The
Three things are said in
Revelation 2:18 about the Lord Jesus Christ: He was the Son of God; He had eyes
like a flame of fire; He had feet like fine brass. The title Son of God emphasizes
His deity. Of the forty-five times that that title is sued in the New Testament
it is only used once in the book of Revelation, and that is in this particular
verse. It is therefore a title that is emphasizing the exalted Lord Jesus
Christ as the Son of God, and it is emphasizing His authority as the Son of God
to judge mankind. There is a particularly interesting connection inside this
particular letter related to the Son of God mentioned here in v. 18, and the
final reference to the overcomers in verses 26, 27.
Verses 26 and 27 come out of Psalm 2, and Romans 1:4 is a New testament verse that borrows from the imagery of Psalm 2:7,
that Jesus Christ was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to
the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.” What Paul is
referencing there in Romans 1:4 is a verse in Hebrews 1:5 which is a quote from
Psalm 2:7. That is, that at this future time there is a reference, a
declaration made by the Lord Jesus Christ. At the end of the Tribulation He is
going to remind everybody of a previous declaration, a declaration that was
made at the time of His resurrection. That was a declaration that He was the
Son of God. But in that Psalm it just refers to Him as the Son, and the
phraseology there brings together the sonship of David and the sonship of God
in that one person. So there is a recognition in the
Old Testament, based on Psalm 2:7, that the Messiah would be also divine. That
is seen in Acts 13:33, “he [God] has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: “‘You are my Son; today I
declare you begotten [lit. from the Hebrew].’” So this all connects together as background for understanding this
letter to Thyatira.
Psalm 2:8, “Ask of me [the
Father speaking to the Messiah], and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.” Verse 9, “You will rule them with an
iron scepter ; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.” Those verses
are quoted in Revelation 2:26, 27 at the end of this particular epistle.
What does all of that mean?
All of that means that there is an inherent unity in this particular evaluation
report. This vision of the Lord Jesus Christ focuses on His being the Son of
God so that there is a connection made internally with our future position to
rule and reign as joint heirs with Him in the Millennial
kingdom.
The next thing that is said
is that He had eyes like a flame of fire, and that is a picture of judgment.
The eyes are a picture of knowledge. This is indicated again in Revelation
19:12, “His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has
a name written on him that no one knows but he
himself.” The point of this verse is that Jesus Christ, when he returns at the second advent, is coming in judgment. So He knows who is to
be judged and what the basis is, and that is the emphasis of the eyes like a
flame of fire.
Then there is a reference to
the fact that His feet are like fine brass, or burnished bronze in some
translations. Actually it is a bright shining metal and we don’t really know
what it was. But the idea is that it has gone through a purification process,
and the emphasis is that the Lord Jesus Christ went through that purification
process during the first advent. When he came to earth in hypostatic union He
was undiminished deity, united with true humanity, and during the period of the
incarnation He went through many different tests giving the opportunity to
apply the doctrine that he has learned, to apply Scripture to all of these
circumstances and situations. And, as the writer of Hebrews says, it was
through these things that he suffered that he was matured or perfected in His
humanity. So the whole imagery that we have seen focuses on His role as a
judge. He is coming to evaluate the church.
Revelation 2:19, “I know your
deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now
doing more than you did at first.”
In this verse we have to
address one of those technical little issues known as textual criticism, that
there is some difference in the Greek MSS. There are well over 5000 either whole or incomplete MSS of the Greek
New Testament. We have more documentary evidence of what was stated in the
Greek New Testament than we do anything else. It is true that there were
copyist errors but for the most part these copyist errors were simply errors of
spelling, errors of punctuation, sometimes they would get words in different
word order, but when you have more than 5000 different MSS you have a lot
to base your conclusions on. But in the study of textual criticism (the science
of studying these MSS, weighing the evidence, trying to determine what the
original reading was) there have been a couple of different theories set forth
that have been popular in the last 100 years or so. The one we will start with
is called the Textus Receptus [TR]. The TR is what was
used to translate the King James version. It was made
up of about nine or ten MSS, that is all they had at the time, and they weren’t
very old. In the 19th century when they began to discover some more
ancient MSS that predated the TR by as much as seven or eight hundred years, then
scholars came along and said that these older documents must be more accurate.
So they set forth the theory that older was better. But if you have something
written out in the third century that is a bad copy of something that was
written in the second century, and you have a MS dated to the seventh century
that is a perfect copy of a MS written in the early second century, what is better? The older one or the more recent one? The
more recent one, because it is an accurate copy. So there was a flaw
there. Nevertheless scholars really debate this. Many different issues are
involved, but most of the modern translations—NIV, NASB, New
Century Bible, all but the New King James—are all based on this older is better
theory. In the mid-20th century another view of textual criticism
came forward called the majority text view. This was the view that the reading
that was in the majority of documents was the best reading. There is a lot more
to this but we have tried to boil it down and make it easy to understand so we
can see what is going on here.
