The Importance of Doctrine
Having challenged the Ephesian church to repent, that is, to change their thinking, our Lord reminds them in verse 6 of the one thing they have done positively. “But this you have,” and he uses the strong contrastive conjunction there, indicating that He is now shifting from the negative back to the positive; “that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.”
We
need to understand this figure of speech here that is used, the concept of
hating. Does God hate in the same way you and I hate? When you and I hate it is
a product of the sin nature, motivated by the fact that we have been hurt or
injured. We perceive one thing or another and so there is a response of
bitterness and antagonism, usually missed with a desire for revenge, a desire
to see the other person hurt, and all those other thoughts that just well up
within our hearts. This is not what this is talking about. When we look at the
Scripture, for example, “Jacob I loved and Esau I hated,” it does mean that
when God saw Jacob He just wrapped him up in His arms. And when God says he
hates Esau it is not because somehow he embittered God against him. This
juxtaposition of love and hate is a figure of speech that indicates acceptance
and rejection. So when this phraseology is used in the Scripture we usually
talk of it in terms of an anthropopathism, a figure of speech where human
emotions which God doesn’t actually possess are attributed to Him in order to
communicate to us the plans, the purposes and the policies of God.
So
when it says that they hate the “deeds,” the Greek word ERGON [e)rgon] which is a general word
for production, and it is a general word for the outworking in the life of
these Nicolaitanes. It is the idea of rejection in total of the product8on of
the Nicolaitanes. They have a frame of reference that they are utilizing to
have discernment. It isn’t a fact that they don’t like these people, that
somehow they are following another pastor who is not our pastor and so we don’t
like them. It is that we understand the production in your system. It is not
just the outworking of the system, it is the under girding doctrine that is the
foundation for their production. All production in life, whether it is mental
production or overt production, has a foundation in some sort of philosophical
or theological view of life. In the situation with the Nicolaitanes they had a
particular theology that produced a certain lifestyle, and so it is the entire
package that is being rejected by the Ephesians because they have a frame of
reference.
What
was that frame of reference? The frame of reference was the doctrine that they
had been taught faithfully by the various pastors that they had had down
through the years. Because they learned the truth they had a frame of reference
so that they could evaluate what was going on around them. They didn’t just
live in some sort of isolated bubble where they just went to church and then
went home. Everywhere they went in that Ephesian culture they were being virtually
slapped in the face with paganism. So every time they left the church they had
to interact with rank paganism on a day-to-day basis, they couldn’t just get
off into their own little Christian country club where they had associations
with only other like-minded people. This is important. Christians are in the
world. We haven’t been removed from the world and we are to be engaged with the
world around us. We are to be witnessing to unbelievers, something which is
supposed to be a standard dynamic of our Christian life, always being ready,
Peter said, to give an answer for the hope that is in us. The Ephesians
understood all of this and they rejected the entire framework of the
Nicolaitans. All of us need to develop that kind of critical thinking grid so that
we can filter out the garbage and take in that which is good, but also so that
we can have a better understanding of where people are coming from. When we
hear certain phrases, when we see certain things take place, we have an idea of
what is really going on, what the underlying issues are and we can think
better; not so we become critical. There is a difference between having
critical thinking skills and being a negative critical person where we are just
running another person down or other positions down. It is to be able to
understand where their weaknesses are so that we can have a better leverage in
communicating the truth of God’s Word.
Fundamentally
what we are talking about here is that a high priority in the Ephesians church
was doctrine, the study of doctrine. What do we mean by the study of doctrine?
This is one of the most misunderstood phrases today. In fact, it has even been
under attack for the last thirty or forty years. The word “doctrine” that is
used in the Scripture derives from the Greek word DIDASKALIA [didaskalia]. The verb means to teach,
and this noun means teaching. All it means is teaching. It starts with
biblically sound theology and it automatically leads to application in two
realms. It begins in the thought realm, mental attitude dynamics, it relates to
how you think, what you think, and leads to overt actions. All of that is
involved in teaching. When we are teaching we may be teaching something that
may seem a little more abstract but we always know that if it is biblical truth
it has application, either in the thought realm or in overt action. 2 Timothy
3:16, “All scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine…”
It is a good biblical word. It is profitable for teaching, and this is to be
the priority of the local church. The trend today is to reject doctrine.
