(Apocalypse of John)
BIBLICAL APOCALYPTICS

Milton Terry
©1898 by
Eaton & Mains, New York
Reprinted 1988 by
Baker Book House
ISBN 0-8010-8888-7

REVELATION OF THE LAME 1 – 11

TITLE AND SUPERSCRIPTION 1:1-3

  1. THE Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show unto his servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass: and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John;

  2. who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw.

  3. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

    Verse 1. The first three verses of this book serve the purpose of a title and a superscription. They declare the divine source and object of the revelation, and pronounce a blessing on both reader and hearers. We are emphatically told at the outset that this is a Revelation of Jesus Christ; which means, as the context shows, a revelation made known by Jesus Christ. It is not to be explained as a genitive of the object—a revelation concerning Jesus, or belonging to him as a peculiar possession; but a genitive of the subject; for Jesus is “the faithful witness” (verse 5) who made the revelation known to John, and through him to the churches. The original source of this, as of all heavenly revelations, is God himself (____). He gave it to Jesus Christ (as John 7:16, 17, and 17:7, 8, affirm), and Jesus in turn sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John. It was designed to show unto all his servants (that is, servants of Jesus Christ), as well as unto John, the things which must shortly come to pass; and so John reckoned himself as a fellow‑servant along with all who love and worship God and keep his command­ments (comp. verse 9 and 22:9). The word signified (_______) suggests that this heavenly revelation was communicated through signs and symbols, and how God sent and symbolized it is indicated in chaps. 5 – 10, where the sealed book of divine mysteries, seen on the hand of God, is taken by the Lamb, and, the seals having been all opened by him, it is given as a little book to John, and eaten by him so as to become a word of prophecy to many peoples. For his angel should here be understood as the angel of Jesus Christ, and the particular reference is to the strong angel out of whose hand John took the opened book, as recorded in chap. 10:8-10. The subject‑matter of the Apocalypse is here said to be things which must shortly come to pass. The word must (___) indicates the writer's profound conception of the divine order of the world. The God who rules earth and heaven sees the end from the beginning, determines the times and seasons (Acts 1:7), and secures unfailingly those things which are necessary to the fulfillment of his purposes in the kingdoms of men. The things thus destined to come to pass soon after the composition of this book were in substance the same as those of which Jesus discoursed on the Mount of Olives, and which are written in Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. They concerned the approaching end of that age, the overthrow of Jeru­salem and with it the old covenant of Mount Sinai, and the coming of the kingdom which is to break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms, and never to be destroyed (Dan. 2:44). It was necessary that these things come to pass shortly, for Jesus had repeatedly de­clared that the consummation of that age and his coming in his kingdom would take place before that generation passed away (Matt. 16:28; 24:34).

    Verse 2. It is next added that this servant John witnessed the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ. The aorist tense here used suggests that this title and superscription were written, in the manner of a preface, after the rest of the book was completed; and for the moment John contemplates the assembly listening to the reading of the words of the prophecy. To his own mind the entire revelation lies in a definite past, and he puts on record the fact that he witnessed, that is, bore testimony to what he saw. The command of verse 19 to write what he saw was strictly obeyed, and the book of this revelation is the result, and is here spoken of as already completed. The word of God is here to be understood of this reve­lation, considered as a word of prophecy originating with God as stated in verse 1; and the testimony of Jesus Christ is the same word of God as made known by him who in verse 5 is called “the faithful witness.” It is the same word and testimony as in verse 9, for the sake of which John was in Patmos, and which are thought and spoken of as whatsoever things he saw (_______).

    Verse 3. The mention of the reader and the hearers contemplates a public reading and a devout assembly; for the words of the prophecy are here commended as a genuine revelation from God, to be as much heeded as any book of inspired prophecy. For “the words of the prophecy of this book” (22:10) do not only furnish a series of wonderful visions, which one may profitably meditate and keep in his heart (comp. Dan. 7:28), but they are also full of command, exhortation, rebuke, and warning. And, therefore, the original readers and hearers, and those of all time, may well keep the things which are written therein. One immediate motive for observing the words herein written was that the time was at hand. These words, like those of verse 1, and chap. 22:6, 10, 12, 20, declare the im­minence of the events predicted in this book. The impending ruin of Judaism and its city and temple was but a few years in the future when John wrote, and that world‑historical catastrophe was on the one hand a judging and avenging of the blood of the mar­tyrs (chaps. 6:10; 11:18; Matt. 23:31-36), and on the other a signal that the new word of Jehovah, the gospel of the kingdom, should thenceforth proceed from Jerusalem, untrammeled by the bonds of a local cultus, and grow until the kingdoms of the world become the possession of Jehovah and his Christ.

SALUTATION. 1:4-6

  1. JOHN to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;

  2. and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood;

  3. and he made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father; to him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

    After the superscription of verses 1-3, which is of the nature of a short preface, or, perhaps, a title-page, the writer addresses himself to the seven churches of Asia after the manner of an epistolary salutation. He calls himself simply John; in verse 9, I John, and so again in 22:8. No other John known to the early Church could have announced himself thus so well as the great apostle. "We instinctively feel," says Trench, “that for anyone else there would have been an affectation of simplicity, concealing a most real arrogance, in the very plainness of the title, in the assumption that thus to mention himself was sufficient to insure his recognition, or that he had a right to appropriate this name in so absolute a manner to himself.”[1] The Asia in which the seven churches were located was what is commonly called “proconsular Asia,” consisting of the provinces of Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and Pbrygia. In these regions ancient tradition places the later life and ministry of the apostle John; and there appears no good reason to doubt that, after the martyrdom of his brother James, which was so "pleasing to the Jews" (Acts 12:2, 3), he left Jerusalem and repaired to the western part of Asia Minor. It is not improbable that he was the founder of most, if not all, the churches named in verse 11.

