Revelation 3:1

REV:3

This chapter continues the letters to the seven churches, having the last three: to Sardis (Revelation 3:1-6), to Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13), and to Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22).

SARDIS

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars: I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead.

A present-day village named Sart, composed of a few paltry huts, is all that remains of the once proud capital of the Lydian monarchy,[1] and which probably existed even before the Lydian kingdom came into being in 1200 B.C.[2] Great names of ancient history were associated with the place, such as Croesus (with fabulous riches), Cyrus, and Alexander the Great. When Xerxes launched his disastrous invasion of Greece, Sardis was the staging area for his immense army. It was strategically located on top of a plateau protected on three sides by almost perpendicular cliffs overlooking the Hermus valley, giving the city strong military protection. Despite this, however, the city was twice destroyed through their overconfidence in leaving the supposedly unclimbable cliffs unprotected. Such overconfidence is understandable; for on all but the south side, "Its perpendicular rock walls rose 1,500 feet above the valley, and provided a natural citadel."[3] Both Cyrus in 546 B.C. and Antiochus the Great in 218 B.C. captured Sardis by scaling the undefended cliffs. The great importance of the city in ancient times, how ever, had sharply declined in apostolic times; and the city itself partook somewhat of the "deadness" that this letter ascribes to the church there. The principal temple of the place was that of Cybele, identified with Artemis, and like all other pagan temples a center of immorality. Ruins of it lie along the Pactolus river in the valley below the cliffs, the once gold-laden sands of which were one source of the city's wealth. The worship of the emperor was also strong there; and, out of gratitude to Tiberius who had aided financially in rebuilding the city after an earthquake in 17 A.D., they competed for the honor of building a temple to him; but they lost out to Smyrna.[4] Tiberius remitted their taxes for a period, but Sardis never regained its place of importance, except for a brief while in the reign of Diocletian. It existed continuously until 1402 when it was so completely destroyed by Tamerlane that it was never rebuilt.[5] Scott reported that "only two or three shepherds inhabited a hut there" at the time of Arundel's visit in 1826, and that in 1850 "no human being was found living in the once mighty and populous Sardis."[6]

The fact that no New Testament records tell of the establishment of the church in Sardis should not be thought strange; because only a small fraction of the activity of the apostles and first generation Christians is mentioned in the New Testament. Sardis probably learned the truth about the same time that other churches in the area were planted, and possibly from the very same sources.

He that hath the seven Spirits of God ... Christ represented himself to this church in terminology describing the glorified Saviour in the first chapter. As noted earlier, this clause is difficult; but it likely means, "the Holy Spirit sent in his fullness to the seven churches."[7]

I know thy works ... This is stated in all seven of the letters.

Thou hast a name that thou livest ... This means that the people of this church were "nominal Christians, professing to live the Christian life";[8] but it also seems to indicate that they enjoyed a good reputation in the community, a deduction from the fact that no mention of any opposition from the pagan society is made. They apparently had no Balaam, no Nicolaitans, and no Jezebel. Not even the Jews were mentioned as opposing them. Perhaps Caird was right in referring to them as, "The church everyone spoke well of, the perfect model of inoffensive Christianity, unable to distinguish between the peace of well-being and the peace of death."[9] Although not all at Sardis were "dead" (Revelation 3:4), "The majority had so fully compromised with the pagan environment that they were Christian in name only."[10] They could have been a rather large and influential body of people, for there is no reference to their having but a "little strength" as was the case at Philadelphia. However they might have looked in the eyes of men, they were nevertheless dead in the eyes of the Lord.

And thou art dead ... What a dreadful sentence of condemnation is this. The Lord had not one word of approval for this church, no works to commend; and the inference in Revelation 3:5 is that he had already blotted the names of some of them out of the book of life.

[1] W. Boyd Carpenter, Ellicott's Bible Commentary, Vol. VIII (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), p. 546.

[2] E. M. Blaiklock, Cities of the New Testament (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1965), p. 113.

[3] G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 47.

[4] Robert H. Mounce, Commentary on the New Testament, Revelation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977), p. 109.

[5] E. J. Banks, ISBE, p. 2692.

[6] Walter Scott, Exposition of the Revelation of Jesus Christ (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, n.d.), p. 40.

[7] G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Greenwood, South Carolina: The Attic Press, 1974), p. 94.

[8] John T. Hinds, A Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Nashville: The Gospel Advocate Company, 1962), p. 53.

[9] G. B. Caird, op. cit., p. 48.

[10] Robert H. Mounce, op. cit., p. 110.