Philadelphia

Revelation 3:7-13 English Standard Version

Revelation 3:7

1. “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:

a. The town of Philadelphia was located about 30 miles east of Sardis, on the road that led to Hierapolis and Laodicea.[1]

b. Philadelphia (modern Alashehir)1 lies at the eastern end of a broad valley that, passing through Sardis (some thirty miles west-northwest), leads down to the Aegean Sea near Smyrna. [2]Smyrna, roughly sixty miles to the west.[3]

2. ‘The words of the holy one,

3. the true one,

a. If “true” is taken in the classical sense of “genuine,” it may be used in 3:7 to refute those Jews of Philadelphia who would claim that Christ was a false Messiah.8If it is taken in the OT sense of “faithful,”9 it could serve to remind the believers at Philadelphia that not only has Christ been set apart (the root meaning of hagios) to carry out his messianic task, but that he can be counted on to carry it to completion.[4]

4. who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.

a. Isaiah 22:22 And I will place on his [Eliakim (v.20)] shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

b. This means that Jesus is not only the “root of David” (5:5; 22:16), but the majordomo, the one who controls entrance into the royal palace, a position of the highest authority in the kingdom (Isa. 22:15–25, esp. 22:22;[5]

c. The language of Isaiah is used to present Christ as the Davidic Messiah with absolute power to control entrance to the heavenly kingdom.[6]

Revelation 3:8

1. “ ‘I know your works.

2. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.

a. Paul’s usage - opportunity

i. 1 Corinthians 16:9 for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

ii. 2 Corinthians 2:12 When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me in the Lord,

iii. Colossians 4:3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—

1. This strategic location at the juncture of trade routes leading to Mysia, Lydia, and Phrygia (the imperial post route from Rome via Troas passed through Philadelphia and continued eastward to the high central plateau) had helped it earn the title “gateway to the East” and made it a city of commercial importance.[7]

2. In its development under Pergamene rule Philadelphia was intended to serve as a “missionary city” to bring Greek culture to the recently annexed area of Lydia and Phrygia.[8]

b. John’s usage - salvation

i. Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

ii. Revelation 4:1 After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

3. I know that you have but little power,

4. and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

a. Kept my word = not denied my name

Revelation 3:9

1. Behold, I will makethose of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—

a. Revelation 2:9 “ ‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

b. Though the authorities believe they have excluded these believers from God’s people, Jesus is the one who truly provides access to the new Jerusalem (21:12–14). This is the likeliest sense of opening and shutting the door here.[9]

c. It may be an intentional contrast with the practice of the local synagogue in excommunicating Christian Jews.[10]

2. behold, I will makethem come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you.

a. Isaiah 60:14 The sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

i. Isaiah 45:14 Thus says the Lord: “The wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over to you and be yours; they shall follow you; they shall come over in chains and bow down to you. They will plead with you, saying: ‘Surely God is in you, and there is no other, no god besides him.’ ”

ii. Isaiah 49:23 Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”

b. The biblical prophets had promised God’s people that the Gentiles would one day bow down to them (Isa. 60:14; cf. 45:14; 49:23; cf. 45:23; 49:7; 66:23), as Jewish tradition also recognized (1 Enoch 90:30; 1QM 12.14). But here unbelieving Jews join unbelieving Gentiles in bowing down before the faithful believers (Rev. 3:9).[11]

Revelation 3:10

1. Because you have keptmy word about patient endurance,

a. Revelation 3:8 and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

2. I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.

a. After the interjected statements about their future vindication (v. 9), Christ resumes the line of thought that ended v. 8 (they have loyally kept his word) as a basis26 for a further promise about their future. The initial clause (“since you have kept my word about endurance”) repeats the same verb, object, and possessive pronoun from v. 8d, “you have kept my word” (ἐτήρησάς μου τὸν λόγον), but adds the description “of/about endurance” and puts the possessive “my” in a different place (ἐτήρησας τὸν λόγον τῆς ὑπομονῆς μου). This connection with the sense of v. 8 tips the scale toward understanding this phrase in v. 10a as “my word about [your] endurance,” that is, Christ’s call for his followers to maintain faith in him despite difficulties (cf. CSB, NIV, NJB, REB).27The Christians in Philadelphia had maintained such faith in obedience to his word.[12]

b. The wording, “I also will keep you,” uses the same verb “keep” (τηρέω) to maintain the parallelism with v. 10a, but the sense shifts from “keep, obey” to “keep safe, preserve, protect.”[13]

c. The “hour of testing” in Revelation 3:10 certainly appears to fit this unprecedented level of intensification since it comes “on the whole world” and tests “those who live on the earth” without exemption.[14]

i. Matthew 24:21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.

1. Daniel 12:1 “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.

d. Here the keeping is not from the “trial” alone but “from the hour of trial” (ἐκ τῆς ὥρας τοῦ πειρασμοῦ). Referring to the time period of the threat marks a clearer contrast between “keeping from” and “protecting in” or “through” its experiences. [15]

e. The language of “deliverance from” an experience of judgment does, however, suggest another typology of judgment and deliverance from the Old Testament, one drawn from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah whom God destroyed by fire as an “example” (ὑπόδειγμα) of his judgment on the ungodly (2 Pet 2:6). In that episode God “rescued righteous Lot” (δίκαιον Λὼτ … ἐρρύσατο; 2:7) showing that “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial” (οἶδεν κύριος εὐσεβεῖς ἐκ πειρασμοῦ ῥύεσθαι; 2:9), that is, by giving them “absolute immunity (cf. 2 Peter 2:9), … escape from [the trial] entirely,”39as Lot experienced.[16]

i. 2 Peter 2:6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;

