Revelation
THE ADDRESSES TO THE
CHURCHES
Ephesus, the Decline of the Church (Rev.
ii. 1 - 7.)
IT is not in any wise as being the metropolitan church of
Asia that we find Ephesus first addressed. This, which has been the thought of
many, has assuredly no countenance from the Word. The Church of God, which is
Christs body, is not composed of churches, but of members, united
together by that blessed Spirit which unites all to Christ the Head. Hence, the
"churches," or "assemblies," are only local gatherings of so many Christians as
find themselves, in the providence of God, actually together. Each of these is,
according to Scripture, the Church in that place, as the true text reads
invariably in these two chapters. This expanded would be, as in the epistle to
the Corinthians, the "Church of God" in such or such a place. The place adds
nothing to this title, nor one gathering of its members superior or inferior in
privilege or responsibility to any other. It is true that the Church of God is
not only designated as the body of Christ in Scripture, but also as the House
of God - the place of His abode. But here, again, it is the Church at large
that is so. There are not bodies of Christ, but "one body." just so there are
not houses of God, but "the house." In each place, the local assembly
represents the Church at large, as being indeed the local Church, - what of the
Church at large is in that place. And this may vary, from time to time, in
numbers, spirituality, and many other ways: and thus there will be peculiar
local responsibilities, differences, and privileges, as is recognized in the
chapters before us; but the standing in each the same.
No doubt we must
not forget, as indeed we are not allowed to forget, the immense difference
between profession and reality. A dead Sardis could not be in reality of the
body of Christ at all. But this is nevertheless what the Church means, if it
means any thing according to Scripture. The professing church is this, or it is
a lie; and how solemn a lie! No, the reason why Ephesus stands at the head of
those addressed here is of another nature. It is to be found, not in any
external supremacy over the rest, but in its original spiritual eminency, and
as the church to which the truth as to the Church had been first of all
committed, and this, not as to its order upon earth, but as to its heavenly
character. The Ephesians had been addressed by Paul, as now at a much later
date they are by the Lord Himself; and it is in comparing the tenor of these
two epistles that we find the significance of its being Ephesus, and no other,
with which we here begin. The epistle to the Ephesians is that which carries us
up to the height of Christian position, quickened out of death in trespasses
and sins as following the course of a world governed by Satan, - and quickened
with Christ, raised up together, and seated together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus. This is individual, true of all believers, if there were no
Church at all; but God has done more, and as united to Christ by His Spirit, we
are members of His body, the fullness of Him who filleth all in all. Both as
body of Christ and habitation of God, the apostle develops the doctrine of the
Church in this epistle; while in the fifth chapter he carries us back to the
beginning, and shows us once more the Church under the type of Eve, espoused to
Him who will yet present her to Himself a glorious Church.
These are
the truths, given to all saints, no doubt, but of which the Ephesian disciples
were counted worthy to be the first recipients. And the apostle could write to
them in this way as "faithful" ones, communicating what the spiritual state at
Corinth or Galatia or among the Hebrews would have hindered his making known to
them (I Cor. iii. i, Heb. v. 11 - 14). If Corinth headed a list of churches
declined from first love, we should not marvel; but can we fail to realize the
significance of its being Ephesus, the special custodian of the truth of the
Church itself, in its heavenly reality?
The style of the address is, at
the very outset, a sign of distance, as unusual as full of significance on the
part of the Lord toward His people. There can be no proper question that the
churches are themselves addressed, for this is directly stated at the
conclusion of each epistle: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches." Yet the Lords words are, "To the angel of the
church" in each case, and to this the style of the address fully corresponds.
The responsibility of every thing that is wrong is ascribed to the angel; it is
he that has them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, or of the Nicolaitanes; it
is he that suffers the woman Jezebel; it is he who is threatened with the
removal of his candlestick. It is quite plain that he represents the church in
some way, and it is urged that the word "angel" has this force of a
representative wherever it does not stand for the heavenly beings so called,
who though higher naturally in the scale of creation, yet minister to the heirs
of salvation.
