REVELATION 2 - SMYRNA
REVELATION 2 - SMYRNA
To the angel of the assembly in Smyrna the Lord presents Himself as “the first and the last, who became dead and lived”. How suitable is this character to an assembly marked by tribulation, poverty, suffering, and death! For if in the assembly in Ephesus we see indicated the spiritual decline which became evident even before the apostles departed, we may discern in what is said to Smyrna the Lord’s [p. 26] regard for His saints as persecuted and suffering. There was, as we all know, a time of intense persecution, and it tended to spiritual wealth, so that the Lord could say, “But thou art rich”. I do not doubt that the sufferings of the saints stayed the progress of decline, and brought out for the time a true spirit of fidelity. In presenting Himself as “the first and the last” I think the Lord suggested to their hearts His ability to carry them through everything, while in saying that He “became dead and lived” He showed how He Himself had gone the way that they were treading, and could therefore be sympathetic with them in it.
“A synagogue of Satan” stands in very pointed contrast to the assembly of God. It refers, no doubt, to those who claimed to have some divine status as in the flesh, and who railed at believers in Christ. Much of the opposition and persecution of early days was instigated by the Jews, who were not indeed Jews in any spiritual sense (see Romans 2: 28, 29), but had become “a synagogue of Satan” — adversaries of all that was of God. It is well for us to realize the severity of this designation, for if it had become true of those who were literally the seed of Abraham, how much more is it true of those who under the christian name take up things in the flesh! The cross has brought man after the flesh to an end in holy judgment before God, and the Spirit has been given to maintain that judgment in the hearts of saints. There could be nothing more offensive to God than to bring back, as it were, before Him, the man whom He has utterly condemned. It is from those who do so that the greatest hostility to what is of God comes. “First love” would hold everything in living connection [p. 27] with Christ the Head, but departure from that leads to giving man after the flesh a place. And when that is set up formally, and in an ordered way, it becomes in God’s sight “a synagogue of Satan”. It is referred to again in the epistle to the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia, where it would appear to designate those with fleshly religious pretensions who are found opposed to those who keep the Lord’s word and do not deny His Name in the closing hour of the assembly’s testimony on earth.
The assembly in Smyrna would suffer, some of them would be cast into prison, and they were exhorted to be faithful unto death. The Lord does not hold out to them any prospect of present deliverance, though even in such circumstances it is a great comfort to see that the power of the devil is strictly limited. “Ye shall have tribulation ten days”. Christ is supreme over all the power of evil. He may suffer the enemy to afflict His saints for ten days with a view to their purification and His testimony, but the time of persecution and pressure is limited. No hostile power could make the tribulation last eleven days when He has said ten! It is a great comfort to saints in any time of special pressure to remember this. The consciousness of His power is a great support; it is there even if He allows things to go to the extreme length of martyrdom, which is what is meant by being “faithful unto death”.
At such a time His power is manifested in an even greater way morally than if He intervened to stop the suffering, for it comes out in the way He sustains His persecuted and martyred saints. It has been known in days of persecution that saints were disappointed when they were reprieved. Some very touching [p. 28] letters of the martyrs were written by those sent back to prison to their companions who had been sentenced to the stake. They manifested real sorrow as feeling deprived; for the time, of the privilege and honour of suffering death for the Lord. In some cases they had afterwards the privilege which they coveted. It shews the power in which the Lord can succour and sustain what is of Himself even under the extreme violence of the adversary. In this connection it may be well to remember that in many cases those who spoke very confidently before they were tested failed when the persecution touched them, but those who had been timid, and had feared lest they might fail, were often the ones to go through triumphantly. Nothing will really carry saints through such testings but the strength of the Lord.
“The crown of life” is the glorious answer to martyrdom here, and “he that overcomes shall in no wise be injured of the second death”. Such might appear to have death for their portion, but they would be found invested with the distinction of victorious life. They would truly “reign in life”.