    The salutation of grace to you and peace is the same as that of the Pauline epistles (see Rom. 1:7; 1st Cor. 1:3; Gal. 1:3; Eph. 1:2), but the divine source of these mercies is immediately designated in terms peculiar to this Apocalypse. They are from the Eternal One, from the Seven Spirits, and from Jesus Christ. This mention of a trinal fountain of grace and peace should be compared with Matt. 28:19, and 2nd Cor. 13:13. The one who is and who was and who is to come is "the God " of verse 1 and “the God and Father” of verse 6, and the Seven Spirits are but an apocalyptic designation of the Spirit who speaks to the churches in chaps. 2:7, 11, 17, etc. The threefold designation of God the Father is an allusion to Exodus 3:14, where God says to Moses that his name is I AM HE WHO IS. This free appropriation and expansion of the words as a proper name may account for the violation of grammar noticeable in the Greek text (_______). He is the God who is "from eternity unto eternity" (Psalm xc, 2), the ever-living One. But the future manifestation of his being is noticeably represented by the word _______, the one who is to come, rather than _______, who is to be. For the God who is revealed in this Apocalypse is the one who comes in judgment, continually carries on his plan of world domin­ion, and completes his covenants of promise. The Seven Spirits are mentioned next, in order to leave the third place for the name which is also to receive a threefold designation. The Holy Spirit is appropriately given this symbolic title in allusion apparently to the apocalyptic “seven eyes of Jehovah which run to and fro through the whole earth” (Zech. 4:10; comp. Rev. 5:6). The Spirit is manifold in his gifts and operations (1st Cor. 12:4), and the words which are before his throne suggest the teaching of John 15:26, concerning "the Spirit of truth that goeth forth from the Father." The name of Jesus Christ is brought in last for the purpose of a special emphasis, and because the doxology with which the saluta­tion closes is to be directed conspicuously to him. He is here called the faithful witness, the words being appropriated from Psalm 139:37 (38), where the seed of David is said to continue forever, established as the moon, "even a faithful witness in the sky." Christ came into the world to bear witness to the truth (John 18:37), and all the trustworthy testimony which we possess touching God and life and immortality is through him. He is also the firstfruit of the dead, and so has been "declared to be the Son of God in power" (Rom. 1:4). Paul saw the fulfillment of Psalm 2:7, in the resurrection and enthronement of Jesus (Acts 13:33), and in Col. 1:18, he employs the expression "firstborn from the dead." But in this book the apocalyptist probably uses the word firstborn as the chief representative and lord of such as live and reign with Christ in glory (chap. 20:4, 6; 22:5). He was himself dead, but he says in verse 18, "1 am alive for the ages of the ages, and I have the keys of death and of Hades." As the faithful witness he is "the truth," and as firstborn of the dead he is "the life" (comp. John 14:6). Having himself "been made perfect, he became unto all them that obey him the author of salvation eternal " (Heb. 5:9). The third title ascribed to him is Prince (or ruler) of the kings of the earth, and the manifest appropriation of the language of Psalm 2:2; 139:27, implies a recognition of him as the Mes­siah, the anointed king of Zion, "highest of the kings of the earth." Compare his titles, "King of kings, and Lord of lords," in chaps. 27:14, and 19:16.

    The threefold designation of Jesus Christ prompts many a thought of the unspeakable riches of his grace, and naturally leads the writer to conclude his salutation with a doxology, ascribing the glory and the dominion, through all the ages to come, unto him who loves us, and loosed its from our sins in his blood. Observe that the word loves is in the present and loosed is aorist: the one pointing to the continual love which abides as a blessed experience, the other point­ing back to the one great blood-atoning sacrifice for sin by which he “has perfected forever them that are sanctified” (Heb. 10:10, 14). At the beginning of the sixth verse the writer turns from the par­ticipial construction with which he began his doxology, and, after the Hebraistic manner so often noticeable in this book, proceeds: And he made us (to be) a kingdom, priests unto his God and Father. This second clause is in apposition with the first, and the sentiment is appropriated from Exodus 19:6, where God promises Israel that they shall be a peculiar treasure to him above all people, and says, "Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." John here conceives the promise as good as fulfilled, for the revela­tion 6f Jesus, communicated to him and the churches, has already assured him of all this. For he has heard "great voices in heaven" saying that Jehovah and his Christ have taken possession of the kingdom of the world (chap. 11:15; comp. 1st Peter 2:9), and his saints, made like himself to be both kings and priests, rule over the nations (chap. 2:26; 3:21; v, 10). Thus the members of this kingdom all become like Melchizedek, uniting the offices of royalty and priesthood, and live and reign with Christ, unto the glory of his God and Father, who is also the God and Father of them all. Comp. John 20:17, and Rev. 21:3, 7.

APOCALYPTIC ANNOUNCEMENT 1:7, 8

  1. Behold, he cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they who pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over him. Yea, Amen.

  2. I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

    These two verses contain, first, a solemn declaration of the great theme of the book, and second, a confirmation of it as a sure word of God. In this twofold aspect the whole announcement follows the style of Old Testament prophets who associate with their oracles the assurance that Jehovah himself is the real speaker. It was the word of Jehovah coming vividly to Ezekiel that enabled him to look into the opened heavens and see the visions of God (Ezek. 1:1, 3, 4). Amos's announcement that "Jehovah will roar out of Zion, and wither the top of Carmel" is immediately followed by "thus saith Jehovah" (Amos 1:2, 3; comp. 4:12, 13, and Joel 3:16, 17; Zeph. 1:1, 2). The language of verse 7 is in substance identical with that of Jesus in Matt. 24:30: "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man, and then shall all the tribes of the land wail, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and much glory." The image is repeated in Rev. 14:14, but is no more to be understood of a visible phenomenon in the world of sense than is the coming of Jehovah on a swift cloud to destroy Egyptian idolatry, as prophesied in Isaiah 19:1. The emotional style conspic­uous in the words Behold, he cometh with the clouds, shows that the writer is in the element of spiritual vision, and it betrays a total misconception of apocalyptics to insist that this language can only mean that Christ is to come on a material cloud and display his bodily presence to all men in the world at one moment of time. Such a conception involves a manifest physical absurdity. The coming is to be understood as we understand Micah 1:3, 4: "Be­hold, Jehovah cometh forth out of his place, and he will come down and tread upon the high places of the land; and the mountains shall melt under him." So, too, in Psalm 18:9‑11, Jehovah is described as bowing the heavens and coming down, making the thick clouds a pavilion, and flying on the wings of the wind. The language of Rev. 1:7, as well as Matt. 24:30; 26:64; Mark 13:26, and Luke 21:27, is appropriated from Dan. 7:13, and in all these places alike is to be explained as apocalyptic metaphor, and the seeing him by every eye must be understood in accord with the same principle of interpretation. The great event, and all that it involves from first to last, is conceived as a crisis of ages. The words they who pierced him are from Zech. 12:10, and should here be understood, not so much of the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross, and pierced his side (comp. John 19:37), as of those Jews upon whom Peter charged the awful crime (Acts 2:23, 36; 5:30), and who had wantonly cried, “His blood be upon us and upon our children" (Matt. 27:25). To the high priests, scribes, and elders who mocked and smote him Jesus himself said, "Hereafter ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven" (Matt. 26:64). The phrase all the tribes of the land is from Zech. 12:12‑14, and here as there has reference to the families of the Jewish people, not to all the nations of the earth. The mourning is that of "the great tribulation" of those days of fearful woes when Jerusalem was brought to ruin (Matt. 24:21). It is the long-continued wail of the scattered tribes who wander only to find a grave in foreign lands.

