Copyright © 2019 Michael A. Brown
Being Prepared to Make the Ultimate Sacrifice
‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of
the church.’ (Tertullian)
To the
angel of the church in Smyrna write:
“These
are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life
again. I know your afflictions and your
poverty – yet you are rich! I know the
slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of
Satan. Do not be afraid of what you are
about to suffer. I tell you, the devil
will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for
ten days. Be faithful, even to the point
of death, and I will give you the crown of life.
He
who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by
the second death.”
(Rev. 2:8-11)
ALTHOUGH these seven churches were not separated by great
geographical distances, yet it is interesting that they were having such widely
differing experiences all pretty much at the same time. No doubt the believers in Laodicea were happy
and self-satisfied with their comfort and material riches (perhaps even
attributing all this to the blessing of God upon their lives!), and no doubt
the complacent believers of Sardis continued to faithfully attend their dead
church in which there was no spiritual breakthrough. However, over here in Smyrna things were very
different. Here there was soon to be an
outbreak of localized persecution, as the believers in Pergamum would also
experience.
While the
Laodiceans relaxed on their couches checking their bank balances and the
believers in Sardis went on singing their songs, these Smyrnean believers would
be persecuted for their faith. Satan,
the slanderer, was already using the local Jewish community to publicly and
unjustly malign their godly character, and it seems that some of them had
already lost their jobs simply because they were Christians, perhaps because
they were Jewish converts or had been thrown out of their trade-guilds. Some of them had perhaps also had their homes
and possessions confiscated (cf. Heb. 10:33-34), leading to poverty and
destitution (2:9). So these believers
were already undergoing hardship simply because they were remaining steadfast
to their faith in Jesus. And the Lord
tells them that even tougher times are on the way... Satan was going to stir up a season of
localized persecution against Christians in this city of Smyrna, and some of
them would be thrown into prison for their faith and perhaps might even die
there.
This
message to these believers at Smyrna is one of understanding, encouragement and
empathy. It is interesting that the
issue of repentance is not mentioned at all.
This would probably suggest that the Lord is focusing here on the fact
that the lives of the believers were going to be affected in a profound way by
what they would go through. It perhaps
also anticipates the fact that the coming persecution would, as it always does,
sift and cleanse the church. The faith
of those who would prove to be faithful even unto death would be strong and
vital, suggesting that the message of repentance did not need to be emphasized
to these believers.
Despite the relatively quiet lives that
many western Christians lead today, yet the sobering reality is that
persecution and suffering for the faith is the lot of many others in the body
of Christ in other parts of the world.
This letter to the believers in Smyrna is prophetic of the suffering
Church. It represents one very real part
of what it means to follow Christ and to be the church of Christ on earth,
suffering persecution for the faith and perhaps even martyrdom.
Pastors and leaders may get hauled before
courts on unjust, trumped-up charges, simply because they shepherd groups of
believers, and thrown into prison or sent to labour camps. Christians in some countries are treated like
second-class citizens. They are allowed
to do only menial work and are denied access to higher levels of education or
career employment. Church buildings and
the homes of Christians may be destroyed or burned down, and they may be forced
to move away to another place. Bibles
are confiscated or burned, while those who possess them may get thrown into
prison or sent to a labour camp. And all
simply because they believe in Jesus and follow him...
Those of us who live in the UK would do
well to remember that our freedom to possess and read the word of God, and to
freely attend church meetings and express our faith, was bought at a tremendous
price by our predecessors during the time of the Reformation, by men such as
Tyndale, Latimer and Ridley (and others) who were publicly burned at the stake
for their faith in Christ.
Some commentators see these ‘ten days’
(2:10) as prophetic of ten distinct seasons of persecution that the Church
suffered in the Roman Empire prior to the time of Constantine the Great (who,
by the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, brought the persecution of Christians to an
end). It is certainly true that, towards
the end of and then after the apostolic period in the first century, the Church
suffered irregular seasons of persecution.
Apart from the early persecutions by the Jews (cf. Acts 8:1 – 9:31), these
Gentile persecutions began in 64 AD during the reign of Nero and lasted until
the Great Persecution of 303-311 AD in the reign of Diocletian. It was the infamous Nero who falsely blamed
Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD and then began to cruelly
torture and execute them. The apostle
Paul himself suffered martyrdom in Nero’s reign by being beheaded in 67
AD. These persecutions were often
localized in specific areas and relatively short-lived, but others were more
widespread. There were many atrocious,
brutal and horrific acts of barbarity committed against believers in this
period.
