THE
PSEUDOS
An Article From "Things To
Come" 1894
The subject we are about to consider is not only of great
importance to all Christians, in order that they may be spiritually on their
guard, but it has dispensationally a bearing upon the whole subject to which
this journal is in particular devoted—Prophecy.
Let us consider a text
that has long been before students of Prophecy: "For this cause God shall send
them an energizing of error that they should believe the lie: that all they
might be judged who believed not the truth, but took delight in
unrighteousness." (2 Thess. ii. n, 12.) The expression "the lie," or calling it
by its Greek name, the Pseudos, is no mere isolated phrase thrown in by
the way, and to be applied solely to the teaching of the Anomos, or Lawless One
spoken of in the preceding verses; it must be considered in its character,
according to a synthetical view of all those dispensations which the Apostle of
the Gentiles sets before us in the letters he wrote to the seven
assemblies—beginning at Romans, where the Church of God is brought on to
the scene, and ending at Thessalonians, where it is taken off it. He takes a
comprehensive survey of God's dealings with man upon the earth from the time of
Nimrod down to that of the Apocalyptic judgments. What he shows us is the
Divine side of the issue. That is the plan of these letters, and as he has
insulated his subject wonderfully, our attention should be the more
concentrated thereon.
The subjects will be seen to form a perfect series of
seven members, constructed as follows :—
A Romans. The truth of
God changed into a lie: man hardening his own heart.
. B Romans. The
wrath of God revealed from heaven against unrighteousness.
. . C all
seven assemblies, (i) The Gospel preached to Abraham; (2) the Assembly with
Israel; (3) the law came in by the way.
. . . D all seven
assemblies. The Advent of Christ.
. . C all seven assemblies, (i)
The Gospel preached amongst all nations; (2) the Assembly with the Gentiles;
(3) the mystery superadded.
. B Thessalonians. The wrath of God
revealed from heaven against unrighteousness.
A Thessalonians. The
truth replaced by the lie, by God: man's heart judicially hardened.
Notice "Christ" in the centre, "the lie" at the two extremities ; the further
from Him, who comes as the Way and the Truth and the Life, the nearer to "the
lie" Does it not appear that the change of God's truth into a lie by man, and
God's righteous retributive act in sending it back to man, that he may believe
it, is to be regarded as a whole dispensation which was cut in twain by God's
grace in making thr covenant with Abraham and all that depends therefrom,
because he believed the truth, and his faith was counted to him for
righteousness ?
If we are to take this view, we naturally look to the
length of that portion of it that has become history as at least some guide as
to the length of that portion of it that is yet future. When we do so we are
somewhat startled in noticing that this development occupied several centuries;
for in what Romans i. sets before us in regard thereto in a few verses we
notice references - to the revolt at Babel, to the wickedness of the Cities of
the Plain, and to what is now euphemistically called "the syncretic religion of
Egypt." In the last-named, as the well-known picture of the Great Assize, taken
from the Book of the Dead, demonstrates, the whole judgment of God is turned
into caricature, for Egypt made the Woman, her Child, and the Serpent into a
trinity-in-unity, at once a lie and a caricature. Re-incarnation was taught,
evil spirits were invoked, and the priesthood were instructed to abstain from
wine, meats, and marriage. (Cf. i Timothy iv.) The serpent was the supreme
object of worship, and, as the mummies now on view at the British Museum prove,
there could be no thought of resurrection in those who could so carefully
prepare corpses to be once more tenanted by the souls that had sinned in them
in the time when they were living bodies. The serpent, who began by saying, "Ye
shall not surely die," had reached the length when he could represent himself
as Creator—so had he worked upon the evil heart of man. His original lie
had assumed at once a blacker character and a wider scope.
At last there
came judgment upon all the gods of Egypt. The Divine wrath fell upon Pharaoh,
his land, and his people. Pharaoh first hardened his own heart, then God
judicially hardened it for him 'till the wrath was completed in his death. Thus
the dispensation of the Pseudos and that of God's mercy to Abraham overlapped
one another during some four centuries, and then the former was broken,
awaiting the development of God's purposes in the assemblies of His people.
When they are accomplished, we arrive at the point when we may expect Satan
will be allowed to take up his scheme again, in order that the evil may. be
brought to a head and dealt with accordingly.
But there was something
special on which God placed a restraint It was the building of the great city
of Babel, or Babylon. There was a descent of the Godhead, and "they left off to
build the city," and the families of the earth were scattered
From that day
to this it has been the aim of unregenerate man, whether openly expressed or
hidden in his deceitful heart, to establish a brotherhood of the human race in
universal peace, to live in a paradisical city, and to compass death without
any atonement for sin or any thought of God whatever. The truth of God amongst
the saints serves to keep conscience alive just now in the surrounding world ;
yet there are not wanting signs of a doctrine that the whole aim of the Church
is to "do good" to the world, to improve our cities, and to establish a sort of
Christian Socialism. The newspapers speak to-day of a coming millennium (a
Christless one) disarmament of the nations, reunion of Churches, and
innumerable international projects and compacts, the very spirit of nationalism
dying out in favour of commercial considerations, kings and emperors having,
moreover, now to reckon with socialist armies in place of the professional
warriors of 25 years ago.
