A Word of Christ to the Church: A Bible Study on Revelation 2:1-6

Revelation 2-3 preserves messages or letters from the Risen Christ to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia (western Turkey today). The first message praises the Ephesians for resisting evil, and at the same time chastises them for “losing their first love.” I think there is a word of Christ here for the church today.

When the seven cities are located on a map, a roughly circular pattern appears, with forty miles more or less between each church. The clockwise pattern in which the Risen Christ addresses the churches—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea—probably indicates the order in which a courier would deliver the letters to them.

In reality, Christ’s words to the churches are examinations rather than mere “messages.” Each examination begins with a recitation of the qualities of Christ. Next comes “good news and bad news”; praise for the church’s good record, and censure for its deficiencies (except in Laodicea there is nothing to praise and in Smyrna and Philadelphia nothing to condemn). Finally, promises are made to each church.

Each of the examinations is conducted by Christ himself. In four of the letters Christ threatens to come in judgment if the churches do not repent. The virtues cited and praised—patience, endurance, constancy, and loyalty—are the kind needed to survive hardships and persecutions. Each of the examinations concludes with a reward for the “conqueror,” the individual or church who bears faithful witness to Christ—even by martyrdom—through temptation and persecution. A refrain, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches,” concludes each letter. The word of Christ to each specific church is thus relevant for other churches as well. There can be little doubt that the purpose of the final examinations in Revelation 2-3 is to warn the churches of impending trials and persecutions, and to prepare the churches to bear faithful witness to Christ in the midst of them.

A Prestigious History

Ephesus ranked first in importance among the seven churches of Revelation. Along with Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, Ephesus was also one of the four greatest cities of the Roman Mediterranean World. The significance of Ephesus was due to several factors. It was located at the western terminus of the main trade route leading from Anatolia to Greece. Its great harbor, although plagued by silting from the Cayster River, linked Ephesus with the Mediterranean world. The jewel in its crown, however, was the Artemision, the magnificent Temple of Artemis that ranked as one of the so-called seven wonders of the ancient world. With a first-century population of perhaps 250,000, Ephesus was the brightest of the “seven golden lampstands” (Rev. 2:1). Thousands of inscriptions have been uncovered in Ephesus, many of which attest to the vitality of the Emperor-cult there.

Ephesus played a major role in early Christianity as well as in Roman culture and commerce. Priscilla and Aquila may have been missionaries in Ephesus for as long as three years (Acts 18:24-28). The Apostle Paul spent a similar length of time there as a professor rather than as an itinerant missionary (Acts 20:31). The Christian study center he established in Ephesus caused “the word of the Lord to be heard by all who dwelled in Asia” (Acts 19:10). Ephesus is also traditionally associated with the final years of the Apostle John and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Ephesus was visited by Ignatius in the early second century, and it was the site of two of the seven early Church councils. At the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431, Nestorianism was condemned, and the unity of the full divinity and humanity in Christ was affirmed, as was the doctrine of Theotokos, which designated Mary as the Mother of God.

An Enviable Witness

As noted earlier, the Risen Christ praises the church in Ephesus. Ephesus is commended for 1) labor, 2) endurance, 3) non-complicity with evil, 4) discernment of true from false apostles, 5) endurance (again), 6) having “born Christ’s name,” and 7) not having flagged in so doing. Notice that “endurance” is repeated twice. Perhaps the repetition intends to emphasize the steadfastness of the Ephesians, but I suspect its main purpose is to make seven praises. Throughout the Revelation, the number “seven” signifies divine completeness and totality. The seven virtues acclaimed in Ephesus signal God’s approval and pleasure.

The virtues extolled in Ephesus are the virtues of duty rather than the pleasant virtues of peace, joy, and kindness, or the cardinal virtues of faith, hope, and love. If you think of virtues like players on a hockey team, the virtues commended of Ephesus are the defense rather than offense players. They defend the goal rather than advance the puck. They cannot win the game, but they keep you from losing the game.

