Revelation 2:1–7

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent. Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 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.’ ” (2:1–7)

While love for the Lord Jesus Christ will always be present in true Christians, it can fluctuate in its intensity. Christians will not always love Jesus Christ with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to fail to do so is sin. There is no better illustration in Scripture of the seriousness of allowing love for Christ to wane than this letter to the church at Ephesus.

The seven churches addressed in chapters 2 and 3 were real existing churches when John wrote.. Five of the seven churches were rebuked for tolerating sin in their midst, not an uncommon occurrence in churches since. The problems in those five churches ranged in severity from waning love at Ephesus to total apostasy at Laodicea.

Christ may have addressed the Ephesian church first because it was first on the postal route, it was also the most prominent church of the seven. It was the mother church out of whose ministry the other six were founded (Acts 19:10) and gave its name to the inspired letter of Ephesians penned four decades earlier by the apostle Paul. The contents of this first letter form the pattern for the other six.

Christ Speaks to the Churches

The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, (2:1)
The phrases the One who holds the seven stars in His right hand and the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands are taken from the description of Christ in John’s vision.
I know your deeds,” he says. You cannot hide from him. We might fool the our leaders, but we can’t fool Christ.

The Church in Ephesus

The gospel was introduced to that city by Paul’s close friends and partners in ministry, Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:18–19).

The apostle Paul stopped briefly in Ephesus near the end of his second missionary journey, but his real ministry in that key city took place on his third missionary journey.

Paul’s work at Ephesus would last for three years (Acts 20:31

According to the testimony of the early church, the apostle John spent the last decades of his life at Ephesus, from which he likely wrote his three epistles in which he calls himself “the elder” (2 John 1; 3 John 1). He was no doubt leading the Ephesian church when he was arrested and exiled to Patmos.

The striking conversions of large numbers of Ephesians posed a severe economic threat to the city’s pagan craftsmen.

Ephesus was the center of the worship of the goddess Artemis (known to the Romans as Diana), whose ornate temple was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. At the instigation of a silversmith named Demetrius the craftsmen, who saw their lucrative business endangered, reacted violently. The ensuing riot threw Ephesus into chaos (Acts 19:23–41).

The City of Ephesus

Although not its capital (Pergamum was the province’s official capital), Ephesus was the most important city in Asia Minor, the Roman governor resided there . Its population in New Testament times has been estimated at between 250,000 plus.

The city’s theater, into which the frenzied rioters dragged Paul’s companions Gaius and Aristarchus (Acts 19:29), held an estimated 25,000 people.

Ephesus was the primary harbor in the province of Asia. (By law incoming Roman governors had to enter Asia through

Ephesus.) The city was located on the Cayster River, about three miles upriver from where it flowed into the sea. Those disembarking at the harbor traveled along a magnificent, wide, column-lined road (the Arcadian Way) that led to the center of the city.

Ephesus was also strategically located at the junction of four of the most important Roman roads in Asia Minor. That, along with its harbor, caused some to describe Ephesus as the market of Asia.

Ephesus was most famous as the center of the worship of the goddess Artemis (Diana)—a point of great civic pride (Acts 19:27, 35).

The temple of Artemis was Ephesus’s most prominent landmark. Because its inner shrine was supposedly very secure, the temple served as one of the most important banks in the Mediterranean world. The temple and its environs also provided sanctuary for criminals. The sale of items used in the worship of Artemis provided an important source of income for the city (cf. Acts 19:24). Every spring a month-long festival was held in honor of the goddess, complete with athletic, dramatic, and musical events.

The worship of Artemis was unspeakably vile. Her idol was a gross, monstrosity, popularly believed to have fallen from heaven (Acts 19:35).. The temple grounds were a chaotic group of priests, prostitutes, bankers, criminals, musicians, dancers, and frenzied, hysterical worshipers. The philosopher Heraclitus was called the weeping philosopher because no one, he declared, could live in Ephesus and not weep over its immorality

Huddled in the midst of such pagan idolatry that characterized Ephesus was a faithful group of Christians. It was to them that Christ addressed this first of the seven letters.

The Church is Commended

I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary.… Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (2:2–3, 6)

The Lord’s knowledge in each of the seven letters is complete and full knowledge. The Lord of the church knows everything there is to know about the church, both good and bad.

This is a disciplined church. It doesn’t mean they hate everybody in society who’s nasty. It means that in the church, if somebody practices evil, they’re removed. They can’t stand evil being practiced constantly among them. Then, as if the point is not strongly enough made here, it’s repeated in verse 6. “You have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”

The point is that there are religious practices, moral practices, perhaps, certainly a religious outlook. The exalted Christ hates their practices, and these Christians are commended because they hate them too.

Here is the question.

