Revelation
2:18-29 Lydia, whom Paul met and converted in Philippi, was from Thyatira.
However, that seems irrelevant to this passage.
Feet
of brass or bronze are described in Revelation 1:15 & Daniel 10:6. Revelation 1:14 & 19:12 and
Daniel 10:6 also mention eyes like fire. The vision of The Lord was given to
Daniel after he had fasted and sought The Lord for three weeks. Following this
vision, Daniel was given an astounding panoramic vision of future history from
his own time all the way to the end times.
The
infamous Jezebel was the wife of King Ahab, whose life is recorded in I Kings
18-21. Symbolically there was a woman in the church in Thyatira who taught the
Christians there the grossest of sins. In particular, she taught them to commit
immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. Paul had dealt with this latter
issue in I Corinthians 8 & 10. Indeed I Corinthians 5:1 suggests that the
church at Thyatira had fallen into the same errors as the church at Corinth.
Paul had been very straightforward with the Corinthians about the consequences
of tolerating immorality. Jesus in this passage provides a similar warning of
the consequences. In Corinth several were sick and some had died as a result of
God's allowing them to experience the consequence of their sin while partaking
of the sacraments of the church. (I Corinthians 11:30) Eating things sacrificed
to idols seems to have been a pagan blasphemy against the Lord's Supper. It
appears to have been saying, in effect, that the sacrifices to idols were
sufficient to propitiate the so-called gods, and that the unique quality of the
Lord's Supper, showing the Lord's death (as the sufficient and final offering
for sin), is ineffective or insufficient.
There
seems to be an inescapable tension between grace and holiness in the church. It
is hard for us to grasp how God's love and holiness can be reconciled in His
character, and even harder to understand how that plays out in the lives of His
people. God's feet are brass, speaking of judgment, rather than being
beautiful, which would have spoken of the bearers of good news. (Isaiah 52:7)
And since Jesus knows that we will not be able to bear His presence in eternity
unless we are like Him, His eyes glow with the fire of purification to burn up
the chaff in the lives of His people. (John 3:17) Those who are sold out to
Satan and attempt to lead His people away from Him will experience nothing but
judgment. Perhaps believers who follow this "Jezebel" will repent
from a bed of sickness. Pain has a marvelous capability to cut through all of
the stuff of this world to focus our hearts and minds on those things that
truly matter. So Jesus' warning here provides a way of dealing with the
consequences of brazen sin. As C. S. Lewis put it, pain is God's megaphone, to
rouse a deaf world. (The Problem of Pain)
Jesus
also addresses those who do not follow Jezebel, exhorting them to hold fast to
what they have. He first makes the point that their works, their deeds, their
many deeds, do not give them a pass for tolerating Jezebel's activities in
their church. But ... He makes staggering promises to those who overcome (the
temptation to join Jezebel, or perhaps the temptation to tolerate her
activities). The one who overcomes will have authority to rule the nations.
Perhaps this is because enduring pain and withstanding temptation makes the
believer strong. And thereby prepares him or her to rule the nations with a rod
of iron. Revelation 22:16 suggests that He will give them Himself as part of
this promise.
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