The angel of the church of Sardis is reproved, exhorted to repent, and threatened if he do not repent. The angel of the church of Philadelphia is approved for his diligence and patience. The angel of Laodicea is rebuked for being neither hot nor cold, and admonished to repent. Christ standeth at the door, and knocketh.
Anno Domini 96.
Revelation 3:1. Unto the angel of the church in Sardis— Sardis, once the renowned capital of Croesus, and of the rich Lydian kings, is now no longer worthy the name of a city. It lies about thirty-three miles to the south of Thyatira, and is called by the Turks Sart, or Sard, with little variation from the original name. It is a most sad spectacle, and sufficient to draw tears on the sight of its ruins; for it is now no more than an ignoble village, with low and wretched cottages of clay; nor has it any other inhabitants besides shepherds and herdsmen, who feedtheir flocks and cattle in the neighbouring plains: yet the great extent and grandeur of the ruins abundantly shew how large and splendid a city it once was. The Turks themselves have only one mosque, a beautiful one indeed; perverted to their use from a Christian church. Very few Christians are to be found here; and they with great patience, or rather senseless stupidity, sustain a miserable servitude; and, what is yet more miserable, are without a church or a minister among them. Such is the deplorable state of this once most glorious city; but her works were not found perfect, that is, they were found blameable before God. She was dead even while she lived, and mere show is punished accordingly. The bishop to whom this epistle is directed, is supposed to have been Melito, whose Apology for the Christians, presented to the emperor Antoninus, is celebrated. Who hath the seven Spirits, means, "Who presides over and orders the dispensations of the Spirit with respect to his various gifts and graces, and produces thereby such wonderful events as shall astonish all future ages." Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead, means, "Though thou art said to be alive, yet thou art dead." This angel is rebuked for not being active and zealous in his office, and is therefore, in our Saviour's judgment, accounted as a dead man: negligence in duty is a kind of moral death. But our Saviour here means more particularly to rebuke the hypocrisy of the Sardian church in general, which, with an external zeal for religion; possessed very little, if any, of the vital power of it.