    The words Yea, Amen, are best understood as spoken by the Lord himself, and in connection with verse 8. The Yea is Greek, and Amen is its Hebrew equivalent. As the writer combines Greek and Hebrew equivalents in chap. 9:11, so he introduces the statements of verse 8 by a "verily, verily," expressed in each of these two tongues. But coming as they do between the prophetic words of verse 7 and the confirming response of verse 8, they ratify both, and give assurance that all these things shall certainly come to pass. In 3:14, the faithful and true witness calls himself THE AMEN. Verse 8 is the avowed utterance of a Lord, (who is) the God, the “God and Father” of verse 6 and “the God” of verse 1, who gave this revelation to Jesus Christ to show unto his servants. This is further shown by his calling himself the one who is and who was and who is to come (comp. verse 4). He who perpetually exists sees the end from the beginning, and so can speak with definite authority and absolute knowledge of things past, present, and to come. All the glorious coming and future of his Messiah's kingdom is seen as in a moment of time, and we need not think it strange that he speaks through his prophets of some great events of that reign, which in their development will occupy centuries, as though they were the events of an hour. For he is ____________, the All-Ruler. This last word is the Greek equivalent and used in the Septuagint for “Jehovah of hosts” (_______). He calls himself also the Alpha and the Omega, which an ancient gloss has well translated "the begin­ning and the end." Comp. 22:13. The Eternal One is at the beginning and end of all the work of his Messiah. Like the “author and finisher of the faith " in Heb. 12:2, he is first and last in all the outgrowths of the kingdom of heaven. He created all things, and on account of his will they were created (4:11). But he does all these things in and through Christ. Hence the adorable unity, traceable in this book as elsewhere in the New Testament, of Jesus Christ and God. In verse 17 it is the one like unto the Son of man who says, "I am the first and the last."

1. THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 1:9 – 3:22

INTRODUCTORY CHRISTOPHANY. 1:9-20

  1. I John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

  2. I was in spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet

  3. 11.  saying, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it to the seven churches; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamum, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

  4. And I turned to seethe voice which spake with me. And hav­ing turned I saw seven golden candlesticks;

  5. and in the midst of the candle­sticks one like unto a son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle.

  6. And his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

  7. and his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and his voice as the voice of many waters.

  8. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-­edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

  9. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last, and

  10. the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.

  11. Write therefore the things which thou sawest, and the things which are, and the things which shall come to pass hereafter;

  12. the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks are seven churches.

    As introductory to the epistles to the seven churches we have first a glorious vision of the Son of man, from whom all the mes­sages proceed. The whole passage readily divides into four parts: (1) John in Patmos (9). (2) Words of the great voice (10, 11). (3) The vision of Christ (12-16). (4) The assuring word to John (17-20).

    In the expression I John, the writer imitates the style of Daniel (comp. Dan. 7:15; 8:1; 9:2; 10:2; 12:5), the only other bib­lical writer who employs this form of address. But he takes to himself no special authority as an apostle or a prophet. He is pro­foundly conscious that he is but a bond slave of Jesus (comp. 1:1) in the communication of these wonderful messages. He accordingly calls himself your brother and fellow-partaker in the tribula­tion and kingdom and patience in Jesus. The three words, tribula­tion, kingdom, and patience, have notable relation to the prophecies of this book, but we need not look for any special significance in the order of the words as here written, nor (as Alford) regard the position of kingdom between the other two words as startling. For verse 6 has already assured us that John conceives the kingdom as good as come. The tribulation is the same as that foretold by Jesus in Matt. 24:9. The kingdom, although yet to come, was already a mighty power with the disciples of Jesus. They conceived them­selves, and all who with them were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, as having also "tasted the heavenly gifts and the powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:5). They were risen with Christ (comp. Eph. 2:6; Col. 3:1), and could be addressed as having already come to Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22). But the situation was such that they could not expect to enter into the kingdom of God without many tribulations (Acts 14:22), and must meantime run with patience the race set before them (Heb. 12:1). It is unscriptural to maintain that one cannot enter into the kingdom of God and be made a partaker in its heavenly powers, and yet speak of its glories and triumphs yet to come. One may be in tribulation and in the kingdom at one and the same time, and this very fact shows, the necessity of patience, and the propriety of placing the word patience last in this enumeration.[2] The clause in Jesus qualifies the entire preceding part of the verse. It is only in Jesus Christ, as the personal friend and Saviour, that fraternal fel­lowship in the tribulation, kingdom, and patience is possible. On the fact and reason of John's being in Patmos, see above on pages 265‑268. (chap. 19 – IV John in Patmos)

    Verse 10. I was in spirit—In the element of visional rapture, in which one obtains revelation of the heavenly mysteries. Comp. 4:2; 17:3; 21:10. It involved the conditions of ecstasy (______) which fell upon Peter (Acts 10:10), and in which Paul had "visions and revelations of the Lord " (2nd Cor. 12:1). Its import is seen by help of the opposite idea expressed in Acts 7:11, “When Peter was in himself” (_______): that is, when he had recovered his or­dinary self-consciousness after the angelic visitation.