Revelatoin
If you compare that with the NASB, it reads: “I
know your deeds, and your love and faith, and service and perseverance, and
that your deeds of late are greater than at first.” Notice the different word
order. Then you also have the inclusion of these “ands” which in the Greek are
the word KAI [kai].
The word order of the NASB is correct here because both the older documents and
the majority text agree. Only the TR has the reading that it has.
Corrected translation: “I
thoroughly know [OIDA/o)ida] your production…” When applied to God OIDA indicates
complete and total intuitive knowledge. It indicates His omniscience, and so it
is a thorough knowing. The Lord Jesus Christ knows everything there is to know
about you or any church. There is nothing hidden from that perspicuous glance
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Production refers to that which is produced as we are
advancing to spiritual maturity. Then we have our first KAI, and it
shouldn’t be translated like a simple conjunction “and your love”. It is an ascensive use of KAI and should be translated “even your love and faith.”
These two stand out as the main emphases of this commendation part of the
epistle. Why do we begin with love and faith? Because these two character
qualities—love is AGAPE/a)gaph and faith is PISTIS/pistij—are
both produced by God the Holy Spirit as the fruit of the Spirit. They are the
inherent character qualities produced by the Holy Spirit. Then the next two
attributes, “service” which is DIAKONIA [diakonia]
means to serve or minister in a local congregation with reference to Christian
service; “and endurance,” that is, the word HUPOMONE [u(pomonh]
and it means steadfast obedience, long-term continuous application of the Word
despite opposition, despite testing, temptation, and everything else. Service
and endurance in terms of application grow out of love and faith, so that love
produces service. Christian service is a form of impersonal or unconditional
love for all mankind. Faith here should be translated “faithfulness.” The
primary meaning of faith is trust or reliance, but PISTIS [pistij] on occasion means faithfulness, as it does in the
list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. So faithfulness produces
endurance. So we stand with two character qualities produced by God the Holy
Spirit, and then the application of that character in terms of the Christian
life and the ministry within the local church. Then it concludes that “your
recent production is superior to the initial production.” That shows growth,
maturity. They have been ;learning the Word and they
have been advancing, step by step, so their production in their spiritual life
at this point is much greater than it was before. This, as we will see, applies
to only a small group in the congregation.
We have seen that these two
nouns that are listed are both listed as fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love [AGAPE], joy, peace, longsuffering [MAKROTHUMIA/makroqumia], kindness, goodness, faithfulness [PISTIS]. So
these are fruits of the Spirit. That means that as you grow and mature in the
Christian life the Holy Spirit internally is transforming your character. Your
volition is not passive to that, you have to exercise
your volition. It is not the old “Let go and let God” mentality of the Cheswick
movement. You don’t just surrender yourself to Jesus or the Holy Spirit and it
automatically happens. It is very important here to understand the mechanics of
the Christian life which under gird the Galatians
You start off with the
filling of the Holy Spirit plus the Word of God. These are the two aspects
necessary for spiritual growth. They don’t work independent of one another. The
focus of the filling of the Holy Spirit—literally, by means of the Holy
Spirit—is to fill your soul with the Word of God. If we take Ephesians 5:18, which
is the mandate to be filled by means of the Spirit, and look at the context,
the verses that follow talk about being submissive to one another, about giving
thanks in all things, about singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and
there is the same list of consequences over in Colossians 3:17ff. If X action
produces Y result, and A action produces Y result, then A action and X action ought to be similar; they work together. The
command in Colossians 3:16 is to let the Word of Christ
richly dwell within you. When you let the Word of Christ richly dwell within
your soul it produces certain consequences. When you are filled by means of the
Spirit it produces certain consequences. The filling by means of the Spirit is
the divine side; the letting the Word of Christ dell within you is your
volitional action. You have to study the Word in right relationship to the Holy
Spirit and He fills your soul with Bible doctrine. This is what the Bible
refers to as EPOGNOSIS [e)pignwsij]—not just GNOSIS [gnwsij],
academic knowledge—a full knowledge. When we take that EPIGNOSIS
doctrine that is stored in our soul by the Holy Spirit and we are walking by
means of the Holy Spirit (the command of Galatians
As the Holy Spirit produces
character transformation, in this instance we have two characteristics that are
developed: on the one hand love, and on the other hand faithfulness. In
relationship to the evaluation of the church in Thyatira the love is producing
Christian service, which is an aspect of our impersonal love for other
believers. The faithfulness, on the other hand, is producing endurance.
