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In this episode, Dr. Alex Stewart and Tyler Sanders read through chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, focusing on the seven letters to the seven churches in western Asia Minor. These seven letters share a repetitive structure, influenced by Imperial edicts and Old Testament prophets. Each letter addresses a specific church, identifying Jesus as the speaker and revealing Jesus's intimate knowledge of the church, and offers either encouragement or a call to repentance.
Creators & Guests
What is The Study Podcast?
The Study Podcast is an in-depth look at the Bible with Dr. Paul Wegner and Dr. Alex Stewart.
Tyler Sanders 0:00
You're listening to the Study Podcast with Dr Alex Stewart on Revelation. I'm your host. Tyler Sanders, I'm here with Dr Alex Stewart, Professor of New Testament, Dean of the Faculty at Gateway Seminary. We're talking about Revelation. Last episode, we got through Revelation [chapter] one, and now we're getting into Revelation two and three. And this is a really good one. This is gonna let us demonstrate several of your principles for interpreting revelation, specifically repetition. We're going to get into that one a lot.
Dr. Stewart 0:26
Yeah, I think it's a great section of Revelation. It's the one that's most well known to Christians. So chapters two and three, most pastors who do a sermon series-
Tyler Sanders 0:35
That's what they're going to do?
Dr. Stewart 0:36
Yeah! Revelation one through three, or maybe through chapter five, the throne room scene. But there's lots of sermon series on the seven letters for the seven churches, or seven proclamations as I'll call them, after the seven churches. And so it's the easiest, preachable part of Revelation.
Tyler Sanders 0:54
And, what all do we get in these two chapters? There's like, seven, right?
Dr. Stewart 0:59
Well, a little bit, yeah. So chapter one ended with this vision of Jesus. Where [He] appears at John. And we didn't go into too many details about that vision itself, but he's walking among the seven lampstands, which are identified as the seven churches. And he's walking among them, that's indicating his presence. So he's not distant from his people. You know, he's actively involved. He's sort of tending the lampstands, the churches, he cares about them, he's present with them. And that's how chapter one ends, with that. And then this commission to send these messages to the seven churches. So that's what leads us now to chapters two and three, where there's seven distinct messages to seven different churches. They're all located in western Asia Minor, and they're sort of in the order that you would have if you're delivering the letter. And so, you know, someone would have this book Revelation, they'd go to one, then they go the next, and they go the next. Sort of this circuit for mail delivery, as it were.
Dr. Stewart 1:46
So that's sort of the order of them. But there's also a lot more, when you get into the details of the sort of a chaostic arrangement, which we might talk about a little bit later, to the arrangement of them and the message of them. But what we're talking about with repetition is that each of the seven letters has this same structure to them. So there's an identifiable structure that gets repeated in every single one of them. And you can read different commentators on it, and you could subdivide some of these, to end up to five segments, or six or seven, or depending how small you want to get. But everyone's recognized there's a particular form to these seven messages, and identify that form. Two main influences on that form, and one is Imperial edicts. So Imperial edicts in the ancient world is some message from the Emperor to a city or province or whatever. It's an imperial edict that's going out to the subjects of the kingdom. They would often begin with that phrase, "Thus says," and it would be the Emperor's name. And then it would give the description, all the flowery flattery of the Emperor, establishing his authority, and you know who he is. And then it would often have some statement of [how] the Emperor knows something about what he's about to address. Some statement of knowledge. And then there's a command. Then there's sort of commendations and warnings. So if you disobey this command, or if you follow it.
Dr. Stewart 3:03
And so this form of an imperial edict, goes a little bit with what we were talking about last episode, you know, "the ruler, the kings of the earth." So Jesus is speaking now as the ruler. And he's speaking to, his sort of, these little pockets of the kingdom, in these different communities, so his followers, his citizens of his kingdom in these different local cities. And so that structure would bring to mind for first century-and that's also one of our principles, the original context-brings to mind the idea of Imperial edicts. That's one influence on the form. The other, though, is Old Testament prophets themselves. And so one of the phrases that is really common in the Old Testament prophets is, "Thus says Yahweh", "Thus says the Lord", is how it's often translated. And so the Hebrew prophets then often would launch into sort of, calling God's people to repentance, critiquing them for breach of covenant, or giving them promises and hope. So, a lot of the same themes in these letters. So that could be described even as prophetic lawsuits of some sort. That would on this form, this genre, from the Hebrew prophets, of calling God's people to repentance for breach of covenant or commending them for faithfulness-but generally it's less common, generally it's more the warnings for continued unrepentance. You know, a calling to repentance. And so that forms in a lot of the content. So I think the structure, the form is more similar to the Imperial edicts, and the concept is more like the prophetic oracles from the Hebrew prophets. And so I think it's blending, they're very intentionally bringing both those together. And another takeaway from that; it's not just Jesus, "thus says the Emperor", well, the emperor is Jesus, but also "thus says Yahweh". Jesus is now in the place of Yahweh. And so we talked before about the Trinity. You know, Trinity is not mentioned, but it's all these building blocks for later thinking through the Trinity. Here Jesus is fulfilling the function of Yahweh in the Old Testament and communicating through his prophets to his people. So I think that's important.
Tyler Sanders 4:58
It is. And that kind of brings in some pretty complex ideas of authority, really. Like the idea of basing it on an imperial edict, that's kind of a cultural understanding of authority that probably would be a very natural way to understand. Even that would be a very quick like people would just pick up [on it], Like, "oh, yeah, I get what this is, functionally."
Dr. Stewart 5:16
Yeah, the speaker here is claiming to be like the Emperor, the ruler.
Tyler Sanders 5:19
Yeah. But then to refer back to Old Testament prophecy, but with Jesus as...
Dr. Stewart 5:25
Yeah, in the place of Yahweh, as the one who has this authority to speak to his people.
