01/19/05
Leaving ‘Egypt’
The book of Revelation suggests that the history of the New Testament
church in the period from the Apostolic era to the Second Advent will parallel
the history of the Old Testament church in the period from the Exodus from
Egypt to the First Advent. (For
evidence of this proposition I would refer readers to my books The
Kingdom Come and Let My People Go.) The earthly Jerusalem in the Apostolic era
was the counterpart of Egypt for the Old Testament people of God. Accordingly, the Apostle John in the book of
Revelation refers in Revelation 11:8 to the earthly Jerusalem of his day (i.e.,
where the “Lord was crucified”) as “Egypt”.
Jerusalem was the early ‘capital’ of the Christian church (see Acts
1-2), but it was also the epicenter of Christian persecution, spearheaded by
the Judaists. Jerusalem was the place
Christ was crucified, various of the Apostles were imprisoned (including at
various times Peter, John, and Paul), and Stephen and the Apostle James were
martyred. Jerusalem was the base for
sending Christian persecutors far and wide, even as Saul was sent to
Damascus. The intense persecution in
Jerusalem led to Christian poverty there, which is evidently why the Apostle
Paul took up a collection from the Grecians for the church at Jerusalem. So it is easy to see the parallels between
ancient Egypt in the time of Moses and earthly Jerusalem in the Apostolic era.
When John wrote the book of Revelation, the Apostolic church was still
in its ‘Egypt’. The destruction of
‘two witnesses’ in earthly Jerusalem was yet a future event when John wrote his
Apocalypse (Revelation 11:8), so we can infer that earthly Jerusalem was well
intact when John wrote. From John’s
vantage point at the time of writing the book of Revelation, he wrote: “the
holy city shall they tread under foot” (Revelation 11:2). ‘Holy city’ in this passage has a dual reference to earthly
Jerusalem as well as to the Christian church (the type and its anti-type), and
the prophecy itself has dual fulfillment.
In the sense that ‘the holy city’ refers to earthly Jerusalem, it is
apparent then that when John wrote, the prophecy of Luke 21:24 (“…Jerusalem
shall be trodden down of the Gentiles…”) had not yet been fulfilled. Hence the future tense shall in the statement “the holy city shall they tread under
foot” (Revelation 11:2).
But when Jude wrote his book, the Christian church had evidently
already made the ‘exodus’ from its ‘Egypt’.
The exhortations of Jude are from the vantage point of a church which
had left its ‘Egypt’, but was just at the beginning of its ‘wilderness’ wanderings,
with all its attendant dangers. Thus
we read in Jude 1:4-5: “…there are certain men crept in unawares, who
were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the
grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our
Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put
you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved
the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed
not.”
Jude is warning the Christians of his day not to repeat the same
error made by so many in the wilderness generation, who “forty years long was I
grieved with [this] generation, and said, It [is] a people that do err in their
heart, and they have not known my ways” (Psalm 95:10). Jude calls to mind the two historical
examples John had employed in Revelation 11:8: Egypt and Sodom. So Jude writes in Jude 1:7: “Even as Sodom
and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over
to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example,
suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”
We should keep in mind that Biblical evidence suggests Jude was the
last book written in the Bible. At the
time Jude wrote it, the Apostles had all passed away (Jude 17-18), and the body
of Christian doctrine (and hence scripture) was coming to a close (Jude
3). When
Jude wrote the book, the Apostles were no longer speaking (or writing), because
they had all passed away. That is the implication of Jude 17-18. The Greek reads, '… the Apostles of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that they (as a body) said ...' “The Apostles” refers to John as well as all of the other
Apostles. There is no reason to believe
that Jude limited this to just some Apostles. He did not say 'some
Apostles', or add a delimiting clause. Also, we find the theme in the
writings of John as well as Peter and Paul. We should not imagine only
Paul and Peter knew about sensual mockers of the last days. John also
heard Jesus' teaching of Mt 24,
etc. The closure and sufficiency of
scripture (and the faith which it teaches) is indicated in Jude 3 and Jude
17-18. **The faith** has been once for all delivered, and **the
Apostolic** witness has concluded. (So much for the Apostolic succession
of the Papacy!)
So Jude addresses a people of
God which had left their ‘Egypt’ and were just embarking on an extended
wilderness journey. Jude warned the
people of the new dangers they would confront.
The past victory did not mean they could rest on their spiritual
laurels. They must watch and
persevere. The abomination of
desolation in 70 AD began a wilderness period that would last 1260 “days”
(i.e., years) [Rev 11:3, 12:14], and would not be consummated until 1290 “days”
(i.e., years) later [Daniel 12:11], with the inception of the Protestant
Reformation.
There is an important lesson in
this for us today. We too have not yet
entered the rest of the new heaven and new earth. Although we may look back at great spiritual victories, we must
recognize our road ahead will still be difficult. We must persevere in the faith, and not be seduced by false
doctrines. We may have left ‘Egypt’, but we have not yet reached our
‘Promised Land’.