Rev. Jared Buss
Pittsburgh New Church; April 21, 2024
Readings: Matthew 26:6-13 (children’s talk); Revelation 2:8-11; Apocalypse Revealed §97.2, 3
Today we continue our sermon series on the seven churches from the book of Revelation. These seven churches symbolize all of the different qualities or characteristics of the people who are called to the Lord’s New Church (cf. AR §§68, 88, 153). In the book of Revelation the Lord dictates letters to each of these churches, and we’re going to be looking at each of these letters in turn. Last week we looked at the letter to Ephesus; today our focus is on the letter to Smyrna.
We can learn a lot by looking at the spiritual meaning of any one of these letters. But we can learn even more if we also compare the Lord’s message to one church with His messages to the other churches. The church of Ephesus, which we looked at last week, is strong on the truth, and its weakness is that it puts the truth above goodness of life. It values being right more than being loving. The church of Smyrna is kind of the inverse of Ephesus. The people described in the letter to Smyrna are people who emphasize goodness of life, but cling to false beliefs. If you looked at what the Lord says about either one of these churches in isolation you might start to get an unbalanced picture of the relationship between love and truth. But if you put His messages to both churches side-by-side, you get a more complete story.
Here is the Lord’s message to the church of Smyrna [read Rev. 2:8-11].
Before I get into the details of the letter to Smyrna I want to point out a few things about the structure of these letters—because there’s a pattern that they follow, and that pattern says something about the way that the Lord talks to His people. All of these letters start with a salutation from the Lord, and in that salutation the Lord associates Himself with a specific part of the vision of Himself amidst the seven lampstands (Rev. 1:12-20). To Ephesus, He says, “these things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands” (2:1; cf. 1:12, 16). To Smyrna He says, “These things says the First and the Last, who was dead and is alive” (2:8; cf. 1:17, 18). The Lord identifies Himself differently to each church because each church sees Him a little differently—or focusses on a different aspect of who He is (cf. AR §93).
Then the Lord tells every single church, “I know your works.” In other words, “I know what you do.” Because that’s the bottom line. He doesn’t say, “I know your thoughts.” He doesn’t say, “I know your feelings.” In the end it is our actions—or better yet, the actions that we try to take—that are the measure of who we are.
Then there’s the body of the letter. In this section the Lord tells each church what it’s doing well, what it’s doing poorly, and what will happen if it does or doesn’t change what it’s doing. Then there’s the conclusion, and the conclusion always features two parts. The Lord says, “He who has an ear to hear, let Him hear what the spirit says to the churches.” This is a plea from the Lord. He’s urging us to listen—to make use of the truths that He is holding out in front of us.
And then, in every concluding section, the Lord says that he who overcomes will receive a blessing. To Ephesus He says, “To him who overcome I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (2:7). To Smyrna He says, “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death” (v. 11). All of these blessings symbolize an aspect of heaven. So every letter ends with a promise of heaven. And that says something about the Lord that we must not forget. All of the different kinds of people described in the letters to the seven churches are called to the kingdom of heaven. If they listen to what the Lord says, eternal life will be theirs.
Now for the details of the Lord’s letter to Smyrna. We’re told in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church, in the book Apocalypse Revealed, that the church of Smyrna symbolizes, “people who as to life are engaged in good endeavors, but as to doctrine are caught up in falsities” (§91). These are people who want to be good—people who value living a good life. They understand the importance of good works. They know that putting charity into action is what matters. And all of that is very much to their credit. Charity—which is spiritual love in action—is the soul of the church. As we heard last week, that’s the vital principle that the church of Ephesus struggles to take to heart. The Ephesians are strong on the truth, but they fail to see that truths must be the servants of spiritual love.
The Smyrnans get that part right—and their weakness is the opposite of the Ephesians’ weakness. The Smyrnans are people who have baked false ideas into their fundamental religious beliefs. This means that the good that they do has falsity within it. To a significant extent, their good deeds are the product of falsity. And this means that their goodness isn’t as good as they think it is. Their charity isn’t as charitable as they think it is.
This is why the Lord refers to them as, “those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9). Throughout the Word, Judah—one of the twelve sons of Israel—symbolizes the goodness of love. So we’re told that the Jews, who take their name from Judah, symbolize “people who possess the goodness of love from the Lord” (AR §96). The Smyrnans say that they are Jews: they say that they are loving people. But the Lord says that they are not. They are a synagogue of Satan. Satan symbolizes falsity that come from hell (§97).
It might feel like the Lord is being really hard on the Smyrnans. If they stand for people who are trying to do the right thing, then so what if some of their ideas aren’t correct? Part of the Lord’s message in this letter is that the truth matters more than we might think it does. And our attitude towards the truth really matters. Our ability to do good that is actually good depends on the truth.
