Revelation 1:19-20: "The Mystery of the Seven Stars"

"And he had in his right hand seven stars...The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand...The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches."

Revelation 1:19  Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter; 

Revelation 1:20  The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches. 

We now come to another odd thing in the book of Revelation...what's the deal with the seven stars?  We will see many sevens. We already discussed the seven spirits of God in verse 4 and touched on the seven candlesticks in several posts.  But now we talk about seven stars?   Unlike some imagery, we get an explanation here.  But sometimes the explanations don't seem to explain as much as we'd like and open up even more questions than we would have hoped for.  The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. Here are some of the questions I have when I look at this:

First, why the imagery of stars at all?  What are stars supposed to represent?

Second, the word for "angel" in Greek means "messenger."  Are these the human messengers like pastors at these churches, or, like throughout the rest of this book, are they spiritual beings who are tasked to these seven churches?

Quite perplexing, isn't it?

It's interesting that John has this incredible vision of Jesus, but then he's told to write what he's seen, the things that are, and the things that shall be hereafter.  We have a little clue into the contents of this book, then.  He's supposed to write about this vision of Jesus, and the book reflects on both things which are, were present in John's day, and would come to pass later, so the book DOES reflect on future events. 

It's fascinating that the first information he is given after being told to write these things is the key to two elements of the vision.

I believe I've written about this before, but it bears repeating that the Revelation gives clarity through its symbolism.  We may feel that the symbols make things more confusing and more obscure, but the symbols are actually designed to do the exact opposite.  By covering everything with a layer of symbolism, it actually reveals what it really is.

The Seven Candlesticks

Take the candlestick first, then we can talk about the seven stars in more depth.  John sees seven golden candlesticks.  Well, as mentioned in previous posts, the Menorah from the Tabernacle is the first thing that should come to mind here.

There is so much that could be said about the golden lampstand from the Tabernacle, and I had so much fun when I studied the Tabernacle looking at each aspect of it.  Learning that here in Revelation the seven candlesticks are the seven churches brings so much depth!

Why this particular image to represent the churches?

1. The candlestick's purpose is to provide light. Jesus said we, as the church, are the light of the world! (Matthew 5:14)
2. The light was produced from the oil, which is symbolized by the Spirit of God. (Zechariah 4:1-6)
3. The candlestick was one work, just as the church is one body, but with seven different manifestations of light, just as each individual congregation manifests that same Spirit but in a different place. (1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4)

Isn't that powerful?  We already talked about how the seven lamps represent the seven spirits of God from verse 4 and from chapter 4, which may be better described as different manifestations of the One Spirit of God.  The seven churches are designed to bring God's Light to the world as God's Spirit flows through each of them.

It gets even better when you realize Jesus is in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.  He is right in the midst of the seven churchs.  As He said, "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them." (Matthew 18:20)  Not only that, but there is an additional meaning when you realize that there was one candlestick that three branches proceeded from on both sides. Could there be an allusion to Jesus being the vine in the middle, that the branches proceed from? (John 15:1-6)

So far, so good, right?  It's a powerful picture and seems fairly straightforward to me.  But the baffling thing to ME has always been those seven stars and trying to figure out what they were...

The Seven Stars

I've heard teaching that stars represent angels, as heavenly shining beings, and there are certainly some indications in the book of Job or here in Revelation in chapter 12, that might imply that.  And that's what it says here: they represent the seven angels of the seven churches.  But what's interesting is that what John writes in each message to each of the seven churches is to the angel of the church at Ephesus or wherever.  It seems odd that he would be writing to purely spiritual beings.  I've always taken it as the messengers being the human elder or pastor or bishop in that particular church, speaking to the people.  But, in that case, why not just say that?  Why use the term "angel"?  And why represent them as stars?  Maybe to get a better grasp, we can look at how stars are used in Scripture and in the ancient world.

The first reference to stars, in which we learn a little bit about their purpose comes, of course, in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1:14  And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 

Genesis 1:15  And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 

Genesis 1:16  And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 

We see here the stars and other lights in the heavens like the sun and the moon were given as markers, and a point of division, so that we could keep and mark time.  We know the stars in particular were used for directions by mariners and others.  People throughout history have navigated by the stars.  They are lights in the heavens that point to greater truths like which direction we should go and what time of the year or season it is.  But it is also interesting to look at how stars are used symbolically in Scripture and what stars represent.

One of the key passages that I would think would be in most Jews' minds when they looked up at the heavens is this very visual image the Lord gave Abraham, when He made a covenant with Him and promised that he would have a son, would inherit the promised land, and be made into a great nation.  God brings Abram out at night to give him a visual aid to go along with the promise.

Genesis 15:5  And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. 

So in this passage, Abram's seed--his descendants--are compared to the stars.  I find that interesting.  They are also compared to the sand on the sea, but to take him outside at night and point to all the lights in the heavens shining in the darkness, and say his seed would be like that has a deep symbolic meaning to me.  This same image of the promise connected to stars is alluded back to in several other passages like Genesis 22:17; 26:4; Exodus 32:13; Deuteronomy 1:10; 10:22; 28:62; 1 Chronicles 27:23; Nehemiah 9:23; Hebrews 11:12.  Many of those passages speak of the children of Israel coming out of Egypt as already fulfilling that promise of being as numerous as the stars, just like God promised Abraham.

