REVELATION 2

THYATIRA 2:18-20 YOU TOLERATE JEZEBEL

“And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These things said the Son of God, who has His eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like fine brass: I know your works, and love, and service, and faith, and your patience, and your works; and the last are more than the first. Notwithstanding I have a few things against you, because you allow [tolerate] that woman Jezebel” (Revelation 2:18-20). The message to Thyatira starts with a surprising development: the church has recovered the virtues of the Ephesian period (works, service, faith, patience) and has even developed the love that the Ephesus Church had lost, and this during what is considered the darkest period for the church—the Middle Ages.

The explanation is that the official state church had gone so far in its departure from Christ that the message is no longer addressed to her. In the Pergamos era the Lord declared that the faithful Antipas Christians “have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam” and “have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans,” in other words, that these heretics were a part of God’s church. In the Thyatira age there has been a separation; the true church (known in Revelation as “the remnant”) does not “have” Jezebel, rather it “allows” her.[1]

Jezebel is a fitting symbol of the visible false Church of the Middle Ages. Jezebel was the wife of Ahab, a king of Israel who “did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before Him” (1 Kings 16:30). Previous to Ahab, the ultimate in iniquity was “the sins of Jeroboam” who had divided the kingdom and set up calf idols in the territory of Ephraim and Dan. But Ahab, “as though it had been a trivial thing to walk in the sins of Jeroboam…took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians” (v.31). Jezebel became the effective ruler, manipulating the weak king to do her will.

Their first act was to “set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria” (v.32). She had an army of idolatrous priests—“the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table” (1 Kings 18:19). Later Jezebel “massacred the prophets of the Lord” (1 Kings 18:4) and arranged to have Naboth, an innocent man, murdered in order to seize his property. “So there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up” (1 Kings 21:25).

In like manner the medieval church officially embraced idolatry and manipulated the state to persecute the true children of God. In both the east and the west the worship of images of Jesus and the saints became more and more entrenched, despite the fact that it is condemned by the scriptures.[2] Early in the eighth century the Byzantine emperor Leo III initiated the iconoclastic controversy, vigorously opposing any artistic representations of Christ or the saints. For more than a hundred years the controversy raged, with church councils deciding for and against the worship of images.[3] In 787 the Second Council of Nicea made an official decision to continue the use of icons,[4] and in the ninth century finally rejected the last attempt to put a stop to the use of images, an event that ironically is still celebrated as “the triumph of Orthodoxy.”

Meanwhile in the west, at the end of the Pergamos era the western Roman Empire was overrun by barbarian “heretics” who severely limited the political power of the Papacy. The powerful Byzantine emperor Justinian changed that, sending his armies to liberate not only Rome but also to reclaim much of the western Roman Empire. In order to do this he needed the support of the influential Bishop of Rome. The pope and the bishop of Constantinople had been involved in a long-standing rivalry as to who would have precedence. But in AD 533 Emperor Justinian settled the controversy by issuing a decree in the form of a letter to the pope, in which he declared him “head of all the churches” and “the true and effective corrector of heretics.”[5] It took many years for the papacy to fully establish her own political power, but when she did, she became the “Jezebel” of prophecy, establishing idolatry and destroying all who opposed her.

By the thirteenth century this had become a fearsome reality. Innocent III (1198-1216) organized the Inquisition, a cooperation of church and state, to root out heresy. “Pope Innocent III held that heresy, as treason against God, was worse than treason against the king…The Inquisition became a most formidable organ. Its proceedings were secret, the names of his accusers were not given to the prisoner, who, by a bull of Innocent IV, in 1252, was liable to torture. The confiscation of the convict’s property was one of its most destructive features, and as these spoils were shared by the lay authorities, this feature undoubtedly kept the fires of persecution burning where otherwise they would have died out.”[6] Jezebel had influenced the king to exterminate God’s prophets, and had Naboth murdered in order to seize his property. Her despicable actions were reproduced in the medieval papacy, which controlled the kings of Europe and used them to war against God’s faithful followers.[7]

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