What practices today we we hate?

If there are no practices that you hate, is there something wrong with you?

I mean, are there any practices that Christ hates? Shouldn’t you hate what Christ hates?

This hate is not self-righteous self-promotion. We know, some people going around hating things, and all they’re doing is justifying themselves. It’s not some deep, principled, moral revulsion against that which God detests. It’s just a form of self-righteousness. Their ego is on the line. “

It’s a genuine principled alignment with the mind of God, so that if God hates certain evils, we do too. Otherwise, we’re less than faithful to God. How else can you put it?

These Ephesians have in their favor that they can’t tolerate endless wicked men. They have tested those who claim to be apostles. This is a discerning church. At the time, the church was expanding so fast they didn’t have enough good teachers around, so there were a lot of itinerant teachers.

Just because these teachers come in and spout a good line, just because they come in and claim to be orthodox, just because they come in and talk about Jesus and his death and resurrection, just because they seem to be do-gooders and help a lot, this church isn’t snookered.

This church tests them. It wants to find out what they live like. It wants to find out what their doctrine is.

Perseverance denotes patience in trying circumstances. This commendation indicates, despite their difficult circumstances, the Ephesian believers remained faithful to their Lord.

Another praiseworthy aspect of the Ephesian believers was that they refused to tolerate evil men. They held to a high, holy standard of behavior and were sensitive to sin, undoubtedly following the Lord’s mandate to practice church discipline (Matt. 18:15ff.).

False teachers pose a constant danger to the church. Jesus warned of “false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15). The Didache, an early Christian manual of church order, also warned of the danger of false teachers:

Welcome every apostle on arriving, as if he were the Lord. But he must not stay beyond one day. In case of necessity, however, the next day too. If he stays three days, he is a false prophet. On departing, an apostle must not accept anything save sufficient food to carry him till his next lodging. If he asks for money, he is a false prophet.

The letter to Pergamum links it with Balaam’s false teaching that led Israel astray. The deeds of the Nicolaitans thus involved sensual temptations leading to sexual immorality and eating things sacrificed to idols (2:14) without regard for the offense of such behavior (Rom. 14:1–15:3)—all in the name of Christian liberty.

It has been suggested that “the teaching of the Nicolaitans was an exaggeration of the doctrine of Christian liberty which attempted an ethical compromise with heathenism”

Irenaeus wrote of the Nicolaitans that they “lived lives of unrestrained indulgence”

Unlike the church at Pergamum, the Ephesian church did not tolerate the Nicolaitans but hated their heretical teachings. For that the Lord Jesus Christ commended them. Hatred was an appropriate attitude and exactly the opposite reaction to the tolerance of the Pergamum church toward the Nicolaitans (2:14–15).

The Rebuke

But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. (2:4)

Despite all the praiseworthy elements in the Ephesian church, the penetrating gaze of the Lord Jesus Christ had spotted a fatal flaw. Though they maintained their doctrinal orthodoxy and continued to serve Christ, that service had degenerated into mechanical orthodoxy.

At one time they had love Eph. 1:15, forty years later the affection of the first generation of believers had cooled. The current generation was maintaining the doctrine handed down to them, but they had left their first love.

There is much speculation on what that first love was. Surely it includes love for God and Christ, love for each other, and love for the lost. It is love defined as obedience (2 John 6).

2 John 6 And this is love, that we should walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, even as ye heard from the beginning, that ye should walk in it. 7

They had sunk to the place where they were carrying out their Christian responsibilities with diminishing love for their Lord and others.

There’s no joy in the Lord left. They’re doing it because they do it. “We’re Christians. We do that sort of thing.” There’s no love for the Lord in it anymore.

They may even be secretly proud that they’re persevering when all of the other people sort of drift away. A bit like Peter. “Though all others fail you, yet not I.” You know what happened to him.

Genuine Christianity, vital Christianity, real Christianity, though it includes doctrinal elements and moral elements and all the rest, also includes an element of delight in the living God, love for him. If you persevere because you have to, it’s better than not persevering. They are commended. But it’s not enough. What is needed is the kind of delight in God that truly loves him, that wants to know Christ, that is pleased with his love. Isn’t that what we want?

The grave danger of that situation is aptly illustrated by the disaster that ensued when Israel’s love for God cooled. Through Jeremiah, God rebuked His people for forsaking Him: Jeremiah 2:2ff

“For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2:2–13)

As it had in Israel, the honeymoon had ended at Ephesus. The loss of a vital love relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ opened the doors to spiritual apathy, indifference to others, love for the world, compromise with evil, judgment, and, ultimately, the death of the church altogether.

Despite its outwardly robust appearance, a deadly spiritual cancer was growing at the heart of the Ephesian church.