When the enemies of your faith surround you, don’t look to your own wits and wisdom.
The month of May is a time when some Christians remember the city of Constantinople. The month begins with a celebration of the birthday of the “Queen of Cities.” The month ends with a solemn remembrance of the fall of the city on May 29. In the centuries leading up to her collapse, the Byzantine Empire became obsessed with three prophecies. The first promised salvation through the blood of a human prince. The second promised salvation through the will of a human king. The third promised salvation through a husband’s will to marry the right woman.
This three part series, entitled “Inheritors of God’s Kingdom,” points to salvation in Christ, not men, proclaimed in John 1:12-13, “To those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. They were born, not of blood, or of the desire of the flesh, or of a husband’s will, but born of God.”
Every prophecy apart from Christ is fulfilled by catastrophe. In part 1 of this series, we saw emperor Andronikos attempt to manipulate a human prophecy through the inheritance of his youngest son and save the empire. He failed spectacularly. Sadly, as the sun was setting on the Byzantine Empire, emperors continued to put their trust in human prophecies.
Two hundred years after Andronikos, the empire was on the verge of collapse. The Byzantines had just recently taken back their city of Constantinople from the Western Christians of Europe. But that momentary victory was followed by feelings of inevitable doom. The glittering golden fabric of the Byzantine Empire had been reduced to a threadbare rag. The empire that once covered thousands of miles now ruled solely over the city of Constantinople. To make matters worse, the Ottoman war machine was methodically tightening its grip in the East. In the West, European Christians looked enviously at the city of Constantinople, considering whether they could reconquer it for themselves.
Sitting on the Byzantine throne squarely between these enemies of East and West was a new dynasty. They were called the “Palaiologoi.” The name carried an inherent irony. Although they were a newer family to the politics of Constantinople, their name literally meant, “ancient wisdom.” But perhaps the name fit because the worse the situation looked for their people, the more the Palaiologoi emperors looked to the “ancient wisdom” of human prophecies for guidance.
The specific prophecy they held on to had been carved into a cryptic marble balustrade in the public square of the city. Carved into its stone surface was a dark, generations-old prophecy. It foretold that the city would stand only as long as its enemies were divided. However, it also stated that the end would arrive when the "Lion of the Sunset" met the "Dragon of the Sunrise" at the gates.
Every Byzantine citizen from the poor beggar on the streets to the emperor himself understood what that prophecy meant. The Lion was the Catholic West; the Dragon was the Islamic East. If these enemies would ever meet at Constantinople, the city would fall.
Driven by the pure will to save his people, the Byzantine emperor made a decision. He decided he would outmaneuver the stone prophecy. He would use the power of human decision to force a rescue. So he packed his bags and sailed west to make a deal with the Pope in Rome. In exchange for help defending Constantinople, the Byzantine people would submit to the Pope.
This was a masterpiece of human diplomacy. The emperor thought he had outwitted the prophecy. But, as I wrote in Part 1, every prophecy apart from Christ is fulfilled by catastrophe. The people turned against the emperor. The agreement led the west to Constantinople just as the enemies in the East were conquering their way to the city.
In the months that followed, the “Queen of Cities,” was surrounded. Her walls battered. Then, on May 29, 1453, the unthinkable happened: Constantinople fell to the Turks. No human prophecy could protect the Christians from the massacre that followed. No will of an emperor was able to stop the destruction.
When our own hardships threaten to conquer us, our natural instinct is to do what the Palaiologoi emperors did. We look to the “ancient wisdom” of human ideas for guidance.
John 1:12-13 warns against trusting in human will for salvation: “To those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. They were born, not of blood, or of the desire of the flesh, or of a husband's will, but born of God.”
How difficult it is to trust in the Lord when the walls are crumbling and the enemies swarm us. When our own hardships threaten to conquer us, our natural instinct is to do what the Palaiologoi emperors did. We look to the “ancient wisdom” of human ideas for guidance. That “wisdom” may come from our own feelings. When depression hits, our first instinct is to look inward for solutions. When we don’t find any, we follow the Byzantine temptations of looking to human saviors. Some advice on a video or a seven step plan for success offer false hope.
In the end, our human desire to save ourselves ultimately threatens to be our undoing. Because the truth of the matter is that we cannot save ourselves. No amount of political diplomacy can remove the sin in my heart. There isn’t a single deal I can strike with God that can convince him to let me into heaven on my own.
Instead of waiting for a human agreement or some broken prophecy, our loving Lord made a new agreement. He proclaimed a one-way covenant in which only one party would do all the work. Since that couldn’t have been us, God the Father sent Jesus to fulfill that commitment. God had Jeremiah summarize it this way: “Yes, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jer. 31:31). Then he defined what that eternal covenant would look like, “I will forgive their guilt, and I will remember their sins no more” (Jer. 31:34).
But in order to carry out that covenant, God the Father would have to surround his Son with enemies on all sides. The Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities came together in order to carry out a rare, mutual attack. In their attacks they offered all sorts of agreements. They would free him if he stopped claiming to be the Christ. They begged him to prove he was the Christ if he would only step down from the cross.
But Jesus came to fulfill a greater agreement — the heavenly covenant between his Father and you. He took every one of your sins upon himself. He suffered hell for you. He died for you. Then he rose again for you. And through his death and resurrection he fulfilled the age-old agreement.
In love, Jesus comes to you. He doesn’t make you attempt some sort of decision to achieve heaven. You could never do that. So instead, he chose you. You are an inheritor of God’s Kingdom by God’s loving will.
In Constantinople’s darkest hour, her people looked to human will and ingenuity to fulfill a crumbling earthly prophecy. That plan was doomed from the beginning. The shocking destruction of Constantinople proved that.
When the enemies of your faith surround you, don’t look to your own wits and wisdom. They cannot save you from sin. When grief holds you hostage, don’t attempt to remove it through sheer will. When Satan sends doubts to swirl around you, do not look inward to your own strength. Look to Christ. The Author of your faith chose you to be his own. He accomplished your salvation. He washed you into his family through the waters of baptism. He did it all. And he has made you an inheritor of his eternal kingdom forever.
