REVELATION 2 - THYATIRA
REVELATION 2 - THYATIRA
It has often been pointed out that in the addresses to the four last assemblies the call to the one that has an ear to “hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies” comes after the promise to the overcomer, intimating that only the overcomer would have an ear. Then the Lord’s coming being spoken of to Thyatira, Sardis, and Philadelphia, while Laodicea is warned of utter rejection, indicates that these four assemblies represent conditions which go on to the end of the present period.
To the angel of the assembly in Thyatira the Lord presents Himself as “the Son of God, he that has his eyes as a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass”. We see in this His Personal dignity, and the penetrating nature of His scrutiny, and that He moves [p. 34] in the assemblies to search and test “the reins and the hearts”. One can understand the Lord taking this character in relation to such an assembly.
In Ephesus, though there was as yet no public defection, under the Lord’s eye first love had been left; then in Pergamos there was public departure — the assembly dwelling in the world and having corrupters within; now in Thyatira we find Jezebel permitted and those in the assembly who were her children. The different stages of departure, and the increasing inroads of evil, which succeeded each other in the history of the assemblies, are thus clearly seen as discerned by the Lord.
But even in an assembly where gross corruption was permitted there was that which the Lord could commend. “Love, and faith, and service, and thine endurance, and thy last works to be more than the first”. One delights to think of the personal devotedness found in many saints during what are called “the dark ages”. Many whose writings, or portions of them, have been preserved to us evidently loved the Lord and laboured for Him; and probably the vast majority of devoted ones left nothing to perpetuate their names, and never got a place in church history. The Lord could recognize even in such an assembly as Thyatira a remnant who were not Jezebel’s children, nor personally corrupted by her teaching, and His consideration for them is very touching. “But to you I say, the rest who are in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine ... I do not cast upon you any other burden; but what ye have hold fast till I shall come”. He takes account of them as having that which was of divine value, and which was to be held fast till He should come.
[p. 35] Their love, faith, service, endurance, and increasing activity in works were the evidence of what was in their “reins and hearts”.
But along with this fruit of divine grace (every feature of which the Lord loves to recognize and approve, wherever it may be found) there was a condition of things which can only be regarded as appalling. “Thou permittest the woman Jezebel”. To recall the history of that “cursed woman” is to be filled with horror at the thought of such a person, typically, being permitted in the assembly. She was the daughter of an idolatrous king of Sidon, and through her influence Ahab became a servant and worshipper of Baal, and “did more to provoke Jehovah the God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him” (1 Kings 16). She was the active promoter of idolatry in Israel, for 850 prophets of Baal and of the Asherah ate at her table. She would have killed Elijah the prophet of Jehovah; she brought about the martyrdom of Naboth because he would not surrender the God-given inheritance of his fathers; and she was the prime mover and instigator of the greatest wickedness ever known in Israel. “Surely there was none like to Ahab, who did sell himself to do evil in the sight of Jehovah, Jezebel his wife urging him on. And he did very abominably in following idols” (1 Kings 21: 25, 26).
Nothing could be more solemn and terrible than that such a woman should be permitted in the assembly, and that she should be there as professing to speak for God; “she who calls herself prophetess, and she teaches and leads astray my servants to commit fornication and eat of idol sacrifices”.
The lesson is written large and plain in these [p. 36] epistles to the assemblies that what is called the visible church — the public and responsible light-bearer in the world — cannot be trusted as affording any security for souls, or for truth and holiness.
To how many millions even yet the church’s teaching and sacraments appear to have divine authority and to afford divine security! How many think that what the church permits in the way of teaching and practice must be right! How needful for such to consider that when the Lord addresses the assemblies He speaks to Ephesus as fallen, to Pergamos as dwelling where Satan’s throne is and as having corrupters of doctrine, to Thyatira as permitting Jezebel with all her abominations, to Sardis as having a name to live and yet dead, to Laodicea as about to be spued out of His mouth! In short, the public body of christian profession is seen to be marked by extreme unfaithfulness, and by the toleration and teaching of everything that is abhorrent to the Lord. So that nothing but judgment, and utter eventual rejection by Him, awaits it.
At this point the Lord turns from the public body, after giving it the most solemn warning of inevitable judgment, and addresses Himself to “the rest who are in Thyatira”. The definite owning of a remnant by the Lord is, in a way, the disowning of the public body, and this is a very solemn consideration, for it is something like the removal of the candlestick. But there were those whom He could distinguish as having that which had divine value, and they were to hold it fast, not until Jezebel repented — for that she would not do — but “till I shall come”. The coming of the Lord, would alone terminate the necessity for holding fast and overcoming.
