Seven Churches in Asia

And the overcoming church Today

The communication to Revelation’s seven churches of Asia, is just what it appears to be: seven letters addressed to seven real churches, blessing them and warning them. All the fantasies of theologians through the years attempting to make these churches into church “ages” have failed. These seven churches, however, do represent problems and principles by which the Church universal has been edified in every age, and so it will be until Jesus comes. These congregations were chosen because churches like them will always exist. They exist today:

Loveless, persecuted, compromising churches.

Corrupt, dead, faithful churches.

And the lukewarm church.

They’re around, like the poor, “always with us.”

In the above sense, the seven churches of John are no different than the seven churches to which Paul wrote letters: Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, Thessalonica. Thankfully, no one –that I have read– tries to weave tales about the mysterious epochs that those letters represent. They are simply congregations that had problems and graces worthy of our consideration. It can be argued, as it is by some, that most of the New Testament was written in response to difficulties that arose in that early church. The Spirit-sent responses serve as the basis for the normalizing of the Christian Church of all time.

After the warnings and promises are given out to the seven, one final promise is made in 21:7: The overcomer will inherit all things. And that person will actually be called a son of God.

Oh! Then how shall I overcome, Lord? Show me the way! Let me not miss this! That way is begun in the Book of Revelation itself, 12:11. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. That is, what Jesus did for us on the cross, and telling others about it. And don’t forget the rest of that verse: “they did not love their lives to the death.” For the overcomer it is

all for Jesus, all for Jesus, all my being’s ransomed powers...

all my days and all my hours

(from the Mary D. James hymn).

Overcoming, like many subjects in Revelation, is not new to this last book. In Romans 12:21, Paul tells us not to be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good. And in John’s first epistle, the fathers and the young men in Christ are told that they have already overcome the wicked one because the Word of God lives in them (I John 2:13-14). Even little children, in the Spirit (I John 4:4), have overcome the world because the One in us is greater than the one in the world.

It is John again who lays the foundation for the overcoming doctrine of the believers in John 16:33 when he quotes Jesus as saying that we believers will have trouble, but we can be happy because Jesus “has overcome the world.”