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Part 3
CHAPTER III. THE EPHESUS LETTER 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 lampstands. 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.
And thou hast patience, and didst bear for my namesake, and hast not grown weary. But I have against thee that thou didst leave thy first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works, or else I come to thee, and will move thy lampstand out of its place, except thou repent.
But this thou hast, that thou hatest the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. To him that overcometh, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
REVELATION CHAPTER II. VERSES 1-7 At the time of the writing of the Epistle, Ephesus was the metropolis of Ionia, and undoubtedly a great and opulent city. All kinds of people were gathered there, the wealthy and the learned, as well as the poor and the illiterate.
The general condition of life was that of a wealthy, cultured, and corrupt community. So far as the history of the church is concerned, we have a most interesting account of its planting and progress in the Acts of the Apostles. This account lies almost completely within chapters 18-20.
Paul, on his journeyings, arrived in the city accompanied by Aquila and Priscilla. As his custom was, he went into the synagogue, and spoke to the assembled people of the one theme ever on his heart. Passing on his way, he left behind him these two people.
Thus was first spoken the message of the risen and crucified Christ, and from such an apparently hurried commencement there came eventually a strong and remarkable church. The next event of note was the arrival of Apollos. He had learned of Jesus through the ministry of John, and was a man of splendid mental equipment and great oratorical power.
In Ephesus he declared all he knew of truth with result that a little group of men, attracted by the story he had to tell, imperfect though it was, were baptized with the baptism of John. Beyond that they made no progress. There were in all about twelve in number.
Then came a crisis. Paul returned to Ephesus, Apollos having passed on to Achia and Corinth. In the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of the Acts, we have, briefly stated, the work he accomplished during a period of about three years.
It is very interesting to notice the growth. He found twelve disciples, imperfectly instructed, not yet having received the Spirit of God, men who were followers of Christ so far as they had light. Apollos had preached the baptism of water to repentance as preparatory to entrance upon the kingdom over which Jesus was to preside.
Paul found them ignorant of the very essentials of Christianity, and asked them evidently in a tone of surprise and inquiry, Did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed? And they replied, Nay, we did not as much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was given. This called for further inquiry as to the nature of their baptism, and finding that they had been baptized with John's baptism, he led them into further light. How much they had gained from obedience to the light received is revealed by their readiness to obey the new light that fell.
They were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus, and the apostle, laying his hands upon them, they received the Holy Spirit. Then Paul began to teach in the synagogue, and it is a remarkable fact that they suffered him to do this for three months. The effect of the preaching was as always.
To those who were disobedient there came hardness, and a spirit of opposition was aroused. The apostle saw that the time had arrived for the outward formation of a church. He gathered the disciples out of the synagogue, and securing the school of Tyrannus, he began preaching there.
During two years the church grew until it became a great center of missionary operations. The word of God sounded out through all Asia as a result of the teaching in Ephesus. Then mark what followed.
Imitators arose, men desiring to accomplish the same results, but lacking the necessary power. Some of these took upon themselves the work of casting out evil spirits, using the name of Jesus, saying, I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. But the demons were not so to be deceived.
And the startling answer came, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and mastered both of them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. Attempts to imitate the work of the spirit through the servants of God always ends disastrously to those who make the attempt. From this experience the work blazed out again in new power.
Fear fell upon all, and those that practiced magical arts brought their books together and burned them. Then followed new opposition against Paul, the reason being that he had endangered the craftsman's art. Then Paul left Ephesus and journeyed through Macedonia.
Passing back through the same region, he paused at Miletus, that he might there meet the elders of the church at Ephesus, and as he was to be no more with them, he gave them parting instructions. It is more than probable that at this time John came down and took oversight of the church. How long he remained it is impossible to decide.
In all likelihood the message of Jesus to the church of Ephesus was sent about thirty-five years after Paul's departure. It reveals the changes that have been wrought. To it we now turn our attention.
