Chapter 4 Revelation 2:1 – 3:22
CHAPTER IV
THE LETTERS TO THE SEVEN CONGREGATIONS OF ASIA (2.1-3.22)
The Author of the Letters.
The Author is, as we have already seen, identical with the One like to a Son of man (1.13), but it might be appropriate to clinch this identity by setting out the description there given, and underlining those parts of it repeated, actually or substantially, in chapters 2 and 3:
I turned to see the voice which spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden landstands; and in the midst of the lampstands one like unto a Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt at the breasts with a golden girdle. His head and His hair were white as white wool, white as snow; and His eyes were as aflame of fire; and His feet were like unto burnished brass . . . and His voice as the sound of many waters. He had in His right hand seven stars: and out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was as the sun. (He said): I am the first and the last, and the living one and I was dead and, behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of hades. (1.12-18).
If that were not enough, the Revealer also takes to Himself the control of the Seven Spirits of God (1.4), and the title of the "faithful and true Witness" (1.5), and "the Beginning of the creation of God" (1.5; Colossians 1.15, 18). Identification could not be more complete, and we know beyond a doubt that John and we are in the presence of the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ.
The cities to which the Letters are addressed
Ephesus. The commercial capital of Asia, standing between two ranges of mountains near the south of a lovely ravine. Roads radiated in every direction over Asia Minor from the city, giving it a fine position as a trading centre. It was renowned for its temple to "Diana of the Ephesians", reputed to be the grandest in the world. Its history is largely an account of conflict between Greek traders . and the devotees of idolatrous worship and magical art.
Smyrna. This was almost as well-equipped as Ephesus as a centre for trade. It had a renowned temple to the Emperor, built in honour of its loyalty to Rome. The city was well-planned and beautiful, well guarded by fortresses, and commercially very active.
Pergamon. This was regarded as the preeminent city on account of its age and its royal associations. Its situation was high and imposing, but it was a little off the main travel routes. It was the recognized centre of imperial worship.
Thyatira. This was situated in a peaceful and fruitful valley on the road between Pergamon and Sardis. It possessed a Greek temple, and a shrine directed by a pagan prophetess. It was renowned for its dyes (hence the reference in Acts 16.14), and had famous guilds which fostered idolatry and sensual vice.
Sardis. This had a fortress position on a rock ledge overlooking a mountain valley. It has a reputation for impregnability, but had in fact twice been conquered while its population was asleep.
Philadelphia. This was surrounded by mountains which rose to the east to form the Central Asian Plateau. It was the gateway of the eastern trade route, and hence a thriving city.
Laodicea. The city was built on low hills in the shadow of high mountains. Many roads radiated from the highway to the east. Banking and the woollen trade were important here, and the city was famous for its school of medicine.
(The relation between the history and geography of these seven Cities, and their character as revealed in the letters addressed to them, it developed in great detail in W. M. Ramsey, "The Letters to the Seven Churches" (Hodder & Stoughton, 1904).
Ramsay (LSCA, 1904) claims that John, though writing to a common pattern in the Seven Letters, "imparts to them many touches specially suitable to the individual Churches, and showing his intimate knowledge of them all' (p.39), and though this may well be true, it is right to point out that here, more than in most other parts of the Scriptures, the individuality of the human penman is submerged, in the strictly revelatory parts, beneath that of Him Who writes, "I know thy works"! The two kinds of knowledge are not incompatible, and even here it lay within the power of the Lord to exploit the experiences of His prophet in preparing His message, but the latter must be kept strictly within its proper bounds. It lies in any case outside the purpose of this exposition to dwell on such local factors. We need only say that Ramsay's book well repays study in its own right.
2.1: To the angel of the congregation in Ephesus.
The city figures prominently in Acts as a centre for Paul's preaching (18.19, 21,24; 19.17, 26, 35; 20.16, 17). It received one of the Letters of Paul's Roman Imprisonment; and is the only one of the Seven Congregations to be mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament except for brief mention of Thyatira in Acts 16.14, and of a congregation at Laodicea in Colossians 2.1; 4.13-16.
2.2:7 know thy works.
This is a refrain common to all the Letters in AV, and to all except Smyrna and Pergamon in RV. Since the works of these two also are in fact examined in their Letters, it is hard to believe that AV and the Textus Receptus which underlies it are incorrect, whatever the weight of ancient authorities may be. It is a keynote of all the letters that there is no hiding from the Lord what is going on. "All things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4.13). Those "eyes as a flame of fire" (Revelation 1.14) miss nothing.
/ know thy toil and patience, and that thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try them which call themselves apostles, and they are not and didst find them false; and thou has patience and didst bear for My name's sake, and hast not grown weary (-2.3)
This is a splendid testimonial. The congregation at Ephesus laboured in the service of the gospel, incessantly, to the point of weariness; it endured without seeking respite; it discerned and rejected apostate teachers; and despite every discouragement continued to maintain the teachings of the gospel without giving up.
2.4: / have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent, and do the first works; or eke I will come to thee, and remove thy lampstand out of its place, except thou repent.
It is a little difficult to understand how a congregation so steadfast could then be charged, as it is, with having "left its first love", and with being in need of recovering it. Yet the fault is so grievous that it is in danger of bringing that lamp-stand in Ephesus to extinction unless it is put right. Moffatt renders the complaint to mean that they had "given up loving one another as they did at first", as though their zeal was real but hard, and in pursuing it they had hardened themselves to the needs of their own needy and weak. This is a phenomenon by no means unknown to us also, where those who are zealous for the purity of the gospel, as they understand it, can
prove singularly indifferent to the needs of their less fortunate brethren, concentrating only on building up a corpus of zealots who can further their fanatical ends: and this is certainly destructive of the gospel's message, and a good ground for terminating their work and influence. So it could well be that the religion of the Ephesians had become formal and barren, lacking in the fruit of gentleness and meekness which belong no less to the work of the Spirit. This seems almost to be emphasized rather than mitigated in the final commendation, that this industrious church has set itself against a grievous heresy, for it rejects and discards the Nicolaitan doctrine.
2.6: This thou hast, that thou hatest the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
Formally, the doctrine of Ephesus is pure, and this purity is highly commendable. Here is no counsel of toleration of evil. It is only a question of making sure that resistance to evil does not throw away the preservation of love. Ephesus appears to have chosen the hard road of tyrannical rectitude.
Although, therefore, Ephesus had become defective in brotherly love in its zeal for doctrinal purity — if this is a correct analysis of its position — it remains a fact that the doctrinal purity was urgently required. A hateful heresy was at large, and Ephesus at present provided a bastion against it. What was this heresy? We have several examples of the Lord's approach to this or related errors in these letters addressed to Ephesus, Pergamon, and Thyatira:-2.6: The works of the Nicolaitans.
