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HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
What does Church history have to do with Xmas? It
shows us it was one of the pagan practices added. Let’s
review the origins of the true and the false churches.
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
THE EPHESIAN ERA – 31–100 A.D.
“To the…church of Ephesus, write, “I know your works,
your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those
who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are
apostles and are not, and have found them liars, and you
have persevered and have patience, and have labored for
My name’s sake and have not become weary.
“Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left
your first love. Remember therefore from where you have
fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to
you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—
unless you repent. But this you have, that you hate the
deeds of the Nicolatians, which I also hate” (Rev. 2:1-6).
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
The book of Acts shows us
God’s original church
started in Jerusalem and
then went to Samaria.
From there the gospel
spread throughout the
Roman Empire and beyond.
But in Samaria, Simon
Magus became a convert
and then rejected God’s
truths. Later writers
mentioned he vowed to build
his own Christian church.
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
In Acts 8, Luke reveals the leader who later established
the counterfeit Christian religion—Simon Magus. This
is one of the reasons the Apostles in their Church letters
mention the false system as already in existence. Paul
says, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at
work” (2 Thes. 2:7). This group is identified by the
risen Christ in Revelation 2:6 as “the Nicolatians,” a
sect historians trace to Simon Magus and his followers.
Hastings’ Dictionary of the Apostolic Church says
Simon Magus was "a false Messiah, who practiced
magical arts and subsequently attempted, by the aid and
with the sanction of Christianity, to set up a rival
universal religion" (Vol. 11, p. 514).
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
What Luke tells us about Simon Magus: Acts 8:9-23
Dr. Ernest Martin, an expert on Simon Magus, explains:
1) Simon was a Samaritan, not a Jew. The Bible tells us
salvation is of the Jews--not of Samaritans (John
4:22). Samaritans practiced a mixture of Babylonian
and biblical religions.
2) Simon Magus used demonic powers to do miracles.
3) The whole population of Samaria gave heed to him
and looked to him as a great prophet.
4) The Samaritans worshipped him as "the Great One"-or a god, and he practiced his power for a long time.
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
5) Luke tells us Simon Magus nominally became a
Christian and was baptized -- that is, he outwardly
"entered" the Christian Church and knew its truths.
6) Simon recognized that Christ’s power was greater than
his but wanted to associate with that great name and
power.
7) Simon, waited until the authorities, Peter and John,
came to Samaria and then offered to pay them money to
obtain that power and an apostleship in the Church.
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
8) Peter perceived that Simon was in the "gall of
bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity [lawlessness]."
William Ramsay says, "Peter rebuked him in strong
and prophetic terms. The prophecy is concealed in the
ordinary translation: the Greek means ‘you are for a
gall of bitterness and a fetter of unrighteousness”
(Pictures of the Apostolic Church, p. 60).
Lange’s Commentary adds: "Peter’s words literally
mean: ‘I regard you as a man whose influence will be
like that of bitter gall [poison] and a bond of
unrighteousness [lawlessness]’" (Vol. 9, p. 148).
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
9) Even after Peter’s strong rebuke, Simon did not repent!
And Peter knew that he wouldn’t!
Conclusion: Simon thought he deserved to be an apostle
in the Christian Church. He became baptized which, in a
physical way, made him a "member." But he did not
repent of his errors and with his later followers--called
himself “a Christian.” It is because of the later deceptive
activities of this would-be apostle that Luke was
compelled to show his ignominious beginning and to
reveal what Peter prophesied about him.
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
This prophecy is the KEY that opens to our understanding
the ORIGINS of the heresies mentioned in the letters of
the Apostles.
No wonder Jude later says, speaking about the very men
who followed Simon Magus (including Simon himself):
"For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were
before of old ordained to this condemnation" (Jude 4).
See also the prophecy of the wheat & tares in Mt. 13.
The later history of Simon Magus shows that Peter’s
prophecy came true in a most remarkable way as Simon
Magus made his way to Rome.
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
The Dictionary of Christian Biography says about
Simon Magus, "When Justin Martyr wrote [152 A.D.] his
Apology, the sect of the Simonians appears to have been
formidable, for he speaks four times of their founder,
Simon; and we need not doubt that he identified him with
the Simon of the Acts.
“He states that he was a Samaritan…a formidable
magician, and tells that he came to ROME in the days of
Claudius Caesar (45 A.D.), and made such an impression
by his magical powers, THAT HE WAS HONORED AS A
GOD, a statue being erected to him on the Tiber, between
the two bridges, bearing the inscription ‘Simoni deo
Sancto’ (i.e., the holy god Simon)" (Vol. 4, p. 682).
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
Hastings adds, "But it need NOT be supposed that
when Simon broke with the Christians he renounced all
he had learned. It is more probable that he carried some
of the Christian ideas with him, and that he wove these
into a system of his own. This system did contain some
of the later germs of Gnosticism.
