Gary J Sibio
The Apostle John on Patmos Writing the Book of Revelation
In Rev 2:6 Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for hating the works (Greek,erga) of the Nicolaitans which He also hates. He was not pleased with the church at Pergamum who held to their teachings: “Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” [Rev 2:15, NIV]
So who were the Nicolaitans and what were they doing?
The early Church Father Hippolytus of Rome (170-235) tells us that the heresy was the teaching of Nicolas, a deacon in the early church. This may be the Nicolas mentioned in Acts 6:5. Irenaeus of Lyon (d.c. 202) says that they led a life of indulgence. Perhaps this is the group of heretics mentioned in Jude 4 who crept into the church unnoticed to spread their false doctrine of lewdness.
For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you.They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. [Jude 4, NIV]
Clement of Alexandria (d. c. 215) agrees that their sin was promiscuity but exonerates Nicolas.
At any rate, Nicolaitanism seems to be a form of antinomianism, a belief which holds to the mercy of God but believes that it frees us to participate in a life of unrestrained sin.
St. Bede (c. 673 – 735) believed that Nicolas allowed other men to “marry” his wife and St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) believed they either supported polygamy or held their wives in common.
Text © 2017 Gary J. Sibio. All rights reserved.
I was Googling content about the island of Patmos and found your post. I was always curious about the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. But as the scriptures are silent regarding any additional details, I was satisfied that whatever had been recorded in the Book of Revelation was all any faithful disciple needed to know.
No surprise that your research indicates it was a sin of immorality. If you noticed the warnings to all of the churches basically were with regard to two sins: idolatry and immorality. Those two sins have always been the cause of unfaithfulness among God’s people. Pride and lust. Gets them every time.
A very wise observation. Immorality and idolatry are connected. The immorality mentioned in Rom 1 led to worship of the creature rather than the Creator. Also, since the church is the bride of Christ, idolatry is turning from the Bridegroom to follow after another. The book of Hosea also uses immorality (Hosea’s prostitute wife) as a metaphor for the idolatry of the people.
I appreciate all of your posts. Hope you will keep writing here. When I started reviewing the posts to participate in the “Spotlighting Our Members” series, I realized quite a few members have moved on. They left some really good posts. I do hope that the members we have now will stay. This is a lovely community.
I’ve tried posting a few things lately but, when I hit the submit button, I get a message saying that I don’t have permission to access that page. I tried sending a message to Virily and got the same response.
(O.o) I am not sure exactly what causes this. But sometimes I end up in the “Admin’s office” so to speak. On occasion, I have also gotten that message. I signed out, cleared my web history, and started all over again. I don’t know why that happens. (O.o) It’s like I ended up in the back office. I don’t know how I got there. But the system knew I had no business being there! So I would get a message about not having permission. I wish I could help you. But this is a job for the Admin folks. I hope you get it straightened out. I really do want to read more of your posts.
Nice post! Nice story!