Revelation 2 (I) Context for the Letters to the Seven Churches

Summarizing what we talked about here – the study of the Book of Revelation is not an exercise in mysticism or speculation, but a practice of careful observation of the text, combined with a systematic searching of Scripture. We saw just how systematic our study could be, when we observed what John saw in that opening chapter of as he introduced the book.

First, we noticed that John was told to write what he sees – remember, not what he's told, but what he sees. And it's that detail that explains why this book is so challenging for us to understand. Normally when you want to interpret a book of Scripture, you are really wanting to understand an explanation of it. But in this case, John is just describing events that he sees, which means that before I can tell you what it means, I have to first make sense of what he is describing. From there, I’ll move into interpreting what the meaning of those visions are, which, due to the nature of the writing, is a more complex process which requires good observation skills and a good knowledge of our Bible.   

Next thing we learned is pertaining to particular symbols. We learned that we are supposed to look at the Bible with an eye to understand that God gave it to us to be known - He didn't give it to us to confuse us, and what He is writing in the last book of this Bible builds on everything He wrote before it. Knowing that, we’ll know that when what we read doesn't make sense, it's because it's buried somewhere else in the Bible and we missed it. And so part of the homework is to go back and find it again.

So if the meaning of a symbol is important to the story, the Bible will have explained the meaning of that symbol somewhere prior to where we encountered it in the Bible, and often that explanation will be right there in the immediate context. And if it’s not, it will be found somewhere else.

The third thing we learned is that the book is structured according to an outline, and it is an outline that guides our understanding of this entire book, and it’s right there in Verse 19:

Rev. 1:19 ‘Therefore, write the things which you have seen and the things which are and the things which will take place after these things.’ 

So, John was told by Christ to write this book in three parts. The first part was to write the things which “you have ‘seen’. The second part is to write the things which ‘are’ and the third part is to write the ‘things which will take place after these things.

And so, that's your outline of the book. While it may seem like it doesn't have enough detail to suit us, perhaps, but it actually tells us a lot more than we think. In the previous study we started trying to identify which chapters of this book correspond to each of these parts because John wrote this book in the same order as these parts were given to him in Chapter 1 - he literally wrote the things he ‘saw’ first, then the things that ‘are’ next, and then finally, Part 3. So when we looked at this last time, we did with some simple observation, beginning with the tense of the verbs that he uses in this verse. 

The first part for example, Jesus says, “write the things which you had ‘seen’”. In other words, it's the past tense version of the verb and so Jesus must be referring to things that have been past tense from that moment, the moment of Chapter 1, Verse 19. So, what had already transpired that John had ‘seen’? Verse 1 through 18. Right?

So, Chapter 1 constitutes the things that John had ‘seen’ because it's the only part of the book that had already taken place by the time those words were spoken by Jesus - past tense. So what did John see? Well, he saw his Lord in a resurrected, glorified form, he saw the lamp stands, and he saw stars in Jesus’ hand. He described all those things. He described the appearance of Jesus, how the vision came to him, etc.  And in all those details we studied, he tells us effectively that he has authority to write what he's given to us.

And that was really the part of the purpose in Part 1, beginning with that chain of custody at the very outset of the letter where we hear how it moves from the Father to the Son and to an angel and so on. And then from there we hear about John's identity as an apostle in the fact that he is on Patmos. And then we look at John and his description of Jesus and His glorified appearance. And then the directions he got. And then all of the things he wrote about were intended to give us some confidence to accept that this is a testimony of a man that we can believe in, and what we have now through his hands is something we are to know of the letter.

And that's Part 1. Now we move to the things which ‘are’.  Chapter 1 are the things that John ‘saw’. So we know that the things that ‘are’, which is Part 2, must start in Chapter 2. So, how far do we go into the book before we get out of Part  2, and start Part 3? If I could find that, then I had my three parts and know where everything is. 

So, what's the obvious clue we found previously that told us where the third part starts? If I know where the third part starts, by definition, I know where the second part ended, right? What did I find? Well, the third part is ‘the things after these things’, right? And then we went through the book and we looked at Chapter 4. And in Chapter 4 I'm looking to find where that exact line is. I looked at Chapter 4, Verse 1, and I read ‘after these things’.

