THE WOMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE

It should not come as a surprise to us that God will end up with a very small number of true believers. It's irrelevant how many will be left out at the close of the age. The Lord doesn't go by quantity, but rather by quality.

Throughout the history of His covenant relationship with his chosen people, God very often sorted out His genuine ones from the crowd. We see this time and time again in the Old Testament. The most conspicuous illustration of God's singling out His faithful people and separating them from His backslidden and rebellious ones was when the ten tribes of Israel wandered off in disobedience, mingling and intermarrying with the neighboring idolatrous nations. They are usually referred to as the ten lost tribes of Israel.

The Davidic Covenant continued through the tribe of Judah. The Messianic promises of God proved to be still alive and unfailing through the line and lineage of David. For this reason the Lord Jesus Christ said, "I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star" (Revelation 22:16).

No use making believe. Spiritual elitism is a fact of church life. I know that many frown on the thought that you can categorize church members into the class of fervent ones and the ones who are nominal believers or lukewarm ones. Such a negative reaction can betray spiritual insecurity and uncertainty. The idea there can be a higher standard of spiritual maturity than the one commonly accepted for everyone can be unsettling.

Well, so be it. We need sometimes to be unsettled spiritually. It's good for what ails us. Whatever shakes us out of our religious lethargy can prove to be a blessing to us. What's wrong with becoming a bit more certain about whether or not we have met all of God's conditions and about whether or not we will see the kingdom of heaven?

At the River Jordan John the Baptist warned the religious leaders of his day of the time when Jesus would do a work of winnowing or threshing. Before threshing machines were in common use, farmers used fans for producing wind to separate the wheat from the chaff.

We are reminded of the day of judgment when Jesus will return to separate the sheep from the goats. It is also called the hour of winnowing. John the Baptist warned the Scribes and Pharisees that the "fan of Jesus is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matthew 3:12).

Jesus assured us that He came not to judge (condemn) the world, but to save the world. He gives us time to repent of our sins and to become pure wheat and grain, free of chaff so we can be spared the unquenchable fire and find ourselves in the garner.

In the parable of the wheat and the tares (weeds) the Lord assures us of His longsuffering and redeeming grace by waiting until His return before He executes judgment. He allows the tares (weeds) to grow together with the wheat in the field before He pulls them out. It is at harvest time when He cleans out his field and "gathers together the tares and binds them in bundles to burn them, but gathers the wheat into the barn" (Matthew 13:24f).

So today what we have in the church is a mixture of the good and evil, wheat and chaff, grain and tares. You might not distinguish between the two classes of church members. But Jesus distinguishes them, because He searches the hearts and reins of everyone. Too often we judge by appearance between who is a true child of God and who is a counterfeit one. We go by man's standards of judgment, but the Lord judges you and me on the basis of His Word and perfect divine will.

Don't be deceived. You see the church crowded with people on Sunday morning. You see long Communion lines. God is not impressed with big congregations. God looks not upon the outer appearance. He looks upon the heart. Is our heart right with God? Are we in a right relationship with Christ?

Everyone looks religious standing in church on Sunday morning. But do you know Jesus in a personal love relationship? That's what makes the difference. Are you aware of the fact that He has called you to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb? That our union with Jesus will be consummated at the Heavenly Marriage and that you are expected at this time to make certain you are clothed in your wedding garment?

His conjugal love for you and for me was supremely manifested by His atoning death upon the Cross of Calvary. If you can say, "I am crucified with Christ. I live, yet no longer it is I who lives, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20), then you can safely claim entry into the Wedding Chamber.

Every man and woman is invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, that is, to enter into an everlasting nuptial union with the Divine Savior. This is our ultimate destiny - to live, joined together with Him eternally. This requires a nuptial love, a divine Eros, a longing for His appearance. As your heart is knitted with your divine Spouse, the only proper words that can come out of your mouth as His Bride are: "I have not left my first love. You are my first love. You have been my first love and you shall always be my first love" (Revelation 2:4).

In the book of Revelation, John the apostle describes, at some length, a woman. A woman is portrayed as a radiant and attractive figure, "a great wonder in heaven." She is "clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars" (Revelation 12:1).

Who is this woman? She represents the Church as the Bride of Christ. She radiates, bathed in the never-setting Sun of righteousness, reflecting the glory of her Spouse, Jesus Christ. She is faithful to her Bridegroom and consumed with a divine Eros, has endured many afflictions and testings, never flinching in her submission to Him.