Here, then, once more we see signs of a
dispensational change. Something has to be done with the Christless churches
about us, and the world finds a place for them. Granted the truth of God is no
longer wanted; well, it was turned into the lie before, and the thing which
hath been it is that which shall be, and it can be done again. The form of the
truth may differ, but the spiritual act is identical, changing the truth of God
into the lie.
But, more than that Is it not the whole of God's truth that
must now be turned into a lie? It will not be sufficient to bring forward the
rechauffe of Egyptian theosophy with which the name of H. P. Blavatsky is
associated Must there not be a revival of apostate Israel, God preserved a
nucleus of the ten tribes (cut off for their idolatry) in the days of Rehoboam,
of Asa, of Jehoshaphat, of Joash, of Hezekiah, and of Josiah, and throughout
the period of the Acts (2 Chron. xi. 16, xv. 9, xix. 8, xxiii. 2, xxx. and
xxxi., xxxv. 16-19; Acts ii. 5, xxvi. 7), but the great bulk of them, that is
the tribes, as tribes, were absolutely divorced (Deut xxix. '18-21; Jeremiah
iii. 8), though no bill of divorcement was given to Judah. (Isaiah 1. i.)
And there will be a false Messiah in Jerusalem, and a perverted Christianity
all over the earth—anti-God, anti-Christ, and anti-Spirit—as
portrayed in Revelation xiii. Stupendous indeed the last form of "the lie," the
Pseudos.
This change of the truth into the lie is exactly what a
survey of our symmetrical synopsis would lead us to expect. Dear Christian
brother or sister, you who may read these lines, remember one thing, if there
be any part of God's truth that you refuse to believe, you may render yourself
liable to believe just that portion of Satan's lie that he has set up as the
counterfoil to that specific part.
If the rapture of i Thessalonians iv.
and v. be indeed near, as many of us believe, this gradual change, the
dispensation of the Pseudos overlapping that of the truth, is what we must look
for. For, as the dispensations of the Pseudos and the truth overlapped when
Israel was in Egypt, so we may expect, as the counterpart, that the
dispensations of the truth and the Pseudos may again overlap.
True, such
things are but tendencies at present; but tendencies are spiritual germs that
grow up into plants when the time comes that the God of Providence so permits.
We may remark that the time of the duration of the delusion need not
necessarily extend over centuries. We only say that sufficient time should be
allowed in the mind of the student, not only for the building of the gorgeous
mercantile city described in the Apocalypse, but remembering the long-suffering
and mercy of God, time must be allowed for the iniquity of those concerned in
the mischief to come to the full*
(• Whut is known as " the 70th week "
will probably come in at or near the conclusion of the dispensation of the
Pseudos.)
There is another city mentioned in the Apocalypse, a city to
which the father of the faithful looked, and that city is described in the Book
in terms which bear distinct evidence of an intentional contrast with Great
Babylon. That city is "the Heavenly Jerusalem".
Does it not appear then that
the great hour of temptation, the Parasmos of the Apocalypse,will be one
in which man is to be tempted away from following the Lamb, giving up faith for
sight—a gorgeous earthly city being built up on the banks of the
Euphrates, the extreme boundary of the land covenanted to Abraham?
But
perhaps the reader may put the question, Of what importance is this to us? Why
should we be asked to con- sider if any lengthened period is to follow the
rapture of those "in Christ," when the Lord shall have come according to
promise in i Thess. iv. and v.?
Let us reply by putting another question :
Who are the 144,000 of Revelation xiv. who stand upon the heavenly Mount Zion?
Is that of no interest? Indeed, it has been a matter involving so much
controversy of late years that some Christians, watching for the Lord's coming
spoken of in i Thessalonians iv., have given up the study of all that Paul
says, beginning at Romans leading up to Thessalonians, not very consistently,
and translated themselves out of Paul's Epistles altogether into the fourteenth
chapter of Revelation. Well now, after the rapture of those "in Christ" men are
going to believe the Pseudos. Now, cannot God raise up a special
testimony for Himself amidst all that seductive evil? If so, is not that the
key to the 144,000 of Rev. xiv.? for, "in their mouth was found no lie." May we
not understand that that means, they reject the Pseudos, and that therefore the
Pseudos must be fully developed in their day, and that therefore the rapture of
i .Thess. iv. must have taken place before they begin to be called, and that
therefore none of us alive now can be of their number ?
The 2520 years of
Gentile domination over Jerusalem have nearly run out, and the burden of her
down-treading is obviously about to be lifted; but where are we told that God
has no further work in Israel between that and the establishment of the.
