Ephesus: Christ as Priest-Judge
Revelation 2
Revelation Lesson #024
October 31, 2004
www.deanbibleministries.org
“This is the record that God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but He who believeth not is condemned already because he had not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God. For there is no other Name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing is able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things to Whom be the glory forever and ever, Amen.”
Before we begin our study we’ll have a few moments of silent prayer to give you the opportunity to use 1 John 1:9 if necessary and then I will open in prayer. Let’s pray. Father, we do thank You for the opportunity we have to gather together today to be refreshed by the study of Your Word. We pray that God the Holy Spirit would make these things clear to us. We thank You that we’re not left to our own devices to try to understand Scripture, but that we have the indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit to help us to understand Your Word and to see its application and to empower us for the Christian life. Now Father, we pray that as we study Your Word today that You’d challenge us with the things that we study. We pray this in Christ’s Name, amen.
Open your Bibles with me to Revelation 2. Revelation 2 and Revelation 3 comprise the major section in this book. The key structure of the book is laid out in Revelation 1:19. At that point the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is speaking, commissions John. He says:
1. “Write the things which you have seen,” and that included the events of the first chapter when John is commissioned to write.
2. Second, He says write “the things which are.” That is Revelation 2–3. Present tense in the Church Age. Write the things that are, “and the things that will take place after this.” That is the future events starting in Revelation 4:1. The speaker is the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord Jesus Christ continues to speak into Revelation 2. He is addressing the apostle and He says, “To the angel of the church of Ephesus write.”
There is a format here as we get into Revelation 2–3. There are seven letters. These are the seven letters to the seven churches in Asia. Asia is called a proconsular province because a Roman proconsul governed this province on the western side of what is today Turkey. Ephesus is located down here on the lower left (see map).
Ephesus was a major commercial center. It was a major port, which we will get into in a little bit. But these seven churches are located in the proconsul province of Asia. They are not on the same road. They are not linked in any definite way, but they are chosen for a particular purpose, which we will see in our study.
When you look at these sections I want to go through and give you an outline of these letters. There are seven sections or seven components of these seven letters. They don’t all have every component, but mostly they do.
1. First there is a commission, an address. It is addressed to the church of Ephesus or Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
2. The second is there is a character reference. It is a citation that refers to an attribute of Christ as revealed in the first chapter (Revelation 1). Now there is one letter that has elements that are not part of the picture, division of Revelation 1, but the others all refer to one or two of the attributes of Christ or the appearance of Christ in the division of Revelation 1. That is so important because it shows that Revelation 2–3 flow out of the division of Revelation 1. That the reason Jesus appears the way He does to John in Revelation 1 is foundational to understanding why these letters are the way they are and what is going on in the background.
3. There is a statement of commendation. I want you to notice just by way of application that when the Lord is going to critically evaluate, He always begins with something good. He starts on the positive. He says something that they are doing right if there is something. There are two that are so bad that there’s nothing good that can be said. But He always tries to pray something positive before He points out the flaws or failures in the local congregation.
4. The fourth element that we have is the note of condemnation. There is a warning about a spiritual flaw or failure in the congregation.
5. Then fifth there is a correction. There is a prescription to advance spiritually. There is specific direction given as to some course of action that they should take. In five of the seven letters they’re told to repent, which means to change your direction or change your thinking. Then there is a call to hear. “Let he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Note that in each one of these it says, “Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” plural. Not to the church that has just been addressed, but to recognize that even though some of the flaws or failures of Thyatira may not be present in Ephesus, the potential is still there that that may be a flaw or failure there. At some point as I go through this, probably when we finish, we will compile a list of all the different things that are addressed in these seven letters. It’s a checklist. There are about 18–20 different qualities, different spiritual virtues that are evaluated in these seven letters and that provides a good checklist for each and every one of us.
There is a call to hear and then there is a challenge. There is a personal challenge to the “overcomer,” to the person who perseveres, who hangs in until the very end. It is not just a matter of beginning well; it’s a matter of ending well. It’s a matter of consistency throughout your spiritual life. It is one thing to be young and in your 20s or 30s when sometimes you still have a hold over of a certain level of idealism from your adolescent years and you’re running on the energy left over from that time. Maybe you were really messed up, and some folks, they really screw up their lives and they come to the Lord and they realize that this is a solution to their problems. So for the next 10 or 15 years they still remember how much they screwed up their own life and they are thankful to the Lord and they grow. They are filled with curiosity. What does the Bible say? What does the Bible teach? They want to answer a lot of questions they might have about different aspects of life.
