Original Meaning

JESUS’ MESSAGE TO Smyrna highlights contrasts: The one “who is the First and the Last,” who was dead but came to life, speaks to those who are impoverished yet rich, persecuted by those who claim to be Jews but are not, and will, like Jesus, find life in death.1

For three centuries Smyrna had been one of the most important cities in Asia Minor; this as well as its location may have merited its second place listing among the churches. Along with Pergamum (2:12), Smyrna vied with Ephesus for preeminence, though Ephesus remained the most powerful city in the province. Like Ephesus, Smyrna was an important center of the imperial cult in Asia, the second city to receive from an emperor this “privilege.”2 As noted earlier, only Jews were exempt from worshiping the emperor, for Rome knew that Jews were monotheistic and were an ancient, ethnic religion that merited tolerance. The recognition that Christians were a part of Judaism (they claimed that Jesus fulfilled biblical promises to ancient Israel) thus protected Christians (at least initially) from unnecessary persecution. Unfortunately, many synagogue leaders seem to have felt it necessary to distinguish themselves sharply from Christians or even to make the Jewish Christians unwelcome in the synagogues.

Smyrna’s ruling class was predominantly Asian Greeks, with whom the Jewish community had less secure relations than, say, in Sardis.3 The Jewish community in Smyrna seems to have been substantial, and they seem to have been on more positive terms with the Roman government.4 At the same time, they could not afford to take chances; after the Judean war against Rome two decades earlier, which resulted in a special tax Jews everywhere in the empire had to pay, many Asian Jewish leaders were probably nervous about being associated with prophetic, messianic movements like Christianity.

Local Jewish repudiation of Christians apparently continued for several decades after this time. In the early second century some Jewish accusers participated in betraying to the Romans Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John and bishop of Smyrna, leading to his execution.5 Such conflicts help explain “the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (2:9). Public accusations within the Jewish community had earlier led to persecution of Jewish Christians, sometimes by Gentiles (Acts 13:50; 14:2, 19; 17:5; 18:12; 24:5; 1 Thess. 2:14–15). The synagogue of “Satan” also suggests involvement with “the devil,” who would cast believers into prison (2:9–10). Many commentators thus recognize the likelihood that at least some members of the local Jewish community were collaborating with local officials to repress the Christian minority.6

Scholars have proposed other interpretations of the false Jews of this passage, but none of these proposals has gained any consensus, and none adequately explains the “slander” of these Jews that appears associated with the persecution Smyrnean Christians must be prepared to undergo. This slander most likely refers to “informers,” what the Romans called delatores. Roman officials normally depended on informers as accusers before they would prosecute a case, and this was true for prosecution of Christians in Asia in the decades immediately following Revelation’s publication.7 Once admitted, however, such accusations often became excuses for destroying others on flimsy evidence if the officials would permit it.8

The passage envisions official persecution on the local level. Imprisonment (2:10), a Roman punishment, was usually a temporary detention until a trial and then either official punishment or release.9 The punishment that the text suggests believers must prepare for is execution (“Be faithful, even to the point of death”); the Smyrnean Christians would thus understand what it meant to achieve victory while not loving their lives to the death (cf. 12:11).

One might object that the specific duration of the imprisonment (“ten days”) suggests an emphasis on detention rather than on a later punishment; but this time period, like many others in Revelation, is probably a symbolic allusion to the Old Testament. Like Daniel and his colleagues (Dan. 1:12–14), the believers in Smyrna would be “tested” for ten days by others—but so that God might ultimately exalt them to fulfill his purposes in history. The duration of their detention might include torture in an attempt to secure information against others. The very knowledge that imprisonment could include such torture demanded faithfulness.10

Some commentators find significance in the particular title of Jesus in 2:8. Centuries before, Smyrna had nearly vanished but had recovered to become a prominent and beautiful city (Strabo, 14.1.37), allowing some to compare it with the mythical phoenix, a symbol of resurrection;11 Jesus, by contrast, truly rose from death. Whatever the merit of this proposal, the primary emphasis on Jesus’ resurrection here is the promise to the Smyrnean Christians, who may face death, yet dare hope in a crown of life to follow (2:10), and whose experience of martyrdom would spare them the horror of the “second death” (2:11).12 Many Smyrnean Christians were presumably familiar with Jewish martyrdom traditions that stressed faithfulness in facing death (4 Macc. 7:15–16), the promise of eternal life for martyrs (16:25; 17:12), and the crown of victory for those who overcome in martyrdom (17:15).

