Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for works, toil, and perseverance, for their rigorous testing of pretended apostles (Revelation 2:2-3). But then He lodges a stunning charge: They have left their first love (ten agapen sou ten proten aphekes).

What does that mean? Agape in the New Testament typically describes affection or benevolence itself, rather than the object of love, and this would link the charge against Ephesus with the later charge of lukewarmness in the final message to Laodicea (3:15-16). 

That lost devotion could be devotion to God, or to one another. Both are possible: Ephesian Christians are sturdy, apparently in the face of threats and tests. They’ve persevered, but in the process have forgotten what they’re doing it for because they’ve forgotten God. Or, the pressure might have tempted them to lose their devotion to one another: Under the necessity of testing apostolic claims, they turned suspicious, devouring one another like anthropophagi.

All that fits, both historically and literarily, but the nagging problem is the pronoun, sou, which is singular not plural: In KJV English, “thy first love.” Jesus charges the angel of the church, not the church as a whole. We’re dealing with angelic, not communal affections (at least in the first instance). The other, slighter, problem is that most of the other charges against the churches or their angels have to do with their public conduct - their permission of Balaamites, toleration of Jezebel. With his flaming eyes, Jesus can look into hearts. But the letters are mainly looking into the dark corners of church life (anyone who has been in a church for a while knows there are plenty of dark corners).

I take the angels as human leaders of the church. Why would Jesus address spiritual beings with messengers from a human prophet? If that’s correct, then the charge is that the overseer of the church has abandoned his first love. What might that mean?

John 10 provides some insight. There, Jesus warns that hirelings abandon the flock when the wolf comes, in contrast to the Good Shepherd who gives Himself for the sheep. In the Upper Room Discourse, Jesus warns that the disciples will abandon Him and flee (16:32), though He won’t be alone because the Father will remain with Him. An angel who leaves his first love is one who has proved himself a hireling, who abandons the church when pressures rise. 

Given that Jesus addresses the churches as the Bridegroom, the charge might also take on a romantic/marital coloring. Jesus left His Father’s house to cling to His bride, and He expects the friends of the Bridegroom, the angels of the churches, to do the same. The angel of Ephesus hasn’t done so: He has acted like Adam, leaving the Bride rather than guarding her. 

When an angel leaves his post, his affection has cooled. He has left behind his love for God and for the brothers. But I suggest that the focus is otherwise: Jesus charges that the minister of Ephesus has abandoned his post. 

The fact that he has “fallen” (pipto, v. 5) might hint in the same direction. In Revelation, people fall on the ground in worship, cities fall (11:13; 14:8; 18:2) and so do kings (17:10). But the angel is a star, and Jesus says he is a fallen one, and that too is a repeated image in Revelation (6:13, 16; 8:10; 9:1). The threat is that Jesus will remove the entire lampstand unless the angel repents and returns to his first works. But the church has already grown dim because the lamp-star that is the angel has already fallen from the firmament.