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The Book of Revelation 2:12-17To the Church in Pergamum Revelation 2:12-1712. "And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword: 13. 'I know where you are living, where Satan's throne is. Yet you are holding fast to my name, and you did not deny your faith in me even in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan lives. 13. But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and practice fornication. 15. So you also have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16. Repent then. If not, I will come to you soon and make war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.' The sharp two-edged sword, the phrase that was used to describe Christ in chapter 1, is used here to identify Christ who is now addressing the church in Pergamum. This sword is further described in verse 16 as the sword of my mouth. Again, Christ's weapon of warfare is not made of bronze, iron or steel but is the word of truth that comes from his mouth. Christ tells the church in Pergamum that he knows where this church was living – where Satan's throne is and where Satan lives (verse 13). Pergamum is described in these words not because it boasted of Satan worship as such but because it was the capital of the Roman province of Asia. But even that is not reason enough for calling a provincial capital the locale of Satan's throne and his dwelling place. Some understanding of the history of this city will shed light on John's choice of these words. In 133 BC Pergamum became a Roman city and the seat of government of the Roman province of Asia. A little over a century later, in 29 BC, emperor worship was officially inaugurated there when a temple was built in honor of Rome and Caesar Augustus, who had become emperor two years earlier. It is probably not quite accurate to say that John identifies Rome with Satan. It is more to the point that in his battle with the church, Satan uses emperors and empires as his instruments. In addition, there were other temples in Pergamum. One of the city's patron gods was Zeus, a Greek god who had the title Soter, which means savior. His huge altar at a most prominent spot dominated the city and was visible for miles around. On the plain below, there was another famous temple, that of Asklepios, the god of healing, symbolized by a serpent. Pergamum was known for its love of Greek culture by virtue of its famous library that held 200,000 volumes and a theater that could hold 3,500 people. One of the most famous citizens of Pergamum in the second century AD was the physician Galen who later became a court physician of emperor Marcus Aurelius. Pergamum's political loyalty to Rome, its imposing temples, and its love of learning and the arts gave the city its identity and bragging rights. These were an essential part of what it meant to be a proud citizen of this cultured city. It wasn't as if allegiance to Rome, emperor worship, pagan gods, and Greek culture were imposed on the people of Pergamum by sheer force. These were the kinds of things that everyone gladly and proudly participated in. It went without saying that if you were a citizen of Pergamum, you did these things as a badge of honor. One can readily see how difficult it would be for a Christian living in Pergamum to buck the system. It is in this sense that John speaks of Pergamum as the locale of Satan's throne. In spite of these enormous pressures, it is to the credit of the Christians in Pergamum that they held fast to the name of Christ and did not deny their Christian faith. How is it possible for a tiny minority to hang onto its commitments in a cultural context where the trend was diametrically opposed to everything it held dear? Imagine the pressures on an Amish community trying to maintain its way of life when in the eyes of the dominant American culture it appears hopelessly out of touch with civilization. The church in Pergamum did not deny its faith even when Antipas, one of its members, was killed. John does not say how Antipas was killed. He may have been brought to trial and sentenced to death. Or he may have been killed by mob violence. In either case, he was killed because of his Christian witness. Since he is the only member of the church in Pergamum mentioned as martyr, we cannot assume that there was widespread persecution of Christians at this time, as would be the case later in history. The greater threat at this time was the social, cultural, economic, religious and political pressures on Christians to fit in the way of life assumed to be the norm by the majority. Still, the fact that there was at least one martyr in this church is an indication that resentment against Christians could erupt into violence at any moment. Yet, in spite of the faithfulness of the majority of Christians in Pergamum, Christ utters a word of warning against some members of the church for holding to wrong teaching. Some of them were holding to the teaching of Balaam and others to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. These may not be two