Tyler Sanders 5:30
It's a very strong theological move.
Dr. Stewart 5:31
I think so yeah. And again, in Revelation, they never collapse Jesus into the identity of the Father. So they're always different persons, as it were, but they're always linked so closely that again, later Christians came to think of the Trinity. This is the best way they try to express this.
Tyler Sanders 5:47
This isn't just replacing a name or something like that, or another name of God.
Dr. Stewart 5:50
It's not two gods. But also it's like, how do we make sense of this? And that led to later reflection on the Trinity. So that's sort of the form of it, and the content is the Imperial edicts and the Old Testament prophets. But I've identified-again, you could subdivide these in different ways-but I think five main sections to each of these seven letters. It starts with the the address. Each one is addressed to an angel of the particular church. Then the speaker is identified. Jesus is that second element in every one of these, and he's identified and described with a reference back to that vision of Jesus in chapter one. So John has this vision of Jesus that draws from Daniel 7, Daniel 10, and some other places. That's this vision of The Exalted, a ruler. And he just falls on his face. Like it's so overwhelming, this picture of Jesus. So each of these letters is beginning with a reference back to that initial vision. And that's important, because it's this constant reminder of who's speaking to us here in these messages. And it keeps connecting us back to that inaugural vision that John has of Jesus. And there are a few references that aren't in that inaugural vision. So he talks in 3:7, of having the key of David. Well, that's not in chapter one, but it is something that's introduced because it's relevant to that message. The beginning of God's creation, in chapter 3:14, that's not from chapter one. But all these other-in this section of each of these-they're all linking back, except those few examples, to this initial vision of Jesus in chapter one.
Dr. Stewart 7:11
And then the third segment, that's in all these seven letters or proclamations or edicts, is that he tells them something he knows about that particular church. So there's seven churches being addressed and they're not all the same. So he says something he knows about them that's insightful, it's either good or bad. Something that he's commending them for or something that he's rebuking or correcting them for. And then that statement of knowledge is followed up by a statement of either encouragement or warning that's related to it. So depending on the need of the church. Then the next step is either to encourage or warn them. And then each of these seven letters end with this conclusion. It's a call to to hear. "The one who has ears, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches." And then there's a call to the one who overcomes. And so the content of those are filled in a little differently, but they all end with this promise to the one who overcomes, who's victorious, who conquers. And those are almost all linked to chapters 21 and 22. So there's a few details that aren't picked up again, but many of them are very explicitly, intertextually, linked to the visions of the new heavens and the new earth, God's new creation. So the promise of the overcomers, and that's also picked up in chapter 21 where it says, "The one who overcomes will inherit all these things." So there's a summary, the scripture that "the new creation, the new heavens, the new earth", is linked to the one who overcomes. So each of these seven letters ends with this promise to the one who overcomes. That's linked forward to chapters 21 and 22. So those are the five elements that are present in every one of these seven letters. And they're pretty consistent. So it's a set structure to these edicts or proclamations.
Tyler Sanders 8:48
I would like to get into these. And I have a question-you've answered it in your book, but I'd like to talk about in the podcast from the very first one-as we identify the church, there's a reference to an angel for each church.
Dr. Stewart 9:03
Yeah. Well, that's a fascinating detail. And some interpreters, they're not that comfortable thinking of like this angelic representative of each geographically local church. So they might explain "Angelos" as "messenger". And they might say, this is the human elder or the human leader that's being addressed in the church. And I don't find that very convincing in Revelation and apocalyptic literature in general. So in Revelation, the angels seem to be these spiritual beings. And that leads to then a view that, yes there is this angelic representation of God's people in heaven. And then they're connected in various ways. You know, the letters are interesting because it's second person singular for many parts of these letters, but then there's also throughout, sort of intermixed, second person plural. So the angel is the one who's being addressed as the representative of the church. But often it slips into the fact that it's not really the angel who needs to repent. It's the people of God. It's the plural. The plural people of God that are being represented in this message to the angel. And so there is this connection of the spiritual representation of God's people in the heavenly realms. And then the angel is being held accountable for the church itself, in some ways. And whether how literal that is or not? There's a lot of angelic speculation in Second Temple Judaism, in terms of different hierarchies of angels, and the functions of angels, the activities of angels. And early Christianity, in contrast, is pretty reserved. And so the early Christians don't, at least what we have in the New Testament, doesn't get into a lot of speculation, what one might think of a speculation, but there are hints of it throughout. So it's a worldview that the early Christians shared with their counterparts and Jewish thinkers at the time. So I'm not saying that they're in conflict, I'm saying that what survived the New Testament doesn't reveal a lot of speculation, that has survived in first Enoch or some of these other texts. But we do get hints of it here, that again, I'm hesitant to build too much on it, but I also don't want to pretend that they're not there. The worldview of Revelation is filled with supernatural beings, you know. Good and evil, malicious and beneficial. They're agents of God. They're created agents. They're active in the world. We don't worship them. So they're servants of God who are also fulfilling God's purposes for them. And so I think the Christian worldview has this spiritual realm and it's populated.
Dr. Stewart 9:04
Well, and there's a logic we've seen, especially like with the last episode of how authority is passed down to John to even write this. That there's something that...God is the originator, but that angels are kind of passing this message down.
Dr. Stewart 10:43
They're active throughout. They're interpreting it for him, and they're guiding him through it.
Tyler Sanders 10:52
So for them to be kind of non-existent, or something completely metaphorical, or something for the churches would be a little bit of an undermining of that kind of idea, you know.
