Letters to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum and Thyatira: the risen Christ knows his churches

The seven letters (chapters 2 and 3) are the first part of John's vision. Each is addressed to a real church in the Roman province of Asia, and each is dictated by the risen Christ. They follow a pattern: a command to write; 'These are the words of' Christ, with a title drawn from chapter 1; 'I know your deeds'; commendation and complaint (Smyrna and Philadelphia receive no complaint, Sardis and Laodicea no commendation); a call to repent or hold fast; the refrain 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches'; and a promise to the one who overcomes. The pattern is often compared to a ruler's edict or a prophet's covenant lawsuit. The refrain is in the plural, which makes every letter a word of the same Lord to all the churches and not only to one.

The four cities in this class were among the leading cities of Asia. Ephesus was the provincial capital and a great port, home to the temple of Artemis, where Paul worked for about three years (Acts 19:8-10; 20:31) and where tradition places John later. Smyrna, to the north, was proud of its loyalty to Rome and had temples connected with the cult of Rome and the emperors. Pergamum was an older royal capital with a temple of the emperor and the healing cult of Asclepius. Thyatira, inland, was a commercial town whose economy depended on trade guilds, and membership in a guild often involved shared meals in honour of a patron god. Christians faced a daily choice between exclusion and compromise. The questions of authorship and date are covered in the first class. This class works with the common date near the end of the first century and notes where the early date would change the picture.

The letters sit inside an apocalypse but take the form of prophetic letters, so they are direct address with local detail.

• The first rule is that they spoke to what these churches knew about themselves and their cities. The references to local conditions are not decoration. Scholars such as William Ramsay and Colin Hemer collected such details. Some of their proposals are firm and others speculative, and a careful reader treats the firm ones as support and the speculative ones as possibilities.
• The second rule is that Old Testament names work as patterns. Balaam and Jezebel are not literal people in the churches. They name a kind of behaviour by its biblical precedent.

Four readings of the seven letters as a set are common. All except the first hold that they were also written to real churches. Preterists, such as Kenneth Gentry, read them against the first-century setting, whether under Nero or Domitian, and see their warnings fulfilled in that world. Historicist writers, including many Protestant commentators from the Reformation to the nineteenth century, read the seven as a prophecy of seven periods of church history, usually with Ephesus as the apostolic age and Laodicea as the last age. Some dispensationalist writers have used this scheme as well. Their case is that the order of the letters seems purposeful and that the book calls itself prophecy. Idealist writers, such as William Hendriksen, and many others read the seven as types of congregation found in every age, so that the number seven means fullness. Their case is that every letter ends with a call to 'the churches', plural. Futurist and dispensational writers, such as John Walvoord, generally take the letters as real messages whose lessons apply to the church throughout this age, before the events of chapters 4 to 22.

The millennial views touch this chapter at the promises. The promise of authority 'over the nations' in 2:26 and 27 is taken by amillennialists, such as G. K. Beale and Anthony Hoekema, as the present and heavenly share of the saints in Christ's reign. Premillennialists, such as George Eldon Ladd and Walvoord, tend to hear a share in his future rule on earth, and postmillennialists, such as Jonathan Edwards, hear the gospel's final success among the nations. Our understanding of the letters, resting on the text, is that the Lord addresses real congregations by name and in terms of their own cities, and that the plural refrain tells every later church to listen too. The seven-ages scheme is not in the text. It must be built from sources outside it, which is why many of the writers who admire it present it as an application and not as John's meaning.

Ephesus (verses 1 to 7). Christ is 'He who holds the seven stars in His right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands' (1:13, 16). He sees everything: their 'deeds, labor, perseverance', their refusal to tolerate evil, and their testing of 'those who falsely claim to be apostles'. Doctrinal vigilance is commended, and elsewhere the New Testament warns of such deceivers (Acts 20:29-30; 2 Corinthians 11:13). The charge is that they have 'abandoned your first love'. The sentence does not say they stopped loving. It says the first love has been left behind, and most take it as love for Christ and for one another. Three commands follow: remember, repent, do the first deeds. The penalty is that he will 'remove your lampstand', and so cease to be a church in his eyes. The Nicolaitans, whose works are hated, are otherwise unknown. Irenaeus linked them with Nicolaus of Acts 6:5, but the link is uncertain, and the descriptions in verses 14 and 15 and 20 suggest they permitted idol-food and sexual immorality. The promise is the 'tree of life in the Paradise of God', the Eden tree barred in Genesis 3:22-24, now opened.

Smyrna (verses 8 to 11). The title is 'the First and the Last, who died and returned to life'. Some commentators note that Smyrna had been destroyed and refounded in its long history, so the title would have had a civic echo, though that point is secondary. The church has 'affliction and poverty', probably loss of work and goods, 'though you are rich'. The 'synagogue of Satan' is a charge against particular opponents who slandered the church. It is not a statement about the Jewish people, and John himself and Jesus were Jews. The language compares these opponents with a group that has lost its right to the name, as Paul does in Romans 2:28-29 and 9:6. The charge has been used cruelly in Christian history, and nothing in the text supports that use. 'Ten days' of testing is read as a short, limited time (compare Daniel 1:12-14) or as literally ten days. The reward is the 'crown of life', the victor's wreath, and exemption from 'the second death', explained in 20:14 as the lake of fire.

