From an outsider’s perspective, things weren’t looking great for the church in Philadelphia.
They were not a big, influential group. Jesus noted that they had “but little power” (Revelation 3:8, ESV). They faced persecution from the local Jewish synagogue (verse 9), including pressure to abandon Christ’s words and deny His name (verse 8).
It was a bleak picture—but only from the outside.
Christ’s letter to Philadelphia is one of praise and encouragement. Against all physical odds, this faithful group of believers was holding its ground against forces stronger and more imposing than themselves.
They refused to give up. Jesus had given them an “admonition to endure steadfastly” (verse 10, NET), and they were determined to prove themselves faithful.
After acknowledging what the Christians in Philadelphia had done for the sake of His name, Jesus shifted the focus squarely onto what He will do for them.
Most of Christ’s letter to the Philadelphian church revolves around the place reserved for them in the New Jerusalem, the coming city of God.
He introduced Himself to Philadelphia as the holy One, the true One—and then, somewhat cryptically, as “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens” (verse 7). This is the first appellation Jesus uses that doesn’t appear in the first chapter of Revelation—and to make sense of it, we need to track down its source.
The idea of “the key of David” goes back centuries to one of Isaiah’s prophecies. When Hezekiah (a descendant of King David) was ruling in Jerusalem, a man named Shebna was the steward of Hezekiah’s household.
But Shebna was corrupt, and God was about to replace him with a new steward named Eliakim.[1] Eliakim would be charged with the responsibilities Shebna had neglected—to “be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah” (Isaiah 22:21).
As Hezekiah’s steward, Eliakim would have both the power and the responsibility to decide who had access to Hezekiah. Shebna appears to have abused this position to acquire prestige and wealth (verses 16, 18), but carrying the key of the house of David was supposed to be a position of service to both the king and his subjects.
God said this about Eliakim and his duty: “The key of the house of David I will lay on his shoulder; so he shall open, and no one shall shut; and he shall shut, and no one shall open” (verse 22).
In speaking similar words to the Philadelphian Christians, Jesus was assuring them—not as a steward of the New Jerusalem, but as its king—that He had the power to determine who came in and who stayed out.
Jesus told them, “I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name” (Revelation 3:8).
In the context of the key of David, the “open door” that Jesus promised appears to be an entrance to the Kingdom of God. No one in Philadelphia—not the Roman authorities, not the Jews who were unwittingly doing the work of the devil—no one had the power to shut that door.
And that’s the lesson for us too. The door to God’s Kingdom is not something we have the power to open or shut—but it is something God chooses to open for His Church (Luke 12:32). God the Father calls people to Jesus Christ (John 6:44), who also said, “I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7).
When we make it a priority to grow as Christians (in faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love—see 2 Peter 1:5-8), then we “will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (verse 11, NIV).
That’s not a door we can open for ourselves—but once Jesus opens it for us, there’s no one on earth who can shut it.
There is also another aspect to consider of Jesus opening a door. Since the gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness (Matthew 24:14), He is the One to open various doors for that to occur.
Paul frequently used the concept of an “open door” to refer to opportunities to preach the gospel (1 Corinthians 16:9; 2 Corinthians 2:12; Colossians 4:3). Here, too, these doors are held open not by the strength of the Church, but by the strength of the Son of God. The Church’s commission to “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19) requires it to step eagerly through these doors whenever and wherever God opens them.
Although Jesus had no reprimand for Philadelphia, He did admonish them to heed the messages given to the other churches (Revelation 3:13), and He warned them: “Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown” (verse 11).
The New Testament letters are filled with references to the crown that Jesus Christ will give His faithful servants at His return to earth—a return that is “coming quickly.” It is an “imperishable crown” (1 Corinthians 9:25)—a crown of life, righteousness and glory (James 1:12; 2 Timothy 4:8; 1 Peter 5:4), given to those who will reign alongside Christ during the coming Millennium (Revelation 20:4; compare 5:10).
Jesus carries the key of David. He also carries “the keys of Hades and of Death” (Revelation 1:18). He is the One “who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore” (verse 18).