Dr. Stewart 12:04
I mean, there's other ideas of this angelic representation of God's people in the divine realms. The Heavenly Court is the word, divine court. And so the idea of the elders that come up in chapter four, many interpreters would connect that with these sort of heavenly representatives of God's people. So that's certainly possible there as well. This is not giving the idea of like a guardian angel. You know, there's different ideas floating around that like but it's not making that claim, that each Christian has sort of a specific Angel that's looking out for them, that's connected to them in a special link or something. It's not making that claim. But it does seem to link each geographical community of Christians with an angelic representative.
Tyler Sanders 12:50
Yeah, that's pretty fascinating.
Dr. Stewart 12:51
Yeah, no, it's unique. It's not, at least in the Baptist traditions, in the Baptist churches, we don't build a lot on this. We don't pick up much on this. But it's there.
Tyler Sanders 13:02
So how does this kind of tie in, then to our introduction? Because that's not all of what we're getting in this first element of these letters, right?
Dr. Stewart 13:12
Well, yeah. It's linked to the angel of the specific church. So each of these seven letters is to the angel of the church in whatever city, seven cities. So, this is the commission to John, so the angels linked to the city, and it's linked to the community there. And then the message itself though, the call to repentance, their rebukes, they're linked to the people.
Tyler Sanders 13:32
That's to the people.
Dr. Stewart 13:33
Yeah, yeah. So the content of the messages are very clearly, you know, shaping us, as a recipient to these messages.
Tyler Sanders 13:42
This is kind of interesting idea, I think, because-this is fascinating. I guess what I'm just thinking about on the spot here, that's fascinating about this is, these are two separate churches, but we have all of them...
Dr. Stewart 13:57
Oh yeah, in terms of-
Tyler Sanders 13:59
Like, there's something kind of fascinating there, that while they're specifically to a church, they're also beneficial for everybody.
Dr. Stewart 14:05
So, there's two things going on there. The one is the number seven itself. So seven is significant in Revelation. It's the right number for sort of completion, cosmic order. And there's seven days of the week. So it goes back to Genesis one even. So seven being a significant number in terms of this is the...it's not a define number per se, but it's the number of days that God created. So it's the right number for a complete sequence of events, or for completion or fullness. So seven churches. These are specific churches, in these specific cities, that this letter was delivered to. Revelation was delivered to. And each one heard this message. But at the same time, the fact that he picked seven instead of eight or six is also not accidental. And so it's communicating to us, the message as a whole, even though they are historically grounded to these seven churches is meant to be broader than that. So it's meant to be addressed to all of God's churches anywhere.
Dr. Stewart 14:59
And there's a reference in, I think it's in chapter two verse 23 maybe, I think with Thyatira. Yeah, he's warning about Jezebel and her children, her followers. And he says, "and all the churches will know that I'm the one searching, the kidneys and the hearts, and I'll give to each one according to their works." It's translated normally, "the minds and the hearts," but literally it's their "kidneys". He's the one who searches kidneys and hearts, and he'll give to each according to your works. So the idea even there, it's really clear that each message specifically, is meant to be read by the other churches. So it's specific mail that was meant to be read by others. So that's where that idea that every one of these seven letters, although specifically written to that church, originally was always meant to be read by all the churches and to be heeded by all the churches. So as Christians, as we read these, and this is some of the power of these seven proclamations, that churches as a whole and then also as individuals at different stages in our journeys, we could always connect with something in these seven letters.
Dr. Stewart 14:59
And that's why they're so often preached, because they preach well and they're applicable to us. And so at one point I may connect more with Laodicea, another point with Sardis. So it just depends where I'm at my own journey, and then the community of God's people that I'm journeying with at this stage in my life, where we're at corporately together, collectively, which message is most relevant. The middle three churches specifically and explicitly acknowledge that there's a split. Like some of the people are faithful and some are compromised. I think that's also reflecting reality. In many of our churches where there's people that are really seriously committed to following Christ and sacrificial obedience and discipleship, and there's others who are just tagging along for different reasons; culturally or family wise. And so I think that matches reality. And so I think in those middle three churches, it's not that are you identifying with this church, but within this church which side, where are you fitting in this church? So I think that they invite us to identify like that, as readers or as hearers, to identify with which of these messages applies to me today? Not last week or not last year, not next year. Like today. Which of these messages do I need to hear and respond to?
Tyler Sanders 17:28
I think one of the things I love about that is it just demonstrates how complex the construction of, not just Revelation, but all the books in the Bible can be. I don't want to put this on everyone else, this is just my own probably failings I guess, but sometimes I read it very plainly. Not that you shouldn't read Scripture plainly, but I'll read it too simply, in a way. Or I just kind of assume this is just compiled and someone just kind of put all this stuff together. But it's not. It's very, very thoughtfully structured. Because what an amazing feature. You know, that we shouldn't just run right past. We have these seven letters all together, and they were supposed to be put together. That's kind of ingenious.
Dr. Stewart 18:11
They were put together from the beginning, intentionally.
Tyler Sanders 18:14
Right, they're built to be together.
Dr. Stewart 18:16
And their content is broad and specific. So it's like specific enough to speak very clearly to us into the original hearers, and it's also broad enough that I think we could always see ourselves somewhere in these letters. And that is the beauty and the brilliance of them.
Tyler Sanders 18:32
Yeah. Well, that's perfect. Okay, so maybe we'll get into our second piece here.
Dr. Stewart 18:37
So the first part of it is the address of the church. The second part is identifying the speaker. And we already, largely, talked about this where identifying, "thus says". And say this example from Sardis, "Thus says, the one having the seven spirits of God and the seven stars." And so that's connecting back to that vision, again, of chapter one. So each of these introduce, in some ways, connecting back to that inaugural vision. Just reminding, by way of reminder; this is the one speaking to you, "the ruler of the kings of the earth, and the exalted power and splendor" and in that vision, even the swords coming out of his mouth. Again, that's a weird metaphor for us today, probably. But it's the power of his speech, like it's powerful and His Word, His word carries weight. His word matters. So that's the speaker.