2.14: The teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication. So hast thou also some that hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans in like manner. 2.20: Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel which seduceth my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to idols.
The error of Balaam in the Letter to Pergamon is expressed in similar terms to that of Jezebel in the Letter to Thyatira, and the words "in like manner" of the Nicolaitans in the former suggests that this and the Balaam-heresy are related. This parallel is taken a little further when we note that Nicolaos, in the Greek, and Bil'am, in the Hebrew, appear to bear related meanings as "lord or conqueror of the people". The errors cannot be quite identical, since if they were there would be no need to refer to two of them in the Letter to Pergamon, and no need to distinguish them in any of the
Letters, but the differences may lie more in the leaders who promoted the wrong teaching and practice, than in the teaching and practice themselves. There might, for example, have been one Nikolaos who imported the apostacy from Greek sources, and some evil man (in Pergamon) or woman (in Thyatira) of Jewish affiliations who perversely introduced the errors in the form in which they were condemned in the Old Testament, and who were locally active in these two congregations. It is even possible, if the rendering in RVm has any substance, that the woman here called Jezebel might have been the wife of the leader of the congregation in Thyatira, and allowed by her husband to conduct her evil works in much the same way as a weak Ahab allowed Jezebel to introduce Baal-worship in its worst form into Israel (1 Kings 16.31; 19.1,2 ).
The activities of these Old Testament characters make all too plain the nature of the sins to which the congregations of Asia were attracted. Balaam sought to bring about the downfall of Israel by causing the women of Midian to seduce them into idolatrous fornication (Numbers 25.1, 9; 31.8, 16). It is remarkable that Peter, whose Letters were addressed to saints in this very area (1 Peter 1.1; 2 Peter 3.1), should warn against the same false teaching (2 Peter 2.15, "having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor"), as did also Jude (Jude 11). Having failed to prophesy evil against Israel, Balaam sought to achieve the same ends by guile, and the sins to which he led them are precisely those condemned in these Letters. And whereas we have no such precise information as to how Jezebel wrought evil in Israel, all her background would suggest that just such lustful pursuits would be part of her idolatrous stock-in-trade.
That these were real dangers to the early congregations of Christ is made very plain in 1 Corinthians 10.8, where Paul pleads: "Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed". The saints of Asia were being tempted to return to the abominations, if not the open acceptance, of idolatry. This adds great point to the decision of the council in Jerusalem of Acts 15. There, while exempting Gentile believers from observing the Law of Moses, the apostles and elders did lay down that they should abstain from fornication, meats offered to idols, things strangled, and blood (Acts 15.20, 29; 21.25), the first two of which are before us here. Gentile believers were surely being tol that, whereas they did not need to become Jews, they must ..esist from being pagans, and must refrain altogether from the abominations of pagan idolatrous practices.
Anything which might foster the error that liberation from the Law gave licence to lawlessness must be repudiated. It follows that the Council was not concerned with limited, but real, concessions involving keeping part of the Law of Moses (in the matters of blood and stranglation), but much more probably with the blood poured out in heathen libations, and strangulation as an idolatrous rite. If both of these were "pollutions of idols" (Acts 15.20), they could well be implied in the summaries of Revelation 2.14, 20, as well as in the treatment of the same corruptions in 1 Corinthians 8.1-13; 10.7-8; 10.14-31).
A sinister note is now sounded. Balaam taught Balak (2.14) how to bring Israel to near-destruction by seducing them with the women of Moab (Numbers 25.1) into the idolatrous worship of Baal-Peor (25.3). His prophecies against them had come to naught: what more natural than that they should now say to themselves that, no matter what they did, they were secure from harm? Peter suggests that such false teaching had invaded the churches of Asia at the hands of those who, like Balaam, "with feigned words made merchandise of them". Now John writes at the Lord's command to warn the congregations of the seven lampstands there that they are in danger of succumbing to the same peril.
This is by no means an outmoded warning. The complete surrender of Bible-based morality in the years since the Second World War, which seems daily to gather impetus, is a canker in the body of every western 'democracy', and seems actively and suicidally to be encouraged in high places, in government, in universities, even in churches, and of course in entertainment. The 'reds-under-the-bed' view that such moral decline might actually be fostered by alien powers only too ready to undermine the stable social fabric of their potential enemies, may not be provable, but neither is it improbable. Balaam and that woman Jezebel are active still, and the warning against their seductions is one of the timeless messages of this Book.
2.20: Which calleth herself a prophetess.
There were prophetesses in the earliest days of the church. Peter had quoted Joel to this effect at Pentecost (Acts 2.17-18; Joel 2.28), and female prophets appear subsequently in Acts 21.9; 1 Corinthians 11.4-5. In this Book we are near enough to those times for it to have been plausible for a genuine prophetess to have existed, and "that woman Jezebel", if she is a single individual, might well have presumed on this to claim
divine inspiration for her lascivious teachings. The way in which her judgement is spoken of certainly appears to treat her as literal, even if not as a single individual, for calls for her to change her ways have gone unheeded. Her punishment is designed to remind us of the terrible fate which overtook the archetypal Jezebel at the hands of Jehu (2 Kings 9.30-37).
2.21: I gave her time that she should repent, and she willeth not to repent of her fornication. Behold I do cast her into a bed.
She will exchange the bed of her fornications for the hard ground on which she will be devoured. Whether the Lord is here promising some temporal punishment for the fornicators of Thyatira, or whether He is pointing forward to the future day of judgement may not be certain, but the warning to the other churches offered by her fate would be hard to understand were something of the kind not to occur. But, of course, the opportunity of repentance was still there, and Thyatira was fundamentally a faithful church (2.19), actually growing in faithfulness with the years, so perhaps the matter was never put to the test, if the reform asked for took place in time.
2.22: And them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of her works. 2.23: and I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts.
It does appear, though, that real physical punishments were sometimes inflicted by the Lord, in those days when the apostles wielded the power of the Spirit, and the Lord confirmed the word with signs following (Mark 16.20). We know of the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5.1-11), and of the blindness brought by Paul on Elymas the sorcerer (13.11). We know, too, of the terrible death of Herod directly at God's hand. When Paul says that "some are weak and sickly among you, and some sleep" (1 Corinthians 11.30), he appears to be referring to physical consequences of their unworthy behaviour. When he threatens to come to them with destructive power if they do not amend their ways (2 Corinthians 10.8, 11; 13.10), he appears to refer to real sanctions which he can impose on the rebels; and when James refers to those who are sick, and are advised to call for the elders and confess (James 5.13-16), his words are very difficult to understand unless they refer to punitive sickness. Since in the present context the Lord is saying that what He will do to the sinners in Thyatira will be a warning to all the other congregations, it would seem that some signal act of public judgement is called for.
