When the church was first established, how jealous the Lord was for its purity and holiness! The first breach was avenged by instant death. Yet the all-seeing eye of God detected not only lying covetousness, but the future inroads of grievous wolves not sparing the flock, and what is equally if not more solemn that “of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts xx. 30). This was the warning uttered by Paul to the elders of Ephesus. Uttered to them, and for us, that we might remember that the word of His grace foretold us that the most ruinous evil would spring from among ourselves. And the history of the church abundantly proves it.
If Matthew gives failure from a dispensational point, chaps. 2 and 3 of Revelation give that of the professing church. How steep the incline from the loss of first love in Ephesus to the lukewarmness of Laodicea, from the threat to remove the candlestick to the being spued out of His mouth! In the breaking up of what may be the last corporate testimony on earth, each saint is cast more upon Him who alone is the Faithful and True Witness, And if all outward sign of unity vanish, still the truth of God cannot fail, “For by one Spirit are We all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free; and have been made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13). The having failed to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace is the cause of the many names and divisions among true believers, who ought to be visibly one as they are by the baptism of the Spirit really one before God, Yet if on board and broken pieces, all who belong to the ship will be brought safe to land. Then the unity beyond all possibility of apparent breach will be manifested to the world (John 17:23).
One of the fundamental characteristics of the church is to wait for the Son from heaven. It is the true attitude towards Christ, specially noted as characterizing the newly converted at Thessalonica. And it is expressed as “going forth to meet the Bridegroom in Matt. 25,” where it equally points to the original position of the virgins, and after their awakening to the resumption of it, and thus is a special feature of the time of the end. It ought to have been the constant attitude of the church from the beginning. The church is called the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), and in no way could the truth be practically shown without the habitual waiting for the Son from heaven. In forgetting and alas! denying this hope, the church ceased to be the pillar and base of the truth. From the church point of view this is the special feature of the leaven which leavened the meal. Not a truth communicated to the church but has suffered in purity and power from this fatal departure from the true position of waiting for the Son from heaven. The sleep of the virgins opened a door for the entrance of every evil found in Christendom. Nor did Satan neglect his opportunity. The vigor and power of a holy life, of Christianity, is paralyzed by the forgetting of this truth. The main life of the saint, the proper aspect and character of the church; is comprised in the “going forth.” All our hope is in meeting Him, our true strength is bound up in it. It severs from every earthly object, it centers every affection in Him, it energizes every spiritual faculty, it purifies according to His purity; in the midst of the world's hatred and persecution it strengthens to endure and overcome with the patience of faith its malignity. All these were the marks the church should have borne. But to bear them truthfully before God was dependent upon her faithfulness. Impossible for sleeping virgins to be faithful.
Here the grace of our Savior God appears. He is the Savior of the body (Eph. 5:13). In His grace He awakens the sleepers: the midnight cry recalls them to their true and original attitude. God's purpose in redemption cannot be set aside. Christ's glory and victory over Satan is of too high moment to permit the consequences of the church's failure to tarnish it. Nay, the failure becomes an occasion to exalt His grace yet more so, that the superabundance of its riches may be more manifest. There is a necessity for the actings of grace, for the Lord Jesus must have His reward. How marvelous the grace that makes our blessing to be His guerdon! He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. This was bound up in God's eternal purpose; and Jesus is exalted, and God in Him.
From the Kingdom stand-point the failure of Christendom is in denying the rights of the King, His coming to take possession of the purchased inheritance, relegating His throne to heaven, but not to reign over the earth; in current phraseology calling the Lord Jesus a “spiritual King” and His Kingdom a “spiritual Kingdom.” But from the church point where all our affections should be displayed, the failure began in the loss of first love; and, this not repented of, Ephesus inevitably leads to Laodicea. Why was such evil permitted in a church destined to be so holy and so glorious? Why was it not kept in perfect purity and faithfulness from the beginning? Was it necessary that the church should so fail in order that the exceeding riches of His grace might be more abundantly seen? Nay. This would be to make God the author of the evil. If it had been a question solely of His power apart from the church's responsibility, assuredly He could have kept it pure and bright as at the first, without spot or stain. But the church as standing by faith, and without excuse for failure, magnifies the grace that is still given, not with standing her declension.
For if the church, or, those who are now the saints of God, had been in a position where failure was impossible, while there would still have been that aspect of grace which justifies us from all things, from which we could not be by law, where would be the grace that keeps and restores the saint after failure? Where the conflict, the victory, the triumphant song? For we not only celebrate Christ's victory over sin and death, but also rejoice in that He hath made us conquerors through His blood. If we may compare, where all is infinite, one aspect and action of grace with another, is not the grace daily shown to a responsible and failing saint of a higher character than that which quickens a dead sinner? Even as sin in a saint is more heinous than in an unbeliever; more guilty in one who is endowed with power to overcome, than in one who is dead in trespasses and in sins. Does this make failure necessary? Far be the thought; but it magnifies grace and exalts God.
