Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

Let’s keep going through the book of Revelation in a series called “The Prince’s Bride: What Revelation meant to the ones it was written to.” We are progressing slowly, which is not a bad thing. Most folks, at least for the last hundred years or so, have rocketed through the first few chapters—or even ignored them altogether—to get to the really scary stuff in chapters 4 onward. If I had to guess, though, by the time we finish this series, we will have inverted that. We will spend more time on the first three chapters than on the rest of the book. In fact, it’s my conviction that Revelation gets misused and abused if you don’t.

Remember that in chapter one John is commanded by Jesus himself to write what he sees and send it to seven literal, particular churches scattered across Asia Minor in the first century.

¹⁰ I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet ¹¹ saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.” Revelation 1:10–11 (NRSVue)

What follows in chapters 2 and 3 are the letters to these churches where Jesus speaks to the situation of each local fellowship, and we have been unpacking what he says to the first church, Ephesus, but only through the exhortation or warning.

¹ “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: ² “I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. ³ I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary. ⁴ But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. ⁵ Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Revelation 2:1–5 (NRSVue)

We spent a while talking about what an incredible commendation Jesus gives the church at Ephesus. They had remained doctrinally vigilant amid false apostles infiltrating their church and spreading heresies, and were relentless in their pursuit to uphold the faith once and for all handed down to the saints. They never got tired of guarding the truth. That is a praise from the mouth of Jesus himself that any church of all time would envy. How could Jesus condemn a church that was doing such a great job with that? Isn’t it all about guarding the truth? If you get that right, isn’t everything else automatically right? Jesus says no. They had guarded the truth, but they did so without the love they had for one another at first. There’s much here to learn, but at the very least, this tells us a few startling things: that you can be right and still be wrong, how you do what you do is just as important as what you do, and if you aren’t loving one another as Jesus commanded, no amount of faithfulness to anything else is going to save you from condemnation. And all of that implies that a church pleases Christ and functions as a genuine local fellowship only if it runs along the tracks of truth and love together.

Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t throw that bomb without offering a remedy. He tells them to “repent.” Last time, we saw how that word is loaded with baggage. About the only time it’s used these days is when it’s printed on a sign and held up with hate, bigotry, prejudice, and heartless (or you might even say loveless) judgment. Jesus and the New Testament writers used the word numerous times, but none of them were holding a sign. And we discovered that when we went back to the original Greek word translated as repent in the New Testament (metanoia), it had the original, secular, pre-Christian meaning of changing one’s mind or regretting an act. But the NT writers specifically framed repentance as a change of mind about how one’s life is oriented when confronted with the Good News that Jesus came to live the life we should have lived, die the death we should have died, and came back from the dead to give us, along with him, victory over death and sin. So when we hear John the Baptist say,

² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Matthew 3:2 (NRSVue)

Or Jesus say,

¹⁷ From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Matthew 4:17 (NRSVue)

Or Peter say,

¹⁹ Repent, therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, Acts 3:19 (NRSVue)

They are calling us to turn away from things that will ultimately destroy us and turn to the only one who can save us. That call is full of love, understanding, patience, grace, mercy, and peace. And it’s about as far away from the guy with the sign as you could possibly get. That’s where we left off last week, but we’re not done talking about repentance yet because Jesus calls five out of the seven churches to it.

Let’s keep going by noting that, in Jesus’ words to the church at Ephesus and to four other churches, he calls on those who already know him to repent. This might seem odd when we Protestants think about it, because we’ve been taught or caught that repentance is exclusively related to getting saved, but not so much something for after. In other words, the value of repentance is spent when we become a Christian. And the reason we think that is most likely the Protestants’ historic attempts to avoid what they saw as abuses in the Catholic church.

The disconnect goes all the way back to when the New Testament was first translated into Latin many hundreds of years ago, long before good old King James. When the translators came to the Greek word metanoia, they reached for a Latin word meaning "regret" and paired it with a command to act: do penance. In other words, show your sorrow by doing something to demonstrate it. That Latin regret word is the ancestor of our English word. Sorrow stayed in. Performance was added and overemphasized. So for a very long time, repentance was seen as something Christians must do after getting saved as much as before, but it was overseen and administered by the church, evolving into performing mere acts of penance which, at their most extreme, went beyond prayer, almsgiving, and fasting to flagellation, where penitents whipped themselves with leather scourges; hair shirts, worn to constantly irritate the skin and produce round-the-clock penance; sleeping on stone, long pilgrimages, standing outside in the snow, and, as you might guess, giving money to the church.

Martin Luther comes along, sees the problem, and addresses it in the very beginning of his 95 theses, which changed Christianity and the world:

1. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

2. This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.

And so the Protestant Reformation began. But people are prone to over-correcting. We went too far the other way. We tried so hard not to do it the way the Catholics of old did it that we ended up de-emphasizing something that’s emphasized in Scripture. As Luther said, Christ “willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

Jesus implies here in Revelation, and the Bible teaches as a whole, that repentance is a critical part of the Christian life all the way round. It is not a one-and-done situation. It is, as one scholar puts it, a “life-long disposition or orientation of [the] Christian life.”1 I think it’s high time we reclaim what true biblical repentance means and humbly incorporate it back into our lives as Christians. And to do that, we need to understand the basics of repentance. It’s a matter of four things:

The head. We must not forget that Jesus calls us to love God with all our hearts, minds, soul, and strength.

Repentance begins when we are confronted with something in our lives that God is not pleased with, something we need to change our mind about. That can come from inner conviction as the Holy Spirit reveals it to us. It can come from reading Scripture. It can come from the loving rebuke of a friend or a family member. In the case of the Christians at Ephesus, it came straight from Jesus himself. Regardless of how it comes to us, we must wrestle with the need for repentance in some area of our lives, understand it, own it, and accept it. As CS Lewis said, though, this is not fun at all.

Repentance starts in the head. Then it moves eighteen inches down, making it a matter of,

The heart. True repentance is always accompanied by deep sorrow and a desire to turn away from sin or failure and toward God. Paul calls it "godly grief" in his second letter to the church at Corinth, referring back to the painful letter he had written to them the first time, pointing out a serious error in their lives.

⁹ now I rejoice, not because you were grieved but because your grief led to repentance, for you felt a godly grief, so that you were not harmed in any way by us. ¹⁰ For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death. ¹¹ For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you… 2 Corinthians 7:9–11 (NRSVue)

Once repentance makes its way into the heart, it journeys to even deeper, making it a matter of,

The will. We decide, in the part of us that God gave us complete agency over, that we are going to turn away from whatever it is that prompted our need for repentance. We aren’t just sorry for our sin. We’re determined not to keep doing it.

¹³ No one who conceals transgressions will prosper, but one who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Proverbs 28:13 (NRSVue)

Once repentance makes its way into our will, it must end up being a matter of,

The hands. What I mean is this: repentance isn’t true repentance if a change in behavior isn’t a part of it. John the Baptist, like Jesus, began his ministry calling on people to repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. Among the crowds were those who claimed to be God’s people but didn’t act like God’s people. They went through the motions, performed the rituals, all that kind of stuff, but their behavior didn’t measure up.

⁷ John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ⁹ Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” ¹⁰ And the crowds asked him, “What, then, should we do?” Luke 3:7–10 (NRSVue)

John then gives them a description of what repentance, being a matter of the hands, looks like.

¹¹ In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” ¹² Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” ¹³ He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” ¹⁴ Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” Luke 3:11–14 (NRSVue)

And Luke, writing about the Apostle Paul, said that he

²⁰ …declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance. Acts 26:20 (NRSVue)

Neither John nor Paul was saying that performing those acts saved anyone or made them right with God. They were saying it was evidence that they had truly surrendered their lives to Christ. Here’s where we’ll get tripped up if we’re not careful. Repentance isn’t all about behavior. It isn’t all about performing works of penance, but it is still about doing. As the theologian and philosopher Dallas Willard put it, “Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.” That’s the idea here. True repentance, the kind of repentance Jesus called for both in his ministry on this earth and in his words to the churches in Asia, is a matter of the head, the heart, the will, and the hands. But I’m about to seemingly undo everything I’ve said by telling you one more thing. That kind of utter, complete, wholesale repentance is not something we can produce in and of ourselves. We don’t have it in us. You see, there is one more indispensable element of repentance, but it has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God. We can’t fully repent of anything on our own. God must be involved. Think about it. True biblical repentance, as I’ve explained it to you, is too much. Scripture supports the idea that repentance is something that God gives as much as it is something we offer. Paul wrote to Timothy,

²⁴ And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, ²⁵ correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth 2 Timothy 2:24–25 (NRSVue)

If I have learned anything in the last 46 or so years as a Christian, it’s that I cannot be trusted. If something in the Christian life depends solely on me, I’m done for. I must have help coming into the kingdom, and I’ve got to have help staying in the kingdom and living as a citizen of that kingdom. God is so gracious and good to provide that. Paul also revealed that,

¹³ …it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13 (NRSVue)

Don’t ask me how this works. I don’t think it can be explained in human terms. Repentance is up to us, but it’s up to God at the same time. Many things in the Bible are presented in that kind of tension.

So repentance is a matter of the head, the heart, the will, and the hands on our part, but a matter of divine enablement on God’s part. And there’s a story in the book of Acts that ties this all together.

¹ One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. ² And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. Acts 3:1–2 (NRSVue)

This is important. Luke notes that the man Peter and John meet at the temple begging for alms had been lame from birth. It wasn’t unknown, and perhaps not uncommon, for someone to develop a condition and then, many years later, be healed of it by natural causes. It was, and is, unheard of for someone born with a congenital defect to be healed by natural means even today.

Now let me ask you a question: Would someone lame from birth know how to walk if they’d never done it? The answer is obviously no. Let me ask you another question: Would someone lame from birth have the power to walk even if you told them to? No.

³ When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. ⁴ Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” ⁵ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. ⁶ Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” Acts 3:3–6 (NRSVue)

What does Peter command the lame man to do? Stand up and walk. Now, that’s cruel, don’t you think? He’s asking him to do something that he’s never done and can’t do. He doesn’t have the power to do it, doesn’t know how to do it even if he did, and yet, what happens?

⁷ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. ⁸ Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. Acts 3:7–8 (NRSVue)

There are two things at work here.

1. You have a person incapable of following the command to get up and walk. And yet he was willing to do his part by trying in faith when given the order. There would have been no miracle if this man had just lain there, responding to Peter’s words with disbelief. But he acted on his belief. But belief alone was not enough, because you also have,

2. An infinite, all-powerful God at work miraculously giving the man the ability to do what he was commanded.

Somehow, again, in ways I can’t explain, the command to stand up was charged with power to do it, and yet it still required the one being commanded to meet God there at the crossroads of faith. In the same way, within the call to repent lies the power to do so, yet it requires the one being called to meet God there. This is true whether it involves someone who isn’t a Christian being called to repent and be saved, or a group of Christians in a local fellowship 2,000 years ago being called to repent of their loveless orthodoxy.

This is how you make repentance a lifelong disposition or orientation of the Christian life. It’s how you live that long road of obedience in the same direction that the late Pastor Eugene Peterson wrote about. Be open, honest, and truthful about your part, but surrender every fiber of your being to God, who is the only one who can produce these kinds of things in you. And this, brothers and sisters, is why Paul wrote…

⁴ … Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Romans 2:4 (NRSVue)

Consider something I’ve already mentioned more than once. It’s critical to understand that these seven churches, though they were literal, physical local congregations you could visit if we went back in time, most likely represent seven conditions a church can find itself in. If that’s so, they can be seven conditions a Christian could find themselves in. Five of the seven churches are called to repent. That means the chances of us looking into this mirror and being confronted with our errors are pretty good. So we must be ready to do what Jesus says when our failures and sins are highlighted. It’s the same for each of the churches, and it’s the same for us—repent. Not the guy-carrying-the-sign kind of repent. Not the beat-yourself-up-until-you-make-God-happy kind of repent. But the lifelong orientation we’re all called to, where, as followers of Jesus, within the call to repentance is the power to do it as we meet God there.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

We are slowly making our way through the book of Revelation in our series called The Prince’s Bride: What Revelation Meant to the Ones it Was Written to. That subtitle is our focus, and the book lends itself to that emphasis because we know exactly to whom it was written. John, the author, records the words of Jesus given to him in a vision:

¹⁰ I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet ¹¹ saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.” Revelation 1:10–11 (NRSVue)

It’s my humble opinion that too little is made of this in comparison to how much is put into the strange visions of chapter four onward. I don’t think you can understand them until you spend a great deal of time in Chapters 2 and 3, where Jesus addresses these seven churches directly. And we have spent more than a few weeks in the first church, Ephesus, to which Jesus addressed an incredible commendation.

¹ “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: ² “I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. ³ I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary. Revelation 2:1–3 (NRSVue)

Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for their doctrinal vigilance against false apostles who attempt to sneak in with heretical doctrines. They worked hard at keeping the error out, never giving up, always bearing up for the sake of Jesus’s name, not entertaining these wolves in sheep’s clothing, even for a minute.

That’s a church quality much needed today as it was back then, even more so. Maybe that’s why the modern church in the West, for quite some time, has presented doctrinal integrity as the end-all characteristic a church should strive for. In other words, if a church is doctrinally sound, everything else automatically takes care of itself. And to be honest, I came up in the ministry believing that. But looking back, after a heart change resulting from an extended personal crisis in which God tore me down and built me back up, I realized that the denomination I was part of was a classic example of what happens when you make doctrinal integrity the end in itself rather than a means to an end. I’ve shared with you already how that went down: brothers and sisters in Christ were indiscriminately hit by friendly fire. Things got terribly ugly. The witness of the Gospel was tarnished among those outside the church. And in the end, all the promises made about how the blessings from Heaven would be poured out if we waged a holy war against liberalism didn’t happen.

Ephesus evidently had made doctrinal integrity the end in itself rather than a means to an end because with their incredible commendation comes what is probably the harshest condemnation of all the churches. Jesus declares,

⁴ But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. ⁵ Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Revelation 2:4–5 (NRSVue)

What Jesus means here is not that they had fallen out of love with Him. It was their abiding devotion to him that led to such solid doctrinal integrity in the first place. Rather, it’s that they did not love each other the way they did at first back when the Apostle Paul founded their church himself. They had been so busy policing people and rooting out false doctrine that they didn’t realize they’d abandoned Jesus’s command to love one another as he had loved them.

Like the Southern Baptists back in the day and even today, as observed by one article writer, they “became highly skilled at identifying doctrinal error while increasingly unable to recognize [those hurt among their own fellowship]. A church capable of defending the inerrancy of Scripture proved less capable of hearing wounded people tell the truth.”1

Jesus’ condemnation of Ephesus tells us that how we do what we do is just as important as what we do. You can be right and still be wrong. This is such a relevant word for us today, especially when you consider that the seven churches in Revelation were literal, physical, local congregations that existed in the first century, but they also represent seven conditions a church of all time might find itself in.

We talked about how, at the end of the day, the Ephesus situation was a matter of truth and love. It wasn’t that they needed to be balanced between the two, as if you could have too much truth or too much love. It was more like train tracks. Truth and love are the train tracks for the church. If both aren’t in place and equally emphasized, a church gets derailed. The consequences of derailment are severe. Jesus threatens to remove that church’s standing as a local fellowship of believers. But as with every erring church among the seven, Jesus offers an opportunity to turn things around, and we’ve already seen what that is in verse five.

⁵ Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Revelation 2:5 (NRSVue)

Ephesus, as well as the church at Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, and Laodicea, was called on by Jesus to repent. Now that’s a church word, if there ever was one. It’s almost if not exclusively associated with the Christian religion and a very hardline brand of it at that. Like me, when you think about the word “repent,” an image comes to mind: a preacher in a suit and tie sweating hard as he shouts at the congregation, “Repent so that you might not know the flames of a fiery hell!”

One day, quite a few years ago, I attended an event on the square in Springfield, Tennessee. There were vendors everywhere, but alongside them was a group huddled together near the courthouse, holding up signs which read, among other things, “Repent or Perish.” A man screamed through a bullhorn, telling women who walked by that they were going to go to hell for their short skirts and skimpy tops. I suppose they were, categorically speaking, cousins of the infamous folks at Westboro Baptist Church. You are truly blessed if you don’t know who I’m talking about. They aren’t as well known today as they were years ago, but they’re still around. In their heyday, they would crash the funerals of those who died of AIDS, heckling the grieving families and holding up signs that said things like “God hates fags” or “Repent or perish.”

This rude, cold-hearted, confrontational, offensive, hyperfundamentalist brand of Christianity, which isn’t true Christianity at all, has hijacked a word, turning it into something it was never intended to be. All this baggage is probably why Christians don’t use “repent” today. When’s the last time you met a friend for coffee, and they confessed a failure in their life, and they asked you what to do, and you said, “Repent!”? How often do you come across it in articles and books written by Christians? Hardly ever, unless they’re quoting a text from the Bible. Have you ever heard me, apart from quoting Scripture, call on you to repent? In modern thinking, the word is charged with God’s wrath.

But let’s turn to the Scripture and see if we can figure out what “repent” is intended to convey. Repent—and the Greek word it’s translated from—is all over the New Testament, and we come across it first in the book of Matthew. John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus and the one that God had sent to make way for the coming of the Lord, said,

² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Matthew 3:2 (NRSVue)

We come across it again in the very next chapter straight from the mouth of Jesus.

¹⁷ From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Matthew 4:17 (NRSVue)

Jesus will reference or call upon people to repent nine more times in the Gospels. Together, “repent” and “repentance” occur 56 times in the NT. Luke, however, gives it the most attention, more than any other NT writer, with roughly half of those occurrences in his gospel and Acts. Luke fleshes out Jesus’ and John’s proclamations.

When Jesus eats with Levi the tax collector, the Pharisees were deeply offended.

³¹ Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; ³² I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Luke 5:31–32 (NRSVue)

NT Wright, in his commentary on Luke, explains what’s going on here.

Tax-collectors are never popular, but in Jesus’ day it was worse. They were extortionists. And, more than that: they were working for the Romans, or for Herod, and their necessary contact with Gentiles put them under political suspicion (collaborating with the enemy) and ritual exclusion (they might well be unclean). It’s significant that when Levi throws a party, most of the others present are, like him, tax-collectors. They had to befriend each other, since most ordinary folk wouldn’t have anything to do with them.

Jesus broke into that world… summoning Levi to leave his work and follow him. And he explains what he’s doing, to the predictable grumblers, with what we today would call a Mission Statement: he is like a doctor who can’t do his work unless he associates with the sick. His job is to call sinners to repentance.2

In other words, instead of holding a sign with fire in his eyes, Jesus enters the world of those he calls to repentance, getting as close to them as he can. The irony here is that it’s actually the “righteous” Pharisees in danger of God’s wrath because you can’t repent if you don’t think you need to.

In Jesus’ parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son, we learn,

⁷ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Luke 15:7 (NRSVue)

That’s something you don’t see in the lives of those holding signs: joy. Yet Jesus reveals that when a person repents of their sin, there is joy among all the hosts of heaven. And then, as Luke closes out his gospel with the resurrection of Jesus and his ascension, we see this.

⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶ and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day ⁴⁷ and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Luke 24:45–47 (NRSVue)

Some of Jesus’ last words include an exhortation to go about proclaiming the offer of forgiveness in exchange for repentance as if it were good news or something. No hint of a guy with a sign here. So as we study repentance, let’s try to get that guy out of our heads and look at it with fresh eyes.

The New Testament concept of repentance has its roots in the Old Testament concept of God’s people turning back to him after they had fallen away. This about-face is a major theme, perhaps nowhere more pronounced than in the book of Joel,

¹² Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; ¹³ rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment. Joel 2:12–13 (NRSVue)

In Acts, repenting and turning back go together. Peter, in a sermon, calls upon the hearers to,

¹⁹ Repent, therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, Acts 3:19 (NRSVue)

So one aspect of repentance is turning back towards God. Another is found in the study of the Greek word for repentance: metanoia. It had the original, secular, pre-Christian meaning of changing one’s mind or regretting an act. But the NT writers specifically framed repentance as a change of mind about how one’s life is oriented. It involves regret; some call it godly sorrow rather than general sorrow. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth,

⁹ now I rejoice, not because you were grieved but because your grief led to repentance, for you felt a godly grief, so that you were not harmed in any way by us. ¹⁰ For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death. 2 Corinthians 7:9–10 (NRSVue)

Repentance, from the perspective of someone outside God’s kingdom, involves recognizing one’s sinfulness, a need for saving, and realizing God is the only one who can save. But we discover in John’s Gospel that repentance is more than this, even though the Greek word for repent isn’t found in there. In fact, it would be hard to find a Greek word in John that translators could use the English word repent for. John doesn’t have Jesus calling on people to repent, but he does have them calling on people to believe as the answer to lostness.

³⁰ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. ³¹ But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. John 20:30–31 (NRSVue)

So what is it? Repent or believe? It’s both. Repentance involves belief and belief involves repentance. It wasn’t that John left repentance out; it’s that he referred to it in a different way. Jesus said,

¹⁵ and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Mark 1:15 (NRSVue)

Repentance involves turning towards God (and away from ourselves and the fallen world we live in). Repentance is a change of mind about how we’re oriented. Repentance includes deep sorrow over our sin. Repentance is believing in, having faith in God who promises to save you if you call on his name.

I appreciate how CS Lewis describes repentance.

…it is a matter of common experience that, when one person has got himself into a hole, the trouble of getting him out usually falls on a kind friend.

Now what was the sort of ‘hole’ man had got himself into? He had tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor—that is the only way out of our ‘hole’. This process of surrender—this movement full speed astern—is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death.3

Lewis describes repentance as the process of surrender. That’s what it all boils down to when it comes to coming to God.

I’m guessing we get this when it comes to repentance and salvation, but you are probably thinking Jesus is speaking to Christians in Revelation two, so how does repentance apply to them? It must be a different kind of repentance.

No, not really. The bones are the same. Next time we’ll look at that a bit more. There are some important truths about biblical repentance we need to know before returning to Ephesus. Which is super important since these seven churches may very well represent seven conditions a church may find itself in. If so, we need to understand as much as we can what Jesus means by the remedy of repentance.

It kills me that the world perceives repentance as charged with God’s wrath; that the image of repentance is a man holding a sign, hurling accusations at passersby. It kills me even more that we Christians perpetuate it.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

Let’s continue our study of the book of Revelation, “The Prince’s Bride.” That is a shameless play off one of the greatest movies ever made, but it works because the two most important characters in the book are Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, and his Bride, the church. Chapter 1 is all about the Prince. As John worships in a cave one Sunday morning, he receives a vision of the glorified Jesus so powerful and overwhelming that he faints dead. Jesus touches him, tells him not to be afraid, and commands him to write to the Bride. And so, in chapters 2 and 3, we have words of Jesus to the seven churches of Asia.

I am convinced we spend way too much time hyper-focused on the strange visions in chapters 4 onward, and far, far too little time in Jesus’ words to the churches that come before. Recall that they very likely represent all churches of all time, even though they were literal local fellowships existing back then. In a way, chapters 2 and 3 are a mirror that churches gaze deeply into to see where they stand in Jesus’ eyes.

We are right in the middle of looking at the first church with the fellowship of believers living in the ancient first-century city of Ephesus. Jesus blesses them with an enviable dose of praise.

² “I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. ³ I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary. Revelation 2:2–3 (NRSVue)

The Message puts it this way.

² “I see what you’ve done, your hard, hard work, your refusal to quit. I know you can’t stomach evil, that you weed out apostolic pretenders. ³ I know your persistence, your courage in my cause, that you never wear out. Revelation 2:2–3 (MSG)

Of all seven churches, Ephesus had the greatest Christian heritage: Paul had founded it about 40 years earlier, and Ephesus is mentioned throughout the Scriptures, with a book of the New Testament dedicated to it. Speaking of their founding by Paul, they had faithfully carried out his admonitions to watch for wolves in sheep’s clothing who would one day sneak in to ravage the sheep. These wolves showed up as false apostles. Even though we don’t know exactly what they taught, we have a pretty good idea that it involved compromising their faith under intense pressure to accommodate a barrage of pagan influences, particularly as they related to the imperial cult.

Put very simply, Jesus praised Ephesus for doctrinal orthodoxy; they did not compromise the teachings of Christ for a minute. As I mentioned last week, what local fellowship of believers would not die for such a commendation from Jesus himself? Even today, having the right doctrine and sticking to it is what many churches and denominations hold as the gold standard of faithfulness. I came up in the ministry being taught that it’s all about the word, all about doctrinal integrity. So much so that if you are faithful to the Scriptures, everything else is automatically right.

That sounds good. It did to me for a really long time. However, look once again at what Jesus says to them next in verse 4.

⁴ But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. ⁵ Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Revelation 2:4–5 (NRSVue)

They had an impeccable record of doctrinal integrity, but Jesus condemns them for lacking something. That something is love, particularly the love they had at first. And it is such a grievous error that Jesus threatens to remove their lampstand from the hall of churches in heaven. This is the harshest, most frightening warning of all seven churches, even more than the church at Laodicea, for which Jesus has no praise at all and describes as poor, miserable, blind, and naked.

Like me, most of you were probably taught or understood abandoning their first love to mean they had fallen out of love with Jesus, that they had become less zealous in their devotion to him over time. But it’s much more nuanced than that, because it was their love and devotion for the Lord that made them so zealous in rooting out false teachings. Rather than being about falling out of love, it’s about not having the kind of love they had at first, as when they began as a church. And the kind of love they had for one another is described by Paul in his words to the church at Corinth.

¹ If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. ⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; ⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. ⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ⁸ Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end… ¹³ And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-8, 13 (NRSVue)

Somewhere along the way, in maintaining their doctrinal integrity, they lost a deep and abiding love for one another. I’m guessing it came out in their interpersonal relationships as ugliness, cold-heartedness, heavy policing of the congregation’s associations and actions, and a general lack of civility. That guess comes from something I mentioned last time: when I entered the ministry over thirty years ago, the denomination we affiliate with for missions (the Southern Baptist Convention) was embroiled in a heated battle for doctrinal faithfulness.

Things got ugly. Pastors were fired, seminary professors had their contracts canceled, and good people were forced out of their churches. It was all done with glee and pride in the midst of others’ misfortune (and, to my shame, I cheered it on). We justified all the pain caused within the denomination and the terrible optics outside by convincing ourselves that we were doing it for the sake of the kingdom. It was a classic case of the ends justifying the means.

All the while, we neglected to consider something that Jesus said:

³⁴ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34–35 (NRSVue)

The SBC, like the church at Ephesus, made (makes) doctrinal faithfulness an end in itself, but doing so overrides Jesus’ command to love one another with “defend the truth.”

This brings me to something I didn’t have time to share last week: at its core, the issue at Ephesus was a matter of truth and love. The Apostle John, who most likely wrote Revelation, emphasizes those two things perhaps more than anyone else. If you read his Gospel and letters, you realize that he could even be called the apostle of truth and love.

In his second letter, he begins with this:

¹ The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth, and not only I but also all who know the truth, ² because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever: ³ Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, in truth and love. 2 John 1–3 (NRSVue)

Truth in this text is translated from the Greek alētheia (a-lay-thay-uh), and love from agapē. Those are biggies in the Christian faith, with each appearing over 100 times in the New Testament. And while John doesn’t use these words more than every other writer in raw numbers, truth and love are especially concentrated in his Gospel and letters. To understand Jesus’s words to the Ephesians, I think it would be helpful to spend some time on truth and love.

When it comes to truth, if you study the Scriptures, you realize it involves at least three things. First, it’s a

1. Message

There are all kinds of messages out there, and many of them contain various degrees of truth. In fact, it may surprise you to learn that religions other than Christianity contain truth. C.S. Lewis talked about this in his book, Mere Christianity.

I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe. If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through… But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic—there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others.

In other words, some religions are like the equations 2+2=7 or 2+2=9 (not too awfully far from the right answer), but only one message is 2+2=4, and that is the message of the Gospel, the truth of all truths, the truth that has the power to change your life and destiny. Listen to the words of the apostle Paul:

³ In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴ for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, ⁵ because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel ⁶ that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. Colossians 1:3–6 (NRSVue)

The word of truth is a message, and that message is the good news that there is an answer to the brokenness, the longing for more. It is the message that God himself came in the flesh through the person of Jesus Christ to live the life we should have lived and die the death we should have died, and to prove he was who he said he was; he came back from the dead.

The truth is a message, and it’s a

2. Doctrine

Doctrine is a body of principles or teachings one believes in and lives by. The Bible is a book containing the principles and teachings we, as believers, live by. And unlike other teachings, it contains true truth because it was ultimately written by the author of truth himself…

²⁰ First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, ²¹ because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. 2 Peter 1:20–21 (NRSVue)

The truth is a message, a doctrine, and most importantly, it is a

3. Person

Absolute truth is more than an idea or a philosophical concept; it is a person. Think about that. There is someone who is not only the source of truth but also embodies truth itself. Of course, that person is Jesus Christ. His name is truth.

¹¹ Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and wages war. Revelation 19:11 (NRSVue)

Not only that, Jesus claimed to be THE truth…

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6 (NRSVue)

This was important to John because he spent his last years fighting a group of folks claiming to be Christians yet denying that God came in the flesh. This should ring a bell because when we talked about how the Ephesians sniffed out the heresy, we learned that they would have put the teachings of these false apostles under the microscope, looking especially at what they did with Jesus. Heresy always messes with Jesus, either making him less than what he is or making less of what he commanded.

Truth is a message, a doctrine, and a person. John would have been super excited to know that the church at Ephesus had been undeniably faithful in defending the truth. But he would also have been very interested to know what they had done with love. Not the syrupy, sappy, Hallmark movie kind of love that gives us all the ick. No, John was about the kind of love the world had never seen before Jesus came into the picture. It’s something the New Testament writers, and particularly John, referred to as agape love. Even though in the original Greek agape was broad in its sense, as our modern English word for love is today, John and the New Testament writers seem to have crafted it into something more specific as it relates to the Christian faith.

No doubt they did so because of what Jesus said, as recorded in John’s gospel.

¹³ No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13 (NRSVue)

The ultimate expression of agape love is sacrifice. And there is no greater example of sacrificial love than what Jesus did for us.

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. John 3:16 (NRSVue)

John even wrote in one of his letters,

¹⁶ We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us… 1 John 3:16 (NRSVue)

If you ever, for a minute, wonder whether God loves you, remember what he gave and what he sacrificed. God demonstrated agape love (action) by giving His only Son (sacrifice), but agape love is not just a trait of his; he is the embodiment and source of agape love, just as Jesus is the embodiment of truth.

⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:8 (NRSVue)

Truth and love. Truth contained in a message, a doctrine, and a person. Agape love. Embodied in God, expressed in action and sacrifice, the greatest of which was demonstrated through what Christ did for us on the cross.

Here’s where all this ties into the problem at Ephesus: Truth and love are critical to any relationship, secular or sacred. The late Dr. Tim Keller said, in reference to marriage,

“Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.”

If that’s true in a relationship between two people, it’s even more so in the relationships of those gathered together as a local fellowship of believers. Truth without love in a church produces harshness. Doctrines are held to. Behavior is modified. Rules are enforced. False apostles are identified and thrown out. And everyone pats themselves on the back for doing such a great job of honoring the God of Truth. But people get hurt. There’s a lot of fighting. And those outside the church see all of this and decide they don’t want anything to do with it. This was the sin of Ephesus that angered Jesus so much that he threatened to take away their lampstand.

