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The Falling Away That Brought On The Dark Age (Part 3 of 5)
The unscriptural arrangement of a one-man bishop occupying a preeminent position within the churches quickly created a serious problem. In their claim of direct guidance of the Spirit, we find that the decrees of a bishop in one local church would often conflict with the decrees of the bishops in other churches, thus causing great confusion. In order to solve this problem, a meeting was called to gather the bishops of a particular region into a certain metropolitan city to try to iron out their differences. But since all claimed to be directly guided by the Spirit, they found it impossible to come to a meeting of the minds. So, they decided to select one bishop from among them to settle their differences. This called for another office totally unknown to the scriptures, but since one departure from the faith calls for another, they proceeded to call this new office a “metropolitan bishop.” He now occupied a preeminent position over all the bishops in a metropolitan area. By mutual consent they all agreed to abide by his so-called divinely guided decree.
However, this did not solve the problem of disagreement between the bishops of other metropolitan areas. Thus it was decided to call all the bishops within a province together to try to settle their differences. The same procedure was followed, and one bishop was selected from among them to settle their differences. This called for yet another office unknown to the scriptures, which they called a “provincial bishop,” more commonly called at a later date a “patriarch.” He was now classed as the preeminent bishop over a province, and all the bishops within a province agreed to abide by his rulings on various matters of difference among them.
As one can easily see, the ordinary Christian’s understanding of the scriptures was not even given consideration. All interpretation of the scriptures must be left to the newly formed hierarchy within the church. It was during this period of time, somewhere between the second and third centuries, that the “clergy-laity system” was devised. The clergy consisted of the newly formed hierarchy, and the laity consisted of Christians who occupied no office within the church. This was the beginning of the dark age which sought to withhold the knowledge of the scriptures from the common Christian, and was accomplished with great success.
Even though the so-called clergy now had a powerful control over the churches, they did not have control over the minds of many Christians who were students of the scriptures. Many Christians saw what was taking place, and refused to submit to the rule of these uninspired men. This accounts for the division within the church in the second and third centuries. It might be compared with the situation in the church at Sardis, as recorded in Revelation 3.1-6. The main body of Christians in Sardis thought they were much alive, but were told by the Lord that they were dead. Yet there were a few in Sardis who had not defiled their garments, walked with Christ in white, and were counted worthy. So in the years that followed, the same situation existed: some were faithful to the Lord, and some were not. However, history records very little concerning the faithful, for most history was written by the apostate leaders. Even today, most historians record what they consider mainstream Christianity, though it in in no way conforms to true Christianity. Therefore, people in the future, as the read present-day history will have great difficulty finding those of us who remain true to the scriptures.
In spite of the division within the church in those early centuries, the Roman government continued persecution of those who were identified as Christians. This persecution continued until the time when Constantine became the emperor. Constantine was among the high-ranking officials within the Roman government, and witnessed the persecution of Christians. He strongly disliked what he saw. Furthermore, his mother was said to be a Christian. When he won a decisive battle over the army of Maxentius in ad312, he stopped the persecutions of Christians, and soon declared himself to be a Christian.
Furthermore, he gave Christians special privileges and used great sums from the Roman treasury to build magnificent structures for Christians to use as places of worship. Also, in the early days of his reign, he declared Christianity to be the state religion, which was a crucial blow to paganism. Even though this appeared to be a great victory to Christianity, it proved to be a hurt rather than a help. Making Christianity the state religion caused many to become Christians who were not truly converted to the faith of Christ, thus they were easily led to follow the apostate leaders in the church.
[Part 3 of 5 — to be continued next week]