There is no force in this world—in this universe—that can stand between God and His plan for you. “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).[2]
Well, no force in this universe . . . except one.
You.
You’re the only one with the power to thwart God’s plan for you—not because you’re stronger than Him, but because He gives you a choice.
If you don’t hold fast what you have—if you make the choice to let go of what matters—you will lose your crown. (The Greek word for “crown” in Revelation 3:11 is stephanos—traditionally, the wreathed crown given to the victor of an athletic contest. We cannot win what we refuse to compete for.)
The flipside is that if we are doing our part—if we’re taking this seriously, if we’re making the effort to grow and overcome—then our victory is assured. The crown is as good as won. The door that no one can shut is open.
You’re the only one who can stop yourself from walking through it.
Satan’s influence is pervasive in the world of the seven churches. He is behind the false apostles and Nicolaitans plaguing Ephesus, Pergamos and Thyatira. He has his seat of government in Pergamos. He has a “synagogue” doing his bidding in Smyrna and here in Philadelphia.
In fact, the only congregation so far where his meddling isn’t mentioned is Sardis—and that only because the majority of them are already spiritually dead.
In Philadelphia, God’s people are being persecuted by “those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews[3] and are not, but lie” (Revelation 3:9). We don’t know exactly how, but we do have a sense of the intensity of such persecution from the example of some Jewish leaders trying to stamp out the early Christian Church.
In the book of Acts, we find detailed accounts explaining how some Jewish leaders stirred up mobs (Acts 17:5), spread lies (Acts 6:13-14), involved the local authorities (Acts 18:12-13) and even looked for opportunities to execute, imprison or outright murder those who helped spread the gospel (Acts 9:1-2).
Paul described Christians as those who are Jews inwardly (Romans 2:29), so those “who say they are Jews and are not” could also refer to those claiming to be Christian but persecuting the true Church.
Whatever the Philadelphian Christians were experiencing, Jesus commends them for their faithfulness—and explains that a reversal was coming. In time, Jesus promises, “I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you” (Revelation 3:9).
This was a promise of vindication. Like the apostle Paul, who originally set out to persecute the Church, those who were unknowingly serving Satan would one day be forced to acknowledge that they had in fact been persecuting God’s people. They would be made to see that their sworn enemies were beloved by the very God they thought they were serving.
Shortly before His death, Jesus warned His followers, “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). That time came for the early Church, and Jesus made it clear that such a time would come again—a time of “great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21).
You and I may live to see those days. And if we do, we can cling to the same divine promise—that one day, we will stand vindicated before our Lord and Savior, and it will be clear that He has loved us.
But that promise doesn’t make the idea of global tribulation particularly easy to swallow. Thankfully, Jesus has another assurance to offer the congregation in Philadelphia: “Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 3:10).
This promise carries greater and greater weight the closer we get to the end of this age. The return of Christ will be preceded by “great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). It will “come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth” (Luke 21:35), and we’re commanded to “pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (verse 36).
Revelation refers to “a place prepared by God” in the wilderness where the Church will be protected for 3½ years during the Tribulation (Revelation 12:14), but it also refers to faithful Christians who will be martyred during the same 3½ years (Revelation 6:9-11; 12:17).
Physical protection is only part of the story. There’s nothing appealing about martyrdom, and Jesus even tells us to pray for escape from the trying times that are coming. But is that the ultimate goal?
The focus of Revelation (and the New Testament as a whole) is not on surviving this physical life, but on receiving eternal life in God’s Kingdom.
Many Christians are going to die before that happens. But this physical life isn’t what ultimately matters. Whether you and I physically survive until the return of Jesus Christ isn’t the point. Our ultimate deliverance will be from the clutches of death and into an eternity spent as the transformed and glorified sons and daughters of God. If we faithfully persevere like the church in Philadelphia, we know that Jesus Christ will be faithful in welcoming us into His Kingdom.
What happens in this physical life is “not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
The Christians in Philadelphia were a people without a place. Christians were already at odds with the Roman world, which often treated them with contempt (if not outright persecution). Meanwhile, the Jews who rejected Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah saw Christianity as a dangerous heresy that needed to be silenced.
