“I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name” (Revelation 3:8).

There was something gratifying when Leicester City won the Premier League a few years ago.  Here was a football club whose entire squad did not amount to anywhere near the price that is usually paid for a top player in a transfer deal.  Yet, completely unexpectedly, they managed what seemed unattainable.  One can only surmise that it was done through hard work and a considerable self- belief.  The little Church at Philadelphia was going to achieve something incredible to!  However, this was not going to be through their own efforts, but rather, by what Christ was going to do for them.

In verse 8 Jesus promises great opportunities for them with the phrase: ‘I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.’  What makes this so significant is that if you’d been visiting Philadelphia the Church was highly unlikely to be listed in the guidebook.  This was a small and weak looking Church which would have seemed insignificant!  But it was a faithful Church as this is the only other Church, alongside Smyrna which Christ finds no fault with![1]

The phrase: ‘I have set before you an open door’ is not dissimilar to two other similar passages which are found in Acts 14:27 and Colossians 4:3.  In both cases, it is used to illustrate there would be great opportunities for the Gospel.  But, how were these opportunities going to come about for a Church which lacked a voice in its community, and would generally have been dismissed as irrelevant? Strangely enough, the answer is most likely to be found in the opposition they were facing.  Verse 9 refers to Jewish opposition, with the use of the phrase: ‘synagogue of Satan’. Remarkably, however, Jesus claims: ‘I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you’ (v9).  As remarkable as it might seem, this opportunity meant the conversion of many who were previously giving the Church a really hard time!

If the language seems harsh, it is for good reason.  Although it does not play well with people today, there is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus Christ alone (as stated in Acts 4:12): “salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which they must be saved.” Jesus himself also said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).  The Church in Philadelphia had believed this, and stood faithfully by this truth, as a result of which they were going to see others turned to Christ!

But persecution was coming.  The phrase: ‘the whole world’ in verse 10 almost certainly refers to the Roman world which they were part of.  Yet, once again Christ was going to protect them, and the persecution would be limited.  But there was also blessing to be gained.  The rather odd phrase: ‘a pillar in the temple of my God’ (v12) is a picture of permanence and security.  Jesus is almost certainly using the history of Philadelphia in this rather strange illustration.  In AD 17 there had been a major earthquake and ever since many people had been reluctant to move back into the city.  So those who lived in Philadelphia would have lived in the state of insecurity – hence this emphasis on permanence.  In the end, whatever their apparent smallness and weakness as a Church, they were secure in Christ.  Verse 13 illustrates they were to take these promises to heart and live in the light of them, as their security was in the sovereign Christ: ‘the living one’ (1:18). For us, in our ever-changing world, we too can find the same security in Christ.

Like to listen to a sermon on this passage? A Church that has an Opportunity.

[1] This is probably why the phrase: ‘key of David’ is used in verse 7.  The phrase occurs in Isaiah 22:22 where the faithful Eliakim displaces an unworthy official and is given by the Lord authority to open and shut just as Christ has here.  Michael Wilcock, The Message of Revelation, I saw Heaven Opened (Leicester, Inter-Varsity Press, 1989), 55.