2.23: / will give to each one of you according to his works. But any temporal punishment would be intended as a warn-
ing of more severe retribution at the day of judgement itself. God searches all hearts by His quick and powerful word (Hebrews 4.12-13), and gives opportunity for repentance now; but the statement that Jesus will "render to every man according to his works" (Matthew 16.27; Romans 2.6; 14.12; 2 Corinthians 5.10 and elsewhere) is almost a formula in Scripture for the awarding of blessings and punishments by the Lord on his return, though it is based on similar expressions in the Old Testament addressed to Israel (Psalm 62.12; Proverbs 24.12; Jeremiah 17.10).
He that overcometh. (2.7,11,17,26; 3.5,12,21).
This is one of the most obvious links between this Book and the other writings of John. In the Gospel the Lord claims, "I have overcome the world" (16.33). In the First Letter, the saint follows in the Lord's footsteps and does likewise (2.13, 14; 4.4; 5.4,4,5). After the latter pattern, "He that overcometh" is in this Book the exhortation of every Letter, and for later times also in 12.11; 17.14; and 21.17. The Lord's victory over the world when He died on the Cross is the basis for all the other victories; the saint overcomes in his turn not in his own strength, but in faith, and by "the blood of the Lamb".
The Tree of Life. (2.7; 22.2,2,14).
The Tree of Life was there in the original Garden of Eden; but because the man and his wife preferred to rival God in His omnipotence, they were denied the right to continue in His presence, and the paradise of God was lost to them (Genesis 3.22-24). The ultimate return to the bliss of a new Eden found its fullest exposition in the Old Testament in the writings of Ezekiel, who saw the future, restored fortunes of Israel accompanied by access to "very many trees on the one side and on the other" of a stream proceeding from the House of God (47.1, 7). In the prophet's vision the characteristic of those trees was that "their leaf shall not wither, neither shall the fruit of it fall: for it shall bring forth new fruit every month because the waters thereof issue out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for healing" (47.2). This same picture is caught up in the Apocalypse, where "a pure river of water of life" proceeds "out of the throne of God and of the Lamb" (22.1; compare John 4.11-15; 7.38). Here the trees on both sides of the river of water of life are called "the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations" (22.2). It is reserved for those who have washed their robes (in the blood of the Lamb) (22.14RV; 7.14), and have been faithful to the sayings of this Book (22.19). Here the figure represents the power and will of God to grant life without end, free from all the disabilities which beset our present fallen race. Then Eden shall be restored: "there shall be no curse anymore (22.3; Genesis 3.17).
The tree is xulon, a term not commonly used in the New Testament for a living tree, for which the word is dendron. LXX uses xulon far more commonly than dendron, and thus we might suppose that Revelation is simply quoting the Greek without any particular implication. But when we see how consistently the New Testament uses dendron for fruiting trees (Matthew 7.17-19; 3.10; 12.33; Luke 3.9; 6.43-44; 21.19), while Revelation itself also uses this word for living trees (7.1, 3; 8.7; 9.4), the situation beings to look differently. When we then note that xulon is used in the New Testament for sticks, stocks, timber, or a dead tree (Matthew 26.47, 55; Mark 14.43, 48; Luke 22.52; 23.31; Acts 16.24; 1 Corinthians 3.12; Revelation 18.12), none of which has any relevance to a tree of life, or even a tree still living; while it is also employed five times of the cross of Christ (Acts 5.20; 10.39; 13.29; Galatians 3.13; 1 Peter 2.24), then a clear and beautiful purpose is perceived in the choice of the term here. When life is granted to the servants of the Lord, it will be because that Lord died that it might be possible. Their life comes because their Lord died on the Tree, and it is "from the dust" that "there blossoms red life that shall endless be". What began as the symbol of shameful death becomes the token of eternal triumph: the dead wood springs into leaf and flower and fruit because "it is Christ that died: yea, rather, that is risen again" (Romans 8.34).
One minor matter is quite certain. Xulon, though it means 'wood' rather than 'tree' in the New Testament, does not mean 'forest'. The "tree of life on both sides of the river" (22.2) cannot be properly translated to mean "the forest of life on both sides". Our imagination may not be able to understand how the same tree can be on both banks of a river, but that problem is not to be solved by imposing on the word a collective sense it does not bear. Perhaps the tree overhangs both banks, or perhaps a physical picture is not possible. It does not matter: the important thing is that it is accessible to all the residents of the city.
Paradise. (2.7)
Though this term is uncommon in the New Testament (Luke 23.4; 2 Corinthians 12.4; and here), it is used in LXX
some 28 times, of which 13 refer to Eden in Genesis 2 & 3. The Hebrew word, pardes, apparently of Persian origin, is used of forest or orchard in Nehemiah 2.8; Ecclesiastes 2.5; and Song 4.13. There is thus a clear Edenic background to the use of this term here, and when coupled with the Tree of Life it plainly promises Eden restored. This was the promise to the malefactor on the Cross: that he would be there when the Lord came to restore Eden to the earth. Paul's visionary excursion into the "third heaven" is to be understood similarly. Paul had his own vision of the future glory which is now revealed to John.
True and false Jews: "which say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan (1.9; 3.9). "False apostles". (2.2)
Ephesus in Acts is a centre of operation of disbelieving Jews (19.9), claiming miraculous powers (19.13-17), and siding with the worshippers of Artemis against Paul (19.33). Paul's principal foes were from among his own people, from the time of his conversion and on (Acts 9.23; 29; 13.6-12; 13.50, etc.). He himself actually describes them as "false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves unto the apostles of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 11.12-15), words which must surely have been in the mind of the Lord as He dictated these words to John. Though Paul did indeed suffer ill-treatment at the hands of Gentiles, much of this was at Jewish instigation (Acts 9.23; 12.3; 13.45, 50; 14.2; 17.5; 18.12; 20.3; 2 Corinthians 11.24; 1 Thessalonians 2.14), and, once Christian congregations were founded, the principal agents of apostacy among the new believers were again the Tews (Galatians 2.12; Acts 15.1-2, 5).
It seems, therefore, that here also Jews were the main opponents and perverters of the faith "once and for all delivered to the saints", courting all the perils associated with preaching "another gospel" (Galatians 1.8-9). Any compromise with such a false gospel, which would nullify the saving grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ must be resisted then, and it must be resisted now. Of course, in our present experience it is not from Jewry that the move to deny the grace of our Lord Jesus comes to us. Even in those days Greek philosophy, with its disdain of a suffering Saviour and its search after wisdom, was destructive of the true gospel, and the humanism of our own day is no less guilty, when linked with the word 'Christian', of having a form of godliness and denying the power thereof. The churches of Asia, and those other congregations of believers to which Paul had preached, had to contend with Jews and Greeks, but fundamentally the same problems arise in every age.
