What Christ could have foreseen of Church history in His Human Nature
The 144,000, the Catholic Church, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, the Seal of God in the Forehead, and the Trumpets
It is common knowledge amongst Christians that the 144,000 have left out the tribe of Dan, which some speculate that the Antichrist will come from the tribe of Dan.
What is less well known is that in addition to Dan being absent, Ephraim, one of the sub tribes of joseph, is not mentioned either.
More specifically, Joseph is a bigger tribe that himself contains two sub tribes , namely, Manasseh and Ephraim. So, once more we repeat, in the 144, 000, not only is Dan not mentioned in but neither is Ephraim.
What could this mean?
Let us explore it.
First, let us go back to the woman at the well and consider the Old Testament division.
The woman at the well is a Samaritan, meaning that she is part Jewish and part unorthodox.
This is kind of like how you have the Catholic Church, who believes she has the fullness of Truth, like the Jews of old, and considers the Orthodox and Protestants to be somewhat unorthodox or partially tainted forms of Christianity, drawing from part deficiencies, part erroneous doctrines, and possible deficiencies in Sacraments.
The allegorical connection is immediate, and we should therefore expect that whichever form of Christianity is true, this analogy will perfectly fit how Christians are divided.
Toward this end, the issue for the woman at the well is that the true religion is WHERE you worship.
Christ of course is proto revealing to her that coming up in his new kingdom, WHERE you worship geographically will be of no significance
This will be, first of all because you shall be able to commune with your heavenly father by going into your spiritual room as it is anywhere that you happen to be physically...
And yet even more so, the true place of worship will be wherever the literal presence of Jesus is in the sacrament of adoration.
Nevertheless , if we follow the mode of example from this discourse, and apply it to the Old Testament as a type, we will see that the Catholic interpretation is the one that fully makes sense and pretty much the only one.
Let us proceed.
First of all , I have discussed the theology of schism.
When there is a small group of entities or persons, and one of them is special and set apart, then there is a general tendency as it were, for the for the majority of the others to break away or do something bad to the special one.
It happened twice in the Old Testament and has effectively happened in the New Testament age as well.
In the first instance, we know the Genesis story of Joseph with the colorful coat.
He was favored by his father and the other brothers were jealous of him
So they turned against him and sold him into slavery
The next greater fulfillment of this was when the Great Kingdom of the Jews was torn asunder between the south and north
Here , of the 12 tribes, most, that is 10, of the northern part of the Kingdom, broke away from the true Kingdom of the South, who were the remnant and still the true seat of the kingdom of the Jews, the special one.
The New Kingdom produced the same result.
More specifically, in the new now, there were 12 apostles to fulfill the the 12 tribes.
However, the apostles did not leave seats for every one of them.
Only five apostolic sees were established.
The petrine patriarch was in the West and in Catholic theology is the ultimate special one, since according to that same theology, Peter is ultimately given the charism of infallibility when he makes supreme declarations of Truth for the entire church dogmatically, or when he supremely settles disputes in the apostolic college over doctrinal issues in the council,
This means that effectively, all apostolic authority of the 12 apostles is concentrated into a single office apart even from all the other apostolic sees, and this, therefore, makes peter supremely special out of all of the apostles and out of all of the patriarchical offices.
Sure enough then, in the New Testament history, a supreme fulfillment of the old split occurred: all of the apostolic sees other than Peter broke away and went into schism, leaving only Peter behind in the West, and yet again Peter is the true ruler of the Christian kingdom on Earth, at least according to Catholic beliefs.
This then means that according to Catholic theology, the great schism most perfectly fulfills the Old Testament schism at least in from an initial standpoint.
The problem here though, is that the New Testament does not have only one form of division but two, namely, not merely schism, which is in fact a very minor rift, but the much more serious rift of heresy, which was effectively the Great heretical rebellion that was Protestantism.
The issue therefore is that if the Old South and North split is the only symbol of Christian division in terms of schism, then it leaves out the far more tragic and devastating rift of protestantism, where heresies and doctrines flew around in a hurricane like a wind of fury never seen before.
Tan books describes it this way in the work church history
With protestantism, it seemed as though there were as many forms of protestantism as there were Protestants.
This then has led certain Catholics scholars to rather see the north south split as protestantism rather than the great schism because the results were so devastating.
But then this is the opposite problem in the sense that it excludes schism in order to embrace the heretical fulfillment.
And yet clearly , since the tribes are a foretaste of the apostles , and since apostolic succession is alone had by the schismatics and not by the ecclesial communities separated by heresy,
And since the schism characteristics of most of these schismatic tribes or sees breaking away from the special one, the true one , we once again have the dilemma.
But now when we apply the wonderful theology of the woman at the well , a profound solution emerges that enables us to have our cake and eat it too.
Let us now probe it.
Again, we remember that, in the 144, 000 not only is Dan not mentioned but neither is Ephraim.
This is interesting as follows.
Admittedly there are 12 tribes of Israel.
However, of all the 12 tribes, there is one tribe that has two subtribes within it.