    In the Lord's day—This expression has been usually explained as the first day of the week, the day of the Lord's resurrection, of which we read in the Epistle of Barnabas (15:9), “We observe the eighth day in cheerfulness, in which also Jesus rose from the dead." Ignatius, also, in his Epistle to the Magnesians, speaks of "no longer keeping Sabbath, but living ____________, according to the Lord's (day?), in which also our life sprung up through him and his death." But the critical reader will note that the expressions employed by Barnabas and Ignatius are not identical with this of John, and the New Testament phrase for the first day of the week is _______________, or _______ (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7; 1st Cor. 16:2). But we do have the words ____________, and ___________, as the frequent designation of the day of the Lord's coming (Acts 2:20; 1st Cor. 1:8; 5:5; 2nd Cor. 1:14; 1st Thess. 5:2; 2nd Thess. 2:2; 2nd Peter 3:10), and this is conspicuously the great theme of this book (see verse 7, and notes thereon). What remarkable difference is there between ________ and _________, that any candid writer should feel called upon to say that the one could not be used as a substitute for the other?[3] We fail to see how any scheme of apocalyptic inter­pretation is affected by these words. The great subject of the book is the coming of the Lord to judge his enemies and reward his saints, and what difference could it make in the exposition whether John saw his visions on one day of the week rather than another? If he intended to say that his divine ecstasy placed him in the midst of the scenes of the great day of the Lord we do not see how he could have stated it more emphatically; but if ______________ merely denotes the day of the week on which he saw the visions, it seems to occupy too prominent a place in the sentence and to receive too much emphasis for such an incidental matter. The only other passage in the New Testament where the word occurs is 1st Cor. 11:20, in the phrase Lord's supper (_____________). Will any of those who write so dogmatically on this subject show that the same thought could not have been expressed by ______________? Compare the word in Rev. 19:9, 17. The truth is that this whole controversy over the meaning of ________ in this passage has no more importance in determining the real meaning of the Apoca­lypse than the question whether John were corporeally or only in spirit in the isle of Patmos for the sake of this word of God. Trench very frankly concedes that it is a mistake to suppose "that ________ was a designation of Sunday already familiar among Chris­tians," although he thinks that "the name had probably its origin here." The plain facts are that the New Testament writers have a well-known phrase to designate the first day of the week; the phrase in question is not so used by them, and occurs nowhere else in the New Testament; but its equivalent and closest parallel, ___________, is of frequent occurrence, and everywhere means the day of the Lord's coming, not the day of his resurrection. Since, therefore, this book is not an historical narrative but a record of visions and revelations of God, we incline to regard John's being in Patmos, as well as his being in the day of the Lord, as a matter of spiritual vision, not of objective reality. In the same manner we understand Daniel's presence in Shushan and by the river Ulai (Dan. 8:2). While not denying that Daniel may have actually gone to Shushan, and John to the island Patmos, and that the latter may have seen this vision on a first day of the week, and called it the Lord's day, we think the other interpretation more in harmony with the genius of apocalyptic composition and the purpose of this book. Adopting this view, we do not, as Alford assumes, render John's language, “I was transported by the Spirit into the day of the Lord's coming.” He says nothing about “transportation” either into Patmos or into the day of the Lord. He speaks rather of his visional presence there. He says, I was in Patmos; I was in spirit (not in THE SPIRIT); I was in the Lord's day. To say that, as a matter of visional experience, he was ecstatically in the day of the Lord is as proper and as grammatical as to say that one may “find mercy with the Lord in that day” (2nd Tim. 1:18). It would no more be a violence to the language to say that one was in spirit in the wilderness than to say that he “was led in the Spirit in the wil­derness” (Luke 4:1). John simply says (not that he was carried away or transported into, but rather) that he was in spirit (that is, visionally) in the Lord's day. He found himself, so to speak, (not coming or going lifted up or set down, but) in the very midst of visions of the things which were shortly to come to pass. He was visionally in that day as truly as the Lord himself is “glorified in his saints in that day” (2nd Thess. 1:10). Compare "So shall the Son of man be in his day" (Luke 17:24).

    When, therefore, it is asserted by Alford that “no such rendering would ever have been thought of, nor would it now be worth even a passing mention, were it not that an apocalyptic system has been built upon it,” it is perhaps sufficient to remark that it does not appear to have been first suggested or ever pressed into notice by the exigencies of a system of interpretation; nor is it conceivable how preterist, historical, or futurist expositor can show it to be more helpful to one scheme than another. With greater sobriety and reason may it be said that the large space given to the discus­sion of this point is out of all proportion to its importance in any system of interpretation. Our apology for allowing it so much space in these notes is that it is well, at an early stage of our in­vestigation of this book, to expose the dogmatic air and one-sided partisan pleading which has been the bane of much of the best lit­erature on the Apocalypse. There is little hope of arriving at a trustworthy treatment of such a book of prophecy until men show a willingness to allow due weight to the relative claims of diverse opinions. If one is given to arrogant and reckless assertion on matters of no importance, what confidence can we have in his word or his judgment on matters of fundamental character?

    I heard behind me—No occult meaning is to be sought in the words behind me, but we recognize an obvious allusion to the phrase as employed in Isaiah 30:21, and Ezek. 3:12. The great voice came from a point toward which he was not looking; it therefore served to awaken and attract the seer's attention. Many are the great voices mentioned in this book (comp. 5:2, 12; 6:10; 7:2, 10; 8:13; 10:3; 11:12, 15; 12:10; 14:7, 9, 15, 18; 16:1; 18:2; 19:1, 17; 21:3), and they all serve the art and purpose of apocalyptic representation. In most cases we are told from whom the voices proceed, but in this passage it is left indefinite. We might natu­rally suppose from what immediately follows that it was the voice of the Son of man, but a comparison of 4:1, and what follows there, is not in accord with such a supposition. The voice was a heavenly call, and it seemed to John great as that of a trumpet. Voices, trumpets, angels, and various visional symbols are what may be called the machinery of apocalyptics. The trumpet suggests the signal of a divine revelation or epiphany. Comp. Exodus 19:13, 16, 19; Joel 2:1; Matt. 24:31.

    Verse 11. What thou seest write—So he is to be like Daniel, who wrote his dream-visions (Dan. 7:1). The writing is to take the form of a book (________), and to be what is called in verse 2 “the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.” How this is related to the sealed book of chap. 5:1, and the opened book of 10:2, 8-11, will be interesting to observe in the study of those passages. The seven churches call for no extended comment here. The names are those of seven well-known cities of western Asia Minor, and in the ab­sence of any certain information to the contrary may be supposed to have all been visited, and most of them, perhaps, founded by the writer of this Apocalypse. Those who wish for detailed infor­mation concerning Ephesus, Smyrna, and the other cities here named, should consult the large Bible dictionaries under the sev­eral names. It has been commonly assumed that these seven were the only churches existing in Proconsular Asia at the time this book was written. Such a supposition is entirely unnecessary, and prob­abilities are against it. Seven seems rather to have been purposely selected in view of the symbolical significance of that number. There is no more reason for assuming that John must needs have addressed all the existing churches of Proconsular Asia than those of Antioch, and Derbe, and Lystra, or even those of Corinth and Rome. He writes to whom he is commanded to write, and that is all we need know.

    The attempts which some have made to determine the exact time and place of John's writing are simply a specimen of exegetical folly. Why should anyone presume to settle such a question when neither the writer himself, nor anyone in a position to know, has put on record one word concerning it? "Whether he wrote it while yet in Patinos, or after he returned to Ephesus," is of no con­sequence whatever to us now. (See footnote on page 267.)

    Verses 12-20. The vision which John beheld when he turned to see the voice which spoke with him, may be shown in its apocalyptic setting by the following arrangement of its contents:

    1. Seven golden candlesticks.
    2. One like a Son of man.

      (1) Clothed with a garment reaching to the feet.
      (2) Girded with a golden girdle.
      (3) Forehead white as snow.
      (4) Hair white as wool.
      (5) Eyes as a flame of fire.
      (6) Feet like burnished brass.
      (7) Voice like many waters.

    3. Seven stars in his hand.
    4. Sharp sword from his mouth.
    5. Countenance like the sun.
    6. Effect on John (prostration as one dead).
    7. Words of the Living One.

      (1)   Fear not.
      (2)   I am the first and the last.
      (3)   The Living One.
      (4)   Was dead but alive for the ages.
      (5)   Hold the keys of death and Hades.
      (6)   Write the visions.
      (7)   The mystery of the stars and candlesticks.

