The church at Smyrna was one of only two churches (of the seven in Revelation) that received no rebuke from the Lord.
And unto the angel of the church of Smyrna write, These things sayeth the First and the Last, which was dead and is alive;
I know thy works, tribulation and poverty, (but thou art rich), and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and are not, and are the synagogue of Satan.
Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; he that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. (Rev. 2:8-11)
It always amazes me how much can be said in so few biblical verses! There is a world spoken here in this passage: a world containing faithful believers in Christ who will suffer terrible persecution, and whom the Lord expects to be faithful, and I believe many were; a world in which those same Christians do battle against spiritual forces not only in their government, the Romans, but also against that spirit called Satan, that is found in the local Jews who do all they can to condemn the Christians to death, just as the Jews of the same spirit did to Jesus who was a Jew as well, but one of a different Spirit. What denunciation is spoken of these types of Jews by the Lord! How terrible for those who held onto their lives by dishonorable means only to receive the second death; how wonderful for those who freely gave their lives rather than hold life in dishonor to the Lord, and who have received life everlasting in the presence of God!
The question that we are to ask ourselves as we study the effects of persecution on this church is this: do we have within us the same Spirit as these believers who chose to give up their lives rather than compromise with the world around them? Would we heed the Spirit and stand strong even in face of death? Keep these questions in mind as we continue. Some in Smyrna gave up everything for Christ, living in abject poverty, and then giving even their lives for the honor of His Name's sake. Others compromised and saved their lives; but horribly lost them in eternity! There is a cost to the grace that we have received, and we must be willing to pay the price of obedience for the glory of Jesus, even as He paid the price for us!
The Greek word Smyrna, pronounced smurna, means "myrrh." It is resin from a tree that when crushed gives off a very fragrant aroma. It was one of the gifts presented to the baby Jesus by the wise men. It was mixed in wine, poured onto a sponge, and handed up for Jesus to drink from while He hung on the cross (Mark 15:23); but He refused it, and some scholars say that it is because myrrh holds anesthetic qualities as well, and Jesus would not compromise the will of God for even one moment of less suffering. We know that myrrh was what Mary carried with her to the tomb on the morning that Jesus rose from the dead, intending to anoint His dead body with it, for it was common practice at that time to anoint dead bodies with the fragrance.
And just as the resin itself has to be crushed to release this fragrant aroma, so was this small church in Smyrna crushed to release its aroma unto the Lord.
At the time John wrote down the description and words of the vision that Jesus showed and spoke to him, the Roman Caesar Domitian was the emperor of the Roman empire. It was a decree of Domitian's that caused John to be in exile on the isle of Patmos...because he would not forsake the Lord in order to give honor to Caesar Domitian. Caesars considered themselves to be gods, and demanded worship. John would not give it to any but God.
Surely some Christians at Smyrna suffered exile or worse during the reign of Domitian. But if not there were nine other periods of persecution from Roman Caesars that spewed danger, often violently, at believers both in Smyrna and elsewhere in the Roman empire, such as Jerusalem, and Rome, and Antioch which is in Africa.
In the mid to late second century, the bishop of the church at Smyrna (located in what is now Turkey), whose name was Polycarp, was burned at the stake for refusing to worship Caesar whose name then was Marcus Aurelius. The booming metropolis of Smyrna was especially loyal to its Roman emperor, and considered any who did not worship him to be "atheists."
Here is an excerpt from a letter written by an eyewitness to not only Polycarp's execution, but of many before him in Smyrna:
All the martyrdoms which God allowed to happen...were blessed and noble. Who could not admire their honor, their patience, their love for the Lord? They were whipped to shreds till their veins and arteries were exposed, and still endured patiently, while even those that stood by cried for them. They had such courage that none of them let out a sigh or a groan, proving when they suffered such torments they were absent from their bodies - or rather that the Lord then stood by them and talked with them. By the grace of Christ they despised all the cruelties of this world, redeeming themselves from eternal punishment by the suffering of a single hour. The fire of their savage executioners appeared cool to them, because they fixed their eyes on their escape from the eternal unquenchable fire and the good things promised to those who endure - things 'which ear has not heard, nor eye seen, nor the human heart imagined' but were revealed to them by the Lord....In the same way, those who were condemned to the wild beasts endured dreadful torture. Some were stretched out on beds of spikes. Other were subjected to all kinds of torments, all in the Devil's attempt to make them deny Christ.
In all that the Devil attempted he failed, thanks be to God. The heroic Germanicus encouraged the weak by his own endurance, and fought bravely with the wild animals: when the Proconsul tried to persuade him to cooperate for the sake of his own youth, he drew the wild beast towards himself and provoked it, in order to escape more quickly from this wicked world. Seeing all this, the amazed crowd of spectators cried out, "Down with the atheists! [i.e., those who do not believe in the Roman gods] Get Polycarp!"