Pergamum (verses 12 to 17). Christ is the one with 'the sharp, double-edged sword'. 'The throne of Satan' may refer to the temple of the emperor, the great altar of Zeus, or the city's role as centre of pagan worship, and commentators differ. Antipas is called 'My faithful witness', using the title given to Jesus in 1:5, and is the only martyr named. The charge is 'the teaching of Balaam', who according to Numbers 25 and 31:16 led Israel into idolatry and sexual immorality at Peor. Christ himself 'will wage war' on those who hold such teaching, 'with the sword of My mouth'. The promises are 'hidden manna' (Exodus 16; Psalm 78:24) and a 'white stone inscribed with a new name'. The stone's meaning is unclear. It may be a token of entry, a verdict of acquittal, or a victor's award. The new name speaks of a personal relation with Christ.

Thyatira (verses 18 to 29). Christ is 'the Son of God', the only use of this title in the book, with the fiery eyes and bronze feet of 1:14 and 15. The church is commended for love, faith, service and perseverance, and its latter deeds are greater than its first. The problem is 'that woman Jezebel', whose name recalls the queen of Ahab, who promoted Baal worship (1 Kings 16:31; 2 Kings 9:22). The Thyatiran Jezebel 'calls herself a prophetess' and leads believers to eat idol-food and commit immorality. In a city of guilds, to refuse the feasts could mean loss of trade, which is why her teaching tempted. The 'deep things of Satan' may be the opponents' own boast turned around. Christ 'searches minds and hearts' (Jeremiah 17:10; Psalm 7:9). The reward is authority over the nations with an iron scepter, quoting Psalm 2:8-9, and 'the morning star', which in 22:16 is Christ himself. The one who overcomes shares what Christ has received from the Father.

Every main reading agrees on what these four letters teach. The risen Christ knows his churches, and the phrase 'I know' opens each letter. The church can fail and still be addressed, since Christ does not abandon his churches but calls them to repent, and his threats are meant to bring change. The pattern of covenant love, warning and renewal continues from the prophets. The same sins recur through the Bible: loss of first love is the charge of Jeremiah 2:2, false teaching on idol-food and immorality recalls Numbers 25 and the apostolic decree of Acts 15:29, and persecution, poverty and slander are what Jesus said his followers would meet (John 16:33). Overcoming means victory by faithfulness unto death, modelled on the Lamb. These claims are common ground among preterist, historicist, idealist and futurist readers.

The promises gather the Bible's hopes and point toward the end. The tree of life barred in Genesis 3 is given back, the second death is removed, the hidden manna and new name speak of intimacy with Christ, and the share in the rule of Psalm 2 is promised. Each of these returns in chapters 20 to 22. The letters therefore show how the end shapes the present: the future the church is promised is what it is called to live toward while still in the world. This is the 'already and not yet' in pastoral form. The churches already belong to the one who holds the stars, and they have not yet received the crown.

What remains debated is the force of the warnings and how the letters relate to history. Reformed writers usually read the removal of the lampstand as the loss of a particular congregation's standing, while Catholic, Orthodox and Arminian readers often see more danger to individual salvation, and the question of assurance and perseverance is handled differently in each tradition. The text offers both the warning and the promise together. The historicist scheme and the idealist one differ over whether the order of the churches is meaningful. Our understanding is that the letters are real words to real churches, held up to every church as a mirror, and that the failings and faithfulness they name are the ordinary condition of the church between Christ's resurrection and his return.

Each letter takes a title from the vision of chapter 1, so the letters unfold who Christ is. To Ephesus he is the one who holds the stars and walks among the lampstands, present and in control. To Smyrna he is the First and the Last who died and lived, which tells sufferers that the crucified Lord has gone ahead of them through death. To Pergamum he is the one with the sword, whose word judges (compare Isaiah 11:4 and Hebrews 4:12). To Thyatira he is the Son of God with eyes like fire, the royal Son of Psalm 2, who has received authority from his Father and shares it. In 2:23 he says he searches minds and hearts, a claim the Old Testament makes for the LORD alone (Jeremiah 17:10). This is one of the strongest claims to deity in the book.

The promises point to Christ as source. The tree of life and the Paradise of God are open because of his death. The hidden manna recalls Exodus 16 and Jesus' own claim to be the bread from heaven (John 6:31-35). The morning star is Christ himself (22:16), and the Old Testament background in Numbers 24:17, the star from Jacob, was read as messianic in later Jewish and Christian writing. The iron scepter is Psalm 2:9, which Revelation applies to Christ in 12:5 and 19:15, so the church's share in his rule is a share in his messianic office. The church that overcomes does so as Christ did (3:21). He faced the slander, death and tomb that Smyrna faces, and was raised.