At the same time, love without truth in a church is mere sentimentality; everyone is affirmed no matter what. The message of the Gospel gets watered down and sometimes even replaced. The fundamental doctrines of the faith become fluid and often optional. And the person of Jesus, the God-man, is demoted. And everyone pats themselves on the back for honoring a God of love. This is equally a sin that Jesus would condemn. Spoiler alert: we will see that one of the seven churches is, in some ways, guilty of this.

Conclusion: So Jesus’ condemnation of Ephesus, at its heart, concerned what happens when truth and love get distorted into something Jesus never intended. As I thought about this in preparation for the message, I was tempted to see it as a matter of balance, since so many things relate to that: balance between extremes, a balance between the tensions found in all the paradoxes of the Christian life. But it occurred to me that this does not apply here. I don’t think you can have too much truth, and I don’t think you can have too much love. Rather, it’s more like train tracks. Truth and love are the two train tracks required for a church to make its way forward as an extension of our Lord in his absence. If both aren’t firmly in place, there is derailment and wreckage. The consequences of derailment are severe and must not be taken lightly because it can ultimately affect a church’s standing as a local fellowship of believers. This has sobering implications for us today because if the seven churches somehow represent seven conditions a church of all time might find itself in, then we must gaze into this mirror deeply to see what it says about us.

We must prayerfully and humbly ask God to help us see, as a church and as individual Christians, what we’re doing with truth and love. Has our truth hardened into harshness? Are we guilty of loveless orthodoxy like Ephesus? Or has our love gone soft into sentimentality? Are we guilty of truthless love? As we get our answers, we are left with the question of what to do now. Jesus has already told us. Repent.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

We are unpacking the most mysterious book in the Bible in a series called “The Prince’s Bride: What Revelation meant to the ones it was written to.” As I’m sure you know by now, that subtitle is important because it’s our focus, a focus that isn’t often taken when it comes to this book. Instead of trying to figure out how close we are to the end, we’re trying to figure out what it meant to them in the beginning.

We’ve established that, more than anything, the Book of Revelation is about living faithfully as Christ followers in a world that constantly competes for our loyalties. This, more than anything, helps us understand what is going on as Jesus dictates seven letters to John for seven literal churches existing back then in the Roman province of Asia.

The first church is Ephesus, where Jesus gives a glowing, two-part commendation. We looked at part one last time.

2 “I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. Revelation 2:2 (NRSVue)

The evildoers Jesus refers to were false apostles, wolves in sheep’s clothing, who snuck into the church and tried to poison the fold with their heretical doctrines. But the Ephesians were not having it. They were like Sam the sheepdog in those old Looney Tunes cartoons where Ralph Wolf never made it far.

It’s striking to realize that within mere decades of the church’s birth, the Evil One was already making inroads, trying to lead people astray. I didn’t mention this last time, but scholars are divided on exactly what heretical doctrine the false apostles were selling. Jesus doesn’t tell us, but I think it’s safe to say those same scholars agree it had to do with compromising their faith in the midst of intense pressures to accommodate the pagan influences around them, not least of which was the Imperial Cult. Don’t forget the Imperial Cult was an organized, far-reaching, government-sponsored religious order that made the emperor divine and expected observance by everyone in the empire. We’ll dive into that more deeply along the way because Jesus is nowhere near done talking about heresy, with six more churches to come.

So, in a nutshell, what Jesus praised Ephesus for was doctrinal orthodoxy. They had faithfully carried out the admonitions of Paul some forty years earlier, when he warned them to watch for wolves in sheep’s clothing sneaking in to ravage the sheep.

The church at Ephesus had, as Jude puts it in his letter, faithfully and effectively,

3 …contend[ed] for the faith that was once and for all handed on to the saints. Jude 3 (NRSVue)

Now to verse three and the second part of Jesus’ commendation to the Ephesian Christians.

3 I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary. Revelation 2:3 (NRSVue)

The pressure to compromise was relentless.

One pressure was the continual need to remain vigilant, testing the apostles to see if they were legitimate. You remember that involved examining their doctrine, character, and behavior. That led to another pressure: accommodating the expectations to blend into society because, as I said, what they were teaching very likely made it easier for Christians to syncretize their faith with the pagan influences around them. But they never backed down, they never gave up, they never faltered, holding fast, for the sake of Jesus’ name. And this makes me think of a song that describes their singular faithfulness. It goes like this:

“Never gonna give you up

Never gonna let you down

Never gonna run around and desert you

Never gonna make you cry

Never gonna say goodbye

Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you”

You’ve been Rick-Rolled. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that? You’re welcome. Back to the task at hand.

As I mentioned last week, what local fellowship of believers would not die for this kind of commendation from Jesus himself? You would think that ongoing, unrelenting doctrinal integrity in the midst of intense pressure to compromise would make Ephesus the GOAT, as in the greatest-of-all-time, when it came to churches. Surely that is more than enough to spare them any condemnation, right? Verse four,

4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Revelation 2:4 (NRSVue)

Wrong. Jesus follows his praise with a stinging condemnation. The church at Ephesus had abandoned the love they had at first. But what does that mean? Some see it from the relationship perspective. Everyone has their first love, where they love the hardest and with the greatest fervor, when they would do anything for the object of their affection. But as often happens, the fire that was there early on begins to wane until it becomes nothing but embers, and maybe even goes out. There might be a hint of this at work, but it must be more than that because Jesus praises them for enduring hardships and staying orthodox in their beliefs, even under intense pressure for the sake of his name. They loved him so much that they never gave up their faithfulness to his teachings, no matter what it cost them.

Rather than being about falling out of love, it’s more about not having the kind of love they had at first, as when they began as a church. We know about their beginnings from the book of Acts. We’ve already seen how Paul planted the church at Ephesus and spent many days there discipling the believers and mentoring the pastors. In Acts 20, when Paul was on his way to Jerusalem (where he would face imprisonment and ultimately his death), he took a detour to Miletus and met with the Ephesian pastors one last time. He prophetically warned them about wolves that would one day sneak in to lead the flock astray. This is how their time together ended.

36 When he had finished speaking, he knelt down with them all and prayed. 37 There was much weeping among them all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, 38 grieving especially because of what he had said, that they would not see him again. Then they brought him to the ship. Acts 20:36–38 (NRSVue)

Now that’s a kind of love you rarely, if ever, see in churches today. This brings to mind how, as Jesus’ time on earth drew to a close, he did something similar to what Paul did. With the shadow of the cross looming over his head, he pulled the disciples in close and began a long, intimate discourse on how they would live after he left. Look at part of what he said.

33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Love is the singular sign, the dead giveaway, that we are Jesus’ people; it draws those within the church closely together, and it draws those outside the church to Him like moths to a flame. Over and over, Jesus stressed the preeminence of love among his followers, even to the point of framing it as a commandment.

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. John 15:12 (NRSVue)

According to Jesus, you can sum up all the Law and Prophets with one word: love, as in love God and love your neighbor. The supremacy of love runs throughout the Bible. The Apostle Peter wrote,

7 The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:7–8 (NRSVue)

The Apostle John wrote,

23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 1 John 3:23 (NRSVue)

Paul admonished us to,

2 and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:2 (NRSVue)

And,

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Colossians 3:12–14 (NRSVue)

And,

9 Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 1 Thessalonians 4:9 (NRSVue)

And in one of the greatest discourses on love ever given—meant for church relationships and not marriage—Paul wrote:

1 If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end… 13 And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-8, 13 (NRSVue)

This is what love among Christians looks like. Let’s see if we can pull all this together by taking Paul’s words here and applying them to Ephesus:

If I can name every false apostle who walks through the door and expose his lies before sundown, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers and have searched out every mystery and guarded every doctrine, and if I have faith enough to stand unmoved against every wolf that prowls the fold, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I labor and toil and never grow weary, if I bear up under every pressure to bend the knee to Caesar, but have not love, I gain nothing.

You might be thinking, Okay, we get it. There was a love problem at Ephesus, but surely it was minor compared to their success at being doctrinally vigilant. Jesus is merely pointing out a correction they need to work on. Nobody’s perfect, right? I mean, if you had to choose between being doctrinally sound and having love, surely doctrinal vigilance would be more important, right?

Do you remember how Jesus’ words to the churches are structured with seven elements? And how one of those elements is a warning, though not every church received one? Let’s see if Jesus has anything negative to say to the church of zealous orthodoxy.

5 Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Revelation 2:5 (NRSVue)

Jesus says to repent, and it’s not just a warning, it’s a threat and a harsh one at that, even compared to the church at Laodicea, which is the only church of which Jesus had nothing good to say. If Ephesus didn’t get back to loving as they did at first, he would remove their lampstand. Folks, that is not harsh; that’s harsh, harsh.

The lampstand, if you recall, is the representation of their local fellowship in the halls of heaven. Jesus identifies Himself to the church at Ephesus as the one who walks among the lampstands. The implication is that because they no longer love one another as they once did, there will be an empty spot where their lampstand used to be if they don’t turn things around. As with so much of the Book of Revelation, there’s debate as to what that means. At the very least, it meant Jesus would remove their recognition as a church. It’s not about their salvation or their relationship with Him, but about their usefulness as a local body of believers. This was a highly critical internal issue that had external consequences. The lack of love among them was such a great sin that even their doctrinal integrity could not overcome it. Jesus has no use for a church like that; it is, in fact, not a church.

How did that happen? How did they fall so far from where they started? I assume they got so caught up in rooting out the false apostles and being doctrinally pure that they made that fight end in itself, rather than a byproduct of love for Jesus and love for each other. So it wasn’t about what they were doing, which was no doubt the right thing, but how they were doing it. Without love.

Well over 30 years ago, I was ordained as a pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention. At that time, the SBC was involved in a fight for doctrinal integrity known as the Conservative Resurgence. Two men in Texas were architects for this movement. It was a battle for the Bible, they said, a holy war that needed to be waged against the liberals who were cursing our convention. They were the reason our denomination wasn’t doing well. If we would root out all of this liberalism, the conservatives promised God would bless us again with baptisms, growth, and missions multiplication. Many pastors, churches, and denominational leaders took up arms to fight for doctrinal integrity in our denomination. I was a young and impressionable pastor at the time, and I got caught up in it as well. In fact, I was deeply involved in the Conservative Resurgence at the state level for the first sixteen years of my ministry. I sat in rooms with some of the most notable Southern Baptist leaders in the convention as they crafted plans to win back our state for Jesus. I was the water boy, mind you, but I sat in the room with them.

As many of you know, it was in that sixteenth year as a pastor, as a result of a family crisis, that I lost everything and left the ministry mad at God, living like a lost man for three years. God brought me back and began rebuilding my faith from the ground up. Eventually, he would thrust me back into ministry against my better judgment. The Lord opened my eyes to so many things. Pain and suffering have a way of changing you, and thankfully, for the Christian, God always uses it for good. As I looked back on my role in the conservative resurgence, however small it might have been, it occurred to me that I never once heard anything about love. I realized how many people were hurt and how many ungodly things were done, all in the name of defending the Bible.

Even after returning to ministry as Brad 2.0, as I often call him, I tried to stay connected to the SBC, and I remember attending an SBC state denominational meeting early on, where the fruit of the conservative resurgence’s labors was on display. A church in our state was brought before the assembly, and a motion was made not to seat them for having a woman pastor, which is effectively a disfellowshipping. That woman pastor and many from her congregation were there. Pleas were made against voting them out because they were willing convention partners involved in missions. Nevertheless, when the votes were tallied, the decision to disfellowship them was overwhelmingly approved. When the results were announced, thunderous applause broke out. That woman and her church slowly walked out, their heads hanging low.

At this point, I want to make it clear that hashing out the issue of women in ministry is not the purpose of what I’m sharing here, though I’ve talked about it in the past, particularly during our Acts series, where God helped me see the role of women in the church differently than I did before my crisis.1 So you know, I am now convinced women are called to serve and lead in our churches. At the same time, I respect those who hold a different view from me and do so with grace and compassion.2 But what I cannot handle is its use as a test for fellowship. Regardless of where we stand on women in ministry, I hope no one would say that the lady pastor or her congregation were not our brothers and sisters in Christ. As near as I can tell, a person’s view on this does not determine their salvation. God help us, though, it seems some feel that way these days. That’s a topic for another time.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that disfellowshipping them was undeniably the right thing to do because they were in error. This would make it a matter of church discipline, in which Christ followers hold one another accountable for sinful or destructive behavior, done out of love. Even so, the last thing in the world you want to do to someone you love is hurt them, even if you’re hurting them because you love them. It should have been painful for those administering the discipline. It should have brought tears to their eyes. But when the motion to deny their seating as messengers was approved, instead of tears and sadness, there was clapping and exultation. It was at that moment I realized they had attempted to do the right thing, as they saw it, the wrong way, making it altogether plain wrong.

If Jesus’ words to Ephesus show us anything, they reveal that the way we go about doing what we do is as important as what we do, maybe even more important. You can be right, but you can still be wrong if love isn’t factored in. This is what got me about Ephesus. Being doctrinally pure cannot be the end in itself because it produces loveless orthodoxy. And that is a sin so great that Jesus threatens to remove the lampstand of a church, or I dare say, even a denomination, guilty of it.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

After a little break for Pentecost Sunday, we are now back on track in our Revelation series “The Prince’s Bride.” Our focus in this series is discovering what it meant to those it was written to. One of the greatest mistakes we make as Christians when interpreting Scripture is trying to understand what it means to us today without first going back to what it meant to those to whom it was originally given—2,000 years ago, in this case. With the Book of Revelation, we’re probably more guilty than ever because we are conditioned to see it as a guidebook to the end times, which we think we are living in right now, something every generation since the early church has believed. I’m sure that’s not how those who first received John’s visions saw it. We’ve talked much about that already.

We’ve finished chapter one and are just getting started on chapter two, where Jesus directly addresses the seven churches of Asia. They were seven literal churches existing back then, but because John’s vision in chapter one depicts them as seven lampstands in heaven, and the number seven throughout Scripture, as well as in ancient times, represents completeness or perfection, many scholars believe they are also symbolic, representing all churches of all time. If that is so, then they may very well give us seven conditions a church might find itself in. And that makes the Book of Revelation as relevant today as it could possibly be. Way more so in my mind than how we tend to approach it.

It’s important to recall the basic pattern of seven recurring elements in Jesus’ words to every church:

1. An address to the church’s “angel.”

2. A description of Christ drawn from the opening vision.

3. A commendation (absent only in Laodicea)

4. A condemnation (absent only in Smyrna and Philadelphia)

5. An exhortation or warning

6. An invitation to heed the Spirit.

7. A promise to the faithful

The first church Jesus gives his attention to is the community of believers in the ancient city of Ephesus. Once again, let me be very clear: if we could go back 2,000 years and visit the city of Ephesus, we would literally and physically find the Christians there that Jesus speaks to. The literal reality of the church of Ephesus is important because, as we’ll see with all the churches, where they are, what they are, and what’s going on at the time are all important to understanding what Jesus says.

It’s no accident that Ephesus comes first. It was, in many respects, the most significant city in the Roman province of Asia. Ephesus was its capital and was well-known for hosting a massive temple to the goddess Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. From ancient history and the New Testament, we know they were proud to call themselves the temple wardens of their patron deity. But beyond that, they fought hard for the title of Temple Warden for something else—the Imperial cult, something only Rome could grant to a city.

Here’s a quick review of the imperial cult, because understanding it is critical to understanding the book of Revelation and, really, the New Testament as a whole. The Imperial Cult promoted worship of the Roman Emperor through sacrifice and prayer, and it gave rise to its own priesthood, temples, rites, and festivals dedicated solely to venerating Rome’s ruler as a deity. Over time, it became deeply embedded in the religious, social, economic, and political systems of ancient Rome, to the point that no one could escape it. The further away from Rome you lived, the harder it was to avoid because the Imperial Cult wasn’t so much about the gullible ancient Romans believing that the emperor was actually divine as about giving the rule of Rome a presence in places far removed from the capital city. It was also a convenient way for cities to show Rome how devoted they were to the empire, so they would be looked favorably upon.

Understanding this gives us a different view of those first-century Christians living in Asia. Like me, you were probably taught that they lived under full-scale persecution with Emperor Domitian, who was most likely in power during John’s exile on the island of Patmos. There is a point later in Rome’s history when Christianity was persecuted like that, but it wasn’t during John’s time. You could be a Christian and worship Jesus, as long as you syncretized it with worship of the Emperor. Citizens could not make a living, interact socially, participate in local government, or even buy food in the marketplace without it somehow being associated with the Imperial Cult. This made it especially difficult for Christians because their allegiance to Jesus was higher than any earthly emperor or nation.

This is the tension in which the Christians of the seven churches lived, and it helps us to clearly see that Revelation is really about living faithfully to the Son of God in a world that is constantly competing for that loyalty. And this is nowhere more evident than in the city of Ephesus.

Last time we unpacked verse one, which contains two of those seven elements: the address to the church’s angel and the description of Christ drawn from the opening vision.

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: Revelation 2:1 (NRSVue)

We’ve already seen how Jesus “walking” among the lampstands strikingly demonstrates that He is present with his people, guarding, protecting, and preserving the church. He is never absent—no service is conducted at which He fails to show up, no meal is served for which He does not sit down, and no sermon is preached that He does not evaluate.

Now let’s get to the third element, which is a commendation and what a commendation it is.

2 “I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. 3 I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary. Revelation 2:2–3 (NRSVue)

That first part alone is enough to rattle our cages: “I know.” It ties into Jesus being the one who walks among the lampstands, the one who is intimately and completely accurately aware of what’s going on in his churches. We don’t think about that enough. In fact, if we thought about it more, we wouldn’t have nearly as much backbiting, gossip, division, and plain ugliness going on in local churches. It’s a sad thing that churches are known as a place of dissension more than they are a place where Jesus is found.

Now, if Jesus is that aware of his churches corporately and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts individually, then he knows everything about us, too. And as with the churches, it’s not in the sense of a police officer looking for criminals, but a shepherd caring deeply for his sheep. And I am so incredibly thankful for that. Back to verse two.

2 “I know your works, your toil and your endurance… Revelation 2:2a (NRSVue)

As the theologian Gordon Fee explains, “[toil]… most likely refers to every form of labor that directly involves ministry (= service to others) of any kind, while “[endurance]” means that they have not flagged in doing so.”

More specifically, Jesus praises them for not tolerating evildoers.

2 “… I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. Revelation 2:2b-c (NRSVue)

Jesus clarifies that evildoers claimed to be apostles but were not. To better understand this, it might be helpful to explain the role of the apostles in the early church. First, there was the office of Apostle (as in Apostle with a capital A). They played a special role in the initial founding of the church, were commissioned personally by Jesus, and were used by the Holy Spirit in the writing of Scripture. Think Matthew, James, John, Peter, and Paul. To be this kind of apostle, you must have seen the resurrected Lord and have received a special commission from him.

The second kind of apostle (as in apostle with a lowercase a) was a much larger and diverse group. They were folks commissioned and sent out by the church to carry out mission enterprises and plant new churches. They depended on established churches to support their ministries, so it was common for officially commissioned apostles to appeal to local churches for assistance with their missionary enterprises. In return, they brought and shared teachings and doctrines about the church, Christ, and Christianity. It’s this second kind of apostle Jesus refers to.

So Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for how hard they worked to deal with self-appointed apostles who showed up to teach and preach and be provided for, but who were not legitimately commissioned and sent out by a church. These pseudo-apostles brought with them heretical teachings and doctrines about the church, Christ, and Christianity

We don’t generally have people running around from church to church today claiming to be apostles. I said “generally” because there are some that do that; I’ve come across a few in my 30 years of ministry. But we do have a multitude of folks claiming to hold some form of spiritual authority or offering biblical teaching who seek to influence the church through books, media, and the World Wide Web. For goodness’ sake, these days, we’ve even got politicians and podcasters offering biblical teachings and interpretations. So once again, we have Scripture written 2,000 years ago become incredibly relevant for today.

You have to wonder: how did they determine those apostles were sketchy? What gave them away? We aren’t told, but the Bible gives us two ways to tell what you’re dealing with, and I’m guessing these two things at least played some role in how the Ephesian church rooted out the false apostles.

The first way is to examine the fruit. Jesus himself said,

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits. Matthew 7:15–20 (NRSVue)

N.T. Wright, in his commentary on the book of Matthew, fleshes this out for us.

In ancient Israel, ‘false prophets’ were people who claimed to be speaking the word of YHWH but actually weren’t. If people listened to them they would end up going the wrong way, and disaster would follow. But the trouble with false prophets is of course that they seem very nice, very reasonable, very trustworthy. No wolf is going to let you see his claws and teeth if he can dress himself up as a harmless sheep—and that’s what they will do.

In the Old Testament, the test for true and false prophets was: wait and see! If the prophet tells you that something is going to happen, you will discover whether they are truthful by seeing whether it does. Jesus has a more graphic, and perhaps a quicker, method of detection. Look at the life of the person who is offering you advice. Think of it like a tree. Can you see healthy, tasty fruit on this tree? Can you see other people being genuinely nourished by it? Or is it, in fact, producing a crop of lies, immorality and greed?

Within the Christian church there is always a temptation to ask different questions about people. ‘Is he one of us?’ people enquire. ‘Does she belong to my party, to our group, to the proper tradition?’ But parties, groups and traditions have a way of attracting both genuine believers and true prophets on the one hand and false prophets and hangers-on on the other. The only way to be sure is to look for fruit from the tree, and to be sure what sort of fruit it is.1

It isn’t hard to figure out what fruit is. It’s a person’s behavior, what they practice as a way of life, their character. It’s who they are, not only in public but behind closed doors. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, which has as a major theme the refutation of false doctrines, writes about fruit and works in relation to our standing and who we are as Christians.

19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. Galatians 5:19–23 (NRSVue)

Much has been made, and rightly so, about how Paul mentions the fruit of the Spirit as a single entity (singular, not plural) manifesting in nine ways. This implies that they are not pick-and-choose items, but part of the whole package which in turn means that when we step back and look at the life of a person as a whole, and observe that, at least on some level (be it ever so small), they are demonstrating and/or growing in all nine of these areas, they are exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit and thus are a genuine believer. The works of the flesh are the opposite of what the Spirit produces. Note in contrast that works is plural, meaning that any one of those things alone, if it typifies the life of a person, shows who they really are and it’s not a Christ follower.

Listen, folks, it doesn’t matter what kind of platform they have, what kind of policies they hold, or what kind of promises they make; never trust a person who comes to you as a Christian teacher, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, or anything else if how they live does not match what they say. If they aren’t growing in and producing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, do not trust them to be a spiritual leader. And not only that, as Professor Wright points out, we must look to see if the fruit they’re bearing nourishes, uplifts, builds up, and encourages others. I didn’t come up with this, but man, it’s the truth: the fruit reveals the root.

The second way to unmask a false apostle is to test the spirits. The Apostle John warned,

1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. 1 John 4:1–3 (NRSVue)

The New Living Translation puts it this way:

1 Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. 2 This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. 3 But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here. 1 John 4:1–3 (NLT)

The way you test the spirits of an apostle or Bible teacher is to examine their doctrine and particularly observe what they do with Jesus. That’s always a dead giveaway. False prophets and false apostles always make Jesus less than what he is, or they’ll make less of what he said, cherry-picking his words to benefit their own narrative or heretical teachings, upholding what supports their views and downplaying what doesn’t. That last part, I think, is particularly important today because we have a host of folks out there claiming to represent Christ who boldly acknowledge him as their Lord and Savior. But they say things like, “I know Jesus said to turn the other cheek… BUT,” or “I know Jesus said to love your neighbor… BUT,” and then explain why those words of Jesus don’t mean what we think they mean. To make less of what Jesus said is no different than making Jesus less than who he is as God come to us in the flesh.

The reason you must apply both tests is that sometimes a false apostle or prophet will line up doctrinally but be a million miles off in his or her everyday living. And other times, they will be mighty righteous, humble, loving, kind, producing what appears to be the fruit of the Spirit, but their doctrine is poison. Discovering the root isn’t easy because it’s beneath the surface, unseen. That’s why you’ve got to carefully test the spirits and examine the fruit.

Now this is really interesting when you consider something we talked about previously. Of all the churches Jesus addresses in the book of Revelation, Ephesus had the greatest Christian heritage. It’s all over the NT, and not just in the book of Ephesians. We looked at its beginnings in the Book of Acts. If you recall, Paul established the church there, spent quite a few years ministering and teaching, and then, on his way to Jerusalem and his ultimate imprisonment, met with the Ephesian pastors one last time. This is what he left them with:

28 Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son. 29 I know that after I have gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears. Acts 20:28–31 (NRSVue)

Whoever the wolves were at the time the book of Revelation was written, some forty years later, they didn’t make it far into the fold at Ephesus before they got cast out. The Christians at Ephesus had heeded Paul’s words, remaining on point, orthodox, and rightly dividing the word of truth. GK Beale, in his commentary on Revelation, aptly sums up what Jesus praised the church at Ephesus for.

…false teachers were hard to detect, since they operated under the deceitful guise of “apostles of Christ” and “servants of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:13–15). Nevertheless, the Ephesians’ theological acumen penetrated this disguise and revealed the false “apostles” for the “liars” they were. Consequently, the emphasis is on persevering in guarding the internal doctrinal purity of the church’s faith. This was not an occasional strength of the church but an ever vigilant attitude toward inner purity, which the church maintained well into the second century in the face of continued threats from false teachers (so Ignatius, Eph. 7:1; 9:1).2

I must tell you what comes to my mind as I think about this. Growing up, I loved watching Looney Tunes. There’s a series of shorts with characters not nearly as well-known as Bugs Bunny or Elmer Fudd that cracked me up—Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog. Ralph Wolf is often mistaken for Wile E. Coyote. He looks almost exactly like him, except he has a red nose instead of a black one. Sam the Sheepdog’s hair hung over his eyes, making it seem like he could not see, but boy, he could. Every day, Ralph and Sam would clock in, each fulfilling their respective roles. Ralph Wolf had a particular method for trying to snatch a sheep that applies here: he pretended to be a sheep, either by putting on a sheep suit or by picking up a live sheep and covering himself with it, and then trying to sneak into the fold. Every single time, Sam the sheep dog saw through it and cleaned his clock.

The church at Ephesus was like Sam the sheepdog. They didn’t let anything get past them. We need this in the church today, especially in America. There are so many false apostles, false teachers, and false teachings floating around, and we are falling for it, hook, line, and sinker. We’re not doing the due diligence in testing the spirits and examining the fruit. It’s even gotten to the place where those outside the church can see it, but those inside can’t.

Now what church would not love to be commended by Jesus for being orthodox, doctrinally watertight, with its teachings and its intolerance of anything that promotes error? Surely, that is enough for Ephesus to be left alone. But Jesus isn’t finished yet, and along with his commendation comes a condemnation, and believe it or not, it is the most frightening and most troubling of all the churches. And we’re going to see what that is next time.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

We are well on our way in our study on the Book of Revelation, and it’s not like the vast majority of studies we are accustomed to. Almost every look at Revelation I’ve come across has as its theme end-times prophecy and fulfillment. In other words, it’s about unlocking the secret end-times code of Revelation. I must hand it to those kinds of studies, though. They’ll pack a church. I will never forget being a campus pastor for a megachurch in Hendersonville. At the main campus, the head pastor began a study in the Book of Revelation from that perspective. I loved his title for the series: “The End.” He did it on Wednesday nights, the night when you are incredibly fortunate to have more than 40% of your Sunday morning crowd back. So many people showed up—on a Wednesday night now—that they had to put overflow in their chapel with a church seating thousands. Why? Because they wanted a guided tour to the end of the world.

I’ve already made my case on how that’s not the proper way to handle the Book of Revelation, because our focus is on what it meant to the people it was originally written to 2,000 years ago. We want to know how those Christians in the seven churches of first-century Asia understood it as they heard it read to them.

We’ve made it all the way through Chapter 1, where John sees a vision of the glorified Jesus who commands him to,

11 saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.” Revelation 1:11 (NRSVue)

Between the vision of the glorified Jesus in chapter 1 and the strange and sometimes scary visions in chapters 4 to the end (the part most people focus on), we have, in chapters 2 and 3, the words of Jesus personally directed to these seven literal churches. We’re finally ready to read the words of Jesus to the first of the seven, but before we do, it’s helpful to know every letter is arranged in a sevenfold structure, which shouldn’t surprise us when we consider the importance of the number seven.

Here’s the basic pattern of seven recurring elements in every church:

1. An address to the church’s “angel”

2. A description of Christ drawn from the opening vision

3. A commendation (absent only in Laodicea)

4. A condemnation (absent only in Smyrna and Philadelphia)

5. An exhortation or warning

6. An invitation to heed the Spirit

7. An end-times promise to the faithful

Eugene Peterson, author of The Message paraphrase I quote from often, groups these into three dimensions of spiritual direction:1

• AFFIRMATION - “the church’s relationship to Him and its world”

• CORRECTIVE DIRECTION - “what needs to change”

• PROMISE - “reward to the overcomer”

Okay, now we are ready to read the words of Jesus to the first church, Ephesus, which, if you recall from last week, is important from two perspectives. From a secular standpoint, it was significant as the capital of Asia and the epicenter of emperor worship in that province. From a Christian viewpoint, it was important because of its incredible heritage. The Ephesian church was founded by the Apostle Paul (who spent a few years there leading and discipling), and it’s all over Scripture, with even an entire book dedicated to it.

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write (angel address): These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: (Christ’s description) 2 “I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. 3 I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary. (Commendation) 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. (Condemnation) 5 Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (Exhortation) 7 Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches (invitation to heed the Spirit). To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God (end-time promise to the faithful). Revelation 2:1–7 (NRSVue)

You can probably guess that, since it took twelve messages just to get this far into chapter two, we’re not going to cover everything today. So let’s start with verse one and see where that leads us.

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: Revelation 2:1 (NRSVue)

To Ephesus, Christ describes Himself as the one who holds the seven stars in His right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. Hopefully, you remember that Jesus has already explained this to John and us.

20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Revelation 1:20 (NRSVue)

Previously, I worked out how the number seven is a big deal, going all the way back to the most ancient of times, both inside and outside the Bible. It represents totality, perfection, and completion. This is why many scholars think the seven lampstands representing the seven churches of that time work on another level. Since the seven lampstands in the halls of heaven represent seven earthly churches, and the number seven signifies totality or completion, all churches of all time are represented in heaven by a lampstand. Which means we have one there right now as well. And where do we find Jesus in relation to these lampstands? Walking among them. That means he is intimately aware of and involved with the local manifestations of his churches. He knows their past. He knows their present. He knows their future. He knows every detail, every situation, every struggle, every problem, every weakness, every strength. This is why he can say to these churches: “I know your works.”

We need to let that sink in. No doubt, Jesus watches over carefully and is aware of a pastor’s actions (that may be who the angels are in these letters). The Scripture makes it very clear that those who have been called to lead and teach in the church are held to a higher standard and stricter judgment (I tremble at that). But it goes much deeper. It means Jesus is aware of the lives and behavior of every deacon, every group leader, every ministry team member, all the way down to the average Joe and Jane sitting in the worship center on Sunday mornings.

He walks by our lampstand every Sunday morning when we read our purpose statement, but he’s also aware when we drift away from it. He is aware when we worship through singing, when we worship through giving, and when we worship by sitting under the Word, down to who’s here and not here, what songs are sung, who’s sitting in the AV booth, who the ushers are, what text is preached, what’s on our minds as we sit in the worship chairs, and what the thermostat is set on. One fellow nails it when he says (and I’m paraphrasing him), Jesus “walks” among the lampstands because He is present in and among His people, guarding, protecting, and preserving the church. He is never absent. No service is conducted at which He fails to show up, no meal is served for which He does not sit down, and no sermon is preached that He does not evaluate.

