by Melvin Rhodes
The 12 disciples of Jesus Christ were not perfect, just as we are not perfect, for "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Like people throughout history, they were much influenced by what was taking place around them.
There is an interesting account of an incident in Matthew chapter 20 that helps us get a glimpse of life in the Roman Empire at that time.
"Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Him [Jesus] with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him. And He said to her, 'What do you wish?' She said to Him, 'Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your Kingdom'" (verse 21).
Here we see a clear case of political ambition. Knowing that Jesus Christ came preaching the good news of the coming Kingdom of God (Mark 1:14), the two men, with support from their mother, were making a power play for the two top positions after Christ in the Kingdom.
"And when the [other] ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers" (Matthew 20:24).
Jesus then had the task of correcting the two brothers, reconciling all 12 disciples and, at the same time, enlightening them all on the clear contrast between carnal, secular, worldly power and the type of government that He will bring to this earth when He returns to establish His Kingdom.
"But Jesus called them to Himself and said, 'You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many'" (verses 25-28).
Here, Jesus Christ was teaching His disciples an important Christian principle, that ruling is about service. Jesus Himself set the perfect example by laying down His life for all mankind.
Leadership, Roman style
This was in stark contrast to the world around them. The disciples lived under the rule of the Romans who had taken control of Judea decades earlier. The disciples had had plenty of opportunities to see how the Romans operated. Not only could their empire be despotic and cruel, it was also prone to political upheavals at the highest level.
The Roman Empire had started out as a republic, with an aristocratic ruling class known as the patricians. At the time of Christ's birth it was no longer a republic, but an empire under the rule of Augustus Caesar.
"Half a century earlier, when he was an unknown boy named Gaius Octavius whose mother happened to be the niece of Julius Caesar, the dying Roman Republic had been torn apart by a seemingly interminable series of fratricidal civil conflicts waged by rival warlords and ruthless demagogues such as Pompey, Catiline, Crassus, and of course Caesar himself, all of whom treated the increasingly feeble and fractious Senate—ostensibly the supreme authority in the land—with the disdain it deserved.
"In the year which we know as 49 BCE [before the Common Era], Caesar had emerged triumphant, parlaying his command of the western legions into a civil dictatorship.
"Unfortunately, the noble Julius combined incomparable political and military abilities with an appalling lack of tact and an undisguised contempt for the time-honored forms of republican rule. Hence his assassination in 44 BCE, by a clique of aristocratic reactionaries who feared that Caesar, after being named perpetual dictator by the Senate, would seek to establish an absolute monarchy in the manner of an oriental potentate" (William Klingaman, The First Century, 1986, p. 20).
They singularly failed in their attempt to save the Republic, "for seventeen years later Caesar's great-nephew Augustus became Emperor of Rome. The next four emperors also belonged to the family of the Caesars, and the imperial name thus gained such dignity that it was retained henceforward as a title of honor, surviving the First World War (1914-1918) in the official designation Kaiser of the German and Austrian rulers, and until 1946 in that of the Czar of Bulgaria" (The Book of Knowledge, Vol. 2, p. 163).
The Roman Empire, under the Caesars, had set a precedent for European history right down to modern times!
"To the surprise of nearly everyone in Rome, the nineteen-year-old Octavius, who had been serving as a staff officer at the right hand of Caesar, was named sole heir in the great man's will. Those who scoffed at the sudden elevation of an untried boy to such an exalted position discovered to their peril that Octavius was an exceptionally hard, cunning coldly ambitious young man, with a generous measure of cruelty in his character."
By 31 B.C., "Octavius emerged as the sole ruler of the Roman world. The old Republic was dead, with all of its internal chaos and constant bickering and private warfare among the rich and powerful oligarchs, and many Romans mourned its passing not at all" (ibid.).
Four empires lead to Rome
Interestingly, the 500-year-old prophecies regarding the Roman Empire, the "fourth beast" of Daniel chapter 7, accurately showed the internal contradictions at the top, the constant power struggles and instability, in contrast to the first beast, Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon. (For more on the four beasts of Daniel 7, see the first article in this series, "Who Will Be the Next Superpower?" in the May issue, page 13.)
The four beasts of Daniel 7 correspond with the four empires portrayed in the image in Daniel 2. There Daniel reminded King Nebuchadnezzar of his dream, in which he had seen a great image.
"This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you and its form was awesome. This image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces" (Daniel 2:31-34). This verse ends with the coming of God's Kingdom (see also verses 44-45).
Daniel explained to Nebuchadnezzar, "You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength and glory; and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold.
"But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others" (verses 37-40).
In this vision, we see successively baser metals, implying a growing degeneracy from empire to empire. Of course, none of these empires was godly, but God pictured Nebuchadnezzar as the head of gold, the most valuable of the metals mentioned. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 19th-century Commentary on the Whole Bible explains it this way: "The metals lessen in specific gravity, as they go downwards; silver is not so heavy as gold, brass not so heavy as silver, and iron not so heavy as brass, the weight thus being arranged in the reverse of stability" (comment on Daniel 2:32).
Nebuchadnezzar's empire was extremely powerful. He had absolute power. We see this in Daniel 5:18-19: "O King, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father a kingdom and majesty, glory and honor. And because of the majesty that He gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whomever he wished, he executed; whomever he wished, he kept alive; whomever he wished, he set up; and whomever he wished, he put down."
The second empire, Persia, had a more confusing system of government, and the king's power over his princes was limited.
"And the king...was greatly displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him... Then these men approached the king, and said to the king, 'Know, O king, that it is the law of the Medes and Persians that no decree or statute which the king establishes may be changed'" (Daniel 6:14-15).
Even though he wanted to, the king was not able to save Daniel from the princes' plot.
The third empire, Greece, had a still weaker structure, as a result of the premature death of its founder, Alexander the Great. After his death in 323 B.C., his extensive empire was divided among his four generals. "The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it" (Daniel 7:6).
"As strong as iron"
Finally, the fourth kingdom, the Roman Empire was to be "as strong as iron" (Daniel 2:40). "Iron is stronger than brass, but inferior in other respects; so Rome hardy and strong to tread down the nations, but less kingly and showing its chief deterioration in its last state" (Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, comment on Daniel 2:32 ).
It should also be noted that each successive empire incorporated its predecessor. In Daniel 5:28 Daniel tells Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon: "Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."
"That very night Belshazzar...was slain. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom" (verses 30-31).
The Roman Empire may have had serious weaknesses in its governmental structure, but it was to be the biggest empire in history, until the British Empire almost two millennia later. It was also to last the longest. After its fall, it was so envied that attempts were made to revive it right down until our modern times. Not only was the title Caesar to survive among the kaisers and the czars of different European countries, but its system of government, its religious beliefs and even the influence of its language survive to this very day.
Rome set the standard, as we shall see in future issues of World News and Prophecy.
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