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Commentary on Revelation

Chapter 3

The message to Sardis

Rev. 3:1 "And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: 'The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. "'I know your works; you have the name of being alive, and you are dead. 2 Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. 3 Remember then what you received and heard; keep that, and repent. If you will not awake, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you. 4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who conquers shall be clad thus in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life; I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'

Sardis has been called the greatest example of the contrast between past splendor and present decay. Sardis was a city of degeneration. 700 years before John, Sardis was one of the greatest cities in the world. The original city stood 1500 feet up on a hill in a position which was almost impregnable. Later, the city spread to the foot of the hill. Sardis is really a plural noun - there was a city on top of the hill and one in the valley beneath it. Sardis was an extremely wealthy town. Cyrus of Persia had once besieged the city and offered a reward to any one who could find a way to enter the city. A soldier, who had seen a Sardian soldier climb partially down the hill to retrieve a lost helmet, led a group up the hill following a fault line at night. They discovered the battlements completely unguarded and took the city. It is to these people that Jesus says, "Watch!" The city slipped into obscurity under Persian rule and later surrendered to Alexander under whom it became a center of Greek culture. But, history repeated itself, when Antiochus besieged the city after Alexander's death and took the city using the same trick by which the city had earlier fallen to Cyrus. Again, Sardis fell because no one was there to watch. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in A.D. 17 but was rebuilt by Tiberius. The city, as had the Church within, had by the time of Revelation lost its life and its spirit. What are the seven spirits? In 5:6 they are equated with seven eyes. They depict all seeing power and wisdom. (Compare 2 Chron. 16:9 and Zech. 4:10.) This church was at peace and that peace had allowed them to drift into a coma and die. In 1 Peter 2:11 we see that a Christian is always at war. Jesus' promise to come as a thief causes one to recall the city's history. In verse 5 we find that one's name can be blotted out of the book of life. What does this say about the doctrine of 'Once saved- always saved'?

The message to Philadelphia

7 "And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: 'The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens. 8 "'I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut; I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie - behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and learn that I have loved you. 10 Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial which is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell upon the earth. 11 I am coming soon; hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. 12 He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God; never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'

Philadelphia was the youngest of the seven cities. It was founded by colonists from Pergamum under the reign of Attalus the Second who ruled from 159 to 138 B.C. It was founded so that it might be a missionary of Greek culture and language to Lydia. By A.D. 19 the Lydians had forgotten their own language and were all but Greek. Jesus speaks of an open door that is set before Philadelphia. The city was a center of diffusion for Greek culture to surrounding areas. Now the city could be an open door, not to spread Greek culture, but to spread the Gospel. The city sat next to a very fertile volcanic plain and was a great grape growing area and producer of wines. For a time the city was constantly beset by earthquakes and tremors and most people lived outside the city in huts. This time was never forgotten. Note the promise that the people "would go out no more." Its name was changed to Neocaesarea and later to Flavia although neither name lasted and Philadelphia was eventually restored. These people new what it was like to receive a "new name." This church was weak in influence compared with their Jewish opposition. Jesus had the true authority of David. There is no path to God except through Jesus Christ. See Appendix B for more information about the present state of the Jews. Jesus' promise to keep these Christians did not mean they would be spared from sufferring. In Ezekiel 9:1-8 God promises to keep his people yet in Ezekiel 21:3-4 they experience sufferring and death. God's provides spiritual deliverance. In 2 Chron. 7:16 God said he would put his name on the literal Jerusalem forever yet now he puts it on the new Jerusalem. The words "forever" and "everlasting" must be studied in context. See, for example, Gen. 17:8, 13; Ex. 21:6; 40:15; Lev. 16:34; 24:8; Num. 25:13; and Deut. 28:45-47. This new Jerusalem is the city that came down from heaven whose builder and maker is God- it is the Church, the new dwelling place for God's people.

