Pergamos[1] had a lot in common with the other six cities that received letters in Revelation.
It had temples dedicated to the worship of false gods. It had a strong imperial cult dedicated to worshipping the emperors of Rome. It was filled with trade guilds that made it difficult (if not completely impossible) for a Christian to have economic security. Its residents competed (and paid money) for the privilege of serving as the priests and priestesses of its various temples.
But unlike the other six churches, Pergamos was identified by Jesus as the spiritual headquarters of Satan the devil.
Why?
In the letter to Pergamos, Jesus mentions, “Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was killed among you” (Revelation 2:13). Other translations call him a witness—so which one is it? Martyr or witness?
Actually, it’s both.
Today, we use the word martyr to talk about someone who dies on account of his or her faith. We get that word directly from the Greek word martys—but, interestingly, martys didn’t always carry the modern meaning of “martyr.”
The meanings of words change all the time. That’s nothing new. For example, 800 years ago, the word “nice” meant stupid. And 500 years ago, it meant careful and precise.
What’s interesting here is that when Jesus described Antipas as His faithful martys, the meaning of the word was already beginning to shift.
Originally, a martys was a witness—someone who could personally confirm the truthfulness of an event because he or she watched it happen. In the early days of the New Testament Church, that’s how the word was used. In fact, when we read the account of Stephen’s death, the Bible doesn’t call him a martys. Instead, it uses that term to describe the people watching his death (Acts 7:58). They were witnesses—observers who could verify that Stephen had in fact been stoned to death.
And yet, today, it would be more accurate to call Stephen the martyr.
What changed?
Context mostly.
As the first century rolled on, Christians like Stephen—who bore witness to the power and majesty of Jesus Christ, who dared to call Him the Son of God and who dared to call other gods worthless imaginings of depraved minds—were increasingly likely to die as a result of their witness.
Eventually, the two things became entwined. A martys was someone who died because he or she was a witness. Antipas was a faithful witness for Jesus Christ—and, as a result, he was killed. The martys was martyred.
The death of Antipas helps set the stage for Christ’s letter to the congregation in Pergamos. In Smyrna, the storm of physical persecution was on the horizon—in Pergamos, it was already there. If the authorities were willing to put one faithful Christian to death because of his faith, how long until the rest of the congregation was at risk?
In the face of death, the church in Pergamos remained faithful. Jesus praised them for holding fast to His name and not denying His faith. Christians facing official punishment would likely have been given the opportunity to recant their faith by cursing the name of Jesus Christ and worshipping the gods of Rome, especially the sacrifice to the emperor. The church in Pergamos refused to do either.
Twice, Jesus identified the city of Pergamos as being particularly aligned with Satan. Ephesus may have been dealing with false teachers and Smyrna may have been home to a synagogue of Satan, but Pergamos was “where Satan’s throne is” and “where Satan dwells” (Revelation 2:13).
Scholars have spent years making guesses about what specifically Jesus had in mind when He mentioned Satan’s throne. Was it the shape of the thousand-foot-high cone-shaped mountain the city was built on? Was it the enormous altar of Zeus that jutted out near the top of that mountain? Was it the shrine of Asklepios Sōter (“Asclepius the Savior”), the god of healing closely associated with snakes?[2]
It’s impossible to say with any kind of certainty.[3] More important than connecting “Satan’s throne” to a physical object is understanding that Pergamos was being described as the place “where Satan is enthroned and holds court” (Tyndale New Testament Commentary, Revelation 2:13). Here was a city so suited to Satan’s goals and purposes that he chose to establish his metaphorical earthly throne there.
Pergamos was his residence.
It’s hard to imagine what it would mean to be a follower of God in a town linked with the throne of Satan. And yet there were the members in Pergamos, putting their lives on the line and holding fast to the name of Christ.
But even with that faithfulness, there was an issue in Pergamos that needed to be addressed.
The rebuke that Jesus brings against the Christians in Pergamos is less harsh than the one He brings against the Ephesians. He has “a few things” against them (Revelation 2:14), a Greek phrase that could refer to something small in number or stature. (The Word Biblical Commentary translates Revelation 2:14, “But I hold a minor matter against you.”)