All creation is waiting to praise Him, the inanimate creation as well as the animate (see Psa. 148). The highest kind of praise comes from an intelligent and responsible creature, and the church being the highest grade of worshippers must necessarily have these two qualities. This is the kind of praise which now is rendered to God the Father and Christ. Endowed with every needed faculty and privilege, being the habitation of God by the Spirit, and having access within the veil, the church had not to wait for glory to render acceptable worship. In presence of such conferred power and privilege how great the sin of failure in fidelity and true love to God! Alas! church or world, saint or sinner, it is the same old, old story—goodness on the part of God, not continuing in it on the part of man. We have as a constant fact from the creation that responsibility in man produces or rather results in inevitable failure; nor otherwise in the church, only that here God provides for the failure, and meets it in every possible circumstance, and He is glorified by it. In every way He is the Savior God.
How plainly this is seen in the seven churches (Rev. 2; 3)! How marked the patience of Him who stood in the midst of the golden candlesticks! What means He used to bring the church back to her first love; repeating the warning at every phase of her decline, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!” But the corporate ear of the church was deaf to the call. How quick His eye to see and His heart to feel the first downward step! In Ephesus all that was outward seemed perfect, not a word of reproach as to that. The germ of evil was not seen by the world; He saw whose eyes are as a flame of fire. That which the. church's Lord prized most was gone. First love means personal love. It is not mere faith in the work of Christ, or consciousness of standing in the favor of God, or a righteous walk before Him; though the soul lacks power in all where “first love” is wanting. What the Lord values most is the heart's longings to see and to be with Him, a desire—which rises paramount to all ass, which gives tone and color to the whole life. This is the true waiting for Him, not the dry and unfruitful assent of the understanding to the doctrine, but the power of the truth filling the soul. This Ephesus had lost.
And Christ, so jealous of all our affections, says that all else is worthless without it. “Repent and do the first works.” Orthodoxy, intelligence, zeal, cannot take the place of personal affection to. Christ. Even if there could be holiness without “first love” as a spring in the soul, it would need to be repented of; but there can be no first works apart from first love. “Else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” This warning is not repeated to the remaining churches. Why? Because the candlestick was removed in consequence of the Ephesus-state. The church never regained her pristine condition and aspect. The loss of “first love” extinguished her brightest light. She abandoned the posture of “waiting for the Son from heaven.” And having put her candle under a bushel the candlestick was removed; it was no longer needed. So it was that the church ceased to be the reflex of the True Light; and she could have no light of her own apart from Him.
The Lord may expostulate and chasten and call out a feeble remnant; but the position of light-bearer in testimony as it ought to be was gone from that moment. The few who were kept faithful through grace no doubt bore a little light which would appear all the brighter by the increasing darkness around; but as a professing body the fine gold was become dim; and in the remaining churches the Spirit of God is recording the farther decline of faith, the result of the loss of first love. Faith works by love. If love fails, faith necessarily declines. There is a moral process keeping pace with the decline of faith, each step of which is adapted to each phase of the falling church, the promises, the threatenings specially suited to the condition of the particular church addressed, all used to impress upon the corporate church both its responsibility and failure until—a remnant being saved—the corrupt mass is spewed out of His mouth.
But if the church be dealt with as responsible, there is also grace to deal with it., And the first dealing is to send persecution. The effect is generally to make the soul cleave closer to Christ, and this is the end that God intends. Will it bring the church back to her previous state? Alas! nothing stayed her rapid decline. While the tribulation lasted, there was nothing but love and comfort in the address to the saints at Smyrna; not one word of “somewhat against thee.” The Lord saw the works, the tribulation, the poverty, He saw the devil's power against His, suffering saints, and it brings out His tenderness and grace. He bids them not to fear all that Satan could do, neither imprisonment nor death. He had been dead and was alive again: why then fear? They were only following in a like path, only drinking a little from His cup, a little sprinkling of His baptism. A crown of life was in store for them, and they could afford to despise death, and, conscious of the sustaining power of Christ, remain unmoved by the blasphemies of those who, while of the synagogue of Satan, assumed to be Jews, i.e., to be the people of God. The Lord knew them and gave their true character. But He does more than give comfort, He commends them; “but thou art rich” —rich in spite of their poverty, rich in having a special expression of the Lord's faithful love. And it is not unimportant to remember the attitude of Him who commends them. See ch. 1:10-18. One like the Son of man stood in the midst of the candlesticks, in the place of authority, and having all the attributes required for the government and discipline of the church. Not here as the Head of the body from whom all sustenance and energy is derived, but as Son of man judging among the churches; a character and position He did not take till Ephesus lost her first love. It is He who commends despised and suffering Smyrna. “But thou art rich.” Were they astonished to be told they were rich? But the joy and the strength it gave exceeded whatever of wonder might arise. It also prepared them for the ten days of tribulation, and then the crown of life, the gracious reward of faithfulness unto death.
