REVELATIO 2 8-11 COMMETARYEDITED BY GLE PEASE

To the Church in Smyrna

8 “To the angel of the church in Smyrna write:

These are the words of him who is the First and

the Last, who died and came to life again.

1. BARES, "And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write - On the meaning of the word “angel,” see the notes on Rev_1:20.These things saith the first and the last - See the notes on Rev_1:8, Rev_1:17.

Which was dead, and is alive - See the notes on Rev_1:18. The idea is, that he is a Living Saviour; and there was a propriety in referring to that fact here from the nature of the promise which he was about to make to the church at Smyrna: “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death,” Rev_2:11. As he had himself triumphed over death in all its forms, and was now alive forever, it was appropriate that he should promise to his true friends the same protection from the second death. He who was wholly beyond the reach of death could give the assurance that they who put their trust in him should come off victorious.

2. CLARKE, "Unto the angel - This was probably the famous Polycarp. See below.These things saith the first and the last - He who is eternal; from whom all

things come, and to whom all things must return. Which was dead, for the redemption of the world; and is alive to die no more for ever, his glorified humanity being enthroned at the Father’s right hand.

3. GILL, "And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write,.... Of the city of Smyrna; see Gill on Rev_1:11. That there was a church of Christ here is not to be doubted, though by whom it was founded is not certain; very likely by the Apostle Paul, who was in those parts, and by whose means all Asia heard the Gospel of Christ, Act_19:10. Some think the present angel or pastor of this church, was Polycarp, the disciple of John. Irenaeus (f), who knew him, says he was appointed bishop of Smyrna by the apostles. Here he suffered martyrdom, and was buried: the large amphitheatre, in which he was put to death, is still to be seen, and his sepulchre is yet preserved in this place (g): a very famous epistle, sent by this church at Smyrna to the churches at Pontus,

giving an account of the martyrdom of Polycarp, and others, is extant in Eusebius (h). According to the Apostolical Constitutions (i), the first bishops of Smyrna were Aristo Strataeas and Aristo the second, and Apelles, of whom mention is made in Rom_16:10; and who is reckoned among the seventy disciples; See Gill on Luk_10:1; and is said to be bishop of Smyrna before Polycarp; who succeeded Polycarp, I do not find; but it is said there was a church at Smyrna in the "third" century; and so there was in the beginning of the "fourth", since there was a bishop from hence in the council at Nice: and in the "fifth" century, mention is made of several bishops of this place; as of Cyrus, a native of Constantinople; and Protherius, who, it is thought, succeeded him, and was present in the synod at Chalcedon; and Aethericus, who assisted at three synods in this century, at Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon: and in the "sixth" century, there was a bishop of Smyrna in the fifth synod held at Rome and Constantinople: and even in the "eighth" century, one Antony, a monk, supplied the place of the bishop of Smyrna in the Nicene synod (k). The Turks have in this place now thirteen mosques, the Jews two synagogues, and of the Christians there are two churches belonging to the Greeks, and one to the Armenians (l). This church, and its pastor, represent the state of the church under the persecutions of the Roman emperors. Smyrna signifies "myrrh", which being bitter of taste, is expressive of the bitter afflictions, and persecutions, and deaths, the people of God in this interval endured; and yet, as myrrh is of a sweet smell, so were those saints, in their sufferings for Christ, exceeding grateful and well pleasing to him; wherefore nothing is said by way of complaint to this church; not that she was without fault, but it was proper to use her tenderly in her afflicted state: and, as Dr. More observes, as myrrh was used in the embalming of dead bodies, it may point to the many deaths and martyrdoms of the saints in this period, whereby their names and memories are perpetuated and eternized,

These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive. Of these characters of Christ; see Gill on Rev_1:8, Rev_1:11, Rev_1:17, Rev_1:18; and they are very appropriately mentioned, to encourage the saints under their sufferings of death; since Christ, who is the eternal God, had in human nature tasted of the bitterness of death for them, and was risen again; suggesting, that though they were called to undergo the bitterest deaths for his sake, they should be raised again as he was, and live with him for ever. The Ethiopic version reads, "thus saith the holy Spirit"; but it cannot be said of him that "he was dead",

3B. ELLICOTT, “(8) Smyrna, the modern Ismir, now possessing a population of about 150,000. Its mercantile prosperity may be measured by its trade. In 1852 the export trade amounted to £1,766,653—about half of this being with England. The imports in the same year were £1,357,339. It has always been considered one of the most beautiful cities in Asia. It was situated in the ancient province of Ionia, a little north of Ephesus—next it, as Archbishop Trench says, in natural order, and also in spiritual. Its position was favourable for commerce. In olden times, as now, it commanded the trade of the Levant, besides being the natural outlet for the produce of the Hermus valley. The neighbourhood was peculiarly fertile; the vines are said to have been so productive as to have yielded two crops. There are indications that intemperance was very prevalent among the inhabitants. Servility and flattery may be added, for the people of Smyrna seem to have been astutely fickle, and to have been keen in preserving the patronage of the ruling powers. In one of their temples the inscription declared Nero to be “the Saviour of the whole human race.” The city was specially famed for its worship of Dionysos. Games and mysteries were held yearly in his honour. Its public buildings were handsome, and its streets regular. One of its edifices used as a museum proclaimed, in its

consecration to Homer, that Smyrna contested with six or seven other cities the honour of being the birthplace of the poet.The angel of the church in Smyrna.—We have no means of determining certainly who was the person here addressed. Many who accept the Domitian date of the Apocalypse argue that Polycarp was at this time the bishop or presiding minister at Smyrna. Even on the supposition that this is the true date, it seems exceedingly doubtful that this was the case. It can only be true on the supposition that the episcopate of Polycarp extended over sixty years. Polycarp was martyred A.D. 156. We know from Ignatius, who addresses him in A.D. 108 as Bishop of Smyrna, that his ministry lasted nearly fifty years. It seems too much to assume that his episcopate commenced eight or ten years before. Of course, if we adopt the earlier date of the Apocalypse, the Epistle must have been written before Polycarp’s conversion—probably before his birth. But though we are thus constrained to reject the identification which we would willingly adopt, it is well to remember that Polycarp is the living example of the language of the epistle, and that, as Professor Plumptre has said, “In his long conflict for the faith, his stedfast endurance, his estimate of the fire that can never be quenched, we find a character on which the promise to him that overcometh had been indelibly stamped.”

The first and the last, which was dead, and is alive.—Or better, who became dead, and lived again. FromRevelation 1:17-18, we have selected the title most fitted to console a church whose trial was persecution. In all vicissitudes, the unchanging One (Hebrews 7:3; Hebrews 13:8), who had truly tasted death, and conquered it even in seeming to fail, was their Saviour and King. Some have seen in these words, “dead and lived again,” an allusion to the story of the death and return to life of Dionysos—a legend, of course, familiar to Smyrna.

4. HERY, "We now proceed to the second epistle sent to another of the Asian churches, where, as before, observe,I. The preface or inscription in both parts. 1. The superscription, telling us to whom it

was more expressly and immediately directed: To the angel of the church in Smyrna, a place well known at this day by our merchants, a city of great trade and wealth, perhaps the only city of all the seven that is still known by the same name, now however no longer distinguished for its Christian church being overrun by Mahomedism. 2. The subscription, containing another of the glorious titles of our Lord Jesus, the first and the last, he that was dead and is alive, taken out of Rev_1:17, Rev_1:18. (1.) Jesus Christ is the first and the last. It is but a little scantling of time that is allowed to us in this world, but our Redeemer is the first and the last. He is the first, for by him all things were made, and he was before all things with God and was God himself. he is the last, for all things are made for him, and he will be the Judge of all. This surely is the title of God, from everlasting and to everlasting, and it is the title of one that is an unchangeable Mediator between God and man, Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and for ever. He was the first, for by him the foundation of the church was laid in the patriarchal state; and he is the last, for by him the top-stone will be brought forth and laid in the end of time. (2.) He was dead and is alive. He was dead, and died for our sins; he is alive, for he rose again for our justification, and he ever lives to make intercession for us. He was dead, and by dying purchased salvation for us; he is alive, and by his life applies this salvation to us. And if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled by his death, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. His death we commemorate every sacrament day; his resurrection and life every sabbath day.

5. JAMISO, "Smyrna — in Ionia, a little to the north of Ephesus. Polycarp, martyred in a.d. 168, eighty-six years after his conversion, was bishop, and probably “the angel of the Church in Smyrna” meant here. The allusions to persecutions and faithfulness unto death accord with this view. Ignatius [The Martyrdom of Ignatius 3], on his way to

martyrdom in Rome, wrote to Polycarp, then (a.d. 108) bishop of Smyrna; if his bishopric commenced ten or twelve years earlier, the dates will harmonize. Tertullian [The Prescription against Heretics, 32], and Irenaeus, who had talked with Polycarp in youth, tell us Polycarp was consecrated bishop of Smyrna by St. John.the first ... the last ... was dead ... is alive — The attributes of Christ most

calculated to comfort the Church of Smyrna under its persecutions; resumed from Rev_1:17, Rev_1:18. As death was to Him but the gate to life eternal, so it is to be to them (Rev_2:10, Rev_2:11).

6. PULPIT, "The metropolitan, setting out from Ephesus to visit the Churches of Asia, would naturally go first to Smyrna. It ranked as one of the most beautiful cities in Asia; but its magnificence must at times have seemed poor compensation for the neglect of the architect, who, in planning the city for Antigonus and Lysimachus, omitted the drains. In time of floods the streets became open sewers. For its fidelity to Rome against Mithridates, it received exceptional privileges, but suffered heavily when Dolabella laid siege to Trebonius, one of Caesar's assassins, who had taken refuge there. When eleven cities of Asia competed for the honour of erecting a temple to Tiberius, the senate decided in favour of Smyrna. This temple was no doubt standing in St. John's time. But just as Artemis was the great goddess of the Ephesians, so Dionysus was the great god of Smyrna. Dionysus represented the mysteriously productive and intoxicating powers of nature—powers which are exhibited most abundantly in the vine, which in the neighbourhood of Smyrna is said to have borne fruit twice in a year. He was regarded as the dispenser of joy and fertility, the disperser of sorrow and care. Hence the myth of his death and resurrection, which was frequently rehearsed and acted at Smyrna—a fact which gives special point to the greeting in this epistle—"From him who became dead, and lived." The priests who presided at this celebration were presented with a crown; to which there may be allusion in the promise, "I will give thee the crown of life." Not long after the martyrdom of its first bishop, St. Polycarp, Smyrna was destroyed by an earthquake, in A.D. 178, and was rebuilt by Marcus Aurelius. Earthquakes, fires, and pestilences have always been common there. But in spite of such calamities, it continues to flourish. From the large proportion of Christians there, it is known among Mohammedans as "the infidel city." Christianity seems never to have been extinguished in Smyrna, which shares, with Philadelphia, the honour of receiving unmixed praise in these epistles. "Down from the apostolic times a Church has existed here, and she has repeated, with more or less boldness and distinctness, the testimony of her martyr bishop, ' I am a Christian'" (R. Vaughan). The stadium in which he suffered may still be seen there. We have already (see on Rev_1:20) decided that "the angel" of each Church is probably not its bishop. But, even if this were the meaning, this epistle could not be addressed to St. Polycarp, if he was martyred A.D. 155, in the eighty-sixth year after his conversion, and the Apocalypse was written in A.D. 68. The First and the Last, who became ( ἐγένετο ) dead, and lived (see notes on Rev_1:17, Rev_1:18). As in the epistle to Ephesus, the words of the address are taken from the titles of the Christ given in the opening. It is no mythical deity, with his mock death and resurrection, but the absolutely Living One, who indeed died, and is indeed alive forevermore, that scuds this message to the suffering Church of Smyrna. In the epistle to the Church in Thyatira we have what seems to be an allusion to the worship of Apollo, similar to that to the worship of Dionysus here.

7. CHARLES SIMEO, “Rev_2:8-9. Unto the angel of the Church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; I know thy works.

SMYRNA was at that time, next to Ephesus, the largest city in the Proconsular Asia. As in the former epistle we made the description of our blessed Lord a distinct subject for our consideration, so we shall do also in this epistle to Smyrna; deferring to another opportunity the subject matter of the epistle itself, except so far as the mention of it is necessary to the elucidation of our Lord’s character. The points which we propose to notice are,

I. The description given of our blessed Lord—

There are two things spoken of him; the one denoting his Godhead, the other his manhood.

He is “the first and the last”—

[Now, I would ask, Whom can these words designate, but the eternal and immutable Jehovah? In the Scriptures of the Old Testament he frequently describes himself by these very terms: “Who raised up the righteous man from the east, gave nations before him, and made him rule over kings? I the Lord, the first, and with the last; I am He [Note: Isa_41:2; Isa_41:4.].” Again he says of himself, “Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am He: I am the first, I also am the last [Note: Isa_48:12.].” If it could be supposed that any but Jehovah should be the first source, and the last end of all, let another Scripture determine that point: “Thus saith the Lord (Jehovah), the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord (Jehovah) of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God. Is there a God besides me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any [Note: Isa_44:6; Isa_44:8.].”]

He “was dead, and is alive”—

[This can refer to none but the Lord Jesus Christ, “who died for our sins, and rose again for our justification.”

But it may be asked, How can these two agree? I answer, the former title is again and again given him in this book of Revelation [Note: Rev_1:8; Rev_1:11; Rev_22:11.]: and it is also repeatedly given in conjunction with the latter title. In the former chapter, where a full and large description is given of the person who appeared to John, He said of himself to John, “Fear not: I am the first, and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.” And, in my text, this is the very part of that description expressly selected to be addressed to the Church at Smyrna: “These things saith the first and the last, who was dead and is alive.” Here the parts cannot possibly be separated: you may as well say, that “he who was dead” is a different person from him “who is alive,” as disjoin, and apply to different persons, what is here said of him as God and as man. He is God and man in one person, “Emmanuel, God with us [Note: Mat_1:23.].” He is the same person of whom the Prophet Isaiah spake, saying, “To us a Child is born, to us a Son is given: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace [Note: Isa_9:6.].”]

Now, to have a just view of him in this complex character, is of infinite importance. And, to bring the subject before you, I will shew,

II. The particular bearing which this description of our Lord has upon the main subject of the epistle—

In this epistle the Church of Smyrna is warned to expect bitter persecution; but the Saviour says to her, “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer.” And in that precise part of his character which he brings before them, he says, in fact, ‘To dispel all fear of your persecutors, bear in mind,

1. ‘My all-controlling power—

[‘ “I am the first and the last:” your persecutors would have had no existence but for me; nor can they do any thing which shall not be over-ruled for my glory. The devil will stir up against you all his vassals; and they will lend themselves to him, as willing instruments to destroy you. But I will limit all their efforts; so that they shall not be able to effect any thing beyond what I will enable you to bear, and over-rule for your good.’ To this precise effect he speaks to all his Church by the Prophet Isaiah: “Behold, they shall gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee

shall fall for thy sake. (Thou art afraid of the weapons which they are now forming for thy

destruction: but) Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. (The very strength he is exerting, he derives from me: and I tell thee, that) No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper [Note: Isa_54:15-17.].”]

2. ‘The interest I take in thy welfare—

[‘ “For thee I died; and for thee I live.” It was altogether for the purpose of expiating thy guilt, that I assumed thy nature, and expired upon the cross: and it was in order to carry on and perfect thy salvation, that I rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven; where now I live, as thine advocate and intercessor; yea, and live too as the head over all things, that I may accomplish, both in thee and for thee, all that thy necessities require. Reflect on this; and then say, whether, “having myself suffered, being temped, I am not disposed to succour my tempted people [Note:Heb_2:18.];” and whether, having “all power committed to me in heaven and in earth,” “I will suffer any to pluck thee

out of my hand [Note: Joh_10:28.]?” Are not my death and resurrection a sufficient pledge to you, that “none shall ever separate you from my love [Note: Rom_8:34-35.]?” Place, then, your confidence in me; and know, that, however your enemies may look upon you as “sheep appointed for the slaughter,” you shall, through me, be “more than conquerors over all [Note: Rom_8:36-37.].”]

3. ‘The honour and happiness that await thee—

[‘Thou art “predestinated by my Father to be conformed to my image [Note: Rom_8:29.].” Behold me, then, “as dying, and as yet alive;” yea, as living for ever at the right hand of God. This is the process that is prepared for thee. Whether thou be carried to death, or only to prison, it shall be equally a step to thine advancement to the very throne which I now occupy. Only “suffer with me, and thou shalt surely reign with me [Note: 2Ti_2:12.],” and “be glorified together [Note: Rom_8:17.].” And, when thou seest how “I have endured the cross and despised the shame, and am set down at the right hand of God [Note: Heb_12:2.],” wilt thou be afraid or ashamed to follow me? Look at the noble army of martyrs, who “loved not their lives unto death:” see them before the throne of God, and inquire how they came there. And my angel shall inform thee, “These all came out of great

tribulation, and washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb: therefore are they before the throne of God [Note: Rev_7:14-15.].” Be thou, then, a follower of them, even of those who through faith and patience now inherit the promises. Thou seest how I

have recompensed their fidelity; and to thee I say, “Be thou faithful unto death; and I will give thee a crown of life [Note: ver. 10.].” ’]

As a fit improvement of this subject, learn, my brethren—

1. To contemplate and to estimate the character of Christ—

[In circumstances of trial, we are too apt to contemplate only the power of our adversaries, or our own weakness; whereas we should look chiefly, if not exclusively, to Him who reigns on high, and orders every thing according to his own sovereign will and pleasure. For thus saith the Lord: “Say ye not, ‘A confederacy,’ to all those to whom this people shall say, ‘A confederacy;’ neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid: but sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread; and he shall be to you for a sanctuary [Note: Isa_8:12-14.].” To act otherwise, is folly in the extreme. “Who art thou, that art afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man that shall be as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy Maker [Note:Isa_51:12-13.]?” Only have worthy thoughts of thy Lord and Saviour, and thou mayest defy all the efforts that either men or devils can make against thee [Note: Isa_50:7-9.].]

2. To avail yourselves of his promised aid and support—

[He tells you, “I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me, because he trusteth in me [Note: Isa_26:3.].” See how David was kept [Note: Psa_11:1-4. Cite this.]; and how Paul [Note: Rom_8:38-39. Cite this also.], and thousands of others who have trusted in him [Note: Heb_13:5-6.]: and will not his grace be alike sufficient for you? Be it so, “You are weak. Then his strength shall be the more glorified in your weakness [Note: 2Co_12:9.].” But you are a mere “worm.” Still fear not; for “though a worm, thou shalt thresh the mountains [Note: Isa_41:14-16. Cite the whole of this.].” But thou canst do nothing. Then trust in Him; and he will do all things. For this is his word to every believing soul; “Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness [Note: Isa_41:10.].”]

8.HAWKER, “(8) And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; (9) I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. (10) Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. (11) He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.Smyrna, the second Church to whom the Lord sent his message, appears to have been not much more than forty miles from Ephesus, and neither of them, far remote from Ramos. The Epistle to this Church comes now to be considered. Here the Lord takes to himself, in opening his message, those distinguishing perfections of character. These things saith the first and the last, which was dead and is alive, Probably the Lord Jesus made choice of these, in a more especial manner, in that he was here arming the Church, against a time of persecution; and therefore, in his own glorious Person, they might be found faithful unto death. By the Jews here spoken of, is to be understood, with a special eye to the subject, Christ’s followers in the regeneration, or as Christ himself was a Jew after the flesh, those who professed to be his disciples, were in those days generally called Jews. Indeed, we read that the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch, Act_11:26. But it was only in process of time, that the name became universal. Such, however, could only be properly called so, who were regenerated. Let the Reader observe, that Christ calls it blasphemy, to take the name without the grace. It is indeed most awful, to find men who are by works, of the synagogue of Satan, call themselves Christians!

Let the Reader observe, and observe with thankfulness, how graciously the Lord Jesus limits the power of Satan. Fear none of these things, which thou shalt suffer! The devil would have cast them all into hell, if he could. But no! It shall be only some of them, that he shall exercise by captivity; and that not into hell, but only into a prison. And he would have cast them in forever. But no! It shall only be for ten days, that they shall have tribulation. And this not for his triumph, but for the trial of their graces. And Jesus, in bidding them be faithful, wills them into it. It is, as if the Lord had said ye shall be faithful. For the crown he promised, was not of doubtful issue. Oh! how sure is it, that the overcomers in Christ, having part in the first resurrection in grace, shall not be hurt by the second death, Rev_20:6. Lord! give grace and the hearing ear, to hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches!

9. VWS, “SmyrnaLying a little north of Ephesus, on a gulf of the same name. The original city was

destroyed about b.c. 627, and was deserted and in ruins for four hundred years.

Alexander the Great contemplated its restoration, and his design was carried out after his death. The new city was built a short distance south of the ancient one, and became the finest in Asia Minor, being known as the glory of Asia. It was one of the cities which claimed the honor of being Homer's birthplace. A splendid temple was erected by the Smyrnaeans to his memory, and a cave in the neighborhood of the city was shown where he was said to have composed his poems. Smyrna's fine harbor made it a commercial center; but it was also distinguished for its schools of rhetoric and philosophy. Polycarp was the first bishop of its church, which suffered much from persecution, and he was said to have suffered martyrdom in the stadium of the city, a.d. 166. It is argued with some plausibility that Polycarp was bishop of Smyrna at the time of the composition of Revelation, and was the person addressed here. This question, however, is bound up with that of the date of composition (see Trench, “Epistles to the Seven Churches”). The city was a seat of the worship of Cybele the Mother of the gods, and of Dionysus or Bacchus.

Was dead (�γέ�γέ�γέ�γένετο�νετο�νετο�νετο�νεκρ�νεκρ�νεκρ�νεκρ�ςςςς)

Lit., became dead.

Is alive ( ζησενζησενζησενζησεν)

Lit., lived. Rev., properly, lived again; the word being used of restoration to life. See, for a similar usage, Mat_9:18; Joh_5:25.

10. MEYER, ““BE THOU FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH”

Rev_2:8-11

This epistle has a new pathos and significance if we connect it with “the blessed Polycarp,” who almost certainly was the angel or chief minister of the church in Smyrna. He was the disciple of John. Irenaeus who lived a generation later, tells how, in early boyhood, he had heard from the lips of Polycarp what John had told him of our Lord’s person, converse, and earthly ministry.

How sweet the comfort of this epistle must have been to him in the closing scene of his life, when, at eighty-six, he was sentenced to be burned! Notice how every line of it had a message for him, as for all who are called to follow in his steps. The Savior reminded him that beyond the suffering of this brief life a crown awaited him, which would abundantly reward his fidelity.

What music there is in those inspiring words! Even Peter’s crown of glory and Paul’s crown of righteousness seem to fade in comparison with this “crown of life.” The thought of it enabled Polycarp to say at the stake, “I give thee hearty thanks that thou hast brought me to this hour, that I may have my part in the cup of thy Christ, unto the resurrection of eternal life, through the operation of thy Holy Spirit.”

11. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “Smyrna—the poor Church that was richThe story of Smyrna, both spiritual and material, the delineation of its circumstances

and of its experience, is simple. Nothing is said of the achievements of the Church; the significant clause, “I know thy works,” which meets us elsewhere, is wanting here. No complex ethical state is set before us. The history of Smyrna is compressed into a single word, tribulation; it had one solitary call, to fidelity. Of Smyrna this much is recorded—the Church was persecuted by the Jews. The life of the Church had been one of tribulation, and in its tribulation it was poor. Of the social influence which conciliates authorities and tempers persecutions, of the comforts which lighten trouble and solace the afflicted, it had none. And the conflict was to wax sorer. Reproach will be followed by imprisonment. Out of the very soreness of the trouble there come suggestions that carry consolation with them. The sufferings of this insignificant Church have a dignity all their own; and not only a dignity, they have an importance too. As it had been with Christ, so should it be with His followers in Smyrna. Unrelenting hostility was to be followed by eternal victory. “Fear not the things which thou art going to suffer.… Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.” There is something very suggestive in this picture of the Church at Smyrna, in the fact that it lay aside from the various movements—the false doctrines and the worldly confusions—which elsewhere had already begun to perplex the Christian life. To us, also, there have come manifold complexions of social and religious interest; the Christian life of to-day is very full. Yes, life is for us Christians to-day very full of meaning, and piety is very rich. The effort to win all for Christ will be very arduous, we know; but the hope is inspiring, the victory will be worth the winning.

I. The Church at Smyrna was rich because it had Christ. Observe the sublimity and the tenderness of the titles under which the Lord reveals Himself—“the first and the last,” “He who died and lived again.” The former of these titles is taken from the most majestic, the most exultant, of Old Testament prophecies, the prophecy of Israel’s restoration. One of the most touching, most searching things Henry Ward Beecher wrote was his description in “Norwood” of the poor woman, wife of a lazy, drunken husband, rearing seven children in hunger and weariness, who used to turn to these chapters, and make the mystic promises of her own. “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, thy Maker is thy husband; the Lord of Hosts is His name.” She called her daughter “Agate,” because she read, “I will make thy windows of agates.” She did not know what an agate was, but she was sure it must be something beautiful, and God’s windows were to be of agates. “She seized the happy thought—‘I will call her Agate. Perhaps the Lord will make her like a window to my darkness.’ Thus she was named.” There is an equal wealth of suggestion in the second of the two titles. “The First and the Last” was persecuted as Smyrna was. It is He who had gone on to death, and was not holden of death, who says—“Be thou faithful … I will give thee the crown of life.” They who are in such a fellowship cannot be poor.

II. Their very poverty makes them rich, for it gave firmness to their grasp and reality to their possession of Christ. We have many various tokens of the sufficiency of the Divine grace; but there are some among us who never knew what the power of God was until, absolutely emptied of self-trust, they cast themselves on Him; who, having had their self-complacency shattered, ventured to believe that the true riches was not in anything they had attained or were, but in the living God. The riches of Smyrna may be seen from another aspect. In Christ and their own dependence on Him was enough for their needs. They were not overtaxed; they were called to be faithful, and they were faithful. Their very detachment from the interests in which other Churches were engrossed made them the more able to abide in that fidelity which was their peculiar vocation.

III. In their narrow sphere the christians of Smyrna had enough discipline for the eternal future. We think sometimes of the vast, immeasurable future and its stupendous

possibilities. And we think that the burden is laid on us, in a few short years, to prepare ourselves for it all. No wonder that thus thinking we are appalled, and that we forbode new disasters in our probation, ending, perhaps, in a second death. But we are wrong. It is not what we take with us, in attainments or even experience, which will determine our fitness for that future, but the men we are. And the man may be as truly fitted to start upon “his adventure brave and new” by mastering one lesson, as by acquainting himself with many; by being faithful unto death, and so laying eternal hold on Christ, as by laying up in a wide and varied experience a good foundation for eternal life. Fidelity, in much or in little, has all the promise of fidelity; its reward is to be unmoved. There is one other note of tenderness to be referred to in this message—the Church is to have “ten days of tribulation.” Some of the commentators tell us this means a short time, and others that the time is to be long. All depends on our point of view. To Smyrna, in its death agony, any protraction of the trouble would seem long; in the light of eternity, when wearing “the crown of life,” the victors would think it short. It was a fixed time, definitely limited by “the First and Last”; and any fixed time will one day seem brief; they who have come out of their travail think of the anguish no more. (A. Mackennal, D. D.)

Letter to Smyrna

I. Christ reveals Himself to His people according to their moral condition. In support of this assertion it is only necessary to read the superscriptions of the letters “unto the seven Churches which are in Asia.” By the title or representation which the Son of Man assumes, we may anticipate the revelation in which He is about to appear. In this, I am persuaded, we have an explanation of the varying experience of the Christian, and of the diversified and changeful mission of the Church. To one man, or to one Church, Christ presents Himself bearing “the sharp sword with two edges”; to another, with eyes blazing with penetrating light; to another, as holding the key of opportunity; and to another, as grasping infinitude, and girt with the memorials of death and the pledges of ascension. It is possible to have all these, and many more, visions of the selfsame Saviour. Our apprehensions of His identity are regulated by our moral conditions.

1. As our Saviour is the First and the Last, all things must be under His dominion. “The First.” Who can reveal the mystery of these words, or number the ages we must re-traverse ere we can behold the first gleam of that horizon which encircles God as an aureole of unwaning light! “The Last.” Another mystery! This expression bears us onward until the surging sea of life is for ever hushed, until the Divine government has answered all the purpose of Infinite Wisdom. Over what cemeteries we must pass, I know not; we must advance until the Creator exclaim from His throne, as the Redeemer cried from the Cross, “It is finished!”

