Jesus' message to the ephesians

Not long ago, when I was channel surfing, I chanced upon a television Bible teacher sitting on the steps of an ancient building among the ruins of Ephesus. He discussed Jesus' message to the church at Ephesus as recorded by the Apostle John in Revelation:

the One who holds the seven stars in His right hand,
the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this:

I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance,
and that you cannot endure evil men,
and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false;
and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary.

But I have this against you,
that you have left your first love.
Remember therefore from where you have fallen,
and repent and do the deeds you did at first;
or else I am coming to you,
and will remove the lampstand out of its place--
unless you repent.

Yet this you do have,
that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans,
which I also hate.

He who has an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

To him who overcomes,
I will grant to eat of the tree of life,
which is in the Paradise of God.
| Revelation 2:1-11 |

Ever since that program I have been reflecting on Jesus' message to the Ephesians. How different His response to their situation is from how many modern Christians would typically respond. And, indeed, how different what Jesus actually said to the Ephesians is from how His message in Revelation is often construed.

Some modern Christians think Jesus is saying something like this:

You Ephesians have been very busy exposing and censuring evil people; you have worked very hard to maintain doctrinal purity by exposing and condemning false versions of Christianity; you have persisted in your belief in the truth and your pursuit of good deeds.

But that is precisely what I have against you.

Doctrinal and moral purity have been your gods;
doctrinal and moral purity have been your pursuit and your obsession. But they are false gods and false pursuits.
You should have pursued me instead;
you should have learned to love me instead.
I am what the Christian life is all about.

There is nothing to the life of a believer but to love me, to get to know me, and to grow in a personal relationship with me. You have strayed from that focus; and if you don't find your way back, you will die as a church and, as individuals, you will forfeit eternal life.

So don't worry about the truth;
the truth will take care of itself.

Don't fight with one another about whose doctrine is correct.

Tolerate one another's beliefs.
Cut one another some slack.
Concern yourself with nothing but loving me.

what did jesus say?

All too often, the modern Christian assumes that Jesus, like himself, believes that the Christian faith is a matter of the “heart” -- not the “head”; he believes we must forsake the rational pursuit of truth for a fervent “love relationship” with Jesus that is rooted in one's emotions, creativity, imagination, and spirit rather than in one's intellect. But on closer reading, that is not at all what Jesus was saying to the Ephesians. Rather, He was saying something like this:

I am intimately acquainted with all the good and noble things you have done and the good and noble truths you have stood up for. They have not escaped my notice.

I know full-well what credentials you would bring to recommend yourselves to Me: you have faithfully kept the faith in the midst of difficult circumstances; you have worked hard at doing good for others; you have courageously exposed and denounced evil men; you have thought critically about what teachers have taught you and have exposed lies and deceptions when they were advanced, and you have denounced those who sought to propagate them.

All these things are true of you; and all of these things are noble, right, and good. But they are not enough; they do not recommend you to me. They do not incite me to praise you. I cannot praise you; for I have this against you — you have left your first love. You have lost the love that you initially had for the promises of the gospel.

When you first believed the gospel, you loved its promises; they were personally meaningful to you; you had a passionate desire to see the fulfillment of all that the gospel promised. But you have lost that initial passion; your hunger and desire for the Kingdom of God has faded; your primary longings have drifted toward other things. You still believe that the gospel and its promises are true; you still acknowledge that, objectively speaking, they are important. You deem them to be so important that you are willing to defend the true gospel against falsehood. But those same promises are no longer subjectively and personally important to you. You no longer have a passionate longing for what they promise. That is seriously wrong. I do not and cannot accept you. You are not pleasing in My eyes. You are children of the devil and not children of the living God. Unless your initial passion for the Kingdom of God still exists and can be rekindled, you will forfeit eternal life.

What Jesus actually said to the Ephesians is so very different from how we are sometimes inclined to understand it. Jesus did not say that the intellectual pursuit of truth is bad; He said it is not enough.

He did not say that we should cease to strive for doctrinal accuracy and moral purity. He said that doctrinal and moral purity alone do not justify a person and qualify him for eternal life. Something else is required--specifically, a genuinely profound passion to have what God is offering. If that passion, that love, is not there, then one is not God's child, and one will not enter into eternal life. But one need not reject theology, doctrine, and intellectual inquiry to enter the Kingdom of God. On the contrary, theology, doctrine, and intellectual inquiry are right, good, noble, profitable, and commendable. (Jesus takes that for granted.) But if they do not ultimately reflect a passion for truth and a passionate hunger for the Kingdom of God, then they are not enough; they are of no avail. They will not justify a sinner before God.

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