Revelation 2:9

Revelation 2:9. The first words of the address to the church, as given in the Authorised Version, ‘I know thy works,' are to be omitted both here and in Revelation 2:13, the salutation to the church at Pergamos. They are found in all the other Epistles, and we may be assured, therefore, that their omission in these two places is designed. We shall venture to offer what seems the most probable explanation in the general remarks on the Epistles as a whole at the close of chap. 3. Three features of the condition of the church at Smyrna are noticed: (1) I know thy tribulation. The word ‘tribulation' is to be understood in the general sense of affliction, suffering, but with a special reference to persecution brought upon believers for stedfastness in their Master's cause (comp. John 16:33); (2) And thy poverty (but thou art rich). Like all the churches of that early time, the church at Smyrna was composed of members for the most part poor. ‘Not many rich, not many noble, were called.' But in the possession of a better inheritance it was ‘rich,' ‘rich in faith, and an heir of the kingdom which the Lord promised to them that love Him' (James 2:5); (3) And the blasphemy of them which say that they themselves are Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. The ‘blasphemy' referred to probably includes not simply reviling against Christians, but against their Lord. Then, as now, the Jews were notorious for the fierceness of their language against Christ, to whom they did not hesitate to apply every epithet of contempt and hatred (comp. 1 Corinthians 12:3; James 2:7).

The most interesting inquiry here has relation to the meaning of the word ‘Jews.' Before endeavouring to answer it, it is of importance to observe that the word is not directly employed either by the Lord or by the Seer in His name. The persecutors and blasphemers referred to used it of themselves. They said that they were Jews. But none would so use the term except such as really were Jews alike by birth and by religion; while, in so using it, they intended to assert that they were the true people of God, and that Christians had no title to the place which they were endeavouring to claim as His. It is now denied by the Author of the Epistle that the term had any proper application to them. Had they been truly Jews, Jews in any proper sense of the word, they would have taken up an altogether different attitude towards Christ and Christianity from that which they actually occupied. They would have seen that in the faith of Jesus the purpose of their own Mosaic economy was fulfilled; and they would have cast in their lot with the Christian Church. They did not do so. Instead of believing in Jesus, they were everywhere the chief stirrers up of hatred and persecution against His followers (Acts 14:19; Acts 17:5; Acts 17:13, etc.). How could they be Jews? The Jews at least worshipped God, and assembled in His synagogue to study the Law and the Prophets; of these blasphemers it could only be said that they were a synagogue of Satan. It is not denied that the word ‘Jews' is thus used here in an honourable sense; and, accordingly, it has often been urged that we have in this a proof that the Author of the Apocalypse cannot have been also the Author of the fourth Gospel, inasmuch as in the latter those named ‘the Jews' are the embodiment of everything that is most hard and stubborn and devilish. Two answers may be given to the charge: (1) St. John does not originate the word, he only quotes it; and (2) the expression is not the same as that used in the Gospel, there ‘the Jews,' here ‘Jews.'

It may be noticed in passing, that when we compare the use of the word ‘synagogue' in the verse before us with its use in James 2:2, where it is applied to the Christian congregation, it seems not unnatural to think that we are dealing with a point of time much later than that at which St. James is writing. That mixing of Jews and Christians in the same congregation, which had marked the dawn of the Church's history, had come to an end. A complete separation had taken place between the adherents of the old and the new faith. Christians were a ‘church,' the Jews alone met in ‘synagogue.'