Ver. 1-6. I think that any discerning reader must perceive that we are entering upon an entirely new order of things in this chapter, or, at least, a sort of fresh start. What was described in the vision of Christ walking in the midst of the candlesticks is not here as in chap. ii., unless it be the “seven stars,” no longer, however, held in His right hand. It is quite true that what we have been looking at, in the former chapter, may still exist and be verified at the same time with new features as they are brought out here. Not only may there be points morally like what we have seen in Ephesus, Smyrna, or Pergamos, but a continuing public state like the evil depicted in the message to the angel of the assembly in Thyatira, which goes on to the end in a way that differs from its predecessors. We find in Sardis another condition, and one which answers to the general state of Protestantism after the Reformation. We have not so much open evil, like idolatry and the other horrors that have been described before; but now we have a more correct outward form and orthodox aspect of things As the four churches in the second chapter follow on consecutively, and describe the state of things before the rise of Luther, &c., so Sardis describes what followed the Reformation, when the glow and fervor of truth and the first flush of blessing had passed away, and a cold formalism had set in.
The way in which the Lord presents Himself is wonderfully suitable. “These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars.” (ver. 1). This is a new point of view in which to see Christ. In chap. 1. “the seven Spirits” were distinct from His person and connected with the throne. The seven Spirits of God refer to the Holy Spirit of God, viewed in His various perfections and the ways in which He works; and this not so much in the church, as towards the world. In chap. v., when the churches are done with, the Lord Jesus is described symbolically as a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth—the Holy Ghost as acting with a view to the government of the earth. It is not the Holy Ghost in all the fullness of the blessing into which He brought the Church in its unity, or dwelling there. It is the expression of the Spirit in fullness of quality and power to snake good God's will on earth.
But whatever might be the condition of the church, the Lord Jesus was the One who had all the power of the Spirit of God, and He only is the One who has at the same time full spiritual authority. There were no two things more separated than these at the time of the Reformation. There was then a large body calling itself the church, which claimed the power of settling everything, as being the spouse of Christ; and then the claim of infallibility was strongly advanced, because, of course, those who assume irresponsible authority as Christ's vicar to settle the affairs of the church, to define doctrine, &c., ought to be infallible. This body had wrought for ages, gathering influence for itself; and at last the struggle came, and it was proved to be a mass of the greatest evil against God and His Son that had ever been congregated on the earth. There might have been time saints of God in it at the worst of times, and I think that some, such as Cyprian, had even helped to give it an undue and false place of authority. Then, again, St. Bernard sanctioned the persecutions of the Waldenses. But it is well to bear in mind that there cannot be a greater fallacy than to abide in what is wrong merely because we find true saints of God there; for the great aim of Satan is to try and get good people to do bad things. When at last the crisis arrived, and men rose up in a considerable part of the world against this frightful evil, there was the separation of these two thoughts of ecclesiastical authority and spiritual power. Instead of its being a body that claimed both, everything ran into disorder, and men fell back on the power of the world, in order to gain freedom from the dominion of the pope.
Thus Protestantism was always wrong, ecclesiastically, from the very beginning, because it looked up to the civil ruler as the one in whose hand ecclesiastical authority was vested; so that if the church had been under popery the ruler of the world, the world now became, in Protestantism, the ruler of the church. It is not a question of church and state that politicians may discuss; but it is a great deal too narrow and low a question for a Christian. The great thing is to be in the path of Christ, giving honor to Him. “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” This describes the cold and formal ways of religion that were found after the Reformation among those that were not really Christians. The Lord Jesus shows what He disapproves of in Protestantism. Why not be thoroughly Christians? It was a poor thing to boast of not being as bad as Jezebel; it was death, if not abomination.
In Protestant lands, there has always been a measure of liberty of conscience. But the object of God is not merely to deliver either from gross evils, or from mere details, but that the soul should be right with God, and should allow the Lord to have His way and glory—liberty for the Lord to work by the Holy Ghost according to His will. When He is allowed His right place, there is the blessed fruit of it in love and holy liberty. It is not a human liberty derived from the power of the world that we want, (though God forbid that we should speak a word against the powers that be in their sphere,) but the liberty of the Holy Ghost. It is the sin of Christians to have put the powers that be in a false position. The Lord Jesus touches the root of the whole matter in the way in which He presents Himself to the church of Sardis. Whether it is spiritual power or the outward authority flowing from it, the Lord claims it all as belonging to Him. In Ephesus it was said that He held the seven stars in His right hand; but here are united the two things, inward spiritual power, and outward authority. He hath the Spirits of God and the stars. It is not said here that He holds the stars in His right hand, but that they are His, as well as the fullness of spiritual competency.
