Revelation 2:18-29

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Revelation 2:18. Thyatira.—Situated between Pergamos and Sardis. Inscriptions show that it contained many corporate guilds, one being that of the dyers. Apollo was specially worshipped, as the sun-god, under the Macedonian name of Tyrinnas. Son of God.—This name solemnly affirms His Divine power, as well as right, and prepares for the promised bestowment of power, in Revelation 2:26. Eyes.—A figure representing His omniscience, and especially the intensity of its searching. Feet.—Figure representing the firmness of His tread who comes in judgment. Feet of Chalcolibanus. An aspect of stern sovereignty marks this epistle.

Revelation 2:19. Work.—Divided into two sets—active: charity and service; passive: faith and patience. Ephesus had failed in the second set? this Church was stronger in the second than in the first. It would seem that on the passive side they were even weak; permitting things that put them in peril.

Revelation 2:20. Woman Jezebel.—More exactly, “thy wife Jezebel.” Probably a party in the Church is referred to which was led by an unscrupulous woman. It is necessary to remember that traditions had grown up around the person of Jezebel, and these, rather than the actual history, are referred to. Seduce my servants.—The teachings of St. Paul show how liberty in sensual indulgence, in its two forms, was a cause of constant anxiety in the Early Churches.

Revelation 2:22. Bed.—Of sickness and suffering. The figure is in keeping with the sin, and suggests a fitting and answering punishment.

Revelation 2:23. Children.—Her disciples; those who take up with her teachings, and follow her ways. Death.—In forms that would clearly indicate Divine judgment.

Revelation 2:24. Deep things.—Probably these heretical teachers boasted of knowing the deep things of God, so they are satirised as the deep things of Satan. Other burden.—See Acts 15:28, seqq.

Revelation 2:26. My works.—Not the works of any self-willed teacher. There must be simple and supreme loyalty to Christ, and that involves loyalty to everything that is self restrained and pure. Christ gives power over self and sin. Over the nations.—This is a figure of speech. The individual triumph over all individual and all combined immoral forces and influences is pictured as a rule over riotous and violent nations (Compare Psalms 2). “Those who, like their Master, refused to win power by doing homage to wrong (Matthew 4:3), would share the nobler sway which He now established.” Morning star.—Used of Christ Himself in Revelation 22:16. “The symbol of sovereignty on its brighter and more benignant side, and therefore the fitting and necessary complement of the dread attributes that had gone before.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Revelation 2:18

Praise and Blame for Thyatira.—Lydia, the first Christian convert in Europe, was a purple-seller of this city of Thyatira, which was famous for its dyeing works, especially for purple or crimson. Inscriptions found on the spot bear witness to the existence of a guild, or corporation, of purple-sellers, with which Lydia may have been connected. The city stands on the river Lycus, and it is situated on the borders of Mysia and Ionia, a little to the left of the Roman road from Pergamos to Sardis. It was founded by Seleucus Nicator after the Persian Empire had been destroyed by Alexander the Great. From the names that appear on their monuments, the inhabitants seem to have presented a greater mingling of races than was commonly to be found, and included Macedonians, Italians, Asiatics (in the narrower sense of that word as including the inhabitants of the pro-consular province of Asia), and Chaldæans. The chief object of their cultus was Apollo, worshipped as the sun-god, under the Macedonian name of Tyrinnas. An interesting discovery, in connection with the religious rites of the city, materially helps in explaining the allusions made in the epistle. Outside the walls stood a small temple dedicated to a Sibyl, a woman who was supposed to have the gift of prophecy. This temple, or church, was in the midst of an enclosure, called the “Chaldæan’s Court,” and the Sibyl, who was called Sanbethe, is sometimes said to be Jewish, sometimes Chaldæan, and sometimes Persian. The inference to be drawn from this is, that some corrupted Jews of the dispersed tribes had introduced from Chaldæa or Persia a religion which was a mixture of Judaism and heathenism. It is not improbable that this Sanbethe, or her school, had at Thyatira a place dedicated to the promulgation of a religion which was an admixture of Orientalism and Judaism, with some importations from the Greek and Roman rites, and even with some kind of appropriation of Christian ideas, forming altogether a system similar to those which the various sects of Gnostics soon afterwards established. And, this supposition being correct, it is then easy to see how Jewish Christians of the Church of Thyatira might be affected with this heresy, and fail to offer to it the opposition which it ought to have received from a Christian community. Dr. Tristram describes the present city, and its surroundings, as seen when approaching it from Pergamos. “Diverging a little to the right, the broad valley of the Hyllus opens to view, and as we look down in spring or summer, we see before us a panorama resembling in kind, though not equal in extent and grandeur to, the traveller’s first glimpse of Damascus. The eye tracks across the plain the silver thread which marks the course of one of the effluents of the Hyllus; and in the centre are the crowded white roofs of a widespread Turkish city, with here and there a minaret towering in the midst, and many a clump of tall cypresses raising their funeral plumes on high; while the whole is girt with a fringe of orchards, and watered gardens, over which the silver mist, drawn down by the sun, hangs in a thick, quivering cloud. This is Akhissar, ‘the white castle,’ the ancient Thyatira.” That city, or rather the Christian Church in that city, was in the immediate Divine inspection. All about the rites of Apollo, and all about the seductions of Sanbethe, was known to Him who “walketh among the golden candlesticks.” We may see

