts because they were regarded by the authorities as a Jewish sect. However, they were considered by the Jewish "freedom fighters" to be traitors to Judaism and to Jewish political aspirations because they would not fight alongside the rest of "Israel." During these times, hundreds of thousands of synagogue and church members--those who worshipped on Sabbath days and studied the Scriptures--perished at Roman hands or by mobs.
During this dangerous era, the Roman church under its Bishop Sixtus (c. 116-126 A.D.) began holding Sunday worship services and ceased observing the annual Passover, substituting Easter Sunday and "Eucharist" in its place. This is the clear record preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea, a late third and early fourth century A.D. scholar, who became known as the "father of church history." Eusebius quoted his information from a letter of Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (c. 130-202 A.D.) to Bishop Victor of Rome. Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi, in his book, From Sabbath to Sunday, acknowledges: "There is a wide consensus of opinion among scholars that Rome is indeed the birthplace of Easter-Sunday. Some, in fact, rightly label it as 'Roman-Easter'" (p. 201). Of course, what is not generally realized by the speakers of non-Latin languages is that the Romans didn't use the name "Easter" for their new celebration; they continued to call it by the Latin word for Passover, paschalis.
This official break from the law of God was the natural outgrowth of the "mystery of iniquity," which confused grace with lawlessness and taught that obedience to the law was unnecessary. When a practice is not deemed necessary, it is only a matter of time until convenience will dictate either its modification or its abolition. As the conflict between Judaism and the Empire heightened, many "Christians" in Rome, under the leadership of Bishop Sixtus, took steps to avoid any possibility of being considered Jews and thereby suffer persecution with them.
In 135 A.D., at the end of the Second Jewish Revolt, the Roman Emperor Hadrian (Publius Aelius Hadrianus) took drastic steps against the Jews. He modestly renamed Jerusalem after himself and the "god" Jupiter Capitolinus--Aelia Capitolina--and imposed the death penalty on anyone called a "Jew" who would dare enter the city.
At this point Marcus, an Italian, became bishop of Jerusalem, as Edward Gibbon records in the fifteenth chapter of his famous Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "At his [Marcus'] persuasion, the most considerable part of the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of which they had persevered above a century. By this sacrifice of their habits and prejudices they purchased free admission into the colony of Hadrian, and more firmly cemented their union with the Catholic church" (vol. 1, p. 390).
What of those who continued to regard the law of God as binding for Christians? Gibbon writes, "The crimes of heresy and schism were imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes which refused to accompany their Latin bishop.... In a few years after the return of the church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could possibly hope for salvation" (p. 390).
It was only a matter of time until professing Christians who had ceased observing the Sabbath "excluded their Judaizing brethren from the hope of salvation... [and] declined any intercourse with them in the common offices of friendship, hospitality, and social life."
Incredible! This happened when, just a few years earlier, they were all observing God's Festivals together. Yet after Bishop Marcus brought in "new truth," the majority criticized those who remained loyal to what they had all formerly practiced as being a source of division and wanted nothing to do with them.
A Theology of "New Truth"?
The writings that have been preserved from the second century onward evidence a totally different theology from the writings of the Apostle John, written only 10 or 20 years earlier. Dr. Bacchiocci asserts, "Ignatius, Barnabus, and Justin, whose writings constitute our major source of information for the first half of the second century, witnessed and participated in the process of separation from Judaism which led the majority of the Christians to abandon the Sabbath and adopt Sunday as the new day of worship" (p. 213). Ignatius of Antioch, in about 110 A.D., wrote, "It is monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and to practice Judaism" (Magnesians, 10). He also talked of "no longer observing sabbaths." Yet John, writing his gospel scarcely 15 years earlier, emphasized that Jesus kept the same Festivals the Jewish community kept (John 7:2; 11:55).