Dr. Stewart 19:20
So each of these seven identify the speaker as Jesus, the ruler of the kings of the earth. And then the third section we're talking about is Jesus's knowledge. And this is really fascinating for a number of reasons. We talked in one of the prior episodes about Revelation as a whole, "apocalypsis", as unveiling, uncovering, revealing reality from God's perspective. And we see that. And I talk about several examples here of how we see that, in these letters, in this section of the content, of what Jesus knows. And the idea that comes through really clear here is Jesus knows us very intimately, very clearly. That we can't hide. We can't cover up, we can't fool him. We could trick everyone else. And some of these churches were. They had everyone else fooled with the appearances of their vibrancy or their influence, their effectiveness. And these letters cut through all of that. We can't trick or fool Jesus. And so that's a powerful message just by itself.
Tyler Sanders 20:20
I love that you use the word "intimately". Because when I was reading this, that's kind of what I was thinking of. There is a kind of intimacy that's revealed here, even though it's not always...so I think sometimes we think of intimacy as only a kind of love or some kind of positive like warmth or whatever, but there's an intimacy in knowing someone and being able to say when they're wrong too. There's a closeness that's kind of demanded to be able to say that and for it to be accepted, you know.
Dr. Stewart 20:48
Yeah, I mean, it's powerful. He knows us better than we know ourselves. So even our deepest flashes of self knowledge. We have moments in life, we see ourselves in ways that we haven't at other times, like we get these flashes throughout life, and maybe those in some ways, come into some alignment with how He sees us. But He knows us deeper than we know ourselves. And that would be terrifying if he was evil, but he's not. And so as he says with Laodicea, he rebukes those he loves. So the motivation for his confrontation with us is not malicious or it's not to harm us. It's not jealous or controlling. It's out of love for us and wanting us to flourish and thrive and experience this relationship with God. So there's some examples just of this unveiling of reality from his perspective.
Dr. Stewart 21:38
I think one that I just love is in chapter two, verse nine. Flip there, real quick. So chapter two verse nine, where he says, "I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are wealthy," and that's just, it's opposite. So he's saying, I know this. I know your tribulation, the pressure that you're under, the stress you're under, the weight you're under, the tribulation that you're under, and your poverty. So he acknowledges you're dirt poor. Like, you have no money. There's no economic security, and you're just living day by day. You know, bad harvest and people die. And so I know the pressure you're under and your poverty. He says, "But you are wealthy." And this is like from God's perspective. Their faithfulness is more valuable. It's true wealth as it were. And so that's just where we see with our human eyes, and we assess people and situations and things and jobs and careers, and we have our human way of weighing things, of evaluating, what's really valuable, what's not. You know, who's important based on how much money they have. And so he's addressing this church in Smyrna, where they have no value or importance by human perspective. Like there's nothing, they're pitiful, they're poor. They've got no influence, no power, no regard. Nothing. But from God's perspective, they're wealthy. And so that just flips everything around, sort of, our human perspective and God's perspective. Then he could contrast that with Laodicea.
Dr. Stewart 23:07
So when you get to Laodicea, they're wealthy. And he says to them in Chapter 3:17, "You say, I'm rich. I become wealthy, I don't need anything." And he says, "But you don't realize you're wretched, you're pitiable, you're poor, you're blind and you're naked." So it reverses it. From a human perspective, it's like well, they're the ones, they've got it going on. And I think the prosperity gospel is critiqued here, because a lot of the prosperity gospel is that the physical abundance is the sign of God's blessing. So when you've got the good job and you've got the money and the car and all this and that, that's proof that maybe you're living right or it's proof that God's blessing is on you. And here, Laodicea, well, they fit the bill. Like they've got all that, they've got the physical wealth, the prosperity. They've got the financial security that they think that they're living for ,they really delight in, they're proud of, and they could even take that as a sign of God's blessing, right? So this is proof that God's favoring us. And his critique of them is, you have no idea. So from God's perspective, or a spiritual perspective, he says, "you're poor, you're blind, you're naked, you're wretched, you're pitiable," like you're destitute in your actual poverty, spiritually. And so this is a way where examples of how these letters reveal spiritual reality, reveal God's perspective. And it's often the opposite of our human values and our human perspective on things. And so that's one thing the whole book as a whole is doing, and then these letters, very specifically is doing, is unveiling reality from God's perspective.
Dr. Stewart 24:36
So there's some other examples I could mention. I think these are fascinating. So another one I talk about, chapter two verse nine and [chapter] three verse nine, it has to do with this criteria for inclusion in God's people. And it's not about ethnicity. And so there was conflict in at least two of the churches, between the Christian community, which is Jews and Gentiles, and then some ethnic Jews and Philadelphia and Smyrna. So chapter two, verse nine, he says, "I know your tribulation, your poverty, but you're rich", that's what we just read. Then he says, "and the slander of those who say they are Jews and they're not, but they're a synagogue of Satan." And then we get that similar critique in chapter three verse nine, and it's Philadelphia, where there's a group of presumably ethnic Jews, being described as a synagogue of Satan. "They say they're Jews, they're not. They lie." And so this critique is, what is necessary to be included within God's people. And from God's perspective here, it's not ethnicity alone. So ethnicity is not a sufficient or necessary cause, as it were. So I think that's coming through. And that salvation in Revelation is determined by their connection to Jesus. So their allegiance to Jesus. And so those who are connected to Jesus and trust in faith and following the Lamb, as it were, wherever he goes, as how it's described later, they're the ones who are included in God's people and those who oppose God and His Messiah, Jesus, and those who are following the Messiah Jesus, are excluded from God's people. And so that's...it's an interesting thing. This is sometimes read...or the concern about anti semitism, but this is not a global critique of Jews, because the churches themselves, it's not a replacement of Jews. The churches are Jewish churches. They're Jewish Ecclesia. It's the assembly of God's people, Jews, and then Gentiles are being included. So the better comparison here is like with the Qumran community. And there's some similar language there, and there's one of the Qumran texts that talks about the Jews in Jerusalem, the corrupted priesthood, as sort of this congregation of Belial, as it were, this congregation of Satan. So there is a really close historical comparison with intra Jewish sort of dynamic. And that's what's happening here is one Jewish group is being attacked by another Jewish group, and then this is a response to it. And the conflict is largely over Jesus here. In allegiance to Jesus. And some are rejecting Jesus, and others are not. And that's...the thing is, who has the right to the name Israel? And again, this is not replacing Jews with Gentiles, but it's saying that the Jews and the Gentiles who are connected to Israel's God through Israel's King, the Messiah, they're the ones who are receiving the promises of Israel. So it is an interesting passage.
