The Seven Churches of the
21st Century
Chapter
1
Introduction: The Seven Historical
Churches
As we begin our short
study of the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3, it is
necessary to lay a foundation. To do this, let us take a
little time to examine three introductory
points.
An Overview
of the Book of Revelation
The book of Revelation is
an often misunderstood and misinterpreted book. The main
reason for this is the failure to understand two basic
things about it: its Divisions, its Declaration, and its
Difficulty.
The Divisions of the
Book
Without question,
Revelation 1:19 is the key verse of the book:
Write the things which
thou has seen, and the things which are, and the things
which shall be hereafter.
This one verse declares
the three divisions of the book.
“Write the things which
thou has seen.”
The first thing we
need to realize about the book of Revelation is that the
Lord Jesus Himself was the Author. Often the Apostle
John is called the author, but to be accurate, John was
the recorder. Verse 1 makes it clear that this Epistle is:
The revelation of
Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to show unto His
servants things which shall shortly come to pass; and He sent and
signified it by His angel unto His servant,
John (emphasis
added).
So, the “revelation”
came for the Lord, and John wrote it down. John is
instructed to write about the vision he has just
received of the risen Lord Jesus. This is exactly the
content of chapter 1. May we also add, these are the
things that are past.
“[Write the things] which
are.”
John is then
instructed to write about the things that are in the present, the
things concerning the churches of Asia. In other words,
John was to write about the things concerning his
present and our present, that is, this
dispensation. This then is the
content of chapters 2 and 3 and is the subject of our
study.
“[Write] and the things
which shall be hereafter.”
Lastly, John is
instructed to write about the things which will take
place after these present things, that is, the things
which are future. This encompasses all of chapters 4
through 22. May I interject here that the Church is gone
as of chapter 4 and is not seen again until chapter
19. Many
are confused about this, but may it be clear that God is
dealing with Israel and the nations of the world during
that time. The Church, therefore, is gone because she is
no longer being dealt with. The age of the Church is a
“parenthesis” between God’s sixty-ninth and the
seventieth “weeks” of years spoken of by the prophet
Daniel.
The Declaration of the
Book
The outline of the book we
have just examined makes the declaration of the book
quite plain. There are teachers who say that Revelation
is allegorical, symbolic, or merely historical. But ones
who hold these views are, oddly enough, seldom in
agreement since different interpreters find different
meanings to the allegory, symbolism, and historical
incidents. We see then that the “Futuristic View” (also
called the “Literalist View”) is the only one that is
consistent.
The point (or theme)
of Revelation, of course, is The End of the Age. The
title “Revelation” is derived from the meaning of the
Greek title apokalupsis,
which is a compound word that combines kalupto (“to
veil”) and apo (“from”) to give us the idea of “to remove the
veil” or “reveal.” What then does the book reveal?
Several things, but preeminently it unveils the
glorified and enthroned Christ. It sequentially records
many visions that prophesy the course of the age. It
begins with the Great Tribulation, unfolds great events,
movements, and kingdoms, and finally culminates in
eternity. But at the heart of if all is the conquering
Christ (chs. 4; 5; 19:11-21).
This declaration is very
important in light of the recipients of this book,
namely, the seven Churches of Asia Minor. These churches
were located on a major travel route connecting
population centers of Asia Minor. The day in which they
existed was a day of immorality, paganism, slavery,
mystery religions, and persecution. Revelation was
therefore an Epistle that was of tremendous
encouragement. In short, it promised that God is going
to defeat Satan and all evil. It proclaimed then and it
proclaims now that God’s people are to be patient and
encouraged in the face of persecution because God is
ultimately going to win.
The Difficulty of the
Book
Someone has wisely said,
“There is always a tendency in the human heart to become
occupied with the dispensation in which we are not.” How
true this is! Prophecy is a blessed subject, but it must
not be over-emphasized. In recent years there has been
what one might call a “prophecy craze.” Many Bible
teachers have tried to take every headline and plumb it
with some obscure prophecy in Ezekiel or some other
prophetic book.
There have been many
fanciful ideas come out of this overemphasis. For
example, in his book on Revelation, one author recounts
that after reading about the plague of locusts spoken of
in Revelation 9:3, a friend of his who was a Green Beret
in Vietnam said, “I know what those are. I’ve seen
hundreds of them in Vietnam. They’re Cobra helicopters.”