Doctrine divides. If you teach doctrine you are going to have fewer
people.
Who
were these people called Nicolaitanes? We don’t know a lot about them. It was a
sect which generated itself in the first century but didn’t continue on into
the second century, so there is no hard evidence about who they were or what
they believed. We know a few things for certain. First of all, we know that it
was a first-century sect that had a serious doctrinal aberration. That is why
they were referred to in two of these short critiques, the one to Ephesus and
the one to Pergamum. Both churches had a problem with the Nicolaitanes. The
Ephesians rejected them, though, and were praised by the Lord Jesus Christ for
having done so. The Pergamum church was ecumenical and invited them in. So
there is a contrast there. In the letter to the Pergamum church there is an
identification of certain sins that were associated with the Nicolaitanes, sins
of eating food that had been sacrificed to idols, as well as the practice of
sexual immorality. This seems to be connected to the doctrines of Balaam which
has a heavy undertone of anti-Semitism.
These
problems of eating foods sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality were
addressed in the early church as early as the first Jerusalem council, which is
covered in Acts 15 when the church began to expand out of its Jewish roots in
the first fourteen chapters of Acts as Paul went out and took the gospel to the
Gentiles. This was a problem that a lot of Jews had. How do we assimilate who
do things that aren’t orthodox? After they argued back and forth the grace of
God prevailed and they ended up saying there were only two things that they
asked, and that is that they abstain from eating things sacrificed to idols (it
indicated a compromise with idolatry) and that they abstain from sexual
immorality. These were problems that were common in the early church but
apparently they had sort of crystallized in a sect called the Nicolaitanes. We
don’t know much else about them. There are two basic views and it is not sure
that either one of them has any strength. The first view is that these were the
followers of a man named Nikolaos of Antioch, mentioned in Acts chapter six as
one of the seven men that were chosen to help with the distribution of
financial aid to the widows in Jerusalem, along with Philip and Stephen, and
that somehow he had become negative to the Word of God and become involved in
the licentious heresy. Clement of Rome believed that Nikolaos was not involved
but it was somebody else of that name. So we are really uncertain as to who it
was. In the 18th century scholars began to take the view that
Nicolaitane was based on a Greek word that was a code word for Balaam in the
Old Testament—NIKAO [nikaw], which means to overcome,
to have victory over, or to exercise authority over someone. So there is a second
school of thought that these were the early denominationalists and they were
developing a hierarchy of authority in the local church and that this led
ultimately to what became known as the monarchical bishop, and the idea that
there was some kind of hierarchy of leadership in the local church, and that they
were abusing that authority. It is probably far-fetched to link that to Balaam.
What we do know for sure is that this was a group that was licentious and
libertine in their understanding of the Word of God and they compromised with
the value system of the Greek pagan culture around them. They found ways to
justify that in terms of the Word of God. That is nothing new in terms of the
history of Christianity.
In
Revelation 2:7 we have the overcomer believer: “He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says unto the churches.” That phrase is addressed to the
believer who is positive, the believer who is ready to listen to what God the
Holy Spirit is going to teach us in the process of learning the Word. The Holy
Spirit illuminates our minds to the truth of His Word. If we are positive we
will listen, we will have genuine humility.
“… To
him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst
of the paradise of God.” This is a warning that there are two classifications
of believers in eternity, the overcomers and those who fail. We see the same
classification at the judgment eat of Christ in 1 Corinthians chapter three.
There are those who will enter into heaven with rewards—gold, silver, and
precious stones—and those who will have all their works burned up and they will
enter into heaven, yet as through fire; saved, but they have lost everything; there
is nothing in their life that has eternal production. That is the situation we
have to face as believers. Are we willing to just be saved, are we willing to recognize
that where we are headed today determines eternity? The decisions we make today
shape out character, determine what happens at the judgment seat of Christ, and
shapes our destiny in the eternal kingdom.
To those who overcome are promised a special blessing, to eat from tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. The idea is that there are those who will overcome and have a victory in the Christian life in terms of their advance to spiritual maturity, and they will be given special privileges and position and responsibilities in the eternal kingdom. And there are those who won’t. This is the grace challenge to the licentious issue. There is no place for licentiousness and libertinism in the Christian life, because there are consequences. How we spend our time in time will affect what happens in eternity.