Success or Failure; Revelation 2:7
In 1 Corinthians 3:11 the apostle Paul develops a
metaphor of a building, any sort of edifice, and he starts with the foundation.
This is very important to understand in the context of what he has been talking
about. He has already laid into the Corinthians because many of them are
carnal. In the first three verses he separates them into two groups:
“spiritual,” i.e. those who are filled with the Spirit and moving forward in
the Christian life, and “carnal, fleshly,” i.e. those who are operating on the
sin nature. Then he adds a term, “as to babes in Christ.” It is confusing in
the English because it looks like he is equating carnality with being
spiritually immature. But that is not the word he is using here. He is not
using BREPHOS [brefoj], which would be the normal
word for a baby, he is using the word NEPIOS [nhpioj] which was used in slang terminology to indicate
someone who was older but was acting like a baby. This is a pejorative term. So
what he is doing is basically saying they were carnal, but “You are just
babies.” This is not a complimentary term. He is really laying into them and
calling them a bunch of arrogant, whiny, self-centered babies. This is clear
because in verse 3 he comes back and says, “Are you not carnal and behaving
like mere men?” What is he is saying there is that they are trying to live the
Christian life simply in your humanity, simply in their own resources as a
human being. That is always going to end up producing the works of the flesh,
because unless you are walking by means of the Spirit all that is being
produced is the works of the flesh.
Having established that there are two different
categories of believers—those who are carnal and those who are spiritual—he
then goes on to say that if they continue long term in either one of these
positions then those distinctions will be mad available when they come to the
judgment seat of Christ. In verse 11 he says there is a foundation which is in
Christ alone: “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is
Jesus Christ.”
1 Corinthians 3:12, 13, “Now if any man build upon
this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's
work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be
revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.”
At the instant of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone the believer lays a
foundation in his life which is his new position in Jesus Christ. But from that
point on the issue is up to his volition as to how he is going to live his life
and the production of his life. If all the things he does in life are work,
play, recreation, everything that he does, is either going to be done in the
power of the sin nature or it is going to be done in the power of the Holy
Spirit. The issue is that we have to keep short accounts with confession to
make sure that we are walking by the Spirit and that we recover from our sin
when we do sin. But as we go through life and we get involved in all the
activities of life we are building an edifice. We are constructing our life. At
the end of our life we stand before the judgment seat of Christ and the Lord
Jesus Christ is going to make evident what was from the Spirit; what had
eternal value. When we are building it we are not always sure what is wood, hay
and straw and what is gold silver and precious stones, so there has to be an
evaluation mechanism. Paul says that we build on this foundation with all these
various construction tools and says that each person’s work will become clear
because the day of judgment at the bema seat will reveal it. All of the
human good produced in the believer’s life is going to be destroyed. What is
revealed is what survives the fire.
1 Corinthians 3:14, 15, If any man's work abide
which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work
shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as
by fire.” Remember, “work” is a key word is Revelation 2 & 3. Each one of the
seven churches is evaluated by their works, their production. “He shall suffer
loss,” is when the believer becomes a loser at the judgment seat of Christ. The
concept of being a loser is that you lose something; you lose rewards because
you have been a failure in the Christian life. This is not a matter of losing
salvation, but rewards. Rewards and responsibilities in the Millennial kingdom
are based on production; not Christian service but whether or not the believer
has been walking by means of God the Holy Spirit, producing the character of
Christ which, if he is, will ultimately work its way out in various areas of
Christian service.
It is very clear that not only are their two
classifications of believers on earth—those who are carnal and those who are
spiritual—but if a believer spends a maximum amount of time in carnality then
when he gets to the judgment seat of Christ all of his human good is going to
burn up. If he spends maximum time in walking by means of the Spirit then he is
going to produce divine good that will not burn up, and that will survive the
evaluation test.
Revelation 2:7 He who has an ear, let him hear what
the Spirit says to the churches; To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the
tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”
There are basically two views on this concept of
being an overcomer. One is the view that every believer is an overcomer; the
second view is that only believers who advance in the Christian life are
overcomers. The latter is the view that we take. The word translated
“overcomes” is a Greek participle based on the verb NIKAO [nikaw]. It is a present active
participle with an article, which means it functions as a substantive; it is
like a noun. This is simply a name for a person, the one who overcomes or the
overcomer or the victorious one, the successful believer; any of those terms
could fit. The verb NIKAO
is related to two Greek nouns. The feminine noun is NIKE [nikh], the Greek goddess of
victory (and where we get the name for the athletic equipment), and the
masculine noun NIKOS [nikoj] which emphasizes the prize
of the victory, which in 1 Corinthians 15:57 talks about “Thanks be to God who
gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The focus is on the
ultimate victorious reception of that prize of a resurrection body when the
Rapture occurs.