The author admits that “it may be just conjecture,” but
then turns around and says “but it does give you
something to think about.” He then gives further
credibility to this theory by pointing out that the
Cobra helicopter does fit the description and that the
torment they inflict might be nerve gas sprayed from its
tail. Years before this was written, however, as another
author points out, many believed these to be B-29
bombers.
The main problem
with such wild speculation is obvious, namely, there’s
no clear meaning. Another problem, however, is that such
conjecture inescapably implies that the book of
Revelation could never have been understood by anyone
other than someone living in modern times. This is
obviously a serious error, because as we’ve seen
Revelation was designed to be an encouragement to God’s
persecuted people in every age. It shows that God is going to win. How,
then, could Revelation be an encouragement to persecuted
first century Christians when only twentieth century
Christians could understand it? But may we ask simply,
Why can’t we just believe that this prophecy actually
speaks of a plague of locusts that sting like
scorpions?
At the heart of this
problem is the typical response humans have when they
read symbolic language. When we read symbolism our
immediate impulse is to “try and figure out what it
means.” But as someone has wisely said, “It would seem,
based on the stated purpose of the book, that the best
interpretation is no interpretation.” In other words,
because it was written to be an encouragement, it was
written in simple language, so just read it as it is. I
have believed for many years that the problem is not
that Revelation is hard to understand, rather it’s just
hard to believe. Many people, even Christians, simply
can’t believe that God is going to do exactly what he
says He’s going to do, so that have to “make sense of
it” by their own interpretations.
The real key to literal
interpretation is that we are to the original sense of
the Bible according to the normal and customary usages
of language. We can only do this by studying the Bible
grammatically, historically, and contextually. The key,
then, to understanding the symbols or figures of speech
in Revelation is that when symbols are used, their
meaning is explained either in the immediate context or
elsewhere in Scripture. What good are symbols that
puzzle the reader and make him wonder about their
meaning? The purpose of Revelation was to reveal, not
puzzle.
Introduction
to the Seven Churches
In light of a
literal approach to Revelation, God strongly emphasizes the messages to these seven churches.
So important are these messages, in fact, that they
comprise a little over twelve and one half percent (or
about one eighth) of the content of the book of
Revelation. Moreover, there is a lot of “Church Truth”
in these messages that matches the Church truth
contained in other New Testament Epistles. May we not
neglect these two chapters in favor of the more
“spectacular” parts of Revelation. These two chapters
will honestly be of far more help to local churches and
individual believers than will the remainder of the
book.
Let us consider that these
letters have a fourfold reference, a fourfold
application. We will develop this as we study each
letter.
The Contemporary
Application
By this is meant that
Christ was concerned with the state of each of these
physical, 1st Century local churches. As one
commentator observes, “The order of scriptural
presentation was geographic. A messenger would naturally
travel the route from the seaport Ephesus, 35 miles
north to another seaport Smyrna, proceed still farther
north and to the east, to Pergamos, and then would swing
further to the east and south to visit the other four
cities (1:11).”[i] These cities, of course,
were located in the Roman province of Asia Minor (modern
Turkey) and were undoubtedly selected because they were
the key cities of the seven postal districts of that
region. They were the cities one would choose if he
wanted to spread information.
The Lord Jesus makes
observations and counsels each one of them. Revelation
1:20 makes this clear:
Thy mystery of the seven
stars which thou sawest in My right hand, and the seven
golden lampstands. The seven stars are the seven angels
of the seven churches; and the seven lampstands which
thou sawest are the seven churches.
As this verse
declares, each church was viewed as a lampstand. The
Greek here for “lampstand” is luxnos, which refers to the hand-lamp that was fed by
oil. As we know, “oil” is used in Scripture as a symbol
of the Holy Spirit, so the thought here is that the
churches themselves do not create light; rather, each
church bears the light of Christ through the power of
the Holy Spirit.
We then notice the
word “angels.” The Greek here is aggeloi, meaning
“messengers.” The identity of these “angels” has been a
matter of much discussion through the years. A clue to
this identity is in the fact that Jesus holds them in
His right hand. As the right hand is used in
Scripture as a symbol of honor and authority (Eph. 1:20;
Heb. 8:1; 12:2; I Pet. 3:22; etc.), the idea here is
that Jesus is controlling His church through the
authority of these “messengers.” While angels is
the common translation of aggeloi, and
while there are some valid arguments that these are
literal angels, we are
compelled to disagree for several reasons.
