Revelation Faith Formers
253 Meditations on the Apocalypse of John
by Edwin Walhout
Published by Edwin Walhout
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Edwin Walhout
Go to Smashwords.com for additional titles by this author,
including a companion piece which is a full-scale commentary on the Apocalypse of John,
entitled Revelation Down To Earth.
Cover design by Amy Cole (amy.cole@comcast.net)
Scripture quotations are from the New International Version of the Bible.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Table of Contents
Septet One: Seven Churches
Septet Two: Seven Seals
Septet Three: Seven Trumpets
Septet Four: Seven Bowls
* * * * *
1 God Gives a Revelation
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
(Revelation 1:1-2)
Nowadays whenever someone says, God told me to do it, we are immediately suspicious. Someone blows up a public building, killing dozens of people, and says, God told me to do it. A boy gets a shotgun and shoots a playmate, and says, God told me to do it. We think they are religious fanatics.
This happens often enough to make us reluctant to say God tells us anything. So it is refreshing to hear about someone who does something very nice, and says, I believe in God and I want to do what he tells me to do. Someone returns a large sum of money to a person who has lost it, and says, Well, it’s no more than God would want me to do.
In Old Testament times it was customary for people to say God sends the rain, God gives us good crops this year, God is blessing us. Even when things were going wrong they could say God is warning us. They saw God’s hand in everything.
John was like that on the island of Patmos, suffering for being a famous Christian leader. He did not stop believing in God. He did not blame God for his troubles. He accepted it all, knowing that God had his own purpose in everything that happened.
So when God sent his angel to give John all the visions he reports in this book, he had no doubt at all that they came from God. God had something to show him, something very important. Something important enough to send him all alone to that island for criminals. John had no trouble at all hearing God even in his unhappy life on Patmos. He could see those visions in strong and good faith.
It is hard for us when we are in trouble or sorrow. We aren’t sure what God is showing us or what he is trying to tell us. But we have to remember two things: 1) God knows what he is doing, whatever happens in our lives, and 2) God is showing us, telling us, something by it. Nothing is so bad that God does not have a purpose in it. Keep tuned in to the voice of God.
2 Seeing the Word of God
He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
(Revelation 1:2)
This is curious phraseology. John testifies to everything he saw. What did he see? The word of God. John saw the word. We would normally say we heard the word of God, not saw it. It is worth thinking about.
Everything that we read in the book of Revelation is the word of God. The visions are a message from God, first of all for the churches to whom the book was sent, but still valid for churches today. We must learn to hear what God is saying by way of the action in the visions–hear God in what we see with John.
The point is that God’s word is never abstract, never just intellectual, never just giving information. God’s word always does something. When God speaks, something happens. The reverse is also true: when something happens it is because God is speaking. This means we don’t hear the word of God properly until we see it in action.
Think of what Isaiah once wrote, “My word … will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
God’s word is always living, active, accomplishing something, producing results. With God it is always said and done.
The results are always results in life, in time, in history, in our world. So that is what John is seeing--God’s word in action. John sees it, of course, in the form of visions, but visions of what God is doing in actual life, in the world we live in every day. So what we have to do when reading this book is to see how God is working by his word in our times and in our world. We must learn to see the word of God in action.
3 Reading the Visions
Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.
(Revelation 1:3)
Perhaps you have had the experience of reading the book of Revelation and not getting much out of it. The visions just don’t seem to say anything to you. There is so much symbolism and obscurity that you can’t figure out what it means.
But John says anyone who reads this book, as well as anyone who listens to it, is blessed. He means, of course, the person reading the book aloud in a church service, and the people who listen to it being read.
Did you notice, though, that it isn’t just reading or listening that is required. There is more. Take to heart what is written in it. Just reading words or listening to someone else read them is not enough. We have to take it to heart.
What does that mean? It means, first, understanding it. And it means, second, living by it. We can’t take the visions to heart if we don’t understand them. Nor can we take them to heart, even if we do understand them, unless we let them control the way we think and feel and act.
So that is what we will be doing in these simple devotional pieces. Bit by bit we will be trying to understand what God is showing us by these visions. Not only understanding, however, but also trying to figure out how we should take them to heart, how they should affect the way we live.
4 The Time Is Near
Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.
(Revelation 1:3)
John tells the churches on the mainland that the time is near. The things he sees in the visions are near. How near? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year? When? What does he mean? Next millennium?
He means at hand, right now. That is what the Greek word for near means. Nearby. Right here. At hand.
