Revelation Episode 2: Christ's Letters to the Churches: Ephesus

Christ speaks directly to the church at Ephesus, commending them for their hard work, doctrinal purity, and perseverance, but rebukes them for “forsaking their first love.”

- PODCAST TRANSCRIPT - 

Wes

Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This podcast is just one of the many resources available to you for free from Two Journeys Ministry. If you're interested in learning more, just head over to twojourneys.org. Now on to today's episode.

This is episode two in our Revelation Bible study podcast entitled Christ's Letters to the Churches: Ephesus, where we'll discuss Revelation 2:1-7. I'm Wes Treadway and I'm here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we're looking at today?

Andy

Well, this is the first of Christ's direct messages to the seven churches in the province of Asia Minor who are literal churches, actual churches that were there, not far at all from the island of Patmos where John was exiled. And they are actual churches, but they also are representative of significant themes and types of churches and types of issues that every local church faces across 20 centuries of church history. And so, at the end of each of these seven epistles or letters or messages, it says, "He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." So, the churches is plural. So, we're all supposed to read all seven letters and take all of these lessons to heart. Now this first one, the church at Ephesus is a faithful, fruitful, hardworking orthodox church that has forsaken its first love. And we're going to walk through that today.

Wes

Well, let me go ahead and read Revelation 2:1-7 as we begin:

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: "The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."

Andy, who is the angel of the church in Ephesus?

Andy

The word angel means messenger. And there are different interpretations because every one of the seven letters begins the same way. The messages are from Jesus, and the pattern is that it begins with, to the angel of the church of blank, one of the seven churches, write. So, John is instructed to write, but he is basically Jesus's secretary through the Holy Spirit and then a message pertinent to that specific local church. But the message is coming from Jesus Christ, and he always says something about himself based on the vision that John has had in Revelation 1. So, in this case it's, "To the angel of the church in Ephesus, write: 'These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, and walks among the seven golden lampstands'" (Revelation 2:1). That's directly from the image in Revelation 1.

The word angel means messenger. So, it could either be the pastor, maybe the lead pastor, some people believe that. Probably those that are in a strong single elder model church that you're going to focus on the main guy being the pastor. Many churches have plural elders, so that would be problematic. But, the pastor, the lead pastor, or it could be a representative spirit, like to the heart of the church kind of thing. Either way, it's not going to affect your interpretation much. But all seven begin the same way to the angel of the church at X, write.

Wes

Now, we've said this, but I want to make sure it's clear for those who are listening, who is speaking to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7? I think it could be easy for us to miss this knowing that this is the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John. We might think this is John speaking here, and why is it significant for us that we get this right?

Andy

Right, so in every case, it's taken from the vision of the resurrected, glorified Christ that the apostle John has. So, it's always Jesus, these are Jesus' words. He is our great high priest. He is the one moving among the seven golden lampstands. And so, it is what Christ thinks of the church. Actually, someone once wrote a commentary on Revelation 2 and 3 and used that exact language, what Christ thinks of the church. So, it's his evaluation of each of the seven churches, and the one we're focused on today is the church at Ephesus. Also, I know because in my red-letter edition of the Bible, these letters are all red, so it must be Jesus speaking.

Wes

Now, Christ emphasizes his word in every case and describes himself to the churches. He does that here with the church at Ephesus. What is the significance of the fact that Christ holds the seven stars in his right hand and that he walks among the seven golden lampstands?

Andy

Yeah, that's potent, what you said at the beginning. Are these are the words of him... So, these are the words of Christ. But we know, any humor about red-letter editions aside, the entire Bible are the words of Christ. It is the spirit of Christ who is in the prophets of old, telling them to write what they wrote. And so, ultimately all scripture are the words of Christ, but these are uniquely and especially the words of Jesus to these seven churches. And then you asked about the image or the aspect of the vision that John has. Here in the church, the message to the church at Ephesus, he says, the One who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. So, the idea of the seven stars being this, the angels of the seven churches. So, let's imagine they are people, and John 10 says that we are in the hand of God and no one can snatch his sheep out of God's hand. And they're in Christ's hand, and no one can snatch them out of Christ's hand. So, this is an image of protection, I think, also of ownership and of intimacy and of love. He loves them and cares for them and protects them.

