Revelation 2:8 to 11 · Passage · Perseverance
Be Faithful Even unto Death
Revelation 2:8 to 11 is Christ's letter to the church at Smyrna in the province of Asia.
The letter to Smyrna is the shortest of the seven, and it holds a warning and two promises.
Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Look, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison to test you, and you will suffer tribulation for ten days. Be faithful even unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
- The passage
- Revelation 2:8 to 11
- Book
- Revelation
- Hold in memory
- Revelation 2:10
Summary
The letter to Smyrna teaches perseverance as faithfulness that holds through suffering to the end of life. It speaks to a church that was poor and slandered and was about to suffer worse. Christ tells the church plainly that the trial will come, and He asks it to stay faithful even if faithfulness costs its members their lives.
- Smyrna is the second of the seven churches to which John was told to send what he saw (Revelation 1:11).
- The devil is named as the one who will imprison some of the believers, for a tribulation of ten days (Revelation 2:10).
- The crown of life promised to the faithful is the crown James promises to the one who perseveres under trial (James 1:12).
- The one who overcomes is promised that the second death will not harm him (Revelation 2:11).
The Letter to Smyrna
The opening verse names the church and the One who speaks to it.
The risen Christ sends this letter to believers on the eve of persecution. It belongs to the value of perseverance because its command asks for endurance in its last form.
The question this study answers is what Christ says to a church before its trial begins, and what He promises those who endure it. It covers the Greek of the letter, the readings of the ten days, the crown of life that James also names and the promise about the second death.
To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of the First and the Last, who died and returned to life.Christ's titles come before any word to the church, because the command of the letter rests on who He is.
The Greek of the title reads egeneto nekros kai ezesen, He became dead and came to life. The letter that begins with His death and life ends with the crown of life and the second death.
John first heard the title on Patmos, when the risen Christ laid His right hand on him and said, "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last, the Living One. I was dead, and behold, now I am alive forever and ever!" (Revelation 1:17 to 18).
The seven letters and the cities that received them are taught together in a study of their own.
The Letter in Seven Parts
Christ addresses one church in four verses.
The letter to Smyrna moves in seven parts, from the name of the church to the two promises at its end.
| Part | Verse | The Berean words | What it gives the church |
|---|---|---|---|
| The address | Revelation 2:8 | "the church in Smyrna" | One congregation is named, as each of the seven letters names one. |
| The speaker | Revelation 2:8 | "the First and the Last" | The speaker is the risen Christ. |
| What He knows | Revelation 2:9 | "I know your affliction and your poverty" | Christ names the church's present trouble before the trial to come. |
| The warning | Revelation 2:10 | "into prison to test you" | Prison is the form the trial takes for some of the church. |
| The length | Revelation 2:10 | "tribulation for ten days" | The trial is given a number of days before it begins. |
| The command | Revelation 2:10 | "Be faithful even unto death" | The church is to keep faith through the trial, even at the cost of life. |
| The promises | Revelation 2:10 to 11 | "the crown of life" | The crown answers the cost the command may bring, and Revelation 2:11 adds a second promise. |
Affliction, Prison and the Command
Christ names what the church already bears and then what it is about to suffer.
In Revelation 2:9 the Greek for affliction is thlipsin, and the same noun stands for tribulation in Revelation 2:10. The trial to come is named with the word for the trial the church already bore.
Poverty is ptocheian, and in the same clause the church is called plousios, rich.
The Greek of Revelation 2:10 gives the prison a purpose, hina peirasthete, so that you may be tested. The number of the days stands as hemeron deka, ten days.
The command is ginou pistos achri thanatou, and its verb ginou is a present imperative.
The Crown of Life
Revelation 2:10 and James 1:12 share one phrase in the Greek.
Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.James gives the crown of life to the one who perseveres, and so he joins the promise made to Smyrna to the value of perseverance.
Both verses read ton stephanon tes zoes, the crown of life. James's verb is hupomenei, he endures, and his noun for the trial is peirasmon.
Peter names another crown, "the crown of glory that will never fade away" (1 Peter 5:4).
How the Letter Has Been Read
A teacher of the early church and an English commentator read the crown and the cost of the command.
died 220 · Tertullian
Tertullian set the crown promised to Smyrna beside the crown Paul was sure of at the end of his course.
“Nay, then, He does even choose. He calls us to it. To him who conquers He says, ‘I will give a crown Of life.’ Be you, too, faithful unto death, and fight you, too, the good fight, whose crown the apostle feels so justly confident has been laid up for him.”
Tertullian · De Corona · on Revelation 2:10Patristic
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry drew from the letter a rule for every believer who means to stay faithful.
Read the page on Matthew Henry
“Those who will be faithful to Christ must expect to go through many tribulations; but Jesus Christ takes particular notice of all their troubles. In all their afflictions, he is afflicted, and he will recompense tribulation to those who trouble them, but to those that are troubled rest with himself.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Revelation 2:10Puritan
What the Ten Days Mean
Teachers of the early medieval church read the number in two ways, and the meaning of the number is not known.
A short time beside the life to comeApringius of Beja
Apringius of Beja, writing in the sixth century, said in his Tractate on the Apocalypse that the present evils, set beside the blessedness to come, are small and soon pass.
The objection: Bede and Alcuin read the number as a figure for the church's whole time of trial, which a short span would not fit.
The whole time of the church's trialBede; Alcuin of York
Bede, in his Commentary on Revelation in the eighth century, read the ten days as the whole time in which the commandments of the Decalogue are in force.
Alcuin of York, who died in 804, gave the same reading in his Questions and Answers on Revelation.
The objection: the letter warns some members of one church about a prison they are about to enter, so a figure for the whole age reaches past the hearers it names.
The Second Death
Revelation names a death beyond the first.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who overcomes will not be harmed by the second death.This verse answers the fear the command may raise, the fear of dying.
The Greek doubles the negative, ou me, certainly not. Later in the book John writes of those who share in the first resurrection, "The second death has no power over them" (Revelation 20:6).
Victorinus of Pettau, in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, read the second death as punishment in hell.
Faithfulness may cost a believer his life, and Christ sets beyond that cost a life the second death cannot touch.
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible (1832), suggested that the letter was addressed to Polycarp, if he was then the bishop of the church at Smyrna.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament, the tagged Greek text (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Revelation 2:10.
- Victorinus of Pettau, Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John, on Revelation 2:11, Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 7 (1886)
- Tertullian, De Corona (The Chaplet), on Revelation 2:10, Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 3 (1885)
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Revelation 2:10.
- Apringius of Beja, Tractate on the Apocalypse (sixth century), on Revelation 2:10, in a modern English translation.
- Bede, Commentary on Revelation (eighth century), on Revelation 2:10, in a modern English translation.
- Alcuin of York, Questions and Answers Manual on Revelation, on Revelation 2:10, in a modern English translation.