When he heard this, the redoubtable Polycarp was not in the least upset. Three days before he was arrested, while he was praying, he had a vision of the pillow under his head in flames. He said prophetically to those who were with him, "I will be burnt alive."
When the crowd heard that Polycarp had been captured, there was an uproar. The Proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. On hearing that he was, he tried to persuade him to apostatize, saying, "Have respect for your old age, swear by the fortune of Caesar. Repent, and say, 'Down with the Atheists!"
Polycarp looked grimly at the wicked heathen multitude in the stadium, and gesturing toward them, he said, "Down with the Atheists!"
"Swear," urged the Proconsul, "reproach Christ, and I will set you free."
"Eighty-six years have I served Him," Polycarp declared, "and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?"
"I have wild animals here," the Proconsul said. "I will throw you to them if you do not repent."
"Call them," Polycarp replied. "It is unthinkable for me to repent from what is good to turn to what is evil. I will be glad though to be changed from evil to righteousness."
"If you despise the animals, I will have you burned."
"You threaten me with fire which burns for an hour, and is then extinguished, but you know nothing of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly. Why are you waiting? Bring on whatever you want."
It was all done in the time it takes to tell. The crowd collected wood and bundles of sticks from the shops and public baths. The Jews, as usual, were keen to help. When the pile was ready...they went to fix him with nails, he said, "leave me as I am, for He that gives me strength to endure the fire, will enable me not to struggle, without the help of your nails."
So they simply bound him with his hands behind him like a distinguished ram chosen from a great flock for sacrifice. Ready to be an acceptable burnt-offering to God, he looked up to heaven, and said, "O Lord God Almighty, the Father of your beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the knowledge of you, the God of angels, powers and every creature, and of all the righteous who live before you, I give you thanks that you count me worthy to be numbered among your martyrs, sharing the cup of Christ and the resurrection to eternal life, both of soul and body, through the immortality of the Holy Spirit. May I be received this day as an acceptable sacrifice, as you, the true God, have predestined, revealed to me, and now fulfilled. I praise you for all these things, I bless you and glorify you, along with the everlasting Jesus Christ, your beloved Son. To you, with Him, through the Holy Ghost, be glory both now and forever. Amen."
Then the fire was lit, and the flame blazed furiously. We who were privileged to witness it saw a great miracle, and this is why we have been preserved to tell the story. The fire shaped itself into the form of an arch, like the sail of a ship when filled with the wind, and formed a circle around the body of the martyr. Inside it, he looked not like flesh that is burnt, but like bread that is baked, or gold and silver glowing in a furnace. And we smelt a sweet scent, like frankincense or some such precious spices.
Eventually, when those wicked men saw that his body could not be consumed by the fire, they commanded an executioner to pierce him with a dagger. When he did this such a great quantity of blood flowed that the fire was extinguished. The crowd were amazed at the difference between the unbelievers and the elects - of whom the great Polycarp was surely one....[https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/polycarp/]
Whether it was the fire, the dagger, or the loss of blood that miraculously extinguished the fire... whichever method actually killed Polycarp should not be our focus here, but rather, how willing he was to die rather than to dishonor the glory of the one true Lord.
Polycarp was bishop of the Christian church at Smyrna at the time of his death in the second century. One hundred years later, another bishop of the church at Smyrna would do just the opposite of Polycarp; he would compromise his faith, saving his life, by actually sacrificing to the Roman Emperor Decius, and receiving a certificate (known as a libellus) proving that he had done so; causing a crisis in the church of what to do with so-called believers who could compromise in such a manner, proving only that they were 'liars' of the faith.
This would give rise to a group in the third and fourth centuries known as the Donatists of Africa, who refused to be baptized by those who had compromised their faith in such ways, and yet had been restored to spiritual authority in the church. They believed that any believer who had already received baptism and had fallen away from the faith during persecution, had no right to be restored to leadership in the church; "holding that the church must be a church of saints, not sinners." [Wikipedia: The Donatists]
I wonder what our view would be today with churches compromising the truth of God in so many ways in the name of tolerance?
If Paul [as seen in the previous postings concerning the church at Ephesus and antinomianism] commanded the church in Corinth not to even eat with one who called himself a believer yet was living in sexual immorality, what would he have commanded the church at Smyrna to do with their own bishop who had offered a sacrifice in worship to the Caesar rather than lose his own life?
More on the church of Smyrna in next posting. We have only scratched the surface of what there is to learn from the instructions of Jesus Christ to the church at Smyrna.