Millennial Kingdom? What of the controversy of Zion in the land? (Micah vL 2;
Hosea iv. i, xii. 2; Isaiah ix. 21, x. 12, xxxiv. 8.) What of the Tabernacle of
David? (Acts xv. 14-17; Amos ix. 8-12.) What of the gracious promise of Jehovah
to be a little sanctuary to Israel while scattered among the nations? (Ezekiel
xi. 16.) What, too, of that fatal period when the apostate tribe of Dan "shall
judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel, a serpent in the way, an adder
in the path," so that all Jacob must wait for the salvation of Jehovah? (Gen.
xlix. 16-18.) Are not these things all future ? Who knows what duration must be
ascribed to each or all of such dispensations?
Lst us not study Prophecy
one-sidedly, or by the light of self-interest, lest we come to resemble the
unturned cakes to which Ephraim is compared in Hosea vii. 6-8, burnt on one
side, and moist on the other! Must we always be saying, "After me the Deluge"
Cannot God again deal with Israel as He did in the days of another temptation,
the temptation in the wilderness? There was no Gentile supremacy then,
Safety,"a time of planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage, when
sudden destruction" will overtake them, and "of that day and hour knoweth no
man." Whether the Lord tarry or not in descending for us into the air, God has
reserved within His sovereign right a period between today and the descent of
the Son of Man to the earth, which we cannot in any way compute. In unfolding
to us His gracious purposes in His prophetic Word it is comforting to think He
has guarded His revelation against any abuse of the knowledge of them by an
all-wise reserve, both as to the time and manner of their accomplishment. Is it
not quite clear that a seductive city is going to be built up upon the banks of
the Euphrates? that its luxuries will be upon a scale that we can hardly yet
realize, even in spite of the advances of scientific discovery made in the
Nineteenth Century? It will be the cynosure of the eyes of kings, merchants,
and shipmasters, and the admiration of the whole of the human race. Every
international exhibition points to this one great object of man. Let socialism,
now growing apace, backed by Christless churches and "parliaments of
religions," but prevent wars (in the decay of national spirit), and the Eastern
Question may be settled by a national confederacy, and sealed by the building
of an international capital which shall out-Paris Paris in beauty, and
out-London London as a financial and commercial metropolis.
This city has
not yet been built; nevertheless the principles that will thus take cognate
form are even now in existence among the cities of the nations. Look at London,
Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Berlin, New York, Chicago! Are they not all so many
efforts in that direction ? Thus the present position of Babylon is that
described in Revelation xvil as "sitting upon many waters "; but while the mind
of man rushes with the march of events towards the centralization of all of it
in the proper home of apostasy in the Land of Shinar, he will be unconsciously
fulfilling the purposes of God, that the whole luxury of the civilized world
may be brought to a focus, and destroyed at one blow, the fire suddenly
devouring the whole of it together, as described in the following chapter, i.e.
Revelation xviii.
It is the desire to remove the curse, without the
Atonement, and to get back Paradise while yet in sinful bodies that lies behind
all the idolatry of man and all the bloodshed that he has committed. And
naturally so; man was made to inhabit Paradise. Well Satan knows it. It is that
which is the greatest temptation he can offer. The Church of Rome was only part
of the scheme; the whole conglomeration of apostate churches can be but part of
the scheme. Their office is to control the conscience—a mere means to an
end. None ot these things touch the root of the evil, the secret springs of the
heart of man. Satan has not changed his methods. No; there was a restraint
placed in Nimrod's day, but the principles of Babylon are developing now, fast
coming to a head, and the whole unsaved world is ready to-day to worship Satan
if he will but give them universal peace, brotherhood and an impregnable
commercial city, unsurpassed in beauty and luxury, central as to its situation,
and crowned by enormous wealth.
Not that there are not other sides to the
Pseudos. It is a vast subject. the city is but the external form, but it
is that which is most easily comprehended; it is the outline of the whole, and
since we recognise the principles of that city in the cities of the nations of
the nineteenth century, we are on our guard. Religious movements in particular
require to be watched, as they are mostly peculiarly subtle nowadays, and it is
in respect of them that Satan can put the saints to the test. It is only by the
most implicit belief of God's written Word that the many delusions of
ecclesiastical systems starting up around us can be discerned in these days,
and we are all first inclined to support some pet system of our own, instead of
judging our own by the Word of God. We must watch them lest the conscience go
astray. The Church of Rome made a convenience of the world ; but now the world
will make a convenience of the churches, perverting the conscience once more.
The conscience perverted finally gives glory to Satan. Babylon is called in
Isaiah, "the lady of kingdoms." When the Lord saw the kingdoms of this world,
the glory of them was scattered; but in Babylon the glory of them will be
concentrated and beheld with the natural eye. The Lord Jesus resisted the
temptation ; but what will it be when the adversary makes the same offer to
fallen man, "All the kingdoms of this world, and the glory of them, will I give
thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me!"
To sum up. The principles of
the Pseudos are threefold, as embodied in Babel (or Babylon), Sodom, and Egypt.
(Rom. i.) They were interrupted when Abraham believed the truth. They are to
come back (Rev. xvii., xviii., and xi. 8), and man will worship Satan for
restoring them. (Rev. xiii. 4.) " War impossible! Peace and Safety !" What
delusion !