Now, if Chapters 4 and onward are ‘the things after these things’, then by process of elimination, Chapters 2 and 3 are the things that ‘are’, right? And how would we know if we’re right or not? The simple thing to do is to look at what's inside Chapters 2 and 3 and see if the contents of those chapters make sense as the things that ‘ARE’.

And that's actually the hardest part about this, that term ‘are’ in Chapter 2 and 3 – the word ‘are’ being in the present tense. It poses a little confusion as you think about it, because that present tense verb would seem to suggest to us that John had been shown things back in that earlier day with Jesus that were relevant to him then that were ‘are’ for him then. But yet that would mean they're not ‘are’ - present tense – for us anymore, right?  They would have been ‘were’? That's what we would assume, and it leaves us a little confused why Jesus uses the word “are”.

But as it turns out, the things that John wrote in Chapters 2 and 3 are every bit as much the things that ‘are’ for us now, as they were for back in the day that he lived. Let’s look at this logically for just a moment. As we try to understand this word ‘are’ a little better, and we try to make sense of why Chapters 2 and 3 have that title.

We know that the things that ‘are’ are in Chapters 2 and 3, and we know that the things that must take place after these things are starting in Chapter 4. Now try to consider where in history do we move from one to the next? Where do we move from ‘are’ to the things that happened after that?

I want to know how far in history do the things that ‘are’ stay until those things ‘after these things’ start. And when those things start, it will be after the things that ‘are’, because that's what Jesus said – write the things that ‘are’ and then ‘the things that must take place after these things that ‘are’.

You're looking at the things that ‘are’ trying to understand what are the things you are waiting for, that when they start, will tell you that you have reached the point “after these things that ‘are’”.

Alright, so that's part of the conundrum as we study Chapters 2 and 3 and we know they're called the things that ‘are’. We also come to understand they are true. They are present tense as long as the things of chapters 4 and beyond have not started. As soon as the things of chapters 4 and onward have started, by definition, we've moved to Part 3 in our history, and now the things that ‘are’, are now the things that ‘were’.

That's part of how this outline helps us understand things. We want to know when the things that were, are going to get going. So what we're doing now is we're moving on into the text itself, to Part 2, with an understanding of what we're going to actually do in this part. 

And it's the letters to the churches, that's what chapters 2 and 3 are commonly called. They are letters written to seven literal places – churches, in John's day. And in order to understand what's in these two chapters - why are they called the things that ‘are’ - we need to start with a little introduction on how we're going to interpret them. Beginning with an approach that is based on how these letters are structured.

There are three complementary methods of interpretation that we need to apply. You use all three to understand the letters fully. All three are valid. All three are necessary.

First is that we want to read Scripture literally. So in this case, we want to take these as literal letters. They were written by Jesus through John's hand. They had a real audience in mind, that is, men and women who lived in John’s day. These letters would have made their way to their intended audience through some methods. And in this case, the cities would have been places like Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamum and so on.

And they did exactly what Jesus intended them to do. They informed the congregations in those cities of the things Jesus wrote.  And as He spoke to these things, He was speaking about literal things in their community, issues of standing fast against false teachers or of suffering, persecution and the like. Not metaphorically, literally, so that when they read the letters that made perfect sense to them what Jesus was telling. We want to look at these letters from that point of view.  

And they are historical, they're speaking about churches that no longer exist, not as they did, at least in the day. But we don't stop there, and we know we don't stop there for one reason more than any other. And that is, these letters continue to have present day significance. They are still the times that ‘are’.  So if that's true, that cannot just be literal and historic, because then we would lose the present tense value of them. They have a deeper meaning beyond the literal historic, and that second meaning is that they're also universal. We need to understand that these letters also speak to situations and perspectives that remain true throughout the time of the Church.