ii. 2 Peter 2:9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,

f. This suggests that in Revelation 3:10 Christ promises to “keep” the Christians in Philadelphia “from” the future period of severe worldwide “trial” by taking them away from the earthly scene entirely.40 This coheres exactly with Paul’s description of a “rapture” of Christians that catches them up from the earth to be with Christ forever as one facet of the Lord’s coming at the end of the age (1 Thess 4:16–17). This will be done in connection with delivering Christians from God’s wrath that will be visited on the ungodly in the judgments of the day of the Lord (1 Thess 1:10; 5:2, 9). In Revelation these judgments are portrayed in chapters 6–19.41 It is important in reading Revelation to distinguish between those followers of Christ addressed in the seven messages, who represent Christians throughout the present age from Christ’s first coming up to this phase of his second coming, as over against followers of Christ who will live during the future period of final “tribulation.”[17]

Revelation 3:11

1. I am coming soon.

2. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.

Revelation 3:12

1. The one who conquers,

2. I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.

3. Never shall he go out of it,

a. To a city that had experienced devastating earthquakes that caused people to flee into the countryside and establish temporary dwellings, the promise of permanence within the New Jerusalem would have a special meaning. [18]

4. and I will write on him

5. the name of my God,

6. and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven,

7. and my own new name.

a. But “my” can easily mean “from me” (a genitive of source), denoting a new identity for the individual Christian made possible by Christ’s transforming work (cf. 2:17), and this seems more likely.[19]

Revelation 3:13

1. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

[1] Fanning, B. M. (2020). Revelation (C. E. Arnold, Ed.; p. 171). Zondervan Academic. 1 Ramsay says the modern name means “the reddish city” (HDB, 3.832), while Swete calls it “the white city” (52). [2] Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation (p. 98). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. [3] Keener, C. S. (1999). Revelation(p. 149). Zondervan Publishing House. 8 Farrer interprets the title in terms of the Isaianic reference that lies behind the rest of the verse. He writes, “In Isaiah’s text an unfaithful key-bearer is deposed and a worthy minister put in his place; so Christ here names himself the holy, the true, in contrast to the elders of the synagogue, who are false pretenders to the authority of David’s house” (80). 9 So Hort, 34; Charles, 1.85; Sweet, 103. [4] Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation(pp. 99–100). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. [5] Keener, C. S. (1999). Revelation(p. 149). Zondervan Publishing House. [6] Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation (p. 100). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. [7] Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation (p. 98). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. [8] Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation (p. 99). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. [9] Keener, C. S. (1999). Revelation(p. 150). Zondervan Publishing House. [10] Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation (p. 100). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. [11] Keener, C. S. (1999). Revelation(p. 150). Zondervan Publishing House. 26 The initial clause of v. 10 is causal, giving the ground or reason (BDAG 732) for his promise in the rest of the verse. The Greek conjunction ὅτι, translated here as “since” (NIV) or “because” (CSB, ESV, NABR, NASB, NRSV), usually follows its main verb, but here it precedes (cf. John 1:50; 20:27; 1 Cor 12:15) in order to establish the connection back to v. 8 more easily. CSB Christian Standard Bible NIV New International Version NJB New Jerusalem Bible REB Revised English Bible 27 This rendering takes the genitive “of endurance” as objective to “word” (message/command about endurance) and the genitive “my/of me” as subjective also to “word” (the message I speak). See this interpretation in Zerwick and Grosvenor, Grammatical Analysis, 748; Aune, Revelation 1–5, 231. In a string of genitives the final possessive pronoun can sometimes skip the immediately preceding noun and connect to an earlier head noun (Wallace, Grammar, 87–88; Zerwick, Biblical Greek, 15; they observe this with attributive-genitive phrases, but it can occur more broadly). The alternative interpretation also takes “of endurance” as objective to “word,” but takes “my/of me” as subjective to “endurance”: “the message about my perseverance” (cf. NASB; Swete, Apocalypse, 55; Prigent, Apocalypse, 205), but Christ’s own endurance, while true and important, is not mentioned elsewhere in this context and is thus less likely. [12] Fanning, B. M. (2020). Revelation (C. E. Arnold, Ed.; p. 175). Zondervan Academic. [13] Fanning, B. M. (2020). Revelation (C. E. Arnold, Ed.; pp. 175–176). Zondervan Academic. [14] Fanning, B. M. (2020). Revelation (C. E. Arnold, Ed.; p. 176). Zondervan Academic. [15] Fanning, B. M. (2020). Revelation (C. E. Arnold, Ed.; p. 177). Zondervan Academic. 39 Moffatt, “Revelation,” 368. He poses this as an option for Rev 3:10 but draws no conclusion of his own. [16] Fanning, B. M. (2020). Revelation (C. E. Arnold, Ed.; p. 177). Zondervan Academic. 40 One of the earliest commentators on Rev (Andrew of Caesarea, sixth century), suggests that this could refer to protection of Christians during Roman persecution (e.g., under Domitian), but he prefers to see it as deliverance in the end-times: “He speaks of the universal coming of the antichrist against the faithful at the end of time. From this coming he pledges to free those who are zealous, for they will beforehand be seized upward by a departure from there, lest they be tempted beyond what they are able to endure” (Weinrich, “Andrew of Caesarea,” 125–26). 41 See comments especially at 6:8 and 6:17. [17] Fanning, B. M. (2020). Revelation(C. E. Arnold, Ed.; pp. 177–178). Zondervan Academic. [18] Mounce, R. H. (1997). The Book of Revelation (p. 104). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. [19] Fanning, B. M. (2020). Revelation(C. E. Arnold, Ed.; p. 179). Zondervan Academic.