How Jesus Loves An Unloving Church (Revelation 2:1-7) Series

Let's start today by reading last week's passage, Revelation 1:9-20:

(9) I, John-- your brother and partner in the affliction and in the kingdom and in the steadfastness in Jesus-- I was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God

and the testimony about Jesus.

(10) I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day,

and I heard behind me a great sound like a trumpet, saying,

"What you see, write in a book,

and send [it] to the seven churches-- to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea,"

(15) and I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me,

and, turning, I saw seven gold lampstands,

(13) and in the middle of the lampstands, one similar to a son of man, [Daniel 7:13]

dressed in a robe reaching to his feet, [Daniel 10:5]

and girded around his chest [with] a golden belt, [Daniel 10:5]

(14) now, his head and his hair [were] white like wool-- white like snow-- [Daniel 7:9; 1 Enoch 46:1]

and his eyes [were] like a fiery flame, [Daniel 10:6]

(15) and his feet [were] like fine bronze, like in a furnace having been burned, [Daniel 10:6]

and his voice [was] like the sound of many waters, [Daniel 10:6; Ezekiel 1:24; 43:2]

(16) and he had in his right hand seven stars,

and from his mouth a sharp double-edged sword coming out, [Isaiah 11:4; Isaiah 49:2]

and his face like the sun shines in/with his power ("like the sun" is focused), [Ezekiel 1:28]

(17) and when I saw him, I fell toward his feet like a dead person, [Isaiah 6:5; Ezekiel 1:28; Daniel 8:18]

and he put his right hand on me, saying,

"Don't fear!

I am the First and the Last, and The One Living, [Isaiah 44:6; 48:12; Joshua 3:10]

and I was dead,

and LOOK! Living, I am, forever and ever,

and I have the keys of death and of Hades/the Netherworld.

(19) And so then, write what you saw,

and what is about to happen after these things.

(20) The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my hand, and the seven gold lampstands--

the seven stars, angels of the seven churches, they are, ["angels...churches" is focused]

and the seven lampstands, the seven churches, they are. ["seven churches" is focused]

So John has seen the exalted Jesus, in all of his glory. This glory is hard to adequately explain. All John can say, is that Jesus is "similar" to certain things, and that he looks "like" things. Jesus has eyes "like" fire, and hair "like" wool, and feet "like" fine bronze. His face shines "like" the sun. All of these things can be unpacked, using the OT, and I think John expects us to know to do that. And, on top of that, we can make pretty good guesses about the significance of some of those things. Feet like fine bronze is a symbol of strength and power.

But there are two things, in verse 20, that are explained for us, and we don't have to make any guesses about, or open our Old Testaments to figure out:

The first, is that the seven stars are seven angels.

There is something approaching a scholarly consensus (at least among my commentaries), that every church has something like a patron angel who is responsible for it. This angel is charged with making sure the church is walking rightly with God, and following Jesus faithfully. How angels do this, I have no idea. Revelation doesn't explain how it all works. But the idea, basically, is that God doesn't do everything himself. He delegates some of the responsibility to his heavenly family. And this shouldn't surprise us, because this is exactly how God did it in the OT. God gave responsibility for the nations to his heavenly family. Their job was to make sure that the nations-- the Gentiles-- did things the right way. And they also served, I think, as representatives of different people groups in heaven (as in Job 1, Job 2).

One of the clearest pictures of this is found in Psalm 82. Several years ago, we studied this passage (building off of Michael Heiser's book The Unseen Realm; this is my "Sons of God" series). But it's a little unfair of me to simply assume you remember how all of this works, so let's turn there (my translation). Here, the psalmist is given a picture of God standing in his heavenly council, in the mist of the sons of God-- divine beings, who are his heavenly family. And the psalmist speaks into this council, starting with a challenge to the sons of God to start doing a better job. He ends by calling on God himself to fix what's broken in the world: