The Hour of Temptation
(Revelation 3)
The History of the Church
As noted earlier, there is indication of a
certain parallel between church history and the seven church epistles of
Revelation 2 and 3. This prophetic
interpretation, in fact, has often been taken as the primary meaning of these
chapters, covering the history of the period between John’s time and the
“rapture” of the church. Entire
books have been written developing this one theme.
The problem with this interpretation,
however, is that there is no suggestion in the Scriptures themselves that the
intention of these letters was to outline seven periods of church history. At best, therefore, this could only
have been an incidental and secondary purpose. The format is not one of prophecy, as is true of the rest of
Revelation, but simply of exhortation.
The churches addressed were all real churches, active at the time John
was writing. The symbolic
significance of the seven-part messages to seven selected churches, as pointed
out earlier, is simply that these churches do represent all true churches, in
all nations and all times. The
message to each church is profitable for every church. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what
the Spirit saith unto the churches,” is
the admonition to each church and each reader.
It is possible, on the other hand, that there may be a secondary prophetic application, even though it is not the primary interpretation. Although the prophetic aspects are not so specific that they would have enabled the reader to predict the events before they happened, one can indeed discern some historical parallels in retrospect, some correspondence as the following rough correlation suggests:
Letter to the Church Period in Church History
1. Ephesus Apostolic
Age Before A.D. 100
2. Smyrna Age of
Persecution A.D. 100 - A.D. 313
3. Pergamos Imperial
Church Age A.D. 313 - A.D. 590
4. Thyatira Age of
Papacy A.D. 590 - A.D. 1517
5. Sardis Reformation
Age A.D.
1517 - A.D. 1730
6. Philadelphia Missionary Age A.D. 1730 - A.D. 1900
7. Laodicea Age of Apostasy A.D. 1900 - ?
There is no doubt that many parallels can
be drawn between the conditions described in each church and the corresponding
developments in ecclesiastical history.
At the same time, writers have often seriously strained their exegesis
in seeking to make the parallels more convincing than they actually are.
It is not unreasonable to think that the
Lord Jesus Christ should arrange His seven messages in some logical order,
since He is “not the author of confusion” (1 Corinthians 14:33) and, therefore,
does nothing capriciously. For
that matter, they are arranged in a
logical geographical order, proceeding clockwise around the seven, beginning
with the one closest to Patmos, where John first heard the messages. But it is certainly possible that the
order was also selected to correlate with Christ’s prescient awareness of how
various movements and problems would later develop among churches worldwide.
Since such a prophetic application of
these seven messages is at least equivocal, however, and since there is nothing directly said by Christ to require
– or even to suggest – such an application, a literalistic approach to the
study of Revelation cannot place much emphasis on it. This reservation, however, in no way suggests that the
messages are applicable only to the specific churches to whom they were originally
addressed. The vision of Christ
walking in the midst of seven representative churches is more than sufficient
reason to conclude that the messages apply to all churches in all ages, some to
some churches more than others, and perhaps some to some periods more than
others.
That the messages were intended to apply
to the very end of the church age is evident from the fact that, in some cases
at least, the imminent return of Christ is mentioned in the epistles. This is especially true of the last
four churches – Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Chapter 3 of Revelation concludes the
seven letters with the last three of these, all written, so to speak, in the
shadow of the coming period of judgment, the great tribulation, “the hour of
temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon
the earth” (Revelation 3:10).