I’ve already told you that the implications of this are both incredibly comforting and incredibly concerning. And it makes me realize, to my own shame, that we do not take church seriously enough, but Jesus sure does. His local fellowships are at the top of his list of the most important things, but church doesn’t even make it in the top five for the average Christ-follower today. One church leader noted, “The base level of our commitment should be gathering. Our most common form of gathering is the worship service. But I stand amazed at how many Christians view the gathering of church members as just another optional activity. It competes with sleeping in, busyness, sports, and just plain apathy.”2

I could spend a lot of time here, and in doing so, I would condemn myself. But let me ask you (us) a question. If the lost around us were to gauge our commitment to Christ according to our commitment to his local church, what would the result be? Now let me ask you (us) another question. If our commitment to the local church reveals that we don’t take Jesus seriously, then why should the lost?

The one who walks amongst the lampstands declares,

14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:14–16 (NRSVue)

To be fair, Jesus is talking to individual Christ followers in this text. Jesus is the Light of the world, and we as his followers carry that Light into the world. It seems, though, that Light should shine the brightest when all his followers come together as the local church, whether that be through worship, ministry, outreach events, or whatever.

Brothers and sisters, do you realize that what happens with us and through us and by us when it comes to our commitment to Christ through the local church will carry over into the new heaven and earth for all eternity? In other words, nothing we do in our regular jobs, nothing our kids do in their sports commitments, nothing we do on the golf course, or the lake, or anything else in this world carries over to the new heaven and earth the way it does with the church. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things. They’re good things, but they aren’t supposed to compete with a Christian’s commitment to gathering together as the body of Christ for worship and ministry. You might say our experience in eternity hinges on our commitment to the church in the here and now, but we don’t live like that, myself included. I know I have moved beyond preaching to meddling, so we’ll get back to our text.

On one level, the seven lampstands imply that each local church is represented by its own lampstand in heaven, and Jesus’ walking among them means he’s intensely personal and actively engaged with them.

But there’s another level to consider. Since the number seven hints at the seven churches representing all churches throughout history, it’s been proposed that they represent seven distinct chronological eras in the church’s history. So, the church at Ephesus would represent the church era from its birth up to a certain point; then the next church, another era, and so on. I used to think that, but I don’t anymore. The scholar Richard Bauckman observes, “Seven is the number of completeness. By addressing seven churches, John indicates that his message is addressed to specific churches as representative of all the churches.” Instead of seven eras, the seven churches represent seven distinct spiritual conditions that any church throughout history may find itself in.

As we go through chapters 2 and 3, we’ll see that Jesus’ words to them hit close to home. It’s almost as if they are a mirror a church looks into, seeing if it finds itself there. If you think I’m meddling now, just wait.

Ephesus is known among the seven as the one that had lost its first love, and is called the loveless church. You might think you know what that means. I did too, until I began digging deeper into the seven churches in preparation for this series. Ephesus surprised me. There are stunning things here, and as with all the churches, we’ll discover that Jesus’s words to them are really words to us.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

I’m going to do something this morning that I have never done before in well over 30 years of preaching. It’s something that’s been acknowledged by much of the church for the last 2,000 years, and many of our brothers and sisters around the world are highlighting it right now, even as I speak, because today is a super important day in the church calendar, and by church, I mean the universal church. What is it? Pentecost Sunday.

We are all about Christmas and Easter. After that, though, we take a long break and don’t think about much else till the holiday season rolls back around. It didn’t occur to me until the last few years that we Baptists have missed the boat on things our brethren in other denominations and other cultures have highlighted for centuries, such as Lent and Good Friday. And goodness gracious, one of the biggest is completely overlooked: Pentecost, the day the church was born. So this morning, I will preach my first-ever Pentecost message, and I think that is providential and certainly appropriate, considering that we are in the Book of Revelation and we’ve just gotten started on the Seven Churches, which likely operate on another level, representing all churches throughout time.

Let’s start by understanding the rich history of Pentecost, which predates the church’s birth. Jewish families had been observing the Feast of Weeks for centuries before the time of Christ—a celebration held fifty days after Passover when they would bring the firstfruits of their grain harvest to Jerusalem as an offering to God. By the time of Jesus, it had grown into one of the year’s biggest gatherings, drawing thousands from across the known world to the Holy City. They called it Pentecost, from the Greek word for fifty. But there was more to it than a harvest festival. Over time, Jews began associating it with something far weightier: the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai. When God called Moses up that mountain fifty days after the first Passover, God handed down the Ten Commandments, and a covenant was ratified between God and his people. In the first century, Pentecost had become, in effect, a covenant renewal celebration.

That context matters because Jesus was crucified at Passover. At his last meal, the night before the cross, he held up a cup and said plainly, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” The old covenant came through Moses, was ratified with the blood of animals, and was written on stone. The new covenant came through Jesus, was ratified with his own blood, and offers forgiveness once for all to anyone who comes to God by faith. The Apostle John put it simply in the prologue of his gospel: the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The timing was not accidental. God was weaving meaning into every thread. So it’s no surprise that God chose fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection to do something huge with the birth of the church.

Remember, we’ve already talked about this quite a bit: the church is not a building, it’s people. Literally, church means the assembly of God’s called-out ones, and those God-called-out ones are the body of Christ, his hands and feet, representing him to the world. Now, just as Jesus’ arrival as a baby that first Christmas doesn’t happen the way you’d expect (you’d think the King of Kings would be born in a palace to noble parents with worldwide fanfare), the church’s arrival isn’t what you’d expect either. It’s odd and unfamiliar, maybe even a bit spooky. But like so often in the Bible, if you lean into that strangeness, the rewards are big. The birth of the church is recorded in Acts 2:1.

1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Acts 2:1 (NRSVue)

The 120 men and women who had followed Jesus were gathered together, waiting for the promise of the Spirit. That promise was extraordinarily fulfilled when,

2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided (remember that word, “divided”, for later. Everybody say “divided”) tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit… Acts 2:2–4a (NRSVue)

The Spirit’s promised arrival is so mysterious and otherworldly that Luke, the author of Acts, must compare it to something, to say it’s like something. From heaven came a sound like a mighty rushing wind. The NLT translates that as the “roaring of a mighty windstorm,” the Message paraphrase as a “strong wind, gale force.” That makes me think of growing up in Cullman, AL. Cullman has a nickname: Tornado Alley. If I had a nickel for every time my mother sheltered me in the bathtub as the sirens went off, I’d be rich. Once, one went right over our house. It sounded like a freight train. Maybe that’s why, to this day, every now and then, I have a nightmare, and it’s about a tornado coming to get me. There are sharks in the ocean and tornadoes on land. God help us all!

What happens here, though, is no atmospheric event; it just sounds like one, like a massive storm with powerful winds. The coming of the Spirit and wind—that makes me think of what Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3. He talks to him of being born again and says,

8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8 (NRSVue)

The wind is invisible, but its presence and power in a storm, in a hurricane, in a tornado are evident. So it is with the presence and power of God’s Spirit. You can’t see him, but you know he’s there. Get this, in the NT, the Greek words for wind and Spirit are the same. In the OT, the Hebrew words for Spirit and wind are practically the same, too. You know what else? Stormy winds are associated with God’s presence in the OT. That’s what they heard. But they also saw something: fire. Fire is also associated with the presence of God. This heavenly fire appeared and began dividing into tongues. Those tongues rested on each disciple. I cannot help but remember what John the Baptist said about Jesus in,

16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Luke 3:16 (NRSVue)

That ties in with what Jesus said in Acts 1.

5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Acts 1:5 (NRSVue)

The wind and fire marking the birth of the church on Pentecost initiated the promised outpouring of the Spirit, launching a new work of God under the new covenant made in Jesus. But don’t forget that Pentecost was associated with the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. Let’s go back to that in the book of Exodus and see if anything clicks when we compare it to what we see in the birth of the church in Acts chapter two.

16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning (That’s a storm, and a storm always has what? Wind), as well as a thick cloud on the mountain and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled. 17 Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now all of Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke (where there’s smoke, there’s fire), because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. 19 As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder. 20 When the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain, the Lord summoned Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. Exodus 19:16–20 (NRSVue)

Stormy winds and fire. Commenting on the Pentecost event, the late Dr. Tim Keller makes the connection clear.

“They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.” Do you know how significant this is? In the Old Testament, when God’s glory presence, his special presence, shows up, it shows up as fire.

When he’s making a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, he appears as a blazing torch. When he appears to Moses the very first time in the wilderness, he appears as a burning bush. When he comes down on Mount Sinai to appear to the people of Israel…, he comes down in fire and smoke. This special presence, this glory presence, this relational presence of God, is depicted as fire. He expresses it as fire.

When he’s leading the children of Israel through the wilderness, at night he’s a pillar of fire. In Ezekiel 1, when Ezekiel has a vision of the glory of God, he sees fire everywhere. Whenever the fire of God, the presence of God, in the Old Testament showed up, it was overwhelming. It was intolerable. It was fatal sometimes. Now do you realize what’s happening on the day of Pentecost? Every believer is now a burning bush.1

With the coming of the Spirit came a miraculous sign. Miracles, by the way, are how God validates his work (such as the signs of Jesus in John). Look at Acts 2:4.

4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. Acts 2:4–5 (NRSVue)

There’s some debate about where these Jews were from. Did they actually live in Jerusalem, or had they traveled there for the Pentecost celebration? Either way, they were devout Jews who had at some point relocated to, or made a pilgrimage to, the Holy City from provinces across the Roman Empire.

6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered (remember that word for later), because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Acts 2:6–8 (NRSVue)

Most of Jesus’ disciples, prior to the birth of the church, were from Galilee, and Galileans had a particular accent that gave them away. When Angie and I were engaged, we went to the town in Indiana where she grew up. While there, we dropped by the local Dairy Queen. I told the girl at the counter what we wanted, and she said, “Say that again.” So I did, and she laughed and said, “You’re not from around here, are you?” I didn’t think my accent was that bad because where I’m from, people “tawlk like ‘is,” and say things like, “Hold muh beer.”

Most of the disciples were not from there, and it would have been obvious. One scholar writes, “It seems that Galileans were generally considered by cosmopolitan Jews in Jerusalem, and Jews in wider Judaea, to be uneducated and culturally backward… The cosmopolitan Jews in Jerusalem were astounded that such men could speak other languages so fluently.”2

Back to our text, where, beginning in verse 9, Luke gives us a list of those present at Pentecost by nationality. In other words, Luke presents a list of nations. Remember that for later.

9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” Acts 2:9–13 (NRSVue)

There it is. The birth of the church. Chances are, all you heard this whole time was the phrase “speaking in tongues.” That terrifies some and confuses others. At least you have probably figured out why our brothers and sisters who speak in tongues are called Pentecostals. There’s a tremendous amount of diversity in the body of Christ on what tongues are. For now, though, get any preconceived notions concerning them out of your head because the text tells us indisputably that the tongues spoken on Pentecost were known languages.

8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Acts 2:8 (NRSVue)

The Greek word for language there is dialektos, from which we get our word dialect. Not only does Luke explicitly state that the tongues are known languages, but he also lists the respective nations of their native tongues. Now that we’ve settled that, we can ask a question: Why? Of all the ways God could have signified the coming of the Spirit and the birth of the church, why this way? Mysterious wind, tongues of fire, and miraculous, spontaneous speaking of languages unknown to the speaker. At least the story of Jesus’ birth makes for great Christmas cards. But Pentecost? “Happy Pentecost to you and your family. May you speak many native languages as the Spirit gives you utterance today.” Not so much.

To answer the question of why, you must lean into the strangeness I mentioned. To do that, let’s go back to the beginning, when God made it all, and it was good. But not long after, there was rebellion, and I’m not talking about Adam and Eve falling, I’m talking about before that, when some of God’s divine angelic beings he created rebelled against him and deceived our ancestral parents in the Garden. Those beings, led by Satan, took it upon themselves to defy God in every way from then on, setting up their own dark kingdom on this earth in opposition to his. And for reasons we can’t quite grasp, God let them.

The sin they provoked into the world led to the first murder, with Cain killing his brother. Though God kept a remnant of faithful people, Cain’s descendants and others, under the influence of and along with these wicked angels, AKA the Sons of God, kept the rebellion going. The intermingling of the Sons of God with the daughters of men in Genesis 6 is an example. That spawned so much evil and wickedness that God sent a flood to destroy all living things on the earth except for Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark.

When it was over, God sent the rainbow and promised never to judge the earth like that again, until the end. He also commanded Noah and his descendants to multiply and fill the earth, in other words, to spread out. Right after that, in Genesis 10, all the nations descending from Noah are listed. It’s a whole chapter of this nation coming from that son and that son’s son and so on. In other words, it’s a list of nations. And then there’s another big act of defiance.

1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. Genesis 11:1–2 (NRSVue)

Did you get that? At that time, there was one shared language. And instead of multiplying and filling the earth with many cities, a bunch of folks settled in one place to make one big city.

3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:3–4 (NRSVue)

They didn’t build this tower to reach their creator God, as some suggest. They built it to glorify themselves. It was a statement: we don’t need you or your commands, God. We’ll make our own religion and follow the gods of our own making. They didn’t know it (or maybe they did), but they were playing right into the hands of those rebellious deities responsible for the fall of man and the flood.

5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused (note this word “confused” for later) the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. Genesis 11:5–9 (NRSVue)

Are any bells going off? Dr. Michael Heiser, a Hebrew scholar, points out something in the original language that most of us would miss entirely. Two Greek words in Acts 2 are the key. The first is syncheō, translated “bewildered” in verse 6, describing the crowd’s confusion over the languages being spoken. That same word appears in the Septuagint—the Greek translation of the Old Testament read by Christians in the first century—in Genesis 11:7, where God says he will “confuse” the languages at Babel. The second word is diamerizō, translated “divided” in verse 3, describing the tongues of fire that separated and rested on each disciple. That same word appears in Deuteronomy 32:8, again in the Septuagint, describing God’s distribution of the nations after Babel. Luke uses both words deliberately. He’s connecting Pentecost to Babel on purpose, and the point is hard to miss once you see it: what God divided at Babel, he is beginning to reverse at Pentecost.

So, Luke, and ultimately the Holy Spirit, is helping us to see how the coming of the church is part of undoing what was done at Babel; it’s addressing the rebellion. Just like Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection address the rebellion, so does Pentecost and the church’s birth. It takes us one step closer to realizing the coming kingdom of God when Jesus returns and, as John saw in his visions.

9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!” Revelation 7:9–10 (NRSVue)

This truth is worth repeating over and over again: the gospel isn’t just about God saving us so we can go to heaven when we die. Like so, the birth of the church isn’t just about saving as many as we can so that as many as possible can go to heaven one day. It’s much bigger than that. Pentecost speaks to God’s overarching, big-picture plans to set all things right one day with the return of Jesus, the resurrection of the saints, and the renewal of heaven and earth. The church is God’s active agent on this earth in these in-between years, operating in defiance of and against the powers of darkness, thwarting their rebellion, making the way for God’s eternal kingdom to come when his will will be done on earth as it is in heaven because the two have been made one.

Consider this as we close. What was God’s concern in Genesis 11 with the people settling in one place and making one big city? Nothing would be impossible to them. Whatever they set out to do, they would accomplish. Because they were being selfish and wicked, they would have accomplished great evil. So God shut it down by confusing their language. But now, through the birth of the church at Pentecost, God has united us all in Christ! People from every tribe and tongue and nation. We are bound together in the gospel.

13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13 (NRSVue)

Can you imagine what we could accomplish in the power of the Spirit if we came together to work out God’s will and promote human flourishing? Nothing would be impossible for us. If you want to see what that looks like, just read on in Acts.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

Last week in our Revelation study, we made it nine words into the first verse of chapter two, where Jesus addresses the first of the seven churches to which the book of Revelation is written,

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write… Revelation 2:1 (NRSVue)

We stopped there because the narrow focus of our study in the book of Revelation is not end-times prophecy as it relates to today, but rather what this book meant to the ones to whom it was originally written 2,000 years ago. And that ties into the incredible statement I often share, attributed to a Bible scholar, that changed the way I read and interpret all Scripture: “The Bible wasn’t written to us, but it was written for us.” We’re trying to discover what John’s visions meant to them, so we can then understand what it means to us. And to do that, deep diving into the historical, cultural, geographical, and political background of that time is required. Those things are like pieces of the puzzle that, when you put them together, help you to get into the minds of those first-century Christians.

Last time, I introduced you to one big piece of the puzzle, something most of us had probably never heard of, the Imperial Cult. If you recall, the Imperial Cult involved direct worship of the Emperor through sacrifice and prayer, and it gave rise to a priesthood, temples, rites, and festivals dedicated solely to venerating Rome’s ruler as a deity. Over time, this became deeply embedded within the religious, social, economic, and political systems of ancient Rome, so much so that you could not hide from it even if you wanted to. The further away from Rome you lived, the harder it was to avoid because the Imperial Cult wasn’t so much about the gullible ancient Romans believing that the emperor was actually divine as about giving the rule of Rome a presence in places far removed from the capital city. With the rise of the Imperial Cult came competition between cities for a special title endowed by Rome: Temple Warden. Nowhere was that competition fiercer than in the Roman province of Asia. History shows that it was especially so among the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation.

Understanding this has given us a different view of those first-century Christians. Traditionally, we’ve been taught they lived under full-scale persecution from Emperor Domitian, who was most likely in power during John’s exile on the island of Patmos. The story goes that Domitian made Christianity illegal, so there were mass imprisonments that led to panic and martyrdom. One might compare it to being a Jew in Germany during the Holocaust. But recent scholarship indicates that’s not accurate. There is a point later in Rome’s history when Christianity is outlawed, but it wasn’t during John’s time. You could be a Christian and worship Jesus, or anybody else for that matter, as long as you syncretized it with the Imperial Cult. Not doing so was considered subversion, an unforgivable sin for Romans.

In some ways, this was worse than outlawing Christianity. At least then you know what you’re dealing with. The Imperial Cult seeped into every facet of first-century Roman life to the point that you could not make a living, interact socially, participate in local government, or even buy food in the marketplace without it somehow intersecting with the Imperial Cult. This made it especially difficult for Christians because how do you honor an earthly man as Son of God and Savior whose birth is proclaimed as Good News to the world when you have devoted yourselves to honoring the true Son of God, the true Savior, who brings the genuine Good News? Of course, you can’t. Jesus does not share his glory with any earthly man or woman, and certainly not with any earthly authority.

I’m not sure we can imagine this tension in which the Christians of the seven churches lived. As we head into chapters two and three, and even into the strange imagery of the following chapters, we must not lose sight of the fact that Revelation is really about living faithfully to the Son of God in a world that is constantly competing for that loyalty. This makes it just as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago. It also keeps us from using Revelation as a map to the end times, something I’m certain never crossed the minds of the early church.

With that in mind, let’s continue with the first of the seven churches Jesus addresses.

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write… Revelation 2:1 (NRSVue)

And we stop once again. We’ve put the pieces of the puzzle together enough to understand generally what Christians faced in the province of Asia, but each city’s background, situation, and pressures are unique. This is nowhere more true than in Ephesus. To begin with, Ephesus was the capital city of the super important Roman province of Asia. As such, it was expected to set the tone for all the other cities. This makes me think of when I was a manager at Sears in Huntsville, Alabama. I was over the Women’s Department, jewelry and shoes, at the age of 23 (the youngest department manager Sears had ever hired, I’m told). A big part of my job was making sure everything was set up according to the layout given by the higher-ups. That layout was nowhere more perfect than in what we knew as our flagship store in Illinois, at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. That store was the crystal-clear, top-of-the-line example of what every other Sears store was supposed to be. When our regional managers came through to check us out, that was the bar they measured us against. So, when we talk about the pressure to honor the Emperor in the first century, Ephesus would have been ground zero for the Imperial Cult as a flagship Roman city. Even beyond that, as we saw last week, Ephesus was famous for its extravagant, over-the-top temple to the goddess Artemis. It became a major tourist attraction and was known as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. So by the time of John in the first century, the capital of Asia was not only temple warden for Artemis (a title, if you recall, they earned on their own), but also temple warden for the Imperial Cult (a much-coveted title granted to them by Rome). And they were mighty, mighty proud of both.

Ephesus not only played a significant role among the Roman provinces but also dominates the New Testament. There is even an entire New Testament book dedicated to the Christians in Ephesus, called Ephesians, written by Paul. Paul established the church there and would at one point spend three years in the city mentoring the pastors and teaching believers. The book of Acts chronicles this, and I think it would be helpful to go back there this week.

1 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. 2 He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 Then he said, “Into what, then, were you baptized?” They answered, “Into John’s baptism.” 4 Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied, 7 altogether there were about twelve of them. Acts 19:1–7 (NRSVue)

You’ve heard me mention before that Acts is an unusual book, in that some of its events could only have happened during that transitional time, as the church was newly born and growing. You’ve also heard me say that quite a bit of it isn’t transitional and is still for today. Baptists have stripped it of too much in an attempt to counter abuses with spiritual gifts, baptism, and such. But this encounter is truly unique and unrepeatable today.

8 He entered the synagogue and for three months spoke out boldly and argued persuasively about the kingdom of God. 9 When some stubbornly refused to believe and spoke evil of the Way before the congregation, he left them, taking the disciples with him, and argued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. 10 This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord. Acts 19:8–10 (NRSVue)

This is important. The gospel Paul preached was so powerful and effective that both Jews and Greeks (non-Jews) throughout Asia heard it. It had a major impact in Ephesus.

11 God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, 12 so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. 13 Then some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” 14 Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. 15 But the evil spirit said to them in reply, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?” 16 Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. Acts 19:11–16 (NRSVue)

Don’t tell me the Bible doesn’t contain humor. If we were to create that scene in a movie, it would be hilarious. This was also unique to that time and, for the most part, something you wouldn’t see today.

17 When this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, everyone was awestruck, and the name of the Lord Jesus was praised. 18 Also many of those who became believers confessed and disclosed their practices. 19 A number of those who practiced magic collected their books and burned them publicly; when the value of these books was calculated, it was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins. 20 So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. Acts 19:17–20 (NRSVue)

Read that again because it describes the gospel’s impact in Ephesus, particularly.

Now, it’s one thing to say you believe in Jesus. It’s quite another to demonstrate that by your actions. They were so moved and transformed by the good news of the gospel that they voluntarily gave up their occult practices, to the point of making a bonfire out of all their books on magic. From the very beginning, the Ephesian Christians weren’t playing around.

We’ve already covered the riot in Ephesus seen in the next chapter. That’s where we learned about the city being a temple warden for Artemis. We’ve got riots and book burnings happening today, attributed to the gospel, but I’m not so sure they’re even remotely connected to the kind of heartfelt impact the gospel was making 2,000 years ago in the city of Ephesus. Anyway, after the riot, Paul leaves and then returns sometime later to encourage the pastors there. Let’s take a look at that.

17 From Miletus he sent a message to Ephesus, asking the elders of the church to meet him. 18 When they came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews. 20 I did not shrink from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the message to you and teaching you publicly and from house to house, 21 as I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus. Acts 20:17–21 (NRSVue)

Quickly, there are just three things I’d love to point out about Paul’s ministry to the Ephesians, and ultimately the example he set for them when it comes to living out the Christian life.

1. He lived among them. He became one of them, engaged with them. That is so unlike many leaders in the church today, who consider themselves a higher class and step into their people’s lives from afar, only temporarily, before backing out again. Not so with Paul. His example was of someone who put his boots on the ground, earning the right to lead his people by serving them. That ties into the second thing we note about Paul.

2. He served among them with humility and tears. In the kingdom of God, humility is a prerequisite to leading in any capacity, inside the church or out. The modern American church has this completely backward, promoting those who are arrogant, proud, and boastful, those who are more spectacle than substance. You can’t claim to be a Christian leader, or a leader of any kind in the kingdom of God, and be stuck on yourself at the same time. It just doesn’t work. What does the Bible say? Pride comes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. That means it’s just a matter of time before those full of themselves go down. Guess what’s going to happen if you hitch yourself to their wagon? When they go down, you go down with them, whether they are a pastor, Bible teacher, mayor, president, or anyone else.

3. He preached the Gospel of Repentance and Faith. The gospel Paul preached is so much bigger than just getting saved so you can go to heaven when you die. It’s the cosmic story of a loving Creator who made a world and a people to love him in return. Those creations rebelled against him, bringing sin, death, and suffering into the world. But he called a people for himself out of those rebels, and from those chosen people, he eventually raised up a Messiah who came to save his people from their sins. This salvation is extended to all nations, tribes, and tongues. But that Messiah had first to suffer and die, then rise from the dead, and ascend to heaven. One day, he’ll return to set up God’s kingdom on a renewed earth inhabited by his renewed people. That is the full counsel of God’s word and the whole of the gospel, not just getting saved so you can go to heaven when you die.

This next part is important because it relates to Ephesus as we look at Jesus words to it given some forty years later in Revelation chapter 2.

28 Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son. 29 I know that after I have gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Acts 20:28–29 (NRSVue)

Paul warns the Ephesian elders, the pastors, about wolves, those who work against God and his kingdom, prowling about looking for flocks to ravage. Paul surely refers to those enemies of the gospel outside the church, such as Demetrius, the pagan silversmith who attacked Paul and the church. God’s people should expect opposition from the world. It’s a given. But note that Paul says some wolves will also rise up from among them.

30 Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears. Acts 20:30–31 (NRSVue)

These wolves will not attack the church outright, as those from without do. They pretend to be sheep or shepherds peddling a gospel that appears legit but isn’t. This is far deadlier and more concerning than the wolves in plain sight. NT Wright writes,

More worrying still, some of the sheep, and even some of the shepherds, may turn out to be wolves in disguise (verse 30). And the attack will then take the form, not of direct contradiction or a clash of powers, but of distorting the truth. The greatest heresies do not come about by straightforward denial; most of the church will see that for what it is. They happen when an element which may even be important, but isn’t central, looms so large that people can’t help talking about it, fixating on it, debating different views of it as though this were the only thing that mattered. Something like that happened in the Middle Ages with the theory of purgatory (life after death is important, but not like that); in the twentieth century with calculations regarding the ‘rapture’ (the second coming is important, but not like that); in the twenty-first century with ________ …

And when you can fill in that blank, humbly and looking at yourself hard in the mirror as you think about it, you will know something about the calling of the shepherd in today’s church.1

Paul has been proven right for 2,000 years. Church history shows that false prophet after false prophet has arisen from within our own fold, and false teaching after false teaching has come, leading many away from the Good Shepherd. It may be happening now more than ever. Long before Paul, Jesus warned this would happen.

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Matthew 7:15 (NRSVue)

Jesus also instructs us how to sniff them out.

16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits. Matthew 7:16–20 (NRSVue)

The main way to tell whether a Christian leader, pastor, preacher, or teacher is legit is to look at the fruit they bear. The church has never been great at this, but over the last ten years or so, it’s as if the sheep have forgotten altogether what Jesus said, instead looking for results over character. Before you listen to the message, consider the life of the messenger. What fruit are they bearing? Does their walk match their talk? We must be cognizant of what people say, but we'd better be watching what they do and how they live as well. It pains me to say this, but I’ve lost count of the times someone has sat across from me with an issue based on words from a “Bible teacher” they watched on YouTube or Facebook who they’ve never met, don’t know, and have no idea what their life is like. We are living in a church age where folks will give complete loyalty and blind allegiance to somebody they’ve never been within a hundred miles of, yet not trust their local pastor, who is literally, physically present in their lives every week. What do you think Paul would say to that?

Be alert, Paul says to the Ephesian church leaders, be on the lookout for these wolves, whether they are in sheep’s clothing or not. And remember what I taught during the three years of ministry among you. Be about the gospel, the full counsel of God’s Word, not just getting saved so you can go to heaven when you die. Be students of the Bible.

32 And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified. Acts 20:32 (NRSVue)

I love how Paul doesn’t leave them in despair. Yes, the future holds attacks from within and without, but the word of his grace, the gospel, will always have the power to build them up in the faith, as well as carry blessings over to the new heaven and earth. You can feel the emotions, love, and even sadness in Paul’s words as he continues because it’s the last time they’ll ever be together.

36 When he had finished speaking, he knelt down with them all and prayed. 37 There was much weeping among them all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, 38 grieving especially because of what he had said, that they would not see him again. Then they brought him to the ship. Acts 20:36–38 (NRSVue)

The Cotton Patch Gospel puts it this way,

36 When he had finished, he knelt down with the whole group and prayed. Everybody started crying their eyeballs out as they put their arms around Paul and kissed him and kissed him. What made them especially sad were his words that they would never see him again. Then they took him to the bus station. Acts 20:36–38 (The Cotton Patch Gospel)

That is an example of how Christians are supposed to love each other. That is what Christian fellowship in a local church is supposed to be like. The Ephesian church, very early on, was a church where the love of Christ filled their hearts. When you love Jesus with all your heart, you can’t help but love your brothers and sisters in Christ with all your heart, too. Keep Paul’s warnings about false teachers, as well as the example of love they displayed, in mind as we move into Jesus’ words to the Ephesian church next week. Above all, understand what an incredible heritage the church at Ephesus had among all the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

Our study in the book of Revelation is progressing along nicely. We actually finished chapter 1 in only 9 messages. If I keep that up with 21 chapters, Revelation will only be 189 messages! And today, we begin chapter two, where Jesus addresses the seven churches of Asia. Let’s get going.

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write… Revelation 2:1 (NRSVue)

And this is where we must stop. We’re not quite ready to move forward, but we’re close. The subtitle of this series demands that we spend more time putting together the pieces of the puzzle I’ve already given you, and then adding one big piece today. And of course, that subtitle is “What Revelation Meant to the Ones It Was Written To.” That’s the angle we want to look at the book from. I’ve already told you how important this is, not just for the Book of Revelation but all Scripture. We can’t figure out what any biblical text means to us today until we first go back and discover what it meant to the ones it was written to.

It wasn’t all that long ago that I came across a statement that completely changed my understanding of Scripture and, in turn, my walk with God. I share it with you often, and it’s this: “The Bible wasn’t written to us, but it was written for us.” God’s Word was originally written to the audiences who first received it, but God made sure we got copies bound together into one amazing, Spirit-inspired book so that we might draw meaning from it for us today. The vast majority of heresies, misinterpretations, and unwarranted weaponizations of God’s word would disappear if we followed this interpretive and applicational rule.

To get into the minds of those original audiences, we must grasp the world in which they lived. That means researching the historical, geographical, political, and cultural backgrounds of that time. We’ve been doing that in bits and pieces as we’ve unpacked chapter one. So, for a minute, let’s back up and cover some of the things that we’ve already seen so that I can bring you to something today that’s going to pull everything together, I hope.

First, let’s get our geography straight. When John writes to the “seven churches of Asia,” that word “Asia” doesn’t mean what we think it means. To a first-century Roman, Asia referred specifically to the western region of modern-day Turkey, officially called Asia Proconsularis. This was one of the most prestigious, wealthy, and strategically important provinces in the Eastern Empire. By the time John was writing Revelation, Asia had been a Roman territory for over two hundred years. Because it was so stable and prosperous, it didn’t need a large standing army. That made it a senatorial province, governed by a Proconsul, the pinnacle of a Roman political career. In fact, the proconsul of Asia is likely the very official who signed off on John’s exile to Patmos. The seven churches were all located in this province, connected by a major circular Roman road system, a first-century superhighway, that allowed a courier to carry John’s letter from Ephesus northward to Smyrna and Pergamum, then looping southeast through Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and finally Laodicea.

