The Great Imitator

The Great Imitator (Hebrews 11:9-10, Hebrews 12:22)

Even as the Devil aims at establishing a counterfeit kingdom, so he also establishes a counterfeit “church”. The church as an institution was designed to be the army of the Kingdom of Christ. But during the little season, when Satan is loosed and the abomination of desolation is set up, that “church” will be used by the Devil as an army in his service. And the result is that a counterfeit church, the harlot church, is established.

The true church is the spiritual Bride of Christ, ingrafted into Him by a true faith, and through Christ stands in a covenant relation with the LORD Jehovah.

But that counterfeit church is the church which still bears the name of church, still appears as the church in the world, still claims or pretends to be the legitimate church, outwardly also looks like the church, has its ministers, the preaching of the Word and teaching, and all kinds of institutions and societies, but employs all the blessings she has outwardly received in the service of Antichrist, and not in the service of Jehovah. Her ministers preach for Antichrist.

The overseers, those who are supposed to be shepherds of Christ’s flock, work for Antichrist. Publicly she displays all the signs of Antichrist, and all her members she educates to work for the dragon and his kingdom. She becomes great and powerful. And the more she labors in the interest of the antichristian kingdom, the more she will enjoy the favor of the dragon: for she is nothing but his harlot, and allows herself to be the instrument of Antichrist. This is plain from the description that is given of her here in Revelation 17 and 18.

For she is called the harlot, and is described as one who commits fornication with the kings of the earth and with all that dwell in the world. That this is true is plain from the fact that she is sitting on the scarlet beast with the seven heads and ten horns, implying that she is borne by the power of Antichrist, and at the same time controls that power with her fascinating fornications.

That this is true is also plain from the fact that of her the terrible sentence is expressed that she is drunken with the blood of the saints. Surely this woman is the church as she appears on earth; but it is the false church, already beginning to be well developed in our own time. It is the church as a whole that has abandoned the truth of the Word of God, that rejects the real truth of the Atonement of Christ, His efficacious atonement on behalf of His people alone, and tramples under foot the blood of the New Covenant.

Every pledge with her Lord and covenant God she has broken. And even those who do remain faithful she kills in her hatred. But there is more. For this woman, representing the counterfeit or false church is also presented to us as a city. And so we learn that the real being of this woman is that of a city, and specifically of Babylon. She has the appearance of Jerusalem, the Holy City, the Bride of Christ; but in essence she is nothing but Babylon. That is her real nature.

Babylon stands in Scripture for all that opposes the Kingdom of God. She is the capital of the kingdom of oppression for the people of God. Babylon stands for the center of the kingdom of the dragon, and the king of Babylon, especially Nebuchadnezzar, stands for the embodiment of Satan in human flesh, Antichrist. And therefore this woman is essentially the center of the antichristian world power.

But this should not surprise us, for the same can be said of the true church. She ultimately appears as the New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from God. The church that is in our time, is also a woman, the Bride of Christ, and is at the same time destined to be the power in control ultimately of the New Heaven and the New Earth, destined to reign with Christ forever in the glorious city the New Jerusalem.

The real and mystical character of the church is that she is also a city, the glorious city that shall be the center of the New Creation, of the Kingdom of Christ in glory. This is what we look forward to, and this is what the saints in the past have looked forward to. Abraham looked forward to this glorious city, for we read:

Hebrews 11:9
By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:

Hebrews 11:10
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

But we are in a much more favorable position than Abraham. Already now we are citizens of Jerusalem that is above.

Hebrews 12:22
But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.

There is our true citizenship: Mount Sion, the place where God resides. Pray to God that here below we will keep our eyes on the Lord Jesus who awaits us there in the city of the living God.

AMEN.

---

Alfred J. Chompff