In the Roman world, prison wasn’t a destination so much as a means to an end.
Prisoners generally weren’t there to serve a sentence or to sit and rot. Prison was a stopover—a place people were held . . . until.
Until they complied with an official demand.
Until their trial.
Or until their execution.
Why is this important to understand? Because it would have been on the mind of the members in Smyrna when Jesus promised that prison was looming in their immediate future.
Christ’s letter to the church in Smyrna is the shortest of the seven—about 100 words long in Greek—but it manages to say quite a lot in that space.
Along with Philadelphia, Smyrna is one of two churches that receives unmitigated praise and encouragement from Jesus Christ. His letter mentions no sins He holds against them, no spiritual flaws for them to work on overcoming. Instead, He focuses on a shared trial the congregation is facing—one that will get much, much worse.
By way of setting the stage, He tells the congregation, “I know your works, tribulation, and poverty (but you are rich); and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9).
The Greek word for blasphemy, used in this context, may actually mean “the slander against you” (verse 9, NET Bible). Much of the trouble the congregation in Smyrna was facing seemed to stem from this “synagogue of Satan,” who may have been ethnically Jewish, but spiritually, they had been rejected by God.
In the earliest days of the New Testament Church, Christians experienced a number of attacks from some of the Jews. For context, remember that the earliest Christians (and even Jesus Christ Himself) were Jews. It took some time before the Jewish followers of Jesus Christ began to be distinguished as Christians in the first place (Acts 11:26). Their faith in Jesus was a natural extension of the first-century Jewish religion. The Old Testament promised a Messiah; the Christians were simply Jews who believed He had arrived.
So as Paul and the other apostles moved through the Roman world, explaining that Jesus Christ was the prophesied Messiah—that He had been unjustly murdered by Jewish leaders, that He had been resurrected by God and returned to heaven as our Savior and High Priest—there were invariably a mixture of Jews that believed the message and Jews that did not.
(Also note, in Romans 2:28-29, Paul made a distinction between those who were Jews outwardly—that is, ethnically Jewish—and those who were Jews inwardly—that is, those who faithfully obeyed God. And so those who pretended to be spiritual Jews—who claimed to be Christian—could also be those who “say they are Jews and are not” in that sense.)
What we see in the book of Acts is that these unbelieving Jews often set out to slander and persecute their believing countrymen. They spread lies against Stephen and had him stoned to death (Acts 6:8-14; 7:57-60). In Antioch (Acts 13:49-50), in Iconium (Acts 14:1-6) and in Thessalonica (Acts 17:5-8), they employed a mixture of slander and mob violence to expel the gospel message from their cities. In Corinth, they tried to initiate legal proceedings against Paul as an enemy of the Roman Empire (Acts 18:9-17).
In all likelihood, the Jewish synagogue in Smyrna was doing far more than pestering the Christian congregation there. If they were slandering God’s people (and involving the authorities), it’s not hard to imagine what their tribulation and poverty looked like.[1]
Jesus wrote to tell His people that He knew their trials, He knew their poverty, He knew that they were remaining faithful in spite of it all—but that things were about to get much, much worse.
That’s not necessarily the message you want to get directly from Jesus Christ. It’s great to hear that you’re doing well as Christians—despite their physical poverty, Jesus identified them as spiritually rich (Revelation 2:9)—but it’s less encouraging to have that coupled with a warning that Satan is about to double down on his efforts to destroy you.
“Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer,” Jesus tells the faithful Christians in Smyrna. “Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (verse 10).
Imagine finding a letter from Jesus in your mailbox.
And imagine that halfway through that letter, Jesus tells you, “I know things have been really bad lately, but you’re about to suffer even more. Don’t be afraid.”
How would you feel getting that news?
How do you think the members in Smyrna felt?
When Jesus said, “The devil is about to throw some of you into prison,” the congregation would have understood that prison could easily serve as the prelude to an execution. To follow that warning with an admonition to “be faithful until death” would have cemented the thought.
Their lives were on the line.
Satan was gunning for Smyrna.
