Revelation-Part 6

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EPHESUS: THE CHURCH OF LOVELESS ORTHODOXY

Continuing our study of the book of Revelation, we remember that Jesus has commis­sioned John to write to seven churches (Rev. 1:9-20) about how they should respond to the prophecy of His Second Coming (Rev. 1:7-8). His Second Coming is a part of “things that must happen soon” (Rev. 1:1) in the unchangeable plan of God. Those churches in the first-century Roman province called Asia (the western part of the present-day country of Turkey) represent the variety of spiritual conditions that have characterized local churches throughout the centuries since Christ’s first coming to earth. In other words, the messages to the churches are commentaries on existing conditions of churches up to and even in­cluding churches of the late twentieth century.

Since the churches of John’s time, like the churches of the present had areas that needed improvement, John at Jesus’ behest devotes the next two chapters of Revelation (chapters 2–3) to challenging the seven churches to attend to their areas of need, espe­cially in light of the imminence of His return.

The first church Jesus addresses is the one at Ephesus, the largest city of the Roman province and the one closest to Patmos where John was living in exile. This first message like most of the other six has seven parts: (1) an address (2:1a); (2) attributes of the speaker (2:1b); (3) knowledge about the people (2:2-3, 6); (4) state of the church (2:4); (5) promise of the Lord’s coming (2:5); (6) command to hear (2:7a); (7) promise to the over­comer (2:7b).

(1) Jesus addresses His Ephesian message specifically to the messenger whom the church had sent to help John in his exile. Yet that messenger represents the situation of the church as a whole so that whatever Jesus wrote to him was applicable to the whole church. (2) Jesus’ self-description draws from John’s vision of 1:13, 16 where the Lord portrays His authority over the churches and His movement among them. (3) Jesus’ knowledge about the people is laudatory in commending them for holding firmly to orthodox doctrines and resisting those who tried to introduce error. (4) The one area of the church’s weakness emerges in the Lord’s description of the state of the church. We would like to return to that item in the next several paragraphs. (5) Jesus’ promise of His coming brings with it a challenge for the church to strengthen their one area of weakness. More about this later too. (6) His command to be heard applies to all the churches, not just the one in Ephesus. (7) His promise to the overcomer offers the privilege of participation in the bless­ings of the New Jerusalem as presented in Revelation 21:1–22:5.

Weakness in Ephesus

The problem Christ isolates in the Ephesian church is that they had left their first love (2:5). John’s writings give prominence to loving fellow Christians as evidence of faith in Christ (see John 13:34-35; 1 John 3:13-14; 2 John 5-6; 3 John 6). Yet that love for fellow Christians cannot exist apart from love for God because it proves love for God (see 1 John 4:20). The inseparability of love for God and love for fellow Christians points out two as­pects of the problem in this church. The warmth of relationships among the members had grown cold as had the warmth of their love for God.

Two explanations for the cause of the church’s weakness exist. One says that the Ephesians were genuine Christians whose love for Christ had decreased since their conversion. Their love had taken a back seat while they were growing lethargic. Another says that their lack of love proved that they had never really converted to Christ, meaning that their loss of first love was another way of stating the complete absence of love. The Lord’s threat to remove the church’s lampstand (2:5) is too harsh a threat to have been spoken to believers who had become lethargic, says this view.

Neither of these approaches fully satisfies the criteria related to this church. Jesus’ words to Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7 come some forty to forty-five years after the church’s founding. Acts 19:1-40 describes Paul’s three-year stay in Ephesus, A.D. 52-55, while establishing the church. John’s commission to write Revelation came in about A.D. 95. The Bible commends the earliest Christians in Ephesus for their ardent love (see Acts 20:37; Eph. 1:15), but the Lord now addresses His words to a new generation of professing Christians in that city. He indicts the new generation who now comprise the church. More than forty years had passed and the warmth of love that characterized the former generation was missing from those who were part of that local church in the last decade of the first century. The church body now included some whose profession of faith in Christ was not real, leading to the Savior’s charge against the corporate body, “You have left your first love.”

That does not mean that no member of the second-generation congregation was born again, neither does it mean that every member of the earlier generation was a genuine Christian. It simply means that the church had a greater proportion of merely professing Christians than formerly. The proportion of unregenerate had reached a point that it af­fected the corporate body adversely.

Yet this influential group of counterfeit Christians was orthodox in its doctrinal persua­sions, even though they were devoid of spiritual life. They agreed with the genuine believ­ers theologically, but had dragged them down to their own level in exemplifying a lack of love toward God and other Christians. “Loveless orthodoxy” now prevailed in the church as a whole.

Warning to Ephesus

To cure this lovelessness, Jesus commands the church to repent and warns them that He will return to judge them if they do not (Rev. 2:5). Those lacking love for Him and for other Christians needed a change of mind called “repentance” that would revamp their standing from the mere claim of belief in Christ to a genuine reliance on Him for forgive­ness of sin. Up to this point they appeared to be Christians outwardly, but their lack of love proved that their profession was empty. Though they had become an integral part of that local church, they still needed conversion to Christ.

Jesus’ threat to the church was the removal of their lampstand. He would remove what little witness to the community that the church had remaining. When He said, “I will come to you” (2:5), He referred to His coming to plunge the world into a time of trial (see Rev. 3:10) just prior to His personal return to earth. At the same time He initiates the series of temporal judgments represented later in Revelation by the seals, trumpets, and bowls, He will remove from the Ephesian church (and all other churches existing at that time) those whose faith in Christ is genuine—those who have been born again—and take them back to heaven with Him at the rapture. That will leave those churches without any real Christians and consequently without any real witness to the world. He will remove their lampstands, a picture of Christian testimony. Since the Ephesian church knew He could come at any moment, the unconverted in the church had great incentive to rectify their wrongs immediately lest they become victims of the awful tribulation that lies ahead for the world.

Today we know that Jesus did not return during that second generation of Ephesian Christianity. That leaves open today a warning to others who like some of the Ephesians are just “playing church.” He may return at any moment. Mere church affiliation will not exempt anyone from His judgment. To be delivered from the coming wrath, one must have a vital faith in Jesus Christ, His death at Calvary for forgiveness of sin, and His victory over death through His resurrection. If that faith is present, it will reflect itself in a changed life of love for God and for other people. The important lesson from Ephesus for each person is to be certain of his/her vital relationship with Christ through faith.

Note: For more detailed information about Jesus’ message to the church in Ephesus, see my discussion in Revelation 1–7 (Moody Press, 1992), pages 125-155. To order this volume, you may call Grace Books International at (800) GRACE15.

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