Revelation 1:20

20. The mystery The symbolical import; which is its hidden meaning, and is a mystery until made clear. The word is an independent nominative, having no verb; and the sentence reads like a heading over the explanations of the next sentence.

Are… angels Without the article in the Greek. What the angels are, is the problem of this verse. But,

1) We may exclude their symbolizing symbolical angels, (such as the angel over fire, Revelation 14:18; of the waters, Revelation 16:5,) for the stars would then be a symbol of a symbol. As the candlesticks symbolize concrete, literal, and living Churches, so the stars must symbolize concrete, literal, and living rulers of those Churches.

2) The uniform use of the second person singular, both of pronoun and verb, as applied to the angel, strongly negatives its being a collective body of rulers of each Church, (as Hengstenberg.)

3) The notion that the angels were seven “messengers” sent from the Churches, and present with John, is inadmissible. No such messengers are otherwise hinted at; and the writing to them an epistle, each, implies their being at a distance.

4) The legatus ecclesiae, or delegate of the Church, (held to be symbolized by Vitringa,) was the overseer of the services of the congregation, little above our sexton, but was not responsible for the piety, faith, or morality of the Church, and was too humble an officer to be represented by a star.

5) More probable than any of these is the view of Alford, that real, and not symbolical, angels of the Churches are meant. There are the child’s angel, Matthew 18:10; “it is his angel,” Acts 12:15; and the national angel-princes of Daniel 10:21. The strict responsibility to which these seven angels are held for the excellence of their Churches, each, accords with the established idea of a strong connexion between the guardian angel and his ward. But it may be doubted whether any patron or guardian angel is ever in Scripture more than either a symbol or a popular imagination, as in Acts 12:15.

6) As the candlestick is the symbol of the corporate human body of the Church, the analogy is strong for a human ruler or teacher of the Church. Thus in Malachi 2:2, the priest is “the messenger (angel) of the Lord of Hosts.” Malachi 3:1: “Behold, I send my messenger,” (angel;) the prediction of John the Baptist. Galatians 4:14: “Ye… received me as an angel of God.” That there were president-presbyters or bishops in Asia at this time, ordained by John himself, is as certain as any thing in primitive Church history. About this time Polycarp was bishop in Smyrna, and Ignatius in Antioch. Bishops were appointed, from a need of the times, as a stronghold against heresies, and as authentic preservers of the apostolic doctrines and of the sacred New Testament canon. This was specially important before the canon was completely established. And this gave, at that period, a special importance to a true succession of the bishops as a reliable chain of apostolic tradition. A successional ordination authenticated the officer to those who acknowledged the ordaining authority. But such facts fall far short of making an unbroken succession through centuries the authenticating test of a true Church. The bishop was very much “the successor of the apostles,” not by a continuation of the same line of office, but as a substitute, serving some of the same purposes. While episcopacy is thus sanctioned by apostolic authority as permissible, and perhaps always best, it is not made obligatory.