And then he walks among the seven golden lampstands. The walks, means actively engaged with, amongst means he's immersed in it. It's through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is intimately acquainted with everything going on with these seven churches. And so, he's actively ministering. You can imagine he's the one feeding oil into the lamps and making them burn and trimming the wicks and keeping the fire going. He's actively engaged in these things; he is ministering. So, it's a sense of protection overall, of knowledge and intimacy, and involvement with the church at Ephesus.

Wes

We also get a sense in these letters of Jesus' omniscience or his perfect knowledge of the churches. We see that with the phrase, "I know," followed by something specific about these churches. Here for the church of Ephesus, what positive assessment does Christ make of the church, and how should this assessment challenge us personally?

Andy

In the old medieval age, there would be an emperor or a king of kings who would have very limited knowledge of the details of what was going on in each of the smaller kingdoms that made up his vast empire. How could he be intimately acquainted? That's why he had governors and kings ruling sub-regions and all that, and puppet kings and all that. He didn't need to know day-to-day operations, just the bottom line. Jesus isn't like that, he is intimately acquainted with the smallest details in each local church- not just these seven churches, but every church all around the world. So, it's right to zero in on that language. I know, I know everything you're going through, I know your strengths, I know your weaknesses, I know your challenges, I know your sins, all of it, I know everything. And so, what that means is he's the physician who is going to make a diagnosis and going to prescribe healing and medication.

So, take that therapeutic view. Every good physician, it's based on an accurate diagnosis, it's based on accurate knowledge, and Jesus has it. So, there's that, I know. And then your question was what does he say positively about this church at Ephesus? And so, what he says immediately positively is, I know your deeds, that's not positive or negative. It's like I know everything you've done, so I know your deeds. But then he goes in and says, I know your hard work and your perseverance. They are hard workers. Paul talks about this a lot in Romans 16. He talks about this woman or that woman or that person who's worked very hard in the Lord, who is a hard worker, et cetera. So, this is labor. They're workers, they're laborers, and they're not just for a little while like the stony ground hearer that hears for a while and then things get tough, they back away, they have no root.

No, it's not like that at all. They have perseverance. They're willing to keep working hard no matter what. He also says that they are not tolerant of sin. They don't tolerate wicked men or wicked leaders, and they are discerning. They're able to test those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false. And so, they are accurate in their doctrine, they're orthodox in their doctrine, they're meticulous. And keep in mind the history, you've got the epistle that Paul wrote to the Ephesians, one of the great doctrinal statements of Christianity. Then we've got Paul's farewell address to the Ephesian elders and Paul's active ministry there. So, they had a lot of great teaching already, and it took. They know sound doctrine and they've so inculcated it, that they're able to sniff out a wolf in sheep's clothing.

They're able to say that is not right. They're strong doctrinally. So, they're hard workers, they are persevering in their trials and their difficulties, they do not accept sin. Some of these later churches are going to be tolerant of the woman Jezebel with her sexual immorality. No, these folks don't tolerate sin, they're going to deal with sin. And they are doctrinally discerning and will not put up with false teaching. He also talks again about their perseverance and that they have endured hardship for his name's sake, and they've not grown weary. So, after all of that, they are laboring and disciplined and they haven't quickly fallen away in the time of testing like the stony ground hearer, that's who they are. So, there's many strong positive things about this church at Ephesus.

Wes

Why is it important for a church not to tolerate wicked men and to test those who claim to be apostles in this case? And how should this assessment that we see here of the church at Ephesus challenge us?

Andy

Right. So, I think there are three great attacks on every Christian, every church, every local church. And they are false doctrine, worldliness and persecution. And we're going to see all three at work in different churches here. Usually, worldliness and persecution don't both happen in the same setting. So, basically Satan offers you the world and hands it to you on a silver platter or he beats you up through his rulership of the world through persecution, governmentally sponsored persecution, usually not both. Could be first the one then the other where they'll offer you honors and if you don't take it, they'll turn on you and become harsh. At any rate, the fact that they don't tolerate sin, that's worldliness. They don't tolerate sin in them. Sin is a cancer; a little leaven, leavens the whole lump. That's why we do church discipline, and they know that it's dangerous. They're not going to allow sin; they don't tolerate wickedness, and they don't tolerate false doctrine.

Paul said in the charge to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:30, he said, "I know that after I leave even from your own number, men will arise and distort the truth and try to draw disciples after them by their distorted teaching of the truth" (paraphrase). They were able to discern that, smoke that out, smell it out and say, no, we're not doing that. They're able to see false doctrine. If you don't do that, you'll follow the false doctrine, and it will corrupt the church. By the way, of those three attacks, false doctrine is the most dangerous, it's the most deadly. If you have false doctrine, it doesn't matter how well you deal with persecution or worldliness, you will instantly become corrupt. Preaching a gospel which is no gospel at all. So, it is actually very important that churches do not tolerate wickedness, that they don't tolerate false doctrine, that they're discerning and able to point out false doctrine.