Barnabus of Alexandria, not to be confused with the Apostle Barnabus, in his epistle written about 130 A.D., alleges that the Old Testament is an allegory and not intended to be understood literally. He regards the prohibitions of the law against eating unclean meats as an allegory of the type of people that Christians should avoid (Epistle of Barnabus, 10). He also seeks to allegorize the Sabbath and states, "We keep the eighth day for rejoicing in the which also Jesus rose from the dead" (Epistle of Barnabus, 15).
Two prominent second century theologians who played an important transitional role in the change from biblical theology to Roman Catholic theology were men who were both baptized in churches under faithful Polycarp's leadership. Polycarp (c. 69-155 A.D.) had been a personal disciple of the Apostle John and was one of the few church leaders of his day to hold fast to the Truth. These two men, Justin Martyr (c. 95-167 A.D.) and Irenaeus (c.130-202 A.D.), while maintaining some truths they had learned under Polycarp, also sought to accommodate themselves to the new direction of Roman theology in the name of "church unity." Irenaeus, though he departed from much of Polycarp's teaching, maintained a lifelong admiration for Polycarp as a great man of God.
Justin was a Greek from Samaria who became a Platonist philosopher and then, under the influence of Polycarp and his disciples, was baptized as a Christian at Ephesus in about 130 A.D. He came to Rome in 151 A.D., founded a school and was subsequently martyred in 167 A.D. After arriving in Rome, Justin sought to steer a middle course on the subject of the law. Henry Chadwick writes:
Justin believed that a Jewish Christian was quite free to keep the Mosaic law without in any way compromising his Christian faith, and even that a Gentile Christian might keep Jewish customs if a Jewish Christian had influenced him to do so; only it must be held that such observances were matters of indifference and of individual conscience. But Justin had to admit that other Gentile Christians did not take so liberal a view and believed that those who observed the Mosaic law would not be saved [The Early Church, pp. 22-23].
Irenaeus grew up in Asia Minor and, when a teenager, heard Polycarp preach. He came to Rome as a young man and later became bishop of Lyons in France in 179 A.D. Irenaeus is considered the first great Catholic theologian and seems to have gone to great lengths to promote peace and a conciliatory spirit. His desire for peace was so great, however, that he was willing to compromise with the Truth to maintain church unity. The churches in Asia Minor under Polycarp's leadership observed the Sabbath and the Holy Days. Yet, when Irenaeus came to Rome, he readily adapted to the Roman practices of observing Sunday and Easter. In Lyons there were some who kept Passover on Abib 14 and some who kept Easter. Irenaeus kept Easter but sought to be tolerant of those who still observed Passover.
Let's look more carefully at the theological revolution that was taking place in the Church of the second century. "Justin Martyr occupies a central position in the history of Christian thought of the second century.... Justin also molded the thinking of Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons" (Chadwick, p. 79). Though Justin became a professing Christian in Ephesus, he "did not understand this to mean the abandonment of his philosophical inquiries, nor even the renunciation of all that he had learnt from Platonism" (p. 75). He believed that the God of Plato was also the God of the Bible. "Justin does not make rigid and exclusive claims for divine revelation to the Hebrews so as to invalidate the value of other sources of wisdom. Abraham and Socrates are alike Christians before Christ" (p. 76). This approach set the stage for a reshaping of Christian theology to embrace much of Greek philosophical thought concerning the nature of God.
In spite of all this, Justin acknowledged the authority of the book of Revelation and believed "Christ would return to a rebuilt Jerusalem to reign with his saints for a thousand years" (p. 78).
Irenaeus, heavily influenced by Justin, also preserved bits and pieces of the Truth in spite of conforming to Roman practices. He rightly taught, "The purpose of our existence is the making of character by the mastery of difficulties and temptations" (p. 81). He also adhered to the literal hope of an earthly millennium, during which Christ would reign on earth, and taught against interpreting the millennial hope as symbolic of heaven, though he toned down his insistence on this point in his later works.
Truth Abandoned in Favor of Unity and Tradition
There were two fundamental errors that separated professing Christians from those who truly represented the continuation of the Church that Jesus built. These errors involved whether or not God's law was still obligatory for Christians, and who and what God is. Errors on these two points led to an ever-widening divergence between the professing Christian church and the true Church of God.