So we need to understand that the visions John writes about actually describe what is happening right now – for the people living then, of course. Those people, in those churches, living there in what is now modern Turkey, two thousand years ago. The visions describe conditions in their world, things which when they understand them, they can take to heart.
It is important to understand this point. So often we think of the book of Revelation as describing the end of the world. That is not its main point. The main point is to describe how Christ is even now working from heaven in our world. By means of the gospel Christ is attacking the devil and slowly pushing him back until Christ becomes absolutely triumphant and the devil is relegated to the lake of fire.
Keep this perspective in mind always when you read the visions. Then you can really take it to heart, living by what the Lord shows you. Learn to see, by means of these intriguing visions of John, how Jesus works from heaven in this world. Still today, in the twenty-first century, in the modern world with all its problems, sins, and struggles. The time is near! That near! As near as right now!
5 John in the Spirit
I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. On the Lord's Day I was in the Spirit.
(Revelation 1:9-10)
Can you envision John there on the island of Patmos? He can no longer go about visiting the churches that look to him for advice and care. He can only think about them and wonder how he can help them even now when he is so far away.
And then, perhaps, he starts to think about those turbulent years long long ago when he was still a young man going about the country with Jesus. He remembers how utterly frustrated he was when he watched the soldiers impale Jesus and two others on crosses. He remembers also how utterly nonplussed he was when he saw Jesus alive a few days after he was buried in Joseph’s tomb.
He remembers again how insecure he felt when he saw Jesus disappearing forever in the clouds. He remembers that week of uncertainty and struggle when the disciples were trying to figure out what was going on, and then that marvelous moment when it all came clear to them, when the spirit of Jesus came upon them all at the same time.
All those things were as vivid as yesterday to John, these sixty some years later. If you can enter even a little bit into that dreamy mentality of John that long ago day, you can see how he was ready for the answer to his dilemma.
For, just in the middle of that reverie the solution came. Write a letter to the churches. Write it about the Lord Jesus. Keep the churches looking to Jesus rather than only looking at their problems and their sufferings.
But don’t just tell them again about what Jesus did long ago – he did that already when he wrote his Gospel. Tell them now about what Jesus is doing after he ascended into heaven. Tell them about what Jesus is doing right now.
How can I do that, John may have wondered?
Jesus replied, I will show you. I will give you visions of what I am doing. You write them down in such a way that your people can see what is happening even now, and will continue to happen all the time. They will be able to see with their mind’s eye how I continue to work among them. When they read and hear and understand and see, then they will stand firm and follow me daily into the great battle and through the great tribulations they are facing. They will take it to heart. John, write down what you see in the visions I am about to show you.
6 John, Jesus, and the Churches
I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. On the Lord's Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said: "Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea."
I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone "like a son of man," dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.”
(Revelation 1:9-17)
What a contrast! Here is John, old, suffering, banished ignominiously to a devil’s island reserved for criminals. Here also is Jesus, glorious, resplendent, brilliant, standing magnificently among seven golden lampstands.
This is John’s first vision. From out of his misery, defeat, and sorrow he sees, in his mind’s eye, majestic and powerful, the risen and ascended Lord Jesus, “like a son of man.”
John has seen Jesus otherwise. He has seen Jesus with thorns stabbing his skull. He has seen Jesus with nails piercing his hands and feet. He has seen Jesus naked, helpless, bloody, broken, defeated and dead. But now he sees Jesus as he appears majestic in heaven at the right hand of the Father.
It’s the same Jesus. But the resurrected Jesus looks vastly different from the crucified Jesus, as different as a tulip bulb from the flower.
The vision is for the churches. For Ephesus and Smyrna, for Pergamum and Thyatira, for Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. They too must see Jesus as John is seeing him. The vision is for other churches as well, for Detroit and Toronto, for Sydney and Christchurch, for Heidelberg and Amsterdam, for Beijing and Tokyo, for Pretoria and Cairo. We must learn to see Jesus as John did.
The message of the vision is this: Jesus has met the enemy and has overcome. Jesus has given himself to the onslaughts of the devil, enduring the worst Satan could do, and has risen from it, cleansed and purified, triumphant and magnificent.
The message is also this: you too, you poor struggling churches, you too can overcome. The devil may be beating you to death now, just as he did the Lord, but you too can overcome, you too will overcome. Remain faithful to the end. Follow the footsteps of the Savior. He is standing right there, right next to you, and he will support you to the uttermost.
That message reverberates through the centuries and comes down to you and me as well. We too must learn to see Jesus, resplendent and triumphant, standing among the churches of Europe and America, Africa and Asia. He is there to be seen, but do we have the eyes of faith to see him?