The word "angel" means, as every one knows, simply
"messenger," and is applied to the spirits of heaven as Gods messengers
to men. But it is plain that the messenger does represent, so far as his errand
is concerned, the one who sends him. "He that receiveth whomsoever I send
receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me." Thus this
meaning of the word is easily derived from its original one.
However,
the representative character of the angel here is plain. It is natural enough
that the advocates of episcopal or presbyterian order should find, as they do
with equal facility, the bishop or the pastor in this representative-angel. In
Scripture elsewhere it is impossible to find either of these things, largely as
they are now believed in, and therefore as impossible, if we cleave to
Scripture, to read them in here. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and
teachers we read of as gifts to the Church at large, though a Peter might
especially address himself to the circumcision as a Paul to the Gentiles. But
where have we the apostle of this place or that? Just as little have we the
pastor of this church or of that. Bishops and deacons, it is true, we do find
with a local office; still, never the bishop of an assembly, but the bishops;
with whom it is allowed that the elders were identical.* "They ordained them
elders in every church" (Acts xiv. 23). The one representative of each assembly
supposed to be signified by the angel cannot be found in Scripture
elsewhere.
Ephesus had its bishop-elders long before this, as we see in
Acts xx. Its diocesan bishop at the time when this was written tradition makes
the apostle John himself! He, then, cannot be the angel to whom he is told to
write, nor will the search be more successful in other directions. All that can
be truly urged is that this address to the angel is in accord with what we know
to have been the state of things a century or so after the time of
Revelation.
And this is quite in accord with its sad significance.
We have epistles to individuals, as to Timothy and Titus, never to the church
through these. We have the epistle to the saints in Christ at Philippi, with
the bishops and deacons, not to the bishops and deacons for the church. The
constant method of address is to the church as such; and suppose here the
"angel" were to stand for the bishops of Ephesus, how evident would it make the
contrast between the first epistle (perhaps of thirty-odd years back,) and this
second one. No more the direct address of familiar intimacy, (though now from
the very lips of the priestly Mediator. Yet His love has not changed; the
change, then, has been in His people The strange style is from One whom they
have treated as a stranger.
Sadly it tells of the close of the old
intercourse which he who seeks will find as invited to, if it were Laodicea, "I
will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." Turn to the Acts,
and see how free, how tender, how as a thing of course - which deepens, not
lessens, the wonder of it, - this intercourse can be. Or look back even to
Genesis, if you will, and learn how truly Gods last thought is His first
thought. It is man who has driven back these approaches upon Gods part,
and forced Him into the cloud and darkness. The Church has but repeated the old
history, though now, because the Light has come, the darkness is more strange
and terrible.
But it is important to ask, Has He for our sins, then,
given up His Church to this? and does the "angel" speak of distance maintained
on His part toward even one, the least of all His saints? With whom, as with
the angel, does He still speak face to face? Is it with an official class who
interpret Him to those beneath them? Does the sun, as in winter-time, no longer
reach the valley-bottoms, but only gild the tops of the hills with light? or is
it to some gifted men that Christ reveals Himself, who, as planets, shed the
little of His radiance they can reflect on others? Ah, no; it is not men of
gift, still less an official class, who are indicated by the angel. The heart
of those who know their Lord shall answer, It is not. No; nor, alas! is it any
longer the church as a whole either; very far from that! Read the
superscription "to the angel" in the light of the subscription, "He that hath
an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches," and you will
find that still the question of who are nearest Christ is answered by another,
who has ears and eyes and heart for Him. He still speaks as of old to those who
as of old listen. His ways, His attitude, His heart, can know no change. The
stars that shine in His firmament are the overcomers of the darkness, not of
the world now merely, but of the church, - planets that know their orbit and
are held by their centre, and shine by the light of Him who shines on them.
"The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches." If to the opened ear
Christ speaks, it is plain that the responsibility of hearing is as much as
ever that of all. None are released from it. And yet it is not to the mass that
He can speak any more, or the overcoming would not be in the church, as it
clearly is. Already it is the few that listen, and the constraint in the
Lords manner is but the indication of His sense of this.