We cannot be absolutely certain what the Ephesians were defending, but the only proper noun in the section, the “Nicolaitans” (v. 6), may be a clue. The Nicolaitans are mentioned only in passing in the message to Ephesus, but they are described more fully in the message to Pergamum (2:12-17). According to Rev. 2:13, “the throne of Satan” resided at Pergamum. This powerful symbol of paganism appears to be related to the Nicolaitans. The “teaching of Balaam,” likewise mentioned in the message to Pergamum, also appears to be related to “the teaching of the Nicolaitans” (2:14-15). According to Numbers 25:1-2, while the Israelites were encamped at Abel-Shittim during the Exodus they “began to have sexual relations with the women of Moab, who invited them to the sacrifices of their gods.” Israel was enticed to commit the two most heinous sins against God, idolatry and sexual infidelity, immediately after the prophecy of Balaam in Numbers 24. These same sins appear in the message to Pergamum, where “the teaching of Balaam” put “a stumbling block before the Israelites to eat food offered to idols and to commit sexual immorality” (Rev. 2:14). “The teaching of Balaam” thus appears to be the offense of the Nicolaitans. In Pergamum, the offense of the Nicolaitans was an accommodating attitude toward pagan society and religion. Pergamum was willing to compromise with paganism rather than resist and remain distinctive from it. Believers there wished to strive for peaceful coexistence with Rome and the emperor-cult rather than risk a confrontation with it.

I have visited Pergamum and the Nicolaitan temptation can still be felt in its ruins today. A panoply of temples from A to Z—literally from Artemis and Zeus—crowns the precipitous mountain summit on which Pergamum stands. Along with Ephesus, Pergamum was a showplace of Greco-Roman culture and religion. Its grandeur set an almost irresistible standard of emulation. Who could resist it? Why would anyone want to? What would you put in its place if you did? There must have seemed no compelling alternatives to such questions.

In Praise of Rugged Virtues

Take another look at the “defensive” virtues in Revelation 2:1-6. Some of them like “labor” and “endurance” are general and could refer to any number of behaviors. But “opposing false doctrine,” “bearing up for the name of Jesus Christ,” and “opposing evildoers” refer to guarding the purity of the faith and church. None of the virtues seems to refer to what we today think of as “social action.” Ephesus is praised for its ecclesiastical integrity, not for its public policy. One of the things that has always amazed me in reading the New Testament is its curious indifference to some matters that are both culturally and politically impressive to us. I’ve always been surprised by Jesus’ indifference to the grandeur of Herod’s temple in Jerusalem in Mark 13:1-2. His categorical dismissal of the rabbinic tradition, which by any standard was one of the great intellectual achievements of humanity, is no less surprising. As evidenced by his Epistle to Philemon, Paul chose to abolish the effects of the repugnant institution of slavery within the church rather than in Roman society. Today tourists swoon over the ruins of Ephesus and Pergamum, but in the Revelation there is no mention of their shimmering glory. The New Testament is strangely indifferent to the magnificentia gentium, but is unwavering in its commitment to teaching, training, and edifying the church to be the people of God. If the church is to be of any service to God in reforming the world, it can only be so in so far as it is an alternative to the world, a redeemed and redeeming community formed and determined by the gospel. The proclamation of the church and the reason for its existence are not indifferent to a better social order, but they are always more than a better social order.

Compromising Christ and Culture

Our forbears—at least our Puritan forbears—came to this continent to “build a city on a hill.” Our historic fascination with this project can make us forgetful of ensuring that the first love of the church is the gospel. Karl Barth’s injunction “to read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other,” and H. Richard Niebuhr’s model of “Christ as the transformer of culture” have attained virtual canonical status in ministerial training grounds. I have used them many times myself, as perhaps you have. For all the truth in these statements, however, I fear that they have backfired. The newspaper seems to have prevailed over the Bible, and the culture seems to have transformed the church. It is almost inevitable that this would happen, for the reality that is familiar (newspaper and modern culture) will always prevail over the reality that must be learned (Bible and gospel). When you look at an interlinear Greek/English New Testament, your eye will instinctually focus on the English and avoid the Greek. In a similar way, our eye has gone—despite our protestations to the contrary—to the newspaper and culture for our marching orders in the church.