2. As our Saviour was dead and is alive again, so we, who are now enduring the fellowship of His sufferings, shall know the power of His resurrection. “I was dead.” The counsels of eternity are epitomised in this declaration. The problem over which the ages bent in perplexity is, in reality, solved by this fact. “Alive again.” Let me inquire around what centre the Church assembles. Do you hasten to reply, the Cross? I answer, not there only. The Cross first, but afterwards the grave! In the centre of the Church is an empty tomb, and to a doubting world the Church can ever answer, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” And, “seeing” it, what then? Why, from the sacred rock a living stream breaks, and as the countless multitudes drink, they exclaim, “These are the waters of immortality.”

II. Christ assures His people that He is intimately acquainted with every feature of their

history. “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty.” The “I know” of love is the smile of God. Jesus sees our sufferings, is present in the cloud of our sorrow, needs not to be told what the soul has undergone, but breaks in upon the gathering darkness with words which bring with them the brightness and hope of morning, “I know, I know.” The fact that Jesus knows all that we suffer for Him should serve three purposes.

(1) It should embolden us to seek His help. He is within whisper-reach of all His saints. All the desires of the heart may be expressed in one entreating sigh—one appealing glance.

(2) It should inspire us with invincible courage. As the presence of a valorous leader stimulates an army, so should the assured guardianship of the Son of God inspire every soldier of the Cross.

(3) It should clothe us with profoundest humility. That we can do anything for Jesus is a fact which should extinguish all fleshly pride. He might have deprived the Church of this luxury of suffering in His stead; but it hath pleased Him, in the infinite fulness of His love, to permit us to be wounded for the sake of His name. Are you a sufferer? To thee Jesus says, “I know.” Is not that enough? The tear, indeed, falls downwards, but the sound of its falling flieth upward to the ear of God.

III. Christ reveals to His suffering saints the fact of their imperishable wealth. Turn your attention to the ninth verse, and determine which is its brightest gem. Look at the parenthesis, and you have it! How like the effusion of the Infinite mind! A volume in a sentence—heaven in a parenthesis! It flashes upon one so unexpectedly. It is a garden in a wilderness, a song of hope mingling with the night-winds of despair. Slowly we pass over the dismal words, “Thy works, and tribulation, and poverty,” and with startling suddenness we overpass the separating parenthesis, and then—then! Outside of it we have cold, shivering, desolate “poverty”; and inside “an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away”! Think of it! The very typography is suggestive; only parenthesis between “poverty” and “rich”! And is it not so even in reality? What is there between thee, O suffering saint, and joys immortal? What between thee and thy soul’s Saviour? Only a parenthesis—the poor, frail, perishing parenthesis of the dying body. No more. There is but a step between poverty and wealth. The history of transition is condensed into one sentence, “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” Let the parenthesis fall, and you will see Him as He is. When, therefore, we estimate the wealth of a good man, we must remember that there is a moral as well as a material, an invisible as well as a visible, property. The good man is an heir, and his heirship relates to possessions which no human power of calculation can compute. If you as a Church ask me how you may ascertain whether you are “rich,” I should answer—

(1) Is your faith strong?

(2) Are your labours abundant?

(3) Are your spiritual children numerous?

IV. Christ comforts his suffering ones by disarming their fears. I cannot arbitrate between contending critics as to the precise signification of the expression “ten days.” It is enough for me to secure a firm foot on the general principle which underlies the prediction. That general principle is, that there is a limit to the suffering of the Church. Persecution is an affair of “ten days.” Diocletian is the tyrant of a vanishing hour. To-day he raves in madness, to-morrow his last yell has for ever expired. “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment.” The apostle triumphantly contrasts the brevity of suffering with the duration of glory. In prospect of suffering, Christ says to His people, “Fear not.”

But why this counsel? Does it not stiffen the heart as a word of chilling mockery? O Son of God, why tell the people not “to fear”? It is because He knows the full interpretation of suffering. Suffering is education. Grief is discipline. Let me further remind you that those sufferings have been overcome. Suffering is a vanquished power. “I have overcome the world.” We have fellowship in our suffering, a fellowship that is mastery.

V. Christ soothes and nerves His suffering saints by the promise of infinite compensation. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” Jesus Christ will not only deliver His saints from the sphere of suffering; He will introduce them into the sphere of eternal rest and joy. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The letter to the Church at Smyrna

I. Its temporal condition. The letter indicates that it was a condition of great trial. It refers to “tribulation,” “poverty,” “prison.”

1. Its present trial. There was “tribulation.” This is a term which represents trials of all kinds. But the special trial mentioned is “poverty.” “I know thy poverty.” Christ notices the secular condition of Churches.

(1) Though their city was rich, they were poor.

(2) Though they were distinguished by great spiritual excellence—for Christ Himself said, “Thou art rich,” that is, spiritually rich—they were secularly poor. In this world man’s secular condition is not always determined by his moral character. Character, and not condition, is everything to man. As compared to this, poverty is nothing. It is the man that gives worth to the condition, not the condition to the man. The gospel is for man as man, and the less man is artificialised the more open is he to its influence.

2. Its prospective trial. The letter indicates that great persecution awaited them. Several things are referred to as to the coming persecution.

(1) Its instruments. Jews by birth but not by character, not circumcised in the heart. The old religion has ever hated the new. How can it be otherwise? for the new examines the character, history, and pretensions of the old, and refuses submission to its authority and influence.

(2) Its instigator. “The devil.” He worketh in the children of disobedience—inspires them, raises their antagonism to the cause of purity, freedom, and happiness.

(3) Its form. “Cast into prison.” Incarceration in some respects is worse than martyrdom. Better die than to live without light, freedom, fellowship.

(4) Its duration. “Ye shall have tribulation ten days.”

II. Its spiritual obligation. The letter inculcates two duties.

1. Courage. “Fear none of these things.” Why fear? “Thou art rich” in faith and hope; in Divine promise, succour, and fellowship; therefore, fear not!

2. Fidelity. “Be thou faithful unto death.” When Christ left the world, He put His disciples in possession not of money, or land, or titles, or honours. These He had not to bestow. But He gave them His ideas, His purposes, His character, incomparably the most precious things. He did not write these things in books, and leave them in libraries. He trusted them to living souls, and said, take care of them. What a rare

thing it is, alas! to find a man worthy of truth—worthy of the quantity and quality of truth which has been put into his possession. Notice here two things—

(1) The extent of this faithfulness. “Unto death.” Fidelity must not give way at any future point of life. No event can justify its suspension for a moment. It must stand even the fiery test of martyrdom.

(2) The reward of faithfulness. “I will give thee a crown of life.” Let thy faithfulness be strong enough to die for Me. (Caleb Morris.)

The address to Smyrna

I. The preliminaries.

1. The party addressed, “The angel of the Church in Smyrna.” Of the time and manner in which a Church was planted in this city no authentic information remains. It is probable, from its contiguity and commercial relations with Ephesus, that the gospel first reached it through that channel. We do not find it visited by any of the apostles, or mentioned in their epistles. Some private Christians, who were merchants, or who had been led to settle in that city, after receiving the light of the gospel elsewhere, may have formed the nucleus of a Church, which, toward the close of the first century, had become eminent for its purity and extent.

2. The title which the Saviour assumes to this Church. “The First and the Last, which was dead and is alive.” Though equally belonging to the whole, one part of Christ’s character and office is revealed more to one Church than another. He is more to some Christians than others, though He is all things to all. The Church at Ephesus needed to be reminded that His watchful eye was upon them, to stimulate them to recall their first love, and to do their first works; but the Church at Smyrna, which was more pure, and yet had to pass through fiery trials, needed most of all to dwell upon the unchangeableness of His power and love.

II. The address to the Church in Smyrna.

1. The recognition of its present state: “I know thy works,” etc. There were genuine Christians amongst them, and there were Jewish pretenders. These were viewed differently by Him whose “eyes were as a flame of fire.” He knows who are right-hearted, and He knows who are insincere. He observes particularly those who rely by faith upon His merits alone for the hope of eternal life, and those who confide in their own observance of moral duties, and ceremonial institutions. Let us attend, now, to the allusion made to the party by which the Church at Smyrna was principally opposed. The address is not to them, but to the Church respecting them; to sanction its views, and to guide its proceedings in future. “And I know the blasphemy,” etc. They were Jews, who magnified the ceremonies of the law above the grace of the gospel; and looked upon Christianity as heretical, except as far as it could be amalgamated with their institutions, and made subservient to their interests. The synagogue was far above the conventicle in their esteem. They boasted of their privileges, as Jews, and cherished the old conceit of being the favourites of heaven, and heirs of the promises, on account of their natural descent from Abraham. How dangerous are all systems and forms of religion which cherish and confirm the self-righteousness of human nature! How much worse than none at all! The weapons of religion are transferred, by these means, into the hands of its adversaries. There might have been a few in the Church at Smyrna who, finding these Jews had some

truth on their side, were inclined to think more favourably of them than they deserved. The boldness with which they averred the superiority of their station, and their long prescriptive rights, would naturally have its influence upon a certain class of minds; and those especially who had counted all they could have gained by Judaism as loss for Christ might still have looked with some hesitation upon the safety and propriety of the step they had taken. For some such reason the Redeemer sees fit to express His opinion concerning them. This He does in most decisive terms. He accuses them of blasphemy, a crime which the Jews were taught to hold in the greatest detestation, and to punish with the most summary and humiliating death. He denies that in any sense in which they could boast they are Jews. Then what are they? They are, he says, “the synagogue of Satan.” In the sense in which they are not Jews, that is, in a religious and spiritual point of view, they were the synagogue of Satan. Strong terms are employed to inspire His people with horror at hypocrisy and formality.

2. An intimation of approaching trials. “Behold the devil is about to cast some of you into prison.” Human agents were employed to seize upon some of the Christians in Smyrna, and to cast them into prison, but it was at the instigation of the devil. If this rendered their guilt less, in reference to that particular transaction, it rendered it greater in having sold themselves into the hands of such a master. It is one great proof that Christianity is the true religion, that against this alone the demon of persecution has been excited. It is the only religion that Satan cannot turn to his own interests, the only kingdom that is opposed to his own, and consequently against this his whole rage and energies are employed.

3. Exhortations to unwavering fidelity, in reference to this approaching season of persecution. One relates to its anticipation, and another to its endurance. First, “Fear not.” When such an exhortation is given by God to man, who has reason to fear everything from Him, it implies the entire work of reconciliation. It is a promise also of all the support and consolation which the approaching trial may demand. The other admonition is, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” This intimates, that for the profession of the truth they would be exposed to death. They are not to temporise or prevaricate through fear, but continue stedfast and inflexible unto death.

III. The general application of the address to this particular Church. “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.” The original word for “hurt” assists the interpretation of the whole sentence. It is a judicial term, signifying that he shall not be wrongfully adjudged to the second death, as he has been to temporal death. He has been unjustly treated and injured in the first death, but no injury or injustice shall be done him with respect to the second death. Natural death is overcome by submission, not by resistance. When by faith in Christ we overcome the fear of it, we overcome the reality. If our faith conquers the first death, it will conquer the second. (G. Rogers.)

The words of Christ to the congregation at Smyrna

I. Wealth in poverty.

1. Secular wealth is of contingent value; spiritual is of absolute worth.

2. Spiritual wealth is essentially virtuous; not so secular.

3. Spiritual wealth is essentially a blessing; secular often a bane.

4. Spiritual wealth is inalienable; secular is not.

5. Spiritual wealth commands moral respect; not so secular.

II. Friends in religion. Satan has ever had much to do with religion. Religion—not godliness—is at once his shrine and his instrument. It was religion that put to death the Son of God Himself.

III. Saints in persecution.

1. It was religious.

2. Severe.

3. Testing.

4. Short.

IV. Duty in trial.

1. Courage.

2. Faithfulness.

3. Perseverance.

4. Reflectiveness.

V. Victory in death. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The Church in great tribulation

I. The trial to which this Church was subjected.

1. The persecution of inveterate enemies.

2. Temporal poverty.

3. The bigotry and reproach of embittered co-religionists.

4. The anticipation of future afflictions and imprisonment.

(1) The nature of this future suffering. In the hands of enemies.

(2) The instigator. Satan is the primary agent of all persecution.

(3) The duration. Determined by God. Brief at the longest.

(4) The design. The moral elevation of the pure.

II. The wealth by which this Church was characterised.

1. The worth of a Church cannot always be estimated by its temporal circumstances.

2. The worth of a Church cannot always be estimated by the opinions of men regarding it.

3. Moral considerations alone determine the true value of the Church.

III. The fidelity to which this Church was exhorted.

1. This exhortation indicates danger.

2. This exhortation requires steadfastness.

Lessons:

1. That the Church of Christ is often exposed to many trials and fierce persecutions.

2. That the Church of Christ is often persecuted by men who ought to know better.

3. That sectarian strife is the occasion of much persecution.

4. That the consolations of heaven are richly given to a tried Church. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Christ’s message to the tempted and tried

“You have a passion for people who are pelted, Dan,” said Sir Hugo Mallinger. “I’m sorry for them too; but so far as company goes, it is a bad ground of selection.” Our Saviour has a specially tender word to say to the pelted, and He speaks it here.

I. Surrenders that enrich; or the gain of loss for Christ. We mean that which Augustine felt, when he said in speaking of his conversion, “How sweet did it at once become to me to want the sweetness of these toys! And what I feared to be parted from was now a joy to part with!” What constitutes the true wealth of Churches? The number of moneyed men who are in the congregation? Nay, not so; but they become wealthy by accounting all that they possess as a solemn trust, and by employing every talent which they possess for the purpose which the Saviour had in view when He gave it to them. These Christians had not only endured the loss of all things, but they had been called upon to undergo even further ignominy, for they had been compelled to endure reviling and slander. To comfort them, calumny is noted in its relation to God. Perhaps the very virtues of these patient inoffensive people had been misrepresented. What had Christ to say about this form of iniquity? He styles it blasphemy; for Christ always calls things by their right names. Calumny against the saints is really blasphemy against God, for He has taken the comfort and good name of His people under His especial care, quite as much as He has assumed the responsibility of their eternal salvation. “It is our maxim,” said Justin Martyr, “that we can suffer harm from none, unless we be convicted as doers of evil, or proved to be wicked; you may indeed slay us, but hurt us you cannot.” Sublime words truly, from a man who expressed his own reasonable conviction of the consequences of his faith when he said, “I also expect to be entrapped … and to be affixed to the stake.” We are invulnerable if we are true to our Saviour, for no weapon which is formed against us can really prosper. Our battle is chiefly won by resistance; let us but wait, and we shall wear out the energies of our enemy and of his helpers.

II. Stout hearts for stormy times: the courage that conquers circumstances. “Fear not,” saith Christ, and still continue to fear not. The “unto death” is first and mainly intensive. It marks the sublime quality, and not the continuance of our faith. Although you are robbed, suffer injustice, and are cruelly, slandered, yet fear not. Continue steadfastly in your duty, and be prepared to die rather than yield up what is committed unto you. Poverty, sickness, the loss of good name, bereavement, even death itself: Christ knows them all, for He has Himself endured them, and so He says from experience, “Fear them not!” Let us say about all the hard facts and enemies of our lives what Andrew Fuller said during a crisis in the history of the Baptist Missionary Society, “We do not fear them. We will play the man and fight for the cause of our God, and Jehovah do that which pleases Him.”

1. The omniscience of Christ is a ground of courage, for the author of the mischief is known. If God’s enemy be the prime mover in our sorrows, we may safely anticipate

especial grace to interfere upon our behalf. It is also no small comfort for us to know that the author of our misery is known to God, who will one day tread Satan under our feet.

2. And another source of holy courage is the Divine control of evil, which is seen in the fact that the suffering is limited by Divine wisdom. It is true that ten days are a dreary time while the tribulation endures, but they form, after all, a very insignificant portion of our lives. Is it not a comfort to know that there are no contingencies in our lives that Christ has not provided for, that if, for reasons which will be made clear some day, He determines that ten days’ suffering is needful for us, or for others, not more than ten days will be allotted to us. We must endure all that period, but not an hour longer than He deems requisite, for Christ is the judge of our sorrows and the giver of our affliction.

3. Another motive to courage is the fact that God does always actually triumph, and that, however unwillingly, the worst does the best for those who love Him. These Christians were to be tried, and some of them would be killed. It is hard to part with life, even with all the alleviations of the gospel. But these men were likely to die amidst cruel mocking, and with none of the consolations which minister to our loved ones when they pass away from us. Christ may require even this sacrifice of our inclinations of us; at any rate, He expects that if He should demand it, that we should be ready to yield at once to, His requirement. Nor should it be hard for us to do so, for death will only accomplish Christ’s bidding. Let us then say to each other, as Annie Bronte said to her sister, “Take courage; take courage.” And the more so because courage is no virtue in those who are blessed by the love of Christ; it is only natural.

III. And He who exhorts us to be brave furnishes us with strong antidotes for sore evils; there are some things that we should never forget.

1. In the first place, we should ever keep in mind the fact that Christ has the last word in every conversation, and the completing touch in every work. “I am the First and the Last,” He says. “I was the first in raising you, and I will be the last in preserving you. I began the conflict, and I will terminate the fight.” A declaration also of our Lord’s dignity, and a proof that He judges persons and events.

2. Another antidote to fear will be found in Christ’s person and offices, which are a source of unfailing strength. Death has not made an end of Christ; even such agony as He endured has not changed Him. He knows therefore from His own experience what the pangs of death are. “Died He, or in Him did death die?” Augustine asks. “What a death that gave death its deathblow!” And to the victor who will seek to conquer his own timidity, and will persevere to the end, the Saviour promises a crown of life. Kingly life, the dignities and happiness of heaven, are here promised to those who will be faithful. As against the loss of a life which is burdened with care at the best, and is often embittered by failure and sin, our Saviour promises a better life, which is to come. Over the entrance of Thornbury Castle there is a scroll upon which is inscribed “Doresenevant.” This is an old French word which signifies “Hence-forward,” or “Hereafter.” The builder was a Duke of Buckingham, who thus expressed his sanguine hopes with regard to the English crown. We may truly say “Hereafter,” and the watchword should nerve us to endure the period of waiting for our kingdom, because one day we too shall be crowned. (J. J. Ellis.)

The First and the Last, which was dead, and is alive.—

Christ’s designation of Himself

What is meant by Christ being “the First and the Last”? The words are quoted from Isa_44:6-7, where God supports His claim as the declarer of truth on the fact that He was before all, and continues through all, standing alone as acquainted with all. When our Lord uses this phrase for Himself, He makes Himself the Eternal Jehovah. He uses a title which belongs only to the Most High God. And yet in close connection with the title which best marks His Deity is the title which best marks His humanity—“which was dead, and lived again.” The Cross is seen on the background of the Divine. The suffering Man is one with the saving God. The two titles together form a compendium of the great salvation, and lift the mind to the contemplation of the grand scheme of the Divine mercy and love, as against any earthly trial of whatever kind. (H. Crosby.)

But thou art rich.—

Spiritual Aches

It often happens that people do not know how rich they are. So it appears to have been with the Smyrnian Church. Let us consider some of the elements of these spiritual riches possessed by this Church with which Jesus has no fault to find.

I. It was rich in faith (Jas_2:5). Do you know why faith enriches its possessor? It is because he is justified by faith. There is not a more impoverishing thing than a consciousness of sin.

II. This Church was Rich toward God (Luk_12:21). This phrase is used by our Saviour in contrast with laying up treasure for one’s self. Wealth, when well gotten, is a trust from God, and ought to be administered for Him. But this Church was not rich, and had no opportunities to speak of laying the treasures of earth upon God’s altar; and yet it was rich toward God; for the principle of complete consecration was well honoured in the observance of the brethren.

III. This Church was “rich in good works” (1Ti_6:18). Good works are the current coin of the heavenly kingdom; happy he who has his spiritual coffers full of them. And as all the coin of the realm must have its origin in the royal mint, so all good works to be genuine must spring from faith in God, and bear the image and superscription of King Jesus.

IV. The power of making others rich was another source of spiritual wealth to this Church. He is truly wealthy who can describe himself, like Paul, “as poor, yet making many rich.” (J. Cameron.)

The riches of the poor

I. The poor are rich; for they have the most valuable possessions and enjoyments of the rich, and want only those which are of less value. Gaiety and cheerfulness, in infancy and childhood, gladden the offspring of the peasant as well as the offspring of the prince. The sleep of the labouring man is as sweet as his who has acquired or inherited the largest fortune. The mind of the servant may be more contented and serene than that of the master.

II. Many of the poor, yea, all of them who have obtained precious faith, even in this life

possess and enjoy the best riches.

1. They possess a title and claim to all things. To Jesus, the heir of all things, they are united by faith and love.

2. They possess an interest in Him who is the fountain of all blessedness and the possessor of heaven and earth. Be it so that they cannot say this house or these lands are ours, they have ground to say, this God is our God for ever and ever.

3. They have a charter which cannot be revoked; and which secures their possession of all that is good for them (2Pe_1:4; 1Ti_4:8; Psa_34:10; Psa_84:11; Psa_132:15; Isa_54:17; Zec_9:8; 1Co_10:14).

4. True Christians, through the operations of the Spirit of Christ and the influence of faith purifying the heart, are enriched with a temper of mind, and with dispositions which are the seeds of true happiness. Religion consecrates the understanding, the will, and the affections, to the best and noblest purposes; and opens the purest sources of transporting delight.

5. True Christians are rich in the well-grounded prospect of a state beyond the grave, where every source of sorrow shall be dried up and every spring of joy opened.

III. The poor are rich, for they have the means of acquiring and securing the most substantial and durable riches. They have large, free, and generous offers of all that is needful to make them happy. To the pool the gospel is preached; and thus a price is put into their hands to get wisdom (John Erskine, D. D.)

Poor but pure

Sweet-smelling Smyrna, the poorest but purest of the seven. (J. Trapp.)

Poor and rich

There are both poor rich men and rich poor-men in God’s sight. (Abp. Trench.)

Poor yet rich

There is no proportion between wealth and happiness nor between wealth and nobleness. The fairest life that ever lived on earth was that of a poor man, and with all its beauty it moved within the limit of narrow resources. The loveliest blossoms do not grow on plants that plunge their greedy roots into the fattest soil. A little light earth in the crack of a hard rock will do. We need enough for the physical being to root itself in; we need no more. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer.

Suffering Christians

I. Suffering is the lot of Christians in this world. No situation in life, however desirable—no circumstances, however auspicious—no degree of consistency and utility of moral character, can exempt any individual from trouble and sorrow. Perfect freedom from

trouble and sorrow will never be experienced on this side the kingdom of glory.

II. Of the sufferings of Christians are produced by the agency of Satan. Persecutors of the Lord’s people are agents of the devil, and if left under his power, they will eternally share with him in punishment. That which the devil effects in malice, with a view to their ruin, the Saviour permits in mercy, with a view to their advantage. The faith and the patience of suffering saints confound Satan, encourage the Church, and glorify Christ. The time when Christians are to be tried, and also the nature, and the degree, and the duration of their trials, are wisely and mercifully determined by the Redeemer.

III. Christians have no cause to fear in the prospect of sufferings.

IV. Christians are encouraged to fidelity by the promise of final victory and eternal felicity. (J. Hyatt.)

Sin and suffering

Take more pains to keep yourselves from sin than from suffering. (T. Brooks.)

Trial and strength proportionate

God sees fit to try us all. When you are going through some large works, you will see a crane or teagle on which are such words as these, “To lift five tons,” and so on. Now, nobody would expect to weigh ten tons on a teagle which is capable of sustaining only five. Neither will God permit you to be tried beyond your capacity. (W. Birch.)

Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.—

An appeal with promise

I. There is recognition in this message of man’s unique place and power in God’s creation. That the crowned Christ should speak to man at all from His throne above suggests human dignity. But the inference is enlarged and certified when we consider the character of the speech. Not to the grandest of His countless worlds does God say, “Be thou faithful.” He speaks, and it is done. Everything yields to His touch, takes fashion from His will, obeys with precision His impulse. But not as to His works does God relate Himself to men. With them He reasons and pleads, for them He sacrifices and waits. The difference is neither accidental nor arbitrary. We are God’s children, not His creatures, nor merely His subjects. Hence in His dealings with men the Creator becomes the Father, the Sovereign the Saviour, the Supreme Authority the most impassioned Reasoner. Higher than the angels, and centred in the thought of eternity, man is God’s child, God’s care, God’s desire. If this account of us adds value and dignity to human life, it confers a more solemn responsibility and calls for a worthier and more constant recognition. The redemption of life, whether among rich or poor, can find its impetus in no lower motive than a recognition of man’s sacredness as a son of God and a child of eternity. Only as we see each other in the light of God can we live together in relations of perfect justice and peace. When the divinity of every man has been realised through the humanity of the God-Man, life will reach its true grandeur and simplicity. Alike upon individual character and upon the social organism the effect will be as of a new creation. The vices which have flourished upon a degraded conception of human nature, the

wrongs which have grown up on the basis of mere political and economic relations, will wither away in the atmosphere of diviner thought—old things shall pass away, behold, all things will become new! And it is religion—the religion of Jesus the Christ—which alone is adequate, alike by its revelation of God and its consequent doctrine of man, to elevate thought, to humanise motive, to deify life.

II. The form into which our text is east is not without significance. It is a simple exhortation coupled with an attractive promise. “Be thou faithful” is not a lecture, but an appeal, and it is addressed to the latent energies of our emotional nature. The Scriptures are full of similar exhortations, and the implication clearly is that knowledge is not a self-acting motor, that man is not a self-impelling power. He requires to be aroused from slumber, to be stirred into activity, to be moved as well as taught. Religion takes note of that necessity. It is more than truth: it is impulse. Bringing to man’s aid a new world of motives, it completes its teaching by persuasion and appeal. To our gospel man appears not as a poor ignoramus groping his way to more knowledge in order to nobler life, but as a wayward sinner needing to be aroused, forgiven, assisted. He is wrongheaded because wronghearted. It is in view of this condition that the gospel makes its appeal to each one of us. Bringing into our impoverished life a new and glorious world of knowledge, and offering for our acceptance resources of power not derivable from ourselves, it directs its penetrative appeals to the arousing of holy desire and purpose in our hearts. It is a reiterated and urgent invitation to men who know they are wrong, but who are slow to seek and strive after the right. Its characteristic words are “come,” “look,” “believe,” “take,” “follow,” “hold fast,” “be faithful.” And until we make personal response to these calls we stand in a false relation to the Christ and His Gospel.

III. In the spiritual order of life something comes before faithfulness. “Be thou faithful” suggests an antecedent vow or covenant to which allegiance is urged. Conversion goes before consecration, and both before faithfulness. The text has no message for a man until he has taken the first of these steps. Have you yet taken it? One point, touching the matter, requires to be re-emphasised. The new life does not grow, as plants grow, by mere unconscious absorption of vital elements. And the reason is because men are not plants, but free intelligences, who are here for the very purpose of exercising their freedom and determining their own destiny. An act of decision is therefore of the very essence of the problem involved in human liberty and Divine grace. But it must be there in every life. Free men, who are here for the purpose of using their liberty, must and do make choice. Life’s issues are not determined by hap or accident. Every man’s destiny awaits his own decision. All that God can do He has done. The issues depend now upon us. We are surrounded with helps to the fulfilment of life’s true issues. Have we made our decision? Are we intelligently and heartily on the Lord’s side? That is the supreme question. Until it is answered we have done our duty neither to Christ nor to ourselves. We cannot be Christ’s men without knowing it. May God give us grace to face that question—and that question only—till we have reached a definite decision and made a personal surrender!

IV. But while the text recalls the antecedent necessity of decision, it throws an equal emphasis upon the duty of continuance. Here it speaks to men and women who have taken a stand in respect of Christian faith and service. It is a call to that loftiest and most difficult duty of daily constancy in effort and devotion. Constancy is a finer discipline than ecstasy. Faithfulness is more and better than originality. “Go on,” Christ seems to say; “do not fret as though you were forgotten, but endure as those who will be surely rewarded: look not down and around at the difficulties of your lot, but look on and up to the powers arid issues of your discipleship: be not dismayed at the variations of feeling, but stand loyal to the resolutions of obedience: Heaven is around you, God is above and

within—be not deceived by the scepticism of the eye, but informed by the vision of faith, and your victory will be your reward.” The quiet and faithful worker, who undertakes a task and keeps at it with noble pertinacity, may not be so prominent, but is incomparably more fruitful in the Christian Church. Restless activity may only be busy idleness. Emotion is not obedience. “Be thou faithful,” and thou shalt be peaceful and strong.

