I haven’t been posting much lately because I’ve been working on a new book. The most popular video on our Youtube channel is the one on Nicolaitans, so I decided to write a book explaining more about them. Here’s an excerpt from the manuscript.
The Pharisees. There’s a good chance that Nicolaitans are the Gentile version of the Pharisees. Jesus says He hates the works of the Nicolaitans, and He wasn’t too fond of the works of the Pharisees either. It’s apparent that we can put them in the same group.
When we look at the example of the Pharisees we have to ask ourselves, “Why does Jesus have such a problem with them? Weren’t they teaching the ‘old testament,’ and wasn’t Jesus going to eliminate it, according to the teachings of the modern church?” The fact that He didn’t could be termed an argument from silence, which isn’t a good way to support a position. On the other hand if Jesus was going to change the Covenant that would surely be a huge issue and would have ended up the centerpiece of the controversy. It would also have given the Jewish leaders an excellent justification for the crucifixion.
I’m just saying that, in view of the standard church idea that Jesus loved everybody and the Pharisees could’ve been merely mistaken, it seems odd that He was so wrathful towards them. This is one of the many logical inconsistencies that modern Nicolaitans have generated with their extra-biblical doctrines. If the Pharisees were teachers of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament was being eliminated by Jesus, then why get so mad at them? Wouldn’t Jesus just tell them that you don’t have to do that now because I came to start a new thing?
The fact is Jesus was angry with the Pharisees because they seated themselves in Moses’ seat and did NOT teach the Old Testament (Matthew 23:1-3). They were teaching their interpretations and traditions which had covered over or eliminated much of what Jesus gave at Mt. Sinai. They were “preaching but not practicing” (Matthew 23:3-4), tying up heavy burdens and not lifting a finger to help move them, doing deeds to be seen by others, and shutting the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces while not entering themselves. They twisted the “living oracles” as Stephen called the Law and the Prophets into something that caused people to despair of ever being able to touch God. The Nicolaitans fall into this group of people also. Jesus hates them because they are teaching the same types of things as the Pharisees, albeit in different ways perhaps. Any teaching that causes people to detour from God’s living oracles is hated by Jesus.
One very large fault in the Pharisees illuminated for us by Jesus is that they were hypocrites, meaning that by and large they taught one thing but lived life differently than their teaching. They were play actors. On the outside they looked holy but on the inside they were rotten. In their public teachings they centered on Torah but in their lives they didn’t practice it. They accepted deferential treatment, the best seats at corporate gatherings, dressed differently so they would be recognized, and loved to be called “rabbi” meaning “master.” This is one of the reasons I think Nicolaitans might very well have been (and are) the Gentile version of the Pharisees. They earned God’s wrath because they assigned themselves to speak for God and didn’t follow through in their personal lives.
Hypocrites are variously defined in the Word as “men of falsehood,” “dissemblers” and “vain persons” (Psalm 26:4 ESV and AV), “godless” (Job 36:13, Proverbs 11:9 and others, ESV), “evil doer” (Isaiah 9:17 ESV and AV), and “profane mockers” in Psalm 35:16 ESV. Not a great group in which to be included. Jesus had a lot to say about hypocrites recorded for us in various places, and He also quoted Isaiah 29:13 in Mark 7:6 ESV. “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” We can see that there is not much difference between the doctrines of all false teachers. Just a difference in looks, methods or approach.
More is coming soon, I hope. The book will be about a hundred pages in 6 x 9 format. We will dive deep into the methods, philosophies and dogma of the modern Nicolaitans. We will also explore the damage they’ve cause to the maturity, fruit of the Spirit and abundant life of the believer.
Shalom
Bruce