First, literal angels are
never spoken of in Scripture as being the “authorities”
in churches. In other words, they are never involved in
church leadership; God does not rule churches through
angels. Nowhere is this indicated in the
Epistles. Angels don’t lead churches; God’s men lead churches and
are responsible for how they
lead.
Second, all but two of
these churches, and obviously their leadership, have
been disobedient to God’s Word and are commanded to
repent of their sin (?2:4-5?, ?14?, ?20?;
?3:1-3?, ?15?, ?17?, ?19?). Angels, however,
do not sin and, therefore, have no need to
repent.
Third, and
perhaps most significantly, saying that these are
literal angels actually means that God is sending
messages to angels through John, but such an idea has no precedent in
Scripture. Not once in Scripture do we read that God
spoke to angels through men.
Fourth, while
it is argued that angelloi always means
angels, that simply is not so; there are several
instances in Scripture where angelloi clearly
speaks of “messengers,” that is, human
messengers. Luke 7:24, for example, declares, “And when
the messengers [angelloi] of John were departed,
[Jesus] began to speak unto the people concerning John.”
A few verses before, in fact, we read that these same
messengers were John’s disciples, that is, men (v. 19).
Then in verse 27, our Lord Himself uses angellos
to refer to John as His “messenger.” Likewise, James
2:25 recounts, “Was not Rahab the harlot justified by
works, when she had received the messengers
[angelloi], and
had sent them out another way?” The spies sent in to
reconnoiter the Promised Land were men, not angels. As
one Greek authority points out, an argument could even
be made that even Hebrews 13:2—“Be not forgetful to
entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained
angels unawares”—might be referring to hospitality “to
itinerate preachers rather than angels.”[ii]
Further, we see the
same idea in the Old Testament, both in the Hebrew and
the Greek (Septuagint), which provides a clear precedent
for the New Testament use. While most references in the
OT are to literal angels, several are not. Commentator
William Newell well points out some of these. While
Genesis 32:1, for example, says that Jacob encountered
literal angels, verse 3 says he sent his own
“messengers” to Edom. In both verses, the Hebrew word is
the same, malak,
which in turn is translated as the Greek
angelloi. Likewise, in Numbers 20:14, Moses sent
his own “messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom,”
while God sent an “angel” to Moses. The Hebrew is again
malak
in both verses and is translated as the Greek
angelloi (and angellos). Again, in Judges
6:10-23, the literal “Angel of the Lord” is referred to
seven times by the Hebrew malak
(vs. 11, 12, 20, 21 [twice], 22 [twice]), while the
messengers Gideon sent are also called
malak
(v. 35); in all cases the Greek is again
angellos. And still again, Sennacherib’s representative are
called “messangers” in Isaiah 37:9 and 14, while in
verse 36 the Angel of the Lord is in view, and the same
Hebrew and Greek words are used.[iii]
Most significant in
all these examples is the fact that the Hebrew and Greek
words refer to both angels and men in the same
context. Some argue, “Since the
word ‘angel’ occurs 67 other times in Revelation, and
since every one of those refers to heavenly angels, then
it must also be true here in 1:20.” But that obviously
is not so.
Fifth, the
context clearly seems to argue against literal
angels. Christ is speaking about earthly
matters to an earthly messenger, who will in-turn
pass on those matters to other earthly
messengers. Why would He bring heavenly beings into
a discussion of earthly issues? Further, the
responsible parties in these
letters are earthly beings, not heavenly
beings.
Sixth, one
final problem with the literal angel idea is that there
is no way to explain how the angels then conveyed
Christ’s message to the churches. It seems more than
obvious that men would carry these messages to the
churches.
We must conclude,
therefore, that the messengers of Revelation 2-3 were,
indeed, the pastors of the seven churches. These men
were those who were responsible for the leadership of
those churches and those to whom the challenges and
encouragements of the letters were given. It is through
such men that the Lord (Who holds these in His right
hand) leads and rules His
Church.
May we submit,
therefore, that this is precisely why the qualifications
and requirements for leadership in the Church are
extremely high, according to
I Tim. 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. God could not be clearer
on this issue of qualified leadership. In spite of that,
however, more and more today we see people leading who
frankly should not be doing so. The common attitude is
that anyone can lead, but this is worse than dangerous.