“Thus he became a leader of a retrograde sect, perhaps
nominally Christian, and certainly using some of the
Christian terminology but in reality anti-Christian and
exalting Simon himself to the central position which
Christianity was giving to Jesus Christ" (Vol. 2, p. 496).
There was a Simon in Rome, but not Simon Peter!
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
A curtain
falls
around 70
A.D.
Historian Jesse Hurlbut writes,
“For fifty years after St. Paul’s
life, a curtain hangs over the
church, through which we vainly
strive 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” (Story of
the Christian Church, p. 41).
This is when Simon Magus and
his successors took advantage.
When it
rises again
around
120 A.D., it
is a very
different
church.
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
THE SMYRNA ERA 100-325 A.D.
“I know your troubles; I know that you are poor--but really you are rich! I know the evil things said
against you by those who claim to be Jews but are
not; they are a group that belongs to Satan!
Don't be afraid of anything you are about to suffer.
Listen! The Devil will put you to the test by having
some of you thrown into prison, and your troubles
will last ten days. Be faithful to me, even if it means
death, and I will give you life as your prize of
victory” (Rev. 2:9-11, Good News version).
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
Church historian Lamson says of the writings of most of
the 2nd century Christian writers, called Church fathers:
“Many of them were learned, but few of them knew how to
apply their learning to any good purpose…
“The theology of most of them exhibited a strange and
unnatural union of Christian doctrines with the
philosophy taught in the Platonic schools of Alexandria,
the most worthless that ever tasked the speculative
intellect; and they were, almost without exception,
addicted to the fanciful modes of interpretation, and
particularly the allegorizing spirit. There is no species of
absurdity, in the interpretation, reasoning, faith, or
opinion, of which their writings do not furnish abundance
of examples” (Church of the First Three Centuries).
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
2nd Century -- Church historian Henry Chadwick:
“Victor of Rome’s intervention in 190 [to change
the Passover to Easter] was successful…But it was
a long time before those who kept [Passover] on the
14th day (nicknamed Quartodecimans) died out. The
group still existed in the 9th century despite the vigor
of church councils that deplored them…
There can be little doubt that the Quartodecimans
were right in thinking they had preserved the most
ancient and apostolic custom. They had become
heretics simply by being behind the times” (The
Early Church, p. 85).
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
In the 3rd Century, “The renewed zeal of the true
followers of Christ was accompanied with an
increase among the number of apostate Christians.
The breach between the true Church of God and the
sects was widening, and the churches were taking
form, which eventually materialized into the Roman
Catholic church and the Greek Catholic church.
“The holy Sabbath was still observed in the true
church in this century, and was generally retained
by many of the sects which had sprung up in this
and the preceding centuries” (Dugger & Dodd, A
True History of the True Church, pp. 70-72).
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
The 4th Century -- On 312 A.D., in the
eve of a battle, Constantine had a vision
and saw a cross of light imposed over
the sun. Attached to it was the saying:
“In this sign you shall conquer.”
The prophetic 10 years of terrible
persecution of the Smyrna Church
under Diocletian was from 303 to 313.
In 325 A.D., Constantine gave support
to the Roman Catholic Church. By 380,
it was compulsory to be a Catholic.
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
4th Century – British historian Adrian Hilton writes, “It
was not until Constantine began a process of syncretism
that Christians began to understand the nature of the
beast which was evolving. The Saturday Sabbath was
replaced by Constantine’s edict forbidding work on ‘the
venerable day of the sun’ (Sunday), and the celebration of
the Passover was declared illegal—on pain of death.
“It was replaced by ‘Easter,’ celebrated on a Sunday and
inherited from a Babylonian cult to the goddess Ishtar.
The Roman pseudo-Christianity caused many faithful
believers to flee into the mountains of Europe and Asia
Minor to escape persecution and death, and there they
continued, away from the world’s view, as the true church
of Christ” (The Principality & Power of Europe, 1997).
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
“The type of Christianity which first was favored,
then raised to leadership by Constantine was that of
the Roman Papacy. But this was not the type of
Christianity that first penetrated Syria, northern
Italy, southern France, and Great Britain.
“The ancient records of the first believers in Christ
in those parts, disclose a Christianity which is not
Roman, but from Palestine and Asia Minor” (B.G.
Wilkinson, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, pp. 2526).
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH
Dr. Samuel Bacchiocchi: “Let us note that the
Church of Rome pioneered not only the observance of
Sunday and Easter-Sunday, but also the new date of
December 25 for the celebration of Christ’s birth.
In fact the first explicit indication that on the 25th of
December Christians celebrated Christ’s birthday, is found
in the Chronograph of 354 A.D. (300 yrs. later).
“The adoption of the date of December 25th for the
celebration of Christ’s birth shows not only of the
influence of the Sun-cult, but also of the primacy exerted
by the Church of Rome in promoting the adoption of the
pagan holidays of the Day of the Sun and the birthday of
the Invincible Sun held on December 25.”
HISTORY OF GOD’S ORIGINAL CHURCH