Though the Lord condemns in unmeasured terms those who destroy His gospel, and though it is the dbty of the follower of the Lord to "discern the spirits whether they be of God" (1 Corinthians 12.10; 1 John 4.1), yet it is not our prerogative to engage in recriminations against those whose teaching we must reject. The disciple of the Lord does not assert his own righteousness by flinging about indscriminate accusations against those with whom he cannot agree. It may be tempting to use language like that of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 23 against the Pharisees, or that of Paul in Acts 13.10 against Elymas, or that of the Lord in Revelation against false teachers, but it is not our office to do so. Specially when we are at pains to disavow possession of the Spirit-inspired insight which the Lord and His apostles possessed, we must limit our condemnation of the teaching of others to saying and proving that it is wrong, and offering a more excellent way. "The servant of the Lord must not strive, but must be gentle to all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness correcting those that oppose themselves, if peradventure God may give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth" (2 Timothy 2.24-25).
2.10: The devil is about to cast some of you into prison that ye may be
tried.
This, and the allusion to Satan's seat in 2.12, reveals the essentially political nature of the devil here referred to. He is the same devil who "goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour", whom Peter exhorts some of these same believers, and others, to resist (1 Peter 5.8-9). There are many meanings to be attached to both words 'devil' and 'Satan'. Judas was a devil; Peter was satan; the wives of bishops and other servants of the Lord must take care that they are not (John 6.70; Matthew 16.23; 1 Timothy 3.11; 2 Timothy 3.3; Titus 2.3). The world is a satan, to whose mercies unfaithful Christians might be cast as they were excommunicated by Paul, until they should learn better ways (1 Corinthians 5.5; 1 Timothy 1.20); suffering can be a satan to keep the disciple humble in face of temptation to be proud (2 Corinthians 12.7). In its most fundamental sense the Lord Jesus destroyed the devil by His death when He came "to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 2.14; 9.26), and the equation of those two passages shows that no supernatural power is intended by the word. We shall meet this problem again when we come to the power called "the devil and satan" in 12.9, 12; 20.2, 10, but for the present are back to the local level, in
dealing with the devil and the satan of the letters to Smyrna and Pergamon. As in 1 Peter 5, the devil here referred to is plainly the persecuting power of Rome, imprisoning disciples for their faith, and operating against them from his imperial headquarters in Pergamon.
Ye shall have tribulation ten days.
The time has not yet come for a consideration of the vexed problem of the time-periods of the Apocalypse, but this ten-day tribulation of Smyrna does seem to lie outside the scope of the main problem. The diligent compilers of RV references suggest a possible clue in Genesis 24.55, where Rebecca's kin ask for a ten-day moratorium before she departs to become Isaac's wife; or Daniel 1.12-15, in which Daniel and his friends ask for a 10-day test of their Spartan diet, chosen instead of the king's idols' meat; and perhaps they have done the best that can be done: "You will have trial like that of Daniel; you will seek assurance like the friends of Rebecca — but what you need is to hold fast, and then the crown of life will be yours. Anything more specific than that we shall search for in vain."
Thus I wrote in the First Edition of APOCALYPSE FOR EVERYMAN. It should, however be noted in all fairness that SC says that "the final and pre-eminent persecution which was carried out by paganism (under Diocletian) against Christianity lasted ten complete years . . . Lactantius states it, with absolute precision, to have continued from 23 February 303 to 13 June 313. Its exact duration therefore was 10 years, 3 months, and 19 days." One is only left wondering what precisely this persecution, not due for more than 200 years, could have meant for the congregation in Smyrna before the end of the first century: especially since intervening events of considerable import are passed over in silence. Thus, Polycarp was martyred there around 155, and a principal place among those who approved and furthered it was taken by the Jews of the city (Ramsay, LSC pp. 272ff.).
28.10: The crown of life.
This is the Stephanas, commonly associated with the garland awarded to the victors in public games, woven from succulent leaves, or made in golden replicas of these (1 Corinthians
9.25). It is commonly, too, contrasted with the more enduring and glorious, diadema. But the same word is used to describe the mock-royal crown of thorns worn by the Lord Jesus (Matthew 27.29 ); while the crowns of Revelation 4.4, 10; 6.2; 9.7; 12.1; 14.14 are crowns of authority, whether or not they are also crowns of achievement: certainly they denote more than having come first in an athletic contest. The corresponding verb, stepnanoft, is certainly used of the games in I Timothy 2.5, but when it is applied to the triumph of the Lord Jesus in Hebrews 2.7, 9, it conveys much more than this. The Lord Who began His course a little lower than the angels has, because of suffering death, been crowned with a glory and honour exceeding theirs, all things having in principle been put under His feet. Indeed the alternative word for crown, diadSma, only occurs three times in the New Testament, all in Revelation (12.3; 13.1; 19.12), twice of evil powers and once of the Lord Jesus. Once again LXX is our best guide, for there stephanos occurs about 30 times, and diadema only about 5, all save one in Esther. It needs only a glance to convince us that kingly authority rather than athletic triumph is likely to be the
connotation of the word.
'The O.T.-occurrences of stephanos are: 2 Samuel 12.30; I Chronicles 20.2; Job 19.9; 31.36; Pslam 21.3; 65.11; Proverbs 1.9; 4.9, 9; 12.4; 14.24; 16.31; 17.6; Song 3.11; Isaiah 22.17, 21 Greek only; 28.1, 3, 5; 62.3; Jeremiah 13.18; Lamentations 2.15 Greek only; 5.16; Ezekiel 16,22; 21.26; 23.42; 28.12 Greek only; Zechariah 6.11, 14. Those underlined certainly refer to royal authority, and others may well do so. A number imply dignity and honour without necessarily conveying an idea of power. There is none which with any probability can be regarded as referring to victory in games. The same applies to the use of the cognate verb in Psalm 5.12; 8.6; 103.4; Song 3.11. Apart from all this, the exhortation to be "faithful to death" is not remotely connected with athletics. Stedfastness and constancy will be rewarded with honours which a faithful person may expect from the Lord at His return. So Paul in 2 Timothy 4.8, faithful unto death indeed, anticipates the "crown of righteousness"; and so also James (1-12) and 1 Peter (5.4), in the last of which the "stephanos of glory" is actually contrasted with the fading garland of the athlete. There is an interesting example of the limitations of metaphor in Revelation 3.11, where Philadelphian saints are warned to be watchful lest anyone should steal their crown: persecution and temptation can certainly rob saints of their crown, but no one can 'steal' it so as to profit himself, and no competitor in the race for life will lose a crown because he has been unable to steal someone else's! Notwithstanding the exhortation to remember that "they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize" (1 Corinthians 9.24), this is not intended to make us compete with each other so that one can snatch what the other fails to attain. It is intended to encourage unremitting effort, so that each will run the race with the same eagerness as if there only were one reward: "So run, that ye may attain!" 2.11: The second death.
