2:1–3:22 Review · The seven churches before the divine judge: In Revelation 2–3, Christ lays bare the true spiritual condition of John’s seven churches. In a dramatic reversal of the Old Testament expectations concerning Daniel’s Son of Man, the Son does not put God’s enemies on trial (as he does in Dan. 7:10–12, 26–27) but rather God’s people (cf. 2 Cor. 5:10; Heb. 12:5–11). Some historicist and futurist interpreters have tried to link the seven churches with successive periods of church history (e.g., Ephesus is the apostolic age, Smyrna the second- and third-century church, Pergamum the Constantinian era, Thyatira the medieval church, etc.), but such attempts ignore how closely each letter is situated within the geographical and cultural location of its first-century hearers.

2:1–7 ·…