Revelation 2:4 - Exposition

But I have (this) against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love . The Authorized Version unwarrantably softens the censure by inserting "somewhat;" the Greek means rather, "I have (this grave thing) against thee." In "hath aught against thee" ( Matthew 5:23 ) and "have aught against any" ( Mark 11:25 ), the "aught" ( τι ) is expressed in the Greek; here nothing is expressed. "Thy first love" is expressed very emphatically with the article repeated; "thy love, thy first one." The meaning of it is much disputed. It cannot mean "thy former gentleness towards evil men and false apostles." It may mean "thy love of the brethren," so much insisted upon in St. John's First Epistle. More probably it means "thy first love for me." Christ is here speaking as the Bridegroom, and addresses the Church of Ephesus as his bride (comp. Jeremiah 2:2-13 ). This thought would be familiar to the Ephesians from St. Paul's teaching ( Ephesians 5:23-33 ). It shows strange ignorance of human frailty and of history to argue that "a generation at least must have passed away, and the thirty years from Nero to Domitian must have elapsed, ere the change here noted could come to pass." Does this writer forget the Epistle to the Galatians? In a very few years the Churches of Galatia had left their first love. The frequent and rapid lapses of Israel into idolatry show the same thing from the time when Aaron made the calf down to the Captivity. This verse is certainly no obstacle to the theory that the Apocalypse was written about A.D. 68.