Revelation 2:7

‘He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'

The first phrase was a phrase used only by Jesus Christ. ‘Let the one who is willing to hear, listen and take note and respond' (Matthew 11:15; Matthew 13:9; Matthew 13:43). This was always what distinguished true followers from the false. The Spirit here is the Holy Spirit for He speaks to all the churches (the angels would only be seen as ‘speaking' to the individual churches, although they do not actually speak to them as the message is communicated through the letters).

‘To him who overcomes, to him will I give to eat the fruit of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.'

Every Christian is to be an overcomer, overcoming sins, patiently enduring temptation and tribulation, serving Christ, loving Him, being faithful to Him. As Paul says, ‘we are more than overcomers through Him that loved us' (Romans 8:37). They hear His voice and follow Him (John 10:27). Without these a person is not a Christian.

This arises from our oneness in Christ. In John 16:33 Jesus declared that His people need not fear tribulation as He has ‘overcome the world'. He has rejected its power and conquered it and therefore has final control over it. Thus it is powerless to hurt them more than He allows. He also declared that He had overcome Satan (Luke 11:22). Once we are united with Him we therefore also become ‘overcomers' in Him. As John tells us in 1 John 5:4, ‘whatever is begotten of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith'. For they ‘are of God -- and have overcome them (false teachers with the spirit of antichrist)' (1 John 4:4). Those who are in Him overcome the world and overcome Satan through Him.

These are the ones who have ‘heard His voice'. It is noteworthy that overcoming is a theme of the whole of Revelation (e.g. Revelation 11:7; Revelation 12:11; Revelation 13:7; Revelation 21:7), something which directly connects these churches with the events that occur later on. And to those who are overcomers He ‘will give to eat of the tree of life' (compare Revelation 22:14). To eat of the tree of life was to live for ever (Genesis 3:22). Thus the promise is that, whatever experiences they have to go through, they will enjoy eternal life and have their share in God's glorious Heaven, the Paradise of God (2 Corinthians 12:4).

(It is often argued that many Christians cannot be described as ‘overcomers' because of worldly lives, or because they even backslide and appear for a time to reject Him. But then they can hardly be described as ‘righteous' either. Yet if they really are His they are ‘righteous in Him' and are therefore overcomers in Him. It is not for us finally to determine who are Christians and who are not but there are plenty of warnings in the New Testament that such people should beware lest at the last their ‘faith' (or lack of it) proves in vain. But in the end all is of grace. And if such are truly His, they are ever ‘righteous' in Him and are therefore ‘overcomers' in Him, and will reveal it in their lives. No one stresses more than John does that salvation is of faith, but no one is more severe in his requirement that it be revealed in their lives - 1 John 2:1; 1 John 2:9; 1 John 2:19).