The Period of Jewish Captivity and Return and the Period of Papal Captivity and Return

Section V

The Period of Jewish Captivity and Return and the Period of Papal Captivity and Return

The Jewish people, by falling into faithlessness without repentance, failed to restore the ideal of the temple. Therefore, in order to fulfill this will again, God allowed the Jewish people to be taken captive into Babylon, the Satanic world, to suffer slavery there just as He had let the Israelites go into Egypt, the Satanic world, to suffer slavery in order to restore by indemnity the failure of Abraham in his offering.

Likewise, as already discussed above, God established the period of the Christian Kingdom in order to build the Kingdom of the Messiah. This kingdom could be built by establishing the foundation to receive the Messiah of the Second Advent, centering on the pope and the king, and by handing over the throne and the kingdom to the King of Kings who would come again as the Messiah on that foundation (Is. 9:6, Luke 1:33). But the kings and the popes who were to establish the spiritual foundation on which to set up the king as the central figure of the foundation of substance, fell into corruption without ever repenting. They therefore failed to establish the foundation to receive the Messiah of the Second Advent. God, in order to work anew His providence of restoring this foundation, allowed the Pope to be taken captive and suffer slavery.

In the period of the Jewish captivity and return, there was the 70-year period in which King Jehoiakim, Daniel, and other members of royalty, together with the ministers of the government, officials, craftsmen, and many other Jewish people, were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar the king od Babylonia (Jer. 39:1-10, II Chron. 36:11-23, II Kings 24-25). There was also the 140-year period which lasted from the time of the Jews' liberation by King Cyrus' royal decree after Persia had destroyed Babylon until the time when they could return to their land for the third time to set themselves up as the nation centering on the prophet Malachi to prepare for the Messiah. In the period of papal captivity and return, which restored this period by indemnity as substantial time-identity, they had to walk a similar course.

Because of their immorality, popes and priests gradually lost the confidence of the people. The defeat of the Crusades also resulted in the collapse of papal authority. Meanwhile, after the Crusades, the feudal system collapsed, and the modern state was established. With gradual expansion of the royal power, the conflict between pope and king became violent. Thus Pope Boniface VIII came into conflict with the French King Philip IV and was even imprisoned by him for a time. One generation later, Clement V, who was elected as pope in 1305, moved the Vatican from Rome to Avignon of Southern France in 1309. There the successive popes lived as captives for 70 long years, under the restraint of the French kings. After that, Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome in 1377.

After his death, the cardinals elected Urban VI, the Archbishop of Bari in Italy, as Pope. However, the cardinals, being mostly Frenchmen, repelled Urban VI before long and set up another Vatican in Avignon of Southern France by electing Clement VII as Pope. This division continued until the next century, when the reformation council solved the problem. The cardinals held a conference in Pisa, Italy, in 1409 and dismissed both popes, designating Alexander V as the lawful Pope. However, the two popes opposed the dismissal, and the three popes stood in triangular positions for the time being. Afterwards, they held the General Council of Constance, with many members present, such as the Bishops and Archbishops, including theologians, royalty, and envoys, and dismissed the three popes at once, electing Martin V as Pope.

Thus the cardinals were deprived of their right to elect the pope, and it was shifted to that conference, which insisted upon holding the sovereign power of the Roman Church (1418). This conference was later held in Basel, Switzerland, for the purpose of making the organization of the Roman Church into the body of a constitutional monarchy. Nevertheless, the pope did not like the idea of the congregation having the controlling power. Not only was he not present at the conference, but he even tried to adjourn the meeting. Despite the fact, the assembly members held the meeting, but it was automatically dismissed in 1449. Thus, the plan to establish the body of a constitutional monarchy in the Roman Church came to naught, and absolute papal monarchy, lost since 1309, restored its function.

Leaders of many conferences held in the 14th century tried to remove the corrupted popes and priests by setting up the laymen as representatives and giving this conference the supreme power and authority. Nevertheless, the papal power resumed the status prior to the popes' imprisonment, and they condemned to capital punishment all the leaders of the Reformation, such as Wycliffe and Huss. It was from this moment that the Protestant movement of Religious Reformation began to spread. Thus, the period of approximately 210 years from the time when the pope was taken captive into Avignon in 1309 A.D. until the Religious Reformation took place in 1517, centering on Luther, was the period in which to restore by indemnity, as the substantial time-identity, the 210-year period from the time of the Jewish captivity for 70 years in Babylon until they aroused both political and religious reformation centering on Malachi.