In fact, the precedent in Scripture for training to be a
leader seems to be three years. The disciples spent
three years with the Lord, Paul spent three years in
training before being sent out to preach and plant
churches (Gal. 1:11-18), and Timothy was with Paul three
years during his second missionary journey (Acts
15:36-18:22). May we also add, when Paul wrote to
Timothy—“And the things that thou hast heard of me among
many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men,
who shall be able to teach others also” (II Tim. 2:2),
can there be any doubt that he was saying, “As I trained
you for leadership, you train others for
leadership?”
The Collective
Application
By this it is meant that
these letters are an admonition to all churches of all
time. In other words, by extension, not only did they
apply to the seven specific churches in Asia Minor, they
apply to all churches everywhere both then and in the
future. These messages give us the seven possible
appearances of any church. Every individual local church
throughout this age fits into one of seven types.
It’s interesting to
observe that except for Smyrna and Philadelphia, our
Lord rebuked all the churches for some sin that exited
within them. How many churches is this true of today?
Further, the specific evils in those five churches
varied in seriousness from a lack of love at Ephesus,
which then progressively grew in severity until it
reached the total apostasy at Laodicea. Further still,
and even worse, a church can be plagued by more that
just one of these problems. Let’s take a brief overview
of the seven possible types of local church.
First, there
was Ephesus, which had no love for the lord (2:1-7).
They hadn’t “lost” their first love,” as some
incorrectly quote verse 4, rather they had
“left” their love for the
Lord behind. While they were busy and heresy free, it
was all mechanical and lacked a real love for the
Lord.
Second, there
was Smyrna, which was willing to suffer (2:8-11)
tremendous persecution for the Lord. No sin was
mentioned for this church, which shows us that suffering
for Christ keeps us purer, more faithful, and more
humble and makes us gloriously
triumphant.
Third, there
was Pergamum, a church that was tolerant of the world
(2:12-17), tolerant of false teaching and had
compromised key principles of God’s Truth.
Fourth,
Thyatira was clinging to paganism (2:18-29). While
Pergamum was entangled with the world, while
Thyatira was absorbed in the
world. Pagan teachings had actually been
embrace.
Fifth, there
was Sardis, the church that was dead and buried (3:1-6).
The inevitable result of Pergamum and Thyatira was dead
orthodoxy, a church where there was liturgy but
no life
Sixth, the
church at Philadelphia is a breath of fresh air in the
progression, for here we see a church that was faithful
in all things (3:7-13). Here is a church with great
works, a consistent witness, and a guarding of God’s
Truth.
Seventh,
after a moment of respite in Philadelphia, the church at
Laodicea had been overtaken by apostasy (3:14-22). Here
the church was people-centered and had become the
authority in place of God’s Word.
The Characteristic
Application
Each of these messages
also carries with it a personal application to every
individual believer. After all, a church is comprised of
people who will make that body what it is. As each of
these churches, then, applies collectively to other
churches, the lessons of each likewise apply to every
individual Christian. Note Revelation 2:7, for example:
“He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith
unto the churches.” This admonition, in fact, is used at
the close of each letter showing that every Christian is
responsible for the message he has heard. Each letter,
then, is a challenge to believers to ascertain what
“characteristics” are true in their lives.
The Chronological
Application
Here is truly one of the
most fascinating things in all the Word of God. These
seven churches also present the entire history of the
Church (Christ’s body) from its beginning in the first
century right to the time of Christ’s return for His
Church at the Rapture. I spent countless hours studying
Church History in light of these seven letters and saw
this fact unfold before me. The Church has gone through
seven distinct periods in her long history. The number
“7” is “the number of perfection” in Scripture, and
Revelation 2 and 3 are, indeed, the “perfect historical
record” of Christ’s Church. To emphasize this
fascinating application, the “Prophetic History” of each
letter will appear in a shaded area in the chapters that
follow.
It should be said at this
point that there are, of course, Bible teachers who do
not agree that the seven churches picture Church
History. There are various reasons for this skepticism,
but one of the main ones is that some feel that the
parallels are not close enough to prove this idea. I
think, however, that as our study unfolds the reader
will quickly see that just the opposite is true.
Others do not agree with
this historical presentation because they are not ready
to face the conclusion that we find in the letter to the
church at Laodicea. Many simply do not want to face the
sad condition of the Church today. While most people in
Christianity today think the Church has never been in
better shape, the very opposite is true. The Church as a
whole has never been further away from the absolutes of
Scripture since the Reformation.