But what happens sometimes when you’ve been a Christian 10, 15, 20 years, and you’ve been involved in a local church ministry for that long; it’s easy to become complacent. Somewhere along the line, you can watch people, and all of a sudden they’re sort of shifted into automatic and they are no longer driving their spiritual life volitionally. They are just going through the motions. Now, because they are going to Bible class and they are taking notes, and their friends, their social life, is directed around folks they go to church with; sometimes it is 5 or 10 years before they even realize that they’re no longer actively positive as they were when they were younger. And then some crisis comes along. They get hit with some major adversity and the next thing they know they are 55 or 60 years old and they just sort of drop out.
It is amazing what can happen as we mature. There are different tests in life directed to different chronological ages. So that the tests that you face when you are a teen are different from the tests you face when you are in your 20s and 30s. They are different from the tests you face in your 40s or 50s or when you are older. The issue is to learn doctrine, to apply doctrine, and to consistently apply it and hang in there, HUPOMONE, to endure. This is a word that is emphasized twice with the Ephesian church. Revelation 2:2, “I know your labor, your patience.” The King James translates it, but it is “endurance.” It is HUPOMONE. Remember James emphasizes this as the key to spiritual growth. It is remaining “under”. HUPO meaning under; MONE, MENES, from the word MENO, to abide. It’s to remain in the adversity where you continue to apply doctrine. It is this emphasis on endurance.
It is repeated again in Revelation 2:3. “You have persevered and have endured because of My Name and have not become weary.” So this is a major attribute of the Ephesian church. These are endurers. These are people who hang in there; but they have a flaw. This easily happens in churches that are concerned with what we believe; and this applies to many Bible churches historically and I believe it applies to many doctrinal churches. I’m not being critical. I am not saying that Bible churches fall into this trap, but this is the trap we can fall into. We’re not so likely to fall into some of the other flaws of the church of Thyatira or Pergamum, but this is one we can fall into. Because if you look at the Ephesian church, Jesus commends them because of their works, which He says of everyone. That is the production in their spiritual life, their labor. They are dedicated. They’re involved in Christian service; they’re involved in ministry of the local congregation. They’re enduring in their spiritual life, and they cannot bear those who are evil. They’re not going to put up with licentious believer like the Corinthians. They’re not going to put up with carnal Christians who are operating on religion and human good. And they can’t stand religiosity.
Furthermore, they have tested or examined those who claim to be apostles, but they are not. So they are doctrinally oriented. These people are primarily concerned that you have right theology and right doctrine and justly so. For what happens and what has happened is a trend throughout church history, is that churches go along being concerned with right doctrine and all of a sudden they somehow slip into neutral or slip into automatic and they lose focus on what it is all about. See doctrine isn’t the end result. The end result is to grow and mature as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ so that you glorify Him. It involves personal love for God, impersonal love for all mankind, and occupation with Christ. This is the problem with the Ephesians. It is that the one negative, mentioned in Revelation 2:4, “Nevertheless I have against you that you have left your first love.” The first love is the Lord Jesus Christ, occupation with Christ. They’re going through the motions. They have the right doctrine. They are focused on the truth and that is good. It’s not either/or.
One trap we fall into is when we say we have to be more loving, more focused on Jesus, and doctrine goes out the window. It is not an either/or. It is maintaining sound doctrine, but the end result or the end that we are focused on is not just having right beliefs. Those right beliefs end in a right attitude and a right relationship and a right focus in life. So they are falling apart. This seems to be the first area that goes. Though they are maintaining orthodox theology, they’re falling apart in terms of their ongoing day-to-day rapport and relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the problem in Ephesus. So there is a challenge to endure, to overcome, to stay with it to the end, to not just be focused on your Christian life when you are young. Not just to begin well, but to end well.
