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The first church of the seven was identified as
Ephesus. John begins in Revelations
chapter two, by immediately revealing the source of the message; its author is
Christ. Verse one states … “Unto the
angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the
seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks;” It is Christ who holds
the seven stars, or seven angels of the seven churches in his right hand. It is Christ that walks amidst the seven
golden candlesticks or amidst HIS church.
Here again Christ asserts His ownership for His church. John is not the owner. The local pastor is not the owner. Even the members do not “own” their own
church body. Christ alone does. The message itself appears to be targeted at
not only the church, but to the angel of the church. This may imply that the message will be to
the people, but that even after the people are gone, it remains a message the
angel is to hold for this church in perpetuity.
But whether the message was prophetic, or immediately relevant, or both;
what was clear was that it came from Christ.
It was not the opinions of John in this instance; it was the word of the
Lord.
John continues relaying what he is told in verse 2 … “I know
thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them
which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are
not, and hast found them liars: [verse 3] And hast borne, and hast patience,
and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.” To begin Christ starts by insuring His
followers understand that He is fully aware, and actively engaged in His church
at Ephesus. The outpouring of the Holy
Spirit in the early days of the church of Jesus has borne fruit. The people who follow Christ have labored to
spread His gospel, they have been patient, and they have not stopped their
efforts to spread His gospel merely because it is difficult physically on
them. In addition, they have suffered
the burden of having to contend with “false” apostles. Imagine how hard it must have been for an
early Christian church with no form of mass or immediate communications to tell
when a stranger comes claiming to be an apostle (who no one has ever met), from
a genuine apostle (who no one has ever met).
They did not have Facebook or any way to look up the credentials of
these folks. Instead they would have to
bring them into their midst, welcome them as is the Christian way, and only
over time observe that self-interest, and self-motivation were the only
objectives of these false messengers.
They were posing as believers, only to gain monetary advantage, taking
what was shared and pocketing it much like Judas before them. Sometimes these fakers would act as spies for
the Jewish authorities to attempt to bring persecution to the true leadership
of the church.
Because the mantra of the church of Jesus was to love everyone
without precondition, the revelation of false apostles with hidden motives and
agendas was neither easy nor immediate.
It puts the church in that contentious position of hoping for
redemption, yet having to deal with the reality of refusal of that redemption
from one of its own. Here Christ
acknowledges that not every person who claims to be an apostle is truly an
apostle. Claiming to follow Christ, does
not make it so. Claiming to have
authority from Christ in the leadership position, such as an apostle, does not
make it so. To truly follow Christ, one
must be the servant of all, not attempt to control all. It is this difference that clearly marks
those who through submission have been changed by Christ, and those who are
merely claiming His name in order to gain advantage over others. In general Christ acknowledges that the
efforts of the church at Ephesus have had a positive impact. However, that is not where the message ends.
John continues in verse 4 … “Nevertheless I have somewhat
against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” Perhaps the most heartbreaking words that might
come from the mouth of our God; a message that we, His followers, have “left”
our first love – Him. The love of Christ
being first and foremost in our hearts is the key from which all other actions
and motives flow. When the love of
Christ is made secondary in any way, what follows is a reliance on self that
creeps into our Christianity and into our thinking. We begin to take credit for the spiritual
works as if they came from us, instead of flowing through us with their source
in Christ alone. We begin to see
ourselves as in a better spiritual condition than we are, because we begin to
compare our relatively holy lives, with those who are not nearly so spiritually
mature and perfected. To lose our first
love, is to seek another to fill its place.
In a marriage it is akin to seeking another lover, another partner,
someone else. In spiritual terms, it is
the supplanting of love of Christ, for love of religion, or power, or control,
or self. If Christ is not kept at the
center of our thinking and our love, if we do not seek to submit ourselves
fully to Him, we cut ourselves off from the mechanism of our change, and the
need for it.
Christ continues His admonition in verse 5 … “Remember
therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or
else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his
place, except thou repent.” Remember
that we are fallen because we are our own worst enemy. It is not the devil who “makes” me sin, it is
my own desire to do so, I need almost no encouragement from Satan to do what I
already want to do. If I am to stop
sinning, I must seek first the only One who is able to remake my desires and
cause me to change what I want, and therefore what I do. The first “work” of our salvation is to
submit our will to Christ. It is why we
repent. When we see ourselves as we
truly are, when we see the extent of our selfishness, and our literal eagerness
to put Christ back on the cross so that we can have only a moment’s perceived
pleasure that comes from self-gratification – we realize just how far our own
selfishness will go. We are no different
than the persecuting priests, or Roman guards who tortured our Lord for their
own amusement. It is our amusement that
has required His sacrifice. And it is He
alone who can change how we think, and what we love, in order that sin is no
longer the temptation it once was. It is
our hearts that must change, before the works of our hands will. This is the “first works” the church must
return to.