Postponing, until we meet the same term again in 20.6,14; 21.8, the question as to who will stand to be judged when the Lord returns, we learn at least from this passage that the one who does receive the crown of life will do so at the day of judgement. This may involve him in dying for his faith, but in that event he has no need to "fear them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul", for having lived a faithful life he will be spared the "destruction of both soul and body in Gehenna" (Matthew 10.28). For those granted access to the Tree of Life there is no longer any need to fear destruction in the Lake of Fire (20.14, 15; 21.8; compare Matthew 25.34, 41, 46).
2:12-13: To the angel of the congregation in Pergamon, write. . . Thou holdestfast My name, and didst not deny My faith, even in the days of Antipas my witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwelleth.
There is no reasonable alternative to treating this as a simple piece of local, congregational history. Even in the days of persecution to death, with all the weight of official sanction ("where Satan dwelleth"), the congregation had stood fast when Antipas lost his life for his faith. A church which persecution had failed to subdue was now menaced by corrosion under the subtler attacks of the Balaamites and the Nicolaitans (2.14-15). Should it yield to this, it would no longer be the Roman authorities which would seek its destruction, but the Lord Jesus Himself, with the sword of His mouth (2.16).
Attempts to derive a lesson from the meaning of the martyr's name (whether understood as "against a father" or "against all") are fanciful, and any such lesson must be known beforehand if it is to be found in the etymology. It is true that the Lord came "to set a man against his" (unbelieving) "father" (Matthew 10.35), and also that He said that His followers would be "hated of all men" for His name's sake (10.22), but we know these things because the Lord said so, and "not because this verse might be understood to convey cryptically some such meaning. We should never have learned the message from this verse alone. Apart from this, the believer does not hate his unbelieving father: If there is hatred it arises
from the side of the unbeliever. It is true that the Lord said that "if any man . . . hateth not his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14.26), but the words concern the readiness of disciples to endure the loss of the affection of even the closest members of their families, if that is the price of their acceptance of the gospel, and certainly do not place the initiative of 'hating' in the hands of the disciple. The world hated the Lord, and may hate His disciples, but whereas they are taught not to "love the world, or the things that are in the world" (1 John 2.15), they are in no way taught to hate its people, which would be utterly contrary to the spirit of discipleship. 2.17: The hidden manna.
When the supply of manna finally failed, all there was left was the golden pot of it, preserved in the Most Holy Place (Exodus 16.33; Hebrews 9.4). If the pot was actually inside the Ark (which is quite explicit in RSV of Hebrews 9.4), then even this relic of the former miraculous provision had been lost by the time Solomon built the temple (1 Kings 8.9). Yet the Lord Jesas now provides from Himself the Bread from heaven, in unfailing amounts, for those who overcome their natural appetites, and labour for the meat that endures to eternal life (John 6.27-59). His saints have free access to the true reality underlying the place where the last fragments of the old manna were preserved, there to obtain the full satisfaction promised to those who "hunger and thirst after righteousness" (Matthew 5.6), with "mercy, and grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4.16). When the overcoming is complexed, then for them there will be the life which endures for evermore, in the presence of theHrue Body of Christ, when they will "hunger no more, neither thirst any more" (Revelation 7.16).
A white stone.
Apart from the topical associations of the gift of such a stone with acquittal, victory, or public honour in the Graeco-Roman world, all of which are revelant to the blessing which the Lord will bestow on the saint at His coming, the suggestion that the stone might correspond to the drawing of an affirmative lot from the Urim and Thummim in the high priest's breastplate is attractive too (Exodus 28.30; Deuteronomy 33.8; Nehemiah 7.65), especially since the last allusion concerns Nehemiah's refusal to let men of doubtful antecedents take on the priestly office, and so provides a perfect background for the time when such a Priest shall indeed stand up, and will indeed judge as to the fitness of His people for His priesthood. The word used here for 'stone' is a
rare one, being the Greek pstphos. occurring twice in this passage, and only once elsewhere. But that other occurrence is highly significant, for the word is there translated 'voice' in AV, 'vote' in RV, when Paul assents to the execution of Stephen (Acts 26.10), once more suggesting a parallel with the Urim and Thummim. The Old Testament use of the word is oh this occasion of no assistance.
The new name.
This is no doubt the same as in 3.12. See pages 33-35. Victory over sin brings with it the righteousness of faith which is owed to The LORD our Righteousness. That no man knows it save the recipient also relates it to the Lord Jesus' own new name, of which the same is said in 19.12. Yet in this last case the name is actually given to us in full, as "King of kings and Lord of lords" (19.16). The idea is thus not that the mame is unknowable as a set of letters, but that the nature which accompanies it is incomprehensible save to those who enjoy the redemption it implies. Neither deathlessness nor impregnable righteousness is more than a term, until the liberty conveyed by them is become a reality in the person of "him that re-ceiveth" it. The same is true of "the new song" which none save the redeemed from the earth can learn (14.3). It is only possible to sing such a song with understnading when the victory which it signifies is being savoured.
2.26: Authority over the nations.
It is already clear as early as this in the Book that the saints will "live and reign on the earth" with Christ, as in 20.4 more explicitly. This is also the teaching of Daniel 7.27. It seems probable that the much discussed words of Psalm 149.6, 7, in which it is said of the saints, "Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the nations, and punishments on the peoples", are to be understood in the same way.
2.27: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels
of the potter are broken to shivers, as I also have received of My
Father.
By .whatever means the rebellious nations will actually be overcome when Jesus returns, the administration of the lands in which the survivers will dwell will be exercised by the Lord through His saints, to whom, no doubt, will be given the charge both of instruction and of discipline. "This honour have all His saints" (Psalm 149.9) is much more readily understood of such a task than of the purely negative one, by whomsoever it will be discharged, of destroying those who wage war against God. This destruction, however necessary it will be, is the regrettable result of human unwillingness to yield to the will of God, and it can hardly be a pleasure in itself to punish the disobedience. That the nations will be ruled "with a rod of iron" reveals that it will no longer be in their power to resist the will of God and inflict persecution on His servants. There will be no gainsaying the benign rule of the Lord, and any attempt to do so must needs be suppressed.
