01.02. Chapter 02 - The Overcomer in Philadelphia

Chapter 02 The Overcomer in Philadelphia

If the desire of the Philadelphian is the separation of the Church from the world and its restoration to visible unity on earth, how the Lord’s words “you have a little power” appeal to us. Power for such work plainly is not man’s, although God graciously acknowledges what is there. The ideal is not attainable, but this is to be distinguished from an impractical aim. Infidels have rightly declared that the Christian standard is not completely attainable, but every Christian knows that to “walk as Christ walked” is very far from an impractical aim.

If we are acquainted at all with the feeble efforts of Christians to walk with God, we must realize that, in the path in which Christ would lead us, we must have the deepest humility to escape the deepest humiliation. The warning given to the Philadelphian speaks volumes here, for all depends on his heeding it: “Hold fast that which you have, that no man take your crown.” It is by holding fast that ’overcoming’ is accomplished for the Philadelphian, since this verse (Rev 3:11) gives the only evil that is in view in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia’s “little power” makes the above warning more impressive. The unattainableness of the ideal, the little progress that we make towards it, the weakness manifest in others as in ourselves, all combine to dishearten us. But, that which often seems to be the failure of principles is only our failure to act on the principles, but this is bad enough. If the principles have failed by not being carried out; if they are too heavenly, would it not be wise to ’materialize’ them somewhat? If a lower (more earthly) path is more practical, is it not better? Don’t you realize that to give up a single point of the Lord’s will is to give up ’obedience’ as a principle! How many points we then give up is only a question of detail.

It is not difficult to find the wrecks of failed Philadelphias littering the centuries since Luther. Every genuine revival, being the work of the Holy Spirit, has tended in the Philadelphian direction. It has brought Christians together, it has separated them from the world, it has proved afresh the power of Christ’s Word, it has revived the sweetness of His Name. The sense of evils in the professing church, intolerable to the aroused conscience, has forced many, in obedience to God’s command, to “depart from iniquity” (2Ti 2:19). Is it not the constant reproach of such movements that, in a generation or two, they sink to nearly the common level of things around? They have not been able to retain the blessing. If gathered to some principle that the natural conscience owns, or some assertion of right that men value as their possession, such movements may still grow while the old men weep at the remembrance of past blessing, now lost, and realize their temple to be in (spiritual) ruin.

All this must take place unless God prevents it. The first generation had to break through natural surroundings at the call of God, and they willingly followed Him in suffering and self-denial. Then their children came into the heritage their fathers had obtained for them, but without the exercise that their fathers had. Nature attracts them to the path by force of habit. They accept easily and easily can let go. They don’t know the joy of sacrifice. They don’t have the vigor gained by painful work. So, it is easy to predict what will follow, not necessarily from anything wrong with what they hold as truth, but from the incapable, unexercised hands that hold the truth. The argument of success resulting from such failure, deserves consideration. Does success, as men count it, imply that the success is good in God’s eyes? Or conversely, does failure and break-up prove that the wrecked thing was evil? Carry out honestly such a supposition and see where it will lead you. Take, for instance, the Church in the days of the Apostles, as seen in Scripture, and the blessed truth given it at the beginning. Where will I find this Church or the truth possessed by her when I come to the beginning of uninspired history? The answer is plain and terrible; God even prepared us for it. It was needful even 1900 years ago that Jude (Jude 1:3) should exhort us to “contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.” Paul speaks of “the mystery of iniquity already at work” (2Th 2:7), and he and Peter, of the special evils of the last days. John found the signs of the ’last time’ in there being already “many antichrists” (1Jn 2:18).

Outside of Scripture, the historical church, in the words of J. N. Darby, “never was as a system the institution of God or what God had established, but at all times, from its first appearance in ecclesiastical history, the departure as a system from what God established, and nothing else.” And as to doctrines, “it is quite certain that neither a full redemption nor a complete, possessed justification by faith as Paul teaches it, a perfecting forever by Christ’s one offering, a known personal acceptance in Christ, is ever found in any ecclesiastical writings after the Scriptures, for long centuries.”

So, what about this apostolic church which seems to have vanished? Were its principles at fault in its quick failure? What principles of Scripture secure us from failure? Scripture exhorts us, if we are Philadelphians, to “hold fast,” and this recognizes the danger of not holding fast! No one should be surprised, then, that the wrecks of Philadelphia are strewn along the road, while Rome retains her boasted unity and power over people. It is accounted for by the simple Scriptural fact that error roots itself in the world easier than truth. So the Lord asks by Jeremiah (Jer 2:11), “Has a nation changed their gods, which yet are no gods? But My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.” May we not argue the reverse way, that in an adverse world with Satan’s power rampant, if a people could find a way of steady Scriptural increase and prosperity, this exceptional vigor would have to be accounted for, and not the fact of reverses and discouragements.

