REVELATION 2:4 ("FIRST LOVE")

In the first letter of Christ to the seven churches, he accuses the Ephesians of abandoning their first love. I have always thought that this referred to the fact that their initial fervor for following Christ and spreading His love to others had been lost. In other words, the honeymoon period was over. In an analogy to the Church representing the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:25-27), one might say that the Ephesian congregation still kept their initial vow to honor and obey her Husband, but no longer felt the same love for Him.

But this last week I heard a sermon on Revelation 2:1-7 which was excellent in many ways, but which vaguely bothered both my wife and me. As she said when the talk was through, “If the church was that far gone, how could Christ commend them in any way at all?” The reason for that comment was that the speaker seemed to strongly imply without actually stating it that the “first love” in verse 4 referred to the love that God showed through Christ toward us, citing passages such as the well-known John 3:16 and I John 4:10 (“This is love: not that we loved God, but that He first loved us”). Thus, his deduction was that they had lost, or lost sight of, the fact that God sent Christ to save us from our sins.

I decided to see what reputable scholars had to say concerning this verse and came up with the following, all of which seem to confirm and flesh out my initial thoughts on the subject:

J. Phillips: “It is possible to serve the Lord for a variety of motives – for the praise of men, for prestige or position for the sake of reputation, because it is simply the thing to do, because of a sense of duty. If service for God is not born of a devoted passion for the Lord Jesus it is worthless.”

Morris: “There is a problem in the words to the church in Ephesus..., where 'love' might mean love for Christ or 'love for one another' (Moffatt) or even love for people in general. Perhaps all three are included.”

Beale: “The point is not primarily that they had lost their love for one another, as argued by most commentators...Nor is the point merely that they had lost their love for Christ in general (as some commentators also think; cf. Jer. 2:2; Ezek. 1:18). The idea is that they no longer expressed their former zealous love for Jesus by witnessing to him in the world.”

Ellul: “At issue here is not faith and its content, but love. Which is to say that, perhaps, she has fallen from the spontaneity of the relationship with God, from the attempt to please the Lord in everything...All has become cold, flat. In short, we find a Church become institutional, theological, exact, rigorous, moral, ceasing to live by the impulsion of a force ever new.”

Verhey: “Patient endurance required fidelity in their devotion to God (Rev 2:4; 3:15,16) and in their love of and service to one another (Rev 2:19)...”

Mounce: “Every virtue carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. It seems probable that desire for sound teaching and the resulting forthright action taken to exclude all imposters had created a climate of suspicion in which brotherly love could no longer exist...Good works and pure doctrine are not adequate substitutes for that rich relationship of mutual love shared by persons who have just experienced the redemptive love of God...Without love the congregation ceases to be the church.”

Dictionary of Biblical Imagery: “First indicates the one coming or ranking at the beginning of a series; the first precedes all others in time (the earliest), order (in contrast to second) or importance...As a condition of uncorrupted beginning, this first state is sometimes presented as a norm of superior spirituality (Jer 7:12). Returning to it is either a restoration of God's favor and blessing (Is 1:26; Jer 33:7,11) or a spiritual revival (Rev 2:4-5)....Although humans can express noble emotions..., their love often diminishes (Rev 2:4)...”

Barclay feels it refers to “the most important kind of love, namely, love of the brethren.”

Walvoord: “Most of the Ephesian Christians were now second-generation believers, and though they had retained purity of doctrine and life and had maintained a high level service, they were lacking in deep devotion to Christ. How the church today needs to heed this same warning that orthodoxy and service are not enough. Christ wants believers' hearts as well as their hands and heads.”

Bruce: “For all their commendable endurance, the fervor of their original love – their 'love toward all the saints', as the longer text of Eph. 1:15 puts it – had waned. And nothing – no amount of good works or sound doctrine – can take the place of agape in a Christian community.”

Beasley-Murray: “The failure of the Ephesians is perhaps the perversion of their chief virtue; opposition to false brethren led to censoriousness and divisiveness in the church, so causing them to leave their first love. This would interpret the love referred to as brotherly love. It may, however, related to love towards God; cf. Je. 2:2,8. Since the one manifestation of love is impossible without the other, we may perhaps include both in our text (cf. Mk. 12:30,31 with I Jn. 4:20).”

Conclusion

I was gratified to see from the above that my initial feeling about this verse was not that far off-base even though there remain valid questions concerning the scope of the “love” referred to here.

But I must admit that I was rather horrified to read in these quotes what sounded like personal observations of some of the various congregations and congregational leaders with which I have had close experience over the years. These included examples of:

    an elder who bragged that at work he was widely considered to be an s-o-b,

    a senior pastor who refused to visit his long-time church secretary when she was gravely ill in the hospital,

    another elder who referred to those in the congregation as “giving units,”

    a congregation who fired an associate pastor and did away with his position of pastoral care as not being cost-effective,

    a senior pastor who fired an associate pastor for coming back from a training session required by the church itself with new theological suggestions that the pastor felt did not meet the rigorous doctrinal standards of the congregation.

In short, I have had lots of experience with Christians and church leaders who fit the old definition of “the frozen chosen,” a description applied to a number of denominational congregations over the years. I believe that was the heart problem at Ephesus.