A question we must address, before we get into our detailed study of the seven letters to the seven churches, is why these seven churches? As I pointed out in the map, these churches are not in a normal traffic pattern. For example, if John were going to leave Ephesus, he would not necessarily go through each of these towns. They are on different roads, different highways, they are not necessarily connected on any basis, on any common commerce or anything of that nature. They are therefore chosen for specific reasons by the Holy Spirit. There are many other churches in this area; for example, there is a church in Colossi in this same area. There are other congregations. In Acts, the book of Acts, when Paul first came into this area. He came up from along down here in southern Galatia. He came across Asia and he came up to the coast and we are told in Acts that the Holy Spirit prohibited him from having a ministry in Asia.
Then Paul wanted to head over to Bithynia and Pontus, up here to the northwest (see map).
He was blocked by the Holy Spirit. So he heads back here to Troas and that is where he has the Macedonian vision and he goes across to Neapolis and begins his ministry there (see map).
Eventually, at the end of the second missionary journey, he comes back to Ephesus. We are told in Acts 18 that in Ephesus the gospel went throughout Asia. So the timing wasn’t right. It wasn’t the right time for him to go to Asia initially, but now it was. He goes to Ephesus and they sent out missionaries. He had a training school there and they sent out people all over Asia so that everyone heard the gospel. As a result numerous churches were established throughout that province. That was approximately A.D. 53–55. This is now A.D. 95. 40 years has gone by. There are many congregations throughout the western part of Asia Minor. These congregations have grown to various sizes. You can imagine that in a city like Ephesus, which had a population of about 250,000 to 300,000, that by this time there were several congregations and they were quite large, 100, 200, 300, maybe 400 or 500 people in some of these congregations.
The question we have to ask is: why did the Holy Spirit choose these churches? There are three views:
1. The first is the prophetic view. This is really associated with hyper-dispensationalism. Hyper- means they go beyond traditional dispensational teaching; and in dispensational teaching the church is distinct from Israel. That is true in hyper-dispensationalism. But in dispensational teaching the church begins on the day of Pentecost because of the Holy Spirit is the key issue in the church and in the church there is no more Jew, no more Greek, no more slave or free, for we are all one in Christ. We are all baptized into the body of Christ.
Hyper-dispensationalists come along and they say, no, the church really didn’t begin in Acts, that’s too much of a Jewish flavor there. The church has to be distinct. It has to be Gentile. So you have different views. There are some that place the beginning of the church at the end of Acts. There are others that place at the time Paul was on his first missionary trip to Greece. Others put it at the time when he was first called as an apostle in Acts 9. So there are different views among hyper-dispensationalists, but the one thing they have in common is that they make such a radical distinction between Israel and the church that they get rid of any Jewish flavor to the church initially. Their claim is that angels are never mentioned with reference to the church. Therefore, when you come to Revelation 2 and Revelation 3, since there is an angel associated with these churches, they must be Jewish assemblies. See that is their argument. These are Jewish assemblies because there is an angel associated with them.
Well first of all, that’s a misconception. 1 Corinthians 11:10, remember, when Paul was dealing with the head covering with the women. He said that they needed to demonstrate their subordination to their husband’s authority for the sake of the angels because the angels are watching. 1 Peter 1:12 talks about the gospel and the local life of the congregation because these are things that the angels long to look into. So they make a mistake there and the other mistake they make is they don’t think that Revelation 1:19 outlines the book. They think the future begins with Revelation 2. So what their interpretation is is that these seven letters only have to do with seven congregations in the future during the Tribulation.
2. The second view is called the historical prophetic view. In the historical prophetic view, which is a view that many people are familiar with and many have been exposed to. The idea is that each one of these churches is not only a literal, historical congregation, but it is chosen because it represents a different stage in church history. Such that the Ephesian church represents the early apostolic church; then Smyrna represents the persecuted church in the post-apostolic period. Then Thyatira represents the early medieval church and Pergamum, the late medieval church. Sardis represents the church needing reform. Philadelphia represents the reformation and post-reformation protestant church; then Laodicea represents the modern church.
The problem is that this is a forced interpretation. It just doesn’t match. In fact, there are hardly two scholars who agree as to which church fits which period in history. In fact, Richard Siegel Trench, who wrote a commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia, writes, “There is no agreement among themselves on the part of the interpreters of the historical prophetical school. Each one has his own solution of the enigma, his own distribution of the several epochs, or this is too much to affirm. There is at any rate nothing approaching a general consensus among them.” They just don’t agree. Each one divides it up a little differently and if you know anything about church history, church historians never divide the church up into seven different ages. It is divided up into the early medieval church, the reformation church, the post-reformation church, the modern church, four or five divisions seem apparent from history.
