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The Book of Revelation 3:7-13To the Church in Philadelphia Revelation 3:7-137. "And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens: 8. "I know your works. Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9. I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but are lying—I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you. 10. Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth. 11. I am coming soon; hold fast to what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. 12. If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God; you will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. 13. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches." The city of Philadelphia was founded about 150 years before Christ to spread Greek language and culture in the province of Asia and was called "little Athens" because of all its Greek temples. When the city was demolished by the great earthquake of AD 17, it was rebuilt with generous help from the Roman emperor Tiberius. The grateful city renamed itself Neocaesarea in honor of the emperor. Later, it was named Flavia, the family name of another emperor, Vespasian, but the old name Philadelphia could not be shaken off in spite of these attempts. Christ is characterized as the holy one, the true one. This characterization is the only one among the seven in chapters 2 and 3 that does not come from chapter 1. It is significant that in Revelation 6:10 the same characterization is applied to God, thus giving us an insight into John's high Christology. The Jewish synagogue in Philadelphia, mentioned in verse 9, would of course consider it a blasphemy to accord Jesus such divine honors. In view of such Jewish objections, it is entirely to the point that Christ is further described as the one who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens, a clear allusion to Isaiah 22:22. In Isaiah the reference is to Eliakim who is promised authority as a steward to open and shut the royal palace. John sees Jesus as the one who has the key to the new Jerusalem, mentioned later in verse 12 and chapter 21:2. Christ offers the church in Philadelphia these encouraging words: I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. This is particularly significant in view of what Christ says next: I know that you have but little power. This church did not have much strength. However, since what Christ says to this church is unqualified commendation, much like that of the church in Smyrna, Christ was not rebuking the church for weakness. The weakness of this church was not spiritual in nature. It was rather economic, social and political powerlessness. Can anything be more radically topsy-turvy than God's empire being offered to folks who are a bunch of nobodies? It seems rather odd that throughout the Bible it is the weak with whom God works. In the Old Testament, for example, God chose Hebrew slaves in Egypt as his own people and liberated them from their life of misery. Jesus repeatedly made the same point to his disciples, who had a hard time understanding or appreciating his message. When they were arguing about who might be the greatest in the kingdom of God, Jesus said, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves" (Luke 22:25-27). One cannot imagine a more graphic picture of weakness than the Son of God hanging in agony and utter humiliation on a Roman cross. The apostle Paul understood the irony of it when he said, "For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God" (2 Cor. 13:4). In the same way, Paul understood perfectly that it is the weak who can experience the grace of God to its fullest degree. When he prayed three times for God to remove his thorn in the flesh, he received this answer: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." Paul goes on to say, "So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:9-10). The culture of the world in which we live, no less than the culture of the Roman Empire when John wrote Revelation, covets and celebrates power, not weakness. Even we who are Christians can barely escape the lure of power. The world of sports, politics, economics, corporations, military armament, you name it, all testify to the notion that power is good and weakness is bad. Yet Jesus says to the Philadelphian Christians that he knows that they are weak. He says this not as a put-down but as an encouragement. He was saying to this church that he understood where they were because he himself had been there. He himself experienced what it meant to be weak. As Marva Dawn puts it, "Revelation… will help us discover and understand the victory of weakness, a discipline of willingness to suffer. In our post-Christian age we are much like the believers for whom John wrote The Revelation. Christianity is not really in charge in our culture anymore, so it must be lived in the modern world from a minority position." -1- To spur Christians on in their time of affliction, Christ says to them, "I have set before you an open door." The open door was the entrance to another city, the New Jerusalem (see v. 12). Christ sets an open door before this weak, vulnerable, and marginalized group of Christians. Although much more will be said about the New Jerusalem in chapter 21, it is necessary to point out here that the open door that Christ promises is not simply something to hope for in the next world after death. The New Jerusalem, as chapter 21 will clearly describe, comes down from heaven and is very much present on earth. The open door represents all the rich possibilities of God's resources made available to people who find their own resources pitifully meager in view of the immense challenges of living in a pagan culture. However, the open door does not only offer Christians reassurance, encouragement and hope, but also a call to courage, faith and commitment. The open door is a call to Christians to go where the majority of people in Philadelphia would not go. It is much more fashionable to be citizens of the Roman Empire than to be citizens of an invisible empire that goes by the name New Jerusalem. In spite of immense pressures to be aligned with the norms and assumptions of the world around them, these Christians remained faithful to Christ. So Christ says to them, I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Living for Christ, keeping his word, confessing his name was costly. In order to prosper, be recognized, and be successful in that culture it was necessary to play the games that the dominant culture played, such as emperor worship, civic celebrations that invoked the blessing of the gods and goddesses, and religious activities in pagan temples involving worship, dining, music, dancing and even sexual indulgence. In these ways, good citizens were expected to demonstrate their loyalty to their city, province, and empire, while having a good time. In addition to the challenges that the pagan culture posed for