History records that the apostles of
Christ all suffered violent deaths (with the exception of John who was
sentenced to labour in copper mines on the isle of Patmos, cf. Rev. 1:9). Martyrdom has always been part of the
Christian call and walk, and it was not an uncommon experience in this Early
Church period. In fact, Jesus himself is
called the ‘faithful witness’ (Rev. 1:5) and the Greek word used here is martus.
So literally, Jesus is the faithful martyr.
Throughout the history of the Church there
have been many recorded examples of believers who were put to death for their
faith in Christ. In the early Church
period, when people became Christians and accepted Jesus as Lord of all, they
did this knowing that they might well be persecuted and perhaps even have to
seal their faith with their blood.
Stephen was the first such martyr, stoned to death outside the walls of
Jerusalem by the leaders of the Jews (Acts 6:8 – 7:60). To become a Christian was to enter into a new
life in which suffering for the sake of Christ was simply a recognized part of
the call:
‘I eagerly expect and hope that I
will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as
always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.’ (Phil. 1:20)
‘For it has been granted to you on behalf of
Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him…’ (Phil.
1:29)
‘In fact, everyone who wants to
live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.’ (2 Tim. 3:12)
‘…exhorting them to continue in the
faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of
God.’ (Acts 14:22
AV)
The Christian community in this city of
Smyrna had the privilege of furnishing history with one of the greatest and
well-known martyrs of the Early Church period, Polycarp. Polycarp, who was himself a disciple of the
apostle John, became the bishop of Smyrna where he lived and ministered during
the latter years of his life. He was
always treated with great respect by younger Christians because of his exemplary
life and prophetic ministry.
The prevailing Roman cult of
emperor-worship demanded that all people should openly proclaim that Caesar was
Lord and should make a sacrifice to him.
Polycarp (along with many other Christians) refused to do this, saying
to the proconsul, “Eighty and six years have I served [Jesus], and he never did
me wrong; and how can I now blaspheme my King that has saved me?” So, even at such an old age, he was condemned
to be burnt publicly at the stake before a baying crowd in a packed-out
stadium.[1]
Invited
into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings
To be called to follow Jesus is to be
called to walk with him in everything that this means to follow him. He is certainly the risen and victorious
Saviour, but he still bears the marks of his wounds (John 20:26-27). Although he truly reigns triumphant as the Lion
of the tribe of Judah, yet it is the slain Lamb who dwells in the midst of the
throne of God (Rev. 5:5-6). At the heart
of his triumph is his cross. So, to know
him and to walk with him in committed relationship is an open invitation to
fellowship with him in his sufferings.
Some modern-day western Christians
reclining in Laodicean comfort perhaps do not realise this, but it’s actually
an integral part of the deal. It goes
with the territory! We serve and walk
with a Saviour and Lord who not only suffered and died himself on the cross for
our redemption, but who has been and continues to be repeatedly persecuted
since the birth of his Church for what he is doing in the world, releasing
people from the dominion of Satan and bringing them into the true freedom of
the kingdom of God.
Jesus is still despised and rejected by
people (Isa. 53:3). Unregenerate human
nature will always be at enmity with him (Rom. 8:7). Satan is the implacable enemy of Christ and
will do anything and everything he can to disrupt, slander, malign, hinder or
destroy the work of Christ on earth through his Church (cf. 1 Thess.
2:18). In using people to persecute
believers, he is persecuting Jesus himself (Acts 9:5), and when Jesus is
persecuted, it is we ourselves who bear the brunt of this suffering on earth.
In the words which he spoke to Saul/Paul
on the Damascus Road, Jesus made clear the fact of his continuing suffering: ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’
(Acts 9:4), and he told Ananias that he would show Paul how much he was later
going to suffer for Christ’s name in his apostolic ministry (Acts 9:16). As he grew in his faith, Paul embraced
wholeheartedly this call to share in everything that it means to follow Christ,
and he summed this up when he said:
‘I want
to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing
in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain
to the resurrection from the dead.’
(Phil. 3:10-11)
He exhorted the believers in Philippi in
particular to recognise and accept suffering for the faith as part and parcel of
their call:
’For
it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but
also to suffer for him...’
(Phil. 1:29)
No servant is greater than his master, so
if Christ was hated and persecuted by the world, then it is certain that there
will be times when we also will be (Matt. 10:24-25, John 15:20). To walk in the Master’s footsteps means to
fulfil on earth what is still left of his suffering (Col. 1:24). Jesus made it clear that if we want to follow
him, then we have to be prepared to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily
(Luke 9:23). We must walk the
same path of surrender and obedience that he himself walked.
