When the Lord Jesus came into the world, the Jewish nation was divided into various religious and political camps: Herodians, Zealots, Pharisees, and Sadducees, for example. One prominent religious group which is not mentioned in the New Testament was the Essene community. This group of pious separatists had moved from the cities to rural enclaves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. According to James D. Tabor, a specialist in apostolic Christianity at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the Essenes could be characterized as a “messianic, apocalyptic, baptist, wilderness, new covenant group.”l
The Essenes had correctly understood the prophecy of the 70 weeks in Daniel 9 to point to the appearance of Messiah sometime around 30 a.d. They viewed the Jewish nation at large to be apostate; the Pharisees had added their own oral traditions to the Torah and were misleading the common people, while the Sanhedrin was composed of priests who denied the doctrine of the Resurrection and made sacrifices on behalf of the pagan Roman Caesar. From their wilderness outposts, the Essenes invited pious Jews to separate from the degenerate nation, and baptized new converts in ceremonial pools. Having forsaken Jerusalem and the Temple, the Essenes believed they were preparing the way of the Lord in the wilderness in accordance with Isaiah 40:3.
Tabor notes that Essene beliefs were graphically portrayed in the burial rites of the Qumran community, where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in 1948. At that site, Tabor has observed that the residents of Qumran buried their dead facing to the north, instead of facing Jerusalem, as was customary with typical Jews. He suspects the Qumran people believed Messiah would come out of the north from the direction of Galilee. They believed that, when He came, Messiah would raise their dead from the graves and would confirm the new covenant (Jer. 31:31-33) with the community.
In a.d. 70, the Roman armies under Vespasian and his son Titus sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. With its destruction, the priesthood and the Sanhedrin became virtually extinct. The Pharisees escaped with the Jews into the Diaspora, and later evolved into the rabbinic cult with its voluminous interpretations, traditions, and commentaries on the Scriptures. What became of the Essenes? They had rightly appraised the apostate condition of the nation. They were accurate in predicting the time of Messiah’s coming. Did they become Christians?
Tabor is convinced the Essenes as a whole rejected the ministry of Jesus. The fact that Jesus moved among the common people and ministered among sinners might have been an affront to the Essenes’ self-appointed purpose. As extreme separatists, they believed they were the people of God; Messiah was coming to them. When Jesus called sinners unto repentance and proclaimed the kingdom of heaven, this challenged the purpose for which the Essenes believed they existed. Consequently there is no historical evidence the Essenes ever embraced the fledgling Christian assembly at Jerusalem. They remained in their settlements on the shore of the Dead Sea and were apparently overrun by the invading Romans. All that remains of the Essenes are the ruins of their desert hideouts and fragments of their writings.
What lesson can we garner from what is known historically of the Essenes? We should hasten to admire the extent to which they understood their own time in light of the prophetic Scripture. Furthermore, the Essenes had apprehended the spiritual declension of the Jewish nation and sought to separate from it. It is a fact that separation from apostasy and evil is a principle plainly taught in the Word of God (cf. 2 Cor. 6:14-18). But of equal importance with what a group separates from is what the group separates to.
The Essenes, it appears, had made the fatal mistake of finding righteousness within their own community; they seemed to possess the right doctrines and observed the right ordinances. But when Messiah came, they did not receive Him. They had created a camp, and within the confines of it they were insulated from the truth of Messiah’s mission to give His life a ransom for many. As Tabor points out, virtually no one in Israel at that time understood the meaning of Messiah being “cut off” according to Daniel 9:26. To the Essenes, as with the rest of the nation, Jesus was not the liberator which the Jews clamored for.
While the salvation of the saints who gather in an assembly is not the issue here, we can learn from this historical example the error of finding fulfillment within the confines of the assembly itself. The Lord loves His assembly, having given Himself for it, and He graciously nurtures and perfects it as we look exclusively to Him in all matters. No issue is so trivial that the assembly can attend to it without seeking the mind of Christ. To ignore His practical headship would put us on the same ground as those of whom John 1:11 was written, “His own received Him not.” We would do well to heed these words written by J. N. Darby late in his life: “The first sign of weakness [in the assembly] is, the gathering itself becoming the object of attention, instead of Christ. The activity and zeal will be for the system.”2 May the Lord encourage us to find satisfaction in nothing apart from Him.
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me…He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Rev. 3:20-22).
Endnotes:
1. Tabor, James D., Ph.D. All historical information is from notes of lectures on the New Testament and Christian origins given at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Fall ’93.
2. Weremchuk, Max S., John Nelson Darby. Loizeaux Brothers, Neptune, NJ. 1992. p. 80.