The Lord introduces himself as, He that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, he that walketh in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. Here, as always, there is a very remarkable fitness of selection. It is evident that the church at Ephesus is fulfilling the true ideal of church order.
Christ is seen as the unifying center and director of the church, walking still amid the seven golden lampstands, and holding in his right hand the seven stars. No other things in that descriptive vision are mentioned concerning him. The true church order is still maintained.
The ministry is in its proper and rightful place. Outwardly everything is as it should be. There is no flaw, no failure in organization, in work, in attitude, so far as any visiting apostle could have discovered it, or so far as the world was concerned in watching it.
Then follows our Lord's commendation, a commendation so remarkable that I venture to think a careful consideration of it will leave us inclined to ask, Can there be anything wrong with this church? Had we visited it, in all probability we should have reported that it was the most remarkable church we had ever seen. The commendation is sevenfold. I know of thy works, and thy toil and patience, and that thou canst not bear evil men.
And it's try them which call themselves apostles, and they are not, and it's find them false. And thou hast patience, and it's bear for my name's sake, and hast not grown weary. One is startled at the completeness of the commendation.
Consider it closely. I know thy works. This has reference to actual service being rendered.
The church is not a comfortable club for the conserving of the life of a few saints. It was an active and aggressive congregation of the saints. I know thy toil.
This word lies deeper, having reference to the effort that produces work even at the cost of pain. There are those who boast that their work and their gifts cost them nothing. Wherever that is true, the work is worthless.
The people at Ephesus could make no such boast, for behind the works lay the toil. They were not offering to the master, to the church, to the world things worthless because costless. They were working at the price of toil.
And thy patience. That is the attitude of persistence in the toil that produces the work. These first three words are closely linked.
Works, toil, patience. All the words are the more wonderful, as we remember that they fall from the lips of Jesus. It is not merely the opinion of an apostle or stranger.
It is the definitely expressed verdict of the Lord, of the church. The one who with eyes of fire scans every detail. I know your works, and behind them there is the toil that speaks of pain, and enveloping that there is the patient endurance that makes work perpetual.
And, I know that thou canst not bear evil men. There is no impurity condoned within the borders of this church. It has no complicity with the evil things in Ephesus.
They had guarded the fellowship of the saints against the unholy intrusion of impure men. They had not been lax in their discipline as to life. Thou didst try them which call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find them false.
The church had been careful about its doctrine, careful about what it listened to, characterized by discernment and judgment of false teachers. Not only had their discipline been perfect as to the life of their members, but they had refused to tolerate false teachers that had come to them. And yet, thou hast patience and didst bear for my name's sake.
Their persistent fidelity had not been in circumstances that were always easy. Persecution had raged around them, and yet they had maintained their works. And then the last and most remarkable word, thou hast not grown weary.
They had a great reserve of strength. All the achievements had been under the impulse of, and in the power of unswerving fidelity. This description is surely most remarkable.
The church at work, laboring at the work, patiently persistent in the labor that produced the work. The church refusing to have fellowship with evil men, observing the false philosophy of certain teaching and rejecting it. The church, persistent in its faithfulness and unwearying in its service.
If the master, visiting the church to which we belong, uttered such words as these, should we not feel that they constituted the highest commendation that could possibly be passed? And yet once again, after the complaint which he makes, he adds something more to the commendation. But this thou hast, that thou hatest the work of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Some doubt exists as to the peculiar views of the Nicolaitans.
Some light may be thrown upon the subject by reference to the letter to Pergamum. 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. So hast thou also some that hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans in like manner.
My personal conviction is that the Nicolaitans were persons who excused certain forms of impurity and made the grace of God a cloak for lasciviousness. I believe the heresy was that known in latter days as antinominalism, which declares that grace is sufficient for salvation, and that life is of little moment. This heresy will be dealt with more fully in considering the letter to Pergamum.
So wonderful a commendation seems to leave nothing to be desired. No eye but the penetrating eye of fire, which is the eye of love, would ever have detected the failure of the church at Ephesus, at this point. Subsequently that failure would have been detected even by the outsider.
