Revelation 2:12-17
12 “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword. 13 “‘I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 14 But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. 15 So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’
What we find in the church in Pergamum are a group of Christians who Jesus finds worthy of commendation because they stood firm in their faith in the face of opposition. But is that enough?
Jesus is introduced as the One who has “the sharp two-edged sword.” This is a striking image given that most depictions of Jesus in our culture are those of the peace loving, all inclusive, never having a beef with anyone Shepherd who calls upon His people to love their enemies. It is true that He is the King of Peace, making peace between His people and the Father by the giving of His own life for the forgiveness of their sins. But for His enemies, Psalm 2 warns “Kiss the Son, let he be angry and you perish in the way for his wrath is quickly kindled,” and the unrepentant in Pergamum are told He will come against them with the sword of His mouth.
Before saying this, however, He does as He did with the church in Ephesus- He commends them for what they are doing right. He starts by saying “I now where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is.” What does He mean by that? Pergamum was the center for the worship of the Roman gods Athena, Dionysis, Trajan and Severus. The temple to Zeus sat upon a hillside that overlooked the city and the altar within it was like a throne. The temple to Asclepius, the serpent god, was also there and the serpent became one of the emblems of the city. In addition to all of this, Pergamum was the center of the Roman government for the region. It had a temple to the Emperor Augustus and referred to itself as the “temple warden” of a temple dedicated to Caesar worship.
All these set up in opposition to the rightful King Jesus. And Satan stands behind it all.
It will be images like this that we will need to remember as we move forward. In Revelation 13 we will find the dragon giving the beast power and his throne and great authority. What is that referring to? We are getting clues as we go.
Given all of this, we can only imagine how difficult it would be for Christians living there. They would have been expected to offer sacrifice to this variety of gods and to venerate the emperor. This is the backdrop behind the commendation that Jesus gives to them for holding fast to His name and not denying His faith. How strong in their convictions must they have been! Jesus says, “Even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness who was killed among you.” Even then. We don’t know anything about Antipas excepting that he was likely a minister.
We can gather a couple things from Jesus’ commendation:
1) Jesus knows when you are being faithful. He sees it and He finds your faithfulness commendable.
2) He knows faithfulness comes with a price and that it can be very difficult for you to hold fast to your faith. We might say that Jesus empathizes with your plight when you face opposition.
3) And it isn’t just “you” as a collective body of believers that He notices, but it is “you” as an individual. He calls “Antipas” by name. Had Antipas ever actually met Jesus? Not likely. What would Antipas have thought if someone told him, “You know what, Jesus is watching you, He sees your faithfulness and, one day, He is going to single you out for praise, calling you an example of what it looks like to be a faithful witness.” How do you think Antipas would have responded? Well, Jesus has His eyes on you and we know from 1 Peter 1:7 that your faith will result in praise from Jesus’ lips when He reveals Himself to you on that final day. Antipas’ experience may be different, but the fact of the Savior’s attention to the details of our lives is not.
This should all be of great encouragement to us.
But it is also a warning because, among those details that He notices, are not simply the times when we are tested but also the ways in which we live our lives in light of who we are in Christ.
After commending Antipas, Jesus continues, “But, I have a few things against you.”
Specifically, “There are some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.”
So, despite their holding fast the name of Jesus, there were two failings in the church:
1) The failure of “some” regarding their personal walk of holiness.
2) The failure of the larger whole tolerating the actions of the “some” who are among them.
These two failures are so bad that, if the church does not repent, Jesus says He will come to wage war. While it is the “some” among them who are in error, the call is for the whole to respond in a manner that is good for everyone in involved.
These failings centered on the teachings of Balaam and the Nicolaitans. We’ve already been introduced to the Nicolaitans in the letter to the church in Ephesus where Jesus commended them for hating the works of the Nicolaitans. Most scholars believe that the teachings of Balaam and that of the Nicolaitans was likely one and the same: a casting away of holiness codes and, in particular, the approval of the practice of sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.
You may find that the name Balaam sounds familiar because of the famous story of Balaam’s donkey which God caused to speak. The full story of Balaam is found in the book of Numbers chapters 22-24 and then in chapter 31:16. The bulk of the story concerns how Balak, king of Moab, called upon the prophet Balaam to utter a curse upon the Israelites in return for a reward. God, however, confronts Balaam and forbids him to curse Israel and instructs him to bless them instead. When Balak calls upon Balaam to curse Israel 3 times, Balaam blesses them 3 times instead.
The story then takes a sudden turn and we discover that, despite God’s faithfulness to them, the Israelites have joined with the Moabites in sacrificing to their gods and in their sexual immorality. In response, God calls upon Moses to execute the Israelites who engaged in such behavior and He sends a plague against the people. The story culminates when an Israelite brings a pagan woman into his tent and Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron the priest, grabs a spear and kills both the man and the woman. At that point, the plague ends but not before 24,000 people have died.
