Revelation 3—Wycliffe, Luther And Russell
3:1. And [unto] BY the angel.—The next important messenger to the Church was John Wycliffe. “It was in 1378 A. D., the year of the ‘Great Schism of the West,’ when two popes were elected, one in Rome and the other in Avignon, that Wycliffe came out as the great Doctrinal Reformer. Workman, in Dawn of the Reformation, writes: ‘Wycliffe's spiritual earnestness was shocked, his theory destroyed by the spectacle of two popes, each claiming to be the sole head of the Church, each labeling the other as Antichrist. To Wycliffe, the year of the Schism, 1378, was the crucial year of his life. He first urged that both popes should be set aside as having little in common with the Church of the Holy God. From this position of neutrality he quickly passed into one of antagonism to the Papacy itself.’ In his Mediaeval Church History, Archbishop Trench says: ‘The year 1378 marked the turning-point in Wycliffe's career. Hitherto he had concerned himself with matters of mixed ecclesiastical and political import, but henceforth he devoted himself exclusively to doctrinal matters and came out as the Reformer. He began in earnest the translation of the Bible into English, and took the next decisive step by an open attack, forced upon him by his studies of the Bible, against Transubstantiation.’ Wycliffe thus attacked the very bulwark of Antichrist's stronghold, for the doctrine of Transubstantiation, or the sacrifice of the Mass, annulled the true sacrifice of Christ. Because of this, the Papal system became in God's sight the ‘desolating abomination.’ (Dan. 11:31.)”—Edgar.
Of the church in Sardis.—“Sardis is said to mean that which remains, as if it signified something out of which life or virtue had gone. The nominal church during this period had a form of godliness without its power. Sardis was the remains of the true Church, which had been driven into the wilderness; but when the persecution began to subside, her zeal also abated.”—Z. '16-347.
Write.—Wycliffe wrote the first translation of the Bible into English.
These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God.—The seven lamps of fire (Rev. 4:5), or seven eyes [pg 046] sent forth into all the earth (Rev. 5:6); i. e., perfect knowledge.—Rev. 1:4.
And the seven stars.—How each of the Lord's messengers was kept! St. Paul had (supposedly) eight years of liberty after his first imprisonment, planted the Gospel in Spain and revisited the scenes of earlier labors; St. John is said to have been thrown into a caldron of boiling oil, but escaped unharmed and died of old age; Arius died a natural death; as did Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and Charles T. Russell, although all had reason to expect martyrdom at the hands of ecclesiasticism. The year that Peter Waldo died, his tenets were condemned by an ecumenical council. “Wycliffe preached unmolested; but the Council of Constance (May 5, 1415) condemned his doctrines, and in 1428 his remains were dug up and burned; the ashes were cast into the adjoining Swift, which, as Wordsworth poetically remarked, conveyed them through the Avon and the Severn into the sea, and thus disseminated them over the world. His doctrines, carried into Bohemia, originated the Hussite movement. The New Testament was published about 1378, and the entire Old Testament was completed shortly before his death.”—McC.
I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest.—Many who admired Wycliffe were not real Christians. A man not willing to go to the stake for his religion has none.
And art dead.—Spiritually.—Luke 9:60.
3:2. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that [are] WERE ready to die.—Many among Wycliffe's admirers lost faith and love, and to that degree died, while others had some spiritual life. These the Lord desired to awaken, to strengthen, to encourage.—Eph. 5:14.