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Having considered the recovery of the church, we shall begin in this message to cover the stages of the church.
Revelation is a book of prophecy (Rev. 1:3; 22:7), for the revelation it contains is in the nature of prophecy. Most of the visions refer to things to come. Even the seven epistles to the seven churches in chapters two and three, in the sense of signs, are prophecies regarding the church on earth until the Lord’s coming back.
The seven epistles in chapters two and three of Revelation are the record of the actual situation existing in the seven churches of Asia (1:4) at the time these epistles were written. However, since this book is a book of signs with a prophetic nature, the situations of the seven churches are also signs, signifying prophetically the progress of the church in seven stages. The first epistle, to the church in Ephesus, affords a picture of the church at the end of the first stage, during the last part of the first century. The second epistle, to the church in Smyrna, prefigures the suffering church under the persecution of the Roman Empire, from the last part of the first century to the early part of the fourth century, when Constantine the Great brought the church into imperial favor. The third epistle, to the church in Pergamos, pre-symbolizes the worldly church, the church married to the world, from the time Constantine accepted Christianity to the time the papal system was established in the latter part of the sixth century. The epistle to the church in Thyatira depicts prophetically the apostate church, from the ordination of the papal system in the latter part of the sixth century to the end of this age, when Christ comes back. The fifth epistle, to the church in Sardis, prefigures the Protestant church, from the Reformation in the early part of the sixteenth century to Christ’s coming back. The sixth epistle, to the church in Philadelphia, predicts the church of brotherly love, the recovery of the proper church life, from the early part of the nineteenth century, when the brothers were raised up in England to practice the church life outside all denominational and divisive systems, to the second appearing of the Lord. The seventh epistle, to the church in Laodicea, foreshadows the degraded church life of the brothers in the nineteenth century, from the latter part of the nineteenth century until the Lord’s return.
If we study church history in the light of these seven epistles, we shall realize that these epistles present us a picture of the stages which the church has gone through and will go through until the Lord’s coming back. The sequence is marvelous, with each stage corresponding respectively to one of the seven churches. Therefore, the Lord’s seven epistles to the seven churches depict the stages of the church.
The church in Ephesus depicts the end of the stage of the initial church during the last part of the first century. Because there have been apostles not only at the beginning of the church but also later, it is better to speak of the initial church rather than the apostolic church. Ephesus depicts the church at the end of the initial period.
“Ephesus” in Greek means desirable. This signifies that the initial church at its end was still desirable to the Lord; the Lord still had much expectation in her.
At the end of his Epistle to the Ephesians Paul said a word concerning our love for the Lord Jesus. “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility” (Eph. 6:24). First Timothy 1:17 says that God is incorruptible, and 2 Timothy 1:10 says that the Lord “nullified death, and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel.” First Corinthians 15 tells us that in resurrection the corruptible things will become incorruptible (vv. 50-53). To love the Lord in incorruptibility means to love Him in the new creation. All the things of the old creation are corruptible. This is proved by Romans 8 where we see that the whole creation is groaning under the slavery of corruption (vv. 21-22). Everything of the old creation is corrupting. Only the new creation is not corrupting.
Ephesians 6:24 is a total conclusion of the entire book of Ephesians. In the six chapters of Ephesians Paul surely reveals to us the incorruptible things. Christ is incorruptible, the church is incorruptible, and all the positive items related to Christ and the church in chapters one through six are incorruptible. We must love the Lord in these incorruptible things. This means that we must love the Lord in the new creation and not in the old creation. We must love the Lord according to the Father’s predestination unto sonship, according to the Son’s redemption, according to the Spirit’s sealing and pledging, according to the hope of God’s calling, according to the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, according to the surpassing greatness of His power which made Christ the Head of all things to the church, and according to Christ’s resurrection which made us alive, resurrected us, and seated us in the heavens. We need to love the Lord according to all the incorruptible things revealed in the six chapters of Ephesians; that is, we must love the Lord in incorruptibility.
To love the Lord in incorruptibility is to love Him in the regenerated and renewed spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit. If we do anything in our flesh, that is in corruptibility. I believe that when Paul was writing the book of Ephesians and was giving a conclusion to his writing, he was filled with the feeling that whatever he had taught in the preceding six chapters was incorruptible. Then he concluded by saying that we should love the Lord in incorruptibility.