different groups but two ways to describe the same group. Unlike the church in Ephesus, which hated the works of the Nicolaitans, some Christians in Pergamum were apparently attracted to them. If we consider the Balaamites and the Nicolaitans in some way related to one another, particularly in the context of the social world of Pergamum, we might gain some insights into their teaching, and why John considered it false. First, consider the story of Balaam in the Old Testament. Although he is mentioned in several places both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, his major story is in Numbers 22-24. Balaam was a non-Israelite prophet, but he apparently was a God-worshiper. Balak, a Moabite king, sent his officials to him with divination fees to get him to come and curse the Israelites because they threatened to attack Moab. Instead, Balaam blessed the Israelites, which made Balak mad. To his credit, Balaam told Balak that even if he gave him a houseful of gold and silver, he would divinize only what the Lord told him. This happened not once but three times. So what was bad about Balaam? For some reason, Balaam seems to get a mixed review in the Bible (cf. Deut. 23:4-5; Joshua 24:9-10; Nehemiah 13:2). In spite of the positive portrayal of Balaam mentioned above, he is remembered in the Bible mostly in negative terms. Numbers 22:22-34 tells about Balaam's failure to see the angel of the Lord blocking the way of the donkey that Balaam was riding. When Balaam beat the donkey three times, the poor donkey spoke up and protested! Balaam's eyes were opened and he saw the angel trying to stop him from heeding Balak's summons. In this story, Balaam apparently went with Balak's emissaries without first getting God's OK. Balaam's faulty side is also apparent in Numbers 31:16, which refers to an earlier incident in which Balaam advised the Israelites to "act treacherously against the Lord in the affair of Peor." Numbers 25:1-3 tells about that affair as follows: Num 25:1 While Israel was staying at Shittim, the people began to have sexual relations with the women of Moab. 25:2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 25:3 Thus Israel yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the LORD's anger was kindled against Israel. Note that the problem with Israelite men's relations with Moabite women was not simply about sex. It was rather about the prostitution of worship. It compromised the pure worship of Yahweh. Israelites began sacrificing and bowing down to Moabite gods. Apparently, Balaam had something to do with Israel's prostitution after other gods and thus brought a curse on Israel after all. In the New Testament, Jude 1:11 mentions "Balaam's error for the sake of gain." According to 2 Peter 2:15-16, which may have been written around the time of The Book of Revelation, Balaam is said to have "loved the wages of doing wrong, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet's madness." There seems to be the implication in these texts that Balaam delivered false prophetic oracles for the sake of monetary gain. This negative assessment about Balaam in Jewish tradition seems to be reflected in our Revelation text in verse 14. It seems likely that some Christians in Pergamum felt that they must try to be at peace with the prevailing culture in order to survive. So what if you as a Christian make a living by designing a few Zeus idols to sell to customers? It doesn't mean that you believe in Zeus; it's just good business. In fact, this verse goes even further. What would be wrong with going to the marketplace and buying meat that had been offered to the pagan gods? After all, did not Paul say that those who are strong may do this without any qualms (1 Cor. 10:25-27)? We are mature and liberated enough, they may have argued, to realize that idols are nothing, and the pagan ceremonies performed on the sacrificial animals don't amount to anything. Besides, the only meat available in the market is from pagan sacrifices. What matters most, their argument went, is our spiritual relationship with God, not what we buy or sell in the marketplace. John's reply would be something like this: When you buy sacrificial meat, are you not contributing to an economy based on a lie? When you participate in a banquet for business associates given in honor of Zeus, Asklepios, or the emperor Domitian, are you not promoting a myth that denies that God alone is God and Jesus Christ alone is Lord? One more thing: the practice of fornication (v. 14). As we saw in the case of Israel's affair of Peor and Balaam's role in it, so also in the book of Revelation most of the references to fornication are metaphorical rather than literally sexual. Although prostitution was practiced in Roman and Greek circles and sometimes even in pagan temples as part of worship, in biblical tradition and in the book of Revelation it is idolatry that is often described metaphorically as prostitution. According to Judges 8:33, "the Israelites relapsed and prostituted themselves with the Baals, making Baal-berith their god." So