Are We a Pure People? (Revelation 2:18-29)
Is Christianity intolerant? Some think so. After all, Christianity insists on one truth: The Bible is God’s word, totally trustworthy and true. Christianity insists on one way: To come to God, we must believe in his Son, Jesus Christ. We must believe that Jesus is fully God and fully man, that he died on the cross for sinners, and that he rose from the dead on the third day. We must repent and believe in Jesus. There is no other way of salvation. Some find this too exclusive and narrow—out of step with the inclusiveness of our pluralistic age.
Tolerance has been redefined. Nowadays, even to disagree is seen to be intolerant. Tolerance has been redefined to mean affirming and approving all beliefs and lifestyles as equally valid. To say that someone or something is wrong or false could get us cancelled. The accusation of intolerance is not new to Christianity. In fact, this has been the case since the days of the early church. Writing in the early second century, the Roman governor Pliny expressed his frustration over the refusal of Christians to worship other gods. In a letter to emperor Trajan, he complained about their “stubbornness and unyielding obstinacy”.
But Christians are not always steadfast in standing firm. In the letter to the church in Thyatira, Jesus calls out the church for being too tolerant. He urges them to stop tolerating false teaching and to hold fast to the truth. For the sake of Christ and his gospel, we must be willing to draw some lines in the sand. Jesus Himself does so for the purity of his people. Are we a pure people? This is the big idea of our passage: King Jesus purifies His church, promising that the pure will reign with Him. We will unpack this in two points: (1) The King purifies; (2) The King promises. May the Lord use His word to purify us, that we might receive His promise.
The King purifies (Rev 2:18-23)
As in the letters to the other churches, this one also begins with a description of Jesus that draws from Revelation 1. Revelation 2:18 describes Jesus as having eyes like a flame of fire (Rev 1:14). His vision is pure and piercing. The holy Lord sees and knows everything. He judges justly. Jesus says in Revelation 2:23: “I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.” Jesus’ feet are like burnished bronze. This also points to His purity and holiness. Burnished bronze has been refined and polished to remove any impurities or blemishes. Jesus is the holy one whose feet are stable and strong. He does not have feet of clay. Jesus refuses to compromise with evil, He will judge sin. Jesus is a friend of humble and contrite sinners, but He opposes the proud and unrepentant.
Jesus is also the Son of God. This is the only place in Revelation that refers to Jesus in this way. The title “Son of God” recalls God’s covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7, where God promises to establish the throne of David’s descendant forever. God says, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.” The Son of God is the anointed one—God’s chosen King to rule over his people. In our text, Jesus quotes from Psalm 2, which also speaks of the Son of God’s kingship. In the Psalm, God says, “I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” And, the King says in response: “The LORD said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.’” (Ps 2:6-7) Jesus reminds the church in Thyatira that He is the Son, the true King, not Caesar. The Roman emperor called himself a son of god, but his kingdom will not last. The Christians in Thyatira need not be afraid of the imperial cult. Like them, we do not have to be intimidated or impressed by worldly power. Fear the Lord, not man. Jesus is the true King.
The Lord sees the church’s situation and diagnoses its condition. He says in Revelation 2:19: “I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.” Jesus commends the church for doing and growing in good works. These works include their love for the Lord and for one another. The works include their continued trust in the Lord. The works include their faithfulness in serving the Lord and one another, as well as their perseverance.
Regardless of how long we have been Christians, we are to become more and more like Jesus.
Not only is the church in Thyatira doing good works, but it is also growing in the faith. Their latter works exceed the first. They are different from the church in Ephesus, which had lost its first love. Jesus admonishes the Ephesians to “do the works (they) did at first”. The Thyatirans, by contrast, were growing in good works. How are we making progress in the faith? Next week, we’ll gather to pray and give thanks for our church’s 67th anniversary. As we look back on God’s past faithfulness, it is also an opportunity for us to reflect on our present and look forward to the future. Do not be content to rest on past laurels. Regardless of how long we have been Christians, we are to become more and more like Jesus. How are we growing in love and faith and service and patient endurance? How do our latter works exceed the first? Let us consider how the Lord is calling us to keep making progress.