In his farewell speech to the Ephesians in Acts 20:29-30, Paul warned that after his departure “fierce wolves would come not sparing the flock, men arising from among your very number speaking perverse things so as to lead disciples after them in apostasy.” That seemed to be happening by John’s day. Happily, the Ephesians are commended by the Risen Christ for heeding the warning of Paul by protecting the genuine faith from a false faith.

By contrast, I am mystified why the mainline today seems so nonchalant about theological and moral integrity. We do not allow our children to watch anything they want on television or the internet. We usually guard the boundaries between appropriate and immoral behavior with partners outside our marriages. We make no apologies for enforcing such measures; indeed, we would apologize if we were negligent about them. Why, then, have we left with flanks and gates of our faith unguarded and undefended? On an eternal scale of values our faith is infinitely more valuable than our families. The warning to Pergamum is especially relevant here. John does not directly accuse believers at Pergamum of open immorality. Rather, they have condoned insidious doctrines that encourage others in evil ways. Their “inclusiveness,” “broad-mindedness,” and “tolerance” permit behaviors that imperil their faith and church.

Speaking of the sixth Deadly Sin of acedia, Dorothy Sayers said, “In the world it calls itself Tolerance; but in hell it is called Despair. It is the accomplice of the other sins and their worst punishment. It is the sin which believes nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and only remains alive because there is nothing it would die for.”1 I fear the effects of such tolerance in our church today. It is joyless tolerance that begrudges rather than gives life. It is a concession to a kind of relativism that believes nothing is true enough to live and die for, and hence nothing false enough to oppose.

The temptation to compromise Christ and culture is pervasive and subtle. In one way or another it has been present in the bloodstream of the church since Peter tried to dissuade Jesus from the cross. “Get behind me, Satan,” Jesus said, “for you do not think the thoughts of God but the thoughts of man” (Mark 8:33). We have all heard the adage that “So-and-so is so heavenly minded that he or she is of no earthly good.” I wonder if our church has not become so earthly minded that it is no earthly good. The unprecedented materialistic prosperity of the West has, ironically, been like a draught of brackish water that has left people thirsting for true spiritual water today. Is the church a place where people can find water that quenches their spiritual thirst? We must constantly ask ourselves, “What is the uniquely saving word of the gospel in this sermon, in this study, in this gathering, action, or program of the church?” C. S. Lewis was right in saying that the great reformers of this world have been those who have had the strongest conviction of a world to come. When the church seeks first of all to be the church, when it is unflaggingly determined to preach a gospel and live a life pleasing to Jesus Christ, then it is precisely the most catalytic force for good in society.

Thus, we see that the Ephesians defended the faith in times of trial and persecution. In both Testaments, steadfastness under duress and hardship is a stellar virtue. The Risen Christ promises eternal glory to those who “conquer.” Surely the Ephesians qualify for that honor.

The Loss of Our First Love

The fact is, they do not. We perhaps could have guessed this would be the case. This is not to say that the praises of the Risen Christ are a “set up” or disingenuous. They are not. The steadfastness and discernment of the Ephesians are genuine—and genuinely praised. But for all their merits, the Ephesians have done what we often do in life: they have done all the right things, but lost the most important thing. They have been clear about what they were against, and forgotten what they are for. They have won a battle and lost the war. They have allowed what they oppose rather than what they affirm to define who they are. I do not normally quote Pelagius with approval, but something he said is apropos here: “Your enemy has overcome you when he has made you like himself.” In some sense, the Ephesians, for all their resistance to the evil around them, have become like the enemies they have heroically resisted. When in the name of fighting evil we lose the good for which we fight, how do we differ from our enemies?