The question needs to be asked: What do they
overcome? Overcomers of what? In order to understand this we have to do some
work on this word “overcomer.” It is a word that is used about nine times in
Revelation, about four or five times other than in the letters to the seven
churches. Te word is used a number of times in 1 John, and that is really where
we run into the problem of trying to understand what we are overcoming.
Before we get into this we need to remind ourselves
of the three stages of salvation: phase one, phase two and phase three. At
phase one we are justified; phase two is the spiritual life; phase three is
glorification. The Bible used the word “saved” to refer to all three of these
stages, and that confuses a lot of people. In fact, in some epistles such as
Romans and Hebrews it is doubtful that the word “saved” [SOZO/swzw] ever refers to phase one.
It is talking about phase two, which Paul refers to in Philippians chapter two
as “working out your salvation with fear and trembling,” i.e. saved from the
power of sin. At phase one we are freed from the penalty of sin—spiritual
death, Genesis 2:17. At phase two we are being saved from the power of sin. We
still have a sin nature and are learning, as Paul says, to put to death the
deeds of the flesh. We are to reckon ourselves dead to sin, Romans 6:11. The
whole argument in Romans 6 flows out of the resurrection of Christ because at
the instant of salvation, Paul argues, we are identified with Christ in His
death, burial and resurrection, and just as he rose to newness of life so we
have a new life post-salvation. We have to learn to live as those who are
identified with Christ and not as those who are spiritually dead. In phase
three we are saved from the presence of sin.
When we talk about this concept of overcoming or
having victory over something in phase two, we are having victory over the sin
nature, and specifically in the epistle of John, you are overcoming the world
system. We have to understand this in light of Romans 12:2, “Do not be
conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind
[renovation of your thinking], that you may prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Renovating of the thinking means taking
in doctrine. You can’t do it twice a week; you can barely do it seven days a
week. Any believer who thinks he can renovate his thinking by coming to church
once a week or twice a week is fooling himself. The cosmic system is so
ever-present and so overpowering, and it has such receptivity with his sin
nature that he has to constantly have our minds refreshed and renewed by
listening to the Word of God and the teaching of the Word of God. It is a way
of life. You are never going to make it in the Christian life until you realize
that doctrine is your life. That is the only way you are truly going to make it
as an overcomer, as a successful believer.
In Romans Paul says that we are not to be conformed
to this world. It is the Greek word SUSCHEMATIZO [susxhmatizw] which has the idea of being pressed into a mold.
Cosmic thinking or worldly thinking is a mold of thinking. The thinking of the
culture around us is based on human viewpoint, and we are constantly being
pressured to conform to that system. The word translated “world” here isn’t the
word KOSMOS [kosmoj], it is the word AIONOS [a)iwnoj] which has to do with the
age. In other words, it would be the spirit of the age. We are not to be
conformed or pressed into the mold of thinking like the world thinks. That
means we have to deal with issues that constantly invade our thought based on
naturalistic theories of origins, creation versus evolution. All of us are
products of 20th century education and media and films and
televisions shows. We have all been influenced by this; it is embedded in our
terminology, in how we analyze different things. We just get sucked into the
way the world thinks, so we have to overhaul the spirit of the age. We can’t be conformed to it, and the solution is to
be transformed: METAMORPHOO [metamorfow] which means to be totally
transformed, to completely exchange one thing for something else. So we have to
exchange the human viewpoint in our soul for divine viewpoint. This is the
point that John is making in 1 John 5:4: “Whatever is born of God overcomes the
world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.”
When we first look at this verse in 1 John out of
context it looks like he is saying that whoever is regenerate overcomes the
world. And that is how a lot of people take that. But that is not what John is
saying. The term “born of God” as it is used here is a perfect passive
participle of GENNAO [gennaw]. It is a participle that
should be translated as a noun. It is the regenerate one, the believer. For
John it is more than simply being a believer. You have to be regenerate to be
an overcomer, but not all regenerate are overcomers. That is the way to
understand this. So overcomers are a subset of those who are regenerate.