That is to say, every moment, at any time, in the history of the Church, somewhere in this world, you can find a church community that is experiencing the onslaught of false teaching or a time of persecution or of apostasy. And in that sense, you can always find Ephesus somewhere. You can always find it in Smyrna somewhere. And in that respect, these messages are timeless for the Church. They continue to say things to us that are relevant, just as they did back in the first century. So we know that they are both historic and literal, and they are universal and general and timeless. 

We know the Book of Revelation is prophetic. It's a prophecy book and prophecy in this book is not just limited to Chapter 4 and onward. Every chapter in this book has a prophetic element, every single one of them. For example Chapter 1 - we know it looks backward in time to a moment that John experienced on the island of Patmos. So it certainly is historic in that respect. But did you know, nonetheless, it includes a prophetic element? So, what’s prophetic in that chapter?

It’s the appearance of Christ to John in a glorified moment in the form of His coming, as in His second coming. That was a preview of the coming attractions that Jesus is showing John. “Here’s what I'm going to look like when I rule and reign in My kingdom yet to come and you're seeing it early.” And how do we know that's His appearance? Because we went and compared what we read in Chapter 1 to things that were written in the Old Testament about the nature of God before He was incarnate, and we looked at the chapter in Revelation of His second coming in Chapter 19, and the description of Him there was exactly the same again. That's who He is, before and after the short time He spend on Earth. 

So, in a sense that's prophetic, showing you something of the future. But it doesn't stop at Chapter 1. It certainly doesn't only include Chapter 4 to 22, it includes chapters 2 and 3. So we have to make that our goal as we look at those 2 chapters, at the letters, rather, in those chapters. We have to give consideration to how these letters are speaking to us about future events. And to show how we do that, we’ll look at a map showing the locations of these churches in John's day, in present day Southwestern Turkey or what was called Asia Minor back in that day.

If you look at them on the map, there’s a pattern that you find when you compare their geographic location to the order in which they appear in Chapters 2 and 3. Starting from Ephesus, the first church that the letter addresses, to Laodicea, the seventh church - what pattern stands out as you look at their location on the map? How would we describe the orientation of their location? They are in a clockwise direction. And that pattern would suggest, perhaps, that the letters are representative of a passage in time or as a turning of time. 

Now, someone would point out at this point that the mechanical clocks were not invented until the 14th century. And to that, we would say that sundials which had been used since 3500 BC track the movement of the sun in the Northern Hemisphere in a clockwise fashion which is why clock makers elected to make clocks move in a clockwise fashion when they invented them.  They were simply mirroring the way sundials worked at the time. So for everyone back in John's day, the idea of time moving in a clockwise fashion was already understood. And so it would seem like an interesting coincidence, at least, that these churches are presented to us in a clockwise fashion so that curious geography starts to suggest something to us that we want to follow up on and learn more about. In other words, we don't just take that alone as our proof. But it does start to suggest that the times that ‘are’, are a description of the period of time of the church and that these letters then, might be a way in which God is representing the character or the nature of His church as it evolves over time. 

If we're talking about a prophetic view of the text, we’re saying these letters have a symbolic eschatological meaning. The word “eschatology” just refers to the study of the end of the age or the study of the end of time. These letters are pointing us to the end of time, to the end of this age. They connect the dots between the moment John saw Jesus - Part 1 - and the things that lead to the second coming of Christ, which is chapter 4 onwards.

So to the church, Jesus is saying, ‘I've come to tell you how the end will happen and how My second coming will take place. But there are some things that have to happen first before My second coming begins, and the things that will fill the gap between now, John, and My second coming, the things that will fill that place are the things that ‘are’ as long as they are true.”

We are still in that time of waiting. And that will be the church time, letters to the churches representing that time. So the first century church was in exactly the same position we're in right now, waiting for Christ's return.

And when chapter 4 onward kicks off, you know you're in a very short timeline before His return. We'll talk about that when we get there. Chapters 2 and 3 explain how the Lord fills the time between John and Jesus. 