Crowns (wreaths of olive, laurel, pine, or celery) were appropriate to victory in battle and more often in athletic competition; hence, they became a familiar symbolic image to all adults and most children in Roman Asia.13 People also gave crowns as other honors (Sir. 32:1–2), and the term crown came to apply figuratively to any sort of honor or award.14 Jewish end-time reflection also spoke of crowns as rewards for the righteous, a tradition widely circulated among early Christians as well.15 In this passage the “crown” might also represent a subtle contrast with the city’s claims to power: Smyrna’s citadel was often compared with a crown, and nearly 20 percent of the inscriptions from earlier centuries contain the wreath emblem.16

Whereas “overcoming” in Ephesus required restoration of love (2:4), in Smyrna it demanded withstanding persecution. Popular Jewish teaching on martyrdom already could identify martyrdom with overcoming (4 Macc. 9:24; 17:15), so no one could miss the point. But Revelation especially underlines the point in the image of the triumphant lion as a slain lamb in 5:5–6: We overcome not by returning hostility but by laying down our lives in the confidence that God will vindicate us.

Bridging Contexts

“SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN” (2:9) is strong language, and such words proved easy to exploit in the later history of the church.17 While originally uttered as a protest against a dominant Jewish community oppressing a Christian minority, the language was recycled in the interests of later “Christian” regimes to persecute Jewish minorities, and it continues to figure prominently in the propaganda of violent Aryan supremacists in the United States today. Contemporary white supremacists aligned with the Christian Identity movement claim that people of color are mud people and Jews are the literal offspring of Satan and Eve (though a growing “moderate” faction claims that they are satanic, while not his literal descendants). The extreme white supremacists keep heavily armed, awaiting their Armageddon against the Jewish-controlled government of the United States, after which they will establish a new Jerusalem here.18 As long as such views circulate, it remains important for genuine Christians to articulate what we do and do not mean.19

What is the proper way for Christian readers of Revelation today to take Jesus’ words to Smyrnean Christians to our very different modern setting? The first step is to understand the circumstances Jesus is addressing. John’s audience regard their congregations as Jewish; that is why they are portrayed as lampstands (see comment on 1:12). The earliest Christians were Jewish, and their earliest Gentile converts naturally regarded themselves as converts to the truest form of Judaism. In a world where most people venerated multiple deities and sacrificed before idols, and where Jewish sexual ethics and biblical history were disdained, Christians who worshiped Israel’s God, embraced Israel’s Messiah and Scriptures, and practiced sexual fidelity appeared as Jews. Unlike other Jews, however, they believed that obedience to Jesus was as necessary in their own time as obedience to Moses’ revelation had been in centuries past; consequently, they regarded Jews who rejected Jesus as apostate from the true faith of Israel. Note too that Christians were not the only Jewish movement to regard the rest of Israel as unfaithful or apostate; the same rhetoric appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls.20

When Jewish leaders in places like Smyrna denounced the Christians as no longer truly Jewish, it is not surprising that the Jewish Christians would respond, “It is you who have cut yourselves off from your heritage in God’s covenant.”21 Some first-century Jewish people actually used “Jew” in a pejorative sense; here, however, it applies to those who truly fulfill their role as members of the covenant people.22 The phrase “synagogue of Satan” is deliberately disjunctive and shocking and reflects the same sort of sentiments expressed by the Jewish author of a hymn found at Qumran, which labels Israel outside the Dead Sea sect the “congregation of Belial,” or Satan (1QH 2.22–23).23