Christians, there was also the hostility of the Jewish synagogue in the city. We have earlier noted Jewish opposition to Christians in Smyrna (2:9). Most likely, the same sort of issues brought conflict between the Jewish synagogue and the Christian community in Philadelphia. John, who was himself Jewish, presents Christ's charge against the Jewish synagogue in highly provocative language. He says that the Jewish synagogue was really a synagogue of Satan because the Hebrew word satan means "adversary." The people of the synagogue say that they are Jews and are not, but are lying. Instead of siding with their Jewish brothers and sisters in the Christian community and taking a strong stand against the pagan culture of Philadelphia, the people of the synagogue were betraying their own Jewish heritage by blending too readily with paganism. Jesus says something else to the church in Philadelphia that he did not say to the Christians in Smyrna: I will make them [those belonging to the synagogue] come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you. To understand the significance of these words, it is necessary to note how much of it is an echo of what God said to Israel during and after its exile to Babylon. In the second half of the book of Isaiah (chapters 40-66), God assures the exiled people of Israel that he has not forgotten them. Let us note these words from Isaiah: Isa 43:4 Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. Isa 49:6 "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." 49:7 Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the slave of rulers, "Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you." Isa 51:4 Listen to me, my people; hear me, my nation: The law will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations [NIV]. There is an irony, in a strange sort of way, in the words of Christ to the church in Philadelphia. What was said in Isaiah to Jewish exiles who had suffered at the hands of gentiles is now in Revelation addressed to the church in Philadelphia that was made up mostly of gentile Christians. Whereas in Isaiah it was gentiles who would come and recognize the Jewish people as God's beloved and be converted to the worship of Yahweh, now in Revelation it is the Jewish people who would come and recognize a predominantly gentile group of Christians as God's beloved. The coming of the synagogue Jews and bowing before the feet of Christians is not meant to be a groveling, begrudging, and forced recognition of Christians as the people of God. Just as in Isaiah the prophetic vision was that gentile nations would be genuinely converted, experience God's salvation, and become the people of God, so now in Revelation John anticipates that Jews will be genuinely converted to Jesus and confess him as Messiah and Son of God. The church, the people of God in Christ, made up of Jews and gentiles, becomes the true Israel. Contrary to Hal Lindsey, John Hagee, and others who see the state of Israel in the Middle East today as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, the real fulfillment is what God has done in Christ to give birth to the church as the new Israel. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find hard evidence that a national, ethnic, and military state such as modern-day Israel would be God's method of fulfilling Old Testament prophecies. The book of Revelation is fully consistent with the rest of the New Testament in this regard. Here is another promise that Christ makes to the church in Philadelphia: Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth (v. 10). We need to raise a couple of questions about this promise. First, what is this hour of trial that is coming on the whole world? Second, what does it mean that Christ will keep Christians from the hour of trial? The hour of trial coming on the whole world is most likely an anticipation of widespread pressures on Christians to conform to the culture of the Roman Empire. Although there may have been sporadic persecution of Christians here and there in late first century AD, systematic persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire did not come until later. The hour of trial that will test the whole world is more likely the tremendous pressures that the culture of the Roman Empire will exert on the whole world to accept and live by its agenda. There are those who interpret this coming trial as the Tribulation with a capital T in the end-times. The problem with such an interpretation is that Christ's promise to the Christians in Philadelphia would be pointless, since proponents of a Tribulation on a grand scale at the end of the age would be long after the lifetime of Christians in the first century. As with any book of the Bible, the best place to begin would be to understand the historical setting in which a book was written and try to see what the writing would have meant to those first hearers and readers in that historical setting. Only when we understand what it meant for them then, can we understand what it means for us now. Christians in Philadelphia, though weak in many respects, patiently endured the testing of their faith and kept the word of Christ. Therefore, Christ promises to keep them from the hour of trial that will be even more intense and widespread than heretofore. But how exactly will Christ keep them from such an hour? Those who have adopted grand scenarios of end-time Tribulation have also proposed various theories of rapture that would snatch Christians out of the world before Tribulation comes on those who are "left behind." Is this the meaning of Christ's promise to Christians that he will keep them from the hour of trial? In the Greek New Testament, the exact phrase "keep from" occurs only here in Revelation and in the prayer of Jesus for his disciples in John 17:15, which the NASB translates, "I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one." So what is the point? Simply this, that Christ's promise to Christians is not that he would snatch them out of the world to help them escape the time of testing, but that he would be with them right in the middle of it to sustain them when the pressures seem too hard to bear. If this interpretation is on the right track, then what Christ says next makes sense: I am coming soon; hold fast to what you have, so that no one may seize your crown (v. 11). There would be no point in holding fast if Christians are going to be taken out of the world to escape a supposed Tribulation. And what would be the point of alerting them that someone may seize their crown? In fact, the very promise of a crown means that Christians have before them a race to run, a testing to undergo, a marathon to endure. And finally, if Christians are going to be snatched away to escape so-called Tribulation, what would be the point of Christ's word to the church in verse 12, If you conquer…? Christians can be conquerors as they remain faithful to Christ in a hostile culture. As with some of the other