Technically speaking, it would be the city officials who would throw Church members into prison—officials no doubt urged on by this synagogue of Satan—but Jesus was making it abundantly clear who was operating behind the scenes. Smyrna’s tribulation was the work of “the great dragon . . . that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan . . . the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night” (Revelation 12:9-10).
There are a couple lessons to take from this identification. The first is that it’s easy to do the wrong thing, even when we believe we’re doing the right thing. During His time on earth, Jesus warned His disciples: “They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service” (John 16:2).
The Jews of Smyrna did not see themselves as the synagogue of Satan. They saw themselves as God’s chosen people, and they saw the Christian faith as a perversion of their religion. “These things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me,” explained Christ (verse 3). Because their eyes were not open to God’s truth, they had been “taken captive by [the devil] to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26).
The city officials also would not have seen themselves as servants of the devil—but by throwing God’s people in prison, they were doing Satan’s will.
For us, the takeaway is this: the difference between becoming an instrument in Satan’s hands and a tool in God’s hands is our relationship with God. We didn’t earn that relationship; we don’t deserve it—but if we don’t take the time to maintain and nurture it, Satan will have an easy time taking us captive to do his will. We won’t even notice it happening.
The second lesson is to remember that physical circumstances never give us the complete picture of any trial. From a physical perspective, the brethren in Smyrna were being persecuted by a Jewish group and being thrown into prison by Roman officials.
But that’s not the whole picture. We know—though only because Jesus makes a point of telling us—that Satan was pulling the strings in Smyrna. Satan was using the city officials to persecute the Church; Satan was working with the synagogue of Jews that were opposing God. What was happening in Smyrna was the result of spiritual forces operating behind a curtain that typically prevents us from seeing the bigger picture.
From time to time, the Bible gives us the briefest of glimpses behind that curtain. It shows us that Job’s incredible trial had its origin in a heavenly confrontation between God and Satan (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-6) while reminding us that God was using the same trial to shape and refine Job (James 5:11; compare Job 42:5-6). It shows us that, in an apparently hopeless situation, two servants of God were surrounded by an invisible spiritual army tasked with protecting them (2 Kings 6:14-18). It shows us that even God’s most influential angels must contend with the forces of darkness and that their victories are not always instantaneous (Daniel 10:10-13).
The point of these brief glimpses seems to be a reminder that the physical events we see are only part of the equation. More often than we might suspect, they are symptoms of spiritual circumstances outside our ability to perceive. Anytime we experience a trial, it’s important to remember that the reasons and explanations sometimes exist behind a curtain we’re not yet capable of peering behind.
But the church in Smyrna did get a glimpse—enough to know that Satan was gearing up for something big. What’s more, Jesus explained Satan’s motivation for throwing some Church members into prison: “that you may be tested” (Revelation 2:10). The Greek word translated “tested,” peirazō (Strong’s #G3985), can mean a proving or testing “with good or mischievous intent” (Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words). Satan’s intent is to do harm, but God allows him to do things that will test—prove—members’ faith.
When Satan is behind our being peirazō, the word is often translated “tempted.” In these instances, the testing isn’t about an honest inquiry into the nature of something, but a desire to expose it as inadequate. Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11); the Pharisees tried to expose Him with trick questions (Matthew 22:18); and so on. Satan tempts God’s people with sinful actions in the hopes of drawing them away from their Creator.
But peirazō is also the word Paul used when he told us to “examine yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5). Depending on who is doing the peirazō, the motivations can be different, but the end result is proof of something.
So how were the members in Smyrna being tested? Some of the congregation would be thrown into prison, but it appears that the whole congregation would be tested by Satan’s actions. The coming trial in Smyrna wasn’t just that some Christians would wind up in prison—it was the distinct possibility that any Christian could wind up in prison. The threat loomed over the whole congregation with only one obvious route of escape:
Renounce Christ.
You can’t get persecuted for being a Christian if you aren’t a Christian. Make it clear that you’re leaving your faith behind—maybe hold onto it privately, secretly, while publicly worshipping the gods that Rome expects you to worship—and there won’t be any reason to persecute you.
The church in Smyrna would be tested—tempted by Satan—to take the easy way out. To avoid persecution by walking away from their relationship with God. How they responded to this temptation, this test by Satan, would reveal something important about themselves.
