Revelation 2:5

Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent.

Remember ... How often has the Lord admonished his human children to remember! "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth" (Ecclesiastes 12:1); "This do ye in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:25); "Remember how he spake unto you" (Luke 24:6); "Remember his holy covenant" (Luke 1:72); "Remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things" (Luke 16:25), etc. There are actually three "R's" in this passage: Remember ... Repent ... Reform.

Repent and do the first works ... This is one of the most important clauses in the whole passage; it is the key to understanding what had happened. What were those first works which the Ephesians had stopped doing? They were the commandments of the Lord. Oh, to be sure, they were carrying on an extensive program of works, but such things were not the work of faith. The interpretation that fills many of the commentaries with the view that the Ephesians had all the works they needed misses this point altogether. It was not a question of their having discharged their full obligation regarding works, but a case of their having failed in this very category. They were not, at the time of John's writing, doing the "work of faith"; they were doing their own thing religiously. Such things, no doubt, were indeed good works, else Christ would not have commended them; but the first obligation of every Christian and every church on earth is to do the works Christ commanded. This failure, of course, was due to their having left their first love; and the shameful condition of this congregation is the Biblical exhibit of much that is going on right now in the so-called Christian world of the present time.

Did the Ephesian church heed the admonition here given? It would appear that, for some little time, at least, they did so. Bruce noted, "That the church at Ephesus paid heed to this warning is a fair inference from the testimony of Ignatius, who commends it for its faith and love."[19]

Or else I come to thee, and will remove thy candlestick ... This reference to the "coming" of Christ is not to the Second Advent, but to a visitation of providential judgment upon the Ephesians unless they repented. As McGuiggan put it: "This coming depends upon whether or not they repent; if they repent, he will not come and remove their candlestick."[20] Beasley-Murray observed that:

Such statements in no wise conflict with the truth of the final appearing, a fact which theologians have not always remembered when speaking of the "coming" of Christ, as though the recognition of these lesser appearings in any way invalidated the truth of the great appearing.[21]

The final coming of Christ in the Second Advent will occur, irrespective of any group's repenting or not.

Remove thy candlestick ... This does not refer to any total destruction of a church or of a city, but to the removal of the impenitent from any effective status as a lampstand of the truth in Jesus Christ. Many a church has continued to enjoy life on earth long after their utility as an effective instrument of spreading the gospel of Christ has perished. Such churches have indeed had their "candlestick" removed.

It is wise, here at the outset of Revelation, to observe that, "The coming of Christ, as here and elsewhere in the book, does not represent an imminent coming of Christ to end the world.[22] As Caird expressed it, "The conditional threats to Ephesus, Pergamum and Sardis are evidence that an imminent Parousia was not one of the events which John believed was bound to happen soon."[23]

[19] F. F. Bruce, A New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1969), p. 637.

[20] Jim McGuiggan, The Book of Revelation (West Monroe, Louisiana: Wm. C. Johnson, 1976), p. 46.

[21] G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Greenwood, South Carolina: The Atlantic Press, 1974), p. 1283.

[22] J. W. Roberts, The Revelation of John (Austin, Texas: R.B. Sweet Company, 1974), p. 39.

[23] G. B. Caird, op. cit., p. 32.