The believers may also be overcomers in the church. In the seven epistles to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 the Lord Jesus charges the saints to be overcomers (2:7b, 11b, 17b, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 21). To overcome in these chapters does not mean to overcome sin, the world, the flesh, the self, and even Satan. Rather, according to the context of these chapters, to overcome is to overcome the degradation of the church.
To overcome in the seven epistles in Revelation 2 and 3 is to overcome the degraded situation of the churches. The reason we need to be overcomers is that the church has become degraded. Today degradation is prevailing, and we need to overcome it.
In Revelation 2:7b the Lord says, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” In this epistle, addressed to the church in Ephesus, to overcome means to recover our first love toward the Lord (v. 4) and to hate the works of the Nicolaitans (v. 6), the hierarchy which the Lord hates.
In 2:11b the Lord says to the church in Smyrna, “He who overcomes shall by no means be hurt of the second death.” To overcome in this epistle means to overcome persecution by being faithful unto death.
In 2:17b the Lord says to those in Pergamos, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he who receives it.” To overcome here means specifically to overcome the church’s union with the world, the teaching of idolatry and fornication (v. 14), and the teaching of the hierarchy (v. 15).
In 2:26-28 we have the Lord’s word to the church in Thyatira: “He who overcomes, and he who keeps My works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will shepherd them with an iron rod, as vessels of pottery are broken in pieces, as I also have received from My Father; and I will give him the morning star.” Whereas Pergamos signifies the worldly church, Thyatira prefigures the apostate Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, to overcome in the epistle to the church in Thyatira is to overcome Catholicism, to overcome the apostate Roman Catholic Church.
In 3:5 the Lord says to the church in Sardis, “He who overcomes, he shall be clothed in white garments, and I will by no means erase his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” As a sign, the church in Sardis prefigures the protestant church from the time of the Reformation to the second coming of Christ. The reformed protestant church has been considered by many to be living, but the Lord says that she is dead (v. 1). To overcome in this epistle means to overcome the deadness of the protestant churches, that is, to overcome dead Protestantism.
In 3:12 the Lord says to the church in Philadelphia, the recovered church, “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall by no means go out anymore, and I will write upon him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from My God, and My new name.” The recovered church has already gained the crown (v. 11). However, if those in the recovered church do not hold fast what they have in the Lord’s recovery until the Lord comes back, their crown may be taken away by someone. Therefore, to overcome here means to hold fast what we have in the recovered church.
Finally, in the last of the seven epistles, the epistle to the church in Laodicea, which prefigures the degraded recovered church, the Lord says, “He who overcomes, to him I will give to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne” (3:21). In this epistle to overcome means to overcome the lukewarmness and pride of the degraded recovered church (vv. 16-17), to buy the needed items-gold refined by fire, white garments, and eyesalve (v. 18)-and to open the door for the Lord to come in (v. 20).
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