The Church in Tribulation
In recent decades, there has been much theological disputation as to whether or not the Church will go through the tribulation. The fact is that every real church must endure some degree of tribulation. “We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). The church at Smyrna is the Lord’s choice to illustrate the suffering church and its needs.
Revelation 2:8. And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive.
Smyrna was also a port city, about
thirty-five miles north of Ephesus.
It survives today as Ismir, in Turkey. One of John’s converts, Polycarp, served as a minister there
until his martyrdom about A.D. 155.
No greater comfort could be addressed to a persecuted church than to be reminded that the Lord was still in their midst and that He Himself, as the Creator and Heir of all things, had already conquered death. In Him, they were certain to gain the ultimate victory.
Revelation 2:9. 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.
The
Smyrna Christians were not only persecuted but impoverished as a result of
their stand for Christ.
Nevertheless they were wealthy because they were laying up treasures in
heaven (Matthew 6:20) and possessed “the true riches” (Luke 16:11). Paul also noted that true “ministers of
God” would be “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many
rich; as having nothing; and yet possessing all things” (2 Corinthians 6:10).
There was another problem. As Ephesus was plagued with men who
said they were apostles but were not, so Smyrna was beset by men who said they
were Jews but were not. As false
apostles are “ministers of Satan” (2 Corinthians 11:15), so false Jews
constitute a “synagogue of Satan.”
Their very claim to be Jews (and therefore God’s chosen people) is
blasphemy, Christ says.
There was, indeed, a very large community
of Jews in Smyrna, and these strongly opposed the church and the gospel. They were directly instrumental in
persuading the Roman officials of the city to execute Polycarp. The records say they even carried logs
to the pyre on which he was burned.
But these were real Jews, in the physical
sense at least. It is possible
that the Lord is here referring to the fact that, in God’s sight, those who are
truly Jews are Jews who are spiritually in tune with God’s will and thus have
received the Lord Jesus as their Messiah (Romans 2:28, 29; John 8:39; Romans
9:6-8). This is a doubtful
interpretation, however, for the New Testament everywhere continues to call
those who were born of Jewish stock Jews regardless of whether they were Jews
spiritually. It would hardly be
surprising, let alone blasphemous, for the Jewish colony in Smyrna to call
themselves Jews, since everyone else did too.
The probability is that this reference denotes a group who were claiming to be Jews spiritually, but were not Jews, either physically or spiritually. The church had been burdened almost from its inception with Jewish converts who did not want to separate themselves from the synagogue fellowship and from their lifelong customs, and so were trying to impose circumcision and other aspects of the Old Testament ritual and national ordinances upon the church – not only the Jews in the church but the Gentiles as well (Acts 15:2; Galatians 2:14; Colossians 2:16). These “Judaizers” influenced many Gentiles, and soon many of these came to believe that conversion to Christianity meant, in effect, conversion also to Judaism and that the latter was to be perpetuated, with some modifications, in the church. Eventually this would lead to a monstrous system of works-salvation and almost a complete disappearance of the doctrines of salvation by grace and justification by faith. As one group of false teachers, in Ephesus, wanted to continue the Apostleship, so the other, in Smyrna, wanted to continue the priesthood. Eventually the two merged in a vast worldly system, with an imaginary apostolic succession and an elaborate visible priesthood, both having (as Nicolaitanes) conquered the laity and placed them again in legalistic bondage under a complex system of ritualistic ordinances, sacrifices, and penances. This system was experiencing its embryonic develop-ment among cliques in such churches as that in Smyrna, where the heavy outward pressure of the large colony of ethnic Jews was encouraging such compromise.
Revelation 2:10. 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.
Although suffering, including imprisonment
and even martyrdom, would be the lot of many in Smyrna, as well as in countless
other churches through the centuries, the gracious word from Christ is: “Fear
not!” Not even death can separate us from the love of God in Christ (Romans
8:38, 39) and the martyr’s promised “crown of life” (see also James 1:12) will
far overbalance the testing he is called to endure in this life.
The phrase “ten days of tribulation” has
been variously interpreted. Some
have taken it to mean ten years of special persecution which was coming to the
church in Smyrna, perhaps being climaxed in the burning of Polycarp, their pastor. But, if that were so, why did Christ
not say “ten years?” Further, how
could this be applied to all other churches?
Many, assuming that Smyrna specifically
represents the period of the great Roman persecu-tions of the church in the
second and third centuries, have tried to enumerate ten waves of persecution,
the last under Diocletian just before the conversion of Constantine. But such a list is forced and very
arbitrary at best. And again, why
would not Christ have predicted such a situation plainly if that were His
meaning?
The intent of the passage is obviously to
prepare the church for intense suffering and yet to assure them it would be
very brief and ephemeral in contrast to the endless ages of glory beyond
it. As Paul had said, “For our
light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding
and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
If we assume the “ten days” to be a
symbolic expression designed to contrast the brevity of the suffering with its benefits,
is there any reason for mentioning “ten days” instead of, say, “seven days” or
some other small number? The most
likely parallel reference is in the Book of Daniel, which of course is a book
quite intimately related to Revelation.
There, right at the beginning of his ministry (just as Smyrna is at the
beginning of the Church Age and the beginning of the Book of Revelation),
Daniel and his three Jewish friends offered to undergo “ten days” of what might
seem to outsiders to be sacrifice and deprivation (Daniel 1:2, 14, 15) on a
diet of only pulse and water.
Instead of hurting them, however, this ten days of “proving” or
“testing” (Daniel 1:14), produced most salutary results. “And in all matters of wisdom and
understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better
than all . . . in all his realm” (Daniel 1:20). Ten days of testing, in Daniel’s case, then yielded over
seventy years of uniquely effective service for God.
Just so, Christ assures Christians in Smyrna and all other suffering churches that a brief “ten days” of testing will, if accepted with a resolve to be “faithful unto death,” yield a crown of life and glory that will be ten times greater when Jesus comes. Furthermore, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” and a patient endurance of unjust persecution has always been one of the church’s most potent tools of evangelism.
Revelation 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.
What Christ says, “unto the angel of the church” is the same as “what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” The glorified Lord gives the message, John writes the message, the angel guards and assures the arrival of the message, then the Spirit speaks the message to listening ears and open hearts.
And the wonderful promise to those who
overcome fear and, in their work for Christ, remain steadfast unto death is
that death in this world is entrance to life in a better world where they will
never face a second death. Those
who die without Christ, however, will also die again (Revelation 20:12-14).