Revelation 3:7

Revelation 3:7. The sixth church addressed is that of Philadelphia, a city of Asia Minor, of which it is unnecessary to say more than that it possessed considerable importance, without attaining to the rank of the other cities mentioned in these Chapter s.

To this church the Lord is introduced in terms corresponding to those of chap. Revelation 1:13; Revelation 1:18. The first two parts of the description are founded on the words ‘Son of man' in Revelation 3:13, the third on the statement of Revelation 3:18, that He who is thus spoken of has the ‘keys of death and of Hades.' By the word holy we are to understand not so much one who is free from sin, as one who is consecrated and set apart to the service of God (see on John 17:17); and by the word true, one who is the essence of reality as opposed to one who is only phenomenal and shadowy (see on John 1:9). Both appellations are illustrated by a prophecy of Isaiah that is evidently in the writer's eye, in which the rejection of the false Shebna and the calling of the faithful Eliakim are foretold (Isaiah 22:20-25). The Jews are represented by the one, and they are now deposed from their priestly and prophetic office. The Christ is represented by the other, and He as God's ‘holy' and ‘true' Priest with His people in Him is come to be the Head of that Israel of God, which is to be the ‘salt of the earth,' and the ‘light of the world.' As God's ‘consecrated' and ‘true' one, Christ is the Archetype to which all things point, whether in nature or providence or grace. Everything is ‘fulfilled' in Him.

Further, He is he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no one shall shut, and shutteth and no one openeth. For the signification of ‘key,' comp. on chap, Revelation 1:18. It is neither the key of knowledge, of opening up the meaning of Scripture, nor the key of discipline, of receiving into or excluding from the Church. It is rather the key of power, of that power by which the Lord of glory is Ruler in His own house, the kingdom of God. He is the Way, no one cometh unto the Father but by Him; and against those that come to Him the gates of Hell shall not prevail (comp. Isaiah 22:22). There is thus a much closer connection between this latter part of the description and the two earlier parts than we might at first suppose; for it is as the divinely-commissioned servant of the Most High, absolutely perfect, absolutely ‘true,' comprehending in Himself the essence of all reality, of all enduring and eternal life, that the Son of man is the ‘Captain' of our salvation, the Prince of life who opens and closes the kingdom of heaven on conditions involved in the nature of things, and therefore irreversible by any power in heaven or earth or hell.