Fr. Stephen De Young: Verse 18: “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira, write: These things says the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and has feet like fine brass.” More descriptors from chapter one. “I know your works, love, service, faith”—which should be “faithfulness”—“and your patience. And as for your works, the last are more than the first.” So that all sounds good! Those are good things, the last are more than the first.

Q1: You’re getting better.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, each— You’re moving in the right direction; you’re making progress, good progress: works, love, service, faithfulness, patience.

Verse 20: “Nevertheless!” [Laughter] Here we go! But. “I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.” We’ll pause there. As with Balaam and Balak, I think it unlikely that there’s a person in the Christian community there actually named Jezebel. Given the only Jezebel that we have is in 1 Kings and is the wife of Ahab, the foreign Phoenician wife of Ahab, who brings Baal-worship—the -bel is Baal in her name—to Israel and murders all the prophets of Yahweh the God of Israel, I don’t think a lot of Jews in the first century were naming their kids after her, their daughters. “Delilah,” probably also not popular, though people, for unknown reasons to me, do name their kids that today. Read the Bible. Anyway… [Laughter]

So it’s unlikely someone is actually named Jezebel, so this is being used to refer to someone. They would have known who this was, but they’re being called Jezebel here again to call our mind back to those stories. Ahab was the son of Omri, everybody’s favorite king of Israel—not in the present day, but in the ancient world actually yes! Omri, from an archaeological standpoint, is the most important king of Israel, either kingdom, north or south, historically. Between his reign and the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, the neighboring countries, including the Assyrians who wiped them out, called the northern kingdom of Israel “Beit Omri,” the house of Omri.

He’s the one who bought the hill to build Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom. He made trade agreements all over the place. We have in script— You can go to the British Museum and see the black obelisk that shows Jehu, his descendant, from the house of Omri; it’s written on it, doing obeisance to the Assyrian king. So he’s this hugely important figure. He gets about six verses in the Bible that basically say he’s wicked, he’s horrible, he’s wicked, he died. [Laughter] And as for the rest, you can read it in the annals of the kings of Israel. [Laughter] Go read his propaganda if you want to know the rest of it, but here’s the bottom line.

His son, Ahab: this is his son and heir. And so he wants— He’s in the business of building up this kingdom, establishing his dynasty. To the north are the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Jezebel’s a Sidonian, and so he makes a deal with the king up there for his son to marry that king’s daughter. Now we’ve got an alliance. And she comes down and brings Baal-worship with her. Ahab is a wimp and kind of pathetic, all through the story. He does very little; Jezebel is pretty much running the kingdom and doing what she wants, which includes killing literally hundreds of prophets, trying to sort of wipe out Yahwist religion, trying to bump off Elijah. Ahab is sort of this weak, lame figure who does what she tells him to and is made to look very bad.

So there is a woman there. We had somebody else who got compared to Balaam, but there’s a woman there who calls herself a prophetess. Now, that “calls herself a prophetess” is Christ saying, “I haven’t been talking to her.” [Laughter] “She’s been going around saying I’ve been talking to her. I haven’t been talking to her.” And what she’s doing is that she’s teaching and seducing Christ’s servants. So the people in the church belong to Christ, not to her, but she’s been getting them to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. This is sort of the female version of the Balaam male version in Pergamum, that she’s doing similar things. She is encouraging people: “Oh, no, you can straddle the line between the two things.”

Jezebel is a particularly good example for that, because this is what— When the big showdown for Elijah happens with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, what he says to the people of Israel is, “How long will you hover between two opinions? You don’t want to land. You’re sort of going back and forth between Baal, Yahweh, Baal, Yahweh…” And then he says, “If Yahweh is God, serve him; if Baal is god, serve him. And we’re going to settle right now who’s really the Most High God.” So you can see that language here again. These are people who are supposed to be servants of Christ. “If Christ is God, serve him; if Jupiter is god, serve him. Jupiter ain’t God.” But she’s trying to get them to straddle this line, or at least telling them it’s okay.

Verse 21: “And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.” So he says, “I’m not just lowering the boom. She’s been given opportunities to repent and to change,” because, again, Christ doesn’t hate her for doing this. He doesn’t come kill her. He’s saying, “I gave her this time to repent.” He wants her to repent and come back to him.

