John to the seven churches which are in Asia:
Grace be unto you, and peace, from Him
which is, and which was, and which is
to come; and from the seven spirits
which are before His throne; and from
Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness,
and the firstbegotten of the dead, and
the prince of the kings of the earth.
Unto Him that loved us, and washed us
from our sins in His own blood, and hath
made us kings and priests unto God and
His Father; to Him be glory and dominion
for ever and ever. Amen.
Revelation 1:4-6
Before I begin I want to apologize for not having a blog yesterday but some days things just do not go the way you expect and so I did not get to my computer until late at night. But, here we go again and you probably have noticed that the opening Scripture is the same as before and this is due to our taking time to examine Scripture thoroughly so this will be a pattern as we study the book of Revelation.
Speculation, presuppositional thinking, theological bias, can be said to be a hallmark for those attempting to translate and apply the symbols, and this has led to many books, movies, and teaching that may or may not be Scriptural. I will attempt, and do so to stay away from such foolery and keep to just what the Greek says, and translate the Greek to arrive at the truth. Then to apply what is being written according to all of Scripture and do my best to stay away from personal thinking and if I do inject what I may think, I will tell you that it is my thoughts and give why I think that way. With all that then you can see why we must go slow.
Let us then dissect these verses. Where is this Asia? Is it the same as the Asia we know exists today? Today the Asia we know stretches over the Pacific Ocean on its eastern border all the way to the Ural Mountains in the west. At the time of John the area he writes about refers to the peninsula known as Asia Minor. Asia Minor embraced six provinces, Asia, Bithynia (including Pontus), Galatia, cappadocia, Cilicia, Lycia (including Pamphylia). The Province of Asia from about the year 120 B.C. was created and bequeathed to the Senate by Attalus III., the king of Pergamum, (we know Pergamun as Asia in the New Testament). Today we would locate those seven Churches in Western Turkey.
John wrote to seven Churches and here is where much speculation and theories spawned by conceiving ideas and inferences, making judgments in hope of gaining advantage. It is abstract reasoning, that is when it is abstract it is then only in concept and not in reality. Examples of this is when symbols are giving to be helicopters, or in books such as the series "Left Behind," and others all speculation and abstract. So then, who are those seven Churches? First we must understand that the number 7 has a greater meaning than seven different objects in Scripture and to know if the number 7 is literal or has a deeper meaning we must turn to Scripture for the answer. The Holy Spirit is called the seven Spirits, not seven literally, seven in number, but is telling us about the infinite perfect Spirit of God. The number 7 is used 735 times with 54 in the book of Revelation alone. The number 7 is the foundation of God's word. Now if we include the word 'sevenfold' used 6 times, and 'seventh' used 119 times our total is 860 references. The number 7 then must have special interest in Scripture. It does as it is the number of completenes (God created in 7 days is one such example of completeness). In fact the word 'created' is used 7 times describing God's creative work (Genesis 1:1,21,27 three times; 2:3, 2:4). There are 7 days in a week and on the seventh day God rested or is is known as God's Sabbath. Originally the Bible was divided into 7 major divisions: the Law, the Prophets, the Writings, or Psalms, The gospels and Acts, the General Epistles, the Epistles of Paul, and the Book of Revelation. There are 49 books and 49 is 7 times 7, all this demonstrates the absolute perfection of the word of God. In the prophecy of Daniel 9:24 multiples of 7, the seventy weeks which is concerning 490 years and in Jeremiah 29:10 that predicted the Babylonian Captivity for seventy years, 7 times 10, and in Leviticus 25:8 and the year of Jubilee was to begin after the passing of every 49th year, 7 times 7. Symbolism can bring comfort to us as with Jesus who is told to us to be the seven-fold "I AM' in the gospel of John. Or it can challenge us as when Jesus told Peter to forgive a wrongdoer "seventy times seven" times (Matthew 18:22). The number of 7 is associated with God's judgment, the seven bowls of the Great Tribulation (Revelation16:1) or of God's warning to Israel in Leviticus 26:18.
Can you see now that we must not rush to some explanation until we have the whole picture. Is it possible that there were seven letters written to seven literal Churches? Yes! It is possible but we know that there were more Churches than 7 and they did not receive a letter so why those 7 Churches? Were not the letters read by all other Churches? Yes! Those letters could also mean completeness, that is, that what was being written about to those 7 Churches was to address certain issues that was occurring in Christendom. That which was written applies to us today, therefore it is safe to assume that those 7 Churches represent all of Christendom. All the letters follow identical formats, Greetings, Descriptive title for Jesus who is dictating the letters, insights into the life of the seven Churches, criticisms as necessary for each Church, warnings, final exhortations, and promises and assurances. Did only those 7 Churches have problems, and only they received promises and assurances and not the other Churches. That would be ludicrous as all Churches, then and now, throughout history of the Church has need of all that was written to those 7 Churches.
Well, we did not get too far in our study, but we will as we examine other parts of these verses in the next blogs. As I said, "I will go slow." But we will learn the truth and be able to dispense the truth and not rely on man's subjective, abstract and speculations. As truth-lovers, then this is important, oh, it is important because we are to be the light of the world and we can only be the light of God if we dispense what God has revealed.
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you, and
you will answer me. Would
you discredit my justice?
would you condemn me to
justify yourself?
Job 40:7-8
Lay aside your presuppositions
Richard L. Crumb
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