Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the End Times from Revelation 3:1–22
It is harder to get pictures of the ruins here because so much of the city has been built over. This is modern Izmir, a metropolitan city of some import. If you were flying into western Turkey today, this is probably where you would land. It’s about 40 miles north of Ephesus. It today fills very much the kind of function that Ephesus did in antiquity. This picture is taken from Mount Pagus, Kadifekale, across the Gulf of Sin, it’s called.
This is the city that was destroyed about 600 BC by forces of the king of Lydia, Alyattes, who reigned at Sardis, about which I’ll say much more shortly. Then the survivors were dispensed into the villages, and the city was rebuilt by the successors to Alexander the Great in about 280 BC. So this was a city that died and came back to life again, and the believers in this city were feeling that they were about to die and come back to life again, but as we’ve seen, in fact, they were really quite courageous.
Again, a similar view looking a little more to the north, showing more of Mount Sipylus in the distance. This looks down again from Mount Pagus more closely at the city. There are bare patches of the Roman Agora, the marketplace, in the middle distance. One does not see so much here. This is a bit of a washed-out one, but these are houses here, if you look closely, and these are ruins here. It’s one of the few areas where you can see the ancient ruins actually present. It’s not as visually exciting as some of them.
Here you do see some of the ruins at the bottom of the Agora. The Agora was the marketplace, like our malls, but in the marketplace you not only did your marketing, but that’s where people hung out and debated and talked and so on. When Paul is in Athens, if you recall, in Acts, chapter 17, we’re told he taught daily in the Jewish synagogue, trying to convince Jews and proselytes about who Christ was, and also in the marketplace, because that’s where people hung out, and that’s where he was finally challenged and brought into the Council.
You can see these massive arches here to show three levels of this original marketplace. It was a three-tiered marketplace. Here are some of the massive arches at the bottom level. Now one of the recurring themes in the book of Revelation is this crown of life or crown of something, crown of glory, and there are quite a few of the ancient ruins that look not unlike crowns. In fact, some of the ancient writers picture the ruins of one city or another as a crown. “The crowned head of Mount Pagus,” you find in the ancient sources.
So it might be with comments the crowned head of Mount Pagus, where the local pantheon was held, where all of the temples were, the gods, and so on.… As opposed to this, what Jesus promises to give is a crown of life. By contrast with the paganism and the temple worship, the emperor worship, that is bound up with the ancient world, the crown city of Smyrna was known.… That’s the way it was sometimes referred to. But what Christ gives is a crown of life. Point/counterpoint.
Smyrna was also where young Polycarp was martyred some decades later. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Polycarp or not, but Polycarp and Papias were two early Christians who, according to the early sources, actually knew the aged apostle John. So they become a very important link to Irenaeus. Irenaeus wrote some of the most important stuff in the ancient church up to 200. He wrote a lot of his stuff about 180.
The point is Irenaeus, as a young man, knew both Papias and Polycarp, who, in fact, knew John. You only have a two-generation jump from apostolic times all the way to Irenaeus, which is very interesting. Polycarp was martyred, ultimately, in Smyrna. We’re not sure exactly the date, the middle of the second century roughly. So he did suffer there at the stake and was given the crown of life.
Now we come to Pergamum. You’re approaching it now from the Sacred Way. This is the view toward the acropolis of Pergamum. The acropolis was the area where the gods were maintained, the various pagan temples, and so on. This was a city built on a mountain of dark granite. The road shown connects the city on the hill with the temple of Asclepius. Notice that there’s a gash in the mountain. That’s where there’s a modern road that goes through.
Here’s a closer view of the acropolis through the arch of the amphitheater. You can see part of the road heading toward it, the gash in the mountain where a modern road goes. Notice the crown on the top of the ancient ruins again. That’s why so many of them were built on hills. It gave the impression with the ancient walls of being a crown. So the crown imagery becomes particularly telling in that kind of framework.
That’s the theater toward the top of the mountain. We’ll get closer to it. Not only the crown, but you can see the theater here. It’s not very clear, but we’ll see those steps. And there, of course, the crown itself. This was where Antipas perished, probably in that very theater. These are Hellenistic walls, that is, slightly later walls of the acropolis, at the top of the mountain.
In other words, some of the old walls were eventually battered down and these are slightly later ones, but certainly the same sort of thing. Imagine trying to take a city like that. You have to get up there, and then while you’re trying to scale the walls, you have people pouring boiling oil down on your head and things like that.
This is from the top looking down. The acropolis governs a huge area of ancient Mysia. There’s an aqueduct running through there. I’ll just point it out to you. This is an aqueduct here. It used to bring water to the city, but we’ll see better aqueducts in Laodicea in a few minutes. Now you can see part of the modern town of Bergama at the bottom. This is part of the ruin of the old theater. See the immensely steep slides. This is part of the gash of that road that has gone through now.
Still some excellent ruins. Notice the difference between the white and the dark stones. We’ll come back to that again. This is the ruins of the temple of Dionysus Kathegemon, “Dionysus the Leader.” There’s the terrace below the theater. See how steep it is? That is almost certainly where Antipas died in what is, in fact, a theater at the bottom. Here’s a further picture of it, a little farther up, a different setting.
Now this is worth saying something about. This is part of the ruins of an ancient library. Pergamum at one time had a library that began to rival the library in Alexandria. The best library in the ancient world was the library in Alexandria in Egypt. King Eumenes II, at the beginning of the second century before Christ, was building this thing up and building this thing up and building this thing up, and it began to rival the Alexandrian library, so Egypt forbade the export of papyrus, which was your basic paper material, to the Attalid dynasty in Pergamum.
But this place was so wealthy at the time that instead of using papyrus, they began to use what we call vellum. It was really a kind of paper made from the skins of animals, which was, of course, a lot more expensive because you had to kill the animals. Instead of just growing papyrus, you had to kill the animal. I will say more about the nature of papyrus and scrolls next week, because it affects how you interpret chapter 4.
Eventually, this library, which was superb and on vellum, so the stuff would have lasted longer, and second only to Alexandria.… Later on, once the Romans took over and the seat of government was eventually moved to Ephesus, the library still stayed here, but after Julius Caesar was killed, you know, “et tu, Brute?” and all that.… He was killed, and war broke out between Mark Antony and Octavian.
Octavian eventually wins and becomes Augustus Caesar, for those of you who remember your Roman history. Well, during that struggle, Mark Antony had half of the troops, and he went around the eastern end of Lake Mediterranean and stopped here on his way to Egypt. He eventually joined forces with Cleopatra in Egypt.
He had an affair with Cleopatra, and both he and Cleopatra were destroyed by Octavian, who became Augustus Caesar. But on the way, he swiped the entire library as a love gift for Cleopatra. Thus, the library in Alexandria had both libraries, and then later on when it was destroyed, both were destroyed. So all of that wonderful collection is gone forever.
Male: Don’t they say that it had 200,000 volumes?
Don Carson: Those are the estimates. Imagine 200,000 volumes. That’s about the size of Trinity’s library, which is a pretty good library. We probably have 140,000 to 150,000 bound volumes and another 100,000 of microfiche. You can think of the space it takes for it besides the usage, and then on animal skin as well. Scrolls most of them, not codices.
It must have been a huge place originally. You don’t see much of it here, but that’s part of this. In fact, our word parchment comes from the word Pergamum, because this vellum that was used to make their parchment was so common there that people said, “Oh yes, that stuff is Pergamum stuff. It’s Pergamum.” Hence we get our word parchment from that.
Okay, here are three inscriptions about the second century AD. There is some interesting insight here into city life. “The council and people honor various persons for services rendered.” On inscriptions at the center and at the right, Pergamum is described as “metropolis of Asia” and “twice neokoros.” First city of the Pergamenes. Do you see how proud it is?
Now it wasn’t twice neokoros.… That is, having the right to erect two temples to the emperor. It wasn’t twice neokoros in John’s day. It was only once neokoros, but once was enough. Then later in the second century it had a right to do it again. Neokoros literally means temple sweeper, but it was an envied title claimed by cities permitted to have an official temple for emperor worship. These inscriptions are in the temple of Asclepius Soter, “Asclepius Savior,” because he healed people. He was the god of healing.