This idea that each church represents a different era in church history just doesn’t hold water. Another problem with it is that it really mitigates against the whole idea of the imminency of the Rapture. Remember, the New Testament (NT) teaches that Christ could come at any moment. That is what we mean by imminent. Nothing has to occur in history. No prophecy has to be fulfilled before Jesus can come back. He can come back tomorrow. He could have come back at the time of the Apostle Paul. Nothing has to be fulfilled. But if these seven churches represent seven successive eras in church history, then you have to go through all seven eras before Jesus can come back. Do you understand? You’d have to go through the Ephesus period, the Smyrna period, the Thyatira, the Pergamum, each of these successive eras and get down to the Laodicea era before Jesus could come back. So there would have to be something happen before Jesus could come back and this violates the doctrine of the imminency of the Rapture.
3. So what we are left with is the third view, which is the historical trends view. This is what seems to be emphasized here. First of all, it is historical in that each of these churches must be treated as a literal congregation that had these strengths and these failures. These are seven literal historical congregations. But they are chosen because they represent, and remember, there are seven of them and the number seven represents completion or fulfillment. These seven churches represent the basic types that you will find in any era at any time in church history. Whether you are talking about the 1st century, 5th century, or the 21st century, you will find that every congregation fits one of these seven patterns. There are those who are concerned about orthodoxy, but they have diminished their love for Christ. There are those that are lukewarm, like the Laodicean church and they just make the Lord Jesus Christ bilious. There are others like the Philadelphian church that are very positive and are missionary minded, and are concerned about the gospel going out. They are a healthy, solid, sound congregation. So you have each of these that represent a type, represent the cycles in church history, and that every church represents one of these.
This brings us to another observation. That is one that I touched on last time. That is that these are each addressed to a group of believers. They are addressed to a congregation. They are addressed to the angel of the church; and we have addressed this the last time, as to the meaning of the word ANGELOS. I pointed out that there are basically three views of the meaning of how this is interpreted:
1. The angel is taken by some to be a literal angel. The problem is that almost everybody wants to interpret this as a guardian angel. That’s the category they want to fit it into. I pointed out last time by going through the ministry of angels throughout Revelation that angels in Revelation don’t function as guardian angels; they function as those who are mediators of judgment, those who are witnesses to the operation of the integrity of God in human history, and that is what is happening. You have a two-fold direction of these letters. (1) there is a heavenly post of the critique sheet; and then (2) there is an earthly letter that is sent by human messenger to each congregation. There is a reason the angel is addressed and that is because of his role as a courtroom witness to the operation of the justice of God in local churches.
2. The second view is that this just refers to a human messenger, but not a pastor.
3. Then the third view is that this refers to the pastor-teacher.
One thing that I haven’t pointed out as we’ve discussed this is that if this relates to the pastor-teacher then it says “to the angel” that would be the pastor of the church of Ephesus. As I alluded to a minute ago, there has now been a body of believers in Ephesus for almost 50 years. In that length of time you would have at least several hundred believers. You would not have one congregation. They weren’t building church buildings this early in the Church Age. So this would be divided up into several congregations. You would not have one pastor, you would have numerous pastors because you would have numerous congregations in Ephesus. We don’t know everything that went on. There is much that is left out in history. We know that Paul was there for three years and that Timothy pastored there for some years after that. And five years after Paul left he wrote the epistle to the Ephesians. This was written at approximately the same time, within a year or so, of First Timothy. Timothy was the pastor. He wrote a letter to him. He had written a letter to the Ephesians. It was during Paul’s first imprisonment; and they are both considered to be prison epistles.
Timothy was a pastor, but not long after that, that was about A.D. 61–62. Not long after that John showed up. So John the Apostle was also there; but (you) remember that he refers to himself not as an apostle, but as an elder in 2 John and 3 John, emphasizing that by this stage, transitioning through the late apostolic period, he is functioning more as a pastor than as an apostle. The church has been established. He’s the last apostle alive, so that stage of the church is passing away. There would have been multiple pastors. It is not likely that you would address one pastor in Ephesus.