Tyler Sanders 27:24
You know, and I think the impact of that can probably be easily lost on modern readers, because I think at least in like, a western context, it's pretty easy for us to separate the different parts of ourselves. Like we can separate kind of our ethnicity. I mean, honestly, I'm a white, that's almost as ethnic as I get like, I don't feel super connected to like on my grandfather side, the Italian heritage. There's nothing really culturally that's connected to me from that. So I don't have that kind of connection. And especially I wouldn't also connect that to like, religion necessarily. You know, it's kind of like we've segmented these things out in a lot of ways in modernity I guess, but this would have been a fairly revolutionary idea.
Dr. Stewart 28:14
Well, yeah, I think there's so much about the first century way of thinking that we miss on these topics. So the religion was linked to ethnicity in large parts of the ancient world. And so really, whatever city you're from, well, you had your local deities. And there are other deities that would transcend cities, that would unify larger groups. So you'd have those deities as well, but they're linked into your regional and your city, the cultic shrine. So whatever gods you're particularly connected to in your local city, and so for Israel, is connected to a specific god, in antiquity. So it's Yahweh, the God of Israel. And Yahweh is very jealous, so he doesn't let his people just sort of take on some other gods. And the rest of the nations all around him, it's very additive. So you have your regional deity, but he's not that jealous. There's an African proverb I heard one time about "more meat doesn't ruin the stew". So you got some gods, you add a few more, the end result's fine. But Israel was not that way. So Israel's God will have none of that.
Dr. Stewart 29:21
And so what's happening in early Christianity is these Gentiles are pledging their lives, their allegiance, their worship, to Israel's God, and in doing that, they're rejecting all these other gods. And so it's a religious conversion. We would think of it as a religious conversion, but in the first century, that's harder to separate from an ethnic conversion. And this idea where you would change as much as you can your citizenship to a new location, or you try to identify in various ways with the people group that you want to identify with. So you could move geographically to a new area. But all these things linked with this, the connection of religious to ethnic conversion and antiquity is-with Gentile Christians in particular-they're taking on Israel's God. They're taking on Israel's scriptures. And so all the promises about the future, they're taking on Israel's past, and sort of as their own past and Israel's future as theirs.
Tyler Sanders 30:12
And having to learn that.
Dr. Stewart 30:13
Yeah, they're learning it, yeah, they're entering into this. And all the hopes that Israel has for their future, about God's promises to them about their future, it's entering into that. So those hopes now are the hopes of these people, as they're entering to this. They're submitting to Israel's King, the Messiah, Jesus. And so in all these ways, they're entering into Israel. But even though ethnically, they're not born as Jews. And what's coming through here is there are Jews who are rejecting Israel's Messiah. And then in Revelation, they're being put on the side of the dragon and the beast. They're opposing God, and they're opposing God's people, in a malicious way. And so it is in Revelation, but again, it's not in Revelation's world, the historical context of the first century, John's a Jew. So it's an intra Jewish, it's not Gentiles being anti semitic. It's Jews themselves saying 'the Messiah, Jesus has come and we're following him'. And then these other Gentiles are joining in submission of the Messiah. And then there are some Jews who are rejecting that. So it is very much sort of this...what we think of from an external perspective, as these two Jewish sects, and that's how the Romans would have thought of it. You know, they're both Jewish.
Tyler Sanders 31:18
They're essentially the same.
Dr. Stewart 31:20
But then, of course, after AD70 there's a lot of dynamics that shift some. And so being associated with Israel became very problematic throughout the empire because of the revolt and the wars with epispasian and Titus. And so post AD70 the Gentile Christians were more motivated, I think, to distinguish themselves from the revolt in Palestine. So I think there are some, some pressures there. There's an extra tax that was imposed on the Jewish people following AD70 that Gentile Christians didn't want to pay. And so there's ways that they would diverge more and then that went to the second century, with more and more divergence. But I'm thinking through again, how these first Christians are thinking of what's happening. And conversion in the first century to this Jewish sect, this conversion to not just the Jewish faith religiously, but this really is an ethnic identification with the Jewish people. Even though you're not born that way, and Paul builds on that a lot. He gets a lot of theological mileage out of it. We're the descendants of Abraham, as our father.
Tyler Sanders 32:22
Right. Well, I even think, like, in the Jerusalem Council, how much that was solving cultural conflicts. You know, when people are coming in, they just don't understand the customs, and then it's this question of, what even needs to continue? And we shouldn't just jump past that. That was major.
Dr. Stewart 32:44
Oh yeah, this is sort of the major issue of the first century. The Jerusalem council, what do you do with these Gentile people that they're wanting to identify with us, they're wanting to take on our scriptures, our heritage, our history, our hopes for the future, our teleology, our God, our worship. They're wanting to enter into us fully, and can they? Should we let them? And if so on what basis? And Paul's big argument throughout, it's the basis of faith. That it doesn't need to be circumcision and food laws. It's Jesus himself and Jesus alone. And so submission and allegiance to Messiah Jesus, is the the thing that does it. So John is very much in line with Paul, as I read it, is very much in line with Paul's message. That's the second example I give here.