(1) the form in which the Living Christ is presented in His relation to this Church;
(2) the things in the Church life which He could commend; and
(3) the things which caused Him grave anxiety, and called for His severe reproof.

I. The form in which the Living Christ presents Himself to this Church.—The general symbolical appearance of the Living Christ, as present in His Church, is given in the first chapter, and certain portions of the description are taken to indicate the special relation of the Living Christ to each particular Church. We Westerns speak so little in the language of symbols, that it is often difficult for us to understand them, or to get their precise adaptations. Two things in the figure of the Living White One are recalled to mind in presenting the message to Thyatira: “Who hath His eyes like unto a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass,” or burnished brass (R.V.). In the first chapter the symbol is given in a fuller form: “His eyes were as a flame of fire, and His feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace.” The eyes of flame seem to indicate a severity of inspection; and the feet like burnished brass may indicate the determination to tread down the evils which the searching eyes may discover. “The feet of Chalcolibanus”—that is the peculiar word used—“shall crush the enemies of God as though they were the vessels of a potter.” Dean Blakesley thinks that the special description was determined by the character of the worship of Apollo in this city. He thinks there was a statue of Apollo, of gold and ivory, or of wood or marble, richly gilt; that this shone with a dazzling brightness, and that the “eyes like a flame of fire, and the feet like fine brass” were meant to present the image of the Lord of the Churches as yet more glorious and terrible. There is certainly a tone of severity, as well as of searching, in the epistle. A purpose to burn up, and tread down, the moral evils which were so seriously imperilling the life of the Church. There are some evils in Church life which must be dealt with vigorously. No gentle hand will do. They are corrupting forces, and must be trampled down. If we may take the idea of this prophetess Sanbethe morally corrupting the people with her idolatrous and immoral system, we can well understand that Christ’s inspections of that Church must be as with a flame of fire, and His dealings with that Church as the treading of burnished feet. We should never hesitate to associate the holiest severities with the Lord Jesus Christ. The very perfection of love makes it stern and severe against all wrong-doing, and especially against all evil that is doing an actively corrupting work. Its activity must always be met by a more than answering activity of goodness, in resisting and rooting it out.

II. The things in the Church life at Thyatira which the Living Christ could commend.—It is interesting to notice that they were very much the things which St. Paul could commend in writing his letter to the Philippians. “Loving ministrations, patient endurance, warm-hearted faith, the more feminine graces of the perfect Christian character.” But when this is seen, the sternness of the closing portion of the epistle to Thyatira is explained. The Church needed to be aroused. The sterner, masculine graces were called into exercise by the Church’s peril. It is a serious mistake for a Church to develop “active” graces to the neglect of the “passive”; but it is as perilous a mistake for a Church to settle down into the enjoyment of Christian peace and Christian privileges, heedless of moral evils that may be making serious inroads upon it—as perilous a mistake to develop only “passive” graces, feminine graces, to the neglect of those that are manly, active, and strong. There is a righteous zeal against evil which Churches should exhibit; and Christ puts into His Church the power and the right to judge and condemn. These are the things in the Church at Thyatira upon which the Living Christ can look with complacency. “I know thy works, and thy love, and faith, and ministry, and patience, and that thy last works are more than the first.” Three things seem to be expressed in these terms:

1. Service;
2. Character;
3. Growth.
1. Service. The Living Christ saw this Church realising the ideal of a Christian Church in its “works” and “ministry.” The works may, indeed, suggest “good conduct” as the expression of sincere and active faith; but it seems better to take it as meaning works of charity, and works of witness for the truth in Christ. Then “ministry” would mean loving readiness to serve and help one another in all the various anxieties, distresses, sufferings, which constantly come into the human lot, and which even made a special experience in those early Christian days. That is always commendable in a Christian Church. Its members ought to “love one another” in the sense of being ever ready to minister to one another. And its members ought all to recognise that they are put in trust with the gospel, and are bound to witness to it by attractively holy living, and by all gracious persuasions. In the Church of Christ, the voice—the inspiring voice—of the Living Lord should ever be heard saying, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain. This is praiseworthy. Thyatira was a working Church; it was found working in all-loving ministries, within its circle, and in all loving service beyond it.