“I have this against you,” says the Risen Christ, “that you have lost your first love” (Rev. 2:4). The Greek word for “lost,” aphekes, does not mean merely misplaced or overlooked; it means “forsaken.” The Ephesians have made secondary matters primary, and in so doing they have forsaken “their first love.” What is the first love of the church of Ephesus, indeed the first love of any church? The first love of the church is Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom of the church, the one Savior and Lord of the world. More precisely, the first love of the church is the proclamation of the whole gospel of Jesus Christ for the whole world so that it may be received wholly by faith. To forsake such a love is not merely to make a mistake. It is, in the words of John, to “fall.” G. B. Caird puts the problem in Ephesus well: “[The Ephesians] had set out to be defenders of the faith, arming themselves with the heroic virtues of truth and courage, only to discover that in the battle they had lost the one quality without which all others are worthless.”2

A Denomination with an Identity Crisis

The PCUSA looks different to me than it did thirty-five years ago when I became a Presbyterian. It seems to me that the denomination today is defined by “causes”—causes corresponding to a liberal political agenda, for the most part. We have become an “issues” denomination rather than a confessional denomination. At presbytery we discuss overtures, we are careful to observe proper procedure, but we seldom discuss our “first love” with loving passion. It is not uncommon today for candidates for ordination to be given a harder time by presbyteries if they use masculine pronouns for God than if they have defective Christologies. We are a denomination defined more by the Book of Order than by the Book of Confessions. Like the Ephesians, we are more concerned with “right positions” than with our spiritual center. Being right on any number of issues—and I think the denomination often is right on issues—seems more important than guarding the purity of faith. We want to be admired for correctness on certain issues, hoping thereby to influence public policy. We seem in danger of replacing the Faith with faithfulness to issues and causes.

We are also a denomination with an identity crisis. When a denomination shifts from confessional identity to an identity determined by polity, it will, as ours has, suffer a confusion of identity. When individuals give up core values, they often try to reassert their identities—or establish new ones—by behavioral changes at the periphery of their lives. I believe this is why our denomination has committed itself to certain issues and causes with such puritan resolve. We may be committed to the actions in question, but we are also trying to recover or discover who we are.

Like all mainline denominations, the PCUSA is having a hard time adjusting to its disestablishment from society. It is like a player who has been pulled from a football game and is now watching from the sidelines, fairly certain he will not be put back in the game. Is there life on the sidelines? Is there a reason to exist when you get no recognition and rewards from society? How can a church that has enjoyed the respect of culture exist when respect has turned to indifference, or even disdain? As simply as I can put it, this seems to me to be the crucial question before our denomination today.

The Eiger Sanction is not a great film by most standards, but there is a scene in it of relevance for our discussion. A French climber has died during a bivouac on the North Face of the Eiger. The leader of the climb asks why he died? The partner of the French climber responds, “The man inside was not strong enough to keep the man outside alive.” As a sometime mountaineer, I can attest to the truth of that statement. I see the French climber as a metaphor of our denomination. Can we find “the man inside” who can keep us alive? I am not asking if we can heal our divisions over the question of ordination, not even if we can stop the precipitous hemorrhage of our membership. I am asking if we can find “the man inside,” that is, the reason we exist, not the rewards of our existence. “The man inside” is, in fact, Jesus Christ. Does Jesus Christ still reside as the vivifying heart and soul of the PCUSA? Would the Apostle Paul—or the world, for that matter—recognize in us the mystery of God, “Christ in you” (Col. 1:27)?

Recovering From a Fall

“I have this against you, that you have fallen from your first love.” In mountaineering, a fall is a serious matter. If it doesn’t kill you, it usually injures you. Even if you are not seriously injured, it is difficult to recover from a fall. I don’t believe our denomination is dead, but it certainly is injured. The Risen Christ gives three commands for the recovery of Ephesus that we should hear as well.