And unto the angel of the church of Smyrna write, These things sayeth the First and the Last, which was dead and is alive;
I know thy works, tribulation and poverty, (but thou art rich), and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and are not, and are the synagogue of Satan.
Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; he that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. (Rev. 2:8-11)
It always amazes me how much can be said in so few biblical verses! There is a world spoken here in this passage: a world containing faithful believers in Christ who will suffer terrible persecution, and whom the Lord expects to be faithful, and I believe many were; a world in which those same Christians do battle against spiritual forces not only in their government, the Romans, but also against that spirit called Satan, that is found in the local Jews who do all they can to condemn the Christians to death, just as the Jews of the same spirit did to Jesus who was a Jew as well, but one of a different Spirit. What denunciation is spoken of these types of Jews by the Lord! How terrible for those who held onto their lives by dishonorable means only to receive the second death; how wonderful for those who freely gave their lives rather than hold life in dishonor to the Lord, and who have received life everlasting in the presence of God!
The question that we are to ask ourselves as we study the effects of persecution on this church is this: do we have within us the same Spirit as these believers who chose to give up their lives rather than compromise with the world around them? Would we heed the Spirit and stand strong even in face of death? Keep these questions in mind as we continue. Some in Smyrna gave up everything for Christ, living in abject poverty, and then giving even their lives for the honor of His Name's sake. Others compromised and saved their lives; but horribly lost them in eternity! There is a cost to the grace that we have received, and we must be willing to pay the price of obedience for the glory of Jesus, even as He paid the price for us!
The Greek word Smyrna, pronounced smurna, means "myrrh." It is resin from a tree that when crushed gives off a very fragrant aroma. It was one of the gifts presented to the baby Jesus by the wise men. It was mixed in wine, poured onto a sponge, and handed up for Jesus to drink from while He hung on the cross (Mark 15:23); but He refused it, and some scholars say that it is because myrrh holds anesthetic qualities as well, and Jesus would not compromise the will of God for even one moment of less suffering. We know that myrrh was what Mary carried with her to the tomb on the morning that Jesus rose from the dead, intending to anoint His dead body with it, for it was common practice at that time to anoint dead bodies with the fragrance.
And just as the resin itself has to be crushed to release this fragrant aroma, so was this small church in Smyrna crushed to release its aroma unto the Lord.
At the time John wrote down the description and words of the vision that Jesus showed and spoke to him, the Roman Caesar Domitian was the emperor of the Roman empire. It was a decree of Domitian's that caused John to be in exile on the isle of Patmos...because he would not forsake the Lord in order to give honor to Caesar Domitian. Caesars considered themselves to be gods, and demanded worship. John would not give it to any but God.
Surely some Christians at Smyrna suffered exile or worse during the reign of Domitian. But if not there were nine other periods of persecution from Roman Caesars that spewed danger, often violently, at believers both in Smyrna and elsewhere in the Roman empire, such as Jerusalem, and Rome, and Antioch which is in Africa.
In the mid to late second century, the bishop of the church at Smyrna (located in what is now Turkey), whose name was Polycarp, was burned at the stake for refusing to worship Caesar whose name then was Marcus Aurelius. The booming metropolis of Smyrna was especially loyal to its Roman emperor, and considered any who did not worship him to be "atheists."
Here is an excerpt from a letter written by an eyewitness to not only Polycarp's execution, but of many before him in Smyrna:
All the martyrdoms which God allowed to happen...were blessed and noble. Who could not admire their honor, their patience, their love for the Lord? They were whipped to shreds till their veins and arteries were exposed, and still endured patiently, while even those that stood by cried for them. They had such courage that none of them let out a sigh or a groan, proving when they suffered such torments they were absent from their bodies - or rather that the Lord then stood by them and talked with them. By the grace of Christ they despised all the cruelties of this world, redeeming themselves from eternal punishment by the suffering of a single hour. The fire of their savage executioners appeared cool to them, because they fixed their eyes on their escape from the eternal unquenchable fire and the good things promised to those who endure - things 'which ear has not heard, nor eye seen, nor the human heart imagined' but were revealed to them by the Lord....In the same way, those who were condemned to the wild beasts endured dreadful torture. Some were stretched out on beds of spikes. Other were subjected to all kinds of torments, all in the Devil's attempt to make them deny Christ.
In all that the Devil attempted he failed, thanks be to God. The heroic Germanicus encouraged the weak by his own endurance, and fought bravely with the wild animals: when the Proconsul tried to persuade him to cooperate for the sake of his own youth, he drew the wild beast towards himself and provoked it, in order to escape more quickly from this wicked world. Seeing all this, the amazed crowd of spectators cried out, "Down with the atheists! [i.e., those who do not believe in the Roman gods] Get Polycarp!"