Pergamum, if you recall, was Satan’s throne, and I indicated that that’s variously explained. This is the altar of Zeus Soter. Zeus was the head of their pantheon. He’s like Jupiter in Latin. This was the temple to Zeus. Because it was the head of the Greek pantheon, it may be that this was viewed by Christians as the place where Satan dwelled. The head of the pantheon had his temple here.
So it may be because the city was neokoros, emperor worship, it may be because there was a Zeus temple there, or it may be because there was an Asclepius temple there (we’ll see one of the little symbols in a moment), which had the symbol of Satan. All three of them could have called forth this “where Satan dwells.” Maybe it was the combination of them. You know, “You guys are putting up with everything there, where Satan dwells.”
Note the sculpturing of serpents on the stone. That’s because of the Asclepian influence. Serpents are found on the famous coins of Pergamum and in all of the cities of the Attalid period, which Christians would see as an emblem of Satan. Here’s a model of the temple of Trajan, which was a little later. It’s only a model. The ruins are so bad one finds it hard to reconstruct it. This is the alternative model built on the same design. This one is in what used to be East Berlin. I won’t go into that here.
Here, too, you have another temple cult. What I want you to note now is the dark stone with white stone. Now see the next picture. Do you see the dark, dark stone and the white stone? You have the whole mountain of this dark granite and then white stone for various inscriptions of one sort or another. That, I suspect, is bound up with the white stone language here.
White stone was used in a variety of ways. White and dark stones were used in court cases. When judges, for example, had to cast guilty or not guilty, they would drop either a light stone or a dark stone into the hat. White meant not guilty. Dark stone meant you were guilty. Thus, “I will give you a white stone” is a way of saying, “You’ll be declared not guilty in my presence.” It’s a way of saying, “God will find you not guilty.”
The white and dark, because of the granite and the white marble that was used for some of these inscriptions, would probably stand out that way. “… with a new name written on it.” The names are ways of saying that God recognizes you. People put the names of people who would donate a lot of money to the local temple, the way we put plaques on a wall. When somebody donates $100,000 for some furniture for the new wing or something like that, we have a little plaque. They would put up a marble thing.
So this white stone with a new name given on it that only God himself knows. It’s another way of saying, “You’re secure. You’re lasting eternally. Your contribution is being recognized. On top of that, you’re not guilty.” All of these symbolisms are all bound up together. The people would have recognized it at once, even though some of the symbolism is a little strange to us. What do I want a white pebble for? But it was clearly meaningful to the first people.
All right, now we come to Thyatira. This is a great contrast with Pergamum. It’s quite unremarkable and visually unexciting. The modern town is called Akhisar. You can see the name of it on the signpost here. It has 60,000 people or something like that today. It’s not a very big town. Because it’s built over the old site, there’s not an awful lot to see, but we’ll show you some things anyway.
This is a shoe-black area of town, where you can get your shoes blackened, and this is a drugstore. Turkish, if you recall, was written in Arabic script, and then it was switched in the 20s in the Ottoman Empire to a Western alphabet script. So it’s a language that is structured like Arabic but is spelled in Western letters. It’s a very interesting and very difficult place, modern Turkey.
There are some other things here that are interesting. These are copper shops, obviously; great tourist buys if you like this sort of thing. The workshop for it is behind. This and other trades are interesting, and they’re grouped in separate quarters of town. In the ancient world, they had trade guilds not entirely unlike our trade unions today. The trouble is that each trade guild had a patron deity attached to it.
So if you were a skilled copper worker and you became a Christian, you could be in a lot of difficulty, because part of what was expected of you to belong to the copper trade guild was that you would go along to the appropriate temple and worship the patron god or goddess of that particular guild. If you couldn’t do that, you couldn’t remain in the guild, like you couldn’t remain in the union. If you can’t remain in the union, you can’t hold down your job.
So some of the things that are said in some of these letters about how they are poor and their poverty is tied to the faithfulness of these believers may well be bound up with these sorts of trade guilds. All through here, in Thyatira at this time and in previous times, these same sorts of trades have been passed on from generation to generation, from generation to generation, and it was a copper-smelting place way back in the first century with a trade guild and a patron deity that was involved.
