Revelation 2:8

And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These things saith the first and the last, who was dead, and lived again:

SMYRNA

An ancient cradle of Ionian civilization, Smyrna existed for a millennium before Christ, being utterly devastated and destroyed by Alyattes of Lydia in 600 B.C.,[38] lying in ruins until it was rebuilt by Lysimachus, one of the generals who inherited the empire of Alexander the Great, in 301-281 B.C. By the times of the apostles, it was again a flourishing Greek city, competing with Ephesus for first place in the province. "It was a handsome city, called the most beautiful of all cities under the sun, the great buildings on the nearby summit being called the crown of Smyrna."[39] Smyrna lay next to Ephesus in the sequence that a traveler visiting all seven of these churches would naturally follow.

Smyrna still exists under the modern title of Izmir, Turkey, second in importance only to Ankara, and having a population of 286,000 in 1955.[40] Strangely enough, Ephesus, threatened with the loss of its "candlestick" has virtually disappeared; but Smyrna, against which the Lord uttered no condemnation, is a great city even now.

To the angel of the church ... See under preceding verse, and also under Revelation 1:20.

The first and the last, who was dead and lived again ... Some have seen this identification of our Lord as peculiarly appropriate for a city which, itself, had lain dead for all the middle centuries of the first millennium B.C., but was then once more a favored city.

In Smyrna ... This city was one of the oldest and most faithful of the allies of Rome, having erected a temple as early as 195 B.C. to the goddess Roma.[41] There were also temples to Cybele and Zeus, and in one of them an inscription honoring Nero as "the Saviour of the whole human race."[42] In 26 A.D., they also erected a temple to the roman emperor Tiberius, and were clearly a center of that cult of emperor-worship which resulted in so much sorrow for the church.[43] In fact, "the earliest shrine of the provincial cult of Rome was established there in 29 B.C.[44] Regarding the establishment of the church in Smyrna, we do not have any direct information; but, "It was probably established by the apostle Paul on his third missionary journey."[45] Regarding Paul's work in Ephesus, which was not far from Smyrna, Luke recorded this: "And this continued for the space of two years; so that all that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks" (Acts 19:10). This most certainly must have included the citizens of Smyrna. The emperor cult was so strong in Smyrna that even many of the Jews were carried away with it. When Polycarp was martyred there in 155 A.D., the Jews cried out:

This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the overthrower of our gods who has been teaching many not to sacrifice, or to worship the gods ... The multitude gathered wood and sticks, the Jews especially eagerly assisting in it.[46]

It was indeed a hostile environment in which the church of Smyrna lived. How tragically the once chosen people of Israel appeared in such a situation as that. They once had said, "We have no king but Caesar"; and at Smyrna they proclaimed themselves worshippers of the emperor. In the light of this chapter, there cannot be any doubt that the state itself made emperor worship a test of loyalty, condemning Christians to death who would not submit to it.

[38] E. M. Blaiklock, op. cit., p. 99.

[39] Ibid., p. 101.

[40] Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1961), Vol. 12, p. 848.

[41] G. B. Caird, op. cit., p. 34.

[42] W. Boyd Carpenter, op. cit., p. 542.

[43] G. B. Caird, op. cit., p. 34.

[44] F. F. Bruce, op. cit., p. 638.

[45] Frank L. Cox, Revelation in 26 Lessons (Nashville: The Gospel Advocate Company, 1956), p. 15.

[46] Ignatius, Concerning the Martyrdom of Polycarp in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, n.d.), pp. 41,42.