Although Jesus has serious concerns about the church in Thyatira, it is encouraging that He does not overlook the good. The Lord, who searches hearts and minds, knows the faithfulness of his people, even amid their problems. We may be discouraged by our spiritual struggles. We may be disheartened by challenges in the church. But take heart that the Lord sees our acts of love and deeds of faith. He is not harsh or hyper-critical. We should also show the same grace to one another. Be patient with the church, thankful for the good that the Lord is doing among us. Do not only notice each other’s faults and flaws. Be grateful for the evidence of grace, godliness and growth we see in one another’s lives. Encourage one another.
Because the Lord loves His church, He seeks her health and holiness. Ephesians 5 tells us that Jesus gave Himself up for the church, “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish”. Holiness is the Lord’s will for his church. So, He purifies us to be His holy people.
We were once dead in our sins and unholy. We lived for ourselves and did not worship God. We rightly deserved God’s judgement and wrath against us. But God, in His amazing grace and boundless love, did not leave us in our sin. He sent His Son, Jesus, to save us. Jesus laid down His life at the cross. He bore God’s wrath in the place of undeserving sinners, so that we can be cleansed and forgiven if we believe in Jesus to save us. Jesus was raised from the dead, defeating sin and death. In Christ, we are made alive and reconciled to God to be His holy people.
For this reason, the Lord cannot tolerate anything that corrupts the holiness of his people. Jesus cares deeply about the beauty of His Bride, the church. He jealously guards her purity. Hating sin is not hateful if it is motivated by love for Christ’s beloved. If you truly love someone, you will not tolerate anything that hurts them. It would be wrong to remain indifferent or idle when our loved one is in harm’s way. There are good and godly limits to tolerance. We cannot simply live and let live. To do nothing is to fail to love.
Therefore, the Lord calls out the church’s sin in Revelation 2:20: “But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.” Despite the church’s strengths, it is failing to address significant and serious sin among its own members. And this threatens to destroy the wellbeing of the whole church. The church is doing nothing about a false teacher in their midst. Jesus calls her Jezebel. This is probably not her actual name, but Jesus is drawing a parallel between this false teacher and her infamous namesake in the Old Testament. The Old Testament Jezebel belonged to a pagan nation, but Israel’s King Ahab broke faith with God and married her. As is often the case when one marries outside of the faith, the unbelieving spouse leads the other away from God. Jezebel led Ahab and Israel into idolatry. She executed God’s prophets and threatened to kill Elijah too. The Jezebel in Thyatira is also causing great harm to God’s people. She calls herself a prophetess, claiming to speak with divine authority. But she is nothing but a false teacher instigating idolatry and immorality. The Lord’s servants are supposed to serve Him, but Jezebel is seducing them to forsake Him. Beloved, beware of the seductive temptation of sexual sin, whether it’s pornography or any sexual activity outside of marriage. Flee from sexual immorality. The world normalises sexual sin, but do not be deceived. Immorality and idolatry tend to go together; sexual sin will lead us away from the Lord.
Thyatira’s sins are similar to the worldliness of the church in Pergamum. But the situation in Thyatira seems more severe. The problem is not just that false teaching had infiltrated the church. Even worse, the church was allowing the false teacher to set up shop. Why? It may be because Jezebel is telling them what their sinful desires want to hear. The pull of worldliness was especially strong in Thyatira, which was a centre for trade and industry. There was a lot of money to be made in the city. In Acts 16, Paul was instrumental in the conversion of a wealthy businesswoman from Thyatira named Lydia. Thyatira was known for its trade guilds, which played a big part in the economic and social life of the city. To be successful, you had to join a guild. But joining a guild also meant worshiping its god. And, idol-worship meant participating in pagan parties, which were notorious for gluttonous feasting, drunken revelling and sordid sex. But quitting a guild meant losing your standing in society. It hurt your job prospects and livelihood. Being faithful to Jesus probably means poverty and persecution.
This made Jezebel’s teaching especially attractive to the church in Thyatira. What is more, she claimed to know what some call “the deep things of Satan” (Rev 2:24). To sound more impressive, false teachers often claim to have some unique knowledge. Beloved, be very careful of any teaching that claims to be some special revelation. Many heresies say the same thing. But in actual fact, Jezebel’s teaching was not all that original. It was similar to that of the Nicolaitans (Rev 2:15). She taught that one could follow Jesus and still take part in pagan practices. In other words, it is okay to be a Christian and to be worldly. You can love Jesus and keep loving the world. This is similar to false teachers today, who say we can follow Jesus without having to turn away from our sin. Or, those who turn faith into a means of worldly gain. Or, those who promote a shallow “gospel” of easy-believism without genuine repentance and faith. They claim one can be a “Christian” yet show no real change in life. False teaching is tempting because it tells us what our flesh wants to hear. It promises comfort without conversion, a crown without cost. But any teaching that offers Christ without the cross cannot save.
