«　WEEK 11　DAY 2　»

　　Rev. 1:6 And made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be the glory and the might forever and ever. Amen.

　　2:6 But this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

　　The nation [of Israel] was divided into two kingdoms... Jeroboam became the king of the northern nation, and Rehoboam, the king of the southern nation. After this division was formed, idolatry came in. Jeroboam not only caused division; he also set up idols in Bethel and in Dan (1 Kings 12:29)... Jeroboam set up another center of worship because he feared the loss of his kingdom [vv. 26-27]... To prevent this from happening and to preserve his kingdom, Jeroboam set up idols in a rival center of worship. This clearly indicates that the origin of these idols was his ambition. (CWWL, 1979, vol. 2, “The Genuine Ground of Oneness,” pp. 256-257)

　　We need to apply this principle to the situation among Christians today. The divisions in Christianity are caused by selfishness and ambition. Because certain ones are ambitious to have their own empire, they neglect God’s choice... In the Old Testament God’s choice was a unique place: Mount Zion in Jerusalem. In this place the temple with the Holy of Holies as the oracle was built. Nevertheless, Jeroboam, an ambitious, selfish, and self-seeking man, set up another center of worship... This worship center was actually a cover-up for Jeroboam’s ambition... Many Christian leaders have set up centers of worship. Apparently, these centers are established for the worship of God. Actually, they are set up to fulfill a man’s ambition to have an empire. Hence, in a very real sense, the founders of many Christian groups are today’s Jeroboams. The centers of worship set up by these present-day Jeroboams are actually centers of ambition. For this reason, “idols” can be found in those places.

　　According to the principle in 1 Kings 12:26-30, in many Christian groups there are “idols” set up to attract people and to hold them. These “idols” keep people from God. Following the example of Aaron at Mount Sinai, Jeroboam made two golden calves and told the people that they were the God who brought them out of Egypt. We may wonder why the children of Israel could be so blind as to accept these idols as God... However, if we had been there, we probably would have followed Jeroboam and would have been one with him.

　　We need to be clear about the situation in Christianity today. If we are under the shining of the heavenly light, we will realize that in so many Christian groups “idols” have been set up in place of God. These “idols” attract people into those groups and then keep them there. (CWWL, 1979, vol. 2, “The Genuine Ground of Oneness,” pp. 257-258)

　　God in His economy intended that all His people be priests serving Him directly. In Exodus 19:6, God ordained the children of Israel to be a kingdom of priests. This means that God wanted them all to be priests. However, because they worshipped the golden calf (Exo. 32:1-6), they lost the priesthood, and only the tribe of Levi, because of its faithfulness to God, was chosen to replace the whole nation of Israel as priests to God (Exo. 32:25-29; Deut. 33:8-10). Hence, there was a mediatorial class between God and the children of Israel. This became a strong system in Judaism. In the New Testament, God has returned to His original intention according to His economy, in that He has made all believers in Christ priests (Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9). But at the end of the initial church, even in the first century, the Nicolaitans intervened as the mediatorial class to spoil God’s economy, spoiling the universal priesthood of all believers... In the proper church life there should be neither clergy nor laity; all believers should be priests of God. Because the mediatorial class destroys the universal priesthood in God’s economy, the Lord hates it. (Rev. 2:6, footnote 1)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1979, vol. 2, “The Genuine Ground of Oneness,” chs. 1-3