LITMIR.BIZ

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with the issue of witnessing for Christ in the midst of a pagan culture. The churches with problems must repent. The churches with no problems must persevere in their faithful witness.79 Mounce wants to see these letters as “a vital part of the Apocalypse as a whole and are intended for the exhortation and edification of the church universal.” This is not a survey of the church throughout history (as in the Dispensational view), but the sequential pattern was used by John “to impress upon the church universal the necessity of patient endurance in the period of impending persecution.”80 Why these seven churches? All seven were within one hundred miles of Ephesus in the Roman proconsular province of Asia and might have formed an established circular rout that functioned as a postal route. Johns seems to have been familiar with each church’s situation.81

The church in Ephesus was planted by the Apostle Paul. We can read that story in Acts 19. Ephesus was the first church in the order of delivery of the vision of John. As a city of trade, Ephesus was the commercial center of Asia Minor. There was an important port (except for large ships), and it became a connecting city between Syria and Egypt in the East and Italy in the West. Ephesus was considered “the first and greatest metropolis of Asia.” The population was between about 200,000 and 250,000 people. Only Rome and Alexandria were bigger at the time.82 The city of Ephesus was believed to have been protected by Artemis. For the faithful, Artemis was supposed to help and bless. She was the child of Leto and Zeus, the goddess of pregnancy and considered very powerful, the “Queen of heaven,” “Lord”, and “Savior.” But Artemis was not the only god/goddess worshipped in Ephesus. There were about fifty others, including Aphrodite, Sybil, Demeter, Isis (Egypt), and Zeus, Apollo, and others.83

Jesus is described with images from the vision of John in Revelation 1, the one “who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands” (2:1). The stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven golden lampstands are the seven churches (see 1:20). Jesus is present in the church through the sevenfold Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The stars in his right hand communicate sovereignty, control, and protection. Beale interestingly notes that a formula introducing the word from the Lord is used here, similar to that used of God (twenty-one times in the Minor Prophets), and “Thus says the Lord” (about sixty-five times in Ezekiel, thirty times in Jeremiah, and eight times in Amos). Essentially, Jesus is here assuming the role of Yahweh.84 As the speaking Lord, and as One who is “walking” among the golden lampstands rather than simply standing, the text implies that he is one who knows the churches and is active among them.85 Regardless of how beautiful the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, Jesus is the One who is present with his church. He is not a cold stone, gold, and jeweled building. He is the Living One who is present in our midst and is aware of our activities.

Because Jesus is the One with eyes of flames of fire, he knows the deeds of the churches, and he justly brings judgment or praise to them, depending upon their works. The congregation in Ephesus was a congregation that worked hard and persevered like John in 1:9. The same word is used for “faithful endurance.” This was a congregation that did not tolerate wickedness or false teaching, that is, false prophets. They upheld the truth. Apparently, there were in the church at the time, people who would rise up and declare themselves on par with the apostles, with apostolic authority, the same as what Paul encountered in Corinth (2 Corinthians 11:13–15). Maybe their fancy words and careful rhetoric won over audiences, but the Ephesian church tested them and found them not to be genuine. They were false teachers.86

      Doctrinal truth is still important today, especially in light of the fact that so many churches and denominations are giving up on important matters of the faith, like the exclusive claims of Christ, the Trinity, the atonement, the role of the Holy Spirit, and the nature of judgment at the end of time. When doctrine is compromised, a door is opened to any teaching and behavior in the church. Teaching fuels behavior. We can claim that we can live holy lives, but if we do not have a correct understanding of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and the role of the Holy Spirit, our lives will be powerless.

      The Ephesian church endured faithfully in what they had. The truth? The Faith? Proper teaching? The gospel? Whichever it was, and it was probably a combination of these, they had endured for the sake of the name of Jesus. They did not grow weary. This was not a casual rejection of false teaching but a persistent vigilance.

      The church in Ephesus has remained faithful to sound doctrine. Their problem was that they had forsaken the heart part of their relationship. Jesus had commended them for their endurance to the truth and their stance against false teaching and false prophesy, but his complaint against them was that they had forsaken their first love. What was their first love? Jesus spoke of two commandments: vertical love for God and horizontal love for one another. Had they grown cold in their commitment to loving God and loving one another in their stressing of the truth? ἀφῆκες (aphekes) has the idea of forsaking, not just forgetting. They had forsaken their mission and the highest command of Jesus.

There are quite a few perspectives of what this first love actually was. Beale believes that “lost their first love” means that they had forsaken their witness to the world.87 Thomas thinks that first love is primarily referencing Jesus. Love has an important place in Johannine literature (see John 13:34–35). The first work is love for one another, and this is reflective of our love for Jesus.88 Mounce believes that the losing of their first love refers mainly to their love for one another.89 Thomas is on the right track. Loss of love was caused by their struggle with false teachers and their hatred of heretical teachings, which led to harsh attitudes toward one another. This led to a lessoning of love among the brothers. We cannot separate a love for Jesus and a love for the brothers. This is clear from 1 John. If we say we love Jesus and do not love our brothers, we are lying. So, a loss of first love would include both a loss of love for the brothers as well as a loss of love for Christ. They go together. They had become like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son, doing the right things out of duty, but not from a motivation of love.

Christianity is not just a matter of the mind, it is a matter of the heart, of the affections. The Ephesian church was great about their commitment to doctrinal truth, but they were lacking in their commitment to genuine love. The command from Jesus is to “remember.” Remember what? Remember the place from where they had fallen. They were also to repent from this forsaking of their first love and do the works they did at first. They must continue to persevere in the truth, but without forsaking the love of Christ. “Remember” is in the present imperative, which stands in contrast with “repent” in the aorist imperative. They must keep calling to mind the love from which they had fallen, and then make a clean break from that attitude.90

Jesus’ threat is serious. He threatened that if they did not repent, he would come and remove the lampstand from its place, that is, the light and presence of the Holy Spirit would be taken away. The glory would be removed just as the glory of God left the temple in the days of Ezekiel. Aune reiterates, this is “nothing less than a threat to obliterate the Ephesian congregation as an empirical Christian community.”91 Is this an imminent threat or an eschatological threat? I believe it should be both/and, but it was more of an imminent threat given the presence of Jesus among the churches, walking among the lampstands.

      How is our commitment to genuine love both in the church and out of it? Sometimes it is

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