What is going on here has to do with this heavenly posting of this critique sheet, but the critique sheet also goes to the local congregation. They are being evaluated. The congregation is being evaluated, not just the individual believer. Sure the individual believers are part of the congregation just as the individual believer is here, you are all part of the congregation. But how each of you functions in your spiritual life comprises how this congregation functions; how each of you as an individual operates is evident to anybody who comes in and becomes apart of the group.
Every group of people has certain characteristics. I have pastored in three churches. You are my third congregation. I have been involved in several other congregations and every congregation has its own personality, its own strengths, its own weaknesses, its own failures, its own flaws, and there is a corporate evaluation. In the angelic conflict there are two corporate testimonies. One of the reasons that I like to emphasize this is because as part of American individualism, as part of what I would call American cosmic thinking, we have this emphasis on rugged individualism. It comes out of our frontier heritage. Put all the emphasis on the individual. It doesn’t matter what the group does, just as long as I as an individual am pressing on in my spiritual life. It doesn’t matter whether or not I’m even involved in a local congregation. I can just sit with my tape recorder and my doctrinal notebook, and I can advance to spiritual maturity.
But you see there is an emphasis in the Scripture on the body of Christ. We are members of one another. We’re not just to operate like a bunch of solitary soldiers running our own combat team. There is a team. We are part of the team! We have to operate as part of the team. There is a team at Preston City Bible Church, a team at West Houston Bible Church, and there is a team at North Stonington Bible Church, and there is a team at First Baptist. These are congregations and there is an emphasis on that corporate involvement. It is not just in the body of Christ, but it is also in your marriage. There is an accountability and emphasis on the corporate witness of marriage. We get this from Ephesians 5. Your marriage, you are going to be evaluated not only in terms of your own spiritual life, but also in terms of the corporate witness of your marriage in the angelic conflict. Beyond that you have the corporate witness of the congregation.
There are two corporate operations going on in the Church Age. One is marriage and the other is the local church. Jesus Christ established and ordained the local church as the corporate body within which each individual believer operates and has a ministry. This is fundamental and we’re not just a bunch of lone rangers who are out there leading a spiritual life who just happen to come and sit in church in Sunday morning and not have some sort of mutual ministry and involvement in one another’s lives. Sure you have the doctrine of privacy, but whenever you get involved in somebody’s life you give up or you relinquish a certain degree of privacy. Some people are just naturally more private then other people are. But in the body of Christ we are to be involved in one another’s lives. Not as an intrusive busybody gossipy way, but out of genuine concern and love. This will come as a result of spiritual growth and spiritual maturity.
We see this emphasis here that the body, the local congregation, is evaluated here. Where that effects the individual is that you have to say, okay, how does this apply to me as an individual? And, second, how does it apply to my ministry in terms of this particular local church? The word translated “church” here is the standard word for church. It is the word EKKLESIA. EK is the opening preposition prefix, which means “out from or out of”; and KLESIA is from the verb KALEOO, which means “to call” or the word etymologically means “to call out from something.” But it is used to refer to an assembly of people. Anytime you have a group of people who are called out from a larger group of people that assemble together, that is the idea of EKKLESIA. The word was used several different ways in the NT:
1. First of all it was used to describe the assembling or the congregation of Israel that is in the Greek translation of the OT. It wasn’t calling them a church. It’s calling them an assembly or a congregation. It did not have a technical meaning. That was just the generic meaning in the ancient world. In Acts it is used one time to refer to the assembly of the synagogue. So it is a nontechnical use of the world.
2. A generic assembly or political assembly.
3. But it is also used in the NT to designate the entire body of Christ. For example, in Colossians 1:18 and Colossians 1:24, and in Matthew 16:18, EKKLESIA describes the entire body of Christ, the church; and this is how we refer to it frequently as “the church” that is the entire body of Christ, which is composed of every believer from the day of Pentecost until the Rapture of the church. This is the church.
4. But it is also used to designate a specific assembly of believers in a local context, local province or city. This is found in Romans 16:1; 1 Corinthians 1:2; and of course our passage here in Revelation 2–3.
5. And then a fifth way that it is used to refer to the collection of churches or congregation in a local town, city or region. For example, there were numerous congregations in Ephesus, but they are referred to as the singular church of Ephesus and the singular church of Smyrna. So you have to distinguish the different ways in which this word is used.
