5-Day Commentary Challenge - Revelation 2-3 Sample

The Letter to Philadelphia, 3:7–13

Destination, 3:7

Philadelphia, about twenty-eight miles southeast of Sardis, means “brotherly love.” The city was named after King Attalus III. It bordered on Mysia, Lydia, and Phrygia, and, because it was liable to severe earthquakes, many of its inhabitants lived outside the city limits. Though many gods were worshiped there, its principal deity was Dionysus, the god of wine. This church displays characteristics of the modern missionary era of church history.

The Lord, 3:7

The Head of the church presents Himself as holy, true, and authoritative. The last part of verse 7 is taken from Isaiah 22:22, where authority was given God’s servant Eliakim over David’s house, just as Christ has authority over His church.

Commendation, 3:8

The church is commended for four things: (1) using the opportunities afforded by the open door (this seems to be implied in

v. 8); (2) a little power (not so much an indication of spiritual weakness as of the few true saints in the church); (3) keeping His Word; and (4) separation from evil and faithfulness to Him.

Promises, 3:9–11, 12–13

Four promises are given.

Enemies will be humiliated. Their enemies will be humiliated before them (v. 9). As in Smyrna, these unbelieving Jewish antagonists are called the “synagogue of Satan”(2:9).

The church will be delivered from the Tribulation. The church is also promised deliverance from the hour of trial that shall come upon all the world. The words “temptation” or “trial” are equivalents for “tribulation” (cf. Luke 8:13 with Matt. 13:21 and Mark 4:17). The verse indicates that this does not refer to the normal trials of Christians (John 16:33; Acts 14:22), but to a special “hour of testing,” which will be worldwide. Even the persecutions that believers have and are suffering today at the hands of particular nations do not fulfill this verse, since they are not worldwide. The promise of the Lord is that the church will be kept from that hour by being raptured to heaven.

This is the pretribulation view of the relation of the Rapture to the Tribulation; that is, the church will be raptured before (pre-) the Tribulation begins. Another view teaches that the church will live through the first half of the Tribulation and be raptured at the midpoint (mid-tribulationism). This view supposes that the first half will be a time of peace and that the terrible judgments will not begin until the midpoint. A third view says that the church will live through the entire period of tribulation, being protected by God, and will be raptured at the end. In this view, the Rapture is still a distinct event that occurs just at the end of the Tribulation and is immediately followed by the return of Christ to earth.

It is well known that the phrase “keep . . . from” is used only twice in the New Testament—here and in John 17:15. Post-tribulationists say that comparing John 17:15 with Revelation 3:10 shows us that just as believers in the world are kept from Satan’s power now, so will those living in the Tribulation be kept from its judgments. However, the Lord’s prayer that believers be kept from the evil one is answered by delivering us from the power of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of His beloved Son (Col. 1:13). By this transfer we have been removed from the kingdom of darkness. Similarly Revelation 3:10 promises us removal from the time of the worldwide Tribulation by being taken to heaven in the Rapture of the church before that time begins. This is not a promise of protection while living through the Tribulation on earth but removal and transfer from earth to heaven (just as we have been transferred into His kingdom). In this passage, believers of the Church Age are promised they will be kept from that hour not by being protected while living on earth during that awful time, but by being taken to heaven in the Rapture of the church before that time begins.

Although the most natural meaning of Revelation 3:10 sees it as a promise to transfer us from the earth, where the hour of trial will be going on, it is at least theoretically possible to conceive of the church’s being protected from the judgments of the tribulation period while remaining on earth. However, we know that God’s saints on the earth during that time will not be exempt from the judgments or from death (6:9–11; 7:9–14; 14:1–3; 15:1–3). Many church saints will suffer and die along with Tribulation believers if the church goes through the Tribulation. Furthermore, people might be preserved in the Tribulation without a pre-tribulation Rapture, but how can they be kept from the hour, or time, of the Tribulation without being removed from the earth, the place where the events of that time are happening? If the church will not be raptured before the hour begins, then the promise will not be fulfilled, because many saints simply will not be preserved in the Tribulation but will suffer and die along with unsaved people. Believers will be honored. The promise that believers will be pillars may allude to the custom in Philadelphia of honoring a magistrate or philanthropist by placing a great pillar with his name inscribed on it in one of the temples. Believers will be so honored in the temple of God and permanently so (“will not go out from it any more,” v. 12).

Saints will have God’s name. God promises to write on the saints His name, the name of His city, and Christ’s new name. What the new name may be we do not know, but the writing of this name indicates identification with, and possession by, God. These must have been very precious promises to a church that was plagued by enemies within and without, and they will always be precious promises to the church universal in every age.

Exhortation, 3:11

The only exhortation is to “hold fast” (the same word used in 2:1, 13–14, 25). The reason for this exhortation is so that no one would rob them of their rewards (cf. 2 John 8).