What should we take from this? I think it's important that we look at our local churches and say, are these good things that Jesus says about each of these churches, whatever they may be here at the church of Ephesus, are they true of us? Is our church characterized by hard work, diligent labor in the gospel? Are we characterized by a willingness to stand firm in persecution and not grow weary and not give up? Are we characterized by doctrinal discernment? Are we characterized by holiness and a willingness to address sin in the life of the church? So that's what I would say every church should get out of these epistles, but specifically this one to the church at Ephesus.

Wes

Now, what is the fact that Christ still has something against this church, teach us about Christ?

Andy

Well, there's only really one church, I think the church at Philadelphia, he doesn't say anything overtly negative. He does give them a warning to some degree, but the church at Smyrna is the only one that he really has nothing bad to say about. I think what it shows is the standards are high. You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, there's always going to be room to grow. And so, I think the idea is that we should say like in Psalm 139:23,24, "Search me, O God, and know my heart!" And show me what's wrong with me. "Show me if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Well, that's a very personal individualized prayer, but how much more than should the leaders of a church, the elders, the pastors of a church, say that about our church, search us and know us, O God. Show us what's wrong about us because there must be something. How are we failing?

And so, when he says very strikingly after saying incredible things about this church, I mean, imagine these good things that are said about the church at Ephesus. How many churches in America or indeed around the world could not meet that criteria? They're not hardworking, they're not perseverant, they're not doctrinally sharp, they're not dealing directly and rightly with wickedness and sin, they're not like this. So, this is a very high standard, and yet he says, I still have something against you. So, I guess that's instructive to all of us to say, what is it, Lord, that you would have against us? Show us what it is, we want to make it right.

Wes

Now, what is the specific issue that's raised and how does this happen to an individual or church? And what's the remedy that Christ gives the church for this problem?

Andy

Well, this is a very, very significant moment in the Bible and in the Book of Revelation, "I hold this against you," says Jesus, "you have forsaken your first love." What does that mean? Well, the word first means I think the love you had initially or at first. It could be your top priority love, but that would be, if that's what it meant, then it's like they're in open apostasy, so I don't think that's it. I think it's more a matter of degree. They don't love as much as they used to love. I think that's a better way of understanding, you have forsaken your first love. And what would it specifically have to do with, I think fundamentally, loving Christ. Loving Christ or loving God by loving Christ, but let's focus on loving Christ. "I have this against you, you don't love me as much as you used to."

You don't love me like you used to. When you think about that, it's like how does that even happen? Is that possible? It's like not only is it possible, I can overtly understand how it could happen. I directly can understand. Our love for Christ actually does wax and wane. It does get stronger, then it gets weaker. We need to be vigilant on this. Are we as passionate as we used to be? Do we love praying and reading the Bible and going to church and singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs? Do we love Jesus like we used to? And if we don't, we have to ask what's happened to us? Inevitably the answer is going to be the same. We have allowed our heart to get hard. We have a hard heart. So, we see this also in Jeremiah 2, where God says, "Concerning Israel, I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride, you followed me in the desert, I remember how it was at the beginning" (Jeremiah 2:2, paraphrase). But it's not that way anymore.

And so, I think what we need to do is look at this and say, look, my heart is absolutely, like the hymn said, "prone to wander." And it's easy for us to become hardened in our heart toward Jesus, and it's a very dangerous thing. Also, we need to keep in mind, the word here is very strong, "You have forsaken your first love" (Revelation 2:4). What does that mean? It's not an accident. It's a choice that you've made. And I think it brings me to the thorny ground here where it says the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and just the desires for other things crowded out, making it unfruitful. So, the idea there is that we allow temporal things, worldly things to come in and crowd out our love for Jesus so that it gets cooler and cooler. We don't love him as much as we used to.

"The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and just the desires for other things crowded out …our love for Jesus so that it gets cooler and cooler. We don't love him as much as we used to."

There's another passage in the Old Testament that depicts this tragedy, and it is a great tragedy, but it's in Hosea where Israel says, "God has judged us. He's beaten on us by means of exiles and Gentile powers coming in and God is disciplining us. And it's time for us now to turn back to the Lord." And so, it's Hosea 6:1-3, and it says, "Come let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces, but he'll heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. After two days, he'll revive us on the third day, He'll restore us that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the LORD. Let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear. He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."