    Such an analytical tabulation of the contents of this vision is per­haps the best comment upon it. The sevenfold forms of statement have no recondite significance that we should seek for some special mystery in each allusion, but they altogether serve to impress the grandeur of the Christophany. The seven candlesticks represent the seven churches, and the messages about to be given originate with this most godlike Son of man. What could have been more impressive than such a picture of the Living One from whom the faithful testimony and admonitions to the churches come?

    It is to be noted that nearly all the details of the picture are taken from Old Testament prophets. The candlesticks recall Zechariah's candlestick, all of gold, and seven lamps thereon (Zech. 4:2). The phrase one like unto a son of man is taken from Dan. 7:13 (comp. also Ezek. 1:26). The clothing and golden girdle are to be compared with Dan. 10:5; Ezek. 9:2, 3, 11, and Isaiah 11:5. The hair like wool is from Dan. 7:9, and the flaming eyes and burnished feet from Dan. 10:6 (comp. Ezek. 1:7). The voice like the sound of many waters is appropriated from Ezek. 1:24; 43:2, and Dan. 10:6. The figure of a sword going out of his mouth is found in Isaiah 11:4; 49:2 (comp. Heb. 4:12), and the allusion to the sun shining in his strength is a reminiscence of Judge 5:31. John's prostration, mentioned in verse 17, was also like that of Ezekiel and Daniel (Ezek. 1:2 8; 3:23; Dan. 8:17); the uplifting words tear not are from Dan. 10:12, and the declaration I am the first and the last is from Isaiah 41:4; 44:6; 48:12.

    All these various parts of the description constitute a composite picture, and its majesty is felt only as we contemplate it in the total impression it is designed to make. The author aims to represent this Son of man in all the glory in which Daniel beheld the "An­cient of days" (in Dan. 7:9, 10), and he freely appropriates from any Old Testament prophet whatever helps to fill up the magnificent outline. When, therefore, interpreters presume to tell us that the girdle was the symbol of his prophetic office (Glasgow), and the white hair the sign of Christ's freedom from sin (Cocceius), and his feet the apostles and ministers of his word (Glasgow), the whole effect of such procedure is to divert attention from the one great purpose of the vision. The different parts simply serve to make up a symmetrical picture. A long flowing robe appropriately has a girdle, but no mystic significance is to be sought in either. The white head and hair are not naturally suggestive of “the beauteous flaxen locks of childhood, thus representing the man Jesus in per­petual youth” (Glasgow); rather as Dan. 7:9, intimates, they sug­gest the ancient, the venerable and adorable. The flaming eyes may at once suggest his penetration and intelligence, and the sharp sword proceeding from his mouth reminds the biblical student of the Messiah who “shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth” (Isaiah 11:4). Some of these parts have significance when specified separately, as we shall find in some of the messages to the churches; but in this opening Christophany it is better to leave them in their composite relationship, and not weaken the grand impression they make as a whole by undue attention to details.

    The keys of death and of Hades (verse 18) is an obvious figure for authority over death and the realm of the dead. This glorious Son of man is lord of the citadel, so to speak, where Death seems to reign, and he can open and close the gates at will. The gates of this fortress lead to the underworld, the realm of departed souls, and over Death and Hades alike this ever-living One has power. Hence the force of the first words of verse 19: Write therefore what things thou sawest. Because the one who placed his right hand upon John, and assured him that he was the arbiter of life and death, is the divine revealer of this Apocalypse, therefore the inspired seer may cast off his sudden fear and with holy confidence write the vision which he has just seen. The words ___________, what things are, may be understood in two ways, (1) what things they signify, that is, as explained immediately of the stars and the candlesticks, and (2) what things are now existing, as contrasted with what is to come to pass in the future. On the whole we prefer the latter. For _______ followed immediately by ____________ most naturally means things which now are as distinguished from things which are yet to be. If the writer meant to say "what things thou sawest and what they signify" would he not have used the word ___________ (as in chap. 1:1) rather than ______? As the language now stands we have the vision itself designated as past, things con­templated in the vision as present, and other things yet to follow after these (comp. 4:1).

    Verse 20 gives an explanation of the mystery of the stars and the candlesticks. The word mystery here means the mystical signif­icance or symbolical meaning of these objects of the vision. The candlesticks or lamp stands (______; comp. _____ in Zech. 4:2) are symbols of the churches. As organized bodies of Christian confess­ors the churches receive the light of the Lord and reflect the same so as to be the light of the world (comp. Matt. 5:14, 16; John 8:12; 9:5). But a deeper mystery seems to conceal the exact mean­ing of the seven stars; for, though said to be angels of the seven churches, the import of the word angels in such a definition is as difficult to determine as that of stars. We reject as unsatisfactory all those explanations which make the angels either messengers, delegates, officers, presbyters, or bishops of the churches. There is no evidence that the word angel was ever so employed in the early church, and what especially bears against this view is the fact that the addresses to the several churches are unsuitable for a mere offi­cer, or bishop, or any one individual representative of the church. The responsible and characteristic personnel, embracing the church itself in the main body of its membership, seems to be contemplated in every address to the angel of the church designated. For this reason also we reject the notion that the guardian angel of each particular church is to be understood, for why praise or blame such an angel as personally guilty of the acts of the church itself? The old view of Andreas and Arethas that the angel of the church is the church itself seems on the whole to be the best supported, and in accord with the angel of the altar, the angel of the fire, and the angel of the waters (comp. chap. 14:18; 16:5, 7). The assump­tion of Alford that “as the church is an objective reality, so must the angel be, of whatever kind," is a fallacy in apocalyptic interpre­tation. One might as well maintain that the seals, and the trumpets, and the bowls of wrath are objective realities. That they have symbolic significance is clear, but that the angels that blow the trumpets have objective reality is as far from the truth as to say that all John's visions had objective reality. To discriminate between the symbol and the thing signified is the task of the inter­preter, whose critical judgment should discern what is essentially real and what mere drapery or sign. The angels of the churches are best explained as an apocalyptic title for the churches, conceived not so much as organized bodies as in the characterizing personal elements and life which distinguish one church from another.[4] So when the Living One says to a church, “I know thy works, thy zeal, thy patience, thy failures, thy poverty and nakedness,” the ref­erence is to no one individual, least of all to a bishop or a guardian angel, but to the body of the church itself. Every member of a church so addressed is to feel himself intended, and to know that he personally, as well as the whole body associated with him in fellow­ship, is held in the right hand of him who also holds the keys of death and of Hades.[5] That right hand can lift him up and drive away his fears (verse 17) or in righteous judgment remove his can­dlestick out of its place (2:5).

    In passing now to study in detail the messages to the seven churches we note especially the artificial symmetry of form in which they are all cast. Besides the introductory formula, To the angel of the church write, which is the same in all the epistles, we observe three main divisions in each epistle.