Thyatira’s problems are the inverse of those of Ephesus. Ephesus had discernment but lacked love; Thyatira had love but no discernment. Truth and love must go together. Maybe the church in Thyatira did nothing about Jezebel because it wrongly thought it was unloving to judge. Jesus rebukes them for failing to address serious, unrepentant sin in the church. The church must call Jezebel and her followers to repent. If they refuse, they must be put out of the church. Biblical church discipline is not harsh or unloving; it seeks the repentance and spiritual good of the one who is sinning. For example, in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul urges the church to discipline an unrepentant man “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord”. Biblical church discipline is a loving wake-up call. In essence, the church is saying to the person, “Because of your pattern of persistent unrepentance, we can no longer biblically affirm that you are living as a Christian.” Loving, honest clarity is needed because sin is deceptive. When we are ensnared by sin, we are blind to our own spiritual state. We need the church to clarify for us where we really stand before the Lord. Church discipline is a gracious warning of sin and its consequences, in the hopes of bringing a person back to the Lord. It is one of the ways the Lord purifies his people. Church discipline is not the end of love, rather it is love intensified. Love compels us to take action in the hopes of bringing back those who have strayed. The church is to exercise judgement now, so that sinners can be rescued from a far worse judgement to come. Our love for the Lord compels us to protect the purity of his church, to guard the church’s walk and witness from sin.
Look at Revelation 2:21. The Lord was longsuffering with Jezebel, giving her time to repent. Beloved, may we not harden our hearts when the Lord brings our sin to our attention. Sometimes, he works through other believers speaking the truth in love to us. May we not react proudly or defensively, and reject loving correction. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. (Prov 12:15)” Jezebel refused to repent. Do not be like her and take the Lord’s patience for granted. His kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. Because the church in Thyatira failed to take action, the Lord himself will do it. Revelation 2:22-23 tell us the consequences of unrepentant sin. Those who keep walking in Jezebel’s ways are guilty of spiritual adultery, for they have been unfaithful to the Lord. Jezebel and her followers will suffer sickness and great tribulation. The Lord’s judgement will be seen, so that all the churches will know that Jesus is the holy and just judge who searches mind and heart. If they refuse to repent, the Lord will strike Jezebel and her children dead. They will die in their sins and face the second death — the final judgement and the punishment of hell. These are sobering verses. Do not take sin lightly. Jesus will return to judge. Unless we repent, we also will likewise perish.
The Lord will give to each of us according to (our) works. This does not mean we are saved by works. Our works do not earn salvation; we are saved by Christ and His righteousness alone. But our works are the evidence that we have repented and believed in Jesus. Faith in Christ is the root that nourishes the good fruit of a new and holy life. Do our lives show evidence that we are continually turning from sin and turning to the Lord? How are we following the King who purifies His people?
The King promises (Rev 2:24-29)
Thankfully, not everyone in the church buys into Jezebel’s lies. There is a faithful remnant who continues to believe the truth. In Revelation 2:24-25, Jesus encourages them to keep going: But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come. The Lord is merciful and kind. The one who sees everything knows our trials and troubles. He will not burden us beyond what we can bear. In fact, Jesus invites us to cast our cares on him. He says to us, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt. 11:29)
Jesus’ words recall what the apostles and the elders said in Acts 15:28-29: “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols… and from sexual immorality.” Jesus assures us that salvation is by His grace alone. He does not burden the church in Thyatira with any other requirements that add to the gospel. Rather, Jesus calls the church to press on in the gospel. He calls them to continue doing this one thing: Hold fast to Him till the end. Keep believing and living according to the truth of His gospel. Just as they have been doing, they are to do so more and more. Persevere in the Lord. This is Revelation’s main encouragement to us: Endure in Christ until He returns. We will receive the final reward if we do not give up.
The Lord calls us to be faithful in guarding His gospel.