We clearly should understand what the Lord’s warning words mean: “Hold fast that which you have, that no man take your crown.” What are we to “hold fast”? It is not a certain deposit of doctrines. I do not deny such a deposit or that it should be held securely, but this is not what the Lord speaks of here, as it is in the message to Sardis. The comparison between the two is important. It is said to Sardis, “Remember therefore how you have received and heard, and hold fast and repent.” There, a measured amount, a clearly-defined deposit of truth is indicated. This is instructive when we recall what Sardis stands for. A wonderful blessing was given in those Reformation days. They had received and heard many important truths and they knew the value of it all. But, in their eagerness to secure it for the generations to come, they put it into creeds and confessions. They weren’t wrong in this, for they had a right to say for themselves and to declare to others what they believed they had received from God. Those confessions, when read by the light of the fires of martyrdom for the signers, are blessed witnesses of the truth for which, when felt in power, men willingly could give their bodies to the flame. But the wrong was that they took those creeds and forced them, with all the emphasis that penalties enforced by a State-church could give, upon the generations following. Their measure of knowledge only, was to be that of their children. If there was error in the creed, that error must be continued. Finally, all this was placed for maintenance into the hands, not of spiritual men, but of the world church they had started! The Holy Spirit thus was grieved and quenched. He was leading them far beyond where they actually stopped and was ready to lead them into “all truth” (John 16:13). But they wrote their creeds, not just to show how far the Lord had led them, but as the ultimate degree of knowledge. Henceforth, it was to what they had received and heard in the 16th century, that they looked back. The word was no longer, as with the Reformers themselves, “On with the Holy Spirit, our Teacher,” but rather, “Back to the Reformation.” The words of the Lord to Sardis are, therefore, marvelously accurate, saying literally, “You have taken the measure of truth you have, as if it were all the truth. Well, you have limited yourselves very much, but at least be true to what you have: be watchful and strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die.”

Philadelphia is also called to hold fast, but hold what? What she has, of course; and that is a little power and Christ’s Word kept and His Name not denied. Notice that there is no longer a measured quantity. Nor is it His commandments or His words, but His Word that is to be held securely. The distinction is drawn in John 14:21-24. Love is not measured by profession or emotion, but by obedience. The Lord says, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me.” The response to this is, “and he who loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.” But there is a deeper love than that shown by keeping commandments. It is a love which takes account of all God’s Word, whether positive command or not. And here, God’s response is correspondingly greater, “If a man love Me, he will keep My Word (not Words) and My Father will love him and We will come to him and make our abode with him.” Here is a full and permanent communion not found in the previous case.

Philadelphia has kept — is keeping, as long as she remains Philadelphia — not His commandments but His Word as a whole. She doesn’t know it all; that is impossible. Just for that reason, she doesn’t have a certain amount of truth to which she is faithful. She is like Mary at the Lord’s feet, to listen and be subject to whatever He communicates. His Word as a whole is before her. Not limiting the Holy Spirit, she is willing to be led on. Her ear is open. She has the blessedness of the man “who hears Me, watching daily at My gates, waiting at the posts of My doors” (Pro 8:34). Of course, this is not unique to any special time, for it is always God’s way to lead on one who is ready for His leading. But since the mid-1800s, Scripture has been opened to us more as a whole than at any former time since the apostles. Further, this has been in connection with a movement that has all the features of Philadelphia. Certain great truths, having been recovered to the Church, have helped to open up in a new way both the Old and New Testaments. The dispensations have been distinguished; the Gospel cleared from Galatian error (law-keeping); our place in Christ learned in connection with our participation in His death and resurrection; the real nature of eternal life and the present seal and baptism of the Holy Spirit in contrast with all former or other Spiritual operations and gifts, has been learned; and the Rapture has been distinguished from His Appearing. We owe it to the Lord to fully acknowledge what He has done. Must we not connect it to the fulfillment of Christ’s word to Philadelphia in contrast with the “received and heard” of Sardis? So we must ask ourselves the solemn question. Is the previously discussed attitude still maintained and is it to be maintained? Are we to go on, still learning from the Lord, or are we now to be content with no more than these blessed truths? A large measure is still a measure, and once we get back to what we have received, we accept the bucket in place of the flowing well. At the feet of Jesus, who will presume to say that we have all of His blessed Word?