The living Lord was conscious of the incipient disease which others could only know as it manifested itself in the externalities. Light focused in a camera has revealed the presence of disease in the face of a child long before any symptoms appeared which a physician could have detected. So the searching light of the eyes of fire detected the absence of an essential quality in the life of the church.
I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love. That is all. No other sentence.
No other word. Immediately he passes to the council which he has to give to the church. And yet how much he has said! Seeing the church now in the light of his declaration, all the radiance of the former things is overshadowed.
What is first love? And what is it to lose first love? First love is the love of espousal. First love is marital. In writing to the Corinthian church, Paul said, For I espoused you to one husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. That is first love. I espoused you to one husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
And this is the loss of pure love. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. The elements of first love, then, are simplicity and purity.
Now think for a moment of what this same man wrote to this church at Ephesus. After dealing with the relation of husbands to wives and wives to husbands, he pens this marvelous statement, This mystery is great, but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church. Now what is the mystery to which he refers? It is the mystery of love which has its most radiant revelation in the marriage relationship, and the apostle declares that that relationship is the most perfect symbol of that existing between Christ and his bride.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church. Thus it is evident that Christ's love for the church is typified by the love of husband for wife. Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.
Thus the love of the church to Christ is typified by the love of the wife for the husband. What, then, is the love of Christ to the church? Unselfish love. Love in which there is no single thought of self.
What, then, is the church's love for Christ? The response of love to the mystery of love. The submission of love to perfect love. First love is the love of espousal.
Its notes are simplicity and purity. Marital love. The response of love to love.
The subjection of a great love to a great love. The submission of a self-denying love to a love that denies self. First love is the abandonment of all for love that has abandoned all.
First love defies analysis. It loves, it knows not why, save that the lover has by love attracted love, and the responsive love is pure, unselfish, ardent, humble. The church at Ephesus had had its first love, the love of espousal, the love of simplicity, the love of singleness, the love in which no low motive lurked.
First love is fair as the morning, bright with the promise of hope, aflame in the presence of which all other emotions and enthusiasms are included. It was this the Master missed. No soul can try to love him.
When you felt your need of him as Savior, and there dawned upon you the vision of his perfect love, you found that the perfect salvation he offered was himself given to you. Your raptured soul was bound to him by the excellency of his own character. In the consciousness of the infinite love of his heart your love was born, and the first flush of that young love of yours was pure, unselfish, humble, ardent, burning like a flame, consuming everything in its fervor and its fire.
Now think of the infinite pathos of that one sentence of complaint, Thou didst leave thy first love. The emotion and the enthusiasm and the energy are lacking. Jesus recognizes this.
Had Judas been a member of this church he would have found nothing to criticize. He criticized Mary of Bethany. And why? Because the love of Mary of Bethany was the love that overstepped all the bounds of prudence and regularity.
Love cannot be weighed in scales or measured with a foot rule. It overleaps the channel you cut for it, and laughs its way into meadows, leaving behind it the track of fertility and the fragrance of flowers. You cannot compress it into mathematical formulae.
It sings in poetry and forgets calculation. It worships in abandonment and oversteps arithmetic. It is a vestal flame.
It is the crowning consciousness of life. The church at Ephesus was still a remarkable church, but it lacked the element of that enthusiasm, which in the eyes of the calculating worldling is important. There are some people who imagine that this lack of enthusiasm is an advantage.
May God have mercy on such. I pray the day may never come when the heroisms and enthusiasms of first love shall cease. Christ stands confronting this great church, and he says, in effect, There is much of excellency, but I miss the first love.
I do not hear the song at the unusual hour. I wait in vain for the aroma of some new box of spikenard. The church has become faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.
After Christ has spoken, we begin to reconsider the commendation, and even in that commendation now it is possible to detect omissions, things he did not say which he might have said, had they not left their first love. In Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, we have inferentially a picture of a church in its first love. There were many irregularities of doctrine and of conduct, but there was a great enthusiasm.