So some of these things may be bound up with some of those sorts of things. In fact, there is one very important word in Revelation 1:15 and 2:18 that the King James Version calls fine brass. It’s not found anywhere else. “His feet are like fine brass burnished in the furnace.” Some of the language is drawn from the Old Testament, which is used in the Danielic visions of one who’s so strong it pounds down everything in front of it.
But that word is not found anywhere else in ancient Greek literature, and some have thought (have made a good case for it, in fact) that the word rendered fine brass is, in fact, a trade name, like a Hoover. Hoover is simultaneously a trade name and a kind of machine. This may be the best brass, “His feet are like the best brass,” only now instead of the brass that is corrupting you and making you poor because you can’t get in on it because of the pagan connections, his feet are fine brass that trample down all of the enemies in his footsteps. There may be a mingling of metaphors along those lines as well.
This is the mosque. You can see the spire of the minaret. This is the main mosque in Akhisar. What is interesting about it is that inside there are some pagan images, which shows you the amount of syncretism today, but syncretism existed in the first century as well. That was the danger of Jezebel, a kind of spiritual whoredom. Syncretism exists again and again and again. Don’t you find it in the book of Acts? The seven silly sons of Sceva. Do you like the alliteration?
What were the seven silly sons of Sceva into? They were into black magic, for goodness’ sake. They were supposed to be Jews, and they were into black magic. So the danger of syncretism can happen again and again and again, especially in a highly pluralistic society. Unless you’re principled, a highly pluralistic society can turn you into some kind of syncretist. That’s what was happening in this part of the world as well, as it has happened again in the Grand Mosque.
So we come to Sardis. This is the view of the necropolis mountain. There are two mountains here again. This is the necropolis mountain with a whole lot of little caves in it where a lot of people were buried. Necropolis, city of the dead. That was their burial grounds, and the city where they lived was more on this side, where more of the ruins are. You’ll see this green belt in here. That’s the Pactolus River, about which I’ll say more in a moment.
We’re approaching Sardis now. The goddess Artemis, the same one, Diana, that you find in Ephesus, is very important here. The River Pactolus runs at the bottom of the valley. The mountains in the back there have about 1,100 cave tombs, dating from the Lydian period, which reached its apex under King Croesus. I don’t know if you’ve done any sort of Greek mythology.
King Croesus, sixth-century BC, was proverbial for wealth. He pushed the Lydian Empire so strongly that, at one point, it was threatening the Persian Empire. It was extremely powerful for being such a small thing, and it was because of the wealth. He could get the troops and he could get the best arms. The reason he got the wealth was the Pactolus River. They did placer mining gold all through there.
The old Greek myths of King Midas’ touch.… Today Midas has to do with mufflers, but in Greek mythology, remember King Midas? Everything he touched turned to gold. That’s what he wanted. Then his wife turned to gold and his kids turned to gold and his food turned to gold. He couldn’t eat, because everything he touched turned to gold. So he prayed to the gods, and his Midas touch disappeared.
The very fact that there could be rumors of that kind of stuff around is because this whole area did know so much gold. There was an expression, a simile, in the ancient world, “Rich as King Croesus” or “Rich as Croesus.” That expression was still used in some nineteenth-century English literature. “Rockefeller is as rich as Croesus.” That’s going today because there are so few people who know the ancient Greek mythologies anymore. But he built here. He became rich here, and Sardis was his chief town.
Here are the slopes of some of the necropolis mountain. They’ve been hollowed out in the friable material. Eventually, people used some of these caves for hiding in extreme danger. That may be evocative of some language in Revelation 6, which we’ll see in two weeks, where the people go hide in the earth and cry, “Save us from the wrath of the Lamb.” They hide in caves, the king’s generals, and so on. It would be very powerful language here, because that’s what happened on two or three occasions. When Sardis was attacked, people went and hid in the caves.
These are oleander plants by the River Pactolus. This is the stream that in legend was where Midas washed off his golden touch, and it’s where Croesus, centuries later, then found gold. So probably the finding of gold is bound up with legend with how the gold got there. The gold touch was washed off. Croesus had money, arms, allies. Details can be filled in with pictures from other sources, Lydian coins, and so on. This whole area was proverbial for wealth.