V. The text, so full of wise counsel, closes with a promise: “I will give thee a crown of life.” The promise points far forward to that blessed day when we shall stand among the victors on the other side of death. Life, life full and strong and perfect, shall then be ours. We can only dimly anticipate the glory of such a crown. Now and again we seem to get glimpses of it, but the glory is swiftly hidden lest it should blind us to earth and time and duty. But behind the cloud of years and beyond the horizon of discipline this promise clearly points to a full and perfect life. Faithfulness is ever winning and ever wearing the crown. Life is every day putting on a new crown. The judgment seat of God is set every morning, and His rewards are bestowed upon the faithful soul. What life, what love, what joy, does God give day by day to men who live simple, sincere, unselfish, pious byes! The best is kept in store, but brief foretastes are granted while we suffer and strive. (Charles A. Berry.)

The law of fidelity and its Divine reward

I. The law of fidelity.

1. Fidelity is a virtue of universally acknowledged importance and worth.

2. Fidelity is a social virtue based upon the universal law of love.

3. Fidelity is a duty man, as man, owes to his Creator.

4. The degree of love is the measure of fidelity.

5. Fidelity to Christ involves fidelity to the great truths of the Cross.

6. Fidelity to the Gross involves fealty to every true friend of the Cross.

7. Faithfulness to Christ involves continued and life-long fidelity.

II. The Divine reward of this lifelong fidelity. Those who are faithful unto death will be crowned with life—that is to say, life in its sublime and subliming form. Our life here is more death than life. Here we have the minimum of bliss, there the maximum of happiness; here the minimum of power, there the maximum of might. (William McKay.)

Christian faithfulness

I. The nature of the appeal: “Be faithful.” Faithfulness is

(1) Due to Christ;

(2) Possible to all;

(3) All-pervasive.

II. The range of the appeal: Be thou faithful unto death. Faith should be—

(1) Superior to circumstances—Tribulation; Death.

(2) Independent of others: “thou.”

(3) Of life-long duration: unto death.

III. The enforcement of the appeal: I will give thee,” etc. There is another sphere of life, with reality and splendour of reward, and the reward itself will be—

(1) Appropriate, in character; Faithfulness crowned; “death”—“life.”

(2) Personal, in enjoyment: “I will give thee.”

(3) Certain, in attainment; because

(a) gratuitous in its vouchsafement: “give;” and

(b) definite in its promise: “I will.” (Homilist.)

Fidelity to Christ enforced

I. A solemn exhortation

1. Christians are urged to fidelity in their professions of personal attachment to the Saviour.

2. The exhortation calls on Christians to be faithful in their adherence to all the doctrines of Revelation.

3. To be faithful in maintaining the royal authority of the Saviour, and His Headship over His Church.

4. To be faithful in paying your solemn vows.

II. The gracious assurance

1. The gift—“A crown of life.” A crown is the highest object of earthly ambition and the possession of it the loftiest pinnacle of worldly glory—to obtain it, no toils, struggles, or sacrifices are deemed too great. But between this crown of life and all the glory and honour of this earth there is no comparison. It is a crown of life, and this is indicative of the pure, lofty, and endless enjoyments to which it introduces.

2. The glorious giver. It is Christ who is to bestow the crown of life. Those who are to wear it have not won it by their own prowess, obtained it by their own merit, or inherited it by their natural birth. It is given freely by Him by whose blood it was secured, and by whose munificence it is bestowed.

3. The solemn period at which this crown shall be bestowed. The text directs forward our expectations to the solemn period of dissolution when this reward shall be obtained. This advantage is peculiar to Christianity. At death the conquering hero lays down his crown, and leaves all his worldly glory behind him. But at death the Christian triumphs. Then he puts off his armour and receives his crown. His conflicts terminate, his enemies are for ever defeated, and death is swallowed up in victory. (A. Harvey.)

Faithful unto death

The original means not simply, “Be thou,” but rather, “Become thou”; as showing that it is a thing which we are not; but which continually we must, from time to time, make ourselves, by a holy effort. “Become thou faithful unto death.” To be “faithful” is to be

“full of faith,” i.e., full of the realisation of things unseen. For the only way to secure “faithfulness” in anything is to carry with us a constant presence and a deep sense of the invisible. And you must be careful that you have caught the exact sense of “unto death.” It relates not so much to the measure of the duration of the time as to the degree of the power of the endurance—“to the death-point.” You will set about your endeavour to be “faithful,” with the greater pleasantness and the more assurance of success if you carry with you the recollection that it was the characterising grace of our Master. St. Paul has drawn for us the striking comparison that Moses indeed was “faithful in all His house,” but that the glory of the faithfulness of Christ exceeded the glory of the faithfulness of Moses as much as the builder of a house is better than the building. Of the many voices with which your motto will speak to you, let me now anticipate only a very few. And, first, your “faithfulness” to God. For remember that no other relation can ever be quite right while that is wrong. The upward will rule all the rest. First, as an act of justice, take honouring views of the Father. Never question that you are His child-though the unworthiest; and believe God’s love, even when you have grieved Him to the very quick, and when He is chastening you the most sorely, Secondly, keep short accounts with God. Never leave more than a day’s debt to God unsettled. Thirdly, be “faithful” to God in telling Him everything. Be “faithful” in your confidences, have no secrets, open to God the whole heart. The mortification will be severe, but ye cannot be “faithful” in prayer unless the prayer be “unto death,” to the death of your dearest sin. These voices let your motto speak to you in your own room. Next, be faithful to yourself. First, to your pledges in baptism, in confirmation, in the Lord’s Supper, in many a sorrow. Deal honourably with your own pledges, acknowledging the responsibility and facing the duty. And, secondly, to your conscience. A man will never go very far wrong who really listens to and follows his conscience. Thirdly, be “faithful” to your Church. Faults, no doubt, our Church has. There has been too much admixture with the world since that day when she came pure out of her Master’s hand that she should not have contracted some earthly alloy. But she is the fairest Church upon earth and the freest from blemish, the purest thing out of heaven. And she is the Church of your fathers, of your baptism, of the holiest associations of your life, and of your best hours. Be “faithful” to her. Follow her teaching. Obey her laws. Love her services. Reverence her simplicity. Bow to her judgments. Strive for her increase. Pray for her unity. It would be far too large a field if I were to attempt to enter now, in any detail, upon the “faithfulness” of daily duties. Whatever you have to do, do not he so anxious to do it well, cleverly, effectually, as to do it “faithfully.” The rest may not be in your power—this is. Every man can be “faithful.” Your chief danger will be, not that you be unfaithful one day or two, but that you will become weary and grow slack. Therefore read the precept with emphasis, day after day, week after week, all the year round—“faithful unto death.” (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Christian faithfulness and its reward

I. Christian faithfulness implies—

1. Sincerity, in opposition to hypocrisy.

2. Fidelity, in opposition to fraud or peculation.

3. Diligence, in opposition to indolence.

4. Courage in the time of danger or suffering.

5. Perseverance.

II. The reward of Christian faithfulness.

1. The firstfruits of that glorious harvest, which is included in the future reward, are enjoyed upon earth.

(1) There is a present reward in the enjoyment of the testimony of a good conscience.

(2) The consciousness of the approbation of God is worth a thousand worlds to a man in the present life.

(3) And there is, then, the great luxury of doing good, relieving misery.

2. The Lord not only gives us grace and strength and support and comfort in our work, but He has reserved for us “a crown of life.” (T. Entwistle.)

Faithful unto death

I. A great trust.

II. A solemn injunction concerning this trust.

1. Be serious that you may be faithful. From the Christian standpoint what a thing is life! What solemn mystery broods over it! What passionate interests it holds! If we consider all this we cannot be frivolous.

2. Be firm that you may be faithful. A great part of practical faithfulness consists in resistance.

3. Be ready that you may be faithful. Say “Yes” before your fears have time to shape “No.” Say “No” before your inclinations have time to whisper “Yes.” Stand out declared, before friends or enemies have cause to think you are yielding to the point where the assault is made.

4. Be tender, gracious, and loving, that you may be faithful The Master whom we serve is the Saviour, whose pity never sleeps. Thus in the Christian faithfulness there is a combination of things which seem opposite—hardness like that of the adamant, and softness like that of the air.

5. Be patient, that you may be faithful.

III. A decisive day. It is the day of death. “Be thou faithful unto death.” Better is this end of life than the beginning.

IV. A great reward. “I will give thee a crown of life.” (A. Raleigh, D. D.)

The duty and the reward of Christian fidelity

I. The command.

1. Christian faithfulness relates to the testimony God has given in His Word. Other knowledge may be useful, but this is the direct communication from God, acquainting us with His rich compassion towards us in not sparing His own Son. This system of revealed truth we are to make the subject of habitual study and the source of our chief consolation—it is to be the director of our conduct. Fidelity to the truth of God requires that we make an open, though an humble, confession of it. To this, its

intrinsic excellence, its vital importance, its adaptation to all the wants and miseries of men, entitle it.

2. Christian fidelity relates to the claims of the Saviour to our obedience. His benignity and excellence render Him worthy of the love and homage of all created beings; but He has won to Himself a title to the gratitude and obedience of mankind, by assuming the character of Redeemer, by suffering as their Surety. When the enemy would persuade us to turn away from Him, when temptation would lure us away from the Captain of our salvation; when the indolence and remissness to spiritual exercises, natural to man, would often be a hindrance to our fidelity, let us hear His animating voice, saying, “Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.”

3. We are to be faithful in the exercise and in the improvement of the talents entrusted to our charge.

4. We are to be faithful in exercising the courage which the Christian warfare requires. The allusion in the text is to military life, and to the obedience due from a soldier to his general, leader, and commander. He must never, through treachery or cowardice, desert the banner he has sworn to defend, nor refuse to follow the order of his general.

5. Christian fidelity is to be continued unto death.

II. The promise of gracious reward expressed in the text—“I will give thee a crown of life.” (D. Dewar, D. D.)

Christian faithfulness

I. A personal faithfulness. “Thou.”

1. Individual attention to, and steadfastness in, our own particular work. The mode and circumstances of the testimony different. Philip’s part different from Sephen’s, Paul’s from Peter’s, and so forth. But individual faithfulness the common characteristic of all true witnesses.

2. Personal also in respect of the one object of faith. He served not merely “a cause,” but the Lord, his own loved and adored Master in heaven.

II. A permanent faithfulness. The faith is persistent unto the end, through all sufferings, opposition, temptation, death itself. Not “fits and starts,” but a steady, onward course (2Ti_4:7; 1Co_15:58).

III. A perfected faithfulness. The faithfulness is perfected at last, and this perfection is “the crown of life.” (Bp. W. S. Smith.)

Christian fidelity and its reward

I. Christian fidelity.

1. The Christian must be faithful to the claim of the Supreme Being upon the devotion of his soul and the service of his life.

2. The Christian must be faithful to the requirements of truth and to the inner experiences and convictions of the soul.

3. The Christian must be faithful to the needs of men around him, and their relation to the redemptive mission of Christ.

4. The Christian must be faithful notwithstanding the dangers of the Christian life.

II. Its reward.

1. The reward of Christian fidelity will be ennobling in its character.

2. The reward of Christian fidelity will be given by Christ.

Lessons:

1. Are we faithful to the claims of God?

2. The solemn motive to fidelity.

3. The glorious reward of fidelity. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Cross and crown

I. Christian consecration.

1. It must be thorough—“Faithful.” This implies—

(1) Adverse circumstances.

(2) Strong conviction.

(3) Resolute will.

(4) Persevering effort.

(5) Dauntless courage.

2. It must be personal—“Thou.” Each one has his own power, sphere, and responsibility for service.

3. It must be life-long. Necessary for—

(1) Thorough discipline of character.

(2) Required usefulness to society.

(3) Complete devotedness to God.

II. Christian compensation.

1. Glorious “Crown.”

2. Enduring—“Life.” Eternal—real “life” to enjoy it.

3. Certain—“Will.”

4. Personal—“Thee.”

5. Unmeritorious—“Give.”

6. Divinely bestowed—“I.”

Conclusion:

1. Effort, not enjoyment, is the object in life.

2. Be true to Christ above all others.

3. Jesus rewards effort, not prosperity.

4. Death the great transformation scene. Cross to crown.

5. Heaven a world of conquerors. All crowned.

6. Draw upon future glories to encourage in present trials. (B. D. Johns.)

A crown of life

The finest heroism is that of ordinary life. Steadfastness in hard times is a far nobler manifestation of moral strength than the most dashing valour which souls display under the joyous impulse of great success. For instance, the greatness of General Washington is shown by the magnificent hopefulness and steadiness with which he held his poor little army together through long months of retreat and suffering, far more than by his consummate ability in the guidance of actual battle. Many persons after they have done well in an enterprise think they have received no reward unless they have obtained fame or riches. Yet comparatively few do receive such rewards as these, and we hear a continual outcry that justice does not rule between God and man. Is it just that the world’s multitude of sufferers includes not merely the idle, inefficient, and vicious, but in large numbers those to whom poverty clings in spite of their devoted labours, and those who are kept down by constant illness or other unavoidable weakness? Why has God denied to all the multitudes of the unfortunate all adequate reward to their efforts? The sufficient answer to these doubting questions is the pointing out of the fact that those who ask them have set up a wrong standard of rewards, and so have overlooked the most important things God is doing in human souls. Who told you, my doubting friend, that the only just reward for writing a noble book is immediate fame, or that wealth ought always to be showered upon the most diligent workers? God is not a magnified committee of award, who examines the records of earth, and metes out to men as rewards for good conduct the things they most desire to possess. Abundant resources, delightful pleasures, gratifying honours, enrich some lives and fail to reach others by causes that are not intended, in my belief, to make of them arbitrary rewards. They fall to the share of evil men and good alike, and are missed by myriads of the most virtuous persons. Divine rewards must therefore be a different sort of thing; and, inasmuch as God can do no wrong, we ought to be able to discover His marks of approval in every life we know to be a noble one. This search inevitably becomes a religious one. Our trust in God is our chief guide; and by this we are led to see that the deepening of life itself is the Divine reward to all excellent deeds or hopes. Jesus gave the noblest utterance to His mission when He said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” They who are faithful, pure in heart, noble, do receive at once more abundant life; and life is but one thing before or after death. There is something which no evil heart can enjoy, but which no righteous soul ever for an instant fails to receive as the immediate reward of his good qualities. That gracious reward is life with its uncounted possibilities, to be your deepest joy at the present time and your eternal field for high surprise. The ancient Greeks gave a crown of wild olive to the victors in their athletic or poetic contests, and the modem world gives crowns of wealth and conspicuous leadership to those who win in its competitions. But there is a lovelier crown than these. The many souls that seem to lose in their competitions with others are in reality gaining much of permanent value while they strive with noble aims. To all who work thus, whether they seem to win or not, there is given life as a crown. Be faithful unto death; and you receive that crown—simply life. The hero makes his greatest sacrifice at the place of perilous duty, loses all his joys and treasures because honour bids him die, only

to awake and find that life is still his, but brighter, dearer, than ever, because now ennobled by his faithful heroism. Once a mere existence full of mingled joy and sorrow, life has now been by his own act transformed into a crown, a reward sufficient for all goodness. It may well be that heaven is simply the discovery by an it, mortal soul of the Divine joy it is to be alive. If so, then, surely, life can be transformed into a crown, a measureless joy, at any moment by any sterling act of worthiness in the midst of the trials that make goodness difficult. To be faithful unto death is required but once of any man; but to be faithful up to the full requirement of every situation is demanded of us all at every moment, so that we can at any instant discover the real sublimity of this life of ours. Life may seem nothing rare to one who idly, selfishly, squanders its precious hours; but to every diligent man life is a treasure beyond estimation, and such natures find in the opportunities of each new day the ample reward for faithfulness in the day before. The true scholar’s reward does not lie in the fame he may or may not receive for his book, nor in the financial returns it secures. His joy is in the doing of the work itself, in the eager search for truth, in the knowledge he is acquiring, in the actual labour of his literary art. The artist Turner cared so little for public praise and for the selling of his famous works, that when he died there were in his possession hundreds of his paintings, which by a little worldly wisdom he might have turned into gold. His joy was in the art itself, in the painting of pictures; that is, in life rather than in common rewards. Life was his crown, as is that of every worker who honours his occupation. The Divineness of this crown of life is made evident by its universality. Every good deed, every pure thought, broadens into finer life. If any man of an earnest mind understands what earnestness is worth, he has already the one Divine reward of earnestness, and need not care to be popularly known as an example of zeal. See life in this light, and, so far as you are concerned, the sting is taken away from all your failures and difficulties. The deepening, broadening, enriching, of your nature is your reward for your faithfulness through your long years of toil, hardship, loss, and grief. We know that restricted resources call out a man’s own mental resources, and that a Robinson Crusoe with only a jack-knife to depend upon accomplishes more with it than another can with a whole kit of tools. We know that the gravest anxieties of business or private life give rise to our firmest courage, our grandest moral strength. We know how the trials and bitter, searching things of life take hold of careless youths and silly girls, and change their mood from vanity to beauty and strength, as the flames that burn out the iron’s impurities and give forth the royal steel. In all such moral developments we see the gift of larger life coming to those that have earned it by desert; and, what is of most immediate interest to us, we see it coming without weary delay while yet the fierce struggle goes on. The most significant thing in the matter is that the crown of life—that is, life in its aspect of moral success and self-reliance—does not come to any one class of men more than to others. It comes in the very midst of anxiety, poverty, and physical weakness; and it blossoms forth also in souls that have easier careers. The only places where it does not appear are the wastes of vice and selfishness. No wicked person can know the depths of life until he changes his course, and begins by moral struggle to develop his soul. (C. E. St. John.)

The crown of life

A crown without cares, co-rivals, envy, end. (J. Trapp.)

A crown for the faithful

I. Christ’s charge to all His followers.

1. “Be faithful” to your soul, in seeking its prosperity.

2. “Be faithful” to Christ, in Four profession of His name.

3. “Be faithful” to the gospel, in attachment to its doctrines. The gospel is the legacy of Christ to all His followers; dearer to us ought it to be than liberty or life.

4. “Be faithful” to the world, in your interest for its conversion. You are “the salt,” to preserve the world from putrefaction; you are the cities which, for unity, beauty, and security, are to be admired as patterns; you are lights, to “shine before men, that they may glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

5. “Be thou faithful unto death.” This faithfulness is to continue, then, during life; there is to be no cessation.

II. The glorious reward He gives to all who obey it.

1. Its nature. This “crown” is to set forth the unspeakable glories of the upper world by objects that are familiar to our senses. Is a crown, for instance, emblematic of royalty? This happiness, then, is to be a residence with the King of kings. He shall rule, and you shall reign. Is a crown symbolic of victory? There we shall be conquerors—“more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” Many, like Nelson, conquer, but die in the conflict—do not live to enjoy their conquest; but you are led in triumph to the obtaining of She conquest by your great Master.

2. Its superiority. It is “a crown of life.” Four things constitute life—that is, happiness—on earth: health, plenty, friendship, knowledge. These are reserved in perfection for paradise.

3. Its bestowal. It is a gift of grace. Man’s merit did not buy this glory. Grace first brings the mind into the way, grace strengthens the soul to persevere, and grace puts the crown of glory upon the head.

4. Its certainty. Every one that cleaves to Him, every one that serves Him, every one that loves Him, shall have this crown. There is no venture here, no speculation here; the virtue of the atonement, the oath of God, the experience of all His children, the dying testimony of those who have passed away to that far better world, all confirm the truth—“Where I am, there shall also My servant be.”

Conclusion:

1. Since so much depends on faithfulness to Christ, diligently use those means which are sanctified to preserve it. One of the first means to obtain these blessings is, crave Divine keeping. He is well kept whom God keeps, and he only.

2. Preserve intimacy with Jesus Christ. Unfaithfulness commences in absence.

3. And shall I say, avoid the company of Christ’s enemies?

4. And choose decided friends of Christ as your companions: not half-hearted persons, that you cannot tell whether there is any religion in or no. (J. Sherman.)

Faithfulness

A faithful person you can always trust; he is ever the same, behind your back as before your face. There are three things about faithfulness which show how important it is, and

how earnestly we should learn and practise it.

I. It is so useful. Look at the mariner’s compass. It is a small, flat piece of steel, called a needle. This is placed on the fine point of a piece of iron, which is fastened in an upright position inside of a little box. It is free to turn in any direction; but God has given that little needle the power of always turning to the north. We do not know what this power in the needle is which makes it turn to the north. People call it magnetism. No one can tell what this magnetism is, but we believe in it. The wonderful power of this little needle makes it one of the most useful things in the world. When sailors go to sea, and lose sight of land, this needle is all they have to depend upon to guide them across the trackless ocean. There are hundreds of vessels out at sea now that could never find their way back to port if it were not for the strange power of this needle. And faithfulness is to us just what the magnetism of that needle is to the compass. It guides us to usefulness. Faithfulness will make us honest and true; it will lead us to do what we know to be right. And then we can always be trusted.

II. It is so beautiful. God has given us the power to delight in beautiful things; and in His great goodness God has filled the world about us with beautiful things in order that we may find pleasure in looking at them. How beautiful the sun is as it rises and sets in floods of golden glories! How beautiful is the moon as it moves through the heavens so calmly bright! How beautiful the stars are as they shine in the dark sky! And how beautiful the flowers are in all the loveliness of their varied forms and colours! We thank God for all these beautiful things because of the pleasure they give and the good they do us; and when painters make beautiful pictures, and sculptors chisel out beautiful figures in marble, we thank them too, because we love to look upon the beautiful things they make. It gives us pleasure, and does us good, to see things that are beautiful. It is a pleasing thing to see a boy or girl, a man or woman, who is trying to be faithful and do what is right.

III. It is so honourable. The highest honour we can gain is to do that which God and good people approve, and which will lead them to love us and think well of us. “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” And so, when we are doing the things that faithfulness requires of us, we may be sure that we are doing honourable things. (R. Newton, D. D.)

He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.—

The second death and how to escape it

I. This language implies that there is a death prior to the second here named. The first death is severe, is penal, but is often rendered glorious by the power of the grace of God.

II. That the second death is more dreadful than the first. The first death is but the taking away of the man from the scene of this world, from the activities of time; whereas the second death removes the soul eternally from the presence of God, from the joy of heaven, and casts it into the dark regions of the lost.

III. The second death may be escaped by continued and triumphant moral goodness. A pure soul will never be banished from the presence of God, His presence is immortality and spiritual delight. Lessons:

1. Let us endeavour so to live that we may escape the second death.

2. Let us remember that physical death is not the end of being; there is yet a death

beyond—a death in life. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The victor’s immunity from the second death

Two of the seven Churches—viz., Smyrna, to which our text is addressed, and Philadelphia—offered nothing, to the pure eyes of Christ, that needed rebuke. The same two, and these only, were warned to expect persecution. The higher the tone of Christian life in the Church the more likely it is to attract dislike, and, if circumstances permit, hostility. Hence the whole gist of this letter is to encourage to steadfastness. That purpose determined at once the aspect of Christ which is presented in the beginning, and the aspect of future blessedness which is held forth at the close. The aspect of Christ is—“these things saith the first and last, which was dead and is alive.” A fitting thought to encourage the men who were to be called upon to die for Him.

I. The Christian motive contained in the victor’s immunity from a great evil. Now, that solemn and thrilling expression, “the second death,” is peculiar to this book of the Apocalypse. The name is peculiar; the thing is common to all the New Testament writers. Here it comes with especial appropriateness, in contrast with the physical death which threatened to be inflicted upon some members of the Smyrnean Church. There is something at the back of physical death which can lay its grip upon the soul that is already separated from the body; something running on the same lines somehow, and worthy to bear that name of terror and disintegration. “The second death.” What can it be? Not the cessation of conscious existence; that is never the meaning of death. The deepest meaning of death is separation from Him who is the fountain of life, and in a very deep sense is the only life of the universe. Separation from God; that is death, that touches the surface, is but a faint shadow and parable. And the second death, like a second tier of mountains, rises behind and above it, sterner and colder than the lower hills of the foreground. Like some sea-creatures, cast high and dry on the beach, and gasping out its pained being, the men that are separated from God die whilst they live, and live a living death. The second is the comparative degree of which the first is the positive. “To eat of the Tree of Life”; to have power over the nations; to rule them with a rod of iron; to blaze with the brightness of the morning star; to eat of the hidden manna: to bear the new name known only to those who receive it; to have that name confessed before the Father and His angels; to be a pillar in the Temple of the Lord; to go no more out; and to sit with Christ in His throne. These are the positive promises, along with which this barely negative one is linked, and is worthy to be linked: “He shall not be hurt of the second death.” If this immunity from that fate is fit to stand in line with these glimpses of an inconceivable glory, how solemn must be the fate, and how real the danger of our falling into it! Further, note that such immunity is regarded here as the direct outcome of the victor’s conduct and character. Transient deeds consolidate into permanent character. Beds of sandstone rock thousands of feet thick are the sediments dropped from vanished seas or borne down by long dried-up rivers. The actions which we often so unthinkingly perform, whatever may be the width and the permanency of their affects external to us, react upon ourselves, and tend to make our permanent bent or twist or character. The chalk cliffs of Dover are skeletons of millions upon millions of tiny organisms, and our little lives are built up by the recurrence of transient deeds which leave their permanent marks upon us. They make character, and character yonder determines position. The little life here determines the sweep of the great ones that lie yonder. The victor wears his past conduct and character, if I may so say, as a fireproof garment, and if he entered the very furnace heated seven times hotter than before there would be no smell of the fire upon him. “ He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the

second death.”

II. Now, note, the Christian motive contained in the victor’s reception of a great good. “I will give him a crown of life.” I need not remind you, I suppose, that this metaphor of “the crown” is found in other instructively various places in the New Testament. It is life considered from a special point of view that is set forth here. It is kingly life. Of course, that notion of regality and dominion as the prerogative of the redeemed and glorified servants of Jesus Christ is for ever cropping up in this book of the Revelation. And you remember how our Lord has set an example of setting it forth when He said, “I will give thee authority over ten cities.” The rule over ourselves, over circumstances, the deliverance from the tyranny of the external, the deliverance from the slavery of the body and its lusts and passions, these are all included. The man that can will rightly, and can do completely as he rightly wills, that man is a king. But there is more than that. There is the participation in wondrous, and for us inconceivable, ways, in the majesty and regality of the King of kings and Lord of lords. But remember that this conception of a kingly life is to be interpreted according to Christ’s own teaching of that wherein loyalty in His kingdom consists. For heaven, as for earth, the token of dominion is service, and the use of power is beneficial. That life is a triumphant life. The crown was laid on the head of the victor in the games. If we do our work, and fight our fight down here as we ought, we shall enter into the great city not unnoticed, not unwelcomed, but with the praise of the King and the paeans of His attendants. “I will confess his name before My Father and the holy angels.” That life is a festal life. Royalty, triumph, festal goodness, all fused together, are incomplete, but they are not useless symbols; may we experience their fulfilment! Hope is surely a perfectly legitimate motive to appeal to. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

JOH MACDUFF, “A distance of forty miles separates Ephesus from Smyrna.

The modern traveler finds himself journeying between these two sacred cities of the

Apocalypse, not as in ancient and apostolic days, by means of horse, or camel, or

caravan, but by our own familiar train, the only railway that has as yet invaded the

desolation of a country so rich in resources of soil, climate, scenery, and

imperishable historic interest.

If we found the city of Ephesus specially associated with John, Smyrna is equally

identified with another name of undying celebrity in the Church of Christ. Sailing

along the magnificent bay (the finest in the Archipelago), at the head of which the

city with its 120,000 inhabitants is situated, the eye discerns on one of the crested

heights, amid a cluster of tall cypresses, the white wall which encircles the reputed

tomb of POLYCARP, the most famous of the early martyrs. This whole Epistle "to

the Angel of the church in Smyrna" has a new pathos and significancy added to it, if

we connect it with this honored member of the noble army of martyrs.

A careful reader will at once observe that it stands out pre-eminently from the

others—as "the Martyr's Epistle." Its theme is suffering and trial. othing could possibly be more appropriate than its "comfortable words,"

on the supposition that the Angel or chief minister to whom these were addressed,

was none other than he, who, we know from the earliest annals of the Christian

Church, was an illustrious sufferer for the Gospel's sake, and was enabled so

manfully to endure his fiery baptism.

There is what may almost be called a romance of sacred interest about the

whole history of this saintly Father; "the blessed Polycarp," as the ancient Church,

for successive centuries, seems distinctively to have named him. He had lived to a

venerable age, far beyond even the allotted fourscore. In the prime of his youth he

had become (and that too by no formalprofession, but by ardent attachment) a

loving disciple of the Lord Jesus. Thenceforward, he himself tells us, for many a

long year he served Him with an unswerving and unfaltering devotion. There was

much in the outer circumstances of his life to deepen and stimulate the ardor of this

holy love. He was the disciple of John—standing to John very much in the

relation of Timothy to Paul—"his dear son in the faith."