The apostle describing their condition says, Remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Here are the same things that Christ commends in Ephesus, and yet how different. In the full rush of first love, the apostle says of the Thessalonians, Work of faith, labor of love, patience of hope.
But speaking to the church at Ephesus, Jesus says, Work, labor, patience. What are the missing things? The faith, the love, the hope. In first love it is work of faith.
First love lost, it is work. In first love it is labor of love. First love lost, it is labor.
In first love it is patience of hope. With first love lost, it is patience. The externalities remain, but the underlying sources have been weakened.
Faith, out of which work grows, is faltering. Love, the principle of toil, is waning. Hope, the inspiration of perpetual patience, is dimmed.
Now these three—faith, hope, and love—alike center in the person. Where faith in Him is strong, works abide. Where love for Him is full, enduring toil continues.
Where hope toward Him is perfect, patience is perpetual. As yet the outward manifestations are not, but the Master has discovered the inward backsliding. He says, in effect, You have lost your first love.
Your works run on, but your faith in Me is not what it was. Your labor is still evident, but your love is weakened. Your patience is still evident, but your hope does not burn so brightly.
And presently He will mark the full meaning of this. Unless you repent and get back to these first things, you will lose your lampstand. When the flame of love flickers, then its sisters, faith and hope, grow faint, and presently the outward light will burn low, and the surrounding darkness will be unilluminated.
In the light of these statements, moreover, other parts of the commendation may be reconsidered. Is it not more than likely that their very opposition to false men and doctrine partook of the nature of lack of love? I would speak very cautiously at this point, for the Lord commended these things, and they were right, but I am quite sure that there may be right things done in a wrong spirit. I seldom find men strenuously fighting what they are pleased to call heterodox teaching, and in bitter language denouncing false doctrine, without being more afraid for the men denouncing than for the men denounced.
There is an anger against impurity, which is impure. There is a zeal for orthodoxy, which is most unorthodox. There is a spirit that contends for faith, which is in conflict with faith.
If men have lost their first love, they will do more harm than good by their defense of the faith. Behind the denunciation of sin there must always be the tenderness of first love, if that denunciation is not to become evil in its bitterness. Behind the zeal for truth there must always be the spaciousness of first love, if that zeal is not to become narrowed into hate.
There have been men who have become so self-centered in a narrowness that they are pleased to designate as holding the truth, that the very principle for which they contend has been excluded from their life and service. All zeal for the Master that is not the outcome of love to him is worthless. His love is so perfect that nothing can take the place of love as a return.
He who woos the bride can never have his heart satisfied with a servant. Activity in the king's business will not make up for neglect of the king. He who has lost his first love cannot satisfy with work and labor and patience and hatred of sin and orthodoxy.
The Master waits for love. Your church may pass muster as one of those amid which he walks, but he, walking there, pines for your love, and nothing satisfies him but love. O the pathos of the picture! Christ in all his glory seeks amid the churches first for love.
As he looks over the outward perfections of Ephesus, he discovers that the spirit, the tone, the temper of the church is altered. No eye but his could have detected that the bloom was brushed away, and that the flame was less ardent. Surely this message needs to be repeated to all churches today.
Your work, your labor, your patience are all evident. Never were you busier. Never were your organizations more complete.
But where is your first love? A friend of mine some years ago had a little daughter whom he dearly loved, and at the time of my story she was between ten and eleven years of age. They were great friends, and were always found in each other's company. But about this time there seemed to come some estrangement between them for which he could not account.
He was not able to get her company as he had been. She seemed to shun him, and, if he went for a walk, excused herself for she had something she must do at home. He grieved about it and could not understand it, and yet hardly cared to mention to her what was apparent to him.
One day his birthday came, and in the morning of that day she came into his room, with her face wreathed in smiles, and said, Father, I have brought you a present. She handed him a parcel, and, unfastening it, he found an exquisitely worked pair of slippers. He said, Darling, it was very good of you to buy these for me.