Here’s the acropolis of Sardis. You get a good picture of it taken from the necropolis. Notice the earthen bank in the foreground. The city of Sardis was proverbially impregnable. It was thought impossible, in fact, to attack because so many of the cliffs were this friable material and would all break away, and they were so steep. In fact, Sardis was taken twice. It was taken exactly the same way Quebec City was taken in my country, in Canada.
Quebec City was taken by the English under James Wolfe in 1759 from gÈnÈral Montcalm, and it was taken exactly the same way. One cliff was judged too impossible to climb up, so they didn’t guard it. That’s where the troops went up. They found a rabbit trail up, and they went up at night, and the next morning the troops were already there. They fought on the Plains of Abraham and shot each other. Both generals were killed, but the English won. That’s how Canada became English instead of French. At least it became bilingual instead of French.
In the same way, Sardis was judged absolutely impregnable. You’ll see why. The city is on top of things like that. It’s all friable material that will break away. But twice the city was taken. So the Christians here, we’ll see, are in danger of thinking themselves absolutely impregnable. We’ll look at the text again in a few moments. The city has a reputation for being so wonderful, as the church there has a reputation for being so wonderful, but, in fact, it is in enormous danger.
More of the same. Imagine taking troops up there. This is looking down from the summit of the acropolis with the temple below and the necropolis mountain opposite. Again, the River Pactolus in the middle distance. Notice in Revelation 3, “You have a name that you live, but you are dead. Watch, therefore.” That language is taken right out of the whole mythology of Sardis. “You have a name that you’re impregnable; in fact, you’re dead. You keep watch.”
Again, a view of vineyards and so on from the top of the place. Here’s the acropolis from ruins of the later city on the plains to the north. This is the reconstruction of a synagogue about 1970 when the picture was taken. This was originally a third-century AD synagogue, but it was built in an immensely wealthy place. Probably it was where the ancient synagogue in the first century was also built. The influence of Judaism is variously attested here, but probably it was pretty important.
Reconstruction of the gymnasium about the same time. Note the reference here in the text to white raiment that was given to the conqueror, the one who won the races. They raced naked in those days. That’s why women were not allowed at races. Only the men participated. The women were not allowed because the men were all naked. It was a peculiar Greek form of sexism, I suppose. In any case, the winner then was given white raiment. So the winner in Christian forms here is given white raiment. The symbolism is the same. This was an ancient center of clothing manufacture as well.
This is a general view across an area that has vineyards, and so on, in the Philadelphia area. The modern town of Alasehir with a three-pointed acropolis is in a hill behind. Notice the tents down there. They are Red Crescent tents, the Muslim equivalent to Red Cross tents, which were put up in ‘69 because of earthquakes. This whole area is an earthquake region, especially around Philadelphia.
It’s a particularly apropos subject at the moment. We have a number of Japanese students at the seminary, some of whom have gotten through to Kobe and some of whom cannot get through at all and have no idea how their relatives are doing. Phone lines are down and so on. We have heard that three Evangelical Free Churches in Kobe are all still standing, believe it or not, and the pastors have still survived, but many people have died. It has been horrendous.
Well, this whole area was like that. You’ll see some evidence of it, and the importance of this to the text you’ll see in a moment. This is the other church, which is small and pathetic, but which, in fact, receives only commendation from the exalted Jesus. Now you’re looking on the modern town. This town looks weak. How on earth can you defend a town like that? In fact, it has never been taken in history, for one reason or another.
So this town that looks weak turns out to be strong, like the church here looks weak but turns out to be strong. Sardis thinks it’s so strong; in fact, Sardis has been taken. So this church is about to be taken. Some of the same imagery is picked up. This town was founded by one or both of the brothers Eumenes II and Attalus Philadelphus; hence the name Philadelphia.
It’s commemorated in name because of the brother’s brotherly love (that’s what Philadelphia means) for his brother. In AD 17, it suffered catastrophic earthquake and many shocks afterwards and then some smaller earthquakes after that, with the result that the imagery of stability here for the overcomer is very telling. “I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God.”
Do you see how the language is picked up? Over against this insecurity.… “You seem so weak, and you’re suffering, like your town is weak and suffering, but I will make you strong. You will endure. This city has never been taken. You will not be taken, and you will become a pillar in the temple of the city of my God.” The language is being taken up from the local history.