7 Jesus and His Churches
In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. … The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
(Revelation 1:16-20)
Those seven churches in Asia were in trouble. The trouble was not all of their own making, it was also trouble imposed by the government. It had not yet become illegal to be a Christian, but that is the direction in which events were moving.
Some years earlier in Rome Emperor Nero began the process by accusing Christians of setting fire to the city of Rome. In mockery he arrested Christians and burned them alive in his private garden.
Gradually it became the thing to do – blame Christians for anything and everything that is going wrong in society. The gods are angry with us for tolerating these strangers, so people thought. So now it had come down to this -- Pastor John banished, the rest of the Christians suspected, accused, discriminated against.
Did some of those ancient church members ask, What’s the sense in being a Christian if this is all it gets me?
So John wants his people to get a clear view of Jesus. Not the defeatist scene of crucifixion, but the triumphant scene of resurrection, ascension, power at the right hand of God himself.
See, John says, here is Jesus, standing right here next to us. It’s as if he is holding us in his hand, caring for us, protecting us, supplying us. That is the picture you must see if you are having doubts about this Christianity thing. You may think the power and glory is all on Rome’s side. It isn’t. It’s in the hand of him who stands resplendent and glorious at your side. Cling to him. He won’t let you down.
Well now, there are pessimists among us in the churches still today. The world is going to the dogs. Public morality is fast slipping into the gutter. Christianity is losing out in the western world. Our only hope for the future is for Christianity to be revived in new areas: Africa, the Orient, South America.
But John shows us Jesus standing among his churches today also. Do you really think he is abandoning us? Do you really think Satan is going to overcome him? No way! So let this be absolutely sure in your mind: just as surely as Jesus overcame the devil in his resurrection, so surely he will overcome him in his churches as well. The church is his resurrection body, how could it be otherwise?
8 The Key of Death
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.”
(Revelation 1:17-19)
It is hard for me to imagine anything happening that would make me fall down as if dead. Perhaps that is because I am so dense that I cannot see the full glory and majesty of the Lord Jesus as he is now at the right hand of God.
But I take some small degree of comfort in noting that Jesus places his right hand on John – and on me -- with the encouraging words not to be frightened. In my case, I suppose, not to be overly disheartened by my obtuseness. He has instructions for John, and he has instructions for me. And for you also.
Jesus’ instructions for John come in two parts, an affirmation and a command. The two go together. Because of what Jesus says in the affirmation, John must do what is in the command.
Jesus reminds John that once he was dead but now is alive. John knows that. He was there when it happened. But John must now understand that precisely because Jesus rose from the dead he holds the key to death. He did it himself, so he knows what has to be done. That is the affirmation.
Now John must write what he has seen, his visions, and must send them to the churches for their instruction and encouragement. John must recognize for certain that the death and resurrection of Jesus is the source of strength and encouragement for the churches. He will receive more visions to show how this actually works out. That is the command.
Churches in the twenty-first century also must know this. They too must look to the pattern of the Lord’s death and resurrection. They must understand that in those climactic events lies the key to overcoming the death which is sin. They must see the Lord, and then they must act on it.
The visions yet to come in the book of Revelation will explain how this actually works out in the events of real time and history.
9 Now and Later
"Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.”
(Revelation 1:19)
Ask people what book in the Bible tells about the end of the world, and most likely they will answer, Revelation. Not so. Revelation is about the present, about the continuing present, the present that continues on and on as long as time exists. “What is now and what will take place later.”
Now and later.
The now, of course, is the now of John and the seven churches to which he is sending this letter. That would be the last decade of the first century A.D., perhaps the year 96. The later would be the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that – as long as history lasts.
The book of Revelation is not only about how the world will end. It is about how the resurrected and ascended Lord Jesus works from heaven on earth to bring about that end. It is about how the gospel spreads throughout the earth. It is about how the devil works at ruining the work of God, and it is about how Christ leads his armies of followers into victorious battle against him.
Perhaps the seven churches were as nonplussed as we sometimes are when we read these parables of John. John means to convey something important to them, something to help them in their distressing times. To help them now. To help them see Jesus, not only standing there among the churches, but marching onward through time and history, leading the churches into battle against sin and the devil.
We need to see the same still today. When you read the visions, ask first what it meant for those seven churches, and then ask what it still means for us in our churches today. Now in the twenty-first century as well as in the first century. What was then and what has taken place afterward.
10 The Church in Ephesus
To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.
(Revelation 2:1)
John is told to write the words of Jesus, “the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.” But how would John know just what to write? Wouldn’t this letter, and the other six to follow, really be his own insight into the affairs of these churches, his own opinions? He was their pastor, after all. How would John dare to say these things really came from Jesus?