Irenaeus, who lived a generation later, touchingly tells how he himself in early

boyhood had been honored and privileged with the personal friendship of Polycarp

—how he used to hear from his lips what had been told him by John, of Immanuel's

person, and converse, and earthly ministry. We can picture the scene; the aged

Apostle from Bethsaida—one of the inner circle of beloved Disciples, and the most

loved of the inner circle—he who of all the honored twelve had drunk deepest of his

Lord's spirit, and had the nearest place at his Lord's side—how would he delight, in

the mellowed evening of his days at Ephesus, to recall that matchless fellowship!

How fondly would he confide every hallowed memory, as it rose before his mental

eye like a dream of heaven, into the ear of the trusted friend at his side!—their

walks on the lakeshore of Gennesaret—their confidential communion at early morn

or dewy eve on their way from Galilee to the pilgrim-feasts—their silent meditations

as they wandered at sunset across the heights of Olivet—or during the last and most

solemn closing scenes, at the Supper-table—the Garden—the Cross—the

Resurrection morning—the forty days—in short, the "many other things which

Jesus did" he so touchingly speaks of in the last verses of his Gospel, and which,

though he had the heart, he had no room to record.

Think of him thus making the beloved and like-minded Polycarp

the depositary of this unwritten Gospel! eed we wonder that the love of the

disciple and saint for his great Lord grew and intensified under such teaching, and

that, with a transport of emotion, he could utter the words as his own—"Whom

having not seen, we love: in whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing, we

rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory"?

After a life of noble consistency, the hour of trial—the hour of suffering arrived. It was under the reign of the Roman Emperor, Marcus

Aurelius. The storm of persecution was first roused by the malignant enmity of

the Jews, who found no difficulty in enlisting and stimulating the passions of the

heathen mob. ot ingloriously to evade the hour of persecution, but obedient to

the intercessions of his flock, who naturally wished to save for themselves a life of

such priceless value—Polycarp took refuge in the adjoining mountains to await

there the subsidence of the storm; spending his anxious hours, along with a few

others, in wrestling at the mercy-seat—not for his own suffering Church alone, but

for the whole suffering children of God scattered abroad. It seemed like a Mount of

Transfiguration, where angels and the Lord of Angels strengthened him for the

decease which, like a Greater Sufferer, he was about to accomplish.

The cup, however, as in the case of the Prince of Martyrs, was not to pass by him,

and he accepted it without a murmur. The secret of his place of concealment was

divulged; but the tread of his frenzied persecutors at the door was heard with no

words but those of uncomplaining submission. On his way to Smyrna, the

magistrate met him, and inviting him into his chariot, sought in vain to shake his

constancy. He offered release on condition of retraction. "What hurt," said he, "I

beg you, shall come thereof, if you say 'My Lord Caesar,' and do sacrifice, and thus

save yourself?" Once more, on reaching the amphitheater, the magistrate gave him

the option of having his hands unbound by consenting to curse his Savior. "Be good

to yourself," said the magistrate, "and favor your old age: take your oath, and I will

discharge you. Defy Christ." The Christian hero boldly replied, in the memorable

testimony,"Eighty and six years have I been His servant, yet in all that time has He not so much as once hurt me; how then may I speak evil of my King and Sovereign Lord, who has thus preserved me?"

The judge rose from his seat, and tried to overawe him with the threat, "I have wild

beasts to which I will throw you." "Let them come," was Polycarp's reply; "I have

determined that I will not turn from the better way to the worse." "Then," said the

incensed magistrate, "I will tame you with fire." "You threaten me," returned

Polycarp, "with fire, which shall burn for the space of an hour and shall then be

extinguished. But you know not the fire of the judgment to come, and of everlasting

punishment reserved for the wicked and ungodly. Give me whatever death you

desire." His silvery hairs made their silent appeal in vain to his murderers. "To the

lion!" was the cry which rose from a hundred voices, alike Jewish and Pagan; and it

was only because the beast of prey was already glutted, that they had to resort to the

equally terrible alternative of a slow death by burning. The stake was ready. With

calm deliberation he stripped off his upper garments and undid his sash—making

no remonstrance except for the iron hoops with which they sought to make him fast

to the stake. Such appliances he told them were needless, as his heroic steadfastness

proved.

To quote the quaint and touching words of the original narrative, "Being bound as a

ram out of a great flock for an offering, and prepared to be a burnt-sacrifice

acceptable unto God, he looked up to Heaven and said—(truly no nobler page is

there, out of the grand liturgy of dying martyrs)—"O Lord God Almighty, the

Father of your well-beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have

attained the knowledge of You, the God of Angels, and powers, and every creature,

and of the whole race of just men which live before You; I give You hearty thanks

that You have allowed to bring me to this day and this hour, that I may have my

part among the number of Your martyrs, in the cup of Your Son, unto the

resurrection of eternal life, both of body and soul, through the operation of Your

Holy Spirit; among whom may I be received this day before You as an acceptable

sacrifice, as You have before ordained. For which, and for all things else, I praise

You, I bless You, with the eternal and heavenly Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son: to

whom, with You and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and to all, succeeding ages.

Amen."

Owing to untoward causes, he had to submit to lengthened suffering.

The sword completed what the fire had left undone; and when all was over, the

gang of hating Jews, who had been the first to collect the wood for the fire,

instigated their heathen accomplices to refuse delivering up the charred remains to

the Christians and accord them decent burial. In the words of the old Epistle, which

furnishes these particulars, "By his patience he overcame the unrighteous ruler, and

received the crown of Immortality."

What a light does this touching tale throw upon the older inspired Epistle, when we

bear in mind that all this tragedy of martyrdom, in which other Smyrna Christians

besides Polycarp were involved, must have been vividly portrayed to the omniscient

eye of Him who wrote, as if by anticipation, the needful message of warning and

comfort! What balm-words for the martyred disciples to carry with them to their

scenes of torture, and to which they might cling when the growl of the hungry lions

was in their ear, or the fuel was collecting in the arena! What was that comfort?

"These are the words of Him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again." Heart-stirring theme of consolation! That He who in His Divine

nature was from everlasting to everlasting, had, in His lowly suffering humanity, as

the Incarnate Redeemer, Himself passed through the terrors of death, and that these

terrors, as in the case of His true people, were only the passage and entrance into

endless life! What could disarm that amphitheater and these blazing faggots of their

horrors, if this could not?

Then the Almighty Speaker proceeds to a more detailed cognizance of their trials. "I

know your works and tribulation" (outward persecution) "and poverty" (the

spoiling of your worldly goods, which, being a feeble band compared to your

adversaries, you are unable to resist)—"but you are rich." Hostile Jews and

mocking heathens and ruthless Roman officials may "oppress you, and draw you

before the judgment-seats and blaspheme that worthy name by which you are

called"—you may be poor in this world, but you are rich in faith, rich in heavenly

treasure. You may be looked upon with cold arrogant disdain as the filth and off

scouring of all. But very different is the estimate of the mocking undiscerning world

from that of Him who sees not as man sees. I know the world-verdict, "Your

poverty;" but here is Mine, "You are rich." Beneath the outward tattered garment

obvious only to the world's eye, there is a "clothing of wrought gold."

After forewarning of the blasphemous hate of the Jews—those who arrogated to

themselves the sacred name and prerogative of God's Israel, but who proved

themselves to be rather "the Synagogue of Satan"—He reveals the unseen leader

and instigator of all this foul, and persistent enmity. He is styled here in the Greek

'Diabolos'—that is, 'accuser' or 'calumniator'. "Behold the devil shall cast some of

you into prison, that you may be tried." Some may affect to discard belief in the

literal personality and power of Satan, resolving these into myth and symbolism—

mere allegorical representations (like Bunyan's Apollyon), of the force of human

depravity and moral evil. But the story of the Church's martyrdoms tells a different

tale.

As Christ seemed often to afford precious discoveries of His own glorious presence

to the faithful in the hour of their sufferings, so did Antichrist the great counter-

worker (with characteristic malignity, and malice, heading his legions of darkness),

come into fierce conflict with the powers of light in these stern battlefields of torture

and endurance. In both cases—invisible indeed, yet not the less truthful—did

Michael and his angels fight against the Devil and his angels. John would, moreover,

be prepared by a reference to Satan's power in this opening Epistle, to acknowledge

and estimate his activity and influence in the subsequent visions—playing his own

terrible part in the nations' future drama as the gigantic propagator of evil—"the

god of this world"—"the Prince of the power of the air"—"making war with the

saints."

In the present case, the trial, though sharp, is to be brief—"You shall have

tribulation ten days. But the Great Captain of salvation exhorts—"Fear none of

those things which you shall suffer." In the might of Him—the First and the Last—

who, once dying, now lives for evermore, they are to be made more than conquerors!

Greater is He who is with them than he that is in the world. And even should a cruel

and violent death threaten, they can regard it only as a glorious passage to endless

life; they can mount their fiery chariot, and as they are borne upwards in the flames,

can sing, "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus

Christ!"

He ends with the encouraging and appropriate exhortation and promise to the

Angel, in the prospect of what Irenaeus calls "that glorious and splendid

martyrdom"—"Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life." Very

beautiful is this closing promise, whatever figurative meaning and acceptance we

may give it. At first sight we may recognize a new and impressive recurrence to the

simile which Paul again and again employs in his Epistles with reference to the

Grecian foot-race—the runners pressing on to the goal, straining every nerve in the

exciting contest—and the crown, the laurel wreath, awaiting the victor at the end of

the stadium, ready to be bound around his brows. More than one commentator,

however—and we think on good ground—dissents from this interpretation.

There is a harmony and uniqueness of design in the Apocalypse, as in all the other

parts of Sacred Writ; and a nice and careful investigation will show, that though the

Book itself be full from first to last of emblems, none of these are taken from the

customs of the heathen. While the Apostle of the Gentiles never scruples to take a

Pagan custom or rite to enforce a sacred lesson, the imagery of the Apocalypse is

altogether Jewish, or rather is composed exclusively of sacred symbols, from the

Temple candlesticks onwards. And if, as one discriminating writer remarks, the

palm-bearing multitude in a subsequent vision seems at first sight to refute this

theory (with its reference to the symbol of Greek or Roman triumph), it is strictly

speaking no real exception, as a much more natural and beautiful meaning is its

allusion to the palm branches of the Hosanna-day used by the multitudes at the

great Jewish festival, the 'Feast of Tabernacles'—the eternal commemoration, not so

much of victory, as of rest in the true land of Canaan.

The crown of life, therefore, here spoken of, would seem rather to indicate a

royal crown—"a badge of royal dignity"—Peter's crown of glory—Paul's crown of

righteousness—the crown given to God's king and priest—the crown especially

bestowed on the enduring martyr, as in that same record of Polycarp's death

already referred to it is said, "he was crowned with the crown of martyrdom."

Yes! we repeat this is emphatically the martyr's epistle—the flame—the prison—the

torture—the sword—are traced through it all. We in this peaceful age, when the

faggot is quenched, and the dungeon is closed, and the sword sheathed, cannot enter

into its especial comforts. But let us, as we close it, feel as if we had been treading

sacred ground—tracing words of hallowed consolation which ten thousand

trembling hearts have read in their hour of darkness and horror—words which

have breathed many a blessed requiem while the tortured flesh was still palpitating

and the soul struggling to be free; which have revealed to the sufferers in the hour of

death, amid a canopy of smoke and flame, the white-robed angel—yes, the Lord of

Angels—holding out to view an unfading diadem.

And what seems its great lesson to us? if not this, LOYALTY TO CHRIST. The

Church of Smyrna had no such roll of varied commendation as that which we found

recorded concerning the Church of Ephesus. But neither is there in her case the

"nevertheless" which qualifies the former, and demands from the lips of the All-

Seeing a "Repent." Though nothing, however, specially and distinctly

commendatory is said, she is spoken of by implication as "faithful"—suffering and

willing to suffer, for her divine Master's sake—poverty, imprisonment, death. For

this, the glorious gift and reward of life is hers—the life purchased by her risen

Head—a part and portion of His own resurrection-life—" Because I live you shall

live also."

Are we faithful stewards to our trust, whatever that trust may be? Are we

faithful to our work, whatever that work maybe? Even though we may be painfully

conscious of our lack of success—seeing at times our weapons shivered in our hands

—the best and noblest efforts and struggles of life—efforts for God and for Christ

apparently a failure—the fire burning our work—the tide washing our breakwaters

away? ever fear! It is faithfulness, not success, God looks to. The last great words

of the Great Day will be these—"Well done," (not good and successful, but) "good

and faithful servant."

What we have alone to fear is, what is here unfolded in the closing utterance of all

—"the second death"—that death which is the fearful inheritance of the

'unfaithful'—"the faithless and the unbelieving"—that death which has too its

transition into life—but it is a life in which the raised and revivified body is married

to the lost soul! A fearful thought truly to the sinner, but bringing no terror to the

saint; for "he that overcomes shall not be hurt of the second death;" "on such the

second death has no power."

Let us be up and doing our appointed task; for soon the allotted term of working

will be past, followed by the hour of reckoning and recompense. Death will not

come, as in Polycarp's case, with the flame and the sword—but rather most

probably with noiseless step and gentle whisper. But that solemn moment

we have so often thought of and so little thought of—that moment when the last

grain of sand in the hourglass shall run out—come it must—sooner than we dream

of. And the great question is, How shall we meet it? Shall it be with the martyr's

prayer and the consciousness of fidelity? or with the inward shudder of those who

are standing on the brink of an undone Eternity? God save us from such an

alternative! Be it ours now to make a heart and life surrender of ourselves to that

great Conqueror, who has plucked the sting alike from the first and the second

death. Relying on the strength of Him who 'was dead, and is alive, and lives for

evermore,' let us feel assured that victory will at last crown our steadfast and loyal

allegiance to His cause; and that we shall be able, in some lowly measure, to

appropriate that beautiful comment on this whole Smyrna Epistle contained in the

words of James, "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he

has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those

who love him!"

WILLIAM BURKITT, “Now in this epistle we have these particulars considerable.

1. The description which Christ is pleased here to give of himself, namely, The first and the last,

which was dead and is alive; and the suitableness of this description, for the consolation of this

church, which was now under great tribulation. It is as if Christ had said, "I am an eternal Being, the

first cause, and last end; I was myself put to death, but I am alive again; therefore, fear neither

sufferings nor death, for I will assist and strengthen you, and if you lose your lives for my sake, I will

raise your bodies again to everlasting life."

Observe, 2. The commendation given by Christ of this church at Smyrna, it is large and full; nay,

Christ blameth nothing in this church: she kept her purity best, because always in affliction: not but

there were failings undoubtedly in this church, but Almighty God mercifully overlooked them. As in

the case of Job, no mention is made of his impatience, though he showed much, but we are called

upon to behold him as a pattern of patience.

Observe next, The particulars of this church's commendation, I know thy works, and thy

tribulation, and poverty; that is, thy labour and sufferings, and worldly poverty, which thy

profession of the gospel hath brought upon thee: but though thou art outwardly poor, yet art thou

inwardly rich; rich in grace, rich in faith and patience, rich in meekness and humility, rich in courage

and Christian fortitude.

And farther, I know also the blasphemy of them that say they are Jews, and are not; that is, I

know the malicious reproaches and evil speeches of your enemies; cast upon you, partly by native

Jews, who glory in circumcision and the law; and partly by false Christians, professing faith in

Christ, but not daring to own him, for fear of persecution. These belong to Satan's synagogue, not to

Christ's church. None are so bad as they who only profess and seem to be good.

Observe farther, The encouragement which Christ gives this church to persevere in the faith, though

they should suffer much sharper things than ever they yet suffered: fear none of the things you may

be called forth to suffer: what though the devil by his instruments cast some of you into prison, and

you suffer for a short time, be faithful to your profession until the day of your death, and I shall

reward you with a crown of life.

Note here, 1. That Satan by his instruments has been the cause of all those bitter and bloody

persecutions which Christianity in all ages hath undergone.

Note, 2. That though Satan's malice be infinite, yet his power is limited and bounded; he cannot do

all the mischief he would, and he shall not do all he can: Satan shall cast you into prison, but not

into hell; and not all of you into prison neither, but some only.

Note, 3. How mercifully Almighty God overrules the devil's rage and malice, making it subservient to

his own glory, and his church's good, causing that which Satan intended for destruction, to serve

only for probation and trial. The devil's design by all those floods of wrath, which he pours out

against the church, is that she may be destroyed; but God's intent is only that she may be tried;

even as the wise refiner, when he casts his gold into the furnace, designs the purifying of the metal,

and only the consuming of the dross.

Note, 4. That the sufferings of good men for the cause of Christianity, though they may be sharp, yet

shall they be but short: Ye shall have tribulation ten days, that is, for a short space of time.

Note, 5. That a persevering faithfulness in the service of Christ in this life, is indispensably

necessary to our obtaining the crown of life and immortality in the world to come: Be thou faithful

unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

Observe lastly, The conclusion of this epistle to the church of Smyrna: this is partly hortatory: He

that hath ears to hear, let him hear, what the spirit saith unto the churches. The warnings of

the Holy Spirit to the churches are recorded as of great concernment for all to mind: and partly

promissory, He that overcometh, that is, conquereth the love of this world, and the love of life,

when God calls him forth to suffer, he shall not be hurt of the second death, that is, he shall

escape eternal misery, that living death, and that dying life, which will be the assured lot and portion

of the wicked and ungodly world.

PAUL KRETZMAN, “The letter to the congregation at Smyrna:

v. 8. And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These things says the First and the

Last, which was dead and is alive:

v. 9. I know thy works and tribulation and poverty (but thou art rich), and I know the

blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

v. 10. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of

you into prison that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful

unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

v. 11. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches: He that

overcomes shall not be hurt of the second death.

In the case of Ephesus it was internal decay that caused the pastoral letter to be written, in the case

of Smyrna it was enmity and persecution from without. There is a solemn introduction also in this

case: And to the angel of the congregation in Smyrna write: This says the First and the Last, who

was dead and became alive. The entire message was to be transmitted to the congregation by its

pastor, who is here addressed as the responsible officer. The Lord again calls Himself the First,

having been before the beginning of the world, from eternity, and the Last, since He is the

everlasting God. He was dead, not only in appearance, but in fact; He laid down His life for His

friends and the whole world: we are reconciled to God through the death of His Son, Rom_5:10. But

He did not remain in death; He became alive, by His own almighty power He restored His soul to

His body. Thus He is the Source of life in those that believe in Him; by faith in Him they can scoff at

death, which has lost its sting through Christ's atoning work.

The Lord addresses words of encouragement to the Smyrnean Christians: I know thy tribulation and

thy poverty (but thou art rich), and the blasphemy on the part of those that claim to be Jews and are

not, rather the synagogue of Satan. That was the cross which the congregation at Smyrna had to

bear, the enmity of the Jews. This opposition on the part of the Jews did not stop with little acts of

meanness and with evil speaking and slandering: it was also due to their machinations that the

Christians lost their earthly goods, money and property. On various trumped-up charges the

believers were robbed of all they possessed in this world; they endured the confiscation of all that

their earthly labor had brought them And yet, as the Lord tells them, they were rich, for they still had

the grace of their Lord Jesus Christ, they still clung to the love of their heavenly Father; they had the

riches of the divine mercy in the Gospel, 2Co_6:10. So far as the enemies of the Christians are

concerned, the judgment of the Lord designates them as the synagogue of Satan, for Satan is the

liar from the beginning, and in his school the blasphemers are trained.

Still more encouragement is contained in the next words: Fear nothing what thou art destined to

suffer. The Lord does not promise them relief or surcease from suffering. His words rather imply that

further persecutions are imminent, and history shows that the next decades brought trials of various

kinds to the Christians in this part of Asia Minor. And yet the Lord tells them to fear nothing, not to

have the slightest apprehension as to their safety. Without His will or permission not a hair of their

head could be harmed. They should be filled with the power of faith, which rests secure in the hands

of the Father, no matter what the vicissitudes of life may be, Psa_46:2-3. And this in spite of the fact

that they are told: Behold, the devil will succeed in throwing some of you into prison that you may be

tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. That was one form of persecution, which came from

the government, but, as the Lord says, at the instigation of the devil, who hates the Word of the

Gospel and makes use of the same methods to this day in order to hinder the spread of the Church.

The very statement that this tribulation and test would be for only a definite time shows that the Lord

will not permit them that are His to be tried beyond that they are able to endure, 1Co_10:13.

Therefore He calls out to them the golden words: Be thou faithful to death, and I shall give thee the

crown of life. The very persecutions that were designed to make the Christians give up their faith

served to strengthen them. The dross is burned away in the furnace of-the assayer, but the gold

remains. Thus the faith of the Christian is proved in the school of persecutions; for it is at such times

that he has an opportunity to prove his faithfulness to his Lord. Nor will the Lord permit this

faithfulness to go unrewarded. The crown of life, eternal life itself, is the reward of grace assigned to

the triumph of faith, to the loyalty of the believer. Like kings and priests we shall be given wreaths, in

an everlasting festival we shall live before and with our Lord in the heavenly mansions, Jam_1:12.

This thought is repeated in a second promise: He that has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to

the congregations: He that conquers will not suffer injury from the second death. The Spirit of Christ,

the Spirit of Truth, says this to all congregations, to all believers. Every one that does overcome,

that does prove himself a conqueror in the power of God, may feel the pangs of temporal death in

his body, the weakness of his old sinful nature may cause him to wince and complain in sickness

and to shrink back at the specter of death. But he that confesses Christ to the end, clinging to Him

in true faith, will not see the second death, will not come into judgment and condemnation, but will

pass through death into life. Temporal death will be to him an entrance into the everlasting homes of

joy.

EXPOSITORS BIBLE, “The second epistle is that to Smyrna, a rich, prosperous, and dissolute city,

and largely inhabited by Jews bitterly opposed to Christ and Christianity. Here therefore persecution

of those leading the pure and holy life of the Gospel might be peculiarly expected, as indeed it also

peculiarly appeared. The church at Smyrna thus becomes the type of a suffering church, the

representative of that condition of things foretold in the words of Christ, and constantly fulfilled in the

history of His people, "A servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will

also persecute you."* (* Joh_15:20)

It will be observed that at Smyrna the church is still faithful, and that against her no word of

reproach is uttered. Hence the aspect under which the Redeemer presents Himself to that church is

purely animating and consolatory, the same as that which, in the introductory vision in chap. 1,

followed the action of the Lord when He laid His right hand upon the Apostle, who had fallen to the

ground as dead, and when He said to him, "Fear not."1 So now: These things saith the first and the

last, which became dead, and lived again. Death and resurrection are the two great divisions of the

work of Christ on our behalf, and the Gospel is summed up in them. Just as St. Paul wrote to the

Corinthians when he would remind them of the substance of his preaching in their midst, "For I

declared unto you first of all that which also I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to

the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He hath been raised on the third day according to

the Scriptures,"2 in like manner here the same two facts include all the truth which Smyrna held

fast, and with which come the life that conquers sin and the joy that triumphs over sorrow.

(1 Rev_1:17; 2 1Co_15:3-4)

The state of the church is then described: I know thy tribulation, and thy poverty (but thou art rich),

and the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of

Satan. Tribulation, persecution, the blasphemy of men calling themselves the only people of God

and denying to Christians any portion in His covenant, are alone alluded to, though the church is at

the same time cheered with the remark that if she had no share in worldly wealth and splendour,

she was rich. "God had chosen them that were poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of

the kingdom which He promised to them that love Him."* (* Jam_2:5)

The church then was in the midst of suffering. Was not that enough; and shall she not be told that

her sufferings were drawing to an end, that the night of weeping was gone by, and that the morning

of joy was about to dawn? So we might think; but God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His

ways as our ways, and we are like children bathing on the shore,

Buried a wave beneath;

The second wave succeeds before

We have had time to breathe.

How often does it happen in the Christian’s experience that one burden is laid upon another, and

that one wave succeeds another, till he seems left desolate and alone upon the earth. Yet even then

he has no assurance that his sufferings are at a close. The consolation afforded to him is, not that

there shall be a short campaign, but only that, whether long or short, he shall be more than

conqueror through Him that loved him. Thus our Lord does not now say to His church at Smyrna,

Fear none of those things that thou art suffering, but Fear not the things which thou art about to

suffer: behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall

have tribulation ten days. It is hardly necessary to say to any intelligent reader of the Apocalypse

that the "ten days" here spoken of are neither ten literal days, nor ten years, nor ten successive

persecutions of indefinite length. In conformity with the symbolical use of numbers in this book, "ten

days" expresses no more than a time which, though troubled, shall be definite and short, a time

which may be otherwise denoted by the language of St. Peter when he says of believers that "now

for a little while they have been put to grief in manifold temptations."* Encompassed by affliction,

therefore, those who are thus tried have only to be faithful unto death, or to the last extremity of

martyrdom. He who died and lived again will bestow upon them the crown of life, the crown of the

kingdom, incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second

death. (* 1Pe_1:6)

CONSTABLE, “1. Destination and description of Christ 2:8

Smyrna was also a seaport on the Aegean Sea about 40 miles north of Ephesus. Late in the first century it was a large, wealthy city with a population of about 100,000. It still thrives today as Izmir with a population of about 200,000.

Jesus Christ described Himself to this church as the eternal One who died and experienced resurrection. "Smyrna" means "bitter." The Greek word translates the Hebrew mor, myrrh, a fragrant perfume used in embalming dead bodies (cf. Matthew 2:11; John 19:39). It becomes very fragrant when someone crushes it. These believers would have found encouragement that even though the prospect of death threatened them, resurrection and eternal life with Christ were certain. Smyrna had died as a city on several occasions because of invasions and earthquakes, but it had risen again to new life because the residents had rebuilt it. In Smyrna many residents worshipped a goddess named Cybele whom they regarded as the personification of the yearly rejuvenation of

nature. Her devotees claimed that she arose from the dead every spring.

Verses 8-11

B. The letter to the church in Smyrna 2:8-11

John penned this letter to commend its recipients for their endurance of persecution and poverty for the sake of Jesus Christ. He also did so to exhort them to be fearless and faithful even to death. Whereas the Ephesian church needed to return to past conditions, this one needed to persevere in what was characteristic of it in the present.

COFFMAN, “SMYRNA

An ancient cradle of Ionian civilization, Smyrna existed for a millennium before Christ, being utterly devastated and destroyed by Alyattes of Lydia in 600 B.C.,[38] lying in ruins until it was rebuilt by Lysimachus, one of the generals who inherited the empire of Alexander the Great, in 301-281 B.C. By the times of the apostles, it was again a flourishing Greek city, competing with Ephesus for first place in the province. "It was a handsome city, called the most beautiful of all cities under the sun, the great buildings on the nearby summit being called the crown of Smyrna."[39] Smyrna lay next to Ephesus in the sequence that a traveler visiting all seven of these churches would naturally follow.

Smyrna still exists under the modern title of Izmir, Turkey, second in importance only to Ankara, and having a population of 286,000 in 1955.[40] Strangely enough, Ephesus, threatened with the loss of its "candlestick" has virtually disappeared; but Smyrna, against which the Lord uttered no condemnation, is a great city even now.

To the angel of the church ... See under preceding verse, and also under Revelation 1:20.

The first and the last, who was dead and lived again ... Some have seen this identification of our Lord as peculiarly appropriate for a city which, itself, had lain dead for all the middle centuries of the first millennium B.C., but was then once more a favored city.

In Smyrna ... This city was one of the oldest and most faithful of the allies of Rome, having erected a temple as early as 195 B.C. to the goddess Roma.[41] There were also temples to Cybele and Zeus, and in one of them an inscription honoring Nero as "the Saviour of the whole human race."[42] In 26 A.D., they also erected a temple to the roman emperor Tiberius, and were clearly a center of that cult of emperor-worship which resulted in so much sorrow for the church.[43] In fact, "the earliest shrine of the provincial cult of Rome was established there in 29 B.C.[44] Regarding the establishment of the church in Smyrna, we do not have any direct information; but, "It was probably established by the apostle Paul on his third missionary journey."[45] Regarding Paul's work in Ephesus, which was not far from Smyrna, Luke recorded this: "And this continued for the space of two years; so that all that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks" (Acts 19:10). This most certainly must have included the citizens of Smyrna. The emperor cult was so strong in Smyrna that even many of the Jews were carried away with it. When Polycarp was martyred there in 155 A.D., the Jews cried out:

This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the overthrower of our gods who has been teaching many not to sacrifice, or to worship the gods ... The multitude gathered wood and sticks, the Jews especially eagerly assisting in it.[46]

It was indeed a hostile environment in which the church of Smyrna lived. How tragically the once chosen people of Israel appeared in such a situation as that. They once had said, "We have no king but Caesar"; and at Smyrna they proclaimed themselves worshippers of the emperor. In the light of this chapter, there cannot be any doubt that the state itself made emperor worship a test of loyalty, condemning Christians to death who would not submit to it.