While it has been
observed that only Dispensationalists hold this view,
that seems quite irrelevant in the final analysis. From
Pentecost till now, Church History is Church History.
The more one studies these letters and Church History,
in fact, the more glaringly obvious it becomes that
these letters anticipate that history. I for one simply
do not understand how someone can miss this application
or why they would want to argue against it. Having said
that, however, some interpreters, such as
Postmillennialists and others, miss this simply because
they don’t take a literal view of the Book of
Revelation. And in point of fact, if we reject the
literalness of Revelation, as well as
all Bible prophecy, the Bible
becomes virtually incomprehensible. In such a case, we
can’t know what’s literal, what’s allegorical, what’s
mystical, what’s real, what’s false, or anything
else.
So, as one commentator
writes:
Obviously these churches
were specially selected and providentially arranged to
provide characteristic situations which the church has
faced throughout its history. . . . There are some
remarkable similarities in comparing these letters to
the seven churches to the movement of church history
since the beginning of the apostolic church.[iv]
Another writes: “It can be
no mere coincidence that these Epistles do set out the
salient characteristics of the Church through the
centuries, and no one can deny that they are presented
in historic sequence.”[v] Commentator William
MacDonald also observes the obvious: “The letters give a
consecutive preview of the
history of Christendom, each church representing a
distinct period. The general trend of conditions is
downward.”[vi] And even a cursory
viewing of Church History proves that statement to be
absolutely correct.
Most importantly,
however, we must accept these churches as a picture of
Church History because of Christ’s words to John, “Write
the things which are in this age.” These words indicate
that our Lord is speaking of the entire
age, not just a limited
geographical area. I submit that our Savior was being
much more farsighted than to be looking only at Asia
Minor. Are we to think that while the great prophets of
the Old Testament looked centuries into the future, our
Lord was looking only at the contemporary scene? Surely
not! He was concerned about His Church throughout the
centuries to come. As another commentator observes,
while there were hundreds of churches in existence at
that time, only seven letters were sent. Our Lord
knew the entire history of
the Church from the beginning. . . . He saw in seven of
them conditions which were in embryo, the condition
through which the whole church on earth would pass, so
that we have in these seven messages, which uncover the
state of the different churches, the spiritual and
religious history of Christendom.[vii]
Why would anyone want to
ignore the obvious? Why would we wish to close our eyes
to the deep significance of this “Prophetic History?” We
do so, in fact, at our peril. As the notable quote goes,
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to
repeat it.”[viii] As we will see, this
“Prophetic History” explains much of the error that has
existed the Church through the centuries and explains
where the Church is today.
How We Shall
Conduct Our Study
Before embarking on our
study, a word of how we shall conduct our study is in
order. The title of each of the following chapters
reflects the major characteristic of each of the seven
churches. The Lord Jesus used a definite format in
addressing each church. Over the years there have been
various ways of presenting this; we shall present five
principles in each letter.
First, we’ll
look at the Root of the letter, which itself involves three
emphases: (1) Each letter contains some feature of
Christ that was emphasized in the vision of chapter 1.
(2) An examination of the church itself, that is, its
background and condition; 3. A look at the city in which
the church is located, its cultural and historical
setting.
Second, we’ll
observe the Regard of the letter, that is, the praise Christ gave
of the church. In most of them there are, indeed, things
to praise. But as we’ll also see, it’s noteworthy that
one church has no regard at all.
Third, we’ll
examine the Rebuke of the letter, the complaint Christ had against
the church. As mentioned earlier, two churches have no
rebuke.
Fourth, we’ll
note the Requirement of the letter, in which Christ shows the church
the solution to the problem and the consequences for
ignoring His rebuke.
Fifth, we’ll
then study the Reassurance of the letter, where the Lord Jesus gives his
final encouragements to the church, that they still
belong to Him, that He will reward them for their
obedience.
The truth of these seven
letters is simply tremendous! The applications are
staggering! These messages comprise one of the most
powerful influences in my own Christian life and
ministry for over twenty-five years. Let us each
prayerfully consider the message of each letter and
allow the Holy Spirit to apply it to our
hearts.
[i] The Bible
Knowledge Commentary.
[iv] The Bible
Knowledge Commentary.
[v] R. H. Clayton. Cited in
Strauss, p. 33.
[vii] Gaebelein, p.
33-34.
[viii] George Santayana,
Life of Reason, Ch. 12,
“Reason in Common Sense” (Scribner’s, 1905), p.
284.