The issue itself was far from minor, but context seems to suggest that the congregation in Pergamos wasn’t as collectively involved in this issue, even though it was still affecting them. Notice the shift in wording in verse 16: “Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.” Jesus Himself draws a distinction between you (the congregation at large) and them (the people behind the problem).
Who were they, exactly?
This is the warning Jesus gave to the church at Pergamos: “But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate” (verses 14-15).
We’ve already seen the Nicolaitans pop up in the letter to the Ephesians—but aside from Christ’s hatred of their deeds (verse 6), that letter gives us no context clues about the group itself.
Here, we get context.
Jesus links “the doctrine of the Nicolaitans” to “those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.”
That doesn’t help us unmask the Nicolaitans in a historical sense, but it tells us everything we really need to know about this mysterious group. If the Nicolaitans were linked with Balaam, then they were a group of people who promoted compromise with God’s way of life—a group who endorsed behaviors that would drive a wedge between God and His people.
In the Old Testament, Balaam played a pivotal role in Israel’s journey to the Promised Land. Balak, king of the neighboring nation of Moab, saw the defeated kingdoms in Israel’s wake and summoned the soothsayer Balaam to curse the fledgling nation (Numbers 22:4-6; Joshua 13:22).
It didn’t work. God refused to allow Balaam to curse Israel, compelling him to speak words of blessing instead (Numbers 22:12; chapters 23–25). But Balaam, eager to receive his wages from Balak, managed to find a loophole. He counseled Balak to send Moabite women to tempt the men of Israel to participate in idol worship and ritual prostitution (Numbers 31:16).
Balaam couldn’t curse Israel from the outside, but he could introduce a “stumbling block” that would draw them into conflict with God—thus prompting a divine punishment.
That did work. The men of Israel “began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab,” worshipping Moabite gods and eating of their sacrifices (Numbers 25:1-2). God sent a plague on Israel as a punishment that didn’t stop until the harlotry did (verses 4-5, 8-9).
After the dust settled, Israel launched a counterattack that wiped out several kings of the area—along with Balaam himself. The soothsayer was “killed with the sword” (Numbers 31:8), without time to enjoy whatever riches he’d received from Balak.
Fast-forward some 14-odd centuries to the church in Pergamos, and a similar situation was rearing its head.
Remember that it was difficult to work a trade in the Roman world without belonging to a trade guild—and it seems belonging to a trade guild meant participating in regular sacrificial meals for its patron god.
That meant eating things sacrificed to idols, and things sacrificed to idols could also involve ritual or cultic prostitution. In fact, as gentiles became part of the Church, the apostles had to highlight four important prohibitions for new Christians to be mindful of: “to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood” (Acts 15:20). These things were all common in the Roman world, but they were unacceptable in the Church of God.
And that’s important context for understanding why the Nicolaitans were making headway into God’s Church. Obeying God’s restrictions meant sometimes facing economic and social jeopardy, inviting mockery and even persecution for your beliefs.
Imagine yourself in that situation. Imagine seeing a fellow believer martyred because he refused to compromise with God’s instructions.
Imagine knowing that you could easily be next.
And now imagine hearing a compelling argument that, actually, God doesn’t mind if you sit down in the temple of a pagan god and share in a communal sacrifice. Imagine hearing someone make a convincing case that, in the right circumstances, ritual prostitution is totally fine.
It’s not that you’re looking for an opportunity or an excuse to do these things—but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to provide for your family and live your day-to-day life without worrying about poverty, persecution and death?
The Nicolaitan message would have been appealing, not necessarily as an excuse for licentiousness, but for the opportunity to live a normal life by being part of the culture. Idol worship was deeply woven into so many aspects of Roman life—the idea of being given some leeway to participate without compromising your relationship with God would have been incredibly tempting.
Maybe the Nicolaitans even believed the lies they were selling—but that’s all they were.
Lies.
God doesn’t leave room for a rival. The Second Commandment forbids idol worship, “for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5).
Elijah asked the Israelites who believed they could serve the true God alongside the pagan god Baal, “How long will you falter between two opinions?” (1 Kings 18:21). James warned that “whoever wants to be the world’s friend becomes God’s enemy” (James 4:4, Holman Christian Standard Bible). Jesus was emphatic: “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24).
The church in Pergamos—or any congregation of God, for that matter—couldn’t straddle the fence on this one. They couldn’t strike a compromise with the physical world around them and maintain their spiritual connection to God.
It would have to be one or the other.
You’ve probably never felt the pressure to eat an animal sacrifice in the temple of a pagan god in order to spare yourself some level of persecution or financial difficulty. But Christ’s warning to the church of Pergamos still matters today, and here’s why:
The message of the Nicolaitans is still out there.
The altars have changed, the temples have changed, the gods have changed, and the way to worship them has changed—but the central issue hasn’t.
The world values things that run contrary to God’s way of life. It always has because the world is “under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19).
Following God puts you in conflict with the world. It always has and it always will, because “friendship with the world is enmity with God” (James 4:4).
Take a moment to think of all the things the world values, praises, objectifies, prioritizes and obsesses over that clash with God’s instructions. These can be anything from physical possessions to philosophical worldviews. What’s a big deal on the news right now? What social issue is the media fixating on? What’s the cultural spotlight shining on?
How much of what you see there is incompatible with God’s way of life?
Because the thing is, sometimes the world will turn a blind eye to the fact that you refuse to worship at its altars.
But sometimes it won’t.
Peter warned the Church about nonbelievers who “consider it strange of you not to plunge with them into the same flood of reckless indiscretion, and they heap abuse on you” (1 Peter 4:4, Berean Standard Bible). When we make the conscious choice to avoid the godless activities of the world, we make ourselves a target of the world.
The world doesn’t want to hear that it’s wrong. Often, the world doesn’t even like the idea that you might be thinking of it as wrong. The world may well demand to see you worship at its altars—to hear you sing the praises of its values, to see you pursuing the things it pursues, desiring the things it desires.
And when you don’t, the world is typically in the position to take away things you need.
Your job. Your income. Your possessions. Your property. Your food.
Your life.
This sort of thing has happened, with varying frequencies and levels of intensity, throughout human history. The book of Revelation even talks about a future time when a God-opposing economic power will control much of the earth, cutting off the financial means of anyone who refuses to accept it (Revelation 13:15-17).
Things aren’t that extreme right now. But even without that pressure, you can probably imagine ways that your life could be (physically) improved if you were willing to compromise a little with your beliefs—to be a little more flexible with the boundaries established by God.
The message of the Nicolaitans is that it’s okay, that God understands, that He doesn’t mind when you cross those lines with a good reason—that it’s a perfectly legitimate thing to do, and in fact, you’re missing out if you don’t.
The chances of you feeling socially or professionally pressured to sit down to a sacrificial meal in a pagan temple are slim to none—but there are plenty of modern-day equivalents. When our social and professional lives come into conflict with God’s laws, we can be tempted to skirt around those laws with creative interpretations and willful misinterpretations.
What are your conflicts?
Where are you tempted to compromise?
What is tempting you to compromise? More to the point, how often do you give it that opportunity?
Those who taught “the doctrine of Balaam” and “the doctrine of the Nicolaitans” were problems Jesus had against the Church in Pergamos.
It wasn’t that the whole congregation had been taken in by this heresy—from the way Jesus phrases His rebuke, it sounds as if few of them were buying what the Nicolaitans were selling. He said that “you [referring to the congregation as a whole] have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam [referring to a smaller subset of people].”
But the congregation doesn’t get a pass. What they’re allowing to exist within the Body of Christ, even if it’s only near the fringes, is unacceptable. Just like the Corinthians, who hadn’t taken action against a Church member who was openly committing a sexual sin (1 Corinthians 5:1), the members in Pergamos were failing to take action against these false teachers.