[38] E. M. Blaiklock, op. cit., p. 99.

[39] Ibid., p. 101.

[40] Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1961), Vol. 12, p. 848.

[41] G. B. Caird, op. cit., p. 34.

[42] W. Boyd Carpenter, op. cit., p. 542.

[43] G. B. Caird, op. cit., p. 34.

[44] F. F. Bruce, op. cit., p. 638.

[45] Frank L. Cox, Revelation in 26 Lessons (Nashville: The Gospel Advocate Company, 1956), p. 15.

[46] Ignatius, Concerning the Martyrdom of Polycarp in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, n.d.), pp. 41,42.

9 I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet

you are rich! I know about the slander of those

who say they are Jews and are not, but are a

synagogue of Satan.

1. BARES, "I know thy works - The uniform method of introducing these epistles, implying a most intimate acquaintance with all that pertained to the church. See the notes on Rev_2:2.And tribulation - This word is of a general signification, and probably includes all

that they suffered in any form, whether from persecution, poverty, or the blasphemy of opposers.

And poverty - It would seem that this church, at that time, was eminently poor, for this is not specified in regard to any one of the others. No reason is suggested why they were particularly poor. It was not, indeed, an uncommon characteristic of early Christians (compare 1Co_1:26-28), but there might have Been some special reasons why that church was eminently so. It is, however, the only church of the seven which has survived, and perhaps in the end its poverty was no disadvantage.

But thou art rich - Not in this world’s goods, but in a more important respect - in the grace and favor of God. These things are not infrequently united. Poverty is no hindrance to the favor of God, and there are some things in it which are favorable to the promotion of a right spirit toward God which are not found where there is abundant wealth. The Saviour was eminently poor, and not a few of his most devoted and useful followers have had as little of this world’s goods as he had. The poor should always be cheerful and happy, if they can hear their Saviour saying unto them, “I know thy poverty - but thou art rich.” However keen the feeling arising from the reflection “I am a poor man,” the edge of the sorrow is taken off if the mind can be turned to a brighter image - “but thou art rich.”

And I know the blasphemy - The reproaches; the harsh and bitter revilings. On the word “blasphemy,” see the notes on Mat_9:3; Mat_26:65. The word here does not seem

to refer to blasphemy against God, but to bitter reproaches against themselves. The reason of these reproaches is not stated, but it was doubtless on account of their religion.

Of them which say they are Jews - Who profess to be Jews. The idea seems to be that though they were of Jewish extraction, and professed to be Jews, they were not true Jews; they indulged in a bitterness of reproach, and a severity of language, which showed that they had not the spirit of the Jewish religion; they had nothing which became those who were under the guidance of the spirit of their own Scriptures. That would have inculcated and fostered a milder temper; and the meaning here is, that although they were of Jewish origin, they were not worthy of the name. That spirit of bitter opposition was indeed often manifested in their treatment of Christians, as it had been of the Saviour, but still it was foreign to the true nature of their religion. There were Jews in all parts of Asia Minor, and the apostles often encountered them in their journeyings, but it would seem that there was something which had particularly embittered those of Smyrna against Christianity. What this was is now unknown.

It may throw some light on the passage, however, to remark that at a somewhat later period - in the time of the martyrdom of Polycarp - the Jews of Smyrna were among the most bitter of the enemies of Christians, and among the most violent in demanding the death of Polycarp. Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. 4:15) says,. that when Polycarp was apprehended, and brought before the proconsul at Smyrna, the Jews were the most furious of all in demanding his condemnation. When the mob, after his condemnation to death, set about gathering fuel to burn him, “the Jews,” says he, “being especially

zealous, as was their custom - µάλιστα�προθύµως,��ς� θος�α�το�ς malista�prothumōs, hōs�

ethos�autois - ran to procure fuel.” And when, as the burning failed, the martyr was

transfixed with weapons, the Jews urged and besought the magistrate that his body might not be given up to Christians. Possibly at the time when this epistle was directed to be sent to Smyrna, there were Jews there who manifested the same spirit which those of their countrymen did afterward, who urged on the death of Polycarp.

But are the synagogue of Satan - Deserve rather to be called the synagogue of Satan. The synagogue was a Jewish place of worship (compare the notes on Mat_4:23), but the word originally denoted “the assembly” or “the congregation.” The meaning here is plain, that though they worshipped in a synagogue, and professed to be the worshippers of God, yet they were not worthy of the name, and deserved rather to be regarded as in the service of Satan. “Satan” is the word that is properly applied to the great evil spirit, elsewhere called the devil. See the Luk_22:3 note, and Job_1:6 note.

2. CLARKE, "I know thy works - As he had spoken to the preceding Church, so he speaks to this: I know all that ye have done, and all that ye have suffered. The tribulation here mentioned must mean persecution, either from the Jews, the heathens, or from the heretics, who, because of their flesh-pampering doctrines might have had many partisans at Smyrna.And poverty - Stripped probably of all their temporal possessions, because of their

attachment to the Gospel.

But thou art rich - Rich in faith, and heir of the kingdom of Christ.

The blasphemy of them which say they are Jews - There were persons there who professed Judaism, and had a synagogue in the place, and professed to worship the true God; but they had no genuine religion, and they served the devil rather than God.

They applied a sacred name to an unholy thing: and this is one meaning of the word blasphemy in this book.

3. GILL, "I know thy works,.... Good works, as before in Rev_2:2,

and tribulation; this is Christ's legacy to his people, and which lies in their way to heaven; and never was the way of any to heaven more strewed with it than was the way of the saints in this period. But Christ took notice of it, and of them in it; he knew their souls in adversity, and remarked their patience under it, and their constancy, and close adherence to him:

and poverty; which was true in a literal sense, through the spoiling of their goods, to which they were exposed for the profession of Christ: nothing is more contemptible among men than poverty, yet Christ takes notice of it, and owns his people in it; for this poverty came not by sin, but by sufferings for his sake:

but thou art rich; they were rich, in faith, and heirs of a kingdom, though poor in this world; they were rich with the riches of Christ, with the blessings of the covenant, with the graces of the Spirit, and in good works; they were kings and priests unto God, had a kingdom of grace here, and a right to the kingdom of glory hereafter; and were heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ,

And I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not; who asserted themselves to be the true Israel of God, Jews that were so inwardly, regenerate persons, or truly Christians; for the Christians, baptized persons (m), were by the Heathens called Jews; but these were not, they professed Christianity in words, but in works denied it; they were men of bad principles and practices, and both blasphemed the ways and doctrines of Christ themselves, and caused them to be blasphemed by others also; they were false Christians, nominal professors, and shunned persecution for the Gospel; who were not what they would be thought to be: these were the broachers of heresies in this period of time, in which there was a multitude of them, and which chiefly respected the doctrine of the Trinity, and the person of Christ; and they were introducers of Pagan and Jewish rites into the church, and were men of flagitious lives and conversations, and paved the way for the man of sin:

but are the synagogue of Satan: were the children of the devil, imitated him, and were influenced by him, and were the forerunners of antichrist, whose coming was after the working of Satan,

3B. ELLICOTT, “(9) I know thy works.—Some would omit the word “works;” but the phrase “I know thy works” is admitted to be genuine in five out of the seven epistles; and it certainly seems natural to conclude that it was intended to be common to all, and to remind the Christian communities that whatever their state it was known to Him whose eyes were as a flame of fire. “We go from one hour to another, from one day and year to another, and what is once fairly past in our doing and omitting and suffering is scarcely regarded by us any more; it is like water that has flowed away. But into the omniscience of Christ all things are taken up” (Bengel).Tribulation.—If persecution brought upon them poverty, it was the means also of unfolding to view their possession of the “true riches;” they were rich in honour, in that they were counted worthy to suffer; they would also grow rich in the graces which sufferings bring (Romans 5:3-5; James 1:2-4).

Blasphemy.—They had to endure reviling as well as tribulation and poverty; and, harder still, to hear some who blasphemed that worthy name by which they were called.

Jews.—The Jews were foremost in this. “It was in the synagogue that they heard words which reproached them as Nazarenes, Galileans, Christians, Disciples of the Crucified” (Plumptre). Comp. James 2:7. It is interesting to notice that this characteristic hostility of the Jews was illustrated in the martyrdom of Polycarp. The Jews, “as was their wont,” were foremost in bringing logs for the pile.

Synagogue of Satan.—The word “synagogue” is only once used to describe the Christian assembly (James 2:2); and even there it is called “your synagogue,” not the “synagogue of God.” In all other instances the “word is abandoned by the Jews.” With the “synagogue of Satan” here, compare “the throne of Satan” (Revelation 2:13), “the depths of Satan” (Revelation 2:24).

4. HERY, " Of their sufferings: I know thy tribulation and thy poverty - the persecution they underwent, even to the spoiling of their goods. Those who will be faithful to Christ must expect to go through many tribulations; but Jesus Christ takes particular notice of all their troubles. In all their afflictions, he is afflicted, and he will recompense tribulation to those who trouble them, but to those that are troubled rest with himself.3. He knows the wickedness and the falsehood of their enemies: I know the blasphemy

of those that say they are Jews, but are not; that is, of those who pretend to be the only peculiar covenant-people of God, as the Jews boasted themselves to be, even after God had rejected them; or of those who would be setting up the Jewish rites and ceremonies, which were now not only antiquated, but abrogated; these may say that they only are the church of God in the world, when indeed they are the synagogue of Satan. Observe, (1.) As Christ has a church in the world, the spiritual Israel of God, so the devil has his synagogue. Those assemblies which are set up in opposition to the truths of the gospel, and which promote and propagate damnable errors, - those which are set up in opposition to the purity and spirituality of gospel worship, and which promote and propagate the vain inventions of men and rites and ceremonies which never entered into the thoughts of God, - these are all synagogues of Satan: he presides over them, he works in them, his interests are served by them, and he receives a horrid homage and honour from them. (2.) For the synagogues of Satan to give themselves out to be the church or Israel of God is no less than blasphemy. God is greatly dishonoured when his name is made use of to promote and patronize the interests of Satan; and he has a high resentment of this blasphemy, and will take a just revenge on those who persist in it.

5. JAMISO, "thy works, and — omitted in two oldest manuscripts, Vulgate, and Coptic. Supported by one oldest manuscript.tribulation — owing to persecution.

poverty — owing to “the spoiling of their goods.”

but thou art rich — in grace. Contrast Laodicea, rich in the world’s eyes and her own, poor before God. “There are both poor rich-men, and rich poor-men in God’s sight” [Trench].

blasphemy of them — blasphemous calumny of thee on the part of (or arising from) them.

say they are Jews, and are not — Jews by national descent, but not spiritually of “the true circumcision.” The Jews blaspheme Christ as “the hanged one.” As elsewhere,

so at Smyrna they bitterly opposed Christianity; and at Polycarp’s martyrdom they joined the heathens in clamoring for his being cast to the lions; and when there was an obstacle to this, for his being burnt alive; and with their own hands they carried logs for the pile.

synagogue of Satan — Only once is the term “synagogue” in the New Testament used of the Christian assembly, and that by the apostle who longest maintained the union of the Church and Jewish Synagogue. As the Jews more and more opposed Christianity, and it more and more rooted itself in the Gentile world, the term “synagogue” was left altogether to the former, and Christians appropriated exclusively the honorable term “Church”; contrast an earlier time when the Jewish theocracy is called “the Church in the wilderness.” Compare Num_16:3; Num_20:4, “congregation of the Lord.” Even in Jam_2:2 it is “your (not the Lord’s) assembly.” The Jews, who might have been “the Church of God,” had now, by their opposition and unbelief, become the synagogue of Satan. So “the throne of Satan” (Rev_2:13) represents the heathens’ opposition to Christianity; “the depths of Satan” (Rev_2:24), the opposition of heretics.

5B. COSTABLE, “Commendation 2:9Jesus Christ knew the afflictions (lit. pressures) these Christians were experiencing as a result of their testimony for Him, including abject poverty. Evidently their persecutors were cutting off some of their incomes. Notwithstanding their physical poverty, the Christians in Smyrna were rich spiritually. Evidently some of the persecutors were Jews who slandered the Christians (cf. Acts 18:12-17) and cursed Jesus Christ (cf. Acts 26:11). They apparently claimed to be committed to God but were not. They came from Satan's camp (cf. Acts 14:19; Acts 17:5-8; Acts 17:13).

"At the martyrdom of Polycarp at Smyrna in 168, these Jews eagerly assisted by gathering on the Sabbath wood and fagots for the fire in which he was burned." [Note: Ryrie, p. 23.]

". . . the imperial cult permeated virtually every aspect of city and often even village life in Asia Minor, so that individuals could aspire to economic prosperity and greater social standing only by participating to some degree in the Roman cult." [Note: Beale, p. 240.]

Jesus Christ had no rebuke for these saints. Evidently in their trials they had remained pure in belief and behavior. In the first century the enemies of Christians leveled six slanderous accusations against them: cannibalism, lust and immorality, breaking up homes, atheism, political disloyalty, and being incendiaries (because they taught that the world would burn up). [Note: William Barclay, The Revelation of John , 1:98.]

5C. COFFMAN, “I know thy tribulation, and thy poverty (but thou art rich), and the blasphemy of them that say they are Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

This verse is a commentary on the situation at Smyrna at the time John wrote. Despite the claims of many commentators to the effect that no provincial persecution against the church by the state of Rome existed until the times of Domitian, hence supporting a late date for Revelation, there has recently come to light a great corpus of facts which point squarely to the times of Nero for just such an outbreak. The impact of the Neronean terror was mentioned both by Clement and by Tacitus, the fact of "thousands being put to death" in all probability being no exaggeration but possibly an understatement. Nero's being honored at Smyrna as "the Saviour of the whole human race" is evidence enough that any contradiction of this by Christians would have been proscribed and have resulted speedily in their death. As for the allegedly great persecution in the times of Domitian, "Recent studies have been strongly in the direction of showing that the evidence for a widespread persecution under Domitian is late and probably exaggerated"[47] Sir William Ramsay's extravagant elaboration of the Domitian persecution is followed by many writers; but, as Robinson said, "However, (it is) largely drawn from his own imagination, playing on evidence in Revelation already interpreted as Domitianic material."[48]

And are a synagogue of Satan ... This, along with "them that say they are Jews, and they are not"

shows that John has preempted the glorious titles of the once chosen people for the Christians. Christians are the real Jews, the true sons of Israel, as in Romans 2:28. The Jews' meeting place is here designated "a synagogue of Satan." Although James used "synagogue" as designating a place of Christian worship, this was probably quite early, or possibly a name used only in Jerusalem. From the first, Christians preferred the word "church," which in time came to stand for the place of assembly also.

[47] John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976), p. 233.

[48] Ibid.

6. PULPIT, "I know thy tribulation, and thy poverty . "Thy works" has been inserted here and in Rev_2:13 in order to make the opening of all seven epistles alike. The uncials A, C, P, and the Vulgate, Coptic, and AEthiopic Versions omit the words in each place. The Sinaiticus inserts them here and omits them in Rev_2:13, where they are plainly awkward in construction. Like all wealthy cities, Smyrna showed the extremes of wealth and poverty side by side. It would be among the poor that Christians would in the first instance be found, and their Christianity would lead to their spoliation; in this much of their "tribulation" would consist. But thou art rich (compare the close parallel, 2Co_6:10; 2Co_8:2; Mat_6:20). And the blasphemy from them which say they are Jews, and they are not. We have here strong evidence of the early date of the Apocalypse. Throughout this book "Jew" is an honourable name for the worshippers of the Christ; "Gentiles," a name of reproach for those who oppose the Christ (Rev_2:9; Rev_3:9; Rev_11:2, Rev_11:18; Rev_12:5; Rev_16:19; Rev_18:3, Rev_18:23; Rev_19:15, etc.). These persecutors of the Church of Smyrna are Jews in name, but in reality are rather Gentiles—opponents, and not worshippers of the Messiah. The view taken in the Fourth Gospel is utterly different. There "the Jews" are almost invariably the opponents of Christ; the word occurs about seventy times, and nearly always with this shade of meaning. Assume that the Gospel was written a quarter of a century later than the Apocalypse, and there is nothing strange in this. Long experience of Jewish malignity in opposing the gospel has changed the apostle's views respecting his countrymen. He has become fully convinced of the inveterate and widespread character of the national apostasy. To him "the Jews" have become synonymous with the enemies of the cross of Christ. Assume that the Apocalypse was written about the same time as the Gospel, and how shall we account for this utter difference of view in the two books? Assume that the Gospel was written long before the Apocalypse, and how shall we explain the fact that experience of Jewish hostility has turned the apostle's abhorrence of "the Jews" into such admiration that to him a Jew has become synonymous with a believer in Jesus Christ? It is remarkable that, in the 'Martyrdom of St. Polycarp,' the Jews are said to have been present in great numbers, and to have been foremost (µάλιστα Ιουδαίους προθύµως ) in collecting wood with which to burn him alive. A synagogue of Satan (comp. Rev_3:9; Joh_8:44). This is in marked contrast to "the synagogue of the Lord" (Num_16:3; Num_20:4; Num_31:16). With the exception of Jas_2:2, συναγωγή is, in the New Testament, always used of Jewish assemblies, never of Christian. This usage soon became habitual in the Church.

7. CHARLES SIMEO, “Rev_2:9-10. I know thy works and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shall suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

THIS Church stands highly honoured amongst those to which the epistles were written: for no fault was found in them, nor any ground of complaint so much as intimated to them. Our Lord’s address

to them is altogether laudatory and encouraging. That we may enter into it more fully, let us consider,

I. His testimony respecting them—

In common with all the other Churches, he says to them, “I know thy works:” and then, in reference to their conduct, he gives his testimony,

1. In a way of direct affirmation—

[“I know thy tribulation, and thy poverty: but thou art rich.” Doubtless their sufferings had been great; for they had been reduced to the most abject “poverty,” and were utterly destitute of all the comforts of life. (To interpret this “poverty” as relating in any respect to poverty of spirit, is quite contrary to the whole scope of the passage: for poverty of spirit, so far from standing in opposition to true riches, is itself the truest riches.) But, in the midst of all their distress, our Lord, whose judgment is altogether according to truth, declared them to be “rich.” For, first, they possessed faith, as the principle of all their obedience, and as the root of all their other graces. And could they, when

possessing so inestimable a gift, be called poor? No; they possessed that which was of more worth than the whole world. It was truly a “precious faith,” “more precious than gold,” yea, than much fine

gold [Note: 2Pe_1:1 and 1Pe_1:7.]. Next, they enjoyed the favour of their God. “As believers in Christ, they could not but have peace with God [Note: Rom_5:1.].” Granting, then, that they had not a place where to lay their head, as far as it respected this world, could they be poor who were

privileged to repose their souls in the bosom of their God? They poor, with all their sins forgiven, and their names recorded in the book of life! Abhorred be the thought! If they were even dying with hunger and thirst, they were truly rich. Further, they enjoyed peace in their own souls. Who can estimate to its full amount, the blessedness of having the testimony of our own conscience, that we are serving God aright? St. Paul himself reports it to have been to him a source of the sublimest joy [Note: 2Co_1:12.]: and to call a man poor when possessed of that, would be to betray an utter ignorance of “the true riches [Note: Luk_16:11.].” Moreover, in addition to all their present happiness, they were authorized to expect, in the eternal world, “a weight of glory” proportioned to their sufferings. How could their present “afflictions appear any other than light and momentary,” when they were the means of opening to their view such a prospect as this [Note: 2Co_4:17-18.]?

What! poor with such “an inheritance—an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and never-fading, reserved for them in heaven; and they themselves reserved by God for it [Note: 1Pe_1:4-5.]!” No: they were “rich,” truly rich, unspeakably rich; rich in possession, and in reversion too.

2. In a way of most striking contrast—

[There were among them “some who said they were Jews, but were not; but rather were the synagogue of Satan.” Whether these were Jews zealous for the law of Moses, or Christians who confounded Judaism with Christianity, we do not certainly know. The unbelieving Jews were bitter persecutors; and were ever ready to accuse even our Lord himself of blasphemy, because he called himself the Son of God, and arrogated to himself a power to forgive sins [Note: Mat_9:3. Joh_10:36. Mat_26:65.]. St. Paul, previous to his conversion, may be taken as a sample of Jewish bigotry, and of the envenomed malice with which they persecuted the Church of God [Note: Act_9:1-2; Act_26:10-11.]. He thought indeed, at the time, that he was “doing God service [Note: Act_26:9. with Joh_16:2.]:” but when he came to have an insight into his true

character, he saw that “He was the blasphemer; and not they, whom he so injuriously persecuted [Note:1Ti_1:13.].” But it is more probable that the persons here spoken of were by profession Christians: for the terms “Jew” and “Israel” are often used as designating the people of God, even under the New-Testament dispensation [Note: Rom_2:29; Rom_9:6.]. If there were lewd idolatrous Balaamites and Nicolaitanes among the churches, we may well suppose that there were also Judaizing Christians, who blended the Law with the Gospel, and utterly subverted the Gospel of Christ. Such persons, even “if they had been angels from heaven, were to be held accursed,” as being, under a pretence of zeal for Moses, the most specious and successful agents of the devil

[Note: Gal_1:7-9. 2Co_11:13-15.]. Now these persons “said they were Jews,” and valued themselves highly on their zeal; and were quite “rich” in their own estimation; whilst they held in utter contempt their poor suffering fellow-Christians, who endured so much tribulation for their adherence to Christ. But, however different was the outward aspect of these two parties, their real state was the very reverse of that which it appeared to be: these latter, in the midst of all their outward prosperity were poor; but the former, in the midst of all their poverty, were rich.

Thus did our Lord’s testimony exactly accord with what had been before declared by the Apostle Paul; who, “though poor, made many rich; and having nothing, yet possessed all things [Note:2Co_6:10.].”]

Suited to this state was,

II. The encouragement he gave them—

They had already suffered much; and were about to suffer more for their Saviour’s sake. And, as we observed in our last discourse, our blessed Lord sought, in this epistle, to arm them against their impending trials, and to strengthen them for their future conflicts. For this end, he assures them,

1. That their trials were all limited—

[Satan is the great adversary of Christ and his Church. Men are his instruments and agents (willing agents, no doubt): and in all they do, they do it as instigated by him: for it is “he who worketh in all the children of disobedience.” But in all that he attempts, he is restrained by our adorable Lord, who suffers him to proceed only to such an extent as shall eventually subserve the welfare of those

whom he is seeking to destroy. Satan would have cast, not some of that Church, but all; not into

prison only, but into hell; not for ten days only, but for ever; not that they might he tried, but that they might perish. But, as in the case of Job, whom he could not touch, either in his person or his property, till he had obtained leave from God [Note: Job_1:12;Job_2:6.]; so in their case he was under the controul of an almighty power; and, in fact, “could have no power at all against the Church, except it were given him from above.”

Now this was most encouraging: for, whether we suppose the “ten days” to be of a longer or shorter duration, it was most consolatory to know, that the objects, the measure, the duration, and effect of Satan—s malice were all limited by the Saviour himself, who would “not suffer one of his little ones to perish [Note: Mat_18:14.],” or the weakest of his people to be ever “plucked out of his hands [Note: Joh_10:28.].” Being assured that they should “have no temptation without a way to escape [Note: 1Co_10:13.],” and that “all which they might suffer should work together for their good [Note: Rom_8:28.],” they had no occasion for fear, but might confidently “commit themselves to the hands of an all-powerful and faithful God [Note: 1Pe_4:19.].”]

2. That their sufferings should be rewarded—

[All he required of them was, “to be faithful unto death.” They must be “ready to meet either imprisonment or death [Note: Act_20:24; Act_21:13.],” as the occasion might require; desirous only “that the Lord Jesus should be magnified in them, whether by life or death [Note: Php_1:20.].” Nor should they think much of this sacrifice; since he pledged himself to them that “he would give them a crown of life,” a reward far beyond their services; for their bliss should infinitely exceed all that they could suffer, and their honour infinitely surpass all the dishonour which they could by any means be called to endure. Could they survey such a prize as this, and not contend for it? Would they ever repent of their labours, when they should possess this recompence? Would they not even lothe themselves, that they should ever have contemplated, for a moment, the pains of martyrdom with any other thought than that of gratitude to God, who counts them worthy of so high an honour as that of laying down their lives for him [Note: Php_1:29.]? Such, then, was the encouragement given to the Church at that time: and such may every believing soul now take to himself; assured

that, “if he suffer with Christ, he shall, to all eternity, reign with him [Note: 2Ti_2:12.].”]

To bring this whole subject home to your own bosoms, I entreat you, brethren—

1. To form a correct estimate of earthly things—

[A carnal man, who should have seen the condition of the Rich Man in all his splendour, and of Lazarus in all his penury, would have formed a very different estimate of their respective states from that which our Lord has taught us to form in a view of the Church at Smyrna. But I must say, that Lazarus was the rich man, whilst the man rolling in his wealth was poor. But suppose, from being as

wealthy as Dives, you are reduced, by persecutors, to the state of Lazarus; shall I then call you “rich?” Yes, in all your poverty, I will say, “Thou art rich.” Let me state a case that shall illustrate this. Suppose that all you possessed in the world was a bag of copper coin; and that an enemy should come and rob you of it by handfuls; but that for every handful of copper that your enemy should take from you, a friend should put into your pocket a handful of gold: would you, when not a single piece of copper money was left you, account yourself much impoverished? or would you wonder at your friend, if he should say, ‘I know thy poverty; but thou art rich?’ Know then, that if, in proportion as you are injured by man, the blessings both of grace and glory are multiplied to you by God, you are not impoverished, but enriched. And therefore I say with confidence, “Fear nothing that can come unto you.” Let Satan do his worst: he is under restraint, as Laban and Esau were, when they meditated the destruction of Jacob [Note: Gen_31:24; Gen_31:29; Gen_32:11-12; Gen_33:1; Gen_33:4.]. You well know how a miller acts, when a flood menaces the destruction of his mill. He suffers to come upon his mill only so much of the water as shall subserve his purposes, and he turns off the rest by another sluice. So will God act towards you: “The wrath of man shall praise him; and the remainder of wrath shall he restrain [Note: Psa_76:10.].”]

2. To have your minds altogether set on things above—

[To be “rich towards God [Note: Luk_12:21.],” “rich in faith [Note: Jam_2:5.],” and “rich in good works [Note: 1Ti_6:18.],” and to be daily “laying up treasure in heaven [Note: Luk_12:33.],” this is the proper object of a Christian. In this way you will obtain durable riches [Note: Pro_8:18.], and “a sure reward [Note: Pro_11:18.].” In this pursuit no human being shall ever fail. Mark, I pray you, the change of person in the promise which our Lord makes to the Church of Smyrna. In announcing their impending trials, he says to them, “Ye shall have tribulation ten days:” but in the promise he makes, he speaks individually to every soul among them: “Be thou faithful unto death; and I will give thee a crown of life.” Every one may take; to himself this encouraging declaration; and assure himself, that “no weapon formed against him shall ever prosper [Note: Isa_54:17.].” Only let a man continue sowing to the Spirit, and he shall assuredly, in due season, “reap everlasting life [Note: Gal_6:8.].”]

10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to

suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in

prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution

for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of

death, and I will give you life as your victor’s

crown.

1. BARES, "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer - He did not promise them exemption from suffering. He saw that they were about to suffer, and he specifies the manner in which their affliction would occur. But he entreats and commands them not to be afraid. They were to look to the “crown of life,” and to be comforted with the assurance that if they were faithful unto death, that would be, theirs. We need not dread suffering if we can hear the voice of the Redeemer encouraging us, and if he assures us that in a little while we shall have the crown of life.Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison - Or, shall cause some of

you to be cast into prison. He had just said that their persecutors were of the “synagogue of Satan.” He here represents Satan, or the devil - another name of the same being - as about to throw them into prison. This would be done undoubtedly by the hands of men, but still Satan was the prime mover, or the instigator in doing it. It was common to cast those who were persecuted into prison. See Act_12:3-4; Act_16:23. It is not said on what pretence, or by what authority, this would be done; but, as John had been banished to Patmos from Ephesus, it is probable that this persecution was raging in the adjacent places, and there is no improbability in supposing that many might be thrown into prison.

That ye may be tried - That the reality of your faith may be subjected to a test to show whether it is genuine. The design in the case is that of the Saviour, though Satan is allowed to do it. It was common in the early periods of the church to suffer religion to be subjected to trial amidst persecutions, in order to show that it was of heavenly origin, and to demonstrate its value in view of the world. This is, indeed, one of the designs of trial at all times, but this seemed eminently desirable when a new system of religion was about to be given to mankind. Compare the notes on 1Pe_1:6-7.

