Acts 2:42-47 1 John 3:11-18; 4:7-21 Revelation 2:1-7 John 13:34-35
The Sermons to the Seven Churches: The Church of Loveless Orthodoxy (2)
As I was meditating on the text and praying for God to lead me in the writing of this talk, I sensed the Lord leading me to a passage found in Mark 10:17-22. A wealthy man ran up to Jesus and knelt before him and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” After Jesus listed several commandments from the Law, the man replied, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”
Now, I want you to notice that Mark records Jesus looking at him and loving him…Jesus looked at him and loved him. Before we rush on the next bit, I want us to think about this. What does that mean? Jesus looked at him and loved him. Whatever else love entails, it surely means that Jesus approved of what the man had said. The man had kept all the commandments since childhood…in other words, he was a devout believer in God…he was, what we would call, orthodox. He had dotted every “i” and crossed every “t”…just like the church in Ephesus. Perhaps we could say that he had loved the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength.
As James said, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:15-17)
Bearing these things in your heart, let’s now turn to our passage in the Revelation. If you recall, in last Sunday’s talk, we saw that Jesus commended the Ephesian church for its orthodoxy…they walked the talk…they kept and guarded the faith…they did not tolerate evil people and rejected any form of false teaching. In short, Jesus commended them for their steadfast adherence to accepted, established, and correct doctrine and belief, as opposed to heterodox or heretical views. Perhaps we could say that he looked at them and loved them. By their uncompromising loyalty, they too had demonstrated that they loved the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.
But, as with the young man in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus pointed out to them an essential missing mark of a true believer. “But I have this against you,” Jesus said, “that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”
What I was taught back in the dark ages, was that the “love” the Ephesians had abandoned was their love for God, basically because that is what many older commentaries taught. But as Jeff Weima and others point out, it may be the love for others that Jesus was addressing.
Ask yourself, would Jesus have commended this church so warmly and applauded them for their orthodoxy if they had ceased to love him? Indeed, would they have endured hardship for the name of one they no longer loved? Surely, they would have taken the easier option of compromise, like the Nicolaitans, had they abandoned their love for Jesus.
Indeed, to correct this failure to love, Jesus said they needed to do the works that they had done before. What are the works they are meant to do? What are the “works” they “did at first”, if the love they had abandoned was their love for God? Remember, Jesus had already commended them for their works of doctrinal orthodoxy. Just like the man in the Gospel of Mark, they had honoured and kept God’s Word. So, it seems that the Ephesian problem was not a lack of doctrinal commitment or zeal or love for God or love for his Word.
Perhaps it would be helpful if we looked at the way John used this word “love” in his other writings. Of all the four Gospels, only John recorded Jesus as saying: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
It is instructive to note here that Jesus did not say that people would know we are his disciples by our orthodoxy…by our sound doctrine…by our sound teaching or preaching…but by our love for one another…which, in many ways, ought to be orthodoxy in practice. Indeed, writing many years later, the North African Church Father, Tertullian described how nonbelievers marvelled at the mutual love of the Christians, reporting that pagans would say “See, how they love one another!’ and how they are ready even to die for one another!”
If this is the abandoned love Jesus was referring to, then it is no wonder then that the consequence of not loving one another is the removal of the lampstand. A loveless church repels rather than attracts people because lovelessness does not reflect the one who is love.
In 1 John (3:16-18, 4:10-11, 19-21), John wrote about how our love exhibits our relationship with God by mirroring his character. “By this we know love,” John said, “that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth…In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another…We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
So, while love for God is certainly biblical, the predominant usage in Johannine literature is horizontal…believers loving one another. But it is important for us to note that while the orthodoxy of the Ephesian church was a praiseworthy virtue, it was also apparently a failing for them. Their greatest strength was, in fact, their greatest weakness! Their ‘hatred of heresy had bred an inquisitorial spirit which left no room for love’ and they had become insular, inward-focused, an exclusive club, if you will, where only card holding members were welcome. Their orthodoxy had “apparently engendered hard feelings and harsh attitudes toward one another to such an extent that it amounted to a forsaking of the supreme Christian virtue of love. Doctrinal purity and loyalty can never be a substitute for love.”
True, love for others cannot ever be complete without love for God, which is the opposite end of the spectrum, currently so prevalent in the modern church. Indeed, love for others in the modern church has largely eclipsed love for God and his Word…but the converse is equally true: without love for others, truth becomes brittle, mission collapses, and the lampstand is in danger of removal.
Jesus had warned that within that generation (Matthew 24:34), “…many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:11-12). Paul’s letter to the Ephesians emphasized love for others as central (Eph 1:15; 4:2, 15–16; 5:2), which may suggest a long-standing concern for the Ephesian believers: that orthodoxy must be balanced with love in practice. Paul told them that as they spoke “the truth in love” they would “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:15-16) And he concluded his letter with the charge: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)
Indeed, his words to the Corinthians echo the same sentiment. “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2-3) How far the Ephesians had fallen…to the point where they could be considered nothing.
If they chose to persist in their loveless orthodoxy, Jesus warned that he would come to them (a well-known Old Testament symbol of divine visitation to either judge or bless as we have seen before) he would come to them and destroy their church. This may sound harsh but think on it. A loveless “church” is not a church…why? Because it lacks the one thing by which it would be known as a church of Jesus Christ. It is by our love for one another that we are known to be followers of Jesus. You can be ever so pure doctrinally, obey every commandment, hate those who are evil, test and reject all manner of falsehoods, move mountains, sacrifice everything you have…but if you do not have love, you are not a disciple of Jesus.
Whoever has an ear, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
However, Jesus did not end on a negative note. “To the one who conquers,” he said, “I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Every sermon concluded with a positive statement of victory, expressed using the Greek word “nikao” which means to overcome, to win, to conquer, or to prevail. This word was used by John some 24 times, indicating that the idea of victory in Jesus was a given and is equated with faith in 1 John 5:4-5: “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes (nika) the world. And this is the victory (nike) that has overcome (nikesasa) the world—our faith (pistis). Who is it that overcomes (nikon) the world except the one who believes (pisteuon) that Jesus is the Son of God?” The word was often used as a metaphor for either athletic contests or military conflicts as a form of the word is the name of the female deity “Nike”, the goddess of victory.
The reward for overcoming the world through faith would have been obvious for 1st century readers. Eating from the Tree of Life in the Paradise of God was and is a symbol of total reconciliation with God…not only are true believers forgiven, united to and re-created in Jesus, but God has also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6). We who live in Jesus are presently in Paradise with him. You see, coming to share in the Table of Jesus is more than a ritual…it is a re-enactment of what is reality for those who are in him.
In the light of this sermon addressed to the church in 1st century Ephesus, may I ask you to reflect on our own life as a church here in Heiloo. I think we would hope to view ourselves as orthodox…but is it possible that we are lacking something? As we have seen, a passion for the truth can eclipse our passion for others. The church has been described before as the “only army that shoots (and buries) its wounded.” (Keith Millar/Freddie Gage) So, how can we make sure we are both orthodox and loving?
The best test would be to measure ourselves against a description of a healthy church found in Acts 2:42-47. “And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
I recently wrote the lyrics to a song based on this text. And as we sing this song together now, would you ask the Holy Spirit to help you take the “love test”, as it were?
May we who have ears to hear, hear what the Spirit says to us. Shall we stand and sing together?
Come Share His Table / Together Strong
Tertullian, Apology 39.
Caird, G. B., The Revelation of St. John the Divine. New York: Harper & Row, 1966, 31.
Ladd, G. E., A Commentary on the Revelation of John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972, 39.