7. The Ecclesia in Thyatira (Revelation 2:18-25)
“The letter to Thyatira is, if possible,
even more pointed. Thyatira had a false prophetess Jezebel who had already been
openly admonished regarding her evil teaching (whatever it was): ‘I gave
her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.’ Included in
the Lord’s rebuke of this ecclesia is the reproach: ‘Thou sufferest
that woman Jezebel to teach and to seduce my servants....’ Even so,
Thyatira was not deemed unworthy of fellowship with the Lord. And far from
there being any requirement placed on the faithful to separate themselves from
the contaminating influence of Jezebel and her coterie, the exact opposite is
explicitly laid upon them: ‘But unto you I say, and unto the rest that
are in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the
depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden. But that
which ye have already, hold fast till I come.’ Such words need no
explaining. They tell their own story.
“Other letters to the Churches emphasize
the same lesson even more forcefully, if that be possible. Ecclesias like Smyrna
and Philadelphia incurred no reproach from the Lord of any sort. Yet if the
‘exclusives’ are right in their insistence on a ‘pure
fellowship’, both of these ecclesias were sadly at fault in that they had
not broken off all fellowship with Sardis, Thyatira, Laodicea. The rejoinder
that they were too far from these other ecclesias to know about the vexed
problems existing there is ridiculous nonsense. Asia was one of the most highly
developed areas in the Roman Empire, and these cities lay on its main arteries.
Intercommunication in remote corners of the empire may have been somewhat
uncertain, but here in Asia conditions were more comparable with the twentieth
century. Thus Smyrna and Philadelphia continued in uninterrupted fellowship with
ecclesias which the Lord himself castigated” (H. Whittaker, “Block
Disfellowship”, The Testimony, Vol. 43, No. 513 — Sept. 1973
— p. 341).
Brother Thomas concludes the same — that
is, that all other ecclesias (those other six mentioned in the Apocalypse and
their latter-day counterparts) are “in fellowship” with Laodicea
(Eureka, Vol. 1, p. 403). His position here is decidedly at variance with
many of the “stricter fellowships” of today!