Relationship and Rectitude: Daily Thoughts from Revelation (Revelation 2:18-29)

Would you be happy with your child if he didn’t love you or want relationship with you as long as he did the right things? If he did want relationship with you but tolerated all sorts of misbehavior, would you be happy?

For Jesus to be happy with his church there must be both relationship and righteousness.

“And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: ‘The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.  “‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come. The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ “ (Revelation 2:18-29 ESV)

The Thyatirans are doing what Jesus told Ephesus to do, but failing at what Ephesus already was doing, exposing and disciplining false prophets. The false prophet at Thyatira was a woman who advocated participation in the sexual immorality and sacrifices of the pagan cultus.

The ESV Study Bible note is excellent:

The self-proclaimed prophetess who endorses idolatry and immorality resembles Jezebel of Tyre, who married Israel’s King Ahab and violently imposed Baal-worship on the northern kingdom (1 Kings 16:30–33; 19:1–2). Many scholars think “Jezebel” represented an actual woman “prophetess” who was leading people astray in the church of Thyatira. In any case, she symbolizes the prostitute Babylon, who seduces through pleasure and luxury as well as ruthless violence (Revelation 17).

This church or someone in it has challenged this woman to repent but she has not.  So Jesus will judge her and all those who follow her unless they repent.

But there are those who have not yielded to the temptation of her teaching.  The ESV note is good here, too:

Jesus’ eyes distinguish sincere believers from those who abandon God’s Word to search elsewhere for the deep things of Satan, deceptive promises of secret spiritual knowledge through false religions. Those content with the gospel have nothing to fear and no other burden, as long as they hold fast.  

The ESV note on the last section bears quotation:

The “Son of God” (v. 18) will share with the one who conquers his own authority to rule the nations (Ps. 2:7–9). The morning star is Christ himself (cf. Rev. 22:16), Israel’s ruler and rescuer, who was foreseen by Balaam, the unwilling seer (Num. 24:17). Premillennialists see here a reference to reigning with Christ in the millennium (cf. note on Rev. 20:4–5).

I am one such premillennialist. Again, Jesus is declaring that those who evidence conquering and keeping his works until the end are the true believers who will reap the rewards of the kingdom. As his church, we must stay true both relationally and doctrinally.