Each of the Seven Letters opens, as letters in ancient time always did, by stating who sends the message

and to whom it is sent. But the exordium does not take the form that it would have if the sender of the

message were the writer of the letter, viz., "the writer to the person addressed." In the present case the

letters are written by John, who imagines himself to be only the channel through which they come from the

real Author; and the exordium is altered to suit this situation. The writer does not name himself; but after

naming the persons addressed--To the angel of the Church in Ephesus--he gives a brief description of the

Author of the message. The seven descriptions all differ from one another; and, taken together, they make

up the complete account given in Revelation 1 of One like unto a son of man. The Divine Author presents

Himself in a different aspect to each individual Church; and the seven aspects make up His complete

personal description, as the different Churches make up the complete and Universal Church. This expresses

in another way what we have tried to show in chapter 14: the Seven Churches make up the complete Church

of the Province Asia, because each of them stands in place of a group of Churches, and the Church of the

Province Asia in its turn stands in place of the Universal Church of Christ.

This variation from the ordinary formula of ancient letters is connected with the fact, which has already been

pointed out, that these are not true letters, but literary compositions, or rather parts of one larger

composition. Although for convenience we have called them the Seven Letters, they were not to be sent

separately to the Seven Churches. The Apocalypse is a book which was never intended to be taken except

as a whole; and the Seven Letters are a mere part of this book, and never had any existence except in the

book. The Seven Churches had established their representative position before the book was composed;

and that is assumed throughout by the author. They stand to him, in their combination, for the entire

Province, and the Province stands to him for the entire Church of Christ; though, when he is writing to

Smyrna or Thyatira, he sees and thinks of Smyrna or Thyatira alone.

As to the brief description of the Divine Author, which is prefixed to each of the Seven Letters, there is a

special appropriateness in each case to the character or circumstances of the Church which is addressed. To

a certain extent we can comprehend wherein this appropriateness lies; but there is probably a good deal

which escapes us, because our knowledge of the character and history of the Seven Churches is so

incomplete. From this appropriateness it follows that the complete description of the Divine Author, which

is made up of those seven parts, is logically later than the parts, though it comes first in the book. This

appears especially in the Thyatiran letter. In the highly complex plan of the work, every detail was selected

separately in view of its suitability for one or other of the Seven Churches, and was then worked into its

place in the full description in the first chapter. Yet the description is complete: the writer worked up the

parts into a whole before stating them separately for the Seven churches.

After the formal heading or exordium, each of the Seven Letters begins by a statement intimating that the

writer possesses full knowledge of the character and position of the Church which he is addressing. In five

out of the seven letters this intimation begins, I know thy works; but in the cases of Smyrna and Pergamum,

the opening is different: I know thy tribulation, and I know where thou dwellest. The difference is evidently

due to their peculiar circumstances. He who wishes to prove his full knowledge of the Church in Smyrna

says that he knows its sufferings; because these were the striking feature in its history. And in Pergamum

the most prominent and distinguishing characteristic lay in its situation, "where the throne of Satan is": by

that situation its history had been strongly influenced. But in most cases what is essential to know about a

Church is what it has done; and so begin all the other five.

As was stated in chapter 3, the letter to an individual church passes easily into an "Epistle General" to the

whole Church, for it embodies general principles of nature, order, and government, which are applicable to

all. Similarly, to apply the comparison which was there made, the Imperial Rescript addressed to a Province

or to its governor embodied general principles of administration, which we re afterwards regarded as