Dr. Stewart 33:25
And then the last one we talk about here is sort of this unveiling of reality from God's perspective, is the false teachers. So those who hold to the teaching of Balaam, the nicolatians, Jezebel, those are all people that John's drawing attention to in these other churches, and they have a different vision for how you could be Christian in the world. That would mute some of the distinctives, that would reduce the persecution, that would help them to flourish, like Laodicea. You know, you could have paths to economic mobility. If you could just not be so weird, so sectarian, so rejecting of the local deities, the cults, the trade guild cults, the emperor. You know, 'just give us a little here. Fit in a little.'
Tyler Sanders 34:11
It's interesting because it is addressing, in some ways, the same thing. It's addressing the suffering. But instead of saying endure, it's saying fit in, or figure out what you can sacrifice.
Dr. Stewart 34:23
Yeah, there are ways...and that's the thing. There are less demanding forms of Christianity where you get all the benefits of the hope, of hopes for the future, and of connection with Israel's God, but you don't have the cost of it. And so it is a form of Christianity that John's opposing, that is easier. Again, that gains the benefits without the sacrificial discipleship. And particularly the things that are mentioned that raise with all these groups is meat sacrificed to idols, participation in Imperial cult comes up. And so again, this syncretism, where you could just give a little, compromise a little, and things will be a little better for you. But the meat sacrifice idols is participation with idolatry, and then sexual immorality is a main theme throughout the book. And largely in Revelation it's also a symbolic way to describe idolatry. And so we see that in the Hebrew prophets as well, where sexual immorality is the cipher for religious or polytheistic idolatry. But that is also linked to physical porneia in antiquity. And so sexual morality is linked to a lot of these cultic practices throughout the empire. So even though the imagery or the metaphor of sexual morality in Revelation is largely figurative, for idolatry, for syncretism, there's also a few points where it's pretty clear it's also physical, sexual morality, that's the concern. Which fits early, first century, Jewish Christian morality. So that's...it's not new or unique.
Dr. Stewart 34:48
Right. And that link would be that as a metaphor, it's kind of like leaving your lover, spouse or whatever.
Dr. Stewart 35:59
It's spiritual idolatry. And that's where we talked earlier, the jealousy of Israel's God was very unique in the ancient world. Their gods weren't so jealous. I mean, they had their own issues in the Greek and Roman myths. So there is petty jealousies but also they recognize each other's right to exist. And Israel's God is the one and only God.
Tyler Sanders 35:59
And while it's a jealousy, it's also not...it's not selfish.
Dr. Stewart 36:30
That's a good point. The language of jealousy we hear is negative. And here's a protective jealousy, it's for the good of of the one loved. Because these other paths lead to harm.
Tyler Sanders 36:44
Well, and even when you think of some of these Greek and Roman gods, they're very flawed. There's kind of a hubris or whatever that's going through them that if there's a jealousy or selfishness they're expressing, it can be very self centered. And that gets them into trouble a lot of times.
Dr. Stewart 37:02
Yeah, it's all the sins that we associate with humanity just projected to a higher level.
Tyler Sanders 37:07
Yeah, kind of made extreme or whatever.
Dr. Stewart 37:10
And there are trends in antiquity that push against that. So stoicism rejects that. Plato rejects that. Plato is not a fan at all of Homer. And so he's saying, all these, this is terrible. These stories about the gods that lead to immorality and that promote immorality among those who tell the stories. And so there is even in those contexts, there is concern about the immorality of the deities. But in terms of, can you worship more than one or whatnot, that's generally accepted. And so there's so many examples of that everywhere you look in antiquity. Of all the different deities being mentioned for curses, anyway. So curse formulas, oaths. When you're taking an oath, which is the bedrock of pretty much ancient society, is taking oaths to confirm things. And there all the different local deities are mentioned. Some transnational deities can be mentioned, but they're not in competition, really, with each other. In the way that Israel would have it very differently, and Revelation presents it very differently.
Dr. Stewart 37:12
So those are some examples of Jesus's knowledge. So each of these seven letters is the statement of his knowledge. He knows, he knows us intimately. He knows us clearly, and He reveals things from God's perspective about what he knows. And that's very different than what we see with our physical eyes often. So that's that section. Then each of these also then leads to encouragement or warning. So each of these seven letters has that next section. Depending on what Jesus knows about that church, they're called to repent. So many of them are called to repent, and others are just called to persevere. So you know, there's nothing else you need to do, just keep on keeping on. Don't give up. You know, you're suffering, you're in poverty, but don't give up. So depending what the needs of the church is, then there's this either encouragement to just stay the course, or there's the warning to repent, to get back on course.
Tyler Sanders 39:01
Yeah. And we already said earlier that these are all related, and that's a good demonstration of it. That also kind of further shows the knowledge of these churches that Jesus has, that he can tell them not only, I know what's been happening, but I know what you need to do next.
Dr. Stewart 39:20
Yeah, here's how to solve it. So it's the physician who diagnoses the ailment and has the cure. And that's like with Laodicean, He counsels them. You know, 'buy from me.' This gold is purified with fire, and the medicine is for your eyes, so you could see clearly again. And so it is a call to healing, to restoration. What we might think of now, we'd phrase it in terms of human flourishing. That's not a phrase John uses, but that's the call, to live rightly and live well in relationship with our Creator. So these promises and warnings, it's interesting. I don't know if we want to go down this rabbit trail too much, but they're directed both to Christian hearers. And so there are severe warnings that are directed to ostensibly Christian listeners.
