g epistle,
"Balaam" is not to be understood literally and personally, but
figuratively and representatively, so Jezebel represents an individual,
or rather as that other woman, (ch. xvii. 4.) a faction or sect, who
propagated destructive heresy. Jezebel was daughter of Ethbaal, King of
the Zidonians, whom Ahab married contrary to the express law of God. (1
Kings xvi. 31; Deut. vii. 3.) She was a violent persecutor of the Lord's
people, because she was given to idolatry; and she was an instigator of
all the cruelty perpetrated by that wicked king, "whom Jezebel his wife
stirred up." As Ahab suffered his wife to control his policy, "giving
him the vineyard of Naboth," etc., so it appears, the rulers in this
church are blamed for permitting "a woman to teach," contrary to the law
of Christ." (1 Tim. ii. 12.) She "called herself a prophetess,"--why not
then require her to show her credentials? Permitted to usurp the
functions of a public teacher, she "seduced Christ's servants" to join
in the abominable rites of the heathen. Spiritual fornication,
especially when conducted by female agency, has always issued in that
which is literal. This may be verified from the time of Noah and Balaam
till the erection of nunneries under the sanction of the "man of sin."
The distinction here between "committing fornication" and "eating things
sacrificed unto idols," intimates that the "adultery" is to be taken in
a literal sense. Time was allowed for repentance, "and she repented
not." All this time the rulers were culpable: therefore the Lord
himself, as before, will interpose to rectify such gross sin and
scandal. This he would do by visiting these impenitent transgressors
with some incurable disease which would issue in certain death. So he
did in the church of Corinth. (1 Cor. xi. 30.) By this example he would
teach "all the churches, that it is he who searcheth the reins and
hearts,"--demonstrating his divine omniscience.--"But unto you I say."
Where now is to be discovered, in this address of the Saviour, that
"presiding minister," or diocesan bishop, whom the anti-christian
prelates affirm our Lord addresses in all these epistles? "And unto the
rest in Thyatira,"--still no prelate addressed; but those laborious and
patient ones previously commended, who "had not known the depths of
Satan." Those deceivers pretended to instruct their deluded followers in
the "deep things of God;" but Christ calls them "depths of Satan." It is
usual w