messages of Christ to the churches, so also here Christ says, I am coming soon. Christ's coming to the churches seems to be for different purposes. Sometimes his coming is for judgment, other times it is for encouragement, as here in Philadelphia. We cannot assume that every time Christ says he is coming he means his final coming on the clouds of heaven. It seems to make better sense to think of various individual comings tailored specifically for the church in question. This may be analogous to what Jesus says to his disciples in the Gospel of John. He tells them that he will come to them, but his coming seems to mean several things. For example, in John 14:18-19, Jesus says, "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live." This coming seems to refer to his appearance to them after his resurrection. On the other hand, in John 14:3, his coming is for taking them to himself after going and preparing a place for them. In the same way, Christ's coming in Revelation seems to carry different meanings in the different messages to the seven churches. It would be wise not to settle for a single meaning every time Christ speaks of his coming. This is similar to some church people saying, "God came in a powerful way" when describing a church service where God's presence was extraordinarily intense. The final promise that Christ makes to Christians in Philadelphia is in verse 12. Actually, it is not a single promise but a whole series of promises, although all connected together. First, he says, If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God. The irony is that Christ makes this promise to Christians who did not have much strength. How can weak people be made into pillars? This is indeed how amazing grace works. But what exactly is God's temple that can use weak people as pillars? Some Old Testament prophets envisioned that in the last days all nations will gravitate toward Jerusalem and worship Israel's God in a rebuilt temple (for example, Zechariah 14:16). But John tells us in Revelation 21:22 that he saw no temple in the New Jerusalem, "for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb." In the new creation, God's temple is obviously not a physical building. God and the Lamb are the temple, and its pillars are people like Philadelphian Christians who, though weak in many respects, are enabled to persevere in their faithful allegiance to an empire that most people don't have the eyes to see. Being a pillar in God's temple means permanence, as indicated in the next phrase, you will never go out of it. These words would have been particularly meaningful for people in Philadelphia because frequent and potent earthquakes led to mass evacuations. Finally, Christ promises to write three different names on those who remain faithful: the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. This sort of language would not be strange to people familiar with the Old Testament. Aaron's headdress was supposed to have a gold plate attached to it with the inscription, "Holy to the LORD" (Exodus 28:36), meaning that Aaron was consecrated to God. So also Christians with God's name on them meant that they belonged entirely to God. The inscription of the name New Jerusalem on Christians meant that they were citizens of this city coming down from heaven, which John will describe in great detail in Revelation 21. The inscription of names on individuals is a prominent feature in Revelation. "Revelation is a book containing numerous graffiti." -2-. The name New Jerusalem being written on Christians is particularly significant in view of the fact that we will find later in Revelation that another name must be inscribed on the hand or forehead of people in order for them to buy or sell anything. This other name is that of a creature called "the beast," which is a code name for the Roman Empire. According to Revelation 13:16-17, the beast "causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name." The inscription of Rome's name on the hand or forehead is most likely a symbolic way of saying that Rome expects people to show public loyalty to the Roman system of religion and politics in order for them to have a share in Rome's economic wellbeing. Christ promises to write the name of another city on faithful Christians who refuse to sell their souls to the state. So the question becomes: which name do you want on your forehead, Rome or New Jerusalem? This is the trial that Christians must endure to be conquerors. The third name that Jesus will write on conquering Christians is his own new name. This would have been particularly meaningful to Philadelphian Christians because the city had been given a new name twice in its history. Although there is no indication here as to what new name Jesus was promising, we have seen in previous passages various names and characterizations of the exalted Christ, most significantly in John's vision of Christ in chapter 1. In biblical tradition, a new name meant a new status, function, or role. The resurrected and exalted Christ received a name that he did not have when he emptied himself and took on the form of a servant in his earthly life and ministry. Paul put it this way in Philippians 2:9-11: "Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." However, as John sees it, this new name and exalted status of Christ is not a matter of public knowledge yet. John will tell us later that Christ "has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself," but a bit later John is given a peek at the name that was inscribed on Christ's robe and on his thigh: "King of kings and Lord of lords" (Revelation 19:11-16). Is this the name that Christ promises to inscribe on Christians? It may well be. If Philadelphian Christians were to tell their pagan neighbors that there was One who was King of kings and Lord of lords, they would respond, "Yes, we know. It's Domitian." Even though Christians in Philadelphia lived under the shadow of Rome, their identity derived not from the name of Rome but from the name of God, the name of New Jerusalem, and the new name of Jesus. It took a lot of courage, readiness to endure suffering, and willingness to accept their weak status in society in order to remain faithful to an alternate empire that Rome did not know much about. Discussion Questions1. Do you agree that the church today has a minority status and therefore must acknowledge its weakness before it can experience Christ's empowering grace? 2. Do you believe that the church of Jesus Christ is the true Israel, or is the state of Israel in the Middle East the true Israel? 3. Why does God allow trials and afflictions to happen to Christians? What does Christ mean when he says, "I will keep you from the hour of trial"? Notes1. Marva J. Dawn, Joy in Our Weakness: A Gift of Hope from the Book of Revelation. Eerdmans, 2002, p. 17. 2. David E. Aune, Revelation 1-5. Word Biblical Commentary, Word Books, 1997, p. 245. |
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