But if the Bible teaches us anything, it’s that small things can become big things very quickly—especially if they’re left unattended. The members in Pergamos had a responsibility to cut the Nicolaitans off at the pass—to ensure that God’s Church did not become a place where that kind of heresy could exist unchallenged.
We have the same responsibility, especially in our own lives. It’s our job to be continually asking ourselves, “Am I giving a foothold to anything that encourages me to spiritually compromise with God’s way of life?”
Jesus instructs the congregation to “repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth” (Revelation 2:16). Again—a distinction. Christ will come quickly (the Greek word can also mean “suddenly”) and fight against them—the Nicolaitans and the Balaamites.
Jesus identifies His weapon as “the sword of My mouth.” This ties back to this letter’s introduction: “These things says He who has the sharp two-edged sword” (verse 12).
There are two important connections to note here. The first is the ius gladii—“the right of the sword.”
Roman governors of provinces could legally sentence any of their subjects to death. If Antipas was martyred at the command of Roman officials, then the ius gladii would have certainly been on the mind of the church at Pergamos.
But Jesus identifies Himself as wielding a far more important sword: the sharp two-edged sword of His mouth. This is the weapon He will bring to bear on those who pervert God’s instructions, and it is capable of far greater destruction than the executive authority of any human governor:
“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13).
No matter what kind of persecution we face in this life—even if it means the end of this life—the true power over life and death rests in the hands of God, not man.
When we have a healthy fear of and respect for God’s incredible power, and when we make the choice to obey Him over human authorities, “we may boldly say: ‘The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:6).
The other connection is much more straightforward:
Balaam died by the sword.
The Balaamites—Balaam’s spiritual successors, who advocated compromising with God’s Word—would also face the sword.
Maybe the Nicolaitans and the Balaamites believed the false worldview they were peddling. It’s certainly possible, but ultimately beside the point.
Taking a stand against God’s way of life means taking a stand against Jesus Christ—the One with the sharp, two-edged sword that cleaves to the division of soul and spirit.
At the end of the book of Revelation, Jesus returns on a white horse, wielding the sharp sword of His mouth (Revelation 19:15). The armies of the world, gathered together in a misguided attempt to fight against Him, are summarily defeated.
In this life or the next, there is no victory against that sword. Those who pervert the gospel message will ultimately have to choose between repenting or perishing.
Jesus, the One with the true ius gladii, speaking as the One wielding the blade that discerns even the thoughts and intents of our hearts, is telling the church at Pergamos that He Himself will soon be intervening to deal with this group of heretics. If the Christians there aren’t actively rejecting and resisting the false teachings now, they may find themselves on the wrong side of the conflict—that is, on the wrong side of the sword.
God’s truth is a precious thing. He will defend it jealously, and we must learn to do the same.
To those who prove themselves to be overcomers, Jesus promises to “give some of the hidden manna to eat” (Revelation 2:17).
The only time manna makes a physical appearance in the Bible is during Israel’s 40-year trek through the wilderness. For four decades, God miraculously supplied an entire nation with the physical nourishment it needed (see Exodus 16:13-18, 31-35).
Moses called it “the bread which the LORD has given you to eat” (verse 15). Asaph called it “the bread of heaven” and “angels’ food” (Psalm 78:24-25). When the choir of the second temple recounted God’s history with Israel, they sang:
“You . . . did not withhold Your manna from their mouth,
And gave them water for their thirst.
Forty years You sustained them in the wilderness;
They lacked nothing” (Nehemiah 9:20-21).
Even though God provided manna for only a short window of Israel’s history, the bread became a symbol for the miraculous ways God provides for His people. In fact, God commanded a container to be filled with manna “to be preserved throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Exodus 16:32, HCSB).
But manna could only do so much. It was physical food intended for physical people, and although it sustained Israel in the wilderness, it didn’t sustain anyone forever.
It wasn’t meant to.
When a crowd asked Jesus to perform a sign along the lines of the “manna in the desert” (John 6:30-31), He told them that they were missing the point: “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven” (verse 32). The miracle of manna was actually the forerunner of something better—Jesus Christ Himself.