There
is no – and there can be no – Christianity or true, personal walk with Christ
without carrying the cross. We cannot
afford to shrink from or avoid this uncomfortable truth: following Jesus
costs! He gave his life for us and, in
following our exalted yet persecuted Saviour, we will certainly be called to
give our all for him in terms of personal obedience and surrender. In its turn, this may well lead into smaller
or greater degrees of suffering for our faith (cf. Matt. 10:34-39) and, for
some, it might even mean being prepared to pay the ultimate price for following
the Master (cf. Matt. 24:9, Rev. 6:9-11)!
Surrender and obedience inevitably give rise to opposition or even
downright persecution at some stage…
We are called to walk with Jesus through
the whole of life and in the particular call that is upon our lives. This short letter to the church in Smyrna
makes clear to us the certainty of experiencing occasional times or seasons of
affliction and suffering (and perhaps even death) for our faith. Similarly, the apostle Peter wrote his first
epistle to believers who were being persecuted, and it is basically an
exhortation for them to continue steadfast in their faith through the
overcoming grace of God (1 Peter 5:10-12).
However, although suffering for the sake of our faith can be very real
at times, yet this prophetic message to the believers in Smyrna makes it clear
that such suffering is limited in its scope.
Only some of them would be cast into prison, not all of them, and the
persecution itself would only last for ten days (or there would be ten
intermittent periods of persecution), not longer (2:10).
In order to be able to walk with Christ
through such times we must learn to live totally surrendered lives. If not, then the likelihood is that at some
point we will be tempted to turn back from following him, for example when
difficulties come, or when we are offended by what we go through or by what God
allows to happen to us. We will retract
long before the end; we will sink into hard-heartedness and bitterness, and the
true ‘depth’ of our faith and personal surrender will be exposed.
Although many of us may still live
relatively free and comfortable lives in the West, yet this does not mean that
we will somehow be able to avoid problems and suffering of whatever kind in
life. And, as we have seen plainly from
several cases reported in the media in the last few years, it also means that
we can assume that the basic tenets of our Christian faith and our moral values
may well now sometimes be in overt conflict with the shifting values of
surrounding society.
Being
tested by Satan
The fact that the devil would be
allowed to put some of these believers in prison to test them, even to the
point of death, uncovers to us the often-hidden realm of the spiritual warfare
which rages in this world between God’s kingdom and Satan’s dominion. The lives of these believers were to be the
very stage on which God’s wider purposes in this spiritual battle would be
openly worked out. As with Job, their
hedge of protection would be removed and they would be tested (Rev. 2:10, cf.
Job 1:10-11).
When Satan was allowed to attack him, Job
experienced the loss of his livelihood and business, all of his children, and
finally his own physical health as well.
And all of this tragedy seems to have happened in a very short space of
time… The heart pain, grief and torment
which this dear man suffered are clear from the narrative of the book which
bears his name. Satan was allowed to
throw his worst at Job, and yet Job overcame him by maintaining the integrity
of his faith in God:
‘Though he slay me, yet will I hope
in him.’ (Job 2:3,
13:15)
Satan’s attacks against Job were
ultimately rendered powerless, because Job determined to maintain his faith in
spite of anything that might happen to him (including physical death). Furthermore, through his time of testing,
Job’s faith was refined and came out even stronger than it was before:
‘But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.’ (Job 23:10)
It
is when believers show forth the genuineness of their faith in the heat and
turmoil of difficult trials that Satan is overcome and defeated.
And do you remember Daniel’s three
friends: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego?
Determining to be loyal to their God and to keep their faith alive, they
refused to bow down to the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar had set up. The price they paid for this was to be thrown
alive together into a blazing furnace.
In order to protect and preserve the integrity of their faith, they took
an open, uncompromising stance and were willing and ready to be martyred for
this, if necessary.
Of course, we know the ends of these
stories. Job’s faith shone through, he
persevered and was eventually healed and restored (Job 42:10-17), while, to use
Nebuchadnezzar’s phrase, one ‘like a son of the gods’ appeared in the furnace
with the three friends, walking with them, and they came out unscathed from the
fire (Dan. ch.3). God loves to honour
and commend genuine, proven faith. The
apostle Peter takes this principle of the testing of our faith and applies it
to the lives of believers who are suffering for their faith:
‘In this [salvation] you greatly rejoice, though now
for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of
trials. These have come so that your
faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire
– may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus
Christ is revealed.’
