Revelation 2:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

All people have a bodily ear, but only the spiritual person acquires a spiritual ear. Such an ear was possessed, for example, by the prophet Isaiah (Isa 8:5).

To the person who has overcome demonic temptations, He promises to give to eat of the tree of life. That is, He promises to make him a partaker of the blessedness of the life to come.

By the tree of life, eternal life is understood figuratively. This life is Christ, as Solomon says of it, and as this same Apostle says elsewhere.

Solomon, speaking of Wisdom, says that She is a tree of life (Prov 3:18). The Apostle says of Christ that "He is the true God and eternal life" (1 Jn 5:20).

He spoke of the work of the Church and described the perversity of the heretics. Now, exhorting the weak to repentance, He promises the victors a reward for their labor. Entering paradise, they may freely eat from the tree of life, because of which Adam was cast out of paradise, lest he eat anything from it. Therefore He says: "which is in the midst of the paradise of My God," where the Spirit breathes life, where the mysteries appear in power, and where God brings forth the fruit of the tree of life, eternal and unfading.

"He who has an ear," that is, he who is obedient and submits to the divine laws. "let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." He said "Spirit" either because the visions of the book of Revelation arose under the action of the Spirit, or because He called Christ Spirit, since He is God and is confessed as God. In the same way, He does not reject the name Son of Man, since He is man and is confessed as man. For by universal confession the Godhead is Spirit, as the Lord Himself said to the Samaritan woman: "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (Jn 4:24).

Through Adam's fall, paradise was closed and placed under the guard of the Cherub. Through the Passion, death, and Resurrection of Christ, the gates of paradise were opened. Everyone who walks the path of repentance can enter there again and taste of the tree of life. Even the thief, when he repented, heard: "Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise" (Lk 23:43). The word victory is written on the Cross, and it is impossible to taste the fruits of the tree of life without first tasting the Cross.

The permission given to demons to tempt us is necessary for our progress. By opposing our prayer, they compel us to learn the especially skillful use of this sword.

By the sword of prayer the fiery sword of the cherub is shattered, the sword that guards the way to the tree of life. The victor becomes a partaker of eternal life.

According to the ineffable wisdom of God, "evil assists the good, though with no good intention." When passionate sensations and movements suddenly boil up within us in our solitude and practice of prayer, fierce thoughts attack us.

Sinful fantasies then stand before us with seductive vividness. This is a sign of the enemies' arrival.

Then it is not the time for despondency. It is not the time for slackness. It is the time for struggle.

Let us resist the enemies by intensified prayer to God, and He will scatter and drive away our enemies.

An example of struggle against passions that have arisen may be seen in the Life of St. Justina.

What did the Lord command to be written to the angel, or presiding shepherd, of the Church of Ephesus? Rev 2:1-7.

He commanded that it be written that his former praiseworthy qualities are known and remembered by the Lord: patience and diligence in preaching the Lord's name, aversion toward corrupt people, and penetrating discernment regarding false apostles.

Yet it is not praiseworthy that he left his first love. If he does not again do his former works, the Lord, who walks among the lampstands of the churches, that is, who governs the Church, will come to him.

He will move the lampstand of the Church of Ephesus entirely from its place. Nevertheless, even to this day, it is good in the bishop of Ephesus that he hates the works of the Nicolaitans.

But the Lord reproves her because she allowed that Christian love to weaken within herself, the love that animated Christians in the first moments of their Christian life.

The book of Acts speaks of the fervor of this love (2:44-45), as does the Apostle Paul (Gal 4:11 ff.).

The Ephesians must consider how sorrowful this fall is from the original Christian height of life, and they must repent. This repentance must be shown by returning to that first love.

Otherwise the Lord will bring the existence of the Ephesian Church to an end. Her lampstand will be moved from its place.

Still, there is hope that the Ephesian Church will not undergo such condemnation, because she hates the works of the Nicolaitans. In this she pleases the Lord, who also hates them.

By whom is the contest conducted, if not by the one who appoints the crown and the rewards?

Read the proclamation of such a contest in the Apocalypse. For these rewards He especially calls to victory those who truly gained victory in persecution, conquering when they fought in deed, not against flesh and blood, but against the spirits of wickedness (Eph 6:12).

Therefore recognize that the Arranger of the contests and the Judge who calls to the reward are one and the same. Everything that is attained in persecution is the glory of God, who approves and condemns, exalts and casts down.