John wants his churches to relate themselves always to God, not to men. It does not much matter what we humans think of one another – we may be right or we may be wrong. John wants us to move beyond our human judgments. He wants us always to listen primarily to God. The words that John now writes are the words of Jesus, sitting at the right hand of God, words that come from the mouth of God and are mediated by the Lord Jesus to John.
How could John distinguish his own opinions from the words of Jesus? How do you? John lived close enough to Jesus to know the difference. I am not sure that I live close enough to him to affirm that my insights are in actuality the word of God. They may be, and I trust they are. Though I may be wrong at points. I am not infallible, as God is.
Nonetheless, even today in our local churches, we need to do our best to hear and see God’s word in action, particularly as it relates to the way we live in our world and in our churches. We have more than enough of different opinions about what is going on, sometimes wildly conflicting judgments. But we need to subject our own opinions to the word of Christ. We must adjust our thoughts to conform to his.
Jesus did tell the disciples, did he not, that he would send a Paraclete to guide them into all the truth. This means we need to listen constantly to what the Spirit is teaching us, willing to learn, to adjust, to grow, to mature, as time goes on; always striving to tune our minds to hear and obey what the Spirit shows us.
11 Good and Bad
I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
(Revelation 2:2-6)
In his letter Jesus specifies both good things about the church in Ephesus and bad things. He commends them for various things and warns them against others.
I suppose the same would be true for most churches in the world. They would not be churches to begin with unless there was something good about them. On the other hand, no group of people can possibly attain perfection in everything, so there would still be things to work at, things to improve.
We ought not to engage overmuch in church comparisons. Maybe we think our church is the best, else why would we belong to it? So we look at other churches, other denominations, and concentrate on the items in which we seem to be superior – maybe doctrinal purity, maybe strong emphasis on evangelism, maybe charismatic experience, maybe greater social impact, maybe more missionaries, maybe better Christian education for the children – whatever.
On the other hand, sometimes church members get so down on their church that they see nothing good in it at all – and they leave for greener pastures.
Jesus wants us to be realistic. No church is all bad, else it would cease to be a church at all. No church is all good, for every church is composed of people who are still striving against the sins that so easily beset us. Accept what is good in your church, be thankful for it. Work at improving what the Spirit shows you needs improvement. And recognize that other churches, in other denominations, are doing the same. We are all in Jesus’ boat together!
Isn’t that what we do in our individual Christian lives? We’re thankful for the blessings and gifts God provides, yet are constantly on the alert to recognize and overcome the devil when he infiltrates our thoughts, attitudes, conversation, decisions. Use the same criteria for your church life.
12 Testing the Teachers
I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.
(Revelation 2:2)
I wonder how these good Christians in Ephesus learned how to distinguish genuine apostles from false ones. We have the Bible to go by, but they didn’t. Most of the books that eventually came to be part of the New Testament were written by this time, but they had not been assembled into one library. No church had a collection of all of them.
The church in Ephesus may well have been one of the first to start to make a collection. It is thought that the man Philemon, to whom Paul addressed a short letter, became pastor of the church of Ephesus, and used his own letter, plus Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, to start the collection. They also had John’s Gospel, since he probably wrote it while living there.
We may well imagine that the Christians in Ephesus were well instructed. Paul lived there for several years, teaching and supervising mission outreach. Now John also lived there for twenty or more years. What better instructors could they have?
So they knew how to sense errors when men would start to explain the subtleties of Christian faith. They knew enough about the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus to be able to detect claims that did not ring true. There was plenty of pagan philosophy around and it took steady examination and evaluation to sense when such foreign ideas began to penetrate into Christian teaching.
Ephesus could do this, and Christ commends them for it. Why could they do it? Because they could hear the word of God coming to them through the real events of Jesus’ life and ministry. The books they possessed helped them in this, but the decisive criterion for them was, as it must be also for us, the actual word of God demonstrated in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, and reign from heaven. It is possible to misinterpret books, but one can hardly get away from the facts, especially the facts of resurrection and ascension.
13 Losing the First Love
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
(Revelation 2:4-5)
Our family once took an exciting vacation trip to Hawaii. What a wonderful time we had exploring the big island, doing the restaurants, touring Pearl Harbor, visiting Maui, watching the volcanoes. Then someone told us that people living permanently in Hawaii sometimes got bored with it, hemmed in pretty much on one relatively small island, and yearned to go to San Francisco or Los Angeles for variety and excitement.