And ye shall have tribulation ten days - A short time; a brief period; a few days. It is possible, indeed, that this might have been literally ten days, but it is much more in accordance with the general character of this book, in regard to numbers, to suppose that the word “ten” here is used to denote a few. Compare Gen_24:55; 1Sa_25:38; Dan_1:12, Dan_1:14. We are wholly ignorant how long the trial actually lasted; but the assurance was that it would not be long, and they were to allow this thought to cheer and sustain them in their sorrows. Why should not the same thought encourage us now? Affliction in this life, however severe, can be but brief; and in the hope that it will soon end, why should we not bear it without complaining or repining?

Be thou faithful unto death - Implying, perhaps, that though, in regard to the church, the affliction would be brief, yet that it might be fatal to some of them, and they who were thus about to die should remain faithful to their Saviour until the hour of death. In relation to all, whether they were to suffer a violent death or not, the same injunction and the same promise was applicable. It is true of everyone who is a Christian, in whatever manner he is to die, that if he is faithful unto death, a crown of life awaits him. Compare the notes on 2Ti_4:8.

And I will give thee a crown of life - See the notes on Jam_1:12. Compare 1Pe_5:4; 1Co_9:24-27. The promise here is somewhat different from what was made to the faithful in Ephesus Rev_2:7, but the same thing substantially is promised them - happiness hereafter, or an admission into heaven. In the former case it is the peaceful image of those admitted into the scenes of paradise; here it is the triumph of the crowned

martyr.

2. CLARKE, "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer - This may be addressed particularly to Polycarp, if he was at that time the bishop of this Church. He had much to suffer; and was at last burnt alive at Smyrna, about the year of our Lord 166. We have a very ancient account of his martyrdom, which has been translated by Cave, and is worthy of the reader’s perusal. That account states that the Jews were particularly active in this martyrdom, and brought the fagots, etc., by which he was consumed. Such persons must indeed have been of the synagogue of Satan.Ten days - As the days in this book are what is commonly called prophetic days, each

answering to a year, the ten years of tribulation may denote ten years of persecution; and this was precisely the duration of the persecution under Diocletian, during which all the Asiatic Churches were grievously afflicted. Others understand the expression as implying frequency and abundance, as it does in other parts of Scripture. Gen_31:7, Gen_31:41 : Thou hast changed my wages Ten Times; i.e. thou hast frequently changed my wages Num_14:22 : Those men have tempted me now these Ten Times; i.e. they have frequently and grievously tempted and sinned against me. Neh_4:12 : The Jews that dwelt by them came and said unto us Ten Times, i.e. they were frequently coming and informing us, that our adversaries intended to attack us, Job_19:3; These Ten Times have ye reproached me; i.e. ye have loaded me with continual reproaches. Dan_1:20 : In all matters of wisdom, he found them Ten Times better than all the magicians; i.e. the king frequently consulted Daniel and his companions, and found them more abundantly informed and wise than all his counsellors.

Some think the shortness of the affliction is here intended, and that the ten days are to be understood as in Terence, Heaut., Act v., scen. 1, ver. 36, Decem dierum vis mi est familia. “I have enjoyed my family but a short time.”

Be thou faithful unto death - Be firm, hold fast the faith, confess Christ to the last, and at all hazards, and thou shalt have a crown of life - thou shalt be crowned with life, have an eternal happy existence, though thou suffer a temporal death. It is said of Polycarp that when brought before the judge, and commanded to abjure and blaspheme Christ, he firmly answered, “Eighty and six years have I served him, and he never did me wrong, how then can I blaspheme my king who hath saved me?” He was then adjudged to the flames, and suffered cheerfully for Christ his Lord and Master.

3. GILL, "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer,.... God's people undergo sufferings of various sorts, as the Christians of those times did, scourgings, imprisonment, confiscation of goods, and death itself in various shapes; and these are certain, they shall suffer them; they are all known beforehand to Christ, and he sometimes gives his people previous notice of them, nor should they indulge a slavish fear about them. It is reported of Polycarp, bishop of this church at Smyrna, in a letter written by the church itself (n) that three days before he suffered, he dreamed his pillow, on which he laid his head, was on fire; upon which, awaking, he said to those that were by him, that he should be burnt for Christ; and when he came to suffer, as he was led along, a voice was heard by the bystanders, Polycarp, be strong, and play the man,

Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison; which has been the lot of many of the saints, and was of some, even of the faithful ministers of the word in this interval; in which Satan had an hand, instigating their enemies to prevent and stop the progress of the Gospel, and deter others both from preaching and professing it: the end was in the permission of it,

that ye may be tried; that their graces might be tried, their faith, love, zeal, courage, faithfulness, and constancy. Suffering times are trying times, whether men are real Christians or not; whether they have the true grace of God or not; and whether the principles they hold are right and true, and are worth, and will bear suffering for:

and ye shall have tribulation ten days: meaning it may be the ten persecutions under the Roman emperors; the "first" was under Nero, in the year 64 or 66; the "second" was under Domitian, about the year 93; the "third" was under Trojan, in the year 104; the "fourth" was under Hadrian, in the year 125; the "fifth" was under Marcus Antoninus, in the year 151; the "sixth" was under Septimius Severus, in the year 197; the "seventh" was under Maximinus, in the years 235, 236, 237; the "eighth" was under Decius, in the year 250; the "ninth" was under Valerianus, in the year 257; and the "tenth" was under Dioclesian, in the year 303. Austin (o) reckons the ten persecutions thus: the first by Nero, the second by Domitian, the third by Trojan, the fourth by Antoninus, the fifth by Severus, the sixth by Maximus, the seventh by Decius, the eighth by Valerianus, the ninth by Aurelianus, the tenth by Dioclesian and Maximianus. Others, inasmuch as Nero's persecution was before this vision, reckon the ten persecutions thus: Domitian, Trojan, M. Antoninus, Verus and Lucius, Severus, Maximinus, Decius, Valerianus, Aurelianus, Dioclesianus, Licinius: the Dioclesian persecution lasted ten years almost throughout: and some think that this last persecution, which held ten years, is here particularly meant, and not without some good reason; since it is usual in prophetic writings, and in this book of the Revelation, to put days for years; so that these ten days may be the ten years the last persecution held, and at which time the period of this church state ended, and that of Pergamos took place,

Be thou faithful unto death: which is an address to the ministers in this interval, to be faithful in preaching the pure and unmixed Gospel of Christ; in a constant administration of the ordinances, as they were delivered; in watching over the souls of men under their care, reproving, exhorting, &c. with all longsuffering; continuing in the discharge of duty, though in continual danger of death, and though it issued in it. And also to the churches and the members of them, to continue believing in Christ, professing his name, striving for his Gospel, attending on his ordinances, and following him whithersoever he went; though this should expose them to sufferings, even unto death, which it became them cheerfully to undergo: and to which they are encouraged by what follows,

and I will give thee a crown of life; which may refer not only to eternal life, which is so called, Jam_1:12; because of the glory of that state, and its everlasting continuance, and is in the possession and gift of Christ; but to the deliverance of the Christians from persecution, by Constantine; who coming to the imperial crown, that became not only a crown of glory to him, but of life to the church, and was as life from the dead unto the saints: to dead men is promised a crown of life, in allusion to the Gentiles, who crowned their dead

4. HERY, " The subject-matter of this epistle to Smyrna, where, after the common

declaration of Christ's omniscience, and the perfect cognizance he has of all the works of men and especially of his churches, he takes notice,

1. Of the improvement they had made in their spiritual state. This comes in in a short parentheses; yet it is very emphatic: But thou art rich (Rev_2:10), poor in temporals, but rich in spirituals - poor in spirit, and yet rich in grace. Their spiritual riches are set off by their outward poverty. Many who are rich in temporals are poor in spirituals. Thus it was with the church of Laodicea. Some who are poor outwardly are inwardly rich, rich in faith and in good works, rich in privileges, rich in bonds and deeds of gift, rich in hope, rich in reversion. Spiritual riches are usually the reward of great diligence; the diligent hand makes rich. Where there is spiritual plenty, outward poverty may be better borne; and when God's people are impoverished in temporals, for the sake of Christ and a good conscience, he makes all up to them in spiritual riches, which are much more satisfying and enduring.

2. He foreknows the future trials of his people, and forewarns them of them, and fore-arms them against them. (1.) He forewarns them of future trials: The devil shall cast some of you into prison, and you shall have tribulation, Rev_2:10. The people of God must look for a series and succession of troubles in this world, and their troubles usually rise higher. They had been impoverished by their tribulations before; now they must be imprisoned. Observe, It is the devil that stirs up his instruments, wicked men, to persecute the people of God; tyrants and persecutors are the devil's tools, though they gratify their own sinful malignity, and know not that they are actuated by a diabolical malice. (2.) Christ fore-arms them against these approaching troubles, [1.] By his counsel: Fear none of these things. This is not only a word of command, but of efficacy, no, only forbidding slavish fear, but subduing it and furnishing the soul with strength and courage. [2.] By showing them how their sufferings would be alleviated and limited. First, They should not be universal. It would be some of them, not all, who should be cast into prison, those who were best able to bear it and might expect to be visited and comforted by the rest. Secondly, They were not to be perpetual, but for a set time, and a short time: Ten days. It should not be everlasting tribulation, the time should be shortened for the elect's sake. Thirdly, It should be to try them, not to destroy them, that their faith, and patience, and courage, might be proved and improved, and be found to honour and glory. [3.] By proposing and promising a glorious reward to their fidelity: Be thou faithful to death, and I will give thee a crown of life. Observe, First, The sureness of the reward: I will give thee. He has said it that is able to do it; and he has undertaken that he will do it. They shall have the reward from his own hand, and none of their enemies shall be able to wrest it out of his hand, or to pull it from their heads. Secondly, The suitableness of it. 1. A crown, to reward their poverty, their fidelity, and their conflict. 2. A crown of life, to reward those who are faithful even unto death, who are faithful till they die, and who part with life itself in fidelity to Christ. The life so worn out in his service, or laid down in his cause, shall be rewarded with another and a much better life that shall be eternal.

4B. ELLICOTT, “(10) Fear none of those things.—Though Christ proclaimed His yoke to be easy, He also said that His followers must expect tribulation (John 16:33). He never conceals the difficulties or dangers of His service. (See Matthew 10:16-31; Acts 9:16.) So here He proclaims, “Behold, the devil shall cast some. . . .”The devil.—The LXX. translation gives this name to Satan, regarding him as the “accuser.” (See Job 1:6;Zechariah 3:1-2; and comp. Revelation 12:10, where he is described as the “accuser of the brethren.”)

Tried.—On the part of the adversary, the intention was that they might be tempted from their allegiance to Christ. The real effect would be that they who endured would come forth tested and

approved. The suffering would be for “ten days.” This is variously explained. Some think it applies to the periods of persecution; others understand it to mean a long persecution of ten years; others take it literally; others again view it as expressing completeness: the test would be thorough. The exhortation, “Be thou faithful (even) unto death,” seems to favour this last; while the mention of “ten days” was, perhaps, designed to remind them that the period of trial was limited by Him who knew what they could bear, and would be but a little while when compared with the life with which they would be crowned.

A crown of life.—Rather, the crown of life. A crown was given to the priest who presided at the Dionysian Mysteries, which were celebrated with great pomp at Smyrna. A crown was also given at the Olympian Games, which were held at Smyrna. If there is any allusion to either of these, the latter would be the most natural. Some hold, however, the crown—though the word is Stephanos, not diadema—is rather that of royalty than of victory. It is interesting to note that the narrative which tells of the death of Polycarp closes with words which it is difficult not to believe to be an allusion to this promise—“By his patience he overcame the unrighteous ruler, and received the crown of immortality” (Smyrn. Ep.).

5. JAMISO, "Fear none, etc. — the oldest manuscripts read, “Fear not those things,” etc. “The Captain of our salvation never keeps back what those who faithfully witness for Him may have to bear for His name’s sake; never entices recruits by the promise they shall find all things easy and pleasant there” [Trench].devil — “the accuser.” He acted, through Jewish accusers against Christ and His

people. The conflict of the latter was not with mere flesh and blood, but with the rulers of the darkness of this world.

tried — with temptation by “the devil.” The same event is often both a temptation from the devil, and a trial from God - God sifting and winnowing the man to separate his chaff from his wheat, the devil sifting him in the hope that nothing but chaff will be found in him [Trench].

ten days — not the ten persecutions from Nero to Diocletian. Lyra explains ten years on the year-day principle. The shortness of the duration of the persecution is evidently made the ground of consolation. The time of trial shall be short, the duration of your joy shall be for ever. Compare the use of “ten days” for a short time, Gen_24:55; Num_11:19. Ten is the number of the world powers hostile to the Church; compare the ten horns of the beast, Rev_13:1.

unto death — so as even to endure death for My sake.

crown of life — Jam_1:12; 2Ti_4:8, “crown of righteousness”; 1Pe_5:4, “crown of glory.” The crown is the garland, the mark of a conqueror, or of one rejoicing, or at a feast; but diadem is the mark of a KING.

5B. SBC, “Faithfulness is the main distinction of the noblest and best of all these angels of Christ’s Church. The high moral excellence of honourably discharging the duties which were assigned to them is obviously made by our Lord the great principle and test of acceptable service. These words of the Master mean—

I. Faithfulness to the human heart. We sometimes make mistakes by not listening to what our hearts tell us about our fellow-men. When under the power of conscience, in the hard grip of logic, and amid the unyielding dicta of our theological dogmas, we are often in danger of forgetting some of the most fundamental facts of human nature which are witnessed to us by our "heart of hearts."

II. Faithfulness to the conscience. The spirit that overcomes the world is the spirit of

Christ. It is only when we arm the soul with the same mind that was in Him, only when we take up the cross to follow Him even to Calvary, and there to suffer with Him, that we can gain the victory. He has promised victory to him that overcometh.

III. Faithfulness to our Master and His word under all circumstances. We may be forgotten by our fellows, hidden from all eyes but His; we may have no sympathy from companions, no cheering words from comrades in the fight; we may even hear nothing further on this score from the great Captain of our salvation. But we must be faithful unto death in our spirit, our trust, our obedience, and our love. He looks at death as a foe whom He has worsted; He knows the mettle and the malice of His great antagonist; He has put him to the proof, and the proof was too great. Whereas we tremble at the thought of the encounter, with Him it is the moment of our discharge from doubt, from temptation, from servitude, from waiting, from patience, from tedious toil; to Him it is our acceptance of the reward, the crown, and the glory.

H. R. Reynolds, Notes of the Christian Life, p. 353.

I. These words of the Divine Redeemer imply that a sacred trust has been confided to our keeping.

II. Fidelity in keeping our sacred trust is another point brought out in the text. "Be thou faithful" is the command of our Lord and Saviour to every one who has enlisted in His holy service.

III. The length of the period to which our faithfulness is expected to extend is "unto death"—"faithful" at home and abroad; "faithful" in prosperity and adversity; "faithful" through the whole course of our lives; "faithful unto death. A reward is promised in the text to all who have loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity which should stir up the most languid of us to renewed and increasing effort: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

J. N. Norton, Every Sunday, p. 494.

5C. COSTABLE, “These persecuted Christians did not need to fear their adversaries or death since they would live forever with Jesus Christ. "Behold" signals an oracular declaration (cf. Revelation 2:22; Revelation 3:8-9;Revelation 3:20). [Note: Thomas, Revelation 1-7, p. 167.] The devil would incite their foes to imprison some of them shortly, having received permission from God to do so (cf. Job 1). This would be a trial (Gr.peirasthete) that Satan would use to try to entice them to depart from the Lord.

"Under the Roman legal system imprisonment was usually not a punishment in itself; rather it was used either as a means of coercion to compel obedience to an order issued by a magistrate or else as a place to temporarily restrain the prisoner before execution .... Here it appears that imprisonment, viewed as a period of testing, is primarily for the purpose of coercion." [Note: Aune, p. 166.]

The "ten days" of trouble may refer to a period of relatively brief duration, specifically the "days" of persecution under 10 Roman emperors (cf. Genesis 24:55; Numbers 11:19; Numbers 14:22; 1 Samuel 1:8; Nehemiah 5:18; Job 19:3; Jeremiah 42:7; Daniel 1:12; Acts 25:6). The emperors whom advocates of this view identify are usually Nero, Domition, Trajan, Hadrian, Septimus Severus, Maximin, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and Diocletian. [Note: See Thomas, Revelation 1-7, p. 169; and J. Vernon McGee, Through the Bible with J. Vernon McGee, 5:906.] However, Ladd claimed that these were not empire-wide persecutions. [Note: Ladd, pp. 8-10.] Other interpreters view the days as symbolic. Some interpret these days as undefined periods of trial. [Note: Beale, p. 243.] Others

see them as an undefined period of years. [Note: William Lee, "The Revelation of St. John," in The Holy Bible, 4:481, 520, 532.] Still others take them as some other period of time (e.g., complete tribulation). Of these, some view the days as a longer period of time. [Note: Ray Summers, Worthy Is the Lamb, p. 113; Mounce, p. 94.] Others interpret them as a short, limited time. [Note: Swete, p. 32; Charles, 1:58; Martin Kiddle, The Revelation of St. John, p. 28; Aune, p. 166; Ladd, p. 44.] However, John probably intended us to interpret this period as 10 literal 24-hour days that lay in the near future of the original recipients of this letter. [Note: See Walter Scott, Exposition of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, p. 69.] There is nothing in this text that provides a clue that we should take this number in a figurative sense.

Verse 10-11

4. Promise 2:10b-11

The citizens of Smyrna had a reputation for being faithful to the emperor because of their previous acts of fidelity to him. The crown of life is probably the fullness of eternal life as a reward (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:25; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 2 Timothy 4:6-8; Hebrews 2:9; James 1:12; 1 Peter 5:4; Revelation 4:4). This appears to be a victor's crown (Gr. stephanos) given for enduring the trials and tests of life even to the point of death without denying Christ. It is not the gift of eternal life but the fullness of that life (cf. John 10:10, et al.). The person who endures these trials will receive the crown of life after Jesus Christ has approved him or her. This approval will take place when the Lord evaluates that believer's works at the judgment seat of Christ (1 Corinthians 3:13). He will award the crown at this judgment (1 Corinthians 3:14). [Note: Aune, p. 167. See Joe L. Wall, Going for the Gold, pp. 128-29, 140-51.]

The Greeks called Smyrna "the crown of Asia Minor" because of its beauty as a city. Moreover every year a few city administrators, rulers, and priests received a crown of leaves for their faithfulness to their duties.

". . . it is noteworthy that Smyrna was famous for its games ... in which the prize was a garland." [Note: Swete, p. 33.]

Christians will not (a double negative in Greek: "not in any way") suffer injury or harm (Gr. adikethe) by the "second death." The second death is eternal separation from God. It follows the first death, which is separation of the soul from the body.

"It is not annihilation, but conscious unending punishment." [Note: Thomas, Revelation 1-7, p. 174. Cf. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 6:303.]

"By litotes this [promise] intimates a superlative triumph over the second death. But since the second death is actual banishment from the presence and life of God (Revelation 20:14-15), the litotes also intimates a splendid experience of the divine life and presence." [Note: Zane C. Hodges, The Gospel Under Siege, p. 119. ]

Litotes is a figure of speech in which the writer expresses an affirmative idea through the negation of its opposite. Examples include, "I am not amused" (meaning "I am very annoyed"), "I won't forget that" (meaning "I'll remember it"), and "That test was no snap!" (meaning "That was a tough test!"). For some biblical examples, see Acts 12:18; Acts 15:2; Acts 17:4; Acts 17:12; Acts 19:24; and Acts 27:20.

The point of the Lord's promise is that those who remain faithful will experience eternal life to the utmost in the life to come. The first death might hurt them briefly, but the second death would not hurt them at all. [Note: See idem, "No Small Problem," Grace Evangelical Society News 6:3 (March 1991):4.]

Historically the church experienced intense persecution during the post-apostolic era until Constantine elevated Christianity to the official religion of the Roman Empire. As mentioned before, some interpreters have correlated the 10 days of persecution (Revelation 2:10) with 10 periods of persecution instigated by 10 Roman emperors between A.D. 54 (Nero) and A.D. 284 (Diocletian). [Note: E.g., W. A. Spurgeon, The Conquering Christ, p. 28.]

6. PULPIT, "Fear not the things which thou art about to suffer . We must bring out the difference between "to be about to" ( µέλλειν ), in the first two clauses, and the simple future ( ἔξετε ) in the third; compare "I will show him how many things he must suffer for my Name's sake" (Act_9:16). The devil, who inspires the "synagogue of Satan," is to be allowed to afflict them, as he afflicted Job. (For "behold," see note on verse 22.) The expression, "some of you" ( ἐξ ὑµῶν ), is an interesting link of style between this book and the Fourth Gospel and the Second Epistle; we have a similar construction in Joh_1:24; Joh_7:40; Joh_16:17; 2Jn_1:4. (For a warning of like import, but to the persecutors, not the persecuted, comp. Mat_23:34.) That ye may be tried. The common meaning of πειράζειν , as distinct from δοκιµάζειν , is here conspicuous; it is "to try" with the sinister intent of causing to fail. But what is temptation on the devil's side is probation on God's side. Ten days. It is unwise to make anything either mystical or rigidly literal out of the number ten, which here is probably a round number. The question is whether the round number denotes a small (Gen_24:55; Num_11:19) or a large number (Num_14:22; 1Sa_1:8; Job_19:3). The former seems probable. It is not impossible that some analogy between their case and that of the "four children" (Dan_1:12, Dan_1:15) is suggested by the ten days' probation. Be thou faithful unto death; literally, become thou faithful; show thyself to be such ( γίνου πιστός ). Note how completely the angel of the Church is identified with the Church. In this one verse we have complete mixture of the two modes of address: "Thou art about to suffer j some of you j yeshall have j I will give thee." "Unto death" does not merely mean "to thy life's end," but "even if fidelity involves death;" compare "becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross" (Php_2:8). The crown of life. The Authorized Version, by ignoring the article ("a crown of life"), sadly detracts from the meaning. It is the well-known crown, the crown which is truly such, in contrast to earthly crowns, and perhaps with a special reference to the crowns given at Smyrna to the priests of Dionysus at the expiration of their year of office. The wordστεφανηφόρος has been found in inscriptions at Smyrna in this connexion (comp. Jas_1:12, where the same phrase occurs; also 1Co_9:25; 1Pe_5:4). Excepting Rev_12:3; Rev_13:1;Rev_19:12 (where we have διάδηµα ), στέφανος is the regular word for "crown" in the New Testament. "Of life" is the genitive of apposition; the life is the crown, just as in "the Word of life" (1Jn_1:1) the life is the Word. It is impossible to determine whether St. John has in his mind the crown of a king, of a victorious athlete, or of a triumphant warrior. The XII. Tables provided that he who had won a crown might have it placed on his head when his dead body was carried in the funeral procession. St. John, both at Rome and in the East, would have seen this ceremony, possibly in the case of a crowned priest at Smyrna. "The crown of life" would be the exact opposite of that. The narrative of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp draws to a close with these words: "Having by his patience vanquished the unjust ruler, and having thus received the crown of immortality," etc. The writer seems to have had Rev_2:10 in his mind.

6B. COFFMAN, “Fear not the things which thou art about to suffer: behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days,The devil is about to cast some of you into prison ... As Hinds pointed out, "These words show that evil-workers are in the service of the devil,"[49] since it was actually men, human beings, who cast the saints into prison. Furthermore, this must not be understood as any form of mild punishment. Those seized by the government and awaiting trial and execution were held in prison, which in that ancient culture was only an anteroom to death. "The struggle anticipated here is desperate; martyrdom is no remote contingency."[50]

And ye shall have tribulation ten days ... This passage sheds light upon some of the problems of interpretation; but, of course, there is no agreement upon exactly what is meant. The most reasonable supposition that this writer has encountered is that of Foy E. Wallace and Gaebelein:

This cannot mean a literal ten days, but rather the ten persecutions, the number of which is historically factual.[51]

The number ten is of special interest, for history informs us that there were just ten persecutions of Christians by the Roman emperors.[52]SIZE>

[49] John T. Hines, op. cit., p. 42.

[50] James Moffatt, op. cit., p. 354.

[51] Foy E. Wallace, Jr., The Book of Revelation (Nashville: Foy E. Wallace, Jr., Publications, 1966), p. 90.

[52] Arno C. Gaebelein, The Revelation (Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1961), p. 36.

Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.

Faithful unto death ... This does not mean merely "until you die," but faithfulness, "even if fidelity involves death."[53]

The crown of life ... This and all similar promises given to these seven churches simply mean eternal life with God in heaven. Eating of the tree of life, receiving the white stone, or the morning star, etc., all mean the same thing. Why were different expressions used? Perhaps the view is correct that sees "The imagery here has direct reference and application to geographical, historical, and social features familiar to the seven congregations to which these cryptic letters were sent."[54] Was it not appropriate that the citizens of Smyrna who were so proud of their crown (the tall buildings mentioned above), should have been reminded of the greater crown of life? Despite this, Beckwith, however, says that, "It is necessary to look for a local origin of the metaphor."[55] The crown of life was an expression, which, with variations, occurs repeatedly in the New Testament: "the incorruptible crown" (1 Corinthians 9:25), "the crown of life" (James 1:12), "a crown of glory" (1 Peter 5:4), and "a crown of righteousness" (2 Timothy 4:8). All of these expressions refer to the same reward.

[53] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 57.

[54] E. M. Blaiklock, op. cit., p. 98.

[55] Isbon T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1919), p. 455.

7. GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE, “Fidelity and its RewardBe thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.—Rev_2:10.

1. It was to the believers at Smyrna, or rather to their official representative, to the person who was called “the angel of the church” there, that this exhortation was sent. It is generally believed that, when the Book of Revelation was written, the “angel” of the Smyrnean Church was Polycarp—the aged disciple of St. John—who, rather than deny his Master, Christ, perished on the scaffold, having made that noble confession which has sounded through all the ages: “Eighty and six years have I served my Lord Christ, and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

2. For the Church at Smyrna, the exhortation had a special fitness, inasmuch as it contained a covert allusion to the political history and also to the physical aspect of the city which could not possibly have applied to any other of the places mentioned by St. John in his Apocalypse.

(1) The reference to Smyrna’s history is in the words “Be thou faithful,” which every Christian in the city would understand. The motto was stamped, as it were, on her very stones. Her inhabitants had for centuries been the steady and devoted allies of the Roman people. When not a few of the peoples throughout Asia Minor had sought to weaken the power of the Cæsars, the Smyrneans had shown not the least desire to do so, but had kept rigidly aloof from all combines or conspiracies. When serious difficulties arose for their trusted friends, the Romans, whose army was suffering from the intense cold and other hardships of a winter campaign against Mithridates, the citizens of Smyrna readily stripped themselves of the garments that they could do without, and dispatched them to the seat of war for the benefit of the Roman soldiers. This signal instance of the fidelity of the Smyrneans was generally known; their reputation for faithfulness was well established. Accordingly, to those of them composing the Church at Smyrna, the exhortation of the Apostle would have the tacit force of a compliment, and would thus at once win their attention to the duty it enjoined—that just as in civic affairs they had been staunch and true to Cæsar, so in religious matters they should manifest unfaltering fidelity to Christ.

(2) Again, the words, “I will give thee the crown of life,” also had a peculiar fitness to Smyrna—a reference which the Christians who resided there could not fail to appreciate. Smyrna has been called “the city of life”; and its life and brightness are the characteristics that at once impress a visitor. It has been likened in shape to a glorious statue sitting with its feet in the sea. Until within a few years the hill into which the city runs back, and which was likened to the head of the statue, was crowned with the ruins of what had been a magnificent and apparently impregnable castle. This is what was known as the Garland or Crown of Smyrna. One of the great teachers of the place besought the citizens not to be satisfied with a crown of buildings, but to strive to have as its crown pure, patriotic, just and good men. These, he said, are the true garland of a city, its prize, its mark of supremacy—not stone walls, but true and pure citizens. In the words, therefore, which St. John addressed to the Christians of Smyrna there was this further compliment. It was as if he said to them, “I know that ye are citizens of no mean city, that verily yours is a queen among the cities of the earth, but though you are justly proud of it, let me tell you of a crown fairer than any that the world can show or any that the world can dream of—a crown not of material but of spiritual beauty—the crown of life that is for ever, and that is reserved in heaven for all such as, believing in the Lord and serving Him, continue faithful unto death.”

I

The Call to Fidelity

“Be thou faithful unto death.”