But the Lord knows that a lot of the time it seems to us that our ability to do good has little or nothing to do with our beliefs. Our next reading, which is from Apocalypse Revealed, speaks to this directly. For now I’ll read just the first part: [§97.2].
Goodness without truth is not good, and truth without goodness is not true. If our beliefs are false, then the good that we do is the good of falsity, which isn’t actually good. It might look good on the outside, but it doesn’t hold heaven inside of it (cf. AR §97.4).
As long as we’re thinking about spiritual good and spiritual truth, this principle can be hard to understand. But it actually becomes pretty obvious if instead we reflect on ordinary, worldly good deeds. If you want to do something that’s actually useful—something that someone else will actually appreciate—you need to know what you’re doing. No one wants to be helped by a doctor who didn’t go to medical school. And if you bake a cake for someone, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, so you use a teaspoon of flour and a cup of baking soda, they aren’t going to enjoy the cake. The “good” thing that you made won’t actually be good.
Of course the Lord forgives us if we try to do what’s right, but we make a mistake. He never judges anyone on the basis of what they know. And if we believe the wrong thing because we were taught the wrong thing, that isn’t our fault. But if we can’t be bothered to learn, or to listen to those who could teach us, that’s a little different. The Smyrnans stand for people who are part of the Lord’s church, and have the opportunity to learn from His Word. He doesn’t expect anyone to understand everything that He teaches. But if we choose not to approach Him with a spirit that’s willing to be taught, that’s a little different.
And when the Lord says that the Smyrnans stand for people who are in falsities as to doctrine, He isn’t talking about people who get the details wrong. The passage I read earlier goes on to give us some examples of the kinds of falsities that prevent us from doing good that is really good. As you’ll see, these falsities are about our fundamental relationship with the Lord and with the goodness that comes from Him. Here’s the second part of the reading: [AR §97.3].
In our recitation from John the Lord says, “Without me you can do nothing” (15:5; cf. AR §97.3). He is love itself, and all love that is really love belongs to Him alone. We can’t do anything good that is really good unless we do it with Him. Our natural minds just don’t get this: our natural minds say that if we do loving things then we’re loving people—and that if we do loving things, then we’re the ones who did them, not God. But that’s like a little child saying that he baked a cake, when in fact all he did was hold the measuring spoon for his mom. Anything good that we have ever done has been done with the Lord. He loves to share His love with us, and He doesn’t need all the credit. But if we actively believe that we don’t need Him, then we push Him out, and the good we do becomes the good of falsity, which is not good.
The same thing happens if we believe that we can do good without ever repenting, or shunning evils as sins. Evil is like poison that taints the love we receive. Sometimes we try to tell ourselves that we can love this neighbor and hate that neighbor at the same time. But it doesn’t work that way. If we give ourselves permission to hate anyone, then hate ends up coloring the way we treat everyone. And that’s just one example. So the Lord urges us to repent. If we don’t take Him seriously, then the good we think we’re doing just isn’t as good as we think it is.
The children’s talk was about a story in which a woman anoints the Lord with fragrant oil (Matt. 26:6, 7). This woman’s actions said that she loved the Lord. And the Lord said that what she did was done for His burial (v. 12). In the spiritual sense of the Word, both anointing the Lord and the Lord’s burial symbolize His resurrection and His glorification (AE §659.19). And the Word tells us that if the Lord had not been glorified and risen again, we could not be saved. This woman’s actions symbolize a humble acknowledgment of this truth—the truth that we are able to be saved because of what the Lord has done for us. And her actions symbolize love for the Lord on account of what He has done for us.
But the disciples criticized this woman, and their criticism has a Smyrna quality. They saw that it would be good to sell the precious oil and give the money to the poor, but they didn’t see what that woman saw. They didn’t recognize the value of pausing to acknowledge our debt to God. The Lord essentially told them that wanting to show charity to the poor is good—but that what the woman did for Him was also good. In the spiritual sense of the Word, He’s telling us that the works of charity matter—but that recognizing the truth about our relationship with Him, and giving time and attention to that truth, and loving Him because of it, is also a blessed thing.
He tells the Smyrnans to “be faithful until death” (Rev. 2:10). To be faithful is to look to the Lord—to put our confidence in the Lord. Faithful people are people who know that they need the Lord. And if we know that we need Him, we’re going to listen to what He says. We’re going to let Him teach us. So in Apocalypse Revealed we’re told that being faithful until death symbolizes acknowledging and receiving truths until our falsities have been cast aside (§102). If the Smyrnans are faithful until death, the Lord says that He will give them the crown of life (Rev. 2:10).
The final word on the Smyrnans is that the thing they put first is the thing that must come first. Yes, the truths we know define our ability to do good that is really good—but in the end, the willingness to do good is what matters. In the end, the Lord isn’t going to say to us, “I know what you know.” He’s going to say, “I know your works.”
Amen.