Verse 22: “Indeed, I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who committed adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.” So why would he do that? Another chance to repent. He’s saying, “So the next step… I gave time to repent; nobody’s repenting. So the next step is, I send some trouble their way, and hopefully that will get them, will motivate them to repent.”

Verse 23: “I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your works.” This isn’t talking about her literal children. This isn’t Christ saying, “I’m going to take out her kids, too!” Because he’s just making her sick. That wouldn’t make any sense. These are spiritual children. This is what’s going to happen if they don’t repent. “If her followers still don’t repent—I gave them time—I’m going to send trouble to try and get them to repent. If they still don’t repent…” Because what’s the purpose of this life in this world?

Q1: Repentance.

Fr. Stephen: Repentance. Well, if they’re not going to do it, and if there’s no way I can get them to do it, then it’s over, because then at least that way the other people will see: “Oh. There’s consequences for this. I need to not go down that same road, or if I’m already on that road, I need to repent, right now while I have opportunities.” So this is the perspective of the Scriptures in terms of when people die. This life is for repentance. So people in the Scriptures when either they have sufficiently repented—God knows when that is—or when they have just exhausted all their opportunities refusing to repent—and God knows when that is—but it’s one of the two. It’s one of the two, and that’s why you get passages like in the book of Wisdom, where it’s trying to counter the idea that someone who dies young has been cursed, regardless of how they die or why or the circumstances. “Just to live a long life is a blessing; to die is a curse”: blanket. And it pushes back on that and says: No, the person who dies young—maybe the person who in a short time fulfilled a long time. In a short time in this world, they did what they needed to do: they repented, they became holy, they might have become a saint in just a few years. And so for them death now is they’re done with this life. They don’t need this any more. They don’t need the sufferings of this life. They don’t need those things. They’re ready to enter into glory.

So that’s the perspective on that side, and then the other side is, eventually— God is merciful. Here Christ gives them time, he sends them things to try to get [them] to repent, but eventually— And this is true of collectives, too. This is what we see in the Old Testament with different nations. There are times where Israel might be tempted to attack another nation, try and take its territory, and God says no. “The cup of their iniquity is not yet full” is language he uses. “I’m still giving them a chance to repent. You don’t attack them. They’re getting a little more time.” And then there’s other nations, or Sodom and Gomorrah, where it’s just like: “No. They’ve had the chances to repent. I’ve sent prophets to them. I’ve sent people. And it’s done now.” Because, while they’re not repenting— While Jezebel is not repenting, she’s leading other people into sin; she’s harming other people.

So we might think, again thinking very individualistically, “Well, if God really loved her, wouldn’t he just give her chance after chance after chance to repent?” Meanwhile, she’s racking up victim after victim after victim after victim. So at what point— And again, this is a point known only to God. We aren’t qualified to judge this. It’s a sin for us to try and judge this and try and take action against people. This is God’s. God knows the point where the evil the person is doing, the harm they’re inflicting on other people reaches the point where more chances for repentance doesn’t balance out any more, and where he then acts to resolve it, not us.

And that’s reinforced by what Christ says here. “All the churches shall know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts. I will give to each one of you according to your works.” Not “you should give to each other according to each other according to your works,” not “you should search out the minds and hearts of people and judge them.” He doesn’t call on them to do anything to Jezebel except maybe call her to repent.

Q1: Not follow her.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, and not follow her, but it doesn’t say to do anything to her. He’s saying what he’s going to do to try to bring her to repentance, and if she doesn’t, what he’s going to have to do after that.

Verse 24: “Now, to you I say, and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden.” He changes address there. It’s kind of weird how they did it in English, because the “you” there is Jezebel. He was talking to the angel in that first part. You notice this letter’s a little longer than the other ones. There’s a shift here. So this next piece, this piece that we just started reading, is a piece that isn’t in the other letters. He shifts. He shifts his address. He’s talking directly to her. So he says, “To you I say, to you, Jezebel, I say, and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine.” And the rest of Thyatira who…

Q1: Aren’t following her.

Fr. Stephen: Aren’t following her, right. “To you, Jezebel, and to everyone else there.” So now he’s not talking to the angel; he’s talking to the collected people.