The first of these epistles is written to the church of Ephesus. Now why is it Ephesus that is chosen? Well Ephesus is the most prominent city in Asia Minor. It was originally the provincial capital, but the provincial capital has now shifted away from Ephesus at this stage. But it is still the largest and most prosperous of the cities in the province of Asia. It was founded about 1400–1300 B.C. by Mycenaean Greeks. Later, around A.D. 1000 Ionian Greeks sent colonists who established not only the city of Ephesus, but also many other cities along the western coast of Asia Minor. There were twelve cities that were colonized, which became the Panionic League, and Ephesus was the central city of this seat of power.
This original migration has been attributed to Androclus, the son of the Athenian king Codrus. It was during this later period of these Ionian colonies that they came under the power of the King of Lydia by the name of Croesus. You see on the map that Lydia actually was located in this area that later became Galatia, this central highlands region of Asia Minor (see map).
Croesus was the last king. He was defeated by the Greeks. He was a major benefactor of the Temple of Artemis in Athens. In fact, he had twelve columns built in that temple. The Temple of Artemis is well known. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
The terrain around Ephesus is quite hilly, sort of rugged. It is a lot like the rugged hill country in central Texas. There are a lot of remains that have been uncovered in recent years and give us a great idea of the size of this particular city. The terrain around Ephesus is dominated by scrub brush during the summers. It can be quite hot and dry. During the first century it was still a major harbor. Now it is located on the Cayster River and as the river flowed into the Aegean, it dumped a lot of silt. Now it is about 8–10 miles from the water, but during the 1st century it was still a major harbor although they had to mount major dredging operations every century or so in order to keep the harbor open. We have various writings that give evidence to that in the 1st century.
Because they had this harbor Ephesus was the largest commercial center in Asia Minor and it was also located on a major north-south trade route, and an east-west trade route. So as goods flowed into the harbor of Ephesus, they would be taken throughout Asia Minor and on into Persia where they would be distributed and other goods would come back and come to Ephesus, be loaded on ships and be taken to Greece and taken to Italy. So it was a melting pot similar to Corinth. When we think of Corinth we think of the carnal Corinthians. When you think of the fact that in the letter to the Corinthians they had major problems because they kept trying to compromise with the carnality and with the human viewpoint paganism of their culture. The Ephesians apparently didn’t have that problem. They’re never chastised because of their compromise with human viewpoint. They seem to have taken the Word and applied it consistently in their life.
Ephesus is an incredible city. The remains in Ephesus are just phenomenal. This is one of the major thoroughfares and you can just imagine from these remains all of the massive buildings and columns that lined the major roads and streets in Ephesus. Here is a picture looking across at one of the smaller coliseum or amphitheater where they had town meetings and they would have various athletic contests and drama contests. It was an area that was very populated. This is the major theater in Ephesus, which is the site where they had the riot against Paul when Paul was there and so many people were coming to know Christ that it was hurting the trade. See, one of the major sites at Ephesus was the Temple to Artemis, Artemis of the Ephesians. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world and it was a temple that lasted for almost 1,200 years through various stages of reconstruction. It wasn’t until the late 3rd century A.D. that an invasion of Goths from the southern part of Russia destroyed the temple of Ephesus (picture unavailable.)
But Demetrius the silversmith has a union that produced all of these figures of Artemis. They were losing money, so they instigated a riot against Paul, and they had a massive assembly of people in the theater. This theater will hold 2,400 people. So when you think of Ephesus, don’t think of just some small village. This was a city of about a quarter of a million and they had large crowds that gathered together and opposed Paul. This is standing at the theater looking down toward the harbor. At the end of this roadway was where the old harbor was situated (picture unavailable). Ephesus had a culture of paganism. They not only had the Temple to Artemis, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, but it has the Temple of Hestia, who was the goddess of the city’s public health. Also, the Temple of Serapes, there was a sanctuary of Zeus, and a Temple to Cybele the mother goddess; and all of this was present. So there was a melting pot of pagan religions in Ephesus and yet the church at Ephesus, from the first epistle to the Ephesians, stood firm for the Word of God. It has a tremendous impact. In fact, the church remained strong into the 5th and 6th century A.D. In A.D. 431 a famous church council was held there, which condemned the Christological heresy of Nestorius.