It’s no wonder that Jesus describes the Philadelphian congregation as having only a little power. He described His followers as a “little flock” (Luke 12:32). They had no support, no social standing, no influence within the secular or religious worlds they existed in.
But that didn’t stop them. Jesus praises them because they “kept My word, and have not denied My name” (Revelation 3:8). The implication is that they didn’t just have the opportunity to recant their faith in Jesus Christ, but that they were pressured to do so.
Who knows what that pressure looked like? We’ve already seen throughout this Journey that Roman officials and Jewish leaders alike were willing to kill Christians who clung to their faith—and even when it didn’t come to that, Christians could expect serious social and economic fallout for their beliefs. Their decision to remain faithful would trigger a cascade of life-altering, impossible-to-ignore consequences. Their lives (and their families’ lives) would be changed forever.
Outmatched, overpowered and outmaneuvered, the congregation in Philadelphia refused to waver. They remained faithful to the name of Christ, not knowing what the immediate consequences of that faithfulness would be.
It’s not that the congregation in Philadelphia didn’t care about those things. They did care. But they cared much more about something else.
End-time Christians seeking to learn from the example of the church in Philadelphia should remember their steadfastness as the end approaches. Regardless of the pressure, the intensity of persecution or the unpopularity it may bring, remain absolutely faithful to God’s Word and never deny Christ’s name.
God’s people rarely find themselves with the physical resources needed to resolve their biggest challenges. Our commitment to obeying God often pits us against forces we’re not strong enough to face—and in those moments, our faith will be tested. Will we look at our own inadequacies and back down from the challenge, or will we trust in God and stand our ground?
David against Goliath.
Elisha against the Syrians.
Moses against Pharaoh.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego against Nebuchadnezzar.
Esther against Haman.
These are some of the Bible’s most inspiring stories. What makes them special is that the biblical heroes aren’t asking, “Am I powerful enough to win this confrontation?” Instead, they’re asking, “What’s the right thing to do here? What does God expect me to do here?”
And then they do it.
Against a giant, against armies, against kings—the opposition is irrelevant, and God’s will is everything. And even when they have access to the resources they need, these heroes of faith still look to God for deliverance rather than their own power: “For I will not trust in my bow, nor shall my sword save me. But You [God] have saved us from our enemies, and have put to shame those who hated us” (Psalm 44:6-7).
Even when we feel equipped and prepared to face our challenges, we must remember that our own skill is no guarantee of success. Ultimately, “the salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; He is their strength in the time of trouble” (Psalm 37:39).
But not every inspiring Bible story ends with God’s servants living happily ever after in this life. In Hebrews 11, we read about the faithful men and women who made enormous sacrifices and endured miserable trials during their lives.
More importantly, we learn about why they made those sacrifices and endured those trials.
They trusted God.
They trusted the future God had shown them.
Abraham left his home and set out as a nomadic wanderer, “for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:10). Moses left behind a life of royalty in order to lead God’s people through the wilderness, for “he regarded abuse suffered for Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for his eyes were fixed on the reward” (Hebrews 11:26, NET).
Others “were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth” (verses 35-38).
These faithful servants did what God expected of them—and that obedience cost them dearly. Their stories don’t end with a spectacular display of divine intervention at the last possible moment.
They end with humiliation.
With unthinkable pain.
With death.
If obedience to God doesn’t guarantee our physical protection during trials, and if some of those trials come precisely because of our obedience to God, then there’s a question we need to seriously consider:
Why bother?
Why stand up when there’s a good chance someone will beat us down? Why hold our ground when the very action all but ensures we’ll become the victim of a long, drawn-out siege?
There are a few ways to answer that question. One is that the right thing to do is always the right thing to do, regardless of the outcome. Christians are called to stay faithful to God, whether that makes our lives easier or harder.
But here’s another answer:
We bother because there’s something worth bothering for. The faithful men and women who came before us had a vision that kept them going. Whether they “escaped the edge of the sword” or “were slain with the sword” (Hebrews 11:34, 37), they were pursuing something they valued even more than their own physical lives:
A better resurrection.
A reward.
A city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” (verses 13-16).
Throughout history, God’s people have been motivated by the promise of a better world.
A world where they belong.
That’s why they’re willing to suffer. To wander. To be humiliated, abused and even killed. The homeland God promises them has always been more important to them than any pain or pleasure in this physical life.
They see God’s promises on the horizon, and they spend their lives closing the distance.
Jesus extended those promises to the church in Philadelphia—and, by extension, to us. “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name” (Revelation 3:12).
For a persecuted congregation with a limited amount of power and influence, Christ’s words are personal and full of meaning. He isn’t just offering them a prize for toughing it out. He isn’t simply offering to compensate them for their trouble.
He’s promising them a home.
A pillar is stable. It is strong, it is sturdy, it is immovable. It belongs. It’s a permanent fixture, a structural element—not just present in God’s temple, but part of God’s temple.
Strabo, a Greek geographer from the first century, called Philadelphia “ever subject to earthquakes. Incessantly the walls of the houses are cracked, different parts of the city being thus affected at different times” (Strabo, Geography, 13.4.10). But here, Jesus promises that these future pillars of the temple will “go out no more” (Revelation 3:12).
In Greek, the phrase translated “no more” is a double negative—a powerful negation in biblical Greek. The two negatives together emphasize that something is not true in the moment and will never be true in the future. Jesus is saying that once established, these pillars will not be moved—not in that moment and not ever.
But that’s not all. Jesus also promises to write three names on the overcomers: “the name of My God,” “the name of the city of My God” and “My new name” (verse 12).
We saw in Sardis that the biblical concept of a name is tied into the concept of an identity. Your name is more than just the specific sounds people make to talk about you. Your name is your reputation—a reflection of who you are.
But this idea of having another name written on you signifies a belonging and an alignment. To carry the name of something or someone else indicates shared values and characteristics—for good or for bad.[4]
By writing these three names on the Philadelphian overcomers, Jesus is making it abundantly clear who they are aligned with and where they belong. They will carry the name of God the Father, the name of the New Jerusalem, and what Jesus enigmatically calls “My new name.”
(What exactly this means is up for debate. The Greek allows for translating it as both “My new name” and “a new name which is from Me.”)
Whether this new name will be a further revelation of Jesus Christ’s character or the believer’s, the overall message is clear—for the Philadelphians and for us:
The one who overcomes—who conquers, who emerges victorious—will have a permanent, immovable position within the incredible future God is building. The center point of that future is a city, a homeland, a heavenly country where each of us will belong.
Now—and forever.
Footnotes
[1] “Replace” is putting it kindly. Isaiah told Shebna that “the LORD will throw you away violently, O mighty man, and will surely seize you. He will surely turn violently and toss you like a ball” (Isaiah 22:17-18).
[2] In this passage is a beautiful reminder that every obstacle we face in this life, up to and including our adversary the devil, is ultimately a “created thing” incapable of overpowering God.
[3] It’s also unlikely that they considered themselves to be agents of Satan—but by standing in opposition to Jesus, His gospel message and His disciples, that’s exactly what they had become.
[4] This is a theme that appears often in Revelation. The woman riding the scarlet beast has a name on her forehead identifying her with “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” (Revelation 17:5). The citizens of the beast’s empire receive “the mark, that is, the name of the beast” on their hands or foreheads (Revelation 13:16-17, ESV). In contrast, God’s people are shown with the “Father’s name written on their foreheads” (Revelation 14:1).
It’s also a theme found in the Old Testament. The high priest was to wear a signet on his turban engraved with the words “HOLINESS TO THE LORD” (Exodus 28:36-38). Zechariah prophesied of a time when those same words would be engraved on the cooking pots of Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:20-21). Ezekiel saw a vision of the New Jerusalem being given the name “THE LORD IS THERE” (Ezekiel 48:35). He watched angels place a mark on the foreheads of those who “sigh and cry” over the abominations committed in ancient Israel (Ezekiel 9:2-4).