The words "rule with a rod of iron" are taken directly from Psalm 2.9, together with the reference to the "potter's vessel". In the Psalm the words are certainly used of the Lord Jesus Himself: here they connect His saints with the work He will do on His return. Those who "live and reign with Him a thousand years" (20.4), the saints, will, it seems, have the responsibility under their Lord of seeing to the dismantling of rebellious human institutions and their replacement by the righteous ordinances of God.
The link with Psalm 2 is important in another way too. It is Messianic there, and it is in Messianic association in Revelation 2.27. We might expect that it would be used consistently with this when it appears again in the Book. There are two further occurrences, and the latter of these, in 19.15, allows of no doubt at all: it is the conquering Lord Jesus Who will "smite the nations with a rod of iron," and it would be confusion if, in 12.5, the "Manchild who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron", were not to be the same. It is impossible to believe that the Lord Jesus would send His angel to reveal an internally inconsistent message, and we must, therefore, be prepared to find that the interpretation of 12.5 also centres on the Lord Jesus, rather than on any mere man, however exalted.
Excursus IV: The Word "Saint" in the Old Testament
In the New Testament the word hagios, when used as a noun, is always rendered 'saint', and always refers to men and women associated with the Lord Jesus Christ, save in Matthew 27.52 perhaps, where faithful men of earlier times may be intended. Whether it is so used in the Old Testament has been questioned, particularly in the light of the passage under discussion, Psalm 149.9, where understandable emotional objections to disciples being involved in bloodshed at the return of the Lord have led to the suggestion that the word could be used of angels, who also are God's 'holy ones'. Whatever the emotional problems, however, the question of the meaning of the word 'saint' is one of' fact, and the facts are not hard to assess.
The English word 'saint' is found about 40 times in the Old Testament, of which 19 are translated from the Hebrew word chasiydah (including Psalm 149.9), and 18 from the word gadh-
oivsh, or related Hebrew and Aramaic words. It is the meaning of the former of these which is in issue. It is translated 'saint' in the following places: I Samuel 2.9; 2 Chronicles 6.41; Psalm 30.4; 31.23; 37.28; 50.5; 52.9; 79.2; 85.8; 97.10; 116.15; 132 9 16; 145.10; 148.14; 149.1, 5, 9; and Proverbs 2.8.
In all the cases emphasized above the word is certainly used of human beings, undergoing the trials and dangers of this life, and looking for the blessings of God in the time to come. In all the other cases it could bear the same meaning, but this is not so compellingly evident. We are obliged to conclude, therefore, that it is sons of Adam either in their probationary state, or as subsequently glorified, who are intended by this word, including its use in Psalm 149.9. Attempts to avoid this conclusion, however understandable, are not based on sound exposition. Since the present writer is one who needed to be convinced of this by hard evidence, he puts forth this view with the greater assurance.
3.1: Thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead.
Death in the New Testament does not always mean the cessation of natural life. It is also applied to the spiritual state of the ones who are not born again as disciples of the Lord Jesus, or not living actively the life which should follow on their rebirth. The man called to discipleship who put off the day of decision ("Suffer me first to bury my father!") was dead (Luke 9.30); so was the Prodigal Son until he came to his senses and returned home (Luke 15.24, 32); only when they hearkened to the teaching of Jesus did men "pass from death into life" (John 5.24-25). Jews and Gentiles alike were "dead in trespasses and sins" unless they allowed the Lord Jesus to "quicken" them (that is, bring them to life) (Ephesians 2.1-7). A giddy widow who wastes her ecclesially subsidized time in gossip is "dead while she lives" (1 Timothy 5.6). All merely human life is death in God's sight; in a very real sense Adam did die the day he ate of the forbidden fruit, and was expelled from the intimacy of God's society in Eden. Certainly his mortal life was prolonged for many years, but life without God is meaningless, and he was from that time on reduced to a painful and mediated approach to God through sacrifice.
The only true life for us is that which Jesus came to offer us: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have abundance" (John 10.10). This life belongs to the disciple for so long as, and in so far as, he lives his life in fellowship with God. The declaration, "No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him" (1 John 3.15) gives an example of how it might be forfeited. Although on several occasions the life which the believer lives now is called "eternal life" (John 5.24; 6.47, 54; 17.3; 1 John 5.11, 13, 20), that life in this dispensa-
don is not to be equated with immortality. It is only provisionally in the possession of the believer, lived in fellowship with the Father and the Son (1 John 1.3), and it will only assume the permanence of immortality when the saint, if he were already dead, has been raised, and in any event has been judged, and changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus' own glorious body, by Him Who has the keys of death and of the grave (Philippians 3.21; Revelation 1.18).
3.4: Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which did not defile their garments: and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.
This is a dead congregation; yet it is not wholly dead. A residue remains which is not unfaithful to its calling, and schismatics on the look-out for a call that these faithful members should divide the congregation and withdraw themselves into self-righteous purity will look in vain. The command to "be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain" (3.2) must have been heeded in the first instance, if it were heeded at all, by these same faithful few. They were not told to leave; nor were they told to form themselves into a party within the congregation, a church within a church, a self-appointed elite which would seek to gather to itself all those who are "strong", and despise the weak and leave them to their fate. The duty of the surviving faithful in Sardis was to "lift up the hands that hang down, and the palsied knees; and make straight paths for your feet, that that which is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed" (Hebrews 12.12-13). One of the tests which will determine whether men and women are really strong in the Lord will be the patient compassion with which they follow the Lord's own example, and do not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax (Matthew 12.10). Sardis was in desperate straits, but this was no call to leave it to its fate. Start — so the exhortation ran — with anything good which is left, and try to build up again from that. 3.3: / will come as a thief.
The Lord has given this warning before to His disciples (Matthew 24.45; Luke 12.39). Both Peter and Paul say the same (1 Thessalonians 5.2, 4; 2 Peter 3.10). The Lord is to say the same again (Revelation 16.5) in immediate anticipation of the "great day of God Almighty". Unless the present case is an exception, all these cases have reference to the return of the Lord Jesus to the earth. Yet the congregation in Sardis has not, in fact, survived to see that day. Like the rest of the Seven Congregations it has long since passed away. We have to conclude that the Lord's warning has the same relevance to
the saints and congregations who survive to the time of the Second Advent, as it would have had to Sardis had the Lord returned during the lifetime of that congregation. It could hardly be otherwise: unless Jesus was prepared to disclose the timetable for His coming, and date that return within a very narrow band of years, then it was inevitable that every generation should be left with the possibility that it might witness that return. So, to all who are in a Sardian frame of mind when the Lord really does come again, the message is the same. Like the other six congregations, Sardis has its message for to-day in proportion to the existence now of conditions like those it represented then.