The previous pictures were taken in 1964. This one was taken in 1969 with a collapsed house in a field just outside of Philadelphia. This was a farmhouse. This picture was taken just a few days after the famous Alasehir earthquake of 1969. What happened here had happened in the first century as well and destroyed things, and then the imagery is taken up by Christians.
You see a lot of collapsed homes and these Red Crescent tents in various places, people living outside. And what do you read? “He will no more go outside.” What do you do in an earthquake? You get out. You go outside. You live outside because you’re afraid of the aftershocks that’ll bring things down on your head. The mark of stability, then, of being in a perfect place is that you will no more go outside. You’re now a pillar in the temple of our God that’s secure, and you will no more go outside. See, the language is being picked up from the history of the time.
Do you see this hollowed-out place here? It has never been excavated entirely, but this hollow is the stadium. Again, it looks like a crown. The exalted Jesus says, “Let no one take your crown.” Probably the crown of life, a sign of victory, but the crown imagery was common all through here because of all of these stadiums in all of these cities. Here are more Red Crescent tents with the town half broken down.
All right, this is a transitional photo, and it’s rather important. This is the River Lycus with Mount Cadmus in the background. Notice you’re at a sufficient elevation here to have snow. You’re in the Lycus Valley now, and the Lycus Valley is home for three important New Testament cities: Hierapolis, Laodicea, and Colossae. They’re all in the Lycus Valley.
The Lycus Valley has almost no good water. That water doesn’t look exactly wonderful, does it? It has hot springs in Hierapolis. We’ll see them in a moment. So people went there, the French would say, to take the cure. You go to the hot springs, sit around, and get cured. Then Colossae, we’ll see, had the only fresh water in the whole valley. Laodicea had nothing. This is part of the Lycus Valley system.
There’s not much left of Laodicea. This is part of the water tower, and part of the structure on the left is part of the old gymnasium. But this was an important city. In its time, it was right on the road that connected the Roman Empire with the East, India. If you wanted to go through to India, you went through Laodicea.
As you went, just like today when you go to another nation, you had to change your money. Once you move out of the empire, you have to use non-empire funds. So this became a banking center. This was a money-changing center, so it was wealthy. In addition, it was also a place where they had a lot of sheep farming, but a certain kind of black sheep that produced a heavy kind of cloth, equivalent to our denim material.
Denim provides the best wear. It’s not exactly posh, but at least it wears well. This dark black wool was strong. It was tough. It was good quality stuff. On the other hand, it wasn’t considered posh or classy. Some of that language comes up here. “I counsel you to buy from me raiment,” white raiment, a sign of purity again. These people thought they were wealthy, but, in fact, in some ways they were quite poor.
In addition, this center had an ophthalmic institute, a place for healing people with eye diseases. In many, many Near-Eastern countries today, as then, you could get eye infections because of dust and bits of fecal material in the air mingling with the dust. It would get in your eye, and you’d have terrible eye inflammations and pusses and swelling and so on, so they developed here a kind of poultice.
People don’t know quite how they did it, but they developed a kind of poultice, which you’d slap on the eye, and it would suck out the poison. They had a fair bit of success with it all. So there was an ophthalmic institute here. They think they can see well. The imagery is all coming through here. “You think you can see, but you’re blind. You think you’re well dressed, but you’re naked. You think you’re wealthy, from all of this money stuff, but you’re poor.” The church has taken on the characteristics of the entire city in that regard.
Now this is what’s left of the stadium. You can see bits of the stone seats sticking out of here. It’s all grown over. It has never been completely dug out. Laodicea, like Philadelphia, occasionally suffered from disastrous earthquakes. In AD 60, according to Tacitus dating, there was a great disaster here, but here the people were so filthy rich they never even appealed to the imperial government release fund.
The ancient Roman Empire, just like America today, had an imperial relief fund. Laodicea was so filthy rich that when it was destroyed in AD 60, they rebuilt it without any help. They actually wrote to the government and said, “We don’t need your help, thank you.” You can find little plaques that say, “This was rebuilt at our own expense.” They were proud of it. They were filthy rich, they could handle it, and they were proud. And the church was rich. It could handle it. “We don’t need anybody’s help either, thank you.” They didn’t know how poor they were.