This tribe is joseph, and his two subtribes, are Manasseh and Ephraim.
Now here we must consider, that if the 12 tribes were mentioned in the simplistic form with Joseph alone, that is, without any redundancy of his two subtribes, then the list would be the regular 12 tribes.
However, if we took the 12 tribes as they are and appended the two redundant subtribes of Manasseh and Ephraim, we would have a total of 14.
But in apocalypse, only 12 tribes are listed and not 14.
How therefore do they make 12?
What they do is delete one full tribe and one of the redundant subtribes of Joseph .
And which ones? Again Dan and Ephraim.
Let us know work out why these are significant.
Firstly, Ephraim housed Bethel, which was the first place of worship of the North in schism, which therefore means that it was a false place of worship since it was not Jerusalem, the true place.
Further, it was Way South in the North and hence very close to the north-south border.
In addition, Jerusalem was way far north in the south and hence also close to this border
Hence together , these imply that bethel was very close to Jerusalem, about 15 miles
The city Dan of the tribe of Dan, on the other hand, was the place that housed the second other place of false worship in the northern kingdom.
Moreover, it was way up in the northern extremities of the North, hence very far away from Jerusalem.
Now in the New covenant , the true kingdom of God is the Catholic Church , which fulfills Jerusalem , being herself the New Jerusalem.
In the New covenant, there are two primary forms of division in the body of Christ, which is to say, two primary great Christian religions separated from the church.
One is very close to the Catholic Church, this is the one that is in schism, or the Orthodox Church.
They have legitimate patriarchs and apostolic succession and hence true priests and therefore all seven sacraments.
Their Canon is also the same : they have the full scriptures, the Septuagint Old Testament, unlike Protestants who lack seven of the deutera canonicals
The Orthodox also listen to the sacred tradition of the apostles and therefore are far closer to understanding the scripture than the Protestants , who reject the apostolic succession and sacred tradition, alone which can provide the true interpretation of the scriptures.
Hence, the Orthodox truly are very close to the Catholic Church, just like Bethel of the tribe of Ephraim, the first place of false worship of the divided Kingdom, was very close geographically to Jerusalem, the true place to worship in the old covenant.
To the contrary , protestantism is the other great form of religion in the Catholic world, and she is very very far away from the Catholic church in terms of what she possesses of truth and Grace.
Protestants reject all of the sacred apostolic succession and tradition and accept only the sacred writings or scripture.
In losing apostolic succession, they do not have valid bishops or holy orders, and therefore they do not have valid priests.
Consequently they lose five of the seven sacraments, which is to say, those five that require the self same apostolic succession.
Hence the only two that they retain are baptism and marriage.
And therefore without the sacred tradition and bishops to guide them in the proper interpretation of scripture, they confuse and confound the scriptures add infinitum without the solid foundation of Truth.
In view of these things , protestantism , or the ecclesial communities, separated by the objective form of division called heresy, are far more separated from the Catholic Church than the schismatics , which is to say the Orthodox churches.
This then can be the meaning that the city of Dan of the tribe of Dan in the far Northern extremities of the northern kingdom that divided from the true Kingdom,
Itself containing the only other place of false worship in the north besides bethel of Ephraim, can be a symbol of protestantism, which again is very far away spiritually from the Catholic Church.
Incredibly enough in the 144,000,
There is a half redundancy by mentioning Joseph and his sub tribe Manasseh
But to make up for the 14 list if it was fully redundant, meaning all 12 tribes would be listed with Joseph and then including the redundancy of Manasseh and Ephraim, making 14,
What apocalypse does is leave out not just Dan but Ephraim. Astounding!!!
Therefore, if the Catholic church is the 144,000 sealed in their forehead, protected in their mind or intellect--which lies behind the forehead--from false teaching,( since the Catholic church is guaranteed to have the truth by the infallibility of its guidance in the Holy Spirit,), then the disclusion of Ephraim and Dan can symbolize that this protection in doctrine is absolutely not existent in orthodoxy or protestantism,
This then, would render the trumpets, if they symbolize the great doctrinal development of the church to history, the great trumpet blasts of her doctoral development throughout the ages, such that then, the 144, 000, symbolizing the faithful Catholics, are protected from spiritual harm from the trumpet blasts of the church's truth, since they accept it.
But those who do not accept them, who are not Catholic, and therefore without the seal of God on their foreheads, will necessarily reject the teachings at those phases , and therefore be spiritually harmed by the very nature of their errors.
Hence why, in particular, those without the seal of God in apocalypse fiftjh trumpet, or first great woe, can symbolize the innocent Protestants who are spiritually tortured by the fury hellfire and brimstone Protestant preachers , who confound the doctrines of Christ without the five sacraments in their full theological implications, telling all the innocent souls, follow me or perish.
The innocent soul then cries out how can I find the truth when there is so much confusion and my soul is at stake?!
Hence, they are supernaturally tortured for 5 months, for each of the sacraments and their full theological implications that they do not have because they do not have the protection of the church to guide them and give them peace.