Ephesus Evaluated
Each of the letters to the seven churches closes with a challenge, a
personal promise to the one who over comes. The overcomer is not every
believer, but is a reference to the believer who advances to spiritual maturity
applying the ten problem-solving devices and continues to press on in
application to the day of death. It is not that they can lose their salvation
but that they can fail to achieve all that God has intended for them, and they
may indeed forfeit certain rewards and privileges in heaven by failing to
overcome.
The concept of overcoming is directly related to a spiritual life
dynamic that is emphasized not only here in these epistles but also in many
other epistles in the New Testament, and that is this one Greek word HUPOMONE [u(pomonh]. It is generally
translated “endurance,” sometimes “perseverance,” and the idea is to
remain under. It has the idea of
staying under a set of circumstances, adversities, difficulties and continuing
to apply the Word of God. So the emphasis here is on long-term obedience. This
becomes a major theme in this first epistle.
Revelation 2:1, “Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These
things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the
midst of the seven golden lampstands.” This is the commission, the opening
address. It addresses an angel, not a human messenger, a pastor, but consistent
with the use of the word AGGELOS [a)ggeloj] in Revelation this is an angel. These angels are
related to the outworking of God’s judgment and justice on the planet and to
the human race. It is not that the angel is being critiqued, but this angel is
standing as a witness to the operational integrity and justice of God in each
of these congregations. So he is given a scorecard, as it were. The whole book
of Revelation is being sent to each and every one of these congregations, as
stated in Revelation 1:7, 8.
Ephesus was dominated by paganism when Paul came there—the worship of
Diana plus there were temples to many other in the Greek pantheon—but by this
time there has been a healthy church at Ephesus for some forty years or more.
It has been pastored by the apostle Paul himself, Timothy, and now the apostle
John. Not only were there these three pastors but there were others because in
a city of 250-300,000 and forty years of the gospel one would not believe that
there was only one congregation. But this was addressed to the church, that is,
the collective church in Ephesus, the entirety of the Christian community is
Ephesus is characterized by these attributes.
“He who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands” refers to
the Lord Jesus Christ as the Priest-Judge evaluating the spiritual character of
each congregation. As we go through this we need to be thinking in terms of a
question: How does this apply to me? Where am I in this checklist?
He begins by saying, “I know your works, works, your labor, your
patience, and you cannot not bear those who are evil: and you have tested those
who say they are apostles, and are not, and found them liars:” Every one of
these epistles begins with this phrase, “I know your works.” The word “works”
just means production. Some of the production in the believer’s life is divine
good, it is done through the filling of the Holy Spirit, walking by the Spirit,
and he does that which has eternal value. But on the other hand the believer
also produces human good, that which is just simply human morality, a product
of our son nature, and it has no eternal value, it is wood, hay, and straw—dead
works. So now we are going to get an evaluation. This is simply a summary
statement and we could translate it, “I know your production.” In most churches
Christian service is confused with spiritual production. Spiritual production
has to come first before you have real, serious Christian service. Christian
service that is witnessing, giving, teaching Sunday School, doing physical
labor around the church, helping out with various things, are just different
aspects of Christian that can be done whether a believer is in fellowship or
out of fellowship. You can witness to hundreds of people and be out of
fellowship. The issue is you have to walk by the Spirit first. It is the
consistent walk by the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, being in
fellowship, and as a result of that when you engage in Christian service that
counts for eternal value. That is spiritual production that counts for eternal
value. It is not what you are doing in terms of Christian service that matters,
it is what you are doing in terms of your spiritual life that is the issue.
That is the focus in these epistles: what are you doing in your spiritual life,
and what is the church doing?
The first word “works” is ERGON [e)rgon] which is simply the
generic term for work or production. In fact, we are going to be evaluated
according to our works at the judgment seat of Christ. So this ties these
evaluation statements to what will take place at the judgment seat of Christ.
So if we want to have some sort of preview of coming attractions of how we all
will be evaluated as a congregation, and how we each individually as a believer
will be evaluated at the judgment seat of Christ, then we should pay attention.
What we will see in the coming chapters is a list of about 20-25 different
character qualities or attributes that are the basis for evaluation. Notice
that these are character qualities, they have to do with our spiritual
integrity, the virtue in our spiritual life as a result of our spiritual growth
and its combined benefit in the local church.
Second, he says, “your labor.” In Genesis 3 labor becomes toil, it is
hard. That toilsomeness of labor is reversed by living the spiritual life. Labor
becomes joyful again. Just as under the curse, when men and women are out of
fellowship there is a war between the sexes. This gets reversed in the corporate
witness of Christian marriage in Ephesians chapter five. The toilsomeness that
enters into marriage because of the curse is reversed in the process of
sanctification when two believers are living together in fellowship, walking by
the Spirit and applying doctrine. That authority conflict that is inherent
through the sin nature, and will crop up from time to time, can be overcome,
and it is handled through spiritual growth, application of doctrine, the
filling of the Holy Spirit. Labor is a better translation than toil because in
the spiritual life we are laboring. We have work to do.
“Your patience”KJV is HUPOMONE [u(pomonh] is translated “perseverance”
in the NASB. A preferable translation
is “endurance,” it has the idea of hanging in there, continuing to apply. Notice
this comes after labor, because after a while when a believer has been
performing some thankless task he gets tired. So it is time for a little
perseverance, endurance. That is why perseverance follows labor because after a
while we get tired, we get bored, and we wonder why somebody else doesn’t come
along and carry the load. So the emphasis in the Christian life is not just
starting well, not just doing it for a while, earning a merit badge, it is on
continuing well and ending well in whatever area of service that may be. That
is not to imply that it is wrong to take a break at times. Endurance is a key
virtue in spiritual growth.
“That you cannot bear those who are evil.” The word there for “bear” is
BASTAZO [bastazw] which means to be able to bear up under especially
trying or oppressive circumstances. Here it has that idea that you can’t really
put up with something. They don’t want to put up with or tolerate false
teachers. We see the example in the next phrase, “they tested,” and that is the
word PEIRASMOS [peirasmoj]. They tested, i.e. they put those who claimed to
be apostles through a test to see if the really were apostles. By this time
there were numerous people going around making such claims and they were false
apostles. They discovered them “liars.” So that was part of what the
congregation did, they evaluated these claims. Today we would say that we evaluate
a pastor-teacher to find out of he really has sound doctrine or not.
These are arenas of commendation for the Ephesian church. They do this “for my name’s sake,” verse 3. That is our motivation. It is not the pastor, it is not the people in the church, it is not anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ. They have endured and they have been tolerant and put up with the difficulties in life because of who Jesus Christ is, and they have not become weary. They did not give up when things got tough, they pushed on to the high ground of spiritual maturity.