Endurance is crucial to further spiritual growth. James 1:2-4. You have to
endure in that application of doctrine. It is a faithfulness that focuses on
faithful study of the Word; it is a faithfulness that culminates in
endurance.
In our verse, Revelation
2:19, we see that in the KJV [TR] it restructured the order: love, service, faith,
endurance. Somewhere along the line the scribes understood what the correct
interpretation of the passage is but because of the difficult Greek grammar
they tried to redo it so it would be clear that the love would be related to service
and the faithfulness was related to endurance. That explains why the word order
got twisted around. But the way it was originally written was to emphasize
first of all the character qualities and then secondly the results of those
character qualities. So it should read: “love, faithfulness, Christian service
and endurance.” So the character that was produced in them by the Holy Spirit
culminated in application in their Christian life.
Love is one of those
doctrines that is so poorly understood today because
we live in such a self-centered emotional society
that we think of love only in terms of emotion. Yet, when the Bible talks about
love emotion is the last thing associated with it. In fact, if you study what
the Bible says about love you end up thinking that emotion needs to be driven
far from love. If you are going to have real love it is non-emotional. If it is
emotional it is not stable. One day emotions are up, the next day they are
down. Emotions get tossed to and fro by every wind of circumstance. They get
changed around by chemical balances in your body, by how much sleep you have,
what kind of food you have eaten, and all threes things change your emotions
and effect your emotions.
In Matthew 22:36-39 Jesus was
asked a very important question by one of the scribes: “Teacher, which is the
greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love
your neighbor as yourself.’” Jesus quoted from
Deuteronomy, and the quote emphasizes the fact that we should love the Lord our
God with our soul, not with our feelings. Heart, soul, and mind are synonyms in
the passage. These are not three distinct elements of the immaterial part of
man. The word “heart” which is the Greek word KARDIA [kardia] is a word that emphasizes the innermost part of a
person. We think of heart as a physiological organ that pumps and circulate
blood through our body. That is not the point of the metaphor here. In fact,
studies indicate that even in English the word heart is used metaphorically to
refer to something that is at the center of something,
at the core of something. So heart is a term that used in Scripture refers to
the innermost part of man, what we would call the soul. The soul is made up of
different components: consciousness, thinking facility (the mind), a conscience
where our norms and standards are located. Sometimes the word “heart” in
Scripture refers to the entirety of the soul. So when Jesus said: “Love the
Lord your God with all your heart,” he was talking about all that makes you who
you are. In fact, in some places “heart” is used as a reference to the first
person singular pronoun, so it refers to who a person is. In the second phrase
He says, “with all your soul.” That is with every
ounce of your being. “With all your mind” uses the Greek
word DIANOIA [dianoia]
for “mind” which indicates the thinking part of the intellectual center of your soul. So love for God is not just some sort
of vacuous emotion to God, it is based on thought. What you will find from critics
of Christianity is that they will say, “Well, you just have to put your brain
in neutral and accept all that stuff.” It is just the opposite. If you
understand biblical Christianity it is the most thoughtful, the most
intellectual of disciplines. You have to think, you have to know, you have to
study in order to love God. It is not just sitting around and singing, O how I
love Jesus. It is entering into an understanding of His thinking which is
expressed in the Word of God. The word KARDIA, according to the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament,
refers to the inner person, the seat of understanding, knowledge and will. Most of the time the word “heart” refers to the thinking operation
of the soul.
The second thing that He
mentioned (verse 39): “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” That is what all the Mosaic law is about. It is how people live together in society. But
as we get into the Old testament we realize that
loving God is related to a very objective criterion, and that is called
obedience. Obedience to the Word, keeping the Word, doing what the law says to
do. We know that the law is not for today but nevertheless there are mandates
in the New Testament, and Jesus Christ said the same thing: “If you love me,
you will keep my commandments.” Deuteronomy 7:9 says, “Know therefore that the LORD your God is
God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand
generations of those who love him and
keep his commands.” Deuteronomy 10:12, “And now, O Israel, what
does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God,
to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands
and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?” So you obey the
Lord, you love the Lord by serving Him. That is the outworking of that second commandment, you serve the Lord in terms of ministry to
other believers. Deuteronomy 11:1, “Love the LORD your God and keep his
requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.” How do you know
if you love God? It is not how you feel, it is by your
obedience or application of doctrine. That is the criterion.