Here was an open door, the path by which the church could retrace her steps back to “first love,” the lose of which created a void soon to be filled with the love of the world. The persecution of Smyrna was the means used by grace that the church might, if possible, regain what she had lost. It is the moral process by which the Lord would recall saints from their folly. What greater folly than to have the world as an object of desire, instead of the Lord—the world, which can only give back hatred? But what love to us, what desire on the part of Christ to have our unworthy love, which He condescends to seek! If He called the north wind to blow upon His garden, it was that the spices might give out. It was a bright gleam in the early days of the church: how soon it faded
Ephesus hated the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, but Pergamos had those who held the doctrine of Balaam, teachers of idolatry; also those who held the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, their hateful deeds now openly defended by teachers! Their impure notions taught as “doctrine"! How greatly is Pergamos fallen lower than Ephesus. But what an incongruous mass the professing church had already become; there were those who, held fast Christ's name, had not denied His faith [= doctrine] mixed up with Balaamites and Nicolaitanes, the whole dwelling where the throne of Satan is. The godly among them Were unable to stem the inflowing tide of corruption, and one faithful witness (Antipas) was slain. Alas! it is the Balaamites and the Nicolaitanes which impress their character upon the whole. Yet the Son of Man, whose eyes are as a flame of fire and His words as a sharp two-edged sword, knows how to distinguish between them. As a whole they are called to repent, or rather the call to repentance is direct to those who, while holding fast the name of Christ and not denying His faith, yet failed in allowing evil and the teachers of evil to remain among them. Where was the power to judge the evil? How could that power subsist where Satan had his throne? And that was the place where Pergamos dwelt. If the dealing with Smyrna was all grace, here there is judgment. Grace is surely underlying, but in words the call to repentance is enforced only by a threat: “Repent therefore; but if not, I come to thee quickly,” this is direct to conscience. “And I will make war with them with the sword of my month.” Judgment is threatened to “them,” and a solemn warning to “thee.” What can tell more the sad condition of the church than when He who loved it so much as to give up all that He had to possess it, is compelled to speak thus? Yet there is worse to come.
But here is the first distinction made between those who brought in the evil and those they corrupted. In Ephesus all had left their first love, in Smyrna all are comforted, in Pergamos the Son of Man distinguishes between “thee” and “them.” The two parties are not separated here, and so all are called to repentance; for, by allowing the evil to remain among them, all were more or less identified with it. Hence, the word is “Repent, or I will come to thee quickly.” The church never really recovered her first slip. As a whole every downward step was never retraced; there was never true corporate repentance. Individuals no doubt felt and mourned over the increasing evil, but they are known only to the Lord who never left Himself without a witness. Evil unrepented of and unjudged always increases and assumes a deeper dye. So in the next phase of decline a Jezebel feature is added. This is the condition of Thyatira, and here the distinction which appeared in Pergamos is more marked, and results in separation. For Thyatira as such goes on to the end, and the warnings are addressed to the “rest” as well as the promises. The nominal church as a living testimony for God is given up. On Jezebel and her children judgment is pronounced, which would overtake those who sinned with her unless they repent of her works. There is no direct call to Jezebel and her children. If in Pergamos all may be included in the call to repent, certainly not in Thyatira. Repentance would avert the threatening surely, but space had been given for repentance, and they did not; therefore they would be left to receive each according to his works. Here there is no calling back to the original position, which was lost irrecoverably.
How compassionate the word to the feeble remnant! No other burden but to hold fast what they had. What had they? It is significant that we are told what they had not— “have not this doctrine, have not known the depths of Satan.” It is faithfulness under a negative aspect. The Lord prizes even this, and in loving pity says, “I will put upon you no other burden.” Useless to attempt to regain what is lost, but hold fast what you have till I come. As if the Lord said, Only remember Me. And this is the word of special moment for us in these days when ruin is more visibly stamped upon the professing church than it was when the evil of Thyatira first appeared. “Till I come” is the grand stay for our souls, and nothing more clearly expresses the Lord's love to us (see John 14:1-8). What hearts are oars to forget His love, so patient, so faithful! His coming is now the only remedy; the depths of Satan are such an evil as the Lord alone can meet by taking His saints out of all. Not that we are quietly to rest without bearing testimony, however feeble, against it; but there is no complete deliverance till He comes.
(To be continued)