I suppose something like that happens in other areas of life also. The first time we experience something it is new and exciting and filled with pleasure. But if we have the same experience every day it soon becomes routine and flat and boring.
It happened in the church of Ephesus. Becoming a Christian for the first time, experiencing the sense of relief and freedom that the Spirit gives - rejoicing in a new dimension of fellowship, love, and community - gave these Ephesian Christians great joy and encouragement. But the newness wore off. Being a Christian tended to become a routine of merely doing certain activities, and that routine eventually lost its freshness and vigor. Being a Christian became dull and uninspiring.
The Ephesus church by now was in its second generation. The Apostle Paul had been among them thirty years ago. John had been with them twenty years. It was all getting to be custom, habit, routine, humdrum. John says they were losing their first love. Being Christians no longer elicited excitement, energy, commitment, courage, inspiration, diligence.
How could they get it back? Jesus says, “Repent and do the things you did at first.” Repent means recognize what is happening and resolve to change it. Do the things you did at first does not mean only perform certain actions, but also recover the intensity of feelings and insights and commitments you once had.
John does not say it expressly here, but surely he would say, to them and to us, Pray about it, asking the Lord to restore your soul, revive your lethargy, inspire your commitment. Keep praying until it happens!
14 Removing the Lampstand
If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
(Revelation 2:5)
The lampstand has been removed from many places. The countries of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia were once filled with Christian churches. So were the near eastern lands that are now Turkey, Syria, Israel, Lebanon. There aren’t many churches in those lands any more. Most of them were wiped out by Islamic conquests between 622 and 722.
We wonder why. Why did God permit this to happen? Is it because their first love grew cold and they did not repent, as Jesus warns Ephesus? Had their Christian commitment grown so cold and perfunctory that when the Arabians conquered them they readily changed from Christian to Moslem? Who knows exactly? Vast areas of the world which were once Christian are now Islamic.
This is the way it should be, claim the Moslems. Christianity is fine for a start but Islam supersedes it because it is a great advance over Christianity. Jesus is a fine prophet, but Mohammed is better. He is the best. So they say.
It is not at all clear to us even today in the twenty-first century what role Islam is destined to play in the grand plan of history under the sovereignty of God. It is, however, a warning to us of what could happen. If we permit ourselves to sink down into apathy about being Christian, or if Christianity is reduced to mere formality and routine, then we are in danger.
Will Christianity disappear in Europe? In America? Will it survive in Africa or the far east? We trust that it will not disappear, but we have a concrete example that it could happen. It did happen. Lampstands have been removed. Let us resolve that it doesn’t happen here.
15 Overcoming
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
(Revelation 2:7)
Overcoming is something you do every day. It’s not a once-in-a-lifetime deal.
Overcoming implies a difficulty to be confronted, an obstacle to be surmounted, a temptation to be resisted. What difficulty? What obstacle? What temptation?
It is interesting that John refers us to the tree of life in the paradise of God. He means to say we are confronted with the same obstacle, the same temptation, as Adam and Eve in the Genesis story. But Adam and Eve did not overcome. They were overcome by the devil. They succumbed to his attractive but specious arguments.
Adam and Eve represent us all as human beings. Satan is always there among us, trying to deceive us, make us stumble and fall. Every day. Adam and Eve represent us all as sinners, as people who do not overcome.
But there is another Adam, a second Adam, as Paul puts it. This second Adam listened to the same tempter with the same kind of deceptive promptings. But the second Adam was an overcomer. He ordered Satan to depart from him. That second Adam is, of course, Jesus.
We have to do the same. We have to recognize the difference between Satan’s speech and Christ’s speech. That is not always easy to do, but we have to grow up enough to be able to distinguish what comes from God from what comes from the devil.
And then we have to decide, just as Jesus did, which voice will control our actions. We have to say No to Satan. Just say No and go about your business with the Spirit of Jesus as your Lord.
If we do that we have overcome and our reward is to eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God.
Don’t make that figure of speech into some esoteric event that will happen after you die. It’s right now. To overcome means the same thing as to eat of the tree of life and to live a godly life.
Adam and Eve ate of the other tree and did not overcome. Jesus overcame the devil when he was tempted, and thus ate of the tree of life. When we overcome we too are eating from the tree of life. It’s the same thing. Today. Tomorrow. Every day we live.
16 Smyrna
To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. I know your afflictions and your poverty--yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.
(Revelation 2:8-11)
The city of Smyrna survives to this day as the Turkish city of Izmir, an important city on the west coast of Turkey. It is located thirty miles more or less north of Ephesus. The church in that ancient city was likely begun by evangelists who were sent out by Paul during the years he was in Ephesus.