We see a possible allusion in Joseph's dream as well when he compares his brothers to stars.

Genesis 37:9  And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. 

Genesis 37:10  And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? 

We do also get some indications that stars are compared to spiritual beings at certain points, like Judges 5:2; Job 25:5; 38:7, and Isaiah 14:13, though often in poetic passages reflecting on the height and light of the stars. "The host of heaven" is an interesting phrase used throughout Scripture that sometimes seems to be used to refer to the stars and planets themselves, sometimes to the false gods people worshipped on their rooftops (probably because the physical stars were believed to represent the false gods), and sometimes even to angels in the presence of God, like in the vision Micaiah describes to Ahab or the "heavenly host" in Luke 2, famous because of children's Christmas pageants everywhere.

The children of Israel are commanded not to worship the stars as many of the nations did, and often descriptions of God's judgments involve the darkening of the stars. (Deuteronomy 4:19; Isaiah 13:10; Ezekiel 32:7; Joel 3:15)  This judgment is especially poignant for nations like Babylon who believed the stars directed the course of their lives and foretold the future, so they often looked to the stars for spiritual direction.  God's people, of course, should look to God's Word and His messengers like the prophets for direction, rather than astrological charts, but it is interesting that direction, whether for physical navigation or choices about life or troop movements or matters of state, is associated with the stars.

The idea of the stars giving directions comes into play in an even more direct sense in Matthew chapter 2 in particular...

Matthew 2:1  Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 

Matthew 2:2  Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. 

Matthew 2:7  Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. 

Matthew 2:8  And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. 

Matthew 2:9  When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. 

Matthew 2:10  When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. 

Coming from a region that studied the stars and believed in information being written there, these magi or wise men come saying that they have seen the Star of the King of the Jews, and then that star appears to lead them to where Jesus is.

Now start to bring all this to bear in the statement that Jesus is holding the seven stars in his right hand.  Many ancient people, including the Romans, believed the gods were represented by visible heavenly bodies.  The sun, the moon, and the five visible wandering stars, or planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.  Jude makes a slighting reference to false teachers being like wandering stars.

Jude 1:12  These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; 

Jude 1:13  Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. 

Our Bible study group studied Jude just before Revelation, and I thought these natural metaphors for false teachers were so telling.  They are clouds without water in that they make false promises, they are dead fruit trees in the sense that they do not bear good spiritual fruit, they are raging waves of the sea in that they are wild and make a big show but are transient, and I think perhaps they are wandering stars in that they do not have a fixed point, and thus provide faulty and misleading directions.  You can't take directions from them. (Possibly...obviously there is much more that could be said about that.)

Contrast the description of wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness to the stars in Jesus's hand.  One thing a Roman might take from it, thinking of the deities associated with the seven heavenly bodies mentioned above is that Jesus has control of all fates and is more powerful than any of the supposed deities.  But these seven stars are actually given a designation that we should pay attention to: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.

Obviously, it's no coincidence that angels and heavenly hosts be compared to stars or spiritual beings.  That would have been a thought in many an ancient person's mind, as I showed above.  But the angels of the seven churches who then receive messages from Jesus as if they are leading the churches brings this whole thing into a new light.  (Pun intended.)

The Greek word for "angel" refers to a messenger, as many people point out.  What kind of messenger?  An angel of the church should be bringing messages from Jesus and pointing people to Jesus, much like the Star that led the wise men brought them to Jesus, and very much unlike the wandering stars referred to by Jude who lead people astray.

I find it a compelling thought that Jesus would refer to the leaders of each of these churches as both angels and stars.  They are messengers who are supposed to give direction to the church, ultimately pointing them to the One who holds them in His hand.  They are a means of His authority, representatives, to declare His message and give His direction to the church, and they are given specific directions designed to point people to Jesus in the next two chapters.  This seems fitting with the idea that Abraham's descendants are to be like the stars in the heavens.  Little lights that shine in the darkness, giving direction.  Especially in reference to a prophecy in Daniel that plays on this concept:

Daniel 12:3  And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. 

The bishops or pastors of the seven churches in Asia should fit in the categories of "wise" and "those who turn many to righteousness".  They have a tough job in the darkening times, but, as Paul wrote in Philippians:

Philippians 2:14  Do all things without murmurings and disputings: 

Philippians 2:15  That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; 

Philippians 2:16  Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain. 

I love this portrayal of the church and its leaders right at the beginning of Revelation.  Light metaphors are so appropriate, and Jesus's presence and authority in relation to His lights are so comforting. Like the burning bush got Moses's attention so God could talk to him, our lights should get the world's attention so that God can talk to them!

So are you part of the church?  

Then let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven!

Are you a preacher of the gospel or a messenger of the truth of God's Word?

Then twinkle, twinkle, little star! Lead the nations to Jesus!