Revelation 3:7 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Revelation 3:7

Comments

There are only two of these seven churches that receive no reproof, and Philadelphia is the second. Philadelphia used to be known in those days as the gateway to the East. It was on a main trade route called the Imperial Post Road. It is a little south-east of Sardis. It was destroyed, as was Sardis actually, by an earthquake in AD 17 and rebuilt very beautifully. It had so many temples that we read that they used to call it little Athens. The city was actually founded on this major trade route as a sort of promotion centre for Greek language and culture. The Greek empire decided to put a city there, and a special school and institute was set up there, so that people could go into the whole region spreading the Greek language and Greek culture, which to them was everything. But the Christian church there in Philadelphia was oppressed and discounted and despised. The terms used to describe it imply that it was really quite a small church. There were not very many people there. They were despised by the Jews who called them illegitimate. They were challenged by the pagans.So the Lord addresses them with a very beautiful form of address. ‘To the angel [messenger, minister] of the church of Philadelphia write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true.’ The Greek is literally – these things saith the holy one, the true one. It is as though the Lord says to them, ‘Yes you are despised and denigrated, and the Jews say you are not to be listened to, you are not authentic, and the Pagans likewise, but I am your Lord, and I am the Holy One, and the true One, and you are precious to me.’‘He that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth.’ This comes from Isaiah 22.22. It is a prophecy of Christ who would be given the key of the house of David. The Jews misinterpreted that. They thought that the key of the house of David belonged to some great king that would rule on earth. The person who had the key of the royal household in those days was a person who controlled the royal household. Isaiah prophecies that a Saviour would come who would have the key of the house of David, supreme authority in God’s kingdom. This is the key that in Matthew 16.19 is given in a figurative sense to the church, because Christ says to his church, ‘You are given the key in this sense: you are given the duty and the privilege of soul winning. As the church preaches the gospel by agency of the church, not exclusively but mainly, will be determined who is saved and who is rejected.

Application

Those people who today want to win souls with rock bands and choirs and drama and very little preaching, and even by softening down any reference to sin and Calvary and salvation are in effect addressed by Christ here. I am the one, he says, who opens the door of opportunity and the door of the kingdom of God, and if I open it nothing can prevent it, not all the atheism in the world, nor all the derision and the scorn of men. I will take people out of the middle of even that and remove their prejudice and their pride, and as they hear my word I will save them by the power of my Spirit. We do not need all these things. They are not only worldly gimmicks, worldly methods, offensive to God, but we do not need them. So away with them all, let us go back everywhere to reverent worship, putting the word in centre place, relying by prayer on the Spirit of God. And we have this tremendous comfort and assurance which Christ gives to Philadelphia.

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Revelation 3:7 Commentary and Bible Study