Whoever is born of God overcomes the world, but not everyone who is born of God
will overcome the world. That is what he is saying. He is not saying that
everyone who is born of God overcomes the world, but he is stating regeneration
as a precondition to being an overcomer.
1 John 2:29, “If you know that he is righteous, you
know that every one that practices righteousness is born of him.” Some people
come along and look at this and they want to draw a connection, and they say,
Look, you are born of Him, you are regenerate, you practice righteousness.
1 John 3:9, “Whoever has been born of God does not
sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of
God.” That verse makes it clear that when John uses the term “born of God” he is
not simply talking about someone regenerate. The conclusion is that John is
talking about someone who is living out the basis of his regeneration. When you
are living as a regenerate believer you don’t sin. It is the same thing Paul
says in Galatians 5:16. Those who walk by means of the Spirit cannot [it is
impossible] fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” In other words, you can’t sin. If
you are walking by the Spirit you can’t sin. What do you have to do to sin? You
have to exercise negative volition and quit walking by means of the Spirit.
Then you will end up sinning. John is saying the same thing.
1 John 4:7, “Beloved, let us love one another: for
love is of God; and every one who loves is born of God, and knows God.” We can
draw on of two conclusions. The first conclusion is that genuine born again
believers practice righteousness and do not sin, and they love God. Or, we
understand all these verses to say that only someone who is born again can
practice righteousness, not sin, love their brothers, love God, but that not
all who are born again practice righteousness, avoid sin, and love their
brothers. In other words, if you take it at first sight then you are going to
have to say that the people who are born again don’t ever sin, they all love
God, they all love one another, and they all practice righteousness. That just
doesn’t make sense. The only way to understand it is that John is saying that
you have to be born again, and only born again ones can then fulfill what is
going on in the subset, i.e. those believers who are overcomers are not
sinning, are practicing righteousness, loving one another, and loving God. Those
are the only two options.
Furthermore, another important observation to make
in 1 John when he talks about loving God is to go to 1 John 2:15-17. “Love not
the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world,
the love of [for the Father; objective genitive] the Father is not in
him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is from the world.” If
every believer automatically had victory over the world then why is John
telling believers, Don’t love the world? If you as a believer are automatically
going to have victory over the world, why is it necessary to tell you not to
love the world? Because John is addressing believers and saying not to love the
world. Obviously believers can love the world and not have victory over the
world. “And the world is passing away, and also its lust: but the one who does
the will of God abides for ever.”
In the 15th verse it emphasizes the fact
that the believer is either loving the world or he is loving the Father. 1 John
2:3, “By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his
commandments. The one who says, I know him, and does not keep his commandments,
is a liar, and the truth [doctrine; he is not applying doctrine] is not in him. But whosever keeps his word, in him the love
for God has truly been perfected [mature]: by this we know that we are in him.”
John is saying this is a way we can know we have comer to know Him: we keep His
commandments. A believer must come to know God as a part of spiritual growth. As
he comes to know God he will keep His commandments and he will have love for
God. Love for God = not loving the world. Coming to have love for God is a
result of learning the mandates of Scripture and advancing in the spiritual
life. Therefore you start of as a believer and as you learn the Word and as you
apply the Word and come to know God you demonstrate your love for God. This is
part of the spiritual advance, and it is not until it is finally applied
consistently that the believer has learned to over come the world, the cosmic
system. 1 John 5:4, “Whatever is born of God overcomes the world” – as the believer
goes through the process of spiritual growth, and when he reaches certain
levels of maturity then he is said to overcome the world – “this is the victory
that has overcome the world, even our faith [Doctrine in the soul].”
1 John 5:5, “Who is he who overcomes the world, but
he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” It is not just that believing
it, but in the context of 1 John it is taking the implications of that belief
and working them out in your day to day Christian life. Doctrine matters! You have
to learn to think biblically before you can act biblically. It is called
reeducation; getting rid of the cosmic thinking in your soul.
So the issue then in Revelation 2:7 is to a special category of believers. Those who are positive will respond to this. “He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.” He will be an effectual applier of the Word. There is a special capacity for life that overcomers will enjoy in heaven and a special privilege they have to enter into a special garden or restricted area in heaven called the paradise of God. This is a serious warning.