It may
seem strange, however, that if the "angel" stands for these who listen to
Christs voice, He should hold them responsible, as we have already seen,
for all the evil in the church with which they are connected. How, it may be
asked, can He thus burden with the sins of the whole the few who we an ear to
hear? The responsibility of an official class is more readily recognized than
of those who may be, however spiritual, the feeblest possible to accomplish any
change in the condition of around them. But this is not the question. is true
we are powerless to alter the general The ebb-tide of ruin can be stemmed by no
effort of ours, and this feebleness of ours may seem an available plea to
withdraw us from responsibility as to it. But not so teaches the word of the
Lord. Our associations are here distinctly recognised as part of our general
condition. We are to "depart from evil," not be unequally yoked with believers,
purge ourselves from vessels to dishonour, and follow righteousness, faith,
love, peace, to those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart. For
association with evil we are therefore never responsible. It may be said that
such principles, carried fully out, would involve a very narrow path and a
wholesale giving up of spheres of usefulness. But be it so or be it not so, it
is not ours to choose. Our path is defined for us. "To obey is better than
sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams; for rebellion is as the sin of
witchcraft, and stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry."
Yes,
"rebellion"! How gladly would we call an obedience limited by our own wills by
some lighter name than that! Yet what else, in truth, was that which brought
out Sauls true character, and lost the kingdom to him and to his seed
forever? What he left undone was a mere trifle to what he did. And the sheep
and oxen had been spared to sacrifice to the Lord. What fairer excuse have
people now to offer for much disobedience - evil plausibly intended to bring
forth good? And how hard is it to understand that while we may obey in much
that in fact costs us little, the true test of obedience is just in that in
which we are called to renounce our wills and our wisdom, perhaps to forfeit
the esteem and companionship of others, by doing what has only the Word of God
to justify it and must wait for eternity to find right appreciation! But now to
listen to His word to Ephesus, who "holdeth the stars in His right hand, and
walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks." The one point of the
address is plain, and it is left to stand in sufficient, solemn, decisive
contrast with all else that is unmingled commendation. Works, labour, patience,
abhorrence of that which is evil, trying fearlessly those who put forth the
highest claims, bearing for Christs names sake, and not fainting, -
all this, put in the balance with one solemn charge: "Thou hast left thy first
love." And this follows: "Repent, and do the first works, or else I will come
unto thee, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou
repent."
Let us look at these things more closely. Their interest for
us is of the deepest, for upon this one root of evil has grown all that has
ever been in the Churchs long decline through the centuries which have
intervened between that day and this. And this it is which, as we see, brings
about her removal from the place of witness for Christ on earth This it is too
which is the secret of decline in every individual Christian. For us all, it
should rouse the earnest, heart searching inquiry "Is it I?" For, if it can be
truly said of any of us, "Thou hast left thy first love," it is vain for us to
think that other things can be really judged. The single eye is wanted even to
see them with. We must get back to this, or there is no real recovery. Two
masters, the Lord says Himself, we cannot serve.
How much there was He
could commend at Ephesus! "I know thy works" is commendation clearly. But not
only had they works, they laboured. Do you think there are really so many of
whom it couId be said, they labour? We have recognized, what is so precious to
understand, that we have our different spheres of service, and that there is no
mere secular work, if really done for Christ. But to labour is to work with
energy - to " toil, as the Revision gives it How many of us toil for
Christ?
Then they had patience - endurance Many begin well, like the
Galatians, but in the face of unforeseen difficulties give way. It is the mark
of divine work that it endures. Human energy quickly spends itself: faith draws
upon a stock that never decreases. It was true faith that wrought in these
Ephesian saints. Patience, too, is apt to degenerate into a toleration, more or
less, of evil. Finding it on every hand, and no where perfection, the very
contact with it is apt to dull the spiritual sense. Charity would fain put also
the mildest construction upon every thing. We are bidden to "take forth the
precious from the vile," but we learn to tolerate the vile because of the
precious. We become liberal where we have no right. The Lord praises the
Ephesians for the opposite conduct: "Thou canst not bear them which are evil."
And where there was the very highest assumption, they did not fear to test it:
"Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found
them liars."
