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Jesus’ Message to the Church in Pergamum

Introduction

For an American, and probably for many in Europe, there are not many smells as pleasing to the olfactory senses as the smell of fresh baked bread. The smell is so appealing that some realtors advise their customers to bake some bread while they are showing their home. The unsuspecting home buyer is subconsciously taken in by the hominess of the home and its smell. I love to go into a bakery and smell the fresh baked loaves, cakes, and muffins. Contrast this to the smell of a garbage dump—rotting fish, decaying fruit, old cheese and curdled milk. These smells are enough to make us sick. And they certainly are not smells we seek.

It is interesting then, to wonder why we often are attracted spiritually to that which spiritually stinks, and we so often avoid the Heavenly Bread that is so much better for us. Jesus is the Bread of Life, as we read in John 6, and he offers himself to us. His fragrance is a pleasing aroma. But there are competing foods in the world that try to attract our attention. These foods are spoiled and rotten. They smell to God and should be distasteful to the people of God. We see an example of the difference between the rotten and healthy in Jesus’ message to the church in Pergamum.

Exposition

Pergamum was a city located forty miles along the coast north of Smyrna and then ten miles inland east from the Aegean Sea. It was built on a cone-shaped hill about 1,000 feet high. The name Pergamum means “citadel.” It had a library with 200,000 volumes in it.102 Jesus is pictured as the One who has a sharp, double-edged sword coming out of his mouth. The sword throughout the book of Revelation is a symbol of divine judgment. As he came to the church in Pergamum as the Divine Judge, so he comes to us in our churches around the world. Jesus is the judge of the church but also of those who persecute the church. He will be, at the end of the ages, the One who judges the living and the dead. In 20:11–15 we see that the books will be opened at the final judgment. And we will be judged according to whether our names appear in the book of life. If they appear, there is no fear. If they do not appear, there is the eternal judgment of the lake of fire.

Jesus knew the situation of Pergamum, that they lived in a tough situation. They lived in a city where evil was very active. He even called it the place where Satan has his throne. The mention of Satan’s throne is a way of saying that this city is a center of Roman government and pagan religions. It was the first city in Asia Minor to build a temple to a Roman emperor, Augustus. The image of Satan’s throne may also come from a throne-like altar to Zeus on the hill behind Pergamum. It was also the host of several temples dedicated to Athene, Demeter, and Dionysius. There was also the cult of Asclepius, the god of healing.103 Mounce and Ladd both emphasis the prominence of Pergamum as the official cult center of emperor worship in Asia.104

In the midst of the satanic setting, the church members held fast to the name of Jesus. Or, in keeping with the opening illustration, they remained true in the midst of the garbage heap in which they lived. Jesus even named one as someone who died in his witness for Jesus. We are not sure who Antipas was other than a follower of Jesus who was a faithful witness even until death. His faithful witness is perhaps a reminder of Isaiah 43:10–12 where God declared, “You are my witnesses, declares the Lord.” In verse 13 Jesus says, “my faithful witness.”105 Antipas, and other faithful believers like him in Pergamum, chose to eat the good food of Christ rather than the garbage food of the world.

There were some in the church, however, who began to eat the garbage heap of rotten food, called sexual immorality and impurity. First, reference is made to Balaam, who in Numbers could not curse the Israelites but helped Balak gain an advantage over them by encouraging their people to inter-marry with the Israelites, thus leading them into adultery (see Numbers 22:5–25:3; 31:8, 16). Numbers 25:2–3 says, “The people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor: And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.” The sins of the people were eating food that had been sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality.106 Sexual immorality was not only spiritual (with other gods away from their marriage to God), but also fleshly. It would have been very prevalent in Pergamum, as it would have been common in other larger Roman cities with open baths and places of temple prostitution.107

The practice of the Nicolaitans was also a problem in Pergamum as it was for the Ephesian church. These were people who also encouraged compromise with the rotten food of the society around them. A little compromise here, a little compromise there, and soon the church looked no different than the world. This group of Nicolaitans could have been the same group as those who followed the teachings of Balaam. Etymologically the meanings of the names are similar, “to overcome or consume the people.”108 Both compromised with the world and ate the rotten food of the society.

What is rotten food around us today? In our societies, we also face the danger of compromise. Whenever we desire the rotten food of the world rather than the Bread of Life, we compromise. There is the rotten food of sexual perversion, a sin we oftentimes do not take seriously anymore. There is the rotten food of greed and materialism. Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and money.” There is the rotten food of bitterness and revenge. Jesus said, “It is mine to avenge. I will repay.” He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” He said, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave you gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” There is also the rotten food of pride and selfishness.