1. The Church at Smyrna was in the midst of suffering. Was not that enough? and shall she not be told that her sufferings were drawing to an end, that the night of weeping was gone by, and that the morning of joy was about to dawn? So we might think; but God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His ways as our ways, and we are like children bathing on the shore:

Buried a wave beneath;

The second wave succeeds before

We have had time to breathe.

How often does it happen in the Christian’s experience that one burden is laid upon another, and that one wave succeeds another, till he seems left desolate and alone upon

the earth. Yet even then he has no assurance that his sufferings are at a close. The consolation afforded to him is, not that there shall be a short campaign, but only that, whether long or short, he shall be more than conqueror through Him that loved him.

(1) To us, the words of the text are partly metaphorical; but they had no metaphorical meaning when they were written. The persecution of Nero had told the Christians what they might expect. Death was the least pain which the world against them had in its quiver. They were hunted like the wild beasts of the woods. They were tortured, exposed to the hatred of the crowd who cheered the lion and the wild bull that tore and dragged them to death. Through these physical woes, as well as through the spiritual struggles that we have, the early followers of Christ had to persevere, were they to be faithful. Those who kept the faith were obliged to look agony of body and death in the face. Men who began the Christian race had then to count the cost, and resolve to pay it. They had to give up all, or at least be ready at a moment to give up all—home, friends, wealth, worldly honour—and to take Christ instead, and death.

(2) The Christians of Smyrna were about to suffer more heavily than ever; their enemies were apparently to prevail. They were to be cast into prison; and let us remember that the Roman Empire did not imprison for punishment as we do. They would not burden the State with the support of a number of prisoners. Every man who was in prison was there awaiting either his trial or his death. His trial would end in acquittal, or scourging, or fine, or exile, or death. Some of these poor, struggling, much-maligned Christians would be called upon to seal their testimony with their blood. “Be thou faithful unto (not until) death” is the message, not merely through tribulation and poverty and slander, but up to the point of dying; there is no other way to the crown of life; “you must suffer,” is Christ’s message, “or else be unfaithful.” There is no other way to escape suffering save by being untrue, and the message is, “Be thou true and let the devil do his worst.”

We, too, in our place and way and measure, may be called upon to suffer in reputation, substance, or even in health and life, for the sake of our absolute fidelity to our Master and His cause. Erasmus confessed that he was not constituted of the stuff of which martyrs are made, and many of us feel a similar misgiving concerning ourselves. But if we resolve to be on the Lord’s side He will wonderfully strengthen and deliver. The golden-crested wren is one of the tiniest of birds; it is said to weigh only the fifth part of an ounce, and yet, on frailest pinions, it braves hurricanes and crosses northern seas. It often seems in nature as if Omnipotence worked best through frailest organisms; certainly the omnipotence of grace is seen to the greatest advantage in the trembling but resolute saint. Give me the spirit of those who are faithful unto death!1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, The

Gates of Dawn, 311.]

2. To what were the Christians of Smyrna called to be faithful—to a selfish aim, to a political cry, to a cause which offered them material rewards? No, faithful unto death, to goodness, to truth, to purity of life, to an ideal life, invisible, beyond the world; to Christ and to such passionate personal love of Him that it was easier to die in agony than to betray His name; faithful to that spirit of His which loved men even unto death, which forgave enemies, whose work was at all risks to overthrow evil and to die that wrong might die; faithful unto death in the cause of man, which Christ made the cause of God. And for this, what support? All they had is contained in that conception of a mighty spiritual kingdom, of which the head was God in Christ, of which all who loved Him were the body, whether dead or living, for time and earth did not disturb their unbroken communion one with another. They were citizens of an eternal Kingdom. They on earth, beaten, driven, tortured, were not left alone; they were the care of angels, they were watched by all the noble dead with unfaltering interest. They ran their race in the arena

of the universe, not uncared for, since every Christian heart was praying for them; not without the sense of higher sympathy, not even without the sense of glory, for out of sight, but in most real existence, a cloud of witnesses encompassed them. Solemn, beautiful faces, solemn with the calm of eternal rest, beautiful with the light of holy triumph, watched them with inspiring eyes, and among them One, the Leader and Perfecter of faith, a form like unto a Son of Man, who Himself had done and suffered for the truth—whose power and life was theirs by prayer, and who spoke ever in their ears, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.”

(1) The word “faithful” here is from the root which means to be convinced. Fidelity is born of conviction, and conviction must have a groundwork and foundation. What then is this faithfulness that is enjoined? The faithfulness of the saints is the assurance of the faithfulness of Jesus. A deep conviction of His fidelity produces their fidelity. Wherever a man, woman, or child under any circumstances of pain or testing is deeply convinced of the fidelity of Christ, they are immediately and necessarily faithful themselves. It is as though He had said to them, “You are going to be cast into prison; ‘the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried.’ Be faithful; believe still. Live within the limit of a great assurance. Do not question Me; do not doubt Me; depend on Me.” The Lord did not mean, “Gather yourselves up and go through.” He simply meant, “Trust Me.” He did not intend to advise them to gird up their loins and be determined that they would see the business through. That is ever a poor and sorry way of attempting to pass through times of testing. He meant rather, “Trust Me; let Me be your courage. I am alive, and I was dead. I have gone to the limit of this matter. There is no depth I have not fathomed, no darkness I have not penetrated. Be faithful, follow Me, not in the effort of a strenuous determination, but with the ease of a simple trust.”

Bishop Collins died whilst on his way in the Messageries Maritimes liner Saghalien from Constantinople to Smyrna, whither he was going to hold a confirmation. Clothed in his purple cassock his body was laid to rest under the marble floor of the nave of the Church of St. John the Evangelist.

There, then, his body lies,—in the bosom of that Church of Smyrna, to whose Angel St. John was bidden to write, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” To the first known Bishop of that Church—perhaps already Bishop when the Apocalypse was written—the martyr Ignatius wrote, praising his “resolution in God, settled as upon an immovable rock.” “Be watchful,” he added, “possessing a spirit that never slumbers.… Where work is hardest, great is the gain.… The time demands thee.… Stand firm like an anvil under the stroke. It is the part of a great athlete to receive blows and to conquer. Study the times, looking for Him who is above time, eternal, invisible, who was made visible for us—intangible, impassible, who for us was made passible and for us in every way endured.”1 [Note: A. J. Mason, Life of William Edward Collins, 185.]

(2) The great Sender of the message makes the claim. We are bound to Him personally. He asks for our loyalty, our personal loyalty to Him, and in that loyalty we shall conquer; because the Christian life is sustained by faith in a personal life, a personal power, and a personal love. We are not supported by abstractions, by adherence to abstract principles of righteousness and truth. Man requires a living fount of power, something warm with life and love; and such is the support of the Christian life. We are held in our course; we are sustained in all the darkness and the trial and persecution and apparent defeat by cleaving to a great heart that was large enough to sacrifice itself for us, and a great loving, throbbing hand that is strong enough to save us.

As in Westminster Abbey at the coronation of King George v. I saw the Prince of Wales kneeling before his father and uttering the old feudal covenant, I thought of how, in

ancient times, the old Saxon retainers used to come to him whom they called their lord, whose lands they held, and used to kneel there before him, and put their hands in his, and to say to him, “Dear my Lord, I become liege-man of thine, for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to thee for life and death, so help me God.” And I would to God that we might all in spirit be found kneeling before the Lord of all of us, putting hands of trust in His, and saying to Him with earnestness and sincerity of soul, “Dear my Lord, I become liege-man of Thine for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to Thee for life and death, so help me God.”2 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]

3. Faithfulness is victory. When the world kills off the faithful man because it cannot bend his will and take him away from his loyalty, it is not the man that is defeated; it is the world. The world does its last cowardly act, and therein makes its last confession of impotency. The man has conquered it. It can do nothing with him, and when it puts him to death it admits that it has been defeated by him. The Christian conquered the world when he sang at the stake? The Christian conquered when he could fearlessly stand before the tribunal that condemned him, when he talked of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come until the judge quaked before him? No, do not be misled by appearances: it is the loyal man that conquers, the man that is true to principle, that in a way compels the world to persecute and destroy him, because he is stronger than the world in which he lives. “I know that persecution and death are upon thee, but be thou loyal; be thou faithful; thou shalt be victorious, and thou art already victor, in being loyal.” The truly strong life is the life that can defy circumstances, that can make every failure a stepping-stone to a nobler resolve, that can maintain its integrity when all the world is against it.

Faithfulness unto death is God’s standard for human life. On this He bases His judgments. As we apply this standard, our views on many things undergo a radical change. We come to see that the thing of value is not speed but endurance. The real hero is not he who makes the fastest schedule but he who lasts the longest. There are those who go up like a rocket and come down like a stick. It is the power to hold on that wins. Great Britain’s most famous general once said that the difference between the soldiers of his country and those of another was not that the English soldier was braver than other soldiers, but that he was brave five minutes longer. It is endurance that wins the crown.

The thing of value is not achievement but fidelity. It is not what we accomplish but the way we accomplish it. It is our ideals, our principles. It is not success that God looks at, but the struggle. Success is a cheap thing, it is merely relative; but struggle is an affair of eternity, it is a spiritual asset.1 [Note: J. I. Vance, Tendency, 229.]

4. The text does not mean merely, “Be faithful until death calls you away.” The passage is very frequently quoted with a mistaken meaning, as if it simply meant, “Be faithful as long as you live; do not give up while life lasts.” But it means far more than that; it means, “Be faithful, even though it costs you your life. Be faithful unto prison, be faithful unto persecution, yea, though you be in the presence of the executioner—for faithfulness may entail death—be faithful up to that highest sacrifice of life itself if necessary on the altar of loyalty to Jesus Christ.” “Unto death” is thus an intensive, not an extensive, term. Christ does not mean, merely, “to thy life’s end,” contemplating life under aspects of time, but “to the sharpest and worst which the enemy can inflict upon thee, even to death itself.” “Dare and endure,” the words would say, “the worst that evil men can threaten and inflict, even death itself.” It is true that Christian fidelity must continue to the close of life. Our Lord’s promise is to “those who endure to the end,” that “they shall be saved.” He also said that no one, putting his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the

Kingdom of God. It is true, no soldier of the cross can win the fight, and wear the honour of victor, who turns from the foe in the day of battle. But, as has been said, the text points out not so much the duration as the intensity of our fidelity. It is, “Be faithful to the enduring of all trials, privations, sufferings, imprisonments, tortures, even to death itself. Endure everything for Christ, and the crown of life shall be yours.”

In ancient heroic story there is one figure of which I often think. It is the figure of the old pilot who was sailing his boat in the crisis of a storm on the great tempestuous Ægæan Sea, and in his extremity he was seen to stand erect and cry, in his old pagan way, “Father Neptune, you may sink me if you will, or you may save me if you will, but whatever happens I will keep my rudder true.” Everyone can say that. It is not for us to decide our own destinies. It is not for us to say we shall not be over-whelmed by certain storms; it is not for us to say we shall never go under. We do not know how hard the trial is yet to be. But this we can say: “Sink me if you will, or save me if you will, but whatever happens I will never drift, I will steer straight, I will keep my rudder true.” By God’s grace everyone can do that.1 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]

While abhorring war, M. Coillard always had the strongest sympathy with the military profession. His mind seemed to move in its imagery. Christianity, as he conceived it, was the march of an ever-victorious army; to him it meant a loyalty, not a philosophy, still less a ceremonial system. He had no other ambition than to be “a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” “A French general,” he once wrote, “told his aide-de-camp that the politeness of a soldier was obedience; and I myself hold that in all circumstances our duty to our Master is fidelity.”1 [Note: C. W. Mackintosh, Coillard of the Zambesi, 106.]

She was now in Armenia. The roads were beset by Kurds, who twice attacked her caravan. In one of the wretched hamlets through which she passed, a young Armenian, with whom she spoke about the faith, said to her, “We don’t know much, but we love the Lord Jesus well enough to die for Him.” Here, amongst the Armenians, she realized again what the horrors of this infamous persecution meant for a timid, defenceless people, less manly than the Nestorian Rayahs, in many ways less lovable, but like them, “faithful unto death.”2 [Note: A. M. Stoddart, The Life of Isabella Bird, 239.]

Be faithful unto death. Christ proffers thee

Crown of a life that draws immortal breath:

To thee He saith, yea, and He saith to me,

“Be faithful unto death.”

To every living soul that same He saith,

“Be faithful:”—whatsoever else we be,

Let us be faithful challenging His faith.

Tho’ trouble storm around us like the sea,

Tho’ hell surge up to scare us and to scathe,

Tho’ heaven and earth betake themselves to flee,

“Be faithful unto death.”3 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poetical Works, 277.]

II

The Reward of Fidelity

“I will give thee the crown of life.”

For this faithfulness what reward is promised? An inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, “the crown of life”; not the material rewards so commonly and so coarsely promised, not a life of earthly happiness, but the life which is in God and of God; immortal union with Justice, Purity, and Truth; the transformation of all selfishness into love, so full, so great, so undying, that never for one moment, through all eternity, they would think of themselves again.

Some superfine individuals have called the religion of Christ vulgar because it cannot trust to its own intrinsic excellence, but must encourage its supporters by the promise of rewards. But in answer to this objection on the part of exquisitely and delicately made natures, let me say, in the language of one of my old teachers, there is no fear of becoming vulgar in the company of Christ, who not only promised rewards to His followers, but Himself worked and suffered under the spur of reward; for do we not read, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down in the majesty of the heavens”?1 [Note: H. F. Henderson, The Eye Witnesses of Christ, 144.]

1. The promise is very full and very rich. This crown that He promises is the crown of royalty. It is more. It is the crown of royalty victorious. It is still more. It is the chaplet that adorns the brow of the victor who comes laden with spoils, the crown of royalty, the crown of victory, the crown of added wealth. It is the crown of life, life which reigns because it has won, and reigns moreover in possession of spoils obtained through conflict. The life is the crown. What wondrous light this flings back upon the process! This pressure of tribulation is not accidental and capricious. Out of the tribulation we shall have our triumph. Out of the darkness we shall come to light. That is the whole philosophy of suffering. When presently all the tribulation is passed, and the painful processes of the little while are over, and the last grim pressure ceases, then we shall be crowned with life, then we shall know the meaning of life.

O that thou wouldest understand the great good of Tribulation! This it is which blots out sins, cleanses the soul, and produces Patience: this in Prayer inflames it, enlarges it, and causes it to exercise the most sublime act of Charity; this rejoices the Soul, brings it near to God, causes it to be called, and to enter, into Heaven. This it is which tries the true Servants of God, and renders them wise, valiant, and constant. This it is which makes God hear them with speed.… It is this which Annihilates, Refines, and Perfects them: and finally, it is this which of earthly, makes Heavenly Souls, and of human, Divine; transforming them, and uniting them in a wonderful way with the Lord’s Humanity and Divinity.1 [Note: Michael de Molinos, The Spiritual Guide.]

2. Notice the compensation! “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.” What thou sacrificest thou shalt receive again. And that is not all. The life received is not the equivalent of the life that has been given up. The life that is placed on the victor’s brow is not a duplicate of the life that was laid down on this earth. This poor life laid down is not of so much value after all; at best it soon passes away, and is very superficial and frail. All the glory of it is as grass, and “all the goodliness of it as the flower of the field.” But the life that is won through the sacrifice of this life is a life eternal, profound, joyous, infinitely great and glorious—a life in some wonderful way like the life of God Himself.

“A crown of life.”—Of what fashion shall such a crown be? St. Paul speaks of an amaranthine crown, contrasting it with earth’s fading crowns of victory. And later in this Book of Revelation we read of crowns of gold.

We may hope to discern in celestial crowns every adornment of all possible crowns.

Gracefulness of leaves, loveliness of flowers, endearment (if I may call it so) of tendrils, permanence of gold, lustre and tints of jewels. Such crowns I hope to see on heads I have venerated and loved here.

Meanwhile, because our dear Lord, flower of humankind and comparable with fine gold (though fine gold sufficeth not to compare with Him), was contented on earth to be crowned with a crown of thorns; let us be patient, contented, thankful, to wait on in hopes of a crown of life and glory.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deep, 65.]

3. Do not forget the Giver. “I will give thee.” Jesus Christ is to be the rewarder of men. It is from Him the gift must come, because, after all, it is a gift. We cannot merit it or obtain it in any way except as a free gift. It will no doubt bear some proportion to the life we have lived, and the victories we have won, but, after all, we cannot earn it. It is infinitely more than we could have earned or merited. It was earned on the cross. But whatever our future glory shall be, it must come from Jesus Christ; and “all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth.”

William Hunter, the martyr apprentice of Brentwood in Essex, was executed at his native village on 26th March 1555. He was allowed to converse with his friends beforehand in the parlour of the Swan Inn. His father prayed that he might continue to the end in the way that he had begun. His mother said she was happy to bear a child who could find in his heart to lose his life for Christ’s sake. “Mother,” he answered, “for my little pain which I shall suffer, which is but a short braid, Christ hath promised me a crown of joy. May you not be glad of that, mother?”1 [Note: J. A. Froude, History of England, v. 507.]

4. Are we counted so capable of faithfulness of heart that God believes we shall despise the rewards of the world in comparison with the spirit of Christ offered to us and the life in it as reward? Is it possible that God believes in us so much as to expect of us faithfulness unto death? Have we truly a Father whose care is our perfection, a Saviour who is watching us daily that we may be freed from sin; and can we, so weak, so much the creatures of impulse, so vain, so wavering, be faithful unto death? It is an inspiring thought that God can believe in us so much. We are not called on to face the lions for our faith. But there are things in life which are death—even worse than death itself; there are pains as deep as those the martyrs bore which we have to bear in silence, with no encouragement but the voice of God within, and that voice we do not always hear. There are wild contests we have sometimes to wage alone, night after night, day after day, when it seems that the inner conflict must become known to all around us, so vivid is our consciousness of it; and yet we know that there is no help in man for us, that we must conquer (if we conquer) in a solitude of heart which makes life as ghastly as a cruel dream. Then it is something to recall this text, and let the noble words sound in our ears their cry to courage and their promise, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life!”

The sharpest trials of life may not be ours, though few there are who do not touch one or another; but, even without them, there are difficulties enough in ordinary life to try our fidelity to God. When we have to go on day by day, contending with a passionate or a sluggish nature—limiting the one, enkindling the other—meeting small temptations every hour, so that watchfulness must never be relaxed; when no sooner is one wrong-doing laid in the grave than another rises up, so that the sword of life is never in the scabbard; when we know that this will go on for years till death comes—then, not to give way to angry weariness, not to brood over the battle, but to take it frankly as it comes, as part of the day’s work; to make of high endeavour an inward light “which makes the path before us always bright”; to conquer the chill of custom and the weight of commonplace, and be inspired always by an inward thought; to pour into life such love of God and man

that all things will grow beautiful and worthy to be done; and to look forward, persevering to the last—

From well to better, daily self-surpast,

this is to be faithful unto death, and for these things there is “the crown of life.”

Wherever a man’s post is, whether he has chosen it of his own will, or whether he has been placed at it by his commander, there it is his duty to remain and face the danger, without thinking of death, or of any other thing, except dishonour.1 [Note: Plato, The Apology of Socrates, cap. 16 (Church’s trans., p. 56).]

I rejoiced in God, and made my complaint to Him, because He permitted me to undergo such afflictions; yet the recompense was great; for almost always, afterwards, His mercies descended upon me in great abundance. The soul seemed to come forth as gold out of the crucible, most refined, and made glorious to behold, our Lord dwelling within it. These trials afterwards are light, though they once seemed to be unendurable; and the soul longs to undergo them again, if that be more pleasing to our Lord. And though trials and persecutions increase, yet, if we bear them without offending our Lord, rejoicing in suffering for His sake, it will be all the greater gain.2 [Note: The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (ed. 1911), 278.]

A missionary is seated in the courtyard of an Indian house. In a circle opposite is a native family—husband, wife, sister, and some children. They are the first-fruits of a year’s toil in Armur, and have come now for the seal and test of their faith—baptism.

“Why do you wish baptism?” we asked of them.

“Because we belong to Jesus. Did not He die for us? We are His.”

“But if you are baptized, great trouble will assuredly come. You will be out-casted. When neglected and persecuted by old friends what will you do?”

“We believe in Him. Will He not help us?”

“How long will you serve Him?”

Glad and spontaneous was the answer from all three: “Chachudaka—Till death.”1 [Note: G. M. Kerr, in The Foreign Field, Dec. 1910.]

Triumphant Love, oh, keep us pure

By Thine own passion to endure,

Till every heart in Thine shall beat—

Our Sun, our Shadow from the heat—

And no false sun or shade allure!

Let never a dream of hate immure

Our life within its prison secure,

Nor Self its treadmill-round repeat,

Triumphant Love!

If Thou to hardship now enure

The soul, in this life’s overture

To greater music, we entreat

That we, through darkness, death, defeat,

May triumph in Thy triumph sure,

Triumphant Love!2 [Note: Annie Matheson, Maytime Songs, 15.]

11 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit

says to the churches. The one who is victorious

will not be hurt at all by the second death.

1. BARES, "He that hath an ear ... - See the notes on Rev_2:7.He that overcometh - See the notes on Rev_2:7. The particular promise here is

made to him that should “overcome”; that is, that would gain the victory in the persecutions which were to come upon them. The reference is to him who would show the sustaining power of religion in times of persecution; who would not yield his principles when opposed and persecuted; who would be triumphant when so many efforts were made to induce him to apostatize and abandon the cause.

Shall not be hurt of the second death - By a second death. That is, he will have nothing to fear in the future world. The punishment of hell is often called death, not in the sense that the soul will cease to exist, but:

(a) Because death is the most fearful thing of which we have any knowledge, and

(b) Because there is a striking similarity, in many respects, between death and future punishment.

Death cuts off from life - and so the second death cuts off from eternal life; death puts an end to all our hopes here, and the second death to all our hopes forever; death is attended with terrors and alarms - the faint and feeble emblem of the terrors and alarms in the world of woe. The phrase, “the second death,” is three times used elsewhere by John in this book Rev_20:6, Rev_20:14; Rev_21:8, but does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. The words “death” and “to die,” however, are not infrequently used to denote the future punishment of the wicked.

The promise here made would be all that was necessary to sustain them in their trials. Nothing more is requisite to make the burdens of life tolerable than an assurance that, when we reach the end of our earthly journey, we have arrived at the close of suffering, and that beyond the grave there is no power that can harm us. Religion, indeed, does not promise to its friends exemption from death in one form. To none of the race has such a promise ever been made, and to but two has the favor been granted to pass to heaven without tasting death. It could have been granted to all the redeemed, but there were good reasons why it should not be; that is, why it would be better that even they who are to dwell in heaven should return to the dust, and sleep in the tomb, than that they should be removed by perpetual miracle, translating them to heaven. Religion, therefore, does

not come to us with any promise that we shall not die. But it comes with the assurance that we shall be sustained in the dying hour; that the Redeemer will accompany us through the dark valley; that death to us will be a calm and quiet slumber, in the hope of awakening in the morning of the resurrection; that we shall be raised up again with bodies incorruptible and undecaying; and that beyond the grave we shall never fear death in any form. What more is needful to enable us to bear with patience the trials of this life, and to look upon death when it does come, disarmed as it is of its sting 1Co_15:55-57, with calmness and peace?

The Epistle to the Church at Pergamos

The contents of the epistle Rev_2:12-17 are as follows:

(1) A reference, as is usual in these epistles, to some attribute of Him who addressed them, suited to inspire respect, and adapted to a state of things existing in the church, Rev_2:12. That to which the Saviour here directs their attention is, that he has “the sharp sword with two edges” - implying Rev_2:16 that he had the power of punishing.

(2) A statement, in the usual form, that he was thoroughly acquainted with the state of the church; that he saw all their difficulties; all that there was to commend, and all that there was to reprove, Rev_2:13.

(3) A commendation to the church for its fidelity, especially in a time of severe persecution, when one of her faithful friends was slain, Rev_2:13.

(4) A reproof of the church for tolerating some who held false and pernicious doctrines - doctrines such as were taught by Balaam, and the doctrines of the Nicolaitanes, Rev_2:14-15.

(5) A solemn threat that, unless they repented, he would come against them, and inflict summary punishment on them, Rev_2:16.

(6) The usual call upon all to hear what the Spirit says to the churches, and a promise to those who should overcome, Rev_2:17.

Pergamos was a city in the southern part of Mysia, the capital of a kingdom of that name, and afterward of the Roman province of Asia Propria. It was on the bank of the river Caicus, which is formed by the union of two branches meeting thirty or forty miles above its mouth, and watering a valley not exceeded in beauty and fertility by any in the world. The city of Pergamos stood about twenty miles from the sea. It was on the northern bank of the river, at the base and on the declivity of two high and steep mountains. About two centuries before the Christian era, Pergamos became the residence of the celebrated kings of the family of Attals, and a seat of literature and the arts. King Eumenes, the second of the name, greatly beautified the town, and so increased the number of volumes in the library that they amounted to 200,000. This library remained at Pergamos after the kingdom of the Artali had lost its independence, until Antony removed it to Egypt, and presented it to Queen Cleopatra (Pliny, Hist. Nat. 3:2). It is an old tradition, that, as the papyrus plant had not begun to be exported from Egypt (Kitto), or as Ptolemy refused to sell it to Eumenes (Prof. Stuart), sheep and goat skins, prepared for the purpose, were used for manuscripts; and as the art of preparing them was brought to perfection at Pergamos, they, from that circumstance, obtained the

name of “pergamena” (περγαµηνή pergamēnē) or “parchment.”

The last king of Pergamos bequeathed his treasures to the Romans, who took possession of the kingdom also, and created it into a province by the name of Asia Propria. Under the Romans, it retained that authority over the cities of Asia which it had acquired under the successors of Attalus. The present name of the place is Bergamos,

and it is of considerable importance, containing a population of about 14,000, of whom about 3000 are Greeks, 300 Armenians, and the rest Turks. Macfarlane describes the approach to the town as very beautiful: “The approach to this ancient and decayed city was as impressive as well might be. After crossing the Caicus, I saw, looking over three vast tumuli, or sepulchral barrows, similar to those on the plains of Troy, the Turkish city of Pergamos, with its tall minarets, and its taller cypresses, situated on the lower declivities and at the foot of the Acropolis, whose bold gray brow was crowned by the rugged walls of a barbarous castle, the usurper of the site of a magnificent Greek temple. The town consists, for the most part, of small and mean wooden houses, among which appear the remains of early Christian churches. None of these churches have any scriptural or apocalyptic interest connected with them, having been erected several centuries after the ministry of the apostles, and when Christianity was not an humble and despised creed, but the adopted religion of a vast empire.

The pagan temples have fared worse than these Christian churches. The fanes of Jupiter and Diana, of Aesculapius and Venus, are prostrate in the dust; and where they have not been carried away by the Turks, to be cut up into tombstones or to pound into mortar, the Corinthian and Ionic columns, the splendid capitals, the cornices and the pediments, all in the highest ornament, are thrown into unsightly heaps” (“Visit to the Seven Apocalyptic Churches,” 1832. Compare “Missionary Herald” for 1839, pp. 228-230). The engraving represents the ruins of one of the ancient churches in Pergamos.

2. CLARKE, "He that overcometh - The conqueror who has stood firm in every trial, and vanquished all his adversaries.Shall not be hurt of the second death - That is, an eternal separation from God

and the glory of his power; as what we commonly mean by final perdition. This is another rabbinical mode of speech in very frequent use, and by it they understand the punishment of hell in a future life.

3. GILL, "He that hath an ear, let him hear,.... See Gill on Rev_2:7,

he that overcometh; and is not intimidated by poverty, confiscation of goods, tribulation, persecution, and death itself, but through Christ is a conqueror, and more than a conqueror over all these things:

shall not be hurt of the second death; by which is meant eternal death, in distinction from a corporeal and temporal one; and lies in a destruction of both body and soul in hell, and in an everlasting separation from God, and a continual sense of divine wrath; but of this the saints shall never be hurt, they are ordained to eternal life; this is secured for them in Christ, and he has it in his hands for them, and will give it to them. The phrase is Jewish, and is opposed to the first death, or the death of the body; which is the effect of sin, and is appointed of God, and which the people of God die as well as others; but the second death is peculiar to wicked men. So the Jerusalem Targum on Deu_33:6; paraphrases those words, "let Reuben live, and not die", thus,

"let Reuben live in this world, and not die במותא�תניינא�,�"by�the�second�death",�with�which�the�

wicked�die�in�the�world�to�come.�

Of�which�sense�of�the�text�and�phrase�Epiphanius�makes�mention�(q).�See�the�same�phrase�in�the�

Targum�of�Jonathan�ben�Uzziel,�in�Isa_22:14;�and�in�Jer_51:39;�and�in�Philo�the�Jew�(r),�

3B. COFFMA, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.On the first sentence in this verse, see comment on the identical words in Revelation 2:7, also concerning "overcometh."