In the great mass of Protestant churches they gave up, as it were, the regulation of the stars into the hands of the powers that be. On the other hand, the persons who revolted from that fell into the sad evil of suffering the church to have the stars in its own keeping. There is not such a doctrine in the whole scripture as either the world or the church having this kind of authority in its own hands. The Lord Jesus has still all under Himself. He has not given it up. Therefore let the Church only own what He is, and He will act accordingly. When there is faith to look to Him in His place as Head of the Church, He will assuredly supply every need. If He listens to the simplest cry of His lambs, does He not enter into the deeper need of the church, which is always His most beloved object? He took His Headship of the church only in heavenly glory, and He went there not merely to be, but to act, as the Head. What is His function as Head of the Church? He exercises authority, having persons to act under Him here below. Thus the existence of rule and gift in the Church of God is the result; and these are not touched by the ruin of the Church. The Lord, anticipating the time when there would be a revolt from under the spurious authority of the body calling itself the church, and foreseeing all the confusion that would be the result, presents Himself as the One who is superior to it all. Whatever may be the condition of things here, strength is in Christ: and we can never find strength in looking at the condition of the church, but at Christ.
When the apostles were here below, they were empowered to act for Christ in a very special way; but when they were taken away, the real source of the power in which they had acted, subordinately to Christ, was not dried up; the Lord Jesus has it all in His own keeping still. There was a name to live, but real death. He was speaking of their condition as a body, and not as individuals. “Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die: for I have not found thy works perfect [filled up] before my God.” Here we have again a very striking feature of what took place in Protestantism. In the desire to escape from the abuse of works by the Romish system, it is evident that its practice lost its due place in the minds of Christians—its place for those who have been brought nigh to God, for God does look for a real separate and distinct path to be taken by His people; and He finds fault with Sardis because of their failure in this. The saints of God, even in Thyatira, were commended of God for their earnestness, in spite of all the evil. Their last works were more than the first. Protestantism has weakened the idea of obedience, under the plea of “no perfection,” either in the church or in the individual. Thus there has been a lowering of the just criterion wherever Protestantism has prevailed: but our God looks for perfection as the standard His children should judge themselves by—I do not say attain. He has grace to meet failures; but it is quite another thing for persons to settle down in self-complacency, from not having the divine standard before their eyes. The Lord always goes back to this.
It is better, in seeking to have that standard before us, to fail in carrying it out, than to succeed ever so much, if we gave it up. For what does the Lord most value? The heart that wants to please Him. The child may come to its father and say, “See what a pretty thing I have been making;” but if the parent had told him to do something else, he would ask the child, “Is that what I desired you to do?” The Lord has His own will, which meets us in our first need as sinners awakened, and is the source of our very salvation. But it is far from the natural thought of the heart, which does not like subjection to another's will. It is but part of the lie of the enemy. The will of God was evidently that which accomplished our sanctification, through Him who said, “Lo, I come to do thy will.” In Rom. 10 the apostle puts our part of the matter in contrast with Jewish feeling. They thought, if they accomplished as much of the law as they could, that God was merciful, and would make up the rest; but the apostle shows that subjection to the righteousness of God is salvation. God's will is the very spring and power of our blessing, not only in the matter of forgiveness, but all the way through. Take God's ways in the church. These were subjects that were particularly neglected at the Reformation. Individual truth, such as justification by faith, was brought out forcibly and over a large field. But this was made the great point and aim of everything, and the consequence was, that people never knew thoroughly they were justified. The moment I make my own blessing the one or chief thing I am looking for in the Bible, I shall never know anything aright; but when God's thoughts and objects become my aim, I shall know directly that I am saved and blessed indeed. I cannot look at the cross of Christ without seeing, at the same time, my utter ruin, and my complete deliverance in the resurrection. If a man hesitates whether he is so very bad as God declares, he has to wait before he enjoys the riches of His grace; but if I trust myself unhesitatingly in God's hands, there is not a blessing that does not flow out to me. We find ourselves to be as bad or worse than Israel, and then we are brought inside a circle of goodness and mercy superior to anything they ever possessed.