    1. The divine source of the message, designated by one or more of the titles of the Son of man already given in the introductory Christophany (1:12-18). The uniform beginning is, These things saith, virtually the equivalent of the prophectic “Thus saith Jebo­vah” (comp. Amos 1:3; 2:1; Obad. 1; Zech. 1:4; Mal. 1:2, 9).

    2. The message itself, declaring the speaker's knowledge (oltda) of the works, character, and condition of the church. With this declaration of knowledge are connected words of praise or blame, admonition or encouragement, according to the condition of each particular church.

    3. The promise to him that overcomes (______), associated in each case with the solemn call, He that hath an ear, let him hear what the 8pirit saith unto the churches. In the first three epistles (Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamum) these words precede, but in the other four they follow the words of promise.

    We also observe a notable correspondence of the contents of these three parts, and a striking fitness to each other. The char­acteristic titles of the Lord who speaks seem to have been chosen with reference to the character of the particular church addressed, and the kind of reward promised to the victor.

  1. THE CHURCH IN EPHESUS. 2:1-7.

Toiling, enduring, but fallen from her first love.

  1. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write;
    These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, he that walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks:

  2. I know thy works, and thy toil and patience, and that thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try them which call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find them false;

  3. and thou hast patience and didst bear for my name's sake, and hast not grown weary.

  4. But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.

  5. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent.

  6. But this thou hast, that thou hatest the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

  7. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.

    Verse 1. The message is from him who holds the stars and walks in the midst of the candlesticks (comp. 1:13, 16). In 1:16, the stars were simply had in his hand (_____), in 1:20, they were seen upon his hand, but here they are held fast or ruled (______) by his mighty hand. So, too, in 1:13, he was seen in the midst of the candlesticks, but no motion or activity was noted; here he is the one who walks in the midst of the candlesticks. He is a living and active power in the churches, conversant with all that is going on among them.

    Verse 2. The contents of the message consist of three main elements (1) A commendation of the works, toil, and patience of the church, especially in the trial and conviction of false apostles. (2) Admonition and warning because of leaving their first love. (3) Their relation to the works of the Nicolaitans. As an example of the evil men, who were too heavy a burden for them to bear, mention is made of them who call themselves apostles and are not. In what particulars they claimed to be apostles, and on what grounds they were proven to be false, we are not told. Compare Paul's words in Acts 20:2 9, 30, to the Ephesian elders about the “grievous wolves,” and men of the church “speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.”

    The first love from which this church had fallen is to be under­stood of the first warm affection for Christ which it displayed. There appears to be an allusion to the imagery of Jer. 2:2, where Jehovah says of Israel, "I remember thee, the goodness of thy youth, the love of thy espousals." The notion that such a lapse from the first Christian love and zeal implies a long period after the foundation of the church is altogether untenable. The history of individual churches for nearly two thousand years has shown many an instance of deplorable leaving the first love within less than one year after a most gracious quickening. Paul's epistle to the Gala­tians ought to silence the partisan pleading which has alleged that this losing of first love by the Ephesians could not have taken place before the end of Nero's reign. Those Galatians, whose first love for Christ was such that they "would, if possible, have plucked out their eyes and given them to" his apostle (Gal. 4:15), fell away from that love so soon that he was obliged to write to them in sorrow, "I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel " (Gal. 1:6).

    The admonition is threefold: remember, repent, and do the first works. The awakening of tender memories leads to repentance, and a genuine repentance is evinced by doing the same kind and quality of works as those which displayed the sincerity of the first warm affection. The warning that, in case of failure thus to repent, there would certainly follow a retributive removal of the candle­stick itself was but the necessary announcement of him who is emphatically "the faithful witness."

    The Nicolaitans are only mentioned here, as if their works were well known. Their teaching is mentioned in verse 15 in connection with that of Balaam, “who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication.” The fact that again in verse 20 “the woman Jezebel” is charged with the same evil teaching and deeds suggests that the names Nicolaitans, Balaam, and Jezebel are to be under­stood as symbolical, and represent different gradations of one and the same evil. The church in Ephesus is clear of the evil, and commended for hating the works of the Nicolaitans, for in this they have the mind of the Lord who also hates them. But the church in Pergamum had become complicated with the evil, and had some who held the teaching of Balaam and some who held the teaching of the Nicolaitans; that is, the church had different grades of these mischievous teachers, some being more notorious than others. In Thyatira, however, this evil was tolerated by the church, and seems to have assumed the boldness of an im­pious Jezebel, calling for fearful judgment from the Lord. That the Nicolaitans were no heretical sect of this name, as some of the fathers imagined, but that the name is symbolical, may be reason­ably concluded from the following considerations.

    (1) There is no trustworthy evidence of the existence of a sect of this name. The patristic testimonies from Irenaeus downward exhibit a notable vagueness, are in several things self-contradictory, and are evidently based on this passage of the Apocalypse which they assume to explain. They trace the supposed sect to the Nicolas of Acts 6:5 (apparently for the want of any other person of this name known to the early Church), and report various fanci­ful stories about the unhappy relations of Nicolas and his wife. The story grows with the lapse of time, until finally Epipbanius says that all the Gnostic sects sprung originally from this same “Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch.” It has been well observed that the patris­tic knowledge of this sect grew in proportion to the remoteness of the several writers from the times when this Nicolas lived!

    (2) The conjunction of Balaamites and Nicolaitans in verses 14 and 15 warrants the inference that if one is a symbolical name so is the other.

    (3) The name Nicolaitan. (from _____ and _____) is the Greek equiv­alent of the Hebrew Balaam,[6] and both alike denote destroyer of the people. They correspond as closely as Abaddon and Apollyon in chap. 9:11, and the analogy of that passage in its use of a Greek and Hebrew name of like meaning tends to confirm the view here presented.

    (4) But the fact that Balaamites and Jezebelites in these epistles are identical in their teachings and works, as seen by comparison of verses 14 and 20, makes it the more probable that the Nicolaitans are but another class of these same offenders. If this be true it is easy to trace the obvious gradation of the evildoers in three of these epistles. As dangerous foes of God's people they are hated in the church of Ephesus; as successors of Balaam they injure the church of Pergamum, as that ancient soothsayer injured the chil­dren of Israel (Num. 31:16). In the church of Thyatira they have become so rooted in the depths of Satan that they are toler­ated as an impious harlot, who even claims to be a prophetess.

