Sunday, April 28, 2024

SEEKING THE TRUE HARLOT CHURCH

Hidden within the visions of the prophets is much more than meets the eye. Oftentimes prophets use immediate history to foreshadow end of time events. When Isaiah speaks of things to come that he saw in visions, those things are often antitypical, or both alike but somewhat different than things to come even later.

At the end of time, some city shall have become “the harlot, Babylon” as John saw it: 

The woman (The “great whore” that John saw) was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, “Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.” And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. (Rev 17:4-6)

 That “woman” is the city in which the kings of the earth have committed fornication (Rev 17:2). Many ascribe that city to be Rome because Rome indeed flowed with the blood of martyrs. John would be shown “the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and ten horns” (Rev 17:7; explaining Rev. 17:3).

The “beast” in that description is a therion in the Greek. Of course, the “Beast” depicts the Antichrist.  Note that Antichrist is not the opposite of Christ, necessarily, but a type of Christ. The Beast would be somewhat like the Christ, Jesus.

Simon the Sorcerer, from history, turned out to be the near perfect image of the Antichrist, forming the Gnostic religion. He could even levitate and before long, Simon Magus proclaimed himself the “Christ.” He had a spirit in him, and about this Simon, Luke wrote: 

There was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the great power of God.” And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers” (Acts 8:9-11)

 The question is Where is that city? It is the city of Samaria (Acts 8:5). Samaria indeed was the city of numerous kings each having war after war. The city of Samaria was a type of Jerusalem. It had its own form of government and religion. The rulers there were prone to adapt their religion to whomever controlled the city, according to Flavius Josephus. Their religion was what it needed to be to survive the world. Samaria was “progressive” in the sense that it was not religiously dogmatic like Jerusalem.

In the passage above, the exclamation is, “How is the faithful city became an harlot!” Samaria was not the mysterious harlot, Babylon, but was a type of Babylon, even being populated and ruled by people from Babylon, Samaria — the land of the Cuthim — Kutha. According to Wikipedia (using various records including Josephus), Kutha has great significance for Samaria:

According to the Tanakh, Cuthah was one of the five Syrian and Mesopotamian cities from which Sargon II, King of Assyria, brought settlers to take the places of the exiled Israelites (2 Kings 17:24–30). II Kings relates that these settlers were attacked by lions, and interpreting this to mean that their worship was not acceptable to the deity of the land, they asked Sargon to send an Israelite priest, exiled in Assyria, to teach them, which he did. The result was a mixture of religions and peoples, the latter being known as "Cuthim" in Hebrew and as "Samaritans" to the Greeks.

Indeed, Samaria and its great city of Samaria was a typical harlot, having its own mixed race of people and religious worship. They even had their own holy mountain (Gerizim) and their own temple in the manner of Judea and Jerusalem. Indeed, Samaria was a faux copy of Jerusalem; it was the anti-holy city; holy in a sense like Judaism, but unholy in that their religion was greatly influenced by the gods of the Cuthim from Babylon.

I am going somewhere with this! I believe “Mystery Babylon,” the “great whore” that John saw, was not just one city but any typical city or religious economy, thus a “mystery.”

By the time of early Christianity, Gnosticism was created as the religion of Simon worship — Simonians. About the origin and development of the Simonians, Wikipedia says: 

According to John D. Turner, the Simonians originated as a local Hebrew cult in the first century CE, which centered on a Samaritan holy man. This early cult was syncretistic, but not Gnostic. In the second century, under influence of Christianity, Simon was transformed into a Gnostic saviour. The influence of Greek philosophy resulted in a Gnostic "monistic theogony."

 

According to Aldo Magris, Samaritan baptist sects were an offshoot of John the Baptist. One offshoot was in turn headed by Dositheus, Simon Magus, and Menander. It was in this milieu that the idea emerged that the world was created by ignorant angels. Their baptismal ritual removed the consequences of sin, and led to a regeneration by which natural death, which was caused by these angels, was overcome. The Samaritan leaders were viewed as "the embodiment of God's power, spirit, or wisdom, and as the redeemer and revealer of 'true knowledge.’”

 The Simonians were much like Christians but not quite like them. John the Baptist was more there “savior” than Jesus, and Simon even claimed to be the Savior. They had a type of Christianity, an “antitype,” and knowledge was their “mystery” that saved them.

