href="#ulink_2a2213de-f3a5-5ee2-9fc0-d3be10aa0e6b">75. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, 80.
76. According to Jewish literature, power over the keys of death and Hades belong to God alone (Jerusalem Targum. On Genesis 30:2; Sanh.113a) (Mounce, The Book of Revelation, 81).
77. Osborne, Revelation, 97.
Revelation 2:1–7
Jesus’ Message to the Church in Ephesus
Introduction
Can you imagine taking a test on your spouse one day? You answer every question right. If I took a test on my wife Lora, I would answer: Color of eyes: light brown; Color of hair: light brown; Height: 5 feet and 7 inches; Weight: next question; Personality: pleasant, serious and faithful; Hobbies: gardening, reading Victorian novels; Favorite food: Indonesian gado-gado; Favorite color: yellow. If I answered all these questions correctly, would it be true that I know everything there is to know about my wife? Even if I did, what if I knew all that and still didn’t love her? What if I didn’t treat her right, and ignored her needs? Would people notice more my knowledge of my wife, or my lack of love for her?
Love legitimizes knowledge. Our love for our spouses makes what we know about them meaningful. If we do not show love, then our understanding of them does not matter. The same is true for the follower of Jesus in reference to our relationship with God. Love legitimizes doctrine. I just referenced Luke 4, and how the demons recognized Jesus. They knew exactly who he was, but they did not love him. Our love for God and for the people of the church and for the people of the world proves that we know God. This is the message of Revelation 2:1–7, the message to the church in Ephesus.
Exposition
With chapter two, we see a shift in the nature of Revelation. John is delivering to the seven churches in Asia Minor a message from Jesus himself. Aune writes that the form of the letters can be seen as a mixed genre created by John. The primary literary genre is that of a royal or imperial edict. The secondary genre or mode is that of prophetic speech, or “parenetic salvation-judgment oracle.”78 In other words, John is creating a new kind of epistle here, with the nature of an edict from a king combined with a prophetic word of either encouragement or rebuke.
The model of Jesus’ letter to the churches follows this pattern: There is the addressee, “to the angel of the church in . . .” (2:1); followed by a description of the speaker, “The words of him . . .” (2:1). The description of the speaker reveals a close relationship between the seven messages of chapters 2 and 3 and the vision of Jesus in chapter 1. Following this, we see the knowledge of the Speaker, “I know . . .” (2:2). (Sometimes this is positive and sometimes this is negative). This is followed by the verdict: “[. . .] you have abandoned the love you had at first” (2:4); in this case, the command or the exhortation, “He who has an ear, let him hear” (2:7), followed by a promise of “the tree of life” (2:7) to those who are faithful.
What is the nature of these seven letters? All the letters deal with the issue of witnessing for Christ in the midst of a pagan culture. The churches with problems must repent. The churches with no problems must persevere in their faithful witness.79 Mounce wants to see these letters as “a vital part of the Apocalypse as a whole and are intended for the exhortation and edification of the church universal.” This is not a survey of the church throughout history (as in the Dispensational view), but the sequential pattern was used by John “to impress upon the church universal the necessity of patient endurance in the period of impending persecution.”80 Why these seven churches? All seven were within one hundred miles of Ephesus in the Roman proconsular province of Asia and might have formed an established circular rout that functioned as a postal route. Johns seems to have been familiar with each church’s situation.81
The church in Ephesus was planted by the Apostle Paul. We can read that story in Acts 19. Ephesus was the first church in the order of delivery of the vision of John. As a city of trade, Ephesus was the commercial center of Asia Minor. There was an important port (except for large ships), and it became a connecting city between Syria and Egypt in the East and Italy in the West. Ephesus was considered “the first and greatest metropolis of Asia.” The population was between about 200,000 and 250,000 people. Only Rome and Alexandria were bigger at the time.82 The city of Ephesus was believed to have been protected by Artemis. For the faithful, Artemis was supposed to help and bless. She was the child of Leto and Zeus, the goddess of pregnancy and considered very powerful, the “Queen of heaven,” “Lord”, and “Savior.” But Artemis was not the only god/goddess worshipped in Ephesus. There were about fifty others, including Aphrodite, Sybil, Demeter, Isis (Egypt), and Zeus, Apollo, and others.83
Jesus is described with images from the vision of John in Revelation 1, the one “who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands” (2:1). The stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven golden lampstands are the seven churches (see 1:20). Jesus is present in the church through the sevenfold Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The stars in his right hand communicate sovereignty, control, and protection. Beale interestingly notes that a formula introducing the word from the Lord is used here, similar to that used of God (twenty-one times in the Minor Prophets), and “Thus says the Lord” (about sixty-five times in Ezekiel, thirty times in Jeremiah, and eight times in Amos). Essentially, Jesus is here assuming the role of Yahweh.84 As the speaking Lord, and as One who is “walking” among the golden lampstands rather than simply standing, the text implies that he is one who knows the churches and is active among them.85 Regardless of how beautiful the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, Jesus is the One who is present with his church. He is not a cold stone, gold, and jeweled building. He is the Living One who is present in our midst and is aware of our activities.
Because Jesus is the One with eyes of flames of fire, he knows the deeds of the churches, and he justly brings judgment or praise to them, depending upon their works. The congregation in Ephesus was a congregation that worked hard and persevered like John in 1:9. The same word is used for “faithful endurance.” This was a congregation that did not tolerate wickedness or false teaching, that is, false prophets. They upheld the truth. Apparently, there were in the church at the time, people who would rise up and declare themselves on par with the apostles, with apostolic authority, the same as what Paul encountered in Corinth (2 Corinthians 11:13–15). Maybe their fancy words and careful rhetoric won over audiences, but the Ephesian church tested them and found them not to be genuine. They were false teachers.86
Doctrinal truth is still important today, especially in light of the fact that so many churches and denominations are giving up on important matters of the faith, like the exclusive claims of Christ, the Trinity, the atonement, the role of the Holy Spirit, and the nature of judgment at the end of time. When doctrine is compromised, a door is opened to any teaching and behavior in the church. Teaching fuels behavior. We can claim that we can live holy lives, but if we do not have a correct understanding of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and the role of the Holy Spirit, our lives will be powerless.
The Ephesian church endured faithfully in what they had. The truth? The Faith? Proper teaching? The gospel? Whichever it was, and it was probably a combination of these, they had endured for the