    What hateful evil of the early Church, it may now be asked, is designated by these symbolic names? The answer is furnished both in verses 14 and 20. The eating of things sacrificed to idols and fornication were evils over which the early churches composed of Jews and Gentiles had no little trouble. What Paul writes in Rom. 14:15‑23; 1st Cor. 8:7-13, about eating things sacrificed to idols, and his frequent condemning allusions to fornication and other sins of uncleanness (1st Cor. 5:1; 6:13, 18; 2nd Cor. 12:21; Gal. 5:19; Eph. 5:3; Col. 3:5; 1st Thess. 4:3‑7), is evidence of this. And the first great council of the apostles and elders at Je­rusalem was convened to consider matters of this kind. There were two parties, one stickling over rites and Jewish laws, and in­sisting that the Gentile converts should observe circumcision and other laws of Moses (Acts 15:5), while the other contended for greater liberty, and argued that the Gentile converts ought not to be brought under the yoke of Judaism. They compromised on four things which were to be enforced as necessary to the peace and prosperity of the Church, two of which were a total abstinence from things sacrificed to idols and from fornication (Acts 15:29). The troubles over these things in churches to which Paul wrote show that the decrees of the Jerusalem council were not everywhere enforced. There were very naturally, as is always the case in such controversies, extremists on both sides. The rigid Jewish party doubtless provoked in many places, like Pergamum and Thyatira, a bold and lawless opposition which carried the liberty for which men like Paul pleaded into impious license, and commanded a fol­lowing which might well have been likened to Balaam's teaching to cast a stumbling-block before Israel, and, in its worst forms, to an idolatry and presumption like that of Jezebel. Such presumptuous libertines may have given the envious Jews occasion to say that Paul's teaching of freedom from the law was responsible for these excesses. And it is notable that “Jews from Asia” excited the multitude against Paul at Jerusalem, and cried out, “This is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people and the law” (Acts 21:28). Such was virtually charging Paul with being a Nicolaitan (foe of the people) in the sense above explained. The charge was a vile slander against Paul, but it may have originated in confounding Paul's real doctrine with the wicked perversion of it in some of the churches of Asia.

    Verse 3. The promise to him that overcometh is enforced and made quite general by the words which accompany all the promises in the seven epistles: He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. The Spirit is no other than “the seven Spirits which are before the throne” (1:4), and what this universal Spirit here says is not merely for the church of Ephesus, but for all the churches. See more on this at the close of the epistles (3:22). The victor (_______) in every case is the one who perseveres in all works, toil, patience, conflict, and suffering which the times and situation involve. He who is faithful to the truth of Christ, and maintains his cause unto the end of the struggle, is assured of glorious reward. In this first promise it is the heavenly gift of eating of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God. This is a manifest allusion to the tree of life in the garden of Eden as men­tioned in Gen. 2:9; 3:22-24. The lost Paradise and its tree of life are to be restored, and these Christian victors are to eat of that heavenly fruit. In the New Testament, Paradise is the name of the heavenly abode of disembodied spirits (Luke 22:43; 2nd Cor. 12:2, 4). Compare also what is said in chap. 22:2, of the river and “the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

    In studying the symmetry and inner congruity of the several parts of this first epistle of the seven we observe:

    1. The propriety of designating Christ in this first epistle by the first and most conspicuous fact which arrested the eye of the seer, his position in the midst of the seven candlesticks, and his hold upon the seven stars.

    2. He who holds fast, and has all power over, the seven stars takes occasion in this first address to say how thoroughly he knows all that is good and bad in the personnel of the church, and, walk­ing in the midst of the candlesticks, and observing all that occurs among them, he will be sure to remove out of its place the candle­stick whose representative stars persistently offend.

    3. Paradise and the tree of life are a most fitting reward for those who, by toil and patience and doing the first works, recover and retain their first love unto the end. Such will find Paradise restored; they “wash their robes, that they may have the authority over the tree of life” (22:14).

  1. THE CHURCH IN SMYRNA. 2:8-11.

The martyr church.

  1. And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write;
    These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and lived again:

  2. I know thy tribulation, and thy poverty (but thou art rich), and the blasphemy of them who say they are Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

  3. Fear not the things which thou art about to suffer: behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.

  4. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

    1. The message to this church comes from Him who is the first and the last, who was dead and lived. These are titles which he gave himself in 1:17, 18, when he laid his right hand upon John, and said, “Fear not.”

    2. This church is noted (1) for its tribulation and poverty; (2) for the blasphemy of those who called themselves Jews, but were rather a synagogue of Satan; and (3) for encouragement in view of imprisonment and bitter trials in the near future. A part of their affliction may have been the poverty resulting from violent spoliation of their possessions (comp. Heb. 10:34), but they are cheered with the reminder that in spite of such poverty they were truly rich in heavenly treasure (comp. Matt. 5:10-12; 6:20; 2nd Cor. 6:10). The blasphemy of them who say they are Jews is to be understood of the calumnious and bitter opposition of fanatical Jews, who not only at Smyrna, but in all the provinces, were the leaders in the violent persecutions of the Christians (see Acts 13:50; 14:2, 5, 19; 17:5; 21:27; 23:12; 24:5-10; 1st Thess. 2:14-16). Even the martyrdom of Polycarp at Smyrna, a gener­ation later, was distinguished by the fierce zeal with which the ex­cited Jewish calumniators urged it on. Such Jews were unworthy of the name. Bitterness so malevolent is conspicuously of the devil, and hence instead of representing a synagogue of God they are appropriately called a synagogue of Satan. We may well compare “the throne of Satan” in verse 13, and “the depths of Satan” in verse 24. We should note, too, that it is the devil who is about to cast into prison some of the church of Smyrna, so that, thus early in the book, the old serpent who is called the Devil and Satan” (comp. 12:9; 20:2) appears as the great author of persecutions. The false and unworthy Jews are here his agents, as, at a later stage of the Apocalypse, other agencies appear as instigated and pos­sessed by his infernal genius. The ten days are to be taken as a symbolical number, here indicative of a limited period of time (comp. Matt. 24:22; Dan. 1:12, 14; Gen. 24:55). The exhor­tation to be faithful unto death implies in this connection more than fidelity until the time of death; it involves the idea of a mar­tyr’s death. Be thou continuously faithful even though that faith­fulness subject thee to death. Compare the phrase unto death in 12:11, and Acts 22:4. Such a death leads to a crowned life beyond. Comp. James 1:12; 1st Peter 5:4; 2nd Tim. 4:8. The crown is that of both victory and royalty.

    3. The single promise to this martyr church is that he that over­cometh shall not be hurt of the second death. It is a notable feature of all the promises to the victors, made in these seven epistles, that they anticipate by their allusions the subsequent revelations of this book; and hence the probability that the epistles to the seven churches were written after the prophet had completed the subse­quent portions of his Apocalypse. The seven epistles, therefore, are of the nature of an introduction prepared after all the visions and revelations had been fully formulated by the author. The second death is next mentioned in connection with the picture of the enthroned martyrs in 20:4-6. “Over them the second death has no power.” Their martyrdom leads to heavenly life and enthrone­ment, so that they have a blessed resurrection by reason of their fidelity unto death.