Think about this for a minute. Jesus has crafted this prophecy in such a clever way. It's so clever because it could not possibly have been known by the early church. There's no way reading this letter in the first century, you could ever have discovered that these letters were speaking of the nature of the church over time. There's nothing to suggest that in the letters themselves. The eschatological quality of them would have remained hidden for a long time. Only until you reach such a point in history that you can begin to look back on history and compare it to what's said in the letters. And in that comparison, you start to notice the fact that these letters say things that match up to what’s seen happened in history, and only then are you in a position to say, “Wait a minute, it looks like God gave us this to tell us about the history of the church.” In fact, no one saw it until 150 years ago. 150 years ago is about the earliest anybody suggested that these letters could be seen prophetically.

And let’s see why Christ wanted it that way. And as we examine these letters, you're going to notice that each of these letters follows a very specific pattern. That is, each letter has certain elements, and these elements are repeated letter after letter after letter. From that pattern, you begin to see how each of these letters represents a period of history. Remember, these three methods of interpretation are not one or the other, they're all three together. Each of these letters has the power to talk to a specific church in its day, and the power to talk to us about our circumstances today, and the power to reveal what the history of the church will look like over time. Our God is big enough to do all three at the same time. Also there are seven letters - and we remember the number ‘7’ means 100%. But now you just learned it means 100% in two different ways - it doesn't just represent 100% of the church, it represents 100% of the time of the church. That is, the whole church from beginning to end, all of it being represented in these letters. 

So the church age has a beginning and it goes to appear in history and comes to a conclusion. And what we're learning is that Part 2, the things that ‘are’, is a discussion of what that period of time will look like for the church. It will have seven periods, one corresponding to each of the letters. Now, not all of equal length, and not all of them are equally eventful, but just seven, according to what these letters represent.

And so now, with the seven letters that we are about to study, we're saying each of those letters tells us something about how the church moves through time. But, as we look at this and we try to understand it, then we need to begin to ask ourselves, “How would I know that this is true? What would tell me that it's true? How would the text itself validate these things?”

Well, as mentioned earlier, you could not possibly look at these letters and understand that these things were true, as you start that period of history - as you start back in the time of Ephesus, so to speak. There would have been no way to know that. You can only recognize things in hindsight.

In recognizing them in hindsight, you begin to see that there are things about history that map against them. That's going to be our proof. If what’s suggested is not true, it will fall apart under its own weight. You will look at a letter, it will say things, and you'll find no reasonable connection to history, and no way to make that connection work. Or, it will work. And there are some things in these letters that will blow your mind for how it compares to history. 

So that's the first thing we're going to learn, and it’s that the history of our last 2000 years will validate what we're studying. The second thing to understand about this particular way of interpreting Scripture is that it suggests to us that just as the church had a beginning at Pentecost, it must have an end. There are only seven letters. There is an end. There is a point in time in which the church as we know it just doesn't exist anymore. Which leads us to the question of how, why and when - things that would interest us since we're in the church age - and maybe most of all, what comes next? If the church has an end, what does that mean about what comes next? And the Book of Revelation will answer that as we move through the text. 

Finally, the last thing, and then we get into the first of the letters in Revelation 2 (II). Think about this. If there are only seven stages to the letters, then it should become possible for us as we compare them to history, to discover where we are in history, right? It should be possible at some point to look at these and say where we are on the list of the seven periods. And if we find that we're near the end, well, that's a pretty exciting discovery, isn't it?

If you told me you were living in stage 3, Pergamum, or stage 4 Sardis,  what I'm going to think is that I’ve got a long time to wait before Jesus comes back, and meanwhile, I can kick back. But that doesn't sound right, does it? In fact, if you know Scripture, you know that's not even possible. Scripture talks about the return of Christ as imminent, always possible, independent of nothing when it comes to the church.

That tells you something. In fact, it answers the question about why for 1900 years or so, the church did not realize that this was a part of how to look at these letters. 

And it’s because for 1900 years, it didn't matter.  And in fact for 1900 years, if the church had discovered this somehow, it would have been an incentive to not be interested in the second coming of Christ and would have given us perhaps reason to be lazy in our following of Jesus.

But if you happen to be the church that's sitting at the end of this, well, then it's a much different thing to find out about this pattern. 

And we will move down to the letters themselves in Revelation 2 (II).