(1 Peter 1:6-7)
We prevail over Satan’s attacks by
resisting him (Jas. 4:7), maintaining our faith and walking through our sufferings
hand-in-hand with God:
‘They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the
word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink
from death.’ (Rev.
12:11)
Satan’s venting of his unremitting hatred
for Christ on the earthly Church ultimately proves to be his undoing. A faith such as Stephen’s that is willing to
embrace even death for the sake of Christ (cf. Acts 7:59-60) demonstrates to
all that there is nothing in life or in this world, nor in any evil scheme that
Satan can conjure up, that can overcome true love for Christ. There really is nothing that can separate us
from the love of God in Christ (Rom. 8:38-39).
We can endure opposition to our faith and suffering for his name when
the fire and passion of love for him within us is greater than the pressure of
the opposition we feel from outside.
Jesus exhorted us not to be afraid of
those who can kill the body and after that can do no more to us, but of him who
can destroy both soul and body in gehenna (Matt. 10:28, Luke 12:4). Although we may well recoil from the thought
of suffering physical pain, yet we should never be afraid of death itself. When God’s people are not afraid of death,
then he whose ultimate weapon is the power of death is overcome and rendered
powerless (Heb. 2:14-15). Genuine faith
and the passionate, inward fire of true love for Christ can overcome and
triumph over the fear and power of death (Rev. 12:11, cf. 1 Peter 1:6-9), and
it is such overcoming faith and love which then convinces and wins many others
to Christ.
Life
comes out of death
It has been amply demonstrated in
history (and especially in the first three centuries AD) that persecuting the
Church ultimately leads only to its increase and expansion. When Satan’s attacks are overcome, then the
power of his dominion over people’s lives is weakened and the Holy Spirit can
break through to release them into God’s kingdom. This is what Tertullian meant when he said
that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
Faith in God is shown to be real, and
indeed is refined and grows stronger when believers are willing to go through
hardships, to suffer and even die for it.
It is pressure that brings out the reality and genuineness of our faith
(Rom. 5:3-4, 1 Peter 1:6-8), just as a diamond is formed in the earth under
high pressures and temperatures. Faith
that is tested and shines brightly in the times of deepest suffering convinces
other people that it is true and genuine, and therefore that the gospel is
true. So Satan is defeated; the faith
thrives and is embraced by other people, and the Church grows.
Do you think that the godly men who buried
Stephen and mourned deeply for him did not ask God, “Why did you let this
happen?” (cf. Acts 8:2). Of course they did. Do you think
that at that time they knew or understood that God had a deeper purpose in this
which Stephen’s very life was being used to fulfil? Probably not. It turned out that, in God’s purpose, it was
through Stephen’s death that Saul/Paul was saved. He was standing nearby when Stephen was
stoned (Acts 7:58, 22:20) and afterwards came under deep conviction (Acts 9:5
AV, 26:14) which eventually led to his conversion. So it was Stephen who paid the price
necessary to see Paul saved and later the Gentiles reached with the gospel
through his ministry. When the
persecution which broke out after Stephen’s martyrdom eventually ceased, we are
told by Luke that the Church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria then enjoyed
a time of peace; it was strengthened and grew in numbers (Acts 8:1, 9:31).
Victory for the establishment and growth of
the gospel in a particular place often comes about through chosen, anointed and
obedient servants of God who are totally surrendered and willing to embrace in
God’s strength any suffering that this might entail. Victory
for the gospel costs. Victory in
natural, human warfare necessarily involves the willingness and courage to pay
the ultimate price and give one’s life for the cause, if this is what it may
cost. In this sense, spiritual warfare
is no different:
‘They overcame… they did not love
their lives so much as to shrink from death.’ (Rev. 12:11)
Breakthrough for the gospel of Christ in
Philippi did not come about simply through the quiet conversion of Lydia by the
river, nor by the fact that a demon was cast out of a slave girl. It came about through two Spirit-empowered
men (Paul and Silas) who had surrendered themselves utterly to Christ and were
sold-out for the kingdom of God holding nothing back, and who were therefore
willing to embrace the imprisonment and suffering which was brought about by
the disenfranchised owners of the slave girl.
