He says, “To him I will give authority over the nations.” With these words Jesus picks up the allusion to Psalm 2:1–12 he’d begun in Psalm 2:8. That psalm had spoken of God calling the kings of the earth to submit to his Son and promising that the Son would rule with a rod of iron. Jesus had begun his letter to Thyatira with his name “the Son of God” and a self-description that referenced his authority and prestige (“whose feet are like burnished bronze”). His promise now is that those who persevere in Thyatira in the face of Jezebel’s seduction will rule over the nations as Jesus himself does.
26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations,