Bird's-eye view
The book of Revelation opens with seven letters to seven actual, historical churches in Asia Minor. The first of these is addressed to the church at Ephesus, a congregation that was, by all external measures, a model of success. The Lord Jesus Christ, speaking as the one who is intimately present with and sovereign over His churches, delivers a report card. He begins with robust commendation. They are hard-working, doctrinally sound, and have uncompromisingly rejected false teachers and evil practices. They have endured persecution without quitting. But then comes the hammer blow: "I have this against you, that you have left your first love." Their doctrinal and ethical integrity, while essential, had become detached from its source. They had maintained the truth but lost the passion for the One who is the Truth. The letter is therefore a gracious, but urgent, call to remember, repent, and return to their initial devotion, enforced by a severe threat: lose your love, and you will lose your light. The church that ceases to be a witness to the love of Christ will cease to be a church of Christ.
This letter sets the stage for all the others, establishing a crucial principle: orthodoxy and orthopraxy, right belief and right practice, are not enough. They must flow from a heart of fervent, active love for the Lord Jesus. Without this, a church is just a well-polished machine, a whitewashed tomb, a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. It is a warning against the dead orthodoxy that is a perennial temptation for any church that takes truth seriously.
Outline
- 1. The Letter to Loveless Orthodoxy (Rev 2:1-7)
- a. The Speaker's Authority: Christ Among the Churches (Rev 2:1)
- b. The Commendation: A Strong Doctrinal Report Card (Rev 2:2-3, 6)
- i. Their Labor and Endurance (Rev 2:2a, 3)
- ii. Their Doctrinal Discernment (Rev 2:2b)
- iii. Their Hatred of Evil (Rev 2:6)
- c. The Rebuke: Abandoned First Love (Rev 2:4)
- d. The Command: Remember, Repent, Repeat (Rev 2:5a)
- e. The Threat: Removal of the Lampstand (Rev 2:5b)
- f. The Promise: Access to the Tree of Life (Rev 2:7)
Context In Revelation
This is the first of seven letters dictated by the glorified Christ to the apostle John. These are not allegories for seven church ages, but rather letters to seven real, first-century congregations that were grappling with issues that are common to churches throughout history. Ephesus was a prominent city, the capital of the Roman province of Asia, and home to the great temple of Artemis. Paul had spent three years there, and it was a center of apostolic ministry. This church had a rich pedigree. By placing this letter first, Christ addresses the most subtle and dangerous temptation for a mature, established, and doctrinally sound church: the temptation to substitute a love for correctness for a love for Christ. This letter establishes the supremacy of love as the foundation for all Christian labor and discernment, a theme that echoes throughout the rest of the book.
Key Issues
- The Authority and Presence of Christ in His Church
- The Relationship Between Doctrine and Devotion
- The Nature of "First Love"
- The Sin of Dead Orthodoxy
- The Nicolaitan Heresy
- Corporate Covenantal Standing (The Lampstand)
- The Meaning of "Overcoming"
Orthodoxy Is Not Enough
We live in an age of doctrinal mush, where feelings are king and objective truth is treated as a form of bigotry. In such a time, it is tempting for those who hold to the truth to see doctrinal precision as the whole of the Christian life. We rightly want to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And so we read the commendation of the Ephesian church and we want to cheer. They tested the apostles, they found them to be liars, they hated the deeds of the wicked. Amen to all that. But the Lord Jesus, who walks among the lampstands, sees more than just the doctrinal checklist. He looks at the heart of the church, and He can see the difference between a bride who loves her husband and a curator who loves the museum pieces. The Ephesians had become excellent curators of the faith, but they had ceased to be ardent lovers of the Bridegroom. This letter is a permanent warning that it is possible to get all the answers right on the test and still fail the class. Right doctrine is the trellis, but love for Christ is the vine that is supposed to grow on it. A trellis by itself is just a skeleton in the garden.
Verse by Verse Commentary
1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: This is what the One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says:
The letter is addressed to the "angel" of the church, which most likely refers to the messenger or, more specifically, the leadership or pastor of the congregation. But the message is from the highest authority. Jesus identifies Himself in two ways. First, He holds the seven stars, the angels of the seven churches, in His right hand. This is a declaration of His absolute sovereignty and control over the leadership of the church. Pastors are not their own; they are held by Christ. Second, He walks among the seven golden lampstands, which are the churches themselves. He is not an absentee landlord. He is present, active, and observant. His knowledge is intimate and firsthand. This introduction establishes that what follows is not secondhand gossip or a distant critique; it is the direct assessment of the Head of the Church, who is on the ground and knows the situation perfectly.
2 ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot bear with those who are evil, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false;
Christ begins with genuine, hearty commendation. He sees their work. "I know your deeds." He sees their toil, their hard labor, and their perseverance, their patient endurance. This was not a lazy church. But their labor was not undiscerning. They could not "bear with those who are evil." They practiced church discipline. They had a backbone. Furthermore, they were theologically sharp. When men came claiming apostolic authority, the Ephesians did not just roll over. They "put them to the test." They were Bereans. They examined their claims against the apostolic doctrine they had already received, and they exposed these charlatans as frauds. In an age of sloppy tolerance, this is a ringing endorsement. They valued truth and were willing to fight for it.
3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, you also have not grown weary.
He repeats the praise for their perseverance, adding that they have endured all this for "My name's sake." Their motivation was, at least outwardly, correct. They were not laboring for their own reputation, but for the honor of Christ. And they had not grown weary; they had not quit. They were steadfast, consistent, and resilient. By any external metric, this church was an A plus student. They worked hard, they endured hardship, they hated evil, they tested doctrine, and they did it all in the name of Jesus.
4 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
After all that praise, this rebuke lands with stunning force. The word "but" here is one of the most jarring in Scripture. Despite all their admirable qualities, they had a fatal flaw. They had "left" their first love. This was not a matter of the love growing cold or fading slightly; the verb implies a definite act of departure, of abandonment. What is this "first love"? It is the ardent, all-consuming devotion that marks a new believer or a new bride. It is the love that is not just a dutiful commitment but a passionate delight. It's the love that makes obedience a joy, not a grind. They still had the machinery of Christian service and doctrinal defense, but the engine of love had been removed. Their orthodoxy had become a joyless, loveless grind. They were still doing all the right things, but for the wrong reasons, or rather, without the primary reason.
5 Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first. But if not, I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.
The diagnosis is followed immediately by a three-part prescription. First, remember. They are to look back and recall the height of devotion from which they have fallen. This is a cognitive act. They need to think about what that early love was like. Second, repent. This means to change their mind, to turn around and go back the other way. It is a decisive rejection of their current state of loveless duty. Third, do the deeds you did at first. This is crucial. Christ does not tell them to recapture a feeling. He tells them to return to the actions that characterized their first love. Love is a verb. The feelings of love are often the fruit of the actions of love. The warning that follows is severe. If they do not repent, Christ will come in judgment and remove their lampstand. This means He will revoke their status as a true church. Their light will be extinguished. A church without love for Christ is, in His eyes, no longer a church at all, no matter how orthodox its confession.
6 Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
Christ softens the blow with one more piece of commendation, sandwiching the rebuke between praise. He gives them credit where it is due. They hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans. While we don't know everything about this group, they were almost certainly antinomians, people who taught that grace gives a license to sin, particularly sexual immorality. The Ephesians rightly hated this doctrine and practice. And Jesus says, "which I also hate." This is significant. True love for Christ means loving what He loves and hating what He hates. The Ephesians were still good at hating. Their problem was on the other side of the ledger. This commendation shows that they were not completely apostate; there was still something to work with, a foundation upon which to rebuild.
7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’
The letter concludes with a general call to attention for all the churches and a specific promise to the victor. The one who "overcomes" is the one who heeds Christ's warning and repents. The Christian life is a battle, and in this context, the battle is against the internal decay of loveless orthodoxy. To the one who fights this battle and wins, the promise is to "eat of the tree of life." This is a promise of restored Eden. It is a promise of eternal life, of full and unhindered communion with God. The way back to Paradise is through a restored love for the Lord of Paradise. The loveless church is on the path to death; the repentant, loving church is on the path to the tree of life.
Application
The message to Ephesus is a piercing word for the modern conservative church. We who value sound doctrine, who fight against the tide of theological liberalism and moral compromise, are in constant danger of falling into the same trap. We can become so focused on defending the ramparts of the faith that we forget to cultivate our love for the King within the castle. We can become professional heresy-hunters, more defined by what we are against than by who we are for.
This letter calls us to a radical self-examination. Is our service to God a joy or a drudgery? Is our study of theology a means of knowing Christ better, or an end in itself? Do we love the truth more than we love the God who is Truth? If we find that our love has grown cold, the command is not to wallow in guilt or try to gin up some sentimental emotion. The command is clear: Remember what it was like. Repent of the coldness. And get back to doing the things you did when your love was fresh and vibrant. Serve, give, worship, pray, and fellowship not as a duty to be checked off, but as an act of love to the One who first loved us. For if we gain the whole world of doctrinal precision but lose our love for Christ, we have lost everything.