A Dead Church
A DEAD CHURCH
REVELATION 3:1-6
Members of the church are to turn back to God, going back to what they heard and believed at first, grasping the message firmly. Is there a lesson for you there?
Doctors conduct post-mortems to discover the cause of death. Though we sometimes hold a post-mortem to find out why something has failed or gone wrong, post-mortems on spiritual deaths rarely serve a good purpose, and so we have none on Sardis. Today there is much controversy on when a person should be reckoned as medically dead. Though the church in Sardis was dead to all appearances—only the name for a short and honorable past remained—yet the Giver of life could see that a flicker of life still remained (3:2), and for him that is a ground of hope.
Many of us would no doubt have told the few who were true (3:4) that they should come out of a dead church and be separate. However much this may have been historically necessary from time to time—in many cases the loyal ones were thrown out—there is no scriptural justification for the proliferation of denominations in Protestantism.
Their white garments speak not merely of purity but also of life in the midst of death. For many the thought of names being blotted out of “the book of life” (3:5) raises major theological difficulties. This is due to a widespread popular watering down and distortion of what may for convenience be called Calvinist teaching, though Calvin would have disowned it. It is the belief that because a person has prayed certain words, passed through certain routines, etc they are saved by them and saved eternally. The only proof of life is life, and the only proof of salvation is a changed life. The blotting out is presumably of what a person had assumed as certain. Those who are content to die spiritually will not be forced by Christ to live, whatever assertions to the contrary they may have made at some time.
It should be specially noted what is said about the works of Sardis (3:2). Evidently in the sight of other people they were admirable. It is possible for a church to get into a routine which can go on very happily even while it is dying on its feet. A great need in the church today is for those with spiritual discernment. All too often the life of a local church is judged by pure externals, even by its numbers.