Revelation 3:21

δώσω κ. τ. λ., To share Christ's royal power and judicial dignity it a reward proffered in the gospels, but Jesus there (cf. Mark 10:40) disclaimed this prerogative. God's throne is Christ's, as in Revelation 22:1. νικῶν = the moral purity and sensitiveness (cf. Revelation 3:18 and on Revelation 2:7) which succeeds in responding to the divine appeal. The schema of God, Christ, and the individual Christian (cf. on Revelation 2:27) is characteristically Johannine (f. John 15:9 f., John 17:19 f., John 20:21), though here as in Revelation 3:20 (contrast John 14:23) the eschatological emphasis makes the parallel one of diction rather than of thought.

The scope and warmth of the promises to Laodicea seem rather out of place in view of the church's poor religion, but here as elsewhere the prophet is writing as much for the churches in general as for the particular community. He speaks ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις. This consideration, together with the close sequence of thought in Revelation 3:19-21 forbids any attempt to delete Revelation 3:20-21 as a later editorial addition (Wellhausen) or to regard Revelation 3:20 (Revelation 3:21) as an epilogue to the seven letters (Vitringa, Alford, Ramsay) rather than as an integral part of the Laodicean epistle. Such a detachment would be a gratuitous breach of symmetry. But, while these closing sentences are not a sort of climax which gathers up the menaces of 2 3., Revelation 3:21 (with its throne-reference) anticipates the following visions (Revelation 3:4-5.). To the prophet the real value and significance of Christ's life were focussed in his sacrificial death and in the rights and privileges which he secured thereby for those on whose behalf he had suffered and triumphed. This idea, already suggested in Revelation 1:5-6; Revelation 1:17-18, forms the central theme of the next oracle.

The ἐκκλησίαι now pass out of sight till the visions are over. During the latter it is the ἅγιοι who are usually in evidence, until the collective term πόλις is employed in the final vision (cf. Revelation 3:12). John knows nothing of any catholic ἐκκλησία. To him the ἐκκλησίαι are so many local communities who share a common faith and expect a common destiny; they are, as Kattenbusch observes, colonies of heaven, and heaven is their mother-country. Partly owing to O.T. associations, partly perhaps on account of the feeling that an ἐκκλησία (in the popular Greek sense of the term) implied a city, John eschews this term. He also ignores the authority of any officials; the religious situation depends upon the prophets, who are in direct touch with God and through whom the Spirit of God controls and guides the saints. Their words are God's words; they can speak and write with an authority which enables them to say, Thus saith the Spirit. Only, while in the contemporary literature of Christianity the prophetic outlook embraces either the need of organisation in order to meet the case of churches which are scattered over a wide area and exposed to the vagaries of unauthorised leaders (Pastoral Epistles and Ignatius), or contention among the office-bearers themselves (a sure sign of the end, Asc. Isa. iii. 20f.), John's apocalypse stands severely apart from either interest.