Dr. Stewart 40:07
And so again, we don't have to necessarily get into that so much, but I would make the distinction between what we think of as eternal security and assurance of salvation. And so I think the idea of eternal security is the Lord knows those who are His, like He knows the elect. But then how do we know? How do the elect know? And that gets into the assurance of salvation, which is more what we might think of a subjective. So God's knowledge is objective, and that's where I would link election with God's knowledge and eternal security. And then our subjective knowledge of, are we part of the elect? Well, we could have greater or lesser assurance, or greater or less of confidence of that. And the full confidence is just trust in Christ. Are we trusting Christ for salvation? Well, then we have confidence. So it's not a workspace salvation. But there are warnings here, and the warnings are for the Christians to seriously consider as a were. Like, if you're called to repentance and you refuse to repent, like in these letters, you will be judged. You'll be judged by God. And he doesn't make the distinction we'd like Him to make, so sometimes we talk about, well, physical judgment of maybe you'll die or something, but you'll still have access to new heavens and new earth. That's not really how Revelation pictures it. Like, this rejection of God, this failure to repent, links you with the beast and the dragon. And so it is a severe warning. And that's how I would try to navigate that in terms of, I never would want to empty these warnings of their rhetorical effect. That's where some Christians, in order to preserve what they think they need to in terms of eternal security, they empty the warnings of any ability to actually speak, to actually motivate us through fear. And we say, well, fear is a terrible emotion. Well, if I'm willfully sinning, I need to be afraid. And then Revelation will help me be afraid if I take it seriously. And that fear will motivate the godly sorrow that will lead to repentance. But if I'm willfully sinning, and I've convinced myself, because of this idea of eternal security, that I don't need to repent, then I'll be immune to fear. I won't hear the warnings, and I won't repent. And in Revelation, then I'm in a very bad spot, because then I'm aligned with the beast and the dragon against God's people.
Dr. Stewart 42:17
And so there's this nuance to it in terms of how we apply these warnings, but I would encourage readers of Revelation not to explain them away or not to try to say, well, these don't apply. Like they're directed to the Christian hearers, and they're directed with significant force that we need to respond to them. And I would link it to assurance of salvation. So I don't see this as at all a threat to and ideas of eternal security, but I do think that they are related to assurance of salvation. And again, if I'm in rebellion against God, I ought to be afraid and ought to repent, and that fear ought to motivate repentance. And so I don't know if that helps or not. Because the other side of it- just I'm going on the one side where I've seen ideas. I was a youth pastor many years ago, and had a teenager actually say, "I thought I could live however I wanted to. I could party, I could do all this stuff, and it wouldn't matter, because I prayed the sinners prayers." And so he'd been taught, in this Baptist Church, a way of thinking of salvation in the sinners prayer, as if it was magic. And so in antiquity, magic is a real thing. You say the right words, the right incantations in the right way, in the right sacred space, perhaps, or with the right ritual objects, but it's largely saying the right words at the time, and the words have this power to do something. And salvation is not magic. And so I am concerned how sort of magical thinking has infiltrated Christianity and thinking about salvation.
Dr. Stewart 43:39
And so salvation is a relationship. It's not magic whereby we control the deity by saying certain words in a certain way. And so that's a little bit my concern with the one extreme of leaning, or of explaining eternal security in a way that treats salvation like magic. There's the other extreme where you never have confidence or assurance of salvation. There are churches where they lean so far that direction where you're always fearful of losing salvation, and that's not right either. The New Testament gives us so much confidence of our salvation. Are we trusting Christ? Well, if so, you don't live with fear. Perfect love casts out fear. So we have incredible confidence, an incredible vision, assurance of salvation. We're not living every day wondering. It's not like that. Do I lose salvation and gain it 10 times a day? Well, no, that's not how it works. So you want to find that balance between those two extremes, the balance that preserves the content of the New Testament scriptures and also the rhetorical force of them. I guess I lean more in the other way of worried about false assurance, so I lean that because I've seen that more sure. But I also know that some Christians have been in this place where they've never had assurance, so we need to speak to that too pastorally. So Revelation, I think, equips us pastorally to speak to both those contexts. To give strong assurance to those who are flailing for it and never seem to have it. But also to question the false assurance, of those who are convinced they're fine when they're not. They really need to repent. In leading others spiritually, you never want to give them assurance if they're in rebellion against God. Like, that's a dangerous thing to do for anyone. And so I think Revelation helps us thread that needle. And so that's the observation here with this section of warnings and encouragement to these churches. The warnings are directed to Christian hearers, and they're directed to motivate repentance, because repentance matters, and if they fail to repent, they'll experience God's judgment. And so they are serious warnings. So hopefully that nuance isn't enough. I know we could talk a lot longer about this topic.
Tyler Sanders 45:41
Yeah, it is, but it's a challenging I think what makes it tough for most people is that this is kind of real life. It can be hard to really assess our own lives, because they're just messy, it's hard to put things exactly in pretty categories always. But if you're being self reflective, that is something you should be watching. And that's been true through church history. There's this kind of bounce back and forth that, you know, not just traditions, but people do between these kind of two extremes. And there's an element of that that is finding a balance, but I think part of it is the same kind of task we have in theology, of we're trying to take all of Scripture and understand it without throwing any out. And that's kind of what the work of theology is, is how do we kind of make sense of all these different pieces? And we have to do that in our lives too.
