Recovery
Through Spiritual Dynamics
Revelation 3:1: “…I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being
alive, but you are dead.” This is a reference to operational death when a
believer is operating like a spiritually dead person. James talks about this in
James 2:26: “Faith without works [application] is dead.” It doesn’t mean that
that person in that section is an unbeliever, he is
operationally dead like the believers in
Revelation 3:2: “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain,
that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.” If they were unbelievers and spiritually dead they wouldn’t have
anything that remained, because they couldn’t have produced anything from the
flesh. The first command, what we have in our English a “Be,” is the
Greek verb GINOMAI [ginomai] in a present
middle imperative. It is a deponent verb, which is why it is a middle voice,
but it is a present imperative. The present imperative means this is something
which should be a ongoing characteristic, a standard
operating procedure, habit pattern of any Christian life. We should always be
watchful. It has the idea of becoming something that you were not already, so
it is indicating the fact that they are not watchful, not alert at all to what
is going on in their own spiritual life. So they need to become something they
are not already, and what they are to become is “watchful.” This is the word GREGOREO [grhgorew] where we get the name
“Gregory.” It means to wake up or to awaken. They are to be watchful. A dead
person can’t be watchful but a temporally dead person, someone who is in
carnality, can be watchful. They need to wake up, become alert, which they
aren’t already, and they need to stay alert. So the idea there is that they are
to wake up, put their focus on the right priorities, and to be alert and
watchful about their spiritual life. They need to pay attention to what is
going on around them and not just drift lazily through their spiritual life but
to realize what Paul says in Ephesians chapter six that we are involved in a
spiritual warfare. We are engaged in a battle and there are three enemies in
that battle. The first is the enemy within, the sin nature which is constantly
pumping out temptation to get us to operate independently of the grace, the
provision and the power of God. That sin nature is allied with an external
enemy called the world system, or the cosmic system. This is simply the total
collection of all the thoughts and values of a local culture that is based on
principles that are antagonistic to or independent from the Word of God. The
word system often presents rationales and justifications and truisms that sound
good but are in contradiction to the Word of God.
The New King James Bible says, “strengthen the
things which remain, that are ready to die,” but the majority text says
something completely different. The word STERISON [sthrion] means to stand fast, to set
fast, to fix firmly, to establish something.
Establishing something means to make a certain condition permanent, to cause
something to grow. It is related to putting something in a place where later
growth could occur. It has to do with bringing stability to that which is
unstable, to make something firm or stable. The other word which is from the
Greek word TEREO [threw] means to keep, to guard, or to protect things that
are under attack or in danger. So we can see that either word
works within this context, and either word presents a very similar
sense. The latter part of this sentence varies from one version to another. One
says “strengthen the things which are about to die”; the other says, “keep the
things which are about to be thrown away.” The first option is probably the
best. We are to strengthen what remains. They are about to die and go into
non-existence. There is a regression that occurs in the spiritual life where
you can reach a certain level of maturity but then as you reverse course and
backslide you can lose the ground you have gained. You lose even the doctrine
that you have learned. You forget about principles and how to apply them. This
is the condition that the Lord is pointing out in the
The question we have to ask: How do we stabilize that which remains? How
do we go about establishing our Christian life, or even re-establishing our
Christian life? Because there is a threat here, these things are in jeopardy if
there is continuance in carnality. One point to be made here is that even
though they have reversed course, even though they are falling apart, even
though they are in carnality, and even though instead of being spiritually
mature they are spiritually immature, there is hope. There is an opportunity to
reverse course. No matter what you have done in your life, no matter how you
have failed, no matter what sins you have committed, no matter how you have
shocked yourself—and we have all done that at times—somehow His grace covers it
all. Certainly there is damage, loss of reward, things that you have to
surmount now that are more difficult than if you
hadn’t gone through that, but there is always hope, always recovery. 1 John 1:9
is the starting point for that recovery but it doesn’t mean that once you have
confessed your sin you have recovered. Now you have to go through the recovery
process, which means learning all over again—to walk by means of the Spirit, to
abide in Christ, to take in the Word of God, to apply the Word of God, to
re-establish those spiritual disciplines that are necessary to advance in the
spiritual life.
“…for I have not found thy works perfect before God.” This is a perfect
tense of HEURISKO [e(uriskw], meaning to find
or discover something. The perfect tense means this is emphasizing completed
action. Some level of evaluation has been completed at this point, and what He
is saying is that at this point as a result of the evaluation done already the present
result of this is failure. They are getting an F-minus for their progress in
the spiritual life right now. “I have not found [as a result of a previous
evaluation completed] your works perfect.” The word there for works is ERGON [e)rgon] meaning production, whatever
it is. “Perfect” is the Greek verb PLEROO [plhrow] here, meaning to
make full, to fill, to bring to completion, and it is used periphrastically
here to complete the thought, “I have not found complete your works before
God.” So there is much left that they need to do in their spiritual life. They
have a lot of growth left and they need to pursue that, it needs to be their
priority.
Revelation 3:3, the conclusion. “Remember
therefore how you have received and heard.” Those verbs indicate how they
received Christ as savior—by faith alone in Christ
alone. Grace. You have to come back to a grace oriented position. Remember how
you received the Word that you learned originally, not just the reception of
salvation but also receiving the Word, the idea that is linked with the next
verb, hearing. Hearing is never viewed in the Scripture as the simple process
of listening to the teaching of the Word of God. It includes within its idea
that of application of doing, of not just listening but also applying what you
hear. So He is calling them back to what they did earlier when they were
advancing spiritually, to remember the principles that they implemented earlier
in their life.
“…and hold fast, and repent. If therefore you will not watch, I will come on you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.” The key is changing one’s mind. It is not talking about emotion, remorse. There is always recovery. The recovery procedure is laid out here in verse three and it is a refocus on how we originally learned and accepted Christ as our savior, how we originally learned doctrine, received doctrine, underwent those principles, and understanding at the root the spiritual dynamic that is crucial to that supernatural means of growth, which is walking according to the Spirit.