The Seven Churches Series

A math teacher asked one of her less enthusiastic students, "If I take 23 away from 30, what is the

difference?" He responded, "That's what I say, what's the difference?" In other words, it made no

difference to him. Not everybody enjoys math and working with numbers, and you certainly do not

need much knowledge in this area to understand the Bible. John was no great mathematician, but

there is one number he used over and over again, and that was the number 7. The whole book of

Revelation is built around the number 7. It is used 54 times in this book, and is the key number that

forms the structure of the book.

John was not the first to use 7 this way, for 7 has been the number of perfection and completion

all through history. The Greeks and Romans considered it a sacred number, but long before them

the Chinese divided their empire into 7 provinces. In India the earth was divided into 7 divisions,

and they had the 7 rivers of Hindustan, and 7 celestial mountains. The Babylonians made much of

the number 7, and they referred to all gods as the 7 gods, and their 7 story tower was symbolic of the

whole universe.

The idea of 7 being symbolic of perfection and completion is almost universal, and, therefore, it

is the easiest of all symbolic numbers to understand. It usually means all of the category being dwelt

with in the context. God has built this right into creation.

7 days make a complete week.

7 colors make a complete rainbow.

7 whole tones make a complete scale with the 8th a repetition of the first.

7 seas,

7 wonders of the world,

7 years and the body is renewed.

7 days of rest.

7 day feast.

7th day for circumcision.

7 fold sprinkling of blood on the day of atonement.

7 branch candlestick.

7 times dipping of Naaman.

7 years labor for Rachel.

7 years of famine and 7 years of plenty.

7 last words from the cross.

7 baskets of fragments.

7 husbands of one wife.

7 demons cast out of Mary Magdalene.

7 deacons.

7 parables of Matt. 13.

7 woes on the Pharisees.

7 times 70 for forgiveness.

We could go on and on for there are 600 references to the number 7 in the Bible. There is no

point in trying to prove what is obvious to everyone. 7 is a symbolic number which stands for

totality. It gets this meaning because it is a combination of three and four. Three represents the

trinity, or heaven, and four represents the earth because of the four directions and four seasons. 7 is

the combination of heaven and earth, or the total reality.

This means that when John in verse 4 addresses the 7 churches in Asia, he is addressing the total

church, or all churches for all time. These 7 actual churches of his day are representative of all the

local churches that will exist through all of history. Just as the 7 spirits before the throne represent

the Holy Spirit in the fullness of all his functions. One of the popular systems of interpreting the

book of Revelation is the system that sees the whole book as 7 great visions, each of which starts at

the first coming of Christ and ends with the second coming. Whether this theory is correct or not I

cannot say, but it definitely has some truth to it which we will observe as we go through the book.

Another popular method of interpretation based on the number 7 is that each of the 7 churches

represents a period of history. Again, there is some truth to this theory, but to press it only leads to a

lot of contradiction, for no two who follow this theory seem to be able to agree on what period of

history each church represents. It is wise just to recognize that in every period of history the church

falls into one of the 7 categories represented by the 7 churches. In fact, the church today world wide

has local churches that fall into everyone of the 7 kinds. The idea that all churches of any age fall

into the same category is based on ignorance of church history. The church may be dead in one part

of the world, and in great revival in another part.

Some people get so excited about numerology that they go to extremes. I have several books in

my library devoted to finding 7's in the Bible. This is an old hobby and goes back into ancient

Judaism. They actually get down to the very letters of the Hebrew and Greek. For example, Gen.

1:1 has 7 Hebrew words made up of 28 letters, or 4 times 7. The first three words have 14 letters or