Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

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(cf. Jer. 15:19). The essential difference between the
true prophet and the false prophet was that the true
prophet had been taken up by the Spirit into the Cloud
to take part in this assembly:
Thus says the LORD of hosts:
Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are
prophesying to you.
They are leading you into futility;
They speak a vision of their own imagination,
Not from the mouth of the LORD . . . .
But who has stood in the Council of the Lord,
That he should see and hear His Word?
Who has given heed to His Word and listened? . . .
I did not send these prophets, but they ran.
I did not speak to them, but they prophesied.
But if they had stood in My Council,
Then they would have announced My words
to My people,
And would have turned them back from their evil way
And from the evil of their deeds. (Jer. 23:16-22)
The prophets not only observed the deliberations of the
heavenly Council (cf. 1 Kings 22:19-22); they actually
participated in them. Indeed, the LORD did nothing
without consulting His prophets (Amos 3:7). This is
why the characteristic activity of the Biblical prophet is
intercession and mediation (cf. Gen. 18:16-33; 20:7,
the first occurrence of the word prophet in Scripture).
As members of the Council the prophets have freedom
of speech with God, and are able to argue with Him,
often persuading Him to change His mind (cf. Ex. 32:7-
14; Amos 7:1-6). They are His friends, and so He
speaks openly with them (Gen. 18:17; Ex. 33:11; 2
Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8; John 15:15). As images of fully
redeemed Man, the prophets shared in God’s glory,
exercising dominion over the nations (cf. Jer. 1:10;
28:8), having been transfigured ethically (cf. Isa. 6:5-8)
and physically (cf. Ex. 34:29). They thus resembled the
angels of heaven, and so it is not surprising that the
term angel (Heb. mal’ak, Greek angelos) is used to
describe the Biblical prophet (cf. 2 Chron. 36:15-16;
Hag. 1:13; Mal. 3:1; Matt. 11:10; 24:31; Luke 7:24;
9:52). In fact, the archetypical Prophet in Scripture is
the Angel of the LORD. 43
There is therefore abundant Biblical precedent for the
prophetic rulers of the churches to be referred to as the
angels of the churches. It is likely that each angel
represents a single pastor or bishop; but St. John could
be referring to the stars/angels simply as personifications
of the government of each church as a whole.
And the Lord of heaven and earth is holding them in
His right hand. (This is the same hand that Christ used
to resurrect St. John in v. 17; St. John is thus an
“angel.”) In a more general sense, what is true of the
angels is true of the Church as a whole: St. Paul urged
the Philippians to prove themselves to be “blameless
and innocent, children of God above reproach in the
midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among
whom you shine as lights [luminaries, stars] in the
world” (Phil. 2:15).
The seven lampstands are (correspond to) the seven
churches; and the seven churches are, as we have
noted already, both the particular churches referred to
and the fullness of the whole Church in every age. In
terms of the symbolism of the number seven as it relates
to the Church, the comment of Victorinus (a bishop
martyred in A.D. 304) regarding the Apostle Paul is
interesting: “In the whole world Paul taught that all the
churches are arranged by sevens, that they are called
seven, and that the Catholic Church is one. And first
of all, indeed, that he himself also might maintain the
type of seven churches, he did not exceed that number.
But he wrote to the Romans, to the Corinthians, to the
Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Thessalonians, to
the Philippians, to the Colossians; afterwards he wrote
to individual persons, so as not to exceed the number of
seven churches.” 44
The one lampstand (a stylised tree) of the old
Tabernacle is now Christ (the Tree of Life) with His
seven lampstands. Before, in the Old Testament, the
Church had a centralised, national character; and the
unity of the particular congregations of Israel was
focused geographically, in Jerusalem. But that is no
longer the case. The Church, the New Israel, has been
geographically and nationally decentralised – or, better,
multicentralized: The Church is still a seven – still a
unity – but what holds it together is not a special, holy
piece of real estate; the unity of the Church is centered
on Jesus Christ. The Church is no longer tied to one
place, for it has been sent into all the world to take
dominion in the name of the universal King. 44 There is
no longer any special space on earth that is holy; rather,
the whole world has become “holy space,” for Jesus
Christ has redeemed it. And in recapturing the world,
He has recreated the Church in His image. For just as
Christ is seen herein a blaze of glorious light, so the
Church which He carries and upholds is characterised
by light (cf. the description of the Church in 21:9-
22:5). The lightbearing churches, whose very
governments glisten with starlike brilliance, shine upon
the world with the light of Jesus Christ, with the result
that men will see their good works and glorify their
Father who is in heaven.
42. An interesting aspect of the conceptual background of all this is the reference
in the apocryphal book of Tobit to “the seven holy angels, who present the
prayers of the saints, and who go in and out before the glory of the Holy One”
(12:15; cf. 1 Enoch 20:1-7).
43. The most comprehensive study of the prophetic order and its relationship to
the angelic Council is in Kline, Images of the Spirit, pp. 57-96. See also George
Vandervelde, “The Gift of Prophecy and the Prophetic Church” (Toronto:
Institute for Christian Studies, 1984).
44. Victorious, Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John, in Alexander
Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, [1886] 1970), vol. VII, p. 345.
45. According to Exodus 18 and Deuteronomy 1, the eldership was arranged
hierarchically, with “rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties,
and rulers of tens.” This was the Biblical basis for the hierarchical
organisation of the early church, the bishop of the city corresponding to the
“ruler over thousands” (see James B. Jordan, “Biblical Church Government,
Part 3: Councilar Hierarchy – Elders and Bishops,” Presbyterian Heritage, No.
9 [January 1986], P.O. Box 131300, Tyler, TX 75713). A central headquarters
(a “vatican”) may therefore be useful for Church government, although it is
not necessary (there is a distinction between what may be good for the wellbeing
[bene esse] or the fulness of being [plene esse] of the Church, and what is
necessary for the being [esse] of the Church). The best available historical
study of the rise of the episcopate is J. B. Lightfoot, The Christian Ministry,
Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, ed. (Wilton, CT Morehouse-Barlow Co., 1983).
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