But more, it was true love to Christ which wrought in all
this: "Thou hast patience, and hast borne for My names sake, and hast not
wearied." Yet here it follows: "Nevertheless I have against thee," - not"
somewhat," as if it were a little, - " that thou hast left thy first love." But
how dreadful a dishonour to Christ is this, to lose ones first love! It
is as if at first sight He was more than He proved on longer acquaintance! Is
not here the very germ of final apostasy? I do not, of course, mean that the
Lord will allow any of His redeemed to be lost out of His hand. "God is
faithful, who hath called us into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ;" and
this faithfulness of God is our security: "the gifts and calling of God are
without repentance." Nor only so; if we are born of God, we have that within us
which cannot suffer us to become what we were before: "Whosoever is born of God
doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because
he is born of God." Yet while this is true on the one side, in the child of God
as identified with the divine nature by which he is such, - still, on the other
side, it is no less true that in the believer also there remains yet the old
nature. In him still there is that which lusts against the Spirit, and only if
ye "walk in the Spirit, ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh."
Here is what makes the world to us such a battlefield. Capable, on the one
hand, of enjoying all the joys of heaven; capable, on the other, of being
attracted by that which lies under the power of the wicked one, - the eye
affecting the heart, - day by we are solicited by that which daily lies before
s and from which there is no escape. Our danger is first of all distraction,
some gain to us which means loss for Christ, or that dulling of the spiritual
we just now spoke of; the dust of the way is upon the glass in which Faith sees
her eternal possessions. Our remedy is the presence of He who with basin and
towel would refresh His pigrims, cleansing away the travel-stains that they nay
have part with Him.
Here alone first love is maintained. Here, in His
presence, we learn His mind. The holiness of truth is accomplished in us. What
is unseen but eternal asserts its power. The illusions of the prince of this
world pass from us. The glory of Christ is revealed, and the eye here
also affects the heart; He becomes for us more and more the light - in which we
see light, the Sun which rules the day, not only enlightening but life-giving:
the light in which we walk is the "light of life." Now here, as I have said,
first love cannot but be maintained. Who could be daily in His presence,
ministered to by Him, having part with Him, and yet grow cool in response to
His love? It is impossible. Where this is the case, intimacy has not been kept
up. We have not permitted the basin and towel to do its work. Assurance of
heart before Him has been replaced by an uneasy sense of unfitness for His
presence, the true causes of which we have not been willing fully to face, and
for which the remedy has therefore not been found. In this state there may be
yet much work and labour and zeal, and true love at the bottom. Fruit may be on
the tree, plentiful as ever, but not to the Masters taste as once, not
ripened in the Sun. Form and bloom and beauty may be little lacking: this was
the state at Ephesus. But the Lord says, "Repent, and do the first
works."
What is the test, then, of "first love"? Not "work " - activity
in outward service; this they had at Ephesus: not even "labor," for this too
they had: no, nor yet "endurance " - though a more manifest sign than either of
divine power in the soul. Not zeal against evil, nor boldness to examine and
refuse the highest pretensions; not suffering even for Christs name, and
that unwearied. All this is good and acceptable to God, and the Ephesians had
it all, and yet says the Lord, "I have against thee that thou hast left thy
first love."
What, then, is the test of first love? It is in the
complete satisfaction of the heart by its object. You know what power often
there is in a new thing to take possession of one for the time being. And in
first love, it is characteristic that it engrosses the subject of it. The Lord
claims again and again the power to give this complete satisfaction of heart to
His people. "He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but he that
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water
that I shall give him shall be in him a fountain of water springing up unto
eternal life." "He that - cometh unto Me shall never hunger, and he that
believeth on Me shall never thirst." "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me,
and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture bath said, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water."
Now this it is that will give
a peculiar character to the life which nothing else will. It is of this the
apostle speaks when he says, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by
the faith of the Son of God, - who loved me, and gave Himself for me." It is
this satisfaction with a heavenly object of which he is giving the effect when
he says, "This one thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind, and
reaching forth unto that which is before, I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." "What things were gain to
me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubt-less, and I count all
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord;
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung,
that I may win Christ."
This is the secret of happiness, who can doubt?
That for which he counted all else dung and loss must have given him
surpassing, supreme happiness. And happiness such as this, derived from nothing
in the world, is power over the world. The back is upon it. The prize is
elsewhere. The steps hasten upon a path that glows with the light of heaven.