How can we avoid this rotten food? Jesus commanded the church in Pergamum to repent. If not, Jesus would come soon to make war109 against them. This is similar to the breath of his mouth in 2 Thessalonians with which the antichrist and false prophet will be defeated. The judgment of Jesus from the witness of his word and voice is final.

Rotten food is easy to smell, especially when we know the real thing and how pleasant it is. We must seek, therefore, to know the real thing. We must study the word and spend time with Jesus. The more we know the Bread of Life, the quicker we will be at sniffing out the rotten food of the world. Rotten food must be thrown out immediately or it will spoil what is good. Ephesians 5:3 says, “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.”

I learned an Arabic word when I was with my mother in Florida several years ago. The word is samek and it refers to an awful smell. My mother and my Aunt smelled something bad in the refrigerator and they looked and looked to find out where the bad smell was coming from. I think Arabs have a more acute smell, because I really couldn’t smell anything. They looked a long time, over several days (every time they opened the refrigerator, they would complain of samek). They never did find it! But the effort they went to in order to rid the refrigerator of that bad smell is the same kind of effort we need to rid our lives of the rotten food of the world.

Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added to you.” He said again in Matthew 7:7–8, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” And again, in response to Satan’s temptation to turn the stones into bread in Matthew 4, Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” We must seek the Living bread, the Bread of Life, to be our daily sustenance and our focus, our priority and our vision.

Jesus promised the church in Pergamum, “To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna.” Hidden manna is a reference to the Exodus story and the manna from heaven. It could also be a reference to Jesus, the Bread of Life, the Manna sent from God in John 6. The manna is contrasted with the idolatrous food. The Israelites should have trusted in God’s provision at the time of Balaam and not partaken in the idolatrous feast. So also, the church in Pergamum.110 Why is the manna called “hidden” manna? It is possible that this is a reference to the story in 2 Maccabees 2:4–7 when Jeremiah took the pot of manna that was placed in the ark as a memorial for future generations and hid it underground in Mt. Nebo before the destruction of the temple. This was an apocryphal story. But a story that may have been familiar to the church in the first century. Jesus must continue to be our provider, our supplier, our sustainer, and our satisfaction from heaven.

Jesus also promised a white stone to the overcoming church. White stones were given to those who were especially invited to a feast, like a wedding invitation (see Revelation 19 and the wedding supper of the Lamb). The “new name” on the white stone is a mark of genuine membership in the community, an identity deeper still than our new name/status in Christ, without which we could not enter into the kingdom of God.111 Isaiah 62:2 says, “The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.” This stone was white because of the righteousness of the saints who refused to participate in the Balaam cult of idolatry and sexual immorality.

Conclusion

Seeking Jesus means seeking him in prayer (alone and with others), seeking him in fellowship with other believers, seeking him as we communicate the message of the gospel and the testimony of our changed lives to neighbors, family, and friends, seeking him Sunday through Sunday, and guarding our ears and our hearts and our eyes against the unholy, rotten food of the world. We will then not fear the sword in his mouth. We will stand before him as one accepted and righteous.

Jesus said in John 6:27, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” The people asked Jesus, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus simply said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” It is those who believe in the Bread from Heaven and seek him that will be given a new name—this secret name known only to God and to us when we get to Heaven. When we seek the Bread of Life for our forgiveness and salvation, we are presented the stone of invitation to the wedding banquet. We are free to enter before God because of Jesus.

102. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, 95.

103. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 246. Aune also lists possible meanings for Satan’s throne as the judge’s bench or tribunal where the proconsul sat to judge or Satan’s throne as the center of Christian persecution, though he leans toward the latter—Aune, Revelation 1–5, 182–84.

104. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, 96; Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John, 46. See also Johnson, Hebrews through Revelation, 440.

105. τὴν πίστιν μου is the objective genitive, which could be translated “faith in me” (Beale, The Book of Revelation, 246). This suggests something of the church’s solidarity with the faithfulness of Jesus (Thomas and Macchia, Revelation, 100), though Thomas calls it a possessive genitive, as it would refer to Jesus’ faithfulness.

106. From the word πορνεῦσαι, where we get the English word “pornography”.

107. Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John, 48. See also Osborne, Revelation, 145 who writes that it is probable that literal promiscuity is in view, similar to the libertinism of 1 John.

108. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 251.

109. The Greek word for “make war,” (πολεμήσω), is the word “polemic.” Beale sees an interesting parallel between the threat Balaam faced of being killed by the sword of the angel of the Lord (Numbers 22:23, 31) and his actual death when he did not heed the warning, and the threat to the church to be killed with the sword if they did not repent of his teachings—Beale, The Book of Revelation, 250.

110. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 252.

111. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 253–55. See also Osborne, Revelation, 149, who writes, “The manna and white stone are both eschatological symbols related to the messianic feast at the eschaton but also teaching the spiritual food and new name that God gives to the believer in the present as well.”