One of the things I emphasized is the mental picture we tend to carry around of the first-century world. When most of us think of “ancient biblical times,” we picture dusty roads, mud huts, and people living like cavemen. That’s about as far from the truth as you could get. Rome governed over fifty million people across three continents. They had perfected a volcanic ash-based concrete that actually got stronger over time and lasts forever, something we only recently figured out how to replicate. They engineered advanced aqueducts that fed Roman cities unbelievably vast amounts of fresh water every day, which made its way to homes much like our water on tap today. They had underfloor heating systems, paned glass windows, and theaters with acoustic engineering so precise that a single voice projected on stage could be heard clearly by twenty-four thousand people in the upper rows. Beyond that, many thousands of miles of paved road connected the empire, their legal system gave us concepts like habeas corpus and the distinction between civil and criminal law, and their global trade network was so organized that archaeologists have found a literal mountain in Rome made of fifty-three million broken shipping jars, all stamped with ancient barcodes tracking their origins. Every coin, every public building, every road reminded the people living there exactly who was in charge. The seven churches weren’t hiding out in the wilderness. They were urban congregations trying to follow Jesus right in the middle of the most sophisticated civilization the ancient world had ever seen.

To understand why that mattered so much for the people John was writing to, we had to back up five hundred years to a man most of us had never heard of: Tarquin the Proud, Rome’s seventh and last king. The way Romans told it, Tarquin murdered his way to power, ignored the Senate, and his son committed a crime so heinous it triggered a revolt that threw the entire royal family out of Rome in 509 BC. When it was over, the Roman people swore a near-sacred oath that no one man would ever be king over them again. That oath gave birth to the Roman Republic, a system so carefully engineered that the Founding Fathers of the United States basically used it as their blueprint. The entire governing system was designed to ensure that no single person ever accumulated too much power. But it had a fatal flaw. It was built to restrain politicians, not generals. And by the first century BC, Rome had produced generals whose armies were loyal to them personally rather than to the Republic. Caesar was the one who finally broke the system. He crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, won the civil war, declared himself dictator, and was stabbed twenty-three times on the Senate floor in 44 BC. What followed was chaos until an eighteen-year-old named Octavian outmaneuvered everyone, won the final civil war, and, in 27 BC, staged one of the greatest pieces of political theater in history. He went before the Senate, dramatically offered to hand everything back, and when they begged him to stay, he “reluctantly” agreed. He never called himself king. He called himself Princeps, first citizen. But historians call it exactly what it was: a disguised monarchy. He kept every outward form of the Republic while personally holding every seat of actual power.

Here’s where our goal of understanding the world in which these seven churches lived comes into play. The Senate gave Octavian, now Augustus, a religious title. Augustus comes from the Latin word for “consecrated, set apart, touched by the divine.” You can argue with a politician. You can oppose a general. But how do you argue with someone the gods themselves have chosen? Emperors after Augustus took that and ran with it. Roman coins and inscriptions called them Divi Filius, Son of God. Kyrios, Lord. Soter, Savior. Epiphanes, God Manifested. A famous inscription from the city of Priene described Augustus’s birth using the word euangelion, the exact same Greek word translated “gospel” and “good news” in our New Testament. And when the emperor made a personal visit to a city, the official term for his arrival was parousia, the same word the New Testament uses for the Second Coming of Christ.

By the time John was sitting on Patmos, those titles weren’t just on coins and inscriptions anymore. They were embedded in the trade guilds, the city calendar, the civic festivals, and the temple sitting on the hill you walked past every morning. And if you wanted to fully participate in the economy of these cities, if you wanted to work in a trade guild, do business in the marketplace, or show up at a civic banquet, you must acknowledge the Emperors’ divine status, along with honoring Rome’s pantheon of deities, one way or another. This is a big piece of the puzzle that helps us understand the situation of those first-century Christians and those seven churches. To understand this better, let’s go to a book of the Bible that, at first, wouldn’t make sense if you’re trying to understand Revelation, but then again, makes perfect sense when you think about it. That book is Acts, chapter 19, beginning in verse 21.

21 Now after these things had been accomplished, Paul resolved in the Spirit to go through Macedonia and Achaia and then to go on to Jerusalem. He said, “After I have gone there, I must also see Rome.” 22 So he sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he himself stayed for some time longer in Asia.

Asia. Does that ring a bell? The Roman province of the seven churches.

23 About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way. 24 A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the artisans. 25 These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, “Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business.

We’ll come back to this later as we visit the seven churches, but note how religion and trade overlap here, and that overlap permeates everyday life for first-century Roman citizens. Depending on where you lived and which Roman deity your area or city sponsored, you worshiped that deity in some way and/or made a living off the worship of that deity, in this case, the goddess Artemis, AKA Diana. Back to Demetrius’ rant against Christians:

26 You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods.

Ah! Where is all this happening? We know we’re in Asia, but what city? Ephesus. Do you see the connection? The Gospel has not only reached Ephesus but is also turning the city upside down. What Luke records here would have occurred approximately 40+ years before John wrote down the visions he saw on the island of Patmos. Back to old Demetrius, or Tray for short.

27 And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.”

We’ll talk more about this, too, as we unpack Jesus’ words to the Christians in Ephesus. But know for now that they were head over heels crazy about the goddess Artemis, hosting a major temple dedicated to her. Measuring 426 by 229 feet, it was almost four times the size of the Parthenon in Athens and was known as one of the seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

So Tray-Tray goes cray-cray trying to shut down the gospel movement for both economic and religious reasons. “If we don’t stop the Way, we’ll be living on the street and desecrating the glory of the goddess Artemis that we devote ourselves to as a city!” This guy is crazy smart because if you want to get people riled up, use money and religion.

28 When they heard this, they were enraged and shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” 29 The city was filled with the confusion, and people rushed together to the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s travel companions. 30 Paul wished to go into the crowd, but the disciples would not let him; 31 even some officials of the province of Asia who were friendly to him sent him a message urging him not to venture into the theater. 32 Meanwhile, some were shouting one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. 33 Some of the crowd gave instructions to Alexander, whom the Jews had pushed forward. And Alexander motioned for silence and tried to make a defense before the people. 34 But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours all of them shouted in unison, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

The city is about to have a riot on its hands, and remember, there’s one thing Rome will not tolerate in any province, and it’s an uprising.

35 But when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Citizens of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the statue that fell from heaven? 36 Since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. 37 You have brought these men here who are neither temple robbers nor blasphemers of our goddess. 38 If therefore Demetrius and the artisans with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls; let them bring charges there against one another. 39 If there is anything further you want to know, it must be settled in the regular assembly. 40 For we are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.” 41 When he had said this, he dismissed the assembly. Acts 19:21–41 (NRSVue)

Shew! Crisis averted. Alright, now we want to pay close attention to verse 35.

35 But when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Citizens of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the statue that fell from heaven? Acts 19:35 (NRSVue)

Let’s home in on the phrase, “temple keeper,” which is one word in Greek, neokoros (nay-ah-koros). This is the only place in the New Testament where we find this particular Greek word, but outside the New Testament, it’s all over the place in writings and documents. So, scholars have a really good idea not only of what it means but also of how its meaning changed over time. Originally, it meant one who sweeps or cleanses a temple. But it also came to signify someone who oversees a temple, a warden, or a caregiver. But by the time of the seven churches of Asia, it referred to a status a city might boast. This is why the Ephesian clerk spoke of Ephesus as the temple keeper (neokoros), or warden, of Artemis. It was a status they bragged about because of the lengths they went to promote her in the city.

Now, if we are trying to understand this in modern terms, the only thing that I can think of that might come close is something I don’t know much about, but I bet all of you do: the Green Bay Packers. That’s football, right? Green Bay, Wisconsin’s identity, pride, economy, reputation, architecture, local language, tourism, and public image are all wrapped around the Packers. Green Bay does not merely “have” a football team; it’s who they are. In many ways, Green Bay is known nationally as the home and guardian of the Packers tradition. Ephesus and Artemis were that and far more for the Ephesians because we are not just talking about sports or entertainment. We are talking about religion, civic pride, economic life, public honor, and local identity all fused together. Ephesus did not simply “have” a temple dedicated to Artemis. Ephesus was known as the temple keeper — the neokoros — of Artemis. That was the city’s status, identity, reputation, and sense of itself.

By the time of John’s exile on Patmos in the first century, neokoros had come to mean something else, and it ties in to all that stuff I shared with you about the deification of emperors and how it showed up on coins and such. To understand what I’m talking about, let me introduce you to a phenomenon of ancient Rome called the Imperial Cult. You’ve probably never heard of it, but its reality is evident throughout the New Testament, nowhere more so than in the book of Revelation. Because it’s complicated, here’s a scholarly, reputable source explaining what the Imperial Cult was:

The imperial cult can be understood… as “the direct worship of the emperor by sacrifice and prayer in the context of priesthoods, temples, rites and festivals”… [and] direct worship of the emperor was embedded in complex religious, social, economic, and political systems.

…the imperial cult differed from the worship of other deities mainly in that the emperor had the quality of immanence—of being present (Ando, The Matter of the Gods, 97–98, 119). The imperial cult was expanded in different forms to the institutions and the multi-cultural populations of the Roman Empire. The social elite, officials, and populations in relatively remote locations within the empire embraced the imperial cult more enthusiastically than people in Rome because the cult personified the absent emperor….

The power that the emperor exercised, the resources at his disposal, and the benefits received from the emperor were all considered divine in nature; therefore, appropriate honor and gratitude took traditional forms of worship, including altars, temples, statues, inscriptions, sacrifices, and festivals. Eastern cities, which often joined emperor worship with the principal local civic cult, competed with each other to have a religious center or temple that honored the emperor. Doing so would grant the city preferred status as a client of the emperor within the patronage system.1

In our minds, we might think the people pretended the Emperors were gods out of fear when they knew they weren’t, or even blindly and ignorantly thought they really were, so they worshiped them, but it was more nuanced than that. It wasn’t so much that they truly believed the emperors were divine as that the power they possessed and the benefits they extended to Roman citizens were of divine origin. This is why Eastern cities, such as the seven churches of Asia in the book of Revelation, competed with each other when it came to showing allegiance to the emperor and the empire regarding the Imperial cult, and here is how they did it: they worked hard for the title of neokoros (temple keepers), a title only granted to a city by Rome. And this is yet another meaning of the word (neokoros evolved from one who maintains the temple to one who oversees or manages a temple to a status a city could hold to a title designated by Rome).

A city could designate itself as a temple warden of its patron deity, but only Rome could give you the special designation of temple warden of the Imperial Cult. That meant you built and maintained a temple to worship the emperor, which in turn became central to the civic, social, and even work lives of everyone in the city. Ephesus fought long and hard for this honor. And the reason it was hard may very well be what we observed in the book of Acts, chapter 19. The Ephesians were so devoted to Artemis that Rome was reluctant to grant them the status they sought. In other words, Rome said, “You guys have made it pretty clear: you’re temple wardens for Artemis. Looks like you don’t have room for a temple to the emperor.” But by the first century, when the Book of Revelation was written, they were finally declared neokoros under Emperor Domitian, who is very likely the emperor in power at the time.

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write… Revelation 2:1 (NRSVue)

Those nine words are so loaded that the only way we can discover what they mean is to put ourselves into the lives of Ephesian Christians and the other cities of Asia. And a major part of that is grasping how a city earned the status of temple warden. Above all, everyone was pressured to get on board. That meant every man, woman, and child; every profession; every citizen in the city was expected to participate in the worship of the emperor in some way, such as making sacrifices at the temple to show their loyalty, attending the many festivals honoring the emperor, and so much more, and people would be watching.

This is a good place to debunk another Revelation myth that has been perpetuated for hundreds of years. Modern scholarship has concluded that there was probably no widespread persecution of Christians in Rome in the first century. We are pretty sure it was not illegal to follow Christ, with believers being dragged out of their homes and imprisoned or executed. That’s the story we’ve been told, but that’s not what the evidence suggests. Rome was cool with people worshiping pretty much any deity they wanted, as long as they were willing to syncretize their religion with the Imperial Cult. Christians in the seven churches in Asia were HEAVILY pressured to do that. Not doing so could lead to subversion, a high crime in Rome with serious consequences such as eventual imprisonment or death. It wasn’t against the law to follow Christ, but it was illegal to be involved in anything that could eventually be considered subversion.

Think about this. How does a Christ follower honor an earthly man as Son of God and Savior whose birth is proclaimed as Good News to the world when they have devoted themselves to honoring the true Son of God, the true Savior, the true King of the World who brings the genuine Good News? It’s not possible. Paul wrote some of the most beautiful words ever written about Jesus:

9 Therefore God exalted him even more highly and gave him the name that is above every other name, 10 so that at the name given to Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9–11 (NRSVue)

Brothers and sisters, Jesus does not share his glory with any earthly man or woman, and certainly not with any earthly authority, government, or anything else. Not because he’s insecure or prideful or boastful, but because he is just who he is.

Can we even imagine this tension in which the Christians of the seven churches lived? THIS is what unlocks John’s visions for the people they were given to 2,000 years ago. As we head into the seven churches, and even into the strange imagery of the following chapters, keeping their situation in front of us pulls us away from hunting for the secret identity of the Antichrist or mapping out a timeline of end-times events. That’s what we tend to focus on. But what Revelation is really about is this: how do we live faithfully to the Son of God in a world that is constantly competing for that loyalty? And that is just as relevant today as it was back then.

It’s been a while with Palm Sunday, Easter, and such, but today we pick back up in our Revelation study, one I’m calling The Prince’s Bride: What Revelation Meant to the Ones it was Written To. We are nine messages in and haven’t finished chapter one. But it looks like we might today, maybe.

The very first chapter very appropriately is all about the Prince of The Prince’s Bride, as in the Prince of Peace, the Son of Man (a title emphasizing Jesus’ divinity, not humanity), the One who is and who was and who is to come, the First and the Last, the One who conquered death and is alive forevermore, the King of Kings, the Lord Almighty. He is the undisputed star of the book and is presented in such a cosmic, fantastic way that it’s difficult to imagine him in our mind’s eye as he is presented here.

John, exiled for his faith and worshipping in an island cave, meets him in a vision and is so overwhelmed by his glory that he faints dead on the floor. Jesus compassionately reaches down, touches his shoulder, and revives him with the words, “Do not be afraid.” That, brothers and sisters, is what sets the tone for the book. As I’ve already said, I don’t know much, and I’m certainly not claiming to be an expert on eschatology, but I am convinced that a fear-focused presentation of John’s visions is not only dangerous but wholly unbiblical. Revelation was never intended to be weaponized as a means of scaring people into God’s Kingdom. Contrary to what we see and hear on YouTube videos and from some street preachers, God has never been about scaring the hell out of people. It’s quite the opposite. It’s the kindness of God that leads us to repentance, and perfect love casts out fear as the Bible so clearly lays out.

So, as we progress through our study, keep that in mind. These visions are intended to comfort and encourage us as they did those early Christians living in Asia Minor, the ones for whom this book was written, the ones whose minds we are trying to get into. One more thing before we move on. It’s important to grapple with what might be the most important verse in the book when it comes to interpreting the visions; it’s verse 19, where Jesus says to John, “Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things.”

Historically, at least in the Western church, for well over a hundred years, we have looked at this verse with what’s called the Chronological View, where “The things which you have seen”t are the vision of Jesus in chapter one. “The things which are” are the words of Jesus to the seven churches in Asia in chapters 2 and 3. And “The things which will take place after these things”comprise chapter 4 and on, and most, if not all, of it has to do with the far future, near the return of Jesus Christ at the end of the age. Here’s the problem with that view, though. If the visions of Chapter 4 and on have to do with the far future, what would it have meant to those living in the first century? Would they have sat around scratching their heads as the letter was read and came to that section? That view works great if you’re looking at the visions of John 2,000 years after the fact, but it doesn’t when you look at them in the day they were written. You see, the chronological view is fairly recent (note I said in the last 100 years or more), but that’s nothing compared to the two millennia separating John’s time from ours.

There’s another take on verse 19 that’s been around much longer, dating back to the early church. This perspective makes a lot of sense when you think about it and fits well not only with the Scripture but with what we know about how ancient people’s minds worked. It is called the Camera Angles or Layers View. In this approach, verse 19 is not a chronological outline but rather explains how the visions work: they are layers, stacked on top of each other, each describing the same thing from a different angle. With this take, the first and most important angle or layer is Jesus (the things you have seen). He is the ultimate and overarching subject of this book, the Prince of Revelation and the One through whom the whole universe came into being. That’s why he’s presented in such magnificent and terrifying ways in the first chapter. The visions of John will cover many things, but above all, they find their source and ultimate explanation in the person of Jesus Christ. The second angle is the church (Jesus manifested on the earth until he returns; the things which are). The third angle is the heavenly dimension (the things that will take place), so that much of what we see in the visions, and especially the strange stuff, is where the veil between heaven and earth is pulled back, and we observe what the first two things look like from God’s heavenly perspective.

It is highly likely that the Christians of the Seven Churches would have viewed John’s visions through this lens rather than seeing everything from chapter four onward as a linear sequence of events. That’s not how their minds were put together when it came to apocalyptic visions. Scholars and experts tell us that ancient audiences processed information through motifs and echoes rather than linear sequences. Literature was written to be read aloud or quoted from memory (especially given that, in ancient times, a very small percentage of the population could even read). In other words, no one sitting in those seven churches, listening to the Book of Revelation being read by a courier, would have looked at this verse or even the visions from the perspective of a linear chronological sequence of events related to something in the far future. Instead, their imaginations would have been on fire with the visions as they tried to determine what they meant. What do they teach? What is this trying to say to us right now, and how do we respond? And when we dig deep into these visions and look at them through this lens, I think you’ll see how this applies directly.

All right, back to the task at hand. To get us reoriented as we return to Chapter 1, let’s begin at verse one and work our way to the final few verses, where we’ll end today.

1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His slaves the things which must soon happen; and He indicated this by sending it through His angel to His slave John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the witness of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it, for the time is near. 4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from the One who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood— 6 and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the might forever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. Yes, amen. 8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” 9 I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the witness of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11 saying, “Write in a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” 12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; 13 and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. 14 And His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. 15 His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters, 16 and having in His right hand seven stars, and a sharp two-edged sword which comes out of His mouth, and His face was like the sun shining in its power. 17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not fear; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. 19 “Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things. Revelation 1:1-19 (LSB)

There’s that critical verse where we left off last time. Here’s the new ground we’ll cover, and it’s the final verse in the chapter. Jesus actually explains to John what’s behind the vision he just saw.

20 “As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Revelation 1:20 (LSB)

The seven stars in Jesus’ right hand are the angels of the seven churches in Asia. We’ll see in chapters 2 and 3 that the words of Jesus are directed to the angels representing the individual churches (“To the angel of the church in Ephesus,” and so on). We won’t spend much time here because, in the end, it doesn’t really matter, but there’s quite a bit of debate on who these angels are. At face value, the Greek word this is translated from, angelos, means ‘messenger’—someone sent to deliver a message. Context determines whether that messenger is human or divine. While angelos is used a few times in the New Testament for human messengers, the vast majority of the time it refers to a divine being, an angel. In Revelation specifically, outside of chapters 2 and 3, every instance of angelos (over 60) refers to a divine messenger.

So, some believe the angels of the seven churches are divine beings appointed to watch over or represent them. Others, however, think it refers to the actual human pastors of those churches. So which is it? I have a definitive answer: I don’t know. But I do know which one you’re leaning towards. I can see right into your minds. You’re thinking it has to be the human pastor of the seven churches because your pastor is such an angel.

Now let’s get to those lampstands. That’s what I really want to talk about in the time we have left, because how we understand them has big implications for what’s coming.

To understand what’s going on with the lampstands, we must go back to the OT tabernacle and temple. In the tabernacle, one of the most important pieces of furniture was the menorah, the seven-branched lampstand hammered from pure gold that provided light for God’s dwelling place. The menorah became one of the most well-known icons of the Jewish faith, next to the Star of David, which wasn’t a thing until much, much later than the first century.

The menorah points to Israel’s role as a light to the nations. God called Israel out of all the other nations, making them his covenant people so that they might bring all those people groups into his covenant.

6 “I am Yahweh, I have called You in righteousness; I will also take hold of You by the hand and guard You, And I will give You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations, Isaiah 42:6 (LSB)

Of course, they did a terrible job, and things didn’t go well overall for Israel because their rebelliousness led to God’s glory leaving the temple and their exile. But God had promised Abraham, the father of Israel, that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed. And God promised Israel that he would never forget them.

Keep all that I mind, and look with me at John chapter 1.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. John 1:1–5 (LSB)

Of course, we know the Word is Jesus, and Jesus is the light of men, the light of the world that shines into the darkness. What’s that remind us of? Yes, the menorah, but there’s more. Look at verse 14.

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 (LSB)

It is entirely appropriate, and even more accurate, to translate verse 14 like this: “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” John makes the OT noun, tabernacle, a verb! Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had abandoned the temple, now returns in the flesh. So Jesus is the living tabernacle, and the Light of the world who came to lead people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to God.

12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” John 8:12 (LSB)

Is everybody with me? Israel was meant to be a light to the nations, and the menorah represented that. But where they failed, Jesus succeeded. The Light of the world shone brightly in the first century, but after his death and resurrection, Jesus returned to the Father, leaving the church in charge. The church is the manifestation of Jesus on earth. We are, as Paul puts it, the body of Christ; his hands and feet meant to minister his grace and gospel in this world.

22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:22–23 (LSB)

And consider the words of Jesus himself.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:14–16 (LSB)

So, the church now takes up the banner of being a light to the world, leading people to God, and the lampstands of Revelation one signify that in a big way. But there’s more going on here. How many lampstands are there? Seven. And what do they represent? The seven churches of Asia, to which the book of Revelation was written. There is a multitude of scholarship indicating that, even though the seven churches were undoubtedly literal, flesh-and-blood communities of faith residing in those seven cities, the number seven signifies something else. How so? The number seven has a rich history that extends as far back as we can tell, both within and outside the Bible.

First, let’s take a look at its significance outside the Bible. The ancient world was obsessed with the number seven, seeing it as a symbol of completeness and perfection. When you looked up at the night sky in the ancient world, there were seven celestial bodies you could see moving across the heavens with your naked eye: the sun, the moon, and five planets: Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Saturn. These seven “wanderers,” as they called them, represented the totality of the cosmic order. The Babylonians built their entire calendar around them, dedicating each day of the week to one of these seven celestial bodies, making a complete cycle. By the time John was writing Revelation in the first century, the seven-day week based on those seven planets had already taken hold in the Roman world, and it’s still around today. This wasn’t just a Babylonian thing, either. Ancient cultures across the board treated seven as the number that signified wholeness, something complete, balanced, and self-contained.

Now you must remember that the Bible is a book written in ancient times, often chronicling events that happened long before it was written. So it’s no surprise that the number seven is a star player in the Word of God as well, and you need only look in the first chapter of the first book to see this. Tim Mackey, creator of the Bible project, explained in a recent podcast:

The opening line of Genesis 1 has seven words… and fourteen words in Genesis 1:2. There are seven paragraphs in Genesis 1:1-2:3 marked by “evening and morning.” The concluding seventh paragraph in Genesis 2:1-3 begins three lines which have seven words each (Gen 2:2-3a).

Each of the key words in Genesis 1:1 are repeated by multiples of seven in Genesis 1:2-2:3.

“God” = 35x (7 x 5)

“land” = 21x (7 x 3)

“skies” = 21x (7 x 3)

Key words repeated seven times:

“light” and “day” on day 2

“light” on day 4

“living creature” (חיה) on days 5-6

Tim cites scholar Umberto Cassuto: “To suppose that all these appearances of the number seven are mere coincidence is not possible. This numerical symmetry is, as it were, the golden thread that binds together all the parts of the section.” (Umberto Cassuto, From Adam to Noah: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis)

• Tim says all of this numerical symbolism is completely intentional. The authors want us to learn that seven represents both a completed creation and a journey to that completeness. And that’s just the beginning of the book of Genesis. Hang on, because there’s more in the OT:

• Priest consecration lasting seven days, the seventh month celebrations (Feast of Tabernacles, Day of Atonement, Rosh ha-Shana), the sabbatical year every seven years, and the jubilee every forty-nine years

• Seven priests with seven trumpets marching around Jericho seven times daily for seven days, then seven times on the seventh day

• Jacob serving seven years for each of Laban’s daughters

• Pharaoh’s dream of seven well-favored and seven lean cattle, and seven full and seven blasted ears of grain, symbolizing seven years of plenty and seven of famine

• Noah taking seven pairs of clean animals into the ark, with the flood beginning after seven days

• Solomon’s seven-year temple construction

• Samson bound with seven green cords and his seven locks of hair woven into a web

• Balaam requiring seven altars, seven oxen, and seven rams

• Hezekiah’s offerings of seven bullocks, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven he-goats for temple cleansing

• Seven things abominable to the Lord, wisdom’s seven pillars, and the dissembler’s seven abominations

• The menorah in Zechariah’s vision with seven lights and seven oil conductors

• Seven eyes engraved on the foundation stone of the new temple

• Jacob’s household numbering seventy, seventy elders, and seventy sons of Jerubbaal

• Cain avenged sevenfold and Lamech seventy times seven

And here’s a sampling from the New Testament.

• Christ appearing to seven disciples after his resurrection

• Seven appointed to office in the Jerusalem church and seven sons of Sceva

• Seventy disciples sent by Jesus in Luke 10:12

• Peter asking about forgiving seven times, receiving the answer to forgive seventy times seven

• Jesus casting seven demons from Mary Magdalene and feeding four thousand with seven loaves

• Seven parables in Matthew 13 and seven woes

• Seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer according to Matthew

• Seven afflictions and gifts in Romans, seven qualities of heavenly wisdom in James, and seven virtues from faith in 2 Peter

• Revelation’s seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven angels, seven bowls of wrath, the beast’s seven heads and diadems, and seven spirits before God’s throne

I think I’ve made my point. Seven is a big deal, and that’s why the scholars, to a great degree, think it signifies that the seven lampstands and the seven churches work on another level: in some way, they represent all churches of all time. This will come into play in two ways as we camp out in chapters 2 and 3 for quite a while. Since the seven lampstands in the halls of heaven represent seven earthly churches, and the number seven signifies totality or completion, all churches of all time are represented in heaven by a lampstand. Which means we have one there right now as well.

If that’s true, and I think it is, where do we find Jesus in the vision? In the midst of the lampstands, going to and fro among them, which means Jesus is intimately and intricately involved in the local church. If we have a lampstand in heaven right now, our Lord is intimately and intricately interested in what’s happening in our congregation at this very moment as well.

Here’s the second way things come into play. In the same way, the seven churches addressed in chapters 2 and 3 may very well represent seven different conditions that any church of all time finds itself in. Jesus addressed literal churches in the first century, but somehow they have meaning and application for all churches today. And how does he address them? From the perspective of: Here’s what I’m not happy with, and here’s what I am happy with. Our Lord will even threaten to remove the lampstand of one of these churches because of an issue they won’t address.

In one sense, it’s a great comfort knowing that Jesus is involved in every detail of who we are as a local congregation. At the same time, it is a great concern that Jesus is involved in every detail of who we are as a local congregation. What we’ve talked about today is something we must keep in the forefront of our minds as we close out chapter 1 and begin chapters 2 and 3. We’re going to want to prayerfully ask along the way: Where do we find ourselves in these seven churches? Once we do that, we have to figure out what Christ is telling us we need to do.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

Let’s jump right back into our Revelation study. If you’ve been with us, you know we are in chapter one, and we have camped out here for quite a while. It’s especially important to put up a tent here. This is the prologue to Revelation, and by design, it includes much needed to understand the rest of the book. And yet, in my experience, it seems as if the least amount of time is spent here because everybody wants to get on to the “good stuff.”

I’ll let you know now that the bulk of our messages in this series will come from Chapters 1 through 3. Once we get to 4, things speed up, because our goal is not to crack a code for determining the Antichrist’s identity or discover a detailed countdown to Armageddon (which is a place in Revelation and not the name of a battle BTW), but rather we are interested in figuring out what this meant to the ones it was originally written to 2,000 years ago. To do that, however, we must yet return to this vision of the risen Jesus in the first chapter, backing up a few verses to get us into context, then cover new ground and hopefully finish out this chapter today. But I’m not making any promises.

9 I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the witness of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11 saying, “Write in a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” Revelation 1:9–11 (LSB)

Recall that this is where we are introduced to the recipients of the book of Revelation. Christians living in these seven first-century cities of the Roman Empire are the ones whose lives and minds we want to get into. In verse 11, John was commissioned by Jesus to write in a scroll what he was about to see and send it to these churches. Before he could do that, something happened that we’ve already covered in detail.

12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; 13 and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. 14 And His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. 15 His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters, 16 and having in His right hand seven stars, and a sharp two-edged sword which comes out of His mouth, and His face was like the sun shining in its power. 17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. Revelation 1:12–17a (LSB)

Jesus’ commissioning of John is interrupted by his reaction to the divine presence of our Lord. It was so terrifying that John fainted as if he were dead. But thankfully, Jesus, in all his awesome glory, is still the gentle and lowly Jesus we know from the Gospels.

And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not fear; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Revelation 1:17b–18 (LSB)

Last time, we focused a bit on verse 18, where Jesus responds to John with three declarations about who he is. First, he is the First and the Last, a title directly from Isaiah, in which Yahweh—the covenant God of Israel—uses it three times to declare his absolute sovereignty over all of time and history (past, present, and future). There is nothing before him and nothing after him. Everything that exists falls within his jurisdiction. When Jesus applies this title to himself, he is making an extraordinary claim to be one and the same with Yahweh. Remember the First and the Last for later.

Second, he is the Living One. This title echoes throughout the Old Testament as a way of distinguishing the God of Israel from every other god with a little “g.” He is not a statue; he is alive, self-sustaining, and the source of all life. Once again, Jesus applies this title for Yahweh to himself, but he adds a paradox: the Eternal Living One died. As the God-man, Jesus experienced death fully, becoming one of us in every way.

Which leads to the third declaration: he holds the keys of death and Hades. Keys meant authority and ownership in the ancient world. No one else has ever died, conquered death, and returned holding the keys to death itself. Not a prophet, not an angel, not anyone. Jesus alone has that credential. Three titles. One message: because of who I am, there is nothing to fear.

Now, let’s cover new territory where Jesus picks up his commissioning of John to write with what I am convinced is the most critical verse in the book.

19 “Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things. Revelation 1:19 (LSB)

In fact, this verse is so important we need to decide what we’re going to do with it before going any further, because regardless of whatever interpretive framework you adopt for Revelation, this verse helps us make sense of the strange visions, if they can make sense (ha!). As with most biblical interpretations, there’s always more than one and often more than a dozen, but we’re going to look at the two big ones for 1:19. The first is the most popular, at least in the Western church, and has been for well over a hundred years. It’s without a doubt probably the one that most are familiar with, even if they don’t realize it. It’s called, among other names, the Chronological View. With this view, verse 19 is a linear, time-focused divine outline of the book.

• “The things which you have seen”—the vision of Jesus in chapter one.

• “The things which are”—the words of Jesus to the seven churches in Asia in chapters 2 and 3.

• “The things which will take place after these things”—chapter 4 and on, and most, if not all, of it has to do with the far future, near the return of Jesus Christ at the end of the age.