When he heard this, the redoubtable Polycarp was not in the least upset. Three days before he was arrested, while he was praying, he had a vision of the pillow under his head in flames. He said prophetically to those who were with him, "I will be burnt alive."
When the crowd heard that Polycarp had been captured, there was an uproar. The Proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. On hearing that he was, he tried to persuade him to apostatize, saying, "Have respect for your old age, swear by the fortune of Caesar. Repent, and say, 'Down with the Atheists!"
Polycarp looked grimly at the wicked heathen multitude in the stadium, and gesturing toward them, he said, "Down with the Atheists!"
"Swear," urged the Proconsul, "reproach Christ, and I will set you free."
"Eighty-six years have I served Him," Polycarp declared, "and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?"
"I have wild animals here," the Proconsul said. "I will throw you to them if you do not repent."
"Call them," Polycarp replied. "It is unthinkable for me to repent from what is good to turn to what is evil. I will be glad though to be changed from evil to righteousness."
"If you despise the animals, I will have you burned."
"You threaten me with fire which burns for an hour, and is then extinguished, but you know nothing of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly. Why are you waiting? Bring on whatever you want."
It was all done in the time it takes to tell. The crowd collected wood and bundles of sticks from the shops and public baths. The Jews, as usual, were keen to help. When the pile was ready...they went to fix him with nails, he said, "leave me as I am, for He that gives me strength to endure the fire, will enable me not to struggle, without the help of your nails."
So they simply bound him with his hands behind him like a distinguished ram chosen from a great flock for sacrifice. Ready to be an acceptable burnt-offering to God, he looked up to heaven, and said, "O Lord God Almighty, the Father of your beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the knowledge of you, the God of angels, powers and every creature, and of all the righteous who live before you, I give you thanks that you count me worthy to be numbered among your martyrs, sharing the cup of Christ and the resurrection to eternal life, both of soul and body, through the immortality of the Holy Spirit. May I be received this day as an acceptable sacrifice, as you, the true God, have predestined, revealed to me, and now fulfilled. I praise you for all these things, I bless you and glorify you, along with the everlasting Jesus Christ, your beloved Son. To you, with Him, through the Holy Ghost, be glory both now and forever. Amen."
Then the fire was lit, and the flame blazed furiously. We who were privileged to witness it saw a great miracle, and this is why we have been preserved to tell the story. The fire shaped itself into the form of an arch, like the sail of a ship when filled with the wind, and formed a circle around the body of the martyr. Inside it, he looked not like flesh that is burnt, but like bread that is baked, or gold and silver glowing in a furnace. And we smelt a sweet scent, like frankincense or some such precious spices.
Eventually, when those wicked men saw that his body could not be consumed by the fire, they commanded an executioner to pierce him with a dagger. When he did this such a great quantity of blood flowed that the fire was extinguished. The crowd were amazed at the difference between the unbelievers and the elects - of whom the great Polycarp was surely one....[https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/polycarp/]
Whether it was the fire, the dagger, or the loss of blood that miraculously extinguished the fire... whichever method actually killed Polycarp should not be our focus here, but rather, how willing he was to die rather than to dishonor the glory of the one true Lord.
Polycarp was bishop of the Christian church at Smyrna at the time of his death in the second century. One hundred years later, another bishop of the church at Smyrna would do just the opposite of Polycarp; he would compromise his faith, saving his life, by actually sacrificing to the Roman Emperor Decius, and receiving a certificate (known as a libellus) proving that he had done so; causing a crisis in the church of what to do with so-called believers who could compromise in such a manner, proving only that they were 'liars' of the faith.
This would give rise to a group in the third and fourth centuries known as the Donatists of Africa, who refused to be baptized by those who had compromised their faith in such ways, and yet had been restored to spiritual authority in the church. They believed that any believer who had already received baptism and had fallen away from the faith during persecution, had no right to be restored to leadership in the church; "holding that the church must be a church of saints, not sinners." [Wikipedia: The Donatists]
I wonder what our view would be today with churches compromising the truth of God in so many ways in the name of tolerance?
If Paul [as seen in the previous postings concerning the church at Ephesus and antinomianism] commanded the church in Corinth not to even eat with one who called himself a believer yet was living in sexual immorality, what would he have commanded the church at Smyrna to do with their own bishop who had offered a sacrifice in worship to the Caesar rather than lose his own life?
More on the church of Smyrna in next posting. We have only scratched the surface of what there is to learn from the instructions of Jesus Christ to the church at Smyrna.
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