    As such a resurrection is a second life, so “the lake of fire” (20:14) is the eternal perdition of the wicked after death, and so a second death. The expression second death occurs in the Targum of Onkelos and also in the Jerusalem Targum of Deut. 33:6: “Let Reuben live in eternal life, and let him not see the second death.” To say, therefore, that one shall not be hurt of the second death is equivalent to saying that with such a one “death shall be no more” (21:4).

    In the symmetrical composition of this epistle we observe:

    1. How appropriately these words to the martyr church come from the ever-living One, who was dead but lived. It is equiva­lent to the assurance of John 11:26, that “whosoever liveth and be­lieveth on me shall never die.”

    2. How appropriately the words fear not in verse 10 come from him who laid his right hand upon John, and spoke the words recorded in 1:17, 18.

    3. How appropriate that those who are subjected to great tribu­lation and trial for Christ’s sake, and called to die a martyr’s death, should be assured of no harm from the second death. Though death seem for a moment to reign over them, much the more glori­ously shall they reign in life through Jesus Christ (comp. Rom. 5:17). For them no second death remains, but rather the crown of life, the living and reigning with Christ a thousand years (20:4).

3. THE CHURCH IN PEEGAMUM 2:12-17.

The church near Satan’s throne.

  1. And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write;
    These things saith he that hath the sharp two-edged sword:

  2. I know where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s throne is: and thou holdest fast my name, and didst not deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwelleth.

  3. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there some that hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling­-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication.

  4. So hast thou also some that hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans in like manner.

  5. Repent therefore; or else I come to thee quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth.

  6. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.

    1. To this church the message comes from him who has the sharp two-edged sword. In the vision of chap. 1:16, the sword was seen proceeding out of his mouth. This sharp sword is a symbol of that, “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Epb. 6:17), and which, in Heb. 4:12, is said to be “living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and skillful to judge (_____) the thoughts and intents of the heart.” It is therefore more especially a symbol of conviction and judgment (John 16:8-11). Compare the figure in Isa. 11:4; 49:2; Hosea 6:5. The Christ who speaks is therefore no other than the divine Judge and Ruler of the world.

    2. The message shows (1) that this church was dwelling where the throne of Satan is; but (2) was a firm defender of the faith yet (3) had some Balaamites and Nicolaitans; and therefore (4) is admonished to repent and avert the sword of judgment. The throne of Satan is undoubtedly to be understood as some notable strong­hold of Satan’s power. As another manifestation of Satan was a giving of “his power and his throne and great authority” to the beast out of the sea (13:2), so at Pergamum the great adversary of Christ had in some way established his throne. The fact that the temple and “genuine sanctuary” of Esculapius was at this place (Tacitus, Annals, 3:63) may serve at least to suggest that Pergamum was at that time a stronghold of heathenish superstition and idolatry. This fact also helps to account for the pernicious teaching of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans, which had found some adherents even in the church. To holdfast the name of Christ and not deny his faith under such circumstances were high commenda­tion. We know from Paul’s epistles that the church of Corinth was near another throne of Satan, and some in that place were guilty of eating things sacrificed to idols and of fornication (1st Cor. 5:1; 8:1). Such an evil leaven tends to “leaven the whole lump” (1st Cor. 5:6). As Balaam and Nicolaitan are symbolic names (see above on verse 6), so we most naturally infer that Anti­pas is but the mystic name of some one or more faithful witnesses and martyrs of Jesus in that place. The word means against all,[7] and may well denote a sufferer like the author of Psalm 22 (verses 12, 16), around whom the assembly of the wicked formed a circle like so many mad dogs or strong bulls of Bashan; or like another Jeremiah, who seemed at times to stand alone against a world of evil (Jer. 15:10; 20:10). Certain it is that we have no trustworthy account of any early martyr of this name, for the later legends are manifestly fabulous; like those of the origin of the Nicolaitans, they have grown out of this word in the Apocalypse, and know nothing more than is here written.

    The statement of verse 14, that Balaam taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, accords with the tradi­tion which is recorded in Josephus (Ant., 4.6.6), and is in sub­stance warranted by what is written in Num. 31:16, compared with Num. 25:1, 2. The teaching of Balaam, as well as that of the Nicolaitans, encouraged loose complicity with idolatrous hea­thenism. The Balaamites and Nicolaitans, as we have shown above, are best explained as symbolical names of different degrees of the same loose libertinism and freedom with the heathen world. The admonition to repent (verse 16) is intensified by the threat which follows, and is notable for the four words come, quickly, war, sword. The whole verse is remarkable as a potent expression of solemn warning.

    3. The promise that follows in verse 17 is also remarkable for its mystic allusions and the correspondence of its symbolism with the situation and conditions of the church in Pergamum. Without de­tailing the various opinions concerning the hidden manna, the white stone, and the new name, we simply observe that the three terms together constitute a trinity of secret gifts. Trench has well admonished us not to look in the realm of heathen customs or in pagan symbolism for our explanation, and hence not beguile ourselves with the white pebbles of the Greek ballot box or the tes­sara of the Olympic games. The hidden manna is an allusion to the omer of manna which was deposited as a sacred treasure in the holy of holies in connection with the tables of the law (Exod. 16:32-34). The white stone suggests either the pure golden plate on the forefront of the high priest’s miter, on which was graven HOLI­NESS TO JEHOVAH (Exod. 28:36-38), or the URIM AND THUMMIM, which were “put in the breastplate of judgment” and worn “upon the heart " of the high priest (Exod. 28:30). The new name is to be compared with chap. 3:12, and 19:12, where it ap­pears to be the symbolic designation of some incommunicable secret known only to Christ and the believing soul. It implies a union and unity with Christ which only he whose life is hidden with Christ in God can know (Col. 3:3, 4). We accordingly understand the threefold allusion of manna, stone, and name as designed to enhance the thought of the real priesthood of believers (comp. 1:6), to whom “it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 13:11). These victors dwell in the secret place of the Most High; they eat even the treasured manna of the most holy place; they have direct revelations as by the sacred Urim, and they know the mysteries of the divine life and the name of their Lord, for that name is in their hearts, and they bear the image of the heavenly One (2nd Cor. 3:18).

    The new name is a phrase appropriated from Isa. 62:2, and, like “new song,” “new heaven,” and “new earth,” points to the new kind and quality (______) of things which characterize the heavenly kingdom of Christ and of God. Among “the things which must shortly come to pass” (1:1) the Apocalypse gives prominence to the coming down of the “new Jerusalem” to the earth, and by that glorious coming the Lord will “make all things new” (21:5).

    Among the correspondencies of this epistle notice:

    1. How appropriately the one who has the sharp two-edged sword is represented as making war on evil teachers with the sword of his mouth.

    2. He that holds fast the name and faith of Jesus near Satan’s