Revelation 2:18

Revelation 2:18. The fourth church addressed is that of Thyatira, a city finely situated in a rich and well-watered district of Asia Minor, at no great distance from Pergamos, but possessing none of the political importance of the latter. It is interesting to notice in connection with Acts 16:14, though it does not concern us at present, that Thyatira was famous for its purple or scarlet dyes. The sun-god was the leading object of worship to the heathen inhabitants of the city; and it has been thought that there is thus a peculiar propriety in the light in which Jesus presents Himself to its church, as One whose ‘eyes are as a flame of fire.' For the description now given of Himself by the great Head of the Church, cp. chap. Revelation 1:14-15. The most remarkable part of it is that in which He designates Himself the Son of God. It was as One ‘like unto a Son of man' that He had been beheld by the Seer in chap. Revelation 1:13, although that description was in no degree intended to exclude the thought of His essential Divinity. He was really the Son of God like unto a son of man. Now, however, the Divine aspect of His person is brought prominently forward, yet not simply because in this Epistle He is to speak of executing judgment, for He both executes judgment in other Epistles, and He does so as Son of man (John 5:27; see note there), but because Divine Sonship is part of that constitution of His person upon which it becomes the Church constantly to dwell. Perhaps also the distinct phase of the Church upon which we enter in the second group of these Epistles may explain the prominence given to the thought of the ‘Son of God.' She has been hitherto regarded in what she is. She is now to be looked at in her struggle with the world (see remarks at close of the seven Epistles); let her learn that ‘God is on her side.'