Dr. Stewart 46:44
That's a great way to describe it, because there's many passages in the Bible about assurance. So, we want to do full justice to all of those. And there's a lot of passages about warning. We want to do full justice to all of those. And so one of the ways I often will counsel is when you whatever passage you're on, like, preach that passage. Some of that's just from a bad experience, when I was in seminary we were doing a Sunday school class in our local church, going to the book of Hebrews. And the teacher that day was on Hebrews six. So this severe warning passage, one of the strongest warning passages in the book of Hebrews. So he read the passage, that's what you do in a Bible study, and he spent the whole rest of the lesson looking at like, John, 'no one could snatch him out of my hand', looking at all the different proof texts for assurance everywhere else in the New Testament. He never actually talked about Hebrews six. So we read it, then the whole lesson was these other passages about assurance, more or less to convince us that what Hebrews six seems to be saying, can't be what it's saying. And so I just came away from that lesson thinking that that's the wrong way to do it. Like when you're in Hebrews six, teach Hebrews six. And there is a strong warning there, and it ought to motivate us to reflect and to repent if we need to. To re-engage with our sacrificial journey of discipleship. If we've gotten lazy or complacent, it's meant to motivate us. It's meant to impact us emotionally in a way that would motivate action. We don't want to just negate it all. We don't want to read the warning passages and then tell everyone that it doesn't mean what it seems to or it's hypothetical, or it doesn't really apply. And so that's one of the ways of when you're in the insurance passage, preach the assurance passage as strongly and powerful as you can. We have assurance in our faith in Christ. And so there's this balancing between the two dangers, the two extremes, that applies. And these whole set of, what I would think of as assurance passages and warning passages, all throughout the Bible. And Revelation, of course, has that same balance throughout it.
Dr. Stewart 46:55
And I think we should assume that they're in the Bible for a reason.
Dr. Stewart 48:38
Oh, yes.
Tyler Sanders 48:39
You know, I think that's probably what we miss a bit when we try to over explain passages that don't quite seem to fit, or something like that. That we haven't quite grappled with enough to integrate them in. And our gut instinct is, for teaching or preaching, kind of soften it or contextualize it, or maybe uncontextualize it a bit to make it fit in a specific way. But it's there because we need it.
Dr. Stewart 49:06
Yeah, we need it as individuals and then as we counsel others in their spiritual journey. So there are times in my life where I need to hear the warning passages, like, that's what I need to hear. Because I'm in danger. And there are other times where it's like, I need to hear the insurance passage, because I'm trusting Christ and there is no fear, there is no danger. And so there's a pastoral element personally, and then as we counsel others, if we give them the wrong sort of emphasis to meet their needs, the wrong medicine for that moment in their life. And then holistically, of course, altogether, the message of Scripture is both. The warning and the assurance. And that comes together in Hebrews and Revelation and all the New Testament books have this balance between assurance and warning that keeps us from becoming overly complacent, that keeps us from thinking of salvation in terms of Magical Thinking, and keeps us vigilant. So the refrain through many of Jesus' Parables is staying alert, staying awake, staying active, staying vigilant. And we need those reminders. So theologically, I try to distinguish between eternal security and assurance of salvation. That's one of the ways that I've thought through it in my own life.
Tyler Sanders 50:12
Yeah, yeah. I think that's really good. It's just some important thing to pull in here, because it again, it helps us not throw out any bit of Scripture. And we know these seven letters are not just for a segment of the population, you know?
Dr. Stewart 50:28
Well, the seven letters are written to the seven churches. So they're written to us. So that's that sort of encouragement or warning section, and then the concluding promise we've already talked about, the one who overcomes. So each of these ends with this call to spiritual discernment. "As he is here, let him hear what the Spirit is saying." And that's this invitation to identify where this proclamation is speaking to us. It really is this invitation to enter in, saying where do I see myself in this? How does it apply to me? How do I need to respond to it? So it is a sort of direct call to us as the hearers of these messages to respond to them. And then the promise to the one who overcomes. So again, it's not just warning, but it's promise, it's worth it to overcome. So that's sort of the main five structural elements that's the same in- the same elements in each of these seven churches. Then the content is a little different in each. You know, it's tailored to the needs of the churches.
Tyler Sanders 51:23
Well, that's really good. I know we've hit a lot, but I think that was a pretty good way to kind of wrap things up of how we can also kind of read these things, as we're reading them devotionally, and think about them for our own lives. Let me ask you one more question. As you said earlier, this is a pretty common, in Revelation at least, section to preach on, maybe not common in terms of the most...overall, Revelation is probably way underserved in preaching, but this one gets the most-
Dr. Stewart 51:54
Yeah, when it is preached on, these are the chapters.
Tyler Sanders 51:55
Yeah, and I think probably when you hear it, it's section by section, maybe like each sermon on each kind of letter, something like that. Do you think there's some value in trying to teach them all together so you can find some of those overlaps?
Dr. Stewart 52:09
Yeah, it's interesting. I preached once on these, and I preach all seven in one sermon. And it was sort of just trying to hit the main repetition in all of them, and how they're structured and then inviting, because in one sermon, you can do that. So I'm not sure I'd recommend that. I think a sermon each letter is also great, because each one has enough content, and they are different enough in their specifics. So in Ephesus, they've forgotten their first love. And Laodicea, the warning about spewing them out of their mouth, and then, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." Well, there, it's often presented evangelistically, but the picture there is the church has shut out Jesus, and Jesus is knocking for admittance to the church. And there's danger there. If they refuse to let him have access, they essentially cease to be his church. But they have this opportunity, though, to reengage, as it were, that he would have access to them. He would sup with them. This relationship could be restored with them. Otherwise, the danger is they'll spit him out of his mouth. And so each one has their unique images that are quite striking. Do a sermon series for seven weeks and preach with through seven is fantastic.
Tyler Sanders 53:25
That's good, yeah, that's good. Okay, that's really good. I think that should wrap up our episode today. What are we talking about next week?
Dr. Stewart 53:33
So next week we're just moving onto the next vision section, the heavenly throne room. So, Revelation four through five.
Tyler Sanders 53:37
Okay, that's your homework.
Dr. Stewart 53:39
Read Revelation four through five and come back next time.
Tyler Sanders 53:41
That's good. All right. Thank you so much. Bye.