That mandate in the Old Testament
is reiterated seven times in the New Testament: Matthew 5:43; 19:1; 29:39; Mark
When we look at this
commandment and contrast it with Leviticus 19:18 we should note a couple of
important differences: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of
your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am
the LORD.” The command is the same, it is to love. But the object of your love
in Leviticus, in the Mosaic law, is your neighbour.
That is, anybody who lives next door, anybody who comes into your periphery
whether they are a believer or unbeliever. Their spiritual status is irrelevant
to this command. What is the standard that is given here? You are to love your neighbour
as you love yourself.
Every person loves
themselves. Adolf Hitler had a high self-esteem; Saddam
Hussein had a great self-esteem. The problem isn’t that people don’t love themselves, the problem is that they love themselves way too
much. Nobody has a poor self-esteem, that is just
human viewpoint garbage. The Bible recognizes this. Over where it talks about
marriage in Ephesians chapter five the husbands are to love their wives as
their own body. The Lord recognizes that everybody inherently puts themselves
first. That is part of the sin nature. So we are to love others and put them
first, not ourselves. That is the model.
The Lord Jesus Christ jacked
it all up. He said: “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.” The
one another here doesn’t refer to unbelievers. This
isn’t replacement and saying we don’t have a responsibility to exercise
impersonal love to unbelievers, but this is a higher standard towards other
members of the body of Christ. How are we to love other believers? “As I love
you,” not as you love yourself, that is a low standard. The new standard is “As
I love you.” How did Jesus Christ love us? He went to the cross and He died for
our sins. He went through unimaginable agony for us so that we could have
salvation. That is how we are to love other believers. When we were as
obnoxious and unattractive as we could be, Jesus Christ went to the cross and
died for our sins. That is the background for Christian service. Christian
service isn’t a basis for spiritual growth; Christian service is the result of
spiritual growth. But there is, nevertheless, in Scripture that we need to be
involved as members of the body of Christ with one another, ministering to one
another. That is why the local church is important. If the assembly of
believers wasn’t important the Lord would have said: “Go get a copy of Paul’s
letters and read them on your own.” There are a lot people who think that all
they have to do is just sit with a tape recorder and they have it made. Well,
they can grow and they can learn doctrine, and they can advance; but they can’t
operate like they are supposed to in the body of Christ. That is why we are
given spiritual gifts; it is to serve one another.
The first aspect that is
mentioned in Revelation 2:19 is “I know your love,”
and that produces service. Second, “I know your faithfulness,” cf. 2 Timothy
2:22 where it is translated that way. We need to be faithful, and that means to
be consistent in taking in the Word day in and day out. That means it must be a
priority in your life. Faithfulness also means to be consistent in the
application of the Word, consistency in fellowship, consistency in application
of impersonal love and Christian service. Endurance is related to testing, it
is staying with it over long periods of time. Endurance is consistent
application of doctrine which leads to spiritual growth.
In conclusion we have to recognize that the fruit of the Spirit—love, faithfulness—is the result of walking by means of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is the result of walking by the Spirit. Walking by the Spirit is an active voice verb, it is not passive. It is active step by step dependence upon the Holy Spirit and what is taught in the Word. Walking by means of the Spirit involves staying in fellowship, i.e. abiding in Christ, taking in the Word of God consistently and applying the Word of God. The Holy Spirit doesn’t understand the Word for you, the Holy Spirit is going to enable you to understand it. That means you have to think about it. It is the Jewish concept of meditation. You have to think about it, you have to understand it because in the next step you have to believe it and you can’t believe something you can’t understand. After you understand it, then you make another decision, and that is to believe it. When you believe it, that GNOSIS is transferred by the Holy Spirit into your heart, the innermost part of the soul, as EPIGNOSIS doctrine, and that is usable spiritual knowledge. It doesn’t produce growth, it is just usable. Then you are going to get opportunities to apply it, and that is your third opportunity to use your volition to make decisions for application. When you get to that point of application that is when the Holy Spirit uses it to produce spiritual growth. So when Bible doctrine is assimilated into your thinking under the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit then the Holy Spirit uses it to produce spiritual growth. Along with spiritual growth comes the realization that I need to engage my volition in terms of Christian service, and in terms of endurance, sticking with it. Christian service is not the means to spiritual growth but the result of spiritual growth. The application comes at the end of a process. That process is where growth it taking place. Christian service relates to family responsibilities. The idea is that the body of Christ is a family. There is an intimacy, a care for one another that is a part of family life. They watch each other’s back; that is what it is all about. That is what Christian service is, utilizing your spiritual gifts to pray for one another, admonish one another. Christian service relates to fulfilling various functions within the local body of Christ, as well as outside of the local body of Christ.