If we do not. We face
a self-imposed removal from the presence of Christ. Our candlestick, our symbolic representation
of the perfection Christ is able to perform within His followers, will be
removed by our refusal to embrace full submission to His changing and reforming
power in our lives. This is NOT the
inclination, or choice, Christ wishes to make.
If it were, He would not waste time, warning us of our self-chosen
fate. This admonition, like every other
from the mouth of Christ, was not meant to be a threat to us, but a
wake-up-call on how to avoid the pain we so often choose. Christ is working again for the redemption of
His church, not for its condemnation. But
He is also plainly stating a truth, that when we refuse to put Him first, we
are putting ourselves on the path of separation from Him, which He will be
unable to stop. Our choice, at the end
of the day, rules our fate. If we choose
to forsake our love of Christ, and replace it with love of self, we cut
ourselves off from our only hope of salvation.
Christ will not continue to keep an entire church at Ephesus holding a
place in the golden candlesticks merely because it once did, or for history’s
sake, or in a vain hope they will return.
If we forsake following, and lean on self, our vanity will see us
removed and replaced with those who truly do see their need and follow,
trusting in Him, and not in themselves.
As the message comes to a close, a further word of
encouragement is offered. Christ
continues in verse 6 … “But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the
Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” Notice
first, Christ does not advocate or endorse hatred for a person, or group of
people. He is specific to say “the deeds
of”. It is the sin Christ hates, NOT the
sinners, for we ALL are sinners. In this
the church has followed His lead. The
Nicolaitans of this day, are not much different than many within most of our
Christian churches of today. They
misinterpret the message of grace.
Instead of seeing grace as the means of redemption FROM sin, they see it
as a vehicle TO sin freely. They mistake
the argument of Christ willingness to forgive, as His sanction that any sin or
any act is OK, because right or wrong He will forgive it anyway. This phenomenon has sometimes been referred
to in our day as “cheap grace”. The idea
that nothing we do matters, because we have already been saved, and will remain
so, because of the power of Christ. And
once this concept is embraced, most folks generally apply it to sex, or greed,
or most other forms of self-indulgence.
The most fundamental flaw in this thinking, is a distortion of the
nature of sin. Instead of seeing sin for
the pain it causes others and ourselves, we buy into the devils ideas that sin
= fun. When in fact, sin = pain. Were we to see sin in that context, we would
not seek to find more ways to embrace sin, but rather the only way we can be
made free from sin and the pain it brings to others and ourselves. Christ came to free us from our pain and our
sin, not to give us a way to deepen ourselves in it.
The first message concludes in verse 7 … “He that hath an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that
overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the
paradise of God.” John now adds a
message from the Spirit of Christ, the unity of the Godhead working in concert
for our redemption. He that hath an ear,
is we who are believers, if we purport to be followers of Christ, we should
take heed to this message. He does not
constrain the message only to those few at Ephesus, but offers a broader
audience, in fact all of us, to take notice.
To him “that overcometh”, so first what is it that must be
overcome. The loss of our first love,
the replacement of Christ first, for self first, the embracing of the idea that
sin is OK simply because forgiveness is there – in short what must be overcome
is our own will and desires. And “how”
must self be overcome? If we are the
enemy, we will not cure ourselves. If we
are diseased, it cannot be us who cures us.
Instead we must be made clean.
Instead we must have our chains of slavery to self, broken by the only
One who can. If we are to see a victory
over self, it must come from beyond ourselves.
Our salvation will be His gift to us, our role will be to accept
it. We must humble ourselves to see we
NEED His gift, as we will be unable to obtain it on our own. We must submit who we are to Him, in order that
He can change how we think, what we want, and therefore what we do. This is the overcoming that is promised to us
by the Spirit. It is the overcoming that
is the promised reward. What follows is
only icing on the cake, not the cake itself.
To eat from the tree of life is to live forever. It was the tree of life that Adam and Eve
were denied access to, once they had embraced sin. To live forever in the condition of sin, is
not life, it is torture. But once sin
has been removed forever from our thinking, our motives, and our deeds, then
real life can begin. Then to live
forever is no longer torture but perfection and bliss. To be in the paradise of God, is not merely
to be in the city of Heaven which he has designed and built and upgraded in
order that we could share it with Him.
To be in the paradise of God, is to know the absence of self-obsession,
and the fullness of selfless service to others, in short to know love, is to
know loving others. Our quest to be
loved has long been fulfilled, for Christ has loved us, before we even
existed. To love others is the real
agenda. It is the real paradise, the
real heaven. The purpose of the
revelation of Christ to His church in Ephesus, was not to remain stagnant until
the day of His returning. It was to
embrace their first love of Christ in the here and now; to see the paradise of
God active and alive in their lives in the here and now. This was possible and achievable in the here
and now, but ONLY through the seeking of Christ first and foremost, only
through a recognition of our need of Him, and a submission and trust in Him to
work in us, what He has promised.
And the messages would continue …
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