The importance of the law was the major area of controversy from about 50 A.D. until 200 A.D. It was not finally resolved until the Councils of Nicea (325 A.D.) and Laodicea (363 A.D.) when the Roman state became involved. The substance of the conflict is preserved in the confrontation between Polycrates of Asia Minor and Victor, bishop of Rome, about 190 A.D. Polycrates was the successor of Polycarp who was himself a disciple of the Apostle John. Irenaeus records that Polycarp had traveled to Rome in the mid-second century to try and persuade Anicetus, bishop of Rome, of the true time of the Passover. Anicetus claimed to have been bound by the tradition of his predecessors since Bishop Sixtus, while Polycarp declared, "He had always observed it [Passover] with John the disciple of our Lord, and the rest of the apostles, with whom he associated" (Eusebius, xxiv).
About 50 years after Polycarp's journey, Victor of Rome sought to intimidate the churches of Asia Minor into conforming to the Roman Easter practice. Polycrates wrote Victor:
We therefore observe the genuine day [Passover]; neither adding thereto nor taking therefrom. For in Asia great lights have fallen asleep, which shall rise again in the day of the Lord's appearing, in which he will come with glory from heaven, and will raise up all the saints; Philip, one of the twelve apostles, who sleeps in Hierapolis... John, who rested upon the bosom of our Lord... Polycarp of Smyrna... All these observed the fourteenth day of the Passover according to the gospel deviating in no respect, but following the rule of faith... and my relatives always observed the day when the people threw away the leaven [Abib 14]. I, therefore, brethren, am now 65 years in the Lord, who having conferred with the brethren throughout the world, and having studied the whole of the sacred Scriptures, am not at all alarmed at those things with which I am threatened, to intimidate me. For they who are greater than I, have said, "We ought to obey God rather than men" [Eusebius, xxiv].
As various controversies raged during the second century, a new approach to church government was to have consequences of monumental proportions. This approach was an emphasis on what was termed Apostolic Succession.
In the first century, Paul had praised the Bereans for their approach in "checking up on him" by searching the Scriptures daily to see if he was teaching truth (Acts 17:11). He exhorted the Thessalonians to, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (1 Thess. 5:21 KJV). Constantly, throughout the first century, we see an appeal being made to the Scriptures.
But, beginning with the writings of Clement, bishop of Rome, we find a new emphasis. Clement wrote a letter to the church in Corinth about 100 A.D., probably very shortly after John's death. The editors of Masterpieces of Christian Literature summarize Clement's principal ideas as: "The way to peace and concord is through obedience to established authorities, the elders. Christ rules the churches through the apostles, the bishops appointed by them, and the approved successors of the bishops."
About ten years later Ignatius stressed the same point: "Unity and peace in the church and the validity of the church are acquired through faithful adherence to the bishop" (Masterpieces).
By the middle of the next century the claims had grown so forcefully that Cyprian of North Africa stated, "The focus of unity is the bishop. To forsake him is to forsake the Church, and he cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother" (Chadwick, p. 119).
These claims were being made to hold brethren in an organization that was rapidly developing into what we know today as the Roman Catholic Church. How different these appeals are to those of Paul and the other New Testament leaders who pointed to the Scriptures and to the fruits of their ministries for authentication (cf. 1 Cor. 11:1; Acts 17:2). No longer able to rely on a clear appeal to Scripture, second and third century church leaders increasingly based their claim to the loyalty of the brethren upon their assertion of being duly ordained successors of the apostles and the bishops that succeeded them. While they increasingly abandoned what the apostles taught, these deceivers sought to hold brethren together by appeals to unity and to the memory of the apostles.
In the next chapter we will examine how the Trinity, the immortality of the soul and the use of images in worship crept into the professing Christian church. We will also see what was happening to those who refused to follow the lead of Rome.
