In the previous verse we heard of the Nicolaitans. We looked for the meaning of this sect and at what kind of works they were doing. Their works were what Christ (and, fortunately, the Ephesian church) hated. We then looked at the Gnostic heresy (as it is called) which advocated going along with the world to the full and combine it with your Christian faith to give you access to the higher world and which also guarantees you Heaven. Since the body is no longer of any importance—according to that Gnostic way of looking at things—you can unhesitatingly participate in sexual debauchery and enjoy sacrificial meals with pagans. Gnostics promote compromise and self-indulgence: “Enjoy your body in any way you like, because one-day your body will be gone forever anyway. You can join the world in intimate fellowship of body and mind. Because you have a new spirit and a new soul through your Christian faith.”
No, says Christ, true and intimate fellowship can be only with Me! You have to pay the price of total surrender to Me. To those who overcome the world I will give a true and delicious supper of eternal and everlasting value, a real banquet, the marriage supper of the Lamb! I invite all and I will give this delicious meal to those who live by their first love and in truth. (Matthew 22:1-14; Luke 14:7-24) Those who cut loose from the inner communion with this world will eat from the tree of life, which stands in the Paradise of God! Once again, there is a flashback here to paradise and the fall in Genesis 3. There man broke the perfect heart-relationship with God and because of that God blocked man’s access to the tree of life in order that God could save mankind. If Adam and Eve, in their fallen state, had eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and from the tree of life, they would have been both fallen and immortal. Then they would have to live forever in their fallen status, just like the devil, who is both fallen and immortal and could not be saved. It is by God’s grace that this access to the tree of life was blocked. Otherwise mankind could not be saved but be forever fallen and forever lost.
But praise God: now free access to the ‘tree of life’ is available once again. Now new and everlasting life has become available in Christ, everlasting life and immortality. He is the tree of Life! Now we can be born again. And ultimately we will be set free totally: spirt, soul and body! Saved and living forever!
People can be grafted in by faith in Christ, the true Tree of Life. They are now able to be joined to the true Vine as branches, so that its life-giving sap can flow through them so they bear fruit.1 Paradise was not lost forever. It is coming back, in all glory, in the Kingdom of Peace and Righteousness, and in the new heaven/Universe and the new earth where righteousness will dwell forever.2 That everlasting life can start right here and now. The conquerors are those who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ who overcome not by their own strength; not He and I trying to work together with ‘me’ in my own strength and human capacities; not trying to ‘be good’ inspired by whatever ‘knowledge’ coming forth from a sinful heart and mind, inspired by super-natural forces of evil. But we in Him and He in us, and thus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, being more than conquerors.3
• In a theological concept of church history the seven missionary letters to the seven churches are not just seen as a message to those churches at that time, and also to the church in general, but also as a sketch of certain aspects of a period in church history.
• In this vision, the church at Ephesus refers to the early church: the apostolic, original church—the ‘Ephesus-church’.
• Thereafter, the ‘Smyrna-church’ is seen as the church of the martyrs, under the persecutions of the Roman Emperors.
• The ‘Pergamum-church’ as the State-church, beginning with Emperor Constantine and the beginning of the papacy.
• Followed by the ‘Thyatira-church’ as the centrality and power of the Roman Catholic Church.
• The ‘Sardis-church’ represents the church being choked by dead orthodoxy after the Reformation.
• Then the ‘Philadelphia-church’, in this church history vision is the church of the great revivals, the missionary movement and the Bible-societies.
• In Europe there was the ‘Réveil’-movement. The Réveil (French for “revival”, “awakening”) of 1814 was a revival movement within the Swiss Reformed Church of western Switzerland and some Reformed communities in south-eastern France. Historians of Réveil recognise that the movement had a deep influence on Protestantism in France and Switzerland. It has for instance been noted that French protestant clergy more than doubled its numbers from 305 in 1829 to 765 in 1843! Although there were also divisions and disputes, the Réveil modernised Protestantism in many ways. It created new institutions such as the singing of new hymns (instead of just using the Psalms), Sunday schools, Bible study classes or meetings, prayer meetings, etc. It gave an enhanced position to women, who were sometimes key figures of the movement with their revival movements, their evangelical and Pentecostal and charismatic movements during the 19th and 20th century.
• And, finally, the ‘Laodicea-church’ as the apostate end-time church that has become completely worldly. Whatever the case may be, these seven churches must not only be seen following one another, but also alongside one another.
Bible References:
1.John 15:1–8 2. Compare 2 Corinthians 12:4 and Revelation 22:1–5 and 21:1–4 3.Romans 8:37