But it wasn’t long after that before the city failed, before it fell apart. There was a series of earthquakes from in the 5th and 6th and 7th centuries that so devastated the city that everybody left and they moved elsewhere. In fact, silting and degus (rats) covered the ruins and they were not rediscovered until the late 19th century. Jesus Christ commissioned John to write to the angel of the church of Ephesus. He says “write” and it is an aorist active imperative, which addresses immediate action. It is the word GRAPHO, which means simply “to write something down.” But I want you to notice that there is a difference between these epistles and others in the NT. The most glaring difference is that Christ dictates these seven epistles; whereas, the other NT epistles, for example, Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, are all written by the individual apostles as he has been motivated by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit breathes out the Word of God through them, but these seven epistles are dictated by the Lord Jesus Christ. They are also a more distant or removed kind of communication. They’re addressed to the angel. They’re not addressed specifically to the congregation itself, although indirectly so; and they involve a critique.
We looked at the other epistles. They start off with a warm greeting. Usually the Apostle Paul says that “I consistently remember you in my prayers.” They usually close with some sort of personal greetings to different individuals in the congregation, but there is a strong personal tone. In many of the epistles you have a structure, like Romans or Philippians, or Ephesians, or Colossians, where the first chapters focus on a doctrinal teaching and the later chapters talk about the application of the doctrines explained in the first two or three chapters. But here you have a critique or an evaluation of the congregations unlike what you have in the other epistles. They don’t have this same epistolary form. So there is something different about these epistles.
Christ says to the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things; that is what follows. It says “He who holds the seven stars in His right hand.” He is referring back to Himself, but He is referring to a specific character or attribute of Himself in each one of these epistles; and here He refers to Himself as the one who “holds the seven stars in His right hand.” Now this goes back to the imagery that we saw in Revelation 1. That when John was on the Isle of Patmos he “heard a loud voice behind him as of a trumpet saying, … see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches….” When he hears this, he turns around to look “at the voice who spoke to me.” He said, “I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.” Then we skip down to Revelation 1:16. He said “he had [or he held] in His right hand seven stars” and this is the Greek verb ECHO, and it simply means “to have or to hold.” It is a typical word for picking something up or holding something in your hand. It is simply stating that Jesus had these seven stars in His right hand.
There is a distinction between the seven stars and the seven churches; and that is important for our understanding that they’re not viewed together as a pastor would be viewed as part of the congregation that he is teaching. These seven stars are viewed as distinct. But when you come to Revelation 2:1 we don’t have the same verb used. It is not ECHO; it is KRATEO and this had the idea of holding something firmly; to have close contact. In some passages it has the idea of control or authority that is associated with it. This is related to the fact that He is saying that He has authority over these seven stars that are the seven angels of the seven churches. What is the idea here? Well it fits the picture. Jesus is presented as the Priest-Judge of the church. He is viewed here as the One who is in authority over the local church, and the One who has the authority to evaluate and to judge the local church. It emphasizes the fact that He is the One in authority over these seven stars, the angels, and this relates to that judicial operation that we have discussed already in reference to these angels.
He is presented as the One who holds the seven stars in His right hand and who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. In other words, He is not some distant lord that is simply seated at the right hand of the Father, but He is involved in a present tense ministry or operation in terms of the local church. He is intimately involved with each congregation. This then provided the basis for His evaluation. Now next week we will come back and we will look at the commendation in Revelation 2:2–3, and perhaps we may even get into the condemnation in Revelation 2:4.
With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, Father, we thank You for the opportunity to study Your Word this morning, to take a look at these epistles and to realize that You are intimately involved in each and every congregation; and each congregation, not just the individuals in it, will be held accountable before the supreme court of Heaven, be held accountable at the judgment set of Christ. Father, we pray that if there is anyone here this morning that’s unsure of their salvation or uncertain of their eternal destiny, that they would realize the issue is Jesus Christ. The issue is not your moral conduct. The issue is not your church involvement or church attendance. The issue is your faith in Jesus Christ. Scripture says that salvation is based on faith alone in Christ alone and it is not based on who we are or what we have done. So right now, right where you sit, you can be sure and certain of your salvation by simply believing that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. Father, we pray that You would challenge us with the things that we’ve studied today. We pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.