If we would love the Lord in incorruptibility, we have to love the Lord according to everything revealed in Ephesians. At the end of Ephesians 1 is the church which is Christ’s Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all. This surely does not refer to any religious organization. The church is incorruptible, but religious organizations are corruptible. To stand on the proper ground is something incorruptible. To take any ground other than that of the unique oneness of the Body of Christ kept and expressed in each local church in its locality (Rev. 1:11) is to take the ground as something corruptible. We should not love the Lord in corruptibility; we should love Him in a pure way, in the way of incorruptibility that can stand forever.
The Lord’s word in Revelation 2:4 indicates that the church in Ephesus did not keep Paul’s word. Here the Lord says, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” Although the church in Ephesus had many virtues, it was degraded because it had left its first love. The Greek word for “first” is the same as that translated “best” in Luke 15:22. Our first love toward the Lord must be the best love for Him. The church in Ephesus had left this best love toward the Lord.
As the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:23), the church is a matter of life; as the new man (Eph. 2:15), it is a matter of the person of Christ; and as the bride of Christ (John 3:29), it is a matter of love. The first epistle to the Ephesians tells us that for the church life we need to be strengthened in our inner man that Christ may make His home in our hearts, that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:16-19); and that it is for the church that grace is with all them who love the Lord Jesus (Eph. 6:24). Now the second epistle to the Ephesians reveals that the degradation of the church begins with our leaving the first love toward the Lord. Nothing but love can keep us in a proper relationship with the Lord. The church in Ephesus had good works, labored for the Lord, endured suffering, and tried the false apostles, but she left her first love toward the Lord. Leaving the first love is the source of all the degradation in the following stages of the church.
Because the church in Ephesus left the first love toward the Lord, it lost the enjoyment of the tree of life (Rev. 2:7). In Genesis 2, in God’s creation, the tree of life is mentioned the first time. Here in Revelation 2, in God’s new creation, the tree of life is mentioned for the church’s enjoyment.
The tree of life is a mystery. In order to understand this mystery, we need to come to the Gospel of John, which is a book of life. John 1:4a says, “In Him was life.” “Him” here refers to Christ, the Word, who was in the beginning, who was with God, who was God, and through whom everything came into being. In Him as the Word was life. The Gospel of John fully develops the revelation concerning Christ as life to us. Eventually, in chapter fifteen, the Lord likens Himself to a tree, the vine tree. If we put together John 1:4a and 15:1, we shall realize that the tree of life, the life tree, is Christ the Son of the living God for our enjoyment. However, if, like the church in Ephesus, we leave the first love toward Him, we certainly shall lose the enjoyment of Him as the tree of life.
In Revelation 2:5 we see the consequence of the church’s degradation. Here the Lord says, “Remember therefore whence you have fallen and repent and do the first works; but if not, I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.” The consequence of the church’s degradation is losing the testimony. To lose the testimony simply means to have the lampstand removed. If we leave our first love toward the Lord and do not repent, we shall lose the testimony of the Lord and the lampstand will be removed from us. We must be careful and constantly on the alert to avoid this consequence.
The crucial words in the Lord’s epistle to the church in Ephesus are love, life, and light. The basic requirement for having the church life is our love toward the Lord. There is no problem, of course, with the Lord’s love toward us. He has loved us and He continues to love us. The problem is with our love toward Him. Although we have loved Him in the past and may love Him now, there is the danger that our love for the Lord Jesus might fade. The epistle to the church in Ephesus warns us of this. This epistle also gives us a clear revelation of the source of the degradation of the church life — the fading of the first love. Love gives us the position, the ground, the right, and the privilege to eat of the tree of life. Love gives us the supply of life. If we love the Lord, we shall have the full right to enjoy Him as the tree of life, as our life supply. Light always follows life, issuing out of the abundant supply of life. Life, therefore, gives us light. It is vitally important that we love the Lord. If we have love, then we shall have the life symbolized by the tree of life and the light signified by the lampstand.
In 2:7 we have the Lord’s promise to the overcomer. “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” To overcome in these seven epistles means to overcome the degraded situation of the churches. In the epistle to the church in Ephesus, it means to recover our first love toward the Lord and also to hate the works of the Nicolaitans, the hierarchy which the Lord hates (v. 6).
In 2:7 the Lord says that to him who overcomes He will give to eat of the tree of life. For the proper church life and the recovery of the church life, that is, for the proper growth in the Christian life, what we need is not merely the mental apprehension of teachings but the eating in our spirit of the Lord as the bread of life (John 6:57). Even the words of the Scripture should not be considered merely doctrines to teach our mind but food to nourish our spirit (Matt. 4:4; Heb. 5:12-14).