To our astonishment, Numbers 31:15 reveals that Balaam had been behind it all. It was Balaam who “caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the LORD.” We aren’t told how in the Scriptures, but Jewish tradition explains that, since Balaam couldn’t get the reward from king Balak by cursing the people of Israel, he counselled the Israelites that it was ok for them to intermingle with the Moabites and join in with their worship and in their sexual immorality. Why would he do this? Well, he knew that God would be displeased with their behavior and would come against them in judgment. So, although he had not uttered curses against them, he had accomplished the same ends by enticing them to sin. Explaining his scheme to Balak, Balaam receives his reward.
Now, in Pergamum there are those, like Balaam, who were encouraging participation in idol feasts. They may have rationalized this by saying that such feasts were only empty gestures as the idols really weren’t gods at all and, by joining it, it kept Christians out of harm’s way. As long as Christians held fast to their faith, the feasts were a non-issue. Given that sexual practices were often a part of pagan ritualistic worship, they may have used the same justification: “These are not real gods and, after all, it is just your body, the Lord knows your heart.”
Two things we learn from this:
1) Holiness matters
As those who declare that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone and that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, there may be a temptation for believers to not take holiness seriously. We know that sin will always plague us this side of heaven and, if we cannot truly be holy and, if Christ has died for my sins, then why even bother trying?
Jesus answers by standing before us with sword in hand saying that He is ready to make war against those who think this way. The imagery of the sword brings to mind Jesus’ call in Matthew 17:8-9:
“If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.”
Jesus is not telling us to literally maim ourselves, but He is calling us to personal holiness, however costly and painful. The only other option is hell. This is not salvation by works, but it is, rather, pointing out that the transformative work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers creates a people who hunger and thirst for righteousness. No hunger and thirst for righteousness evidences that there is no work of Christ within us. And so, the author of Hebrews calls us to "Strive for . . . the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." And as it is true for us as individuals, so it is true for the church.
2) Discipline matters
While it was only “some” within the church that were following these false teachings and their accompanying practices, the church failed in refusing to discipline them and, instead, allowing them to remain as unchallenged members of their fellowship as if there was nothing wrong.
The practice of church discipline is that of confronting someone over the sin in their lives, calling them to repentance, and engaging in corrective measures if they do not. Discipline is not, at its core, punishment. It falls under the category of discipleship. The intent of discipline is to train people within the church regarding what life should look like among believers and what orthodox beliefs should be held. One remedy to our thinking of it as a purely negative act is to realize that it is patterned after God Himself. Hebrews 12:6 says that the Lord disciplines His children. It is love that compels discipline. It is a loving thing to call a sinner to repentance. Active sin in the life of a believer grieves the Holy Spirit and squelches the power of the Spirit in a person’s life. The person who is living in sin will not grow in their faith, in spiritual maturity, nor in their experience of God’s graces. The person who lives in sin is failing to live in accordance with their purpose as a child of God. This will lead to an inner conflict that will often manifest itself in outward expressions of feeling lost, distracted, fractured, and that will affect their relationships with other believers. Walls go up as a means of protection, keeping people from seeing the “real” them. If they have children, the children are robbed of a good example in their mother or father. And we can’t fail to mention that they are constantly living under the threat of God’s hand of discipline coming down upon them. It is not only in the OT where we see God’s heavy hand of discipline, but we have examples in the NT such as Ananias and Saphira, and those who took the Lord’s Supper unworthily, who were struck down dead because of their continuation in sin. So, would it be more loving to let them continue on or would it be more loving to call them to stop and make things right with, obviously, an offer to help?
Church discipline can be likened to an intervention that people engage in with a loved one who has become addicted to drugs. They sit them down and say, “We love you enough to not allow you to continue on in this way.” In the end, if they refuse to repent, the church is called to remove the person from among, not out of hatred, but, as Paul puts it, “So that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Cor. 5:5). The idea being that such a drastic action would bring him to repentance and restoration before God and man- which is for their good.
We are being shown here that it is also a loving thing for the church, as a whole, when it calls someone to repentance. When someone is allowed to live in active sin in the midst of a congregation, the church loses its purity before God and is under the threat of the removal of its lampstand- the activity of the Holy Spirit among the church body- which will leave it as a dead church. An instructive example for us is found in 1 Corinthians 5 where the church in Corinth has a man living in horrific sexual sin among them and they are tolerating it. Paul says, “You are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who had done this be removed from among you…do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1 Cor. 5:6). For the health of the church, the blessings of God upon the church, and the continuation of the church, discipline must be pursued.
It is our concern to honor God, to pattern ourselves after His holiness, to pursue obedience to His Word, and to be a testimony to the world around us. Jesus says in John 17 that the world is watching, and our conduct is intended to teach them who the Father is and Who the Son is. We have to be sure that we are not caught teaching blasphemy.