Christians today should not recycle first-century Jewish-Christian denunciations of their higher-class Jewish opponents in an anti-Jewish way. In today’s society we have an opportunity—perhaps unique in human history—to dialogue in mutual respect with those with whom we disagree, trusting the Holy Spirit to use his truth to transform hearts. Christian anti-Semitism has erected the largest barriers to belief in Jesus that many modern Jewish people face; the largest consequent barrier may be the widespread premise that a Jewish person cannot be faithful to their ancestral heritage and believe in Jesus. Polemic reinforces that barrier, whereas love and appreciation for their—and our—heritage in biblical Judaism can reduce it.

The threat of death, though only realized among the Asian churches occasionally so far (2:13), proved genuine over the following centuries. It is too easy for North American Christians to pass over such texts as irrelevant to the challenges most of us currently face, especially for middle-class believers in the suburbs. But we need only ask some hypothetical “What if?” questions to bring the matter closer to home. The martyrdom of our brothers and sisters in the past as well as many in other locations in the present must challenge us to count the cost: How much is Jesus worth to us?

Contemporary Significance

OF THE SEVEN churches, the only two that are unequivocally commended are the suffering churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia. Suffering has a way of reminding us which things in life really matter, forcing us to depend radically on God, and thus purifying our obedience to God’s will.

But it is important to know God’s heart before we face suffering, so that we may understand our suffering in light of his love for us, in light of his sharing our suffering in the cross, rather than interpreting his heart toward us on the basis of our suffering. As Billy Graham points out, “suffering has a mysterious, unknown component”; whereas Smyrna would face greater suffering (2:10), the other persecuted church (Philadelphia) would be delivered (or on our view, strengthened) through theirs (3:10). In the same way, James was executed but Peter was released (Acts 12:2–7); some experienced miraculous release while others died (Heb 11:35); Corrie ten Boom survived the Nazi prison camp but her sister died there. We cannot explain why some suffer much more than others. “All I know from the short letters in Revelation,” Graham concludes, “is this: Christ commands us to ‘Overcome!’ in the strength He alone can supply….”24

I have close friends from other parts of the world who face sufferings more intensely than the vast majority of Westerners can identify with. For instance, I have listened to some of my Nigerian friends as they mourned how radical Muslims in their part of the country had rioted, murdering Christian pastors who were friends of theirs; they also noted that the murderers would never be brought to justice by the Muslim government then in power.25 An African commentator lists many prominent African martyrs, including many under the Muslim Idi Amin in Uganda and during a revival of traditional religions in Chad—suffering that they “endured joyfully for Jesus’ sake.” The East African revival likewise prepared many Kenyan pastors to refuse the Mau Mau oath to hate whites or venerate idols, and many were converted through their triumphant funerals.26

To bring the matter closer to home for some of us, the prospect of martyrdom need not necessarily require relocation. Even at the beginning of my Christian life as I witnessed on streets in the United States in the late 1970s, I was beaten and had my life threatened on several occasions. It has been some years now since my last beating, but I have received additional death threats since then for my witness, and faced other dangerous situations because of places I chose to live for the sake of my witness. The reader may well presume that I have not been killed, but even in the United States martyrdom is a viable possibility, and it may become more so in time: Jesus promised that we would be hated by all nations (Matt. 24:9). Many believers have chosen to relocate to or remain in drug-or murder-infested areas for the sake of a witness for Christ, and this, too, reveals commitment to die for Christ if that is his call.

If we have not prepared ourselves and our congregations to die for Christ’s name if necessary, we have not completed our responsibility of preparing disciples (Mark 8:34–38). Like Daniel and his friends, we prepare best for more strenuous future tests by passing the ones we are given in the present. But when we remain faithful in the face of rejection and persecution, Jesus promises us a reward far greater than the power and status our oppressors now enjoy.