One of the discussions Debbie and I have been having lately has centred around the fact that next March our daughter reaches the age of 21 and what we might do to mark that occasion.
It’s less of a milestone now, since 18 became the age of majority in the UK. (I think I’m right in saying it’s still 21 in the USA, though.) So our daughter will probably not recognise the old ditty,
I’ve got the key of the door, never been 21 before!
The traditional gift of a key or a key pendant when someone reached 21 signified them becoming an adult and now being responsible enough to have an actual key. Doors opened for them both literally and metaphorically.
In our passage, Jesus is the One who has the key to the door, spiritually:
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. (Verse 7)
‘The key of David’ alludes to a messianic prophecy in Isaiah 22:22:
The one with the keys, the steward of the household, had authority both to allow and to prohibit admission to the house itself … As the successor to the Davidic kingdom, Jesus has authority to give access, not to the physical Jerusalem, but to the New Jerusalem and the presence of God.[1]
And Jesus explicitly says he has opened the door for the church at Philadelphia:
I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. (Verse 8a)
When we use the metaphor of a door being opened, it is often to mean that an opportunity has presented itself for us. It’s not unusual for Christians to read about the door Jesus has opened for the church at Philadelphia and think that Jesus has given them a particular opportunity. Indeed, I recall reading many years ago the book ‘God’s Smuggler To China’ and learning how this verse encouraged the author that there was an opening to smuggle Bibles into communist China. It’s a thrilling story.
But the original context here does not indicate that Jesus is presenting an opportunity to the Philadelphian church. Remember, he has the key of David, which opens up citizenship of the New Jerusalem and a place in the presence of God.
And that key of David opens the door to three blessings for the church at Philadelphia. There are no criticisms or rebukes of this church, unlike most of the others, just blessings of grace.
Blessing number one is affirmation:
8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
Philadelphia is not a big, strong church. Their city is fragile, and so are they. The city had been devastated economically by the Emperor Domitian. Although they were loyal to the emperor, he had taken over half their vineyards to grow grain that would feed the Roman army. Philadelphia depended economically on their vineyards. This was a devastating blow.[2]
Jesus explicitly says he knows the church has ‘little strength.’ Perhaps they are a mixture of those who have weathered the economic storm and those who have been plunged into financial difficulty and poverty. They are not glamorous. But Jesus loves them. He is pleased with them.
Why? They have access to the presence of God through Jesus and in response to that they have engaged in good deeds out of gratitude, they have kept his word because he is trustworthy, and they have not denied him, despite strong social pressures.
A church doesn’t have to be big and trendy to be loved and cherished by Jesus. If we are small because we have been unfaithful, that is one thing. But if we are small, despite celebrating Jesus who opens the door to God’s presence by his death and resurrection, and if we respond to that in gratitude with our deeds, and faithfully keep God’s word even when it is costly, then you can be sure he is pleased with a congregation like that.
It’s not for us to worry about whether we have flashy programmes, big budgets, and eye-catching publicity. We only need to concern ourselves with whether we are doing good because Jesus has been good to us, and whether we are remaining faithful to his word, because we know he has the words of eternal life and it is therefore worth sticking with his ways, even when society doesn’t like them.
Blessing number two is vindication:
9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars – I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.
The church in Philadelphia is under the cosh. At a guess, what has happened is something like this. Whoever first took the Gospel to that town probably followed the example of the Apostle Paul and shared the message first of all in the local synagogue. You may recall that Paul said that the Gospel is first to the Jew and then to the Gentile, and there are several examples of him pursuing this strategy in the Acts of the Apostles.
But what typically happened was that some responded positively and others with hostility. Some Jews would believe that Jesus was their Messiah, but others would react angrily. Maybe that is what has happened in Philadelphia. The church is suffering unjustly. What does Jesus say to them?
Effectively, his message is, leave this with me. I will sort it out. It’s a version of Paul’s counsel in Romans 12:19, where he quotes Deuteronomy 32:35,’Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.’ No fighting back. No violence in words, thoughts, attitudes, or actions. Leave it in his hands.
My last but one appointment was a mismatch. I certainly made some mistakes there, but from the beginning my gifts were not what several of the more vociferous church members wanted, and it became a painful experience. The trouble was, it was a lovely area to live in and the children had settled in happily to an excellent primary school. But we had to make the painful decision to leave.
When we did so, a friend who at the time was the URC minister of an ecumenical church in the circuit had words for me that I have never forgotten. He pointed me to the opening of Psalm 35:
Contend, Lord, with those who contend with me;
fight against those who fight against me. (Verse 1)
That’s what I needed to do. Ask God to sort it out. It was no use me getting worked up about it. If I tried to sort it out, then even my purest motives for justice would have been coloured by the emotions of my pain. Best to leave it to God.
It didn’t mean that things were fixed quickly. I know that, because a few months later I was asked back to conduct the funeral of a saintly church member. I was still subjected to nastiness.
But leave it to God. Hand it over. In time, he will sort it out. It is not for us to set the timetable for his justice.
Whenever we are picked on for our faith, let us ask God to contend with those who contend with us. He can do so with pure love. Even his wrath is an expression of his love.
Blessing number three is preservation:
10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.
What is this hour of trial that will test the inhabitants of the earth? I don’t think it can be a reference to the Last Judgment. That could hardly be construed as a test. It sounds more to me like a time of general suffering in the world, as opposed to the specific suffering for faith in Jesus that we considered in the last point. I suspect this is the suffering to which all people are vulnerable, from ill health to natural disasters to war and so on. Certainly God uses such times to test people and perhaps to see whether such times will lead people to call out to him.
Christians were not exempted from COVID. Christians are not being spared in Israel and Gaza, or in Ukraine. We are in the thick of these things just like everyone else. In what sense does God preserve his church, then?
Well, it’s not that we are miraculously protected from the suffering of the world. We do not get an escape route in the way that some Christians read Revelation and other New Testament texts to believe that we shall be ‘raptured’ to heaven before the so-called ‘Great Tribulation’ comes on the earth.
But God will always preserve his church. Remember that Jesus said the gates of Hades would not be able to withstand the church. Hades is the place of the dead. Death cannot destroy the church. We are resurrection people!
But neither will death destroy the church on earth. Many of the churches in Revelation disappeared years and centuries later. Places that became strongholds of the church in her early centuries, such as North Africa, are now deserts for Christianity. Yet even though the church may be crushed in some places, she blossoms and flowers elsewhere. In our day, the western church may be in trouble, but the church is growing in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and south-east Asia amongst other places.
To the world, the church of Jesus Christ is the jack-in-the-box that will not stay in the box. To our enemies, their efforts to destroy us are no better than a game of Whack-A-Mole. Hit us in one place, we pop up somewhere else. God will always preserve us. His church is central to his eternal purposes.
Whatever discouragements we face, let us never forget that.
In conclusion, Christ’s faithful church receives many blessings, even in times of trouble: affirmation, vindication, and preservation. How might we respond? Jesus says,
11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.
Keep on keeping on. Continue to be faithful to Jesus’ word.
Simply said and sometimes less simple to put into practice, I know. But let us remember God’s grace and mercy to us in Christ. Let us remember the blessings he promises his faithful people that we have thought about today.
And let those things motivate us to depend on the Holy Spirit to hold on in faith and await Christ’s blessings.
[1] Ian Paul, Revelation (TNTC), p106.
[2] Op. cit., p105.
Big Circumstance 