Letter to the Church of Ephesus
Warnings to the Seven Churches and Rewards to the Victorious Ones
Letter to the Church of Ephesus
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus Write:These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Revelation 2:1-7
The Lord Jesus presents himself to the church of Ephesus as the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. He is the High Priest of High Priests. The Great Cohen Hagadol who comes to tend to his lampstands (the churches) by refilling their oil, and by trimming their wicks with the golden scissors of his word. Christ presents himself to the church of Ephesus as the church leader as the messenger above all messengers. He is the one who walks among the lampstands and holds the seven stars in his hand because he is the main leader. He is the Lord of Lords, and holds all authority to encourage, reward and correct the global church. Therefore he should be the first one to be obeyed. He should be the first in all, and we should love him above all things.
As we can see the church of Ephesus is rebuked by Jesus because she has lost her first love. Which means that this church is no longer respecting the first command to love the Lord above all things with all our strength and all our heart. (Matthew 22:37 “Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list.”)
Biblically to love God is to obey him. (John 14:21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.”) So we can deduce that this church has lost her first love because she is no longer obeying him. This church has experienced a falling away; and has lost communion with Christ. In the same manner that Adam and Eve disobeyed God and experienced a falling away and a casting away from Eden and from eating from the tree of life; so the church of Ephesus experienced a falling away because she was no longer obeying the first command.That is why this church is no longer eating from the tree of life. Also we know this church was experiencing spirtual darkness and lack of revelation because the lampstand, which is the only source of light for the church, was removed from the holy place.
In other words, the holy place and the lampstand in this passage are compared respectively to the garden of eden and the tree of life. The holy place, just as the garden of Eden is the place where priests are called to minister to God and to have communion with him. The lampstand filled with oil is like the tree of life because they both representatively contain the Spirit of God, who provides everlasting life. Just as the garden of eden is the place where men are in perfect communion with God; and just as the tree of life is God’s provision for everlasting life; so the holy place in the heart is the place where we have fellowship with God, and the everlasting life of the Spirit. In the same manner just as Adam and Eve experienced a falling away because they disobeyed God’s command to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, so the church of Ephesus experienced a falling away disobeying the first command to love God above all things.
So we can conclude that disobedience to God’s commands leads to a falling away and breaks our communion with him. When our communion with God is broken and we fall away, our spiritual authority is lost. Because when we disobey God we move from a high spiritual place to a low carnal place, and we give Satan authority over places in our heart.
So if we want to understand why today the church isn’t experiencing the power and authority given to her by Christ as she did at first, we must go to the “Genesis” of the church (the beginning) in order to understand the root of the problem. The reason why today Satan and the powers of the air have authority in celestial places and the reason why the church isn’t expressing the power of the Spirit is because of the initial apostasy (falling away) of the church. Authority has been lost because of disobedience.
That is why we must repent and strive to gain back that place of spiritual authority we once had. That is why we must fight the good fight of the faith in order to be a victorious church. And we can only attain that if we repent and go back to our first love and do the things the church did at first. When that happens globally, Satan will be cast out of heaven because he will lose his place up there, and he will lose all his power over us. Then we will become the victorious bride of Christ seated with him in his throne, ruling with him in high spiritual places above all spiritual powers and principalities, as we crush the serpent’s skull with the feet of the new man.
We must take back the spiritual authority given to us by Christ in order to experience the fullness of Christ as the global church. Because when the church as a whole recovers her place of authority in the high spiritual places all the power and the victory of Christ will be manifest through her, and Christ will be ready to return to rule the earth next to his helpmate the Church.
Revelation 12:7-11 “ And There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”
Once again, I believe the warning to the church of Ephesus is the warning we need to take heed first because it was the first church pitfall. If we want to fix our current situation, then we must go to the root of the issue; and that issue is disobedience to the first command. So if we go back to loving God above all things everything else will fall into order. We will gain back our place of spiritual authority and we will be victorious over sin and over Satan, because we will be in perfect communion with God as we enjoy the fullness of the spirit by eating continually from the tree of life. And when the fullness of the gentiles has come, Israel will be provoked to jealousy; salvation will break in Zion, and Christ will return to turn the godlessness away from Jacob (Israel) and will take their sins away. Then he will establish his millennial kingdom, restoring the kingdom of Israel and ruling over all the earth.
Romans 11:25-27 “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”