Recently, I have tried to reply to the Churches of Christ, at least those with very strong dogma. The small county churches, at least, fit the Gnostic sect of Simon very well in that the ritual of baptism defines efficacy.

Simon misunderstood the flow of Virtue of the Holy Spirit, “Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done” (Acts 8:13).

Simon thought that the water was efficacious. Gnosticism was based upon misunderstanding the power of the water. That the water could save was the mystery on which Gnosticism was founded! That same mystery is alive and well today. The Churches of Christ even endeavor to worship in the manner of the early Church. However, their rituals match the false church of Simon more so than the Church of Christ. The modern Church of Christ was founded in Samaria with Simon as its head, and the religion of Simon is the “great whore.”

As such, any cult within Christianity is antitypical of the “great whore.” The worst of the worst of the cults is the Muslim religion whose anti-baptism is “wudu” — “washing the face, then the arms, then wiping the head, then washing or wiping the feet, and doing these in order without any big breaks between them” (Wikipedia). It is their manner of ritual purification like Campbellite baptism, but a ritual unlike Campbellism which they claim is the real purification. [1]

Now consider the key verse: God remarked about Jerusalem, “How is the faithful city become an harlot! It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers” (Isa 8:21). Jerusalem had become like the city of Samaria, the prototypical antithesis of so many great cities, including Rome. However, it is not specifically about Jerusalem, but Judah as well. Samaria was not only the city but the land.

Lands that typify Simon’s Gnosticism are the various mysterious “harlots.” Gnosticism is as much “Christianity” only without the Christ.

For the Muslims, there is no Christ but a phantom alone. For the modern-era Churches of Christ, the water has more influence than the Holy Ghost of Jesus. The water seems to take the place of Christ… the Virtue is not from Christ but the water. They misunderstand the Baptism of John as much as Simon Magus did in the Book of Acts.

Gnosticism is anti-Christianity; it is a type of Christianity with many of the same rituals, but not with the same meaning. There is no official doctrine of Gnosticism, but essentially it is any misappropriation of rituals for efficacy in lieu of the Spirit of God.

Where was the “Antichurch”? It was in the city of Samaria. Where was the foundation of the Church? In Jerusalem? Where was the historical Christian Church? In the seven churches of Asia? Where is the false church? On the seven hills of Rome? Where is the Antichristian church? Built upon the seven pillars of Islam. Where is the end of time apocalyptic church? Syncretism — an admixture of all the major religions: paganism, humanism, Judaism, Islam, Vedism (eastern religions), universalism, and even Christianity — seven of the major religious thoughts.

“Mystery Babylon” is the composite, eclectic false church that even includes Positive Christianity and the cults.

Samaria is the antitype, Jerusalem is the fact, and Rome may be the type.  Wherever the head of the false church may end up is the “Harlot Babylon.” It will be some mysterious great city tolerant of all religions except those with the real crucified Christ.

Simon did die and was buried at the crossing of two rivers. The confluence of the waters did not make him Christ, nor did his thoughts that he was part of the original Church. That any church is real because it is like the early Church should be questioned; Which early church; Simon’s, who claimed to be the Christ, or the real Christ’s?

That simple small off-message church that you attend may be part of the “great harlot.” That Universalist Church where some attend is as well. Popism is harlotry as much as Positive Christianity. Most certainly humanism, the very religion with men as “gods” and “Christs” is one of the worst.

So is Islam whose “Christ” (Isa) is nothing more than a “ghostly figure” and at best, Jesus was a fraud, claiming to be the Messiah, all the while He was merely just another prophet.

The “harlot” is any ideology that misrepresents Christ or the Church as something that they are not.

Many even read the Bible, not seeking the Truth, but formulating a religion that suit themselves.

Christianity throughout the world has become a religion wherein Jesus condones any heretical thing that its disciples choose. As such, sinners that claim to be Christians are the “harlots,” and their invisible universal church may very well be the “Great Harlot.” The True Church is the One that Jesus made, and the harlot church is the one that people created.

The "harlot church" is any group of people that misrepresents the real Christ. By this time, most people, many Christians included, misrepresent Christ and Christianity. 



 

 

 

 



[1] Campbellism describes the tenets of the Churches of Christ.

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