also here in Revelation, the fact that eating food sacrificed to idols and practicing fornication are both mentioned in the same breath may well mean that some in the Pergamum church were making idolatrous concessions to the pagan culture of the city. What was said about the teaching of Balaam in verse 14 is also said about the Nicolaitans in verse 15. Such words and phrases as so also, likewise, in the same way in verse 15 indicate that Balaam and the Nicolaitans are two different ways of describing the same error. Here is the difference between the church in Ephesus and the church in Pergamum. The church in Ephesus maintained correct doctrine and fought against false teaching so vehemently that somehow it failed to practice acts of love toward people whose teaching it disapproved. It abandoned the love it had at first. It could not hate the sin and love the sinner. The problem in Pergamum went in the opposite direction. The church in Pergamum tolerated certain compromises of the Christian faith in the name of being present, involved, and relevant in the dominant culture of Pergamum. Are these the only options, or might there be another possibility? It is significant that the call to both churches is to repent. Christ is not satisfied with either option. "Speaking the truth in love" (Eph. 4:15) is what Christ expects. To those who are conquerors Christ promises hidden manna and a white stone, which don't sound very impressive compared to what Pergamum promises. How can you feed yourself with hidden manna or clothe yourself with a white stone? These seem so ambiguous and intangible. That's just the point. The manna in the Old Testament was God's miraculous provision for Israel in the desert when Israelites had absolutely no source of livelihood. In John 6, when Jesus fed the five thousand in the desert, he used the Old Testament manna story to say to the crowds that he himself was the bread of life, that whoever ate his flesh and drank his blood would have eternal life. When the crowd heard that, they abandoned Jesus and went away. That's not what they were looking for. They did not want some mysterious, hidden manna. So now in the desert that was Pergamum, Christians are called to trust Christ rather than the extravagant promises of the empire. This promised manna is hidden in the bread and the cup of the worshiping community as it anticipates a grand wedding banquet bye and bye. The question then for the Christians in Pergamum was whether they preferred the meat sacrificed to idols or the manna hidden in the celebration of the bread and the cup of the Lord's Supper. In the same way, what good is a white stone in your pocket? Yes, but it has a mysterious new name on it that no one knows except the one who has it. What name might this be? There are two possibilities. One possibility is that it is the name of Christ. The other possibility is that it is the believer's new name as a Christian. In either case, the white stone symbolizes the new identity of a person who is in Christ. We can imagine a Nicolaitan saying, "Be realistic. The white stone may be your admission ticket to eternal life, but you can't buy meat and bread with it to feed your family. What you need is a silver coin with the head of the emperor on one side and the goddess Roma on the other side. To survive in the Roman Empire, you have to accept and live within the economic reality of the empire." John, on the other hand, is saying to all the churches in his care that economic survival, while necessary, must always be secondary to the primary calling of Christians to live counter-culturally in the world. At some point Christians will have to draw a line and declare where they stand. What we have here is a war between two worlds of reality. Which reality will the Pergamum church live by, the reality of the Roman Empire or the reality of God's empire? In either case, it takes an enormous act of faith to commit oneself to one or the other. Discussion Questions1. How important is it for Christians to be familiar with theological arguments to defend what they believe and attack the false teaching of other Christians? How can we decide what is true and what is false when different Christians have different views on a given subject? 2. Think about the issue of eating food offered to pagan gods that various New Testament passages talk about. If the only meat you could buy in the market were from sacrificial animals of pagan temples, would you boycott meat markets and be a vegetarian? Are there any businesses, establishments, institutions or products that Christians in America should boycott? 3. Do most Christians in America accept the Nicolaitan point of view or John's point of view when it comes to attitudes toward the dominant culture in which they live? Do you think the Nicolaitans had a point? Should Christians be critical of the dominant culture in which they live, as John seems to say, or should they take more of a tolerant attitude toward culture, as the Nicolaitans seem to have done? |
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