Holiness is found, as it only can be found, in heavenliness. Such was the
apostle, and Christianity is nothing else to-day. Blessed be God, it is not
something further to be found far on in the Christian course, -but at the
beginning. It is first love which has these characteristics. In Christ
Himself, at once for present need, all fullness is found, as His own words
declare. "He that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me
shall never thirst." It is in drinking of other streams that the old thirst
comes back upon him who does so. "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life" are "all that is of the world." He that drinketh of this
water shall thirst again. So the world holds its own by their very
misery.
But we are not speaking of the men of the world. It is to
Ephesus - to the saints there - the Lord is speaking: to those to whom the
heavenly truth had been unvailed, the depositaries of it upon the earth, the
representatives of the Church at large. And it is to the Church at large,
through Ephesus, that this is now addressed. Can any doubt the truth of such an
application? Would that it were even possible! but we have not to go beyond the
New Testament itself to find the application confirmed, and to hear the
prophetic announcement of still further departure even to the very end. The
epistles of Paul, long before Revelation, reveal a state of things already
beginning, such as it is hard to realize of those early days. In one of the
very earliest comes the statement, "The mystery of iniquity doth already work,"
and "that day " - the day of the Lord - " shall not come, except there come a
falling away first." The two epistles to the Corinthians are the next in time
to those to the Thessalonians, and at Corinth there is sin such as was not
named among the Gentiles, with divisions beginning, and some denying the
resurrection of the dead. Next, Galatia is backsliding from Christ under the
law, and receiving another gospel. Then, to the Romans he has to write, bidding
them avoid those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine
they have learned. His next epistles are written from a Roman prison: but here
he has to say of those to whom he had written that their faith was spoken of
through the whole world, "All seek their own, not the things of Jesus
Christ."
The epistles to Timothy may close the sorrowful picture: "At
my first answer no man stood with me, but all forsook me: " Paul ends his
course like His Master. Not alone at Rome: "This thou knowest, that all they
which are in Asia have departed from me." But now all that will be vessels of
honour, fit for the Masters use, are to purge themselves from the vessels
to dishonour. Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse; and in the last
days perilous times shall come, men throwing the Christian dress over their
unchanged natures, having the form of godliness but denying the power thereof.
From such they must turn away.
Peter, John, Jude, add each some fresh
feature to the terrible picture; but we need not dwell upon it more. We see the
professing church is ruined and doomed. The true-hearted are already a remnant.
By the "many antichrists" then present, the latest apostle decides that it is
the last time. We look beyond even the Ephesian epistle here to see the
hopelessness of the thought of any general repentance. And the word abides, "I
will take away thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent."
The promise to the overcomer meanwhile rings out its words of cheer, "To him
that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of
the paradise of My God." There is to be no yielding, however the difficulties
of the way increase. Gods stars shine by night as by day, and the
darkness only makes them more apparent. It is no new thing, the darkness. The
path of faith has been in all ages essentially alike. The incentive comes from
beyond, and no sorrows of the way can mar the beauty of the paradise of
God.
The tree of life in the garden of old meant clearly dependent
life, which was to be ministered to Adam by its means. In himself, innocent as
he was, there was no continuance apart from this. God would thus remind him of
the essential mutability and dependence of the creature - a safe and wholesome
lesson.
For us too, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and
possessors of eternal life, this is still life in dependence; and herein is the
secret of its eternity. It is life in Christ, in the Son who is alone essential
Life. Of the fruits of this we shall partake forever. How suited an appeal to
those in the state addressed in this epistle! It is failure in maintaining the
place of dependence, in receiving out of His fullness in whom dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily, that is the very secret of their condition. The
mind, the will, the heart, are in independence. He who keeps close to Christ
overcomes. How suited, then, the encouragement to one who knows already the
blessedness of this place, to look on to the time when in far other
circumstances the full results of it shall be attained, - when eternally it
will be ours to know the joy of that dependence which secures His ministry of
love to us forever! "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things;
to whom be glory forever. Amen."
Chapter Four
Smyrna: the Double Assault of the Enemy (Rev. ii. 8 - il.)
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