The quality of triumphant faith which Paul and Silas displayed in
pressing through and beyond their physical suffering and taking hold of God
through prayer and praise at midnight in their cell, was what was needed to
overcome and break the grip of the spiritual powers of Satan’s dominion which
were entrenched in Philippi, and to release the hand of God in an earthquake
which threw all the prison doors open and loosened everybody’s chains (Acts
ch.16).
God’s overall purpose is always much
greater than our own personal suffering, and we need to understand and embrace
this wider perspective. He may have a
deeper purpose in it which we may not perceive initially. God’s purpose in Smyrna was to demonstrate the
reality of genuine heart faith even in the face of death, and thereby to defeat
Satan and win many others to faith.
Sometimes victory for the spread of the gospel comes through a depth of
the working of God’s grace in and through us which can be effectual only
through a willingness to suffer or even die for the sake of Christ, if this is
what it takes. Stories of such
willingness, commitment and heroic sacrifice abound in the annals of worldwide
Christian missions…
Furthermore, the courageous and overcoming
faith of those who suffer in this way becomes an example which inspires others
who become aware of it. Along with the
recorded examples of Job, Daniel’s three friends, Polycarp, Latimer (and many
others), the faith of these believers in Smyrna was destined in the purpose of
God to be an example which would strengthen the faith of countless millions of
other believers down through the ages.
Their trust in God and faithfulness even unto death raised up a living
testimony which has inspired and strengthened believers everywhere who have
suffered for their faith in Christ, as they walk similar paths.
This principle of God’s wider purpose in
our suffering was underlined by Jesus when he said:
‘I tell you the truth, unless a
kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single
seed. But if it dies, it produces many
seeds.’ (John
12:24)
This is the principle that God works by: life comes out of death, and it is the
basic principle of fruitfulness in the kingdom of God. Having died in the ground, the kernel of
wheat then produces fruit. The next
verse applies this principle to our own personal lives:
‘The man who loves his life will
lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for
eternal life.’
(John 12:25)
Jesus, of course, was the greatest example
of this principle being worked out in practice.
It was for the joy of what he could see ahead as the fruit of his own
resurrection (the winning of many people to faith and the establishing on earth
of his redeemed community, the Church) that Jesus endured the cross and laid
down his life (Heb. 12:2). As born-again
believers having new life in him (Rom. 6:3-8), we are the fruit of his being
willing to lay his own life down.
And so too in our own lives… The true meaning of life does not consist in
the abundance of our possessions, but in our intimate living union with God
himself, in knowing and loving him (John 17:3).
Spiritually, we are rich in him, even though we may be outwardly
poor. Jesus reminds not only these
believers in Smyrna of this (2:9), but also those in Laodicea (3:17-18; cf.
Eph. 3:8, Col. 1:27). The instinct of
our carnal nature is to cling on to self-preservation at all costs, and we
often do this for the sake of security and comfort. However, as disciples of Christ learning the
way, we find true meaning for our lives as we learn to release ourselves from
the hold that such things have over us and live by faith for the kingdom of
God. Because we are rich in spiritual
things, we should never allow temporal need or poverty to become a cause of
losing our faith. He has promised to
meet all our needs as we seek first his kingdom. As we allow our carnality, our instinct for
self-preservation and our sinful nature to be slowly stripped away, then the
grace, light and power of Christ’s life within us shines forth and influences
others. This is what Paul was referring
to when he said:
‘I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no
way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ
will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is
gain.’ (Phil. 1:20-21)
Until we have learned to die to ourselves
and our own carnality, we cannot bring forth fruit in the kingdom of God. We have never truly lived, until we have
learned to die. Divine life can only
work through us as we learn to die to self and live for the glory of God. If we really do want to receive the crown of
life and therefore reign with Christ, then we cannot afford to love our own
lives. We cannot allow our self and our
own desires to be the centre of everything.
We must make Jesus Lord of everything and submit ourselves to his
purpose for our lives, whatever that proves to be. The Church is not above its Lord and Master:
it is in surrendering our own life that we come to know his (John 12:25). It is in losing our lives for his sake that
we truly find them (Matt. 16:25). We can
live to him, as we die to self. If we
love our lives by finding their meaning in this world, then we lose them as far
as fruitfulness in the kingdom of God is concerned, but if we will die to
ourselves for Christ’s sake, then we will come to know the life-giving power of
his kingdom bearing fruit through us (Matt. 10:38-39). The apostle Paul was expressing this
principle when he said to the Corinthians:
‘But we have this treasure in jars
of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from
us. We are hard pressed on every side,
but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed. We
always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus
may also be revealed in our body. For we
who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his
life may be revealed in our mortal body.