Oh, Father, said she, I did not buy them, I have made them for you. Then looking at her he said, Oh, now I think I understand. Is this what you have been doing for the last three months? She replied, Yes, Father, but how did you know how long I had been at work at them? He said, Because for three months I have wanted much of you, but have not been able to have it.
You have been too busy. My darling, I like these slippers very much, but next time, buy the slippers, and let me have you all the days. I would rather have my child than anything she can make for me.
That story has ever been weighted for me with spiritual value. Some of us are so busy here and there about the business of the Lord that He cannot get us much for Himself. There's so much to be done.
Do not misunderstand me. We are perfectly sincere in our devotion, and yet it seems to me as if sometimes He would say, I know your works, your labor, your patience, but I miss the first love. Do you remember your first love, with its great thrill, when all nature seemed to sing a new song, and when your chief delight was to be alone with the Lord, to look into His face and, in silent adoration, sit while you listened to His voice? Oh, if that old-time delight has passed, nothing can make up for it to Him or to you.
And now briefly notice the counsel He gives to this church—an injunction, a warning, and a promise. The injunction may be expressed in three words—Remember, Repent, Repeat. These, of course, are not the exact words that the Master used, but they will help us to bear in mind the terms of His counsel.
Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen. Go back and think of the freshness of first love. Remind your heart of the light that never was on sea or land when you began to love Him.
Go back to the rising of the springtime. Remember. Oh, the tenderness of that word of Christ! Do not be satisfied any longer with the dead level of your orthodoxy and your mechanical precision in service.
Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and then repent. Turn back in heart and purpose of the old attitude, the attitude of simplicity and purity, the abandonment of everything for love, the love of a spousal, the first love that leaves father and mother and house and lands and everything for the loved one. Go back to that.
Return and do the first works. And what are the first works? Let Jesus tell us. This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.
Christ said in effect to these people, Your lack of love proves your failure of faith. You do not believe in Me as you did, or you would love Me as of old. You have lost confidence.
And absolute confidence always blossoms into a perfect love. And if the fruit of your love be smitten, it is because at the root of your faith is some disease. Then finally mark His solemn warning.
Or else I come to thee, and will move thy lampstand out of its place, except thou repent. What is this He says? Remove thy lampstand? Yes, notwithstanding all the perfection of your work, and your labor, and your patience, notwithstanding your cold and icy purity, notwithstanding your orthodoxy, unless you love, that lampstand must be removed. It is impossible to witness for Christ in the darkness of the world except in the power of first love.
It is not abundant works, nor even passionate determination to witness against the sin of the world that serves Him. Unless there be first love, the lampstand must be removed. It is a solemn warning.
Oh, that we might rightly understand it, and see that it is not merely a capricious threatening, but the statement of an inevitable sequence. Loss of first love to Christ will inevitably issue in loss of love to the brethren, and cannot fail to dry up the rivers of compassion toward the outside world. It is the first love of the saint that is the true light that shines in a dark place.
When men outside the church can look at its community and say, See how these people love, then they will be attracted to the center upon which our love is set. Without first love, we may retain ceaseless activity, immaculate purity, severest orthodoxy, but there will be no light shining in a dark place. It is not our doing that lightens the world.
It is not our ceremonial cleanness that helps men. It is not our correctness in the holding of truth that helps a dying race. It is our love first for the Master, then for each other, and then for the world.
Then notice the graciousness of the closing promise. To Him that overcometh, to Him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. And how may a man overcome? By remembering, repenting, and repeating, by coming back to the beginnings.
Then shall he have to eat of the tree of life. See how the great words gather together—life, light, love. They are the very words that Jesus came to bring us, and it is only as we have life that we have love, and only as we love that we shed forth light.
The supreme lesson of this study for today is that for the maintenance of our position as light-bearers, our communion with the Master in all the abandonment of first love must be maintained. If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am become a sounding brass, or clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. End of chapter 3