Revelation Chapter Three, Corporate Death

Revelation 3:1b “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.

Five times now the Lord has told the church that He knows their works. Scripture states, “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account,” Hebrews 4:13. David writes in the Psalms, “You know my sitting down and rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether,” Psalm 139:2-4.

God created each one of us. We are biologically engineered by God, and spiritually constructed by Him. When we are born again it is His eternal life that infuses us, and brings our own sin-cursed and dead spirit back to life forever. God is our Maker and Father; His Holy Spirit dwells in us forever, and through our sinful actions we may grieve Him, Ephesians 4:30. When we stifle the ministry of the Spirit we can quench Him; that is, we obstruct His purpose to edify believers and reach the lost with the gospel of Christ, 1 Thessalonians 5:19. God knows our works because He is in our midst. He dwells in each one of us by faith, and corporately when two or more gather there He is with us. There is either a distinct comfort or lack thereof in these simple words: “I know your works.”

Sardis apparently possessed a reputation for being a lively, Spirit-filled church, but from God’s perspective this was not the case. Sardis can be used as an object lesson in judgment. Externally there must have been signs of life; otherwise the Lord would not have referred to Sardis as having a name for being alive. The surrounding city, and possibly other churches, considered Sardis as a lively, spiritual church. Apparently they were spiritually dead. People can be befuddled by appearances. God cannot. “For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outside appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart,” 1 Samuel 16:7. It was so when Samuel was anointing one of Jesse’s sons and David was chosen; it is still so when we have a name for being alive, but are actually dead.

Now we have to be very careful here. This is not individual, spiritual death that unbelievers suffer. No, God is addressing the church: a body of believers gathered together in Jesus’ name. The whole tenor of chapters 2 and 3 is dealing with the seven churches that have established lampstands, which the Lord walks amongst, Revelation 1:12, 13. These are not apostate churches, though there is the very real possibility that they could become so, if they did not heed correction and practice humility, Revelation 2:5. So what is this deadness our Lord speaks of? It is the absence of the fruit of the Spirit, or works done in Christ’s name, fueled by a love of God and a love for our fellow man. The church has become sterile; all style and no substance as the saying goes. There is a veneer of polish to mask the absence of true spiritual strength and vitality. This comes about by infiltration; false teachers intrude bringing with them damnable heresies, 2 Peter 2:1. Jeremiah chapter 23 is a good lesson in how men may pervert God’s word and weaponize it to divert a person from following the Lord to following them. Thus, the church transforms from a meeting place for believers to worship Jesus Christ to an institute of misled minds to pander to the ego of a charlatan. And even the charlatan himself may be entirely deceived, 2 Timothy 3:13. That is, he may have believed his own lie and is not misleading because he is an egomaniac, but because he has not had the light of Christ actually shine upon him, to free him from the blinders of spiritual bondage.

The false teachers of Jeremiah chapter 23 were not reconciling Israel back to God; they were deceiving them with plagiarized words and false promises. Those who had power to actually catch the ears of a people in desperate need of correction instead chose to pacify and flatter, to the mutual doom of all parties. Yes, believers may err so far and so hard that inevitable physical death may be the result, Acts 5:1-11, 1 Corinthians 11:30, 31, James 5:19, 20, 1 John 5:16. In this instance with Sardis while there may be much preaching and a flurry of activity, that does not equate into truth or spiritual power. By our Lord’s own condemnation we know that this was so.