This woman who knew only one love, her love for her divine Spouse, suddenly leaves her first love and begins to flirt with the world. She begins to bond herself with the world system. She flatters and is flattered by it. She capitulates to the enticements and influences of the world order and its secular institutions.

The woman, once free, soaring on the wings of a great eagle, suddenly appears enslaved and in bondage. Like a prisoner, she is now riding on the back of a dreadful beast, dragging her to and fro wherever it wills.

John the Revelator beholds a hideous spectacle: "So He carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns" (Revelation 17:3).

She has nothing in common with the first woman of the Apocalypse. Now we are faced with the church that has left her "first love" (Revelation 2:4). She has disavowed her true spouse and has committed spiritual adultery. The Church becomes "the great whore" (Revelation 17:1). She is the Harlot Church.

In the course of the centuries the Bride of Christ progressively is transformed into the great Harlot Church. Externally, there is no evidence of change. This is how the members of the church will be deceived. Outwardly, she will remain intact, attractive and with her ritual and traditional worship, practices and theology untouched. Vestments, icons, incense, religious splendor and pageantry will remain the same. From the outside the Harlot Church will appear attractive. "And the woman was arrayed in purple of scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication" (Revelation 17:4).

The woman is now wedded to the State. The "beast" is the Antichrist, the predicted global political leader. The False Prophet, the global religious leader, will partner with the Antichrist in absolute subservience to him, doing his every bidding. He will encourage the members of the Church to receive the "mark of the beast" on their forehead or hand.

Are we implying that the true church has become extinct? No. She is alive, but is now to be found in the small remnant of Christ's sheepfold. "Many are called. Few are chosen." Very few will be spiritual survivors. "And the woman fled into the wilderness" where she was cared for.

She will be identified by her supernatural power and spiritual radiance and not by any external sign of splendor and attractiveness. She could possibly end up as an underground church, an object of contempt and derision on the part of the religious authorities of the institutional church.

The small remnant may be compelled to assemble in homes, or in caves and in the woods. Renewal groups will be viewed as extra-ecclesial, illegal and subversive of church order and discipline.

The transition of the Bride of Christ into the "Mother of Harlots" will be so gradual and subtle that church members will be caught off guard, that is, totally unawares. The very idea of such a transformation was unthinkable and repulsive to me in my earlier years.

Orthodoxy is the historic church. She is the true Church and the Mother Church because she has preserved the purity of the apostolic dogmas. But the fact she is the Mother Church does not prevent her from evolving into a stepmother, or alas! even into the "Mother of Harlots" (Revelation 12:5), especially as she moves into the direction of partnering with the Roman Church.

Such a teaching would ordinarily be regarded as blasphemous to the average member of the Church. To be sure, it is a paradox to put it mildly. This explains why holy scripture refers to this strange event as "the mystery of the woman" (Revelation 17:7). It could only be related to what St. Paul calls "the mystery of iniquity," and "it doth already work" (2 Thessalonians 2:7).

Unwittingly, each time we speak of Orthodoxy as the Church of the apostles, martyrs, fathers, ascetics and confessors we are in effect affirming the fact of a Remnant Church. Are we possibly by inference stating that the ones in these special categories comprise the true Remnant Church of God's chosen and elect?

Are we taking into account the ordinary man and woman in the pew? Aren't they the real church - the true Body of Christ? I don't know about you, fellow-Orthodox, but I am wrestling with these kinds of questions. Why have we made Orthodoxy sound as if it is the aggregate of desert fathers, nyptic fathers and athonite gerontes and Russian staretz?

Is it any wonder that I've met people who have intended to seek admission into the Orthodox Church, and, after studying the writings of these holy men, change their mind when they find their holy zeal missing in the members of the congregation in the local Orthodox Church.

Is it possible the real Orthodox Church consists of the remnant of past generations many of whom were ostracized by the institutional Church, as, for example, St. John Chrysostom, St. Symeon the New Theologian, St. Nectarius of Pentapolis, St. Cosmas the Aetolian?

Is the Church a Mother or an enemy and alien to her most zealous children? "They who were living virtuously and who under circumstances might have confidence," writes St. John Chrysostom, "have taken possession of the tops of the mountains, and have escaped out of the world, separating themselves as from an enemy and an alien and not from a body to which they belonged" (Homily VI on Ephesians). He means the Body of Christ!