At the Reformation, all this was comparatively lost sight of; and in escaping from the fearful net of Popery, they fell into the sin of putting church power into the hand of the civil magistrate. Others, again, who avoided this evil, made what they considered a true church to be the depository of this power; whereas it is Christ Himself still working by the Holy Ghost, that maintains His own lordship, a truth which is taught, at large, in the epistles. Supposing a person labors as a pastor or a teacher, from what authority is he to act? There was, indeed, human appointment of those who had to do with local matters; yet wherever it was a question simply of ministry in the word, there was no appointment from the first. Even in the case of choosing a successor to the vacant seat of Judas, the apostles did not themselves elect, but threw it out of their own hands into those of the Lord. (Acts 1) And when the Lord afterward chose another apostle, we find “one Ananias,” indeed, sent to baptize him, but there was no idea of that disciple, or any one else, making him an apostle. In what we have afterward (Acts 13) i.e. the case of hands being laid on the apostles Paul and Barnabas, it was not a bestowal of any orders or mission, for it was done by men inferior to themselves in point of spiritual gift and power, but was simply their brethren commending them to the Lord before they set out on a particular missionary tour to the Gentiles. We have a right to look for the Lord to maintain His authority in the church. In all ages, we find He was helping His blessed people, and doing His work by His servants. If a person wants to preach, he naturally thinks he must have the warrant of some authority; but if we seek an authority at all, we should have a competent one. Although there may be more respectability in the world, where these outward credentials, are looked for, the question rises, Has the Lord required authority to validate a person's preaching the gospel? The apostles did appoint elders and deacons; but these might be preachers and teacher, or they might not be: their being deacons was another thing altogether. Philip was a preacher of the gospel, but this depended upon his having a gift from the Christ as the head of the church, and not on his being one of “the seven.” Men have slipped into habitual departure from God's principles; and this is called “order,” because it is the most prevalent custom now in the professing church. And thus when we give up true principles, we get into wrong practice. The Lord attaches great importance to our owning Him as the One who has all power and authority in His own hands. The moment I own this, it so much the more binds my conscience. If I know a thing to be wrong, my conscience is held to it. I may not be able to see at once what is the right path to take; but to cease from what is evil is evidently the first step, and it is imperative.
The connection between the end of the second verse (“I have not found thy works perfect before God”) and what follows (“Remember therefore, how thou hast received and heard,” &c,) is to be remarked. He recalls them to what they had received from God Himself at the first. No such thought is allowed as that because things are not as they were then, therefore every church has a right to form its own laws. If it would be downright rebellion to say, because the Queen does not live in Ireland, that therefore the Irish people were at liberty to make what laws they pleased, it is as bad or worse if we think that, because things are changed, the apostles gone, and confusion come into the church, men are left free to desert the word of Christ and do their own wills: the Lord has left us His. The very word of God which tells me what I once was, but that I am washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God, this same portion enters into all questions of the assembly, and the working of the Holy Ghost in it by whom He will. (1 Cor.) There may be no tongues, or gifts of miracles, and healings; but is the Holy Ghost here? What He continues to do is according to the same principle and presence as at first, though in a very different measure of power, else we have no divine rule in these things.
Remark that the Lord's coming is spoken of just in the way it was threatened on the world (See 1 Thess. 5). “If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief,” &c. (ver. 3.) He would come upon them when they were not aware—suddenly and unwelcome. Had they not got into the world? Let them then beware of the portion of the world. If you have taken the world's ease, you must needs dread the world's judgment. Such is not the way in which the Lord speaks of His coming to the Church. In reality and all the extent of the words, it will be upon the professing mass, and not upon real believers, that the Lord will come as a thief. “But thou hast few names in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall he clothed in white raiment.” (Verses 4, 5.) The Lord brings in this suited comfort, that, as they had sought to act faithfully on earth, they should walk with Him in white. As they had walked in purity here below, they should appear in full justification of their ways before God above. But this is spoken of individually. The state of the Church as a whole was evidently low and worldly, and as such it should be judged. The moment a person ascertains that his association is contrary to the word, he should feel how grave that fact is, and consider what is due to the Lord. It might seem incredible, if one did not know the fact, that there have been and are men of God, guides of the flock, who not only abide in evil which they know, but seek to find a palliative in the circumstances of a righteous Asa or a godly Jehoshaphat, who nevertheless did not remove the high places. Alas! that the solemn revelations of God should be thus perverted so as to serve the ends of the enemy, and that a repeated warning should be tortured into a justification of sin. “The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thy eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed, therefore, that the light which is in thee be not darkness.” It is not enough to correct thoughts, and rest there; but if the Lord has given a judgment, is it not in order that the walk may be correspondent? Satan contrives to make the path of the Lord appear dark and sad; as he clothes a worldly course with the semblance of humility, order, and the like. But the word makes all plain now, as power will by and by even to the world.
May we walk with the Lord now, and surely we shall walk with Him in white hereafter! Instead of a blotted name, ours He will confess before His Father and the holy angels.