For a very long time, as a young pastor, before God tore me down to my foundations, I held very strongly to the chronological view. So everything that happened from chapter four on had nothing to do with those first Christians the letter was written to, but everything to do with us as we are surely living at the closest edge of the end of the age when Jesus returns. To be honest, I never dug very deep to confirm if the scripture actually supported that. I just assumed it, or maybe better to say I accepted it by osmosis, because that was the prevailing view Baptists held.

After God began building me back up, I turned to the Scriptures with fresh, open eyes and, in my search for the truth, began to include the views of other Bible-believing, balanced, humble teachers and scholars who see it differently. Along the way, I realized the case was far from closed. In fact, I’m convinced now that the chronological view is probably not the proper one, even though it might be.

I’m tempted to say the next view is the new one, since the chronological view is the one we’re most familiar with. But actually, the chronological view is the new one historically (very new), and the one I’m about to share with you has been around for a long time, going back to the early church. This perspective makes a lot of sense when you think about it and fits well not only with the Scripture but with what we know about how ancient people’s minds worked. It is called the Camera Angles or Layers View (okay, it is not called that; the fancy word is recapitulation view, but I can barely say that word coming from AL). In this approach, verse 19 is not a chronological outline but rather explains how the visions work: they are layers, stacked on top of each other, each describing the same thing from a different camera angle, or each is a recapitulation of the other.

With this take, the first and most important angle or layer is Jesus (the things you have seen). He is the ultimate and overarching subject of this book, the Prince of Revelation and the One through whom the whole universe came into being. That’s why he’s presented in such magnificent and terrifying ways in the first chapter. The visions of John will cover many things, but above all, they find their source and ultimate explanation in the person of Jesus Christ, the almighty Pantokrator.

The second angle is the church (Jesus manifested on the earth until he returns; the things which are). The third angle is the heavenly dimension (the things that will take place), so that much of what we see in the visions, and especially the strange stuff, is where the veil between heaven and earth is pulled back, and we observe what the first two things look like from God’s heavenly perspective.

Now, I said this view fits well with Scripture and how we know ancient people thought. Let me talk about that second thing first. The brains of ancient people in the first century, and certainly before that, were wired differently from ours. Our gray matter, due to the Industrial Revolution and the resulting rapid expansion of the Information Age, are wired “digitally.” Most of us in the modern West see time as a linear conveyor belt, a straight line moving predictably from Point A to Point B. Because of this, when we open a book, we instinctively look for a table of contents, and we expect the book to flow a certain way. If that book presents events, our brains are wired to see them in concrete terms as part of a schedule, a calendar.

Ancient people, on the other hand, were particularly receptive to oral communication (they didn’t have books), so they perceived the world through a much more abstract lens. For a very, very, very, very long time—longer than we’ve been able to receive information through printed books or computers—information was shared through stories, poems, and prose passed along orally from mouth to ear. Ancient people’s brains were wired not only to process but also to retain information that sparked their imaginations. Aesop’s fables go back to ancient Greece, and they were more than just children’s fairy tales; they taught moral truths. “Ten Ways to Be a Better Person” makes for a popular book today, but it would have never made it through the centuries. A story about a tortoise and a hare, now that sticks.

Scholars and experts tell us that ancient audiences processed information through motifs and echoes rather than linear sequences. Literature was written to be read aloud or quoted from memory (especially given that, in ancient times, a very small percentage of the population could even read), and listeners came away with an overall impression more like an impressionistic painting than a high-resolution photograph. Individual details remained a puzzle, but the big picture was clear. This predisposes first-century readers against chronological literalism.

In other words, no one sitting in those seven churches, listening to the Book of Revelation being read by a courier, would have looked at this verse or even the visions from the perspective of a linear chronological sequence of events related to something in the far future. Instead, their imaginations would have been on fire with the visions as they tried to determine what they meant. What do they teach? What is this trying to say to us right now, and how do we respond?

But, as with anything, we must ask, does this track with Scripture? Can we see this kind of thinking demonstrated in the Word? Yes, and in pretty big ways, particularly in the OT prophetic book of Daniel, which, as we’ve already seen, plays a major role in John’s visions. Daniel is given five parallel visions of the same future with overlapping content—the rise and fall of empires and the coming of God’s kingdom—but from different angles and with increasing detail. And not only that, the images are fantastic, exciting the imagination in big ways. The symbolism is powerful and unforgettable, just like Revelation.

And this is connected to how God is presented in the Bible and particulalry Daniel: the first and the last, the Ancient of Days, the Great I AM, the one who exists out of time and space because those things were created by him, the one for whom everything then must be Present (not past, present, or future), and the one who does not experience reality in the linear fashion the way we do. And this is connected to how Jesus is presented in Revelation chapter 1: The first and the last, the Ancient of Days, the Almighty, the one who exists outside of time and space, for whom everything is just present as well.

So the bottom line is, we approach everything from the perspective of chronological time and concrete facts, but ancient people and the Scriptures written to them come more from the perspective of timelessness and the abstract, which is shown even in the way God and Jesus present themselves, as well as the way the Old Testament prophets were given visions. Or put another way, given how ancient people’s brains were wired and how Scripture approaches visions and the end of the age, it makes sense that Revelation would be a mosaic of parallel presentations of the return of Jesus and the end of the age, rather than a play-by-play schedule of events.

For sure, the chronological view is easier to understand than the camera-angle view, that is, until you try to apply it to John’s visions. You cannot make them all fit neatly into a linear account of the end times, contrary to the videos you see on YouTube. Even those who swear by the chronological view have to borrow from the angle view for it to make sense. But let me be clear, even the view that I’m presenting, which I think is the better one, has its problems as well. Nobody has all the answers to this except for Jesus. And what have I always told you when you come across somebody who acts like they have all the answers, especially when it comes to Revelation? Run. It’s a cult.

If our goal is to try to figure out which of these views might have been baked into the minds of First Century Christians, with a great degree of certainty, it would not have been the chronological one. They would not have approached Revelation 1:19 automatically with, “Oh, this is a timeline of the end.” Instead, they would have defaulted to the camera-angle view because this framing of apocalyptic events was common in their era and reflected how their minds worked in a world that relied on oral tradition.

This ancient way of thinking has never left us. The brains of poets are wired to think in the abstract more than the concrete. Often, if you want to understand something, it’s better to approach the poets than the scholars, because they see things that those who view the world through a concrete lens cannot. Of course, if you’re like me, you find it hard to read poetry because it is so full of symbolism.

Don’t laugh, because you all know I’m just a good old boy from Alabama, but I’ve been trying to read poetry. I find it fascinating and also incredibly frustrating. One poet I’ve been checking out is a priest and scholar named Malcolm Guite. He’s British, incredibly smart, and a huge fan of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. Not too long ago, in one of his works, I came across something that blew my mind. He approached a well-known Gospel story in a way I had never heard before, a way I would never have imagined anyone would. When I share this with you, not only will his approach demonstrate how the ancient mind would have processed John’s visions, but his insight will also tie in with everything we’re talking about today.

As I read this gospel story, look for all the markers that point to Revelation 1.

1 And six days later Jesus brought with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. 2 And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. 3 And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. 4 And Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three booths here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” 6 And when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7 And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” 8 And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone. Matthew 17:1–8 (LSB)

You need to know that Guite, in his writings and lectures, discusses the nature of kairos, the spiritual alternative to our modern obsession with linear time, which he labels chronos. While chronos is the ticking clock that measures minutes and deadlines, kairos is “God’s time,” a dimension in which the past, present, and future are not a sequence of disappearing moments but a single, meaningful “now.” In other words, in God’s time, as the one who exists outside of time, things are always present. Sound familiar?

Here’s where it gets super interesting. Guite’s perspective is that the Transfiguration in Matthew 17 is not a “magic show” performed for Peter, James, and John, but a “tear in the curtain” between dimensions, where three distinct moments in history, separated by centuries, are actually happening simultaneously in God’s eternal present. The mountain becomes a “thin place” where the following three events are a single reality:

• The first is Moses on Mount Sinai: When Moses was in the cloud and “the skin of his face shone” (Exodus 34), he wasn’t just reflecting a past glory; he was literally looking at the Transfigured Jesus.

• The second is Elijah on Mount Horeb: When Elijah stood in the cave and heard the “still small voice” after the fire and wind (1 Kings 19), he was actually standing on the edge of the Transfiguration. He was looking at the “Word made flesh.”

• The third is Jesus with the Disciples: Jesus stands in the “middle,” acting as the bridge. To the disciples, it looks like a future event or a visitation. But to Jesus, it is the “Eternal Now” where He is the center of the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah).

Now, I cannot say, nor can anyone else, that this is actually what is happening, but my goodness, how it fires up the imagination. Because of what we do know, it is entirely possible that this is how it worked at the Mount of Transfiguration. The veil between the heavenly dimension and the earthly was so thin that, in that moment, the disciples were transported from linear time into the Eternal Present as the glory of Jesus broke through. Moses on Mount Sinai and Elijah on Mount Horeb were also transported from their timelines into the eternal present, and with the disciples, it all converged in that moment when Jesus’ glory broke out.

This is how the ancient minds would have received John’s visions. And even if what’s happening here isn’t what Guite proposes, he has helped us see what definitely could have happened when you consider what we do know about God and Jesus living in the eternal present as the first and the last, the great I Am. Regardless of what you do with Revelation 1:19—the things that John saw, the things that are, and the things that will be— the visions of John must be, in some form or fashion, about, in the words of Guite, “that central ring where earth and heaven are one unity and a curtain is lifted and the world is bared to eternity.”

I think we would do well to follow the poets and try to find deeper meaning beyond Revelation just being a map of the end. What if we allowed our imaginations to help us understand it more? We know that’s exactly how it was for those who first heard what John wrote and had read to them 2,000 years ago.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

It is incredible to think that two thousand years after the disciples found an empty tomb in Jerusalem, we are joining almost three billion Christians around the world in celebrating our Lord’s resurrection on that first Easter Sunday morning. Easter is the ultimate, overarching, all-time highlight of the year for Christians. I’ve been called a Scrooge for saying this, but I’m convinced we put too much into Christmas and too little into Easter. It’s wonderful to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus, but it’s what he did after he grew into a man that really changed the world forever.

If all we had were the Christmas story and no Easter, we’d have a beautiful account of God loving us so much that he came to visit. But that’s it. And yet He did so much more than just stop by. Jesus, the God-man, lived the life we should have lived, died the death we should have died, and came back from the dead, victorious over death and sin. That truly transformed everything. It’s the pinnacle of all history, cosmic and universal in its effect. In fact, the resurrection is the very hinge on which our Christian faith and hope for the world swings. The Apostle Paul himself said as much.

17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. 18 In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! 19 And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. 1 Corinthians 15:17–19 (NLT)

But even so, I want to ask you a question you may never have been asked before, heaven forbid, on Easter Sunday morning. Do you ever secretly wonder if that tomb was really empty 2,000 years ago? Or maybe you believe it was empty, but you’re just not so sure it was because Jesus walked out alive? I know. That feels wrong, doesn’t it? Believe me, more than a few people over the last two thousand years have come up with a multitude of explanations to explain away the miracle.

But I’m going to say something that might surprise you. If you’ve never doubted the resurrection, you’ve never truly wrestled with its measureless implications. Now, how’s that to start an Easter message? Well, whether you know it or not, I’m on solid ground here because doubt was a big part of that first Easter in Jerusalem. To show you I’m telling the truth, we’ll go to Luke’s account of what happened that day, when Jesus’ disciples had abandoned him after his arrest and crucifixion. Everybody was huddled together, in shock, hiding from the authorities. But the brave women slipped out and went to find Jesus’ body so that they could give it a proper burial.

1 Now on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 And it happened that while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing, 5 and when the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living One among the dead? 6 “He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, 7 saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.” 8 And they remembered His words, 9 and when they returned from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the rest of the women with them were there; they were telling these things to the apostles. Luke 24:1–10 (LSB)

Before we move on, I must point out something that for years I never saw, and we’ll kind of circle back to this a little bit later. The first people to proclaim the gospel of a risen Savior were the women disciples. Luke makes a big deal out of that, and it’s a much bigger deal than we realize. Again, we’ll cover that a little bit later. Here’s the scene Luke sets for us: the women arrived at the tomb, found it empty, and had it all explained to them by the angels, “Jesus was alive!” They went back to tell the men, the guys who had been there from the very beginning, like Matthew, John, Peter, James.

11 But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they were not believing them. Luke 24:11 (LSB) emphasis mine

It’s been a while, but every now and again, I refer to a paraphrase of the scriptures called the Cotton Patch Gospel because I love it. In it, Clarence Jordan re-translates the New Testament into the mid-20th-century American South, where Jerusalem becomes Atlanta, Rome becomes Washington, D.C., and Jesus is a Southern boy from Valdosta rather than Nazareth. He was a Greek scholar and knew what he was doing. Even though I wouldn’t use it for Bible study, I definitely refer to it every so often for a fresh take on a text. How he translates Luke 24:11 is spot on.

“They returned from the vault and told the whole story to the eleven and the rest. The women who were telling the apostles these things were Maria, “the Magdala girl,” and Jo Ann and Maria James, and others with them. But it all seemed to the men like so much female chatter, and they wouldn’t believe it.—Jordan, C. (2004). The cotton patch gospel (Lk 24:1). Smyth & Helwys Pub.

Folks, do you realize that in verse 11, the disciples, eleven of the original twelve chosen by Jesus to preach the message of his kingdom, the ones who saw him work miracles and sat under his teachings for three years, thought the testimony of the women was just them being women? They 100% doubted this was true. Just as much as we can say that angels were part of the first Easter story, an empty tomb was part of the first Easter story, and a miracle was part of the first Easter story, we can equally say that stone-cold doubt was part of it as well. They thought this just couldn’t be true, even though Jesus had said things like,

31 …Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. Mark 8:31 (LSB)

33 “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will deliver Him over to the Gentiles. 34 “And they will mock Him and spit on Him, and flog Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.” Mark 10:33–34 (LSB)

These are the guys who are going to lead the church?! At first, we are tempted to scold these soon-to-be Apostles. But the fact that they doubted Jesus’ resurrection highlights its validity. Returning from the dead is so unheard of, so impossible, so out of the ordinary, so unbelievably supernatural and ultra-miraculous that the only proper response for anyone would be doubt. Do you see what I’m getting at? If we truly project ourselves back into the shoes of those disciples, and if we truly understand the magnitude of what they were asked to believe, we must confess that we, too, would have thought the women were just chattering about something that didn’t really happen.

If it’s easy for us to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then we really haven’t grasped what happened that day. Doubt is very appropriate and even necessary. I would even go so far as to say that doubt is critical to a healthy and growing faith. It was the pastor Frederick Buechner who said, “Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts, you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”

But what do you do with doubt? How do you deal with it? For the Christian, is faith the only antidote to doubt? Some take that approach: “Christianity is something to be believed, not questioned.” They think it’s just a matter of the heart and not the mind, or the stomach and not the head, as Buechner might say. Faith will always be the bedrock of Christianity, but that does not take facts out of the picture. We have never been expected to check our brains at the door as followers of Christ. Think back to that first Easter Sunday when the disciples doubted in a way that we can barely comprehend. Shouldn’t the angels telling the women that Jesus was alive have been enough? Shouldn’t what Jesus himself had said be enough? Sure, it should have, but Jesus, being the loving Savior and Shepherd that he is, made sure that the disciples had more than that. To convince them that he was truly alive, he showed up.

36 Now while they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace to you.” 37 But being startled and frightened, they were thinking that they were seeing a spirit. 38 And He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. 41 And while they still were not believing because of their joy and were still marveling, He said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, 43 and He took it and ate it before them. Luke 24:36–43 (LSB)

And so for the rest of their lives, when maybe they were tempted to doubt that it really happened, they could think back to what his hands and feet felt like and what it was like to gather around the fire, eating breakfast with Jesus that day. The facts of Jesus’ showing up convinced their heads, and that made its way deep down into their hearts. But since we can’t actually go back there and sit with them around that fire, how do we get it into our heads so it can make it into our hearts? Are we, as Christians, some 2,000 years later, left with only the heart and not the head? No, not at all.

This morning I want to briefly show you that our confidence in the factual, literal, historical resurrection of Jesus is justified, and it begins with understanding that all credible, honest historians (Christian or not) know, from ancient documents and writings outside the Gospels as well as in, that a Jewish man named Jesus existed, that he was crucified, died, and was buried. And along with that, even skeptical historians, those who don’t believe Jesus was anything more than a 1st Century Jewish rabbi, must admit three things:

(1). Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of women on the Sunday following his crucifixion.

This itself provides stunning confirmation that what Luke and the other Gospel writers wrote is true. Let me tell you why.

Women were not highly valued in ancient Roman or Jewish culture. That’s why the men who were hiding out of fear didn’t believe them at first. That’s why they thought their testimony was just the easily excitable women getting all hysterical.

NT Wright comments on the significance of this:

If Luke had been making this story up a generation or more after the event, as people sometimes suggest, not only would he not have had women going first to the tomb (women were not regarded as credible witnesses in the ancient world, as this story itself bears out); he would have had the apostles believe the story at once, ready to be models of faith and to lead the young church into God’s future. Not so: it seemed to them a silly fantasy, exactly the sort of thing (they will have thought) that you’d expect from a few women crazy with grief and lack of sleep.1

I could share so much more with you about the credibility of the gospels, but this alone is evidence that the accounts of the empty tomb cannot be fantasy or legend; they must be attempts to record the facts as the disciples understood them. Something attested to at the beginning of Luke’s gospel.

1 Many people have tried to tell the story of what God has done among us. 2 They wrote what we had been told by the ones who were there in the beginning and saw what happened. 3 So I made a careful study of everything and then decided to write and tell you exactly what took place. Honorable Theophilus, 4 I have done this to let you know the truth about what you have heard. — Luke 1:1–4 (CEV)

The second undeniable truth is,

(2). Jesus’ disciples had actual encounters with someone they believed to be a resurrected Jesus.

The gospels give numerous accounts of encounters with Jesus after that first Easter Sunday. John admitted at the end of his gospel that if you wrote down all that Jesus did before and after the resurrection, the world couldn’t contain them.

Paul wrote this to the Christians at Corinth:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. —1 Corinthians 15:1–8 (ESV)

This was written within twenty or so years of the events surrounding that first Easter. Those who witnessed it were still alive. Paul would have never made this statement so boldly if he were telling a fib, not when there were people who could stand up and say it wasn’t true. Consider this also.

People will suffer and even give their lives for a cause or movement they believe is true, but they won’t for what they know to be a lie. All of the apostles except for John were cruelly martyred for their faith: some were dragged by horses, others beheaded (like Paul), still others crucified upside down, and others thrown from the temple and stoned to death. You can say they were crazy, but you cannot say they were part of some conspiracy. The only reasonable explanation for why they risked life and limb to preach a resurrected Jesus is that they really believed they saw him alive after the crucifixion. Which brings us to something the skeptics say: they all suffered from mass hallucination. That makes no sense. 500 different people in different places at different times? It takes more faith to believe that than it does to believe he really came back from the dead.

The last surefire truth is,

(3). These disciples’ preaching of a resurrected Jesus turned the world upside down.

The single most influential event in the history of the world over the last two thousand years is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not the printing press. Not the Industrial Revolution. Not the rise and fall of Rome. Nothing else even comes close. And that’s not intended as a faith statement, though it is one, but a historical fact that even skeptical scholars have been forced to recognize.

Consider how we measure time. When we write today’s date, we measure history from the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Every civilization on earth—Christian, Muslim, secular, atheist—operates on a calendar organized around one man from one small town in first-century Judea. BC. AD. Before Christ. In the year of the Lord. The entire human race tells time by Jesus.

Walk into any great museum in the world, and the overwhelming majority of what you see on the walls is Jesus. Michelangelo spent four years on his back painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling because of Jesus. Da Vinci painted the Last Supper because of Jesus. Rembrandt returned to the crucifixion again and again because of Jesus. No one has influenced art more than Jesus.

Then there’s music. Bach, who many say is the greatest composer who ever lived, signed every piece of music he wrote with the letters SDG: Soli Deo Gloria. To God alone be the glory. Handel wrote the Messiah in twenty-four days and reportedly said he saw heaven open while composing the Hallelujah Chorus. The very foundation of Western music lies within the walls of the church. The African American spirituals, born out of horrible suffering and rooted in the hope of resurrection, became the foundation of blues, jazz, gospel, and virtually every popular music form we hear today.

Follow the thread of almost everything in which we live and move and have our being 2,000 years after that tomb was left empty, and you find Jesus is at the beginning of it. Architecture. Philosophy. Law. Everything. To appreciate how staggering this is, you need to understand what crucifixion meant in the Roman world. Tom Holland is a British historian who grew up skeptical of Christianity and spent his career writing about ancient empires. He’s not a believer. But in his landmark book Dominion, he makes a stunning observation. He explains that Romans considered crucifixion the most degrading death imaginable. Crucifixions were Rome’s way of saying a person is subhuman. It was a death deliberately designed to strip a man of every shred of dignity before it killed him. The cross was not a symbol of sacrifice in the Roman mind. It was a symbol of absolute power over the powerless. It was so disgusting, so distasteful in Roman culture that people dared speak of it.

Holland asks the question that every honest historian must: how on earth did a small group of Jewish peasants convince the ancient world to worship a man who died that kind of death? That the son of a carpenter from a backwater town, executed as a criminal by the empire, was the King of the Universe? In the Roman value system, there was nothing more contemptible. You would sooner worship your garbage collector. The idea would have been not just unbelievable but offensive, laughable even. And yet within three centuries, the empire that nailed Jesus to the cross had made Christianity its official religion. The symbol of the most shameful death in the ancient world became the most recognized symbol in Western civilization. Holland, who came into this as a skeptic, says he found himself unable to explain all that without taking seriously what the early Christians actually claimed. Not because he became a believer, but because the historian in him couldn’t make the math work any other way.

Something happened in Jerusalem that first Easter Sunday that turned a handful of terrified, hiding disciples into people willing to die proclaiming it. And whatever that something was, it moved fast enough and convincingly enough and powerfully enough to do what no military conquest, no philosophical school, and no political movement had ever done: it turned the civilized world upside down. And as I mentioned at the beginning of my message, two thousand years later, billions of Christians are celebrating a risen Lord on this Easter Sunday.

It’s too incredible to be coincidental.

(1). Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of women on the Sunday following his crucifixion.

(2). Jesus’ disciples had actual encounters with someone they believed to be a resurrected Jesus.

(3). These disciples’ preaching of a resurrected Jesus turned the world upside down.

Now I know these three undeniable truths don’t prove that Jesus was the Son of God or that he came back from the dead, but I think Tom Holland would ask us, “Do you have a better explanation?” So, in the end, for us, yes, we must accept by faith that it really happened, but that acceptance is based on facts that are entirely probable and completely reasonable given the evidence.

In a way, though, that puts us in a position that the disciples could not have experienced. Remember old Doubting Thomas, who wasn’t around when Jesus showed up and said he would have to see and touch him to believe?

29 Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are those who did not see, and yet believed.” John 20:29 (LSB)

“Blessed are those who did not see, and yet believed.” Jesus was talking about us, the ones who would come to faith through the testimony of the disciples, the men and women who first proclaimed a risen Jesus to the world and turned it upside down. This does not mean that those who bypass the head and just blindly believe in their hearts are better (I’m not sure it can even work that way). It’s not a rebuke for those who need evidence. It’s more, as NT Wright comments, “an encouragement to those who come later, to people of subsequent generations. We are all ‘blessed’ when, without having seen the risen Lord for ourselves, we nevertheless believe in him.” Even though we are blessed in a way the early disciples could not have been, because we must believe in Jesus without seeing or touching Him, we still can’t do that unless we grapple in our heads with the testimony that they give to us through the Gospels, and then believe in our hearts that he truly has been raised from the dead.

Here’s where the rubber hits the road. If Jesus really came back from the dead, whatever you think of him, you can’t just accept him as a great teacher or moral example. You can’t embrace him as your truth, as if he were one option among many. You see, if that tomb really was empty that day because he walked out alive, everything he said was 100% credible. It validated his message above all others.

Tim Keller says, “If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”2

Listen to the most controversial and contested thing Jesus said.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”—John 14:6 (ESV)

That wasn’t a boast. It was simply the truth. If we want to get to God, if we want to live forever, we must come through Jesus. Even though other religious figures may have made a similar claim or implied it, none of them validated it by rising from the grave.

Jesus confronts us with the truth that we must accept: we can’t get to God on our own. Sin keeps us separated from him. A perfect God requires a perfect child to be in a relationship with. Jesus, his one and only perfect Son, lived the perfect life we should have lived and died the death we should have died so we could become God’s real sons and daughters with his performance, his report card transposed over hours so that when God looks at us, he sees his son. That’s what he means when he says you can’t get to God except through him. You need what he did for you—and he’s the only one that could have done it— and he gives it to you like a gift. Paul writes,

21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21 (LSB)

This Easter Sunday, know that Christianity has never seen doubt as the enemy of faith. Doubt, in fact, strengthens our faith. A crisis of doubt can become a leap forward in faith. If you don’t find yourself wrestling with whether the resurrection is true, you haven’t grasped its infinitely profound implications. I’d rather deal with a skeptic struggling to believe in the resurrection than a person who says they believe, but it’s never made a difference in their life.

If we really believe in the resurrection, where it’s as much fact as faith, it changes everything. It transforms us. It invades all of this life and carries us over into the next life.

CS Lewis writes, “The New Testament writers speak as if Christ’s achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the ‘first fruits,’ the pioneer of life,’ He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so.” Amen and hallelujah!

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

We are well into our series on the book of Revelation, where we hope to understand what it meant to the Christians to whom it was originally written 2,000 years ago. Only then can we figure out what it means to us today.

We are still in chapter one, where we’ve delved deeply into the cosmic, radiant, and somewhat frightening description of Jesus as he appears to John in all his unfiltered glory. Here’s a related fun fact. The crucifixion is the most depicted biblical scene by painters, with thousands upon thousands of depictions, while the Madonna and child, the Annunciation (Gabriel announces the birth to Mary), the Nativity (baby Jesus at that first Christmas), and the Last Supper rank second through fifth.

The vision of Jesus in Revelation chapter one, as magnificent as it is, does not even make the top 10, let alone the top 100. Compared to other biblical scene paintings, it’s extremely rare, with only about five attempts by notable painters. The reason is self-evident. How do you paint a figure with eyes like a flame of fire and a sword coming out of his mouth? It’s so uncanny that it makes us uncomfortable, yet so beautiful and glorious that it makes us emotional.

I don’t think there is any earthly experience we could compare to seeing Jesus the Almighty, but if I had to try, it would be what happened on August 21, 2017. Perhaps you were gathered with countless others, including me, to watch the full solar eclipse that day. It was so epic, so unnatural, so awe-inspiring that I get goosebumps thinking about it. The strange light. The eerie silence. It was both unsettling and irresistible. It made me feel incredibly small and God incredibly big. I have no idea why, but I wept as it reached totality.

Now magnify that infinitely, and maybe we get close to what John experienced. It was so terrifying, in fact, that he fainted dead at the sight. But we saw that Jesus is the same compassionate, loving Friend of Sinners we know from the gospels. He touched John, reviving him with the words, “Do not fear.”

We spent some time, however, on how the church has engaged in fearmongering with Revelation for quite some time. An entire generation was horrified into loathing Christ’s return because the visions of John were weaponized and used to scare people out of hell and into heaven so that they would not be left behind—something I am sure was never intended. This, ”Do not fear,” at the beginning, sets the tone for the entire book. Yes, the visions are scary; yes, troubling times are coming as we get closer to Jesus’ return, but we can take the greatest comfort in knowing that our Lord is the Cosmic, All-Powerful and Compassionate King, is in total control, with us, and, in the end, he wins.

Now that we have a better grasp of what’s going on in Revelation chapter one as a whole, I think it’s appropriate to go back and see if we can mine more gold from its riches. We’ll do that in a more traditional, expository way. Some of what we cover will be a review, and some will be new, but the goal is to get us to the critical place we want to be if our intent is to view John’s visions through the eyes of those to whom they were originally given. I’m convinced that spending much time in chapter one is necessary for that end.

In verses 12-16, we have,

What John hears and sees

12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; 13 and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. Revelation 1:12–13 (LSB)

We’ll talk more about the lampstands another time, but remember there’s a debate about what his clothing points to here. Some see it pointing to his role as the High Priest of all high priests, and others see it as pointing to his royalty as king of kings and Lord of Lords, God Almighty (the pantokrator, the one who is over and above all). It is most likely both. This is especially important, as the emperor of Rome was both the high priest of its religion and its autokrator, the one who possesses power. Jesus trumps all! Verse 14,

14 And His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. 15 His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters, Revelation 1:14 (LSB)

This alludes to OT images in prophetic books such as Daniel and fuses Yahweh, the Lord, with Jesus the Messiah. They are different yet one and the same. The next part is interesting.

16 and having in His right hand seven stars, and a sharp two-edged sword which comes out of His mouth, and His face was like the sun shining in its power. Revelation 1:16 (LSB)

He holds seven stars in his right hand. This is the only element of this vision with no OT prophetic imagery counterpart. But seven stars do play a prominent role in first-century Roman culture. There were seven celestial bodies known to Roman astronomers: the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The number seven played a big role in their mythology and astrology, just as it does in biblical numerology. Each star bore the name of a Roman god, and this grouping of seven carried a great deal of symbolic weight in the ancient world, which carried over into practical life. Like us today, they followed a seven-day week with “Sun” day being the first, “Moon” day the second, and so on. Does any of that sound familiar?

In a nutshell, the seven stars conveyed sovereignty in Roman culture. One biblical scholar writes, “An analogy appears on a coin from Domitian’s reign that depicts the emperor’s deceased son as young Jupiter, sitting on the globe in a posture of world dominion. The coin’s inscription calls him ‘divine Caesar, son of the emperor Domitian,’ and the imagery shows him extending his hands to seven stars in a display of divinity and power.”1 Domitian was likely the Roman emperor during the time of John and the seven churches. By placing these celestial symbols in the hands of the emperor’s deified son, Domitian claimed dominion over the cosmos itself. That was a bold assertion of divine authority that resonated throughout the empire.

Considering that, we clearly see how John’s Revelation directly confronts this imperial propaganda. John removes the stars from baby Jupiter’s hand and places them where they rightfully belong, in the hand of Christ, declaring the Roman Caesars to be false imitations of the true cosmic ruler. Think about the implications of this. When John’s letter was taken by courier to the seven churches and read, those listening to these words had in their money bags propaganda coins directly challenged by this image of Jesus. Do you see how the more we dig into the background of the seven churches, the more we realize just how confrontational yet comforting all this must have been to them?

The sharp two-edged sword coming from Jesus’ mouth is also interesting. This alludes to OT texts of a coming ruler and servant to Yahweh.

4 But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with uprightness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will put the wicked to death. Isaiah 11:4 (LSB)

2 He has set My mouth like a sharp sword; In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me; And He has also set Me as a select arrow; He has hidden Me in His quiver. Isaiah 49:2 (LSB)

This ruler, of course, is Jesus, who will conquer evil with the Word of his mouth, which is like a two-edged sword. But there is an unmistakable Roman connection here as well. Rome possessed what they called the ius gladii (yoos-GLA-dee-ee), the “power of the sword,” which refers to the gladius (GLA-dee-oos), a two-edged sword used by Roman soldiers. Rome alone had the power and authority to enforce its laws and enact capital punishment. In other words, ius gladii meant that Rome held the power of life and death over its citizens. But Jesus carries something far greater. The original Greek word used for sword in verse 17 is rhomphaia (ROM-fay-uh), a massive, imposing blade that dwarfs the Roman soldier’s weapon. John’s audience would have felt that contrast immediately. John presents Jesus as bearing a far greater sword of judgment that Rome cannot conceive or overcome.