“And those who don’t have that doctrine have not known the depths of Satan, as they say,” so that must have been a saying, “I will put on you no other burden.” So he’s saying, “I’m not going to put anything else on you,” meaning— Remember all those good things they’re doing. Other than this Jezebel problem, they’re doing all these good things. He’s saying, “I’m not laying anything else on top of you.” She needs to repent. The rest of them need to keep up what they’re doing.

Verse 25: “But hold fast what you have until I come.” Hold fast what you have till I come: keep up what you’re doing.

Verse 26: “And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron; they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels, as I also have received from my Father.” That’s from Psalm 2, and that’s a messianic psalm. So that’s when he says, “As I received from my Father.” He’s talking about: when Christ is enthroned, after the Ascension, he rules over the earth. And so he’s saying to the one who overcomes, he’s going to share his rule over the earth with them. This is part of our understanding of sainthood. We’re going to get to— Remember this. When we get to chapter 20 and we’re talking about the millennium, because that’s the period of time when the saints and martyrs come alive and rule and reign with Christ, because this is already seeded all the way back here in this letter: that the one who overcomes, the one who stays faithful until their death, the one who is victorious: they’re going to share in Christ’s rule over the world.

“And I will give him the morning star.” Yeah, I’ll take a couple minutes to do this. Just a couple minutes. The morning star is a symbol. The morning star is what we would call the planet Venus, and what the Romans called the planet Venus. “Planet” means— When we think of planet, we’ve all seen some Star Trek or Star Wars or something, so we know it’s planet: it’s a big ball of earth or gases or what have you. The word “planet” comes from the Greek word planetes that means wanderer, and that’s because the stars in the constellations followed these consistent patterns that they could map out, but because they didn’t understand how the solar system is structured, to them, looking at Mars or Venus, they kind of looked like they go all over the place in the other stars, so they were called the wanderers for that reason.

This one is associated famously in Isaiah with our friend Baal. It might be—I’m going to throw this in just for the real nerds on the recording. It might be Enlil, the Babylonian god, but six of one, half a dozen of the other in terms of symbolism. It’s associated with— Because it’s sort of that first brightest star that you can still see in the morning, depending on when it is and where it falls, it was seen to be this sort of most significant star. The stars, remember, which includes for them the planets and the sun and the moon, were seen to be these divine beings. It’s associated with Enlil, it’s associated with Baal, it’s associated with Venus or Aphrodite.

Christ is saying he’s going to share his rule with the saints, and so what this is saying is that the saints are going to take the authority and the kingdom that was possessed by the angelic beings or the angelic nations who fell. This is one of many places in Jewish literature and several in the Scriptures where we see this replacement idea. God creates the angelic beings sort of as his administration. He doesn’t need them, but he creates them out of love and has them administering these different parts of the creation. Some of them become evil, become demonic, and so human beings who experience what we call in the Orthodox Church “theosis,” who experience salvation, this transformation, who become like Christ and in becoming like Christ become like God—they receive that authority which Christ took away from them.

On Holy Saturday, we sing Psalm 82, which talks about God standing in the council of the gods. Everybody gets confused because they’re like: “Wait, I thought we were monotheists!” and it’s like: that’s a 17th-century thing. God stands in the council of gods and he renders judgment against the gods, because they’ve done wickedly on the earth. And he says, “You are all gods and sons of the Most High, but you’ll die like men.” And then it ends with, as we sing: “Arise, O God, and judge the earth, for you will inherit from all the nations.”

The imagery here about the smashing of the nations with the iron rod is that Christ defeats these demonic pagan gods. He’s defeated them; he’s taken their authority away from them. Before he ascends into heaven in Matthew 28, he says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” So Christ rules everyone now; the devil has no authority. The demons have no authority; the powers and principalities that St. Paul talks about have no authority. Christ has taken it all, and now he’s promising to his saints that he will share that with them, what he’s taken back from, it will be shared with them. Aphrodite ain’t in charge of Thessaloniki any more; St. Demetrios is. [Laughter] Because it got taken away from her, whoever she was, and given to St. Demetrios.

Verse 29: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Okay, so I went more than a couple minutes, but that brings us to the end of chapter two, so we’ll go ahead and stop for tonight. Thank you, everybody.