The message to Laodicea

14 "And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: 'The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. 15 "'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 21 He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'"

Laodicea was the only church about which Jesus had nothing good to say. The city was founded in 250 B.C. by Antiochus and named after his wife. It was called Laodicea on the Lycus to distinguish itself from the other six cities of the ancient world which bore its name. It was positioned on the most important road in Asia which connected Ephesus to Syria. This road made the city a great commercial and strategic center. It had originally been a fortress but had the unfortunate problem of having to get all of its water from springs over six miles away. The peace provided by Rome allowed Laodicea to flourish. It was one of the wealthiest cities in the world and was a center of banking and finance. When the city was destroyed by an earthquake in A.D. 61 the people refused Roman help and rebuilt the city on their own. Laodicea was proud and felt that it had need of nothing. It was a center of clothing manufacture and was famous for its soft, violet-black, glossy wool. The people did not realize that they were "naked" in the sight of God. The town was a medical center which housed a medical school. The school was famous for ointment for the eyes and for the ears. The people did not realize that they were "spiritually blind." The city had a very wealthy and influential Jewish population. The beginning of the creation in verse 14 is the source of the creation. (See Heb. 1:2; John 1:1-3; and Col. 1:16.) With regard to the Laodiceans, George MacDonald writes:

You must note that in this last message to the Laodiceans, He has not a word of praise for them- not a word of praise. Almost all the rest have some praise given them, but there is not a word of praise for these halfhearted Laodiceans. They want to go comfortably on, and not to be troubled much, and they will get into heaven as they please, in some sleepy way or other. They won't find themselves comfortable there. It is not the halfhearted, simmering kind of hearts that the kingdom of God and His Christ is for. Had God been halfhearted you would never have had a chance of life eternal. It is because God is true-hearted, unselfish, out and out devoted to His creatures that there is any world at all. And He won't have you as you are! If you correspond at all to this description of those that made up the church of the Laodiceans, God won't have you- you won't do! What a word of indignation this is! Oh! you are quite wrong if you have the fancy that Jesus Christ is one who is always speaking soft words. He is indignant sometimes, He is angry sometimes, but there is not one atom in that indignation, in that anger that is not love. But His love will not make His blow lighter, and you are afraid of that kind of love because it demands so much. It demands that you shall be fit to come into His very arms, to His very heart, and less than that will not do. It cannot be that He shall embrace evil things; He will have us free, cost what it may; if it takes an eternity to clean us, we must be clean. Neither cold nor hot: What a word almost of contempt! Only there is no contempt in Him. Using our language it sounds like it, but I call it "indignation," and the strong effort of His heart of love to make them feel what a low condition they are in. "Neither cold nor hot- I won't have you; I will spew you out of my mouth." That Christ should speak like that to us and we deserve it- who will endure it? But, oh! it is of the mercy of God that He speaks to us like that. How is it that we can be spoken to like that? Because we are made after His image. If we were not made in His image He would not speak to us thus. Oh, it is a mark and a sign, true as heaven, that we are of God's kind, and therefore deserve to be spoken to so because we are not of His kind. I speak by a contradiction, but it is right. You are His children; why will you not be His sons and His daughters? He, the Father of us, to be driven to use such words to us because we love darkness more than light! He speaks very plainly what He thinks of them, and He shows very clearly how His thought about them ran counter altogether to their own judgment of themselves. "Oh, we are all right! We accept this and that doctrine; we believe so-and-so; we are all right." Or, on the other hand: "We have broken free from the traditions of the elders; we have got a better way, and so we are all right." Are you doing the things that Jesus Christ tells you? If not, you are all wrong. Your ideas, your opinions, your systems, let them be as correct as astronomy, and you are no better, but probably much the worse for them. The simple heart that just goes to do the thing for Jesus for love's sake, or the thing that his Father makes him feel is the right, noble, God-like thing- that is the man whom the Lord will acknowledge and confess before the Father. It is terrible to think how we shroud the Son of God in a cloud of our foolish, low, paltry ideas about Him. We have swathed Him in the doctrines of the Church and the traditions of men, and the Lord Christ, the Brother-man, we scarcely see. The individual heart does not turn to Him as to its very goal of thought, and feeling, and judgment, and hope. You think you are rich and have need of nothing. All right, you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Does the Lord say this for the sake of abuse or for the sake of telling us we are that? No; He wants to rouse us- "I counsel thee"- He wants to rouse us up, to open our treasure houses that He may fill them, to open doors and windows that the breath of God may blow through our souls. That is why He says the hard words, but hard words in the right places are the kindest thing.