The metaphor of the thief-like coming is not intended to pronounce as to whether the advent of the Lord will, or will not, be silent and unnoticed. The thief is a kleptes, one who breaks the commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," klepto. Such a person may either "break through and steal" (Matthew 6.19), or "steal away while we sleep" (Matthew 28.13). The important message is that thieves do not make an appointment with the owner of the goods they covet, but arrive unheralded. The manner of the Lord's return cannot be discovered from this word: only the unexpectedness of it. "Thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee".
3.5: The Book of Life.
This is the first reference to the Book of Life in the Apocalypse. Others are to follow in 13.8; 17.8; 20.12, 15; 21.27; 22.19. Two words are used: in the passages underlined the word is biblion, and in the remainder biblos, but there is no obvious distinction made between them. The concept is already present in Philippians 4.3, "whose names are in the Book of Life" (biblos). It is heartening to know that all who in God's sight are in a state of grace have their names already written in the Book. It constitutes a kind of heavenly birth-register of those who have been born again of water and Spirit, and patience in well-doing will maintain the names where they have been entered. Only relapse or unfaithfulness will cause the Lord, as He says here, to "blot out one's name from the Book". Salvation is that which the Lord desires for His saints, and they commence "accepted in the beloved". The apostles were told, even in the days of the Lord's earthly ministry, to "rejoice that their names were written in heaven" (Luke 10.20). As with Israel in the wilderness, in words surely referred to here, so with the Christian in his pilgrimage: "Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book" (Exodus 32.32-33). God, as it were, writes up the names in advance "in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (13.8; 17.8), calling those whom He foreknows (Romans 8.29-30), not of works, lest any man should boast. The works of faith are indeed needed, though, to show that the call has not been in vain, and keep the name on the roll as that of a member of God's family in continued good standing, but the call is of God and of grace.
/ will confess his name before my Father and before His angels.
The Lord here recalls what He had already said in John's hearing while yet in His weakness. Those who confess Him before men will be confessed before His Father and His angels (Matthew 10.32; Luke 12.8). It is those who remain steadfast in their loyalty to Him of whom the Lord will in effect say in the day of account: "Yes, I know this person. He (or she) is My friend, and, in season and out of season, has never been ashamed to say so before others."
The passages cited above do not exhaust the references to a Book in the Apocalypse. John's message is to be written in a book and circulated (1.11). He sees a Book in the hand of the occupant of the heavenly throne in 5.1-9, sealed with seven seals. When the sixth of those seals is broken, the "heaven is removed as a scroll" (6.14). When the judgement sits at the Lord's return, "books" are opened in addition to the Book of Life (20.12, 12); and the Apocalypse itself, as it draws to a close, is repeatedly referred to as "this book" (22.7, 9, 10, 18, 19). On all these occasions the word used is biblion. In addition to these there is the "little book" which John is required to eat, in 10.2, 8, 9, 10, where the word used is bibliaridion, a word otherwise unknown in either Testament.
It has been argued strongly that the seven-sealed book of chapter 6 is identical with the Book of Life. In Peter Watkins: "Exploring the Apocalypse and the Future" (King's Langley, John Watkins, 1980), pages 127-139, this view is supported on these grounds:
1 Only "the Lamb" is worthy to open it (5.5).
2 All the seals have to be removed before the Book can be opened, after which the judgement can sit and the saints receive their reward
(20.12).
3 The Lamb who opens the Book is also the Lamb ,slain who possesses the Book of life (13.8; 21.27), and it is His death which constitutes Him worthy to perform the opening (5.9).
4 Three songs of praise are associated with the events surrounding the opening of this sealed book. The first is in 5.9, before the Book is opened; the second is in 5.11 "and the occasion could well be when the Book — whatever it contains — is opened"; the third is in 5.13 by all creation, "and the occasion must surely be when God's purpose with all created things is completely fulfilled". That the second of these songs is sung when the Book of Life is opened is supported by linking 5.11 with 20.11 -12 and Daniel 7.10. From this it is concluded that all three refer to the same occasion, the day of judgement, and
3.7: He that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, He that openeth and none shall shut, and that shutteth and none openeth.
The description "holy and true" is again applied to the Lord in 6.10, where the faithfulness of the Lord in keeping His promises is being pleaded by sufferers awaiting their release. This is the import of the message here. The Lord is addressing a congregation (Philadelphia) which is enduring suffering, and giving it and all like it the needed assurance that the suffering will not be in vain. The Lord's "key" will open the door to the liberation of the sufferers. The key is plainly the same as that referred to in 1.18, "I have the keys of death and of hades", but there are also clear allusions to Isaiah 22.22. The message in that prophecy is in the first instance addressed to Eliakim ben Hilkiah in the days of Hezekiah of Judah: "The key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder: and he shall open and none shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall open". The Lord is the true Heir to the line of David, of Whom Eliakim was a type. But the Lord's key is mighty over the powers of death themselves. The "gates of hades" shall not prevail against those who are members of the Lord's true church (Matthew 16.18-19), and in His words to Philadelphia the Lord must have been recalling those to Peter, the rock of whose confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God", was to provide the sure foundation for the promise. Peter was allowed to use the keys which opened the way of life of Jews and Gentiles (Acts 2 and 10), and by the Lord's grace those doors have been kept open so that no man can shut them. The Lord Himself will open the graves of His servants at His return, and release the captives to be made alive for evermore.
3.10:7 will keep thee from the hour of trial whkh is to come upon the
whole world, to try them that dwell on the earth.
We are again faced with the problem encountered in 3.3. The hour of trial here spoken of sounds very like the "time of trouble such as never was" of Daniel 12.1, and the period of "distress of nations with perplexity, men fainting for fear, and for expectation of things which are coming on the world" (Luke 21.25). But this time has not even now arrived, and Philadelphia's lightstand has long been quenched. Once again, therefore, unless we are to suppose that the Lord encouraged an expectation of His very speedy return such as did not occur, we are obliged to suppose that it is brethren like those in Philadelphia, rather than these Philadelphians themselves, who are intended to profit from the promise. The Lord is undertaking that those who are faithful to Him will, despite their own little strength, be empowered to withstand the troubles to which the world as such will be subjected when the time of His return draws near, and even, as we may see, be withdrawn from the scene before the worst of them strike.
3.14: The faithful and true Witness.