This is what’s left of the water tower and an aqueduct. Although this city was at the crossroads for east/west traffic and some north/south traffic and had this manufacturing business from the sheep farming and had this ophthalmic center and banking center and eye salves and whatever else it had, it was missing one thing. It didn’t have a good water supply. So what the Romans did was pipe water in. They used stone pipes. We’ll take a look at them.
It didn’t come from the hot springs at Hierapolis, and it didn’t come from Colossae. It comes from another place. A lot of the older commentaries say it’s hot springs from Hierapolis, but when you actually get there and look at the site, the pipes are all going in the wrong direction for Hierapolis. They brought it in from somewhere else. It was hot-spring water, in any case, with a lot of chemicals in it, calcium carbonate and things like that.
So by the time this water got to Laodicea, it had all of these chemicals in it, and it was lukewarm. It was disgusting. It made you sick. Cicero and others in the ancient world comment that it was the foulest water in the entire empire. Cicero traveled through here. When I grew up in Quebec, I lived on the Saint Francis River, and we used to say it was the foulest river …
There were three sawmills upstream, and in those days they didn’t have the controls on them they have nowadays. When you’d get a low-water day or a dry summer it just stank. It was awful. The dirtiest river in Quebec, we said. Well, this was the dirtiest river in the empire, according to Cicero. He traveled east here and changed his money here, so he probably knew.
Often this verse, “I wish you were hot or cold, but because you’re lukewarm I will spew you out of my mouth,” has been understood in a spiritual sense. “I wish you were spiritually hot or spiritually cold, but because you’re spiritually lukewarm, I’ll spew you out of my mouth.” But why would God want somebody to be spiritually cold rather than spiritually lukewarm? I mean, are there any odds on that? It misunderstands. I don’t think anybody in Laodicea would have taken it that way.
The point is right in the Lycus Valley, in this area (we’ll look at them in a moment), there is a town that is known for hot springs. Well, the drinking water may not be all that wonderful, but you can go and take the cure. That’s good. The hot springs are useful. They’re valuable. They’re cherished. They’re good. Then there’s a town like Colossae with the cold water, the only cold water in the whole valley. That’s good.
What does this place have? Good-for-nothing water. The point is not that they’re spiritually lukewarm but, in fact, they’re useless. They’re neither hot useful nor cold useful. They’re neither hot appetizing pleasing, nor cold appetizing pleasing. They’re just like their water: revolting, disgusting. That’s what is meant.
So now you have, if you please, the resurrected Christ, the exalted Christ, saying to his church, “You disgust me.” That’s what he’s saying. “You’re so disgusting I want to treat you the way you treat your water: take a little sip and gag all over the place.” That is the way the exalted Christ is picturing his church. Isn’t that a damning indictment?
Now these are the stone pipes that bring the water in. When you get closer, there’s the outer ring of the original diameter, but from the calcium carbonate it’s filled in this much. That’s the amount of chemicals that are in there. They just got deposited. We’ll get closer. See again the outer ring and the amount of deposit that has been filled in.
Now you’re moving off to Hierapolis. Here are the hot springs at Hierapolis. You can see all the chemical formations from these hot springs. They really are very beautiful indeed. You see again Mount Cadmus in the distance. You went there to take the cure. Again, at least that was hot and useful. It was hot and good.
Now you’re coming to Colossae, which has never been excavated. It never has been dug out. I’ll show you the only springs there in the whole valley. You were just on the edge of it before. Now you’re closer to it. That’s the Colossae thing that has never been dug out. Those are the springs, the only fresh water in the whole valley. Now we’re back at the gate of Laodicea. Most ancient towns in times of security and plenty would leave their gates open at night because somebody might be traveling along and need a place of shelter and would come in.
A place that was dangerous, either because there was political unrest or there were a lot of brigands around or something like that, would close the gates at night, and you couldn’t get in unless you knew a password or you’d just have to stay until the morning or you could prevail on somebody to believe you enough to open them up or something. The gates shut at night, and then you were locked out.
But at this time, most of the towns around here were so secure they left their gates open. Not Laodicea. With all this money, all this wealth, all this arrogance, this feeling that “we’ve arrived,” they shut their gates at night. In fact, when they rebuilt their gates after the AD 60 destruction, they did it with a little placard. “So-and-so donated so much money and paid for this gate all by himself.” They shut their gates at night.
