We have supreme authority in the Lord, which is universal. in its range, as the stars are His administrative lights in the churches, which He maintains by His power. He judges by His word those who have it or refuse it.
When John sees this wonderful vision of the Son of man, he falls at His feet as dead. But the Lord puts His right hand of sustaining power upon His servant who lay trembling, nay, as dead, before Him, and says, “Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I became dead, and, behold, I am alive unto the ages of ages.” He is Jehovah yet man; but if He had not died, we should not have known Him in the blessed character and energy of life that He has proved now—life more abundantly. Christianity presents Christ as having passed through death, and as risen in triumph for God and His people. John is going to hear about judgments; but the knowledge that the right hand of Him who was alive for evermore had been upon him, and the words of His mouth would give him strength and courage for everything to come. And this is the spirit in which the book was written and should be read. “Behold, I am alive unto the ages of ages." and have the keys of hades and of death.” The succession of these words in the common text is a mistake. Hades follows death, and does not go before it. (Rev. 6) See also chap. xx. where we have “death and hell” mentioned several times in their regular order. And so in the best authorities it is here. When the Lord says that He has the keys of death and of hades, He intimates that He is the absolute master of all that appertains to life, either for the body or the soul.
Accordingly, also, in verse 19, a little word ought to be put in which adds to the force and connection somewhat. “Write therefore what thou hast seen,” &c. Because I am risen from the dead and am alive for evermore, and the sole ruler of death and hades, write therefore. He who had bid John write (verses 11, 19) was the Son of man, with the characteristics of the Ancient of days; but He was also the living victorious Lord, the security against terror and death, the strengthener of His servants in presence of glory. “Write therefore what thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which are about to be after these.” Human nature might well be confounded by the sight; but He who was revealed to John characterized Himself both as God and as the man who had passed through death and destroyed Satan's title and held the power for His own. And this was to be written, this revelation of Jesus as seen of John, as well as the existing church-state, and the things which should follow. (Verses 17-19.)
Verse 20 explains the mystery of the stars, and candlesticks, as already indicated. It is the connecting link between the vision of Christ and the judgment of the church, or house of God on earth (Rev. 2; 3), as long as its existence there is recognized as the object of His government. After that, it is the judgment of the world from God's throne in heaven, and Jews and Gentiles are variously dealt with, but churches never, in that part of the book. All this, and the reasons for it, will appear more distinctly as we proceed.
It is plain, from chap. 1. 4, 11, and from what follows, that seven actually existing churches of provincial Asia were primarily meant. But while it is true that there were special reasons for addressing those particular churches, it does not, to my own mind, admit of a doubt that they were selected with the further and larger design of presenting successive pictures of the church in general, from the apostolic days to the close of its existence on earth. Hence it is that there were seven golden candlesticks; seven being the well-known symbol of spiritual completeness. There might have been other churches as well or better known, and one of these seven had been already addressed formally by the great apostle of the Gentiles. But Ephesus is again taken up, and six other churches are associated, so as to make up a mystical and perfect sketch of the more important moral features which then existed, and which, at the same time, would successively be developed in the after history of the professing body upon the earth.
Many things that might seem most important in the eyes of men and even of Christians are passed by, for the Lord sees not as man sees.
Another striking feature claims our notice and admiration. It might have seemed impossible to reconcile prophetic light, as to the successive phases the church might assume from the apostolic age as long as it is found here below, with the continual expectation of Christ. But divine wisdom solved the difficulty even here, as the same end is secured in the Gospels and Epistles. The Lord was pleased to address seven contemporaneous and actually existing assemblies; but, in dealing with existing facts, He knew how to select and shape His instruction, so as to suit the states which should follow, till He comes. What a comment on the Lord's answer to Peter's query, “Lord, what shall this man (John) do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.” In this part of the book time is excluded. It is the present, however protracted” the things which are.”
But it will be found, I think, that He has here given prominence to those features, whether good or bad, which should reappear, and most aptly set forth what He foresaw to be of the deepest moment for him who might have an ear to hear till He comes again. And this extensive application seems to me strongly confirmed by that clause of the threefold division in chap. i. 19, which bears on these churches. They are characterized as “the things which are.” No doubt they existed then, in the time of John; but if they continued to exist, and if seeds that were then sown germinated yet more in after days and thus imparted a graver significance to the words and warnings of our Lord, that subsisting state of the church on earth would still be tidy designed “the things which are.” Thus, Ephesus is the first great sample of decline through a relaxation or abandonment of first love. But was not this the notorious fact in Christendom, as a whole, before the last apostle departed to be with the Lord? If in those days and yet more in the times which followed, there was a similar moral state, what more apt and natural than to treat the moral circumstances so as to convey the general lesson? Again, without questioning that the message to Smyrna fully applied at that time, it is easy to see that the great and repeated persecutions, which broke out upon Christians from the heathen, are admirably set forth by it. So again, the Balaam element would naturally come into great distinctness, when the world patronized instead of persecuting. Then, further, Jezebel is an immense advance in evil; and though there was, no doubt, that which furnished occasion for these references at the time when the Apocalypse was given, can it be denied that the outline was filled up in a most striking way, after the throne of the world established Christianity by its edicts, and when, at a later epoch still, the professing church formed a guilty union with virtual heathenism and enmity to the truth of God?
This glance, rapid as it is, over chap. ii., will show why I conceive that these churches are to be viewed as having a real, if indirect, prophetic bearing upon the subsequent states of the Church as they presented themselves to the Lord's all-searching judgment. On the other hand, it is clear that to have made this bearing so marked as to be apparent from the first; to have given a distinct chronological history, if one may so say, would have falsified the true posture of the Church in habitually waiting for the Lord from heaven. For the Lord has nowhere else so spoken to or about the Church, as to keep it necessarily waiting for ages upon the earth. The Lord knew that it would be so, of course, but He revealed nothing that would interfere with the full enjoyment of thee blessed hope of the Lord's return as an immediate thing. And so it is here.
Some have taken advantage of this indistinctness to deny that these seven churches have the successive and protracted character which I have alluded to; but the evidence will appear more fully, as we look at each church severally. Another consideration which ought to weigh much is, that, after these two chapters, churches are nowhere referred to as existing longer on the earth. In the concluding remarks of the book, (chap. xxii. 16,) the Lord says that He has sent His angel to testify these things in the churches. But throughout the entire course of the visions and in all that is intimated of the condition of men here below, after Rev. 3 and onward, there is the most unaccountable silence as to the Church on earth, if the Church be really there. Nothing more simple, if that state of things be closed. And this quite agrees with chap. i, 19: “The things which are, and the things which shall come to pass after these.” After the churches are done with and no longer seen as such upon the earth, the directly prophetic portion of the book begins to have its course.
Further, it seems that the introduction of a new state of things does not necessarily imply the disappearance of what had been before it. In a word, after the new condition appears, there may be still the coexistence of older ones, and each may run on its own sphere. This appears to be distinctly true of the last four. Thus much for the churches as a whole. Responsibility on earth is the question: not the privileges of the Church or the saints in Christ, but the obligation of the churches to represent Him, and His estimate of their state. The light-bearers are open to His scrutiny and judgment.