Let’s keep going. In verse 17, the first part, we’ve already seen,

How John Reacts

17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. Revelation 1:17a (LSB)

To finish out chapter one, let’s spend a bit more time on,

How Jesus Responds

17 …And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not fear; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Revelation 1:17b–18 (LSB)

Again, we’ve already covered how Jesus, even though he’s presented as the All-Powerful Ruler Over Everything in all his terrifying glory, is still the Jesus we know from the Gospels. He bends down low and shows John compassion, saying, “Don’t be afraid.” And then he gives three reasons why.

(1) He’s the First and Last. This goes directly back to three declarations given to Israel in the book of Isaiah.

4 “Who has worked and done it, Calling forth the generations from the beginning? ‘I, Yahweh, am the first; and with the last, I am He.’” Isaiah 41:4 (LSB)

6 “Thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Yahweh of hosts: ‘I am the first, and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me. Isaiah 44:6 (LSB)

12 “Hear Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called; I am He, I am the first, I am also the last. Isaiah 48:12 (LSB)

God assures and comforts his covenant people that he is sovereign over time and history—past, present, and future. Jesus applies this title to himself and makes an extraordinary claim that would have resonated with Christians living under the sword of Rome: he possesses that same absolute and eternal authority. If Jesus controls time and history, they need not fear the emperor or accept his propaganda. They know the Truth with a capital T. Not only that,

(2) He’s the Living One. This, too, goes back to OT texts like:

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God? Psalm 42:2 (LSB)

10 But Yahweh is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, And the nations cannot endure His indignation. Jeremiah 10:10 (LSB)

Unlike the pagan gods of other nations, who required nourishment from worshippers and needed to be carried when they moved, the true and living God of Israel was self-sustaining and instead cared for those who followed him. Jesus is the living God come to us in the flesh, and that ties into his being dead yet alive forevermore. Jesus lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died. What a paradox. The Living, eternal, all-powerful died! But he could not stay dead.

If you were a Christian living under the sword of Rome with the threat of punishment and even death hanging over your head, what a comfort this would be. And even more so when you realize that, finally, he is (3) the keeper of the keys of death and Hades. Jesus possesses power over death and Hades through his unique accomplishment: he experienced death itself, then conquered it through the resurrection, thereby securing an authority no other being could claim.

NT Wright comments,

To grasp all this requires faith. To live by it will take courage. But it is that faith, and that courage, which this book is written to evoke.

Already we are learning quite a bit about the way John writes, and the way he means his readers to understand what he says. Like anyone describing a dream or a vision, he must know that what he says is impressionistic. It appeals not to logic, but to the imagination—which has been starved rotten in some parts of our culture, and over-stimulated in others. Now we are being asked to imagine: what would it look like if the curtain between heaven and earth were suddenly pulled up, revealing the Jesus who had been there all along but whom we had managed either to ignore or to cut down to our own size? This is the answer: a Jesus who is mind-blowing, dramatically powerful but also gentle and caring; a Jesus in and through whom we see his father, God the creator; a Jesus who has spoken, and still speaks, words which explain what is going on in the present, and warn of what will happen in the future (verse 19).2

Put all the pieces of the puzzle together, and you realize we have much more than a glorified, terrifying vision of the Lord Jesus Christ, as incredible as that is. It’s also a declaration of comfort intended to touch the hearts of those suffering under Roman rule and give them the courage and strength to keep going.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

Last time, we finally unpacked what John saw when he turned around in a cave on Patmos. He observed seven golden lampstands, and standing in the middle of them, Jesus in all His glory. The lampstands represent the seven churches, echoing back to the menorah in the Old Testament tabernacle. Just like Israel was called to be a light to the nations, the church is called to represent Christ to the world. And if those lampstands are heavenly counterparts to local, earthly congregations, then Christ is actively overseeing what happens in all the churches. He’s not distant or disinterested. He’s walking among the lampstands, right here, right now.

Then we looked at how Jesus’ dress: a robe reaching to the ground and a golden sash. Some see this as priestly garments, making Jesus the Great High Priest. Others see it as royal garb, making him King of Kings. It’s both. And that matters to us as we seek to see Revelation through the lens of its original audience, because in John’s day, every Roman emperor held the dual role of the empire’s ruler and high priest. So when John describes Jesus this way, he’s making a direct challenge. Jesus is the true High Priest and the true King. The emperor was called autokrator, one who rules with full power independently. But Jesus is pantokrator, translated as the Almighty, the one with absolute power and universal control over all things.

John’s description pulls together a patchwork of Old Testament images from Daniel and Ezekiel. Hair white as wool, like the Ancient of Days. Eyes like flames of fire. Feet like burnished bronze. Voice like rushing waters. Face shining like the sun. This isn’t just poetic language. It’s establishing Jesus as the visible image of the invisible God, the exact representation of His being.

Here’s why this mattered so much to those seven churches. As they listened to John’s visions being read aloud in Ephesus, then Smyrna, then Pergamum, and all the rest, they were navigating the complexities of a world where the fabric of daily existence pressured them to honor the emperor, making it harder and harder to follow and obey Christ. But this vision rattled them back into reality. Their King transcended Rome’s authority. Even though Caesar was autokrator (one who wields power in and of himself), Jesus was and is pantokrator (the ultimate, all-powerful ruler over everything). Pantokrator trumps autokrator by an infinite mile.

The application is the same for us. We face competing loyalties today, whether it’s government, culture, or personal idols like wealth or status. The vision John gave those churches presents Christ as so high, so holy, so powerful, so sovereign that the only proper response is to bend the knee. As citizens of His kingdom, our goal is to live faithfully on earth amidst all the competing pressures, knowing we’re secure in a King whose rule no empire can challenge. Understanding that takes us a long way toward our goal of viewing Revelation through the eyes of its original audience.

That’s where we left off. Now, let’s keep going and see how John responded when he saw Jesus in his glorified form. It’s not what you might expect, but then again, it is all things considered.

17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. Revelation 1:17a (LSB)

Or as the Message puts it,

17 I saw this and fainted dead at his feet… Revelation 1:17a (MSG)

John is so overwhelmed in the presence of the glorified Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Almighty, the Pantokrator, the one by whom and through whom the universe—and all reality—was made and holds together, that he faints dead at his feet in a fit of terror. Revelation presents Jesus here and throughout the book as a petrifying figure. That may be hard for us to process. We are used to the Jesus who let little children sit in his lap, the Jesus who touched and healed the sick, the Jesus who said of himself, “I am gentle and humble in heart.” Is this who Jesus really is, and in the gospels, he’s pretending for our sake? No. Look at what happens next.

John faints dead at the glorified Jesus’ feet,

And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not fear… Revelation 1:17b (LSB)

There’s the Jesus we know. This only magnifies the majesty of Jesus. What wonder and joy it is to know that the Jesus of Revelation chapter one, in all his terrifying power and eminence, treats us with the same tenderness, compassion, and love we know of him from the gospels.

This reaction to the holy, this fear response when the veil between the heavenly and earthly realms is lifted, goes way back. In fact, it’s a theme in Scripture. It happened when Daniel met a mighty angel (or it might have been Jesus).

7 Now I, Daniel, alone saw the vision that appeared, but the men who were with me did not see the vision that appeared; nevertheless, a great terror fell on them, and they ran away to hide themselves. 8 So I alone remained and saw this great vision that appeared; yet no might remained in me, for my outward splendor turned to a deathly pallor, and I retained no might. 9 But I heard the sound of his words; and as soon as I heard the sound of his words, I fell into a deep sleep on my face, with my face to the ground. 10 Then behold, a hand touched me and set me shaking on my hands and knees. 11 And he said to me, “O Daniel, man of high esteem, understand the words that I am about to speak to you and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you.” And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling. 12 Then he said to me, “Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you gave your heart to understand this and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. Daniel 10:7–12 (LSB)

Daniel fainted in fear, but the angel took hold of him and said, “Do not be afraid.” The same thing happened with Gideon. At that time, Israel suffered under the hand of the Midianites, so much so that Gideon performed everyday tasks in hiding. The angel of the Lord comes to him and says, “Hey there, mighty man of God, you are going to deliver your people.” Gideon has no idea who this is until later in the conversation, but when he does, he fears for his life because who can see the face of God and live?

22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he cried out, “Oh, Sovereign Lord, I’m doomed! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!” 23 “It is all right,” the Lord replied. “Do not be afraid. You will not die.” Judges 6:22–23 (NLT)

See the pattern? God shows up. Terror follows. “Do not be afraid.”

The same thing happened in the NT when Zechariah was visited by an angel (Zechariah would be the father of John the Baptist).

11 And an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense. 12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear fell upon him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will call his name John. Luke 1:11–13 (LSB)

The heavenly breaks through the earthly, and when it does, the response is fear. But what did the angel say? Do not be afraid. The same thing happened to the shepherds tending their flocks at night that first Christmas.

9 And an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. Luke 2:9–10 (LSB)

Angels showed up. Fear. Do not be afraid.

Peter, James, and John experienced this one day on a mountain. Jesus, much like here in Revelation, let his glory burst out. He shone so brightly that he canceled out the sun. His clothes became whiter than light. God speaks from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”

6 And when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7 And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” Matthew 17:6–7 (LSB)

The divine enters the building. Knees shake. Do not be afraid.

Why are we so terrified of the holy? It goes back to a time when we weren’t, a time when the heavenly and earthly realms were one, and encountering the divine was common. In the Garden of Eden before the fall, Adam and Eve would have just as likely stumbled across a cherubim as a cheetah. God himself strolled around the Garden in the cool of the day. But sin came into the picture, a veil was placed between realms, and we humans have been spooked by God and all things heavenly ever since.

But God is kind and faithful, comforting us and understanding our weaknesses, always assuring us when he comes on the scene. In a way, the birth of Jesus—God With Us—was the greatest “do not fear” of them all. If God had tried to reach us as he is, we would have fled in a panic, so he became one of us, heaven and earth meeting in a man who could physically put his hand on our shoulder and say, “Do not be afraid.” And get this: one day, when Jesus returns to set all things right, the veil will be cast aside forever, and the two realms will meet once again.

The same Jesus who commands John’s terror in Revelation is also the one who places his hand on him in comfort. The majesty and mercy aren’t in conflict; they’re the same reality experienced from different angles—infinite power choosing to draw near with infinite tenderness. This has many applications for us today, but I’d like to emphasize two. The first concerns how Revelation has been interpreted and applied since the 70s or so. Around that time, John’s visions were used to launch what became a phenomenon. End times prophecy and its perceived connection to modern events were a craze.

This “End Times frenzy” was fueled by a panicked obsession with the details of the Tribulation. Central to this was the 1972 film A Thief in the Night and its sequels, which brought the Bible’s prophecies to life in terrifying ways. For millions of Christians, it was a fright-filled warning. It played off of the Cold War anxieties with graphic depictions of the “Mark of the Beast,” and the rise of a one-world government called UNITE. That, along with record-breaking sales of books like Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, created what some call “Rapture anxiety,” as the focus of Revelation became a fear-based search for the Antichrist. That trend waned but never faded out (can you say, “Left Behind”?), and it’s gaining steam once again these days.

This hyper-focus on End Times didn’t just stay within the four walls of the church; it leaked into the psyche of a generation, perhaps most notably in the life of Brian Warner, the man the world would eventually know as the music artist Marilyn Manson. His signature look features corpse-white makeup, surgically removed eyebrows, and one milky “dead” contact lens that makes him appear to be staring into two different worlds at once.

In his autobiography, Manson reflects on a childhood spent in a strict Christian school where the “infinite tenderness” of Christ was eclipsed by a graphic, paranoid obsession with the Apocalypse that produced frightening nightmares that continue to this day. He became obsessed with the scary, graphic nature of End Times mania (such as A Thief in the Night movies). The fears that exposure created in him were real and deep, so much so that Manson’s entire career became a dark, distorted mirror of that trauma. He wasn’t alone.

The modern manifestation of this phenomenon has found a new home on social media, in what is called “RaptureTok,” where the church basement projector has been replaced by a smartphone algorithm designed to play off people’s fears. In late 2025, TikTok was flooded with viral prophecies (most notably a prediction from a South African preacher that the Rapture would occur on September 23), triggering a wave of hysteria that saw users selling their homes and quitting their jobs in real-time. These recycled apocalyptic warnings are trapping a new generation in the same “paranoid, apocalyptic state of mind” that haunted a young Brian Warner.

Now, I’m going to be honest with you. There was a time when I promoted this brand of end-times emphasis as a pastor, at least on some level. Maybe not as graphic or as forceful as what Manson was exposed to, but nonetheless, I preached and taught Revelation from a scary perspective where every event in the newspaper somehow showed that we are closer to the antichrist rising up and the mark of the beast being pushed upon us. I warned congregants to get right with God so they wouldn’t get left behind when the Rapture occurred. But never in my wildest dreams did I think it caused trauma. That is, until I sat down and talked with my adult daughters about it.

They have shared with me, over the last few years, the ways they were affected by the get-ready-for-the-coming-horrors approach to Revelation I promoted back then, how it took hold of their minds and hearts in ways I never saw coming. All three of my girls say it evoked fear and dread in their hearts. They were terrified of the coming end of the world, so much so that they didn’t want Jesus to come back.

In fact, recently I sat down with my youngest daughter, Gracie, to talk about this. She told me how, to this day, when she thinks about the book of Revelation, it causes her anxiety. From me, she formed in her mind this idea that one day she would be caught up in the air when Jesus returns, watching all of her friends left behind in torment and suffering at the hands of the antichrist. There would be fire and untold agony as the world came apart at the seams. She even told me that for a very long time, as a child, every day she would wake up and say, “Well Jesus, I bet you’re coming back today,” because she knew Jesus would not return on a day that anyone guessed, and she hoped if she said that, then maybe he wouldn’t and all those horrible things wouldn’t happen. This breaks my heart.

I don’t know much, and I’m certainly not going to claim to be an expert on Revelation, but as I have revisited this mysterious book, I am convinced that a fear-based presentation of John’s visions is not only dangerous but wholly unbiblical. They were never intended to be weaponized as a means of scaring people into God’s Kingdom. It’s no accident that, in the very first chapter, we have these words from Jesus: “Do not fear.” They set the tone for the entire book. Contrary to what we see and hear on YouTube videos and from street preachers, God has never been about scaring the hell out of people. It’s quite the opposite.

3 Yahweh appeared to him from afar, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” Jeremiah 31:3 (LSB)

God draws us to him through mercy and lovingkindness, not fear. Paul declared,

4 Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? Romans 2:4 (NLT)

And the Apostle John tells us God’s perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). The old saying is abundantly true, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” God’s Word, the gospel, and Revelation are like honey. Yes, the visions are scary, yes, troubling times are coming, but Jesus is with us, Jesus is victorious over all, and in the end, he wins. That brings comfort, not terror. If we get Revelation right, it makes us want to say, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

We have learned much as we’ve sought to view Revelation and its visions through the eyes of those to whom it was written. That’s a unique and much-needed perspective rarely considered these days. We tend to look around us—the newspaper, world events, and such—then go back to the visions of John to discern their meaning. But that leads to error and even heresy. We will never know how Revelation applies to us until we discover what it meant to the believers in the seven churches of First-Century Asia. This requires more than a little work as we dive into the historical, political, cultural, and religious background of that time. Doing that, though, rewards us with overwhelming connections and applications. So much so that I leave out more cool stuff than I include in my messages.

Here’s what we’ve established: These seven churches were thriving congregations in the wealthiest and most strategically important province of the Eastern Roman Empire. Asia (modern-day western Turkey) had been Roman territory for over 200 years by the time John wrote. It was so peaceful and prosperous that Rome didn’t even need a standing army there. A local proconsul governed it, and that proconsul is most likely the one who exiled John to Patmos.

We’ve also determined that ancient Rome wasn’t primitive even by modern standards. They had everlasting concrete that hardened over time, endless water supplied by aqueducts that delivered nearly a million cubic meters daily, and an economy to die for, with a global trade system any nation would envy, even right now. Rome led the civilized world of that time in technology, military power, organized government, and economic advancement.

We even went back five hundred years in Roman history to understand why the imperial system worked the way it did. The Romans had a sacred hatred of kings ever since Tarquin the Proud took over in 509 BC. Because of his abuses and excesses, they built the Republic on one obsessive principle: no one man gets too much power. But Rome’s fatal flaw was this: its protections worked on politicians but not generals. Caesar figured out that if your army would die for you, you didn’t need the Senate’s permission for anything. So he broke the system. His great-nephew Octavian rebuilt it as a disguised monarchy. He took the title Augustus, a religious title meaning “set apart by the divine.” Why? You can argue with a politician, but how do you argue with someone heaven has chosen?

Augustus and the emperors who followed him took titles like Divi Filius (Son of God), Kyrios (Lord), Soter (Savior), and Epiphanes (God Manifested). When the emperor visited a city, it was called his parousia, the same word we use for Christ’s Second Coming. These weren’t just political titles. They were theological claims that became embedded in Roman life. The church coopted those claims and boldly applied them to Jesus. And this led to an inevitable clash because citizens of Rome couldn’t fully participate in the economy or civic life without acknowledging the emperor’s divine status. That’s the world the seven churches were navigating.

This all intersects as we find John worshipping alone in a cave on Patmos one Sunday morning, having been exiled there. He’s grabbed by the Holy Spirit in a prophetic trance. He hears a voice like a trumpet telling him to write what he sees and send it to the seven churches. And when he turns around, he is confronted by the risen Jesus in all His unbridled glory—the true Son of God, the true Lord, the true Savior, who makes Rome and its emperor look mundane and boring.

Last time we made the connection between the one like a son of man in chapter one and the one like a son of man in the OT book of Daniel, confirming that both are indeed Jesus. Now let’s unpack this text a bit more, even though we could probably spend months on these five verses alone, and we still would not cover everything. If that’s even possible. Back to Rev 1:12,

12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; Revelation 1:12 (LSB)

This must allude, in some way, to the book of Exodus, where Moses was given instructions on making the lampstand of the OT tabernacle and later the temple.

31 “Then you shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand, its base, and its shaft are to be made of hammered work; its cups, its bulbs, and its flowers shall be of the same piece. Exodus 25:31 (LSB)

We probably know it as the menorah, and each component—lampstand, flames, and resulting light—connects to symbols associated with Israel and its calling to be filled with God’s spirit in such a way that they shine, giving light to the nations, drawing them to God. Isaiah prophesied,

6 “I am Yahweh, I have called You in righteousness; I will also take hold of You by the hand and guard You, And I will give You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations, Isaiah 42:6 (LSB)

But this isn’t the earthly temple, and Jesus himself explains what the lampstands are in verse 20.

20 “As for the mystery of … the seven golden lampstands: …the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Revelation 1:20 (LSB)

The seven lampstands in some way represent the seven churches of Asia, which makes a lot of sense when you consider that the church, just like Israel, is meant to be a light for Christ, representing him to the world. Since the number seven exemplifies perfection or completion in the Bible, this might mean that earthly churches have heavenly counterparts in the form of lampstands. This possibility will come into play later as we visit the Asian churches one by one. This heavenly-earthly connection means the church’s struggles and faithfulness are observed in the halls of heaven, as Christ walks among the lampstands actively overseeing what happens in local congregations. Now on to verse 13.

13 and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. Revelation 1:13 (LSB)

Everyone agrees this is Jesus, but there’s debate on what his dress signifies. Because the word used for robe here appears exclusively in the Greek Old Testament and Apocrypha to describe priestly garments, particularly those of the High Priest, some see John as clearly portraying Jesus as the Great High Priest, the Mediator through whom believers approach God and through whom God deals with humanity. This is really interesting when you consider the background I shared about Octavius. Remember how the Senate gave him the title Augustus? And how it was religious, stemming from the word ‘divine’. When the Senate called him Augustus, they weren’t just saying he was great or powerful. They were saying heaven itself had chosen this man. He cleverly took it a step further by slowly and patiently manipulating things so that he would eventually be declared Pontifex Maximus (high priest of Rome). Seizing both religious and political authority was a master move.

Once Augustus held the supreme priesthood, he assumed control of the entire religious system, placing all the colleges of priests under his authority, filling vacant priestly positions, appointing the vestal virgins (a group of elite priestesses who acted as a “living sacrifice” for Rome, and kept a sacred fire burning), and determining the authority of books containing soothsayings and interpretations. By the time of John in the book of Revelation, it had become an unbreakable custom for the Emperor to serve as the empire’s High Priest.

If the robe refers to Jesus as the high priest, John is directly challenging the emperor’s claim to supreme religious authority. Jesus is the true High Priest, greater than any earthly religious figure could hope or pretend to be. But others think his garb points to something else. A robe reaching to the ground and a golden sash signified royalty. Maybe Jesus is seen here as the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Christians in the seven churches would have been familiar with many royals in the Empire, such as puppet kings like the Herods or members of powerful, elite families, but their authority was nothing compared to the Emperor's. He was the King of Kings by earthly standards, as implied by the title he was known by: Autokrator (aw-toh-KRAH-tore), a Greek word meaning one who rules with full power independently.

If the robe is kingly, the meaning is clear. Jesus trumps any earthly ruler. Let’s break that down a bit more, and see what we find starting in Revelation 1:8. Pay close attention to the title Almighty.

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:8 (LSB)

Almighty is translated from the Greek word pantokrator (pon-toe-KRAH-tor). That comes from two words, pan, meaning all, and kratos, meaning power. As the Almighty Pantokrator, God has absolute and universal control over everything, actively exercising dominion over all reality, both in the heavenly and earthly realms. But those of you who are really sharp might say, “Wait, Rev 1:8 technically refers to the first person of the Trinity, Father God, not Jesus.” And you would be right, but consider what Jesus says at the end of Revelation.

12 “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to his work. 13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Revelation 22:12–13 (LSB)

Do the math. If God is the Alpha and Omega and the Lord Almighty (Pantokrator) in Rev. 1:8, and Jesus is the Alpha and Omega in Rev 22:13, then Jesus must be the Lord Almighty as well. While Caesar (autokrator) might claim power and sovereignty over the most powerful Empire on earth, including the right to persecute believers, Jesus (pantokrator) has eternal power and abiding sovereignty over all creation. Checkmate.

This reminds me of the story I’ve told more than once over the years because I enjoy it so much, but it really applies here. As the legend goes, a group of rugged cowboys is sitting around a campfire when a terrifying sight emerges from the brush:

A man comes charging out of the woods riding a monstrous grizzly bear like it’s a pony. He’s using a live rattlesnake as a whip and has a nest of hornets tucked under his hat for a pillow. He skids to a halt, jumps off the bear, and knocks it flat with one punch. He strides over to the fire, picks up the cast-iron skillet, and eats the sizzling bacon and boiling grease in one gulp. Then he grabs the coffee pot and drinks the scalding brew straight from the spout.

The cowboys are trembling, thinking they’ve met the meanest man on earth. The giant wipes his mouth with a handful of prickly pear cactus, looks at them with genuine fear in his eyes, and whispers: “You boys better run... Big Bill is coming.”

Jesus, the Lord Almighty, is Big Bill, and even the most confident of Emperors would wet their britches in his presence.

But which is it? Does Jesus’ garb imply priest or king? How about both? The writer of Hebrews clearly presents Jesus as the Great High Priest and Pantokrator King.

1 God, having spoken long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days spoke to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds, 3 who is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power; who, having accomplished cleansing for sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they. Hebrews 1:1–4 (LSB)

17 Therefore, He had to be made like His brothers in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:17 (LSB)

Let’s keep going. Isn’t this fun?

14 And His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. 15 His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters, 16 and having in His right hand seven stars, and a sharp two-edged sword which comes out of His mouth, and His face was like the sun shining in its power. Revelation 1:14–16 (LSB)

We saw how John’s description of Jesus echoes back to Daniel’s descriptions of his visions, but there’s more. It actually alludes to at least three texts. The first is in Daniel 7, part of which I showed you. Here’s the verses I didn’t.

9 “I kept looking Until thrones were set up, And the Ancient of Days was seated; His clothing was like white snow And the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with fire, Its wheels were a burning fire. 10 “A river of fire was flowing And coming out from before Him; Thousands upon thousands were attending Him, And myriads upon myriads were standing before Him…

We’ve already seen how the Ancient of Days is God the Father. Note how his hair is described as white like wool. Jesus’ hair is described exactly the same. This next part from the same chapter is what we’ve seen…

13 “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And came near before Him. 14 “And to Him was given dominion, Glory, and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not be taken away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed. Daniel 7:9-10,13–14 (LSB)

Everlasting dominion over all, pantokrater. Now we move back to chapter 5 in Daniel.

5 I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, there was a certain man dressed in linen, whose loins were girded with a belt of pure fine gold of Uphaz. 6 His body also was like beryl, his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude. Daniel 10:5–6 (LSB)

Most scholars believe that, in context, this refers to the mighty angel Gabriel. And finally, we turn to the prophet Ezekiel, who also describes his visions.

26 Now above the expanse that was over their heads there was something in the likeness of a throne, like sapphire stone in appearance; and upon the likeness of the throne, high up, was the likeness of one with the appearance of a man. 27 Then I saw from the appearance of His loins and upward something like the gleam of glowing metal with the appearance of fire all around within it, and from the appearance of His loins and downward I saw something with the appearance of fire; and there was a radiance all around Him. 28 As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the radiance all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh. And I saw this, and I fell on my face and heard a sound of a voice speaking. Ezekiel 1:26–28 (LSB)

Scot McKnight, in his commentary on Revelation, rightly says that “What John saw is nothing less than a mosaic of Old Testament images and figures.” And then he lets Bible scholar Ian Paul sum up our text.

Part of this picture is of Jesus as High Priest, the one who mediates for us before God, and this idea is reinforced by the absence of anyone resembling a priest in the visions of worship and Revelation 4–5. Second, much of his appearance makes him resemble the Ancient of Days, God himself on his throne; he is the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15) and the “exact representation of his being” (Heb. 1:3). Third, he resembles an angel, a messenger from God, the one who communicates to us through his life words and actions the revelation of God that we need to hear. Fourth, he displaces all counterfeits that we might find in other religions; it is he, and no other, who nourishes us and holds the keys to the most vital questions of life and death. While human empires rise and fall, his Kingdom is everlasting for it is trustworthy and true. It is his words which cut through to the truth, confirming what is right and refuting what is false. The light of his countenance offers us the light of life. (Paul, Revelation, 75)

As we look at Revelation through the eyes of those to whom it was written, we must imagine those gathered around a courier as he read John’s words aloud 2,000 years ago. First in Ephesus, then Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and finally in Laodicea. They would have hung on every word. Their hearts probably burned within them. You see, as they struggled to navigate life in a world ruled by Rome, it grew harder every day to follow Christ, because the very fabric of existence pressured them to honor the Emperor (as we’ll understand more clearly soon). No doubt, this vision of Jesus, the Great High Priest and Lord God Almighty, rattled them back into the reality of their standing as citizens of a higher kingdom. It encouraged them to hold firm because even though Caesar was autokrater, Jesus was and is Pantokrator.

Just as those seven churches needed reassurance that their ultimate King transcended Rome’s authority, we face our own competing loyalties today. Following Christ demands pledging allegiance to Jesus above any earthly dominion, and if you don’t believe that, just spend some time gazing at the risen Lord here in Revelation. It paints Jesus as so high, so holy, so powerful, so sovereign, and even terrifying that the only proper response is to bend the knee, and that’s only if we can keep from passing out. John will, as we’ll see next time.

Do we experience pressure to compromise our ultimate allegiance? History has shown time and time again that following King Jesus clashes with the actions and agendas of earthly authorities, even if that authority claims to be Christian. Beyond that, culture tries to shape and conform us in ways that run counter to Christ’s will. And even beyond that, there are powers at work in our own lives, idols like wealth or love, competing for our devotion. The vision John gave the seven churches presents Christ as the Lord Almighty, and, as citizens of his now-and-not-yet kingdom, our goal is to live as his faithful subjects on earth amid all the competing pressures, humbly knowing we are secure in a King whose rule no empire can challenge. That’s all we can handle for now. Until next time.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

Let’s continue our journey through the Bible’s most mysterious and misunderstood book in a series called The Prince’s Bride: What Revelation Meant to the Ones it Was Written To. By now, you know that the subtitle is important because it’s the lens through which we are interpreting every verse. The obsession with Revelation, the rapture, and its relation to the tribulation is a fairly recent phenomenon. So rarely do we look at what the book meant to the First-Century Christians for whom it was originally written. This requires, and will yet require, learning much First-Century historical, cultural, and political background. As I’ve mentioned, I’m not sharing information about ancient Roman history for fun (though it is super fun!). I’m weaving it in because it’s the only way to truly put ourselves in the original audience’s shoes and discern what they thought about locusts, beasts, and the whore of Babylon. Don’t forget that, in chapter one, John clearly and specifically tells us who those people are:

9 I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the witness of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11 saying, “Write in a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” Revelation 1:9–11 (LSB, emphasis mine)

Last week, we set the stage for understanding the world of the seven churches by taking a closer look at the Roman province of Asia. When the Bible says “Asia,” it doesn’t mean the continent we think of today. It means the western region of modern-day Turkey, officially called Asia Proconsularis, the most prestigious and wealthy province in the entire Eastern Empire. The seven churches were connected by a major circular road system, and a courier could easily carry John’s letter from city to city, starting at Ephesus and looping all the way around to Laodicea. These weren’t small, obscure towns. They were thriving, cosmopolitan cities that had fully bought into everything Rome stood for. And Rome stood for a lot.

We also talked last week about how sophisticated the Roman world was. This wasn’t a primitive, backwards civilization. Rome governed over 50 million people across three continents with a legal system, infrastructure, and technological sophistication that the world wouldn’t match again until the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. Concrete that got stronger over time, aqueducts delivering nearly a million cubic meters of fresh water daily, underfloor heating, paned glass windows, and theaters with acoustic engineering that could carry a projected voice to 24,000 people. Lead pipes were stamped with the emperor’s name. Every coin, every public building, every road reminded the people living there exactly who was in charge. The seven churches weren’t hiding in caves. They were urban congregations trying to follow Jesus in the middle of the most powerful, sophisticated civilization the world had ever seen.

And on that note, I must take things a step further before we look at our text today, or maybe better to say take a step backward, a five-hundred-year leap to be exact, and introduce you to a man you’ve probably never heard of. His name was Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (LOO-shus tar-KWIN-ee-us soo-PER-bus), or, as he’s better known, Tarquin the Proud. He is the reason the word “king” became a dirty word in the Roman vocabulary. And I mean that almost literally.

According to Roman tradition, Tarquin was the seventh and final king of Rome. And the way Romans told it, he didn’t earn the throne. He took it by force and then acted like a deranged tyrant, murdering his own father-in-law, ignoring the Senate entirely, and executing wealthy men on false charges so he could seize their property. The final straw was a horrible crime. Tarquin’s son raped a noblewoman named Lucretia. She made her family swear an oath of vengeance, and then she took her own life. The revolt that followed in 509 BC ousted the royal family from Rome for good. And when the dust settled, the Roman people took what amounted to a sacred oath: never again would any man be king over them. Tarquin, like Voldemort, became the name that must not be named.