NOTE on Revelation 1:9 to Revelation 3:22. We have no data to show whether the seven letters or addresses ever existed in separate form, or whether they were written before or after the rest of the visions. All evidence for such hypotheses consists of quasi-reasons or precarious hypotheses based on some a priori theory of the book's composition. The great probability is that they never had any rôle of their own apart from this book, but were written for their present position. As the Roman emperors addressed letters to the Asiatic cities or corporations (the inscriptions mention at least six to Ephesus, seven to Pergamos, three to Smyrna, etc.), so Jesus, the true Lord of the Asiatic churches, is represented as sending communications to them (cf. Deissmann's Licht vom Osten, pp. 274 f.). The dicit or λέγει with which the Imperial messages open corresponds to the more biblical τάδε λέγει of Revelation 2:1, etc. Each of the apocalyptic communications follows a fairly general scheme, although in the latter four the appeal for attention follows (instead of preceding) the mystic promise, while the imperative repent occurs only in the first, third, fifth, and seventh, the other churches receiving praise rather than censure. This artificial or symmetrical arrangement, which may be traced in or read into other details, is as characteristic of the whole apocalypse as is the style which when the difference of topic is taken into account cannot be said to exhibit peculiarities of diction, syntax, or vocabulary sufficient to justify the relegation of the seven letters to a separate source. Even if written by another hand or originally composed as a separate piece, they must have been worked over so thoroughly by the final editor and fitted so aptly into the general scheme of the whole Apocalypse (cf. e.g. Revelation 2:7 = Revelation 22:2; Revelation 22:14; Revelation 22:19; Revelation 2:11 = Revelation 20:6; Revelation 2:17 = Revelation 19:12; Revelation 2:26 = Revelation 20:4; Revelation 2:28 = Revelation 22:16; Revelation 3:5 = Revelation 7:9; Revelation 7:13; Revelation 3:5 = Revelation 13:8; Revelation 20:15; Revelation 3:12 = Revelation 21:10; Revelation 22:14; Revelation 3:21 = Revelation 4:4; Revelation 3:20 = Revelation 19:9; etc.), that it is no longer possible to disentangle them (or their nucleus). The special traits in the conception of Christ are mainly due to the fact that the writer is dealing here almost exclusively with the inner relation of Jesus to the churches. They are seldom, if ever, more realistic or closer to the messianic categories of the age than is elsewhere the case throughout the apocalypse; and if the marjoram of Judaism or (as we might more correctly say) of human nature is not wholly transmuted into the honey of Christian charity which is scarcely surprising under the circumstances yet the moral and mental stature of the writer appears when he is set beside so powerful a counsellor in some respects as the later Ignatius. Here John is at his full height. He combines moral discipline and moral enthusiasm in his injunctions. He sees the central things and urges them upon the churches, with a singular power of tenderness and sarcasm, insight and foresight, vehemence and reproach, undaunted faithfulness in rebuke and a generous readiness to mark what he thinks are the merits as well as the failings and perils of the communities. The needs of the latter appear to have been twofold. One, of which they were fully conscious, was outward. The other, to which they were not entirely alive, was inward. The former is met by an assurance that the stress of persecution in the present and in the immediate future was under God's control, unavoidable and yet endurable. The latter is met by the answer of discipline and careful correction; the demand for purity and loyalty in view of secret errors and vices is reiterated with a keen sagacity. In every case, the motives of fear, shame, noblesse oblige, and the like, are crowned by an appeal to spiritual ambition and longing, the closing note of each epistle thus striking the keynote of what follows throughout the whole Apocalypse. In form, as well as in content, the seven letters are the most definitely Christian part of the book.

The scene now changes. Christ in authority over his churches, and the churches with their angels, pass away; a fresh and ampler tableau of the vision opens (cf. on Revelation 1:19), ushering in the future (Revelation 6:1 to Revelation 22:5), which as disclosed by God through Christ (Revelation 1:1) is prefaced by a solemn exhibition of God's supremacy and Christ's indispensable position in revelation. In Apoc. Bar. xxiv. 2 the seer is told that on the day of judgment he and his companions are to see “the long-suffering of the Most High which has been throughout all generations, who has been long-suffering towards all those born that sin and are righteous.” He then seeks an answer to the question, “But what will happen to our enemies I know not, and when Thou wilt visit Thy works (i.e., for judgment)”? This is precisely the course of thought (first inner mercies and then outward judgments) in Revelation 2-3, Revelation 2:4 f.; although in the former John sees in this life already God's great patience towards his people, The prophet is now admitted to the heavenly conclave where (by an adaptation of the rabbinic notion) God reveals, or at least prepares, his purposes before executing them. Chapter 4 and chapter 5 are counterparts; in the former God the Creator, with his praise from heavenly beings, is the central figure: in the latter the interest is focussed upon Christ the redeemer, with his praise from the human and natural creation as well. Chapter 5 further leads over into the first series of events (the seven seals, 6 8) which herald the dénouement. Henceforth Jesus is represented as the Lamb, acting but never speaking, until in the epilogue (Revelation 22:6-21) the author reverts to the Christological standpoint of 1 3. Neither this nor any other feature, however, is sufficient to prove that 4 5 represent a Jewish source edited by a Christian; the whole piece is Christian and homogeneous (Sabatier, Schön, Bousset, Pfleiderer, Wellhausen). Chapter 4 is a preliminary description of the heavenly court: God's ruddy throne with a green nimbus being surrounded by a senate of πρεσβύτεροι and mysterious ζῷα. Seven torches burn before the throne, beside a crystal ocean, while from it issue flashes and peals accompanied by a ceaseless liturgy of adoration from the πρεσβύτεροι and the ζῷα, who worship with a rhythmic emotion of awe.