2. Character. Three words are used to indicate their high level of Christian attainment, but all three belong to the feminine, or passive, graces: Love; Faith; Patience. If we find other names for them, we may call them Gentleness; Dependence; Submission;—the very things that are essential to all Christian character that can be called “beautiful.” Things that give the Christian professor a certain kind of strength—a very admirable kind of strength, but not precisely that kind of strength which is required in dealing with public evils, moral evils. Christ’s commendation ever rests upon gracious character. Of that we may be sure. It is, indeed, one supreme purpose of the communion of saints to cultivate saintliness of character, the “holiness without which no man shall see the Lord” or win the loving approval of Him who is ever walking amid the candlesticks. The Church’s concern is the character of its members. The Church’s safety lies in the character of its members. The Church’s power is the witness made by the character of its members.

3. Growth. This is indicated in the singular expression, “and that thy last works are more than the first.” This was a great thing to say. For a Church to stand still is for a Church to go back. Its only security lies in its keeping going forward. It is full of comforting for this Church at Thyatira that Christ could recognise advance and growth; because that is precisely what both Churches and individual Christians are usually altogether unable to recognise for themselves. They cannot institute befitting comparisons. To them the past of Christian life and feeling is apt to loom large, and the present can seldom be estimated fairly. It is full of good cheer for us, too, if Christ sees that our present is an improvement on the past; if the last is better than the first. Very encouraging is the Divine estimate of the loving, devout, ministering, and almost saintly, Christians at Thyatira. One almost wishes it had not been necessary to turn and deal so severely with evils which, if not actually in the Church, were closely and perilously related to it—did, indeed, affect some, and perhaps some of the principal, members of it.

III. The things which caused the Living Christ grave anxiety and called for His severe reproof.—We must satisfy ourselves with a general understanding of the mischievous influence that was at work, and not dwell too closely on the figures of speech that are employed to describe it. It is clear that there was some mischief-making Jewish Christian teacher in the town; and it seems to have been a woman professing occult powers. She is likened to Jezebel, and her influence is likened to that of the Phœnician priestess and princess, who brought the degrading rites of Astarte into the land of Israel, and wholly corrupted the people who should have been “holy unto the Lord.” Whatever this woman’s teachings may have been intellectually—and of that we can form no sufficient judgment—their influence was bad, very bad, morally. She evidently taught that the Christians were in bondage, and needed liberty. They were an isolated section of Society, and took no part in the so-called pleasures of Society. They had scruples about their eating, and scruples about their relationships, and they needed to have these scruples put away, and just to be men and women, with passions and pleasures like other men and women; they needed to be able to eat what they liked to eat, and to do what they liked to do. This was the practical result of Sanbethe’s licentious and idolatrous teachings, permissions, and example. How far this degrading influence had gone does not quite appear. The message seems to indicate that the elder or pastor of the Church, and a goodly number of the members, had kept themselves from the evil influence. The Living Lord says this: “To you I say, to the rest that are in Thyatira, as many as hare not known, this teaching.” Some, let us hope a great many, were “faithful among the faithless found.” Dean Plumptre suggests that the “Agapæ, or love-feasts, of the Church were stained, as the hints in 2 Peter 2:13, and Jude Revelation 2:12, not obscurely intimate, with the perpetration of fathomless impurities, in which this so-called prophetess was herself a sharer,” as well as the leader. What we need to see, is, that idolatry finds, and ever has found, its congenial atmosphere in self-indulgence and licentiousness; that even false and unworthy presentation of Christianity finds, and ever has found, its support in an intellectual and moral liberty, which has always tended to generate into licence, and that Christianity—the Christianity of Christ—can only live in a pure moral atmosphere, and may always be judged by “the fruits unto holiness,” which it produces wherever it is established. The religion which does not tend to make pure lives, pure homes, pure Churches, and pure Society, has no right to be called Christianity. But the point of impression for the Church at Thyatira, which has its practical application for us, is this. The evil in its midst must not be left alone. It must not be left to grow into ruinous power. It must be dealt with vigorously, and at once. It must be resisted manfully. The Living Christ lays “no other burden” upon them, but he does lay that burden. Relative to the moral evil in its midst, whatever form it may take, every Church of Christ must be manly. It must be Christly as the Christ who drove out the money-changers and dove-sellers when they defiled the holy Temple. And they who, striving against all moral evil in their midst, “overcome,” have this for their reward. The Christian life in them gains the full development; the strong things are harmoniously cultured with the gentle. They win authority as well as submission; are now nourished all round into the entire image of Christ, and become strong to resist evil, and to witness for purity, as Christ was strong. To him that overcometh is given the “morning star,” the sign of victory over all darkness, all night—everything evil.