You need to know, for transparency’s sake, that this may be more legend than fact. The historian Mary Beard — one of the foremost scholars of ancient Rome alive today — is pretty straightforward about the fact that this may be less actual history and more founding mythology. But that doesn’t make it any less important, because the Romans believed every word of it and passed this story down from generation to generation.

This led the Roman Republic to operate on a single, obsessive principle: no one man should have too much power. And here’s something that might surprise you. When the Founding Fathers of the United States used the Roman Republic as one of their primary blueprints. Both systems were built on the same core anxiety: what do you do to make sure one person never becomes a tyrant? Rome looked at Tarquin the Proud, America’s founding fathers looked at King George, the Royal Brute of Britain.

The Romans called their system a “mixed constitution,” and it worked in three layers. Two Consuls at the top, elected every year, each with the power to veto the other. Below them was the Senate, a body of elite men who controlled the money and foreign policy. Then the Assemblies, ordinary citizens who voted on laws and elected the Consuls. Sound familiar? It should. The U.S. Senate, the House, and the President all map directly onto the Roman system, though the Romans were actually stricter. One year, not four, and you always had a co-pilot with a veto. They even had an emergency clause: in a genuine crisis, Rome could appoint a Dictator with absolute power for only six months, after which he stepped down. The whole system was designed to do one thing: ensure that no single person could ever become a king.

But the designers of that system made a critical mistake. They built all their protections around politicians. They never factored in generals. Rome kept conquering territory, which required armies and commanders who spent years in the field with their troops. Something happened out there that no one saw coming. Soldiers stopped being loyal to Rome and started revering the generals who led them, paid them, and fought beside them. By the first century BC, the time of John and the seven churches, Rome had produced a series of generals (Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and finally Caesar), and each one figured out the same thing: if your army would literally die for you, you don’t need the Senate’s permission for anything. All those careful checks and balances assumed men would play by the rules. Nobody had accounted for the man who simply decided not to.

Caesar is the one who finally broke the system. He’d conquered Gaul, secured the loyalty of battle-hardened legions, and when the Senate ordered him to disband his army and come home as a private citizen, he crossed the Rubicon River in 49 BC with his troops, constitutionally an act of war against Rome itself. He knew exactly what he was doing, reportedly saying, “The die is cast.” He won the civil war that followed, defeated his rivals, and made himself dictator perpetuo — dictator in perpetuity, not just six months. That’s what finally broke the Republic beyond repair. A group of senators who called themselves the Liberators stabbed him 23 times on the Ides of March, 44 BC, convinced that killing Caesar would restore the Republic. They were wrong.

Into that chaos stepped an 18-year-old named Gaius Octavius, Caesar’s great-nephew and, it turned out, his secretly designated heir. Mark Antony, Caesar’s experienced general who expected to fill the power vacuum, reportedly dismissed him as “a boy who owes everything to a name.” He was wrong. What followed was more than a decade of brutal civil war. Octavian allied with Antony and a general named Lepidus, and together they hunted down Caesar’s killers. They posted public lists of enemies to be executed and seized their property. Cicero, Rome’s greatest orator, was killed, his head and right hand put on display in the Roman Forum as a warning to everyone watching. Eventually, Octavian pushed Lepidus aside. Then he and Antony turned on each other. At the naval Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Octavian’s forces destroyed Antony and Cleopatra’s combined fleet. Both fled to Egypt and committed suicide. Octavian was 32 years old, and the entire Roman world was now his.

Here’s the part that matters most for us. Octavian had watched what happened to Caesar, and he understood his great-uncle had been too honest about what he was. Calling himself Dictator for Life sounded exactly like “king” to the Romans, and they killed him for it. Octavian would be smarter than that, seizing the power of a king while never once using the title in any form. In January of 27 BC, he staged one of the greatest pieces of political theater in human history. He went before the Senate and dramatically offered to hand everything back. He was done, he said, the Republic could return to normal. The Senate, packed with his supporters and terrified of another generation of civil war, panicked and begged him to stay. He “reluctantly” agreed.

What he did next was both brilliant and ruthless. Instead of taking a new title like “King” or “Emperor,” he simply made himself the commander of every important army, gave himself lifetime veto power over any law in the city, and declared himself High Priest of the state religion, all while insisting everyone call him Princeps, “First Citizen.” Just the first among equals. Nothing to worry about. The Senate still met. Elections still happened. Consuls were still chosen. The Republic technically still existed in every outward form. But historians like Ronald Syme have called it exactly what it was: a disguised monarchy. And by the time he died, the generation that remembered a real Republic was gone. He had preserved the form of a democracy while hollowing out every bit of its substance.

Now, I want you to pay special attention to the title the Senate gave Octavius. They didn’t call him King or Dictator, obviously, but they did give him a religious title, Augustus. That word comes from the Latin word for consecrated, set apart, touched by the divine. So when the Senate called him Augustus, they weren’t just saying he was great or powerful. They were saying heaven itself had chosen this man. You can argue with a politician. You can oppose a general. But how do you argue with someone the gods have set apart? Augustus took political power and wrapped it in religious language, which is exactly why that title mattered more to him than any other. There’s a reason I’m sharing all of this, and I promise you, if you lean in here, you will understand how critical this is to interpreting the book of Revelation when your goal is to see it through the eyes of those it was written to, the people living in the seven churches of Asia.

Roman coins and inscriptions called Octavius (AKA Augustus) Divi Filius, "Son of god," because the Senate had officially deified his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, in 42 BC, making Octavian the son of a god. He was called Kyrios, Lord, the one to whom every subject owed ultimate allegiance. He was called Soter, Savior, the man who had rescued civilization from a century of chaos and civil war. A famous inscription from the city of Priene (pree-EE-nee), celebrating Augustus’s birthday, actually uses the word euangelion to describe his arrival in the world. That same word is translated as “gospel” and “good news” in our Bibles, and it’s the word we get “evangelism” from. The inscription also calls him Epiphanes, God Manifested. And when the emperor made a personal visit to a city, the official term for his royal presence was parousia, the very word the New Testament uses for the Second Coming of Christ. All of this should sound familiar because the early church took and directly applied to Jesus every one of those titles (Son of God, Lord, Savior, the one whose coming is parousia). That was not accidental.

By the time John sat on Patmos, writing to the seven churches, the emperors Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian had continued the divine rule that Augustus had begun, becoming in effect the reincarnation of Tarquin the Proud on steroids. Some were more aggressive about it than others, but the system didn’t depend on any one emperor’s personality or demands. It became embedded in the trade guilds, the civic festivals, the city calendar, the coins in people’s pockets, and the temple on the hill they walked past every morning. This was nowhere more prominent than in Asia and the cities of the seven churches.

Now that we’ve established this critical background, let’s track back to where we started. NT scholar Scot McKnight writes that “to discern [Revelation’s] relevance we must stop our speculations and excitations—with their toothless approaches to discipleship—and our obsessions over being raptured or left behind, and we must go to [the island of Patmos] with John… enter his incredible imagination and see what God wants his people to see.” Only then can we attempt to bring its meaning and warnings into the present.

And so, we return to the island of Patmos on a Sunday morning. According to tradition, John is worshipping in a cave. He’s alone, isolated from his brothers and sisters in Asia because an official of the all-mighty Roman Emperor sent him there. We know where that cave is. It’s halfway up a steep, high hill that would be like a mountain on a tiny island. That makes us think about how, throughout Scripture, mere mortals meet the divine on mountains. Abraham met God on Mount Moriah. Moses met God in the burning bush on Mount Sinai, and then he met him there again when God gave him the Law. The prophet Elijah also met God on that same mountain while hiding from Queen Jezebel in a cave. Even in the NT, Peter, James, and John saw Jesus transfigured on a mountaintop.

John’s hands are lifted in the air. He’s singing a Psalm. Suddenly, the Spirit overpowers him, putting him in a holy trance in which the veil between heaven and earth is lifted. A holy, divine, mountaintop encounter unfolds as a voice like trumpets tells him to write what he sees to the seven churches.

12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; 13 and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. 14 And His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. 15 His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters, 16 and having in His right hand seven stars, and a sharp two-edged sword which comes out of His mouth, and His face was like the sun shining in its power. Revelation 1:12–16 (LSB)

Who is this strange fellow? The imagery unmistakably takes us back to the prophet Daniel, who had visions of his own.

13 “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And came near before Him. 14 “And to Him was given dominion, Glory, and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not be taken away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed. Daniel 7:13–14 (LSB)

The Son of Man figure here could not approach the Ancient of Days, God himself, unless he was also divine. Could he be an angel? Note that to this Son of Man is given everlasting dominion over all. That should be enough to reveal his identity, but just in case,

20 And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Matthew 8:20 (LSB)

This is just one of over 81 instances in all four Gospels in which Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man, the one who stood before the Ancient of Days and received everlasting dominion. It’s a title of deity and equality with Yahweh God, not a reference to his humanity. So, John meets the risen Lord in all his glory as he worshipped in that cave; the same glory he had in Daniel’s vision as he stood in the throne room of God.

I love how Eugene Peterson, in his Bible paraphrase called The Message, words our text:

12 I turned and saw the voice. I saw a gold menorah with seven branches, 13 And in the center, the Son of Man, in a robe and gold breastplate, 14 hair a blizzard of white, Eyes pouring fire-blaze, 15 both feet furnace-fired bronze, His voice a cataract, 16 right hand holding the Seven Stars, His mouth a sharp-biting sword, his face a perigee sun. Revelation 1:12–16 (MSG)

The Son of Man that John sees—Jesus in all his unbridled glory—runs defiantly counter to Rome’s emperors with all their unchecked power, insatiable pride, and pervasive influence. Jesus, the Name Above All Names and the one who is the true Son of God, the true savior of the world, the true bringer of good news, breaks into reality, overriding all. To see Jesus as he is short-circuits our senses, as it will John’s; it compels us to bend our knees, be still, and tremble until we can pull ourselves back together. Let’s take a week for that, and then come back next time to break this down even more.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning (one day late this week!). I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

I ended the last message in our new series on Revelation with a story about my grandmother’s sister, who was deaf, and how when they got together, they “talked” 90 miles an hour. My grandmother would always get tired first and sign, “Let’s put down a stob down and pick back up tomorrow,” which refers to an old farming practice where a farmer plowing his field with a horse would mark a row to finish the next day. As a sidebar, a number of you let me know you weren’t familiar with the term “stob.” Here’s the textbook definition of a stob, just so you know: “A stob is a Southern/Appalachian dialect term for a stake, stick, or post driven into the ground as a marker.” We’ve left that stob in frozen ground for two weeks, so a quick review might be helpful before we start plowing again.

Last time, we looked at John’s opening greeting to the seven churches in Asia, which included a wish for grace and peace that comes straight from the heart of the Trinity…

4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from the One who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood— 6 and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the might forever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. Yes, amen. 8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:4–8 (LSB)

We saw the Father revealed as the “One who is” or the “I AM”, the Holy Spirit in His sevenfold fullness, and, of course, the main character of the book: Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

We spent some time unpacking three massive titles John gives to Jesus: the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. For a church feeling the “crushing pressure” of a society that demanded they call Caesar “Lord and God,” these words were a calculated slap in the face to Rome. John was essentially saying, “Caesar might be a big deal in the Empire, but Jesus is the one who conquered death and sits high above every earthly throne.” This isn’t just fluff; it’s the foundation of our hope. If Jesus is the “firstfruits” of the resurrection, then his followers can stand fast even when the world turns against them, knowing that their story doesn’t end in a grave or an exile’s camp.

We also saw where John was and why he was there:

9 I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the witness of Jesus. Revelation 1:9 (LSB)

Along the way, we had to throw out some of those old Sunday School pictures of John in a dungeon. Based on the latest archaeological evidence, we discovered that Patmos wasn’t a desolate rock or a penal colony, but a thriving island community with temples and a stadium. John wasn’t a “nobody” fisherman forgotten in a hole; he was a high-status, influential leader whom Rome deemed too dangerous to execute yet too popular to ignore. When John says he was “on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the witness of Jesus,” it most likely meant he was suffering a particular form of Roman exile intended to silence his influence without making him a martyr. He had freedom of movement and was not imprisoned. Nonetheless, Rome thought they had taken care of the problem by isolating him from the mainland, but you can’t fence in the Word of God. In fact, the harder you try, the more powerful it gets!

Now that we’ve got our bearings, it’s time to pull up that stob and see what happens next.

10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11 saying, “Write in a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” Revelation 1:10–11 (LSB)

Let’s break down verse 10, but before we do, recall that John tells us where he was (Patmos), why he was there (exile), and when he received God’s Word (The Lord’s Day, AKA Sunday). Remember how this compares to what the prophet Ezekiel wrote

1 Now it happened in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month (when), while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles (where), that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2 (On the fifth of the month in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile (why he was there), 3 the word of Yahweh came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and there the hand of Yahweh came upon him.) Ezekiel 1:1–3 (LSB)

We learned that this establishes John as a prophet who receives visions from God, according to the likes of Ezekiel. Now note that John says, “I was in the Spirit” when the visions came. This also echoes back to Ezekiel.

12 Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard a great rumbling sound behind me, “Blessed be the glory of Yahweh in His place.” Ezekiel 3:12 (LSB)

14 So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away; and I went embittered in the wrath of my spirit, and the hand of Yahweh was strong on me. Ezekiel 3:14 (LSB)

And John will use the phrase three more times in Revelation.

2 Immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. Revelation 4:2 (LSB)

3 And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; then I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. Revelation 17:3 (LSB)

10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, Revelation 21:10 (LSB)

This establishes that the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is the source of John’s prophecy, and each time it marks a major transition to a new vision. But what does it mean to be “in the Spirit”? When you look at other NT encounters with the Spirit (such as Peter and Paul’s visions recorded in Acts), you discover that they involve standing outside oneself, where one’s normal consciousness is overcome by divine revelation. So, when John says he was “in the Spirit,” he means a prophetic trance state in which the Holy Spirit supernaturally empowered him to receive a Word or vision from God. This wasn’t normal prayer or meditation. It was an ecstatic experience where John’s consciousness was elevated beyond ordinary perception to see and hear things from the spiritual realm. John is deliberately echoing Ezekiel’s prophetic experiences.

John’s first-century audience would have immediately recognized he was claiming the same prophetic authority as Ezekiel. He was a legitimate prophet receiving genuine revelation from God, not just some exiled old man having dreams on a remote island. Here’s the key for us. John wasn’t making this up or having a bad dream. This was the Holy Spirit supernaturally empowering him to see beyond the veil between heaven and earth. The phrase “in the Spirit” is John’s way of saying that God grabbed hold of him and showed him things he couldn’t see otherwise.

Notice this happened on Sunday during what was probably worship time. Maybe he was having church by himself while separated from his brothers and sisters. There’s something about worship that makes us more receptive to God’s voice and presence. I know that often during worship, when we are all gathered together singing, my mind wanders in a good way. God speaks to me or impresses things upon me in ways peculiar to that time. Now we probably won’t experience trances like John did (I never have), but we are all called to live in the Spirit, which means being responsive and yielded to the Holy Spirit’s guidance in our daily lives. The point isn’t John’s trance state. The point is what God revealed to him in that state, and we’ve got it recorded for us in Scripture.

Let’s try to imagine ourselves there. Tradition has it that John received these visions in a cave. He’s alone on a Sunday morning. He’s worshipping God, most likely singing or chanting a Psalm from memory. Given what we know about early Christian worship and that John was a Jew, it is more than possible that he was meditating on Psalm 118, which seems remarkably appropriate given his circumstances and its mention of Jesus, the cornerstone.

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever. 2 Let all Israel repeat: “His faithful love endures forever.” 3 Let Aaron’s descendants, the priests, repeat: “His faithful love endures forever.” 4 Let all who fear the Lord repeat: “His faithful love endures forever.” 5 In my distress I prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free. 6 The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me? 7 Yes, the Lord is for me; he will help me. I will look in triumph at those who hate me. 8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in people. 9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes…

14 The Lord is my strength and my song; he has given me victory. 15 Songs of joy and victory are sung in the camp of the godly. The strong right arm of the Lord has done glorious things! 16 The strong right arm of the Lord is raised in triumph. The strong right arm of the Lord has done glorious things! 17 I will not die; instead, I will live to tell what the Lord has done. 18 The Lord has punished me severely, but he did not let me die. 19 Open for me the gates where the righteous enter, and I will go in and thank the Lord. 20 These gates lead to the presence of the Lord, and the godly enter there. 21 I thank you for answering my prayer and giving me victory! 22 The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. 23 This is the Lord’s doing, and it is wonderful to see. 24 This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Please, Lord, please save us. Please, Lord, please give us success. 26 Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. 27 The Lord is God, shining upon us. Take the sacrifice and bind it with cords on the altar. 28 You are my God, and I will praise you! You are my God, and I will exalt you! 29 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever. Psalm 118 (NLT)

And then, as he lifts his hands in worship, the Spirit overcomes. He hears a voice behind him that sounds like a trumpet.

11 saying, “Write in a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” Revelation 1:11 (LSB)

The seven churches. These are the fellow Christians he’s separated from, the ones he likely oversaw as an elder, and the ones to whom the visions and the Book of Revelation are given. Here’s where we step back for a while because these seven literal, real local churches in the Roman Province of Asia are critical to our series. If we want to look at John’s visions through the lens of those they were meant for, then we must understand who the Christians that made up these congregations were; what was life like for them? We begin by gaining a general sense of the Roman province of Asia in the first Century.

When we read the word “Asia” in our Bibles (back in verse 4), we must orient our minds a bit. To us, Asia means a massive continent. To a first-century Roman, Asia referred specifically to the western region of modern-day Turkey, which they officially called the province of Asia Proconsularis. This was the most prestigious, wealthy, and strategically important province in the entire Eastern Empire. Here’s what makes it even more interesting. Rome didn’t conquer Asia through war, as it did with most other regions. In 133 BC, King Attalus III of Pergamum died without an heir and willed his entire kingdom to the Roman Republic in his testament. The Romans officially organized it as a province shortly after, and by the time John was writing Revelation in the late first century, it had been a settled Roman territory for over 200 years.

Because Asia was so peaceful and rich, it didn’t require a massive standing army like the rougher provinces, such as Judea and Jerusalem. That made it a Senatorial Province, governed by a Proconsul, a high-ranking official who had already served as a Consul in Rome. This position, proconsul of Asia, was considered the pinnacle of a Roman political career. And most likely the proconsul at that time was responsible for John’s exile.

The seven churches John wrote to were all located in this province, connected by a major Roman circular road system. A courier could efficiently carry John’s letter from church to church along this first-century superhighway, starting at the docks of Ephesus, moving north to Smyrna and Pergamum, then looping southeast through Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and finally Laodicea. These weren’t backwater towns. They were thriving, cosmopolitan cities that had fully bought into the Roman system.

That’s something we need to get straight about the Roman world John was writing to. When we think “first century,” we tend to picture something primitive—dusty roads, mud huts, people wearing animal skins hauling water in clay jars. There certainly were people groups like that back then, as there are now, but that is way, way off for First-Century Rome, particularly in wealthy Asia. At its height, the Roman Empire was a civilization of staggering technological and governmental sophistication. By the mid-first century, Rome had perfected a system of civil engineering and standardized law that allowed it to govern more than 50 million people across three continents. In many ways, their cities were so advanced that it took nearly two millennia for humanity to build anything better. It was not until the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s that we finally outdid what Rome had done. These weren’t backward people living in the ancient equivalent of the Dark Ages. They were living in a high-speed, legally complex, technologically integrated world where lawyers argued cases and judges enforced standardized laws, a world that would feel surprisingly familiar to us.

To name a few examples of their sophistication, the Romans had mastered concrete, not the stuff that crumbles in decades that is used in construction today, but a volcanic ash-based formula that actually got stronger over time. Their concrete would even set in water. We have only just discovered, over the last ten years, how they did it.

Speaking of concrete, the Romans built the Pantheon with the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, and it’s still standing and in use nearly 2,000 years later.

They engineered eleven major aqueducts feeding Rome alone, delivering nearly a million cubic meters of fresh water daily. These aqueducts used gravity-fed gradients so precise that they dropped only a few centimeters over several miles. That water powered a revolutionary public sanitation system with running water in public latrines, maintaining city hygiene that prevented the constant plagues typical of less developed societies. Here’s a little fun fact for free: even the plumbing was regulated in ancient Roman cities. Lead pipes were stamped with the owner's name, the manufacturer's, and sometimes even the emperor's name. Bronze nozzles were installed where private pipes met public mains to prevent people from stealing more water than they paid for. Water commissioners wrote entire essays describing the shameful ways people tried to tap into the public supply and the heavy fines levied against them, kind of like stealing your neighbor’s wifi or Netflix password today!

They even had underfloor heating systems called hypocausts that turned entire rooms into radiant heaters. A Roman official, such as the proconsul of Asia, could walk barefoot on warm marble floors in the dead of winter. They manufactured paned glass windows and built theaters with acoustic engineering so advanced that a person projecting their voice on stage could be heard clearly by 24,000 people in the upper tiers.

Beyond the physical infrastructure, the Romans had developed an efficient and sweeping legal system. By the first century, they had concepts we still use today, such as habeas corpus, the right to trial, and the distinction between civil and criminal law. This legal framework was the civic glue that allowed a merchant in Roman Britain to enter into a binding contract with a supplier in Egypt. The empire was connected by 50,000 miles of paved roads engineered with multiple layers of bedding and drainage (all roads lead to Rome). These roads enabled the rapid movement of the Roman military, which served as the world’s first highly standardized, professionalized standing army. This wasn’t just military might. It was a complete operating system for running a globalized economy. This was 2,000 years ago!

Archaeologists have found a literal mountain in Rome made of 53 million broken shipping jars, all marked with ancient versions of barcodes showing where they came from. Olive oil from Spain, grain from Africa, wine from Gaul—all shipped in bulk across the Mediterranean in a highly organized supply chain. This economic powerhouse was supported by shared coinage and what you might call cultural trademarking, in which cities across three continents shared the same theaters, temples, and forums. In other words, no matter where you went in the empire, and particularly in the province of the seven churches, you felt the Roman presence and ideals in the buildings, landscaping, and everything else.

Here’s what we must understand if we want to look at Revelation through the eyes of those it was meant for. Whether John was on Patmos or walking the streets of Ephesus, where he most likely resided, he wasn’t living in some primitive, backwards world. He was in a world where infrastructure, commerce, law, and culture were all stamped with Roman imperial branding. Every time a Christian family turned on a tap, they likely saw a lead pipe stamped with the name of the emperor they were refusing to worship. Every public building, every coin, every major road reminded them they lived under Roman rule. The seven churches weren’t hiding in caves. They were congregations navigating city life in the most technologically advanced, economically complex, and politically anchored civilization the world had ever seen.

I feel compelled to remind you again that, like all books of the Bible, Revelation wasn’t written to us, yet it was written for us. That’s why I’m not spouting off facts about ancient Rome for fun; it’s critical to understanding what Revelation meant to those to whom it was written.

As we put down a stob for now, we find ourselves observing a "Kingdom vs. Kingdom" showdown that will become even clearer as we progress. The world John writes from is one of staggering contrast. Rome offered everlasting concrete, but John presents us with the Chief Cornerstone, the ever-living One who holds the keys to death itself. The Empire boasted of endless water through its gravity-fed aqueducts, yet John hears a voice like the sound of many waters coming from, as we will see, the one who is Living Water himself. Ultimately, the seven churches lived within an economy to die for with all its benefits, but it came at a price (as we will also see). This is nowhere more stark and apparent than what comes next in one of the most powerful, glorious, awe-inspiring descriptions of the risen Jesus recorded, one that makes Rome, with her earthly glory, look dull and mundane.

12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; 13 and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. 14 And His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. 15 His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters, 16 and having in His right hand seven stars, and a sharp two-edged sword which comes out of His mouth, and His face was like the sun shining in its power. 17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not fear; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. 19 “Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things. 20 “As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Revelation 1:12–20 (LSB)

We will begin unpacking that next time.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

Last time, we launched a new series called The Prince’s Bride, a play on the classic fairy-tale movie The Princess Bride. The title fits because Revelation is the ending of the only true fairy tale—a story with a real Prince and a real damsel in distress, the church, his bride. It has dragons, soldiers, battles, swords, a marriage celebration, and the most supremely happy ending one could dare imagine. It has all the elements of the great myths, but with this tremendous difference: it really happened and is happening in history, in actual time and space.

The series has a subtitle: What Revelation Meant to the Ones it Was Written To. That’s critical because we cannot fully understand what any book of the Bible means to us until we first understand what it meant to its original audience. A classic mistake Christians make is approaching the text from their own present perspective rather than taking the time to discover the perspective of those to whom it was written. The former leads to bad theology, bad application, and a lot of superficial fluff. Like every book of the Bible, Revelation wasn’t written to us, but it was written for us. This will be our fundamental interpretive principle throughout this study.

In the first message, we covered verses 1-4:

1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His slaves the things which must soon happen; and He indicated this by sending it through His angel to His slave John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the witness of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it, for the time is near. 4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from the One who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, Revelation 1:1–4 (LSB)

Here we learned that Revelation is unusual in that it has a threefold purpose as an apocalyptic work, a prophetic work, and a letter. The word apocalypse meant “unveiling” or “uncovering” to the original audience, not the end-of-the-world disaster movies we think of today. Apocalyptic literature was a well-known genre that followed a predictable pattern. An otherworldly figure appears to reveal hidden truths about both the unseen spiritual world around us and the future destination God’s driving us toward. So for those to whom Revelation was written, the focus would not have been on end times and judgment, but God’s ongoing redemptive work in the world.

We also talked about the four major interpretive views of Revelation. One sees it as a pre-written record of human history unfolding in real time. Another sees all the prophecies as having been fulfilled in the First Century. Yet another believes most of the prophecies haven’t happened yet and are all about the future. And another sees everything as spiritual symbolism. I’ve studied these views for over thirty years, and, in my humble opinion, an honest person has to admit they all have holes. But, at the same time, they also all bring something to the table when it comes to understanding what John’s visions mean. Ultimately, we all should be able to agree on this: there are Christ-honoring, godly, intelligent Christians in each camp, so it’s wrong to be dogmatic.

Finally, we saw that John wrote this letter to seven real churches in seven real cities in Asia, which we would call modern-day Turkey. It’s the minds of the believers in those churches that we will try to get into. To do that, we must spend time learning about who they were and what their times were like. So expect our progress to be slow. We’ll probably be in chapter one for quite some time. But that’s okay, because we’re going to discover some incredible things along the way.

Now, let’s back up one verse and move forward.

4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from the One who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Revelation 1:4–5a (LSB)

John, in the style of a letter, if you recall, greets the Christians of seven local churches in Asia. It’s interesting how he does that. Wishing them “grace and peace” was common, but from whom he wished them wasn’t. Study these verses carefully, and you discover it’s the Trinity.

The One who is and who was and who is to come. What does that remind us of? I’ll give you a hint. The talking torch. A holy smokes moment.

13 Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am about to come to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ And they will say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” 14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” Exodus 3:13–14 (LSB)

Another acceptable translation of I AM is the One who is. So John wishes the churches grace and peace from God the Father and “the seven Spirits who are before His throne. That’s odd and maybe a bit spooky, but it’s surely a direct reference to (note the numbers in parentheses),

(1) The Spirit of Yahweh will rest on Him, (2) The spirit of wisdom and (3)understanding, (4) The spirit of counsel and (5) might, The spirit of (6) knowledge and (7) the fear of Yahweh. Isaiah 11:2 (LSB)

So we have God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and finally, as you might guess, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Since Jesus is the main character of the book, he comes in third and gets three titles of his own. Bible scholar Grant Osborne unpacks them for us.

As “faithful witness,” Jesus in his earthly life is the model for his followers of one who perseveres in faithfulness to God in the midst of opposition and persecution. The witness theme in the book is closely tied to martyrdom. Jesus’ witness (also 3:14) is reproduced in the faithful lives of the saints as they remain true to God in a world that has turned against them…

Jesus is also “firstborn from the dead,” turning to his post-resurrection glory. There are two emphases here: First, he is sovereign over life and death... In Colossians 1:15 Christ is “firstborn over all creation,” meaning supreme or sovereign Lord over God’s creation. So Christ controls the powers of death and life on behalf of his followers. … God is sovereign over his creation, and so is his Son. Second, he is the prototype for those who will be raised with him. As in 1 Corinthians 15:20–23, Christ was raised as the “firstfruits” who guaranteed our own future resurrection from the dead. Throughout, Revelation stresses that all the faithful will share in his resurrection and exaltation (see 2:7, 11; 7:15–17; 20:6; 22:2–3, 14, 17).

The emphasis on Jesus’ absolute sovereignty continues in “ruler of the kings of the earth.” This is another central theme, preparing for Christ as “King of kings and Lord of lords” in 19:16. The same Christ who is Lord over life and death is naturally sovereign over all earthly rulers. This is [a slap in the face to] Caesar, thought to be king of kings in his own earthly empire, with the rulers over provinces as [servants] of the emperor.1

Jesus’s three descriptive titles here, along with our scholar’s comments, prepare us to view Revelation through the eyes of those for whom it was meant: Jesus is the great and faithful witness who held fast under the crucible of unimaginable persecution. He was steadfast unto death, crucified for being that witness, but he came back as the firstborn from the dead, promising the same for his followers. He was and is the true king of all the earth, Lord over every power and rule and authority, every and all earthly empires. If I were suffering, if my world were terrifyingly uncertain under the rule of hostile earthly authorities, if my family and I were experiencing dire consequences for following Jesus, my ears would perk up right about now. Remember that.

Let’s keep going. Again, in the style of a classic NT letter, John lifts up a beautiful praise anthem, an exaltation to Jesus.

To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood— 6 and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the might forever and ever. Amen. Revelation 1:5b–6 (LSB)

John highlights three things:

1. Jesus loves us—this is probably the most overlooked truth in the entire book of Revelation. What John says here reminds me of what he wrote in his gospel.

16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16 (LSB)

2. Jesus released us from our sins — released in Greek carries the idea of untying something to set it free. The Bible teaches us that we come into the world in bondage to sin. But Jesus unbinds us through his work on the cross; he released us from sin by his blood. But it’s more than just saving us from something. The third thing John highlights is,

3. Jesus saved us FOR becoming priests and priestesses in his kingdom. This points back to Israel's role as God’s chosen people, when God proclaimed,

6 and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.” Exodus 19:6 (LSB)

Just as the Israelites were a kingdom of priests under the old covenant through Moses, Christians are the same through the new covenant in Jesus. The Apostle Peter proclaimed,

9 But you are a chosen family, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 1 Peter 2:9 (LSB)

This idea that believers make up a kingdom of priests and priestesses has both a now and not-yet application. We live like citizens of this holy kingdom now, even though it hasn’t been fully realized. One day, when Christ returns, he will literally set up this kingdom on a renewed earth, and then we will rule and reign with him. This truth is echoed throughout Revelation,

10 “And You made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth.” Revelation 5:10 (LSB)

6 Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years. Revelation 20:6 (LSB)

Don’t forget, however, that the supreme, overarching focus here and throughout the book is not on us or the end-times scenario, but on King Jesus and his return. Next, John gives us a taste of what’s coming.

7 Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. Yes, amen. 8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:7–8 (LSB)

NT Wright, in his commentary on Revelation, says that here in chapter one, John is asking us to imagine what it would look like “if the curtain between heaven and earth were suddenly pulled up, revealing the Jesus who had been there all along but whom we had managed either to ignore or to cut down to our own size? This is the answer: a Jesus who is mind-blowing, dramatically powerful but also gentle and caring; a Jesus in and through whom we see his father, God the creator; a Jesus who has spoken, and still speaks, words which explain what is going on in the present, and warn of what will happen in the future.”

