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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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