Revelation 1:20

¹¹ “[The idea that the angel is a human messenger] is at first sight attractive, for ‘messenger’ is the primary meaning of ἄγγελος [angelos] , and the book may indeed have been distributed through messengers delegated by each church to tour its district. But . . . usage favours ‘angels’ and the emissary could not be made representative of the community. Nor could he be readily symbolized by the ‘stars’ of Rev. Rev. 1:20+.”—Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting, 33.

¹² “But in answering a letter by a messenger, men write by him, they do not usually write to him; nor is it easy to see where is the correspondency [sic] between such messengers, subordinate officials of the Churches, and stars; or what the ‘mystery’ of the relation between them then would be; or how the Lord should set forth as an eminent prerogative of his, that He held the seven stars, that is, the seven messengers, in his right hand (Rev. Rev. 2:1+).”—Trench, Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia, 56-57.

¹³ “The Angel in each Church is one; but surely none can suppose for an instant that there was only one presbyter, or other minister serving in holy things, for the whole flourishing Church of Ephesus, or of Smyrna; and that we are in this way to account for the single Angel of the several Churches. . . . What can he be but a bishop?”—Ibid., 53-54.

¹⁴ “The spiritual significance is that these angels are messengers who are responsible for the spiritual welfare of these seven churches and are in the right hand of the Son of Man, indicating possession, protection, and sovereign control. As the churches were to emit light as a lampstand, the leaders of the churches were to project light as stars.”—John F. Walvoord, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1966), 45.

¹⁵ “In early noncanonical Christian literature no historical person connected with the church is ever called an angelos.”—Johnson, Revelation: The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 34. “Who shall authorize us to understand the word ‘angels’ as having any connection with the Church of God? No one ever heard (until quite recent times) of such a title being given to any church officer either in Scripture, in history, or in tradition.”—E. W. Bullinger, Commentary On Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1984, 1935), 161.

¹⁶ “If ‘angel’ means ‘pastor’ here, it is used with this meaning here and nowhere else. If the Lord Jesus meant the pastors of the churches, why did He not say ‘pastors?’ Or why did He not say ‘elders,’ a term which is used in the New Testament as essentially synonymous with ‘pastors,’ and which is later used twelve times in Revelation?”—Morris, The Revelation Record, 45.

¹⁷ Acts Acts 11:30; Acts 14:23; Acts 15:2-4; Acts 20:17, Acts 20:28; Acts 21:18; Php. Php. 1:1; 1Th. 1Th. 5:12; Tit. Tit. 1:5; Heb. Heb. 13:17; Jas. Jas. 5:14; 1Pe. 1Pe. 5:1-5.

¹⁸ “The individual could scarcely be held responsible for the character of the church, and there is no unambiguous evidence for the idea of episcopal authority in the churches of the Revelation, though it looms large in Ignatius twenty years later.”—Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting, 33.

¹⁹ “In a city the size of Ephesus, by this time, there must have been a large number of house-churches meeting separately from one another.”—Thomas, Revelation 1-7, 128.

²⁰ “Personifications of the prevailing spirit.”—Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), 86.

²¹ “This gives the required sense, but raises problems in the usage of symbolism. The ‘stars’ and the ‘lampstands’ of Rev. Rev. 1:20+ are made virtually the same thing. Some writers justify this conception by regarding the ‘angel’ as the heavenly counterpart of the earthly church.”—Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting, 33.

²² Bullinger suggests an alternate view on the basis that these congregations may have exhibited customs carried over from the Judaism of the synagogue: Rev. 2:1+ and Rev. 3:1+, he is at once conscious of a striking change. He finds himself suddenly removed from the ground of grace to the ground of works. He meets with church-officers of whom he has never before heard; and with expressions with which he is wholly unfamiliar: and he is bewildered. . . . we do meet with the word Angel in connection with the Synagogue . . . [the] ‘Angel of the Assembly,’ who was the mouthpiece of the congregation. His duty it was to offer up public prayer to God for the whole congregation. Hence his title; because, as the messenger of the assembly, he spoke to God for them. When we have these facts in our hands, why arbitrarily invent the notion that ‘angel’ is equivalent to Bishop, when there is not a particle of historical evidence for it?”—Bullinger, Commentary On Revelation, 63, 66.