So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.’ (2 Cor. 4:7-12)
Latimer understood this principle of life
coming out of death in the work of God.
His last words to Ridley when they were both tied to the stake are
well-known: “Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall
this day light such a candle in England as I trust by God’s grace shall never
be put out.”
I
am the resurrection and the life
So the theme that runs through this brief
letter is that of death and resurrection life.
The name ‘Smyrna’ (now the modern port city of Izmir in Turkey) derives
from the word ‘myrrh,’ a spice used in embalming the dead prior to burial. The city itself had been conquered and sacked
by the Lydians about 700 years before John wrote this letter, and it had then
lain mainly in ruins for three centuries before being re-built under Greek
rule. So in John’s time this city had in
a sense itself been ‘raised from the dead.’
Jesus presents himself to these believers as ‘the First and the Last,
who died and came to life again’ (2:8).
He exhorts them to heed what the Spirit is saying to them and to
overcome by remaining faithful unto death, and they will have the honour of
receiving the crown of life. As
overcomers, they will reign with him and will not be hurt at all by the second
death (2:10-11).
This theme of death and resurrection life
is a major principle that runs through the entire Bible: from the wrong choice
of the first couple to embrace death rather than life in the garden; through
the exhortation to the Israelites to choose life rather than death in respect
of the Law (Deut. 30:15f); through Jesus who is ‘the resurrection and the life’
(John 11:25-26), who died and came to life again, and who offers eternal life
to all who will believe in him (John 3:16, 1 John 3:14); unto the resurrection
of the dead in Christ (1 Cor. ch.15) and, ultimately, the eternal separation of
unbelievers from God in the second death (Rev. 20:14-15).
It is important for us to realise that
God’s purposes for us as his Church go above and beyond that which is merely
human. He often uses our needs and our
situations in life to reveal himself to us, so that we break new ground in our
walk with him and come to know him in deeper ways. The lessons that Jesus teaches us are
experiential and therefore deeply formational.
For example, it is in times of personal need that God can reveal and
prove himself to us as our provider. It
is in times of sickness that he can reveal and prove himself to us as our
healer. And, similarly, it is in times
of death, bereavement and grief that we can come to know him as ‘the
resurrection and the life.’
When Lazarus was sick, Jesus stayed where
he was for two more days, specifically in order that he could take this
situation and use it to reveal himself in a new way (John 11:6). When Martha came to him, expressing her grief
over Lazarus’ death, he spoke his famous words ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ directly into her heart (cf.
John 11:20-27). These were words of
revelation and of living faith spoken deeply into the presence of her grief and
loss, bringing hope to her. And, of
course, he then went further and actually raised Lazarus from the grave, giving
a practical demonstration to all who were present that he had power over death. They had entered into an experience of death,
bereavement and grief and found that Jesus was still there with them in the
very midst of it, and could minister to them in such a way that the power of
death was overcome in their lives.
So Jesus is the First and the Last. He is the Living One. He was dead, and behold he is alive for
evermore! And he holds the keys of death
and Hades (cf. Rev. 1:17-18). He
conquered the power of death by entrusting himself to his Father and willingly
entering into the state of death, and then being raised out of it by the power
of God (Rom. 1:4, 1 Cor. 15:1-3). If we
stay faithful to him through our affliction, strengthened within by the Spirit
of life and trusting that God has a wider purpose in it all, then as ‘the
resurrection and the life’ Jesus has the power to bring new life out of a
situation where there has been apparent failure and loss (Rom. 8:28). In Christ, death, failure and loss are never
the end of the story. He works through
death to bring resurrection.
Just as he used Lazarus’ death to reveal
himself as ‘the resurrection and the life,’ so too he used his church here in
Smyrna to demonstrate practically to people that he has overcome and destroyed
the greatest weapon of our spiritual enemy: the fear and power of death. Death cannot overcome real heart faith in
Christ, the Living One, because he himself went into it, conquered it and came up
victoriously out of it, and therefore his purposes both for us and for his
Church go above and beyond physical death (Rev. 12:11, Heb. 2:14, Job
13:15). He has brought to an end the
fear of death. His resurrection life has
overcome death and swallowed it up (1 Cor. 15:54). He lives beyond death, so believers have the
deep, inward assurance that there is always life on the other side of
death. In Adam all die, but in Christ
all will be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22).
