(avg. read time 7–14 mins.)
My first sermon for my preaching classes at Truett Seminary was about Rev 2:1–7, the first of the seven letters included in Revelation, which is addressed to Ephesus. I have adapted that sermon here to provide something that fits the more devotional quality of recent posts. I have cut out certain local references that do not play as well outside of its original context, along with some illustrations I had, but I have retained what was said about the text itself.
Every day, the first-century Christians in Ephesus could see the imposing Temple of Artemis. It was the essential symbol of Ephesian culture, civic life, prosperity, and identity. And it was a glorious structure made completely out of marble standing approximately 360 feet long, 180 feet wide, and 60 feet tall. In fact, it was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, described by the well-traveled Greek Antipater as the most beautiful place in the world apart from Mt. Olympus itself.
However, as much as the temple represented opposing spiritual forces, it did not represent the primary source of trials, at least at the time of this letter. Rather, the trials seem to have been more of the internal than the external variety. They had been fighting against false teaching, which—if Acts 20, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and perhaps the Letters of John are any indication—was a common problem in the region. And now they read the first of seven letters from John the Revelator, a prisoner on the island of Patmos, acting as the mouthpiece of Jesus, calling them to live in victory in the midst of conflict, as Jesus himself had overcome the world. The letter acknowledges their virtues of staying strong in the face of opposition, but it also reminds them that they have forgotten the most important truth for their life as the church: God’s love and our participation in it is what makes the church the church yesterday, today, and forever.
How is that so? First, God’s love binds the church together and enables its victory. The climax of each of the seven letters is a promise of victory if the recipients are faithful and heed their instructions. The call to live victoriously in the world is nothing other than participating in the victory of God. And participation in the victory of God is ultimately participation in the love of God.
God’s love is the foundational reality of the church, the cause and reason for its existence, and the goal of its existence all at once. It is God’s love that forms and constitutes the church because this love is salvific and delivers its recipients into a divine-human community. God’s salvific love identifies the church as the children of the Father, the Body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit. God’s love sustains this same church and enables the community to live in accordance with the divine will. Finally, God’s love will consummate God’s victory over evil and bring the church into the new creation.
In the first verse there are three symbols, drawn from the vision in Revelation 1, that show the foundation of God’s love for the identity and life of the church: the angel, the image of Jesus holding the stars or angles in his right hand, and the image of Jesus walking among the golden lampstands. First, angels are the servants and messengers of God who often function as guides, protectors, delegates, or agents of divine wrath and salvation. In this case, the angel stands as a sign of the bond transcending heaven and earth between God and the church. Second, the word for the “hold” of Jesus indicates a mighty grip by which you hold something fast. Among its uses in the New Testament include its usage for when Jesus takes a hold of someone’s hand to heal, for the hold death tried to keep on Jesus, and for exhortations to hold fast to the faith. Thus, this image provides comfort and encouragement to the churches that the one who called and justified is the one who sustains with his strong hand. Third, the description of walking among the lampstands is reminiscent of a shepherd or a king walking in the midst of a flock or kingdom. His presence is a comfort because he watches over them and it is a caution because he watches them. On the other hand, the description of the churches as lampstands recalls the menorah that was within the tabernacle and temple of the Jews, where God’s presence on earth was considered most “concentrated.” With the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that function passes from a building to a body that loves.
In short, the expectation of the church as participant in God’s love is akin to what we see in the human body. The spine connects the head and the rest of the body more deeply than any other attachment. In recent years, more and more doctors have researched the anatomy, functions, and dysfunctions of the spine because it is so foundational to the function and dysfunction of the body. For example, the Mayfield Clinic for Brain & Spine notes the following functions of the spine. The spine supports us, enables us to be upright, and provides a base for many bones and muscles. More importantly, the spine thus makes flexibility and mobility possible. Even more importantly, inside the spine is the spinal cord of nerves connected to the brain by which the brain sends and receives signals to and from the rest of the body. Damage to the spine impairs or stops these functions altogether, thus affecting the whole body. Enough spinal damage leads to paralysis. Obviously, without a spine, we cannot live at all. If Christ is the head of the church and the church is the Body of Christ, love is surely the spine.
Now there is certainly enough deep theology—especially ecclesiology—here to make our heads spin. It is also intimidating because the New Testament has a habit of making statements about the church that do not fit with what our eyes see and ears hear. For example, Paul’s most extensive exposition on the church as the Body of Christ was in a letter to the Corinthians, perhaps the most problem-filled church of the New Testament. And now we have these statements about our transcendent bond with Jesus. All of them are pictures of the identity we spend the rest of our lives living into. They are statements of apocalyptic love and apocalyptic theology was never about empirical observation. Apocalyptic thought, of which Revelation is a prime example, was about pulling back the curtain of empirical reality to see the transcendent, heavenly significance behind earthly people and events. Jesus is telling the churches then and now that this is how God sees us, even if we cannot reason our way to such a view. Let us remember these divine truths and let us remember that as we live out who we are in God’s eyes, Jesus is with us. Take these truths as a comfort and assurance, but also take them as a responsibility.
What does this responsibility mean? Without love, the church cannot bear the presence and victory of God (in other words, it cannot be the church). God has called the church to live in participation in his victory by loving as God loves. But the victory the Ephesians were currently winning over false teaching risked remaining a pyrrhic victory.
The Ephesians did have virtues and Jesus acknowledges and praises them. This church had often faced questions of identity and truth every time it faced false teachers. Jesus assures them that they are who they say they are and that even though the tests for these so-called apostles came back negative for the DNA of Christ, the tests for the church came back positive. They had done exhausting work in service to Jesus without becoming exhausted. They had refused to bear the load of false teaching, but they had gladly borne the load of perseverance in loyalty to Jesus’ name.