See also on 1.5. During His mortal pilgrimage the Lord had been reproached by His enemies with the words, "Thou bearest witness of Thyself; Thy witness is not true" (John 8.13). In all, the verb is used 33 times in John of John the Baptist's witness to Jesus, of Jesus' to Himself, of the objections of the rulers, of the writer's own testimony, of the witness which the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, should confirm to the disciples after the ascension. The credentials of the Lord have now been established for ever by His resurrection, whereas those who rejected His testimony have been discredited and, for the present, rejected. "Ye are My witnesses", God had said to them (Isaiah 43.10, 12; 44.8), but they had been and remained unwilling witnesses, testifying all too often by their self-inflicted punishment rather than by their willing words. Here, though, the Lord is claiming for Himself the fulfillment of another Messianic prophecy: "I will not lie to David. His Seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before Me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as the faithful witness in the sky" (Psalm 89.35-36). "I have given Him for a witness to the peoples" (Isaiah 55.4). The words are used of God Himself in Jeremiah 42.5, there also against an unfaithful people, and could be added to the list of titles of the Father now bestowed on the Son since His exaltation to the right hand of God.
The Beginning of the Creation of God.
These words are alive with memories of other parts of Scripture, from "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1.1); through "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1.1); and on to "the Firstborn of all creation, for in Him were all things created; the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead" (Colossians 1.15-18). The Greek term, he arkhe, is feminine, and so denotes an office rather than a name of the Lord. It may refer either to time or to position, being used of the beginning of the creation, or of the miracles of the Lord, for example, and of principalities, rule, principles. The former is much the more common, and since both the Father and the Son are described in this Book as "the Beginning and the Ending" (1.8; 21.6; 22.3), this is likely to be the primary meaning here. Jesus is, of course, the Firstborn of the new creation, as Colossians 1.18 says, but He is also the primary motive behind all that the Father did in creation. "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8.58). Abraham was an historical link, though a very important one, in the outworking of God's purpose, but the Lord Jesus was its intended focus, His ultimate redemptive work guiding all that God did throughout all time. "I am", in contrast with "Abraham was" marks Him out as the unseen factor providing the reason why "everything was made that hath been made" (John 1.3).
3.15: Thou art neither cold not hot. I would than wert cold or hot. So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spue thee out of My mouth.
It is one of the saddest mysteries of our sinful nature that it is possible for anyone to fall under this condemnation. Rejection outright of the gospel is understandable: that is honest coldness. But once the gospel has been perceived to be what it truly is, "the power of God to salvation" (Romans 1.16), then disciples ought all to be boiling hot in their enthusiasm to embrace and fulfill their high calling. All disciples fall short of that, no doubt, yet what is here being exposed is a negligent acceptance of the name of discipleship, in spite of which the riches of this world, its allurements and its diversions, the friendships of its people, and over and above that simple sloth, reduce what should have been the steaming fragrance of the cauldron on the simmer to the soggy disgust of tepid porridge. And this, the Lord says with a grim explicitness which makes no concessions to euphemism, makes Him sick: "I will spue thee out of My mouth".
3.16: "Thousayest, I am rich and have gotten riches, and haveneed of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
The Lord's constant exhortations about treasure in heaven as compared with our vulnerable hoards on earth; about what happened to the good seed among the thorns; about having too much to do to be bothered to go to the wedding feast; about the fate of the rich fool (Matthew 6.19-21; 13.22; Luke 14.16-20; 12.16-21), batter in vain against the near-impregnable complacency which thinks itself "rich and increased with goods and lacking nothing", as far as this life is concerned, and is too spiritually slothful to offer a thought to the riches of God's grace and the food of life to be found in the true Bread from heaven, and in the fellowship of the saints for those who forsake not the assembling of themselves together in memorial, proclamation, and study.
They had fine clothing in Laodicea; yet had they considered the lilies of the field, they would have been better clad (Matthew 6.28-29). Great riches were theirs, but their riches were corrupted and their garments motheaten (James 5.2). They had need of nothing, and so were like those fleshly Pharisees who had no need of a physician (Luke 5.31).
3.18: / counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire that thou mightest become rich; and white garments that thou mightest clothe thyself. . . and eyesalve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mightest see.
They had discarded the white garments of their redemption, and were thus naked in the sight of their God, lacking the covering for their sins provided in Christ, for "all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4.13). They were contented with their locally compounded eyesalve from "the one famous medical centre in Phrygia" (Ramsay, LSC), but what their eyes really needed was the salve made by the loving ministrations of the Lord, whereby blind men from earlier days had been made to see (John 9.6). Their complacent acceptance of their favourable lot stands in utter contrast with the Lord's assessment of them as among the most miserable of men.
3.20: 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.
So simply does the Lord reveal His patience and meekness; so terribly does He expose our own power over Him. He stands outside the door of the cold Laodicean heart and asks to be admitted within. There is no outer latch on the door to admit the Light of the World, and the disciple, having shown Him the door, can keep Him out if he will. Only: one day the Lord will know that there is no purpose in staying, and then He will go away, and if then the door is opened to beg Him enter, He will not be there.
We are to "seek the Lord while He may be found, and call upon Him while He is near" (Isaiah 55.6). The Lord will break down no doors: only He can save us, but He will not force His salvation upon us. On the other hand, to open up to Him is to accept the consequences. He is no bringer of a message, to hand it over and leave us to our leisure. He comes in expecting to stay. He will be neither postman nor rent-collector. The door must be flung wide to receive Him, and He must be invited into our living quarters. No dusty, disused drawing room must be unlocked to receive Him with distant gentility, while He sits on the edge of quaint, uncomfortable chairs and makes polite and meaningless conversation until it is time to go. He must be asked to stay and eat, and sup with us. There must be no surprise or regret when the Guest turns into the Host, and we sup with Him.
3.21: He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
All this He has bidden us expect. "If any man love Me, My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him" (John 14.23). Our private domestic castle must become a chamber in His house. If this is how we receive him, then one day we shall be as much at home with Him as He in His victory is now at home with His Father, set down at the right hand of God. Those who, as this Book reaches it culmination, are moved to say, "Even so, Come, Lord Jesus!" must surely answer the appeal He makes to every Laodicean and say, "Even so, Come in, Lord Jesus!"
2.7, 11, 17, 29; 3.6, 13,22: He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
This is a refrain in every letter. It is also found in 13.9, and in the same or almost the same form in Matthew 11.15; 13.9, 43; Mark 4.9, 23; 7.16; Luke 8.8; 14.35. It is a complete demonstration that this Book and these Letters are not intended merely for their original recipients. It stands in contrast with those rebukes addressed to those who, having ears, hear not or are become dull of hearing (Matthew 13.15; Mark 8.18; Acts 7.51, 57; 28.28; Romans 11.8). It is the constant call of God to His people:
Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars;
she fiath sent forth her maidens, she crieth upon the highest places of
the city, Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. Asjor him that is void of understanding, she saith to him, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Leave off, ye simple ones, and live; and walk in the way of understanding. (Proverbs 9.1-6).
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