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

Revelation 2:20. Jezebel.—The best editors decline to adopt the reading “thy wife.” The name of Ahab’s idolatrous wife is here plainly a symbolical name. Except in Jehu’s taunt (1 Kings 9:22), which need not be meant literally, there is no evidence whatever of Jezebel’s unchastity. A great point of this is, however, made in Peter Bayne’s poem on Jezebel. It would seem to be the intimate relation which the woman adverted to sustains to the Church that appears to give occasion for the appellation τὴν γυναῖκά σου. The woman in question, whose proper name (probably from motives of delicacy) is withheld, was evidently one who assumed the office of a public teacher (καὶ διδάσκει), and gave herself out (for so it is said) as an authorised προφῆτις.

Revelation 2:24. Depths of Satan.—The heretics condemned in the preceding verses were doubtless a sect of those who called themselves Gnostics, probably at this time, certainly in the next generation. They contrasted knowledge of the “depths,” or “deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10), with the faith of the orthodox in the plain, simple doctrines that were openly preached to the world. The Lord answers that the depths of knowledge that they attained were depths, not of God, but of Satan.… It is to be remembered that the Gnostic systems of the second century, and probably those of the first also, included a strange mythology of half personified abstractions, and it may be that the Lord rather identifies one of these with Satan than substitutes the name of Satan for that of God. It appears from Irenœus that the Gnostics of his time talked of the “deep things of Depth,” as well as the “deep things of God.” It is curious that the phrase, “the depths of knowledge” is quoted from the great Epbesian philosopher, Heraclitus: possibly it was owing to his influence that such notions found a congenial home in Asia Minor.—W. H. Simcox, M.A.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2

Revelation 2:18. Thyatira.—“The appearance of Thyatira, as we approached it,” says Arundell, “was that of a very long line of cypresses, poplars, and other trees, amidst which appeared the minarets of several mosques and the roofs of a few houses at the right. On the left, a view of distant hills, the line of which continued over the town; and at the right, adjoining the town, was a low hill, with two ruined windmills. Thyatira is a large place, and abounds with shops of every description. The population is estimated at three hundred Greek houses, … thirty Armenian, and one thousand Turkish; nine mosques, one Armenian, and one Greek church. We visited the latter; it was a wretchedly poor place, and so much under the level of the churchyard as to require five steps to descend into it.… We intended to give the priest a Testament, but he seemed so insensible of its worth that we reserved it, as it was our only remaining copy, and bestowed it afterwards much better. Very few of the ancient buildings remain here; one we saw, which seems to have been a market-place, having six pillars sunk very low in the ground. We could not find any ruins of churches; and, inquiring of the Greeks about it, they told us there were several great buildings of stone under ground (which we were very apt to believe, from what we had observed in other places), where, digging somewhat deep, they met with strong foundations that, without all question, have formerly supported great buildings. I find, by several inscriptions, that the inhabitants of this city, as well as those of Ephesus, were, in the times of heathenism, great votaries and worshippers of the goddess Diana. The city has a very great supply of water, which streams in every street, flowing from a neighbouring hill.… It is populous, inhabited mostly by Turks, … few Christians residing among them; those Armenians we found here being strangers who came hither to sell sashes, handkerchiefs, etc., which they bring out of Persia. They are maintained chiefly by the trade of cotton wool, which they send to Smyrna, for which commodity Thyatira is very considerable. “It is this trade,” says Rycaut, “the crystalline waters, cool and sweet to the taste and light on the stomach, the wholesome air, the rich and delightful country, which causes this city so to flourish in our days, and to be more happy than her other desolate and comfortless sisters.” Hartley remarks, “The buildings are in general mean, but the place in which we are at present residing is by far the best which I have yet seen.… The language addressed to Thyatira is rather different from that of the other epistles. The commendations are scarcely surpassed, even in the epistle to Philadelphia, while the conduct of some was impious and profligate. The Church thus exhibited a contrast of the most exalted piety with the very depths of Satan.”

CHAPTER 3