“He that hath an ear, let him hearken to what the Spirit saith to the ecclesias!” These words occur in each of the letters to the Seven Ec- clesias. They are addressed to every one that hath an ear for the truth; to every one of “the servants of the Deity,” for whose instruction the Apocalypse was communicated.
But though fallen from his first estate, the Star-Angel had one redeeming characteristic; namely, that he “hated the works of the Nikolaitanes, which,” says the Spirit, “I also hate.” The word, Nikolaitanes, is used in no other book of the scriptures than this symbolical one of the Apocalypse; and in this, it only occurs twice,—that is, in ch.
But not long after he had written to the Household of the Deity in Ephesus, the things of which he forewarned them began to display themselves. This appears from his second letter to Timothy, in which he says, “This thou knowest, that all they which be in Asia are turned away from me, of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.
Thus was the One Body created in Ephesus. It became a light- stand, and the Holy Spirit bestowed through the laying on of Paul’s hands, a light shining from it’s Eldership, the members in particular, for the illumination of the surrounding darkness. We need not here repeat what has been already said about the lightstands and “Stars” on page 161.
CHAPTER 2.
Epistles to the Four Angel-Stars of the Ecclesias in
Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, and Thyatira.
TO THE ANGEL OF THE EPHESIAN ECCLESIA.