Which is in the [midst of the] Paradise of God.—“Paradise, the garden of God, was applicable as a name to the Garden of Eden, in which our first parents resided while they were still in harmony with God, before their disobedience; and the same term is Scripturally applied as a name to the new earth when restitution blessings shall, during our Lord’s Second Presence (the Millennium), have brought it to perfection as the fit abode of those who, under Divine favor, shall then prove worthy of life everlasting. It is this same Paradise of the future on this earth that our Lord referred to when addressing the penitent thief, and that is elsewhere referred to as ‘the third heaven’—‘new heavens and a new earth.’ (2 Cor. 12:2, 4; 2 Pet. 3:13.)”—Z. ’01‐198.
2:8. And [unto] BY the angel.—The mouthpiece of the Lord to the second epoch of the Church was St. John himself. He was the one whom Jesus specially loved (John 13:23; 20:2; 21:7, 20); to him Jesus committed His choicest earthly possession (John 19:26); length of days were implied in the Lord’s statement, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” (John 21:22.) He died at Ephesus at the age of 100, four years after writing the Apocalypse. Polycarp, Ignatius and Papias, his disciples, record that he was a tower of strength to the Church when the Roman Emperors Nero, Domitian and Trajan were endeavoring to destroy the hated sect. When all his capacity to work was gone, and he had no strength even to stand, he used to be carried into the Christian assemblies where he would repeat the exhortation, “Little children, love one another.” “The end of the commandment is love” (1 Tim. 1:5); and it is significant that the epoch of the Church especially under St. John’s faithful and loving care receive no reproof whatever from the Lord.
Of the church in Smyrna.—Greek, _myrrh_. The word means “bitter,” and, as applied to the history of the church from A. D. 73 to 325, is peculiarly appropriate. This era comprised persecutions under Nero, when Christian women were soaked with tar and burned as torches to light the path of his chariot; under Domitian, in the year 95, when 40,000 suffered martyrdom; under Trajan in the year 100; under Antoninus; under Severus in the year 127, when beautiful and amiable young women were stripped naked before insulting mobs and gored to death by wild cattle; under Maximinus in A. D. 235; under Decius in 250, when all Christians were driven from their estates; under Valerian in 257; under Aurelian in 274; and under Diocletian in A. D. 303.