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.
“I was dead, and behold, 1 am lving for the Aions of the Aions. AMLN This is from the Hebrew ahmain, “faithfulness.” The Eter¬nal Spirit both absolute and incarnate, is “the Amen." In the letter to Laodicea the Spirit speaks, and in speaking, says, “these things saith THE AMEN;” and in this first chapter, the Amen says, “I was dead.” But the Spirit never died; therefore, here it must be understood of the Logos speaking from a body, personal and corporate, with whom he had united in a resurrection thereof from the dead.
“His aspect as the sun shines in his power.” the words fi o^iq avrov , which I have rendered “his aspect,” are expressed in the Eng¬lish version by “his countenance.” In modem style, this is gener¬ally understood of the face. But John certainly did not mean this. He began his description at the hair of the head; and if he had meant the face he would doubtless have referred to it before he passed down to the breasts. What he had reference to, after finishing in detail, was the general external aspect of the whole figure.
A sword proceeding out of the mouth of a symbol indicates that the community represented is prepared for military operations. “YAH¬WEH,” saith Moses, “is a Man of War;” and that warrior is before us in John’s similitude of the Son of man.
In the tenth verse of this first chapter, John informs us, that the first thing that arrested his attention, when he came to be “in spirit,” was “a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last;” and in the fifteenth verse, he tells us, that the great voice was “as the sound of many waters.”
“His feet,” says John, “like incandescent brass, as if they had been glowing in a furnace.” We have here to consider the import of the feet; why they are symbolized by brass; in what sense they glow; and in what furnace the glowing is evolved.
The eye is the symbol of intelligence, for “the light of the body is the eye.” The nature of the intelligence in predominant activity is expressed by the character of the symbol; hence an eye as a flame of fire, indicates intelligence in wrathful activity. The word for "ere” in the Hebrew also signifies “fountain;” because tears are welled up from the eye as water from a fountain or spring.
John says that the head and the hairs of the similitude he saw were “white, as it were wool, white as snow.” This appearance identifies it with Daniel’s Ancient of Days,” the hair of whose head was “like the pure wool.” Now, in regard to the head, Paul says, “I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God”—1 Cor. 11:3; and in Eph.