Has God judged the Christian church in the past? If so, how should we react, and what warnings might we take from it? Per 1 Peter 4:17, God’s judgment begins in the church, not with the world at large.
1 Peter 4:17 (NAU): “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”
Background: This upcoming Sunday, as part of our current series, “That’s not in the Bible,” I will be preaching on the popular, but false, belief about universal salvation, that ultimately Hell will be empty, and that everyone will eventually repent and be saved. Doing so makes sense, as I wrote a 300 page book on that topic, “Will God Save Everyone? Christian Universalism, Hell, Heaven, and the Scriptures,” a few years ago (I’d highly recommend purchasing that book, especially if you have any questions about the biblical reality of eternal Hell, a belief that is increasingly being rejected in many circles, even some “evangelical” ones).
What was not at all on my radar at that time was the project that I am now delving into: Islam. In conjunction with my current studies, a question has now arisen: What if the Muslim expansion was at least in part a judgment of God against the Church, and more specifically, the Eastern Church at that time? That is a sobering question. Remember, God used the godless nations of Assyria and Babylon to execute His judgment against the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel.
In the early Church, there were five main centers: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch Jerusalem, and Alexandria. Three of those centers fell quickly during the initial Muslim conquests in the seventh century: Jerusalem and Antioch in 637–638 AD, and Alexandria in 641–642 AD. The fourth, Constantinople, fell several centuries later, on May 29, 1453. Since that time, only Rome has remained.
It is true that the Eastern Orthodox Church subsequently became established in Russia and much of Eastern Europe, and claims are made that a purification of the church followed.
But, taking a step back, looking at the overall picture of the Eastern Church up to the time of the Muslim conquest, significant biblical problems surface, problems that lead to that overarching question. We need to take what happened seriously, and to me, we would be wise to take to heart what happened.
We will start to examine some of the underlying problems and the false teachings that were being espoused, in the next post.
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