Well, that whole thing, Hosea 6:1-3 is in quotation marks. It's what Israel's saying to God. But then the verse continues, 6:4, "What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Because your love is like the morning mist. It's like the early do that disappears." In other words, you talk like that, and you talk a good game, but what's really going on in your heart? And your love, it's like the mist that as soon as the sun rises, it burns off, and you don't love me like you used to.

So, as I go to Revelation 2:4 and see this warning, I take it very seriously. I don't want it to be said of me like Jesus said, quoting Isaiah in Matthew 15:8, "These people honor me with their lips, with their hearts are far from me." I have to look at my love relationship with Christ and say, do I love Jesus as much now as I did a year ago? Do I love him more than I did a year ago, or do I love him less? And if I'm loving him less, then I stand under this very severe rebuke, you have forsaken your first love.

Wes

What remedy and warning do we find in verse 5?

Andy

Well, I remember when I was preaching through this, there were three R letters that, it's alliteration and it's easy to remember, but Jesus says very plainly, remember, repent, and renew, or you could say resume. So those are the three things he tells them to do. First, in this translation, I like this translation, it says, "Remember the height from which you have fallen." So, it uses height, language. It's not really in the Greek, but I like it. And the level to which you used to love me; you have declined from it. We usually use up or down language. And so, you have backslidden. You get the picture of climbing higher and higher and higher in your walk with Christ, that's good, or conversely, backsliding, that's bad. Or again, you get the same thing in Philippians where it says, "Forgetting what lies behind and pressing on toward what lies ahead, I press on for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13,14).

So, there's this up language, like God is up, we're going higher. So, I like that idea of height. You used to be up at this level, now you're down here, you've slid down. So, remember how high you used to be in your affection for me, remember how it used to be. And also, just remember how it was. Remember how much you loved me. Remember what it was like. When in those earlier days, you were so on fire for me. Remember when you were first converted? Remember what that was like. Remember how you had tears coming down your face? Remember how you used to love to sing and pray, and you couldn't get enough of being with the Lord and talking about Jesus, remember all of that. So, that's the first step, remember. And then second, repent.

It's not an accident. You have forsaken your first love. You've made active choices that have killed your love for me or have weakened it greatly, maybe not killed. So, repent of the lovelessness, repent of allowing yourself to slide back down in your love for me. And then he says, do the things you did at first. So, with the three R's, it's easy to remember, renew or resume, would be two different ways of doing an R. So do those things you used to do. What did I used to do that I'm not doing anymore? So, you look at your personal disciplines, Bible intake and prayer, maybe fasting. You look at your corporate disciplines attending worship, maybe family devotions-you used to be doing that, now you're not. Look at what you do with your free time. Back then you couldn't get enough of reading Christian books or listening to Christian music or just going for walks and praying.

You didn't think, "I've already checked the box of my quiet time, I don't need any more prayer time," you didn't think like that, you just loved to be with me. You loved to pray and serve me. So, do those things you used to do. So those are the three steps. But then he gives a serious warning. He says, if you do not repent, if you don't do that, I'm going to remove your lampstand. I'm going to come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. What does that mean? Well, this is a universal threat, all seven churches. What does it mean? That local church isn't there anymore. That's what it means.

And is this actually all that shocking? Is it not actually well known that churches die? They close their doors forever. They are shut down because they have died. That actually happens. And so, when Jesus removes a lampstand from its place, it means that he shuts down that local church, and it does not shine brightly for Christ anymore. So that's the threat. And again, go back to the topic. Because you don't love me like you used to, if you don't change that, I'm going to shut you down. So, you're like, wow. They're doing all this stuff, they're working hard, they're persevering, they're not giving up. They're orthodox in their doctrine, they're holy and all that, but they don't love Jesus like they used to. He's like, if you don't fix that, if you don't repent, I'm going to take away that lampstand.

Wes

Now he turns from this warning, this grave warning to another commendation. He says, "yet this you have," and then goes on from there. Who are the Nicolaitans and what commendation does Christ give the church at Ephesus in relation to them?