What did they value?
What was most important to them?
What were they willing to walk away from in order to protect their lives?
The members in Smyrna had the opportunity to walk away from God and avoid a serious trial—or they could choose to knowingly embrace that trial in order to cement their identity as God’s chosen and faithful people.
Jesus called on them to do the latter in His letter to the church in Smyrna. “You will have tribulation ten days,” He told them. “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).
Sometimes in the Bible, a day can represent a year (Ezekiel 4:4-6; Numbers 14:33-34). So “ten days” could mean 10 years.
Or the “ten days” of tribulation promised to the congregation may not have been a literal length of time, but a reminder that even when things are at their bleakest, Satan’s spiritual assaults have a time limit. God will not permit Satan to persecute us forever—and even if our trials end with our physical death, Jesus reminds us that death itself is temporary.
It’s there in the introduction: a message from “the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life” (verse 8). It’s there in the admonition to “be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (verse 10). And it’s there in the promise to the overcomer: “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death” (verse 11).
Death and hardship—the only real threats that Satan can hold over the heads of God’s people—are, in the end, entirely temporary. Jesus set a hard limit on the amount of time that Satan would be at liberty to bring tribulation to the brethren in Smyrna, with the promise that nothing Satan can do is permanent.
More than that—staying faithful through the worst of Satan’s assault will guarantee a truly incredible reward. In Greek, “the crown of life” actually means “the crown that is made of life.”
The Greek word Jesus used for crown, stephanos (Strong’s #G4735), wasn’t a royal crown, but the garland awarded to the victors of athletic games. This was a crown that was acquired through nothing less than extreme effort and unwavering dedication. It was imagery the members in Smyrna would have been very familiar with, since the city hosted Olympic-style games at its stadium (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.14.3).
But these words encouraging them to be brave in the face of death are more than just hollow platitudes. They come from the One who was dead—the One who experienced a brutal death firsthand before being raised to eternal life. Jesus Christ wasn’t asking the congregation in Smyrna to do anything He hadn’t already done Himself.
And when they did—when they proved themselves to be faithful—Jesus promised they would “in no way be harmed by the second death” (Revelation 2:11, NET).
Jesus used a Greek double negative to drive home His point here. The phrase οὐ μή is the strongest way to negate something in ancient Greek; it says that something is both impossible and unthinkable. There is not even the slightest possibility that the faithful members in Smyrna will find themselves in the second death[2]—they will have obtained the crown of life, a victor’s garland, placed on their head by the One who has already overcome death.
The ultimate question for the members in Smyrna—and for us—is whether we’ll choose to be faithful. Whether we’ll reject the easy way out and choose to suffer for our beliefs instead.
We noted at the beginning of this Journey that we don’t live in the same world as the seven churches of Revelation. It might sound a little extreme to talk about our allegiance to the teachings of Jesus Christ as a thing that could cost us our livelihood—or our life.
But what if it could?
What if your physical life was on the line because of your faith in the First and the Last, who died and came to life?
Would you have the strength to look your accusers in the eye and confess your faith? Or would you abandon your spiritual future to save your physical life?
It’s difficult for any of us to say exactly what we’d do in a situation like that. But those situations are more than hypotheticals.
They’ve happened before.
They will happen again.
Our job, right now, is to be building a relationship with God that can weather the 10 worst days of tribulation Satan can throw at us. And part of the key to building that kind of relationship is the core belief that the reward for weathering that tribulation is worth it.
Jesus warned all His would-be disciples that becoming a Christian requires putting God first. “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:37-39).
One way or another, taking up our cross and following Jesus will end with physical death. The faithful members in Smyrna believed that such a death was a small price to pay for claiming the crown that was made of life.
What about you?
Footnotes
[1] The Greek word for “tribulation” has a heavy, oppressive weight to it. One commentary calls it “the burden that crushes” (Leon Morris, The Book of Revelation, p. 63, ). The word for “poverty,” meanwhile, doesn’t mean just surviving on the bare essentials. It means having nothing at all.
[2] The punishment of those who knowingly refuse God’s calling and choose to rebel against Him. See “What Is the Lake of Fire?”