Shall not be hurt of the second death ... The second death is a reference to the lake of fire in which Satan and his followers are destined at last to be overwhelmed. As Roberson pointed out, many expressions in these earlier chapters of Revelation find their full explanation in the later chapters. Among those he cited were:[56]

Tree of life -- Revelation 2:7; Revelation 22:2,14

The new name -- Revelation 2:17; Revelation 14:1.

Authority over the nations -- Revelation 2:26; Revelation 20:4f.

The morning star -- Revelation 2:28; Revelation 22:16.

The white garments -- Revelation 3:5; Revelation 7:9,14.

Sitting on Christ's throne -- Revelation 3:21; Revelation 20:4.

Second death -- Revelation 2:11; Revelation 20:14.SIZE>

Christ did not mention here "the first death"; but it is the death of the body to which all must submit. The second death is that of the soul, the absolute exclusion from God who is the source of life.

Christ did not utter any words of criticism or condemnation of this suffering church, offering only his love and encouragement. Those scholars who feel that they must go to the times of Domitian in order to find a time of martyrdoms in the church should remember that Stephen, James (John's own brother), and James the brother of the Lord had all suffered martyrdom already, and even much earlier than the earliest date affixed to this book. To this very day there are churches in which people are paying for their fidelity with their lives, notably in China and in other iron-curtain countries. What a mistake it is to confine this to a description of the church in the apostolic period. Furthermore, as Lenski said, "In 64 A.D., there were many martyrs when Nero accused the Christians of burning Rome."[57] Moreover, it is only a favorite bias of some scholars who affirm that the persecutions then were limited to Rome and did not occur simultaneously in the provinces. It was noted in the introduction to 1Peter, that Christianity was already a proscribed, illegal religion even in the Roman provinces when 1Peter was written. Nero invited the governors of the various provinces to join with him in the martyrdom of Christians.

[56] Charles R. Roberson, Studies in Revelation (Tyler, Texas: P. D. Wilmeth, 1957), p. 19.

[57] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 102.

4. HERY, "The conclusion of this message, and that, as before, 1. With a call to universal attention, that all men, all the world, should hear what passes between Christ and his churches - how he commends them, how he comforts them, how he reproves their failures, how he rewards their fidelity. It concerns all the inhabitants of the world to observe God's dealings with his own people; all the world may learn instruction and wisdom thereby. 2. With a gracious promise to the conquering Christian: He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death, Rev_2:11. Observe, (1.) There is not only a first, but a second death, a death after the body is dead. (2.) This second death is unspeakably worse than the first death, both in the dying pangs and agonies of it (which are the agonies of the soul, without any mixture of support) and in the duration; it is eternal death, dying the death, to die and to be always dying. This is hurtful indeed, fatally hurtful, to all who fall under it. (3.) From this hurtful, this destructive death, Christ will save all his faithful servants; the second death shall have no power over those who are partakers of the first resurrection: the first death shall not hurt them, and the second death shall have no power over them.

4B. ELLICOTT, “(11) He that overcometh (or conquereth) shall not be hurt.—The words used are precise, and give certainty to the promise.The second death.—This phrase is a new one in Bible language. It is said that Jews were familiar with it through its use in the Chaldee Paraphrase. It clearly points to a death which is other than that of the body; it stands in contrast with the crown of life. The expressions of Revelation 20:14; Revelation 21:8, exclude the idea that a cessation of conscious existence is intended. The life of the spirit is the knowledge of God (John 17:3); the death of the spirit, or the second death, is the decay or paralysis of the powers by which such a knowledge was possible, and the experience of the awfulness of a life which is “without God.”

5. JAMISO, "shall not be hurt — Greek, “shall not by any means (or possibly) be hurt.”the second death — “the lake of fire.” “The death in life of the lost, as contrasted

with the life in death of the saved” [Trench]. The phrase “the second death” is peculiar to the Apocalypse. What matter about the first death, which sooner or later must pass over us, if we escape the second death? “It seems that they who die that death shall be hurt by it; whereas, if it were annihilation, and so a conclusion of their torments, it would be no way hurtful, but highly beneficial to them. But the living torments are the second death” [Bishop Pearson]. “The life of the damned is death” [Augustine]. Smyrna (meaning myrrh) yielded its sweet perfume in being bruised even to death. Myrrh was used in embalming dead bodies (Joh_19:39); was an ingredient in the holy anointing oil (Exo_30:23); a perfume of the heavenly Bridegroom (Psa_45:8), and of the bride (Son_3:6). “Affliction, like it, is bitter for the time being, but salutary; preserving the elect from corruption, and seasoning them for immortality, and gives scope for the exercise of the fragrantly breathing Christian virtues” [Vitringa]. Polycarp’s noble words to his heathen judges who wished him to recant, are well known: “Fourscore and six years have I served the Lord, and He never wronged me, how then can I blaspheme my King and Savior?” Smyrna’s faithfulness is rewarded by its candlestick not having been removed out of its place (Rev_2:5); Christianity has never wholly left it; whence the Turks call it, “Infidel Smyrna.”

6. PULPIT, "He that hath an ear (see on Rev_2:7). Shall not be hurt of the second death; more literally, shall in no wise be injured at the hands of the second death. The negative is the strongest form; the injury seems to be of the nature of a wrong, and the second death is regarded as the source of the wrong ( οὐ µὴ ἀδικηθῇ ἐκ ). In Rev_20:6 "the second death" is almost personified, as here: "Over these the second death has no authority." The phrase is peculiar to this book (see Rev_20:14 and Rev_21:8, where it is defined to be "the lake of fire"). The corresponding phrase, "the first death," does not occur. The one is the death of the body, to which the faithful Smyrnaeans must submit; the other is the death of the soul, from which the crown of life secures them: though they die, yet shall they live, and shall in no wise die, forever (Joh_11:25, Joh_11:26). This second death, or death of the soul, is absolute exclusion from God, who is the Source of eternal life. The expression, "the second death," seems to be borrowed from Jewish theological phraseology. (On the repetition of the article, "the death, the second (death)," see note onRev_20:13.)

7. CHARLES SIMEO, “Rev_2:11. He that hath an. ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

THIS passage, as an appendix to the epistle to the Church of Smyrna, appears at first sight to be an extraordinary anti-climax: for, in the very words preceding the text, it is said, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” Now, by “a crown of life” is meant all the glory and blessedness of heaven: it is a small thing, therefore, to a person who has obtained this promise, to tell him that he shall never be cast into hell. But the Scriptures often speak in a way of meiosis, as it is called; that is, under terms which, whilst they express little, convey the most stupendous truths. A remarkable instance of this kind I will mention. Jehovah, speaking to his ancient people, says, “Turn ye now every one from his evil way, and I will do you no hurt[Note: Jer_25:5-6.].” What! is this all the encouragement that God gives to his people to turn unto him? May we not, at least, hope that he

will do us some good? But far more was implied in this promise than met either the eye or the ear: and so it is in the promise which our Lord and Saviour gives in the words before us. In truth, if considered in their connexion with the foregoing context, and according to the true import of the words themselves, they will be found to be replete with the richest instruction, and with the most consoling encouragement.

Let us, then, consider,

I. The promise here given to the victorious saint—

In order to see the promise in its true light, we must view it,

1. In connexion with the trials that awaited them—

[They had been told, that “Satan would cast some of them into prison; and that they should have tribulation ten days,” some of them suffering even unto death. Now these were painful tidings to flesh and blood: yet, when it was considered that they would be exempt from “the second death,” to which they might have been justly doomed, the prospect was greatly cheered: for the sufferings from which they were freed were penal, intolerable, everlasting; whereas those to which they were to be subjected were light and momentary, and as beneficial to themselves as they were honourable to God. To a soul contemplating its just desert, these thoughts must have been inconceivably precious. The very contrast between what man would inflict on earth, and what, but for his sovereign love and mercy, God would have inflicted on them in hell, must have made the deliverance appear so much the more wonderful, and the mercy vouchsafed to them so much the more endearing.]

2. In connexion with the sufferings that await the whole world besides—

[It is to the victor only that this promise is made. Who he is, we have before described: and all other persons, of what age or character soever they may be, must be condemned in the day of judgment, and “take their portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.” Not only notorious sinners, who have rushed into all manner of iniquity, but the more decent moralists also, who have glided down the stream of this corrupt world, must perish. It is he only who stems the torrent of corruption which carries the whole world before it, and who urges with incessant labour his course heavenward; it is he alone, I say, that shall escape the wrath to come. Now, then, consider the great mass of mankind, with comparatively few exceptions, “cast into hell, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;” consider them, I say, left to “weep and wail, and gnash their teeth,” in that place of torment, and “the smoke of their torment ascending up for ever and ever;” and then say, whether an exemption from this lot be a small matter. What would a soul that had been only a few hundred years in that place of torment think of such a deliverance, if it were possible for him now to be rescued from his misery? Methinks his transports would be such as a mere mortal nature would be unable to sustain. Doubtless, then, the assurance here given to the Christian who overcomes his spiritual enemies must be an occasion of unutterable joy. And, inasmuch as this promise is given by the Holy Spirit to every soldier of Christ, and “all who have ears to hear are especially invited to attend to it,” we cannot but commend it to the most attentive consideration of all who are here present.]

Let me now set before you—

II. The pledge given us for the performance of it—

There is somewhat very remarkable in the term which is translated “hurt.” It does not import what we commonly mean by the word “hurt,” which we should use in reference to any accidental injury we had sustained: it expresses an injury inflicted by a voluntary agent, who might well have forborne

to inflict it [Note: ἀ ä é ê ç è ῇ .]. The sense of the passage then is, that the victorious saint shall not

be “injured” by the second death; since the subjecting of him to it would be an injustice done to him. In fact,

1. It would be an injury done to the person suffering—

[Every saint of God has fled to Christ for refuge, in a full dependence on that promise, “There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” And in the strength of Christ he has “fought the good fight, and finished his course, and kept the faith, in an assured expectation that there is laid up for him, according to God’s blessed word, a crown of righteousness, that fadeth not away.” Now, suppose one such person subjected to the second death; would he not say, ‘I am injured? Doubtless if I am to be dealt with according to my deserts, my mouth must be shut, whatever I may suffer: but I laid hold on the Gospel, and, according to the grace given to me, complied with the terms there prescribed: I relied solely on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation; and yet endeavoured, according to my ability, to fulfil his will: and I certainly do think that I have a claim to mercy; not indeed as deserving it at God’s hands, but as washed in the blood of Christ, and clothed in his righteousness, and interested in all that he has done and suffered for me.’ Yes, brethren, God himself authorizes this very idea. In the Scriptures it is said, “God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister [Note: Heb_6:10.].” Now, if God would account himself unjust if he neglected to recompense the good works of his people, how much more would he subject himself to that imputation if he were to cast one believing and obedient soul into hell! Then this is a pledge to the victorious Christian, that he “shall never be hurt of the second death.” If a man who had fled to a city of refuge could not, consistently with the Tights of justice and equity, be delivered up into the hands of the pursuer of blood; so neither can a believing and obedient soul be ever given up to the wrath of an avenging God.]

2. It would be an injury done to the Lord Jesus Christ himself—

[God the Father, when he entered into covenant with his Son, engaged, that “if he would make his soul an offering for sin, he should see a seed who should prolong their days, and the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hands [Note: Isa_53:10.].” In dependence on this word, the Son of God became incarnate, and fulfilled the whole work assigned him, till he could say, “It is finished:” and he expected, of course, that, in the salvation of all who trusted in him, he should “see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.” But if he should behold one of his believing and obedient followers cast out, would he not have reason to complain, that the stipulations of the covenant were not fulfilled? When an offer was made to him, that, in the event of his undertaking to die for man, there should be a people given to him from amongst the tribes of Israel, he replied, “Then I have laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought and in vain:” and then the promise was enlarged to him, “It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth [Note: Isa_49:4-6.].” How much more, then, might he complain, “I have laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought,” if one of his faithful followers should be cast into hell! If one should be saved by a righteousness not derived from him, he would complain that he had died in vain [Note: Gal_2:21.]: and how much more, if one whom he had washed in his blood, and sanctified by his grace, should perish! Here then is another pledge, that no victorious saint shall ever taste of the second death.]

3. It would be an injury done to the whole universe—

[All are taught to look forward to the day of judgment, as “the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God [Note: Rom_2:5.],” that is, the day in which his perfect equity will be displayed. All, therefore, will expect that the rule of God’s procedure, as declared in his word, shall be adhered to. Of course, they will expect that those who have believed in Christ, and by the grace of Christ have subdued all their spiritual enemies, shall be saved. But what if they should see one of these consigned over to the second death, and left to take his portion with hypocrites and unbelievers? will they not say, ‘This greatly disappoints our expectations: we certainly hoped to see “a difference put between the righteous and the wicked, between those who served God and those who served him not.” ’ Methinks, if one such instance were about to occur, one general sentiment would pervade the whole universe; and all the saints would prostrate themselves before Jehovah, as Abraham did in behalf of Sodom: saying, “Lord, wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right [Note: Gen_18:23-25.]?” But we need not fear: there shall never be occasion for a remonstrance like this: and in this we have a further pledge, that no such injury shall ever be done to one believing and obedient soul.]

But, whilst I maintain this blessed truth,

1. Must I not take up a lamentation over those who are overcome in this warfare?

[I ask not what you have done in times past: I ask only, Have you engaged in warfare with all your spiritual enemies? and are you proceeding daily in a victorious career? If not, nothing awaits you but “the second death.” If you have not been so wicked as others, you will not have so heavy a condemnation as they; there will be fewer or heavier stripes appointed, according to the degree of your guilt: but hell will be terrible to those who sustain its slightest torments; and the duration of their torments will be for ever and ever. Look, I pray you, through the whole Scriptures, and see whether you can find one single word that promises an exemption from those torments to any soul that has not fought and overcome? In every one of these epistles, you will find the promises limited to them that overcome. Think then, I pray you, what an awful prospect is before you. Think how soon your day of grace may be closed, and your day of retribution commence. O dreadful thought! Perhaps before another day you may be, like the Rich Man in the Gospel, “lifting up your eyes in torments, and crying in vain for a drop of water to cool your tongue.” Will ye then delay to enlist under the

banners of Christ, or refuse to fight manfully under the Captain of your salvation? Will you be deterred from this by the menaces of men? Will you fear them who can only kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do? Will you not rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell? O! I say to you, “Fear him.” If there were a storm of thunder and lightning, you would be filled with awe: and will you not tremble when God says, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God?” and when he tells you, that “on the wicked he will rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup [Note: Psa_9:17; Psa_11:6.]?” O! what vivid flashes are here! what peals of thunder are here! Will ye tremble at that which can only separate your soul from your body, and not at that which will separate both body and soul from God for ever?—May God, in his mercy, awaken you ere it be too late! and may all of you make it henceforth the one object of your lives to “flee from the wrath to come, and to lay hold on eternal life!”]

2. But to the victorious saint I must add a word of cordial congratulation—

[What may intervene between this and your final victory, I am not anxious to inquire. If you are fighting manfully under the banners of Christ, of this I am assured, that there shall “no temptation take you but what is common to men; and that your faithful God will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make for you a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it [Note: 1Co_10:13.].” You need not then be anxious about the future. Your enemies are all in God’s hands, and can do nothing which he will not overrule for your eternal good. And how blessed will be the termination of your warfare! What shouts of victory will you give, and what plaudits will you receive from the Captain of your salvation! You have nothing to fear from the second death: on the contrary, the very stroke that separates your soul from your body shall transmit your soul to the very bosom of your God; who, in due season, will raise your body also from the grave, to partake with your soul in all the glory and felicity of heaven. Yes; it is no fading and corruptible crown that you fight for, but an incorruptible one, which shall be accorded to you in the presence of the whole assembled universe. “Go on then, from conquering to conquer,” till all enemies be put under your feet: and the recollection of your conflicts shall serve only to enhance your joys to all eternity.]

8. MACLARE, “THE VICTOR'S LIFE—CROWNTwo of the seven Churches, viz., Smyrna, to which our text is addressed, and Philadelphia offered nothing, to the pure eyes of Christ, that needed rebuke. The same two and these only, were warned to expect persecution. The higher the tone of Christian life in the Church, the more likely it is to attract dislike and, if circumstances permit, hostility. Hence the whole gist of this letter is to encourage to steadfastness, even if the penalty is death.

That purpose determined at once the aspect of Christ which is presented in the beginning, and the aspect of future blessedness which is held forth at the close. The aspect of Christ is ‘these things saith the First and the Last, which was dead and is alive’; a fitting thought to encourage the men who were to be called upon to die for Him. And, in like manner, the words of our text naturally knit themselves with the previous mention of death as the penalty of the Smyrneans’ faithfulness.

Now this promise is sharply distinguished from those to the other Churches by two peculiarities: one, that it is merely negative, whilst all the rest are radiantly positive; the other, that there is no mention of our Lord in it, whilst in all the others He stands forth with His emphatic and majestic ‘I will give’; ‘I will write upon him My new Name’; ‘I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God.’ The first peculiarity may partially account for the second, because the Giver is naturally more prominent in a promise of positive gifts, than in one of a merely negative exemption. But another reason is to be found for the omission of the mention of our Lord in this promise. If you will refer to the verse immediately preceding my text, you will find the missing positive promise with the

missing reference to Jesus Christ: ‘ I will give thee a crown of life.’ So that we are naturally led to link together both these statements when taking account of the hopes that were held forth to animate the Christians of Smyrna in the prospect of persecution even to the death; and we have to consider them both in conjunction now. I think I shall best do so by simply asking you to look at these two things: the Christian motive contained in the victor’s immunity from a great evil, and the Christian motive contained in the victor’s possession of a great good. ‘He shall not be hurt of the second death.’ ‘I will give thee a crown of life.’

I. The Christian motive contained in the victor’s immunity from a great evil.

Now that solemn and thrilling expression ‘the second death’ is peculiar to this book of the Apocalypse. The name is peculiar; the thing is common to all the New Testament writers. Here it comes with especial appropriateness, in contrast with the physical death which was about to be inflicted upon some members of the Smyrnean Church. But beyond that there lies in the phrase a very solemn and universally applicable meaning. I do not feel, dear brethren that such a thing ought to be made matter of pulpit rhetoric. The bare vagueness of it seems to me to shake the heart a great deal more than any weakening expansion of it that we can give.

But yet, let me say one word. Then, behind that grim figure, the shadow feared of man that waits for all at some turn of their road, cloaked and shrouded, there rises a still grimmer and more awful form, ‘ if form it can be called which form hath none.’ There is something, at the back of physical death, which can lay its grip upon the soul that is already separated from the body; something running on the same lines somehow, and worthy to bear that name of terror and disintegration ‘the second death.’ What can it be? Not the cessation of conscious existence; that is never the meaning of death. But let us apply the key which opens so many of the locks of the New Testament sayings about the future that the true and deepest meaning of death is separation from Him who is the fountain of life, and in a very deep sense is the only life of the universe. Separation from God; that is death. What touches the surface of mere bodily life is but a faint shadow and parable, and the second death, like a second tier of mountains, rises behind and above it, sterner and colder than the lower hills of the foreground. What desolation, what unrest, what blank misgivings, what pealing off of capacities, faculties, opportunities, delights, may be involved in that solemn conception, we never can tell here God grant that we may never know! Like some sea-creature, cast high and dry on the beach, and gasping out its pained being, the men that are separated from God die whilst they live, and live a living death. The second is the comparative degree, of which the first is the positive.

Now note again that immunity from this solemn fate is no small part of the victor’s blessedness. At first sight we feel as if the mere negative promise of my text stands on a lower level than what I have called the radiantly positive ones in the other letters; but it is worthy to stand beside these. Gather them together, and think of how manifold and glorious the dim suggestions which they make of felicity and progress are, and then set by the side of them this one of our text as worthy to stand there. To eat of the Tree of Life; to have power over the nations; to rule them with a rod of iron; to blaze with the brightness of the morning star; to eat of the hidden manna; to bear the new name known only to those who receive it; to have that name confessed before the Father and His angels; to be a pillar in the Temple of the Lord; to go no more out; and to sit with Christ on His throne: these are the positive promises, along with which this barely negative one is linked, and is worthy to be linked: ‘He shall not be hurt of the second death.’

If this immunity from that fate is fit to stand in line with these glimpses of an inconceivable glory, how solemn must be the fate, and how real the danger of our falling

into it I Brethren, in this day it has become unfashionable to speak of that future, especially of its sterner aspects. The dimness of the brightest revelations in the New Testament, the unwillingness to accept it as the source of certitude with regard to the future, the recoil from the stern severity of Divine retribution, the exaggerated and hideous guise in which that great truth was often presented in the past, the abounding worldliness of this day, many of its best tendencies and many of its worst ones concur in making some of us look with very little interest, and scarcely credence, at the solemn words of which the New Testament is full. But I, for my part, accept them; and I dare not but, in such proportion to the rest of revelation as seems to me to be right, bring them before you. I beseech you, recognize the solemn teaching that lies in this thought that this negative promise of immunity from the second death stands parallel with all these promises of felicity and blessedness.

Further, note that such immunity is regarded here as the direct outcome of the victor’s conduct and character. I have already pointed out the peculiarities marking our text. The omission of any reference to our Lord in it is accounted for, as suggested, by that reference occurring in the immediately preceding context, but it may also be regarded as suggesting when considered in contrast with the other promises, where He stands forward as the giver of heavenly blessedness that that future condition is to be regarded not only as retribution, which implies the notion of a judge, and a punitive or rewarding energy on his part, but also as being the necessary result of the earthly life that is lived; a harvest of which we sow the seeds here.

Transient deeds consolidate into permanent character. Beds of sandstone rock, thousands of feet thick, are the sediment dropped from vanished seas, or borne down by long dried-up rivers. The actions which we often so unthinkingly perform, whatever may be the width and the permanency of their effects external to us, react upon ourselves, and tend to make our permanent bent or twist or character. The chalk cliffs at Dover are the skeletons of millions upon millions of tiny organisms, and our little lives are built up by the recurrence of transient deeds, which leave their permanent marks upon us. They make character, and character determines position yonder. As said the Apostle, with tender sparingness, and yet with profound truth, ‘he went to his own place,’ wherever that was. The surroundings that he was fitted for came about him, and the company that he was fit for associated themselves with him. So in another part of this book where the same solemn expression, ‘the second death,’ is employed, we read, ‘These shall have their part in . . . the second death’: the lot that belongs to them. Character and conduct determine position. However small the lives here, they settle the far greater ones hereafter, just as a tiny wheel in a machine may, by cogs and other mechanical devices, transmit its motion to another wheel at a distance, many times its diameter. You move this end of a lever through an arc of an inch, and the other end will move through an arc of yards. The little life here determines the sweep of the great one that is lived yonder. The victor wears his past conduct and character, if I may so say, as a fireproof garment, and if he entered the very furnace, heated seven times hotter than before, there would be no smell of fire upon him. ‘He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.’

II. Now note, secondly, the Christian motive contained in the victor’s reception of a great good.

‘I will give him a crown of life.’ I need not remind you, I suppose, that this metaphor of ‘the crown’ is found in other instructively various places in the New Testament. Paul, for instance, speaks of his own personal hope of ‘the crown of righteousness.’ James speaks, as does the letter to the Smyrnean Church, of ‘the crown of life.’ Peter speaks ‘of the crown of glory.’ Paul, in another place, speaks of ‘the crown incorruptible.’ And all these

express substantially the one idea. There may be a question as to whether the word employed here for the crown is to be taken in its strictly literal acceptation as meaning, not a kingly coronal, but a garland. But seeing that, although that is the strict meaning of the word, it is employed in a subsequent part of the letter to designate what must evidently be kingly crowns viz., in the fourth chapter there seems to be greater probability in the supposition that we are warranted in including under the symbolism here both the aspects of the crown as royal, and also as laid upon the brows of the victors in the games or the conflict. I venture to take it in that meaning. Substantially the promise is the same as that which we were considering in the previous letter, ‘I will give him to eat of the Tree of Life’; the promise of life in all the depth and fullness and sweep of that great encyclopaedical word. But it is life considered from a special point of view that is set forth here.

It is a kingly life. Of course that notion of regality and dominion, as the prerogative of the redeemed and glorified servants of Jesus Christ, is for ever cropping up in this book of the Revelation. And you remember how our Lord has set the example of its use when He said, ‘Have thou authority over ten cities.’ What may lie in that great symbol it is not for us to say. The rule over ourselves, over circumstances, the deliverance from the tyranny of the external, the deliverance from the slavery of the body and its lusts and passions, these are all included. The man that can will rightly, and can do completely as he rightly wills, that man is a king. But there is more than that. There is the participation in wondrous, and for us inconceivable, ways, in the majesty and regality of the King of kings and Lord of lords. Therefore did the crowned elders before the throne sing a new song to the Lamb, who made redeemed men out of every tribe and tongue, to be to God a kingdom, and priests who should reign upon the earth.

But, brethren, remember that this conception of a kingly life is to be interpreted according to Christ’s own teaching of that wherein royalty in His kingdom consists. For heaven, as for earth, the purpose of dominion is service, and the use of power is beneficence. ‘He that is chiefest of all, let him be servant of all,’ is the law for the regalities of heaven as well as for the lowliness of earth.

That life is a triumphant life. The crown was laid on the head of the victor in the games. Think of the victor as he went back, flushed and modest, to his village away up on the slopes of some of the mountain chains of Greece. With what a tumult of acclaim he would be hailed! If we do our work and fight our fight down here as we ought, we shall enter into the great city not unnoticed, not unwelcomed, but with the praise of the King and the paeans of His attendants. ‘I will confess his name before My Father and the holy angels.’

That life is a festal life. The garlands are twined on the heated brows of revelers, and the fumes of the wine and the closeness of the chamber soon make them wilt and droop. This amaranthine crown fadeth never. And the feast expresses for us the felicities, the abiding satisfactions without satiety, the blessed companionship, the repose which belong to the crowned. Royalty, triumph, festal goodness, all fused together, are incomplete, but they are not useless symbols. May we experience their fulfilment!

Brethren, the crown is promised not merely to the man that says, ‘I have faith in Jesus Christ,’ but to him who has worked out his faith into faithfulness, and by conduct and character has made himself capable of the felicities of the heavens. If that immortal crown were laid upon the head of another, it would be a crown of thorns; for the joys of that future require the fitness which comes from the apprenticeship to faith and faithfulness here on earth. We evangelical preachers are often taunted with preaching that future blessedness comes as the result of the simple act of belief. Yes; but only if,

and when, the simple act of faith, which is more than belief, is wrought out in the loveliness of faithfulness. ‘We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end.’

Now, dear friends, I dare say that some of you may be disposed to brush aside these fears and hopes as very low motives, unworthy to be appealed to; but I cannot so regard them. I know that the appeal to fear is directed to the lower order of sentiments, but it is a legitimate motive. It is meant to stir us up to gird ourselves against the dangers which we wisely dread. And I, for my part, believe that we preachers are going aside from our Pattern, and are flinging away a very powerful weapon, in the initial stages of religious experience, if we are afraid to bring before men’s hearts and answering consciences the solemn facts of the future which Jesus Christ Himself has revealed to us. We are no more to be blamed for it than the signalman for waving his red flag. And I fancy that there are some of my present hearers who would be nearer the love of God if they took more to heart the fear of the Lord and of His judgment.

Hope is surely a perfectly legitimate motive to appeal to. We are not to be good because we thereby escape hell and secure heaven. We are to be good, because Jesus Christ wills us to be, and has won us to love Him, or has sought to win us to love Him, by His great sacrifice for us. But that being the basis, men can be brought to build upon it by the compulsion of fear and by the attraction of hope. And that being the deepest motive, there is a perfectly legitimate and noble sphere for the operation of these two other lower motives, the consideration of the personal evils that attend the opposite course, and of the personal good that follows from cleaving to Him. Am I to be told that Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who went to his martyrdom, and was ‘faithful unto death,’ with the words on his lips: ‘Eighty-and-six years have I served Him, and He has done me nothing but good; how shall I deny my King and my Saviour!’ was yielding to a low motive when to him the crown that the Master promised to the Church of which he was afterwards bishop floated above the head that was soon to be shorn off, and on whose blood-stained brows it was then to fall ? Would that we had more of such low motives! Would that we had more of such high lives as fear nothing because they ‘have respect to the recompense of the reward,’ and are ready for service or martyrdom, because they hear and believe the crowned Christ saying to them: ‘Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.’