- Feb 4, 2006
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Keeping it simple:
The synagogue of Satan was a group of unbelieving Jews that say they are Jews (the people of God), who were persecuting Christians. They were slandering the church in Smyrna and opposing the church in Philadelphia in some way.
The New Testament church faced persecution for believing in Jesus the Messiah; persecution that came from the unbelieving Jewish community as well as from the Roman world during the first century.
In reality, by rejecting the Jewish Messiah, they have renounced their status as “true” Jews, and that is why Jesus calls them “liars.” This distinction between ethnic Jews and faithful Jews is also seen in Romans 9:6 and 2:28-29....
By their persecution of the true people of God, these unbelieving Jews had become a synagogue of Satan.
- “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel” and
- “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter”.
In the letters to the early Christian churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, reference is made to a synagogue of Satan in each case referring to a group persecuting the church "who say they are Jews and are not".
And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of the first and the last, who was dead and came to life: I know your affliction and your poverty, even though you are rich. I know the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Revelation 2:8-9
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write... "I know your works. Look, 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. I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but are lying; I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you." - Revelation 3:7-9
These verses should never be used to imply that it is ok to hate Jews for us in modern times any more than it would have been for the persecuted Jewish Christians to hate anyone as the Golden Rule says. After all Jesus and Paul were ethnic Jews as well as the apostles.
Paul was a Jew culturally and religiously. Ethnically he was a Benjamite. Romans 11:1
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