“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead . . . I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world” (verses 48-49, 51).
The manna in the wilderness pointed toward the true bread of life—the true manna—that came through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. When Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins, the door was opened for human beings to live forever in the family of God.
The overcomers in Pergamos—the faithful Christians who refused to participate in the sacrificial meals of the false gods around them—would instead eat the bread of life provided by the true God. Along with Antipas, the faithful martyr, their dedication to the name of Jesus Christ would mean eternal life in God’s Kingdom—a promise that no one, not even a Roman official wielding the right of the sword, could take away.
Of all the rewards depicted in these letters to the churches, the white stone that Jesus promises to the overcomers in Pergamos is probably the most difficult to make sense of. It appears to be a symbol that the Christians there would have easily recognized, but from our modern-day vantage point, the meaning is extremely unclear.
One possibility is that the stone is a tessera. In the ancient world, a tessera was a token (made of wood, bone, metal or stone) that often entitled the bearer to something—a prize, special status or admission to an exclusive event. These tokens would sometimes carry an inscription relevant to their purpose.[4]
If Jesus had tesserae in mind when speaking to the church in Pergamos, then the white stone might be our metaphorical “ticket of admission” into God’s Kingdom. Although we don’t earn the right to be part of God’s eternal family, it is a right that Jesus gives to His faithful disciples (John 1:12-13).
In this interpretation, the imagery of the stone is a reminder that as long as we continue to overcome, “an entrance will be supplied to [us] abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11).
Conversely, there’s a reminder that if we don’t overcome—if we leave our sins unaddressed and ignore the command to hear what the Spirit says to the churches—then we won’t find an entrance, but a stinging rebuke from Christ Himself: “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:23).
But what about the name written on the stone? Jesus says it will be “a new name . . . which no one knows except him who receives it” (Revelation 2:17).
In the Bible, the meaning of names is often important. When Ruth’s mother-in-law says she wants to change her name from Naomi (meaning “pleasant”) to Mara (meaning “bitter”), it’s significant (Ruth 1:20). When Jacob renames his newborn son—changing it from Ben-Oni (“son of my sorrow”) to Benjamin (“son of the right hand”)—it’s significant (Genesis 35:18). When God Himself changes the name of Abram (“exalted father”) to Abraham (“father of a multitude”), it’s significant (Genesis 17:5).
And when God promises to give us new names, it’s significant.
Our new names will belong to us, since they will be ones “which no one knows except him who receives it” (Revelation 2:17). Throughout the Bible, a change in name reflects a change in situation or in character. Our new names will be given to us after we have been fully transformed into the image and likeness of God—spirit beings no longer limited by a physical existence. As we learn to live and think like God in this physical life, the godly character we’re developing will reach its fullest potential in that moment when we become like Him.
We are today, right now, in the process of becoming the sons and daughters of God who will live up to that new name.
And it starts with overcoming.
Footnotes
[1] Or Pergamum, depending on your translation. The New King James Version (which we use as our standard Bible) uses “Pergamos,” while most other translations use “Pergamum.”
[2] One of Asclepius’ symbols (a rod entwined by a snake) has gone on to become a symbol of the medical world, commonly displayed on ambulances and in hospitals. Temples to Asclepius usually included live snakes to assist in the healing process of supplicants. It’s not difficult to imagine how Satan, “that serpent of old” (Revelation 12:9) could be tied to this false savior god.
[3] One commentary relates the story of Christian stonecutters serving in the quarries of the Roman province of Pannonia some 200 years after Revelation was written. When they refused to carve an image of Asclepius, they were executed as “followers of Antipas of Pergamum” (Timothy Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. 3, p. 421). Did Antipas die for taking a stand against something related to Asclepius? It’s one possibility, but we just don’t know for sure.
[4] For example, gladiators who proved themselves in the arena would receive a tessera inscribed with their name and the words GLADIATORIIS SP., indicating their status as gladiators of distinction.