[p. 37] There is an obvious connection between the fornications and idolatries taught by Jezebel, and the fornications and abominations of the great harlot in chapter 17. There we find that the kings of the earth had committed fornication with her. She had sought by her corruptions to get influence and power in the scene where Christ had but a cross and a grave. For the church to want political power in the world that rejects Christ is the most monstrous thing conceivable, and yet to what an extent this unfaithfulness prevails! Many who would denounce the claims of Rome are eager to get, and hold, as much political power as they can; though we may recognize that the Protestant churches have departed from the truth rather by seeking the support of the secular powers than by seeking to dominate them.
The church’s place was to be true to Christ, and to maintain undimmed in testimony the light of God revealed in grace in His Son. But this would have been the testimony of a heavenly stranger not seeking influence in the world system, but delivering souls from it. For that which should have been the suffering witness to a rejected Christ to be found in a place of glory and authority in a world which still rejects Him is the complete reversal of all that the Lord intended. The Son of God, as seen in Psalm 2, will have the nations for His inheritance, and the ends of the earth for His possession. He will break them with a sceptre of iron; as a potter’s vessel He will dash them in pieces. But that is in a coming day. There could be no greater travesty of the truth than for the church to be in public honour where Christ has suffered and died, and no greater deception for the world.
Christ Himself is the Morning Star of the day of [p. 38] glory, and He is given in that blessed character to the overcomer in Thyatira. The day of glory will come, and then the overcomer will have “authority over the nations”; he will reign with Christ when Christ reigns, but while Christ suffers and is rejected it is his privilege to share that suffering and rejection. The Morning Star is not Christ shining in public and manifested glory; that is connected with the rising of the Sun of righteousness. The Morning Star is Christ unseen by the sleeping world, and unknown by the corrupted church — occupied in glorifying herself where Jesus had the cross — but cherished in the affections of the overcomer as the Harbinger of the day of glory.
The overcomer is taken up with all that is coming. He knows its character and he delights in its blessedness because the Day Star has arisen in his heart. All that he has learned and known in Jesus is going to shine forth and irradiate the earth with its glory. Think of what will mark that coming day! The reign of God’s Anointed, under which all lawlessness will be judged and banished from His kingdom, and righteousness and peace established. The assembly, His bride, the subject of His love (in which He gave Himself for her, and sanctified and cleansed her by the washing of water by the word) presented to Himself a glorious assembly with no trace of imperfection or decay upon her, reigning with Him to shed abroad in beneficent influence all that she learned of Him by the Spirit while He was hidden in the heavens. The effulgence of God as revealed in His beloved Son shining forth in the assembly as the holy city. All this is present to the affections of the one who has the Morning Star.
[p. 39] Some features of the night would have been ever present if the assemblies had remained faithful, but there is the sad additional element now of assembly corruption. But what cheer and joy to the overcomer, amid the surrounding darkness, to have the Morning Star! The assembly in Thyatira may be regarded as in the darkest hour of the night, but at the darkest moment Christ becomes to the faithful heart the bright Herald of the coming day.
“The Son of God” known in the affections preserves His saints from the idolatrous influences of Jezebel, for He is “the true God and eternal life”. “The Morning Star” carries the heart away from any thought of present world glory, and centres its desires and hopes in the Coming One who will bring in the day of glory. To know Christ in these two characters marks the overcomer in Thyatira. And we need to know Him thus to be preserved from the elements of departure and corruption that are seen there. For our hearts are naturally prone to idolatry, and to seek some place or glory in the world. Indeed there is not an evil in christendom that we cannot find the germs of in our own hearts. It is possible to denounce the full-blown development of these evils in the historical church without really judging that in ourselves which is their secret root.
All these evils come from the allowance of the man after the flesh. This gives place to that which Satan can work on, and to which he can present seductions which are suited to what man is naturally. There are influences which appeal powerfully to the religious sentiment of the natural man, and we are all liable to give some place to that kind of thing. But if “the Son of God” is before us we have a Man of an [p. 40] entirely different order in view, One out of death, and able to quicken others so that they live spiritually in association with Him, and are not of the world even as He is not. Then “the Morning Star” arising in the heart connects the affections with all that belongs to the coming day. And this is deeply essential if we are to be preserved from the ten thousand subtle moral influences that belong to man’s day.