So even if we are indeed faced with being
martyred for our faith, then we can willingly surrender and relinquish our
lives here on earth and enter into eternal life, departing to be with Christ
which is better by far (Phil. 1:23), knowing that God has a wider purpose in it
all and that we ourselves will one day be resurrected in Christ anyway, and
will receive the honour of the crown of life and will reign with him (2 Tim.
2:12, Rev. 20:4).
So as we go through affliction with Christ
and come to know experientially the strength of overcoming faith within us, the
living hope of resurrection life becomes enfleshed in the very fabric of our
lives and the life of the Church, and we become the earthly embodiment of him
who is ‘the resurrection and the life’: Christ in us. So the Church becomes a social community – in
fact, the only social community! – which knows deep within its own being the
triumph of Christ’s resurrection, and can proclaim this with deep assurance and
confidence to a world languishing and mourning in the darkness of sin, the
hopelessness and despair of human suffering, and the fear of death.
Strengthened
through mutual fellowship with the Living One
The open exhortation in this letter
to the church in Smyrna is addressed to believers who would soon suffer
persecution, imprisonment and perhaps even martyrdom for the faith. They are exhorted not to be afraid and to
remain faithful even unto death (2:10).
For obvious reasons, when we think of martyrdom, we generally tend to
focus on the faith and heroic courage of those who were killed. However, their martyrdom necessarily deeply
affects their family members, their close friends and other church members as
well.
If the Church is to survive and even grow
through such circumstances, then it raises the question of what about those who
are left after the persecution ceases, those broken-hearted people who have
lost family members or close friends to martyrdom, the church members and/or
co-workers who survived, and others who may have suffered the very real trauma
and grief of it all, and probably have many unanswered questions. Homes and church buildings can eventually be
rebuilt, employment can be found elsewhere, orphaned children can be cared for
and brought up by family relatives, but what about believers themselves?
The oblique reference to myrrh (from which
the name ‘Smyrna’ derives) brings to mind the context of death. The embalming of a dead body with myrrh to
prepare it for burial was overseen by the family members and close friends who,
of course, were still alive. So the
reference to myrrh evokes the whole general scene of bereavement, loss, pain, grief
and unanswered questions.
It is a fact that we can neither live nor
die unto ourselves alone. Our afflictions
and our death always affect those around us.
When we follow Christ and pay a price for it, there is pain for other
people as well. Mary, the mother of
Jesus, was told prophetically that ‘a
sword will pierce your own soul too’ (Luke 2:35). There would come a time (when Jesus was
crucified) when she would feel the wound, grief and pain of the loss of her son
deeply within her own heart. On that
day, she partook in the fellowship of his sufferings and paid a price herself
to see the Church later come into being.
When Jesus came to Bethany intending to
raise Lazarus from the dead, we can feel the depth of Martha’s and Mary’s pain
and grief in their heart-cry: ‘Lord, if
you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ (John 11:21,32). Not only did they feel the pain of the loss
of their brother, they also felt the pain brought about by their wrong
expectations of what they thought the Lord should have done for them.
Similarly, we can see just how close-knit
and loving the relationships in the early church community had become, when we
read that, after Stephen had been martyred, godly men buried him and mourned
deeply for him (Acts 8:2), experiencing the bereavement and soul trauma of his
loss.
It is important for us to recognise that
the invitation to enter with Christ into the fellowship of his sufferings for
the sake of the gospel is a call into mutual
fellowship with him in suffering. To
carry the cross is simply to walk together with Jesus wholeheartedly and
without reserve in the unfolding of God’s purposes for our life. So we are never asked to bear alone our
sufferings for him. The Living One walks
together with us as the Lamb who was slain, and he suffers with us. On our part, we partake in the sufferings of
Christ himself, and at the same time, on his part, he holds us and walks
closely with us in and through our afflictions and sufferings in life. When we walk through the fire and pass
through the waters, he is with us (Isa. 43:2); he does not abandon us in our times of affliction. God can take the risk of allowing us to
suffer, because he knows that we can go through it with him. He has promised to be with us always and to
never forsake us (Heb. 13:5).
The Greek word eido which is used in verse 9 (‘I know your afflictions and your poverty’) means much more than just
knowing about something. It
implies a personal acquaintance with and a fullness of knowledge about
something. It is variously translated as
‘to be aware of,’ ‘to behold,’ ‘to consider,’ ‘to be sure of and understand,’
and it brings out the empathy of the Lord for these believers.