Before we move on, it’s a good time to note something unusual about the Book of Revelation. It is unique among other NT books in that it has no direct quotations from the Old Testament, not one. But, as one scholar writes, it “contains more Old Testament allusions than any other New Testament book,” probably more than all of them combined.

The estimates vary, but scholars consistently identify:

• 278 of 404 verses (nearly 70%) contain OT references or allusions

• Somewhere between 500-1,000+ allusions total (counts vary by methodology)

• Those allusions reference 28 of 39 OT books

• Approximately 2:1 ratio - two OT allusions per verse

Our final verses for this message demonstrate this in a big way.

9 I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the witness of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, Revelation 1:9–10 (LSB)

John tells us where he was (Patmos), why he was there (exile; more later), and when he received God’s Word (Sunday). Think about that, now look at,

1 Now it happened in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2 (On the fifth of the month in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile, 3 the word of Yahweh came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and there the hand of Yahweh came upon him.) Ezekiel 1:1–3 (LSB)

The prophet Ezekiel tells us when (July 31, 593 BC) he received God’s Word, where (the river Chebar) he was, and why he was there (the Jews had been exiled to Babylon). John shows us, and his 1st Century audience, that, just as Ezekiel received his prophecies from the Lord, so has he.

Now, let’s go back and break down verse nine because it sets the stage for the special lens we want to look at Revelation through.

9 I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the witness of Jesus. Revelation 1:9 (LSB)

John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus. John positions himself relationally. He is a brother to the Christian recipients of this letter (the seven churches of Asia). I would imagine he does this to identify with them, since John was most likely a high-profile overseer of those churches. They would have known him as an authority figure, but he wanted them to see him as a fellow Christ follower, experiencing all that came with that. Grant Osbore writes,

There are three areas in which John and his readers share, and they are interrelated… suffering in persecution (A) and the endurance it demands (A) are seen as part of the kingdom (B) experience for believers. In Revelation, enduring affliction and opposition means a lot more than just gritting your teeth and getting through it. It means overcoming temptation and remaining faithful and true to God when the world has turned against you. You must wait on God and stand fast against the evil demands of secular society. The basis for doing so is the kingdom, which means God has begun his reign. We are both citizens of heaven (Phil 3:20) and aliens in this world (1 Pet 1:1, 17; 2:11). The believer already participates in Christ’s royal reign and lives a life that is antithetical to the demands of the earthly realm. As Paul says in Acts 14:22, it is “through many hardships” that we will “enter the kingdom of God.”2

Modern-day Western Christians downplay this aspect of Christ’s kingdom 2,000 years later. Or at least we try to eliminate it, as if we could create an environment where Jesus’ followers aren’t persecuted. We can do it for a while, but in the end, if we truly follow Christ and his teachings, we will face trials and tribulations. John presents suffering and opposition for kingdom Christians as a package.

The not-yet kingdom of God, this side of the King’s return, is one of afflictions where perseverance is required. Jesus warned of this,

33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (LSB)

Why will there be suffering?

18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. 20 “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. John 15:18–20 (LSB)

As someone said, “No one simply likes Jesus. You either crown him as king or you kill him.” And so it will be for those who follow him, if they truly live out his life and teachings.

I John… was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the witness of Jesus. John reveals where he was relationally and where he was geographically, which tells why he was there situationally. He was on the island of Patmos because of his relationship with and calling by Jesus.

Patmos is an island in the Aegean Sea located off the coast of Asia Minor, about 10 miles long and 6 miles wide at its broadest point. Mt. Elias, the highest point on the island, rises more than 800 feet. A cave on a hill in the southern part of the island, below the monastery of St. John the Divine, is the traditional site of John’s visions.

We know that Roman dissidents were often banished to islands, and Patmos would most likely have been one of them, since it was isolated from the mainland. Many scholars believe John, as a prominent overseer of Christians living in important Roman cities, was exiled. Yet, recent archaeological evidence has overturned what we preachers have preached about Patmos for years. It was not a penal colony for Roman prisoners. The island was remote, but it had as many as a thousand thriving residents, as evidenced by the numerous temples, a gymnasium, and a stadium that were unearthed. So John wasn’t imprisoned there. Roman exile practices shed light on this. Roman law distinguished between:

• Deportatio (in insulam)—a formal sentence involving loss of citizenship and property. It was a permanent punishment pronounced by the emperor. The exile was sentenced to place of banishment (sometimes in chains).

• Relegatio (ad insulam)—a milder penalty with no loss of citizenship or property. It could be temporary or permanent. It was pronounced by a provincial governor. It involved banishment from Rome but freedom of movement at the exile location.

John most likely suffered relegatio, not deportatio—meaning he had freedom of movement on Patmos, could interact with inhabitants, procure writing materials, and maintain correspondence with his fellow Christians. Relegatio involved removing dissidents deemed inconvenient to execute, and it often applied to aristocrats and elites, as well as popular figures who would become martyrs. This makes sense. John would have had influence over thousands of Roman citizens in a major region. But what doesn’t make sense is how a fisherman from a little Judean town could be so dangerous that a Roman governor would exile him. But then we remember, at the crucifixion,

15 And Simon Peter was following Jesus, and so was another disciple. Now that disciple was known to the high priest, and entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest, 16 but Peter was standing at the door outside. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the doorkeeper, and brought Peter in. John 18:15–16 (LSB)

So, John was not a nobody. Rome didn’t exile random people to islands; that punishment was reserved for influential figures whose execution would create political problems. And John fit that profile. He was the leader of seven major churches in Asia, had social connections to the Jerusalem elite, came from a prosperous fishing family, and was the last living apostle with a popular following. Rome could have executed him, but that would have created a martyr and inspired the very movement they wanted to suppress. So they chose exile, relegatio. Remove him from the region, silence his influence, avoid the martyr problem. If John were just a poor, unknown fisherman, they would’ve killed him. But he was too significant for that. So they sent him to Patmos, thinking they’d neutralized him. But God had other plans.

All of this helps us shape the lens through which we view Revelation. The visions were given to a pastor and prophet who was suffering for his faith at the hands of a powerful empire, and he recorded them for a people experiencing the same. Next time, we will flesh that out further, but for now, know that the original audience of Revelation (Christians living in the Roman province of Asia) would not have been encouraged by, or understood, a book that had no bearing on their immediate, desperate situation. If Revelation meant something real and practical to them in their tribulation, under their kingdom citizenship, requiring their perseverance, then it means something real and practical to us in ours. I think that’s the real key to understanding the book, even more than connecting it to OT prophecies.

Growing up, I had an aunt who was deaf. My grandmother (her sister) was not deaf but was fluent in sign language. It’s surprising to know—and quite the spectacle at that—when they got together, they “talked” 90 miles an hour. My grandmother would always tire first and sign, “Let’s put down a stob and pick back up tomorrow.” That refers to an old farming practice where, at the end of the day, the farmer plowing his field would mark a row to finish the next day.

So let’s put down a stob and pick back up next week.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

Life is not a fairy tale. Maybe that’s why, as far back as you go, fairy tales have been told. They address the world’s badness with a hero, a quest, and a happy ending. Fairy tales are much more than just stories because they resonate with deep human truths about good versus evil, the need for a savior, and the existence of a spiritual realm beyond the material world. Some of the most loved and iconic fairy tales feature the rescue-restoration-marriage pattern, in which the prince comes to the damsel in distress, defeats what’s holding her captive, and marries her in the end with a big celebration—the happily ever after.

• Sleeping Beauty - Prince awakens the cursed princess with a kiss, breaks the spell, they marry, and live happily ever after.

• Cinderella - The Prince searches for the mysterious woman from the ball, finds her via the glass slipper, they marry, and live happily ever after.

• Snow White - Prince discovers Snow White in her death-like sleep, his kiss breaks the curse, they marry, and live happily ever after.

• Beauty and the Beast - Belle’s love breaks the curse, transforming the Beast back into a prince. They marry and live happily ever after.

• The Frog Prince - Princess (reluctantly) kisses the frog, he transforms back into a prince, they marry, and live happily ever after.

• Rapunzel - The Prince climbs her hair, rescues her from the tower, they eventually reunite and marry, and live happily ever after.

But, alas, fairy tales aren’t true. Or are they? Or maybe better to ask, is there such a thing as a true fairy tale with a happily ever after? There is one, and that story is told in the most popular book of all time. The cosmic, grand, overarching story of the Bible has all the makings of a fairy tale, and particularly, if it’s anything, the Book of Revelation is the ending of the only true fairy tale, with a real Prince, and a real damsel in need of saving, the church, his bride. It has dragons, soldiers, battles, swords, a marriage celebration, and the most supremely happy ending one could dare imagine.

Hence, a new series beginning today: The Prince’s Bride, the title of which is a shameless play off of one of the greatest and funniest fairy tales ever put to film, The Princess Bride. But my series has a subtitle: What Revelation Meant to the Ones it Was Written To. That’s super important because it’s a take on the Bible’s ending that isn’t often presented. Concerning this, one Bible scholar and professor writes,

In my classes over the years when teaching this great book, I make a final plea in the opening lecture regarding the necessity of exegesis as the proper way—indeed the only way—that leads to understanding. It may seems strange that one should have to make this plea at all for the reading or studying of a biblical book, but it has been necessary because many of my students have had to shed some lamentable readings they have brought to the text. The unfortunate reality is that almost all of the popular stuff written on the Revelation, which tends to be well known by many of these students, has scarcely a shred of exegetical basis to it. Such interpreters usually begin with a previously worked out eschatological scheme that they bring to the text, a scheme into which they then spend an extraordinary amount of energy trying to make everything in the text fit, and which they then attempt to defend, but with very little success.

So rule number one is that which the reader should bring to all the biblical documents, especially the Epistles, namely, that the interpreter’s first task is to seek [the author’s]—and therewith the Holy Spirit’s—original intent as much as that is possible. The primary meaning of any text, including apocalyptic texts, is that which [the author] himself intended, which in turn must be something the original readers would have been capable of understanding.1

In other words, we cannot fully understand what any book of the Bible means to us until we first understand what it meant to its original audience. A classic mistake Christians make is approaching a text from their own present perspective rather than taking the time to discover the perspective of those to whom it was written. This leads to bad theology, bad application, and a lot of superficial fluff.

Take one of the most popular verses in the Bible, Jeremiah 29:11: ”For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We often read this as a personal guarantee of individual career success, financial stability, or a smooth life. It’s a favorite for graduation cards and Instagram bios. But when we consider the original context and audience, we discover these words were written to a group of Hebrew exiles in Babylon who had just lost their homes and their Temple. God was telling them they would be in captivity for 70 years, but not to give up because one day he would bring his plans for them to fruition. Our perspective makes it about individual comfort now. The original perspective makes it about communal faithfulness during long-term suffering.

Or how about the uber-famous verse Philippians 4:13: ”I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” This is frequently used as a motivational “superpower” verse. We apply it to winning a football game, hitting a sales target, or passing a difficult exam. But Paul wrote this from a prison cell. He was discussing the secret of being content, whether he was well-fed or starving, in plenty or in want. Our perspective turns it into a formula for achievement. The original perspective reveals it as a formula for enduring hardship.

Like every book of the Bible, and most certainly the most mysterious book of them all, we must constantly keep in mind that it wasn’t written to us, but it was written for us. This will be a fundamental guideline as we go through Revelation. That being said, go ahead and prepare yourself for when we come to a verse or text, and I say, “Yeah, I have no idea what that meant to them. They got it, but I don’t. Here are some thoughts on what it might be.” I’ve said this over and over many times because it is one of the biggest things I’ve learned in thirty-plus years of preaching the Bible: run from anyone who has all the answers for every text. This is triply true for Revelation.

As we prepare to begin our journey through the book of Revelation, I'm reminded of something that happened to me when I was around 16. At the time, I helped my dad run a little country store and gas station in Equality, Alabama. It was barely a dot on the map near Lake Martin. A customer family staying at their lake house for the summer invited me to swim with their daughter, who was about my age. I'm ashamed to tell you, but I wasn't as much interested in her as I was in her best friend, so I accepted. It was decided that we would swim out on the lake at Chimney Rock. It was called that because it was a rock that jetted out of the water like a chimney, the top of which was higher than a very tall tree. The girl I liked challenged me to jump off, which many people did, but I did not intend to do. Wanting to impress her, I climbed up and stood at the edge, regretting my decision. It was terrifying. But love makes us do crazy things. I jumped. Forgive me for the image I'm putting in your mind here, but after what seemed like an eternity floating to the surface, I had a hard time finding my swim trunks. It wasn't because they came off.

A part of me is quite apprehensive about taking us through the book of Revelation, like standing atop Chimney Rock. But we're here, and we might as well jump. Let's begin.

1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His slaves the things which must soon happen; and He indicated this by sending it through His angel to His slave John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the witness of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Revelation 1:1–2 (LSB)

In my first year of Bible college, I sat in a class on Revelation. But early on, while answering a question, I referred to it as “Revelations” and was quickly humbled by the professor, who corrected me in front of everyone: “It’s Revelation, not revelations.” I never made that mistake again. He did that because I was doing exactly what I mentioned earlier. Today, we think of revelation as “a surprising and previously unknown fact, especially one that is made known in a dramatic way.” So, in my mind, John received revelations; God surprised him with visions that revealed all these enigmatic things. But in truth, revelation is the best word we could come up with because the original word was hard to match in English. In fact, the original Greek word (apokalypsis), translated as "revelation" in verse one, is the source of a modern word we are all familiar with: apocalypse. So, another rendering would be the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ. In First Century Greek, apocalypse meant “unveiling” or “uncovering”—like pulling back a curtain to reveal what’s been hidden. One scholar explains:

…the original word, apocalypse, wasn’t well known at the time of earlier translations into English. Now, of course, apocalypse, and its cousin apocalyptic, have become well known in English. Perhaps too well known: they have come to refer not so much to the sudden unveiling of previously hidden truth, but to major events, violent and disturbing events such as natural disasters (earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis) or major and horrific human actions such as genocide in Cambodia or Rwanda.

But that isn’t quite the sense that revelation or apocalypse has in this book. John is picking up a way of writing well known in the Jewish world of the time. … this way of writing was designed to correspond to, and make available, the visions and “revelations” seen by holy, prayerful people who were wrestling with the question of the divine purpose.2

Here’s a perfect example of where we take our present back to the past rather than the other way around. We hear the word “apocalypse” and think of movies like Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, or 2012. So, automatically, The Book of Revelation becomes for us the end of the world Bible blockbuster (Michael Bay style). But no one in the first century would have thought that, because an apocalyptic work was a well-known, specific type of literature that followed a predictable pattern. An otherworldly figure (usually a heavenly messenger) shows up to reveal hidden truths to a human being. What gets revealed is reality beyond what we can see with our eyes; truth that exists in two dimensions at once. First, there’s the time dimension: these visions show where history is headed, usually toward God’s final rescue and judgment. Second, there’s the space dimension: they pull back the curtain on a supernatural realm that exists right now, running parallel to our everyday world. So when you’re reading apocalyptic literature, you’re getting a guided tour of both the unseen spiritual world around us and the future destination God’s driving history toward. It’s not random symbolism or drug-induced hallucinations—it’s a recognized literary form with rules and conventions that the original readers would have understood immediately. So, for those to whom Revelation was written, the focus would not have been on end times and judgment, but God’s ongoing redemptive work in the world.

Quickly, we note in verse one that the apocalypse was given to John. We could spend a lot of time here because there is more than a little debate on which John we are talking about. But historically, the church has ascribed it to the Apostle John, the most beloved disciple of Jesus and the author of the Gospel of John and the three letters (1, 2, 3 John). That’s what we are going with. Now verse 3,

3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it, for the time is near. Revelation 1:3 (LSB)

This is the first of seven beatitudes in the book. Beautitudes are statements that begin with “blessed are” like the ones Jesus gave in Matthew 5. Maybe at the end of series, we will go back and look at them all.

In verse one, we learn the book is apocalyptic. Here in verse 3, we learn that it is also a prophetic book. Where other biblical books contain prophecy, this is the only book that identifies itself as prophecy. We tend to think of prophecy as focusing only on future events, but according to Paul, that’s not the case.

3 But one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and encouragement. 1 Corinthians 14:3 (LSB)

Prophetic edification, exhortation, and encouragement happen, as one fellow puts it, “through the related factors of preaching and prediction, or as some put it, through forthtelling the word of the Lord for the present and foretelling future events.”3 Study the Old and New Testaments carefully, and you discover that dual nature of the prophetic word. Sometimes it has application to the present, sometimes to the future, but its intent is always to encourage and build up believers, not make them afraid or discouraged.

Here we need to mention the four major interpretive views of Revelation, the doctrinal bent by which folks read the book, because each view frames prophecy differently as to timing or meaning.

• One view sees it as a pre-written record of human history, beginning with the time of Paul and going to the end of the world. This has been the most dominant view since the Protestant Reformation. So in this take, fulfillment of the prophecies is happening in real time, unfolding as we speak.

• Another sees all the prophecies as having been fulfilled in the time of the original audience. Everything recorded by John happened in the First Century or so, and that’s it.

• Yet another believes most of the prophecies haven’t happened yet. The prophecies are all in the future, a detailed map of the world’s end (not applying to the times they were written at all), and the action doesn’t really begin until Christ returns.

• And then another sees everything, and I do mean everything, as spiritual symbolism. Nothing’s to be taken literally.

I know what you’re all thinking. Which view is right? Which view do you take, pastor? There was a time many years ago when I would have proudly told you, to the degree that, in my mind, all the others were categorically wrong. This view colored my understanding of the whole Bible, not just Revelation. In fact, those of us in that doctrinal tribe, and there were many (still are), saw this one view as so critical, we almost, if not downright determined, Christian fellowship by it.

Take it for what it is worth, but I have learned that when it comes to Revelation, especially this book, it is difficult to be dogmatic. But my goodness, folks are mighty unbending about it. I have full confidence in saying this after studying these views for over thirty years: an honest person has to admit they all have holes. Some perhaps less than others, but each has problems that cannot be reconciled. And yet, an honest person must also admit that each brings something to the table.

Listen, there are Christ-honoring, godly, intelligent Christians in each camp. So again, I think it’s wrong to be dogmatic, to be a jerk about it. I will probably mention some of these views along the way, so far as they are helpful, but I won’t lean too much on any of them because I’ve already told you the lens we are looking through is this: what did it mean to those it was meant for? So don’t get upset with me if I don’t spend time trying to determine if the locusts mentioned are Apache helicopters or if the antichrist is some present world leader. That’s not our focus. Instead, we will try to discern what First Century Christians thought they were and how it applied to their lives, and then, if we can, we’ll apply it to ours. On that note, let’s move on to verse 4.

4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from the One who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, Revelation 1:4 (LSB)

Here, John tells us exactly who this apocalypse and prophecy were directed towards. Christians in the seven churches of Asia (more on them soon, but know this would be modern-day Turkey, and not the continent of Asia as we think of it). But there’s something interesting in verse four. Look at three more texts and tell me if you see similarities.

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:1–2 (LSB)

1 The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, 2 for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever: 3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. 2 John 1–3 (LSB)

1 Simeon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received the same kind of faith as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 2 Peter 1:1–2 (LSB)

This section of the book (like all NT books other than the Gospels and Acts) is structured like a First-Century letter.

So now we see that Revelation is unusual among all the books of the Bible once again in that it has a threefold purpose: an apocalyptic work, a prophetic work, and a letter meant to be read among seven real churches. It’s the minds of the believers in those churches that we will try to get into. To do that, we must spend much more time learning about who they were and what their times were like. Expect our progress to be slow. We will probably be in chapter one for quite some time.

Having said that, we need to wrap things up for today, but it occurs to me that you might have been troubled by my referring to Revelation and the Bible as a fairy tale. I get that. But think of what was going on in the life of CS Lewis in September 1931. Lewis, an avowed atheist, struggled with Christianity because he loved ancient myths but couldn’t believe the gospel was anything more than another beautiful story, a fairy tale. During a late-night walk at Oxford, his dear friend and author of LOTR, J.R.R. Tolkien, made an argument that shattered Lewis’s resistance.

Tolkien essentially told Lewis: You love the Norse myths, the dying-and-rising god stories, because they speak to something deep and true in the human heart. But what if those myths aren’t just lies? What if they’re echoes, reflections, distant memories of a truth humanity can’t quite forget? The pagan myths are humanity’s attempts to tell the story we know must be true.

Then Tolkien delivered the knockout: The story of Jesus is the True Myth, the only true fairy tale. It has all the elements—the dying god, the sacrificial king, the defeat of evil, the restoration of all things—but this one actually happened in history. It happened in actual time and space, in Palestine under Pontius Pilate. God became man, died, and rose again not as legend but as fact.

Lewis later wrote that at that moment, he understood: “The story of Christ is simply a true [fairy tale]: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.”

As we close, let me remind you once more. Revelation, like all the Bible, wasn’t written to you, but it was written for you. The last book of the Bible points us to the Prince of Peace. We will see, in all its glory, that he is coming back to rescue his Bride from all the darkness in the world. He wants you to be a part of that. Until next time.

Thanks for reading the YESTERDAY section of my Substack, where I post Sunday’s sermon notes on Monday morning. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below.

We are now three weeks into a special Advent series, and that means Christmas is practically here. It’s crazy how December 1st comes, and we think we have plenty of time to get everything together, and then, before we know it, we’re up at midnight Christmas Eve, madly searching for scotch tape or cursing the fools who designed such intricate toys requiring assembly. Of course, it’s the opposite for kids (you remember), it takes forever for Christmas to come, even when December gets here. What a contrast the season is: the kids think Christmas will never arrive, and the parents can’t believe it’s already here!

Well, anyway, the mascot, if you will, of our Advent series this year is the Star of Christmas, the one the wise men saw 2,000 years ago, a sign that the King of the Jews (and of the whole world) was born. We’ve seen how the Star was important because it guided the Magi to Jesus. And that’s of cosmic, this-changes-everything importance because Jesus shows us the way to God. We need to be shown the way to God because we can’t find our way in the deep spiritual darkness we are all lost in. The star that led the wise men to Jesus reminds us that Jesus is the light of hope we need so badly, leading us out of the darkness into a relationship with his Father and our Creator.

One pastor writes,

What is coming upon the world is the Light of the World. It is Christ. That is the comfort of it. The challenge of it is that it has not come yet. Only the hope for it has come, only the longing for it. In the meantime we are in the dark, and the dark, God knows, is also in us. We watch and wait for a holiness to heal us and hallow us, to liberate us from the dark. Advent is like the hush in a theater just before the curtain rises. —Buechner

If not for Jesus, life would be hopeless. He is the light of the world, the One who rescues us from darkness. One of his names is the Morning Star.

We’ve also seen how the star that led the wise men to Jesus also guides us into the truth that even though we are utterly unlovable as we are because of sin, God loves us anyway. We love God because HE first loved us; God is love. And He loved us so extravagantly, he gave his one and only Son so that we could receive eternal life.

The Star of Christmas isn’t finished revealing things to us, though. Let’s revisit Matthew’s account of the wise men and see what that is.

Matthew 2:1–10 (ESV) — 1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: 6 “ ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ” 7 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” 9 After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

Verse ten is interesting and enlightening. Luke described the magi’s reaction to finding Jesus in a dramatic way. When they saw the star, they were not just joyful; they were exceedingly rejoicing with great joy. The words rejoice and joy come from the same root word in the Greek. The word great is from the Greek megas, meaning great or loud, from which we get the prefix mega, a common and probably overused prefix at that. We call someone a mega-star, like Taylor Swift or Slim Whitman; or something a mega-hit, like the song “Baby Shark” or the delicacy known as Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

When we put all that together, we don’t have just a Yay! kind of joy; we have a shouting, hollering, jumping, dancing, mega-joy. They weren’t just thankful for the star’s guiding them to the King; they were abundantly, over-the-top overjoyed (mega-joy). What that star did for them, Jesus does for us. Jesus brings mega joy.

But what is joy? It is defined as a feeling of great pleasure or happiness, a response to something, not rational or thought-out. As one pastor explains, “[Joy] … is not an idea. It is not a conviction. It is not a persuasion or a decision. It is a feeling. Or — I use the words interchangeably here — an emotion. One of the marks of the difference between an idea and an emotion or feeling is that you don’t have immediate control over your feelings or your emotions. You can’t snap your fingers and decide to feel something.”

Joy is a reaction much like fear. You don’t decide to be afraid. Imagine you’re swimming in the ocean and you see a fin break the surface as it heads your way. You don’t start thinking: Hmm…I’m in the ocean. Sharks are in the ocean. Sharks have razor-sharp teeth. They use those teeth to bite. I should be afraid right now. OK, I’m making the decision to be afraid. No, you immediately react by frantically getting out of the water. And then you throw away those swim trunks.

The emotion of joy is universal. All people, from all cultures and times, know some degree of it. But Christians know it in a way unique to our faith. You might even say Christianity has a corner on joy. From the very beginning, Jesus was associated with joy. Look in Luke 2, a familiar Christmas text where an angel announced Jesus’ birth to shepherds.

Luke 2:8–11 (ESV) — 8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

The angel brought good news of great joy: a savior was born (great, as in megas). Why does that bring mega joy? A savior is someone who rescues a person or people from exceptional danger. When you are rescued from a life-threatening experience, joy invades you like an army. If you’re staring down a shark as you dangle in the black abyss of the ocean and, just as its deadly mouth spreads open to make a snack of your legs, someone snatches you out of the water, you don’t just say, “Thanks, dude.” And walk calmly away. You throw your arms around your savior, scream with relief and joy, and then you throw away those swim trunks.

But what exactly are we saved from? Another angel gives us the answer we’ve already discovered. Before Jesus was born and his parents were officially married, Joseph found out Mary was pregnant.

20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the One who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 “And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:20–21 (LSB)

Jesus’ name means God saves, and what he saves us and all creation from is the darkness sin brought into the world. Don’t forget that sin isn’t a personal problem only; it’s a cosmic catastrophe. When Adam and Eve rebelled in the garden, they didn’t just break a rule. They unleashed corruption into God’s good creation. Sin fractured everything—our relationship with God, yes, but also our relationships with each other, with ourselves, and with the created world.

Paul expounds on this in Romans 8:

19 The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. 20 Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in 21 until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. 22 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. Romans 8:19–22 (MSG)

The entire cosmos is groaning under the weight of sin. That’s why we have cancer and hurricanes and earthquakes. That’s why families fall apart. That’s why nations go to war. That’s why creation itself is broken. Sin didn’t just make us guilty before God; it handed God’s good world over to the powers of darkness, decay, and death. And yet, when we consider the personal aspect, we realize that corruption of creation affects us in two big ways.

One, it separates us from God.

2 It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore. Isaiah 59:2 (NLT)

And two, it brings God's judgment.

36 And anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgment.” John 3:36 (NLT)

The writer of Hebrews reveals,

27 We die only once, and then we are judged. Hebrews 9:27 (CEV)

One preacher explains why.

“God is a God of such infinite perfection that not even the slightest sin in His presence can be tolerated. When Isaiah, the prophet of God, saw God upon His throne, he fell upon his face, terrified, and said, “Surely I am ruined, I have seen the Lord” (Isa. 6:5, author paraphrase). When Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the Ark of the Covenant where God’s Spirit dwelled, he was struck dead.

God is a God whose holiness and perfection is so complete that sin cannot exist in His presence. I hear people often speak glibly about “seeing God.” If God ripped the roof off the place where you were sitting right now and you saw His face, you’d immediately die. Standing in the presence of God with sin would be like a tissue paper touching the surface of the sun.”—JD Greear

Now that’s bad news, mega bad, and that’s probably why it doesn’t make it into Christmas cards, but imagine if it did.

“Wishing you a season of hope... because without Jesus you’re headed for eternal judgment! Merry Christmas!”

“May your days be merry and bright... unlike the unquenchable fire of hell mentioned in Mark 9! Season’s Greetings!”

“’Tis the season to remember... you’re a sinner separated from a holy God! Joy to the World!”

We have to laugh, or we’ll cry when confronted with this aspect of Christmas. I know what you may be thinking.

Wait, Pastor Brad. Hold on. I came here for Christmas cheer, not fire and brimstone. I want tinsel and caroling, not talk about judgment and hell. This isn’t what Christmas is supposed to be about!

I hear you, friend, but the worse the diagnosis, the better the cure feels. The darker the prison, the sweeter the freedom. You can’t know mega joy without knowing mega danger. Understanding the bad news of Christmas is the only way to truly understand why it brings such staggeringly good news at the same time: When Jesus was born in that stable in Bethlehem, God was dealing with our personal guilt and declaring war on every power that had hijacked his creation. The rescue operation for the entire cosmos had begun. Jesus came to do what Israel was supposed to do but couldn’t: be the faithful human being who would undo what Adam did. Jesus came to defeat the powers of sin, death, and the devil. Jesus came to reclaim God’s good creation and set everything right.

That’s why the angel told the shepherds this wasn’t just good news for religious people—it was good news “for all the people.” That’s why Paul says in Colossians that through Jesus, God was reconciling “to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20).

Your personal salvation as it relates to being forgiven, being made right with God, and being delivered from hell is gloriously, wonderfully true. But it’s part of something much bigger. God is putting the whole world back together. He’s defeating every enemy. He’s restoring his rule over all creation. And one day, Jesus will return and finish what he started that first Christmas. He’ll raise the dead, judge the living, recreate heaven and earth, and God’s kingdom will have no end. That’s the full gospel. That’s why the magi’s joy was mega joy. They weren’t just witnessing the birth of a personal life coach. They were witnessing the invasion of heaven into earth, the arrival of the true King who would overthrow every false power and restore God’s rightful rule over all things.

We will never know the true joy of Christmas and certainly the true joy of being a Christian unless we understand this, especially how desperate our situation is because of sin and how awfully bad we need a savior. Our joy is mega joy because we know from what we were delivered. Our joy is mega because we didn’t have to jump through hoops to get it. Jesus did it all; Jesus paid it all.

Romans 6:23 (ESV) — 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Psalm 32:1–2 (NLT) — 1 Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! 2 Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!

Christianity is the religion of joy because through our Savior, Jesus, we have been delivered from sin and death! That is Christmas joy. And it is for us all…

Luke 2:10 (ESV) — 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”

Are you people? Then this is for you. There are no stipulations or fine print.

The world can know joy generally, but only those who have come to know God through Jesus can know Christian mega-joy in particular. The Christian knows joy no matter the circumstance, because he understands not only what he’s been delivered from and what he’s been delivered to, but he knows the One who delivered him. Spurgeon says, “In the nativity of the Savior there is joy for us—the babe in Bethlehem born; God has taken man into communion with Himself. Jesus the Savior: here is release from the groans of sin; here is an end to the moans of despair. He comes to break the bars of brass, and to cut the gates of iron asunder.”

Before I finish, just a quick word to some here who may be crushed right now. The holidays are brutal if you’ve experienced a loss or are going through hard times. Do not think Christian joy implies you must laugh and shout and sing when your heart breaks, pretending like all is well when it isn’t (the Psalms and the Book of Job defuse such). It simply means that because of who Jesus is and what He did, you cling to the hope that,

Psalm 30:5b (ESV) — 5b … Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

The star of Christmas points us to the hope we have in Jesus and to the infinitely powerful love of God, directed toward us, in giving us the Morning Star. It also shows us the mega joy we can know in being part of God’s cosmic, all-encompassing salvation plan through our mighty Savior.