The Book's Recipients
From start to finish, the book of Revelation is addressed to the “seven churches of Asia,” and they do not fade from the picture in the later sections of the book. While it may include a larger audience, Revelation is first and foremost a message for those seven assemblies, and the significance of its visions cannot be understood apart from them.
The opening
paragraph presents the book as the record of the visions received by John while
he was exiled on the isle of Patmos. Here, it calls itself “the prophecy”
in the singular number, and its contents concern “what things that must come
to pass soon.” Its first recipients would have understood the time
reference “soon” from their perspective.
THEY WHO HEAR
John is
commanded to record his visions in a scroll, then to send the document to seven
churches in key cities of the Roman province of Asia. Moreover, according to
the promise of Jesus, the one “who reads, and they who hear the words of the
prophecy” will be “blessed.”
And John
is told to send the “book,” singular, to the “seven churches - to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum,
Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and to Laodicea” - (Revelation
1:1-11).
The
book’s first vision includes seven letters addressed to the “seven churches
of Asia.” Each letter includes commendations, corrections, warnings, and
promises specific to its congregation, and each letter concludes with the
admonishment to “hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches,”
plural.
The “churches of Asia” do not disappear from the picture after the letter to Laodicea. The promises for “overcomers” in each letter include verbal links to the vision of “New Jerusalem” at the end of the book.
Likewise,
the exhortation to “hear what the Spirit is saying” in each letter also occurs
in the central and concluding sections of the book - (Revelation 13:9-10,
22:16).
COSMIC STRUGGLE
The daily
struggles of the “seven churches” with opponents, sin, and deception
echo the larger battles described in the book’s later visions.
For example,
the false “prophetess Jezebel” who “seduces
my servants to commit fornication,” is a local
version of the “Great Harlot, Babylon” who makes the “inhabitants of
the earth…drunk with the wine of her fornication” - (Revelation 2:18-24, 17:1-5).
None
of this means Revelation is only applicable to the “churches of Asia”
or first-century events.
At the
time John received his visions, there were more than seven congregations in the
province, plus dozens more scattered throughout the empire. Plural terms like “churches”
and references to saints from “every nation” indicate a much wider intended
audience.
But
the original seven congregations remain a part of that audience. And in the
book, the number seven is used symbolically for completion.
Thus, the “seven churches” represent a larger whole, though they are included in it. Likewise, the concluding admonishment in each letter to hear what the spirit is saying to the “churches” also points to a broader audience.
Furthermore,
the vision of the vast “innumerable multitude” of men from every nation
celebrating in “New Jerusalem” certainly envisions something far larger
and grander than just the seven marginalized congregations of Asia.
However,
those seven churches are included in that glorious vision, and their members
also will find themselves “rendering divine service” before the “Lamb
and the throne” in New Jerusalem.
Ignoring
the book’s historical setting creates significant problems. For example, if the
promise to keep the church in Philadelphia “out of the hour of trial”
refers to escape from the “tribulation” in the remote future, then it has
no relevance to the very congregation that first received this promise.
Passages
from Revelation must be interpreted in their historical contexts. What
was the imminent “hour of trial” facing the church in Philadelphia? What
was the "throne of Satan" in the city of Pergamos?
The
book uses the real-life experiences of these first-century churches to set the
stage for its visions. Thus, any interpretation that writes the “seven
churches of Asia” out of the book or pushes them to the side does not take the
book’s self-description as a message for those churches seriously and is doomed
to go awry.
