What does it mean to repent and do the first works (Revelation 2:5)?

(V. 5). The exposure of this hidden source of decline is followed by a solemn word of warning. The Lord can say, "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen." In the eyes of others the Assembly at Ephesus might well appear as a pattern Assembly; in the sight of Christ it was fallen. Not only is the Assembly called to remember, but repent. It is useless to bemoan the loss of early freshness if there is no repentance. What is repentance but owning our true condition before the Lord? If truly repentant we shall put our feet into the hands of the Lord that He may remove the defilement that has come in to hinder our enjoyment of His love to us, and dull our first love to Him. If our feet are in His hands, He can remove all the dust of the way, so that, like John of old we can, as it were, rest our heads on His bosom, there again to taste the joy of first love.

The result of getting back to first love would be seen in first works. The Thessalonian Assembly, like the Ephesian Assembly, was marked by "work," and "labour," and "patience," but of the Thessalonian Assembly we read that their work was a work of faith; their labour was labour of love; and their patience the patience of hope.

Then comes a last word of warning. If the Assembly does not repent — if there is no recovery, no return to first love — the Lord warns that He will come to them in the way of judgment and remove their candlestick out of its place. The place of the Assembly was to be a light for Christ in this dark world. This place can only be maintained as the heart is right with Christ. This loss of place with which the Assembly is threatened, is viewed as the Lord's own act. He will remove the candlestick, even as of old He removed Israel from the land in which they should have been a witness to Jehovah. In either case the removal may be effected through the instrumentality of the world, none the less it is the Lord's own act.

Simple honesty will stir us to remember the state that we once enjoyed and from which we have fallen, and to respond to His admonition to repent and do the first works (v. 5). Confession of our failure is most important here. The first works are those spontaneously produced by fresh warmth of love toward the Lord Jesus. In case this is not heeded, He adds the solemn warning that if there is no repentance He will quickly remove the lampstand out of its place! He would remove the testimony of that assembly: she would no longer be a light-bearer for Him. Throughout the history of the Church to the present time, once large and active and godly assemblies have ceased to exist because they left their first love. This is a solemn consideration for every individual who expresses fellowship in a local assembly!

Exhortation and warning follow. "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen; and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly,* and will remove thy candlestick† out of his place, except thou repent." A principle of the first importance, constantly affirmed in the Word, is contained in the first clause; viz., that to discover the character of our failure, or the extent of our backsliding or departure from the truth, we must ever go back to the commencement. For example, the state of the church today can only be truly discerned when compared, or rather contrasted, with what it was when first founded at Pentecost. Ephesus in like manner must remember whence she has fallen, as only then could she gauge the extent of her failure. Together with this there must be, or, we might more accurately say, there would be, repentance; for once discovering, by grace, the depth of our fall, self-judgment, viewing our condition as the Lord Himself sees it, and contritely owning it, would necessarily follow. Then, moreover, the "first works" may be done, inasmuch as when we have taken our true place before God in real humiliation, He can again work mightily through His people to bring them back to their "first love," from which their "first works" atone can proceed. Unless therefore the, or, we may say, an assembly regains heart for Christ, there cannot be a true testimony for Him in the energy of the Spirit through her first works. There may be faith, but though it were faith that could remove mountains, and there were not also charity (love), it would be nothing; there might be also unceasing labours of philanthropy, but these without love would not profit. (See 1 Cor. 13) Without the first love therefore the church will utterly fail to be a transcript in any measure of the heart of Christ, as well as of the grace of God, before the world. Hence the solemn warning that the Lord was coming to Ephesus, and would remove her candlestick out of its place, unless she repented. We say unless she repented, but it must be borne in mind that, in accordance with the true position of the angel, the work of self-judgment and recovery must commence with those whom God holds as His representatives.

Rev. 2:5. — “Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; but if not I am coming to thee, and I will remove thy lamp out of its place, except thou shalt repent.” The Lord has a positive, definite cause of complaint against the angel. “I have against thee that thou hast left thy first love.” It is the only thing for which Ephesus is censured, but, oh, how serious! The coming shipwreck of the professing Church, its public and nauseous rejection by Christ is here traced to its root, first love given up. The Lord never forgets His joy in the first love of His people. “Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown” (Jer. 2:2). Judah’s first love is never forgotten by Jehovah; the Church’s first love, too, is equally remembered by the Lord, and desired by Him, which, in fact, “Ephesus” really means. Now if the threatened judgment is to be averted there must be a recovery to “first love” and “first works,” hence the two admonitions needful to this end are “Remember” and “Repent.” Remember the moral elevation you once occupied, remember the heights of love, “the mountain of myrrh” and “the hill of frankincense” once trod in fellowship with the everlasting Lover of your soul! To what depths you have fallen! Repent. Judge the state of heart which has led to the first step in the downward course. Thus memory and repentance are presented as the two factors in recovery from a backsliding state. “Quickly” should be deleted. Ample time is given for restoration. The removal of the lamp as a light bearer in no wise weakens the question of eternal security of all who build on Christ — the Rock of Ages. Speaking in general terms, we may say, the lamps which once shone so brightly, and especially in the renowned capital of Ephesus, have been taken out of their place, and the gross darkness of Mohammedanism now wraps its deadly folds around these seven cities of proconsular Asia. A like removal awaits the western profession of Christianity. Unfaithfulness, whether corporate or individual, must be judged, and the present miserable condition of Ephesus, now known as Agiosalouk, is an object lesson to all. Has Christendom continued in the goodness of God? It has not, and “gross darkness” shall yet cover these lands, once brilliant with the light of the Gospel (Isa. 60:2). According to the interpretation adopted in this Exposition we regard Ephesus as representing the Church in a special phase of its condition, a condition characteristically present at the close of the first century. We are pleased to know that love and faith were in a measure rekindled, and the lamp trimmed in the Ephesian assembly, so that in the third Ecumenical Council (A.D. 431) it gave forth no uncertain sound on the great underlying truth of Christianity, the incarnation of our Lord. But the hour of doom nevertheless came. In like manner various partial recoveries have been granted to the Church at large, but its doom, too, is fixed.

Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works" (Rev.2:5). The Lord calls Ephesus to remember the place where they once were in the enjoyment of first love and to repent about their fall from it and to return to those first works of that best and chief love. The Lord would have us realize that leaving our first love is the root of all departure and decline. From that condition of heart flow all backsliding, sins and apostasy. The downward movement and apostasy of Christendom, as set forth in the prophetic history of these seven Churches of Asia in Revelation 2 and 3, begins with leaving the first love in Ephesus and goes on to the awful evils found in the following churches.

This word of censure and call to remembrance and repentance, spoken to Ephesus, is very applicable and needful to as today as well. And it is the word of the Lord to His people today as well as to the Assembly at Ephesus in the first century. First love has been left; we have fallen and need to repent and return to the Lord. Surely the Spirit of God would lead us in these last days to realize that what we need individually and collectively is to give the Lord the first and chief place in our hearts and thus return to the first love. May there be genuine repentance, a change of mind, thoughts and of heart about ourselves, and a doing of the first works that flow from the best love for Christ.

If "first love" be recovered, the "first works" will naturally follow. These may look to human eyes exactly the same as the works mentioned in verse 2, but to His eyes they are very different. He estimates everything according to the motive that lies behind. The mainspring is of all importance to Him. So much so, that if first love be permanently impaired the ability to shine departs and the candlestick is removed.

The fact that Christ reproaches the Assembly with having left her first love, is a proof of the greatness of His love to the Assembly. Such is His love that He cannot be satisfied without the whole-hearted return of her love to Him. It is only the full response of love that can satisfy love. Works for Christ, however great, will not satisfy the heart of Christ. Mary's devoted love is more approved than Martha's toiling service. It is not that works will be lacking where there is love. Mary who chose the "good part," did the "good work," and, the Lord Himself, in this address links "first love" with "first works." There were indeed works at Ephesus of which the Lord could approve, but they were not the first works that were the outcome of first love.

The only remedy is to go back to first things. "Thou hast left thy first love. … Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works," There must be a return to the beginning, and in the beginning Christ was everything. His will was paramount. He alone was "honoured, loved, adored."

Outwardly all looked right enough at Ephesus. The Lord could recognise works, labour, and patience: though it is significant that He cannot connect these with the proper springs of Christian life as in the babes at Thessalonica. There the work was of faith, the labour of love, and the patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here the faith, love, and hope in Himself were wanting. Still the Lord would note what He can approve as the fruit of His grace in them. "Thou canst not bear them that are evil," and there was faithfulness in testing the pretensions of false apostles, and in bearing for His Name. Yet with all this His eyes as a flame of fire could detect failures, and just where it was most serious. They had begun to decline from their first freshness of love for Christ — "the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in a land that was not sown," as Jehovah expresses it so touchingly to Israel in Jeremiah 2. And it is always there that failure has its roots, in the individual as in the Assembly. The outward fall or lapse is not first, but is only the manifest effect of heart departure from Christ that has preceded it. What this is to Him we may learn from His words that follow, "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen": from what a height and to how great a depth! He calls, indeed, to repentance and the "first works"; that is, such as flowed from the place that Christ had had in their hearts, works that spring from devotedness to Him, for the lack of which no outward activity could compensate.

"Or else I will come to thee" (He does not here say "quickly," though we have it in our text, as in later development of evil, verse 16) "and remove thy candlestick out of its place." He is slow to execute judgment. For this is the warning of the final removal of the Assembly from its place of candlestick responsibility, which is only put in force in Laodicea; when after the gracious revival in Philadelphia, the last phase of assumption of spiritual prosperity in nauseous indifference to Christ and the truth had set in, and He can bear with it no longer. But the sentence, only to be executed when space for repentance was given and after long centuries of forbearance, is pronounced on the Assembly's leaving its first love. No recovery was possible, though by His grace there have been every now and then, times of revival throughout the humbling history. As to the Nicolaitanes, whose works they hated in Ephesus, but later on, when declension became more marked in Pergamos, whom they tolerated even in their doctrines, I know of no light from Scripture but that which is to be gathered from the meaning of the name itself, treated as symbolic, and thus giving us the clue. It expresses rule over the people, the lording it over the many by the few, that began so early in clerisy. (See, 1 Peter 5:3)