Andy

Well, we don't know a lot about the Nicolaitans. I think they're mentioned only here in another one of these epistles, but I think they seem to be a mystery religion. There are two great categories of false teachers in the Christian history, Christian church in the New Testament. And they are legalism false teachers and license false teachers. So, the Judaizers, or legalism false teachers, that are trying to bind people's conscience with circumcision and then with all the Jewish laws and regulations. The circumcision group or party, those are the legalism teachers, but there are other types as well. Then there's the license teachers, of which Peter talks a lot in 2 Peter 2, which basically are full of lust, they're full of adultery, they're full of feasting and all of this stuff. And they basically believe that the grace of God is a license to do whatever you want. The Nicolaitans seem to be of that second category. But they also mixed in some mystery religion stuff.

So, my guess is there's some sexual stuff involved, there's some meat sacrifice to idol stuff, idolatry. There's a whole kind of paganism, a secret paganism there that has enough Christianity mixed in so that it's relevant. It's going to come into the church, and they're like, no, no, no, we're not doing that, that's evil. And they rejected the doctrine and the practices of the Nicolaitans, of which Jesus says, "I also hate." So, we see that Jesus is not neutral, Jesus loves everyone, Jesus accepts everyone. No, that's not true. He hates the Nicolaitans and their practices.

Wes

What's the significance of the repeated phrase we find in verse seven? "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." And what specific reward does Christ promise here at the end of the passage we're looking at today?

Andy

Well, anyone who reads the gospels, especially the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but I don't know if it's in John, but definitely with those. When Jesus would tell a parable, especially, maybe not exclusively, but especially parables, he would conclude by calling out to the crowd. "He who has an ear, let him hear." So, it's an invitation, and I think what it means is it's like I think we could use spiritual senses. So, I've said many, many times that faith is the eyesight of the soul. The eyes of the heart are faith. But I could argue here for the ears of the heart as well. The ability to hear Christ speak to you as Christ (same thing as faith) is the ability to see God's activity and actions as seeing him who is invisible. So, this is as hearing him who is inaudible, I guess. He's an invisible, inaudible being who actually does show himself, spiritually, and speak through the Holy Spirit, spiritually.

"The ability to hear Christ speak to you as Christ (same thing as faith) is the ability to see God's activity and actions as seeing him who is invisible. So, this is as hearing him who is inaudible."

So, if you have opened within your soul, the ears of faith, the ability to hear Jesus speak as God to you, then use that capacity. In every case it says specifically what the Spirit says to the churches. So, it's like, wait a minute, I thought this was Jesus speaking. Well, this is the Trinity- Father, Son, and Spirit. But the Spirit takes from what is Jesus' and makes it known to his people as he says in John's gospel. And so, when you are listening to the words of Jesus in the scripture, you're hearing what the Spirit is saying. And Jesus gives specific rewards here, he goes to each of the seven churches, and the reward here is given, and in every case, it's given to him who overcomes. So, there's a battle to be fought, there's an obstacle to overcome, there's a hill to climb, a mountain to climb.

If you do that, if you are, like Romans 8, more than a conqueror through Him who loved us, if you overcome, if you fight the good fight and win, if you overcome. So, what does that mean? Well, it means you repented, remembered, repented, and renewed or resumed. If you do that and you live that out the rest of your life, if you overcome, he says, I will give you the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God. So, this, obviously hearkens back to the garden of Eden in which there were two special trees, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of testing, the tree of temptation. And then you've got the tree of life. And we have in the Book of Revelation at the end, the tree of life, a tree of life growing on each side of the river, the water of life, and it bears crops 12 months a year, bears crops, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

So, we'll get to all that at the end of the Book of Revelation. Well, if you overcome, I'll let you eat from that tree. I'll let you live forever. Again, that couldn't happen after Adam sinned. And Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden of Eden, a cherubim was placed with a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life so that no human being could reach out his hand and take from the tree of life and eat and live forever. So, this is the idea of living forever.

Wes

Andy, what final thoughts do you have for us today on this passage that we've looked at?

Andy

I think we should be warned by it. I think we should be inspired by it and motivated. I want all those positive things said about the church at Ephesus to be said of us. But centrally here, this is a warning. Do not forsake your first love concerning Jesus. Don't let your ardor for Jesus diminish, it matters to Jesus. He does not want our hearts far from him. He wants our hearts ardent and filled with zeal, on fire for Jesus. So, make sure that you are. Go after your love for Christ and make sure that it's growing.

Wes

This has been episode two in our Revelation Bible Study podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for episode three entitled Christ's Letters to the Churches: Smyrna, where we'll discuss Revelation 2:8-11. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

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