Jesus has no negative comments to make about this church. Does that mean this congregation was a perfect church? Hardly. But it does mean that Jesus is not trying to create a guilty conscience.
A Christian is a person who knows he or she is, as a matter of fact, guilty of not being the perfect person God wants. But that is only half the matter. A Christian is also a person who knows God treats him or her according to the perfection of Jesus. That is what it means to believe in Jesus.
For example, the apostles Peter and Andrew and James and John, as well as the others, knew very well they were wrong when they ran away at the time Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane. They knew they had not understood Jesus’ teaching about what kind of kingdom he intended to set up. They knew they had had an entirely wrong notion of what it meant for Jesus to be the messiah. Peter especially, who denied even knowing Jesus, had no illusions about whether or not he was a perfect person.
So it is with every truly believing person. We know we aren’t what we ought to be. We have given up all attempts to justify ourselves before God. We try as best we can to be honest with ourselves and God in this respect. We confess honestly that we are sinners.
Yet, because we do believe Jesus took our sins upon himself, we don’t live according to what is wrong with us, but according to what is right with us. We treat each other the same way. We know each other to be struggling with real sins, but we do not concentrate on what is wrong, we concentrate on what is right.
That is what Jesus is doing with this church in Smyrna. He knows everything that is still wrong with that church, but he doesn’t even mention it. Instead he encourages them to be ready to endure suffering, to be faithful even to the point of death if necessary. They may well have an inferiority complex, afflicted and poor as they were. They don’t need to be beaten down any more. They need encouragement and strength and hope for what they were going through. And that is what Jesus is giving them. That is what Jesus gives everyone who listens to him.
17 Parallelism
To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again.
(Revelation 2:8)
There are two pairs in the way Jesus describes himself here. First and Last, and died and came to life. This is an example of the way Jewish people spoke and wrote in those days. We see it often in the book of Psalms – it is called parallelism.
You may have noticed when you read the Psalms that the author often repeats himself, saying the same thing over again in different words. David often does this, making an affirmation and then emphasizing it by repeating the same idea using synonyms.
You may have noticed that I did the same thing in the two sentences of the previous paragraph. Parallelism. It often helps to understand the Psalm. Instead of treating the two statements as entirely different things, we see that the author means essentially the same thing in both sentences.
That is what we have here when Jesus says he is “the First and the Last,” and then adds “died and came to life again.” He is not trying to say two completely different things, but the same thing in two different ways. How does this work out?
First corresponds with died, and Last corresponds with came to life. When Jesus describes himself as First, he means something roughly synonymous with dying, and when he describes himself as Last, he means something roughly synonymous with resurrection.
I am the one, he says to the Smyrnans, who is with you in your beginning, your death in sin; but I am also the one who is with you in your ending as well, that is in the life you now experience as Christians.
Think of Adam also as the First, and of Jesus as the Last, which is the same as thinking of sin as the First and of obedience as the Last. First we are in Adam, sinful and spiritually dead, last we are in Christ, forgiven and spiritually alive.
So the Christians in Smyrna need to see themselves in Christ, especially now in the middle of persecution that could cost them their lives. They must not revert to the First, that is, to the life of sin and self and fear. They must remain in the Last, in Christ, faithful in life even if it leads to death.
You too. You are alive in Christ Jesus. Don’t allow yourself to revert to your previous First. Don’t let the way of death seduce you out of your Last. Keep your parallelism with Christ intact!
18. A Synagogue of Satan
I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
(Revelation 2:9)
It’s pretty hard to condemn Jesus for anti-semitism. He was a full-blooded Jew himself, with pretty impressive genealogical credentials. A descendant of the royal family of David – what could be more Jewish?
Yet he does sound anti-semitic in this affirmation. He describes the local Jewish synagogue in Smyrna as a synagogue of Satan. Hardly an affirmation! What does Jesus mean?
He is saying Jewish people have abandoned the true meaning of their heritage. They have exchanged the service of God for the service of Satan. Which means, of course, that the Jewish religion serves the cause of sin rather than the cause of righteousness.
What an awful thing to say! How could John and Jesus say such a thing?
Well, what would you say about a group of people to whom God sent his Son, and who then killed him as an imposter? That is as close as you can get to killing God himself. So – whose side would such a group of people be on, God’s side or Satan’s side? Kill the messenger God sends you?
Jewish people, of course, respond by saying Jesus was wrong in claiming to be sent by God. He is no messiah, no Christ, no Son of God. So, if Jesus is an imposter, then they are right in rejecting him.
