Tuesday, March 15, 2022

James J. Strang on Revelation 12

  

41. John the Revelator prophesied the loss of the Priesthood, and the apostacy of the Church, by some of those magnificently eloquent symbols so often used to inform the faithful, without imparting knowledge to unbelievers.

 

42. The Church is represented as a woman, clothed with the sun, the fountain of natural light; because the Church is clothed in the light of God’s revealed word, and having the moon under her feet, because not guided by reflected light, or mere human wisdom. In respect to the Apostolick missions, the chief means of establishing and extending her dominion, she is represented with a crown of twelve stars. (Rev. xii, 1.)

 

43. This woman is about to be delivered of a child, who shall rule the nations; a power which pertains to the highest order of Priesthood; and a great red dragon stands ready to devour this child as soon as it is born; but the child was caught up to heaven, and thus preserved; that is, in plain, unsymbolical language, that Priesthood which shall rule the nations with a rod of iron, or an iron sceptre, was removed from earth, and taken up to God (Rev. xii, 2, 3, 5.)

 

44. The woman flees from the dragon into the wilderness, where, instead of being nourished from the presence of the Redeemer, with the waters of life, as she ought, being his wife, she is nourished from the fact of the serpent (Rev. xii, 14,) while the dragon went to make war with the rest of the children born of the woman; that is, the rest of the Priesthood, which God had raised up in the Church. (id. 17.)

 

45. In this persecution, the Saints were quite overcome, and all power over all kindreds, tongues and nations, passed into the hands of a ruler, represented as a terrible beast, which had already received the power of the dragon, and all who have not already had their names written in the Book of Life, go after and worship this beast; so that under his reign, no more become Saints; no new Priests could be raised up to fill the places of the dying, and a single generation made an end of the true Priesthood. (Rev. xiii, 7)

 

46. It is difficult to read these symbolical prophesies, without seeing that the Pagan Roman Empire was the dragon; that the Emperour Constantine was the serpent which nourished the woman, and therefore, substantially the serpent and dragon were the same power; and, that the beast was Papal Rome, the same thing, with a changed form, and a new name. Papal having grown out of, and received its power from Pagan Rome.

 

47. It is curious, therefore, that the next which is seen of this woman, she is mounted on a scarlet colored beast, (corresponding with the dragon in colour,) full of names of blasphemy, no longer clothed with the sun, or the light of God’s word, but with purple, and scarlet, and gold, and precious stones, and pearls, which Constantine and his successors bestowed on her, when he nourished her with the spoils of Heathen Temples, and the riches of his Empire. (Rev. xvii, 3, 4.)

 

48. She now, in this new character, carries a cup full of abominations, and filthiness of her fornication, and has the name written upon her forehead, “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the Earth.” (Rev. xvii, 4, 5.) She is now called a whore, (id. 1,) because, having been (in the symbolical sense) the married wife of Christ, this woman (now destitute of all Priesthood or authority from God) has given herself to the embraces of Gentile Kings, and receives her support from the countenance of ungodly and usurping Emperours.

 

49. This being the Protestant view of this prophecy so far, how blind are they, not to see that, having sprung from her, they are the harlots, her daughters; being distinguished from her by the fact that as they were never married to Christ, their prostitution in an unlawful union with the Kings of the earth, makes them, not whores, but harlots. Most aptly do these symbols apply to those Churches which were separated from Rome as a matter of State policy, produced of whoredoms, and incestuously prostituted to the corruptions, vices and tyrannies of the States which produced them. (James J. Strang, The Book of the Law of the Lord, Being a Translation from the Egyptian of the Law Given to Moses in Sinai, with Numerous and Valuable Notes [Burlington, Wis.: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1991], 239-41)

 

 

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