“Remember from where you have fallen” (Rev. 2:5). The first admonition of Christ is to remember. In the Old Testament the great sin is forgetting the steadfast faithfulness of God. The Israelites are continually reminded to remember God’s faithfulness. Memory of God’s faithfulness is itself a saving act of God, and the first step in being in God’s will. “It belongs to the gratitude of faith to recall God’s works and wonders, and to think on the saving acts of God in the past,” says Otto Michel.3 This past summer I spent a week at the Greek Orthodox monastery of Simonopetra on Mt. Athos. The monks devote their lives “to cultivating the memory of God.” The memory of God always leads to acknowledgment of God’s saving activity in our midst, to confession of God, and to devotion to God. The first antidote to fallenness is divine memory.

Memory is dependent on being reminded. I am particularly concerned whether our preaching is producing the memory of God that sustains our lives in faith. I recently heard someone say, “This is a true story, not a preacher’s illustration.” We preachers should be scandalized by such an aphorism. If we cannot tell the truth, let us get out of the pulpit. If the church is not a place of absolute truth telling, then why should people believe us? My father struggled all his life with faith. One of the reasons he struggled was because he did not find ministers very believable. Modern culture eviscerates language. Language—especially public language today—is often used to obfuscate and confuse rather than to clarify and guide. The prophetic metaphor is one of the great ecclesial metaphors of the Reformed Tradition. The prophet tells the truth when the priest and king do not. If our preaching is not recounting the mighty works of God, if it is not upholding week by week the one true story of salvation, if it is not bringing every point back to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, then the memory of the people of God has nothing on which to focus, and without saving memory there can be no saving faith.

“Repent” (Rev. 2:5). The second antidote for fallenness is repentance. The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, comes from two words meaning “to change the way we think,” “to see things differently.” We shall never act differently unless we think differently. The root of repentance and transformation is attitudinal before it is enacted. The command to repent reminds us (despite all our society says to the contrary) that we are not “victims”—at least not only victims. We still have choices to make. Despite all that has happened to us, we can still remember and return.

“Do the first works” (Rev. 2:5). The Ephesians have been commended for doing good works, but they have forgotten to do “the first work.” The “first work” is their “first love.” The Greek word prote can mean both first in order of sequence, and first in order of priority. I would like to think it means both here. “First works” are those works that first characterized the Ephesians, works that really reflected their faith rather than simply opposition to their enemies. But “first works” may also mean “first” in the sense of priority: the first work of faith is always faith itself! “This is the work of God, that you believe in the One sent by God” (John 6:29).

The Longing for a Spiritual Home

N. T. Wright recently said that our culture longs for a spiritual home, but does not know where to find it. I further believe there are many people who long for an ecclesial home, but do not know where to find it. What does the PCUSA have to say to such people? Helmut Thielicke once told me that after World War II the churches in Germany were filled with people who were shattered and disillusioned, but that the churches had no word for them. Like Jesus’ story of the return of the unclean spirit, “the final state of the place was worse than the previous state” (Matt. 12:45). The Peace, Unity, and Purity Task Force recommends the following word to the church today: “So far as may be possible without serious departure from these standards, without infringing on the rights and views of others, and without obstructing the constitutional governance of the church, freedom of conscience with respect to the interpretation of Scripture is to be maintained” (G-6.0108). A friend of mine used to say that there are three kinds of communication: that which cannot be understood, that which can be understood, and that which cannot be misunderstood. G-6.0108 belongs to the first category of communication—it cannot be understood. It consists of a qualified conclusion prefaced by two conditional modifications—and it is virtually impossible to understand. It can be interpreted to mean virtually anything a committee wishes it to mean. Is it possible that this is Christ’s word to the church today? Or is this an example of the church speaking in the language of the culture to complicate and confuse?

I hope and pray that our church will not leave people hopeless as the church did in Thielicke’s day. If, as N. T. Wright says, people are longing for a spiritual home; if they are longing for an ecclesial home, then let our word be, “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isa. 55:1-3). Let the word of Christ to the church be, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my burden upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt 11:28-30).

This Bible study first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Jan/Feb 2006).