Here we have to ask, while Paul was fulfilling his ministry, who on earth was clear about God’s vision? At that time there were still many God-fearing people in the Jewish religion. For example, Gamaliel feared God; he understood the Old Testament and was familiar with the teachings of the Old Testament, yet he was not in Paul’s vision.
At that time Peter and John were in Jerusalem. There was also a very pious James. These were the leading ones in the church in Jerusalem (Gal. 2:9). At the time Paul was fulfilling his ministry, it seems that James and Peter were one with his vision. However, they were not one with it. The best we can say about them is that they did not oppose Paul. They were going along in a general way but were actually not in the same company. They received the same grace as Paul did, and they were apostles together. They should have belonged to the same group and the same company. Yet they were not of the same company, though they were of the same general group. Galatians 2:9 says that James, Peter, and John gave to Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship that they should go to the Gentiles, and they would go to the circumcision. It seems as if they were shaking hands with Paul and saying to him, “Okay, Paul. Go to the Gentiles to fulfill your ministry, but we will not go with you. We are apostles to the Jews, and you are an apostle to the Gentiles.”
I do not believe that many Christians have detected this flavor when they read the Bible. Faced with this situation, Paul surely must not have had a sweet feeling. It was good that Barnabas was with him, but not long after this, the two had an argument. In the end Barnabas left. This shows that even Barnabas could not catch up with the vision of that age, the vision which Paul saw. Although he was the one who ushered Paul into the service, when Paul saw the up-to-date vision of the age, Barnabas was left behind.
Not only were men like Gamaliel and Barnabas falling behind in the vision; even apostles such as Peter and James were in danger of missing out on the vision. They were of the same general group as Paul, but they were not co-working together. When Paul went up to Jerusalem for the last time, James said to him, “You observe, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews who have believed; and all are zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20). Before this time, Paul had said clearly in Galatians that the law is over. But here, James, the leading apostle in Jerusalem, was exhorting him to keep the law. This shows that even a person as renowned in the church as James could be short in the vision. James did not walk according to the flesh; he was not a light person in any way. From history we know that he was quite a pious person. Yet he was not serving under the vision. We can say that even Peter did not catch up with the vision; even he was not in the vision.
The record of the Jerusalem conference in Acts 15 shows that the decision was full of Judaistic influence. James’s word was saturated with a Jewish and Old Testament overtone. I do not believe that decision could have satisfied Paul. Yet in order to keep the peace, he tolerated the decision, for without such a decision, there would have been unceasing arguments between the Jewish and Gentile churches over the matter of circumcision, and the churches would forever be in turmoil. However, things did not turn out as he had hoped. That decision did not solve in a clear and accurate way the problem of the Old Testament law. This proves that the church in Jerusalem did not come up fully to the vision of the age; instead, it made a compromise.
In Acts 18 Apollos appeared on the scene. He was “powerful in the Scriptures” (v. 24b). We have to realize that the Scriptures here refer to the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament. Apollos was powerful in expounding the Old Testament, but he was not in Paul’s vision. At that time, Aquila, Priscilla, and Timothy joined Paul’s ministry one after another. No doubt they were in Paul’s vision. They were walking with Paul and working together with him.
Paul worked throughout the Gentile world, but he never stayed in one place for as long as three years except in Ephesus. Acts 20:31 clearly shows that Paul stayed in Ephesus for three years. His preaching affected the entire region of Asia, of which Ephesus was the center. Paul was teaching there, and his teaching affected all those who were in Asia, but at the same time in Ephesus a negative seed was sown, and Apollos was the one who sowed it. This is one of the reasons that Paul had to work and minister in Ephesus for three years. In Acts 20, after Paul finished traveling to all the places to exhort the believers, he passed by Ephesus, called the elders together, and charged them, saying, “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock...I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock” (vv. 28-29).
After this Paul went up to Jerusalem, and soon he was bound and sent to prison. He was imprisoned in Caesarea for two years (24:27), after which he was sent to Rome. In Rome he was imprisoned for at least another two years (28:30). After he was released from prison, he wrote the first Epistle to Timothy, in which he began by saying, “Even as I exhorted you, when I was going into Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus in order that you might charge certain ones not to teach different things” (1:3). This word shows a trace of some kind of problem in Ephesus. A little more than a year after Paul was released from prison, Nero, the Roman emperor, began to persecute the church again, and Paul was sent back to prison. While he was in prison, he wrote the second Epistle to Timothy. In 1:15 he said, “All who are in Asia turned away from me.” Among these churches who had turned away from Paul, Ephesus was the leading one. Hence, in Revelation, the first of the seven letters to the seven churches was to the church in Ephesus.
The seed that Apollos sowed in Ephesus eventually became the basic factor for the decline of the church. The reason that the church in Ephesus degraded was that it had taken the lead to depart from the teaching of the apostles. To depart from the apostles’ teaching is to depart from the apostles’ vision. With the departure of the apostles’ teaching came the teaching of Balaam (Rev. 2:14), the teaching of the Nicolaitans (vv. 6, 15), and the teaching of Jezebel (v. 20). These three teachings represent the heresies in Christianity.
Paul tells us in Colossians that the ministry he received from God was to complete the word of God (1:25). After Paul completed his ministry and finished his Epistles, the church in Ephesus took the lead to bring all the churches in Asia away from the teaching of the apostle Paul. By the time the book of Revelation was written, we find the apostle John continuing the Lord’s commission and following Paul in fulfilling his ministry. John continued from where Paul had left off in his ministry. While Paul was on earth, he dealt with the problem of decline. The last church he dealt with was Ephesus in Asia. Thirty years later, at the beginning of the book of Revelation, in writing to the seven churches in Asia, the first church that was addressed was the church in Ephesus. John rebuked Ephesus for having left its first love. The reason it had left its first love is that it had left the apostles’ teaching.
The book of Revelation, which the apostle John wrote, begins with the seven churches. It covers this age and extends to the coming of Christ, the judgment of the world, and the advent of the millennium, and it concludes with the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. This constitutes the ultimate consummation of the divine revelation. After this there is nothing left to be said or seen. Everything is said and everything is seen. This is the ultimate consummation of God’s economy. Once the New Jerusalem appears, we have the final scene. For this reason, the end of Revelation says that nothing can be added to or deleted from this book (22:18-19). From that time onward, no one could add anything to the Bible. If anyone tries to add anything, his portion will be the punishment of the lake of fire. No one can delete anything. If anyone tries to cut off anything, he will be cut off from the blessing of the tree of life, the water of life, and the city of life. This shows that at the end of Revelation, God’s vision is consummated. No one can see more, and those who see less will, of course, suffer loss.