Indeed, perseverance seems to be their primary virtue. The word I have translated “perseverance” refers to endurance under challenging circumstances, including resistance of hostile forces and, most importantly, keeping hope alive while waiting upon the Lord. The word appears seven times in this book because it is an essential characteristic for people who have to live in a tension of believing in the victorious God in a world of loss and of hoping in the creator God in a despairing world of destruction. And they refused to lose in their struggle with the current age by taking the route of the Nicolaitans in acquiescing to the culture of idolatry, licentiousness, and syncretism.
The account up to this point has shown that orthodoxy, hard work for the sake of Jesus, perseverance in trials, and loyalty through it all are key virtues for the church. Jesus wants to see these qualities. But what the Ephesians lacked was what binds them all together in perfect unity.
They had forgotten the love they had at first. The fires of zeal with which they tested teaching had calloused their capacity to love. They had protected the identity of the church, but they risked losing that identity altogether (after all, that is what it means to have their lampstand removed from its place). Their victory thus far was costing them too much.
Scholars have debated about whether this breakdown in love was the love for God or the love for one another. While there are good reasons for advocating either position, I am inclined to agree with Grant Osborne that ultimately it is both. While these two loves are distinct, they are never truly separate in the New Testament. Wherever one thinks the breakdown in love began, it affected both dimensions.
If they did not want to risk ceasing to be the church, Jesus instructs them to recover their first love through remembrance, repentance, and works. They had to remind themselves—and never let the memory fade—of the love they had at first and why they had it (which would of course involve remembering the story of God’s love in Jesus). The way forward was the way back. In the same way, repentance was not an entirely new orientation for their lives; it was a reorientation to what they already knew. Finally, they were to demonstrate remembrance and repentance by doing the works they did at first. Notice how love is more than a positive disposition or feeling. It is here paralleled with action because love requires concreteness, enactment, and embodiment.
If the Ephesians did not listen, their current victory would remain a pyrrhic victory that would eventually cost them everything. A pyrrhic victory is a victory that brings ruin because its cost is too high. One example of such a “victory” is in the movie The Book of Eli. If any of you have not seen that movie, I do not think I am spoiling the ending when I say the villain loses. But he loses because he had “won.” Eli, the titular character, had been carrying a Bible across post-apocalyptic America because he heard a call from God to do so. The villain tries to take the Bible because he thinks it will give him a new kind of power. He was already a de facto ruler of a town because he had a gang of big men with guns, but he wanted more control. In the pursuit of Eli, he sacrifices almost all of his men and he does actually get the Bible. But when he returns to town, he finds that his power has crumbled and that an infection of a wound he received has deposited him at death’s door. His victory ruined him.
While it is difficult to know what exactly transpired in Ephesus to lead to this loss of love, perhaps it was similar to common seminarian experiences. Perhaps they were like us enlightened seminarians who have become overly analytical, overly skeptical, overly suspicious, overly cautious, maybe even overly prideful to remember what it means to love and worship the Father who calls us, the Christ who saves us, the Spirit who gives us life. Perhaps they were like us cynical seminarians, who can spend a lot of time talking about the importance of loving our neighbor, but forget what it means to show God’s love to our brothers and sisters in Christ who may not be as “knowledgeable,” “sophisticated,” or “right” as we are, especially if they resemble the people we think steered us so wrong in the beginning. In any case, I think we can agree that much of the Christian life is spent relearning and redoing again and again and again. Remembrance, repentance, and consequent work may look different for us all according to our situations, but they are all necessary practices anytime we forget love. Let us heed the call to live in victory by living in love. The world has had enough pyrrhic victories.
Is that all Jesus has to say here? No.
The church that lives in love will be the same church that lives in the consummation of God’s victory. After all, the church’s participation in the love of God and bearing of God’s image by bearing the image of God’s love makes the church the new, true humanity shaped after Jesus’ image. When the church loves as God loves, it follows the New Adam into the new creation and brings a glimpse of that new creation into the present. Hence, the promise of victory here takes the form of the resolution of the grand biblical metanarrative. What began with access to the tree of life and loss of that access ends with access again. What began in the paradise of God and expulsion from that paradise ends in the paradise of God again. What began with separation from God and death ends with living in the full vivifying presence of the living God whose love transcends and conquers death through resurrection.
This promise is employed here in good apocalyptic form of investing earthly lives of love with heavenly significance. It is the love of God that makes this investment. It is the love of God that gives the life of the new creation. It is the love of God that calls and empowers believers to be truly human. It is the love of God that will fulfill the hope of the future. And it is participation in the love of God that brings the church through history to the consummation of hope. The reason that the way forward was the way back was because the love they had known and shown in the past would characterize this future.
This promise of victory for the ones who live in love should similarly inspire a life of integrity for us. As Jürgen Moltmann has made a habit of saying, we live at the intersection between remembrance and hope, and we must live in a way that is shaped by both. The thread running from the past to the present to the future is the thread of God’s love. It is why the ones who participate in his love enjoy the life-giving presence of that love forever. It is why participation in the love of God provides us with a deep connection to God and to other saints.
While we face many complicated questions of how to be the church in our various contexts, this letter to the Ephesians shows us that the foundation of the answer is, has been, and always will be simple: the church is the community of disciples that love as God loves. Love is the broadest call God places on us, but it is also the most difficult. We all fall short of loving as God loves, thus it will always be necessary to remember the truths and instructions Jesus tells us here. To love as God loves requires his sustaining presence; we have that assurance. To love as God loves when we fail requires remembrance, repentance, and renewed action. To love as God loves is to walk in his victory, a victory that will eventually be complete. Let us love and live in victory. Let the one who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.