So the church in Pergamum, and every other church, has a responsibility to not tolerate sinful teaching and sin. Any teaching that leads believers to compromise needs to be silenced and removed. This is true even when the pressure to conform is so great that we might feel that we live where Satan’s throne is located! If we don’t do it, Jesus says that He will.
One of the ways that we protect ourselves from such compromise, and from the fear of responding to it, is to look to the promises of God. The world offers only that which passes away and will not satisfy. Jesus says, “To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.”
Just as God’s people were fed by manna (“hidden” is likely referring to the urn of manna kept in the ark of the covenant) in the wilderness, so will those who hunger today be fed and satisfied by Christ Himself. For those in Pergamum to resist the temptation to eat at the idol feasts and to engage in sexual promiscuity would be for them to find that their deepest desires would be satisfied in Christ. That includes the hunger for safety and security. He can come alongside you the trials you face. He will satisfy you with His friendship when your friends desert you, He will provide you with your daily needs when your job forces you out. He is enough.
The white stone with the name is the subject of much discussion and many theories. Of them the best may be that, in the Ancient Near East, a white stone was commonly associated with a vote of innocence with a black stone indicating guilt (Acts 26:10). White stones were also used like admission tickets to special occasions. With this in mind, we might say that, when one repents, their black stone is exchanged for a white which enables them to participate in the marriage super of the Lamb (19:99) where they would be filled with eternal “manna” of the presence of Christ. The “new name written” on the stone is explained in 3:12 where we are told that it is “the name of my God, the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my [Christ’s] new name,” which is written on the believer.
He who has an ear, let him hear. If you are in sin and have been justifying the compromise as a way of avoiding persecution and you have convinced yourself that it doesn’t really matter anyway, repent. If you have been leading others into your sin. Repent. Jesus comes, sword in hand and the call upon you is to, metaphorically, cut off your own hand before He wields His sword against you in judgment. Church, we need to be concerned with holiness enough that we are willing to call one another to account. At first with encouragement, a soft rebuke, but if we need to take up the spear of Phinehas and remove the sin from among us, better that than Jesus removing our lampstand. Hard words but, with a little reflection, it is easy to see that they are loving words.
1. A quick read through of the letter to Pergamum may lead someone to conclude that Jesus’ primary concern is to condemn the sins of eating food sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality. While they are the sins which led to the rebuke, what is it that Jesus is actually condemning?
2. Anytime the issue of church discipline comes up, someone will invariably jump to Matthew 7:1-5. Does this passage condemn judgment altogether? Considering passages such as Matthew 18:15-17 and 1 Corinthians 5 (especially Paul’s comments of verses 12-13), how do you understand the concept of judgment within the church body?
3. In the 1800’s church records show that church discipline was a relatively common occurrence. Church discipline is so rare today as to be nearly unheard of. What are some of the reasons that you think that’s the case and what do you make of those reasons?
4. Do you think the lack of deep, meaningful relationships is behind much of the reflexive negative response to the concept of discipline? What does this say about the importance of meaningful membership in the local church rather than viewing Sundays as a regular gathering of a group of relative strangers?
5. Church discipline practiced on an unrepentant church member involves excluding them from taking communion with the rest of the membership. Why? (See 1 Cor. 5:11 and 11:27)
6. It might have occurred to some to wonder what the issue was with eating food sacrificed to idols when Paul, discussing the issue of eating such food in 1 Corinthians 8, says “we are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do” (vs. 8). How might we reconcile these two passages?
Regarding Question 1: Certainly those among them practicing such things are condemned and called to repentance, but, since Jesus is calling out the entire fellowship, it is seems better understood that the church is being condemned for the fact that these remain active within the church without any censure from the rest of the church body. Jesus is saying to the church: “If you do not deal with these appropriately, I will.”
Regarding Question 2: Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 are particularly helpful and surprising to many. The expectation is judgment within the church among its members while the church is leave judging the world around them up to God. It might be worth exploring that concept in light of the fact that the church usually does the opposite: we give each other a pass while judging the world.
Regarding Question 6: It seems that Paul is referring to meat that was left over from the rituals and either brought home by participants or sold in the markets. If someone were to offer a Christian such meat as a part of a meal, it was a matter of conscience whether they should eat it or not. What Jesus is condemning is the eating of the food as a part of a worship ritual. I don’t know if this is helpful or not, but I imagine someone attending the wedding of a friend who lives in India. As a part of the celebration, there is a sacrifice offered to one of the many Hindu gods, the meat of which is then distributed to all of the guests with the instruction that eating the meat was a way of honoring the god who would, in turn, bless the marriage. That was on Saturday. You stay with your friend’s family through the weekend with the intention to fly home on Tuesday. On Monday, the parents of your friend pull out leftovers from their refrigerator and ask if you’d like to have a sandwich made from the meat from the wedding. What are you to do? Taking all the pertinent passages into consideration, it seems that eating the meat as a part of the wedding ritual on Saturday would be forbidden while eating the same meat on Monday for lunch would be a matter of conscience.