Jesus can know our afflictions and the
feeling of our infirmities, because he has been there himself and experienced
it personally. He too was afflicted and
knew what it was to suffer in the purpose of God, even unto a brutal and cruel
death on the cross. So he understands the pain of our suffering,
and he freely chooses to walk with us through this. Our
God is a God who chooses to suffer
together with his people. He enters
into our feelings and walks with us in the anguish of our afflictions, burdens
and troubles. He is an empathetic God.
This empathetic nature of our God
is unique to Christianity. Other
religious systems have no concept whatsoever of personal divine empathy to
offer people in their suffering, and so people are left to cope merely in the
‘strength’ of their own human weakness. Christianity is the only faith which
teaches and believes that in his love God empathizes with human suffering.
If this is not true, then we simply
have a God who does not feel pain within himself, and who, in our times of
trouble, cannot be anything other than distant from us. He cannot truly be a God of love, and so
our relationship with him is bound to fail at the time we need it the most, and
our faith will prove to be unable to take us through the whole of life. In practice, exhortations to be ‘faithful
unto death’ (2:10) and to endure suffering for the sake of the gospel will
prove to be worthless, empty platitudes.
Instead of enduring and remaining faithful, the likelihood is that we
will simply give up, deny him and walk away.
But no! Jesus ‘shared in [our] humanity’ and was ‘made like his brothers in every way’
(Heb. 2:14,17), so that, as our faithful high priest, he can ‘sympathize with our weaknesses’ and is ‘touched with the feeling of our
infirmities’ (Heb. 4:15 NIV and AV).
The consequence of this is that, as the
wounded Lamb who was slain, he himself empathetically feels our pain and
suffering. He understands and feels our
anguish, our burdens and our troubles.
God is love (1 John 4:16) and love freely chooses to stand with another
who is suffering. So he is not separate
from our suffering. This particular
implication of our living relationship with God is summed up in verses like the
following:
‘In all their distress he too
was distressed.’
(Isa. 63:9)
‘Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are
with me.’
(Ps.
23:4, underlining my own for emphasis)
When our own hearts are pierced by the
sword of suffering, then he draws alongside us and carries our cross with us;
he carries our griefs and our sorrows (Isa. 53:4).
The heart of the ministry of Jesus (summed
up in passages such as Isaiah 61:1-3) is to come intentionally into the
brokenness and suffering of the ‘warp and woof’ of human experience, bringing
the transforming comfort and provision of the life-giving and restoring
presence of God into the very places of our hearts where there is grief, pain,
mourning and despair. This is why he can be so subjectively close
to us when we go through afflictions and suffering for his sake, and it is
why believers so often feel the deep peace and comfort of the Lord in their
spirit in a time of death and bereavement (2 Cor. 1:3-4, Phil. 4:7). Because he does not abandon us, but walks
with us through the valley of the shadow of death (Ps. 23:4) empathizing with
the inner pain and grief we feel, he can strengthen us deeply within by his
grace (Heb. 4:16, 1 Peter 5:10-12) and carry us through it all.
So as we heed what the Spirit is saying to
us and resolve to walk closely with the Lord through our sufferings for the
faith, rather than moping in our complaining and unanswered questions, we can
know and experience the power of his grace permeating and strengthening our
inner beings by his Spirit. This is to
know and experience the subjectively-felt presence of the Living One, ‘the
resurrection and the life,’ in the very midst of suffering, bereavement and
death. He is there with us in the middle of it all; he is not separate from it.
As we open ourselves up to him in times of
such affliction, this allows the Holy Spirit (who is the Comforter) to touch
our hearts and pour his comforting grace into the tender fragility and
vulnerability of our very point of need (see Heb. 4:12,16). So through
our intimate fellowship with him we receive his inward strength and comfort,
and his healing grace for our inner heart wounds (cf. Isa. 53:5). As we determine to remain faithful to Christ
in times of deep personal trial, and to walk closely with him through it in the
inward strength of his grace, we prove his power to overcome, and fear and
death lose their power over us.
Furthermore, through learning this deeper
lesson of walking with the Living One and being inwardly strengthened by his
very presence as he walks with us in the midst of affliction, we attain deeper
levels of practical faith and trust in our lives. As a consequence, not only are we better
prepared and equipped ourselves for the next time we go through such
difficulties, we can also minister out of this new inner spiritual depth to
others who are in similar situations:
‘Praise be to the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who
comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.’ (2 Cor. 1:3-4)
Copyright
Notice
THE HOLY
BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by
Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
[1]
Cruse, C.F. (Tr.), Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Book
4, Chapter 15, Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998, pp.123-127.
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