The city of Ephesus was one of the three greatest cities of Asia. It was often called the third city of Christian faith, with Jerusalem first, and Antioch second. It as a very rich city. The government was roman but the language was Greek. Historians believe that john, Mary, peter, Andrew and Philip were all buried in this beautiful city. Paul, who founded the true faith in this city, pastored here only about three years, but when he was absent from the flock he was continually, prayerfully, mindful of them. Timothy was its first bishop. ITim. 1:1-3, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope; unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, thou mightiest charge some that they teach no other doctrine”
The very name, Ephesus, has a strange compound meaning, Aimed at”, and “Relaxed.” The high aspirations of this age that had begun with the fullness of the Spirit, “the depth of God,” whereby they were aiming at the high calling of God, began to give way to a less watchful attitude. A less ardent following of Jesus Christ began to manifest itself as an omen that in the future ages the physical vehicle called the church would sink to the awfulness of the “depth of Satan.” It had become relaxed and was drifting. Already the age was backsliding. It had left its first love. The tiny seed planed in that Ephesian Age would one day grow in the spirit of error until all foul birds of the air would roost in its branches. So inoffensive to human reasoning would that little plant appear to the New Eve (the New Church) that again she would e deceived by Satan. The Ephesian Age had presented to her the opportunity for God’s best, and for awhile she prevailed, and then relaxed, and in that unguarded moment Satan planted the seed of complete ruination.
The very religion of Ephesus types out perfectly this first church age and sets the tenor of the ages to come. In the first place, the magnificent temple of Diana, that was so many years in building, housed in tis sacred courts that most lusterless and unobtrusive, image of Diana that one could imagine. She was absolutely unlike any other of her images seated in the other temples dedicated to her. She was simple an almost shapeless female figure that finally sunk into the block of wood from which she was carved. And her two arms were formed of two simple bars of iron. How perfectly this depicts the spirit of antichrist loosed in the first age. There he was loosed in the midst of the people, and yet took no shape as to alarm the people. Yet the two arms of iron bars showed that it was his intent to crush the work of God as he made his inroads. And no one seemed to notice him or what he was doing. But one day they would notice, when with those arms of iron his ‘deeds’ became ‘doctrine’, and his doctrine became the law of an empire.
The order of temple service is also very revealing. There were, first of all, priests who were eunuchs. This sterile priesthood presaged the sterility of a people who would drift from the Word, for a people who claim to know God apart form the Word are as barren of life as is a sterile eunuch. Secondly, the temple had within its confines the virgin priestesses who performed the religious acts of the temple. This showed forth the day that ceremony and form, ritual and works, would take the place of the Holy Spirit and no longer would charismatic manifestation fill the temple of God. over them all was the high priest, a man of political power and public influence, portraying what was already progress, though not too manifested, that is, the church would soon be given over to the leadership of man with man’s plans and man’s ambitions and “thus saith the Holy Ghost” would no longer be a living reality. And underneath them all were the temple slaves who had no choice but obedience to the religious hierarchy. What can this mean but the day would come when the vested clergy, by political maneuvering, state help, and the substitution of Word and Spirit for creeds, dogmas, and human leadership, would enslave the laity while the leaders luxuriated in ill gotten wealth and enjoyed their filthy pleasures, and the poor people who were to be served according to God, now became the servants.