Conform To God, Not Society

Conform to God, not society

Revelation 2:1-7

Michael H. Koplitz

This letter that we find in Revelation chapter two verses one through seven is a letter that was sent to the messenger at the church at Ephesus in Asia Minor. The letter starts with compliments from Jesus about the good works that the church has done. There is also a compliment from Christ to the Church about challenging those who have come to that church claiming to be apostles of Christ.

The actual Greek word that is used here, which is translated as apostles, is “apostogous.” This word is used in the Gospels when referring to the Apostles, the 12, but it really means messenger our envoy. It should not be confused here in that Jesus is not telling the church at Ephesus that some of the original 12 Apostles had been showing up at their door or some who claimed to be and weren’t but rather the church should continue to challenge these envoys who were preaching a gospel different than the true Gospel of Christ.

During the first and second centuries, there were many challenges to Christianity that came from different groups inside the Christian sect that saw Jesus differently. In Asia Minor, one of the strongest heretical groups was called the Montanists. This group of Christians believed that the God of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament was not the same God as is described in the Old Testament. They went so far as to say that Jesus was not Jewish. Another group that was influential in Asia Minor at that time was the Gnostics. They believed that salvation was obtained by the secret knowledge that Jesus spoke about in the Gospels and had imparted to his apostles. They believed that salvation was not obtained by Christ's death on the cross but rather by the secret knowledge that Jesus imparted to them before his death. Those secrets were the secrets of how to get into heaven.

Another group called the Docetists believed that Jesus was purely divine and what we saw on Earth was just an image that God projected for us. Also, they believed that Jesus did not suffer upon the cross because he was divine. The fourth group that was influential at this time was called the Ebionites. This group believed that Jesus was fully human, never divine. Because he faithfully obeyed God by going to the cross and to his death, God made Him divine when He raised Him on Easter Sunday.

So you can see that four heretical groups were trying to influence the church. So Ephesus is commended that they stayed the course of the true gospel. Also, remember that in the letter that Paul sent to the church at Ephesus, he spoke of this problem of false prophets coming into the church and trying to persuade them to believe other radical positions of Christianity.

God’s problem with this church, which the letter addresses, was that the church had forsaken in its first love. Its first love was to be obedient to the commands of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Why would they have lost their first love? A better question is, what was going on that would cause them to disobey the commands of Christ?

The church at Ephesus, like the rest of the churches around the year 100 CE, had been conforming to the pressure that the Roman society had placed upon them. Why would the church start to conform to the culture of Rome? We have to remember that in 66 CE the first Jewish revolt had occurred. Christianity was considered a part of Judaism until 70 CE when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple to the ground. The Romans also forbid the Jews and the Jewish Christians from living in the province of Judea.

Also, during this time is when Rome burned. Under Emperor Nero, two-thirds of the city of Rome had burned, and Nero blamed the Jews and especially the Jewish Christians for starting the fire. History tells us that the Jews nor the Jewish Christians started the fire. However, the Emperor blamed us for doing it.

These two events and the fact that pagans were coming into Christianity caused Judaism and Christianity to separate companies. Once this happened, Christianity became its own religion. Under Roman Law, there was one religion allowed in the Empire, and there was one religion that was tolerated. We don't know why but the conquerors of Judea allowed the Jews to retain their religion. In the Roman Empire, you either followed the religion of the Empire, or you had better be Jewish. When Christianity officially broke away from its Jewish roots and became its own religion, the persecutions by the Roman Empire began.

The church's strategy at that time was to defend itself by showing the Empire how Christianity conformed to Roman culture and was an improvement to Roman culture. Christian bishops wrote several defenses of Christianity before they were put to death, making this point. We called these writings apologetics, which is taken from the Latin word to mean defense. The most famous apologetic was written by a man named Justin Martyr in 150 CE. From Justin's name, we get the English word martyr. Before he was put to death, Justin wrote an extremely long defense of Christianity showing how Christianity benefited the Roman Empire. The church believed that if it could prove itself as a benefit to the Empire, the persecutions would stop. What was happening was that the church was starting to become a benefit to the Emperor and not a benefit to Christ.