So that is what it comes down to. Either you believe Jesus is the Son of God, seeing it all demonstrated conclusively in the incredible miracles he did, and then especially in his rising from the dead – or you don’t. The Jewish people took sides, made their choice, and now in this letter to the Smyrnans Jesus is affirming that they are still making the wrong choice. They are a synagogue of Satan.
Their Jewish friends constantly put these early Christians in Smyrna on the defensive. The unconverted Jews accused the converted Jews of abandoning their Jewish distinctiveness, of being renegades from their glorious religious heritage. They made the Christians feel guilty for believing in Jesus.
But Jesus does not want them to have any guilt trips. He wants them to remain steadfast in the faith and to overcome their current temptations. So he simply says to them, You are right and they are wrong. And don’t you forget it!
We need to have the same kind of confirmation and courage in our day, when it seems discriminatory to say the way of Christ is right and all other ways are wrong. But that is what Jesus himself says.
19. Tested for Ten Days
Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.
(Revelation 2:10)
Persecution for ten days. Go to jail for ten days? Well, that is not too long, is it? A week and a half.
That is not what Jesus means, of course. Like all the other references to time in the book of Revelation, this one is also a figure of speech. So don’t take it literally, just as you don’t take anything else literally in these visions of John.
Jesus means a relatively short period of time. Persecution by the Roman government was not always severe and it was not always permanent. In fact, only rarely in Roman history did persecution of Christians become empire-wide with a sustained effort to eradicate Christianity altogether (for example, under Emperors Decius and Diocletian). That was 150 to 200 years into the future.
Fifty or sixty years later another pastor of this church was persecuted, and yes, it was to the point of death. Perhaps you have heard of him, Polycarp. If not you would do well to read the story of his martyrdom. He said, Christ has never abandoned me, why should I abandon him?
But already now these early Christians were gradually developing the reputation of being unpatriotic, irreligious, and weird. Persecution at this time was sporadic, breaking out here and there for no apparent reason but social prejudice. It was as hard to take then as it is today when something goes wrong for no good reason other than hate crime.
But Jesus counsels the Smyrnans to simply take it, put up with it, unfair and unjust as it surely is. The reward is a crown of life.
Why should Christian people be singled out for discrimination, injustice, persecution, rejection? Why should I simply stand there and take it? What’s the point? Why not go along with the majority and avoid all that trouble? What difference does it make if I go to a Jewish synagogue once in a while, or to a temple of Zeus? Does that make me a bad person?
Jesus says you are not wearing your crown if you make that kind of compromise. You take it off when you worship at a pagan temple. You hide it under your coat if you are ashamed of being a Christian. So Jesus wants to see us wearing proudly that crown of life, living that wonderful life in Christ that is unashamed, uncompromised, victorious, overcoming. That is as true today as it was in the late first century.
20. Second Death
He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.
(Revelation 2:11)
We don’t easily understand a statement like this. What’s a second death? If we are already dead, how can we die again? It’s the opposite of being born again.
People in the ancient world would understand it though, at least if they were of Jewish ancestry and had Hebrew ways of thinking. The Apostle Paul once wrote, for example, about people who were dead in trespasses and sins. That is not physical death but moral death. Or spiritual death, if you prefer that term.
In Genesis already, God warned Adam and Eve that they would die at the moment they ate the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But they did not die physically, they lived a long time yet afterwards.
So we need to understand that in the Hebrew way of thinking, death means primarily not living the way God intends us to live. When we live in sin and disobedience we have a living death -- physically alive but morally dead. We have chosen the wrong way to live. We’re on the broad path that leads to death, not on the narrow path that leads to life.
So what does Jesus mean by the second death? He means the opposite of overcoming. Everyone who overcomes will avoid the second death. So if we know what overcoming means, we will know what second death means. The second death is what you escape when you overcome.
Overcoming is overcoming the devil. It means not doing what Adam and Eve did when they obeyed the devil’s temptation instead of God’s command. It means believing in Christ and following in his footsteps. It means living your life in faith and trust and hope and love. That’s how we overcome the devil.
The second death, then, would be when you reject the way of Christ and reaffirm what Adam and Eve did, when you choose to live in sin and wickedness rather than in God. On the contrary, if you overcome you will not be subjected to that fate. The second death will not hurt you at all.
This is how John and Jesus want those struggling Christians in Smyrna to understand what was happening to them. And we do well to take it to heart also.
21 Pergamum
To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. I know where you live -- where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city -- where Satan lives.
Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.