The word for “tree” in Revelation 2:7, as in 1 Peter 2:24, is “wood” in Greek, not the usual word for tree. In the Bible the tree of life always refers to Christ as the embodiment of all the riches of God (Col. 2:9) for our food (Gen. 2:9; 3:22, 24; Rev. 22:2, 14, 19). Here it refers to the crucified (implied in the tree as a piece of wood — 1 Peter 2:24) and resurrected (implied in the zoe life — John 11:25) Christ who is in the church today, the consummation of which will be the New Jerusalem, in which the crucified and resurrected Christ will be the tree of life for the nourishment of all God’s redeemed people for eternity (Rev. 22:2, 14).
It was God’s original intention that man should eat of the tree of life (Gen. 2:9, 16). Due to the fall, the tree of life was closed to man (Gen. 3:22-24). Through the redemption of Christ, the way to touch the tree of life, which is God Himself in Christ as life to man, has been opened again (Heb. 10:19-20). But in the church’s degradation, religion crept in with its knowledge to distract the believers in Christ from eating Him as the tree of life. Hence, the Lord promises to grant the overcomers to eat of Himself as the tree of life in the paradise of God as a reward. This is an incentive for them to leave the knowledge of religion and to return to the enjoyment of Himself.
The eating of the tree of life not only was God’s original intention concerning man, but it will also be the eternal issue of God’s redemption. All His redeemed people will enjoy the tree of life, which is Christ with all the divine riches as their portion for eternity (Rev. 22:2, 14, 19).
According to 2:7, the tree of life is in the paradise of God. The paradise of God here is not the garden of Eden; it is the coming New Jerusalem. The paradise in Luke 23:43 is the pleasant and restful place where Abraham and all the dead saints are (Luke 16:23-26). But the paradise of God in Revelation 2:7 is the New Jerusalem (3:12; 21:2, 10; 22:1-2, 14, 19) of which the church is a foretaste today. Adam was in the garden of Eden, and Abraham and all the dead saints are in paradise. We are waiting to enter into another paradise, the paradise of God in the New Jerusalem. As we are waiting for this, we have a miniature of the New Jerusalem today — the church life, where we enjoy the Lord Jesus as the tree of life. This enjoyment of the foretaste will usher us into the full taste of the crucified and resurrected Christ as the tree of life, our nourishment of life in the New Jerusalem for eternity.
In today’s church life we are in paradise enjoying Christ as the tree of life. The center of the garden of Eden was the tree of life. Likewise, according to the epistle to the church at Ephesus, the tree of life will once again be the center of the paradise of God. Where is the tree of life today? According to our experience and enjoyment, the tree of life is in the church life. This means that the church life is a garden, a paradise. If we love the Lord Jesus, our church life will be a paradise, and in the center of this paradise will be the tree of life, that is, Christ as our enjoyment. The earth is a wilderness full of desolation and chaos. But the church life is a garden, and in the center of this garden we have the tree of life for our enjoyment.
Our experience of the tree of life in the church life today is a foretaste of the enjoyment in the coming age, when the paradise of God will be the New Jerusalem. Strictly speaking, “to eat of the tree of life…in the paradise of God” in 2:7 refers to the particular enjoyment of Christ as our life supply in the New Jerusalem in the coming millennial kingdom, because this is a promise of reward made by the Lord to His overcomers. In the coming age the New Jerusalem will be a composition of all the overcomers as the heavenly part of the millennium. That heavenly part will be the paradise of God in the coming age with Christ, the tree of life, as the center for our nourishment and enjoyment.
The matter of eating the tree of life brings us back to the beginning, because at the beginning there was the tree of life (Gen. 2:9, 16). The tree of life always brings us back to the beginning where there is nothing but God Himself. In the church life, again and again we need to be brought back to the beginning, forgetting all other things and enjoying Christ Himself as the tree of life.
When we are back to the beginning with the tree of life, we enjoy Christ as the life supply. Eating the tree of life, that is, enjoying Christ as the life supply, should be the primary matter in the church life. The content of the church life depends on the enjoyment of Christ. The more we enjoy Him, the richer the content will be. But to enjoy Christ requires us to love Him with the first love. We must love Him above all things, above our work for Him and whatever we have for Him. By simply loving Him we shall be brought back to the beginning where we care for nothing except the Triune God Himself as our life supply in the tree of life. This is the proper way to maintain the church life and to be kept in the church life.
