The Outline of Revelation
The Use of Symbols in Revelation
The Date of Paul’s Epistles
The Symbolism of Lampstands
Letters to the Seven Churches
Revelation 1 Chiastic Structure

Rev 2-3 contains the letters to the seven churches. These letters actually describe the seven churches as they were in John’s time.

“Each of the seven letters of chapters 1-3 deals with the distinctive characteristics and problems of the church in question. This evidently indicates—unless the messages had no meaning at all to their immediate recipients—the actual condition of the individual churches. It is interesting to find that each church is addressed in terms which are eminently appropriate, locally and historically, to each city, and significant to the citizens.”

Leroy Edwin Froom, Prophetic Faith of our Fathers, Vol. 1, p. 91

Some say these letters describe the church in history, that the church at Ephesus was the church during the Roman Empire, and on down the line, with the church at Laodicea being the church at the time when Jesus returns (I disagree, because John is still describing what is. We know, because when the vision shifts to what will be, John is told that (Rev 4:1)).

“… Ephesus (meaning ‘the beloved’ or ‘desired’ [Stier]) represents the waning period of the apostolic age. Smyrna (‘myrrh’), bitter suffering, yet sweet and costly perfume, the martyr period of the Decian and Diocletian age. Pergamos (a ‘castle’ or ‘tower’), the Church possessing earthly power and decreasing spirituality from Constantine’s time until the seventh century. Thyatira (‘unwearied about sacrifices’), the Papal Church in the first half of the Middle Ages; like ‘Jezebel,’ keen about its so-called sacrifice of the mass, and slaying the prophets and witnesses of God. Sardis, from the close of the twelfth century to the Reformation. Philadelphia (‘brotherly love’), the first century of the Reformation. Laodicea, the Reformed Church after its first zeal had become lukewarm.”

Jamieson, Faussett, and Brown’s Commentary, “Revelation chapter 1.”

It may also be that as the letters describe the church that is in the present time, they describe the present state of the church through all time.

“A reading of the first part of the book will show that the things past are the visions of chapter one while the ‘things that are’ refer to the letters to the seven churches, where events describing what actually was happening in the churches at that time, are outlined. Or perhaps what is described is the condition of the churches in any period. They are perpetually ‘the things that are.’”

Fred Miller, Revelation: A Panorama, Ch. 1, “The Plan and Design of Revelation.”

“… so it is implied that John, through the medium of the seven churches, addresses in the Spirit the Church of all places and ages. The Church in its various states of spiritual life or deadness, in all ages and places, is represented by the seven churches, and is addressed with words of consolation or warning accordingly.”

Jamieson, Faussett, and Brown’s Commentary, “Introduction to Revelation.”

The lampstands (menorahs) are churches.

“Strong’s G3087: lychnia. n.f. lampstand, candlestick.”

Jay Green, New Englishman’s Greek Concordance and Lexicon, p. 533.

According to Hatch and Redpath’s A Concordance to the Septuagint (p. 891), the first occurrence of this word in the Bible is in Exo 25:31, “You shall also make a lampstand of pure gold;” which is in Hebrew, Strong’s H4501: menorah, “… always used of the great candlestick which stood in the tabernacle of witness;”

Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon.

By the time John received this vision, Paul had been martyred thirty years, and his letters were well-known to all the churches and received as authoritative everywhere.

If Paul was martyred in the early part of AD 60s as the Britannica suggests (and most church historians agree), and John was exiled to Patmos in AD 95 or 96 where he saw the vision, then Paul had been martyred at least 30 years.

“So the curtain falls for the last time. But Paul’s fate is hardly obscure. He himself saw that the charge against him, unrebutted by independent evidence, must bring him to the executioner’s sword, the last penalty for a Roman citizen. … But the traditional date (June 29) reaches us only on far later authority. Acts simply suggests the first half of A.D. 62; and we may imagine Timothy reaching Rome in time to share Paul’s last days (cf. Heb. xiii. 23).”

“Paul, The Apostle,” The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 20, p. 952.

“The four Gospels and Paul’s epistles—indeed the bulk of the New Testament—were regarded as authoritative from the first.”

LeRoy Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 1, p. 101.

Note: Froom includes a helpful timeline chart dated with the concurrent secular history of the Roman Empire and the Caesars, alongside the activity of the first-century church and the dates of writing and authorship of each of the books of the New Testament:

“For the allocation of books in the accompanying chart, the works of fifty of the most learned of the conservative scholars have been consulted and the preponderant evidence tabulated on disputed points as to dating—such as that of James, Galatians, the Synoptics, Jude, and Peter. Absolute certainty cannot be claimed, but the key books are securely anchored, and the essential outline may be considered dependable.”

LeRoy Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 1, pp. 97-100.