The message to Sardis. The title of the speaker (drawn from Revelation 1:4; Revelation 1:16; Revelation 1:20), as general as in the similar letter to Ephesus, has no special bearing on the subsequent address, unless an antithesis be implied between the plenitude of the divine spirit and the deadness... [ Continue Reading ]
ἔμελλον, epistol. impf. σου ἔργα, “any works of thine”. Judged from the Divine standpoint (ἐνωπ. θ.), no matter how satisfactory is the verdict of outsiders upon her or of her own complacency, her condition is decadent.... [ Continue Reading ]
Memory again the lever for repentance (as at Revelation 2:5); εἴληφας aoristic pf. (_cf._ Revelation 5:7, Burton 88) rather than pf. of existing result (Weiss, Bs.); πῶς = our colloquial “how” (practically equivalent to “that”). The melancholy feature about contemporary indifference at S. was that i... [ Continue Reading ]
ὀλ. ὀν. “quasi paucos nominatos, _i.e._, bonos qui nominatione digni sunt” (_cf._ the use of πρίσωπα = persons or individuals, in Clem. Rom. and Ignat.). ἐμόλ. (_cf. Fragment of Uncanonical Gospel, Oxyrhyn_. 2 cent. A.D., line 16 μεμολυμμένος ἐπάτησας, κ. τ. λ.) the sullied garment an emblem of mora... [ Continue Reading ]
ἐν φ. Less than twenty years later an equally favourable account of the local church was given by Ignatius (_ad Philippians 3:5; Philippians 3:5_, Philippians 3:10). ἅγιος κ. τ. λ., Jesus is a messiah indeed, one deserving that honoured name and realising its meaning. The favourite Johannine term ἀλ... [ Continue Reading ]
The message to Philadelphia.... [ Continue Reading ]
οἶδά … ἔργα as in the case of Smyrna implying unqualified approval. The reward of this steadfastness (8 _c_, 10) is threefold: (_a_) security in their relation to God (8 _b_), through the love of Christ for them (9); (_b_) ultimate triumph over their foes (9), and (_c_) deliverance in the final cris... [ Continue Reading ]
διδῶ ἐκ (partit. gen., the construction being dropped and resumed in a rather harsh anacolouthon, ἵνα κ. τ. λ.). The absence of ἐκ before λεγ. does not prevent it from being interpreted as in apposition to συναγωγῆς rather than as directly dependent on διδῶ. On the forms of δίδωμι in Apocalypse see... [ Continue Reading ]
The position of μου shows that it belongs not to τὸν λόγον τῆς ὑπομονῆς as a whole, but to ὑπομονῆς (2 Thessalonians 3:5). The precise sense therefore is not “my word about patience” (_i.e._, my counsel of patience as the supreme virtue of these latter days, so Weiss, Bousset, etc.), but “the word,... [ Continue Reading ]
“You have not long to wait and suffer now”; a fresh motive for tenacity of purpose. Compare with what follows the tradition of R. Simon (in Tract. Shabb. bab. 88 _a_) that on the occasion of Exodus 24:7, the Israelites were each crowned with two crowns by 600,000 angels one when they said _we will d... [ Continue Reading ]
The reward of steadfastness here is a stable relation to God and absolute (trebly verified) assurance of eternal life, permanence ἐν τῷ ναῷ (verbally inconsistent with Revelation 21:22) τοῦ θεοῦ μου (four times in this verse). From Strabo (xii. 868 [905] ἥ τε φιλαδελφία … οὐδὲ τοὺς τοίχους ἔχει πιστ... [ Continue Reading ]
Jesus is _the Amen_ because he guarantees the truth of any statement, and the execution of any promise, made by himself. He is consequently _the faithful and true witness_, whose counsel and rebuke (Revelation 3:18-19) however surprising and unwelcome, are therefore to be laid to heart as authoritat... [ Continue Reading ]
The message for Laodicea, where a church existed by 60 A.D. (Colossians 4:16).... [ Continue Reading ]
The moral nausea roused by tepid religion. It is best to be warm, and energetic; but even a frank repudiation of religion is at least more promising from an ethical standpoint (Arist. _Nik. Eth._ vii. 2 10) than a half-and-half attachment, complacently oblivious of any shortcoming. The outsider may... [ Continue Reading ]
The divine disgust at lukewarm religion. Christ, says the prophet, is sick of the lukewarm: as the purpose (μέλλω) of rejection does not exclude the possibility of a change upon the part of the church which shall render the execution of the purpose needless, advice to repent immediately follows upon... [ Continue Reading ]
Priding herself not merely on the fact but (as is implied) on the means by which it had been secured (_viz._, personal skill, merit) and finally on the independent self-reliant position thus attained: a profuse certificate of merit, selfassigned. To conceit and self-deception the prophet wrathfully... [ Continue Reading ]
The counsel is conveyed in the dialect of the local situation. ἀγοράσαι in the poor man's market (Isaiah 55:1, _cf._ Matthew 6:19-20), significant words as addressed to the financial centre of the district. “From me,” is emphatic; the real life is due to man's relation with Christ, not to independen... [ Continue Reading ]
The prophet now relents a little; the church has still a chance of righting herself. Such a reproof as he has given in Christ's name, and the discipline it involves (παιδεύω, wider than ἐλ.) are really evidence of affection, not of antipathy or rejection. This is the method of God at least (ἐγώ, emp... [ Continue Reading ]
The language recalls Song of Solomon 5:2 (φωνὴ ἀδελφιδοῦ μου κρούει ἐπὶ τὴν θύραν · ἄνοιξον μοι, for contemporary evidence of the allegorical use of Canticles see Gunkel's note on 4 Esdras. 5:20 f. and Bacher's _Agada d. Tannaiten_, i. 109, 285 f. 425, etc.) interpreted in the eschatological sense ... [ Continue Reading ]
δώσω κ. τ. λ., To share Christ's royal power and judicial dignity it a reward proffered in the gospels, but Jesus there (_cf._ Mark 10:40) disclaimed this prerogative. God's throne is Christ's, as in Revelation 22:1. νικῶν = the moral purity and sensitiveness (_cf._ Revelation 3:18 and on Revelation... [ Continue Reading ]