The Lord calls us to be faithful in guarding His gospel. Be watchful. Cherish the gospel, for we will protect what we love and treasure. Do not let our hearts grow cold to the good news that Jesus saves sinners. It is easy to assume the gospel and to take it for granted. Or, maybe we have become callous about our sin. But if we make little of our sin, we will make little of Jesus. If we think our sin is “not such a big deal”, we will think the same of what Jesus has done. In a while, we will be celebrating the Lord’s Supper together. Take the opportunity to consider the perfect purity and holiness of the Lord. King Jesus is of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong. He will not and cannot let our sin go unpunished. Apart from His grace and mercy, how shall we escape his judgement and wrath? Let us come to the table with hearts grateful for the gospel.
Have we become bored of the gospel? Have we grown tired of hearing God’s word, and responding in repentance and faith? Maybe we think the ordinary means of grace are too, well, ordinary. So, we start looking for spiritual “short-cuts”. Like those who keep chasing after new health fads, we keep looking for “the next big thing” to boost our spiritual life. But following fads will not lead to better health. We may be tempted to go “beyond” the gospel, to new things that tickle our ears. For example, seminary professors teach wrong and false doctrine to their students because it sounds more “edgy and exciting” than “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jud 3). This might have been a reason why the church in Thyatira was captured by Jezebel’s teaching. They wanted to learn more about the deep things she claimed to know. It is as Paul describes in 2 Timothy 4: “People will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
Beloved, beware of going beyond God’s truth and leaving the gospel behind. Hold fast what we have until the Lord returns. Hear and heed Jesus’ words. Revelation 2:29 says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” This is not just a message for the church in Thyatira, it is an urgent exhortation to all churches, including our church today. Hold fast, because of Jesus’ pledge to those who conquer. We conquer by clinging to Christ. The Lord purifies his church, promising that the pure will reign with Him. To those who hold fast to the truth of His gospel and do not tolerate false teaching, Jesus promises the kingdom and the King.
Jesus promises the kingdom. Listen to Revelation 2:26-27, “The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to Him I will give authority over the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.” The letter to the church
in Thyatira began by alluding to the Son of God in Psalm 2. It closes with another reference to Psalm 2. The Son will be King over the nations; he will possess the ends of the earth. The Son shall “break them with a rod of iron and dash them in piece like a potter’s vessel” (Ps 2:8-9). But Jesus quotes these words in Revelation and applies them to the church. Amazingly, the glorious Son of God shares His authority with his people. The wonderful promises of Psalm 2 are for us too, if we continue to trust in the Son of God. He purifies us, that we might reign with Him.
If we trust and obey the Lord until the end, He will entrust us with the authority to rule over the nations. The saints, who are oppressed and persecuted in the world, will one day be vindicated. We may suffer and struggle now, but if we persevere in Christ, we shall share in His glory and reign with Him. The creation mandate given to Adam and Eve to have dominion over the earth will be gloriously fulfilled in the new creation by all who belong to Jesus. What will this rule look like? Paul gives us a hint in 1 Corinthians 6: The saints will judge the world, even the angels. Jesus confers on us the privilege of ruling as His representatives over all of creation.
But even more than a kingdom, Jesus also promises us the King. In other words, He gives us Himself. Look at Revelation 2:28 — “And I will give him the morning star.” This promise echoes an Old Testament prophecy given by God through Balaam in Numbers 24:17: “A star shall come out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel.” The morning star is none other than King Jesus himself. Listen to His words in Revelation 22:16: “I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” King Jesus does not just promise us a kingdom, He pledges Himself to us. The Lord is the glory and joy of the new creation. We long for heaven because we long for the Lord. He is our everlasting portion and very great reward. We yearn for the day when we shall live with the Lord forever in the new heaven and new earth. He will put all things right. He will make all things new. Suffering and sorrow will be no more. On that day, we shall behold the glory of the Lord. We will need no lamp or sun, for He will be our light. We will be glorified with the Lord and reign with Him forever and ever. The Bride will behold her dear Bridegroom’s face.
Because King Jesus loves His own and desires our eternal good, He will not tolerate false teaching and sin. Neither should we. Jesus purifies us, that we might dwell as His pure people in His presence forever. So, listen to the Lord. Hold fast to him. Pay attention to His word “as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet 1:19).