What does Jesus say? “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Again, that would speak very powerfully to those people. You must understand that he’s not addressing that to the individual who’s contemplating becoming a Christian. There’s Jesus standing outside this sort of nineteenth-century shuttered door with long blond hair and blue eyes, and there’s a nice little lamp there, and he’s knocking on the door of your heart. That’s not the image at all. It’s Jesus knocking on the door of the church. It’s being addressed to the church.
He has been shut out of his own church the way this place shuts people out of its town. They’re so arrogant they think they have everything under control. They think they’re wealthy. They think they can see. They think they can make people see with their eye salve, and, in fact, they’re just nauseating to him. So there’s one side of Jesus that’s knocking on the door of the church and saying, “I must be inside or you will be destroyed,” and there’s another part that’s saying, quite frankly, “You are so disgusting to me I want to retch every time I take you.” That’s it.
Are there questions you want to raise about these two chapters in the last few minutes before we break up? Because next week I’m not coming back to them. We have to keep moving or we’ll get too far behind. Next week we’ll do chapters 4–5.
Female: [Inaudible]
Don: Oh yes. Again, there’s probably a double allusion there, something coming from the Old Testament too, the manna. The manna is picked up regularly as a symbol for life, and it’s picked up by John in John’s gospel. The real manna is Jesus. He gives the bread of life. But in Pergamum, where you have this contrast between light and dark stones, and the lighter stones connected with the judicial system and so on …
It was a hidden sort of thing. People put their hands in. You weren’t supposed to see what kind of stone they dropped into the thing. It was supposed to be a blind system. One suspects again that what Christ gives is not flashed out there in the public arena. It is manna that only he gives, but it is hidden. It is secreted. It is not in the public arena that draws immediate attention. It’s probably in that kind of framework that it’s being offered. I should have said more on the stones when I was there.
Male: [Inaudible]
Don: Yeah, various people have tried to make this purely horizontal. Others have made it purely vertical. My guess is you can’t have one without the other. You certainly can’t have any sort of knowledge of the love of God without loving men and women. John says as much in 1 John. James says as much.
It may be that just as in 1 John he then, after a while, doesn’t bother putting in direct objects. “We love because he first loved us,” not “We love one another” or “We love God.” Just “We love …” Because if you have one you have the other. “… because he first loved us.” So also here it isn’t specified, and I would be reluctant to make it just one or the other. That means if I didn’t mention both, I was also remiss.
Male: [Inaudible]
Don: No, I didn’t. That one is more disputed. The morning star is really an appearance of a heavenly luminary that announces the dawn of the morning. That’s why it’s called a morning star. So Jesus defined as the Morning Star is probably simply being pictured as the one who is announcing the dawning of the consummated kingdom. Is there any connection with this city? That’s not so sure.
Some have wondered, however.… Many of these ancient cities were heavily into astrology of one sort or another, so this becomes the true astrology, as it were. Jesus is the one who is announcing the dawning of the kingdom. I’m not sure that that’s correct, but the reason I like it is because a little later on we’ll see in our last session together in chapters 21–22 something of the way the city is configured, the New Jerusalem.
It’s configured in one particular exactly opposite of the signs of the zodiac, almost as if it’s saying, “Whatever they do, we do the opposite.” So there may have been astrological influences all around here, which were then viewed by any Bible-believer as being basically aligned with the Devil and to be opposed. Within that kind of framework, then, the true Morning Star is Christ. He announces the dawning of the true age. But it’s not certain.
Male: [Inaudible]
Don: No, I don’t know. One could guess at profound significance, but it’s very hard to guess on the significance of what isn’t there. It’s like appealing to an argument from silence. Unless there’s a reason for thundering noise, arguments from silence are very precarious. “These are the words of him who is holy and true and who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.”
Clearly, that’s bound up with the future of this town in some ways. He really does control all things. That much is mentioned back here. There’s no specific mention to opening and shutting, but he’s in the place of God and controls all things. Then the closest to it is at the end of the vision, verse 18, he says, “And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” What he shuts and opens even extends to heaven and hell. So there is that small reference to what he says.
Shall we call it quits? Next week, God willing, chapters 4–5.
