At least that is what John himself seems to intend when he spells out their “deeds” in a second clause that is dependent on the main verb, “I know.” When elaborated with a bit of detail, their “work” in this case basically has to do with rejecting false teachers. That is, the Lord’s primary concern, and thus John’s ultimate concern, is with the gospel as such, which in the Johannine corpus refers not simply to its theological content, but also to the way people live in the world on the basis of that content. Thus, when the “deeds” for which they are commended are elaborated, they have to do with contending for the truth of the gospel over against some believers who have gotten off track vis-à-vis its truth.
First up, then, is the fact that you cannot tolerate wicked people, a clause that must be kept in context or else it can become a kind of club that the “righteous” might use in contending with the “unrighteous.” These people’s wickedness has altogether to do with their claim to be apostles but are not. At stake for John at this point in time is the truth of the gospel over against those who would twist it into a “gospel” of their own making. But at issue for later readers is the ambiguous word “false,” as to whether it refers to the self-designated “apostles” or whether it refers to their teaching as such. Probably it is a bit of both; that is, they are “false” apostles precisely because they are offering a “false” gospel, and that is what makes them “wicked.” Nineteen centuries later one can only speculate as to the nature of the falsehood they are putting forward, but in light of John’s Gospel and his First Epistle we are probably to understand this false teaching as some kind of doceticism, with its denial of the goodness of the material world in general, and of the human body in particular. How such people had been tested and found . . . false cannot be known with precision from this distance in time, but the emphasis in both the Gospel and First Epistle on Christ’s having come “in the flesh” suggests that inherent to their “gospel” was a denial of the genuine physical reality of Christ’s incarnation.
The final clause in Christ’s opening commendation to this church comes in the form of the three Greek words that the NIV translators have rendered persevered / endured hardships / not grown weary. This sounds very much like John is writing to a church under siege, and while it is common for us at our distance to think of these believers as very near the source, as it were, in fact they are most likely at least a full generation, if not two, removed from the first believers in this part of the Roman Empire. That is, if these churches were founded in the 50s, as seems most likely, their present membership would be composed of only a few who were there from their beginnings. Thus it is not difficult for persons in their seventies to hear these words in light of their many years of service to our Lord, who have “stayed with the stuff” as it were and have “not grown weary,” even though there might have been every good reason for them to have done so.
Given this kind of commendation, one is then not quite prepared for the critique and call for repentance that follow, a critique that is easy enough to understand in terms of its meaning as such (the love you had at first), but is less so in terms of the object of their love. Was John referring to their love for Christ, or for one another and others? Although the scholarly house is rather evenly divided on this matter, one wonders whether John was not purposefully ambiguous, considering that in his understanding of things (in the Gospel and First John) love for Christ and love for his people are so closely interrelated. Although there are no specifics as to how this failure might have expressed itself in Ephesus, the clue is most likely to be found in the following admonition that they repent and do the things you did at first. The reason this failure calls for repentance is found in John’s Gospel: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (13:35). Their failure at this key point means that the gospel as good news for sinners can no longer be heard for the good news that it is. Thus the call for repentance, and the threat that follows.
The significance of this failure in terms of Johannine Christianity4 is to be found in the admonition, consider how far you have fallen!, which is followed by a warning that at the same time keeps the imagery intact: If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. This particular warning has created no end of trouble for later believers, who for the most part perceive the punishment to far exceed the crime. But that says more about us than it does about the author of the Johannine literature, since he perceived the whole of the Christian faith to be a matter of experiencing God’s love for us through Christ and then returning that love to him by loving others. From his perspective, to fail at this point is to fail exceedingly—if not altogether—which is why for him the “punishment” is precisely in keeping with the “crime.” And “love” for John is not simply a matter of attitude toward others; the only love worthy of the name from his perspective lies in their doing the things you did at first. Thus the only correct response to their current failure is to “repent.”
The tension John feels for this church, a church with which tradition tells us he had a long and enduring relationship, is to be found in a second word of praise (a phenomenon unique to this letter). Thus, as though loathe to let the last word to them be one of censure and warning, he adds, But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. With this word our own later understanding of the passage begins to grow dim, since apart from the further reference to them in 2:15 (regarding Pergamum) there is no other known mention of the “Nicolaitans” in ancient literature. This leaves room, of course, for a large number of guesses; but the only one that borders on certainty is that these people were followers of a man named Nicolaus. But who he was, and what he taught, simply cannot be known from our distance, and speculation here is ultimately useless. What we know for sure is that Christ “hates” their “practices” (v. 6) and their “teaching” (2:15), which for John are always related realities.
This second word of praise for the Ephesian church is then followed by the admonition, which is repeated in identical form at the end of each of the seven letters: Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Two matters need to be noted. First, whether intentionally so or not, John’s Trinitarian understanding of God emerges here as assumption and without reflection. The lead-in to these letters at the end of chapter 1 makes it clear that the living Christ is the one who is speaking these words to the churches, words which God the Father gave him (1:1); now we learn that Christ’s way of doing so is by means of the Spirit. Nothing profound is intended by this; almost certainly it simply betrays John’s theological perspective without his trying to do so. Second, and to repeat an obvious point made at the outset, here is the further evidence that John intends each of the churches to hear what the living Christ by his Spirit has to say to each of the others.
John concludes each of these letters with a promise that is addressed to those who are victorious,5 language that assumes that at least one way of perceiving Christian life is that of continuous warfare, presumably in the ultimate battle of life against Satan and his minions. The promise in this first instance takes the reader back, apparently deliberately, to the beginning point of all human life—the garden of Eden. Thus the first promise to the “victors” in the book serves along with the imagery in 22:26 to bookend the entire narrative of John’s Apocalypse, and in the latter occurrence to bookend the entire Christian Bible. Thus what Adam and Eve were forbidden to do because of their failure to obey, God’s redeemed people will experience as a restored Eden, where they are now allowed to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. It is difficult to imagine a more striking and powerful imagery than this one, with which John sets the tone for what he understood as the ultimate concern of his Revelation. And again, even though this is addressed