Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I just had a good friend message me about my financial situation which is about the same, but it sure is nice to know that people are praying for you. My prayer requests are the same. My continued Christlikeness, my financial situation, and the other area in my life. There is progress going on however and I am pleased. I mainly know this from my friends as well. They’re usually much more objective about our personal growth than we are. For now, let’s go to our Trinitarian Commentary where tonight we’ll be looking at Revelation 2:18.
18“To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that the way Jesus presents himself is like the way that he presented himself to John. We are getting bits and pieces each time as each part is somehow relevant to the churches that he is writing to.
For Thyatira, Jesus describes himself as the Son of God first off, meaning that he is one to be taken seriously. How often might we gloss over the idea of Jesus being the Son of God? Yet imagine this early church here and getting a message in a letter and being told “These are the words of the Son of God.” He doesn’t say Jesus. He points to his ontological position. The church paid attention. Let’s hope we do as well.
His feet are as bronze. The church would have been reminded of the appearances of God in the OT where his feet are like metal and realized that this one who was addressing them was that same one. They were about to be addressed by deity. Note then that the idea of Son of God does not go against deity. In fact, understood in the proper context, it proclaims deity.
He also has eyes as a blazing fire. This would have reminded the people of Daniel 10:6 with the eyes as flaming torches. It is a problem that we are biblically illiterate today and do not recognize the allusions. The church did not live in an age of Bibles like we do today, and yet, I think most gentiles even knew the Old Testament better than we do today.
Both of these symbols would have also reminded the church of judgment, and there is a lot of that. Christ gives a quick praise, but then he goes immediately into judgment and there is a lot to judge for. The church would have known they needed to shape up, especially considering they had a Jezebel in their midst, a lady so wicked that no one else in the OT bears that name.
Today, we in the church can also realize that Christ is examining us with scrutiny and he has authority to judge as he is Lord and God. Once again, we are reminded that the identity of Christ is relevant to the work of the church at all points in time.
Tomorrow, we shall see what is said to the church in Sardis.
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