(Revelation 2:12-17)
Go another fifty miles north from Smyrna along the coast of the Aegean Sea and you come to Pergamum. There are four prominent rivers that flow through western Asia Minor (now Turkey) into the Aegean Sea. Near the mouth of those rivers, from north to south, were the ancient cities of Pergamum, Smyrna, Ephesus, and Miletus.
Actually Pergamum at this time was the city from which Rome governed the entire territory, the provincial capital. It is understandable, then, that this city became the center for the official state religion of the Roman empire, which by now centered on the worship of the emperor as well as of Asklepios, who came to be known as “the Pergamene god.” Huge temples for the traditional Greek gods such as Athena, Zeus, and Dionysus were also there at the time of John.
The Roman writer Pliny called it “the most distinguished city of Asia.” Many parchment books were made there, so that the Pergamene library was one of the largest in the Roman empire. Our word parchment is the translation of the Latin word pergamentum.
How did there get to be a Christian church in this city? There is no direct record, but it is very likely a result of the evangelists sent out by Paul when he spent two years in Ephesus on his third missionary journey. Paul’s missionary strategy always was to set up churches in the major cities of a given region, and then to work outward from there.
Jesus comes to this church with a sharp double-edged sword. What significance does that have? What reaction would you have if one night you had a dream of Jesus visiting you, and in his mouth was a great menacing sword? What would the sword signify?
A sword is a weapon. A sword cuts. It cuts down the enemy.
So this picture of Jesus with a sword in his mouth reminds the Christians in Pergamum that there must be a clear and sharp distinction between Christ and his enemies, a separation between the wicked ways of the city and the holy ways of the church.
You must not allow the lifestyle of the people around you to infect you and slowly eat away your Christian faith. Serve the Lord faithfully even though it may cost you your life, as it did that of Antipas. Keep the Balaamites and the Nicolaitans out! Keep your own sword of the Spirit functional and active!
22 Where Satan Lives
I know where you live--where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city--where Satan lives.
(Revelation 2:13)
Where does Satan live? For that matter, where does God live?
Start with where God lives. He lives everywhere. He created the entire universe, and that is where he lives. He keeps it all going properly, so that if we wish to locate him, look at the whole world. But what about Satan?
Satan is not a god. He is not omnipresent or omnipotent or omniscient. So where does he live?
The word Satan means adversary or accuser. Satan lives wherever there is something he can oppose, something or someone he can accuse. Where is that? Wherever there are people.
There is no point in accusing rocks or grass or elephants. There is point in accusing people. People have to make decisions about things, what they choose to do or not to do. They might choose right or they might choose wrong. So Satan is the fearsome Accuser of people.
But there is more to it than that, more to it than merely accusing. There is also tempting. Satan wants us to do wrong so that he can give us a guilty conscience and ruin our lives entirely. So he does everything he can to entice us to make wrong choices.
So it is not only our lives he wants to ruin. That too, but mainly God’s work. God created us to be his images, and Satan wants nothing more than to ruin that image and contaminate us with evil. Satan is first of all the adversary of God. But since he can do nothing to corrupt God himself, he has to turn his attention to people, to us.
Actually, if God had not created human beings, Satan would not exist either. Satan is the personification of the possibility that we can sin, can choose wrongly. Satan is a parasite, living only where he can corrupt human beings, drawing his own sustenance from the very creatures he is destroying.
So now, the Christian people in Pergamum can see a tangible piece of evidence right in their own community of this Satanic power. Perhaps John refers specifically to the place where the emperor was worshipped as god, or perhaps to all the impressive temples where idols were worshipped. They were all around the city and the people of Christ had to use their spiritual and moral swords to keep the contamination off them.
23 Antipas
I know where you live--where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city--where Satan lives.
(Revelation 2:13)
We don’t really know who Antipas was, other than what is said here about him. There is a legend, reported in the NIV Study Bible, that Antipas was the first martyr in Asia, and that he was roasted to death in a bronze kettle during the reign of Domitian.
That would be scary to the good Christians of Pergamum. Are you a Christian? Say Yes and we roast you tomorrow. Say No and we release you. What would you say? Did you ever wonder what it took for a man like Antipas to do that, to accept that fate when he could easily escape?
That tragic event must have happened fairly recently so far as this book is concerned. Recently enough that the people would remember it well. If you were pastor of that church at that time, how would you go about encouraging the people to remain faithful? In later centuries even pastors and bishops fell away temporarily in order to save their lives.
Jesus, however, takes note of their faithfulness, even through that traumatic event. He praises them for it, and encourages them to continue in the faith. Most of us in western countries have never experienced blatant and outright ridicule, shame, resistance, persecution. Perhaps in subtle ways but nowhere near the point of boiling us to death.